#the short version is that he was a random guy that was targeted by the old opieandanthony subreddit

[gothicprep]

patrick tomlinson has to be the most tormented man alive, and I hate that I can’t crack jokes about it, because if someone asks me “who is that” I’m gonna need like 2 hours to explain all the lore

[hobiebrownismygod]

Let's talk about Miles G./Prowler Miles and his characterization in fanfics/headcanons

I'm gonna refer to him as 42-Miles throughout this analysis btw

Fairly short post, about 1.1k words with pictures and gifs to help explain <3

Summary: I'm gonna analyze his characterization as being angry/aggressive, I'm gonna talk about his backstory a little bit and compare him to the original Prowler and then I'm gonna rant about his sexualization a little bit as well.

1. Characterizing him as angry/aggressive

Most of the fanfictions/headcanons that I've read treat 42-Miles like a thug. They act like he would be overly aggressive toward the reader/y/n and often characterize him as slightly misogynistic and a bully. One question. HOW? I genuinely don't understand where people get these headcanons from. You're telling me that this guy, who is literally the exact same person as Miles Morales, would be a cheating, narcissistic asshole who needs to be fixed by some random girl? Are you kidding me? Do y'all think RIO MORALES would've allowed that to happen to her son? HELL NO.

This hispanic lady?? BFFR

In the scene between Miles and 42-Rio, we see her asking him to get groceries, cracking jokes with him and just having an absolutely lovely mother-son dynamic. Its because of this that I think that he's actually a sweet, kind boy who's just trying his best to take care of his family. This little thing that he and his mom have going on proves that 42-Miles is not a bad kid. He's a genuinely nice guy who was thrown into a crappy situation.

As for his whole "You can call me the Prowler" persona, that's obviously just a setup. Miles did the same thing in the first movie when he met Peter B. Parker. He tied him up to a punching bag and put on a slightly deeper voice to confront him. 42-Miles did the exact same thing. He tied up Miles to a punching bag and did his best to intimidate him with the claw and the voice. He's just trying to look cool in front of his twin, guys. He's not that way normally. If anything, he's just gonna be a slightly more depressed version of Miles, but he's still Miles.

Its practically the same scene.

This type of characterization happens a lot towards edgy black males in the media. The same thing happens with Hobie Brown. He's portrayed as cool, a rule-breaker and a punk and immediately, people characterize him as dirty and violent which are nasty stereotypes targeted towards African-Americans. 42-Miles is portrayed as intimidating and edgy and immediately people are quick to say that he would be an asshole and that he would be a bad boy which are also horrible stereotypes. This is blatant racism and its not cute or fun to read. If you want him to be aggressive in your fanfictions, give him an actual reason to be aggressive. Don't just assume that he would be, because if you really think about it, he wouldn't.

2. Calling him a murderer (The original prowler didn't kill people)

A lot of the fanfictions/headcanons that I've read that involved 42-Miles treat him like a murderer and romanticize the idea of him being a criminal. Authors write stories about him violently murdering thugs and beating people up for no reason. Any f.f. involving his identity as the Prowler usually has a killing scene written in or an implied murder scene.

It has been confirmed that 42-Miles is gonna be an anti-hero. Now the Aaron Davis version of the Prowler did kill people. However, he wasn't an anti-hero. If we're going to compare 42-Miles to a Prowler, we need to compare him to Hobie Brown, who was the original Prowler.

Hobie Brown was also an anti-hero who actually helped Spider-man multiple times throughout the comics. He never killed anyone and after trying to lead a life of crime, he actually ended up quitting. This suggests that 42-Miles would be similar if not the same, because its confirmed that he's fighting against the Sinister Six, and isn't a "villain" and therefore would not kill anyone.

He's also 15 years old. Why are people acting like a 15 year old would be a murderer? There is no way this 15 year old kid is going out into the streets and beating up thugs. This guy was supposed to be Spider-man, remember? He fights for justice and he fights against real villains, like Doc Ock, Scorpio, Rhino, all villains who are confirmed to exist in Earth-42.

This headcanon is extremely inaccurate and people really need to chill out on the whole "Prowler" aspect of his character, because he's still Miles. He isn't a whole new character. He's literally Miles Morales in a different font, and he's not gonna be a murderous maniac.

3. Sexualizing him (he's a minor!?!?!)

I'd say about 70-80% of the 42-Miles fanfictions that cross my feed contain smut. People age up Miles, not for the plot, not for the headcanons, but just to write smut.

Personally, when I read a fan fiction or a headcanon about a character, I imagine them in my head when I do. I genuinely read the fan fiction like it would be played out with the character. So to me, people who are writing these smutty fan fictions are imagining a minor in their head while doing these things. This is absolutely insane to me.

Now I know a lot of people are gonna come for me for saying this because "if you don't wanna read it then just scroll" and "he's aged up so its okay" but this is normalizing pedophilia.

Once again, I see the same thing happening with Hobie. Why? Once again, casual racism. People see an edgy black male and they immediately assume he'd be super sexual. The people writing smut about Miles are the same way. They see an attractive black teen and the first thing that pops up in their mind is "I'd let him fuck me." He's 15 years old. No one should be writing smut about this kid. He doesn't do anything sexual in the movie, he doesn't have a confirmed love interest, he was literally on screen for two minutes. Stop treating black characters like sex toys and enjoy their damn storylines.

I explained more on the sexualization of black characters in the media in this post here if you want to read more into it or still feel a little unsure about my analyzation. I included sources as well <3

This guy is a tired CHILD. LOOK AT HIS EYE BAGS

As for the whole "aging up" thing, aging up a character for a fan fiction and aging them up for smut are two very different things. I've read 42-Miles fanfictions where they age him up, but they actually add to the plot. This one fanfiction I read (I'll link it if I find it) aged him up to create a officer x criminal trope, which I found absolutely adorable. They were able to write an amazing story with zero smut. Compare this to people who are saying "I'm aging him up to 18 <3" and its just 4000 words of straight, gut-wrenching smut.

This genuinely disgusts me. I don't know if its just me who feels this way about his sexualization, but its so icky to think about. You're taking a literal child and imagining yourself doing all these things with him and posting it for the rest of the world to see. A lot of the people who write these fanfictions are 18+ which baffles me as well.

Stop sexualizing minors and stop aging up characters just for smut. It's messed up.

[bokettochild]

so I noticed that you seem to have never mentioned anything about what the bad guys do in your Opera House au so I thought maybe they are just critics that have big vendettas against the chain and are always looking for things to pick on when they go to their shows? Idk random thoughts you can ignore this if you like *yeets self out of window*

-Window anon

Hmmmm...

I'm going to say that Ganon at least is a business tycoon of a rival company to Flora's father, and while, on one hand, he is actively trying to topple their company for his own gain, there is also the fact that his little sister Riju is constantly undermining him? And he can't even confront her about it because she inevitably manages to distract him with something else (like talking about boys, he is a VERY protective older brother, no you are NOT dating another loser Hylian boy, young lady!). I would't say he's evil, I just think he's rich and has power and doesn't always use it to benefit the people who need it, so it's more that the media hates his guts.

Hmmmm.....basically, if you know anything about American Politics, he's a slightly less horrible version of Trump. Like, if Trump knew that respecting women was possible and good for your health. So yeah, the entirety of the young generation makes so many memes about this guy, and he kinda deserves it.

As for the rest!

Veran and Onyx are Ganon's trusted business partners overseas. They're technically under his mothers' supervision, but they also answer to him. They're not evil, even if they have made it their personal mission between the three of them to get the notorious street artist Sheik and his(her?) little sidekick arrested, mainly just because Sheik keeps leaving street art on their buildings specifically.(Lullaby and Ganon have beef. It's not even big beef, they're just both petty.)

Onyx and Veran also have beef with Legend, not for any good reason even, they just do. He's purposefully annoying whenever he and Lullaby have to be around the three of them, and Ganon genuinely will call off a meeting if he sees Lullaby's pet brat waiting for her.

Then we have Vaati. Vaati is....well, to put it short (pfft), Four's rival. Four is the Mr. Fix-It at the opera but he also dabbles and creates in his own time. Vaati and he met at an expo where Vaati's mentor, Ezlo, took a shine to Four and thus sparked jealousy from his then-student. They're never violent, just extremely aggressively trying to one up each other all the time.

That said, Vaati's actually pretty chill to anyone who's not Four! Although he does tend to flirt with Dot whenever he sees her. His little brother is the opposite: edgy and grouchy to everyone OTHER than Four, although whether that started as a way to piss off his big brother or because he genuinely enjoyed Four's company is yet to be determined. Vaati hates it though, so, either way, mission success!

Zant is just a online troll who likes bashing successful people and tends to target the opera mostly to spite Midna, because he knows her ex and her bestie both work there. The crew actually love reading his posts online though and enjoy laughing at him. He's basically harmless, and while Midna hates it, Twilight loves reading how Zant is going to bash him on any given day.

Yuga is a really shitty art professor at Hilda's art school who likes trying to manipulate her and who Legend and Ravio kinda think is hitting on her. They hate him, she just thinks he's "strange but talented". His art is very unique though, they can't deny it. Ledge signed up to take his class just to keep an eye on him, so Yuga kinda hates his guts now, but also he can't fail him, because Ledge is actually good, so he kinda hates his guts instead and tries to make life difficult for him instead.

As for Cia? She's a fangirl. She's one of the more loud and outspoken fans that Warriors has, and slightly insane? They think? He had to take out a restraining order on her, and she violates it routinely. They don't know what, precisely, was the final straw to make him file for the order, but there is a history of drama there that only newbies don't know not to ask about.

I will say that Octavio is a musician who goes out of his way to point out every flaw or fault the opera has. He could be a critic? Maybe? He's a well regarded musician at any rate and has made his opinions very public. He doesn't damage their reputation a lot, but sometimes he gets on the team's nerves.

Malludus is the ghost that Spirit says is haunting the mechanic shop. He has no proof, he's never seen it, but he swears that it's the reason stuff is always a mess there. Wind's one of the only people who believes him, but he also believes Ravio about the ghosts that the Lorulian says haunt the opera, so....

As for Ghirahim? I'm not sure..... I'm wracking my brain, but I got nothing. Suggestions.

[artichokefunction]

the agent walks up to the kitchen staffs door, and it holds its wrist up to the ID scanner. it is let inside, no problem. that chip in its organic arm is one of the few actual wireless pieces of tech it has installed onboard, because those chips are easy to write to and easy to erase and are a very non-obtrusive system. can't hack someone through their ID, and those are so easy to fake. you don't really know why they're still in such common use. makes your job easier, you suppose. the kitchen staff work around the agent, and the agent slips through them.

it gets weird looks, they know they're in some danger, but no one ends up hurt. it stresses you out, a little bit, to see your agent around civilians. you dont really know why. or, well, you know what it can do. you don't know what it won't do. it's impossible to test for the absence of an occurrence. that's not the phrase. it's impossible to prove that something will never happen. that's it. no wait, that doesn't sound right either. whatever. you are not afraid of the agent, it is your friend. these random civilians are not it's friends. as far as you know. but it is polite, as far as you can tell, as it moves through the crowded kitchen. you check that it has access to the latest version of your little map of this building, and it does. and then it proves that it does because it goes the long way around and takes the door that leads to the staff hallways, and not the fancy ass dining area. it's following the route it needs to, no issue. tiny issue. it needs to get through two locked doors. issue so small it is microscopic, because all these locks are ID activated. lol. you scrape the biometric data you need from the security network, and update it's chip. and it's let through without issue. no wait. a little warning popup about how one person apparently went through one door twice in one direction. valid concern. you delete the warning. lol. the agent makes it to the room without issue.

inside of the room is a slender young man with short, greasy hair and a jumpy air to him. the agent startles him a lot by just popping up silently in the corner of his office. this is the client, and not the target. your view from the agents visor keeps wandering, because it's a bit bored. the client, Petra, asks you a question, out loud. well, he asks the agent a question, but it's not really listening. you respond via text, same channel that he hired you on.

"So. You're... agent Mandible?"

the codename you're currently using. [yes yes. where is the target? thought there was a job to do.]

you do not need to be this rude, but also it's kinda fun, watching the fear on his face, watching him puzzle the pieces together entirely incorrectly, because he whispers "Ah, so you're a robot..." under his breath in a way he thinks you won't hear. lol? even if one of you was a robot, you would be able to hear that. this guy is a fool. a fool who is paying you to kill his superior. it might actually be his dad, you didn't pry enough to find out. he has composed himself enough to tell you what room the target is in.

"I don't think I need to tell you how to get there, given that you found me just fine." he shuffles his feet, and visibly struggles to maintain eye contact. he feels he needs to be polite, apparently. "You arrived at the perfect time, he should be asleep for the next 15 minutes or so..." he trails off, and then turns to look out a window, hands behind his back, all fuckin formal. the agent is out of there as soon as the talking is over, and you've sent it on the updated map. you check on the targets room remotely. holy shit. the door lock isn't even engaged. he left it open. there are two cameras in his room. one is completely off, he requested that? lol. the other is not off, but it is on standby mode, it should alert and start recording when it detects movement. getting past that specific trick is not brainlessly easy, but it's not impossible either. you just want it to look untampered with. or- wait. it only needs to look untampered for the text ten minutes or so, while no-one's looking too hard, probably. you get it hacked, it's a good enough job. as good as it needs to be. they won't have footage of the incident. now you get to watch the agent do it's part of the job, from its perspective, no less. it takes a moment to consider something. medium of dispatch, maybe? oh, yeah. it gets out its knife. hand over his mouth, blade into his neck, up into the skull. simple and silent. kinda messy and gruesome also. the poor cleaning staff, that is not a cheap carpet. at least that desk seems very blood-proof, with how excessively shiny it is. the agent wipes its knife on the targets sleeve, and then it is out of there, along the new route you've sent it, down the quiet staff hallways but not the same ones as earlier. you leave your cam hack in place, might as well, and you text the client and tell him [it is done.] which is very edgy of you, you admit, but it's appropriate for this job, probably.

hmm. there's something to ponder there, about the aesthetics of death. guns make the process of creating death much more efficient, they're machines, they're optimized. using your own hand weapons takes the degree of separation out of it. you're much closer to the violence you're doing. you, in the general grammatical case, your personal hands are still pretty clean, overall. well, ok, no. degrees of separation, again. you are paid to be the middleman between the person who wants someone dead and the person who does the killing. person is here. you wave it into the truck, and then you drive away, out of this parking lot.

[do you want more hand weapons? i've been mostly focusing on guns, for range and effecacy, but for small jobs like this it might be worth it. maybe? what do you think?]

it makes a small ponderous noise, and looks up to the roof, fidgeting with its fingers, deep in thought.

[i should be able to get my hands on some weapons catalogs for you, plus there's that expo coming up in a few weeks. but with both of those, there's the problem of you being actively sold something. lots of loud flashy words to get you to spend lots of money money money]

it huffs a quiet laugh, and then it pulls its mask down to tap at its jaw. huh? oh, it's referencing the guy who sold you that jaw, and a lot of other very flashy and not strictly nessecary items. you laugh at that.

[oh man, i don't remember how many of them you've met, but i have quite a lot of friends like that. my sincere condolences.]

it throws it's hands up in mock despair, very clearly smiling at the same time. you have a new message, from Petra. [The money has been forwarded to you.] oh damn. immediately after the job? this guy has a lot of trust in his bank security. or he just hasn't thought of what an investigator might look for. family of rich idiots, over there. once the money comes in, you'll move it to your actual account. obfuscatory steps. the agent is messing with a small piece of fabric, folding and unfolding it. it might have snatched that from that last job. that's fair, honestly. small enough to be hard to identify and easy to dispose of it needed, and it looks like it has a good texture to it. you should get it some new fidgety things, once this money comes in. you could get yourself something too, maybe. been a while since you got new clothes, but also you don't like lugging around too much unnessecary stuff. maybe there's a clothes swap event somewhere nearby you could drop in to. how would you find that. you could ask a friend. carmen, they seem like they would know. you should drop into them anyways, say hi. it gets kinda hard to keep up with friends, with the constant travelling. but you do your best, and your friends are cool, they all seem to understand. the agent has just finished typing something out on its communicator.

[bazooka would be funny]

that is SO far from anything you were expecting, you're breathless with laughter.

[say fuck all of you. get explode]

you make a little explosion motion with both hands, one still on the wheel. the agent looks somewhat proud of having gotten you to laugh.

[okay, man, do you have any actual ideas?]

[no. give me some time]

[yeah yeah, no worries. we're in no rush]

[scarefox]

Random fun fact about me, that I almost forgot myself (lol)

During my studies I was in a film class. Where I wrote scripts + drew storyboards for very short movies (for the class).

In one of them I even act as well (guess that's why I suppress that memory lol). It was just a non-speaking, nightmare version of a police officer kind of role. So that was fine. I get why there are actors who are shy and even have social anxiety. If you are all dressed up to play someone else, it works somehow 🤷‍♂️ (I am also an ex cosplayer that also always helped with ignoring anxiety for a while)

But the thing is that short film flopped in front of the audience (classmates and teachers). Because they didn't get it. It was an attempt of my team of doing horror, after the last films were comedy (they were perceived well).

Yet it still taught me something. From all the things that went wrong with the last one:

first of all my group of 4 people went down to 2 because one dropped out of uni and the other got sick for months. So it went down to me doing script, storyboard, partly audio recording and acting (we had a main actress tho) and the other guy did filming, directing, cutting, location scouting and editing. So I planned, he executed.

but the issue was that we both probably had different ideas about the story and visuals. the nightmare creature was supposed to only appear in dark shadow areas and move through shadow. But in the end the location was too bright (also there were other people present so we were restricted) and the guy didn't fix that in post production. Didn't make it darker when needed, nor were his shadow animations good. So nobody understood why the nightmare version of a police officer stopped chasing the girl but then reappeared at some other point to handcuff her

she did some illegal stuff in the dream btw. so it was intentionally a bit misleading, confusing at that she's chased by an officer. but should have become more clear till the end that the officer looks a bit creepy and only moves within shadows, lots of hectic scenes and one soft jumpscare at the end before she woke up save in her room

Point is, sometimes the intention of the creators and the interpretation or reading of the end product can be different and sometimes not even predictable. Because for me it was understandable. I thought people will get the plot. That we start in a nightmare, where the main gets chased and caught but then wakes up in her room at the end.

But they didn't get it. Main reasons might not even be just the miscommunication between me and the director / editor. But also because the audience might not have been familiar with horror, mental fuckery scenarios. That's what happens when the target audience does not fit for the material.

Because storytelling relies a lot of an audiences already existing experience and knowledge. That is basically their tool box with what they will approach and compare the movie plot with.

[starrypawz]

So this happened yesterday whilst I was out and I guess it means I unlocked the goth achievement of 'Got called satanic'

Short version: Three goths run into a ridiculously angry arsehole in a lift

So we go through the underpass at Waterloo as a shortcut, there's a lift

We get on the lift, a woman with a pram gets off the lift before us, angry arsehole (a big guy with a suitcase) gets on

He starts yelling at me for 'being rude to a woman with a pram' because apparently I bumped into her

I am not aware that I did, obviously if I did I would've said something and also it would've been an accident like a minor accident, sort of shit that happens all the time

So he yells at me about if I have manners then goes 'obviously not with all that satanic shit' (i have a patch on a vest with a very tiny pentagram, my friends are wearing pentagrams, also dude pentagrams are not actually inherently satanic and also being a satanist isn't actually a bad thing) and just starts giving us all a bunch of verbal abuse whilst we're stuck in this lift

During this time I was feeling not my best as it was 1. Hot as fuck 2. I really needed to eat something so honestly most of my brain power at this point is dedicated to staying upright

He even claimed I CAN TELL YOU'RE ALL SCARED OF ME like no mate we're not we just think you're a the biggest thundercunt wanker ever and know your chances of actually doing anything other than scream at us is minimal and he even continues to scream at us when we get off the lift and are getting back onto the street which is in a massive crush of people trying to get in and out of a tube station

He also tried to bring God into this situation which like, mate if you are apparently a Christian you're a piss poor one

One of my friends had the presence of mind to flip him off and swear at him

Also like if I did bump into the person with a pram yes that's not good i accept my potential unintentionally assholery but you're coming over worse for screaming at three random goths in a lift that you likely assumed were soft targets

[kits-ships]

💕 with ur spiderman si ?? 😏

by GOD did i infodump. thank u sm for the ask!!

holly is my s/i that has gone thru the most atrocious experiences. not that the other's haven't experienced anything awful, but with holly they dont stop coming and they dont stop coming and they-

she has three major au's; one for the raimiverse, one for the mcu, and one for the spiderverse. you can typically tell the difference by their hair colors if i don't mention which one i've drawn! spv holly has a short, brown bob, rv holly has longer, dyed hair, and mcu holly is bleach blonde.

for all three versions, her "great responsibility" moment took place in psych ward and was originally in reference to her art, but it took a new meaning when holly failed to protect the nurse that she'd grown attached to. it felt like she'd lost so much at this point, so she was determined to change her destiny from that point on. that's what drove to become the night-web!

she managed to find herself living in nyc (greenwich) after her mentor passed and left her home to holly. the woman's son had already passed away prematurely and didn't have many other people to put in her will, so she decided to hand it off to the closest thing to a child she had left. of course holly graciously accepts the property- even if she hates the city environment- because who can afford a home in this economy??

however, it branches off a lot!!

before graduating, raimiverse holly finds herself working in the shadow of spider-man. she's not too much of a fan of this dork, but her college internship gives her an excuse to go to the city and fight crime, so she does her best to deal with him. of course peter is excited by the presence of someone just like him, so he's a little upset when she goes out of her way to avoid him.

she can't even escape him as she works under otto octavius, because he shows up anyways! holly is just trying to work on designing the man's arms and fusion reactor- not talk to some random guy that harry brought in. but, in the end, they grow a bit closer after otto passes away. after all, watching ur man boil in the manhattan river is a great bonding exercise. unfortunately for them, tho, this friendship is kind of shattered during spider-man 3. holly will NOT allow some nerd to bully her- especially with some emo bangs.

after college, mcu holly finds herself working alongside matt murdock to take down fisk. she learns of his identity one night after he was especially roughed up- doing her best to take care of him with the help of claire. she doesn't quite know how the woman knows him, but it's nothing, right? from then on, holly often finds herself taking heavier blows for matt as she knows her healing factor and resilience make her a tougher target to beat down.

unfortunately for her, though, things change when elektra enters the picture. suddenly, matt is avoiding her, he kissed his coworker, and he's hanging out with some murderous gal?? it breaks her heart knowing that she was putting so much effort into their relationship, so she has a bit of a meltdown once frank castle catches the two of them and gives them his little speech from the rooftop. holly decides frank has a point, matt is a prick, and so she swings off to do some thinking. but, in holly's saddened state, she bonds with a symbiote named malice and ends up doing a little bit of murder to try and grab matts attention. she ends up needing dr strange to exorcise it from her body and, after a bit of research, becomes penpals with eddie brock <3

i don't have much about spiderverse holly, but i love her. she's the most optimistic of the three and is also absolutely enamored by the younger spiders. like, she would probably break someones legs to protect them.

much like the others, holly ended up in miles' timeline and was found by peni. it was all very confusing to her- everyone was named peter or something parker- but she felt better when gwen stacy showed up. there isn't a peter parker in her universe, but she quickly begins to wish did after meeting spider-noir. i mean, the man likes to punch fascists?? sign her UP. but, besides that, i don't know much about her story. i do know that she confesses to noir right before returning to her universe and is thoroughly embarrassed by the others' reactions, but she's still happy she got a lil kiss <3

[picsinhead-blog]

Tim’s Favorite Movie Project: Friday the 13th:  The Final Chapter

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Directed by Joseph Zito

Starring Corey Feldman, Crispin Glover

Released April 13, 1984

Plot: After drowning decades prior to the events of Friday the 13th, being stabbed and hacked to death submission in Friday the 13th Part 2, and being finished off in Friday the 13th Part 3 by being hung and taking an axe to the face, a shocked and disoriented Jason Voorhees wakes up in the morgue and returns to Crystal Lake to do final(ish) battle with a new group of teens, along with a mom, a dog, and makeup effects enthusiast Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman).

One of my favorites because: This is the essential Friday the 13th. If someone who had never heard of this franchise asked me what it was like, I would show that person this film. It has Jason in it, and he wears his iconic hockey mask throughout; it has Tom Savini’s surprising, gory effects; it has my favorite non-Jason characters in the series. This is also the series at the peak of its 80’s-ness (I would entertain an argument that it plateaus after this through parts 5 and 6, but we’re sliding toward the 90’s by part 7): its two most recognizable stars are 80s stalwarts, going on to star in three Back to the Future, The Goonies, Gremlins, and The Lost Boys; it features one of those aerobics videos; unmistakable 80s clothes and hair; unapologetic blood and boobs. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter does not aspire to be anything more or less than the ultimate Jason movie, and it succeeds – previous films were still finding what made this guy scary, and subsequent sequels would all wrestle with how to bring him back again and again. The series often battled the MPAA over gore, but no moment in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter feels cut unnecessarily short.

My relationship to this movie: I wasn’t exposed to a whole lot of R-rated films as a young kid (like, pre-middle school), particularly horror films, so my concepts of Jason and Freddy were based heavily on what I heard from elementary school classmates who either had seen them or who had older siblings who had. I formed this concept of Jason in my mind as this masked killer who went house to house on suburban streets in the summer killing whoever was home at random. My Jason used long pry bars and weapons like that. That version of Jason is closest to the one we encounter in this film, who targets a family in their home in addition to the required collection of nubile teenagers. As for the film itself: I first rented Friday the 13th – The Final Chapter in high school, and watched it for the first time on a living room cabinet television with my cousin during a sleepover. (He would later buy me a t-shirt with the iconic poster/VHS cover image on it and “Made in Hell” printed on the back as a Christmas gift. I still have the shirt!) Since then, I’ve seen this movie many, many times because it’s just. So. Good.

My favorite _________: Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter is my favorite Friday the 13th movie.

List Position at Debut: Friday the 13th - The Final Chapter is the eighth entry in this project and starts at number six. 

[lostgirl677]

A galaxy away from your heart ?

Dean Winchester x Witch Reader

A/N: I wrote this a while ago because I miss Dean Winchester so much and sorry if some things are not right in my text, english is not my mother language.

Masterlist

Y/N’s POV

For the last week, you struggled to catch the monster. So, when you finally ganked that bitch, the time to celebrate came.

Dean, Sam and you decided to go to the local bar. Even though you were supposed to be thrilled like usual, your smile couldn't quite reach your eyes. You know Dean's way to celebrate: getting laid with a random drop dead gorgeous chick found in the bar. It breaks your heart in so many ways. Not only Dean deserves more than just a one night stand but knowing that you would be able to  love all of him, not  just his look but every depth of his tormented soul unconditionally. But you are just not his type, thus you'll be stuck in the sister/friend status forever. But you love him so much that you can't stop him from doing what makes him so happy and you accept to suffer in silence.

When you arrive, Sam goes to find a table while Dean goes to get drinks. You sat with Sam, laughing at a silly pun he just said. 'I am so glad that it's finally over. This wendigo was quite a tough one.' Sam said 'Yeah, I really thought that it would never be over and…' you never finished your sentence. Dean was there with at least 4 women all around him. They were beyond perfect. Chuck definitely worked hard when he created them. The plastic of their faces was way too beautiful to be described by the usual words. He looked so pleased with them practically swooning over him. And his eyes…'Y/n !' you snapped out of your daze. 'Y/n, you okay ?' 'Yeah Sam, thanks.' 'You're sure ? You seemed pretty out of it' 'Yes, I'm just dehydrated. I'm gonna kick Dean's ass for making us wait while we're pruning out of liquid.' You laugh and get up to walk in Dean's direction.

Sam’s POV

 Even though he never mentioned it, Sam knew that you were completely in love with his brother. The way you looked at him, your eyes got brighter when he enter the room… Everything was obvious except to Dean. Tonight, your eyes gleamed at his sight too, but with sadness rather than joy. That unmistakable glassy look he saw so many times that it was impossible to miss it. He knows Dean better than anyone else. The one night stand thing and the 'never settle carefree' attitude are just a way to cope with every messed up self destructive feelings he has. Which is even more destructive. Y/n is basically a female version of Dean but  has everything to help him out of this, but she's hurting so much at the moment…

Y/N’s POV

You took all your courage to walk toward Dean. The music was so loud that you couldn't even think. People are dancing everywhere, leaving very little space for those who just pass by. The closer you got to them, the more beautiful these girls looked. You didn't even notice that your hands began to shake a little. When Dean is finally on sight, you struggle to think properly about what to say. 'Hey Y/n !' Dean says casually. 'H..Hey! Sam and I were wondering when you'll come over with us.' 'Oh ! Well, I was just chilling with those gorgeous ladies but I can come now if you want.' They giggled and then they stared at you meanly. 'So, you'd rather hang out with this ugly chick than stay with us ?! 'asked the one who reminded you of a brunette version of Jessica Rabbit. 'Yeah, she's fat and short while we can realize your wildest dreams and fantasies.' said the blond one with a look full of lust. Even though she purred the last part, her voice was still full of venom. 'Don't waste his time hun, you have nothing to offer him. Nor to any other guy for that matter.' smiled the redhead while the others laughed ruthlessly. You were the kind of girl who always has a witty comeback or even a spell to throw at her target. But right now, all the bad feelings inside of you threaten to lash out and it would be ugly, really ugly, so you remained silent.The only thing you could think of is the absolutely horrified look on Dean's face. You can see him getting mad at those bitches but can't quite register what he's saying to them. By the way they look at him, you can assume that he didn't use polite words.

He grabs your sweaty hand and gets you out of here. After that, it becomes a blur, you’re just zoning out.

Dean’s POV

Dean installed Y/N shotgun in the Impala and began to drive. He’s so mad at those hoes. ‘How dare they talk to her that way ?! They’re worthless compared to her ! Now look at her, she seems to be in a catatonic state. I wonder what’s happening in her head right now’.

Y/N’s POV

You don’t know why but you remember a day when Rowena went to the bunker unexpectedly and the boys didn’t want to be bothered. When she knocked, you opened the door and said ‘Sorry Endora, Darrin and Samantha are not home’. The look she gave you was priceless and you could hear Dean’s laugh from a mile away. Sam’s bitchface was really funny too. And what Dean said will stuck in your head for a long time ‘Don’t get me wrong Sammy, but I prefer to have Y/N as my Samantha Stephen’ and he winked at you.

You slowly snap out of your daze and notice rock music playing softly, almost lulling you. You can see the look on Dean’s face. He looks so furious and worried at the same time and yet he puts the music on a low tone to not disturb you. You don’t ask anything until the car stops in the middle of nowhere.’Where are we ?’ you asked. ‘Far away from this terrible place. Are you okay ?’ ‘Yes, now I am. What about Sam ?’ ‘Don’t worry, I texted him and he said that he will spend the night with the sexy nerdy girl I saw earlier.’ You expected him to wiggle his eyebrows but he didn’t. It’s weird to see him this serious when he talks about girls. He opens the door and gets out of the car. Only a few seconds later, he opened the door on your side. You then look at the night sky and see a thousand shining stars above you. Dean places himself next to you. Saying that you were in a complete awe is an understatement.

‘Thank you’ you said. ‘For what ?’ ‘Everything. You could have left with them and leaving me there. Between, I owe you an apology. You could have a good night with them instead of being stuck here with me.’ ‘Don’t you dare apologizing ! Those bitches were horrible to you. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to stand them after what they did to you. They’re just random chicks, plain basic’ ‘Thanks Dean, but they weren’t wrong about me. Everything they said is real, I’m a complete freak ! I have nothing, I'm wasting your time. All the ugliness I have inside is showing on the outside, all my anger issues and impulsivity makes me a monster ! I’m no better than the ones we fight every single day ! I even have powers, which makes me even more dangerous !’

 Dean suddenly places himself in front of you, takes your shoulders in his hands and looks into your very soul ‘ You really think that low of yourself ?! Goddamn… Sam is right, it’s scary how similar you are to me ! You really think I would risk my life or Sam’s for you if you were any of the things you used to describe yourself ? Those sluts know squat about you and were jealous that  all my attention was immediately on you only ! They’re nothing compared to you ! You’ll never be a waste of time to me !’ ‘Thank you but…’ ‘You remember how we first met ? You were there, fighting a rugaru all by yourself while Sam was unconscious and I was barely conscious myself. Those girls would never be able to do that.' ‘I was just on the same case at this moment. You were just lucky that I showed up at the right moment’ ‘Chuck never let us have random events, remember ? You remember how freaked I was when you healed us with your powers ? I had a hard time accepting you because of this at first but then I realized that you can be trusted with our lives and you became family right away.’ he said, smiling. ‘If I didn’t like you, you seriously think I would take you with me for a calming ride when Sam pisses me off ? Blasting our favorite songs on the road, with you being able to calm me down and even make me rethink everything. I do the same for you everytime you are about to explode. It’s our moment, just you and me’ Even though you were sad, he managed to make you smile a little. ‘You think I would waste my time to get to know you if you were worthless to me ? I know you have the same bad sense of humor as me, to Sam’s despair. I know you can’t help yourself but to pet all the animals that come across us.That you always throw random facts just like that, out of context, just to drive Sam crazy and make me laugh. That you are fluent in sarcasm. That you play tough but deep down you are a teddy bear.’ ‘Kevin said the same about you’ he threw a look but smiled nonetheless ‘I know that everytime you see a shooting star, you always have a stray tear on your cheek or that you’re a total flirt without even knowing it’ ‘Really ? A flirt, me ?’ ‘The first time you spoke to me, you used words that I would totally say to flirt’ he said smugly. You laugh and then an awkward silence replaces all the words exchanged previously.

It was past midnight, the sky was breathtaking, just like the man next to you. How did he know about you crying over shooting stars ? He knows you well apparently.

Suddenly, Dean breaks the silence.’ I know something else.’ You look at him. ‘I know that I am in love with you and have been for years but felt not good enough for you. So I go with countless one night stands to try to get over you but everytime I remember that they can’t possibly compete with you and I end up drinking to forget everything. But in the morning, it comes back to my face and I know that I have to go through another day knowing that you can’t be mine. I see all those guys gravitating around you as if you were the sun and they were planets and I feel like there isn’t any place for me in your system. But then, you walk past them as if they were invisible to come with me and I surprise myself having stupid hope. But I know I’m not boyfriend material in any way, that I can’t be the person you need.’ he gulped ‘ I feel a galaxy away from your heart’ he blurted out.

You look at him ‘Dean , I feel the same about everything you said. I’m in love with you and never notice other guys because when you are there, everything is blurring around you and you are the only one I see. You’re not a galaxy away from my heart, you are the center of it ! You’re my first and only love. The first time I saw you, I felt electricity running all over my body, which was new. I cursed Chuck for making me fall in love with you knowing it was bound to be one sided. But what you said…’ He grabs your cheeks and kisses you, both of you in tears.

 Tonight, there were a meteor shower but you cried for another reason

Time skip

The next morning, you are back in front of your shared motel room. Dean knocks in case Sam’s still in charming company. Sam answers and you go inside. When he sees you, he immediately knows that something changed and then he notices the way Dean and you look at each other. ‘Finally ! I thought that this day would never come !’ ‘Shut up Sammy !’ said Dean, smiling and he leans down to kiss you again.

[writingwithcolor]

Jurassic period alien interacting with key cultures and historical figures in Middle East & Asia throughout history

@ketchupmaster400​ said:

Hello, so my question is for a character I’ve been working on for quite a while but wasn’t sure about a few things. So basically at the beginning of the universe there was this for less being made up of dark matter and dark energy. Long story short it ends up on earth during the Jurassic Period. It has the ability to adapt and assimilate into other life animals except it’s hair is always black and it’s skin is always white and it’s eyes are always red. It lives like this going from animal to animal until it finally becomes human and gains true sentience and self awareness. As a human it lives within the Middle East and Asia wondering around trying to figure out its purpose and meaning. So what I initially wanted to do with it was have small interactions with the dark matter human and other native humans that kinda helped push humanity into the direction it is now. For example, Mehndhi came about when the dark matter human was drawing on their skin because it felt insecure about having such white skin compared to other people. And ancient Indians saw it and thought it was cool so they adopted it and developed it into Mehndi. Minor and small interactions though early history leading to grander events. Like they would be protecting Jerusalem and it’s people agains the Crusaders later on. I also had the idea of the the dark matter human later on interacting with the prophets Jesus Christ and Muhammad. With Jesus they couldn’t understand why he would sacrifice himself even though the people weren’t deserving. And then Jesus taught them that you have to put other before yourself and protecting people is life’s greatest reward. And then with the prophet Muhammad, I had the idea that their interaction was a simple conversation that mirrors the one he had with the angel Jibril, that lead to the principles of Islam. Now with these ideas I understand the great importance of how not to convey Islam and I’ve been doing reasearch, but I am white and I can understand how that may look trying to write about a different religion than my own. So I guess ultimate my question is, is this ok to do? Is it ok to have an alien creature interact with religious people and historical events as important as they were? Like I said I would try to be as accurate and as respectable as possible but I know that Islam can be a touchy subject and the last thing I would want is to disrespect anyone. The main reason I wanted the dark matter being in the Middle East was because I wanted to do something different because so much has been done with European and American stuff I wanted to explore the eastern side of the world because it’s very beau and very rich with so many cultures that I want to try and represent. I’m sorry for the long post but I wanted you guys to fully understand what my idea was. Thank you for your time and hope you stay safe.

Disclaimer:

The consensus from the moderators was that the proposed character and story is disrespectful from multiple cultural perspectives. However, we can’t ignore the reality that this is a commonly deployed trope in many popular science fiction/ thriller narratives. Stories that seek to take religious descriptions of events at face value from an areligious perspective particularly favor this approach. Thus, we have two responses:

Where we explain why we don’t believe this should be attempted.

Where we accept the possibility of our advice being ignored.

1) No - Why You Shouldn’t Do This:

Hi! I’ll give you the short answer first, and then the extended one.

Short answer: no, this is not okay.

Extended answer. I’ll divide it into three parts.

1) Prophet Muhammad as a character:

Almost every aspect of Islam, particularly Allah (and the Qur’an), the Prophet(s) and the companions at the time of Muhammad ﷺ, are strictly kept within the boundaries of real life/reality. I’ll assume this comes from a good place, and I can understand that from one side, but seriously, just avoid it. It is extremely disrespectful and something that is not even up to debate for Muslims to do, let alone for non-Muslims. Using Prophet Muhammad as a character will only bring you problems. There is no issue with mentioning the Prophet during his lifetime when talking about his attributes, personality, sayings or teachings, but in no way, we introduce fictional aspects in a domain that Muslims worked, and still work, hard to keep free from any doubtful event or incident. Let’s call it a closed period: we don’t add anything that was not actually there.

Reiterating then, don’t do this. There is a good reason why Muslims don’t have any pictures of Prophet Muhammad. We know nothing besides what history conveyed from him. 

After this being said, there is another factor you missed – Jesus is also an important figure in Islam and his story from the Islamic perspective differs (a lot) from that of the Christian perspective. And given what you said in your ask, you would be taking the Christian narrative of Jesus. If it was okay to use Prophet Muhammad as a character (reminder: it’s not) and you have had your dark matter human interacting with the biblical Jesus, it will result in a complete mess; you would be conflating two religions.

2) Crusaders and Jerusalem:

You said this dark matter human will be defending Jerusalem against the Crusaders. At first, there is really no problem with this. However, ask yourself: is this interaction a result of your character meeting with both Jesus and Prophet Muhammed? If yes, please refer to the previous point. If not, or even if you just want to maintain this part of the story, your dark matter human can interact with the important historical figures of the time. For example, if you want a Muslim in your story, you can use Salah-Ad-Din Al-Ayoubi (Saladin in the latinized version) that took back Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Particularly, this crusade has plenty of potential characters. 

Also, featuring Muslim characters post Prophet Muhammad and his companions’ time, is completely fine, just do a thorough research.

 3) Middle Eastern/South Asian settings and Orientalism:

The last point I want to remark is with the setting you chose for your story. Many times, when we explore the SWANA or South Asian regions it’s done through an orientalist lens. Nobody is really safe from falling into orientalism, not even the people from those regions. My suggestion is educating yourself in what orientalism is and how it’s still prevalent in today’s narrative. Research orientalism in entertainment, history... and every other area you can think of. Edward Said coined this term for the first time in history, so he is a good start. There are multiple articles online that touch this subject too. For further information, I defer to middle eastern mods. 

- Asmaa

Racism and Pseudo-Archaeology:

A gigantic, unequivocal and absolute no to all of it, lmao. 

I will stick to the bit about the proposed origin of mehendi in your WIP, it’s the arc I feel I’m qualified to speak on, Asmaa has pretty much touched upon the religious and orientalism complications. 

Let me throw out one more word: pseudoarchaeology. That is, taking the cultural/spiritual/historical legacies of ancient civilizations, primarily when it involves people of colour, and crediting said legacies to be the handiwork of not just your average Outsider/White Saviour but aliens. I’ll need you to think carefully about this: why is it that in so much of media and literature pertaining to the so-called “conspiracy theories” dealing with any kind of extraterrestrial life, it’s always Non-Western civilizations like the Aztec, the ancient Egyptians, the Harappans etc who are targeted? Why is it that the achievements of the non West are so unbelievable that it’s more feasible to construct an idea of non-human, magical beings from another planet who just conveniently swooped in to build our monuments and teach us how to dress and what to believe in? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, it’s because it should: denying the Non-West agency of their own feats is not an innocent exercise in sci-fi worldbuilding, it comes loaded with implications of racial superiority and condescension towards the intellect and prowess of Non-European cultures. 

Now, turning to specifics:

Contrary to what Sarah J. Maas might believe- mehendi designs are neither mundane, purely aesthetic tattoos nor can they be co-opted by random Western fantasy characters. While henna has existed as an art form in various cultures, I’m limiting my answer to the Indian context, (specifying since you mention ancient India). Mehendi is considered one of the tenets of the Solah Shringar- sixteen ceremonial adornments for Hindu brides, one for each phase of the moon, as sanctioned by the Vedic texts. The shade of the mehendi is a signifier for the strength of the matrimonial bond: the darker the former, the stronger the latter. Each of the adornments carries significant cosmological/religious symbolism for Hindus. To put it bluntly, when you claim this to be an invention of the aliens, you are basically taking a very sacred cultural and artistic motif of our religion and going “Well actually….extraterrestrials taught them all this.”

In terms of Ayurveda (Traditional holistic South Asian medicine)  , mehendi was used for its medicinal properties. It works as a cooling agent on the skin and helps to alleviate stress, particularly for the bride-to-be. Not really nice to think that aliens lent us the secrets of Ayurvedic science (pseudoarchaeology all over again). 

I’m just not feeling this arc at all. The closest possible alternative I could see to this is the ancient Indian characters incorporating some specific stylistic motifs in their mehendi in acknowledgement to this entity, in the same vein of characters incorporating motifs of tribute into their armour or house insignia, but even so, I’m not sure how well that would play out. If you do go ahead with this idea, I cannot affirm that it will not receive backlash.

-Mimi

These articles might help:

 Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

A History of Indian Henna (this studies mehendi origins mostly with reference to Mughal history)

Solah Shringar

2) Not Yes, But If Ignoring the Above:

I will be the dissenting voice of “Not No, But Here Are The Big Caveats.” Given that there is no way to make the story you want to tell palatable to certain interpretations of Islam and Christianity, here is my advice if the above arguments did not sufficiently deter you.

1. Admiration ≠ Research: It is not enough to just admire cultures for their richness and beauty. You need to actually do the research and learn about them to determine if the story you want to tell is a good fit for the values and principles these cultures prioritize. You need to understand the significance of historical figures and events to understand the issues with attributing the genesis of certain cultural accomplishments to an otherworldly influence. 1.

2. Give Less Offense When Possible and Think Empathetically: You should try to imagine the mindsets of those you will offend and think about to what degree you can soften or ameliorate certain aspects of your plot, the creature’s characteristics, and the creature’s interactions with historical figures to make your narrative more compatible. There is no point pretending that much of areligious science fiction is incompatible with monotheist, particularly non-henotheistic, religious interpretations as well as the cultural items and rituals derived from those religious interpretations. One can’t take “There is no god, just a lonely alien” and make that compatible with “There is god, and only in this particular circumstance.” Thus:

As stated above by Asmaa and Mimi, there is no escaping the reality the story you propose is offensive to some. Expect their outcry to be directed towards you. Can you tolerate that?

Think about how you would feel if someone made a story where key components of your interpretation of reality are singled out as false. How does this make you feel? Are you comfortable doing that to others?

3. Is Pseudoarchaeology Appropriate Here?: Mimi makes a good point about the racial biases of pseudoarchaeology. Pseudoarchaeology is a particular weakness of Western-centric atheist sci-fi. Your proposed story is the equivalent of a vaguely non-descript Maya/Aztec/Egyptian pyramid or Hindu/ Buddhist-esque statue being the source for a Resident Evil bio weapon/ Predator nest/ Assassin’s Creed Isu relic.

Is this how you wish to draw attention to these cultures you admire? While there is no denying their ubiquity in pop-culture, such plots trivialize broad swathes of non-white history and diminish the accomplishments of associated ethnic groups. The series listed above all lean heavily into these tropes either because the authors couldn’t bother to figure out something more creative or because they are intentionally telling a story the audience isn’t supposed to take seriously.*

More importantly, I detect a lot of sincerity in your ask, so I imagine such trivialization runs counter to your expressed desire to depict Eastern cultures in a positive and accurate manner.

4. Freedom to Write ≠ Freedom from Consequence: Once again, as a reminder, it’s not our job to reassure you as to whether or not what you are proposing is ok. Asmaa and Mimi have put a lot of effort into explaining who you will offend and why.  We are here to provide context, but the person who bears the ultimate responsibility for how you choose to shape this narrative, particularly if you share this story with a wide audience, is you. Speaking as one writer to another, I personally do not have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I think it is important to be face reality head-on.

- Marika.

* This is likely why the AC series always includes that disclaimer stating the games are a product of a multicultural, inter-religious team and why they undermine Western cultures and Western religious interpretations as often (if not moreso) than those for their non-Western counterparts.

Note: Most WWC asks see ~ 5 hours of work from moderators before they go live. Even then, this ask took an unusually long amount of time in terms of research, emotional labor and discussion. If you found this ask (and others) useful, please consider tipping the moderators (link here), Asmaa (coming eventually) and Mimi (here). I also like money - Marika.

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Inspired by this post from @royalcalum

CW: Some slight 18+ Content! Like smut adjacent!

______________________

You’re just browsing--mindless scrolling as you wait for dinner to be done. It’s Calum’s turn, though it’s really your turn to cook but he insisted since his mother sent a recipe. He wanted to be the one to try it, since it was a family recipe. You offered your help, but ultimately you got the boot. So you stretched out across the sofa and scrolled. 

You browse for clothes, ran across random ads and things targeted at you on Instagram but that got tiring and not stimulating enough. You went to Twitter until you found yourself bored of the mindless chatter. And around you went app to app until running across a particular video. It wasn’t necessarily rare for any sort of fan content about the guys to cross your feed, but it wasn’t common. You tended to stay away from that world, knowing inevitably you’d run across something unkind. 

This in particular, with no sound on, blinks through various photos of Calum--the first half when he was younger the second half of him recently. Curiosity tickles you and you tap on the video for it to unmute at the end of its loop. When it starts it’s a cute and clearly dubbed version of E Girls are Ruining my life, but right as the bass kicks in Corpse’s voice rattles through your headphones. 

Your first reaction: laughter. You giggle to yourself watching it loop back through a third time with sound. You laugh because you’ve seen the meme format before, at least you think you have. But you don’t miss the small twinge of arousal when the bass drops again and the more recent videos of Calum cycle through. 

Tapping at your screen, you find the share via Messages and type in Calum’s name before his contact pops up. Don’t ask questions; just watch. A string of the fire emoji and the red face with the tongue sticking out follows the text. You tap send and then wait from the couch, pulling out one headphone. A couple beats later you hear the ding of Calum’s phone. The sound plays from the kitchen, the soft voice followed by Corpse’s deep vocals. Above it though, Calum howls in laughter. You snicker at his laughter and watch him peek his head out of the kitchen. “What is this?” he laughs. 

You shrug. “I don’t know, babe. But all I know is it’s accurate.”

“Keeping this in mind for later,” he returns. “I can’t burn this sauce.”

“Please don’t burn the sauce!” you exclaim, a faux Southern accent falling from your throat. “Oh me, oh my, whatever shall I do if you burn that sauce.”

In your jest, you close your eyes, the back of your hand pressed to your forehead and your head thrown back. A warm hand wraps around your throat--no real pressure, just cupping your throat. Following it is a soft and short kiss. You’re almost not sure it’s even a kiss either, hardly any time to consider if it was a kiss to be honest before the hand leaves. 

You blink your eyes open and spy Calum half heartedly jogging back into the kitchen. You curse the Hanes tank and sweatpants he’s wearing before he completely disappears from your sight. “Or you can burn the sauce,” you whisper, capturing the side of your lip under your teeth.

[bansept]

Protector

Part 4

Well well well

I know how long it's been since I've upgraded this story : a while. A long while. So I can only profusely apologize for the delay.

I suggest for people to have a quick read of part 3 before reading this new part, just so you guys can remember what happened.

Enjoy!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was quite common for Ichigo to not sleep at night, even with a tiring work, worrisome lack of clues and his body begging him for some rest. And while it was a regular lifestyle that Orihime had chosen, due to her own job, Ichigo only did it to have more time on his hands, to the detriment of his health. But tonight, he had a hunch. He was certain that something, or someone, was not too far from the house and would try out something. Call it instinct.

So there he was, standing in the living room, his working belt safely strapped around his waist, reading once again the report one of his co-workers had handed over to him. The bakery, the people in line innocently waiting for their snacks, the dead owners… The injured, random people that had nothing to do with illegal activities, and were probably nothing but unlucky people that served as collateral damage. And among them, Orihime Inoue, the astrophysicist, a woman working for the government and whose job was only composed of secrets.

Of course, she had never mentioned in any way what she was working for. Ever. It wasn’t his job to know, and it wasn’t safe for her to open her mouth about it. So, of course, such work would interest people, good and bad. But if interested, was it necessary for anyone to blow up such an important person with random people? No, it didn’t make any sense. If Orihime Inoue was the target of this explosion, then the one responsible was trying to kill her, not surprise or warn her.

Ichigo frowned and looked up, folding the paper back in his back pocket, silently walking back to the withering flower at the center of the dinner table. His protegee tried to convince him she was fine, tried to persuade him that she could handle the stress of this situation. But the flowers and plants around her house had remained without water, without care for too long. She was busy minding her business, but was too worried to even attempt to live like before.

“Oh… You’re awake.”

He turned around, the sight of Orihime with ample and comfortable pants and a sleeveless shirt welcoming him. Her hair was tousled : certainly from the lack of sleep and from rubbing her hands through it.

“Yeah. I was… Thinking.” He answered with a constricted smile. Ichigo didn’t want to place even more anxiety on her shoulders, but at the same time, she needed to know what was in his head - especially when it concerned her.

Her grey eyes fell in his, head tilted to the side in wonder and Ichigo couldn’t help but blow his nose in amusement.

“I was thinking about the bakery. And you. You’re a pretty amazing person, I doubt anyone would want to simply hurt you. So, maybe whoever doesn’t care about your fame, works or profession, and is after you because of a personal grudge.”

Orihime breathed in, listening and worried. Her hands trembled slightly, but she quickly hid them behind the small of her back. Her face was contorted, the pain of the situation slowly making her step closer to him.

“So… You’re awake and up because you’re going to start investing the possibilities?”

Ichigo nodded his head, placing the papers back on the table. It didn’t feel strange to want to hug her fear away : he had made his peace with that. He would always want to be softer with her than with any other woman he’d met.

“I think I should go back to the bakery. See if there are any dark, looming figures over there. But I thought I should tell you first, so you don’t worry.”

“I… I think I’ll be worried until this madman is caught and apprehended. But thank you.” She tried to smile, lips forming a brief upward line, but it crumbled on her face. Orihime pulled a few hair strands from her face, placing them behind her ear, trying to think of something.

Ichigo raised a hand to very gently pat her shoulder, thumb brushing the smooth bare skin.

“It’s my job to keep you safe. And, I shouldn’t be doing this but… If you don’t want to be alone here, you can come with me. That way we’ll both be reassured.”

She chuckled at his silly smile.

“Oh, as if an officer like you was ever scared.”

“Hey, I’m human too. I jump when I hear wooden stairs crack.”

“Hoho, I’d like to see that. And you’d end up beating the stairs anyway, so you’re in a much safer position than me.”

He laughed, honest and frank, before resting his arms on his chest.

“Nah, I’m a peace-loving person. I don’t fight people if I don’t need to. Plus, wooden stairs would have the upper hand.”

“And how?”

Ichigo stepped closer to whisper in her ear, a silly thing he didn’t think would send chills down his spine.

“They have sharp splinters to protect themselves.”

It was Orihime’s turn to laugh, her eyes growing shut as she clutched her belly.

It was so easy to please her, to make her laugh. To make her smile, so that the grey seas of her eyes would shine in mischief, forgetting the times they were agitated with dark thoughts and complex dilemmas to solve. And although Ichigo liked to see her thinking deeply, get this overly cute twist on her lips while he himself should be working on a transcript, the version of her that was in comfortable, not top-notch clothes, hair a mess, laughing in happiness and leaning the tiniest bit towards him… He loved it.

Orihime caught her breath again and looked at him as if she’d scold him.

“Oh boy, it’s been a while since I laughed like that…” She fanned her face. “But as funny as it is, I don’t think I should go with you tonight : I’m no fighter, have no decent vision at night, don’t know how to aim a gun, and… Frankly, I’m tired. I thought I’d go to bed earlier.”

Ichigo patted her again and moved away, rubbing his arm.

“Sure. I’ll… Make sure all is locked. So you can go to sleep peacefully.”

.

.

.

He felt conflicted on his way to the blown bakery. First because his body was acting up, making him feel tense, as if someone was following him, and second… Ah, it was ridiculous to admit it even in thoughts. But he missed not being around her, even for a damned hour.

But it was what he had to do, and now, Ichigo had to concentrate on this gut feeling that brought him here at first.

The facades of the buildings surrounding the gaping hole were still blackened by the blow, a few pieces of debris stuck in a pile for the garbage collectors to come to pick up whenever the truck would be big enough. The bakery itself was still closed, surrounded by the tape the police had put in place, Ichigo carefully slipping under it, lighting his flashlight.

He tried his hardest to not think about Orihime, alone in her house, probably having a hard time falling asleep as he was inspecting the building. Nothing had changed, in the past few weeks of the investigation. Apart from his growing feelings for the young woman.

A rustling sound brought Ichigo back to his senses, flashing the light in the direction he suspected the sound was from, but nothing was there. Taking a short intake of breath, he walked closer, taking his gun from his holster and holding it under the light.

“Police! If anyone is here, come within eyesight! Right now.” He pressed, voice harsh and commanding.

Only silence greeted him.

Ichigo straightened up his back, lowering his weapon to see better, not hearing the person slipping behind him, and only feeling the hit on his head, his conscience slipping away.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, what's happening, what will happen??

The next chapter will be the last for this fiction.

[screechthemighty]

Okay, so, I finished this short roughly Fifty Bajillion Years Ago, but...only just tonight revised it because my brain is trash. Anyways, I promise I’m still working on the “Cooper and Atreus are friends because I said so” fic, but here’s another fic in that series featuring Ashwin being his usual charming (annoying) self, because this series is self-indulgent as hell. AO3 link will be in a reblog, but you can also read the whole thing below!

(Context for anyone who hasn’t read this series on AO3: “Arthur” is the alias Atreus was primarily using during the Frontier Wars.)

"Aww, I remember when I had lungs and needed equipment to not die." Ashwin leaned back against the doorway. He'd be smiling if he had a mouth. It was actually kind of hilarious, watching everyone strap into the masks, looking like a bunch of scuba divers or Bloodhound cosplayers, depending. "You guys look cute."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, robot supremacy, whatever," Elliott grumbled. "Remind me why we're even fighting here?"

"Syndicate wants more visually interesting matches. Doesn't get more interesting than the endless fog of…whatever this place is called. Horror movie aesthetic, I guess."

That was the thing. Ashwin knew exactly what it was called, or at least he knew what it was called by both sides during the Frontier Wars. Both names were pretty boring, just random designations assigned to planets that hadn't been settled yet (or, in the case of this one, probably never would be). But he also knew what a certain war buddy of his called it—something considerably more interesting. Niflheim. The realm of fog.

He also knew that admitting to being familiar with the place would probably put a target on his back (he would definitely try to take out the guy who was familiar with the area first, just to make sure that knowledge wasn't used against him), so he kept his robot mouth shut about that bit.

"Just be careful where you step," Williams chimed in. Ashwin counted to ten to keep from calling her a mall cop to her face. She hadn't done anything yet; there was no need to get nasty. "Wouldn't want you getting lost and running into the wolf."

...wait.

"Uh, I'm sorry, the what now?" said Elliott nervously. "Listen, Hound's already been rambling about how this place was cursed by the Allfather. I don't need more reasons to be freaked."

Williams laughed. "Relax, Witt. It's nothing. Some guys during the war just breathed too much of the stuff, saw things that weren't there. Just make sure your seal is tight and you'll be fine."

"What did they see?” 

Half the ship turned to stare at the speaker.

Ashwin understood why; the veritable mountain of a man standing in his corner, respirator gear still dangling from his belt and not on his face, rarely spoke before a match. He usually sat in his corner and brooded, doing whatever the hell it was he did to get in the zone. He kept to himself so much that pretty much no one knew his actual name; most people just called him Ghost, or the Ghost, a shortened version of his stage name. The Ghost of Sparta. He was a guy who knew his Greek mythology, but didn’t reveal anything else about himself.

But now, he seemed really interested in whatever Williams was trying to say. Which, in turn, made Ashwin curious, even though he already knew what she was talking about. It would be interesting to hear an outsider’s take on it, and way more interesting to see how Ghost reacted to that.

Williams shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “Well, I wasn’t there. I only heard about this because a buddy of my dad’s was. ARES had sent out a team to survey the planet, see if Milita had already gotten a foothold or not. They called for extraction early, something about unexpected resistance. By the time they were recovered, only three were still left. And by then...” She twirled a finger near her temple. “…they’d lost it. Kept rambling about a giant wolf out in the fog. Said that was what took their buddies.” Williams glanced Ashwin’s way and raised an eyebrow. “They didn’t find evidence of a giant wolf, not that we have wolves in the Outlands, but they did find evidence of mercenary activity. Don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

Oh, he did, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of saying so. “The hell are you looking at me for?” Ashwin said. “Could’ve been the 6-4 for all you know. Maybe the Resort.” He turned away from her to focus on Ghost. “So, that’s pretty weird, huh? Giant wolf in the Outlands?”

Ghost didn’t reply. He’d gone all quiet, pensive. Ashwin didn’t think he’d ever seen the guy like that before. It was nagging away at him, but he couldn’t figure out why. “You should get your gear on. We’re dropping soon,” Ashwin added out loud.

I really hope I don’t have to fight that guy... Sure, Ashwin had some potential advance knowledge of the planet, but that wasn’t going to do much if he was up against the powerhouse known as the Ghost of Sparta. He was usually either the winner or one of the first guys to go, because basically everyone put aside their differences to focus on him when he was in play. He was dangerous. Everyone knew it.

(Ashwin kinda wondered sometimes, but he'd stamped those questions down really deep. None of his business. He was just here to get that metaphorical bread and leave. No sense getting involved in anyone else's nonsense.)

Fortunately(ish) for Ashwin, Ghost ended up on his team. Unfortunately for Ashwin, their third was Williams, which meant he was going to have to spend the entire match holding back insults. God grant me patience, because if you grant me strength, I’m gonna be disqualified for friendly fire.

In another twist of fate, Ashwin was distracted from his disgruntlement by watching Ghost. The guy stared down at the planet with this weird expression on his face. Then again, any expression was weird for him. Usually the dude looked like he was chiseled from solid granite, but today there was a bit of a crease in his brow. Like he was struggling to remember something as they flew over the mist and distant structures of the planet.

As they flew over one planet in particular, Ashwin could’ve sworn he saw the guy take a deep breath, like he’d either been punched or was bracing himself for a punch.

Ashwin recognized the building immediately. He remembered how excited Arthur (alias) had been to see the structure. Pippin had the same reaction. They’d talked about the possibility about getting its inner workings up and running, but they’d need something called the light of Alfheim and literally no one had any clue what that meant (even after Arthur explained it twice) or how to get one, so they’d just smuggled out a few components so the IMC wouldn’t be able to use it, either. He was pretty sure the crystals were buried on Cooper’s farm somewhere, waiting to be put back whenever Arthur could re-charge his Bifrost or whatever (seriously, Ashwin still had no idea what he'd been talking about and he'd had years to mull it over). It was a neat structure, even if Ashwin had no idea how the heck it was supposed to work.

But Ghost's reaction wasn't the reaction of a guy who thought something was neat. It was…

Ashwin heard a ping. He glanced at his wrist computer, then slowly up to Williams. She'd passed off jumpmaster to him, and was looking at him expectantly. She really wasn't going to let this go, was she?

Don't call her names, don't call her names, don't call her names…

Ashwin held eye contact and passed jumpmaster off to Ghost. The ping was followed by a heavy sigh from Ghost, who immediately passed it back off to Williams. "Is there a problem?" he asked sternly.

Damn, though. Why did Ashwin feel like he was about to be grounded? Even Williams looked like she felt guilty. "No problem," Ashwin said, and lied. "Where are we landing, jump master?"

Williams glared at him, but didn't pass off jumpmaster again.

She landed them somewhere isolated, which was smart. Get your bearings, see what loot you could find. Ashwin wondered if they'd been able to account for the fact that this place had a bad habit of moving around when you weren't looking. Apparently so, because they were able to find weapons quickly. "At least they gave us threat scopes," Ashwin noted. "Throws off your game, though, Williams."

"We'll make do." Bangalore tilted her head. “Anyone else hear that?”

Ashwin sure did. The awful, grinding sound was immediately familiar, in a way. It actually sounded worse than it had all those years ago. “Sounds worrying, whatever it is,” he said, still trying to act like he had no idea the place was littered with death traps. “We should probably be careful, though. I mean. More careful than usual.”

“Agreed,” said Ghost gruffly. “I will take point.”

Fine by me. Saved Ashwin the trouble of pretending he didn’t know what was up.

They made their way carefully through the fog, Ghost at the front, Ashwin in the middle, Bangalore following up the rear. He was, he had to admit, more nervous than usual; the mists were thicker than he remembered, and even though he was a whole-ass robot, he still felt like he should have a tickle in his throat. “Who makes something like this?” Bangalore muttered.

Again, Ashwin knew a thing or two, but again, he deflected with a joke. “Have you ever seen an Indiana Jones movie? Most likely the Holy Grail is at the center of whatever this is.”

“The what?”

Ghost spoke up: “The cup that Jesus Christ drank from at the last supper. Allegedly.”

Ashwin pointed at him. “See? Someone knows his religious history. Or pop culture history.”

“Arthurian legends,” Kratos corrected quietly.

“Or that. Y’know, an old war buddy of mine was into that...”

Before Ashwin could finish the thought, Ghost held out an arm. Ashwin saw why almost immediately; the wall in front of them was pretty clearly a trap wall, but the pistons or whatever weren’t going. At first, Ashwin was worried that the either the game masters had gotten to them and decided to have some fun with the trap pacing, or the gears that ran this place had decayed and were now running on sheer random luck. But then...

Shit. Wait. I know where we are.

That wasn’t something you could say very often about Niflheim. It was entirely possible Ashwin was getting overconfident, that the second they turned a corner he wouldn’t have any idea where they were again, but for now he knew where they were.

...Which, granted, might cause some issues if Williams caught on, but maybe Ghost’s dad energy would keep her from being annoying about it. Maybe.

“Is there anything stopping us from going that way?” Ashwin asked. “I mean...” He pointed to a part of the wall marked with faded but still visible paint. “Seems promising. Or someone at the games is trying to fuck with us, in which case…"

It was a split second reaction, but Ashwin caught it. Ghost stared at the handprint like he knew it. It was the same bracing himself reaction he'd had to seeing the temple below.

That said a lot.

"...we have a lot more to be worried about," Ashwin finished. He wasn't thinking about the games, though. He was looking at the Ghost, searching the face for anything familiar. There was something in the profile...the height...how had Arthur described…? "Thoughts, fearless leader?"

Ghost stepped forward and carefully ran a hand over the print. It was such a weirdly careful gesture from the guy, but when he spoke…

"The paint is old. It is unlikely the game masters left this here as a trap. And it does not match the rest of the rest of the maze…perhaps another explorer left it there to mark safe passage."

He sounded businesslike. Rational. But Ashwin had been friends with Robert “Barker” “What’s An Emotion I Don’t Know Her” Taube back in the day. He knew what deflection sounded like. It was burned into his robot brain. And it only made his suspicions stronger.

I have to get us back to that temple.

"I'll take the risk if you guys will?" Ashwin said.

Williams was about to reply; before she could, a ping of a sniper shot just barely missed her. That kind of made the decision for them. They made a run for it, through the disabled trap, deeper into the fog.

The next handprint wasn't too far away, a fact that brought Ashwin an intense amount of relief. Arthur had suspected the "magic" (for lack of a better word) of this place was starting to wear off. He'll be glad to hear he's right, Ashwin thought.

Then, How old did he say his dad looked?

The thing was, Ashwin knew it was probably a long shot. He really did. But he couldn't escape that sticky thought of what if. Especially when he remembered how sad Arthur had looked the one and only time he’d talked about his family.

There were a lot of things Ashwin had come to terms with when it came to his situation. Never really getting to say goodbye to his parents…wasn’t on that list. He didn’t like to think of anyone going through the same thing. Especially not someone who had saved his ass and kept a close mutual friend safe multiple times.

There was a pretty surefire way to test his crack theory, at least, and they were running right for it. The bad news was the place they were running right for happened to be a big open area with plenty of chances to get shot, but maybe they'd get lucky.

Eventually, the trail of faded golden paint lead them to one of the maze’s front areas. Drones were scooping up unconscious bodies, and the place looked pretty picked apart. If Ashwin had to guess, this was where a lot of the early fighting had gone down. "Doesn't look like there's much left," Williams noted.

"I'm gonna look anyways," Ashwin said. "Might be some light ammo left over…" And I need to get Ghost closer to the temple. "...I won't take long, I promise."

Williams looked ready to protest until Ghost cut in: "I will follow."

Oh, buddy, you're really proving this madness right. Ashwin had to shove down the weird giddy feeling jumping around his ones and zeroes and focus on not getting shot. This place could see action again at any time, and on top of that, there was the ring to consider. Gotta love the variables in a war game.

They cleared the hill and the archway, arriving at the road leading up to the temple. It was dead silent, creepily so, and the bodies still lingering in the fog made the whole thing very horror movie. “Can you imagine what this place looks like after dark?” Ashwin whispered. He really was looking for ammo, but also watching a particular spot in the area. “Visibility is shit already. Set up some green spotlights or something and...”

The Ghost had stopped in front of a rock near the archway.

Ashwin knew the rock. He remembered watching Arthur paint it. He’d actually painted two different places, one inside the temple, one out, just in case something happened to one or the other. Aswhin didn’t know what was written on it—the runic letters were nothing he could read, and on top of that, it had seemed rude to ask. It was some kind of message, so he knows I’m okay, but that was all he knew.

Ghost was looking at it like he was seeing a ghost. At the letters. At the handprint. He even crouched down to examine that last part, his fingertips brushing over it. His face remained resolute, but the eyes...

Oh, got you, you son of a bitch, fucking hell this is insane. Hysteria joined the giddy feeling, making Ashwin feel like his body was vibrating. This is the funniest thing to ever happen to me. I have to win. I can’t be in repairs for long. I’ve gotta...

“What’s it say?” Williams asked suddenly.

Ghost froze, but recovered pretty quickly. “I don’t know,” he said. Liar, Ashwin thought, metaphorically biting his tongue to keep from screaming the word. “We should keep moving.”

Don’t say anything. You’ll give it away. I’m so glad I don’t have a human face right now. Fuck. Cooper’s gonna lose his mind. Arthur’s going to lose his mind. Did Ashwin have his number? He didn’t think so. It had been a while since they talked last, and he knew that Arthur liked to change it. I’ll call Cooper. They’re definitely still in touch.

The good news was, they’d lasted this long. Ghost and whatever team he was on tended to go the distance if he made it this far. Nothing was guaranteed, sure, but Ashwin was feeling pretty confident about their chances.

It turned out, he had every right to be confident. They did end up winning, though it was a final ring three-way clusterfuck that definitely had Ashwin feeling a little rattled. (Literally rattled; a grenade had gone off close enough that he felt like some bolts had shaken loose.) Of course, Ashwin was relieved, because another win meant a little less time that he had to spend in this hell hole.

He was also relieved because it meant he could very casually take a quick snapshot of Ghost while they were on the return ship. It was a miracle he was able to get the shot, but Ghost was distracted. He kept flexing his dominant hand, staring down at it as if some paint had come off onto his fingerprints.

Give me five seconds, dude, Ashwin thought as he scrambled to send the message to Cooper. Trust me. I’m about to help you out big time.

He probably could’ve confronted Ghost directly, but the guy could be volatile, and Ashwin didn’t want to risk that he’d gotten it wrong somehow. So he attached the picture to a message for Cooper: Hey, do you still have Arthur’s number? If so, send him this picture and ask if this is the guy he’s been looking for. And also that he can thank me later if I’m right.

It did occur to Ashwin as he sent the message that he was going to have a lot of explaining to do to Cooper, depending. But...well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He’d rather explain to an old war buddy what he was doing in a blood sport than live the rest of his robot existence knowing he’d potentially kept father and son apart. That’d be real shitty of him.

The post-match stuff went down as usual. Ashwin went back to his little apartment when he was finally able to escape, fully prepared to tend to his plants and dodge phone calls from the PR guy who always had something to say about his post-match interviews (just pull my press conference privileges if you’re so worried, damn). But just as he was getting started changing out the moss balls’ water, his phone started buzzing.

Unknown Caller.

It didn’t phase him. A huge chunk of Ashwin’s friend group liked to mask their numbers, use burner phones, that kind of thing. And maybe this was the call he was waiting for. Ashwin played it cool as he answered, though. No point in making assumptions. “もしもし, Ashwin here.”

“Hey, uh...” The person on the other end cleared their throat. “It’s...Arthur? Sorry, I made Cooper give me this number...”

Ashwin froze. “No, shit, don’t apologize...wow, you sound exactly the same.” Even after all those years. It made sense, of course he wouldn’t sound any different, but still. That was a weird thing to happen with someone still flesh and blood. “So, uh, I take it he sent you the picture?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he...”

Arthur’s voice cracked. He had to stop to clear his throat again. And when he spoke...

“Where are you?”

He didn’t sound like a near ageless being with knowledge beyond Ashwin’s scope of comprehending. He sounded like a scared kid who wanted to go home.

Ashwin had been right. And knowing that made any awkward and painful explanations he’d have to give Cooper now worth it.

[onechicagorpf]

Not A Stranger - Part 3

Pairing: Jay Halstead x Reader (Chicago Med intern)

Waking up in bed next to a random naked guy after a drunken night out usually sucks, but eh, whatever. you’ll never see him again, right? Well except this time, random naked guy turns out to be your ED attending’s little brother, so maybe you’re a little bit screwed…

Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here Read Part 4 here

Warnings: SMUT. A little bit of R-rated smut! Swearing, the usual cuss words. Some angst/PTSD, although it’s not overtly discussed. Dubious medical content (discussion of amputation & blood), some of which has been shamelessly lifted from a season 3 episode of Code Black!

A/N: So there’s definitely going to be a Part 4, lol! I’ll try and have it out by this time next week. Send me asks/messages/leave a note if you liked this and want to see more - it really makes me feel so much less insecure about my writing ahaha! Also do send me short prompts or requests that I can fill as blurbs (i.e. nothing that’s going to be a several chapter story - I will request those later on!) - preferably for Jay but I can do Will as well! Female!Halstead sibling is also okay :) Anyway enough talking, enjoy!

PS: I make mention of bearded Jay in this chapter; this gif is totally the version of him I had in my head for this chapter!

"Walter Holden. 16 years old, victim of an auto accident, came in with a dislocated right leg."

There's droplets of rain on the other side of the windows. It blurs the view - all of a sudden, the buildings you can usually see from the 13th floor of the hospital are just fuzzy, beige blocks.

"Preliminary exam showed no other major trauma, and his vital signs were strong. His leg just had to be reset."

A shudder goes down your spine - was the hospital's conference room always this cold? Well, you don't know - you've never been in here before.

"Dr Halstead advised 10 mil of morphine, but the patient refused pain medication, and the leg was reset. It was at this point that Dr Halstead handed the patient off to Dr Y/L/N, requesting her to evaluate his leg for blood flow."

There's been a strange tapping noise for the last 5 minutes, but only now do you realise it's your fingers against the oval, wooden table.

"Dr Y/L/N? Dr Y/L/N!" You snap out of your reverie and look up. Dr Lanik's glaring at you. You apologise. He takes his seat, next to Mrs Goodwin and Will, both of whom send you a soft smile that doesn't quite reach their eyes. They're trying to be reassuring, but it doesn't matter - you're ready to drown yourself.

Clearing your throat, you speak. "I was instructed to evaluate his right leg for blood flow. I did so by checking his pulses, uh, dorsalis pedis and posterior tibialis." You pause, as some of the other occupants in the conference room - all members of the board or lawyers, all wearing pristine suits and a cold, calculating expression - turned to look at each other.

You clear your throat again. "It was a uh, a textbook exam."

"I'm sorry, in which textbook does it say to check for an arterial injury by just palpating a pulse?" Dr Lanik cuts in sharp.  Will closes his eyes, as you struggle to breath normally.

"90% of all patients - "

"I can't hear you, Dr Y/L/N." Dr Lanik's voice booms across the room, and Will's had it.

"This is ridiculous, there's no need to be intimidating her like this - she's a first year resident and - "

"And she was satisfied with a pulse check to evaluate blood flow? Do I need to remind everyone here that the acceptable course of action in this scenario is to order a doppler or an ABI? That boy's leg was sitting for ages without proper blood flow, and eventually the best we could do for him was amputate it."

Will shakes his head vehemently. "Pathology's looked over the leg - they determined that the severity of the accident combined with the amount of time it took CFD to extricate Holden from the car meant that his leg wasn't viable before he even stepped into the ED." Will turns to you, his eyes piercing as he spoke directly to you.

"There was nothing you could've done that would've changed the outcome. Nothing."

You take a deep breath. You don't nod.

"Alright, we've heard everything we need to hear." The head of the legal department says, after a few moments of discussion with the board members. "Given the findings from Pathology, we will not be terminating Dr Y/L/N's employment here at Chicago Med. However, we recommend that her OR privileges be revoked, and that she is attached to an attending for a duration of 2 months, by which point hopefully she will learn that not every case is a textbook case." She stares directly at you. "Dismissed." Chairs scrape against the floor as everyone makes their leave.

Will places his hand on your shoulder, and you realise you haven't moved even after everyone's left.

His voice is soft. "We all make mistakes. And - "

"I could've been the reason he lost his leg. If he'd come in with ample time to save the leg, and I just - and I just didn't realise it, I could've been the reason a kid had to lose a leg." There's tears in your eyes as you turn to look at Will, who just sighs.

"Yeah. But that's not what happened."

"I got lucky." You shrug, tears freely streaming down your face now. "I just got lucky."

Will doesn't say anything. He just hugs you.

***

It's not the kind of thing you just get over, you realise, because it's been 5 days since it happened but you can't get it out of your head. You've been barely getting any sleep; often you jerk awake in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning, after which it's next to impossible to fall asleep again. It's also affecting your work more than just making you tired - you keep second-guessing your medical judgements, deferring to Will or Natalie or Ethan for anything and everything. None of them bite at you for it, because they know what's going on and they know what you're going through, but some part of you wishes they would. Wishes that they'd just grab you by the shoulders and shake you, and say "Be a damn doctor."

Dr Charles met with you for lunch earlier today, and you lamented your troubles. The kind and thoughtful psychiatrist patiently listened, before giving you some wisdom you needed to hear. Amongst which was "find a distraction".

"You mean focus on something else?" You asked, chasing a watermelon cube at the bottom of your fruit cup.

"Yeah, but it's a little bit of a dangerous tactic. See, you don't want to distract yourself from dealing with the pain and the guilt you feel, because emotions don't tend to go away when you suppress them like that. But if you're having trouble processing it, it can be helpful to take your mind off of it for a while, wait til some time has passed and it's not so...intense. And maybe then it'll be easier to tackle and get over, y'know?" Dr Charles advised and you nodded, taking it in.

You think about what exactly you could do to distract yourself as you finish your shift and make your way towards your car in the parking lot.

Maybe I should take up painting?

The thought of yourself - little miss notoriously bad at anything artsy - trying to paint has you chuckling softly. You're about to give up on this whole distract yourself thing when, as if on cue, your phone buzzes with a text message. You get into your car, turn on the heating, and pull out your phone.

J.H. 11:32PM

So...guess who's back :)

You can't help the smile on your face. Jay's been undercover for the past week - it actually got started the next morning after the night you went over for "hockey". He'd gotten a text early in the morning asking him to come in, and so the two of you had actually barely spoken since...the festivities of that night.

You 11:33PM

Congrats, detective :)

J.H. 11:33PM

Wanna come over and help me celebrate?

Huh. Well maybe Dr Charles wasn't off-target with the whole "distract yourself" thing - although you're positive having meaningless sex is probably not one of the healthy methods of distraction that he was envisioning.

But quickly, you realise it doesn't matter - ever since what happened, you haven't been sleeping well at night. It's been close to 6 days and you're wrecked, so maybe some good, tires-you-out-completely sex is exactly what you need?

You 11:34PM

Be there in 15

 J.H. 11:34PM

Can't wait :)

 Your lips curve into a smile as you pull out of the parking lot and down into the main road.

***

"I've been waiting to do this...for so long..." Jay murmurs in your ear before pressing kisses down the side of your neck, his hands roaming all over your body. You tilt your head to the side, exposing the expanse of your neck to him.

“It’s only been…a couple ‘a days…” You reply softly, and you feel Jay’s huffs of soft laughter into your neck. You turn to look at him, pulling away. “What?”

There’s a teasing smile on his face. “Most women take it as a compliment if a guy says he hasn’t stopped thinking about her.”

You shake you head, putting on a teasing look, “Uh-uh, that’s not what you said, you said you’ve been wanting to do this – ”

“It was implied – ”

“It wasn’t implied and even if it was – ”

“It was implied and even if it wasn’t, that’s still a compliment.” Jay says pointedly, a huge grin on his face. You narrow your eyes at him, trying to hide the growing smile on your face. He chuckles, seeing right through you.

You smack his arm. “You keep laughing at me in bed and I’m gonna get mad.” This gets Jay full-on laughing, and your jaw drops in pretend-outrage. “You fucking – ”

“No, no, no c’mere – ” Jay pacifies you, leaning over you, arms on either side of you as he starts to kiss your face, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. But there’s still the slightest smile pulling up the corners of his lips, and when he presses them to your lips, you can’t help but laugh into the kiss. Jay reaches up and holds your face, the kiss becoming soft, loving, drawn-out, and some feeling deep in your core tells you you’re just…somewhere else right now. You don’t know how to describe it, other than that everything in this moment feels perfect, feels right.

A shiver goes down your spine, and maybe it’s because Jay’s shifted, and is now sucking a spot on the base of your neck, hard and strong and deep, and his hands are skimming downwards, unbuttoning your soft cotton top before unzipping your jeans. And maybe it’s because you don’t know what the fuck you are doing here, with him, with all of this. You think about how wrong this is, how bad this is, how his brother’s your boss and this was just supposed to be one drunken hookup and then it became two (except you weren’t even drunk that time) and now it’s about to become three –

“Y/N?” Jay calls softly, and you look at him – his hands resting gently over the hem of your panties, his face hovering over the space between your legs, and the look of…almost reverence in his shining green eyes.

You stop thinking.

Your hands reach downward, sliding your panties off and Jay eagerly helps, getting them off completely. Just like last time, Jay draws out the foreplay – kissing, licking, and nipping at the skin of your inner thighs, making the heat in your core build. Running your fingers through his dark hair, you yank it a little to get him to get going, and he pinches your hip – a quick slap of the wrist. Laughing, you repeat the action, pulling on his hair, and he groans.

“You’re real impatient, you know?”

“Jayyyyyyyy,” You whine, pouting down at him. He’s got this look of a predator – a confident, cocky smile on his face. Jay dips his head down, his mouth making contact with your cunt.

“There we go,” You murmur, gasping as you feel his hot breath on your most sensitive regions. Jay’s hands grip tight into your supple skin, holding your thighs open for him as his tongue circles your opening. Your back arcs as you moan, the sensation of his tongue on you setting off what feels like fireworks in your head. Jay’s mouth presses into you, hard and deep, his tongue licking and lapping at your now sopping wet cunt.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck – ” You whisper, eyelids fluttering shut as Jay softly flicks his tongue over your clit. He repeats the motion, going up and down, teasing your clit and your hip jerks upwards sharply in response. Settling your ass back down against his soft sheets, you catch your breath and mutter a soft apology – “Shit, sorry,” – and Jay taps your thigh, a silent “don’t worry about it”, as he’s nosed his way back between your legs immediately.

Jay laps at your folds and you try to keep your head about you, try to not lose your mind, but it just feels so good. He sucks your clit into his mouth gently and your eyes roll into the back of your head. “Oh my god, ohhh my god – fuck!” You whimper, as he keeps sucking your clit, pausing to flick his tongue over it. Your fingers clutch the sheets around you hard enough to rip holes in them. The loud moans out of your mouth are bordering on screams. The feeling in your core, the heat, starts rising like a wave reaching a shore –

“I’m gonna – I’m gonna – I’m gonna – ah, ah, ahhhh – fuck! Fuck, fuck – Jay! Jay!” You scream, your vision whiting out completely as you arch off the bed, riding out the waves of pleasure wrecking your body. You hands fly downwards to grab Jay’s head as you jerk away from his still-working mouth, your oversensitive clit causing tears to pool in your eyes. Pulling him up, you whisper his name over and over again, like he’s the only gospel you know. Jay shifts up, laying down next to you and pulling you close, your bodies fitting into each other like a perfect pair of puzzle pieces. You look at him through your teary eyes and all you see are his green irises staring right back at you with a measure of something dark and lustful in them. You hold his face in your hands, running a thumb over the rough stubble of his cheeks, his jaw, where a soft beard has started to grow. His lips are glossy and wet, from you, and you see now there’s a soft pink line going across his nose that you trace with your hands, frowning.

“I’m okay,” Jay says in a soothing voice.

“What happened?” You ask, concerned, the frown between your eyebrows deepening as you look up at him.

A soft smile. “Kinda got into a fight. Guy tried to punch me, I dodged it, but his fingernail scratched me. It’s fine.” Jay replies quickly, and his face is so close to yours that you’re breathing the same air. You don’t say anything, but you must still be frowning because Jay speaks again. “It’s literally just a scratch.” You hum softly in response, running your hands down his front, unbuttoning his shirt, scanning the expanse of his chest and abdomen with your fingertips and your eyes.

Jay lifts your chin and you turn back to him. “What?”

“Are you checking me for other injuries?” He asks, chuckling. You look back down, pausing for a moment. “Maybe…it’s not like you’d tell me if you got hurt, right?” Jay just laughs, and there’s your answer. You ignore the burgeoning feelings in your heart of some kind of dejection.

Your fingers run over a sliver of raised skin, on his lower right flank. It’s a thin, pale pink scar that runs about 3 inches. You work in an ED – you know exactly what this is.

“You were stabbed?” You ask, stunned. “When?”

Jay sighs, grabbing your fingers in his hand and holding them closed. “Army stuff. Not a big deal.” He pushes your fingers away to your own body, and then reaches for the blanket and pulls it up over the two of you, like as if the conversation’s over.

“You don’t want to talk about the Army,” you point out, as Jay lays on his back, some distance between the two of you. He sighs again, looking upwards at the ceiling. “Is that a question or a statement?”

You know you shouldn’t push, but you do anyway.

“You should talk to someone about it  – ”

“I talk to people about it. I have.” Jay’s voice is tight. He’s still not looking at you.

“You can talk to me about it...” You say, and you’re terrified. Because what you’re really asking is “Do you think I’m close enough, do you care about me enough to let me in?”.

Jay turns to you, a soft smile on his face. “It’s fine. I’ve got other people for that.”

Hiding the immense desolation that’s weighing like an anchor on your chest from showing, you just send a shallow smile his way. 

He’s got other people for that. He’s got other people for sharing his feelings, his pain, his suffering, his life. He doesn’t want you for that, I mean, why would he share all of that with you? You’re just a warm body – some random girl he’s having sex with. Nothing more.

You pull the blankets tighter around you, turning away from Jay. Trying your best to quell the wave of sadness flooding what feels like every single part of you, you drift asleep. 

***

“Dr Y/N?”

You turn, and there’s Walter Holden on a bed in the ED.

“Walter?” You walk to his side, stunned. He’s crying – tears spilling out of his soft baby blue eyes, his youthful face scrunched up in pain and anguish.

“Why did you do this to me? Why?!” He yells, his voice cracking. You shake your head. “Walter, Walter I’m so sorry – I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to – ” You choke on your words, and as you look down the bed you realise that Walter’s amputated leg is bleeding at the stump.

“Oh god, oh my god – ” You get up, shocked as the blood starts gushing. Walter screams.

“Help me! Dr Y/N – help me! Help me!”

You hear your heart hammering in your ears, your head is spinning, you stand up and you feel faint.

Will rushes into the room. He starts holding as much gauze as he can to Walter’s leg. Nurses and doctors flood the room, and they begin moving Walter out. You’re standing, back pressed to the treatment room wall, aghast. 

Will turns to you, his face red with rage. “What are you even doing?! Fucking hell, Y/N – you can’t do anything right?!”

There’s a painful lump in your throat, and you can’t breathe. Something grabs your hand and you snap your head. It’s Walter, and as they wheel his bed out, he looks at you with so much fury and torment in his eyes.

“YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE A DOCTOR!”

“No, no, no, I’m so sorry Walter, I’m so sorry – I’m so sorry – this can’t be happening, no, no no no – ” Tears stream down your face and you start shaking. Your knees buckle, and you fall to the ground, sobs wracking your body. Somewhere in the distance, you hear your name being called, but you can’t answer, you can’t do this anymore, you can’t – you just can’t…

“Y/N! Y/N!”

You jolt, your eyes flying open. Jay’s over you, his eyebrows drawn together, his eyes wide, concerned, his hands holding your shoulders where you realise he’s been shaking you – shaking you because – because –

Fuck.

It was a fucking nightmare. Again.

You let out a cry of pain, bringing your hands up to cover your face. “Breathe, just breathe.” Jay says softly, rubbing your arms up and down.

After about a minute, when you don’t feel so shaken anymore, you wipe your eyes and slowly sit up. Jay shifts with you, sitting right next to you. You can’t look him in the eyes.

“I’m – I’m sorry I woke you,” you whisper to your palms, resting atop your folded legs.

“Don’t – don’t worry about that. Y/N, what happened? It sounded pretty bad…” Jay says and you shake your head.

“I’m fine, it’s fine – ” Your hands run through your hair roughly. You need to go. You need to go – you need to leave – you can’t be here –you can’t be here with him –

“Hey. Hey,” Jay repeats, when you don’t answer. He reaches across and his warm hard gently grabs your face, trying to get you to look at him but you just push his hand away. You get up, grabbing your underwear and jeans from the ground and start getting dressed.

“Y/N!” Jay gets off the bed, and comes to you. You sidestep him, or at least you try to, but he’s much taller than you and his shoulders are broad; he stands in your way and grabs your arms softly.

“Y/N, look at me – ”

“Why?” 

You give him what he wants. You look up at him, you stare him directly in his eyes, shaking in anger and fear and what feels like the weight of the world on your shoulders. 

“Hmm? Why? This isn’t – you don’t care – what does it matter –” You yell at him, your mind frazzled as you fall apart in his arms.

The frown on Jay’s face gets deeper, and he shakes his head, leaning close. “Hey, talk to me. C’mon, you can talk to me – ”

“Why the fuck would I talk to you? You’re just some guy I’m sleeping with!” You spit harshly, shaking his hands off and stepping back. Jay’s mouth falls open, and his shoulders sag. His face contorts into something awful - dismay, defeat, hurt.

For a moment, you want to run back into his arms – apologise, say you didn’t mean it, say you’re just scared – but you don’t. You move around him, grabbing your shirt. You put it on and make your way out of his bedroom, and out of his apartment.

You don’t know why you said what you did. Actually, scratch that, you know exactly why you said that. In fact, you know exactly why you’re what you’re doing.

Every relationship you’ve ever had up to this point’s fucked you over. Every single one. You’ve been cheated on, you’ve been lied to, you’ve been told you were just some piece of ass, not an actual girlfriend. And now?

Now you’re scared shitless of what this thing between the two of you is. You’re scared shitless that you’re making a mistake by screwing around with your boss’s brother and you’re –

Well.

You’re scared shitless you’re falling for him.

So, you do what you do best. Dump out of this, push the self-destruct button. Get him to push you away so you don’t have to go through the pain of falling for the guy you can’t have. The one that you know’s going to screw you over, because he’s going to realise he only really sees you as a hookup – that he doesn’t love you.

You try to hold back the tears, because you’re driving home and the last thing you need right now is a car accident. There’s a buzzing sound from your phone and you perk up. As much as you want to tell yourself to not get your hopes high, you can’t help yourself, and you speed down the road to the red light so you can push the brakes and wait. Your fingers wrap around your phone and you immediately check the screen. 

The smile on your face falls – it’s just a stupid notification from Instagram. You toss your phone back onto the passenger seat, hard enough that it bounces off and hits the ground. Tears once again threaten to fill your eyes, and there’s a painful lump in your throat. You swipe at your cheeks, where a single tear has made its escape, and turn to look at the screen next to your steering wheel – it shows the time as 3:45AM. Leaning back against your car seat, a deep sigh exits your lungs.

You realise there’s no way you’re going to sleep again today, what with the whole Jay thing on top of the Walter Holden nightmare that’s been haunting you for the last 6 days now.

The lights turn green.

Swearing under your breath, you throw your car into a U-turn and drive to Med instead.

[bogosbintedthealien]

Writing An Otome Isekai Thingy

Anyway, as the title states, I'm writing an otome isekai thingy! I didn't know where else to post this (besides r/otomeisakai), so here I am. I'm writing one for 3 reasons.

A- I’m very bored. :(

B- My brother rec me one of these things a few months ago; I've descended into the rabbit hole ever since.

C- Writer's block! I wanna write for my fanfics, but my brain said no. Maybe if I write OG content it can get my creative juices going and I can finally go back to working on updates.

Had a couple of ideas for a story and had my brother pick one by random.

The 'guy gets reincarnated as the yandere capture target' idea got picked.

My general idea is that a guy who’s an Otaku and reads/watches romance series as a guilty pleasure gets reincarnated into an otome. He actually played the otome he’s in bc his younger sister basically nagged him to bc she wanted someone to talk to about it.

He realizes though that he woke up as the baby version of Shamus Hendell, the yandere capture target of Yellow Rose of Amarea.

Yanderes don’t typically become yanderes through a loving family and a good life, so of course this character had a tragic anime backstory and goes through maybe hardships in his life before ending up in the academy where the game starts.

The MC realizes this and is freaking out, bc he doesn’t want to deal with the series of horrible events that the OG character went through.

I like series where the Protag kisses up others to survive bc even if they’re appealing to others, typically they are the ones who have others wrapped around their fingers. (And for some reason that’s assuming to me.)

So he kinda ends up doing that. He seeks out the other capture targets, and the heroine and villainess. Mostly to get them on his side. His thought process is, ‘if I can’t really protect myself, why not get ppl in higher places to do it for me?’

And it does work as he gets very chummy with the 2nd prince who’s the one that gets him out of the bad situation first. And bc he has the attention of the second prince, he’s able to meet some of them other characters.

There’s a few characters he won't meet until the academy arc, but most of the important characters he’ll meet around here.

For instance, there’s the commoner character who got into the school through scholarships or bc he has high/rare magic skills or whatever. He’s also one of the capture targets. The MC doesn’t want to find him bc he wants his guy on his side, but bc he knows this guy is actually batshit crazy. He wants to find him earlier to stop him from blah blah that the guy does in all his endings. But he cannot find him until then bc this dude is a commoner and the MC is still technically a part of high society. So it was basically impossible to find him.

This is going to be a big anxiety of the MC once he’s in a more comfortable position. Knowing that this guy in the future will try to do smth very drastic and dangerous, is still out there.

The MC will try to appeal to important characters by acting weak and soft, like, a crybaby a guess? He wants to seem like a little rabbit to others. And to his utter surprise, it fucking works. (He’s taking advantage of his softboi looks, as the character was designed to look feminine and non-threatening so fans during the hype wouldn’t be able to tell the character was going to be a yandere. And therefore making the fact like, a plot twist in the game as Shamus comes off as a quite n’ shy guy at first.)

He forms a bromance with the 2nd prince. After some stuff happens he befriends the villainess who ends up crushing on him. The villainess big bro who’s a siscon is chill w/ him since his sister likes him. But is very much in the mindset that if the MC hurts his sis in any way, he’s never gonna see the light of day. The heroine falls for him very quickly which is actually off-putting for him. (The joke is that she’s airheaded & kinda dumb. She just has a very cheerful personality by default. The reasoning is that that’s how marketing portrayed her and since she’s supposed to be a blank slate that’s just what her personality turned into.) The heroine 100% has her bangs covering her eyes.

The MC leaves a powerful impression on the short cute boy (who’s actually a meanie) and later in the academy arc has this weird anime admiration for him. You know what I’m talking about. The commoner, while harboring a hatred for the aristocrats and nobles, respects the MC to an extent later turning into a crush. (That of which will absolutely give the MC whiplash.)

Two characters who are mobs in the game become the MC’s normal friends when he feels like the personality of the main characters are too much. Maybe he has more mob friends idk yet, but two of the ones he adored as characters the most both end up having crushes on him. One girl, one boy.

5 ppl will like-like him. Perfectly balanced as all things should be.

He definitely takes advantage of this lmao. (In like, a protection squad way, not harem.)

Maybe I’ll even have two of the girls lose interest bc they realize they like each other,,,, Have a lilly aside romance,,,, You know bc,,,gurls pretty,,,,

My need for sapphic content aside, ultimately my goal is to have fun while writing this and confuse the heck hacky out of my readers on who the true love interest will be. >:)

I guess I’ll mostly be writing this with a wattpad audience in mind??? (But it’s mostly just for fun so who knows.)

Since AO3 is more oriented to fanfics, my Quotev is the physical manifestation of a dead goldfish in a bowl, and I don’t think this is smth the ppl on FictionPress would like to read about… So yeah, my Wattpad audience it is. I have no choice.

I’m still on the 1st ch as I keep revising my outline. I at least want a solid outline of the first arc before I post anything. Imma try and attempt constant updates but to do so I need to know wtf I’m doing. So all this jazz is subject to change.

And just to let you know how the tone of the story will be (for most of it, the 1st arc is definitely going to be more serious), the title for chapter 1 is ‘Sorry Truck-kun, You’ve Been Replaced’ since he died by choking on an apple instead of being hit by a truck.

[gay-jesus-probably]

Bisexuality didn't "feel right" as a label because you're biphobic and will do anything to distance yourself from bisexuality. Get well soon, the bi community will be here when you're ready.

Are you the raging homophobe anon back for round two or a new guy? ...It doesn’t really matter, you people are all the same.

If you are the same anon, then now I’m extra pissed off at you because do you have any idea how difficult it is to make fun of your messages? You’re making this really hard for me. First you send a five word ask declaring me a homophobe with no details, and it took a lot of thinking to come up with a vaguely funny response to such a lackluster prompt. You’re a really bad improv partner.

And now you send me this shit. Sorry everybody, no jokes today, now I’m actually just fucking furious.

Let me tell you a story, anon. When I was an innocent little twelve year old back in the far of reaches of 2011, I first discovered Tumblr, and soon enough I was learning about different genders and sexualities, and began exploring my own identity. As you already know since you’re sarcastically quoting me talking about my own fucking feelings, I’d been having a minor sexuality crisis for several years at that point, since gay, straight and bisexual were the only label I’d known before then, and none of them fit me. Despite me trying all of them. Multiple times. You condescending piece of shit.All this was resolved by me stumbling across a post defining pansexuality, and that being the first and only sexual identity that’s ever actually felt right for me. It clicked instantly, and has continued to be my sexuality for literally a decade now.

But back when I first started entering the queer community, pansexuality was actually pretty controversial. So was bisexuality. The two were just lumped together actually, because according to the exclusionists back then, bi/pan people are attracted to the opposite sex, and therefor are basically just straight. Actually they rarely cared enough to bother differentiating between bisexual and pansexual people, they just lumped us all in together as a bunch of heteros pretending to be gay for attention and oppressing the real gays. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be gay for attention. So there I was, a twelve year old queer kid with a brand new identity, being welcomed by a bunch of exclusionists angrily yelling about how I was definitely just a hetero faking it for attention, and being pansexual was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Let’s jump forward a few years. I was older, and still perfectly confident in my identity as a pansexual. I hadn’t considered any other parts of my identity. Why would I? I just never really thought much about gender. Then shortly after my fourteenth birthday, I watched a short film online about a trans boy figuring out his identity and working up the courage to come out to his mother. I don’t remember what it was called or most of the details. All I remember was the last scene where the boy and his mother got into an argument about him not feminine enough, which ended with him screaming that he wasn’t a girl. And then I unexpectedly burst into tears because neither was I.

So that was a fun surprise. Once I pulled through that unexpected sobbing breakdown in the middle of the night and re-evaluated my entire life, I realized that yeah. I really wasn’t a girl. I wasn’t a boy either. Fortunately by then I knew that nonbinary people were a thing, so I had plenty of options. I spent awhile feeling things out and experimenting with different labels and pronouns before finally settling on agender and they/them pronouns. Which was great! I felt better than ever, and was confident that I had my identity down and everything would be fine. But everything was not fine. Because I’d been so happy about the biphobia dying down that I hadn’t quite noticed the exclusionists switching targets. Now the nonbinary people were lying. What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. The ones who wanted to medically transition were declared to actually be poor confused trans people who couldn’t get over their internalized transphobia to accept their True Identities. And the rest of us... well, we were just a bunch of cishet special snowflakes playing at being trans for attention, and oppressing the real trans people. I wasn’t agender. I was a cis girl making up fake identities for attention, and calling myself nonbinary was Wrong and Bad. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

I didn’t do that.

Step forward a few more years, now to eighteen year old me. There’s no dramatic revelations or long struggles this time, just a slow realization. Because I’d been single for years, and I wasn’t bothered by that. I actually enjoyed it. Marriage didn’t sound very appealing. Neither did dating. I’d dated people before, but I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted to; it was just... the thing I was supposed to do. I found people attractive, sure. But I hadn’t wanted to flirt with anyone. Actually, now that I was thinking about it, had I ever felt romantically attracted to anyone? I didn’t even want romance in fiction! So I experimented. Went on some dates just in case age made it more appealing (it didn’t). Began calling myself aromantic, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the longer I used it, the better it felt. It was right.

But once again, the exclusionists were back and even angier than ever. Because now aphobia was in full swing. After all, asexuality wasn’t really queer. It’s just not having sex! It’s basically straight! What a bunch of special fucking snowflakes, pretending to be queer for attention. And the aromantics, oh the aromantics who weren’t asexual were even worse. Because everyone knows that love is what makes us human. How could someone not feel romance? Us aro people weren’t just lying about our identities, we were pretending to not have feelings so that we could get away with using people for sex without commitment. Being aro meant I was an abusive sex crazed monster taking advantage of all the poor innocent allo’s. I wasn’t aromantic. I was a sexual predator making up a fake identity to take advantage of people, and even though I wasn’t actually sleeping around calling myself aro was Bad and Wrong. But it was okay, because the exclusionists knew better than me. They knew how I really felt, and what my real identity was. They could fix me. I just had to agree with everything they said and become the person they decided I was supposed to be.

And I didn’t fucking do that.

Look. I’ve been here for a very long time, and I have dealt with so many versions of exclusionist bullshit. Every aspect of my identity has been met with random fucking strangers online smugly informing me that I was wrong about myself and they were right. And that’s just the ones that wanted me to pretend to be something else; about half of the exclusionists didn’t make any attempts at conversion therapy, and instead skipped straight to suicide baiting. I’m not even getting into the actual homophobes I’ve had to deal with, or the TERF’s that have come after me under the assumption that I’m a trans woman. My point is, I’m pretty fucking used to this sort of thing.

This just hurts a little more, because like I said earlier, the first round of exclusionism I faced was just expanded biphobia. And the bi/pan community banded together in the face of that. We weren’t the exact same identities, but we were being treated the same, and we were similar enough that nobody really minded the difference. It was wonderful. Bi and pan people were a tightly knit group, and that was a sense of community I desperately needed when I was young. I’ve been seeing this coming for awhile. There’s been increasing amounts of bi people getting drawn in by exclusionist bullshit, and I’ve seen anti-pansexual sentiment growing. I just... really hoped it wouldn’t get this far. It’s sad, y’know? It feels like losing an old friend. I’m really disappointed that you think trying to force people out of their community is right. It’s fucking pathetic, and I hope that someday you’ll rediscover basic compassion and realize how much damage you’re doing to yourself and others. This sort of thing doesn’t help the bisexual community. It drives people away. It’s like the damage that TERF’s have done to the lesbian community; this sort of thing poisons the whole well. I hope you re-evaluate what you’re doing and find a more healthy mindset.

...But also at the same time: Who the fuck do you think you are? Take your condescending bullshit and shove it directly up your ass you fucking waste of oxygen. How the fuck dare you. Do you realize the fucking audacity it takes to claim to know someone's identity better than they do? You self centered egotistical douchebag. Your parents should feel ashamed for having raised such an utter failure of a human being. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, but I can already tell you beat off twice a day to how fucking clever you think you are. If you ever darken my inbox again you’d better be damn sure you keep it anonymous, because if I find you I’ll kick your fucking teeth in, you smug piece of shit.