#the automatic assumption kills me

[lttleghost]

me: I do think it's especially not great that transmasc Jesse overshadows egg Jesse since transmasc Jesse is not as canon compatible-

some dumbasses: OH DO YOU THINK TRANS MEN CAN'T HAVE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIPS WITH MASCULINITY? DO YOU NOT THINK TOXIC MASCULINITY HARMS TRANSMASCS? DO YOU JUST HATE TRANSMASC PPL?

me: not what I fucking said

[brittlebutch]

the only thing i don't like about 'Alex should have asked for help' AUs/theories is that they all seem to have the base assumption that we actually Know Anything about The Operator, and the fact of the matter is that we simply Don't.

[gothhabiba]

Hi, this is very ignorant. I'm trying to read as much as I can on Palestine and Zionism but there is one point I cannot find an answer for. Given that Zionism is not Judaism, given that at the beginning most Jewish people did not share this view and was actually supported by christians with antisemitic views, given that it was conceptualized as a colonial project that could only be actualized by ethnically cleanse Palestine, one thing I don't know how to disagree with Zionists is the idea that Jewish people do come from that land. Even if European jews are probably not genetically related to the Jewish people from there, I think Jewishness is something that can be constructed as related to that land. This of course does not mean that Palestinians are not natives too and they have every right to their land. However I don't really know how to answer when Jewish (Zionists) tell me that Jewish people fled that land during the diaspora. Other than "yeah but the people that stayed are native that underwent christianization before, arabization later, grew a sense of nationhood in the 19th century and are Palestinians now"

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what "indigeneity" is to believe that it means "whoever has the oldest claim to the land." Rather, to describe a people as "indigenous" is a reference to their current relationship to the government and to the land—namely that they have been or are being dispossessed from that land in favour of other private owners (settlers); they have a separate, inferior status to settlers according to the law, explicitly; they are shut out of institutions created by the settler state, explicitly; they are targeted implicitly by the laws of the settler state (e.g. Israeli prohibitions against harvesting wild thyme or using donkeys or horses for transportation); the settler state does not punish violence against them; &c. &c.

It is a settler-colonialist state that creates indigeneity; without one, it is perfectly possible for immigrants to move to and live in a new location without becoming settlers, with the superior cultural and legal status and suppression of a legally inferior population that that entails.

If all that were going on were some Jewish people feeling a personal or religious connexion to this land and wanting to move there, accepting the existing people and culture and living with them, not expelling and killing local populations and creating a settler-colonialist state that privileges them at the expense of extant populations, that would be a completely different situation. But any assertion of the land's fundamental Jewish-ness (really they mean white or European Jewishness—the Jewish Arabs who were already in Palestine never seem to figure in these arguments) is a canard that distracts from the fundamental issue, which is a people's right to resist dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Decolonize Palestine lays out some of the ethnic and cultural history of the region, but follows it up with:

So, what does this all mean for Palestine? Absolutely nothing. Although the argument has many ahistorical assumptions and claims, it is not these which form its greatest weakness. The whole argument is a trap. The basic implication of this line of argumentation is as follows: If the Jewish people were in Palestine before the Arabs, then the land belongs to them. Therefore, the creation of Israel would be justified. From my experience, whenever this argument is used, the automatic response of Palestinians is to say that their ancestors were there first. These ancestors being the Canaanites. The idea that Palestinians are the descendants of only one particular group in a region with mass migrations and dozens of different empires and peoples is not only ahistorical, but this line of thought indirectly legitimizes the original argument they are fighting against. This is because it implies that the only reason Israel’s creation is unjustified is because their Palestinian ancestors were there first. It implies that the problem with the argument lies in the details, not that the argument as a whole is absolute nonsense and shouldn’t even be entertained. The ethnic cleansing, massacres and colonialism needed to establish Israel can never be justified, regardless of who was there first. It’s a moot point. Even if we follow the argument that Palestinians have only been there for 1300 years, does this suddenly legitimize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands? Of course not. There is no possible scenario where it is excusable to ethnically cleanse a people and colonize their lands. Human rights apply to people universally, regardless of whether they have lived in an area for a year or ten thousand years. If we reject the “we were there first” argument, and not treat it as a legitimizing factor for Israel’s creation, then we can focus on the real history, without any ideological agendas. We could trace how our pasts intersected throughout the centuries. After all, there is indeed Jewish history in Palestine. This history forms a part of the Palestinian past and heritage, just like every other group, kingdom or empire that settled there does. We must stop viewing Palestinian and Jewish histories as competing, mutually exclusive entities, because for most of history they have not been. These positions can be maintained while simultaneously rejecting Zionism and its colonialism. After all, this ideologically driven impulse to imagine our ancestors as some closed, well defined, unchanging homogenous group having exclusive ownership over lands corresponding to modern day borders has nothing to do with the actual history of the area, and everything to do with modern notions of ethnic nationalism and colonialism.

I would also be careful about mentioning a sense of "nationhood" or "national identity" in this context, as it could seem to imply that people need a "national" identity (a very specific and very new idea) in order not to deserve genocide. Actually the idea that Palestinians lacked a national identity (of the kind that developed in 19th-century Europe) is commonly used to justify Zionism. Again from Decolonize Palestine:

This slogan ["A land without a people for a people without a land"] persists to this day because it was never meant to be literal, but colonial and ideological. This phrase is yet another formulation of the concept of Terra Nullius meaning “nobody’s land”. In one form or the other, this concept played a significant role in legitimizing the erasure of the native population in virtually every settler colony, and laying down the ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ basis for seizing native land. According to this principle, any lands not managed in a ‘modern’ fashion were considered empty by the colonists, and therefore up for grabs. Essentially, yes there are people there but no people that mattered or were worth considering. There is no doubt that Zionism is a settler colonial movement intent on replacing the natives. As a matter of fact, this was a point of pride for the early Zionists, as they saw the inhabitants of the land as backwards and barbaric, and that a positive aspect of Zionism would be the establishment of a modern nation state there to act as a bulwark against these ‘regressive’ forces in the east [You can read more about this here]. A characteristic feature of early Zionist political discourse is pretending that Palestinians exist only as individuals or sometimes communities, but never as constituting a people or a nation. This was accompanied by the typical arrogance and condescension towards the natives seen in virtually every settler colonial movement. That the early settlers interacted with the natives while simultaneously claiming the land was empty was not seen as contradictory to them. According to these colonists, even if some scattered, disorganized people did exist, they were not worthy of the land they inhabited. They were unable to transform the land into a modern functioning nation state, extract resources efficiently and contribute to ‘civilization’ through the free market, unlike the settlers. Patrick Wolfe’s scholarship on Australia illustrates this dynamic and how it was exploited to establish the settler colony.

[inbarfink]

Okay, so I already wrote a bunch of stuff about how that scene, although it is really sweet, is also kind of a Bad Sign for Simon - how he refuses to learn the Obvious Lesson from the Winterworld adventure (that being the Ice King again is probably a really really bad idea). But I want to talk about it also a little more about what it means for Fionna’s character as well. 

Because while sitting around and wallowing in self-loathing is probably bad for Fionna, especially after being told that she shouldn't be allowed to exist, and Simon is right to try and get her out of her funk. It's also still worthwhile for Fionna to have some introspection about the Consequences of Her Actions. Because she and Cake really did not consider them at all at first. They have a sense of morality and an instinct towards heroism, but they also tend to kinda forget the fantastical worlds they visit don’t exist entirely for their fantasy and have kind of a Protagonist-Centered-Morality fallacy. 

Most obviously you can see it in the market in Ooo. How Cake, in her excitement, damaged and hurt and even killed

A bunch of innocent marketgoers without even noticing. And then Fionna immediately jumped to Cake’s defense against these ‘weirdos’, who were actually just normal kinda-righteously-angry Oooian citizens.

It’s actually very similar to the whole Winterworld situation. Fionna’s assumption that she’s automatically the hero and protagonist of the story and black-and-white view of the situation and her tendency to kick ass first and ask questions later meant that she just recklessly injured a lot of innocent people.

(It might’ve been worse actually cause at least in Winterworld she was at least manipulated by an evil Wizard)

Fionna and Cake clearly have a great potential for heroism, but they do need to be a bit more considerate of the situation and people around them. And it does make sense considering that from their perspective - they’ve been living a very ordinary life up until now (and Cake was literally an animal. A very clever animal, but still not bound by the same standards of morality as the talking animals in Ooo). Action and adventure and fantasy stuff has been purely the realm of daydream and video games for them - and Fionna literally speaks about it in these terms.

(also, Fionna's Main Character Syndrome was undoubtedly validated when God literally told her that she was created to be the main character of her universe)

So yeah, it takes them some time to really process how to be heroes - they need to grapple with questions that Finn and Jake already kinda dealt with seventeen years ago. And actually a lot of those; how to resolve a situation without necessarily using violence, when does a 'villain' actually deserve sympathy and kindness, the importance of the larger context of any given conflict... their confrontations with Ice King all played a big part in that. It was never just him, but he was still a very major part.

And for Fionna and Cake right now, learning these lessons require some amount of personal introspection. So while it was a sweet attempt at comforting, I dunno if Simon’s little ‘the only problem with that universe is that this Alternative Me was terrible because he didn’t even acknowledge or remember Betty as the love of our life and the light of my entire universe’ thing is actually Good. 

I’m not quite sure Simon is the best person to teach Fionna and Cake heroism 101, because he is so focused on the Crown Quest as the thing that brings back Meaning to his life, and because his fatherly instincts just kinda go “Sad Young Person???? MUST GIVE COMFORT!” and also on account of the kidnapping.

I’m sure Fionna is going to become the heroine she dreams about eventually, it’s just going to be a bumpy ride. The best we can hope for is that they accept Simon’s comfort, that she doesn't start believing that she is nothing but an Error for the entire universe like the Scarab claims, but don’t necessarily listen to all of Simon's his words either.

[fairuzfan]

I think what really frustrates me about accusations of antisemitism when we say certain crimes are committed by the Israeli government towards Palestinians is that there is this base assumption that the individual identities of the people in the Israeli state are subject to individualization and identification but then we come across Hamas and all the resistance movements and people automatically categorize them as "good" or "bad" who either are "supported" or "not supported" by Palestinians. Aside from the fact that there are diverse political opinions within Palestine, people always seem to separate Hamas as a uniquely terrible group that only seeks to inflict violence irrespective of their current status of people under occupation not knowing how to change their circumstances and not afforded any contextualization.

When Palestinians talk about certain crimes against us perpetuated by the state of Israel we're told "that's libel" because our oppressors draw their identification as a nation-state as a "Jewish" state. In the same breath they condemn Hamas for killing Israelis and being uniquely antisemitic and not because they're actually fighting for any liberation. Forget the larger political context — the situation in which this exists is irrelevant in the short term analysis of how Hamas is "A Terror Organization".

Hamas is a result of circumstance. They wouldn't exist if the occupation didn't exist. You can't deny that hamas is the direct result of israel, and not because of the incendiary things that came out about who funded hamas or whatever — they are, at their core, a resistance movement against a colonial force.

And yeah, there are Palestinians that have said they don't like Hamas I guess but that... doesn't really matter to people who aren't Palestinian. The reasons they don't like Hamas are within their context of occupational circumstances. You can't just take quotes of Palestinians saying they don't like Hamas and frame it outside of their circumstance as a people living under an occupation. It would be dishonest not to mention that the greatest threat Palestinians face is the occupation. We (Palestinians) all acknowledge that. The differences in political opinion within Palestinian society aren't applicable to Israelis and non-Palestinians because you are not affected by Palestinian society in the same way that Palestinians are affected by Israeli and USAmerican society.

Israelis literally debate in open courts about whether or not to shoot unarmed Palestinians who hold rocks. There are no such discussions in Palestinian society. There are no systems really that can allow for Palestinians to feel like they actually have a political representative. Fatah, or the PA, is just a blatant puppet of the Israeli government. No one trusts them lol. So which avenues are we supposed to turn to when we are shot even as we peacefully protest? If our avenues rely on Israelis to decide that for us, then is that liberation? Is that freedom?

There is just a deep, deep dishonesty in people's treatment of defining what a state represents vs an individual and its almost always weaponized against Palestinians when we talk about the violence we experience and how we counter it.

[alwaysshallow]

serial killer ghost x detective reader.

he's probably the biggest case in your entire career—and you just know you can't fuck it up. not when you're new in the crew, not when they trust you with solving the case that they feel miserable in. you got the transfer from another unit to get a chance. you don’t want to lose it, like you lost the previous one.

four months. four months and the madness of killing innocent women doesn’t stop. it’s nowhere close to stopping, considering you have only scraps—he kills women at night, women that are single, between mid twenties and thirties. successful women, or more likely what society would find successful in women. those clues are nothing but lame, but you’re in no position to complain. at least it’s something.

it’s your full month in the city, when you sense something is wrong. you can’t quite put what exactly, but something is. you automatically put your hand around your weapon, checking the surroundings on your way back to your apartment, chinese in your left hand. a mundane walk for food turns into crazy assumptions that the murderer could be looking for you too. or, he already found you.

yet, you can’t find anything, so you just go back. 

except, the feeling doesn’t pass. you feel it on your way to work, home, and even if you’re safe in theory, you don’t feel particularly safe. it’s gotten to the point where your boss sees it and asks if you need help. talks with you, how he can transfer you back, or set you up with another case. “anything, but losing your health,” he says to you, and you hate it. hate the absolute politeness in his voice, his sad, father-like smile, like he knows what he’s talking about. 

he doesn’t.

so, one day, you check again all of your doors, windows, and possible spots for hidden cameras. it takes you another hour, and you feel you could go crazy soon. there’s nothing, the murderer didn’t strike in over a month, and your paranoia might cost you your job.

“it’s not worth it,” you sigh, before opening the door. there’s a guy with a pizza hat and a pizza in his hand. delivery guy. you pay him without even thinking of it, a smile on his face when you say goodbye, a smile on yours. 

smile that fades quickly, when you open the box, just to see the message inside, written with a black marker, probably.

“thought you got rid of me that easily?”

[bogleech]

Guess I have to make a main thread about this. Someone decided to fight with me in the notes on this post just yesterday about Gaza and made select responses of mine into a callout thread here, where they say my anger towards the IDF is all a cover for antisemitism. This didn't make any sense, because they said they were also against the IDF killing civilians, and I repeatedly said that Jewish people aren't to blame for the IDF or represented by the IDF in any way, putting us supposedly both on the exact same page. What gerry leaves out of their own screenshots, and I'd actually forgotten, is that at first they came at me from an angle that I was disrespecting the victims in Gaza.

So this implies they feel gaza is being subjected to a genocide, and a pretty big one, since they're upset my language made it sound "smaller and tamer." When it becomes obvious that I do in fact consider it a serious genocide, that's when they switch over to saying that my criticism of Netanyahu or the IDF is inherently an attack on Jewish people.

Notice I never actually said "zionists" in this screenshot, even, but that I defined "regular humans" as humans who don't want to kill innocent families. That would automatically include Jewish people since they overall do not wish to kill anyone, but have in fact spent quite a lot more time trying not to get killed. I believe there may be entire books about this fact! I think there's even whole museums about it, if I'm not mistaken?!

So then they pivot to saying I'm an antisemite because I said the IDF and its supporters can "burn in hell," and they say "invoking hell" is an antisemitic dogwhistle, which is definitely news to me?!

So I tried to clarify, again, that I'm only angry at the people who are themselves killing civilians and the "pro-genocide maniacs" who defend the killing of civilians, which they responded to as if I had "lumped them in" with those. You can just see right there that I didn't make any assumption that they were a part of that at all. Thanks to their earlier comments I still thought I was speaking to someone 100% against the IDF's actions, but every time I said that the killers and their advocates alone are bad, they've framed it in some new way as me just not liking anyone Jewish. So now that you have that context:

...In a response to an ask, they finally just say they hated me to begin with and set out with the intention to "bait and sealion" me (their own words!!) into saying something they hoped would be antisemitic, which they believe was successful despite me never saying anything about Jews other than "this isn't their fault." They saw what they admittedly wanted to, so strongly, that they show me saying "this isn't the fault of Jews" as evidence that I blame Jews. But speaking of people "going mask off"

In multiple more recent posts and asks, this person appears to say that they simply do not believe the IDF is really targeting children or ambulances or relief aid, that "none of those are true," and the deliberate targeting of any children is supposedly just a conspiracy theory??? So I guess they did successfully troll me and I feel like a real gullible dumbass, because the only reason I continued responding to this person in the first place was that they said they were in fact against the ongoing massacre. Instead, these comments sound like they think the IDF is being unfairly vilified by dishonest propagandists, and that's why they hated me enough to try and fish for callout fuel. That's the nastiest fucking thing anyone's yet pulled on me about this and it's not one that I'm just going to ignore. I should have smelled a troll early on and just blocked them, but it's SO hard for me to suspect ulterior motives. I always go in thinking people mean well, and that there's just a miscommunication we can work out. I almost feel like this individual noticed that and tried to exploit it?!? Unfortunately I'm sure this kind of thing will happen again simply because I don't intend to obediently shut up about what's being done to Gaza. It's not logistically possible for the death and destruction to all just be accidental collateral damage. Don't let anybody ever fool you into thinking the IDF is the face of the Jewish community or vice-versa, just as you can't let anyone fool you into thinking Hamas represents all Palestinians. Especially don't engage this person, stop doing so if you have been, and block them.

[thydungeongal]

When you talk about games like Odnd 'not balancing encounters' - could you elaborate more on what you mean by balancing? I've seen you mention that not all encounters were meant to be won by the players but to me that doesn't preclude balance. For example even if the players might not win a fight, choosing to not give a room enemies that can trap and insta kill players is still 'balancing'. You're just balancing for 'they may very well need to just run from the fight' rather than strictly 'they will win this fight and expend somewhere in the range of X and Y% of their resources'

I mean old D&D very rarely balanced for either to be fair. Played as written it was entirely possible to run into a room full of instant death bees that theoretically could one-shot a player character.

But what I mean generally speaking when I talk about this difference between older and newer editions is that older editions of D&D don't take party level or party size into account when generating content. Whether you've got a party of four level 1 characters or a party of twelve characters of levels 5-10 your characters might still end up running into 40-400 goblins in the wilderness.

Meanwhile D&Ds 3e to 5e all ask you to take character level and party size into account when generating content for the game. This isn't inherently bad in my opinion, but it represents a shift in playstyle.

Of course in practice what the old D&D approach often means is that starter level characters stick to starter level dungeons until they can take on higher level threats, but even those starter level dungeons are less concerned with the idea of presenting a fair and balanced challenge for the characters that players can expect them to be able to overcome and more just. Random generative bullshit. And players can't ever go in expecting to have a fighting chance against everything. Those instant death bees appear 1d6 at a time in dungeons, 5d6 in their lair.

But yeah the game is kind of balanced with regard to the idea that characters don't ever really need to engage unless they choose to or unless they get unlucky. Whereas modern D&D often builds a bunch of safety nets into combat (not dying immediately at 0 hp, more hit points per character, ready access to healing, etc.) older editions build that balance through having procedures for detecting encounters beforehand, and even if that fails combat isn't always necessary (catching monsters by surprise means automatically being able to evade them, running away is always an option, sometimes the monsters simply don't react with hostility). I guess it's a certain kind of balance, but it's a very different kind of balance from what I mean when I say "balanced encounters," which I broadly use to refer to encounters that are custom built to take into account party size and level with the assumption that under normal circumstances the party should emerge victorious.

[antimony-medusa]

"They're honestly so sibling-coded."

I grew up in a conservative, rural area where people got married young. It was not uncommon to see marraiges happen when the people involved were 19, 20, 21, and there was this sort of expectation that any relationship you were in in your teen years had like a 70% chance of leading to marriage. More, if you were especially religious. This attitude was so pervasive that if a woman was friends with a man, or even hung out together, there was this automatic societal assumption that you were early relationship, which led into late relationship, which led into where you were going to get married, which led into babies and a family.

And I hated it. I hated it because I was aroace and didn't know it yet, but even just as a baby feminist feeling out what it meant to be a woman and how I was perceived in the world, I hated the assumption that all my m/f relationships were only worth something if they were leading to romance and marriage (and babies). The idea that men and women couldn't be friends, because men only thought about women in a romantic/sexual way, was actively taught me by everyone from pastors to helpful older coworkers. I even got told that f/f friendships were basically killing time until you got into a romantic m/f relationship, which is where you'd find actual fullfilment and happiness. It sucked.

And then I moved away, and I got out of the conservative religious circles, and then in my 20s, people kept saying the same thing. At least it wasn't saying "god made you for relationships (and babies)," but it was still saying that y'know, men are only interested in one thing, and it's cruel to lead them on, and so on, and so forth. Half of the world is going to only think of you in terms of what you're good for in relation to their relationship status, and the other half of the world is going to tell you to suck it up and deal with it.

This is still the background radiation of much of the world, still. I am getting this less in my 20s because many of my male friends are married, (or gay), but still, as soon as I meet someone new the interested looks start to pile in. As a person who doesn't plan on getting into a romantic relationship, I do not love this.

Immediately seeing a m/f friendship and going "ooooo they're KISSING" is not respectful of the guy's ability to have friendships with people he's not having sex with, but let's look at what it messages about the girl in this scenario.

A) women are only worth talking about in terms of what they can do to for men, what they are in connection with men B) friendship is unimportant and not real, women only exist to be romance options

So I feel strongly about allowing women to be percieved as their own beings and have cross-gender friendships without turning it into romance.

This is not an uncommon take on the internet! I see a lot of people talking about allowing people to be friends without defaulting to shipping.

But I don't know how to tell you that seeing a m/f relationship and saying "Oh they're siblings", when we're talking about celebrities/streamers is still sending a lot of the same messages. The core thing you're communicating is still the same. It's falling into the same traps.

I get the sense that a lot of people see a relationship they want to sort of celebrate and enjoy, and they know that shipping is bad, so they just shunt the "oh they're special to each other" to the left into a family dynamic. I will just say they're siblings, that way nobody can accuse me of shipping, and I'm good!

But what this does is still messages a) woman are reduced down to their relationship with a man, into what they can do for the man, and b) friendship is unimportant and not real, women only exist to be non-romanceable family and the rest of them, the romance options.

If the only way you can conceive of a woman as being important to a man is either being romantic/sexual with him or by saying that they're related, that's still bad. If you literally have to put one of the strongest relationship taboos in our culture in the way or you'll just default into kissing I guess, that's still messaging some really concerning things about how you're portrating women.

And once inside the family dynamics, jesus fuck, you guys. Family dynamics have such a trend to slot women into nurturing and protective roles, where the "older sister" "is the one with the brain cell" and "will take care of him" and will be there suborned to his story to be a surrogate mother figure that takes care of him. This, frankly, sucks.

I am an older sister as a fairly important part of my identity. I love being an older sister. But the way this fandom treats older sisters as tiny non-sexual mothering machines with no interiority or autonomy is not good at all, when it comes to actively respecting women as people.

Honestly, I don't like either option, but when you look at how women get treated when sisterified in fanon (older responsible figure who will take care of our precious baby boy) and how women get treated when shipped (mothering options still exist here but also sometimes they dom him), I might prefer the shipping. And I just did a whole multi paragraph about how much the shipping sucks!

I'm not even going to get into what happens when women get actively assigned mom in a family dynamic. All the worst parts of shipping with none of the fun smut.

I am aware I am talking about the worst excesses of family dynamic here, because this fandom offers lots to choose from, and there are ways to do family dynamic in a good way. Some of the most important relationships in my life are familial, and when actually delved into, you can absolutely still portray a full and nuanced portrayal within a family dynamic. This is a possibility. But god, when I look at the fandom trends and what rises to the top of my dash, oof.

And like, there's a larger trend in this fandom where people seem to be incapable of thinking of friendships as valuable and worthy, if you see them as important to each other it must be familial, but when you do it with women, damn.

Can we give seeing women as full autonomous being who are capable of their own opinions and desires a shot? See them as more than just romance options or [illegal to romance] options? Just let them be friends? Please?

[oreo-oro-orero]

I thought I would talk more about how I feel Ekko is often mistreated or ignored by the Arcane fandom and why I think that is and spoiler alert I Anti-Blackness is at least a part of it.

Ekko is subjected to what a lot of black boys are too in real life which is  adultification. Ekko just like a lot of black boys was essentially forced to grow up and due to this I think a lot of the Arcane Fandom treat him as an adult and thus judge him more harshly just like how in real life black boys are often treated as older then they actually are and thus are subjected to more scruinty and Ekko is sadly constantly subjected to this by the fans. This is in direct contrast with Jinx who seems to be given a lot more leeway which to a certain extent is understandable because it is her story essentially but I still find it odd how she is given the "oh poor baby pushed around by the big bad world must protect" but Ekko is just given a side glance and a "he's doing fine" when both Ekko and Jinx deserve that "need to protect" additude but yet it feels like Jinx is given the most of the protection and Ekko is just left to fend for himself.

Honestly I don't think a lot of the Arcane Fandom looks at Ekko as a victim and that is genuinely upsetting. They look at his situation as more of a success story but even then his "success" is is very sad when you think about it.  Yes he built a community and yes I guess he did "turn out okay" despite his situation but he shouldn't have had build that community in the first place and just because he did doesn't mean he's healed, trauma doesn't just go away because your relatively okay compared to everyone else. I also think his hurt isn't taken as seriously as the other characters because he doesn't actively display it as much, in total his hurt is displayed in two main instances and that's it mostly, the other times he's on screen he's either angry or at the very least mildly annoyed or somber which is interesting because this is most likely a mask he wears and this mask is a direct result of the adultification I talked about earlier. 

Ekko suffers from what a lot of black characters do which is that despite them going through the same or sometimes even more trauma then non black characters, their trauma is often overlooked or downplayed to be less then it is which is something that happens in IRL to black people all the time. Also this mischaracterization of Ekko extended to Shipping as well to where some people label him as an abuser towards Jinx which is ironic because he is one out of like 2 other characters that doesn't actively kill anyone and if anything he tries to avoid that as much as possible so I genuinely don't understand where this abuser assumption came from, is it because they genuinely Believe it or is it because they saw a black man being aggressive an automatically assumed he was the one in the wrong in the situation.

I got a little bit ranty there and I apologize but Ekko is my favorite character from the show and just fiction in general and I feel like he has so much to offer but he is seemingly being mistreated by other fans of the show and that just doesn't sit right with me. I just hope next season really gives him his time in the spotlight.

[rjalker]

Edit: Can't believe the irony of me having to say this, but I do apparently have to say this: Not wanting boobs and not wanting to be seen as feminine does not mean you are, or want to be seen as masculine. I'm not transmasculine just because I don't want boobs and don't want to be seen as feminine.

You cannot read a post where the point is having boobs does not equal being feminine and go oh! right. Because not wanting boobs equals being masculine! No!! I'm not transmasculine! I'm not trying to look masculine! Kill the gender binary that has a stranglehold on your views of gender!

Stop shoving nonbinary people into a new set of binary boxes!

___

the idea that having boobs gets you automatically and inherently classified as being "female presenting" and "feminine presenting" in so-called progressive circles makes me want to maul people.

I've said this before and I'll just keep repeating it forever: I'm disabled. I can't wear a binder. If I tried I'd dislocate several ribs and that'd be the least of my worries. Like. you know why ribs not being where they're supposed to be is dangerous? Yeah. Yeah. Use your imagination. That's a real thing I have to worry about.

I can't even wear a sports bra that's several sizes """too large""" comfortably.

And yeah, I can use trans tape, but that takes concerted time and effort to put on and take off, and every time you put it on you get different results, and you might just mess it up entirely and waste it, and it can get itchy if you're sweating with it on (and it's 90 degrees almost all the time it's not actively winter here, so that's...literally unavoidable. Even sitting in the living room. Because the electric company charges an arm and a leg for AC during the summer AND won't even give you enough to actually cool your shitty tiny apartment even with all the doors shut and curtains drawn!!!!!), and it's expensive to buy more of.

And especially because this declaration of "feminine presenting" or "female presenting" that gets shoved onto you is not only misgendering you, but placing the blame on you for being misgendered for not looking not-female enough. It's no longer the speaker making incorrect assumptions, they're now literally declaring that this is a concious decision you make. You are choosing to "present" yourself this way...by having a body that you have no control over.

And even when it comes to clothes, the idea that the clothes you wear is another purposeful, conscious Presentation™ of your gender...

Even if we ignore for a moment the fact that being disabled and poor severely limits the clothes you can wear and even just have access to, what about people who literally don't get to choose what their clothes are? Kids whose parents buy their clothes for them, people whose carers choose their outfits for them?

My gender is not "sun-bleached tank top and shorts with a reflective sun hat". That's just what I wear so I don't die of heat stroke every time I set foot outside, and so that my joints are not being painfully constricted every time I move. I literally can't take my hat off outside during the day without developing a headache (or are they fucking migraines? fuck if I know!) within minutes from the sun trying to murder me from my light sensitivity. And it took me years to even realize that it was light sensitivity causing this. I remember in middle school the substitute gym teacher asked if I was a vampire because I moved to the closest shady spot every time we moved to a new area.

And like. Let's be honest. Even if I could safely wear a binder...They're fucking expensive.

It's just really fucking annoying that so many people equate binding with being trans and so many people who are supposed to be allies are just so comfortable labeling other people, who they haven't asked, as "feminine presenting" just because of the presence of boobs. Like we have any choice in the matter. Like having visible boobs just means you're asking to be misgendered.

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

okay i think it’s time to talk about the “are we mean?” line from gem (28:16 her pov) which no one else seems to care about and it’s driving me crazy

so. if you watch the actual clip she changes her sentence from “are we th—” to “are we mean”. she also says it with the exact same inflection that cleo used. this gives me the hunch that she had cleo’s line in double life on her head since gem is pretty aware of fandom things and that’s an iconic line. at the same time though, this is a stretch so we’re gonna go ahead with the assumption that those two lines were just coincidentally similar.

at first glance it might seem like cleo’s double life line (“are we the mean girls?”) and gem’s line (“are we mean?”) are entirely similar and about similar circumstances, but if you look a little closer the similarities fall apart

in cleo’s case, they say it after the box boys had died and they were looting their stuff. pearl shows up and confronts them but the pair just laugh and say it was pearl’s fault ren and bigb died anyway. pearl doesn’t really push it either. then they steal more stuff and leave, before cleo says The line. so with this context, it’s pretty obvious what cleo’s asking is a rhetorical question. what happened immediately before would make them, objectively, the “mean girls” (both stealing and ignoring pearl’s concerns). scott is aware, which is why he immediately responds “yes”, with a smile in his voice. because to them, they might be petty villains, but because it’s funny and they’re self-aware, then they can’t be truly villainous, like dl!pearl. it’s a shared bit between the two of them that they’re being catty high school girls, and scott’s response establishes the fact that they really don’t care. they are two partners in crime, giggling after robbing the bank. top 10 i-can’t-remember-their-ship-name moment

gem on the other hand. hers comes after a long episode of telling everyone who passes by to hate impulse and pearl (soup group divorce 💔). moments later ren kills impulse, and gem thinks that it might be because of her. then she tells joel that “we’re winning by just telling other people who to kill”. but the dynamic between scott + cleo and gem + joel are very different. while scott and cleo are equally up to no good, gem is manipulating the social dynamics of the server while joel is off being angry. the difference between joel and gem is like the difference between joel and scott. so when gem asks “are we mean?”, it’s not like cleo asking scott, knowing they can have a good laugh over it. she’s testing the limits, seeing if what she’s doing can tip over into being mean. and joel, not being scott, automatically says “no, we’re not mean. he shouldn’t have been mean to us.” (insane parallels over gem and cleo saying the same thing but joel and scott having exact opposite answers btw) joel functions in a more straightforward manner: if you’re mean to me, then i can be as mean as i like to you. however, he hasn’t been here to witness gem’s social plays. it’s not like scott and cleo where they were both there to commit the crime together. it’s gem standing there with the blood on her knife and asking joel if she’s guilty. and joel, being both loyal and headstrong, denies it.

after joel says that, gem agrees with, “that’s true, he shouldn’t have been mean to us.” she pauses, turns, and then says “you’re right”. joel, who doesn’t concern himself with such mental gymnastics, has already moved onto bigger things, like a parkour course. but in the meantime gem has used her ally’s careless, uninformed response as proof to convince herself that she can’t be being mean, and that what she’s doing to impulse (and pearl) is warranted. while scott and cleo openly acknowledge their wrongdoing (and in doing so dismiss it), gem pushes it down, trying to persuade herself that she’s the good guy. because she can’t be bad, right? the bad guys are on the other side.

and this inner turmoil is obvious. she does concede before that impulse probably doesn’t deserve her slandering, in the same way that scott concedes he can be “mean”, but brushing it off because it’s so insignificant it doesn’t reflect on their actual character. because in the same way as scott, gem is chasing some objective standard of morality, and doing everything on the good side, and if she does something on the bad side then that something is now a good thing, because she’s a good person.

isn’t it crazy how i wrote this much about one line

[hestella]

Hannibal Lector: A New Face

A/N: I'm currently not done watching Hannibal so there are A LOT of mistakes and it probably won't make any sense lol please tell me out of the kindness of your heart if you want me to fix anything or want to let me know. Also some scenes are improvised by me, I don’t own any characters except for my OC(which is, well, you), all credits to Hannibal NBC and Red Dragon series. LOVE YOU ALL

Warnings: mentions of violence, sexual violence, blood, murder, use of Y/N(cause I can't think of a cool name), Fem!reader, kind of POC reader?, psychopath reader, trauma, mental illness, BLIND READER

Will Graham was gifted a special talent, the talent to see and read a person's mind, no matter how wicked or broken it was, he was able to know exactly what and why and how. His talents were greatly appreciated from the FBI, especially solving murder cases.

He had some of friends, but there was one particular and close friend he had, her name being Y/N.

She seemed to be also have a special natural-born talent. After an unfortunate event, she was permanently blinded and needed to have a walking sick with her, but she still was able to memorize and observe the smallest details of practically anything she felt and heard. Her talent was also what the FBI needed, but she never actually applied, or even participate on those kinds of stuff, unlike Will.

In fact, she was just a plain old professor, teaching philosophy, she gave lectures in colleges and universities for a living.

At first Hannibal thought she was boring, until he actually got to meet her.

When Jack got to know Will, it wasn't that long after he also got to know Y/N. Will constantly mentioned her, about her abilities and how she would have thought about some things. Will knew better than to actually mention FBI cases to her, but the other way, there wasn't anything stopping him. If Will was doing lectures, not with the FBI, Jack automatically sought her for help. She reluctantly accepted, not because of the work itself but for Will, thinking that he would heal when she solved some cases for him, giving him a break. She had control of her lectures, so she was at least more flexible than Will. And with all seriousness, she was good. It was different from Will’s way of investigation, but she was able to collect evidence according to the case and end up with a conclusion, which actually helped Jack a lot, since Will’s investigation relied on his assumptions, that he himself couldn't really make sense.

"Whoever that killed these girls probably has some kind of women that look like those victims. It can be a daughter, a long gone crush, a mother...someone that they have deep connection, whether it's positive or negative. That makes them most likely a male." She explained, after listening to all the information she needed.

"We already assumed that this was a male, unintentionally. Any other observations?" Jack said.

"It's most likely a daughter, though. Young, all from different campuses. He chose these campuses specifically, I'd say, probably one his daughter goes to, or is planning to go to." She continued. "However..." She stood up, walking towards the board with the pictures, wandering her walking stick from side to side.

"He...he has a thing for killing. he's not doing this for pleasure, it's...it's more like art. Precise, like....." she turned around. "...like those people who hunt wildlife." she said.

"...what?" Jack asked.

She bit her lips, not knowing how to say it. "...like those people, I can't, I can't explain it." She looked towards Will, or just turned around where she sensed he was, for help.

Will nodded. "..yeah, I get it. I can see that, wildlife hunters."

"He probably also owns some personal space, like a cabin, out in the woods where he can dissect and dress the animals he hunts. That's probably where he killed these girls too. He would have been used to it, if he used to, or still currently is a hunter." She muttered.

"Yes, where he can butcher, cool, and storage animals, and apparently people. Even if someone accidentally saw blood or, smelled something from there, it makes sense because it's for that purpose, except it's for animals." Will continued.

She nodded and looked back at Jack, her eyes not really focusing exactly to him. "...did that help?" she asked.

"...quite." Jack looked at her only white eyes.

“im glad,” she gave him a faint smile. “But I’ve been trying to ask…is there someone else here? Apart from Will, me, and you?”

“allow me to introduce myself, Ms. Y/L/N, I’m doctor Hannibal Lector. I apologize for my unintentional ambush,” Hannibal stood upon respect, even if she couldn’t see.

“ah, so you were the one. I thought I was having delusions,” she turned her head to face him, her white eyes staring somewhat at Hannibal. She walked towards him and reached out her hand, which Hannibal accepted gently and respectfully. “No need to apologize, Dr. Lector.” She gave him a smile too.

“I should say you’re quite flexible on communicating, even though you’re visually impaired. Different from Will, you try to have eye contact with people. No offense, by all means,” Hannibal muttered his short observation.

“I’m not offended, it’s true. But there’s no need to psychoanalyze me, doctor.” She let go of his hand and reminded him, slithering away from Hannibal’s attempt to make her step out of her circle.

Hannibal wasn’t able to get a hold of her. She rarely talked, but rather tried to hint the FBI about the evidence. He tried inviting her to dinner but she was always somehow reserved. She surely seemed careful about who to let in her circle.

Hannibal tried to step into her personal space by packing up food that he made and giving them to her. He planned to do that to Will too, getting to know him and partially using it to show her what kind of a person he was. His plan was this: pack breakfast for Will, then let Will tell this event to her, and then eventually making her comfortable enough for him to make breakfast for her too. It was getting two rabbits by one stone.

Hence, that was what happened. A second of silence surrounded the two, as they chewed and swallowed the food.

“Agent Crawford told me you have a knack for the monsters,” Hannibal mentioned.

Will put down his fork and looked at him. “..I don’t think the Shrike killed the girl in the field.”

Hannibal also put down his fork and leaned a bit forward. “The devil is in the details. What didn’t your copycat do to the girl in the fields? What gave it away?”

“..everything. It’s like, he had to show me a negative to prove that-“ he sighed. “Y/N would’ve explain it better,” he muttered. “it’s like he had to show me a negative so that-so that I could see the positive.” He rubbed his face.

“….Y/N?” Hannibal muttered.

“Crawford wants her. I don’t want her to be, but I feel like she can see more than I can.” Will looked around. Hannibal noticed this.

“…May I ask you a question, Will?” Hannibal said, his breakfast long forgotten. Will just waved his hand, nodding his head. “Do you live with someone else here?”

“..yeah, we, Y/N and I thought it wouldn’t be that bad of an idea, rather than getting separate rooms…” Will explained. Hannibal nodded. So that was the thing he felt was off about the house. He was honestly surprised, but didn’t let that out.

“where is she, then? Sleeping? I would love to share this meal with her too, if she can,”

“She leaves at 4 in the morning to go to her job.” Will replied, taking another bite of the food. “and she’s strictly vegan, so I don’t think she’ll be able to eat any of these,”

“I see. Her job, which is..”

“Teaching. Modern philosophy at Johns Hopkins.”

“ah, Johns Hopkins. I should’ve known.” Hannibal almost gave him a smile.

With the additional information, it was too easy for Hannibal to roll Jack Crawford up and persuade her to be one of his patients too. He added a little bit of extra reasoning with her injury, telling Jack perhaps the right therapy may make her sense more, and less be obstacled by her blindness. It wasn’t his initial goal to help her sense like a not-visually-impaired person, but he was confident it was possible.

He decided to pay a visit to her lectures.

(Should I make this a series??)

[verigayo]

Some bs I got rattling around in my brain. (Bg3 spoilers)

I really hate the theories abt the emperor being a super genius manipulative asshole because it’s just so reductive. They figure since the emperor is a mindflayer it must be out to get you. And you can never trust a mindflayer! So then they go thru the whole game refusing and rebuffing the Emperor’s trust and then point and say “SEE SEE LOOK ITS JUST TRYING TO MANIPULATE YOU.” It literally makes no sense because literally giving the emperor even a tiny bit of trust NEVER bites you in the ass. If you at least don’t tell it to die every second it appears before you it will go thru the whole adventure supporting you. The only thing you could say it manipulates truly on is its appearance (which it does obviously to make sure you can even fight the brain) and killing Orpheus. But killing Orpheus is only a really negative thing if you think the Gith are a better ally than the guy who has literally stayed by you the whole time. And I mean if we’re using the dnd lore nerd standards when talking abt illithids and lack of soul and inherent evilness; the Gith are basically just a non tentacle illithid. They literally want to do the grand design but for Gith instead of illithid. And just because Orpheus says oh I’ll always remember you brave warrior that freed me, doesn’t change the fact literally they are trying to control the world.

In contrast if you ally yourself with the Emperor literally when it has the chance to completely fuck everyone over and dominate the brain and complete the grand design it never does. If it was some evil mastermind why would it not do this. It’s all about freedom for the emperor and people think that it’s about control but it’s not. The emperor comes before you and presents itself and its ambitions multiple times once it is revealed for what it is. The only real hiding factor is the whole balduran and ansur thing which ultimately? Does not affect anything really. It is just a past, one that is filled with grief and hardship. Not fully divulging this information is no sleight against it because it literally only makes the emperor more interesting as a character.

And this is where dnd as a setting really REALLY struggles in portraying the depth of a character. Due to its inherent struggles to deal with the very blunt and simplified version of fantasy that it was originally created with, assumptions are abundant in nearly every race in the game. For example, as a drow you are automatically assumed as a follower of the absolute or some sort of nefarious figure. Many characters will literally react with increased suspicion upon you because you are a drow. And while I’m not saying bg3 is exclusively bad at this; omeluum and blurg are great examples of races stereotyped as always evil (illithid and hobgoblin respectively) being unequivocally good people, the reality is that there is a lot of assumptions that are paramount to the dnd lore and canon. And this is why you see so many people violently react negatively to the emperor, they have been taught through the source material of the game bg3 is based on to assume illithids are bad. And if you chose this path you can continue to allow yourself to believe all illithids are evil as you betray the trust of one of the most interesting and layered characters in the game because they are an illithid. Just a waste of a viewpoint for such a cool character :/

[delusinaldreamer19]

Sebaciel vs. Dadbastian, an analytical essay (not really)

Oh boy am I excited and terrified to start this discussion.

I’m just going to say right off the bat that I am absolutely biased towards one interpretation of Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship over the other, that being Dadbastian. However, my goal is not to criticize, but to analyze and point out the differences and, yes, correlations between the two versions of their relationship.

I’m going to start off by making a disgustingly blatant assumption about the reason why I believe both of these pairings exist in the form of a theory...Both the idea of Sebaciel and Dadbastian are coping mechanisms taken on by fans of the series to grapple with how dark the character’s canonical relationship truly is.

Now, I can’t speak for how much this really applies to Sebaciel shippers, as I am not one. But it certainly applies to me as someone who enjoys the idea of Dadbastian.

Let's start with the correlations that support this theory. Both of these concepts are versions of Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship that is more positive than it actually is. The plot of black Butler revolves around the fact that Ciel sold his soul to the demon he named Sebastian, and that upon their contract's completion Sebastian will kill Ciel and consume his soul as compensation. It’s a relationship that is predatory, manipulative, and just simply toxic for a plethora of reasons. While the manga is still ongoing so we have no definitive way of knowing exactly how their story will end, I don’t think it's controversial to say that it's very unlikely to have a happy ending.

Even so, black butler is a comfort series for many, including myself. But how is that possible?

By looking at the series as a whole and the characters through different lenses. A pro and con of black butler is that it’s very easy to interpret in many different ways, and the same applies to the relationship between Sebastian and Ciel.

I’d say there's 2 to 3 main ways that people have interpreted their relationship. In no particular order… - As it is in the series, where it’s strictly based on business and mutual benefit. They work together so that Ciel can get his revenge and Sebastian gets his soul. - Them being friends / frenemies - A ship, where they have romantic feelings for each other. (I’m not going to be discussing how people ship them for sexual reasons, as that's a topic for a different day.) - And Parental, where Sebastian serves as a father/mother (no I'm not specifying which) figure towards Ciel. I'm focusing on the latter two, obviously.

There’s one commonality between these two interpretations; Sebastian caring about Ciel (and vice-versa, but you'll see in a moment why that's not as relevant). There is loving nature to both, but romantic and parental love are not the same thing. So why, baseline, do both these versions exist?

My thought is that they both remove the main cause of distress in their canon relationship. Which is, you guessed it, Sebastian. More specifically his feelings/intentions towards Ciel. By creating scenarios where something changes his intentions of ultimately killing Ciel, it creates the illusion that there's a possibility that the series could have a happier outcome in the end, and a happy ending for Ciel.

Which brings in a new idea. Ciel, being the main character that we follow, despite having his own complex character, serves as the…how should I put this…automatic ‘self-insert’ for people. He goes through/has gone through trauma & struggles that people can relate to and see themselves in. That's why there is a strong desire to see him have a positive outcome through these two different relationships with Sebastian, because as a reader/viewer it will feel like we ourselves are experiencing that positive outcome.

See? Coping mechanism : )

Now here's where things get tricky…Discussing the differences between these two types of relationships. Ok, I could probably find a way to say this that's long and fancy, but I’m just going to be super straight forward. This is as an absolute read, I apologize :’) People ship Sebaciel because they want someone to love them, where they picture themselves as Ciel with Sebastian as the one loving him romantically. People like the idea of Dadbastian because they long for a parent's affection, where they picture themselves as Ciel being cared for by Sebastian.

Now, this is definitely just a theory, and absolutely not the only reasons why people come up with and enjoy each of these interpretations. But the Dadbastian one most definitely applies to me.

Here’s where my own opinion comes into play. Only one of these relationships is really ‘positive’ in nature. Both of these relationships when applied to the canon would be problematic in their own ways, but when looking at it outside of the context of the series and its plot, a parental relationship between Sebastian and Ciel, a thirteen year old boy and an adult figure, is more healthy than a romantic relationship between a thirteen year old boy and an adult figure. Please don’t make me explain why :’)

I’m really hoping this reaches the right audience. I’m not trying to start a war or offend anyone, just share my thoughts and an outlook that I haven’t really seen from the black butler fanbase before.

[babybatss-blog]

CHERRY

Johanna x capital!reader, 1100 words

Summary: After meeting you at a victory party, Johanna can’t seem to keep her eyes off of you. But aren’t you capital scum?

Cw: Johanna slightly out of character idk this ain’t my best work, reader is from the capital, reader has a bad relationship with her parents, and multiple mentions of Johanna’s family dying. Reader and Johanna kiss at the end.

Chandeliers, ballgowns, and crowded rooms. An idea of true torture for Miss Johanna Mason. It feels like just yesterday she was in her district living her boring life, but now she’s been forced to parade like some show pony, dressed in stupid clothes with idiotic people. Naively, she thought that this exploitation would end with killing her whole family and celebrating killing 23 other children, but no, here she is in some random mansion toasting expensive champagne with people she’s never met.

After some excruciatingly long conversation about the rugelach that was being served, Johanna manages to finally slip away, strolling along the outskirts of the party as to avoid any unwanted attention from her overly tight dress. She considered just jumping out a window and sprinting out of there, possibly catching the next train straight out of this hellhole and never looking back. Surviving in some cold dark woods would be better than staying here anyways.

That was until she saw you. Standing by a buffet in your frilled pink outfit, you grab a cherry and pop it into your mouth. Something about the way your cherry stained lips enveloped the fruit, how your hands artfully moved and how your eyelashes fluttered in satisfaction by the taste. You seemed so peaceful, enjoying your silent moment away from the crowd just like Johanna is. Her eyes drift up and down your body, taking note of your curves and gravitating warmth that she hasn’t felt in a long time.

So against her better judgment, Johanna struts over to you, a cocky smile on her face as you look up to meet her. This night may be interesting after all. She picks a cherry up from the ornate bowl, popping it into her mouth while maintaining eye contact. Instead of being flustered or blushing by her act, you merely spit the pip into a tissue and place it down.

“Johanna Mason, right? I saw you on the games, it was quite an impressive feat.”

“Thanks. I didn’t expect to be stuck in boring parties like this one, but at least I’ve found someone to pass the time with.”

To this you giggle, a small laugh that is sweet and pleasing to the ears. Johannas fake smile softens, in a way that it hasn’t in many a year. She likes that sound, and strangely wishes to hear it more. “Your too sweet, miss Mason. I actually agree with you though, my parents are regular sponsors of the games and it drives me insane all these parties. At least it has good food!”

“You like cherries hey?”

You look down, an unfamiliar blush coating your cheeks in the same shade as those beloved fruits. “I guess so. They honestly aren’t my favourite, but I appreciate their taste and they are a good snack at times. What about you?”

Johanna scoffs, looking away from you towards the crowd of posh attendees either conversing or dancing. Normally, her automatic assumption would be to enter a state of defence, now used to judgment from others. But Johanna isn’t dumb, she can read a room and can easily tell that you’re a peaceful soul. So, she concedes in honesty, facing back to your curious figure. “I’m not much of a fan of fancy food. Honestly, my favourite is my mum’s old lentil soup.”

Your eyes light up, being uncharacteristically intrigued by such a simple notion. “Sounds delicious! I would love to try it sometime!”

Johanna’s face drops, realising you don’t know what happened to her family. But some abnormal, caring note sparks within the usually guarded victor, not wanting to throw away that blooming pip within you. Your sweet, too sweet for your own good. Therefore, she swiftly recovers herself and continues off as normal. “Then it’ll be done. I’d love to take you back to my hometown someday, teach you what the world is really like.”

“I would love nothing more. If I can convince me parents to let me out is all…”

“Convince? Your old enough to make your own decisions by now aren’t you?”

You shake your head, clearly petrified by the notion. “Oh no no no. That isn’t how things work with my family miss Mason. I’m lucky if I can even enter the garden most days!”

Johanna’s face screws up in disgust, the complete opposite of your worried expression. Boldly, she steps forward and takes your hand. “Follow me.” Without protest you let her lead you, leaving the party out to a balcony. From the balcony you take a sharp left down a stone stairway, covered with green vines and moss. You try and be careful to not slip, but Johanna seems to have a different idea as she quickly skips down the stairs and leads you to a chair, where she plops down beside you.

“You need adventure Cherry. Nobody wants some boring life, and it’s not what you deserve.”

“Cherry?”

“Yes, Cherry. Your sweet like a cherry, small and bright. And Cherries come in pairs. It’s weird, but I like you Cherry. I’ll be your partner in crime.”

Johanna can tell by the look in your eye how her words affect you. Your closed off lifestyle leads you to not truly know what the world has to offer, but the respect and acknowledgement on your face shows that you truly appreciate her actions. Your eyes drift down to her lips while licking your own, and something in the two of you draws you together, a magnet which intertwines your bodies as one.

Subconsciously your hand drifts up, resting on her jaw. Johanna’s eyes also fall to your lips, in a way she has never felt before. “Would you… Be my partner in crime Cherry?” Johanna’s words come out as merely a whisper, as you lean in, your breath touching her flustered skin. Despite the screaming words of protest from your parents within your mind, you close the gap, enveloping her with a passionate kiss. Johanna eagerly returns the affection, her hands sliding up into your hair to push you even closer.

The kiss takes both of your breaths away, so you break apart with gasps. Soon enough, your breath returns and you manage out a couple of words.

"Well, partners in crime it is."