#the emphasis here is very much on the victims on how they were real people to whom something horrifying was done

[samodivas]

idk how people can watch true crime for the "mystery" or "excitement" or whatever because whenever I watch anything like that I'm just overwhelmed by incredible sorrow for the those people who became victims of violent crimes and their loved ones who had to go through that type of grief

[sugar-grigri]

2. Protest: between the author's cynicism and the antagonist's emergence

Fujimoto once again tests you as a reader

Why? Because this chapter requires you to pay as much attention to the foreground as to the background

Yes, hello headache, but now I need you to follow me…….

First of all, I see it as cynicism. The only thing that would make me laugh is if I thought Fujimoto was teasing us.

How and why? Because the church in Chainsaw Man is us. Victims of CSM (who belong to the work), and young people, students who don't always have the right to vote, who come out of curiosity (the fans) fighting bloody battles against the communities.

Come on, Fujimoto follows the networks

Like his OS, but especially Just listen to the song, it's about the relationship between a work, its author and its audience.

I think Fujimoto relishes the debates and arguments on Twitter and other networks.

Fujimoto follows them as much as he suffers them, acclaimed by critics and his own, adored by his fans, he is also the target of threats and hatred.

Whether it's from those who hate his work or those who adore it but can't forgive him for making them suffer.

Fujimoto is as much a figure of protest as Chainsaw Man.

And he's there in the shadows like Denji

But it's not just a wink, and then we get more serious

The protest in the background is just as important as the foreground

Denji and Yoshida are shown as much as the crowd, with the cut-out swapping places between background and foreground. As if Fujimoto were placing them in the same position of importance.

Why ?

First of all, this chapter proves that NO, Yoshida is not up to the task of being the antagonist

who could be the antagonist then?

Where ? Who ? We're a bit confused... well yeah, it was easy to understand that Makima was the antagonist

Not only do we kind of forget that it wasn't that easy to know she was the antagonist, the revelation that she was a demon came very, very late, as did what she was really capable of doing

In CSM the real antagonist is present from the start, and then appears more clearly

Fujimoto likes to use this process to make his work chilling, to encourage you to reread while seeing the chapters take shape under a different light.

SO WHO'S THE ANTAGONIST?

Chainsaw man himself or, (confirming my theory again), Fake! ChainsawMan

To put it simply, since part 2, Fujimoto has shown that Chainsaw Man is controversial, both adored and feared.

This fear would naturally give rise to a Fake!Chainsaw Man demon, whose aim would be to increase its power by maximizing people's fear of Chainsaw Man.

Now let's take a step back. Nostradamus' prophecy is about to come true. Fami's goal is to prevent this apocalypse (for pizza). But this prophecy, as Yoshida knew about it and got in touch with Fami, shows that public safety is aware of the danger.

So why do we want Chainsaw Man to disappear? Would Public Security abandon humanity? Hardly imaginable.

I've given it some thought, and here's the plan as I imagine it.

An alliance has been formed between Fami and Public Security, to take control of Chainsaw Man. Not an absolute alliance, I imagine, but the two groups have common interests.

Both groups need a champion to face this apocalypse.

The fact is, Chainsaw Man is getting weaker.

Turning a demon into a hero who is close to humans means that part of the population no longer fears him, so his power falls proportionally.

Chainsaw Man can't face the apocalypse now.

The solution is to separate Chainsaw and Man. Literally.

When Yoshida invites Denji to live quietly, it's so that he can literally retire.

To make way for whom? Bingo. Fake!CSM

So why do they want CSM to disappear? Why so much emphasis on Haruka and the worship of Chainsaw Man's church?

Nothing creates greater fear than giving people a hero and then suddenly taking him away. We're back to another of CSM's key themes: necessary evil.

If, overnight, CSM no longer appeared to fight the demons, then the world would be in disarray. And fear would increase... giving power to the secretly chosen champion.

A champion... who only appears before dawn. At the very last moment.

The existence of Chainsaw Man leads to clashes, increased tensions and dissent.

His disappearance, meanwhile, will lead to a consensus: the despair of a humanity with no so-called protection.

Nostradamus' prophecy is not simply a prophecy announcing the apocalypse, but a plan that has been in front of us all along.

To be saved, humanity must descend into chaos.

If you want to better understand my theory about Fake!CSM :

[hero-israel]

Can i just say I am so sick and tired of people claiming genocide. I mean with saying Israel is committing genocide on Palestinians right now. Every time I see it I want to scream. This is one of the numerous reasons why the pro palestine movement sucks. They can't just say something is bad, focus on real grievances. Instead they have to exaggerate and claim everything is the worst possible version. They can't just say "palestinian civilians are suffering," or even "excessive civilian deaths." No. they have to claim genocide.

it’s disgusting. they are appropriating terms and watering them down in the process. genocide is a very real horrific problem that is ACTUALLY happening to people right now... and they have to claim that term for their situation because why? to paint israel/israelis as the ultimate evil? to claim this issue is the worst ever and insist everyone else drop everything and only care about this? to add more emphasis on their lies and propaganda of israel being a colonial empire practicing apartheid? intentional flipping because they know Jews have been victim to genocide (we see this more explicitly when they compare Israel in this war to nazis)?

Maybe part of it is that if israel is responsible for genocide, then there’s no need to acknowledge how HAMAS and their actions play a significant role in palestinian suffering? (It can't be that hamas steals aid for civilians, no it must be 100% israel’s fault and only theirs! Also joe Biden I guess! /sarcasm)

No matter what, it’s a cynical ploy and absolutely disgusting.

In some ways it reminds me of how people online have taken terms like “trigger,” “gaslight,” and more, and completely twisted and watered down their meaning, turned it all into a joke ... except obviously much worse, here.

what really grinds me up is seeing how many people are buying into this. especially gen z. I am so done with my generation honestly. im ashamed to be associated with these people. part of me doesn't get it. im not jewish. and i try my best not to be antisemitic, educate myself. it does take work, but also it’s NOT THAT HARD to just NOT post completely unverified stuff, NOT absorb your news from social media, NOT give accusations of genocide without doing any research, bothering to learn about historical context, actually understanding what experts say and explanations why it is not genocide? And most of all actually LISTEN to jewish people when they talk about their own history and heritage?

Im not saying this to say im so great, in fact it's the opposite: what im doing is nothing special and amazing. it's really BASIC. yet SO MANY PEOPLE fail this??? what the fuck????

I understand people cannot educate themselves on literally very single topic. But then if they are ignorant, then they should just SHUT UP and not weigh on something they didn't take the work to understand. That is not hard!!!! NOT casually throwing around accusations of genocide should be the bare minimum and yet here we are.

All of the above. I am sorry you are dealing with this from so many among your cohort, and deeply appreciate your commitment as a non-Jew to resisting the new Christ-killer / stab-in-the-back mythology. It will continue to be difficult. For decades - for CENTURIES - all the wealthiest and most educated people in societies worldwide "knew" the Jews were guilty of these terrible things.

Derek Chauvin was convicted of the second- and third-degree murder of George Floyd. There were people at that time who were upset he hadn't been nailed for first-degree murder - he was obviously guilty! Look what a horrible thing he did! Get him for everything! But there actually really are different standards of evidence for different crimes and if prosecutors had tried to go for that one they would have lost.

I don't doubt for an instant that the IDF has committed multiple war crimes during this entirely preventable, entirely pointless cataclysm. But people are racing past the crimes that are clearly visible and could be supported by evidence because they want - need - HOPE for the very worst one to be true. It is a moral obscenity. And you can tell how much they are enjoying themselves, how fine it feels to be able to invoke genocide against Jews and Uno-reverse that nagging Holocaust card, by how quickly they revert to petty Internet slang to silence counter-arguments: "lol WELL ACTUALLLYYY, so you're JUST ASKING QUESTIONS rite, nice SEALIONING." It is meant to be an inherently, automatically truthful claim, one that the Jew has no right to deny.

The Disputations of our time.

And as we did in the past... we must answer, because not-answering will not help.

[princelylove]

Sometimes I forget my interpretations are not canon. For my freaks who are into hyper specific body parts, like I am, here’s the first batch of my body interpretations for part five. 

I can’t count how many full body shots or slow pan downs we had of Giorno- with a rightful emphasis on his hips and legs. Giorno’s muscle is that of a ballerina’s- slender, but has lots of stamina. He has a small waistline, like majority of the Joestars do, and his limbs are all rather lean, but his thighs provide an adequate amount of support for his ‘hips.’ He’d prefer terms like ‘full’ or ‘shapely’ over ‘thick’ or ‘well-rounded,’ but all apply. He’s shy in comparison to his father, who prefers the inverse to be said about himself. It’s generally best to not mention how attracted you are to his ass his broad hips, he's a bit embarrassed of his curves.

He stands comfortably at a nice 177 cm, or 5’8”. He’s often teased by Guido for being ‘so small,’ despite Narancia being the shortest. (Guido doesn’t want to get stabbed at nine in the morning.) His hands are slender, and delicate-looking. He has long fingers that he lets bugs and small animals crawl all over. He prefers not to wear nail polish at all, and dislikes wearing rings. 

Giorno is such a pale white that you can see the blue of his veins on parts of his chest. There’s little bits of pink towards the tips of his fingers, but the rest of his skin is almost pure white. It would be concerning if you didn’t know he gets plenty of sun- how he manages to stay that shade and practically live in the sun is beyond you. 

Giorno has a bit of a baby face still, he has very round features, besides from his eyes. He's a victim of that phenomenon where strangers trust you because of your ‘welcoming’ face, despite the fact that Giorno rarely smiles unless he wants something. His hair is naturally somewhere between wavy and curly, and falls down to his hips when it isn’t in a braid. After he becomes the don of passione, he wears it down more often. He thinks it helps attract new recruits- and he’s right, it does. If you’re attracted to full, heart-shaped lips and long eyelashes, Giorno will have you wrapped around his finger. 

He smells like flowers, white jasmine and roses to be specific.

Don’t talk to me about Bruno’s hourglass. He has a bit more shoulders, so I’m tempted to say he has a different body type, but it’s so slight that you wouldn’t notice unless you were taking his measurements, so I won’t count it. 

His muscle is from hard labor rather than consistently working out- habits from when he was just a baby helping his father- Bruno doesn’t exactly have time to do a real routine, and he neglects himself too much for it to work. While he does have a good bit of muscle, he isn’t as well-defined as someone like Leone or Risotto is. He can’t do a calorie deficit, he needs that food to keep working as hard as he possibly can. If he stops eating as much, he can’t work, and then he couldn’t protect you or his family (same thing), and, and, and, and. He eats well, he just doesn’t sleep enough. He’d probably stop worrying if he did. Most of his muscle is in his arms, back, and legs. 

Bruno is a strong man, he prides himself on being able to physically protect his darling. His looks aren’t a big deal to him, but he does enjoy taking care of himself. He wouldn’t have such a high maintenance haircut otherwise. He dislikes makeup on himself, but he grooms himself excessively- he isn’t one for long routines and expensive skincare, but he appreciates a nice cleanser and moisturizer, which he also uses on his hands. Bruno will sometimes put clear nail polish on just his hands, if he remembers it. 

Bruno is 183 cm, or 6ft. His height isn’t overbearing- in fact, he just makes the cusp of what most people would call ‘tall’ for a man- but he isn’t small, either. He’d love to share clothes with his darling, but if he cannot fit into yours, he’ll settle for giving you his. If you make him seem small, he’d happily wear some of yours, too. 

His skin tone is a light brown, although it pales slightly in the winter. He spends a lot of time in the sun, on top of his natural complexion. His undertones are warm.

Bruno's only tattoo is the one on his chest. It covers part of his stomach, as well.

Leone has lots of birthmarks scattered all over him. He stands at 195 cm, or 6’5”. I tend to think of Leone with more shoulders than hips, but he has a small waist, and it isn’t like his hips aren’t grabbable.

It makes him feel better about himself to work out consistently, so he kept his morning habits from his younger days. While he wishes he could say he works out for his health, it’s just because he doesn’t feel good unless he looks good, and that’s how he’d like himself to look. He has very prominent iliac crests, and a well defined torso. Most of the ‘fat’ in his body is in his tits. (Author’s note: Although it’s more appropriate to say muscle, since building muscle is how men get a larger chest, I’m using ‘fat’ for a better visual. When pectoral muscles relax, they appear squishy and pliable like most women’s chests do, so it isn’t entirely outlandish.) 

He has a thorough routine for his skin- he even has a separate one for his hands, which doesn’t work very well. Leone’s hands look smooth, but they’re a bit rough from work. His nails are fairly long, and natural. Painted either black or a deep red. He shapes them into coffins. They break easily. 

When he’s stressed, he tweezes his eyebrows. He makes them thin, and follows the natural small arch he has. Leone’s eyes are actually brown, he just puts contacts in to match his makeup for the day. He puts eyeliner on his waterline, like how you’d put kohl on.

I’ve mentioned briefly before that Leone has darker skin than in canon, but I specifically meant a dark brown complexion over just a tan one. He has cool undertones. 

While he doesn’t have any tattoos, he has a few piercings. His nipples, belly button, and nose are all pierced. The side of his nose, not a septum. 

Narancia gets pretty pissed when you mention that he’s 164 cm, or 5'3”. He’s still got some years before his body hits its limit, alright. He’s horribly jealous of Guido’s physique, he doesn’t understand how he’s doing the same things but Guido has way more mass than him. It just so isn’t fair. 

While he does have very distinct muscle, I wouldn’t call Narancia big. He cuts without realizing it- he has food right in front of him, but hasn’t fixed his eating habits from living on the street. If you praise his abs and arms, he’ll let you feel.

Narancia’s a light tan sort of beige. He tans every year without fail. It makes him sad to see himself pale, as it reminds him of his mother, who had the same complexion. 

He has a few tattoos, all of which are stick-and-poke, and done by himself through boredom. The designs are nonsensical and don’t mean much to him. He has tons of piercings, done by Pannacotta in a bathroom for the promise of not having to do household chores. Both his nose piercing and eyebrow rejected, so he settled for torturing his ears. 

He hates makeup, nail polish, and skincare routines. Narancia's skin is somehow perfect. It's debatable if he cleans his piercings out every once in a while or not. Narancia's hands are very square, and his nails are so short that them growing past his finger tips is a miracle.

Guido stands at about 190 cm, or 6’3”. I’d give him a smidge more at most, but he just isn’t as tall as Leone. Guido has a tendency to slouch when he sits, but loves to straighten his back out when he’s standing next to someone shorter. The first thing he did in purple haze feedback was check if Panna had him yet- and was secretly overjoyed that he wasn’t even close. 

Guido’s normally smiling- the only time he isn’t is when he’s truly alone, working, or genuinely pissed off. He’ll have deep smile lines when he’s older. It’s more of a grin than a smile, really- he finds amusement in the oddest of things. 

The only word that comes to mind is how big Guido is; Guido’s sizable nature is one of the first things you’d notice about him. It’s almost criminal to focus more on his chest- the man has ass and the thighs to back it up. Guido has a very full figure, he prefers bulking over cutting by far, and he doesn’t work out just to look good. He wants to be strong, and his job is very demanding. It just works. (It makes him feel useful.) Guido gets up when the sun does to work out, every day, probably for the rest of his life. He has a visible Adonis belt, but not a very deep, defined one. While the crease is there, he’d never intentionally lower his body fat percentage to match someone like Leone’s.  

His eyebrows are thick and straight. He cleans them up as best as he can, but hates doing it himself, so he makes Leone do his for him, in exchange for doing the dishes that night. (Leone normally turns the television up so he doesn’t have to hear Guido whine about how much painnnnn he’s innnn.) He doesn’t cut his own hair either, but doesn’t trust anyone on the team to get his curls right, so goes to a professional for trims. He started wearing hats because of a bad cut, but the pressure was comforting. 

Nothing irritates me more than when people take away Guido’s color. You are out of your MIND if you think he’s any lighter than a medium brown- and that’s being a bit generous. He has warm undertones, and gets as much sun as he can year-round. 

He doesn’t use cologne, and uses an unscented bar soap. Guido understands the importance of a good conditioner, but body soap? It’s all soap, man. Bar soap is fine, costs less, too. He tries to take care of himself, but isn't excessive about it. His nails are short and clean, but he doesn't trim the hair on his knuckles until Trish points out how noticeable it is.

Guido has a few tattoos, all of which he whined through getting. He decided to have the majority of them on his upper arms. They’re all biblical. He has a tendency to grab the bicep with Saint Mary on it when he’s nervous. He thought about piercing his belly button, but pussied out when he saw the needle. 

After the events of vento aureo, he got an orange on his upper back. 

Pannacotta is 180 cm, or 5’11”. He used to be the same height as Giorno, but gained some height over the course of Purple Haze Feedback, and now has to look down at his boss to make eye contact. He’s rather lean, and a bit ‘flat’ all around- he lacks a prominent waist as well.  

His complexion is very fair, and sort of pinkish. He doesn’t tan well at all, and is often teased by Narancia for it. His hair is entirely white- it's common to hear that it's because of stress, but he was just born like that.

Most people would describe Pannacotta as ‘pretty’ rather than ‘handsome.’ He wouldn't consider himself so, as he’s not actually all that feminine he just hangs out with two very masculine types and seems it in comparison, but he doesn’t mind. Well. He does. He hates feeling people stare at him when they obviously have intentions, but a little compliment is just a little compliment. 

He takes care of his hands and feet, but doesn’t like colored nail polish. He borrows Bruno’s clear polish. Pannacotta likes strawberry scented soap, and would buy a body spray that smells similar, if he was aware it existed.

He only has his ears pierced, and no tattoos. He almost trusted Narancia enough to give him a tattoo, but decided against it when he realized Narancia had the freedom to not listen. 

Trish doesn’t really have any muscle, but she is skinny. She looks significantly more like Diavolo than Donatella, which is horribly ironic. She’s slightly above average height for a girl her age, just shy of Giorno’s height, although seemingly short in comparison to the ridiculously tall cast of vento aureo. 

Trish’s complexion is (exactly) sort of like Diavolo’s- a light brown, with cool undertones. She tends to avoid the sun, and will slather on sunscreen to avoid getting a tan. She’s afraid of ‘aging early.’ 

Trish makes a lot of the same expressions as Diavolo- her annoyance, joy, even her anxiety all bear some resemblance. Before he left, Donatella would joke about using him as a blueprint. 

She gets her nails done professionally, and tends to go for acrylics over her natural nails. Trish prefers small, almond-ish shaped nails, with a lot of designs or charms. She just gets solid color on her toes. 

Trish is the type of girl to use five different washcloths in the same shower. She has an extensive hygiene routine, and all of her soaps are chosen to complement the smell of her favorite liquid body soap- which is a nice vanilla in winter, and coconut in summer. 

While Trish is a “You wouldn’t put a bumper sticker on a Bentley” kind of girl, she does have a few piercings. Her ears, nose, and belly button are all adorned with the shiniest, blinged-out piece of jewelry she could find. 

[writer-komaru]

₊˚✩｡+･ Queen of Hearts ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭*⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

✧Rating: Smut + Exhibitionism

✧Characters: Nikolai

✧Word Count: 3.2k

✧Summary: While participating in a very important annual agency meeting every member is forced to attend, you find yourself in a very stressful situation. You’re completely at the mercy of a very aroused and sadistic clown, one who’s ready to make your life as hard as possible. As sudden, familiar hands appear out of nowhere and start groping you from under your clothes, you soon find out just how hard he can make you~

The dreaded time was finally here. Once the clock struck 2:30, you watched as Kenji, Dazai, Kunikida, and Atsushi flooded into the meeting room. You closed your laptop and sighed to yourself. This would be your first real meeting as a new member of the esteemed armed detective agency and you were both excited and terrified. Being in a room full of some of the strongest gifted in all of Japan was more nerve racking than getting pulled over in the middle of nowhere! Nonetheless, you knew you were ready for this. You took a seat next to Junichiro and Kyoka, looking up at the white board in the center of the room pinned with at least 20 photos and newspaper clippings. Kunikida stood next to it with a long ruler in his hand, giving everyone an authoritative stare, like a teacher ready to scold a group of misbehaving students.

“For today’s annual group meeting, I’ll be starting it by addressing our most recent case!” His glasses flashed with determination as he cracked the ruler against the white board, using it to point at one of the pictures. Atsushi jumped at the noise, Dazai rolled his eyes, and Yosano rested her head against her left hand.

“The case deals with a large-scale human trafficking scandal being sponsored by the port mafia. We’ve managed to collect a few pictures, physical evidence, witness testimony, and a few newspaper clippings detailing some of the people involved. It’s our duty to locate the victims and ensure they return to their families safely and arrest the perpetrators. The first suspect is- Ranpo are you SLEEPING!!?!” Kunikida bears his teeth and slaps the ruler against the table to wake him up.

“I’d much rather be asleep than attending this boring meeting,” he raised his head and yawned, clearly unbothered by the threat of human trafficking. Does he not care about the people in danger or does he not see it as a big deal? Wasn’t he the detective prodigy the agency was built around?

“Maybe I’ll let you take a nap if you help us locate their base of operations,” Kunikida crossed his arms and huffed.

While you watched with confusion as Ranpo revealed a long explanation of the case, you felt your phone buzz in your pocket. Good thing you put it on silent; if all the attention was suddenly on you, you might just curl up in a ball and return to the soil. You took your phone out of your pocket and sneakily hid it under the table. You were getting a call from…. Your eyes widened in fear. Why now, if all times?!

“U-uh, can I use the bathroom real quick? It’s an emergency,” your trembling hand rose to ask the question, causing your fear of being in the spotlight to come true.

“I’m sorry but you should have gone before the meeting started. Rules are no one can leave until the meeting is over,” Kunikida’s wrath snapped to Dazai, “Including you too!!”

“Hey I haven't even done anything yet!” He held his hands up defensively.

“Yeah yeah, emphasis on YET!” He growled back.

Your worried eyes looked back to your phone, finger hovering between the accept and decline buttons. The caller ID pfp was almost taunting you. If you didn’t take this call, you knew damn well you’d be punished somehow, but if you took it, the private info being discussed could be leaked. You just couldn’t risk your relationship with the ADA so soon. With a heavy heart you hit the decline button, praying to your lucky stars he would shed even a sliver of mercy on you this time. Just before you could put your phone back into your pocket, an ominous text was sent to your phone; It was from him.

‘Playing hard to get, my darling dove? You know what happens when you try to ignore me~ come on, let’s have some fun together!~ Fwahahah!~♦️ See you soon! Your love, Nikolai~’

Well shit, now you’re definitely fucked. That’s what you get for testing the will of a deviant like him. You shifted nervously in your seat, anticipating the tricks he might try to experiment on you. Suddenly, you felt a light hand tap on your shoulder.

“Ah?!” You gasp, only to see it was Kyoka. She didn’t respond, only giving you a look that read, ‘Are you alright?’ It wasn’t a look she gave very many people, you’ve found out. You smiled and shared a nod, making her nod back. As your eyes returned to Kunikida as he continued his rant, a faint golden glow from under the table made your blood run cold. The glow expanded into a glittering swirl of sparkles, like a whirlpool of liquid sunshine. It was almost hypnotic. Out from the circle appeared a frighteningly familiar gloved hand, holding a singular playing card. What pentrified you was not the random floating hand coming out of what appeared to be a portal, but the details of the card. It meant two things. One, Nikolai was ready to play his sadistic little game with you. Two, you were both lucky and deeply misfortunate.

Nikolai was a very sly and cheeky character when it comes to you. He treats you both like a sweet pet he loves to pamper and play with, and like a little ragdoll he uses for when he gets bored. That’s just the price you have to pay for making a deal with the devil. And the word devil is no exaggeration. His little games he plays with you vary in extremes; he can go from playing fluffy games like tag (but he always cheats and uses his teleportation), tickle fights, riddles, hide and seek (which he also cheats on too), magic tricks, and dress up. To more explicit games like lewd cat and mouse, stamina tests, edging, exhibitionism, mind break, and seduction. To more dangerous games he uses as punishment, like knife play, gun play, public humiliation, choking, bondage, psychological abuse, somnophilia, and even roping his fellow angels of decay into torturing you. The memories make you shudder. He ties these levels of debauchery with a specific type of playing card. (I know all of this sounds unnecessary and extreme but that’s just his forte. He gets off on the chaos.) Diamonds mean he’s too busy to play an actual game but still wants to share his love with you. Spades mean he’s about to play a friendly game. Hearts mean he’s about to play an explicit game. And clubs means he’s about to play a dangerous game. Their numbers and houses signal the exact game and severity he’ll put you through, but there’s just no way you can memorize all 52 of them. Sometimes you think he comes up with them on the spot and pretends like he’s planned out the games from the start.

Nevertheless, the card held up proudly in between two fingers was a frightening Queen of hearts. You felt your thighs immediately rub together as a blanket of heat fell over your body. Oh, you were really in for it now. The card and the hand holding it vanished just as randomly as it appeared, triggering the calm before the storm. You wanted to run out of the room and hide, lock yourself in a bathroom stall and brace yourself for the torment he has planned for you. But not only was it likely someone would follow you, but you would probably get in deep trouble.

Shit shit shit…

Suddenly, the portal reappeared underneath your right leg and two fingers began to stroke your inner thigh, painting your skin in goosebumps. It was light and delicate, but calculated enough to send shockwaves straight to your heated core. You shivered as they inched closer to your bulge; making you embarrassingly cover the inappropriate sight with the hem of your loose tee. Trying to keep a poker face and ignore it was the only option you had at this point. But you know the clown has his ways to make you break.

“If we can station Kenji at the entrance of their base, we can distract the guards long enough to let the rest of us sneak in. Kyoka and Atsushi will search the halls and take out the rest of the guards, me and Junichiro will sneak into the bunker and look for the victims, Dazai and Y/N will secure the perimeter in case they call in backup. Any objections?” Kunikida ordered, slapping the ruler against his hand.

“Sounds great to me, but are you sure that’s alright with Y/N? He’s pretty neeewww~” Dazai glances over to you with a smirk. Oh how desperately you wanted to smack him for bringing the attention yet again back to you at literally the worst time possible.

“I believe Y/N is more than capable of handling their task. You on the other hand is a different story,” he grunted and crossed his arms again.

“Aw come on; I’m a trustworthy guy, Kunikida, you know that~” Dazai stuck out his tongue playfully.

“Settle down you two. Let Y/N speak,” Fukuzawa’s voice was like a growling lion, freezing the two men in place like icicles.

“Y-yes sir!” Kunikida exclaimed, bowing dramatically.

Dazai chuckled behind his hand, sending the blonde man a teasing smirk. Kunikida ignored him, focusing his eyes on your twitching form. He raised an eyebrow, “Are you alright, Y/N? You look like you caught a fever.”

“If it’s a fever… I can treat that easily~” Yosano chimed in, sharing an eerie grin.

You cleared your throat as both his hands began to stroke up and down your thighs, his fingertips ghosting over your plush skin in just the way to make your spine quiver, “I-I’m alright, just a bit nervous is all.”

“You don’t need to be nervous, I know you’ll do great, Y/N,” Atsushi smiles.

“And Dazai may seem like a lazy idiot, but as much as I hate to admit it, he’s a dependable ally,” Kunikida pushes up his glasses.

“You’ll…. Do okay,” Kyoka tries to comfort, but instead sounds a bit cold.

“Trust in your abilities and do your very best,” Junichiro uplifts.

“We have your back just like you have ours. We can do this together,” Kenji pumps a fist into the air.

Fukuzawa stays silent, but gives you a reassuring nod.

“T-thank you all. I feel a lot better n-ngh-“ your voice catches in your throat as the sinful fingers of Nikolai trace over your clothed sex, pressing small strokes from your twitching head. That bastard; you hated how he had arousing you down to an art form. Even from behind the portal, he could sense every hitch of your breath, tense of your thighs, and drop of sweat on your brow.

As the rest of the members continued to discuss the case, you let out a sigh of relief. At least they weren’t staring directly into your soul anymore. But the feeling was short lived as a pair of curious eyes stayed on you. The eyes of the master detective. You shivered in your seat; could he tell what was going on between your legs? The likelihood was alarmingly high. The only thing you could do was try to play it off as Nikolai pulled down your fly along with your boxers, letting your length spring free. It felt humiliating, how hard and wet you felt already, fighting back the urge to buck into anything that could give you some sort of stimulation.

“Ehehehhe~ what a naughty pet, being so deliciously horny during an important meeting~ I wonder how easy I bet it would be to coax out a little whimper from you~” a sadistic whisper echoed from the portal as two fingers squeezed and rubbed your head around between them. Before you could bite your lip, a groan escaped your lips. God damn it. You looked around fearfully if anyone heard that, mentally cursing at yourself for letting him get to you so easily. Thankfully, no one seemed to hear it.

“Oh ho ho!~ how delightful~” Nikolai chuckled through the portal, wrapping his hand around your dick and pumping it slowly, making your eyes screw shut. He made sure to give your head a few rubs with his thumb every so often just to stimulate you a little more. If things couldn’t get worse, you felt two fingers pressing right against your taint. Your legs trembled more and more, the temptation to buck into his hand becoming more of a guarantee than a fantasy. Was he really going to make you cum in front of the whole agency?!

Your hips lurched forward, ever so slightly fucking your aching dick into the tight grip of his hand, playing into the perverse little game he was putting you through. Suddenly, to your relief and dismay, his hands retreated back into the portals and disappeared.

“Y/N, are you sure you’re okay?” Junichiro asked with a concerned expression.

“Uh… it’s complicated,” you chuckled, scratching the back of your neck.

As Junichiro tried to push you for answers, the faint golden glow out of the corner of your eye told you Nikolai was clearly not willing to give up yet.

“Don’t worry, if it’s something serious, I’ll make sure to tell you- H-huh?!“ To your horror, your throbbing length is enveloped in a warm, wet, velvety feeling. You peeked under the table to find yourself face to face with Nikolai himself, fully taking your sex into the hot expanse of his mouth and bobbing his head up and down. The playful smirk he gave you made your blood boil with anger and arousal.

“Are you sure you’re alright…?” Jumichiro tilted his head curiously and tried to catch a glance of what you were looking at under the table. You quickly pushed Nikolai’s head off your dick and covered yourself with your shirt.

“Yeah, absolutely great. Perfect, even,” you hissed through your teeth. Junichiro gave you a shrug and turned back to the white board, leaving you to deal with the ruthless incubus under the table.

“Come on, let me get an actual taste this time~ you can’t avoid me forever~” his eyes narrowed as he smirked up at you.

“H-hey, w-wait- Ahh!~” a moan slips from your lips as his mouth slides back up and down your dick, making your whole body tremble.

“Please please, not here, please, not here,” you begged weakly, gripping his hair. You wanted to push his mouth off you again but to your surprise and his delight, you shoved your dick into the back of his throat, groaning as his tongue lapped at the bulging vein under your cock. There’s just no use trying to fight it anymore; you lost the very second you saw that dreadful queen of hearts.

“Good little dove… just give in; let them catch us, it’ll be more fun that way~” he cooed to you as your sex slid even further into his lewd mouth. It just felt so good, so wrong yet so right. The needy pulses of your cockhead against the back of his throat made your mind go blank. More, more, more; you just couldn’t stop craving more. Nikolai’s minaical chuckles grew louder and louder as you urgently humped against his mouth. As his free hand tucked back into his magic cloak, you felt a familiar firm rub against your taint. At that moment, you could care less if the room was empty or filled with 100 people. The only thought in your mind was to cum, to paint his mouth white with your built up seed. More more more, all you wanted was more.

“That’s right… Go wild… show your agency freinds how much fun we have together~” His words sounded like choking against the thrusting of your dick, transforming into a cackle as your head flew back to release a needy moan. Your dick throbbed wildly in his mouth and the knot in your stomach began to tighten, the humiliation sending tears pouring from your eyes. Everything was going exactly to Nikolai’s plan.

“Damn it… damn it damn it da-ahhh~ Aghhh!!~” One final convulsion of your head sent hot cum squirting directly down his throat, the leftover mess filling his mouth and dripping from his smirking lips. You let out a whine as come cum even splattered on his cheek. He licked it off with an evil smirk, just like the cock hungry whore he is.

“What a beautiful performance~ you did so well, my doll~” he crawled out from under the table and to your horror sat right on your lap.

“W-W-WAIT, they will see u-ughhh~” your eyes rolled back as he rubbed himself against your abused cock, giving out a series of strained whines.

“Look around, silly dove~ what do you see?”

He leaned down and whispered in your ear, licking a long stripe up your neck. When your blurry eyes adjusted to your surroundings, you realized the room was different. Instead of being greeted with the disgusted faces of your coworkers, you instead found the room totally empty. But how can that be? Did he use his portal on them? No, he would need to use his cape for that, but the whole time it was neatly resting on his shoulders.

“Stumped?~ I’d love to tease you more, but because you were so good in letting me torture you a little, I’ll reveal the secret~ it was all thanks to Junichiro and Ranpo!~” he exclaimed cheerfully, sending you a wink, “While you were too busy helping yourself to my warm mouth, Ranpo immediately knew what was happening. He passed Junichiro a note to use an illusion on the room to make it seem like everyone was still talking while they all left so we could have some free time together~”

Even though the news wasn’t exactly surprising, your cheeks still burned with embarrassment. You knew Ranpo would find out but god did it still suck.

You groaned and hid your face in your hands, “Why did you have to do that? I’ll never be able to look any of them in the eyes anymore…”

“Awww, dove, don’t be like that~ You were having so much fun weren’t you?~ Why not we… have a round two?~” he chuckles sinfully as he slides his striped pants down and lines himself over your oozing dick. He licks his lips as he slams himself down on you, panting and laughing as he rides the life out of you.

“N-no no no, ughhh n-nooo we’re gunna to get f-found aghhhh-a-again~” you whine as he uses your dick like a dildo. It felt really fucking good but dreadfully shameful. He slaps a hand over your drooling mouth and stares directly into your eyes.

“One more word out of you and I’ll edge you for two months,” he threatens, making your skin crawl. You knew damn well he meant it. All you can do is lay beneath him as he uses you for his pleasure, proving to you just how helpless you are when it comes to him. As a second orgasm builds in your lower stomach, you once again pray to whatever god there is out there everyone in the agency won’t hear you two thrusting against each other like animals in rut.

Curse that queen of hearts. ♥️

Reblog + Comment + Like if you’d like to see more Bungo Stray Dogs or Nikolai specific content! [And it just really helps me out :’)]

(I know this post is a few days before my supposed posting time buuuuut I’ve been having you guys wait long enough, so here’s early access!!~ Enjoy!!!)

[morfitties]

TW for this post, talking about suicide in Dead Poets Society

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For anyone else who has read books like “All The Bright Places”, “The Perks Of Being A Wallflower”, “The Virgin Suicides” or “If We Were Villaind”, then you probably know the theme/debate of who suffered more from the suicide, the victim of it, or the people left behind and I kinda want to explore that in Dead Poets Society.

Neil is clearly out leading man, you’ve gotta love him, he’s one of those characters that everyone wishes to know in real life, full of passion and promise and humour. Neil connects with the audience by feeling real, by making mistakes and getting into trouble and having very real problems. The movie focuses on him and the other poets for around 1hour 30min.

I remember the first time I watched it, when Neil shot himself I thought that would be the curtain call, THE END, no more story to tell- so I was shocked and mildly comforted by the fact that there was another 30min of everyone’s lives after the fact. I think this fact is what springs to mind the debate I’ve seen a lot before of “who suffered more” but I’ve never seen the argument happen over a piece of media that has real substance and meat on its bones to lend to the debate.

I’ll explore all of my previous examples to show my point:

“All The Bright Places” - the first sort of “fandom” I’ve seen think about this. The book follows Violet and Finch, both suicidal, one lives, one dies. This story, unlike Dead Poets Society, essentially ends after the death of Finch. There is maybe five minutes of reading dedicated to Violet’s reaction to the funeral, but not much else.

“The Perks Of Being A Wallflower” - This example will be slightly different from the others. Charlie’s previous best friend did kill himself, but it’s neither the focus nor mentioned very much in the novel. The book does follow Charlie’s suicidal ideation, loneliness, and sexual assault, and a large part of what we see in the novel is the people around Charlie reacting to Charlie’s pain. This book had the best debate on the matter (I think anyways) but Charlie is very much alive, he is able to heal.

“The Virgin Suicides” - Honestly, not a good example because do the times it was written in and it’s attitude towards mental health (or rather, the characters attitudes) but it felt necessary to mention. The book shows very little sympathy for the girls milking themselves, it’s always stated very monotonously what they do to themselves and how it ends with a big emphasis on the parents and neighbours etc left behind. Given the time and attitudes, however, it’s seen as a sort of curse, so the idea isn’t exactly explored well.

“If We Were Villains” - Most of the book is spent in flashback, with the end revealing that to Oliver that James committed suicide, it’s basically a very large nostalgia trip with a fun little ribbon of heartbreak at the end that doesn’t get the chance to be truly explored.

You may notice here that most of the suicides, or metaphors for death of oneself, happen at the end of the novels, it isn’t a main focus and is usually followed by THE END.

DPS has no problem exploring consequences and actively mentions consequences throughout the novel and movie, of how A will lead to B.

I don’t really know where I land with DPS and the “who suffered more?” debate. It’s hard to measure pain or sadness, they all suffer for what happens to Neil, they all grieve it, too. DPS has the most substance to talk about, but it feels almost inappropriate too. Yes, Neil was the one lose his life, his future, his love and his passion, his story was cut short (I FUCKING HATE MR PERRY) so, of course, I’m compelled to say Neil suffered most, because frankly, he did. But there’s also the aspect of “those who were left behind”, it seems Todd and Charlie feel almost a bit of betrayal towards losing Neil, and the others become subdued and lost with grief, you can feel that there is no warmth anymore. There’s also Mr Keating, who sobs over the society verse book, who probably feels some responsibility even though it was Neil who mislead him.

Everyone’s lives are changed, main by Mr Fucking Wise Guy Perry.

It can be considered an inappropriate debate to have, but it’s also morbidly interesting. Neil’s life ends, but the others are changed forever, and since you can’t measure suffering by a true meter, it’s hard to say who hurt more, not that it’s something that should be debated with vigour anyways.

I know I probably left a lot of important relationship stuff out. Would love to hear other thoughts on this, also this is just my opinion! Completely fine to disagree:)

[linagram]

Back for round 3 with the idealization duo theories! These two both suck as people, but their crimes were actually a lot of fun to theorize on.

Prisoner 005: Kei Sanada

Okay, so I actually finished a theory on him, went to start Eiko’s theory, and then abruptly realized I’d completely missed some vital evidence that completely changed the picture. So here I am, rewriting the entire theory. (This is actually fun though, I was waiting to get to this dude so I don’t really mind doing this again.)

Anyways, the vital evidence here is actually at the end of Eiko’s profile, of all places. Let me quote the relevant paragraph real quick (emphasis mine):

Kei and Eiko definitely have their own theme as well and honestly, it feels like they actually have two themes. I seriously can't decide which one should be their "official" theme, so.. It would either be something like "Idealization" (What if someone who you admired/loved so much turns out to be not as perfect as you thought they would be? Would you accept that? Or.. would you try to change that?) or "Betrayal" (If someone who is very important to you betrayed you, what would you do? Would you hurt that person back or would you rather hurt people around them to express your anger?)

Now, without getting too into Eiko’s deal, we can assume the parts “Would you accept that?” and “Would you hurt that person back” apply to Eiko, leaving “would you try to change that?” and “would you rather hurt people around them to express your anger?” to apply to Kei.

This is a BIG DEAL, because it gives us a framework for Kei’s murder: Kei admired/loved somebody who “betrayed” him by not living up to his idea of them, and he retaliated by hurting the people around that person in an attempt to change them to fit his idea of them.

As for who that somebody was… yeah, obviously it was his muse. Literally who else would it be. First of all, we had like an entire MV dedicated to Kei’s relationship with his muse, of course he’s important to Kei’s crime. No point in spending all this time establishing that Kei has a guy tied up in his basement if it’s not plot-relevant. Secondly, we SAW Kei making shoujo eyes at him in the MV, he literally calls them “the only person who knows how hard it is to be.. well, [him]” and “the only person in this world who can inspire [him]” in his profile, and he also calls them “the most precious person in [his] life” when talking about his last memory before Milgram. He clearly loves the guy, in an extremely twisted, fucked up way.

As for his actual murder victims: the hint Kei gave the guards was “five”, and there is an unexplained shot of Kei photographing five women at the start of his MV, so I’m inclined to believe the two things are connected. I don’t have any actual evidence that those were his victims, but… why have him photograph that specific number of women at the start of his MV if there’s no connection?

For murder location and method, we know it’s his house and his Undercover kill shot depicts him standing on his tied-up victim’s neck. I’m inclined to believe that actually is how he killed at least one victim, just because we know fuck-all about the actual murder part and there’s no evidence that ISN’T what happened.

Also, since Kei’s muse was (unwillingly) living with him, and Kei killed his victims at his house in retaliation/an attempt to “change” his muse… odds are he killed those people in front of his muse, right? At least, that’s what I’d expect Kei to do.

Final thought: Kei’s song lyrics are interesting? For those who don’t know them off the top of their head, his Undercover lyric is “UNDER, I gave you what you wanted, so why do you say I'm evil? There was no ‘safe word’, you signed up for this yourself”, and his T1 song preview is “Let's do it already, I can't wait any longer. One? Two? Sure, I'll go with five! Just tell me what you want, I'm okay with anything, don't be shy, I've done worse things. Let me take my rose-colored glasses on, so that I can pretend that this moment is better than it actually is.” Not sure what to make of the Undercover lyrics, but “let me take my rose-colored glasses on, so that I can pretend that this moment is better than it actually is” makes me think he might have known he was fooling himself but kept going anyways, probably because he liked the way his muse made him feel?

Prisoner 006: Eiko Yoshioka

Honestly, I think this one is fairly easy? (Very funny how so far every pair has one murder that takes me all day to figure out and then one murder that takes me like an hour to hammer out a theory on.)

So, three things to note about Eiko before we move on:

Eiko is clearly a serial dater of the worst breed: the kind that’s looking for their “perfect” partner but won’t even consider that maybe they have some work to do on themselves too.

Eiko seems to be a perfectionist in general, saying “perfect” or some variation of it like once every ten lines and saying she’d want to plan everything about her ideal date in advance to make sure it was perfect in the fourth question of her QNA.

I’d bet dollars to donuts Eiko’s family is heavily involved in some sort of organized crime. Beyond Eiko just having massive mafia/yakuza princess vibes, it’s stated in her profile she’s committed multiple non-murder crimes, her mom seems unusually chill with her daughter confessing to murder, and Eiko jumping to dismembering a dude in her living room instead of just keying his car or something makes me think she’s from an environment where violence is just an accepted tool for solving problems. More circumstantial evidence is Eiko calling her mom “the head of our family” in her QNA (weird term for a parent, but normal for the head of a criminal organization) and that one use of “us” at the start of her VD (maybe it was force of habit from representing her family in conversations?). Plus, she’s paired with Kei, and I’m pretty sure the Sanada parents are career criminals too (maybe yakuza enforcers if I had to guess specifics, considering how everyone in that family is WAY too comfortable with violence and both Kei and Eiji seem to know how to seriously harm somebody without killing them).

Anyways, with all that out of the way, here are the events of the crime as I think they went down.

Eiko met her victim over the internet and fell in love with him. She considers this her first love, as evidenced by the first question on her QNA.

Eiko got lowkey obsessed with this dude. She constructed an idealized version of him in her head, represented by the mannequin in her MV. This idealized version was partially fuelled by the way her victim presented himself online, and partially fuelled by Eiko’s desire for a “perfect” partner and willingness to project what she wanted onto him.

Something happened, and the victim stopped being online as often. This convinced Eiko to go talk to him IRL, and once she met her victim in person for the first time, she realized he wasn’t like what she imagined at all.

Eiko took this VERY poorly, and being a mafia/yakuza princess, decided the most logical response to her first heartbreak was to bring the dude over to her house and dismember him in her living room, rather than just keying his car or getting some ice cream or something.

A while later, she called her mom to tell her what went down, got into some sort of argument with her, ended the call by throwing her phone across the room, and then got kidnapped and taken to MILGRAM.

So yeah, that’s my guess as to what went down. Only other things I have to say are that if I had to guess, I’d say Eiko’s mom told her to chill on the soulmate-searching and that’s what set Eiko off, and Eiko seems to be fully intending to continue her behaviour if she gets out, which is probably bad considering it’s resulted in a murder. (Not like she would have changed her mind even if we’d voted her guilty, though.)

And that’s a wrap! Next is the hunger/greed duo, Asahi Yano and Yurika Maruyama!

these two are definitely some of the most problematic prisoners here sdhsjsksk. i think it makes them more interesting though.

now, just like with shun, i can't talk much about kei's crime without spoiling anything, but i will confirm some things and answer some questions:

kei's muse really is very important to him and he played a huge part in kei's crime. that's also the reason why kei's mv is more about his relationship with the person he kidnapped and not about his murder: kei simply cares about that guy more. kei can talk about him for hours, but he won't say anything about his crime. (here's a small hint: we already know that kei did illegal stuff even before committing his murder and he enjoyed it and was even kind of proud of it (at least that's what he says). then why does he still refuse to talk about his murder? why do we still have no information about it at all? why would someone like kei try to keep it secret? try to think about his personality: kei is okay with doing anything if it simply makes him look more cool, strong, interesting, attractive, etc.. does he think that his murder will make him look more "weak"?)

kei's muse is definitely the main reason why kei's theme is "idealization", however, kei just.. likes to romanticize everything and pretend that everything is better than it actually is. that's one of the reasons why eiko is smarter and calmer than him. sure, she's a perfectionist who killed a guy for not being good enough, but he was the only person she had such high expectations for. and let's just say that kei also has his limits and when he realizes that his world isn't as perfect and fun as he wants it to be.. he doesn't take it well. so, kei's muse actually isn't the reason why kei's other theme can also be "betrayal". it's something (or someone?) else.

also, i should mention that this guy kinda gave up at some point and got used to living with kei. maybe he even enjoyed it in some way?.. though it's not possible for this guy to enjoy anything. kei definitely had to do some things to make him more weak and easier to control, but overall, the guy actually was fine if we don't count how many times kei had to hurt him for those photos. he was more loyal to kei than akio's follower was loyal to akio.

those women will play a much bigger role in kei's t2 mv. that's all i can say for now.

OHHHH KEI'S LYRICS ACTUALLY REVEAL SO MUCH. all i can say for now is that kei's song lyrics don't refer to his muse and they're actually about his murder and his life in general. same goes for his undercover lyrics.

now, for eiko's crime: her crime is pretty easy to solve compared to kei's.

that guy was actually eiko's first boyfriend (if you can even call him that). she's never dated anyone before him and she wasn't even interested in romance that much. the guy was just a very good manipulator.

kei and eiji's parents don't participate in any organized crime (but they're still horrible people who do some very bad things for a living), but eiko's parents do! they really are members of the criminal organization (not exactly mafia/yakuza though, but still.. yeah, it's bad) and that's why eiko's mother is okay with her daughter killing someone and even helps her in some way. that's also why eiko accidentally said "us" in the beginning of her voice drama. i also should mention that eiko's mother was more powerful and dangerous than her father and eiko worries about him more than she worries about her mother.

i can't say much about eiko's argument with her mother, but her mom actually didn't say anything about eiko trying to find her soulmate. she was just being her usual self and their conversation actually sounded very calm and normal, but eiko still got angry at her.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

I know a lot of jewish people that support palestine. Talking about Israel is not anti sematism, saying that every jewish person is a zionist IS anti semitic.

The media tries to jump and say very loudly that "these people [who support palestine] hate jewish people" and that's a way of passing arouns fake news and installing fear among people. They don't want conversations about the topic to start and everyone understanding each other.

Also, the media and hollywood spent yearssssss mocking and hating jews and now everyone loves jews, how convenient.

Exactly, and like I have to be real; it was clearer to me with American media than Australian media. Like when this first hit mainstream news, I was on my Disney cruise (which yes, I recognise also has its own vested interest in this) and every single news story on it was about Hamas' victims. Not a word was said about the state of Israel's wrongdoings or interviews with the families wronged by them for the full two weeks I was there. Nor were there any stories about pro Palestinian protests. Thankfully for me I had enough knowledge on related history to understand/know something was off, but like I also get people falling for that in the early days (now not so much, especially those online because too much has come out negating that). It wasn't until I got back to Australia that I started seeing pro Palestinian stories (I want to emphasis that I did not have internet on this cruise so yes I probably would have seen it earlier in normal conditions) and that most people did not agree with governments backing Israel.

As for Hollywood/the media changing its tune, yeah it's transparent as all hell and I saw a post a few days ago how Jewish people (and Asians) are often not treated in the same racist way as Black people and instead propped up as "model citizens" who are either no longer oppressed and/or as a way to divide minorities with a "well (using small but well known sample of Jewish people here) is doing well in society, why can't you?" while also telling white people that they're doing well because they've taken over (again, trying to indicate that they are not oppressed) and yeah it's true. Like as you implied, they don't actually give a shit about Jewish people, they just want a scapegoat.

[antoine-roquentin]

“The federal budget assumes the government will recover 96 cents of every dollar borrowers default on,” Mitchell wrote. This banker, Jeff Courtney, put that figure closer to just 51 to 63 cents.

Now, for a private lender, like a bank, this projected shortfall would indeed be a ticking time bomb. The bank might be in danger of insolvency (unless, of course, it was rescued by a federal government that could give the bank an emergency cash infusion and take those bad loans off its hands). But there’s no real danger of a federal Cabinet-level department becoming insolvent. The Treasury Department is already in the habit of making up the Education Department’s budgetary shortfalls.

So what is the problem again? Typically for a news outlet like the Journal, the story describes this potential shortfall as what “taxpayers” would be “on the hook for,” but obviously, we all know that that is not how federal budgeting works. Taxes could rise for certain people for certain reasons, but no one will receive an itemized bill for this uncollected debt. And as for that large, catastrophic number ($500 billion!) that might never be paid back, it amounts to less than one year of a national defense budget that “taxpayers” are similarly “on the hook for.” (The Journal’s editorial board recently complained that the Biden administration’s proposed 2022 $715 billion Pentagon budget, while an increase in real terms, nonetheless represents an unconscionable decline in the defense budget as share of gross domestic product. “Taxpayers” are not mentioned in the editorial.)

Democrats helped sacrifice a generation of students to the deficit god, in exchange for meaningless numbers in a report.

The story, then, is that the government might not collect some debt, even if it currently pretends, for budgetary reasons, that it definitely will, and, as a result, the deficit may rise to levels higher than the current estimates predict. For a committed conservative, such as DeVos, that situation is inherently scandalous. For everyone else, that could only ever become a problem in the future, and only if that future deficit has some negative effect on the overall economy, which is not very likely considering the entire recent history of federal deficits and economic growth.

That state of affairs may explain why articles like the one in the Journal so often invoke “taxpayers,” as if everyone would have to write personal checks to cover the Department of Education’s shortfall: because without imagining taxpayers as victims of government deficits, it’s hard to point to anyone actually harmed by a government department giving unrealistic estimates of future revenues.

Except in this story, there are actual victims: the people who hold debt that the government doesn’t realistically expect to collect in full but who are bled for payment regardless. As Courtney’s report found, because of the importance of these loans to the department’s balance sheet, the government keeps borrowers on the hook for the loans even if they will never be able to repay all of the money they owe, often by placing borrowers on a repayment plan tied to their income. (As the economist Marshall Steinbaum has explained, the “income driven repayment,” or IDR, program is framed as a means of helping borrowers, but in reality, it “exerts a significant drag on their financial health, to no apparent purpose” by forcing them to “make less-than-adequate payments for many years before their debt is finally cancelled.”) The victim of such a scheme isn’t taxpayers, it’s debtors.

There’s one particular portion of The Wall Street Journal’s story that the public should treat as a moral and political scandal (the emphasis here is mine):

One instance of how accounting drove policy came in 2005 with Grad Plus, a program that removed limits on how much graduate students could borrow. It was included in a sweeping law designed to reduce the federal budget deficit, which had become a concern in both parties as the nation spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and as baby-boomer retirement was set to raise Social Security and healthcare outlays.

A key motive for letting graduate students borrow unlimited amounts was to use the projected profits from such lending to reduce federal deficits, said two congressional aides who helped draft the legislation.

Each change was publicly justified as a way to help families pay for college or to save the taxpayer money, said Robert Shireman, who helped draft some of the laws in the 1990s as an aide to Sen. Paul Simon (D., Ill.) and later was deputy under secretary of education in the Obama administration.

But how agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office “score” such changes—determine their deficit impact—“is a key factor in deciding whether a policy is adopted or not,” Mr. Shireman said. “The fact that it saved money helps enact it.”

To explain this more plainly, Democrats helped sacrifice a generation of students to the deficit god, in exchange for meaningless numbers in a report, because CBO scores are more real to senators than flesh-and-blood people.

This is the sort of depravity that deficit obsessions produce. The Iraq War needed to be “paid for” with the future earnings of students who, lawmakers imagined, would eventually be rich, even as many of the same lawmakers voted to cut taxes on already-rich people. Now the debt of the still-not-rich students can’t be forgiven because of its importance to the federal government’s predicted future earnings. And politicians and commentators in thrall to deficit politics still paint the situation as a morality tale, in which the borrowers are irresponsible for having the debt and the government would be irresponsible to forgive it. After all, think of the poor taxpayers.

The early days of the Biden administration led some to believe we were finally free of this incoherent political mode, where dubious predictions in CBO reports dictate the limits of the politically possible and determine who will be arbitrarily punished for the sake of limiting the size of a program in a speculative 10-year budget projection. The proof that Democrats had learned their lesson was one major piece of legislation, the American Rescue Plan, designed to respond to a unique emergency.

More recently, the administration, and some of its allies in Congress, have signaled strongly that they’re returning to the old ways. The American Prospect’s David Dayen has reported that the White House is determined to “pay for” its infrastructure plans, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is apparently leading the charge to ensure the infrastructure spending is “offset.” This will have the likely effect of limiting the scope of the plan, once again sacrificing material benefits for the sake of estimates and predictions from the CBO.

The Biden administration seems to be determined to go about this without violating its pledge not to raise taxes on any American making less than $400,000 (a threshold meant to define the upper limit of “middle class” despite being comically higher than the Obama administration’s similar $250,000 limit for tax hikes). It has floated increasing IRS enforcement and raising the capital gains tax for the wealthiest Americans. Both are fine ideas. But the best thing about taxing the rich is not that you can use their money for infrastructure, it’s that doing so reduces their political and economic power. That’s also the reason why it’s so difficult for Washington to do it.

The complete incoherence of the current Democratic position on spending and deficits is summed up well in another Wall Street Journal story, where Montana Senator Jon Tester was quoted saying, “I don’t want to raise any taxes, but I don’t want to put stuff on the debt, either.… If we’re going to build infrastructure, we have to pay for it somehow. I’m open to all ideas.”

“Open” to “all ideas” but unwilling to tax the rich, and unwilling to allow a CBO report to show a larger deficit as a result of needed spending: This is more or less precisely the dynamic that led student loan debt to explode in the United States, and it’s the zombie worldview that threatens any chance of this government averting a multitude of political, economic, and ecological disasters.

[ducktracy]

In some of your reviews, you talk about how it was Tex Avery who made comedic villains in cartoons such a trend. Can you go into more detail about that? I find it fascinating, especially since I was sure other early toons had funny villains as well. It would be interesting to see how the evil characters in his cartoons compare to the ones other directors had.

OF COURSE!!! i'll preface this by saying my answers'll be pretty Warner Bros. specific because i still have a LOT of research to do on other studios, ESPECIALLY so early on at this time, so this'll be from a WB-centric point of view. this’ll also be long because i LOOOOOVE to talk about and explain this stuff

there were absolutely comedic touches to villains in early cartoons, primarily revolving around the way their plans were foiled. aside from the occasional snarky jab or quote, they quite often posed a very real threat whereas Tex sort of honed in the idea of an incompetent villain--some more threatening than others.

villains were a VERY prevalent plot piece in the earliest WB shorts, villains and KIDNAPPING. practically every other short had a villain kidnapping the damsel in distress and the Mickey Mouse talking young ruffian swoops in to save the day.

usually the manner in which the villain was exposed would be the funniest part (like this from Big Man from the North in 1931, which was the first WB cartoon to prominently feature a villain).

otherwise they'd usually just bare their teeth and laugh at whichever small fry they were taking on. this isn't a kidnapping picture here, but rather Bosko and the titular Big Man get in a gun fight and Bosko shoots the fur off of the villain, who's reduced to a disgusting, naked mess and runs for the hills. a happy ending! while the resolution is comic, the villain did pose a serious threat and was relatively menacing

again. HEAVY emphasis on the kidnapping aspect and lots of mustachio'd villains too. some villains were animals (bears, lions, etc) but a very prominent plot point was "villain wants girl, girl refuses, villain kidnaps girl, spunky young boy saves the day, villain gets foiled in a rather comical way" (though the last cartoon has the girl leaving her boyfriend FOR the villain because his head--he's a vinegar bottle--is replaced with a sexy head from a perfume bottle and she falls in love)

Tex also had his share of nefarious villains (like his debut with Gold Diggers of '49), but i'd say the first inkling of a comic villain was with The Blow Out, which is one of my absolute favorites from the era.

Porky doesn’t have enough money to buy an ice cream soda, but quickly discovers that doing favors for people = $$$. he returns lost wallets and lost canes and little things like that, until he unintentionally stumbles upon a mad bomber (voiced by the evil queen from Snow White!) and keeps trying to return the bomb to the bomber (not knowing it IS a bomb)

the bomber poses a threat, but MUCH of the cartoon is spent with the bomber running AWAY from Porky and yelling at him. before, villains were hardly ever scared of their opponents and only showed weakness at the last minute. here, the villain is now the victim, trying to shove this pesky kid away before he gets blown to smithereens.

the cartoon actually ENDS with the bomber willfully giving himself up the police (by that i mean running as fast as he can from Porky and jumping into the police van), and the bomb goes off in the van as Porky coyly poses for his money reward after putting the bomb in the van in the first place

it’s a FANTASTIC cartoon and one i can’t love enough. the villain still poses a very real threat, but the short revolves more around Porky inconspicuously trying to kill the villain rather than surrounding the bad deeds of the villain.

Milk and Money is another great Tex cartoon that follows a similar motif; the villain is there to collect Porky’s father’s mortgage which he can’t afford, and the villain (known as Mr. Viper--THE SNAKE!) gives him until 3pm tomorrow to pay or else he takes the farm. 

he’s dressed as a stereotypical mustache twirling villain which, as we saw, WAS a very real and persistent trope, but his authority is repeatedly diminished through fourth wall breaks. he whips towards the audience to tell them “he’ll never make it!” before slithering away onto his carriage like a literal snake. there’s certainly a very strong air of playful mischief surrounding his personality rather than a real threat.

things happen, Porky gets the money for Viper, Viper begrudgingly accepts it (he tells the audience “I’M SUNK!” after he initially sees Porky with a hefty wad of cash) and then, to add insult to injury, a horsefly from earlier in the film zings Viper right in the ass and he’s thrown right out of the film. 

ALMOST DONE I’D SWEAR. the first TRULY comic villain who poses no threat at all and is a total hack is from Tex’s Little Red Walking Hood--specifically, the wolf.

IMMEDIATELY, the wolf is introduced by cheating at a game of pinball in the pool hall--and STILL losing. his incompetency is established right from the start and is a very persistent theme throughout the entire cartoon.

he spots the titular Little Red (who is a flamboyant impression of Katherine Hepburn), and as soon as he makes advances towards her she calls him out for sexual harassment and leaves him. when he still tips her hat towards her the traffic light bonks him right on the head, which, again, makes him look like the utter loser he is.

same thing happens after a brief but befuddling encounter with Elmer Fudd (who, at this point, is just a pinhead walking across the street whistling and doesn’t say a word)... and again after picking up Red and failing once more.

even his attempts to get granny are foiled--granny stops their chase midway to take a phone call from the grocer, which causes the wolf (brilliantly voiced by Tedd Pierce) to yell “AWWWWWWW, C’MON, GRANDMAAA!”

and, because he can’t even do his job right and kidnap or eat the grandma, he BEGS her instead to “give him the stuff” and put on the granny costume--which she obliges. he’s an absolute total loser and is VERY charismatic and funny as a result.

after Red surveys his costume and talks about how silly their altercation is and after the wolf accosts a latecomer to the theater, it’s ELMER who foils the wolf after the wolf asks “now who da HECK are you anyway?” “huhuhuhh, i’m the hero in this picture! hhuhuhuhuh!”

Tex has had comedic villains as we’ve seen, but none of them had ever been established losers or failures from the start like the wolf, and it paid off MIRACULOUSLY. all of these Tex shorts are very very funny, and he really did pave the way for fresher takes broken stereotypes. while villains COULD be funny beforehand (the villain in You’re Too Careless With Your Kisses! tells the audience “i’m not crazy... MUCH!”) their credibility was never as fervently nor effectively crushed as it was with Tex Avery.

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.

[the-music-maniac]

Okay so, this post here https://multsicorn.tumblr.com/post/649671498154557440/i-believe-were-supposed-to-think-that-evil is actually what made me think deeper about this scene, and also what made me get off my butt to write about this, so go check it out! But I wanted to voice why a couple sentences in the english subs for Episode 21 of Word of Honor irked me slightly in the scene with Du Pusa and Liu Qianqiao, this one onwards:

Now keep in mind, my mandarin is serviceable for casual conversations, but I struggle more with formal language, so feel free to correct me if I’ve gotten translations/the feel of the scene wrong. I’m gonna go through the subs that I’m annoyed with and then explain why I think they’re inaccurate and important to the scenes at the end.

But basically, some of the translations for the Youku english subs lightened Du Pusa’s language when she was talking about the dude that betrayed Qianqiao (still don’t remember his name, so I’m gonna call him cheater dude). And the thing is, I really can’t think of a reason why they wouldn’t translate it entirely? Like is there a reason?

For example, this?

The subs say “this lady’s lover” and I can sort of understand why it’s translated like that, she says “她这个“ which is “her” implying ownership (”her lover” as an example). So ”this lady’s” is correct. But that’s not all?? She says in the second half “狗男人“ which translates literally to “dog of a man”. It’s an insult, and without it, the feel of the sentence is completely different.

The english subs also don’t exactly translate this. She didn’t say “she fell for” in this sentence, instead Du Pusa exact words are, “she was tricked into hand”.

Here too, she didn’t call Qianqiao pitiful (I think, there might be cultural nuance I’m missing so let me know if this one is wrong) and the exact translation is “only a pity that she was blind”.

Finally this one, I’m pretty sure “废物“ is harsher of an insult than loser. It literally translates to “useless person” or “a waste of space”. Now I don’t know which officially ranks higher between “loser” vs “废物“ in the level of burn across languages and cultural contexts, but in my mind, 废物 is harsher.

Okay, now with the scenes and translations explained:

So. The reason why I brought all of these instances up is because I think the wording Du Pusa used to explain the story is pretty important, not for plot reasons but just because it changes the feel of the interaction. The post I linked at the very beginning pointed out that Du Pusa is meant to be a character that basically taunts the women she fights with, with her superiority in beauty, etc., but while she does that, at the same time her character doesn’t have that feel of misogyny that I think is so prominent in media when writing women characters who dislike each other.

Granted, Du Pusa also insults Qianqiao, and that didn’t show up in translation either, she calls her “小娘皮“ in place of “lady” which is not exactly a flattering thing to say. But I think the important thing is that throughout the entire telling of the story, Du Pusa recognizes that in this situation, the person that messed up, and is mostly at fault is cheater dude, and she places the blame rightfully on his shoulders despite how she dislikes Qianqiao.

Particularly in the sentences “she was tricked into hand” and “only a pity that she was blind”, instead of “she fell for” and “only pitiful”. “She fell for” puts more responsibility onto Qianqiao’s shoulders, because she’s the one who fell in love with cheater dude and his sweet talk - that’s her business. But “she was tricked into hand” places more of the emphasis on cheater dude, on the fact that he sweet talked her into believing him, that she in fact was tricked, and not because she just simply fell for him.

(Now I’m not here to discuss whether cheater dude’s feelings for Qianqiao are genuine or not, or whether he purposely tricked her - I do think that he does care about her but that’s also not enough to absolve him of the shitty things he did. So I’m not very willing to be lenient with him here)

“Only a pity that she was blind” also places less of the blame on Qianqiao then the phrase “only pitiful” because pitiful as a word implies that Beauty Ghost herself is pitiful. That she’s a pitiful person who’s too dumb to notice that she was being tricked. “Only a pity” however leaves room for her to be a victim of circumstance, and implies that the situation was “only a pity”, not her as a person.

Finally the two harsher insults, I think are important because for once, a character like Du Pusa doesn’t leave the man relatively unscathed in her process of taunting another woman, and also doesn’t hold misogynistic victim-blaming views about situations like this. She’s fully acknowledging here, even as someone who doesn’t give a shit about Qianqiao, that cheater dude is kind of a piece of shit. You see that fully in these three scenes as well:

First the rolling her eyes at cheater dude’s explanations. I think that one is pretty self-explanatory, it gives me strong “oh god don’t make me laugh” and “cut the bullshit and shut up already” vibes, which I high key love.

Second, this one where she pushes him back, feels like she’s sick of hearing cheater dude’s excuses and his attempts to sweet talk Qianqiao again, and so she decided to interject. Also has a little bit of, “okay, get away from her, I’m sick of you” vibes.

Finally, Du Pusa has an incredulous look on her face, and then gives a huff of disbelief when Qianqiao sorta defends cheater dude, saying she’s the one who had bad intentions. This one gives me a sort of “really? You’re defending him?” vibes, especially since it follows her asking if Qianqiao’s brain is broken for actually trusting him a second time after what he did.

Anyways, this turned out to be a long analysis, but I just wanted to translate/talk about my thoughts on some of the subs, and my low key appreciation for this scene. It sort of feels like Du Pusa almost backhandedly defended Beauty Ghost - although I admit that might be going too far/giving too much credit since Du Pusa isn’t exactly going easy on her either, and she might just be listing things as she sees it. Still though, what I’ve always appreciated so much about Word of Honor is that it creates so many female characters that are compelling to watch and well-rounded; who feel realistic, who are their own people and have their own stories to tell, who aren’t killed off as soon as it’s convenient or just to reinforce the heterosexuality of the male leads, who are vital to the plot, and most importantly, act in a way real women might act, and aren’t all internally misogynistic and apologetic towards guys who act shitty.

It’s really refreshing to see a “bad” character in this show, who’s mannerisms suggest she’s a character that’s a woman who taunts women, do so without piling on deep-seated misogynistic accusations or halfway pandering to the man in order to create some misplaced “jealousy”, and instead manage to taunt people/hit people where it hurts and yet still...almost purposely calls the man out on the shitty stuff he did?

Anyways, overall I think this scene was a pretty cool dynamic to think about, and I appreciate it a lot (although I appreciate the subs a bit less, for obvious reasons).

[pretzeldate]

things in the twc code that make me go hmm for book 3

after two demo releases, i’ve had some time to think about twc and i think im gonna put my theories/speculation about what’s to come both in book 3 and in future installments down below. spoilers/speculation obviously under the cut, PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU AREN’T COMFORTABLE WITH READING ABOUT WHAT’S IN THE CODE.

1. the bobby suspicion stat

bobby has this hidden stat for how you handle certain interactions with them. by failing their stat checks (your first and last interaction with them in book 2), you get a +1 added to their suspicion score. 

pure speculation here but i think we may be building up to bobby becoming a serious issue in keeping the supernatural secret, contingent on how well and consistent our tactics are with them. there’s a bit of emphasis being placed in the story about how the agency deals with people who are threats and/or aren’t willing to keep quiet. and something interesting is that rebecca has been taking note of how confidently you’ve been dealing with bobby.

(sera also said here that rebecca is very aware of the bobby bug situation, even if ub are not.)

bobby is also a character that will always selfishly put themselves above others for the sake of getting ahead. even if bobby doesn’t fully find out about the supernatural, i could see bobby maybe unknowingly (or being misled into) putting mc into a precarious situation with antagonists. 

there is also a stat dedicated to tracking if your relationship with bobby has improved or declined since their introduction, much like rebecca. i wonder if people who are on better terms with them can use that to their advantage in the future? skew their reporting to your benefit? or, alternatively, giving them too much of the benefit of the doubt can really screw the detective over.

2. bobby having a “first” introduction

this is more of a fun one, but it tracks how exactly you introduced bobby to ub (ex, random reporter, etc.). it’s labelled as first introduction. meaning that if you had your detective skirt around some details, bobby will have a field day filling in ub with the extra details. and it will be gloriously awkward.

bonus just for fun: nat/nate can technically already catch on if you slip up during your conversation later.

3. the rogues and trappers in relation to the kidnappings

so the demo that’s been released sets up the premise that the trappers have set a bounty on our heads, and that the main antagonist of this book will be that group. however, what’s interesting is that deciding how you want to organize the blood-drive can either reinforce the rogue’s strength or the agency you work for. going with a flashier drive empowers the agency, but sets you up to fail in a rescue mission (perhaps addie from demo 2? another victim?). having a more low-key, organized event helps you in your rescue mission but strengthens the rogues.

things to think about: are the trappers and rogues working together? the bounty is actually from the rogues? the rogues wanting to move in on the detective while they’re distracted with solving the kidnappings?

at the moment, i’m thinking the rogues will actually prove to be a much bigger adversary than the trappers. there’s been a lot of speculation that the detective will be kidnapped at some point (like at the dinner with tina/verda), but i think the blood drive will actually be where the real drama happens. and i think the rogues are staying low so that they can swoop in while ub/the agency are placing their resources and energy elsewhere.

4. “sin +1″ at the crime scene

no matter who you take with you at the crime scene in the second demo of book 3, there’s always something a little different that you can find for your evidence. asking why the parents were unconscious, checking the backpack for the stimulant, looking around back, or looking at the destroyed furniture for blood nets you “sin +1″.

i’m not totally sure what this means in the greater scheme of the book, but i think the wording does provide extra support for the theory of us meeting angels this time around. sera has said her angels won’t have a religious connotation to them, but i think sin could be in reference to grievances that they think the victim committed.

anyways, this is me inviting discussion if any of y’all have theories/thoughts.

[pepperonitimeline]

There is an interesting emphasis on timelines in Steven Universe

but like. Why?

Hypothesis: Steven Universe is made up of multiple timelines, but shown in an order that makes the events seem linear. read part 2 here!

I'm not the first person to speculate this at all. A lot of this stuff has been pointed out by @dogcopter​ @arrozbrillante​ @stevenutheories and many others on various platforms!

I just gathered the most conspicuous "evidence" into 1 post. If you’re interested in SU theory and analysis you should check out their blogs. :o) This was as short as I could make it..

And a big thank you to @love-takes-work for her podcast summaries!!! 

So, most ostensibly there’s Garnet, who can see multiple futures. In Pool Hopping she begins to call her visions timelines specifically.

Garnet: In this timeline, we do the opposite of that. Hey, you! Have a pizza!

Steven: Hey, Vidalia's house is around here. Let's bring her the last pie.

Garnet: Now, that would be nice. She must be upset that her son was taken into space by those Homeworld Gems. (referring to the events of I Am My Mom)

Steven: You mean Onion? He isn't in space. He's right over there. *points*

Garnet: Sorry, I-I must be thinking of a different timeline.

-

Garnet: My bad. I was sure we were in the pepperoni timeline.

-

Garnet: It's important to keep in mind that all these horrible things did happen to you in alternate timelines. Safety is fun.

In Steven and The Stevens:

Yeah

It was confirmed on the podcast that the Steven we see from that episode on is a different Steven than the one from episodes 1-21. In “The Fantasy of Steven Universe” Sugar explains:

"I think, early on, we knew for sure what we wanted to do was to create episodes that feel self-contained but give you a new piece of information or change the characters fundamentally. So, Steven and the Stevens, is tight but Steven does change fundamentally after having that experience. He's not the same- in THAT case he's LITERALLY not the same character..."

It’s muffled because they're all laughing but right after they say this Matt Burnett goes “He died.” 

Link to the episode

Love-takes-work also has a text summary of the episode

But something I haven't seen discussed very much is the time travel chase scene. Granted it’s very blink-and-you’ll miss it, there are some Stevens who witness the other Steven’s fighting but that don’t end up in the Sea Shrine at the end.

Way back in 2015 @stevenutheories already did the math as to how many alternate timelines may have stemmed from the time shenanigans: 3 to 5. Not counting the original one who is definitively gone. 

Technically quantum mechanics don’t work like that and those Stevens should have been Thanos’d too. I’m not going to pretend I understand physics, that is just what I’ve been told by someone who does. But then again the magic time thingy wasn’t bound by rules of real-life physics in the first place… so ??

Let’s cross-examine SATS’ accompanying KBCW post.

“At any given moment, if you asked me what I was thinking about, the answer would be one of two things: katana swords, or THE POSSIBILITY OF ALTERNATE TIMELINES RUNNING PARALLEL TO OUR OWN!

Proving the existence of these timelines can be pretty tricky, even for a seasoned paranormal investigator such as myself.  An inter-temporal incursion caused by the momentary weakening of the time-space continuum doesn’t really photograph well.  And all the cross dimensional time travelers I know don’t want to go on the record about their experiences.  Frankly, the only thing I can submit as evidence of alternate timelines is the fact that THEY ARE PROBABLY JUST SO COOL AND AWESOME THAT THEY HAVE TO BE REAL.

Think about it!  What about a universe where that asteroid missed Earth and we had DINOSAURS for pets instead of dogs?  Or a universe where someone was like “Hey, zeppelins are way cooler than planes, let’s just do that!”  Or a universe where AN ALTERNATE VERSION OF ME CAN GROW A FULL BEARD?!  What an amazing life that Ronaldo must have… in THIS stupid reality I have a really hard time getting my moustache to connect to the rest of my facial hair and it’s incredibly frustrating.”

KBCW and Ronaldo’s commentary in general are usually half-right. Like the “Polymorphic Sentient Rocks are aliens who want to hollow out the earth… to make it lighter so they can transport it back to their star system” thing.

I can't help but think the "Dinosaurs for pets instead of dogs" is a reference to the live action Super Mario Bros. movie- where the meteor that killed the dinosaurs sent them to a parallel universe instead, causing mammals to go instinct in said universe. (Don’t know about the zeppelins.)

And then, and THEN there’s Keep Beach City Safe, KBCW’s more obscure rival blog run by (most likely) Onion under the pseudonym "The Observer". Apparently he’s planted cameras all over town to record Steven’s adventures. There's also a "Recruiter" and second mystery narrator calling themselves "Marco Díez", it's a whole thing,

Assuming it’s real, here’s one of the posts I think are the most relevant.

“I have been on zero gem hunts over the years, and what i have learned over the years is: always be prepared for anything, and everything. Connie’s already knows that and this her first mission. I, wasn’t so fortunate on my first mission. It was a crisp Autumn morning, - with notes of cinnamon in the air. I was the mountains, the air temperature, humidity and level elevation levels, were perfect.

Then, I noticed the creature, it was charging me. I tried to evade the gem monster, but it just kept on coming, and coming! There was no escape! And then- Wait! I just remembered. I never been on a gem hunt! So where did I get that story from?”

This was posted on August 1st alongside Gem Hunt… and the day after the Greg The Babysitter post, which was deleted earlier this year, right after people started interacting with it again.

Being a Babysitter is hard, especially if your Greg Universe. This guy, in the picture above me. Wait did I just become self aware? Hey, I did! Haha, I always knew I was more to me than just a narrator. Actually this is the first time I thought about, Because I'm self aware baby! Woohoo, yeah! Wait, what was I talking about? Ah yes, Gregory. So this Greg guy,Has to Babysit this cool baby, because he owes her for letting him mooch off her. And Greg, is like totally irresponsible, he some how lets the baby climb a Ferris Wheel. How does that even happen? This dude is so not getting payed. And what's up with his hair!?!

So here it is, another story, told by Greg, about his past self. I wonder how many times I started a paragraph with the word so. And when he was telling this story, we got some clues that could finally tell use when all of this started. We know about the gems and what happened  thousands of years ago, but we don't know about the hems and  what happened thousands of years ago. They wee being very vague about the whole thing. Almost intentionally, well it was obsessively intentional.

?

There are subtle inconsistencies in Beach City's layout. ("The Observer" points this out, too.)

Remember Danny’s? In Bubble Buddies and Joking Victim, there’s a shop named Danny’s Salt Water Taffy.

Then in Watermelon Steven it’s gone.

As for a prop: Chaaaaps used to just be Chips

That’s from Monster Buddies, the episode right after Steven and The Stevens.

It's just as likely someone on the show simply thought the background/chips looked a little too busy or whatever. But re-doing stuff costs a lot of time and money, yknow? Neither of which is the animation industry very generous about. Did you know even props have model sheets?

Of course it could just be another brand of chips. Maybe Utz got involved somehow.

Lastly I want to highlight a quote from a Rebecca Sugar interview regarding SU ending.

“The story is continuing off screen and I do know what happens next, at least in certain timelines, for the characters,” Sugar says. “But I would have to decide how and when I’d want to dig into that, or if it’s best to give them their privacy.”

yeah so like what the fuck

[tanadrin]

What are your thoughts on people who just want to be left alone, and not just solitarily - they want to leave modern society and go live in the woods.

They should be permitted to. Modern liberal democracies are mostly OK with making deals with secessionist subcultures: enclaves of Mennonites, the Amish, ultra-orthodox Jews, and so forth are permitted form and mostly self-govern, and are occasionally even granted opt-outs from various forms of government interference, like certain taxes or insurance requirements, on the basis that they make much less use of government services. It's harder to carve out such exceptions for individuals, but we do have things like the concept of the conscientious objector that accommodate deviations from the usually expected set of rights and obligations for people with a commitment to alternate sets of values.

But these things exist on a spectrum; opting in or out of society isn't a binary choice. Also, except in the libertarian fantasy land, it's very hard even in North America these days to find trackless wilderness where you can live totally unconnected to the rest of humanity--and most of it is in Alaska and northern Canada, so bring a nice thick coat. Where I think this consideration, the concept of "atomic communitarianism" to borrow a phrase, is most interesting is in its more complicated real-world instantiations.

Anabaptist religious communities in the US, for instance, aren't really autarkic villages; they're socially segregated, but economically connected with the surrounding area. Ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, while endogamous, have historically always existed within larger urban communities, and could not function without them; many seem happy to rely on social support from the government, which given the emphasis they place on a particular kind of pious lifestyle makes sense.

Where indulging atomicity in society encounters tension, I think one of three things are at play. First, the atomic community is in conflict with the wider community over material interests. The fight over the distribution of public school funding in Ramapo, New York is a great example of this. I don't think these kinds of conflicts ever have easy solutions, especially when the atomic community in question doesn't or can't form a distinct separate unit of local self-government.

Second, an organization wants conditional status as an atomic community. Anabaptists generally refrain from participating in secular government as a fundamental tenet of their religion; contrast the Catholic church, which now that religiosity is declining in many of its former strongholds, often presents itself as merely wanting to govern its own affairs free from governmental interference; but as soon as they are in a position to influence policy and make political noise, they do so, and they have no doctrinal objection to being made the sole official church of a secular state. In other words, Catholics are not naturally an atomic community, and so shouldn't be treated as one. They shouldn't get special consideration in a pluralist society, and Catholic institutions should be subject to normal rule of law. The Catholic church hates this, and it's this loathing of being constrained by the same rules everyone else is, rather than a real ideological motive, that causes them to cover up child abuse and play the victim when their mass graves get dug up in Canada and Ireland.

Thirdly, an atomic community may be genuine in its aspiration to atomicity, and it may be tolerated implicitly or officially by the collective authorities; but there are obligations that the collective authorities have to individual members it is pledged to protect that supersede any deal made with the community as a whole. The most visible example of this in the present day is child abuse by religious authorities. Whether it's the FLDS, ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, or, yes, the Catholics, one of the few things our society absolutely refuses to condone in an atomic community or an aspiring one is the sexual abuse of children, and the obligation of the collective authorities to prevent that is considered so far-reaching that no exceptions for any self-governing community can be permitted. Sometimes these communities can stave off interference temporarily by capturing local authority in elections and flying under the radar of more remote authorities, but this seems to only work in rural areas and only for a limited amount of time. The only imperative to exercise state authority over atomic communities that I can think of that comes even close to this one regards, like, tax evasion, because states also have a strong incentive to make sure people know that independent parallel authorities aren't permitted to compete with the state, and tax collection is one of the very basic functions of government.

Now, all of the above examples are religious communities. That's not entirely a coincidence: religion is a powerful community-building force, and rising standards of living in the developed world have reduced the relevance of purely political or economic utopian projects. In countries like the US, where there is a strong tradition of religious freedom, federalism, and soft libertarianism, society can easily accommodate a large number of atomic communities, even highly insular religious ones. That is strong to America's credit; in almost every case, if people want to go off and do their own thing, they should be permitted to. Even fucked-up cults like the FLDS folks should get a strong benefit of the doubt, because pluralism is important, and state power is a crude bludgeon, and when that bludgeon goes awry you get shit like the Waco massacre. We can quibble on where exactly the line for outside interference should be drawn, but regardless of the criteria we use, sexual abuse of children seems like a reasonable criterion for interference.

Should lone individuals or tiny groups get carte blanche to fuck off into the woods and never contact human society again? Sure; but they effectively already have that, if they can find an empty patch of woods. And simply in terms of sheer numbers, the quantity of hermits and members of eremitical microcommunities will always be dwarfed by larger, more persistent atomic communities like those organized on religious lines. Religion is just a much stronger motivating factor for that kind of secessionism.

If a self-organized community of individualists did form in the wilderness, or on some vast expanse of privately owned land, and wanted to govern themselves free from interference--well, that's called "incorporating a municipality" and you can go through existing legal channels. Your new town won't be free of state or federal authority, depending on where it is; but if you're large enough to need a bona fide local government, I think there's a strong presumption that your community has a big enough impact on the surrounding areas and is populous enough that the collective authority takes a legitimate interest in how your community is run. But local governments are really important, and get a lot of shit done! Don't underrate their power.

If you really want more autonomy, you can always petition your state or national government for status as a separate state/territory/province/autonomous community/department (it worked for the Mormons!). You'd probably have to be fairly big; but I think your community would have to be very large in the first place to really get any benefit from that kind of larger local government. And, of course, there's always the Free State Project. In fact, I want to strongly encourage right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of every stripe, no matter where in the world they live, to move to New Hampshire and leave the rest of us alone. I think that's a really terrific idea (and more viable than seasteading).

One thing I didn't discuss is uncontacted peoples or native communities that preexist the communitarian authority. Especially with regard to the former, I don't trust state power to interfere in these communities in a non-destructive way; whatever the conditions the North Sentinelese are living in, the entire population being wiped out by measles carried over from the mainland would not be an improvement. And the excuse of legitimate state interest in protecting individuals has often been used to fuck with communities of racial undesirables--it is after all the reason the residential schools in Canada were built, and the Catholic church empowered to imprison children in them. This is part of the reason why even if you can prove an atomic community is a fucked up cult that treats its members horribly, I don't think it should be forcibly disbanded--the criteria for interference have to be extreme, because they have been so flagrantly abused in the past. Basically, the framework I'm using in the rest of this post doesn't apply here, because these native communities aren't secessionist for any meaningful use of the term. They function differently, they preexisted the authorities imposed on them, and that original imposition was a war of conquest.

[vostokovasmelina]

— 𝐀𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝟑𝐂. (𝐬.𝐰.)

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐢  |  𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐢 | 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

characters: fem!reader; sam wilson; archibald the tabby cat; sarah wilson

word count: 3.1k+

warning: mentions and descriptions of alcohol, death, grief, trauma, therapy, depression – i call this post-snap realism

series summary: after the blip, sam wilson gets home to an unpleasant surprise - his key doesn’t fit the lock anymore and his apartment is now inhabited by a stranger and a grumpy feline. however, the unusual encounter is only the beginning of their post-blip lives and the reader soon learns that what life takes away, it can give back in the most particular ways.

a/n: the ending is a dark unedited mess, so proceed with caution

Taking a cautious sip of your hot beverage, you watched this absolute gatecrasher of a man trying to make up his mind about whatever he was so confused about – Sam kept looking all around your apartment as if searching for something he had left there, his slightly lost and disoriented expression sending a sudden wave of guilt rushing over you. Now that you thought about it, it really must have sucked absolute cheese for him to come home hoping he could finally have that huge cup of strong black coffee he had been anticipating ever since having defeated that enormous purple bastard from Outer Space, only to find that his coffee machine was long gone and now this random lady with a philodendron problem and a judgmental cat were inhabiting the place with absolutely no room left for him whatsoever. It did sound tragic when you put it that way.

However, it really wasn’t your fault that you had needed to find a brand new residence approximately five years before. He really should have checked in with someone to make sure he still had somewhere to go home to. You were quite clearly the real victim here. And Lord only knew how poor Archie was going to process all the excitement of the day.

For a few seconds, you contemplated whether or not to put your thoughts into words, and eventually decided against it for the time being. The man had just helped save the world a few days before, after all, and out of what? Good conscience? Personally not for you, but you could appreciate it in others. And it would have been a real shame to die right when your fan-favourite succulents and killer new posting schedule had been attracting more Instagram followers than ever before. Thanks to the savior complex flaming inside of the gentleman standing before you though, the regular civilian had luckily escaped such terrible hardships. And special thanks to approximately a thousand and one other superheroes. Oh, and to an African country filled with similarly public-spirited people.

For a few awkwardly long seconds neither of you said a word. Sam kept looking around and you watched him look around, slowly lowering your mug onto the table and tilting your head slightly to the left. Weird how Sarah had never mentioned the brother believed to be dead for the last five years was this handsome. It is unfair, really. Some people are just naturally gorgeous no matter the shitty kitchen lighting, that tiny confused frown that had been sitting on their face for the last half hour, or those shiny black bugs for eyes tearing up ever so slightly to snitch on a long repressed yawn.

“Now that the drama is over and the Avengers as such are non-existent – have you considered a career in modeling yet?”

Sam snapped his head towards you with such force and speed that for a moment you were afraid you’d have to spend the rest of the afternoon sewing it back on his neck. You grabbed your mug still pretty much filled to the brim with tea and raised it back up to your mouth to hide your lingering half-smile behind a faded portrait of baby Archie on the ivory porcelain.

“Just saying, I would buy anything for this face on the package alone,” you continued with the confidence of a woman who hasn’t got a single drop of shame left in her body. But it was fine ‘cos you didn’t actually mean it, right? It was all just a joke, an attempt at lightening the mood and snapping him out of his puzzled melancholy. And that tiny flutter of your heart upon hearing Sam’s perfect little chuckle was but a momentary malfunction of the organ. The incident was purely physiological. No contribution from any emotional factors. It was simply an innocent coincidence that these two, completely unrelated things had co-occured.

So when your gazes met, you didn’t tear yours away in embarrassment – you stood your ground, completely unaffected and unbothered, ignoring the increasingly hot sensation in your cheeks when you saw Sam raise a cheeky eyebrow at you. Before even more damage could have been done, however, you decided to cut the party short.

“Oh, no. Don’t get your hopes up, Birdman. I simply couldn’t keep watching you in your deeply disturbed state.”

Very, very smooth. Cleared of all suspicion. Good job.

“Wow. Okay. That was cruel,” Sam scoffed and gave emphasis to his words by bringing up his right palm dramatically to his chest, right above his now most definitely broken heart. The overall effect got ruined by an annoyingly goofy grin in the end and before you even realised, you had already reached out for your massive mug again to drown your own erupting smile in the hot liquid.

In the silence that followed, however, you saw Sam’s smile fall ever so slightly, as if exhaustion or worry were holding onto the corners of his lips, physically tugging them down, and you shifted slightly uncomfortably in your seat. It was time you had stopped messing around with the poor guy.

“Look, I know this is weird but I’m sure we can find a solution. Just call Sarah so she can stop worrying now,” you suggested, finishing your tea and pushing the now empty mug to the middle of the table before leaning back in your seat.

“Ugh, yeah,” Sam started slowly, squatting down to get his mobile and the charger out of his massive sports bag. “Can I plug this in somewhere?”

You blinked at him a couple of times while he waited patiently for your answer. You could only imagine the number of missed calls and unread texts waiting for Sam on his phone, but you decided you didn’t know him enough to give him a lecture on behalf of his sister. So you just gave him a tired nod and gestured lazily towards your battered kitchen counter, Sam following your direction with his gaze.

“Above the microwave. Oh, and the socket farthest to the left–”

“–doesn’t work. I remember.” Sam flashed another exhausted but friendly smirk at you above his shoulder, and you allowed yourself to return the gesture to his back once he wasn’t watching.

“Right, sorry. Forgot I was the intruder here,” you joked, delighted to earn another one of those irritatingly lively chuckles of this man’s.

You seriously needed to get your shit together.

“Okay, while your phone is doing its thing, let’s call Sarah from mine, I guess” you continued, jumping up from your chair the moment Sam returned to the table and you headed towards your worn little couch where you scratched Archie gently behind his right ear. “Where have you put my phone, you dirty old man?” You cooed, smiling softly while sliding your hands under the cheap cushions and booping your irritated cat’s tiny nose when your fingers finally touched the cold metal you had been looking for.

Once seated again, you caught Sam staring at Archie, his eyes slightly narrowed in what appeared to be deep concentration. You furrowed your eyebrows and tilted your head, waiting for your uninvited guest to notice you.

“I don’t think your cat likes me too much,” he finally said, slowly tearing his gaze away from the pet feline’s and looking into your slightly more welcoming human eyes instead.

You chuckled dryly, turning around to see Archie in all his glory on the couch. He simply gave you an unbothered look before completely losing interest in the two of you, and he hopped of the couch, slowly making his way towards your bedroom where you knew he would bundle up under your bed on the cosy carpet. He had apparently decided it was time for his beauty sleep.

“Yeah, he’s like that with everyone. Nothing personal,” you assured Sam, who offered a tired half-smile in return. You cleared your throat gently, eyes fixed on your phone’s screen and fingers already searching for Sarah’s number. Once you had found it, you handed it to Sam whose only job left was to press the call button. You raised your eyebrows at him expectantly and he let out a sigh while reaching out for your mobile.

* * *

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to talk to Sarah. Quite the opposite, actually. But he was embarrassed. Sam knew full well how furious his sister was going to be. And honestly, rightfully so. He couldn’t argue with that. After all, she did say there had been something she wanted to talk to him about. And Sam did hang up on her without a passable excuse. And he did let his phone die on his way back home to Louisiana.

Yeah, he most probably wasn't going to be nominated for this year's Brother of the Year award.

Their last call had happened two days before. Two days is a long time without any news from a brother who had just returned after having been believed to be dead for the past five years. And if you had been to ask him, Sam wouldn’t have been able to tell you what had gotten into him either but ever since the Blip, something had not been exactly right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was going on, so he hadn’t brought it up to anyone, but his brain felt slow and foggy as if it hadn't had time to catch up yet.

Sometimes, Sam worried that the molecules in his brain had been mixed up and hadn't been put back into their original places in the process of the whole turning-into-dust-and-back-into-human-form-again thing.

It was a silly thought, yes, but with everything going on in the world, would it really be that hard to believe?

"Hey hon! What's up?" Sam's thought process was cut off by the endearing voice of his sister, and though he was aware all this affection was not directed towards him – given that he had called Sarah on your phone – his heart did swell upon hearing her again.

And then he said hi and it all went south from there.

Sarah was obviously pissed.

She asked Sam if he had any idea how many texts and missed calls she had left him, and no, he had no clue but if he had to guess, the number would have been way high up in the double digits.

Then she started going off on Sam, using different kinds of actually very creative euphemisms – which was a problem because Sam got so distracted by his sister's choice of words that her short, well-thought out rant had very little effect on him, but at least he had enough self-respect left to get his sister off speaker at this point.

"Look, Sarah, I know I messed up but I'm fine! I swear," he started, cutting his sister short while subconsciously picking at the skin around the nail on his index finger with his thumb. "What if I stop by Andy's and tell him to give me their best apple pie?" Sam added, hoping this promise would serve as an ice-breaker. Sarah did love her desserts. A lot. And Andy always gave a discount to the Wilson family, too.

When he heard his sister's tired sigh, Sam's heart gave a hopeful flutter, but he was rudely dragged back onto the ground on his way to cloud nine the very next second.

"I'm doing the shopping at the moment. Just got here and it's gonna take long," Sarah replied, annoyance poking through all her words. Then, the tension that had been dominating the pair's call suddenly seemed to evaporate as Sam sensed a weak shadow of a smile in her following sentence. "But that apple pie does sound good."

Sam couldn't help the grin that creeped its way onto his face and he didn't even care about Sarah's semi-serious threat, saying how they were nowhere near finished yet. He muttered out a quick sorry again, promised Sarah to give her regards to you and finished the call with a charming 'I love you' to which his sister replied with a snarky 'I bet' before hanging up with a promise that she would call again when she got home.

Sam let out a relieved chuckle before handing you back your phone and taking the final sip of his slightly lukewarm coffee, watching your bright red-nailed fingers tap away on the device, and he swallowed harder and probably louder than he had meant to. You just happened to put your phone down the very next second, so he tried to cover up the gulp by clearing his throat and shifting his gaze from your nails to your eyes.

Beautiful eyes.

Well shit.

"So, I guess you're staying," you started hesitantly, raising your eyebrows at Sam in a slightly impatient manner, which snapped him out of his blissful thoughts and thrust him back into reality.

Was he staying? He certainly had nowhere to go now that he was practically homeless and his sister was unable to welcome him in her own home for the next two hours, at least. But then again, you were a complete stranger whose afternoon he had just disrupted, and it didn't matter how weird it felt seeing you be so at home in his apartment because it wasn't his anymore. It was yours and you had all the right to kick Sam out and he had absolutely zero right to argue.

But, thankfully, he didn't have to.

"Which is fine, by the way. I did promise you an explanation, after all." Sam couldn't quite ignore the hint of dread behind your words and he was ready to object, to leave you alone and spend the rest of his afternoon doing God-knows-what, but then you offered him another cup of coffee followed by a tiny but honest smile, and Sam just couldn't bring himself to say no.

* * *

Sam Wilson was ridiculously easy to open up to.

It made you want to commit a crime.

His gaze was so intensely warm that after a while, you were looking at everything in your apartment but him just to avoid accidentally trauma dumping on him, especially when you got to the part about group therapy.

Because you had met Sarah at a group therapy session approximately four and a half years before.

It had been clear from the very first minute that neither of you had actually wanted to be there and that both of you had been forced into this situation. Sarah had been dragged to group by an overly enthusiastic co-worker of hers whose crush on the counselor had been probably more intense than the trauma she had suffered – she had lost a dog and her neighbor to the right whom she had always talked shit about behind his back. She was a nice enough woman, but considering that people had lost actual family in the Snap, her presence had always been mostly aggravating, to say the least.

In your case, it had been your grandmother who had bullied you into going to one of the sessions because 'she had the same rotten mentality when Miss Taylor told her to go but then she found it life-changing'. At this point, you had become so indifferent to everything in the world that you hadn't needed much convincing to go. You had told yourself it would be one session anyway after which you would have told Grandma Ethel that 'therapy was simply not for you' and could have been back to your usual Thursday evening routine consisting of a cheap bottle of red wine and depressing reruns of trashy British reality shows from the late 2000s.

The actual sessions had never worked for you. They might have if you had actually spoken up at any of them but you had never become quite ready to talk about your loss in front of a dozen other people, most of whom you had already known. But then you had met Sarah and something about her had made you feel secure, secure enough to talk about them for the first time, so you had started hanging out at a café not too far from the community center and it had become the best thing in your life.

"And the rest is history," you finished, getting up from your chair to put both yours and Sam's mug in the sink and watered your nearby plants while at it.

"I'm really glad Sarah had someone by her side," Sam commented and you could hear a hint of guilt in his words but you decided to ignore it. You simply nodded and muttered out a weak 'yeah', saying you were just as happy to have found a friend like Sarah.

Then Sam said something that made all the muscles in your body tense up and you froze completely for the next couple of seconds.

"And have you seen your family yet? Now that they've come back?"

It was an innocent question. He doesn't know the whole story. So calm down.

You slowly put down the glass you had used earlier to water your plants and tried with every particle in your body to put on the best toothpaste commercial-worthy smile you could force out of yourself before turning back towards Sam and answering his absolutely understandable question.

"Yeah!" No. "They're doing well, actually!" They're fucking dead.

Sam's genuinely happy smile was way too much to handle and if it hadn't been for a call from Sarah, you would have broken down in tears right in front of him the very next moment.

So instead of all that, you decided to turn right back around, pour yourself a huge glass of cold tapwater and down it in one breath while Sam finished his brief conversation with his sister. The stinging pain in your chest that followed was enough to distract your thoughts until he was finally at the door, saying goodbye and thanking your for the coffee and saying sorry for intruding and taking absolutely way too fucking long to finally leave.

"Hey, um... I could give you my number? If you ever need anything or..."

He can't be serious.

"Sure! You can, ugh, put it in my phone," you replied, your hands shaking dangerously as you reached into your back pocket for your mobile and handed it to Sam, who knew better than to comment on it.

Once finished, he returned your phone with one of those irritatingly joyful smiles of his and with a final 'see you around' Sam Wilson was off and you proudly patted yourself on the back for successfully holding it together until you finally reached your couch.

* * *

mini-series taglist – let me know if you want to be added

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