#wah i think i could've done better

[koolades-world]

I’m so proud of you for getting 2K followers!

Can you please do Simeon x reader (the two are already dating) with Simeon saying both prompts 5. "I’m here. You're safe with me" and 9. “are you bleeding?”

Please and thank you! :D

thank you so much!! i gladly will :))

i don't think i've ever written a dedicated piece for simeon so i'll put my whole heart into this to make sure it does him justice!

enjoy <3

prompts 5 and 9 w/ Simeon

It was getting late. The songbirds were asleep, and fireflies could be seen out in the open field near Purgatory Hall. The stars lit up the sky and if you listened close enough, you could hear demons laughing with one another. On any other day, the sight might be enjoyable and would be a great opportunity to gather loved ones to savor the moment.

But, it was too late for Simeon's liking. He was expecting you home hours ago. You had even called him, letting him know you were on your way home, and that you were running one last errand, despite the fact that you were out with friends. He didn't want to rush or question you though. You were an adult and your own person. You didn't need him looking over your shoulder. How he wish he did though.

He didn't want to call the brothers, because they would tear apart the Devildom searching for you, nor did he want to wake up his housemates out of fear they'd view him as irresponsible. He checked his D.D.D. for what felt like the hundredth time that hour, and after looking at the time, he decided he was going out to find you himself. If you were still running your errand, he could just apologize. He just wanted to make sure you were ok.

Just as he had gathered all his things and was about to put his jacket on, he heard the keys being inserted into the lock of the front door, and he heard it crack open. With the biggest sigh of relief he'd ever let out, he hung the jacket back up and rushed to greet you. You looked tired, and had your jacket oddly draped around you. But, he didn't question that. Instead, he was more focused on the bouquet of flowers in your hand.

"Sorry I took a while to get home. These are for you, sweetie. They took a tumble, so I'm sorry they look a little rough. " You held them out to him, and he felt as if his heart was about to explode from joy. Nobody had ever given him flowers before. He took them from you, and spun them around in his hands. He studied them closely, and found a little note stuck on a picket in the center. You watched anxiously as he removed it and read it.

"Mc. You're too kind. I'll have to make it up to you in some way." The note read 'because you deserve it <3' and Simeon was over the moon at the sentiment. There was no occasion. Mc just wanted to do something nice for him in a way he hadn't expected.

"I thought you might like them. No need to make it up to me. You're my boyfriend. That in itself is more than enough for me. You're my gift, silly." At your words, he threw his arms around you, unable to contain his feelings. He was usually so composed, but he just couldn't hold it in. He found it kind of ironic he found true happiness in the Devildom, but he could live with that fact as long as it meant he got to remain by your side.

In this hug though, something felt off. You leant into him heavily, which he might normally put off as you being loving and happy to see him again, but that combined with everything he'd observed when you'd entered, he felt as if he should at least ask. "Are you alright, my love?" He stepped back a little to scan you for any signs of harm. The way you wrapped the jacket tighter around yourself told him everything he needed to know.

"I'm alright. Just tired from my night out is all." You tried to comfort him with a warm smile, but he was quick to shut that down.

"Be honest with me. This isn't me trying to be mean, and you know that." He glared at you in a way you'd never seen before. With a sigh, you realized the act was up. You shrugged the jacket off, and at first, Simeon saw nothing wrong. But, as he looked closer, the fabric of your shirt looked as if it was damp.

"Are you bleeding? Why didn't you tell me as soon as you got home?" The flowers were quickly set on a nearby table as he rushed to your side to inspect you closer. You lifted your shirt just enough to show off the three evenly spaced slashes on your abdomen.

"I didn't want you to feel bad about the gift." You confessed. He was quick to put two and two together.

"Did you get this while getting my flowers?" Your silence was telling.

"I know what you're going to say, so you don't need to," you sadly told him. He put his arm around your shoulders and led you to the living room. He sat you down on the sofa and told you to hold still while he healed you.

"You should see the other guys." You weakly smiled at him, in hopes of trying to lighten the situation.

"There was more than one? We'll be talking about who did this later since I want to focus on your right now, but you can't casually mention things like that." Simeon sighed. He went silent after that to focus on healing you, and like magic, all that was left of the wounds was scars. Now, the two of you were just staring at each other silently.

"Why didn't you call me?" He remained in front of you to look you in the eyes.

"I had it. I didn't need any help." At first, you planned to stop there, but you couldn't hide anything from him. "They told me they'd hurt you if I tried to ask you for help, and I panicked. I was really worried about you, and they told me no matter what I did, I wouldn't be able to escape." You leant into him again, tears welling up in your eyes.

"Sweetie, it's alright. You did great." He wiped the tears as they fell. Despite the sparse amount of tears, you looked upset and worn down. "I'm here. You're safe with me." His words seemed to resonate with you, and you tightly clutched him as if he might vanish.

"Thank you. I love you." You rested your head on his shoulder.

"I love you too. Remember, your safety always comes first. Any world where you are is a world I want to be in." He gave you a kiss on the top of your head. "By the way, thank you for the gift, I really appreciate it," he told you, gently smiling.

"I thought you'd like it. They made me think of you when I saw them." He couldn't deny the fact that you were always on his mind, and it warmed his heart to know that you felt the exact same.

"Now, let's get you to bed. You need rest. I'll watch over you." With that, the two of you headed off so you could get your well needed rest. Simeone was glad you were safe.

[gibbearish]

something kind of. bitter. abt tons of posts from about a month ago being like "anyone daring to even consider the words 'compassion fatigue/burnout' is a piece of shit for trying to assuage their own guilt over not paying as much attention as they should, much less telling OTHER people that it's ok to look away when it's not your place to say that because you're not the victims. 'wah wah my mental health' well at least you're not being bombed so you'd better be thankful you're not in their position. if you're not constantly tortured with graphic visions of genocide then you aren't actually doing your part" vs posts now being like "psa, if you're constantly being haunted by images you've seen and it's affecting your mood significantly, that's not normal and there's a word for that!" like. wow yeah damn if only someone had tried to warn people that this was a thing before it started to set in. such a shame no one did, oh well. and i know it's probably not the same people making those posts, but it still. Feels. and i know i've already made a post to this time before but idc the shift has put it back in my head so i guess take 2 on why i found this so annoying in the first place

it was always with a vibe of like, "this event is so horrible that the regular precautions to avoid compassion fatigue shouldn't apply, fixing it is more important." which. /is/ true in a sense, however those two things aren't actually related in the way that framing that way implies, paying attention doesn't actually /do/ anything concrete that would be lost by taking breaks from consuming news about this. there's the implication that the more people that pay attention, the more people in power will be forced to behave knowing that the world's eyes are on them. but like. this far in, they know everyone's eyes are on them by now, and have decided to proceed anyways. just kind of... looking at them harder isn't going to change anything. and also like.... "when the event is this horrible, why would you be thinking about that instead of putting them first"? because. the more horrible the event. the more. likely learning a lot about it will fuck you up? thats. that seems pretty obvious to me? like. there's more Shit For Your Brain To Torment You With 24/7 if more shit is being done and reported on. the worse something is, the worse it'll make you feel to spend all your time thinking about. yes, some people will be ignoring it because they genuinely don't care, but that doesn't automatically mean the ONLY way to care is to Pay Constant Attention No Matter What.

and like. yes, we should do all we can to help palestinians, but some people act like because we're not being killed and they are, we owe it to them to take on as much of that trauma as we can by proxy? like since we aren't having to go through the actual thing, any negative affects we go through can never compare and are therefore irrelevant, and we should instead only be thankful it's not happening to us. i've said this before but it feels very much like the old "finish your vegetables, there's kids starving in africa" thing parents would say, where it's like. ok, i get that the sentiment behind what youre expressing here is "you should take care to be thankful for things you take for granted, because there are people out there suffering without this," but theres always an implicit "and if you don't use yours right, you're hurting those people by wasting what they could've used" when that just !! doesn't actually follow after the first part, that is not the conclusion you should draw there!!! i would obviously give my leftover vegetables to someone else sooner than throw them away but until warp technology is cracked i am limited by things like distance and expiration dates and stable temperature zones, and i would obviously give my leftover Not Being Bombed to every palestinian if i could but until The Way Reality Works is cracked i am limited by. yknow. the way reality works. abstract concepts like that just arent transferrable without a LOT more direct involvement than just. looking at some posts or not.

and i think that's the crucial thing that bugs me abt both of these is not just that the conclusions they offer are wrong and manipulative, but that the /premise themselves/ are, and they take something HUGE for granted, which is "the thing i want you to do is Right and will Work, therefore i'm justified in forcing you to do it, regardless of any discomfort this causes as it will still have a net positive impact." eating your vegetables is Good for you, so forcing you to eat more when you don't want them is justified, and your reasons for not wanting them don't matter. palestinians have asked us to keep reading and sharing their posts because it helps them, so shaming people for not wanting to is justified, and their reasons for not wanting to don't matter. nevermind that overeating can be bad for you and children are indeed capable of telling when they're full or of having slightly smaller stomachs than the serving sizes their parents dish up, nevermind that they can have food sensitivities or even just /dislike the flavor of something/ and we don't force adults to finish foods they know they dislike, nevermind that compassion fatigue was already an existing concept long before this, nevermind that this is The Mental Illness Website, nevermind that reblogging a bunch of posts with graphic videos that will keep you up all night and be filtered by half your followers anyways doesn't stop fucking BOMBS. it's all we can do, nevermind that it's largely symbolic, therefore if you're not doing it for ANY reason, you are Bad. so do what i say in order to be Good even if it hurts you. it's just such a manipulative, PATRONIZING way of going about things that it just grates at me every time.

[undergroundexits]

trying to find a post bc im thinking of m.ia + c.hris + The Thing About Blame

[septiembrre]

I'm a little late but I just saw your post from a year ago about latinx rep in good girls and its sad reflecting back on it and how the show could've done better. Rio was just another stereotype, I hate how he was ambitiously latino and there was just no connection to his culture. Was he first, 2nd, or 3rd Gen? If he was 1st Gen it didn't make sense to have the family speak English. One thing that always annoyed me is how OOC he was at times and how the writers purposely made him out to be like some brown aggressive misogynistic man. They didn't bother making him complex. In a way I'm glad the show got canceled. As a Mexican woman the way Rio was written was racist.

Wah, I’ve been sitting on answering your ask. I wanted to tease your ask apart and respond to it sentence by sentence. But... my brain kept rechazandolo, so now I have feelings dump instead.

Since Good Girls ended, I have been parsing through how I feel about S4 and GG overall — sometimes more positively, sometimes more negatively. Then, I flip to reminding myself it’s not that serious (it's just tv! this is supposed to be my leisure activity!). Then, I waffle back to reflecting.

So, no textual analysis just feels and whining under the cut. I know folks are still mourning the end of the show and I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. Tagging with #ggnegativity.

My short answer is that Good Girls is my beloved, sometimes joyful, sometimes hurtful, complicated little show. Even now that we’re no longer getting new episodes I’m wary of sifting through the information we have about Rio because it’s a mess and it seems like a lot of his character was poorly thought out (ahem, all those dumb messages from Bill Krebs confirming multiple instances of lack of intentionality or care!).

I say this because I was tempted to start responding to you by riffing off of your comment with, “y'know, now that you say that, I think he’s third or fourth gen…”, pero who cares? And the point was never specifically about what gen he is, or even more specifically about... lol, I was going to say it doesn't matter what nationality he was, they just needed to pick one. Ugh, but the wording of that is too glib. The lack of intentionality behind these details feels sanitized to me, it feels very white gaze, it feels lazy.

However, I could have forgiven a lot of this weak character construction if his baseline, plot-related characterization on-screen was more consistent. But, Rio was often used as a plot device in a way that often fell flat for me, a weekly recurring bogeyman whether his antagonism made sense or not. On one hand, I feel for the creative team, because I think they were in a hard place, trying to avoid romanticizing Rio, and trying to seemingly backtrack the sexualization of him in Season 2, but... Idk, it's complicated.

Retrospectively, it’s sitting with me how much Good Girls is rooted in whiteness. While it's something I discerned before (lol, most obviously with 2x13 and in S3 with Lucy's disposability), you know how some shows get to their third or fourth season and finally start investing in their marginalized characters? It’s a crappy thing to hold out hope for, they're crumbs! But, I was. And we did get some Rio worldbuilding. But, ultimately, it felt weak to me -- under-conceptualized or under-worked.

For example, I liked Nick as a Bigger Bad who drove Rio and Beth together. I also thought that Nick's non-existent moral code was a lovely foil to Rio's, and that this contrast humanized Rio in a way that he needed. It also cast a new light on Rio's behavior of the earlier seasons, outside of Beth's perception in a way that I thought was healthy and needed. Great, meaty stuff! However, Nick and Rio's relationship came across as shallow to me. There really did not seem to be a lived-in quality to their scenes. The show really struggled with that element overall -- even with the three lead protagonists (their decades-long history with each other and interactions between their families being largely absent). I wonder why they made that choice.

It's strange because on the flip side we got a hefty amount of contextualization for MLM guy Vance and Annie's bf Kevin... Even that cop who Mick killed! All white men, too.

Me da pena.

Or maybe the thing that bothers me is that those scenes between Nick and Rio didn't center Rio's perspective effectively? Despite the one-on-one scenes being outside of Beth's framing (Rio being a secondary character typically tethered to Beth's story arc), there still was a lot of distance between Rio and the viewer? Like I think of Vance in his kitchen with his wife and child, and the way we as viewers were brought into that to empathize with him, and I think of the distance of Nick+Rio boxing scene or the scenes at the bar. Argh! It's hard to pinpoint without the textual analysis I feel too grumpy to do. It was such a narrative choice to keep Rio aloof and I side-eye it.

Anyway --

Overall, the writing room/show creators/decision-makers didn't seem to consider Latine/x/a/o viewers throughout the crafting of Good Girls and that sucks. It really feels like I'm being told to conform to the white gaze in watching the show, and after 2x13 that makes me feel prickly and defensive. A part of me yearns to do a rewatch to map Rio’s character (and inconsistencies) but I still yield joy from Good Girls — it’s been my main comfort story during the pandemic. I also rendered joy from Season 4 specifically — some of those scenes between the leads at the end were phenom!!

I am leaning into what's bringing me joy right now, so I feel hesitant to stew in critique, even while I also feel some sort of need to make sense of the hurtful racializations. I have a compulsion to write them all down on the same post or list -- somewhere where I can see them all at once and understand. But, at the moment, it’s not a use of my time and energy that feels good. Opting into fics and writing is bringing me a lot of joy during hard times.

I have to close with one final whine, that I am SO fatigued with television options right now. I find myself desperately wishing for more TV out there whose priority audience isn't only white folks. Good Girls isn't alone in its treatment of Latinx characters, or alone in mishandling characters of color or gay characters, or prioritization of empathy for white het male characters, but certainly, creating something more thoughtful shouldn't be so hard.

[cblgblog]

I'm curious about your take on Wakanda being wronged hard in FaTWS, and by Bucky specifically? I haven't seen many people talk about it, but I'm just angry and confused as to why Bucky was to careless and rude towards Ayo and the Dora Milaje, acting as if their anger about Zemo was an overreaction. Hell, Walker got more respect from him in the end than the Dora did

I'm looking at the writers' perspective here, it was their decision and I'm wondering why. What was the thought behind it? Why did they make Bucky so insensitive? At first I thought it had to be some arc, but nothing came from it. I'm wondering what made them look at this series and think "Yes, let's make Bucky screw over the people that helped him".

It wasn't just him wronging Wakanda, it was his behavior towards Sam too, how he was so ignorant during the cop scene, dismissive of Sam's feelings, and obsessed with the shield to a point of lashing out at Sam for things that weren't his fault. Why was this a choice that was made? Bucky didn't have much personality in the other movies, they could've done anything but they chose this, and I think more people should talk about how wrong that is. Not for Bucky, but for the black people in the series who were wronged.

Okay so here’s the deal. One, I’m white, so know that going in, take my take on this for whatever it’s worth accordingly. Two, I haven’t watched the eps since they aired, with the exception of a couple scenes, so my memory—not so much of events but of specific nuances of how Bucky reacted to them—isn’t fresh.

I say that last part specifically because of Bucky and his interactions with Sam, because ultimately they bother me much less than the Wakanda stuff, and here’s why. Bucky is, to varying degrees depending on situation and episode, a dick to Sam about the shield for most of the series. Undoubtedly. But I get that, to a point. He at least explains his feelings in 1x05, why he reacted like that, and admits he fucked up. He had all his feelings for Steve wrapped up, incorrectly, in that shield, so when Sam just tossed it aside (from Bucky’s perspective), it caused him to freak out/lash out. Which was never fair to Sam, but at least culminated in Bucky recognizing that. Sam keeps saying to him that the two of them have not lived the same experience, the shield and its legacy do not mean the same thing to them, and Bucky finally realizes that. He acknowledges that neither he nor Steve grasped the full reality of the situation, and he apologizes. Does that erase what came before? No, but it’s not supposed to. It’s him acknowledging his own ignorance and trying to do better.

So, at least there’s an arc there, which is the other reason his stuff with Sam bugged me less. There was an evolution in his thinking, there was a change from wah wah, you gave up the shield, to oh wait, I kinda get it now. He realizes that his reactions were wrong, even if his feelings were understandable. Which, on a human level, I think they were. It’s a very human thing for Bucky to equate that shield directly to Steve, and take Sam’s rejection of it as a rejection of Steve. It’s understandable how he got there, given the bizarre nature of Steve’s time travel shenanigans, the nearly endless nightmare that Bucky’s life has been since he fell from the train. Losing yet another 5 years when he’s already lost 70+, all the unprocessed guilt and grief that isn’t helped by him having actually the worst therapist ever, oh my God this woman sucks at her job, she’s funny, but she’s awful. His feelings, I believe, were valid, given everything that went down. His reaction to them—the lashing out, whining, refusing to see Sam’s side of it—his reaction was not valid. But at least he gets to a point where he realizes that. At least there’s an arc.

Could they have found a different way to create conflict in the series? Sure, and I’m not gonna argue with anyone who wishes they had. For me personally, I was okay with it. Bucky’s ignorance and misplaced anger made sense to me. Bit of an aside, one of the few scenes I rewatched for this (because Youtube and knowing exactly where it was) was the cop scene, because you referenced. I’m assuming you mean the bit where Sam gets stopped, gets the ‘calm down sir’ treatment. I didn’t think Bucky was a dick in that scene? He seemed aware of what was happening, given his angry, “No he’s not bothering me, do you know who this is?” It’s actually one of a relatively few instances in the first 5 eps where Bucky does seem genuinely aware that he and Sam don’t live in the same world, even when they’re walking the same street, right next to each other. So, as far as illustrating that, and Bucky coming out of his own feelings long enough to pay attention to Sam’s, I thought it was one of the better scenes.

So, Sam and Bucky, I’m less bothered by. Bucky and Wakanda? That’s a hot garbage fire.

Zemo’s whole inclusion here, and nearly everything related to it, was incredibly botched. He’s randomly rich as fuck now, and a Baron, to match his comics counterpart. Which is not only an incredibly lazy retcon, it kills much of what made his character interesting in CW. In that movie, it was one guy, working alone, limited resources, dedicating himself to his cause. If nothing else, you had to admire his tenacity. Now suddenly he’s got a butler and a plane and piles of cash? Where was that in CW? More importantly…why? What purpose did it serve, besides making him more superficially similar to his comic self?

Why did we detour to him at all? None of his plans ultimately affect the larger narrative all that much. He starts out in prison and…ends up back in prison. Why? Why would the Dora just leave him there? Ayo says that they will bring Zemo back to face Wakandan justice…and then they just don’t. They leave him in the hands of the same people who lost him to two random dudes who were able to bust him out of prison on their own, one of those dudes being an entirely human guy, no enhanced powers, no Serum. In CW, okay, T’Challa did a deal with Everett Ross I guess, fine. But once the Americans proved they couldn’t hold him, it made no sense that the Dora would just go, okay, here you go again. They aren’t Batman. They have no reason to keep throwing the baddies in Arkham Asylum to wait ‘til next week when someone breaks out again.

The Zemo stuff had no arc to it. The only worthwhile thing was Bucky proving to Zemo that he can’t be controlled anymore, but that scene could have come about in a million better ways than it did. Ultimately, the weird little team-up with Zemo feels very cliché and contrived. It feels like a trip down a side road that dead ends to nowhere. It feels like filler, which is a particularly terrible crime when there’s only 6 episodes in the damn season.

Bucky’s dickishness towards Ayo and the other Dora really is baffling, especially when the writers went out of their way to give us that flashback, a direct, show don’t tell indication of all the Wakandans did for him. And it’s not his feelings for Steve that have him acting out this way, or at least it shouldn’t be. Steve has nothing to do with this aspect of things. Steve obviously had trust in and respect for T’Challa, and there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t extend to the Dora as well. Strong, badass women who put it all on the line for their country? Yeah, Steve should/would get that. He would have broken Zemo out of prison, if he thought it was the right call to make, but he also would’ve been like yeah, I did that, I understand that I fucked you over, I’m fully prepared to accept the consequences of that once my mission is complete, I’m sorry it went down like this. See the, “I’d like to surrender myself for disciplinary action,” he gives Phillips in First Avenger, after he goes to rescue the 107th. If it’s an authority he respects and acknowledges as having good intentions (Phillips as opposed to the Accords), Steve will ultimately give that respect back, even if he goes off to do his own thing first. He respected T’Challa and Wakanda. Bucky should have respected them even more, given his more direct connection, given the flashback scene in FatWS, given his acknowledgement that Wakanda and it’s people gave him a rare respite, a calm in the shit storm that’s been his life since 1945.

So yeah, it doesn’t make sense that he was so flippant and dismissive towards Ayo and the rest. It makes even less sense that they put up with it. It’s bad writing, that’s all I’ve got. The show is incredibly irritating, in that a lot of the plot-driven stuff is pretty fucking awful, but most of the character study stuff for Sam and Bucky is so good.