#this goddamn INCOMPETENT PIECE OF SHIT

[twistedappletree]

lmao so i think the other girl working for my client is about to get fired for trauma dumping and making out of pocket passive aggressive comments constantly akdnakjds why can’t anyone just be fucking N O R M A L

**also pls excuse the typos in my tags omfg i’m so annoyed that i can’t type ahahahHAHAHA

[becca-alexa]

i understand the technological gap between generations but at what point does that gap just turn into incompetence

[captain-hawks]

double shift

— kento nanami x f!reader

summary: Kento Nanami hates overtime, but who is he to say no when his boss asks him to go check on his wife while he's out of town?

word count: 4.2k

content: NSFW, 18+, smut, infidelity, heavy lactation kink, fingering, unprotected p in v, creampie, multiple orgasms, degradation, dirty talk, squirting, breeding kink, restraints, counter sex, wet & messy

Kento’s grip on the steering wheel tightens as he stares at his phone nestled in the cupholder, limbs taut with aggravation as the bored voice of his boss continues on, “She hasn’t been answering my calls all day, and I’m not flying back for another week yet. I know you’re probably about to leave the office, but I’m going to need you to stop at my house and check on her first, Nanami.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, the words ‘OVERTIME’ flashing red behind his eyes and drawing forth a fresh surge of anger that has him contemplating the consequences of smashing his phone on the pavement outside and finding a new job entirely.

Today has been shit.

Capital S, Shit.

His asshole boss has been out of town for nearly a week already, every client is somehow ten times more unbearable than usual, the incompetence across the office has become a goddamn disease, and he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that that piece of shit is doing anything  but keeping his dick in his pants while his wife and their new baby are left home alone.

His very attractive, very lovely wife who probably has no idea what a waste of oxygen her husband is. 

You’re too fucking good for him.

And you’re also too good for Kento, who’s spent more nights than he’d care to admit furiously fisting his cock to the memory of whatever tantalizing outfit you’d turned up at the office wearing that day.

And seeing you pregnant?

While the knowledge that you were now entirely stuck with that undeserving asshole sent his blood boiling, Kento could hardly complain about the sight of you during those months, his shaft straining painfully in his slacks every time he laid eyes upon your gloriously swollen, heavy breasts. 

And the cum he splattered all over the mirror and sink after inevitably rushing out of his office when you finally left? Well, that was between him and the four walls of the men’s bathroom. 

So after the awful day he’s already had, Kento’s not sure he can imagine a worse type of overtime than waltzing into your house and playing the part of a dutiful employee checking in on his boss’s wife, acting like he doesn’t want to fuck you so bad it’s driving him up a goddamn wall.

But he’ll fucking do it.

Of course he will. 

“Sure,” he replies tersely, before hanging up and peeling out of the parking lot.

᠃ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

She’s finally asleep.

Sighing weakly in relief, you close the door to your daughter’s bedroom and shuffle down the hallway. You make it all the way to the kitchen before you’re forced to lean heavily against the countertop, gritting your teeth as another wave of discomfort radiates from your sore, swollen breasts. 

“Hello?” a familiar, male voice tentatively calls out in a hushed tone.

You whip around, still clutching the counter for support, eyes widening at the side of Kento Nanami standing in the doorway to your kitchen. 

“Hi?” you respond, your heart doing a somersault as you drink in the sight of his tall, muscled form. 

He twirls a key around his finger twice before catching it in the palm of his hand and stuffing it in his pocket. “I apologize for barging in, but your spare key hiding spot is shit, and I didn’t want to ring the doorbell and wake the baby.”

“It’s okay, Nanami,” you assure him, the erratic thrumming in your chest far from a feeling of fear.

For whatever reason, he appears to be attempting to avert his eyes after glancing over at you quickly, roughly running a hand through his hair. “Your husband asked me to check on you. He said he hasn’t heard from you all day,” he explains carefully. 

“Well, I figured it would be rude to interrupt the wild orgies he pays for with the company credit card,” you deadpan.

Nanami’s jaw ticks, “He—”

“I’m well aware of what he does.”

“Then why—”

“Because I realized too late, and I’m too tired to do anything about it right now,” you sigh, wincing at the continuous ache of your breasts.

And it’s then that you realize why Nanami’s been looking anywhere but at you directly.

You’re wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and knee-high socks, which in and of itself isn’t overtly reprehensible, given that you’re in your own house, you have a four-month-old child, and you can’t remember the last time you got a full night’s rest. The issue is that your breasts are so sore and tender right now, you haven’t been able to even look at a bra in days. 

Which, once again, wouldn’t be an issue alone in the privacy of your home…when one of your husband’s employees isn’t desperately trying not to acknowledge the fact that two large wet spots have soaked through your shirt. 

“I should…” you trail off awkwardly, glancing around the room in hopes that you left one of your flannel over shirts lying within reach. 

“It’s fine,” Nanami blurts out, scratching the back of his head and studiously feigning interest in the collection of party invites and shopping lists stuck to the side of your fridge. 

᠃ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

It’s not fine. 

It’s anything but fine. 

It’s a complete fucking disaster. 

Kento hasn’t seen you since you gave birth. And despite how exhausted he knows you are—he can see it in the bags under your eyes and the limpness of your posture— your soft pregnancy glow has transformed into a postpartum radiance that has his breath catching in his throat each time his eyes sweep over you. 

You’re fucking stunning. 

And somehow, he knows your husband hasn’t noticed this. Hasn’t told you how incredible you are, how fantastic motherhood looks on you. It sends a fresh wave of anger coursing through him, the mere thought that he could bear to let himself stray from you—especially now, at such a vulnerable time. 

But any hopes Kento had of trying not to commit this sight of you to memory were swiftly dashed the moment he noticed the wet spots on your shirt. 

Even now, when he’s looking at a box of cereal on the counter as if it’s the most interesting thing in the entire world, every layer of his inner psyche is rapidly overheating at the thought of your heavy, swollen breasts. The milk leaking from them, soaking through your clothes and inevitably trailing down your stomach. 

He needs to fucking leave. Now. 

“I should go—��

“—do you want some tea?”

You both speak at the same time, and when Kento turns to face you again, you’ve slipped a blue flannel shirt on, buttoning it up partway. As if his traitorous cock will somehow forget what he now knows is obscured underneath the added layer of material. But despite the growing discomfort swelling and throbbing against the zipper of his pants, he concedes, his need to quell the apparent loneliness in your eyes with a moment of company winning out over his lust-addled desire to disappear to the nearest private place to jerk off. 

He’s thankful to sit after you pour him a cup, hiding any and all evidence of what a terrible man he is beneath the table, one leg idly bouncing as he wills his hard on to go down. It’s a big ask, though, given that you’re probably not even aware of what you’re doing to him when you lean your body over the kitchen island with your mug clutched between your fingers as you idly chat with him, your oversized shirt just barely masking the flash of pink panties it reveals beneath each time your shoulders bounce as you laugh. 

He’s two seconds from excusing himself to put his fucking dick in the freezer. 

His chair scrapes against the tile floor as he pushes it back, having decided he’s at his limit, but he pauses when a pained sound escapes your lips. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, hurrying over to where you’re now pressing your forehead against the island countertop, whimpering softly. His hand hovers for a moment before he opts to gently touch your shoulder, just to let you know he’s there. 

Your fingers scrape over the marble as you breathe out in a quiet voice, “No.”

As if on instinct, Kento begins to rub small, comforting circles into your upper back, his tentative touches growing more confident when he feels your tense body behind to relax slightly. 

“What’s wrong? What can I do?”

You whine again, standing up straighter but keeping your back to him as you clutch at your chest. “They…they hurt so bad.”

Kento’s halfway certain his soul has left his body as he watches, stunned, while you slide your hands up under your shirt and squeeze at your breasts, exhaling a chorus of breathy little sounds like the fucked up cherry on top. 

“Do you need to…” he trails off, and though you can’t see from where he’s standing behind you, he vaguely gestures in the general direction where he can only surmise the baby’s room is. 

“It’s…they’re clogged,” you whisper, elbows lifting up and revealing the small of your back as you begin to knead your tits desperately. “They’ve been so sore and swollen for days.”

Kento bites his lower lip, mentally steadying himself for a moment before he asks, “Tell me how I can help.”

“Can you grab a clean washcloth out of the drawer next to the sink and soak it in hot water?”

He swiftly complies with your request, returning moments later after wringing out the small towel and waiting for it to cool down slightly. You’re still using the counter to steady yourself, so he approaches you from behind and goes to hand you the washcloth, only to find his hand immediately pinned between your own and one of your breasts. 

You let out a whimpering cry of relief, and it takes everything in him not to let out the noise rumbling in his own throat as you squeeze his hand over your tit. 

“I’m sorry,” you whimper. “It just feels so…”

“It’s okay,” Kento murmurs. “Relax.”

Internally, every single warning bell inside of his head is blaring indignantly over the fact that he’s got his hand under his boss’s wife’s shirt, and he’s massaging her lactating breasts with a hot towel while she whimpers and presses into his touch. 

But your fingers are laced with his, and you’re not telling him to stop. 

In fact, you’re begging him to keep going, keeping a hold of his left hand when he switches the towel to his right, urging him to massage both of your tits at the same time. And who is he to tell you no?

Kento’s fairly certain his balls are going to be aching for days when he feels the warm liquid that begins to coat his fingers.

Fucking fuck. 

What the fuck is he doing?

Then your back arches as you outright moan when he brazenly toys with both of your nipples at the same time, milk squirting out, your ass pressing directly into his throbbing erection. 

And fuck it, fuck dignity, because Kento’s on the verge of coming in his pants. 

But then you spin around to face him, your back pressed into the island as you gaze at him shyly and say, “I…I think I need more.”

Your eyes flick from his mouth back down to your breasts, and he cups the side of your face as he asks, “Are you sure?”

You nod, slipping your shirt off entirely and tossing it aside, and Kento’s mouth goes dry as he stares at the trails of milk leaking from your tits, wondering how he’d ever thought to call today ‘Shitty’. 

He motions toward the counter, his large hands grasping your waist to help you get seated up on top of it, fingertips hesitant to pull away from your lacy panties when he spies the wet spot over your cunt. 

Kento has never thought of himself as a greedy man. Far from it, actually. 

But the moment his mouth latches onto one of your hot, swollen breasts, pulling a shameless moan from your pretty lips as your thighs wrap around him, the sweet taste of your milk hitting his tongue, he feels fucking insatiable. 

His mind is a buzz of static as he drinks from your tits, all the blood in his body rushing to his cock, precum soaking through his boxers and slacks. Your fingers tangle in his hair, the heel of your foot pressing into his back and pulling him closer, and he groans, one hand grasping your upper thigh as he teases your nipples between his teeth and squeezes a spray of liquid onto his gluttonous tongue. 

“Feels so good, Nanami,” you whine, fingertips sliding down the front of his dress shirt, catching on each button.  

“Kento,” he exhales, licking up the milk dripping down your chest. 

“Kento,” you moan, tugging hard on the tousled blond strands that have fallen onto his forehead. 

And at the sound of your breathy, wrecked tone moaning out his name for the first time, every nerve ending in Kento’s body goes up in flames. 

᠃ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃

Nothing has ever felt this good. 

Nothing. 

Kento Nanami’s sinful mouth is latched onto your heavy, engorged tits, greedily drinking every spurt of breast milk that comes leaking out of you, the flow growing steadier with each lap and squeeze. 

He has no fucking clue that most of your impromptu visits to the office are actually to see him. To talk to him, if only for a few moments. Kento Nanami, who has always treated you with unfailing kindness under his sometimes brash exterior. Who extends more patience toward you than all of his coworkers combined. 

He has no idea how trapped you feel in your marriage, how often you’ve longed for the bland touch of your husband in bed to be his. 

He doesn’t know how many times you’ve brought yourself over the edge with your fingers with his face lingering in your mind, the rough, teasing sound of words you’ve imagined in his voice playing out in your head like the most sinful soundtrack you’ve ever heard. 

And now he’s grunting and moaning as he makes a mess of both of you, his lips and chin gleaming with the same wet, sticky milk that’s all over your chest and thighs and his hands and pooling on the countertop beneath you. 

It’s filthy.

It’s so fucking filthy. 

And maybe it’s wrong. 

But you’re so desperate for him. For this. You need more. You need it so badly, you can hardly breathe. Searing desire is coiled so tightly in your abdomen, you’re trembling with restraint, aching with the desire to beg him to fuck you. You know he wants it, too, though. It’s hard to miss the thick, mouth-watering outline of his cock straining against his pants, like a beacon waiting to fulfill your darkest desires. 

It’s a line you know he won’t cross unless you ask for it. 

“Kento,” you murmur again, pulling his face up to meet yours. 

“Mmm?” he asks, pupils blown wide with lust, and you can tell he’s slightly dazed, drunk off of the taste of the milk leaking from your tits. 

You lean closer, letting your lips hover over his, Kento’s breath mingling with your own as you whisper, “Please touch me.”

He gently pushes your thighs further apart, carefully running a finger over the front of your panties. His voice is a rough, gravelly sound as he asks, “Here?”

A thrill shoots up your spine at the feather-light touch. “Yes.”

“More?” he questions, his lips brushing against your mouth as he hooks a finger in your underwear and pulls them aside. 

“More,” you keen, bucking into him as his knuckles graze your clit. 

He slides a finger through your folds, visibility shuddering as he comments, “You’re so fucking wet.”

“For you,” you pant, trying to resist the urge to shamelessly start riding his hand. 

Kento’s mouth engulfs yours in a rough, hungry kiss at the same moment he slides a thick digit into your cunt, and he swallows down the whimpering cry of pleasure that spills out of you. His lips are relentless as they slot against yours, and you arch into him, every part of your body drawn to his blazing touch on your skin. 

You can taste the remnants of your breastmilk on Kento’s lips, but you don’t care as you let him slip his tongue into your mouth. He kisses you so deeply it makes your toes curl, one hand cradling the back of your head while he stuffs a second finger into your hole. 

And just when you thought you couldn’t get any more sensitive under his touch, he dips his head back down to continue ravishing your forgotten breasts, pumping his soaked fingers in and out of your pussy all the while. 

“Kento,” you whimper, chest heaving as you press your heels into the cabinets below, every muscle in your body going taut under the onslaught of arousal coursing through you. 

“Can you come for me?” he asks, his gravelly, barely restrained tone searing itself into your mind. 

It’s the combination of his thumb massaging circles into your sensitive bundle of nerves and the sight of milk dripping down his chin as he messily drinks from you that sends you tumbling over the edge, the rubber band inside of you snapping like a whip as your orgasm washes over you. There’s an unfamiliar feeling that accompanies it, clear liquid squirting from your cunt and soaking the front of Kento’s dress shirt. 

Kento’s eyes darken a fraction as he grasps your chin, thumb pressing into your bottom lip. “Good girl,” he murmurs, kissing you. “Good fucking girl.”

Hand reaching between your bodies, you grasp his cock through his slacks, marveling at how maddeningly thick he feels. 

“I want you to fuck me now, Kento,” you tell him in no uncertain terms, rubbing your palm up and down his erection for good measure. “Fuck me like I’m a bad girl.”

Kento growls, hand palming the side of your neck, thumb caressing your collarbones, “You have no fucking clue what you do to me.”

“Show me.”

You’ve hardly had a chance to unbutton his pants before he’s slipping your panties down, stuffing them into his pocket. His hands come up to undo his tie, but rather than tossing the silky material aside, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

You nod in response, and he steps around the island, pulling your hands behind your back and tying your wrists together snugly with the yellow and black material. Anticipation zings through your chest, a fresh wave of arousal dripping from your sensitive cunt. 

“Is that too tight?”

You shake your head. “It’s perfect.”

He wastes no time in shedding the rest of his clothes, and you find yourself pressing hard against the restraints once you see his cock in all its glory, thick and flushed and so fucking big that you whimper.  

You spread your legs wide for him again as he steps between them, rubbing the leaking head of his cock against your damp slit. He notches it at your entrance, tilting your chin to his mouth and dragging your bottom lip between his teeth before he murmurs, “You’re perfect.”

Kento’s hands grasp your hips as he notches his cock at your dripping entrance, slowly easing into you. He massages your breasts, his hot mouth nipping and lapping a trail from your shoulder to the sensitive spot behind your earlobe while he pushes deeper into your cunt. When he eventually bottoms out, you’re both breathing hard, and his tie is fighting for its life to keep your wrists bound behind you. 

“Are you okay?” 

You let out a huff of air, your entire body poised to implode with the weight of the lust and pleasure raging inside of you. “Fuck me like you mean it, Kento.”

Whatever thinly veiled restraint was left in him crumbles to dust at your request, and Kento tugs you closer to the edge of the counter as he begins to pound into your cunt at a ruthless pace, splitting you open right in the middle of your kitchen. The cool marble is slick and sticky beneath you, covered in a myriad of filthy fluids that continue to leak out of you. 

“So beautiful,” he grunts, punctuating each word with a rough snap of his hips. 

“I feel like a whore,” you admit, biting your lower lip, tits bouncing heavily with his punishing thrusts. 

A short, dark laugh escapes Kento’s lips, his brows raising. He leans in, stuffing his cock deep into your cunt as he presses his mouth to yours and murmurs, “Well you’re my pretty, filthy whore.”

If your husband talked to you like this, you’d slap him. But from Kento…the liquid heat that churns in your belly is anything but anger. 

“Am I?” you ask, trying to sound as innocent as you can when he’s balls deep inside of you. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, not missing a beat as he catches on to what you want to hear. He squeezes your tits, milk squirting everywhere. “My dirty slut. You’re such a good girl, making a such a fucking mess. Squirting all over me while your tits leak everywhere.”

You gasp as he leans down, burying his face in your tits, latching on to one of your nipples and drinking deeply from you again. The combined feeling of him sucking on your breasts and the push and drag of his shaft inside of you leaves you cock drunk, begging and babbling senselessly as tears of pleasure prick at the corners of your eyes.

“Wanna put another baby in you, keep these nice and round and full for me,” he grunts, letting milk spray from your tits and leak down your bodies, dripping down his cock and coating his balls. 

The thought leaves you dizzy and breathless, keening as you imagine Kento filling you over and over with his seed. Waking up each morning to his cock already stuffed inside of you, fucking the previous night’s cum right back into your needy cunt. Tying you up to your bed posts with that goddamn tie. The satisfaction on his face when your breasts grow heavy and your belly grows round again for him, awakening something so feral inside of him he’s incapable of keeping his mouth off of your tits and his cock from the heat between your thighs whenever you’re alone. 

Rational thinking is a thing of the past as you choke out, nearly sobbing with pleasure, cunt squelching wetly as he pounds into you, “Fill me, Kento. Please.”

Kento curses, leaning in to caress the side of your face as he mutters, “My filthy girl.”

“Yours,” you pant. “I’m yours.”

He captures your mouth in a deep, heated kiss, fingers grasping your hips for purchase as he plunges into your cunt, drawing shuddering, unabashed moans out of you. “Come all over my cock then,” he instructs, his rough tone dragging down your spine, fingers toying with your clit while your pussy clenches down on every inch of him. 

And when he leans down, holding eye contact with you as he licks up a forgotten trail of milk rolling down one of your tits, there’s nothing that can stop the searing explosion of pleasure that ignites inside of you, your entire body trembling with the relentless, burning hot flood of the most intense orgasm you’ve ever had. 

He follows moments after you, driving his length in to the hilt as he groans, fingers gripping you tightly, his thick cock pulsing heavily inside of you as he fills your cunt deeply with ropes of cum. As fucked out as you feel, you can’t help but whine at the ceaseless arousal that stirs within your gut as your pussy quivers around the stretch of his cock, milking every drop of Kento’s seed from him. 

Kento feels you subtly rocking your hips back into him, and his answering chuckle is like warm honey as he reaches between you. He plays with your overstimulated clit, pressing gentle kisses along your jaw and down the side of your neck as his seed begins to leak out of you. You moan softly, head falling against his shoulder, pleasure mounting inside of you once more. Leveraging what remains of his softening cock, he slowly fucks his cum back inside of you, his rough whispers of praise a warm caress against the shell of your ear as your entire body dissolves into one last blissful climax that leaves you completely boneless. 

You have all of two minutes to bask in the afterglow, Kento’s hands and lips tenderly mapping out your body, when the sound of your phone ringing on the countertop beside you startles you both. Your gaze meets his as you both see the unwelcome name that flashes on the screen, and he promptly flips your phone over and scoops you into his arms as he makes his way toward the living room.

“If I’m working overtime, I’m making this a double shift.”

— likes, comments, & reblogs are appreciated!

[tyrantisterror]

THANK YOU for the Harry Potter tirade, particularly the part pertaining to snakes! It always drove me crazy how everyone acted when Harry revealed he could take to snakes! Because you know Ireland is like RIGHT over there & it’s not like a particularly famous saint had supposedly spoken to a bunch of snakes or anything… Though how do you feel about “muggle” or “no-maj”? Pretty sure the first one is in the dictionary now…

If you mean "how do I feel about the concept of nonmagical people in a setting where some people have magic," I think it's fine.

If you're asking "what do you think about the Terf Queen inventing several new slurs for her fantasy setting," I think it's... a little concerning given the rest of her writing, but technically valid world-building. We have an abundance of evidence that cultures do love making up many different slurs for people they want to ostracize and other.

If you're asking about how muggles work within the setting re: the whole inheritance theme I was talking about... yeah, actually they should be in that conversation too, because it's another way the narrative seems to be broken in favor of Voldemort's viewpoint. Harry Potter's wizarding world is a setting where some people, by dint of their birth, are just objectively better than other people in every way thanks to magic. Magic isn't something you earn, it's something you're born with - a gene you're either lucky enough to get or cursed forever for lacking. Wizards get to live a far easier life (even the poor ones can make multi-story houses to live in thanks to magic) than any "muggle," and are portrayed as justified in keeping the benefits of magic all to themselves.

Voldemort's faction is only "wrong" because they take the subjugation of muggles from a passive act to an active one - rather than allow them to suffer and die from things wizards could do away with a literal wave of their hand, they actively kill muggles and deny wizards born from muggle parents their "rightful" place.

If you live in the Harry Potter world, you a rigidly assigned a place in society by your genes, your personality traits are simplistic and concrete enough that a piece of clothing can define you by them without error, and any attempt to defy the labels assigned to you by your birth is an act of evil. You are what you inherit and can hope for *nothing* more. Which, in addition to being so incoherent narratively when these are literally the things the villain believes, is also just a really fucked up message.

Like, I don't even hate the series - I grew up with it and have a lot of fond memories of it despite all the foul shit the author has done since - but goddamn it is bleak if you actually try to analyze it as a coherent work. It's honestly more charitable to say it's just an incompetently plotted mess.

[beforus-for-real-justice]

it's like. okay. with CULLING, in MY OPINION this is shit you REALLY need to talk about IN DETAIL because there are SO MANY DIFFERENT FACTORS and so much shit complicating the other shit! i try and not get into it USUALLY because everyone's situation is ALWAYS really different! sometimes rules that SEEM strict and insane to you are actually working perfectly FOR THOSE PEOPLE or situations that LOOK WEIRD are ok in THAT SPECIFIC SCENARIO. and sometimes they're not. i've actually looked into this A LITTLE not a whole fucking lot so i'm not an EXPERT but i think BASICALLY if im going to really fucking oversimplify shit we have a problem with REGULATION and with the fucking with how shit is ENFORCED and with how they choose WHO gets culled and if they're allowed to STOP being culled or not too. BASICALLY there's TOO MUCH pressure on people who GET CULLED its AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED that if you end up CULLED you ABSOLUTELY needed it and trying to get OUT of that situation even if you're FULLY CAPABLE of LIVING ON YOUR OWN and want to can be REALLY COMPLICATED and the PAPERWORK to do it is STUPID and the people who oversee cases are STUPID and a lot of CULLERS are STUPID and they'll LIE and then everyone ALWAYS listens to the CULLER and NEVER TO THE CULLEE because they think if they've BEEN CULLED then they don't know shit about fuck!!! AND OBVIOUSLY THAT'S STUPID AS HELL! and dumb as shit. the whole thing where ANYONE who gets culled is basically ALWAYS assumed to be TOTALLY INCOMPETENT and anyone who CULLS is assumed to be TOTALLY PERFECT FOREVER is obviously stupid because thats not how shit WORKS in the real world!!! and if you've ever looked into CULL HOARDING you'll realize PRETTY FUCKING GODDAMN FAST that they don't always make sure the people doing the culling are even STABLE ENOUGH to do it or doing it for the RIGHT REASONS. BUT!!! if you say you just want to ABOLISH CULLING all together you leave out people who NEED to be culled. who LIKE their cullers, and NEED THEM, and have ACTUALLY NOT SHITTY GARBAGE ONES! and OBVIOUSLY those trolls aren't gonna wanna listen to you if you're telling them their FRIEND that's doing a GREAT JOB is ABSOLUTELY DEFINITELY an abusive piece of garbage. PLUS THERES A WHOLE LOT OF OTHER SHIT BUT THE POST IS SO FUCKING LONG ALREADY!!! AND THAT'S WHY I SAID IT'S COMPLICATED!

[ayosdesignz-blog]

Spoilers for across the Spiderverse I guess.

Finally watched Across the Spiderverse and despite the spoilers and observations I'd read beforehand, I'm offended by both Spot and Miguel.

Like...to the point I don't understand why the content I came across generally really liked them? Miguel especially. FUCK Miguel. Good guy my ass. Dude has practically built a cult. And he's the unquestioned head who's word is law and doesn't have to listen to anyone just because.

I don't understand the vehement and persistent hate these 2 GROWN ASS MEN have towards a damn 14-now 15 year old boy. A goddamn child.

Both keep victim blaming and pushing and projecting their mistakes, the wrong doings of others, the plot of fucking KINGPIN onto him and I just DON'T understand. Miles literally did NOTHING wrong to get this kind of vitriol from a pair of strangers who Actually know what's up. Or that claim to anyways.

Spot over here claiming to be the scientist that made/had the spider that made Miles Spiderman. He also basically admitted to being one of the evil scientists that was under goddamn Kingpin's employ. The same Kingpin who cooked up and pressed and demanded his selfish world destroying demands be met. Yet he wants to blame the scared child who was literally only defending himself and trying to do good by helping to stop more ppl (including that family he claims he lost but had actually rejected him for reasons) don't die. Why is he not mad at his boss? Former boss? Why is he not taking responsibility for losing the spider experiment? Yet he wants credit in making the newest spiderman? Why does he want to make a literal child the root of his problem instead of literally any of the adults it could've been...like other Peter?

Only thing I can think of is that he's such a sad pathetic piece of incompetent shit that a damn (mostly)clueless child was the only target he could shift blame too and feel like he could properly threaten and win against. Only to be proven wrong and have the audacity to be offended that the child he's failing to harm doesn't take him seriously nor accept the false responsibility of his own problems he's trying to place on Miles.

And then there's Miguel's bitch ass.

Acting all knowing and despite being aware of the facts that Miles is OBJECTIVELY not at fault or aware of any problems (aside from Spot) is unnecessarily rude and hostile towards him from the very start.

And when he calms down enough to actually talk and explain some things like a rational person, it's essentially to give his own crazy (and mildly horrifying from implications cuz STALKER USURPER ALERT) sob story so he can tell a kid to let his dad be killed "because the worlds will end otherwise" and basically imply that since Miles saved Captain Singh they'll have to murder that cop to make things "right".

And then later, when he catches Miles outside after that ridiculous and hilarious chase was somehow compelled to tell this child, with words filled with (unnecessary) aggressive hate, that he's a "mistake" that shouldn't exist and should have never been spiderman.

Smells like self projecting to me.

And also, it's bullshit!

Based on what I recall from this movie I just watched, one or both of these men I can't stand is lying. Spot is claiming to be of Miles' dimension with the radio active spider but Miguel is claiming that spider is from a different dimension.

And the fact that Miguel rudely brings up more trauma, victim blames MORE, and tries to put the responsibility of a death caused by a murderous adult villain onto that same (child) victim only to later try to lament to the other spider ppl that Miles "won't listen" and "talking won't work" since he just tried it honestly put him on my character shit list.

Like I knew from spoilers that he was deemed attractive and interesting and that he didn't like this version of Miles but I didn't have like...any indepth details or whatever. I wasn't actively looking for spoilers.

I went into this movie expecting to like him, even just somewhat. But honestly? Fuck that guy. And not in a sexy way.

I mean...He immediately attempts to intimidate a child into submission upon 1st meeting for no reason after being rude as fuck while said child was trying to make a good impression and was honestly just happy to be there. And then he later tries to emotionally (and mentally?) break Miles verbally as if him loving his family, wanting his dad alive if possible is a bad thing. I had assumed, before going in that Miguel had at least started off civil and professionally polite with Miles. Figured Miles had purposely done something to his face that made Miguel go from cautious to distant. He hadn't. At all.

It's giving racist lowkey for the way he literally hates this mixed, primarily black presenting, child for existing and the way he said he wanted to just ignore/pretend that Hobie (another black male) was even there also made me raise an eyebrow. Maybe it's cuz of my own experience dealing with prejudice from ppl I least expected it from as a kid myself but Miguel is giving it and that's what I'm seeing and he's an asshat for it. He has no right and no reason to act as he did let alone say what he said. Fuck his ✨️trauma✨️ caused by his own mistakes as an adult who damn well knew better.

Mans literally stalked his own doppelganger and inserted himself into the other him's life once that one died only for it all to go to shit from glitches likely because he shouldn't have been there and what Kingpin was doing. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if he'd killed his other self to live that dream life he wanted so bad.

Yet he wants everyone to believe a child in the wrong place at the wrong time and being saved by a superhero before taking up the mantel of a hero himself in honor of his savior since shit just happened to him...in his OWN WORLD MIND YOU, is completely wrong and unacceptable.

He can miss me with that bullshit. He's wrong period in my book.

Also if Miles is considered the: "oRIgInaL anOmALy" and has been living life just fine with powers caused by a alternate dimension spider then there's probably a good chance he can change his world's "canon events" without things going to shit since according to bitchMiguel, Mile's has technically been doing that from the start by even existing.

Think about it: Miles became a spiderman with active spider ppl there to train him. He wasn't alone or even the 1st spider person there. He knew what was happening as he changed since it had happened before and was publicized. His love interest Gwen is not only from a different dimension but also spiderwoman. A civilian unrelated to him knew of him and the others and provided additional support without becoming a liability, his uncle may have died but was a criminal unlike all the (known?) others, he's had no glitch or issues with his powers, he has more powers than the basic spiderman w/o the need of a suit, he's got both parents and both love him and also think rather positively of Spiderman w/o knowing it's him. His cop dad willingly works with spiderman too.

Also am I the only one concerned that the so called sophisticated technology they have to send ppl back to their dimensions has semi regularly sent their captures back to the wrong place? Because the only thing they tried to do was stop the machine from sending him, so unless that affected the way it operates to determine where a person is from that means they probably have been sending ppl to the wrong places, unknowingly fucking shit up just as much if not more in the multiverse than b4 they tried to correct it.

I bet they're actually wrong about all kinds of things and their causes and just don't realize it.

But I am estatic Hobie is just as awesome as I was lead to believe. Watching him, listening to what he says, I firmly believe he was an op to the spider society from the start to learn what he could, try to get other spiders to THINK more, and prepare for when he decides to leave them so he doesn't need them to utilize the tools they had a monopoly on.

I mean bro made the tactical decision to quit when Miguel and others were fully distracted by Miles on some sketchy shit and I feel like that kept him from having to deal with a cult leader bitchMiguel trying to make an example out of him for doing so or something.

[legionofpotatoes]

For real, your take on Mando season 3 is completely on point. But I get not feeling able to say it out loud without a disclaimer before, after, and in the tags to keep from getting shouted at in the reblogs. It's just the messed up nature of being in the SW fandom on Tumblr. Speaking your mind on your own blog is an invitation for buffoonery.

If I were completely honestly, I'm not in the least shocked that's what we got. I've long held the opinion that the worst part about the fandom is the fan opinions and expectations out of a new series, and the expectation that a formula for a show won't change, or that a character will maintain one set mentality/trope while simultaneously offering new, completely different story arcs. It isn't necessarily impossible to pull off, but it takes very careful planning and execution. And, unfortunately, that has never been a strength in this franchise, even before Disney ownership.

For most shows, it's the season 5 slump. After 5 seasons, all the flavor is gone and any additional seasons are painfully rehashed at best. For all the corporate financial squeezing that's been done to Mando since the beginning of the show to wring out revenue like its a wet washcloth, it really tracks that were in this place after only 3 seasons.

IMO the only thing that's going to save Andor is the fact that the end of the story has already been told in Rogue One and its confirmed that season 2 will end at that point of the timeline. If it was going to be a 3+ season show, I suspect we'd see the same treatment.

Anyway, I'll stop flapping my gums in your ask box. Your hot take encapsulated what felt off about this season to me. I couldn't put words to it, but it just felt....meh.

I just disable reblogs and try not to tag it in an inflammatory way, my gripes are genuinely like. basic semiotics and story sense, I'm not going after anyone's childhood or feel-goodness. This is all me-problems and me-expectations with a massive machine of commerce that will never give a shit lmao

I too wrote a couple of posts back in s2 days expecting something of this sort going forward after the weirdly presumptuous cameo-baiting of s2 and whatever in the goddamn hell boba fett did with its mando tie-ins, but an entire season of tirespinning sure was a surprising choice. I think writing for TV is fundamentally different than writing for film, so I didn't really see a clear parallel of incompetence within the franchise; and especially with season 1 being so solid in balancing both the overarching and the episodic stuff I felt like they had a neat ramp to milk a decently long character piece out of.

But I can't help but feel like my main problem with the disney/abrams/filoni/favreau era of star wars is its irrationally strong love for the aesthetic. it blinds them to good choices that will then make for interesting stories. gently deradicalizing, humanizing, and then literally AND figuratively getting din out of his shell so he could open up to a child's love could be such an effective, simple to parse, and wholesome core to structure the series around, but that would upend the aesthetic of their cowboy-ass romp a bit too fast and have an end and an identity and all that non-marketing friendly stuff. so they keep withholding his psyche, they keep giving then taking clear communication tools away from grogu, they keep teasing their bond but never outright stating it (I cannot believe after 3 seasons he still hasn't just looked at the baby and directly confessed he loved him), so they can keep bumping those goalposts back and forth while pretending it's progress. because they are in love with the aesthetic.

again, this is my main problem, I don't see this as a problem writ large or even something that represents a wrong way to do star wars. who the hell even knows how you treat a franchise that large at this point, what importance you assign to aesthetic vs. story, all that jazz. I don't know. they're the ones with the analytics data, so they definitely know better. and maybe that's the saddest part

[pakeithpsy]

Creativity: A Life Wasted

I think I know what my problem is now.

I don't actually enjoy art, or writing, or animating, or designing games, or ANY of the creative process.

What I ACTUALLY enjoy is just having ideas and then hyperfixating on them for ages, fantasizing about how cool they would be until I inevitably get bored with them.

I like coming up with new ideas and ruminating on their possibilities more than I do actually acting upon them because I'm a pathetic failure of an adult who was never once challenged or defied by his peers and now I'm completely unprepared to actually do the work because it no longer makes me happy.

I'm just a complete fucking joke. I don't deserve to call myself a creative. I'm no better than all those AI douchebags who want all the glory of being an artist with none of the effort, and even they have more fucking drive than I do. Goddamn Christian Weston Chandler has more balls than I do - at least they actually fucking MADE something.

In 2017 I applied to online art college, having spent my entire life drawing the wrong way. It was the wake up call I needed, because it made me realize I'm not an artist, I never have been, and I never will be and that I was completely unfit to live in the adult world. If I ever wanted to pass, I would need to completely unlearn everything I knew about art. Nobody ever taught or explained any of the elements of art or figure drawing to me - all my art teachers when I was in school never once explained any of this. I had spent my entire life drawing the wrong way and had it committed to muscle memory. All of this new information and the speed at which it was being fed to me was confusing, scary, overwhelming. Everything they said I had to do sounded extremely hard, tedious, exhausting, and just beyond any of my capabilities.

I ended up falling behind because the material was just so difficult and moving too fast I gave up on even trying because it just didn't seem possible or worth my time. I felt like I couldn't do it. I KNEW I couldn't do it. I had spent my whole life thinking I had a calling for art when in reality my peers were just coddling me to spare my feelings, never once asking me if I had a plan or helping me find the resources I needed or even just giving me the tiniest ounce of criticism that my dream was unrealistic. Everyone told me I'd grow up to be an artist or a writer or animator and I just believed them like a fucking idiot.

I nearly killed myself because I felt like such a burden on my family, wasting all their money on trying to help my incompetent ass when I was too far gone. I was holding them back from enjoying and enriching their own lives because all that time was wasted on trying to get me to make something of myself. All my life I had been a constant disappointment to them and to myself. I thought I was nothing but a bane on their existence - all their dreams, all their aspirations, their own chance at happiness, all gone because they had to give it up to take care of me, and I repaid them by being a lazy piece of shit who refused to change or grow up. I genuinely thought their lives would be better if I had never been born and they'd be happy to see me dead, no longer bound by the chains of my arrested development and constant failure. I was doing nothing but holding them back. "If I were dead, then Mom could find a job instead of having to stay home all day taking care of her incompetent adult son," I thought to myself. "Then my brother won't have to wait on me or put up with my crap, everyone will be able to afford nicer things now that they're not throwing all their money away on classes that I refuse to get anything out of."

Now I wish I had gone through with it, that way all the people whose time I've wasted would get those precious hours of their life back, and so I wouldn't have had to watch as the creative industry, the place I thought I belonged, get gutted and mutilated and stomped into nothing by corporate greed, leaving me no option but to go indie, an impossible task for trash like me. I have no following, no connections, crippling fear of socialization and failure, no money to hire help, no experience in running a production, no TALENT for any of this. No matter how much I try I simply cannot learn because I can't handle even the tiniest setback or hurdle. What a complete joke. What was I even thinking? The only way to get what I want is to change who I am, something I've been trying to do for years but every time I try I keep spiraling back and ending up back at square one.

A while back I took an animation class specifically for people with autism. I was far and away the best artist there (for what little that means). Everyone else's skill was on par with a third grader who just started using MS Paint. But did they care? NO! They were just happy to be there at all. They LOVED drawing, they were EXCITED to start using Animate and they dived right in. Meanwhile I was busy bawling my eyes out because I couldn't even draw a still image of someone throwing a simple punch. I couldn't do anything more complex than a simple bouncing ball because the thought of drawing anything more complicated overwhelmed me with fear. So even compared to other disabled people I'm a complete and utter embarrassment. Hell, just this week at another class I was frustrated because I couldn't even draw a fucking APPLE correctly, aka Basic Drawing 101. What was I thinking, trying to convince myself I belong here?

I haven't talked about it in a while, but I have a whole adult cartoon concept I've been working on since at least 2013, for the past decade of my life it's been my main goal to see it finished. I have a whole series bible, several episode outlines, a script for a full 30-minute episode, and a whole storyboard for a short pilot of sorts that I even got my friends to record voices for. I was hoping to pitch it to Adult Swim or another network and then work my way up from there. But I wasted so much time fantasizing about what it could lead to that I never stopped to think about what would happen if something changed. I didn't know TV and streaming would become so utterly fucked that pitching to them would become a losing game, especially for a lowly nobody like me who can't even crack a thousand views on YouTube anymore unless it's a vocoded Family Guy clip. And as for going indie, what's the point in that? It's an adult comedy conceived in 2013 with all the humor that would entail, and the minute people figure out the punchline of the short they're going to immediately decide that they hate it, it has no potential, and I'm a lazy hack without ever seeing everything else I have to show for it. I feel like the only way anybody would even give it a smidgen of a chance is if I were to spoil everything that happens later (i.e. the parts that aren't meant to be funny), but I don't want to have to ruin the surprise just to get people to care one iota about it. I want people to support it and care about these characters because they genuinely like what I've made and want to see more of their antics and stories, not because they check all the boxes in their list of requirements for what a "real" cartoon should be. Any passion I once had for the idea is gone because of factors out of my control, and what little passion I do still have is merely out of spite for shows that are pretentious and up their own ass with drama and lore and the mere thought of giving the middle finger to the mindset that animation only matters if it's angsty and unfun, not because I still believe in this world and its characters.

"WELL JUST MOVE ON TO A NEW PROJECT DIPSHIT." Okay. Fine. I have. I've got TONS of ideas for other things I'd like to make. But why should I when I have no faith in myself that I can even do it? Why put in the effort when my passion for art is dead in the water? Nothing I can do right now will get me any closer to fulfilling my dreams. I can't afford to hire a crew, I wouldn't know the first thing about directing, nobody's going to give me the money because nothing I can make with my current skillset would ever grab anyone's attention, let alone make them think it's worthy of financial support, and every attempt I've made at trying to improve myself so that I can make something more impressive always comes up stillborn because of my crippling anxiety and a lifetime of terrible habits.

Chris Wade, Pan-tastique, and Tracy Butler were all right about me, I just want success laid out in front of me without having to do any of the work and I'm an insult to creatives everywhere. A stupid, selfish square trying to shove himself into a round hole. A manchild who would rather fantasize about fame and admiration than spend a single fucking minute actually trying to fix himself because he knows he doesn't have what it takes. The literal definition of an AI chud who thinks all that matters is the idea and doesn't want to put in a single bit of effort, yet I continue to insist I'm better than them instead of just throwing in the towel already.

I'm sorry I ever wasted anybody's time trying to act like one of you. I'm not one of you. I never was. I'm just a mewling little wannabe who needs to go back to the mental hospital before he hurts himself or someone else, shielded from our deteriorating, rotted society where only scum succeed and good people suffer and basic survival becomes more and more unaffordable due to the ruling class never being happy with the billions of dollars they already have.

I just wish someone had the courage to tell me no as a kid. To discourage me, to shoot down my dreams, to tear my awful art and shitty stories to shreds figuratively and literally. Maybe then I could've saved myself before I crashed and burned with nothing else to fall back on. Maybe then I could've found a new passion, something that actually matters to me, something I can actually do and enjoy doing. Maybe then I'd be happy. I'd be someone surrounded with pride and accomplishment and a sense of meaning instead of a bunch of useless middle school-tier doodles and sculptures that I fantasize about destroying because I can't stand the sight of them and all the failure they represent. Someone who was proud of who he is and what he's done. Someone who could've found new idols to collaborate with instead of being constantly disappointed by a bunch of backstabbing Hollywood scumbags. Someone who didn't feel like a constant failure and can't even speak up to his own family or therapist because he's too fucking embarrassed by the idea of asking for help out of fear of judgment and everyone seeing how pathetic and vulnerable he is and would rather run to the arms of strangers who don't know or care about him since it feels less personal.

But no. It wasn't to be. Instead I'm a miserable loser who ruined his own life and will never make anything of himself unless he gets a complete personality transplant and should've just kicked the bucket 6 years ago when he had the chance.

[ifnotscience-thenwhat]

Can all of you incompetent pieces of shit shut the fuck up for one goddamn day?!

[sessakag]

Sims 4 Update Rant

Welp, looking over the patch notes for this update, I'm very happy with what I'm seeing, unfortunately its overshadowed by the undeniable fact that this shit should have been in the goddamn game at launch! The launch was awful so I shouldn't be surprised! No pools, no basements, no cars, no open world (going to your fuckin neighbors house is fucking loading screen!!), no option to customize clothing or furniture the way you could in Sims 3, teenagers looked like fuckin adults (had to get a freaking mod to change that!), babies are a fuckin object attached to their crib (can't take them anywhere) no infant stage!!

How the fuck do you not have an infant life stage in a fucking life simulation game??? Fuck, like how tf are they that incompetent???! They did the same dumbass shit with toddlers! Toddlers were not apart of the game at launch. In a fucking LIFE SIMULATION GAME! This is not your first fuckin rodeo, Sims 1, 2, and 3 (and the others) came before this empty shell of a game, no excuses! How tf are previous version more complete than the 4th iteration? I'll tell you how, greedy bitches being greedy bitches, trying to sell us fundamental parts of the game in 'game packs' and 'expansions' and stuff packs and all the other nickle and dimeing bullshit. I'm not saying expansions and game packs are bad. I LOVED the Sims 3 expansions and game pack, but in those days, that extra stuff was just that. EXTRA. Not pieces of the base game chopped up and sold back to you! Like that shit is not okay and we shouldn't settle for it either. Tired of this gaming trend of releasing broken, empty, shity quality games and expecting to be paid top price for it! It really has to stop!

So no.

I will NOT pat EA on the back for adding what should have been in the game on launch September 2, 20fuckin14!! It is 2023, this game been out since 2014 and you're just now putting infants in. Sims 5 is already in the works and now you wanna add infants.

Fuck EA

Sims 4 was a pathetic shell! Thank goodness for modders!

[marie-dufresne]

@shinramade

As he made his way through the dark streets of a Midgar midnight, Cloud Strife was annoyed.

Rufus had gone away on business, leaving Cloud behind with a mountain of menial tasks. It wasn’t like Rufus to leave him behind and this was precisely what Cloud found so irritating.

He was being tested.

He didn’t know what the test was, but it was the only logical explanation for it. Tested, or punished. Since Rufus’ punishments tended to be more direct and elaborate, he decided he was being tested with no context and it left a persistent growl in the back of his mind.

Fine. He’d play nice, be a good little SOLDIER and file paperwork, engage in training exercises, and deal with the day-to-day idiots that he was generally otherwise immune to. There would be no tantrum, no anxiety induced accidents or torn up furniture, nor would there be a rut in the floor from his pacing.

He wasn’t the lapdog everyone thought him to be.

His stewing brought him to the main entrance of the ShinRa Headquarters where, after a late dinner (alone, thank you.), he planned to work himself to exhaustion in order to pass the time.

A person was splayed out on the steps and he wrinkled his nose as he approached. The drunks should have known better than to pass out here. Security would deal with that unsightly mess. It wasn’t his problem.

As he drew nearer to the scene, intending to walk around the woman that wasn’t his problem, he noticed several trails of blood dripping down the steps where she lay and he slowed briefly. Murder? On these steps? Someone was bold. But then he began to notice things about this woman, though he wasn’t close enough to see her face and his sulking stroll quickly became a dash.

That hair was unmistakable. That coat, a female mirror of the coat of a man he wanted to set fire to every goddamn day, those stupid shoes that click click clicked their way towards him daily, always in his space, unrelenting.

“Marie!” he breathed, taking the steps three at a time and pushing her hair back from her face, barely recognizable in its swelling, caked in blood from her nose, mouth, and an angry knife wound over her eye.

Fuck fuck fuck. Was she dead? No, she wasn’t. Given her condition, Cloud wasn’t sure if that was a relief or not. When he rolled her over, into his arms, he took note of the places her coat was torn. Four stab wounds, none of them fatal. Whoever had done this was either incompetent or had no intention for her to die quickly.

It was a sickening feeling that accompanied the thought that it was the latter.

His boot met the handicap button of the building, likely breaking it, and when he ran inside, no one asked for identification. No one had to.

He ignored the night concierge and security’s cries of ‘What’s happened!’ heading straight towards the elevators where once again, the buttons were introduced to the bottom of his boot, this time on repeat until at last, the doors opened and he barged in, leaving a trail of heiress blood and partial bootprints in his wake.

For fuck’s sake. Sure she was a nosy broad and she annoyed him more often than not, but he’d grown fond of this nosy broad. He’d never wanted her dead, and he wouldn’t give that satisfaction to whoever it was that had tried.

“Keep breathing,” he muttered as the lift made its way up, up. up to medical, “I don’t want to hear it from your piece of shit husband if you die on me.”

When the door opened, he was intercepted by a fat mustache in a crimson suit.

“Strife—what the Hell have you done?”

But Cloud was in no mood for bullshit tonight.

“Get Heidegger.”

The President’s face went purple. Possibly because of the audacity of the SOLDIER’s order or possibly because of the way Mrs. Heidegger was barely clinging to life in his arms. Marie had never been shy about her closeness to the President.

“Get. Heidegger.” Cloud pushed past the burly man, “and get out of my way.”

He didn’t want anything to do with the Director of Public Safety any more than the devil himself, but heads would roll because of this and Cloud was going to make damn sure it wouldn’t be his.

[betterlost]

@shxkespexre said ; will's knocking at shep's door, a wrapped gift under one of his arms. inside the wrapping paper is a leather jacket in a marine blue which fades to a darker shade at the bottom. dark vine - like lines are sown into the sleeves, curving, from top to bottom and make their way to the back of the coat, circling a yellow moon displayed in the center. the tag on the inside of the jacket says ' my beloved moon '. will decided to make something special for the other - it's the holidays, and in just a few days, a whole year since they met will have passed, so . . he wanted to celebrate it!

Nicholas is only half-dressed when he stumbles to the door - not that it's early, he's just hungover as all hell; a good look given he's working the night shift later today, he's sure. He's managed to find his way into a pair of jeans, at least, though his flannel is still completely unbuttoned. He has the wherewithal to run a hand through his hair, make it look almost-manageable, and then crack it open.

Of course, it's Will. He's never gotten another visitor to this dingy little apartment, and why would that change now? His disgruntlement lightens when he sees him, even if the glare from the sun makes his head pound, and the bard is welcomed in without hesitation. The package tucked under his arm is glanced over dismissively at first, though, with some surprise, that - fuck him - the whole goddamn month's already flown by. It's Christmas. If he could kiss his past self on the mouth right now, he would, for having the foresight to buy a gift or two to hide away in his closet well in advance. Of course, then he'd chew his present self out something fierce for having forgotten.

...He probably should've bought nice wrapping paper. Damn it. Look how crisp the edges on that thing are. He'll have to ask Will how to wrap, next, really drive home the fact that he's just a little bit incompetent.

"William Shakespeare, man of many talents," he quips, carefully peeling off the tape to unwrap the box without tearing the paper. That stuff's not cheap. He folds it up once it's removed, setting it on his coffee table. When he removes the lid of the box, his hands still almost immediately, his face running through a gauntlet of emotions; surprise, confusion, and then an almost-reverence when he finally lifts the jacket up to study it. His hands trace over the embroidery and linger especially long on the tag inside of it. On one hand, it's just a jacket - on the other, Nicholas has never in his life owned a piece of clothing made for him, not a hand-me-down or something pulled from the thrift store or Walmart's clearance rack. It feels intimately personal and the monumental effort it must have taken to make makes his own gift, tucked away behind his boots, feel paltry in comparison.

"Oh, darlin'..." he shrugs it on, stands up from the couch, and does a little half-spin - not to show Will the back of it, but so he has a moment to harshly but discreetly swipe a wrist under one of his eyes. He's not drunk enough to cry. "This is - you told me you were a tailor, but I was expecting codpieces and frilly collars, not..." not anything like this. When he returns to the couch, he doesn't sit down, just leans down close enough to Will to kiss the man's forehead, hand lingering on his cheek. It seems better than just saying 'I love it' or 'you shouldn't have' - both would be true, but they always feel insincere. "Will, I dunno what you want me to say. Shit, sunshine, I'm the worst at gift exchanges. I - look, stay here just a minute, I've got something for you, too. Gonna look like rat shit compared to this thing," but, still, he rises with a shrug and strides off to retrieve the shoebox he'd stuffed it in to hand off to Will.

It really isn't anything quite as fancy. Just three small pots of dirt and some bulbs - daffodil, snowdrops, hyacinths. Awkwardly, Nicholas coughs. "They grow pretty early, you know. Early spring. And it's not to - I mean, hell, guy like you probably knows all about flowers." Will seems endlessly talented and clever. "But I thought in case you didn't I could - we could make it a little partnership. Our garden, right? Get some dirt under your nails," he elbows him. "Manual labor, just what every man wants to think about on Christmas."

[anarcho-sexual]

I grew up with an autistic younger brother. That now young man is, along with our sister & my boyfriend, the most precious fucking piece of my entire life. I would rain absolute legal hell down upon the police if this ever happened to him. Helping someone having a mental health crisis can be a bit tricky & sometimes even frustrating, but it isn’t that hard to handle. Not when you have empathy & compassion & love for those people. Precious fucking people. Every special needs student I ever met in school was a beautiful human being with a gorgeous soul. To be so unintelligent & incompetent that you end up shooting someone experiencing a mental health crisis is beyond unacceptable. The reason cops don’t know how to deal with mental health crises is because they don’t experience empathy. Mark my words on that. Also don’t forget this: I’ve been calling them inept & stupid & they absolutely are, but let us also be real. They’re rotten to the core as people. They murdered this precious young man on purpose. It’s extremely difficult to pull out a firearm & accidentally shoot someone (if you’re anywhere remotely close to average intelligence).

Stop calling the goddamn police on people for ANYTHING that isn’t a murder or something like that. The cops will never get there in time to catch a thief. They’ll never get there in time to protect you. Protect yourself. Purchase a firearm if you feel you can own one (no i don’t mean you just feel a bit uncomfortable i mean if you’re depressed & think you might actually use it on yourself then don’t buy one) & get trained. Then practice like your life depends on it. Because it does. The cops will never protect us. But calling cops on people for extremely minor reasons could literally get them MURDERED. So keep your damn mouth shut unless it’s 100% necessary. If you call the police on people for minor shit & they murder them, that blood is on YOUR hands. YOURS. YOU ARE PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR DEATH IF YOU CALL THE POLICE ON SOMEONE FOR BULLSHIT REASONS.

Ryan Gainer was a 15 year old Autistic Black boy who was shot and killed by police in California.

Ryan seemed to have been having a meltdown, he was holding a gardening tool, police were called to the house but they are refusing to release any body cam footage of the shooting and refusing to state how many times Ryan was shot, they failed to help him before the paramedics arrived.

After shooting him Ryan's family was then forced out of their home while the police rummaged through their house looking for any justifiable cause for shooting Ryan.

This is hardly the first time the San Bernardino police department has attacked or killed people having a mental health crisis.

Rest in Power Ryan.

STOP CALLING THE POLICE ON DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE!

[homiro]

Today is being wildly eventful and I'm just high enough to spill on here

So

- Woke up at 4am after going to sleep at 2 and couldn't fall asleep again because stress and lack of meds and also sperm donor being an egotistical ungrateful piece of shit

- A friend paid for my meds so I went to the city to get them

- Got an email from shitty prof saying we have classes tomorrow but I can't fucking go especially since it's not even a real fucking class and I don't have money to come to the damn city again

- For some reason ADHD meds are hard to get without ordering them and it was sold out or something in 6 different pharmacies. Save for one who miraculously had one bottle

- I was crying by then and had to walk a lot

- Decided to go to a church to feel the energy maybe shake off the goddamn evil luck

- Unsure if that worked

- Walked to get the meds and had to keep focused all the way because everything was overwhelming

- Got meds, then went to sit and have some tea

- While having tea a guy and a girl sat down at the table in front of me and started talking about the wildest stuff while the meds hit for me. She looked and by the sound of it was some sort of mini IG model and he looked like he was part of a podcast. She was wearing foundation two shades lighter than her skin (she was white, mind) and it was absolutely caked and I don't mind saying that because she randomly started slut shaming other women while the guy just laughed awkwardly. Then they started talking about jail and torture. I think they both had ofs because they kept talking about taking pictures and "doing things for money" before the random jail talk

- I wasn't hungry at all so all I had was a cup of caramel coffee and a cookie from Subway

- Decided to take the bus because it was cheaper than the Uber and I was in no condition to walk more especially considering that I still have to walk home (on the train rn)

- At the bus stop I stood up to let this old lady sit and she was very grateful

- Lady didn't know my gender and said like 'oh thank you sweet girl or boy I can't tell but you look lovely'. Made this miserable week feel less shit. Yes it's only Tuesday. Pray for my ass I guess lol

- Went to get some drawing paper for my brother. Some old man at the shop was asking the clerk for glue and she pointed him towards the glue but apparently he wanted dentures glue lmao and was trying to get it from irl AliExpress

And that's all for now, let's hope the rest of the week is mostly uneventful because I'm losing my mind already

My phone also said: gender.

- Adding because it's still going. Someone on the train is becoming the joker over a cancelled appointment very eloquently calling out incompetence absolutely spitting bars still going slam poetry who barely even stuttering goddamn power to this person. And someone was singing the Homer Simpson Spider-Pig song and is rooting for this person.

-Update: Made it home. But not before more wacky stuff. Saw this old lady who had some cats and was doing crochet in her van and said my sperm donor should die while saying she hoped god blessed me my brother and my mother and also my uncle and showed me this religious pamphlet thing. Then right after I saw a man training some sort of bird to be outside. After that I saw a man with his goats and finally I got in the house intact somehow.

Nobody cares but look at the goats. Yes I'm very rural and my phone's quality is pretty bad. Adds to the charm. All the goats had bells.

[alyx-amygdala]

it sucks that nearly everything I know and love is in a red state. It sucks that I have no desire or realistic way of leaving. It sucks that I just have to spend the next three months feeling sick to my stomach with anxiety. It sucks that everyone around me is also hurting and there's nothing I can do. It sucks that my only hope for the next four years to not be hell is the Fucking Democratic Party, who are like, only slightly less evil than the Republicans and significantly more incompetent. It sucks that I feel like I have no choice but to vote even though it means those smug pieces of shit aren't going to learn a goddamn thing and'll keep acting all cloy and friendly while funding genocide, assuming they even win. It sucks that I haven't gone a day in the past month+ without crying. It sucks that I can't function without getting high because the panic and misery are so debilitating. It sucks that the people around me are disappointed in me for my fun new drug addiction. It sucks that I have regular suicidal thoughts, not because I want to die but because I cant imagine that waiting it out will be worth it. It sucks that this is the only life I get and I'm going to spend the rest of it poor, exhausted, and afraid. It sucks that everything I was taught about this country was a lie. It sucks that the people with all the money and power will only ever just continue to get richer and more powerful, and they will never face consequences for what they've done to us. It sucks.

[echoesofdusk]

major AI: The Somnium Files spoilers under cut

I have to ask people who claim AITSF is copaganda... where? how did you walk out thinking it's copaganda? is it bc nobody outwardly states that Date shouldn't have killed people? is it bc he didn't get punished?

do pieces of work really need to outwardly state that things are bad and aren't allowed to be subtle? do they need to spoonfeed people the message bc people are just unable to read between the lines? or walk out knowing that a piece of work has shades of gray?

I never walked out of AITSF thinking it's copaganda. I didn't get this message anywhere in the game. the police are shown multiple times to be incompetent at their job. hell Date is a goddamn PERVERTED COP who acts like a manchild at times. corruption is lampshaded multiple times. Boss knows she's abusing her power as a high ranking police but does it anyway, mainly out of love (all of the straight up illegal shit she does to protect Date when he popped up after the body swap). Falco knew he was severely dirtying his hands by being a vigilante cop. he wanted to go clean. he's an assassin, or should I rather say serial killer as "assassin" makes it sound clean, yes, but he has conscience, though his sense of justice is questionable. it's bc of the circumstances around how he grew up

and then there's Saito. I don't exactly disagree with people who think his depiction and role are ableist, I also feel like I'm nit really the person to comment on it, but I still have some things to say about him, although I do feel that some of the language used in game to describe him is a bit ableist

with that said, Saito is a tragic character. what could've been if he had gotten help and a support system like Date did and not have everything he did swept under the rug. what if So had actually gotten him medical help (which he probably didn't bc he's neglectful + probably thought the word of his son getting help would've stained his career)

although if Saito had gotten help, AITSF would've never happened to begin with. which is the point. Date and Saito are opposites of each other

(also ngl I wish Saito was more apathetic and jaded than cartoonishly evil, I think he'd been even more terrifying but also more believable that way)

also people don't realize that the characters in AITSF are supposed to be flawed people with shades of gray. I know it's probably easy to forget with the cartoonish porn magazine powerups, 12 year old girl beating up trained guys with assault rifles, an AI girl whose form in the physical world resembles a fluroscent hamster which is morbidly cute and all of the dirty and perverted jokes and whatnot, but it's true! So is probably the best example of this. I don't like So, and that's the point. you're not supposed to like him. he's a corrupt politician who banged a high school girl when he was twice her age as well as a neglectful father. and yet I personally find him compelling. the realization of what his somnium actually depicted stuck with not just me but many others. this man is sleazy and disgusting but holy shit the shock that hits you when you realize he's actually haunted by Manaka's death. and what he says at the end of resolution route when Date pays him a visit.

I completely forgot to mention Date getting mad with Ota bc he knew his rights to remain silent and not being obligated to obey the police but that's probably the point. that exchange was supposed to communicate that Date is kinda ACAB and you're not exactly supposed to sympathise with him and that he's 100% the good guy.

and police being able to peek into people's minds using the psync machine when the stuff seen inside of it can't serve as evidence? I'm p sure it's also supposed to lampshade how corrupt the police are.

anyways point is

nobody in this game is completely good and it's more complicated than just the good guys vs the bad guys (although Saito is cartoonishly evil which leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth personally as I think he could've been an amazing villain had he also had shades of gray like everyone else). the characters in this game are all flawed people who break or bend the rules in one way or another to either cover their asses or bc it's how far they're willing to go to help out a loved one