#wait...is it just casual racism?

[annikuh]

sometimes Jax and/or Panathir become full imaginary friends and will hang out and walk around with me, and I enjoy it a lot

but I have been so overwhelmed on this visit with my “in-laws” that they have only shown up for like 15 mins total. otherwise they’re deadass sitting at home bc the thought of anyone else being around me—even if I like them—is actually petrifying.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

man i’m still so hung up on the way that this professor handled music in the philippines. there were Choices made and though i agreed with a few of them, i found most of them straight up fucking baffling and it was disheartening to not feel heard or invited to contribute to the discussion despite this subject matter being uhhhhhhh my fucking lived experience just because i didn’t pay a twenty dollar membership fee to the fil-am org

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

I AM CAROL'S LAWYER, I WILL DEFEND HER FROM EVERYONE >:V

killing sick ppl is NOT COOL but she was trying to stop a disease from spreading and KILLING EVERYONE. AND??? when she discovered that this method DIDN'T WORK??? she stopped!!! she has not killed another person since!!!!!

AND RICK IS GIVING OUT ABOUT IT?????? RICK???????? RICHARD FUCKIING GRIMES IS GIVING OUT ABOUT CAROL KILLING TWO PPL IN SOME MISGUIDED FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE BID..............WHEN HE'S GONE AND DONE MUCH WORSE WITHOUT ANY REPRISALS??????? (from the narrative or the framing, i mean. not....well u know 👀)

hey hey. remember that time he and michonne cut a guy open and shoved him out of his own house so that all the zombies would swarm him and the idiot brigade could get out the back door????

remember when rick talked shane down and acted like he was going to forgive him before SHOOTING HIM POINT BLANK????

remember when rick went ham and beat tyreese's face in?? tyreese struck first, but rick nearly BROKE HIS FACE!!! and that's ''''one of their own'''' ???? that's not to mention all the rando npcs that rick has plugged with bullets!!!

i don't care about morality, bc it's a series about fecking zombies lol. BUT!!!! i think the LEAST they could do is have a BIT of consistency. rick-centred morality is fine for rick, but let the others disagree with him, like they did in earlier seasons!! that was better!! idk i just think that if they wanted to be rid of carol (either bc the actor no longer wanted the role, or bc the writers just. WANTED that) there's got to be a better way to do it surely??? JUSTICE FOR CAROL!! ;A;

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

Israeli settlers casually fleeing back to the US or Europe or wherever they want to go really thanks to passport privilege while Palestinians are literally trapped in a giant cage waiting for the Israeli military to bomb the shit out of them highlights another power asymmetry of the Palestinian occupation: the freedom of movement, or lack thereof. Palestinians are not free to move across their own land. Everything is controlled through the most elaborate and heavily militarized borders, security checkpoints, military blockades, minefields, etc. in the world. Even if those didn't exist you can bet a Palestinian wouldn't be able to just get on a plane and go wherever they please without so much as a visa (not to mention the likely thousands of Palestinians who have been put on no fly lists due to be pure racism). When conflict breaks out they simply have nowhere to go. An Israeli can hop on a jet and fuck off back to Long Island or wherever until it simmers down.

[seat-safety-switch]

"Doctor, you have to help. My broth is so thin, and flavourless." cries another patient.

I have been working at Dr. Soup's Soup Hospital for the last couple of weeks. Normally, by now, I would have already been fired for stealing office supplies or general sloth. Something about the good doctor, however, motivates me to keep working. He came up one morning in the unemployment office's ads, and I figured I'd take it.

It's not hard to see why a soup hospital would be needed. People take their soups very seriously. Perhaps it's a recipe from great-grandma, and being able to consistently make it is the only link from the present day back to that idyllic past. Maybe they just want to have something good to eat on a cold day. We don't know, and importantly, we can't judge. If your goulash sucks ass, he's there to fix it.

Even though he drives a pickup truck (a Dodge Ram-en, get it?) I don't hold it against him. He genuinely uses it to pick up large amounts of soup that are in distress and carry them back to his hospital, where he applies strategic spices and sometimes even exotic homemade broths to bring the flavour back to the liquid-lunch-but-not-that-kind crowd. They deserve it, really, and are always grateful to the doc for saving their food.

If there is something I don't like about working for Dr. Soup, it's the casual racism. No, not against cultures. That would be too normal. No, what he hates is stew. Too thick, he tells me. Pick a side, we're at war, he complains whenever we're at the medical supply store, buying paprika. One day I'll ask about curries, but it will have to wait. My parole officer is going to drop by for an inspection sometime this week, and I'd really prefer for him not to go home with third-degree burns and a recommendation that I get sent back to prison. I can't go back there, now that I've tasted this beautiful life on the outside once more. They don't even use chives in their stock.

[genericpuff]

Wait, if Hera hated nymphs, does that mean she had beef with Poseidon's wife???

Who knows, but it does shed a whole new light on this scene from Episode 1:

Like, in the context of the scene, it's clear the point of this interaction is to highlight how "lonely" Hades is that he's the only one at the party without a date. Though I do think it's funny that Hades is frustrated / shocked at the revelation that Poseidon brought his wife to a party that she would presumably be invited to attend, like... of course Poseidon is here with his wife, that makes Amphitrite royalty by extension and so at the very least she'd likely be obligated to attend even if she, for some reason, didn't want to go.

So Hades being like "GOD you mean I'm the ONLY UNMARRIED GUY without a DATE???" like yeah man that's what it means to not be married LOL

But in hindsight, knowing what we know now about Hera being cruel to satyrs and nymphs who are canonically lower class (making it a double whammy of racism AND classism) that interaction of Hades asking Hera if Poseidon brought Amphitrite right after Hera called Minthe "nymph trash" almost feels like Hades calling her out, to which she responds sheepishly, "... Yes."

Again, I know that's not the intention of this scene, but it does come with deeper implications now that the series is over and we know that Hera has a history of racism and classism which largely goes unaddressed.

And those implications kind of read like this:

Hera: "I, for one, am grateful! I don't have to spend the evening with that nymph trash :)"

Hades: "Did Poseidon bring his (oceanid) wife?"

Hera: "(・_・;)... yes, okay, Poseidon brought his wife, Amphritite, but she's not nymph trash or anything, she's one of the good ones!"

Again though, just food for thought that's kinda messed up and kinda funny to think about on re-reads. There's so much classism and racism baked into LO even from the very beginning and it's wild that it wound up going unnoticed for years. Even I didn't really notice it as much as I ought to have when I first started reading. To anyone who's new to the series, LO does a good job at bombarding you with colors, characters, Greek myth references, and feel good fluff moments between H x P to distract you from the often biased and outdated viewpoints in its narrative.

TBH, none of that is to say that Rachel herself is some massive racist for writing a story like this, but I do think she didn't really spend enough time analyzing the works that clearly inspired her and/or challenging her own inspirations to ensure she wasn't continuing the cycle of casual racism. It's really easy to be blissfully aware of your own biases if you never learn to address them, especially when it comes to writing fantasy stories which we tend to "disconnect" from real life, never once realizing that the messages and undertones we might accidentally be sending are often still realities for many people in real life today. Fiction isn't real life, sure, but it can still perpetuate some really dog shit thought patterns and subconscious beliefs if left unchecked, which LO is frankly full of especially upon re-reads with a more critical eye when you're not as likely to get distracted or swept away by the pretty colors and whirlwind romance.

[anyarose011]

Bah, Humbug! {Angus Tully x Reader}

Summary: Realizing you are stuck over winter break in the school your father (with many nicknames such as: Rat Bastard, Colossal Asshole, or the most popular, Walleye) teaches at, you try to make the best of it. Or, at least the best you can make it with five other boys your age

Part 1 of ?? (Masterlist)

Warnings: Swearing, period typical sexism, feminism (abandon all hope ye who enter if this has to be a warning), sarcastic reader, Teddy Kountze, and casual racism (a subsection to Teddy Kountze)

You've heard of "Paul Hunham being a father figure" now I present to you: "Paul Hunham being a girl-dad and an academic rivals to lovers with Angus Tully". I became obsessed with this movie, and decide to add my own spin onto it. It's also my first time writing for Tumblr, so I hope you enjoy!

Word Count: 4.8k

“You said we were going to Copenhagen this year.”

The first nine words you said to your father after he told you about the predicament the both of you were in.  He sighed, sitting on the edge of your bed.

“I know.” You haven’t heard him trying to be this understanding since…you couldn’t recall. “I don’t want to be stuck here just as much as you-.”

“-So then just say no.”

He scoffed, yet still smiled. “It’s a stupid lottery, and my name got picked.”

“Bullshit-.”

“-Hey.” He warned.

Sighing, you glanced out your window. Thin specks of snow were falling onto the already pure as white ground, cascading down the roofs of houses. At least it was snowing and would resemble somewhat of a nice Christmas.

“Can we at least do something fun?” You questioned.

“I thought you said men don’t deserve to have fun the same way they think women don’t deserve rights?”

“Do the boys you teach think the same?” You looked at him.

He shrugged. “Not really in my field of work to get to know them.”

“Wonderful.” You rolled your eyes.

Your father squeezed your shoulder. “Yes, we can have little activities that children your age would consider fun. Still, I vow to enhance their intellect and schoolwork, considering that most of them are…lackluster.”

“Does this mean that I’ll get to drag their asses in mythology trivia?”

“In colloquial terms, yes.”

That brought a smile to your face, and you got up from your bed. “I think I’ll make dinner tonight if that’s alright?” You didn’t wait for him to answer as you left the room. “Maybe pie? I know Mary taught me-.”

“-Woah, woah, woah.” He followed you out into the hallway, stopping you. “We’re not eating here.”

You blinked, the only sound forming from your throat being. “Huh?”

He sighed as if going to tell you the worst news in the world (at the time, oh boy, was it). “They’re cutting the power to the faculty housing, so we’re going to be living at the school over winter break.”

Your face drops along with your heart, shock settling in. “Say that again?”

“We’re going to be living at the school-.”

“-No I heard you.”

“Then why did you ask me to repeat myself?”

“You’re telling me,” you bring on the drama, raising your voice. “I have to lodge with teenage boys?! The cursed sex?!”

He sighed. “You won’t be sleeping in the same room as them-.”

“-I can’t even look at you right now.” You pushed past him, going back into your room and tossing yourself onto your bed.

“Countess Natalya,” he taunts tiredly, knowing you hope your melodramatic attitude would wear him down. “we don’t have a choice.”

You point at him, not bringing your face up from your pillow. “Don’t you dare bring Natasha into this, she would react the same way!”

He laughed. “You get your stubbornness from your mother.”

“I get it from my father!” That’s what made you turn and bring your head up.

There’s a silence with tenseness lacing it like icing on a cake. Paul Hunham’s sigh of frustration broke it, approaching you. “Whether we like it or not, we’re stuck here. Whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to endure the attitude of pubescent boys who, I guarantee you, even when their frontal lobes form at twenty-five, will still be inconsiderate, full of themselves, and not know what true hard work is…We don’t get to do things we want all the time, that’s the reality of the situation.”

You still wore the same, spiteful look on your face as he told you this; as if you were a little girl being told, no, you can’t stay up until midnight tonight. Then, once he was finished, the look subsided only a little.

“I hate you.” Was your reply.

He ruffled your hair. “You’re the light of my life too, Jo March.” With that, he stood up with a pleasant smile. “But no worries, I don’t expect you to deal with the inadequacy of the male testosterone.” He then left the room, and you could hear his voice echo. “Now pack your things; clothes, toiletries, your books above everything, I know.”

He still continued to ramble, but in all honestly, it wasn’t important enough to this day for you to remember. All that was going through your head, was that you were going to spend almost a month in a musty, falling apart, preparatory school, with who knew how many musty teenage boys.

It was then you started planning how exactly you’d fly to Copenhagen by yourself.

That only lasted for about two minutes when you realized that your father had your passport locked in a safe with his, and you weren’t really in the mood to lockpick that day (or learn how to for that matter). So instead, you spent the majority of the time packing your suitcase, and your father was right; your books were the most important ones you’d pack.

You didn’t initially plan on socializing with the boys, so you nearly brought your entire library of books to entertain yourself; the only thing stopping you from bringing all of it was, besides your father, the copious amounts of clothing. You didn’t quite like planning out what outfit you’d wear for each day, so it was better to be safe and bring choices.

Your father had gone ahead of you to help the Boys Left Behind (a title you wouldn’t tell anyone for a few years), settle in. Settle in being him being your father and setting the ground rules whilst running that school like the damn Navy. So, there you were, walking through the ankle-deep snow with your backpack and suitcase that was meant for Copenhagen.

The school only had a few buildings; two dormitories for the boys, a small shack for the maintenance, the chapel, and one large building consisting of all the classrooms, dining hall, infirmary, and whatever else was needed for a rich, all American boy education system.

Perhaps you’d gotten a taste of what the American Revolutionists felt at Valley Forge when you heard a voice call.

“Hey!”

You looked up from where you stood and saw five boys near the courtyard by a pickup truck. Your blood, if not already freezing from the winter snow, ran cold at the sight. The same boy yelled again.

“Do you need help, are you lost?”

You shook your head, pitching our voice up a bit higher and shouting back.

“No, thank you!”

Trying to continue on your way, you looked up again to see one of them running towards you. Cursing to yourself, you tried to keep your head low and pick up the pace, but you got to see him one he was closer to you. His face was boyish, and you first thought he was a sophomore at first. His hair to his shoulders, something you didn’t expect to see for someone attending such a prestigious school. And…damn it all, he was attractive (for a boy your age).

“Hi,” he greeted you warmly with his hand out. “Jason Smith.”

You looked at it for a moment (still a bit blindsided how someone at this school could be so genuine) before shaking and giving him your name. He shook his head, chuckling as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket.

“You’re Hunham’s daughter?”

Oh…perhaps you shouldn’t have told him that. Still, you tried to let it roll off your back and played it cool, laughing along with him. “Yeah, I’m stuck over here with you guys.”

“Well, hopefully we won’t get on your nerves too badly. Do you want me to carry that for you?” He offered.

“Oh.” You looked down at your suitcase and handed it to him. “Go ahead, thank you.”

Jason took it, and the both of you began to make your trek up the small hill with the truck. He was being a gentleman, so you decided to keep the conversation going.

“So, why’re you here?”

He shrugged. “My family usually goes skiing for the holidays, but my old man won’t let me go until I cut my hair.”

“That’s really mean of him.” You stated.

Jason snorted “You should tell him that.”

“I will.”

“Oh yeah?”

“For sure.” You went ahead of him, turning around and walking backwards up the hill. “Give me his number and I’ll give him a stern talking to.”

That only made him laugh harder. “You should study to be a lawyer; you make a great case.”

“My father said the same thing once; I just personally have a theory that all parents tell their children they’d be good lawyers because they argue with them. As if it’s not a child’s right to argue.”

“You’re well-spoken too.”

“For a woman?”

You saw panic pale his face. “What?”

A smile couldn’t help but make its way to your mouth. “Only teasing.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “Scared me for a moment.”

“Yeah?” You joked, turning back over your shoulder as you felt yourself at the top of the summit. “I usually get that a lot. That’s why my da-.”

Once your eyes drifted up to see the rest of the Boys Left Behind, your words fell silent. The youngest ones, who you assumed to be freshman, you did not recognize but knew immediately they would be kinder than the two whom you already knew.

Teddy ‘I only lost because I went easy on you’ Kountze, and Angus ‘I know more than you’ Tully.

These motherfuckers.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Angus groaned.

Teddy merely blinked, as if he couldn’t believe it. “What’re you doing here?”

“She’s Walleye’s kid, idiot.” Angus pointed out. “Of course she’d be here.”

Jason looked between the three of you. “You know each other?”

With whatever self-control you had (and you barely had any), you kept calm. “They’re just sore losers I met months ago.”

Teddy rolled his eyes. “Hunham wasn’t proud of us after one test, so he called in her one day, and we had to basically go up against her in some bullshit trivia match.”

“Wait,” Jason looked back at you. “so it was you versus the entire class?”

You stood proudly. “Uh huh.”

“Lost to this dickwad of all people.” Teddy slapped Angus’ back. “We couldn’t believe she met her match; she tore apart almost everyone else in class.”

 “So then why are you acting like you did any better?” You tried your best to sound as if you were joking but were also dead serious.

He scoffed. “Doesn’t matter if I did; you still lost.”

Rolling your eyes, they soon fell onto the youngest pair, staring up at you as if in study. You smiled, holding out your hand, introducing yourself. “What’re your names?”

The one with glasses and black hair shook yours first. “Ye-Joon.”

Then the boy paler than a lightbulb and cheeks turning red from the cold. “Alex.”

“And what’re you two doing here?”

Ye-Joon spoke first. “My family is in Korea, and they think it’s too far for me to travel alone.”

“I figured it was because your rickshaw was broken.” Teddy snickered.

“What’s a rickshaw?”

You shrugged, despite knowing what it was. “Not sure, I am sure that he’s an idiot though.”

Teddy acted as if you were flirting with him. “Highest compliment I’ve ever gotten from you.”

“What about you?” Jason questioned. “You’re Hunham’s kid, but do you go to school in town or…?”

“Homeschooled.” You weren’t the one who responded. All eyes went to Agnus Tully, still smoking a cigarette and averting his eyes from everyone. “Which checks out.”

You tilted your head, hiding your growing nerves with a surprised smile. “Aw, look at that; Frankenstein’s Monster does have the capacity to memorize things.”

The only one who laughed was Teddy, and you almost wanted to take it back.

Angus just shook his head. “Look, I don’t know what kind of schtick it is to be the angry girl, but it doesn’t look nice on you.”

“Hey, leave the lady alone.” Jason stepped in.

“Lady?” He said the word as if it was foreign to call you that.

“Yes,” you agreed with Jason despite how much you didn’t want to, but your desire to humble Angus Tully outweighed your morals (a reoccurring theme for the Winter of 1970). “I’m a lady.”

“For how much you start fights, I wouldn’t call you one.”

“Ladies do not start fights, but they can sure as hell finish them.”

He merely rolled his eyes and went back to smoking. Fair enough…him not engaging only made him look like the bigger person. Still, it wasn’t worth it for you to continue beating a tall, dead, dumb, horse with curly hair.

“What’s your story?” Jason asked Alex.

“Oh,” he sounded shocked. “my parents are on a mission in Paraguay. We’re LDS.”

“Mormons, right?”

Teddy asked before he could respond. “Do you guys wear some kind of magic underwear?”

You turned to Jason and whispered as Alex went into an explanation. “I’m going to slap him into next semester the next time some stupid shit leaves his mouth.”

He tried to hide his smile. “I don’t think any of us would mind, to be honest.”

“Hey,” Teddy interrupted. “what’s with the townies?”

Everyone turned to the chapel and saw two men carrying the Christmas tree out. Agnus yelled. “Excuse me! What are you doing with our Christmas tree?”

“The school sold it back to us!” He responded. “Scotch pine, still fresh.”

The other one added. “Yeah, we’re gonna put it back on the lot. Do it every year.”

“This is the most bullshit ever.” Angus shook his head, then looking at you. “Did you know about this?”

You couldn’t even respond right away, the question was so ludicrous. “I had no idea about being stuck here with you idiots until about an hour ago, so I naturally knew the townies would steal your Christmas tree.”

“Unbelievable.” He muttered under his breath, putting out the cigarette and heading towards the main building.

The rest of the boys’ gaze drifted to you, and all you said was. “Do you think he’d believe me if I told him they worked for the Grinch?”

You were more than halfway through A Christmas Carol when you were in the room you shared with your father in the infirmary. He was chatting with Mary, the head cook and the closest woman you would have to a mother figure, downstairs, leaving you by yourself.

Not exactly.

In the next room, you knew Alex, Ye-Joon, and Angus shared one, and then Teddy and Jason. They were quiet for the most part, save for Kountze tossing a tennis ball against the wall, but it stopped bothering you after a few minutes.

 You’d read the Charles Dickens’ tale a million times, but you couldn’t help and see how many similarities Angus Tully shared with Ebenezar Scrooge. It would be a lie if anyone were to ever claim you didn’t have hobbies; what would they call you assigning fictional characters to real people?

You found yourself beginning to pace around the room the more you read. Whilst voices raising in the background grew louder, you didn’t know exactly what had been happened until you wandered in on Tully and Kountze having a fight you could only summarize as it being straight out of Lord of the Flies.

You knew how that story ended, so with one look, you turned on your heel and walked away.

Finding a quiet corner outside of the infirmary, you thought you were safe when-.

Your father yelled your name. “Could you come here, please?”

Roling your eyes, you yelled back. “You told me not to deal with the inadequacy of the male testosterone, so that’s what I’m doing!”

He called for you again, and you groaned, bookmarking where you were and marching back to the infirmary. All five boys and your father stood before you, and you leaned against the doorframe, making it known you wanted to be anywhere but there.

Paul Hunham sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to know who started this ‘Not fight’ mister Ollerman described to me?”

Your eyes drifted to Tully (for reasons, you had no idea), who simply glared back at you. You could’ve done it…lied about him starting it even though you had no idea; it’s what he deserved for being an ass you to that day, and for winning months ago.

But, where you were a bitch, you were also just.

“No,” you stated. “I don’t know.”

He thinned his lips, turning back to everyone. “All right then, we’ll do it like the Roman Legions. Absent a confession, one man’s sin is every man’s suffering. For every minute the truth is withheld, you will all receive a detention.”

“And I thought all the Nazis were hiding in Argentina.” Angus mumbled.

“Stifle it, Tully.” Your father refuted.

You shrugged (this somehow being the first time you agreed with Angus Tully). “He’s got a point; you’re breaking the Geneva Convention if you do.”

“The what?” Teddy scrunched his nose.

“Well,” Your father sighed as he said your name. “if you want to have an opinion on the matter, you can join them as well.”

“I don’t even go here!”

“Well, you’re standing under the roof right now. Now in the first of said detentions, you will clean the library. Top to bottom. Scraping the underside of the desks, which are caked with snot and gum and all manner of ancient, unspeakable proteins. On your hands and knees, down in the dust, breathing in the dead skin of generations of students and desiccated cockroach assholes.”

“It was Kountze!” Little Alex pointed to him. “Kountze started it!”

While the guilty party in question’s face had dropped, you watched as your father’s brightened. “Bravo, Mister Ollerman. Bravo.”

It must’ve off put Mary how you were smiling in the kitchen when you picked up the pitcher of water and bread as she got the platters of chicken and potatoes and asparagus.

Still, she asked. “How bad of a day was it for you to be smiling as you serve the men at the table?”

“Eh,” you began. “I would rather be on a plane to Copenhagen right now, but being stuck at this hell hole with you makes it tolerable; better, even.

Mary smiled at that. “Feeling’s mutual, Jane Bennett.”

“I’m Lizzie.” You playfully whined.

“And I can’t be bothered to finish that book.” She teased, and the two of you were beginning to make your way to the dining hall.

“Speaking of books, do you have another one I could borrow?” You asked.

“Already?” Mary sounded surprised. “I gave you that book last week.”

“And I finished it in a few days, I just haven’t had the chance to ask you.”

She shook her head as you pushed through the door out into the dining hall, holding it for her. “I’ll recommend the Bible next time to keep you occupied for longer.”

“I think I’ll stick with James Baldwin, if that’s alright.” You jested, then seeing Jason’s lips move as he asked a question, Teddy responded, and then your father spoke quite loudly.

“Consider yourselves lucky. During the third Punic campaign, 149-146 B.C., the Romans laid siege to Carthage for three entire years. By the time it ended, the Carthaginians were reduced to eating sand and drinking their own urine. Hence the term punitive.”

You and Mary set down the food, and you scrunched your nose in disgust at your father’s ‘fun fact’ while sitting beside Jason and facing Angus. It took everything in your bones not to burst out in laughter to see Teddy Kountze sitting at the edge of the table like a toddler having a silent tantrum.

“Thank you, Mary.” Your father greeted as everyone began to serve themselves. “Would you maybe care to join us?”

Oh, the look of distaste on Teddy’s face nearly made you lose it. Mary took notice immediately, and she offered a meek smile. “No, I’m alright, thank you.”

The same moment the door to the kitchen closed when she left was when Teddy turned to all of you, whispering as if it would help. “I mean…I know she’s sad about her son and everything, but still, she’s being paid to do a job. And she should be doing it well, right?”

If it weren’t for the fact you were chewing on a piece of chicken, and that your father was just two seats away from you, you would’ve given him a piece of your mind. The glare in your eyes would have to suffice.

Still, he opened his dumb mouth to continue. “But I guess, no matter how bad of a cook she is, they can never fire her.”

“Will you shut up?!” Your father hit the table so hard, silverware flew. You’d seen this rage from him before…but it still made you jump. “You have no idea what that woman has been through-!”

His gaze turned to you, and saw the look that could only belong to you in moments like that; where you stiffened yourself and hardened your eyes to look as if you did not know what fear meant. Yet, there was still an undeniable amount of terror even within those eyes you tried to have been the most fearless.

He reigned himself back in. “You know, Mr. Kountze, for most people, life is like a henhouse ladder; shitty and short. You were born lucky. Maybe someday you entitled little degenerates will appreciate that. If you don’t, I feel sorry for you, and we will not have done our jobs. Now eat.”

The boys obeyed, keeping their heads low. You felt your heart go back to itself, and as you were returning to eating, you heard an irritating voice mumble.

“Not our fault her kid was one of the poor bastards to be drafted.”

It took you three seconds to find Teddy’s foot under the table, and one for you to step on it with all your weight.

He jolted, cursing under his breath before looking at you. “The hell?!”

You feigned innocence, a potato on your fork. “Oh, was that your foot? I’m so sorry.”

Teddy’s eyes tried to burn through your skin as you continued to eat, but you barely felt them. The eyes you did feel on you were soon gone when you looked across from where you sat.

There was Angus Tully, keeping his head down as if he was a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

…Interesting…

What else were you supposed to think?

You finished A Christmas Carol by the time your father forced you to turn out the lights (and then confiscated your flashlight from under your bed…had to think of a better hiding spot). It always took you a while to go to sleep (still does, some nights).

As you laid in darkness, your mind would rush with the worlds you vowed to lose yourself in through the books you read. Frodo had Middle Earth, Emma had Highbury, and you had…Barton, Massachusetts.

Not even Concord like the March Sisters, just plain old Barton.

So, naturally, when your mind had tired itself from living these fantasies, and as you were about to drift off to sleep, your father’s snoring awoke you.

You hadn’t even noticed he came into the room, only when he started snoring to wake the dead. Sighing heavily, you tossed yourself out of bed, and used what moonlight coming in from the windows as your guide. Not long after, you saw that Angus and the freshmen boys drew the short end of the stick in their room choice; there were no curtains to the windows, causing the lamplights to bleed into the room, making it an unfavorable color of piss yellow.

That’s when your eyes drifted to where Jason and Teddy were; a little light peering in from their window facing the moon, and correspondingly, the other bedroom, but still quite dark. Closest to the door…a spare bed.

Yes, it was by Teddy, but your father’s snoring being fainter in that room was enough for you.

But again…it was by Teddy.

So, swallowing your pride, your eyes darted around for a solution, and they landed on Frankenstein’s Monster right behind you. Sighing to yourself, you turned back around into his room, and after thinking of what to say, you shook him awake.

He was somehow relaxed at first when he opened his eyes to see you; but that was just shock, he nearly fell out of bed when his vision adjusted.

“What the hell?!” He gasped, sitting up.

You shushed him, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I need a favor.”

He blinked, looking around to just double check where he was; nope, it wasn’t a bad dream, yep, he was still at Barton. “You appear like one of the fucking ghosts from A Christmas Carol, what could it possibly be?”

You rolled your eyes. “Well, Ebenezar Scrooge, my dad snores like he’s trying to be the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, and I can’t sleep in there. So, I’m gonna go sleep in the other room, and you gotta wake me up or I’m dead.”

Angus Tully stared at you as if your head had grown horns. “I have no idea what you just said right now because you woke me up at,” he turned and looked at his watch. “oh look, 1am.”

Sighing you bit back a response only because you needed something from him. “Look; I want to actually be able to sleep, and I know I won’t at all if I’m stuck in a room with my dad all night. I’ll sleep in the extra bed in the other room, and you wake me up so that none of us will be killed if I oversleep in a room with teenage boys.”

It’s more than obvious he understood, but he then asked. “Why not just ask one of the guys in the room you’re sleeping in?”

“I don’t trust Kountze with anything and Jason…”

Damn your exhaustion for not being able to come up with a good explanation besides-.

“You like him.” Angus’ face lit up with a teasing glee that unnerved you somehow more than Teddy’s entire existence did that day.

“No!” You immediately deny. “I mean, yes, but in a way that of course I like him because he’s the only one of you assholes who are nice to me. So, I don’t like like him.”

You liar.

Angus scoffed, yet his shit eating grin was still on his face. “What are you, twelve?”

“I was about to ask the same thing since you’re so interested.” You rolled your eyes.

“So why me?” He asked. “You like the freshmen, don’t you trust them more?”

“I like them and actually want them to sleep.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Sighing you said. “I’ll give you whatever you want; not whatever you fucking perve but-.”

“-I never even thought of it like-.”

“-Sure, you didn’t.” You interrupted. “But I got a friend in town, so I can always go and get you stuff. What do you want?”

He took his time thinking; so much time you were tempted to wake Mary up and beg her to let you sleep in her room (you knew she would've let you, but you didn't want to disturb her. You also never questioned your father why he didn't initially have you sleep in Mary's room; more than likely just to give her her own space). Finally, he answered.

“Chocolate and cigarettes.” The look you gave him would’ve made you laugh if you could see it. It only made him scrunch his eyes. “What?"

“That’s it?”

“I'm running out of both, big deal." He scoffed. "Am I allowed to change my mind after each time you pay me? Besides, when will you?”

You shrugged. “I can’t go out every day. I’ll see if he’ll let me the day after tomorrow, so I can stock up then. How about…every three days you wake me up, that’s when I give you stuff. Sound good?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

Holding out your hand, you were surprised he shook it right away. You looked him dead in the eyes when you said. “If any of them try to do anything to me while I sleep, I’m using their own pillow to suffocate them; that goes for you too, clear?”

“Crystal.” He drew his hand away. “I won’t say anything either.”

You nodded in thanks, standing up. Before you could tiptoe to the other room, you looked back at him. “Wake me up at six-thirty; he’ll wake you all up at seven.”

When you turned your back again, he asked in an unsettled fashion. “How?”

You knew that he hated the light flooding the room for a different reason now; to see your smile of mischief before you left.

[slightlyobsessedwitheverything]

a breakdown of tommy kinard’s past appearances

so. like many of you, i’ve been getting a little bit tired of seeing the same “wait wasn’t tommy a racist/homophobe? why do we like him now?” posts for the last few weeks. so i wanted to do a small breakdown of every time he has previously appeared on screen, along with his action and inaction regarding the casual bigotry of the 118 under captain gerrard.

this is gunna be a long one boys so, strap in lol

season 3 episode 12: chim begins

i’m going to go in chronological order here rather than episodic order just for character development’s sake

tommy’s first appearance in this episode is about 11 minutes in, after the first commercial break. the current 118 are sitting down to dinner when chim arrives. tommy spots him and asks, “hey eli, you forget to tip the delivery guy?” i would say this could be a genuine question based on the fact that chim’s in his civvies, but he’s got his go bag that says “FIREFIGHTER” on his shoulder so. seems like he’s just being a smartass.

(*edit: it’s been pointed out to me that considering they had ordered chinese food, this could have been an instance of casual racism, and i am inclined to agree)

he’s not seen much during chim’s montage of just doin’ shit around the firehouse, until the point where the 118 come back covered in mud. tommy spots chim and asks him, “you still here?” again, just kind of general dickishness. not really anything to write home about.

a small kind of background tommy moment we get after chim’s montage is right as the team is returning from a call, and chim tries to tell them about the older couple who he helped earlier in the day.

tommy: what about that burger place?

gerrard: tommy, you know i hate that place

chim: hey guys, weirdest thing happened today… *he is ignored*

gerrard: hey, wasn’t your girlfriend supposed to come and cook us dinner?

tommy: uh, next tuesday.

gerrard: promise?

tommy: uh— uh, yes. yeah, i will promise…

now. i’m going to leave that up to interpretation, however i have opinions regarding that bit going forward. but! that’s ultimately not what this post is about, so perhaps another time.

the next scene is a pretty major one. chim is getting ready in the locker room, and tries to strike up a conversation with tommy when he walks in to gather some things (deodorant, toothbrush, soap it seems like, none of these details matter i just think they’re fun).

chim repeatedly tried to get tommy to open up to him about the things he likes, saying “tell me what your thing is and i’ll make it mine.” though, tommy just ignores him. we see a close up of him closing his eyes and sighing in exasperation.

chim asks, “…you just really don’t like me much, do you?” and tommy, for the first time, responds to chim’s questions with, “if i thought about you at all, honestly, i probably wouldn’t.” and he leaves.

later, after eli recruits chim to be a paramedic, they have a conversation regarding what he witnessed in the locker room between chim and tommy. eli tells him that it’s not personal, and that “in this job, friends die. funerals are held. they’re not going to just give you their friendship until you earn their respect. they’re not just protecting you, they’re protecting themselves.” and this ultimately makes sense with what we saw in tommy in that earlier scene. he didn’t really seem annoyed or upset at chim’s insistence to get to know him, just apprehensive mostly. he wasn’t cruel to him, and he hasn’t been. just… kind of a dick.

in the fire truck, on the way to the barn burner, tommy is sitting next to him and looks over at chim, as chim seems to be exhibiting signs of nervousness (this is his first real call as a firefighter after all)

(however, this is a moment where chim’s reality and his past start to bleed into each other so i am not sure how accurate this is to the moment.)

we don’t get much in the next scene aside from tommy’s presence at kevin’s funeral. when chim is ringing the bell, tommy is behind him and briefly looks toward chim, likely noticing how chim is attempting to hold himself together.

the next major scene is the call at the shopping mall, where there was some sort of structural collapse. based on the symptoms of the people that were in the mall, chim assumes there is a gas leak, which gerrard waves off. he calls for tommy over the radio, and receives no response.

chim has a realization that they’re dealing with a methane leak, and runs inside the mall to retrieve tommy.

just as the building explodes, chim runs out with tommy over his shoulder. though in this scene “tommy” is clearly a dummy prop and it is so fucking funny once you notice how floppy it is.

then we get probably the greatest scene in all of 911 where chim is in the waiting room waiting for news on tommy and reality starts to bleed into the flashback while “exit music (for a film)” by radiohead plays . it has pretty much nothing to do with this post i just wanted to say how much i LOVE this scene. anyway.

the penultimate scene of the episode starts off with chim in the locker room tucking in his shirt. tommy walks in and, with no preamble, says, “love actually, monster trucks, craft beer.”

chim realizes that this is a response to their last locker room interaction. he asks tommy how his head is feeling, tommy replies, “still fat, but clearer. you saved my life. thank you.” and shakes chimney’s hand, before pulling him into a hug. this is where their friendship begins.

in this episode, i didn’t notice anything that could really be construed as bigotry (see edit*), he was just kind of a dick at first and most of that can boil down to him being closed off and not wanting to open up before there’s a level of respect there.

(though, keep in mind i am white so there is a definite possibility that i could have missed something more racially motivated, however i didn't see anything glaring)

season 3 episode 9: hen begins

tommy’s first appearance (ever) is about 13 and a half minutes into the episode when captain gerrard introduces the team to their new “diversity hire” (after greeting her himself with a few blatantly misogynistic comments)

when tommy first sees hen, he smiles and asks “who’s this?”

when gerrard calls her a “diversity hire,” the smile leaves tommy’s face and he looks back at gerrard with somewhat of a blank expression, contrasted with sal deluca’s disbelieving smirk and comment of “for real?”

chimney then defends hen, gerrard walks away after saying they’re screwed. tommy once again looks between hen and gerrard before ultimately following him away from the railing.

it is not clear what exactly his reaction to hen joining the team actually is at that moment, whether he wanted to speak up like chim or express disdain like sal, as he remained silent.

at dinner, tommy asks sal what he and his girlfriend did the night previous, where the movie “twilight” comes up. sal makes a comment about kristen stewart being hot, and hen joins in thinking she found something in common with these guys to talk about, but sal ignores her and she walks away. (i think the writers may have genuinely forgotten kstew was only 17 in that movie but that’s neither here nor there)

tommy chimes in saying he “doesn’t get that” and that she’s “too brooding” for him, to which sal responds, “maybe you’re more of a team jacob kind of guy.”

tommy says he has no idea what that means, and chim clarifies that sal is insinuating that he’s gay.

sal laughs at this and at tommy’s reaction, and tommy jokingly blows him a kiss, smiles, and goes back to his food.

(here is a gifset of the scene)

chim then invites hen into the conversation by asking where she’s from. when he tells her he assumed she was an east coaster and that it was a compliment, tommy replies with “new york bitchiness is a compliment?” (score 1 for the misogyny bucket)

chim calls him out, and he just kind of huffs and looks at gerrard, but ultimately moves on.

tommy doesn’t really say or do much else in this scene besides sit silently while gerrard is sexist towards hen and hen stands her ground. in the end, sal looks toward tommy and nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. they both get up and leave the table.

nothing of note happens in the mudslide scene with tommy, most of the conflict is between hen and gerrard. the scene where gerrard makes her man behind as well. tommy is in the background and sees this happen, but says nothing. though, i also need to add that in these moments, chim does not say anything either.

the next scene tommy is in is when hen makes her announcement to the team about how she is not going anywhere.

i once again want to point out the difference in tommy vs sal in this scene. sal has his hands on his hips and his lips tight in a somewhat annoyed looking fashion, and he looks to the side where tommy is to gauge his reaction.

whereas tommy, has his arms folded and is looking down at the floor at first, before looking up towards hen. and while gerrard and chim have their arms crossed as well, i want to point out that tommy is holding one arm while the other sits around his waist. he looks a bit sheepish if i’m being honest, like he knows they’re about to be scolded.

when hen says for them to “see me as i see you, as a proud member of this department,” tommy turns to look behind him and makes eye contact with chim.

now, there’s not a whole lot i can glean from this interaction as is, but as we know from “chim begins,” tommy trusts chim so it’s possible he wants to get chim’s opinion. he seems to do this a lot i’ve noticed, looking between the people around him to gauge their reactions to what is going on.

nothing much of note for the car accident scene, HOWEVER. in the scene immediately after, sal and tommy address hen directly for the first time to give her some praise for her call on that scene. sal tells her “nice work yesterday,” and tommy tells her that they would have found the other car eventually, but eventually would have been too late.

hen states she “just got lucky,” to which sal responds, “screw that. you’re good,” and both he and tommy shake hen’s hand. tommy even gives her a light smack on the shoulder as he walks away and hen absolutely BEAMS.

then of course, hen is told that gerrard was removed from his position because his conduct was reported and “more than a few of your fellow firefighters have your back.” we know chim is absolutely one of them, and i can infer that based on tommy and sal’s reactions to hen’s speech and their interaction with her just before this scene, it is very likely they are as well.

in this episode, there were definitely some more moments of blatant bigotry in this episode, but other than the “new york bitchiness” line, tommy doesn’t really directly contribute to any of it. he seems to be more of a follower, constantly gauging how others feel and just playing along. complicity is still an issue of it’s own, do not get me wrong, but considering i keep seeing people say he made racist/homophobic comments, i feel like its a reasonable thing to point out.

season 3 episode 16: bobby begins again

tommy’s final on screen appearance begins with hen taking bets on how long the new captain will last. tommy asks hen to put him down for 4 weeks on credit, and they (hen, tommy, sal, and chim) banter a little. they all seem to have a pretty good relationship with each other at this point.

bobby pops out of the firetruck and places his own bet on himself, and tommy just kind of looks sheepish since they got called out.

to be real, tommy doesn’t do a whole lot in this episode either. most of the conflict is between bobby and sal. most of what we see is him in the background silently judging bobby’s lack of LA knowledge along with hen and chim. he does have some silly little moments during the chicken chase though.

(here's a great gifset of that scene)

bobby calls out to sal to talk to him after the restaurant fire, and sal keeps walking but tommy stops and waits, looking between bobby and sal.

sal says, “you’re a piece of work. you come in here with your nose in the air and your eyes looking down–” tommy interrupts sal and tells him to stop.

sal keeps digging into bobby, and tommy in the background, looks to chim and hen and shakes his head, seemingly telling them not to get in the middle of it.

sal says he has the skill to lead the 118, bobby retorts with, “but not the temperament.” sal then drops his bag and stomps toward bobby so he can get in his face. tommy moves to go after him, but chim gets between sal and bobby before anything can happen.

bobby fires sal, and tommy is just standing there with the rest of his team wondering what the hell happened.

we then have the bar scene! chim, hen, and tommy hanging out at the bar before bobby ends up joining them.

they have a good time and show off their scars to each other. tommy quotes fight club, chim laughs, bobby leaves to solve the arson.

(again, here's another gifset)

at the end we see a bit more of the team together, bobby starting to cook for them, and finally the scene of chim and hen popping out of the ambulance with balloons and a cake for tommy as he transfers to the 217. they all seem to be fairly close at this point.

(another gifset for good measure)

and other than chim calling on him for a water drop in 2x14, that’s about it until he returns in season 7.

in conclusion

to me, it seems like tommy is a bit of a follower and tends to just go along with what the people around him are doing, ESPECIALLY under gerrard. captain gerrard fostered a really toxic work environment and its no wonder others like sal were never really called out on their shit. and tommy mostly seemed to follow sal’s lead or stay quiet.

“chimney begins” takes place around 2006-ish, “hen begins” around 2008, and “bobby begins again” takes place around 2017 i believe. and between 2006 and 2024, based on what we see, its easy to see that tommy has indeed grown and changed many of his attitudes, especially when in a healthier work environment. now can we please stop acting like he’s this irredeemable piece of shit and see him for what he really is: a flawed person who grows and learns from others, like every other character on this show.

[teineplaysveilguard]

I really really really wanted to enjoy this game... I was actually excited for it. I mean I've waited TEN YEARS!!!

And don't get me wrong technically speaking is a good game. It is a visually beautiful game, the fight mechanics as a mage are incredible, and several of the characters are really interesting.

But below the cut, hidden incase of inadvertent spoilers.

But... And I don't know maybe it's a vibes thing... It just feels like it's lacking something...

I feel like the first three games didn't shy away for the dark shit as much as this one does. They were messy. Every faction, every nation, and every person felt more real. No-one really felt entirely good or bad, the world was fucked up and peoples mindsets had been influenced by that.

I mean I was literally running around Tevinter as an elf... I literally picked to play as an elf because damn that should result in some drama in Tevinter... But so far... nothing... Not even an offhand comment from a random NPC.

the fact that slavery is a thing in Tevinter hasn't even been mentioned, let alone the complex social hierarchy or implied racism. I mean there was fantasy racism in the south, logically it should be far more overt here in a place who's entire economy is built on (mostly elven) slave labour? They'd probably not even see it as racism, it would just be a thing, a fact of life, just there. We sort of got a bit of this with Dorian in DA:I and his opinion made sense given his past, he explained it calmly, ot wasn't made into a huge thing, it was just casual comment during a discussion but it was there.

I don't know... I've not finished yet so I might change my mind but this just feels very sanitised.

There are also SO MANY unfinished plot points and disjointed lore snippets from the other games that I thought might at least get a mention, even a subtle nod, but I'm not holding it much hope for that now.

Also the others felt more like true RPGs... Not that I've ever been one to play in a "be awful to everyone and piss everyone off" way, but it was nice that the option was there.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Can’t wait for people to flip when they meet “Privileged French White micro-aggression compilation”’s mentor, Mr. macro-aggression colonizer superiority complex Marius “I married a thirteen-year old former sex slave and adopted him as my son” de Romanus. Marius is his own trigger warning. Wait until they hear about Marius’ disciplinary methods involving whips and willow switches. Or the fact that Marius sent his son-wife to a brothel to learn “important skills”. Or that when he told Lestat about Those Who Must Be Kept, Marius literally framed Akasha’s genocidal tendencies as “taming savages”. Oh boy, it’s not gonna be good.

Like… Who do you think Lestat learned his skewed world view from? Moving to America was probably a bucket of cold water to Lestat. I would like to give Lestat the benefit of the doubt, as his father was an asshole aristocrat. Lestat quickly learned how privileged he was, even as a disgraced marquis’ son. His genuine horror at how the racist fat cats treated Louis said everything to me. I don’t think anyone understands that Lestat is interested in doing better. He is. He’s working through it. He will fuck up, because nobody ever gave him a look outside his little world.

The thing is, vampires do end up in ruin when they stay behind as the world around them goes forward. Just like humans, when we get stuck in outdated ideals. It’s heavily implied at the end of the Blood Communion novel that Marius is slowly going mad. All vampires do, at some point, go through a period of madness. Some just come out of it better than others. In the IWTV novel, Louis eats grass and mopes around his brother’s rectory for a while after Armand hesitantly leaves him. Armand kills his own coven. Khayman loses his memories for a while and wanders the world, snacking on mortals’ bone marrow. Daniel becomes mute and obsessive, luckily finding an outlet in model trains. Poor Lestat lost an eye and had to be restrained, before he slept for a long while. Thorne got tied down for a while. Benji and Sybelle. Unm. Well, Benji ended up with a podcast and Sybelle delved into the piano. And Louis, of course, tried to kill himself once— but it changed his relationship with Lestat for the better.

Okay, so I went on a meta tangent, but the point is, Marius is an even bigger fuck-up than Lestat, and covering him is going to get pretty ugly. And even more existential. I hope viewers stop and philosophize, you know? Everyone stops to question the nature of mankind and how we fall if we don’t move with time.

And as far as Marius goes, hope Justin Kirk is prepared. 😅

P.S. I swear I’m not high, just tired. 🥱

:))

(For those who think the "eating grass" is an euphemism here: "I was picking at the grass, and tasting it, though the taste was bitter and unnatural. The gesture seemed natural.":))

Marius... is going to be something. Which is part of the reason why I keep saying that Justin Kirk will be perfect if he is, because it needs a very seasoned actor with a lot of thick skin to pull him off (and, I mean, Justin does not shy away from difficult characters as we know *nods at Succession*).

It will be interesting to see what kind of wounds they will put their proverbial fingers in.

Like, the casual racism and superiority complex Marius employs has to clash with Armand's recast, too. Not necessarily with the choice (of Amadeo) per se, but with the circumstances. I am betting real money that there will be some very uncomfortable meta commentary on sex slave trade in combination with racism coming up right there (and I for one want them to make that commentary! Even though it will probably lead to more fandom drama.).

These vampires are children of their times, and they do change/adapt/grow, but... slowly. (I am not so sure about Lestat getting his world view from Marius, I think there is a reason why Lestat never became the pupil Marius wanted him to be, and I do think that Lestat might be willfully ignorant at times, which can come off a certain way, but his own backstory is more to blame here than Marius, imho.)

I do not need Marius to be a good character to enjoy the fuck out of him, on the contrary.

I am not sure if the show will go the "whip" way. They might insinuate. I think they will, as with other scenes let the mind of the audience do the rest, which will be more than enough, too. I mean, the audience can read up on it all in the book *coughs*. There's no need to go more explicit than needed.

But yes. I hope Justin Kirk is prepared :)))

And... I hope the audience is prepared as well.

[m4rs-ex3]

DREAMER'S NIGHTMARE! THOUGHTS!!!!!!

spoilers ahead obviously

callum. that's it. that's it that's the post. like this little fucking goober baby nerd freak pretty baby boy i would kill anything and everything in the world for this child

long haired gren i can't breathe

"GREAT STONY TOADSTOOLS"

"wait. that's a jelly tart and you're not destroying it. are you sure you're ezran?"

callum: magic is in the air? wrong. gas leak.

"a rogue elf. i wonder what would have to happen for an elf to go rogue..." wouldn't you like to know callum

bro thinks he's a diplomat

it kills me the way this kid is just a walking list of sarai quotes

i'm choosing to blame harrow for the way this stupidly dedicated boy turned out

"couldn't have anything happen to the future king" rip my heart out why don't you

all of the callum / harrow stuff oh my god it hurts so good i'm in tears like "your dad" AUUUAUGHHGHGHGH

"milords" fucking tears no they are not

*facepalms in the background*

"begone"

despite the fact that in present day he is plenty tall callum being referred to as "the taller one" does not sit right with me

"stronger together" // "safer together"

gren was family guy death posing idfc

i can't go to the club bc i'll start talking like kusa

THATS MY KING!!!!13131!@!@!#!!!

"my big brother is super smart" 😭🩷

half this book is just callum in 3x06 when he was mothering ez and i love it

"I THOUGHT MAYBE HE WOULD BE PROUD OF ME" FUCK

"i know you'll do everything you can to protect me" you don't, actually. you have no idea

"all right, clues. looking for clues. reading for clues."

moonshadow child jumpscare

NO NO NO NO NO NO ON O NO NO NO NO ON ONONONONOONONNOONN

NO

WHAT

HELLO

YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME

why do i kinda wanna see this depressive episode though

a) i hope this comes back for the possession arc b) this explains a lot about s4 don't worry i'll get to that

i love how they show harrow being the most amazing, sweetest, bestest dad ever while also showing his flaws in the form of his bias. also everyone else's casual racism. average tdp w

STOP HES SO SOKKA

im goanna throw up

maybe it's just my biases but why was this the book that fucking broke me. like bloodmoon huntress was a bit sad bc rayla is just like that. puzzle house was sad because motherless child behavior and also hindsight. this novel is just fucking depressing front to back because callum's entire life has been so fucked sometimes i forget this. also my biases

[chaxiu]

what fish feel

pairing: osamu x fem! reader

summary: what we hold in the time we have – a return to japan and the unfamiliar roads of your heart. title stolen from a bashō haiku that loosely translated goes something like

what fish feel

birds feel, I don’t know—

the year ending.

notes: my official petition to let osamu have an absolute disaster of a partner. post-timeskip spoilers for occupations (specifically of the inarizaki crew). reader is japanese-diaspora (heavily implied to be japanese-american.) my japanese is poor so please correct me if there’s something not right! loosely inspired by the documentary jiro dreams of sushi (which you can watch for free on youtube, i think!). 

for all my diaspora lovelies and for everyone who, as a child, used to think i want to go home, no matter where they were. here’s hoping the road there is warm and well-lit. 

cw: casual mentions of racism, sexism, xenophobia in relation to japanese culture. second-gen immigrant guilt (and by default an obsession with food as a love language.) very in-your-face flouting of health and safety codes for restaurants.

___

Summer, and the sky is nothing but blue. 

Your airplane touches down on the runway in a fit of grinding gears and last-minute jolts, but it pales in comparison to the way your legs are cramped and sore, a product of so many hours sat in the same place – the perils of a window seat – alternately staring out the window and dozing against the shade.

Your neighbor, next to you, smiles at you. You’ve spent some time talking to her – listening to her talk, really, the nice old obaa-chan in the middle seat who is just coming back from visiting her son and his wife and their newly-born daughter abroad, who spent at least an hour of the trip painstakingly swiping through photos while you smiled and nodded along.

“日本へよこそ,” she says. Welcome to Japan. You wonder if it should feel more momentous, this first welcome to the country in which your roots are deepest. The first few minutes of a month-long stay, your longest time in this country by far.

Instead, what is: you really do have to pee.

Finding a bathroom in the airport is simple enough, as is making your way through the customs line, although there’s a brief moment of confusion when the customs agent sees your face, your features, and attempts to wave you towards the line for returning nationals. You put your hands up, bow apologetically. “日系人,” you say, and her face clears of confusion. 

She points you to the right line. 

At the very least, you think, standing with your passport dangling between two fingers, at the very least you speak the language – slowly, in fits and starts, with gaps where your vocabulary should be and absolutely no understanding of any slang – but at the very least you can do things like tell the customs officer what you are. Foreign-born, Japanese descent: close enough by generation that this land should maybe be familiar to you, should maybe be something approaching yours. Far enough that it’s not, not really.

Once you’re through customs and baggage claim – luggage collected, both you and your suitcases a little worse for wear – there’s nothing to do but make your way to the exit, where your cousin is waiting. She looks like you, maybe, if you squint and tilt your head a little. You try your best not to think about it, about how maybe this is what you’d look like if you stayed. She regards you for a moment.

“Hey,” she says in Japanese.

“Hey,” you say back. It is not the first time you’ve felt uncomfortably aware of your accent – how much it must stick out. How everyone who comes into contact with you must know right away how much you're not from here. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

She raises an eyebrow, grabbing one of your suitcases, ignoring your half-hearted attempt at protest. “Come on. Mom’s making dinner.”

Dinner, at least, is something you know. You grip the handle of your remaining suitcase. Follow her out into the sunshine.

Your aunt lives in the suburbs of Tokyo, and you make it there just as the sun begins to set. Stepping out of the car, you shield your face against the glow. “It’s pretty,” you say, half to yourself, half because the car ride had been awkwardly quiet enough that you’d begun to say any inane comment that sprung to your mind out loud, in hopes of starting any kind of conversation.

Your cousin spares it a glance, then pauses. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess so.”

Inside, your aunt fusses over you in a way that makes you feel equal parts uncomfortable and longing – this is what I could’ve had, over and over in your head like a drumbeat. Dinner is already on the table, uni – sea urchin – as the crowning glory.

“You liked this when you were little,” your aunt says, “the last time you came to visit us. Do you remember?”

You don’t. You say you do anyway.

The truth is you think probably you would say you liked anything – even as you take your first bites and realize sometime between childhood and now, you’d unlearned how to like the texture. It’s okay, you think. It’s enough to be here, in the light around the table.

You eat without waiting for your uncle, who gets home halfway through the meal. He toes his shoes off in the genkan, and you stand when he steps inside. From what you remember of him, he is a quiet man. His wife does enough talking for the both of them. Still, when he smiles the corners of his eyes crinkle, and it strikes a chord of remembrance. 

“Tadaima,” he says.

You mouth it along with your aunt and cousin. “Okaeri.”

That night, with the grime of the airport washed off of you, wearing your softest T-shirt and pants probably a size too large, you sit on the futon that’s been unrolled for you – in your cousin’s room, right by the window – and stare at the moon. It looks the same. You feel the same. Your cousin, in bed already, is only illuminated by the glow of her phone screen. “Good night,” you say, tentative.

“Good night,” she says, rolling over in bed to face away from you.

The next morning your uncle is gone before you wake up – off to work. Your cousin has class at university, and so you follow your aunt around. It settles in a pattern of the next few days, and you have to actively fight against feeling like a lost duckling. She takes you to the Tokyo Skytree, and you make all the appropriate sounds and take the right photos to send home, of Tokyo’s beautiful skyline. She takes you to Shibuya, and you marvel at the densely packed crowds of people together. She takes you to Tsukiji, the smell of the brine and the ocean lingering on your clothes for hours. She takes you grocery shopping and in the evenings you cook next to her, losing yourself in the familiar repetition of the knife. It could probably be enough, if you let it.

On the sixth day of your visit your aunt’s friend has to go to the hospital – nothing serious, your aunt assures you, but better that they go now – and for the first time since your arrival you are left to your own devices, with nothing but time and the sky above you.

You attempt to go back to the places your aunt’s taken you, to get some shopping done – gifts, maybe, for the people you’ve left at home – but there’s something in you so uncomfortably aware that all the places she’s taken you are tourist destinations, first and foremost. That no one from Tokyo really ever goes. 

You pivot away from Shibuya and start walking.

Down the streets, turning when you feel like it, almost definitely walking in a circle more than once – there is something about the act of it, about walking these streets. About pretending, for just a moment – pretending what, you’re not sure. You walk until it’s far past lunchtime and your stomach is reminding you incessantly, until you’re scanning the signs you walk by – an udon restaurant here, an izakaya closed until the evening there – for something you might want to eat.

One of the signs, simple white characters on black font, catches your eye, and you slow to a stop. Sound out the characters in your mouth, clumsy and fumbling. Onigiri Miya, it reads, and you rock back and forth on the heels of your feet as you ponder. This time of day – too late for lunch, and too early for dinner – it’s likely to be just you in there. This could be good: you could be able to eat quickly and quietly, in and out. Or it could be awful: everyone who works there could whisper about you behind their hands, talking about the odd foreigner with the too-loud voice and too-crooked accent, always a beat behind the conversation. As the seconds tick on your thoughts turn towards dread, and you make to turn away instead.

“Hey,” says a voice. You startle.

The man standing behind you is dressed in what must be the uniform of the shop, black pants and black shirt with the Onigiri Miya logo embroidered on the breast. He smiles at you, crooked and reassuring. Says something in the most heavily accented Japanese you’ve ever heard – not that it’s much of a competition – and you blink at him. He must not be from Tokyo, then – must be from a rural prefecture – although where, you certainly couldn’t hazard a guess. 

The realization – how much of a stranger you are, even in this country that should know and be known by you – fills you with hot, irrational shame.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak, bowing to him, shoulders so high they’re almost touching your ears. You turn and flee without a backwards glance.

____

The next day, a little calmer, a little clearer-headed, you think through it again and realize that fleeing was almost certainly the absolute weirdest thing you could’ve done. 

He must think I’m such a freak, you mourn, chopping the green onions with a little more force than necessary. Such a weirdo. What kind of person stands in front of a store for minutes on end, and then when an employee comes to help you, runs away? What kind of person –

“Hey,” your cousin says, dropping her bag by the door. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve just lost all your life savings and your house burned down in a fire. What’s wrong?”

It all spills out, then – the streets, the store, the man, his polite confusion. How you had essentially run away. She blinks at you, nonplussed.

“Oh… kay,” she says, finally. “Listen, I’m not gonna pretend that was a super weird thing to do –”

You moan, setting down your knife to bury your face in your arms. It’s nice here – dark. Safe. Quiet. Maybe you should never leave.

“But,” she says firmly, “the way I see it, you have two options. Number one, live on forever in shame, knowing for the rest of your life that man will be thinking about the weirdo who showed up at his store and then ran away for the rest of his life. You will forever be Weird Runaway Girl to him. Like some fucked-up version of Cinderella.”

You bury your face deeper.

“Number two, you go apologize. And it’s weird and maybe super awkward but then it’s over and you have closure and you never have to see him again.”

You inhale. Exhale. “Can’t I just get deported,” you say into the crook of your elbow. The words come out muffled but she must hear you anyway, patting your back semi-awkwardly. 

“We’ll call that Plan C,” she says, before rolling her sleeves up. “Here. What else needs chopping?”

The next day you make your excuses to your aunt – not telling her about the Great Onigiri Miya Debacle, because having one other person know about it is already embarrassing enough – and set off on your own again, attempting to retrace your steps. Somehow you make enough wrong turns and backtracks that when you make it back it’s almost the same time of day it was yesterday. You pause when you catch sight of the storefront banner fluttering the breeze, hands fisted in the hem of your shirt.

“Just go in,” you mutter to yourself. “Apologize. Then you’ll be done with this and no one has to know ever again.”

“It’s you again,” a familiar voice says, half-confused and half-amused, and for a second the idea of getting deported becomes more appealing than anything else in the world.

“It’s me again,” you agree bleakly. “I’m sorry – would you mind – speaking a little slower? My Japanese – it’s not –”

“‘Course not,” he says, voice a little more enunciated, the deep bass of it picking carefully through the syllables, and you finally gain the willpower to peek up at him. He’s rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, a little abashed. What he could possibly have to be embarrassed about when the sum total of your interactions with him have been 1) you running away from him and 2) you telling him he talks too fast, you’re not sure, but it fills you with an odd amount of confidence. 

“Sorry,” you say again. “I just – I wanted to –”

He pauses, regards you regarding him. His cap is slightly askew. You want to reach out and adjust it. You want to see if his hair is as soft as it looks. (You want to file a restraining order against yourself, on his behalf. Before it’s too late.)

“Why don’tcha come in?” he says finally. “We’re closed right now, but I’ll make ya something.”

Closed –! 

All of this and they’d been closed this time of day anyways. What an absolutely humiliation of a punchline.

Face burning, you follow him in. 

“Have ya had onigiri before?” he asks, flicking the lights on, the air conditioning humming to life. You watch him tie an apron around his waist. Normally a question like that would make you flush with embarrassment – of course you’ve had onigiri before, you’re not that much of an alien – but something about the way he says it, the drawl of it. Something about the sleepy-slow light of the store, pale wood and tables gold-lit by the sunlight.

“Yes,” you say. “But really only mostly from konbinis.”

“The best kind,” he says. “We used t’ get those after school all the time. Walk home together eating ‘em.”

Your childhood had involved nothing of the sort, but you can imagine it – the long walk home. A boy jumping up, hand outstretched, to slap the leaves of a tree’s low-hanging branch. You hum. He washes his hands, salts them. You watch as a clump of rice begins to take shape between them. 

“Yours aren’t the best?”

He grins at you. “No, they are,” he says readily. Watching him in the summer light, you’re inclined to believe him. “Just a different kind of best, ‘s all.”

“You didn’t grow up in Tokyo,” you say. More an observation than a question, but he hums assent anyways.

“‘M from Hyogo. That’s why my Japanese sounds all funny – it’s the Kansai-ben.” He does not ask where you’re from. You’re grateful even as you hate yourself a little for it. It’s not that you’re ashamed, really. More like you’ve spent your life as one kind of other and it is less pleasant than you imagined it would be, to suddenly find yourself as the exact opposite but still on the outskirts.

“Sorry,” you say, abrupt. “For… for…”

“The running?” he asks. He doesn’t look up at you, focusing on the rice between his hands. “‘S okay. Ya had places to be.”

At the time the only place you’d had to be was away from here, but you recognize the out for what it is and take it gratefully. “Still. I imagine it was pretty startling.”

He shrugs. “I have a twin brother who does weird shit all the time. I’ve gotten kinda used to it.”

You have to laugh a little at that, and his eyes flick up to yours, looking – maybe you’re imagining it – pleased at the sound. “‘M Miya Osamu,” he says. 

“You own this place!” you say, delighted but mostly unsurprised – something about the way he holds himself in this space gives it away – before hurrying to introduce yourself. He repeats your name to himself, as if testing how the syllables feel in his mouth.

“‘S a good name,” he says. Places the onigiri in front of you. “‘A plain one, to start. Want ya to be able to taste our rice. Next time you come I’ll make you something different.”

There’s a flush of delight in your chest at the next time. Obediently you pick it up, feeling the heft of it in your hands. 

The rice is soft and good and a little bit like childhood, the ache of it. The lingering sweetness. You tell Osamu as much, and he grins at you, satisfied. “‘S my old senpai who grows the rice,” he says. “If anyone knows good rice, ‘s him.”

“He does,” you say fervently. The rice is sticky and filling and you’re definitely getting grains on your face but it’s hard to care – it’s simple food, but it’s good, and it’s oddly comforting for food from a restaurant you’ve never been to before in your entire life. 

Osamu wipes down the counter, watching you eat out of the corner of his eye. He seems oddly pleased by how much you’re enjoying the food. When you tell him as much, he grins, a little sheepish. 

“I want the people who come here t’ eat well,” he says. “Good food is better food when it’s shared.”

You smile at him, a little tentative. “Thanks for sharing this with me.”

“Thanks for sharing it with me,” he says back, then shoos you out without letting you pay. “Next time,” he says, and you let him tuck your credit card back in your wallet and your wallet back in your pocket.

Your cousin eyes you over the dinner table, but doesn’t say anything about the secret smile at the curve of your lips. In her bedroom that night all she says is “Okay?”

“Okay,” you agree. It is summer, and you have nothing but time. 

When you visit again the next day the store is already open. You can see him through the windows, and it’s enough to make your lips tug up again in an involuntary smile as you step through the doorframe.

“Hi,” you say, a little shy, suddenly. A little envious of how grounded he seems, here in this space. 

“Hi,” he says back, jerking his chin at the counter. “Wanna sit?”

It’s umeboshi filling that day, plum tart on your teeth. Tuna mayo the next. Unagi the day after, and he slowly takes you through the menu, watching your face keenly as you eat each one. 

The month passes slowly, honey-dripped and sweet. You tell your aunt that you’ve made a friend, maybe, and watch as her face splits in a smile that makes her look years younger. When you were little your mother used to tell you she could see the resemblance between the two of you. Now, more than anything, you want it to be true. 

“Not a fan, huh,” Osamu says on the day he gives you uni-topped onigiri – unigiri, he’d joked as he’d handed it to you. One of our experimental ones, ya know? – and you blink at him. You’d gotten good at hiding your discomfort with the texture.

Osamu clicks his tongue at you, the sound both disapproving and fond. “Don’t make yerself eat it,” he chides, sliding it away from you. “I’ll make ya another one.”

“Oh – no, you don’t have to, it’s okay, I couldn’t –”

He reaches over and carefully flicks you on the forehead. “I know I don’t hafta,” he says easily. “But I wanna. I want ya to eat well.”

Abashed, you watch as he makes you another one. The careful press of his fingers. The arch of his wrist.

“My parents are from here,” you say suddenly into the silence. He glances up at you, but doesn’t say anything. 

“From Japan, I mean. They left the country before they had me.”

“Where’d they go?”

You tell him, and he whistles, low. “‘S a long ways away.”

“It is,” you say. “Makes traveling hard. I haven’t – haven’t been back here since I was little.”

“Ya got family here?”

“An aunt – my mom’s sister. Her husband. Their daughter. A few other relatives, though I think those are scattered around Japan. I don’t know them too well.”

He hums, considering. “Didja like it? Where you grew up?”

You think about it. About a sepia-toned childhood, about wide streets and dry summer grass, pricking your skin.

“I was very well-loved,” you tell him. “But I was still – I think I was still lonely.”

Osamu nods. “Ya know my twin, Atsumu? When we were in high school we played volleyball t’gether. ‘Tsumu sorta – I think he took it for granted that we were gonna play together forever. That we’d always want the same things. Took a long time for me to be brave enough to tell him I wanted to do this – ” he gestures to the shop around him. “ – for a living. Took me even longer to stop bein’ so mad at him that I had to tell him in the first place. That he didn’t know me as well as I wanted him to.”

He finishes making another onigiri. Pushes it over to you. Then rounds the counter and sits next to you, picking up the first one he’d made you, the one delicate bite taken out of it.

“And now?” you ask. 

Osamu, partway through a bite of your abandoned onigiri, freezes mid-chew. He swallows. “And now?” he echoes.

“And now? Do you think he knows you?”

He snorts. “That idiot would need to get his head out of his own ass, first.” He pauses, considers you. “But. I think these days ‘m less worried ‘bout being known perfectly.”

You blink over at him. He’s turning the half-eaten remnants of the onigiri over and over between his hands. On instinct, you reach over and place a hand on his. The skin of it, the bone of it. The pull of tendon and the flex of muscle and the fluttering pulse. 

He doesn’t look at you. Under your fingertips a muscle jumps, then quickly relaxes.

“These days,” he says, “‘M much happier t’be loved. In spite of all the parts of me he doesn’t understand.”

You think about this, even as he pops the last of his onigiri in his mouth. “Come out with me, tonight,” he says.

“To where?”

He shrugs. “M’friends are in town. Want you to meet ‘em. Even ‘Tsumu will be there, though can’t guarantee he’ll behave.”

“This is the brother that does weird shit?”

Osamu rolls his eyes heavenwards. “Yeah, ‘n I’ve only got the one brother, thank God. Would be willin’ to bet our ma saw how he acted ‘n decided it was enough for her.”

You tactfully avoid mentioning that Osamu himself would probably have been a factor in that decision, if that were the case. Instead you busy yourself with the onigiri in your hands, fiddling with it, breaking off one of the corners before catching yourself. Osamu always laughs at you when you do that. Quit playing with yer food, he’d said once, flicking you gently on the forehead. The mark hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes. The feeling stayed for days.

“Come out with us,” he says, again. His eyes, when you peek at them, are gray and the steady of a long winter.

“Okay,” you say, without much thinking. It’s almost worth it to see the crows’ feet at the corner of his eyes when he smiles. 

You stuff another bite of rice in your mouth to avoid the thought.

____

Us turns out to be Osamu himself, of course, broad-shouldered and dependable and somehow uniquely capable of being a pain in the ass; Suna Rintarou, a sleepy-eyed man with the worst posture you’ve ever seen and a unique talent for instigating; and Miya Atsumu, the infamous Miya Atsumu, with brassy-blond hair that must come from a bottle and a voice pitched at exactly the right frequency to be as annoying as possible. 

“What a funny accent!” is the first thing Atsumu says upon meeting you, grinning in a way that, if he weren’t Osamu’s brother, you would call a leer. “This is the cute little foreigner ya’ve been tellin’ us about, then, huh, ‘Samu?”

Calmly, without surrendering his grip on the tongs he’s been using to grill, Osamu smacks his brother upside the head with his free hand, hard enough to make him pout. “Just ignore –” he begins to say to you, apologetic. 

“You should stop dying your hair yourself,” you say to Atsumu, frowning at him over the table. The smell of the yakiniku is a sore temptation – never mind that it hasn’t finished cooking, according to Osamu – and you can readily admit to yourself that the hunger is making you more irritable than you’d be otherwise. “You’re frying it, and besides, the color is awful. You can’t tell me you were going for that shade on purpose, were you?”

At the sound of his twin’s spluttering noises Osamu starts to laugh – a borderline cackle, mean-spirited and still somehow so lovely. He laughs like how Atsumu does, you realize. There’s something very lovely about it.

To distract yourself from that thought you grab a too-hot piece of meat with your chopsticks and shove it in your mouth. It burns your tongue but rather than spit it out, you shovel in a load of rice, to counteract it, and pray you don’t choke.

Suna watches you with the kind of fascination that you’d thought previously reserved for seeing a particularly exotic zoo animal for the first time. 

“I can see why he likes you,” he remarks, absentmindedly.

What do you mean, you try and say. There’s too much rice in your mouth. You choke.

Osamu somehow manages to simultaneously pat you on the back, put more meat on your plate, and punch Suna’s shoulder at the same time. You resolve to study his abnormal skill at multitasking at a later date. “Y’alright?”

“Fine,” you gasp, trying your best to take a deep breath. “I’m fine.”

Conversation flows smoothly. It’s all-too-easy to tell that they’ve known each other for years, falling into a rapport that’s clearly practiced. It’s even easier to let yourself get swept along in the banter, to pretend that you, too, have known them for years, that the lives they’ve painstakingly carved out for themselves here have always had space for you, too.

It’s an achingly sweet thought. You refuse to let yourself dwell on it for long. 

Osamu insists on walking you home. “‘S almost two in the morning,” he says, “‘sides, I’ve had about enough of him –” he jerks a thumb at his brother, now slumped against Suna’s side, whining about something or other about their volleyball careers (a botched serve, maybe?) while the latter pokes and prods at him. 

You consider this. “Yeah,” you say. “Fair enough.”

Outside the air is warm and Osamu’s presence by your side is warmer. “Thanks for inviting me,” you say to him. The words feel inadequate, for all that he’d let you pretend tonight, even though he couldn’t have been aware of it.

“Thanks for comin’,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “They liked ya.”

“You think?”

“I know,” he says, firm. “They wouldn’t spend so much time teasin’ someone they didn’t like.”

The thought suffuses you with an oddly warm glow. You duck your chin into your chest, hoping he doesn’t notice. If he does he doesn’t mention it.  

“Are ya comin’ by the store tomorrow?” he asks, and you hum, affirmative.

“It might be the last time, before I go.” Saying it out loud is somehow both better and worse.

“Ah,” Osamu says. You walk in silence for a few beats, footsteps falling in time. 

“Come by tomorrow,” he repeats – a statement this time, not a question. You nod anyways, and he walks you right up to your front door, lingering there as if waiting for something. 

“Goodnight, ‘Samu,” you say. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“See ya tomorrow,” he affirms, but makes no move to leave. You frown at him. He pulls a face right back, half-mocking, half in deliberation.

In one fell move he takes the cap off of your head and puts it on yours. It fits strangely – your heads must be too dissimilar of a shape. You would go to sleep wearing it if you could. 

“Goodnight,” you say again, dumbly. 

Osamu’s smile in the moonlight is sharp and a little something else, something you can't read. “G’night,” he says. When he turns to leave the streetlights make the black of his hair look almost blue.

Your cousin, when you slip back up to her room, is still awake. The glow of her smartphone lets you see the jaw-creaking yawn she lets out when she sees you.

“Tadaima,” you say, quiet.

“Okaeri,” she mumbles.

“Sleep well,” you add, but she’s already set her phone on the nightstand, breaths slipping into something quiet and even, as if the only permission she’d been waiting for was the sound of your footsteps at the doorway. You are so full of love you think you could choke on it.

The next day when you show up to Onigiri Miya there’s no onigiri waiting for you. You deliberate feeling betrayed for a second before Osamu steps out of the back, throws a wad of fabric at you. You just barely manage to catch it, uncrumpling it to reveal an apron.

“An apron,” you say.

He grins. “Nice hat.”

You flush almost immediately, resisting the urge to tuck your chin into your chest – it would really only make the hat more visible. “Thanks,” you mutter. “Apron?”

He swings open the gate dividing the front of the restaurant and the kitchen. “You wanna learn?”

The prospect of this world opening up to you leaves you feeling more trepidation than anything. You slip the apron over your head, tie the strings around your waist. “Do I look professional?”

“That’s a Michelin-star chef right there,” Osamu says.

And he’s right, in a way – if ‘Michelin-star chef’ meant ‘uniquely creative in one’s ability to mess up’. The rice doesn’t clump. It sticks to your hands. You grab it when it’s too hot and burn yourself, even through the gloves. You salt your hands too liberally. You don’t salt your hands enough. The clumps of filling are too large. You shape it too firmly and it all falls apart, crumbling in your hands. The remains of your failures are scattered all over the kitchen – “Don’t worry,” Osamu had told you, “I’ll feed ‘em to ‘Tsumu.” – by the time you have one half-presentable one. Half-presentable as in not falling apart. Mostly not falling apart. You cup it in your hands with all the reverence one would hold a baby bird that’d fallen out of its tree.

Osamu plucks it out of your hands. Inspects the way it sags between his fingers. “Huh,” he says.

“Huh?” you parrot, hopeful. He ignores you, taking a bite. Chews. Swallows. The expression on his face is inscrutable. 

“Tastes surprisingly good,” he says.

“Thank you! I – what do you mean, surprisingly?”

Osamu grins. “We’ll make a chef outta you yet.”

The afternoon is spent at his side. “Packin’ an order,” he says. “Wanna help?” You make one onigiri to every five of his, determined to neaten up your technique, but it’s fun anyways. 

“Why onigiri?” you ask him, frowning down at the mass in your hands. “Why not – I don’t know, ramen or yakisoba or something?”

He hums. His hands are steady and large and careful. “I mean, for starters, I like eatin’ ‘em.”

You wait for him to continue. Eventually: “They’re a simple food. Nothin’ fancy. No crazy ingredients. No one’s gonna get a Michelin star for doin’ the stuff I do.”

“Except me,” you say, and Osamu lets out a bark of laughter.

“Except you,” he agrees. “But they’re a comfort food, y’know? I told you we used to get ‘em from the konbini on our way home from practice. Or – for lunch, sometimes, I used t’ make bentos for me n’ ‘Tsumu. The first thing I learned t’make was onigiri. My ma taught me.”

“You love them a lot.”

He scrunches up his nose, displeased. “Not like I’d ever tell ‘Tsumu,” he says. “But – well. ‘f course I was gonna make him food. ‘f course I was gonna learn from my ma. ‘S just what we do.”

The depth of it – the quiet love, the steadiness – leaves you a little breathless. Osamu keeps his eyes fixed firmly on his hands, although you’re certain he doesn’t need to.

“I was – such a lonely child,” you say. He knows this already. You’d told him this already.

He finishes shaping the rice in his hands, deliberate. Strips his gloves off. “Wanna go sit on the steps outside?” 

Outside the sun is setting, and the sky is streaked with color. You sit shoulder to shoulder and watch the people pass by. 

“I can’t imagine,” he says, “growing up so far away.” Far away from what, he doesn’t elaborate. You know what he means anyways.

You think about your hometown, think about the summers and the smell of chlorine, the winters and the whole world muffled and still. Think about the wide-open sky. How close and how far away it all felt, all at once. 

“There were good parts,” you say.

“There must’ve been,” Osamu says. “Look at how you turned out.”

“It was very – very far,” you say, “from the people that were supposed to love me no matter what I did.”

He hums. The crickets are beginning to sound. You dread to think about the mosquito bites you’ll find on your skin tomorrow.

“I – it’s not that I’m not grateful,” you say, because you are. “Not that I’m not grateful for the things I have. The life I’ve built.”

“I know,” he says.

“I know I’m lucky to be where I am. To have grown up where I did, in the way I did. My parents wanted the best for me. They gave up a lot for it.”

“Probably,” he agrees. 

“And maybe – maybe I’m romanticizing it. Painting living here as something a lot grander than it is. But – ”

In another life you are sitting in your cousin’s bedroom and listening to her wax poetic about some topic neither of you will remember in the morning. It’s late but in this life you’re young and the moon is full and reassuring. In another life the most intimate way you know your family’s faces is not reduced down to three pixels. In another life each street of this city holds a different memory. In another life you know this place like breathing.

“I could’ve lived here,” you say. “I could’ve had this.”

Osamu regards you, considering. In a way it’s almost a relief, that he’s neither quick to assure or to laugh in outright disbelief.

“You could’ve,” he says at last. “I think you still can.”

“It’ll never be like it could’ve been,” you warn.

“No,” Osamu says, affable. “But I think we could still make it good.”

He offers you his hand. You take it.

“Hungry?” Osamu asks. You consider this, the feel of his hand in yours. You picture: standing outside of his store and watching him, gentle and careful and good, with his callused hands and his patient smile. Here are hands that were made to hold. 

In this dream you step inside, and he looks up at the sound of the door.

Welcome, he says to you. You know what he means by it.

In a few days there will be a plane seat with your name on it – an ocean and everything that lies between. Still, it’s summer – here and now and the rest of your lives – and you have nothing but time. Summer, and there is a space for you at the table. 

You grin at Osamu, squeeze his hand. He squeezes back: once, twice, three times.

“I could eat.”

[chicken-wayng]

If Rhaenyra was truly a Valyrian supremacist she wouldn’t have had three kids with Harwin Strong. Also her mother is half Andal just like her siblings.

She’s not a supremacist like Daemon but I do think she’s a narcissist, genuinely believing the world revolves around her. That’s what made the rift between her and Alicent inevitable imo, she expected Alicent to want to be nothing more than her dutiful lady in waiting for the rest of her life with no ambition or desire of her own.

Rhaenyra does mellows down when she’s older, mainly because Jace keeps calling out her bs but you can’t truly change who you are. Even in 2x03 although she desperate for peace a part of her was still expecting Team Green to simply give up rather compromising because the idea of either her or Jace stepping down was incomprehensible.

So prev anon was right that 2x08 only worked because Alicent has degraded herself back to her bare bones, she’s exactly how Rhaenyra wanted her to be 20 years ago: the dutiful handmaiden who will wait on Rhaenyra and her sons, no wants of her own.

I disagree. I don't think Nyra sleeping with Harwin (+ having his children) is enough evidence that she wasn't also a Targ supremacist. I grew up in Arkansas, where racism is still very much alive. Yet all of those racist fucks would still get down dirty with a black Mamacita because they're attracted to her (but just don't respect/view her as a person, which a lot of Arkansans don't see women as to begin with). So it is possible to mess around with someone and literally have not a drop of respect for them. Also - still from what I've seen in Arkansas - it's possible to have a mixed heritage and be racist towards part of it and prefer the other more. In MY OPINION, what I observe from Nyra is similar to this. I especially think after she marries Daemon it becomes worse. I think her Targ Supremacy and Bastardphobia run hand in hand (her bastards are okay because they're Targaryen/her's while others are a sin, type of mindset). Also doesn't she say to Laenor that each time she had hoped they were his? So she hoped she was carrying his children not Harwin's, is what I gleaned from that line (also I'm thinking 3 way but that's a different post). However I do understand what you're saying and I don't believe it's like full racism but more of a casual racism, like I don't think she's fully aware of it.

I do agree that the rift between Nyra and Allie is because of both of their mindsets and I do think Nyra never thought about Alicent's future more than how it would connect to her's. I truly do think if she did think about it she did think Allie was always going to be her's in some way, probably never marrying so Rhaenyra could spend her time with her whenever. I also think that Alicent knew this and that's why she stripped herself of her titles/colors to see Nyra in 2×8. She wanted Nyra to see her as the human she is but seeing that confirmed to Nyra her own supremacy.

Also I absolutely love how they show us Jace confronting Nyra. It reminds me a lot of confronting my mom. My mom has 3 bastards (myself being the most awesome) and she's also racist. It's out of her love for me that she's starting to unlearn a lot of toxic behavior that she's realizing came from her dad. I see a lot of Nyra in this, however Nyra doesn't have a child who believes love is why we were put on this earth and we are all a part of a huge puzzle that only forms it's picture when we share our stories. Plus she's in a world so dominated by the patriarchy even as Queen she has no fucking say. Jace is trying but unable to properly verbalize it cuz he's still a child (say what you want, until someone is 20 I don't fully count them as an adult, plus Jace is like 17 when he dies, right?) and has so much weight put on him. Plus terms like "bastardphobia" aren't a thing, it's just the norm.

Thanksya for sharing your opinion and allowing me to do so as well!! I hope you're having a good day💜

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Also I totally forgot about this until I saw something on FB but…

Ryan and Blake had a plantation wedding in South Carolina way back in 2012 when it was cool and chic to do that. The old slave cabins were even part of some of their photos. 🤦‍♀️

And remember when Blake tried to launch her own form of Goop? I think she called it Preserve, something uppity like that. Anyway, the lifestyle brand had a newsletter that she called…wait for it: Allure of the Antebellum, in which she essentially romanticized female slave owners. Here’s a good recap from Vox:

🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️

So people immediately started calling Blake out for her casual racism and she shut down Preserve not much longer after citing lack of interest (because her products were ridiculously overpriced…sound familiar?) but an ad analysis brand found that Blake lost her audience because she was so tone-deaf in that newsletter. (And also just last year, in 2023, Blake made comments loaning about how “hurtful press coverage” made her shut down her company. Jeez, it’s like looking in a crystal ball.)

Anyway, she and Ryan were able to sweep this under the rug for a lil bit. Till Ryan made his own tone-deaf comments about Black Panther, something to the effect of “congrats on being the first blockbuster with a Black superhero” and got slammed for it on Twitter with a bunch of people calling him out for having had a plantation wedding.

So then fast forward 2 years. It’s the summer of George Floyd protests and privilege (or the lack thereof) is being reckoned with. In May 2020, they make a $20,000 donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, along with a statement saying "We're ashamed that in the past we've allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is.”

But they get dragged for filth about having a plantation wedding and finally, three months later in August, Ryan issued a formal apology saying:“It’s something we’ll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for. It’s impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy.” He then went on to say they got married again at home some years later because “shame works in weird ways.” 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I don’t know. Here’s a thought. Maybe if you’re planning a wedding whose photos you’re going to sell to magazines later, maaaaaybe you should’ve done a tour of the place you found on Pinterest to see the warts they don’t talk about on social media before committing. Just a bit of advice for next time, Ryan.

So yeah. This has been, I’m sure, a great few days for Ryan and Blake, with all this dirt coming up.

All because Blake decided to make her movie’s promo tour Barbie 2.0. You know, I saw a thing on social media this afternoon that she and her squad were telling people to have a girl’s night out to see the movie and dress up in florals and bring flowers to share like they’re Taylor Swift friendship bracelets. 🤦‍♀️ 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

And this is on top of Colleen Hoover deciding to make a coloring book companion for her novel. A coloring book, y’all. Thankfully she listened to the backlash and canceled it.

Also, putting a tag on these posts now so if anyone is uninterested, you can block and mute it.

[archivalofsins]

I realized one thing about me I'm pretty straight-forward. Especially when it comes to things I like and this can come off as complaining incessantly, being too critical, being too anal, talking people down or being uncompromising.

I don't miss the humor and irony in fans of a series about biases and opinions feeling that others are too opinionated or bias when it comes to the material. I mean that's the name of the game basically.

At this point that should be the expectation on entry.

Yet, I do find it interesting that people can see this with others but to an extent not their selves. Not even just with Milgram this mindset can be applied to most social interactions.

Honestly, I get it. Everyone enjoys believing that they're reasonable and that their beliefs are sound. I like thinking I'm the smartest person in the room sometimes as well. I'm not above it. I don't want to be either.

There's a good reason that people take personal offence to their interpretations of media being questioned or dismissed. A good deal of people's beliefs, how they interpret media, and the world around them is rooted in emotionality. Regardless of how objective a person believes they're being.

For example when I talk about any of the characters my interpretation of their narratives will always be intrinsically tied with my blackness and the sort of judgment I've faced in my life due to that.

This shows itself with characters like Mu. A lot of people may not have the same experience of deviating from the normative appearance associated with their ethnicity. Many who relate to Mu or consider themselves her diehard supporters may not understand what it's like to be something but due to how you look be told that you don't count actually.

People that are biracial or double as Mu puts it in her first voice drama would. Along with people who aren't biracial and would not be considered such by any societal standard being treated the same way for being light skin.

Mu was opinionated enough to tell Es-

When they did the equivalent of calling her a halfie or half-caste by the way. Just more of that casual racism undertone Milgram has going on.

Even to the point that the translation provided even mentions the term Es used can come of as discriminatory.

Gee I wonder... I wonder why it might feel discriminatory. I can't really pinpoint a reason. Nope none coming to mind. Funnily enough this adds more depth to Mikoto's second song title being Double along with his statement trial one that made it sound like he believed he was being profiled.

Though he states it was because of his gender and clothing not due to race.

Alright, then. For an innocent person like you to end up here alongside them... Why do you think that is? Uhm... They got the wrong person. Oh? I can't imagine they'd know the details of what we look like. They mistook me for someone else in terms of gender or clothing... something along those lines. So, Milgram made a mistake, is what you're suggesting? Yeah, exactly. It's the only thing I can think of.

Please tell me it’s a mistake, that’s it’s a lie. That I’m right, I’ll forgive you If you tell me now.

Yet, I can understand why someone in his situation would want to give as little information about themselves as possible. Imagine being falsely arrested and then going you can't do this I'm a minori-wait, fuck, that might make them treat me worse actually um I'm not the guy- You got the wrong guy.

My point is Mu told Es how she actually wanted her biracial experience to be referred to. Not in a um actually way she just forcefully went yes I am this used a different word and probably side-eyed Es super hard internally. Like any person would.

Then there's Yuno.

Someone that everyone seems to love but love ignoring way more. Yuno is the definition of opinionated. She has no issue telling someone how things really are,

20/07/08 Yuno: Hey, Mikoto-san. Don’t you get tired being so conscious of others all the time? I mean, you’re free to do what you want though. Mikoto: Eh…… Aha, what are you talking about? I’m not being conscious or anything. It’s normal to make sure to get along with everyone, right? I mean, when you put it like that, aren’t you the same, Yun-chan? You’re always smiling and getting on with everyone too. Yuno: I don’t smile unless I actually want to. But with you, when you’re talking with other people it’s more like you only smile deliberately. So I kept thinking, don’t your cheeks get tired? Ah, is this just what happens when you become a working adult? ……you see people like that sometimes. Mikoto: Haha, you don’t mince your words do you. …….that was never my intention, but now that you mention it, yeah, I guess I do. This might’ve been since I started my job too…… But like, if I was rude to everyone I met, all my efforts would come to nothing, right?

Q.06 Are there any prisoners you don’t get along with?

Kazui: To be honest, probably also Kashiki-chan. It feels like she sees through all the things I don’t want anyone to notice.

20/08/02 Mahiru: Yeah, I’m asking for what you like in the opposite sex! I mean, with a lifestyle like this we have a lot of free time, right? So earlier when I was talking with all the other girls we got onto the topic! It’s not often you get a chance like this to live with a mix of men and women together, so I thought it might be nice to use the chance to talk about stuff like this in preparation for when we leave. Kazui: Ah…… Haha, I understand. I can see that’d be the sort of thing girls your age would be interested in, huh. How peaceful. What I like in the opposite sex… I don’t know if what I say will really be a good reference for you…… Ah, you know, since I’m at this age. I like a girl who can just smile free of worries. Seeing that’d make my old, tired heart feel young again. Yuno: Uh-huh, I see, I see. ……that’s a total lie, right? Kazui: Haha…… Give me a break here. You sure don’t make things easy for people, Kashiki-chan.

She has no problem directly contradicting others in public and questioning them further if their statements sound untrue.

22/09/02 (Yuno’s Birthday) Kazui: You're helping Shidou-kun, aren't you? Well, to put it this way, it's a bit surprising. You seemed uninterested in others. Yuno: Hmm? Why all of a sudden? Yeah, I'm not really interested. But if someone is about to die in front of me, I'd help out. That's just normal, isn't it? Aren't you the same, Kazui-san? You're not interested, fundamentally. Kazui: ...Maybe. I'm not as quick-witted as Kashiki-chan. You know, I've come up in a world that's all about physical strength. I've never even thought about things like that. Yuno: Haha, we both lie, don't we? The difference is the reason for lying. Kazui-san, you lie to protect yourself, because you're important to yourself. For me, no one is particularly important. That includes myself as well.

Or turning the conversation back on the person who approached her. She's assured in her actions and that makes her the type ready to question others if she feels comfortable enough to.

She's opinionated to the point of being able to draw firm boundaries between the people she likes and dislikes. Stating bluntly,

Q.21 Do you have someone you like?

Yuno: Other than the people I specifically dislike, I like everyone.

Voice Drama 2

Really? If you ask me, Kotoko-san is someone I would never want to make my friend, though. She's the type who picks a conclusion from the very beginning and won't actually talk to you.

Hm?

Well, I guess it's arbitrary who one gets along with.

She also has no problem telling people when to shut up as we've all seen,

"Just shut it, will you? You know it all."

Yet her coarse way of speaking tends to be sanded down in favor of infantilizing her. In what I can only believe is an attempt to make her character more palatable at this point. People implying or downright stating that she's too naive to know better.

Even in the face of that she remains forward and earnest about her feelings,

"“Poor naive little girl”? So off the mark, what’s it to you? It’s just absurd."

Yet all of these statements do little to deter this interpretation of her character. Because when faced with opposition to one's preconceived beliefs it's easier to continue to believe the person disagreeing or criticizing the belief simply doesn't know what they're talking about instead of take their input at face value. It's easier to try to find subjective reasons the other party may be disagreeing with one's own well founded and rooted in reason beliefs than to even humor the idea of ourselves being wrong some times.

Even when it's someone discussing their own life.

Sometimes even more so when it's a person discussing their own life. Because then one can easily justify their belief by saying the person was too in the moment to be an objective party or and just doesn't realize why this was bad yet or that they were being used. This is something brought up in both the cases of Yuno and Amane.

Regardless of how belittling or dismissive of the person's perception of reality implying such a thing is. It's basically an attempt to make someone view the life they've lived and experienced under the other parties framing whether they've actually had those experiences or not. It can't be referred to anything other than what it is invalidating. A person has to go through something terrible and traumatic then when they try to tell others about it they get told they're internalizing it wrong, taking it too personally, misreading the situation, or being to positive.

In that sort of situation the only thing a persons words can be taken as is self-serving and hurtful. Which I personally can't fault Yuno for viewing as,

"So nauseating...so creepy..."

It's easy to say believe others when they tell you their experiences and feelings on them until one actively has to do that. Then suddenly another person's lived experience and words on them can be debated actually. Especially if one feels like they interpreted it wrong or is the one being blamed for causing that hurt. If one's concern and kindness is only extended to the people they haven't hurt. If it's only easy to say I'm sorry and that shouldn't have happened when the pain being discussed wasn't caused by us then does it really mean anything?

It's easy to get caught up in the idea of not being wrong. Even easier to lash out and get defensive when someone else tells you that you hurt them. Yet looking past your ego means facing the fact that every can be wrong and hurt others even ourselves. Yes even if we didn't mean to do it, just couldn't get the words right, or were having such a hard time. To me it's realizing yeah my feelings are valid but that doesn't mean the hurt I caused while feeling that way is.

Yes I think x, y, and z about this situation but that doesn't change how you interpreted it. That's just my interpretation.

To think that being wrong is worst than just taking a situation as it is does cause more harm than good.

It took me a pretty long time to get comfortable with the fact that I will be wrong and regardless of how well thought out I find my points to be people will view me as wrong. This is just in general not when it comes to theories or anything. I didn't really get comfortable with being wrong until I was taking a speech class in college. At that point I was faced with a dilemma is it better to wait until you can say something exactly the right way or to say it wrong but still say it.

In a graded situation the latter is much better than the former. I mean you can't really go to a speech class and not speak without failing. So I realized then that sure I hate being wrong but it honestly makes when I am right far more enjoyable. That I'm not as afraid of being wrong as I am of being so scared of being wrong that I ultimately fail to do anything right or anything at all.

There's no perfect explanation that will make people believe what you're saying is true. Even when it's about your own experiences. People will still measure others by their own metrics of success and failure or right and wrong. A lot of people will tell others it's how they said it even if they know full and well they didn't want to hear it to begin with.

In those situation you can contort your words to be as safe or light as possible that won't change their unwillingness to hear you though. A person may even get harsher, colder, show outward signs of depression. Even attempt to remove themselves from the conversation entirely.

None of it will matter to those intent on seeing someone only one way.

[bullrunpicnicker]

Tell me the dungeon meshi con story pleaseeee

imagine with me, my friend, a small midwestern con. im there in my marcille cosplay that i just spent the past week putting the finishing touches on, my one partner is in his falin cosplay, and my other partner is there to have a good time and not die from the heat under several layers of costume

we were quite popular and kept getting stopped for pictures which was very cool. at one point, a middle aged white lady stops us and asks for a photo. and we're like "sure! no problem!" and pose for her. after she takes the pic, she starts chatting with us but then interrupts herself to point over our shoulders and be like "is he with you?" and my one partner steps aside to reveal a young black man hovering behind us. and hes like "no... 🥺" and it turns out hes just waiting his turn to also ask us for a picture but he was just shy (relatable)

and the lady goes "oh you could be a cosplayer too! :] youd make a good- whats his name-" to the guy. and like. clearly she was fishing for kabru and was doing a casual racism. disappointing but not unbelievable, right?

but the guy responds to her with "oh you mean labru?" and you could see the exact moment he realized he accidentally said the ship name and not the character name lmaoooo