#we don't get to see any actual torture but we're told it's there

[munchmemes]

taylor swift lyrics, the tortured poets department edition, part two

guilty as sin?

▸ my boredom's bone-deep. ▸ am i allowed to cry? ▸ i'm seeing visions, am i bad? or mad? or wise? ▸ one slip and i'm falling back into the hedge maze. ▸ oh, what a way to die. ▸ i keep recalling things we never did. ▸ how i long for our trysts. ▸ how can i be guilty as sin? ▸ i keep these longings locked inside a vault. ▸ someone told me there's no such things as bad thoughts, only your actions talk. ▸ they're gonna crucify me anway. ▸ what if they way you hold me is actually what's holy? ▸ i choose you and me religiously.

who's afraid of little old me?

▸ the "who's who?`" of "who's that?" is poised for the attack. ▸ you don't get to tell me about 'sad'. ▸ if you wanted me dead, you should've just said. nothing makes me feel more alive. ▸ who's afraid of little old me? you should be. ▸ the scandal was contained, the bullet had just grazed. ▸ at all costs, keep your good name. ▸ you don't get to tell me you feel bad. ▸ is it a wonder i broke? ▸ let's hear one more joke. then we could all just laugh until i cry. ▸ i was tame, i was gentle till the circus life made me mean. ▸ they say they didn't do it to hurt me but what if they did? ▸ i want to snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me. ▸ you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. ▸ isn't that what they all said? that i'm fearsome and i'm wretched and i'm wrong. ▸ you lured me and you hurt me and you taught me. ▸ you caged me and then you called me crazy. ▸ i am what i am 'cause you trained me.

i can fix him (no really i can)

▸ the jokes that [you/they] told across the bar were revolting and far too loud. ▸ they shake their heads, saying "god help [them]" when i tell 'em you're the one. ▸ i can fix him, no really i can. and only i can. ▸ i could see it from a mile away. ▸ you had a halo of the highest grade, you just hadn't met met yet. ▸ come close, i'll show you heaven if you'll be an angel all night. ▸ trust me, i can handle me a dangerous [man/woman].

loml

▸ we were just kids, babe. ▸ i don't mind, it takes time. ▸ i thought i was better safe than starry-eyed. ▸ i felt aglow like this. never before and never since. ▸ you and i went from one kiss to getting married. ▸ you said i'm the love of your life about a million times. ▸ a conman sells a fool a get-love-quick scheme. ▸ i felt a hole like this never before and ever since. ▸ what we thought was for all time was momentary. ▸ i wish i could un-recall how we almost had it all. ▸ the coward claimed he was a lion. ▸ i'll still see it until i die. you're the loss of my life.

i can do it with a broken heart

▸ i can show you lies. ▸ i'm a real tough kid, i can handle my shit. ▸ they said 'you gotta fake it 'til you make it' and i did. ▸ you said you'd love me all your life but that life was too short. ▸ i can do it with a broken heart. ▸ i'm so depressed, i act like it's my birthday every day. ▸ i cry a lot but i am so productive, it's an art. ▸ you know you're good when you can even do it with a broken heart. ▸ i can hold my breath, i've been doing it since [you/they] left. ▸ i'm miserable and nobody even knows!

the smallest man who ever lived

▸ was any of it true? ▸ now you know what it feels like. ▸ i don't miss what we had. ▸ in public, you showed me off then sank in stoned oblivion. ▸ you didn't measure up in any measure of a man. ▸ were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? ▸ good riddance 'cause it wasn't sexy once it wasn't forbidden. ▸ i would've died for your sins. instead i just died inside. ▸ in plain sight you hid but you are what you did. ▸ i'll forget you but i'll never forgive.

the alchemy

▸ this happens once every few lifetimes. ▸ these chemicals hit me like white wine. ▸ what if i told you i'm back? ▸ the hospital was a drag. worst sleep i ever had. ▸ ditch the clowns, get the crown. ▸ what if i told you we're cool? ▸ honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy? ▸ where's the trophy?

clara bow

▸ all your life, did you know you'd be picked like a rose? ▸ i'm not trying to exaggerate but i think i might die. ▸ this town is fake but you're the real thing. ▸ take the glory, give everything. ▸ promise to be dazzling. ▸ you're the new god we're worshipping. ▸ beauty is a beast that roars down on all fours, demanding more. ▸ it's hell on earth to be heavenly. ▸ them's the breaks, they don't come gently.

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

I need some advice on probably the most complicated relationship I've ever had.

The guy who I am attracted to is AroAllo. I didn't know this until he told me later after we went on a date. I am still very confused on what this is. Then he told me that he is sexually attracted to me but not romantically attracted to me.

All in all, we are "friends" again. However anyone that doesn't know our situation assumes we're dating. It's really awkward when its brought up. We're in this weird lingo as of now between friends and something more which is all in all very strange. He acts as though he is attracted to me.

The thing is he is perfect. He's incredibly handsome, smart, funny, kind, understanding and is amazing at communication. When it comes to affection, he tends to avoid it quite a lot.

I have been trying to wrap my head around this idea of AroAllo. It doesn't make any sense to me but it is probably just my ignorance and I am AlloAllo. I understand casual sex. But like, how can you not have some romance before sex? You have to kiss, you have to flirt. Does that fall under romance or am I missing something?

Also how do I navigate this relationship? I don't know what to do. It's torture but he is such a good friend and he genuinely listens to me and values me. I am attracted to him still and I can't seem to shake it.

Please, if you can. Give me some advice on this. And I am deeply sorry for the ridiculous long ask.

-confused anon

First of all, I am proud of you for seeking advice in this. You're alloallo and therefore don't really get what's up here, so it's amazing that you came here!

I will refer to this guy as guy.

FOR UNDERSTANDING HIM: Separate sexual and romantic attraction, this is called SAM (split attraction model) and it means a person separates romantic and sexual attraction in their identity. Not everyone does this (including some aspec), it's hard to do, and not everyone can. But it's a good step forward in understanding Guy. If he identifies as Alloaro then he is using the split attraction model (SAM).

A good example is cereal and milk. You, as an alloallo, see cereal and milk as coming together, something that can't be separated. Guy, on the other hand, sees milk as gross and eats cereal straight from the box. An asexual hates cereal and just drinks milk, and I, an aroace, hate both and will die before I eat it.

Obviously this is an over simplification. Some asexuals may still eat some cereal but only because they want to support the brand (for their partner) some aromantics will still drink milk but only after long-standing connections and talks about drinking milk.

FOR UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF:

For how you have described Guy, though, it seems that he is not interested in a definitive romantic relationship. Meaning, while he might not mind being referred to as being in a romantic relationship, I don't think, from what you have written, he is at all romantically attracted to you. He says he likes you sexually, and probably platonically, and likes you as a person. From the sounds of it, he perhaps wants to date, but with no romantic attraction on his end.

Basically, the crux of it is, would you be okay with a relationship that is romantically purely one-sided?

On top of that, talk to him. Understand exactly what he wants from you, and tell him what you would want of him. Understand that asking him to “feel romantic attraction” is not going to work and will drive him away, same with any other attempt to undermine his identity.

Some questions that may help:

"What do you actually feel for me?" "Why did you ask me on a date if you knew you were aroallo?" "How do you feel about me being attracted to you romantically?" "What would you want from me in a relationship?" "Would this be casual sex, or would it be a relationship? Would this be committed?" "Would a queer platonic relationship (QPR for further research) work for you?" "How to you feel like appearing like we are dating?"

Hope this helps going to tag some aro blogs please spare me guys im aroace im trying here @aromantic-official @aro-culture-is @our-aro-experience @our-arospec-experience @aroallo-culture-is and every other aroallo

I WROTE THIS WHILE SLEEP DEPRIVED, I AM SORRY FOR ERRORS

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Do you two have heretical thoughts about the dementors? (I always thought it was funny that they are actually way scarier and more threatening than the main villain group in a lovecraftian sort of way and seemingly can breed but can't be easily killed,but are just mentioned as an afterthought).

Heretical? Not sure, not sure what the common consensus is on dementors.

Our thoughts are generally that the dementors were created through some magical experiment accident/a catastrophe a long time ago, enough so that the origins of them have become obscured. (I believe this is in Pottermore somewhere but let's just go with it). My guess is that, originally, there were very few of them relative to the then wizarding world's population. However, the few there were were unkillable, terrifying, soul sucking monsters.

My guess is that, sooner rather than later, the idea occurred. Now, if you have an unkillable tiger next door that will eat someone, if not many, and you have no means of destroying it... whom, exactly, are you going to feed to it? Are you going to risk it eating just anyone or are you going to give it people who 'deserve' it or are otherwise a nuisance.

I imagine very early, the practice of feeding dementors law breakers or otherwise selecting some poor sap to keep them at bay was founded. Eventually, they managed to move this feeding ground to a remote island in the north sea that no one would ever visit, and they discovered that if they just let the dementors hover about, but not eat anyone, then a few humans could keep them complacent for many years without having to sacrifice an entire person.

Problem is, I imagine as they kept being fed and sustained, suddenly there's more dementors as they have enough energy to reproduce. You now have an island in the north sea that is fucking swarming with the things. Worse, the number of dementors is now vastly outstripping the number of people the wizarding world would naturally send to prison.

And so now we have a problem.

In a way, I think the Voldemort business helped disguise some of this. Suddenly, there were so many people who had done truly heinous things, who deserved imprisonment, that Azkaban was a booming business after likely years of drought. You have murderers, torturers, everyone you can think of in there with life imprisonments staving off the dementors for decades to come.

This may be part, though likely not all, of the reason trials were so rushed through in the aftermath of the first war and the sentences were so long. Part of the reason Sirius Black may not have got a trial was the wardens of Azkaban banging on their pots and pans screaming, "FRESH BODIES!" and since it felt so obvious to everyone that Black was a Death Eater anyway, why waste time on a trial?

But then, even when there's so many people in there, there's a tension with the dementors. They seem to be a barely contained force even as Fudge tries to use them multiple times for his own ends. He sets them loose and then "uh, children, please don't go near them because sometimes they want to snack and all the prisoners are dried out husks at this point". We're told that the dementors are displeased, specifically, that one of their precious meals have gotten away from them and that this is a problem. Hagrid is immediately sent to Azkaban for a crime in Harry's second year, which when it was believed he committed it when he was a child, had then resulted in an expulsion and not imprisonment.

And we hear news, though never see any of it, that in book seven dementors have been set loose (as Azkaban is now empty and nothing to feed them) and are wandering about the country.

I imagine after the second war, as there's a purge of Death Eaters and sympathizers, the problem is put off again, for a time, as the dementors happily get to munch on those who are imprisoned... But sooner or later, those people will be sucked dry and then we'll have the same problem, but worse, as there are likely now even more dementors.

And yes, it is interesting how blase wizards are about it, but I can see how this happened. Dementors are a reality that the average witch and wizard rarely, if ever, has to deal with. They're on the island of Azkaban, they eat the prisoners. The story is that, and I can't even really call it propaganda as it's something that everyone simply believes, that wizards and witches are ultimately in control of dementors. They're the ones who decide where they can go, who they can eat, and while they're terrifying, they're no more terrifying than dragons who are kept in reserves in Romania. And if you come across one, well, you use the patronus! If they're set loose somewhere they're not supposed to be, it's because some evil witch or wizard purposefully did that. The reality of what Azkaban really is, not so much a prison but dementor containment, is one that would simply not occur to anyone.

We see distress in people like Fudge, who personally have to deal with them and "oh god, they're bargaining with me, what the fuck", but it's evident that even he doubts himself as a) he believes he has them firmly in hand and of course can control them b) the idea that these things are only doing his bidding because the wizarding world had been feeding them an ungodly amount of prisoners over the century/that first war had great timing and really put off this problem for another 10/15 years is one that is so horrifying, so insane, that he'd be mad to even think it to himself.

But I suspect in 10/15 years after the events of canon, there's going to be yet another dementor problem, and one that no one will want to acknowledge and most won't even realize what, exactly, the problem is.

[thezombieprostitute]

Unwanted - Part 2

Summary: Your life is no longer yours. You've been forced into becoming a different species of human. Bought and paid for, what can you do but follow orders and obey your Alpha?

Warnings: Allusions to surgery, human trafficking, kidnapping; Angst; Depression; Suicidal thoughts. Let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is described as big & tall, is female. No other descriptors required.

Part 1 -- Part 3

Levinson leads you to car but you pause for a few moments. You haven't seen outside in so long. Tears start streaming down your face as you look at the sky.

"Omega!" Levinson barks. You duck your head in fear and quickly climb into the car. He gets in on the other side and knocks the partition, signalling the driver he's ready to go. "Buckle up," he tells you.

You're quick to comply. You can't do anything else because you feel so dead inside. Kidnapped, tortured, and rejected. What was the point of all of it? Why did you have to suffer so much for someone who doesn't want you? Why did he ask for someone like you? It doesn't matter anymore. All you can do is follow orders and try to shut your brain down. Like post-surgery healing and recovery, the training they put you through. Just shut up, shut down and comply. You don't even bother looking out the window, it would only further remind you of what you missed. What you're never allowed to do again.

Levinson keeps working on his phone. You can only tell because of the sounds. You can't remember the last time you held a phone. But it's not your place to think about it, now is it? You take a breath and catch hints of the driver's scent. He also smells like fire, but more controlled. Like a large bonfire at the beach instead of the wildfire next to you.

You hear the partition roll down. The driver says, "we're far enough away, Ari."

"Thanks, Johnny." Levinson puts his phone in his pocket and turns to you. "I'm Ari Levinson, with the Department of Defense." He pulls out his wallet and puts it on your lap, making sure you see his badge and ID. "They weren't supposed to actually find a candidate. It was a ploy to buy us time until we could get more intelligence on the operation."

You blink, whispering, "I...I was mistake?"

"We're going to take you to a community of others of our kind where you can get proper care."

"I was a mistake?" you say louder. The tears start pouring. You can't hold them back any further. It was bad enough when you weren't wanted but have your entire existence upended for a mistake? It was too much. You collapse into a sobbing pile.

"Told you to be gentler on her, Alpha," you hear Johnny say.

"Not much that I could do to soften the blow," Ari retorts. "Let her cry it out, she definitely needs it. Might want to get some food, too. I can hear her stomach growling from here and I'm sure it's making things worse for her."

"Okay," Johnny shakes his head. He pulls out his own phone and calls someone telling them to have some food prepped for your arrival in a half hour or so.

You're all cried out by the time you reach the gate. It looks like you're entering an army base. That fits with the Department of Defense stuff Ari said. Both men show their credentials and the car is allowed inside.

"We're going to get you some food before we catch our flight," Ari tells you. "Do not speak until after the plane lands. Understand?"

You nod and he accepts that. What choice do you have?

"For what it's worth, I know the guy who works the commissary here," Johnny offers. "He's an amazing cook!" Again, all you can do is nod.

You're let out of the car and walk between the men towards what is labelled as the Mess Hall. Levinson gestures for you and Johnny to sit at one of the long tables. While you do, he goes to the kitchen and comes out with a few trays of food. The entire time you've sat, Johnny's kept a hand on your shoulder, likely as a way to try to comfort you while also keeping others away.

Every so often, as you're eating, someone either brave, stupid or dared into it, tries to approach your little group. But either Johnny or Levinson gives them a look that has them think twice and move along. You don't know if there's some special Alpha power or if they're just that intimidating. You also can't bring yourself to care. At least the food is good, best you've had in ages.

Levinson checks his phone, "time to get moving. Flight is ready for us." Johnny helps you off of the bench and you assume your position between the two men.

When you're seated on the plane between them, you try to buckle up. It's definitely not a commercial flight and you're unsure of all the straps. Ari sees you having trouble and helps you out. Before he buckles himself in he whispers in your ear, "when we land, you will be properly taken care of by a real community. I owe you at least that."

Part 1 -- Part 3

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @lokislady82; @ronearoundblindly; @startcarvingdarling

[i-heart-hxh]

kurapika anon back again!! i would love to know more about your thoughts on the troupe not being fully responsible for the death of the kurta.

personally, i see it more as they committed the actual murder, but someone was pulling the strings, whether that be through the pariston/sheila theory, or tserriednich. especially considering they seem to be under the impression that it’s some kind of revenge on the kurta, while the kurta have been peaceful for a very long time by the time they were massacred.

i saw someone on reddit make the theory that the kurta were the ones that caused meteor city to be so broken down to begin with, but that would be so long ago that i think it would be unreasonable for the troupe to still act on it. possibly chrollo was lied to about that being the case? or falsely told that the kurta were planning an attack?

Hi again!

So, I will say that my theories are all a bit vague, more like a bunch of puzzle pieces than a complete picture, but I'll share my thoughts nonetheless! If anyone else has additions or more insight, feel free to add on--there's so much to consider on this topic, and I don't feel like I've considered every single piece of evidence there is out there.

For a long time, I've felt that there's uncertainty around the Phantom Troupe's actions and the Kurta massacre. For one thing, we've never been shown any images of the Phantom Troupe being involved, nor did any characters we know of directly witness them killing the Kurta, and Uvo initially doesn't remember the Kurta when asked about them (he does when he sees Kurapika's eyes, but even then it seems a little odd). The way the Kurta massacre is set up seems intentionally vague all around, which makes me think there are pieces of the puzzle Togashi has been keeping from us.

He remembers enough where it's entirely possible they did do it or at least heard about it in depth, but also remember the Phantom Troupe started out as an acting troupe. It's possible they either a) did it after being given false information or were manipulated into it, or b) took credit for it for some reason even though they weren't involved. I lean more towards a), but b) is also possible.

I also feel like, the Phantom Troupe are clearly not morally upstanding citizens, to put it mildly, but as we've seen them are they truly capable of a full-on intentional massacre of innocent people, including children, for the sake of money/trophies? Most of the violence we've seen from them has been towards mafia and Chimera Ants. I mean, Feitan does torture people as a hobby and Chrollo kills a whole bunch of audience members in his fight with Hisoka, among other examples, so it's not like it's impossible to even consider they would ever do such a thing, but I'm just somewhat skeptical nonetheless.

The Phantom Troupe backstory threw even more uncertainty into the mix for me. Sarasa is a victim in a similar way to the Kurta, and as of yet the jump between where the Phantom Troupe left off in the flashback and the way the Kurta are killed seems strange. It's likely we'll get something more to fill that gap and explain how this development happened in the manga going forward, but, there's just something about it that seems "off" to me. How did this group of people go from wanting to find the murderers of their friend--albeit at all costs, and saying they are willing to become the villains and kill people in order to get revenge--to a group of people who may have murdered 100+ people for the sake of trophies, similar to what happened to Sarasa? That doesn't match their stated aims, and while it's possible they simply became more and more twisted by going down their road of revenge, I feel like there's more to it. It's interesting either way, so if that is the case, I'll accept it, but I feel like we're missing something major.

Note that they're trying to become so fearsome that people stay away from Meteor City and the people can be safer there/not preyed upon, so that would give them a reason to maybe take credit for what happened to the Kurta even if they weren't involved. And again, they started off as an acting troupe...

I also have had a suspicion for a long time that, with the way Kurapika's powers are set up specifically for the Phantom Troupe, he might eventually end up in a situation where, oops, the Phantom Troupe is not his target after all in order to get what he wants! It feels like a very Togashi kind of irony, and will put him in a difficult position.

Tserriednich is shown with a head above his throne in addition to the scarlet eyes, and his nen beast has a child's head inside of it that looks suspiciously like Pairo's. I think it's very possible Tserriednich or mafia surrounding him were involved in the acquisition of the scarlet eyes. It's possible either the Phantom Troupe were baited or manipulated into killing the Kurta in some way (told that the Kurta were responsible for Sarasa's death and the missing children in Meteor City, for instance), or that they took credit for it in order to bolster their own image as fearsome villains in order to reach their aims.

I also feel like Tserriednich is a direct representation of what Kurapika (and to a certain extent, the Troupe too, at least in the past) resents and abhors--the wanton murder of human beings for reasons of aesthetics, trophies, and "art." So to me, it makes sense he would be Kurapika's ultimate antagonist rather than the Troupe, who in a way are weirdly similar to Kurapika, or at the very least started out that way. If Tserriednich was somehow involved with what happened to Sarasa/the children of Meteor City as well (assuming the timeline supports such a thing, and I'm not totally certain it does), it's even possible Kurapika and the Troupe could end up on the same side, both trying to take Tserriednich down.

There's also the question of Sheila... Like I pointed out in this post, I'm very curious about this panel of her turning away from the Troupe and what it means.

I'm not totally sure I buy the Sheila = Pariston theories (though I haven't ruled it out either), but something is up with Sheila for sure, especially because of her appearance later with Kurapika and Pairo before the Kurta massacre. It's possible she lured someone there, possibly not the Phantom Troupe but maybe mafia members instead--maybe the same mafia members who murdered Sarasa? Or maybe she did pass the info to the Phantom Troupe--but it is weird that here she's shown going away from them with such a sad and complicated expression (as if maybe she were involved with what happened to Sarasa in some way), so it seems odd for her to be working with them later.

@subdee did a great post on this topic as well that has some additional thoughts and evidence as well, so I recommend checking that out!

Ultimately, I think there's a lot of doubt and mystery surrounding the Kurta Massacre, and I do feel like the series is setting up the idea of Tserriednich being the final hurdle for Kurapika to take down. There are a lot of possibilities still for exactly what happened to the Kurta and also for what will happen in the future with Kurapika and the Phantom Troupe, but I do feel like we're still missing a few puzzle pieces that will (hopefully) soon become clear. I do think this arc is going to be the end for the major plots of Kurapika, the Phantom Troupe, and Tserriednich, so I'm very curious and excited for how things will pan out!

[1moremilgram-enjoyer]

Your (Curtain) Call - Thoughts

Hey, it's been a while, huh? But the call of plot progression was too exciting for me to remain silent any longer. Trial 3 baby here we go!!!

And what a way to kick off the trial! There sure is a fair bit to talk about, so let's do just that.

CW: Murder, suicide, suicide threats, psychological torture (Unforgiven votes)

General Thoughts

WOOOO MILGRAM TRIAL 3 IS COMING!!! The excitement is through the roof!!! I am very desensitized to character deaths so my desire for more content currently supersedes the sadness I am feeling!!!! Still, without any other info on T3 atm, I should probably talk about the thing we do have, no?

First thing to establish, I'm going in with the assumption that the three who didn't show up in Your (Curtain) Call are just dead, because I see no reason to believe otherwise. So, Haruka, Shidou and Mahiru are gone.

I'm frankly not all that surprised. Like, we knew what Haruka was gonna do from the moment Muu's verdict came out Unforgiven, the conversation Mahiru had with Kotoko in Kotoko's last birthday made it pretty clear she wasn't going to last much longer, and Shidou's death was always on the table when Amane's voting period finally closed. The big question was whether the writers would commit to killing off the characters before the true start of T3, and I'm actually kinda glad the answer to that was yes. Obviously I would have appreciated more time with them, and I sincerely hope against hope that we still get a T3 song for all of them, but the deaths are a good way to send the message to the audience that yes, consequences exist in Milgram, and yes, they're very serious.

Basically I'm actually kinda chilling, but that may just be because I... Look I like all the Milgram characters, but these three were never my favorites. I appreciated them, I enjoyed their existence and discussing them, but I'm ultimately more attached to other characters. So, in a sense, I kinda lucked out. Very sorry to those who can't say the same.

Where We Go From Here

Now, before talking about where I think we may go from here, I'm going to talk a bit about the verdicts that led to this. But since this is a contentious topic, I'll establish a few things that I'm sure you're all aware about, but bear repeating just in case.

-I don't believe there are any "right" or "wrong" verdicts, just those which I agree or disagree with. The decisions are difficult and multi-faceted, and usually had to be made with limited information. We're all trying our best here, so even if you disagree with someone else' perspective, it's important to remain respectful of it. If at any point in this post I come off as insulting to anyone else's choices, I apologize, it's not my intention.

-Hindsight is 20/20, but that means it's a distorted perspective. No one was completely certain of many things throughout the voting process. Even if things turned out exactly how you thought they would, or nothing happened like you hoped it might, keep in mind that no one could be 100% sure of some things before the release of Your (Curtain) Call. Basically, going "I told you so" doesn't help anyone.

-At the end of the day, these are fictional characters. It's perfectly fine to be emotionally invested in them, and feel strongly about their fates, but perspective is important. No one actually died, no one's hurt. You can regret your choices or be upset at the verdicts, but keep in mind it's ultimately just a web series.

With that established, the voting. Now, the arguments about Forgiven or Unforgiven have already been had and I have little interest in repeating discussions from the past. But I've never talked much about some of these verdicts here, and I know some of you may be interested in knowing my perspective on them and how I feel about them. Again, the following is simply my opinion, no better than yours, we're gonna disagree on some things and that's fine.

Haruka, Shidou and Mahiru will never get to react to their T2 verdicts in earnest. The verdicts to discuss, then, are Muu's and Amane's from T2, and Mahiru's and Kotoko's from T1. Obviously there's other verdicts involved here, but those are the most pressing ones in my eyes.

-I don't agree with the Unforgiven Muu verdict, and I held that opinion for a long time before Your (Curtain) Call released. I fully understand why it happened, I'm not upset it happened, and I don't hold it against anyone who voted her Unforgiven, but I respectfully disagree with the decision.

Of course, it's easy to say I would have Forgiven her when we now know for sure it would have avoided a death, but an Unforgiven vote was always way more dangerous than a Forgiven vote. Sure, Haruka, could have survived the attempt, but the best way to guarantee his safety would have been Forgiving Muu. That's why I held this opinion before the release of Your (Curtain) Call, even if I don't think I ever mentioned it.

Mind you, a Forgiven vote came with its own risks. It would have enforced a very dangerous mindset on Muu's part, and bending to the suicide threat would have enabled Haruka's self-destructive and manipulative tendencies. He probably would have made the same threat in T3 if we'd let him have his way. This is one of many reasons why I understand the verdict.

But those are things that can be dealt with once everyone's out of the hell prison; death isn't. And while it's true that an Unforgiven vote is the only way we have to get across to Muu that she did a bad thing, that doesn't mean we have to take it. Especially since mentally torturing a teenager to get a point across is... morally dubious, on its face. There's no shame in admitting we lack the tools to properly help someone and stepping back to focus on damage control, as helping without the proper tools can do more harm than good.

Again, though, that's my perspective, one which comes from someone who can only talk about the vote in hindsight as I wasn't around when the voting was actually happening. So, it should be taken with a lot of salt. I sincerely hope those who didn't Forgive her get what they wanted out of the verdict and that Muu will become a better person because of it in some way, even if I have my doubts about it. What's done is done, we should just hope for the best now.

-The Amane vote was a lot harder, because neither option came with a guarantee of safety, and neither option came with a guarantee of death. The setup was always there for a Forgiven Amane to kill Shidou (which is what I assume happened), but there was also setup for someone like Kazui saving him. It was entirely possible that Shidou could have survived with injuries, and just because it didn't happen, we shouldn't forget that it seemed like a real possibility at the time.

That isn't to say I blame Kazui or even Shidou or anyone else for what happened. Trusting a child isn't a crime, and people shouldn't have to be babysitting Shidou the whole time. The fault is entirely on the people who raised Amane, the audience who allowed her freedom of movement, and Amane herself.

In the same vein, an Unforgiven vote could have carried no inter-prisoner fatalities, but it would have been Amane's second Unforgiven, meaning there was a real possibility she'd die. We don't know how that works, after all. I don't even find it particularly likely, but it's a real concern that I took into account.

Basically, unlike Muu's vote where one option was clearly safer than the other (in my eyes), Amane's vote was a gamble either way, and we had no way to genuinely tell what the odds of Shidou's death (and Mahiru's, as we believed back then that they were linked) on a Forgiven vote were compared to the odds of an Amane death on Unforgiven.

Which is why I don't regret voting Amane Forgiven. We can speculate on what we'd do with the information we have now and the information we may get later, but with the information we had at the time, I find it a perfectly reasonable decision. If the information we'd had was different, and you could guarantee that no one would die to an Unforgiven vote and that Shidou would absolutely die on a Forgiven, I might have ended up voting Amane Unforgiven. It would have hurt me a lot and I'd feel gross doing it, but I stand by the principle that preserving human life is always the priority.

However, such a guarantee didn't exist. So I had to weigh the possibility of life and death against the other aspects of the vote. And to put it bluntly, I've never personally found any Unforgiven argument unrelated to Shidou's safety to be particularly convincing. We've seen what an Unforgiven vote does for Amane, and it's not good. I sincerely doubt that doing the same thing again would carry different results.

Also, there's another reason I found voting Amane Forgiven when Shidou could die easier to justify than Not Forgiving Muu when that could get Haruka killed: it's just easier to sell me on a Forgiven vote than an Unforgiven vote. That's a personal bias I'm aware of, but not one I particularly mind having and acting upon. Hot take, mentally torturing teenagers is Bad actually, and should be avoided whenever possible.

-I didn't talk about Mahiru much in the previous section, because I'm pretty sure she was dead from T1.

[2024/12/15 Timeline] Mahiru: I also have to, say my thanks, to Shidou-san. Kotoko: I can’t even laugh at how carefree you are, going out of your way to call me over. Well...... if you have any grudges in your last moments, I guess I’d consider listening.

In this recent timeline,, Mahiru talks about Shidou as if he's still alive, but Kotoko seems pretty convinced Mahiru's not going to last much longer. This seems to imply, at least to me, that Shidou wouldn't have been able to keep Mahiru alive for T3 even if he hadn't gotten stabbed by the child. She was likely just kept alive to explore her character further before killing her off.

Now, I don't hold any votes cast against anyone in general, but I especially don't hold anything against the votes from T1. From my understanding, that was the wild wild west when it came to voting, as there was no precedent for what the votes would actually do. I don't even know what I would have voted Mahiru, since by the time I joined the fandom, the consequences of the voting had already been made relatively clear. I have no basis for what I would have taken into account when it came to casting votes in T1.

That said, I would have voted Kotoko Forgiven, probably. I tend to trust fictional characters more than I probably should, and the partnership she offered in TASK sounded quite appealing when we had no precedent for inter-prisoner violence beyond John Doe. HARROW made it look (at least to me) that Kotoko did a lot of research before attacking her victims, so I'd have given her the benefit of the doubt and thought she wouldn't attack the others until she learnt more about their crimes. Without Deep Cover, there wasn't any reason to believe she had that info at the time. Clearly, I'd have enabled the bullshit that happened in the T1-T2 intermission. Oops.

Okay that's way too much yapping about things that no longer matter. The votes are cast, the decisions are made, we move. What's next?

Well, that would be discussing how these deaths affect our choices moving forward. I don't feel like speculating on how characters are going to act in T3 when it's likely we're gonna get more info on that soon anyways (I can't believe it!!!), but what are my plans for voting?

Well, you can probably guess, but I'm hoping for an inno sweep. Unless we get confirmation on what our votes are gonna do before casting them, the possibility that a T3 Unforgiven will kill the character is too dangerous for me to consider that, unless there's some reason to believe a Forgiven vote would also carry risk of death. I think I've made it clear that I don't usually find the mental torture that an Unforgiven vote carries to be particularly helpful, so unless the consequences of the vote change, full Forgiven is probably the best we can hope for. I really doubt it's going to be so simple, of course, but I can't comment further without more info on the trial. I'm very excited to see how they try to avoid the full Forgiven sweep over at MILGRAM HQ (?).

And I'll actually get to vote for all of them this time! Well, the ones who are alive, anyways. Yippie!!!

On a completely unrelated note; really love the title of the video. The play on "your call" (your decision) and "your curtain call" (the end) is fun.

I wonder what other routes would have been called, though. Because obviously you can't have a name for every possible combination of T1 and T2 verdicts, so you need general names like Your (Curtain) Call for most of them. I kinda wanna know what decisions could have led to a different route name. If I feel like it, I might make a post with some other route ideas for the fun of it. But I have like a bajillion posts I want to write on my main still, so. God knows when that would come out.

Alright I've evidently run out of meaningful things to say. Hope you enjoyed this massive rambling session, that you don't hate me if you disagree with my opinions, all that stuff. In any case, thanks for reading, see ya'!

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

🎉 Congrats on the 1k followers! 🎉

For a possible fic promt:

D, 🎸, 🤣🥵, 🎀

Thank you so much, here's some horny crack for you! 🥰🥳

A little tied up

Rated: E

Words: 995

Tags: Post-Vecna; Everybody lives; Established relationship; Awkward sexual situations; Idiots in love; Very slight knife kink

Eddie thought he knew what pain was. 

Being chomped on by a flock of feral demon bats while fully conscious is an experience he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. And trust him, he has a lot of enemies, what with half the town still convinced he’s a devil-worshiping, cheerleader-murdering psychopath. 

Eddie also thought he knew humiliation. 

Hell, he needed help peeing in those first few weeks in the hospital. His dick has been touched by more people than he is comfortable admitting - and isn’t that something for a chronically bitchless, triple-senior D&D nerd?

Point is, if anyone had asked before today, Eddie would’ve boldly claimed there was nothing in the pain and humiliation department strong enough to make him even bat an eyelash. 

Turns out he was wrong. 

“Fuuuck,” he whines, hands white-knuckling the bedsheets. His head, heavy from craning his neck, thuds back into the pillow. “What the hell is taking so long? Take it off, take it off, take it-” 

“I’m trying, okay?” Steve snaps. He has stopped laughing, which … okay, Eddie appreciates he’s taking this seriously, but he absolutely does not like that brow furrow. That's Steve Harrington's trademark ‘we're royally fucked but I'm gonna keep it together to not freak anyone out’ brow furrow. “The damn knot won't come loose.” 

He tugs at said knot as if to demonstrate, and Eddie almost jerks off the bed as a jolt of pain zaps from the base of his cock all the way up his spine. 

“Jesus fuck, be careful!” he barks, but Steve stays unimpressed. 

“Hold still,” he scolds, voice deep and stern. One large hand grips Eddie’s knee and pushes his thighs further apart. It's very close to how Eddie envisioned this going, and his cock gives a treacherous little twitch. “Don't know why you thought this was a good idea.” 

“I told you,” Eddie hisses through another bout of pain. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I wanted to do something special for our anniversary.” 

Steve gives him a look. 

“So you put a bow around your dick.” 

Eddie can practically feel himself blushing, but he’s okay with that. Any blood that’s not in his tortured dick is good blood. 

Steve is still staring at him like he’s wondering if the bat rabies did fuck with his head after all. Eddie slaps his hands in front of his face and groans. 

“I thought it would be fun,” he whines. 

It was fun, at first. Steve’s dumb, surprised face when he entered the bedroom to find Eddie clad in nothing but the ribbon adorning his cock in a snug little bow. The way Steve’s pupils blew wide and fuzzy, the punched-out little growl as he crashed their lips together. The way he all but threw Eddie down onto the bed, smothering him with his own body, cock already hard and straining against the confines of his jeans. 

It was fun, and fantastic, and so, so, very hot. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Because, see, Eddie is a moron. A moron who didn’t account for the fact that the male sexual organ tends to swell when aroused, turning a ribbon that sat nice and snug two minutes ago into a hellish torture device - shiny satin clenching like a vice around his sensitive base. He can feel his heartbeat throb in his tip. He thinks there’s some pubes caught under the knot. Jesus. 

When he peers out from between his fingers, Steve is still looking at him with that exasperated expression. 

“Okay,” Eddie relents. “I admit it wasn’t my best plan. Now … Any ideas on how to get us out of this mess?” 

“Us?” The corners of Steve’s mouth twitch. “I’m not the one who’s strangulating their own dick, dude.” 

Eddie groans. “Stevie, please! I’m scared it’ll fall off if we wait any longer, I’m not even kidding. You don’t want my dick to fall off, do you?” 

Steve actually has the decency to look mildly panicked. 

“No! No, of course not. I just dunno what to-”

He trails off and pinches his nose, lips moving in silent thought. Then, he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like fuck this and jumps off the bed. Eddie gawks at him as he starts rummaging through his clothes. 

“What are you-” he starts to say, but then the light catches on the item Steve has just pulled from his pocket, and the words wheeze to a stop. 

Steve flicks open his pocket knife, kneeling back on the bed. His face is stony with determination. 

“It's no use,” he says. “I'm gonna cut it off.” 

“The fuck?” Eddie squawks, skittering backwards on his ass until the headboard stops him. “You're not cutting off my dick!” 

Steve stares at him. 

Eddie stares back. 

“Oooh,” he breathes. “You mean the bow.” 

Steve huffs a laugh. “No shit, genius,” he teases, but his voice is fond. “Why would I cut off your dick? I still need it. Now stop squirming.” 

It's weirdly thrilling, the cold bite of the blade sliding between his skin and the ribbon. Eddie swallows past the bundle of nerves in his throat and forces himself to stay very still. 

There's a tug, and a sharp flash of pain as the ribbon pulls taut, and then- 

“Gotcha,” Steve cheers, dangling the ribbon in the air like some kind of prize. 

Eddie sags back into the sheets. “Fuck, finally.” 

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, chucking the bow and the knife aside so that he can bracket Eddie with his arms and lean in for a kiss. “What do we learn from this? No more ribbons.” 

One of his hands slips between them, starting to pump Eddie’s still sensitive cock with gentle pressure. 

“No more ribbons,” Eddie agrees around a moan. “But we may have to talk about the knife again.”

And if Steve’s grip gets a little more harsh at that, his kisses a little more hungry? Well, it looks like they'll have some fun after all.

More celebration ficlets

[rikomoriyama01]

🗣️ (also sorry this got long, turns out i have thoughts) so like riko is one of the weirdest fandom cases i've ever seen. i've been in fandoms where characters who commit actual war crimes and genocide are badass babes or uwu soft bois, and even spoiled mafia brats who commit terrible crimes against the heroes for daddy's attention that get love and redemption. it's so weird to see just how isolated from all that riko is to me.

i do think it's partly how aftg is written, and that's also partly because niel's pov is not at all forgiving of riko, while is entirely forgiving of people like andrew. but i also think it's because of how riko himself is written. he's one of these characters that's better on paper than he is in the book to me. because he's never presented as smart enough to fall into the magnificent bastard trope where everyone applauds how devious his plans are, but he's not outright hammy enough to just be a fun read, he doesn't even get the same stupidly dramatic flare as andrew. and while we're told he's powerful and doing dangerous stuff, he's presented on page, more often than not, as a petulant child that neil is just done with or a guy who likes to torture people who neil is also done with. neil is never actually scared of riko, or even particularly threatened by him, and i think that hurts him and makes his position in the narrative weaker. especially when nora is trying to play him as a villain and a threat in a mafia story rather than a good old fashioned rival in a sports drama. for example, his first impression on the kathy show should live up to the hype of this imposing charismatic villain who broke kevin's hand, but instead loses him temper, forgets all of his media training and lets a nobody like neil goad him into losing control of the interview, and then his payback, things like shoving neil around and seth's death, are basically brushed off because neil doesn't really care that much. it's not given the weight to be a seriously omg this guys a threat first impression. and this isn't uncommon, lots of media hamstrings their villains at the start by making sure we know the main character is too sassy for them and can humiliate them, without thinking about how weak that can make the villain seem. it feels sometimes like nora wanted riko to be this chess master villain or tragic child who's lashing out at the world, without committing to it fully to either, or was just not an experienced enough writer to have known how to write either of those things in the pov of someone who hates riko's guts, which is understandable, writing is hard and that sort of nuance takes practice, especially if you just go by the books and not the extra content, and i do wonder how differently nora would have portrayed riko if she rewrote the main trilogy now with presumably a lot more practice under her belt. in the end riko ends up in this weird grey area to me where i understand why he's not popular, given he has none of the usual obvious traits that fans like to latch onto when redeeming a villainous character, and even the ones that are there are glossed over pretty quickly because of neil's pov, and a lot of his more interesting pieces are on paper not actively presented in the book, and not everyone reads super deep, but i also don't understand the amount of hate. i have literally never seen a character in any other fandom i've been in have this much fandom wide hatred.

See I have nothing to add here because you single handedly dropped the best analysis of Riko's character in the series I had pleasure to read so far and summed up all my feelings about why and what of the fandom. If the goal was to write a character that is impactful yet easy to hate then that goal was achieved but for me it real takes away form the magnitude of feelings Riko could evoke in reader and questions he could provoke in narrative if he was given bit different presentation that woudl still align with the lore we already have.

[all-pacas]

i've randomly been watching some doctor who these past few days and i'm not here to be like a Hater TM but holy shit does the beast below have terrible worldbuilding. like this is actively driving me insane

so all of the UK is a spaceship now. cool. no problems so far. the central conceit of the episode is that instead of a real spaceship with engines and things, the spaceship is a big building built around? on top of? a 'space whale,' which is being enslaved and tortured. the end of the plot has amy freeing the whale from enslavement, but it's really nice and doesn't destroy the UK, just keeps flying them around. this is silly, but ok. like this isn't what's driving me insane. THIS IS:

we're told it's a dystopia. there are robot dummies everywhere surveying everyone. children are killed (?) (fed to the whale) for failing classes, but only if they take elevators? like if they walk home after school they're fine - to the point that one child reminds another - but if they take the elevator they die. actually, all prisoners are fed to the whale.

however, nothing … comes of this. we don't know what the rules are of this society, how people feel about it, anything. the central mystery of the episode is what is flying the ship, not what the hell is wrong with this country. the doctor just kind of takes it for granted this is a corrupt and terrible society and everyone pretends otherwise. IN ITSELF, this is still ok. BUT:

there's a whole side thing about how spaceship UK is still pretending to be a democracy; at any time people can vote to "protest" and if 10% of the population chooses this option……we don't know. it's literally never said, just by implication, they set the whale free and everyone dies. i get that this is supposed to be a metaphor about complacency, but also: we're TOLD this is a terrible society where people are routinely imprisoned and fed to a whale. is "lol it's their own fault for being complacent" the message?

IT GETS WORSE! the doctor then meets the queen. the show gets DEEPLY pro monarchy. she's a Hero! she's Fighting to Uncover the Truth! she doesn't know about the whale either, but she's still in charge of … this police state? this thing that is called a police state? even if she doesn't know about the whale, she knows kids get executed for failing tests!! yet she's presented as really cool and kickass. she has a cape! everyone loves her! why?? she meets a random child who has been critical of the rules and just lost her friend to the whale, and… the child is pleased to see her. the super cool leader of a police state OKAY.

the doctor and amy meet the people in charge of torturing and enslaving the whale. the doctor is forced into a moral choice: he doesn't want to free the whale and kill the entire UK, but he also doesn't want the whale to keep being tortured. he chooses to render it brain dead instead. he, and the episode, make clear this is a terrible option and that there isn't a great one. this is okay. what isn't okay: the guys torturing the whale are chummy. they're polite. they like the queen, they shrug the child murder off as "surprise! the whale doesn't actually eat the children!" (it eats the adults tho!). at no point is "btw, this is a police state with tons of murder and surveillance" addressed. the doctor does not express distaste for any of these institutions. no one turns to the Cool Queen and goes "yeah, but you're okay with the murdering of prisoners and police state stuff."

amy realizes the whale is actually super nice and WANTS to pilot the UK around (and eat people sometimes… look i get it, it's a carnivore, that's fine, just raises questions for the future). she turns off the torture devices and the whale starts flying around even faster and happier, no one dies!

the doctor and amy leave, the police state still entirely intact, the Cool Queen later showing up in another episode to be cool and fun. theoretically she abdicates at the end of this episode but no, doesn't happen. (which… is fine, this isn't a cinema sins episode, keep the throne who cares, but nice to see that literally nothing changed in this society). it's still a police state that surveys and kills people and children who fail tests! they just don't have to torture a whale to do it!

this is a heartwarming and touching happy ending, amy and the doctor hug over successfully saving a whale as children continue to get murdered for being bad at math

(okay yes the whale doesn't eat them, they don't actually die. but they're shown just hanging out?? so they don't go home either?? and everyone THINKS they're dead soooooo uhhhhhh)

i kind of hate this episode i think

also MINOR QUIBBLE a bit thing in the episode is that the spaceship doesn't have engines running and there are no vibrations or machine sounds. but it's a spaceship the size of a country? they must have like. air engines? also you don't need to constantly run engines in space ANYWAY? you just kind of keep going? you only need short bursts to change direction or something, there wouldn't be constant engine rumbles ANYWAY. but this is something sci fi gets wrong constantly so whatever

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Book of the Damned: Part One

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2k

Warnings: canon angst and violence, extra angst

Summary: Charlie found the Book of the Damned which has the spell to undo the curse of the Mark. You've made yourself clear but they're not listening to you. What better way to show Dean how serious you are than to hit him where it hurts: Your kids, Sam, and Charlie.

Season Ten Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. I love seeing any and all comments <3

x

You walk in from the kitchen to the library when you stop short just before you're seen. Sam and Dean are talking inside with Cas on speakerphone. Do they know you're here? Do they care? They walk on eggshells whenever you're around so it's refreshing to hear what they talk about when you're not around.

"Can I just kill him now?" Cas groans.

"You know I can hear you, right?" Metatron says from the seat next to him.

So, he's got Metatron, huh? Interesting.

"No, we need him alive for now. Look, after he gives you your Grace back, you can do whatever you want with him," Sam answers.

You'd love nothing more than to drive an angel blade through his pathetic little heart.

"He's human now. How do you kill one slowly and torturously?"

Or maybe just a regular blade will work. A human Metatron brings a smirk to your face.

"I am like two feet from you."

"Anything on the Mark of Cain?" Cas asks, ignoring his human passenger.

The smirk on your face disappears when you hear Cas' words. They're still looking for it. Dean lied to you. You have two options: One, you can go inside and confront them, causing you to either hurt them badly or kill them. Two, you can wait to see what they're up to and figure out how you can benefit from it only to kill them afterwards. You like that plan. You stay hidden and listen in on their conversation.

"No. I mean, I've been digging for something, for anything, but I don't know Cas."

"There is an answer out there. We will find a cure for Dean and Y/N."

Unlikely. Even if they do find it, you'll destroy it in front of them so that they can see all their hard work is gone only to realize you'll be stuck like this forever. Now only if you knew where your soul was, you'd destroy that, too.

"I don't know why you'd want to cure those little firecrackers now. They're finally interest--" Cas punches Metatron in the face based on the sound the human makes. "Ooh!"

"Keep digging," Cas says to the brothers.

Cas hangs up the phone and you're about to go inside when you hear them continue the conversation.

"I have been checking through everything again, double-checking, triple-checking, and--"

"The Mark is a curse," Dean cuts his brother off.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sam scoffs.

"No, I mean it's an actual curse. Listen, I forgot to mention something about our run-in with Crowley and his mother. Rowena told Crowley that the Mark is a curse. We've dealt with curses. The cure is out there somewhere. Y/N is getting suspicious, okay? You have to work harder. I know it's not fair to ask that of you but she's close to finding out we're still looking for it."

You weren't but it's nice to know that he has that fear in him whenever you walk into a room. If they succeed and take this gift off you, you'll be left with no soul. Your body will crave the power it once had. Will you still have magic if it's removed? You don't think so. The Mark gave you magic to help feed it. Without the Mark, you won't have magic. Scarlet Witch magic is much different than Sapphire Witch magic. Both are powerful but chaos magic is so much more deadly and unpredictable. You love that. You won't part with it.

Sam's phone rings and Dean decides to answer it since Sam is still looking through books.

"Winchester Accounting. How may I help you?" His tone goes serious. "Charlie? What's going on? Where are you?"

"I'm exhausted and I'm bleeding. I'm in a phone booth. A phone booth. I didn't know these things existed outside of Bill and Ted's."

"Okay. Hey, take a deep breath, kiddo. We're both sitting here. Tell me what happened. Why are you bleeding? "

"Is Y/N around?" she pants.

"No."

Are they really that stupid that they won't check where you are? You guess they are.

"I got shot. Did you know dental floss works great on stitches? I only passed out twice, and I'm pretty sure my wound is now minty fresh."

"Charlie, you probably need to go to a hospital," Sam says.

"No, no, I'm fine. I just have to get someplace safe. These guys are still after me."

"What guys? Who?"

"Some southern fried d-bags. They've been after me since I dug up 'The Book of the Damned'."

Book of the Damned? Now this is where things get interesting. Maybe you don't kill anyone yet. Maybe you hold off until you know more about this book. Something like that must mean more power for you and the Mark.

"You found it? Where?"

"After some near misses and some broken into museums, I found historical documents that led to a monastery in Spain. It burned down years ago, left for dead, but I had this hunch about it. Turned out I was right."

"What does it say about the Mark?"

"I have no fracking idea. The language it's written in... I've never seen anything like it. I found some research notes in the monastery crypt, though, by the Friar who buried it. 'The Book of the Damned' is a spell book for creating or undoing any kind of damnation there is. If we translate this thing, I think we can get the Mark of Cain off you and Y/N, Dean."

No, they won't but it will be fun to let them think they will.

"Charlie, you're a genius," Dean smiles.

"A genius fugitive. These dudes following me are well-trained. One of them keeps talking about his family."

"Family? Did you get a name?"

"No clue. I spotted a tattoo on one of them. Might be a family crest. It seemed occultly. As soon as the book was out of the ground, they were all over me. I don't know how much more running I got left in me. They're tracking the book somehow."

"Alright, then we need to get you off the grid, Charlie. Where are you right now?" Sam asks.

"Just south of Des Moines."

"Okay, our friend Bobby, has a whole bunch of cabins scattered all around, places for hunters to crash. It's not much but there's some gear, lore books, and stuff to keep you busy til we get there."

"Okay, bring snacks and every Men of Letters decoder ring there is. This book is old and scary, and I've never seen anything like it."

Old and scary, huh? You bet you're scarier. The thought of it being so dangerous is enough to return the smirk to your face. Okay, you have to think about what you're going to do here. If you walk into the room right now and declare you're going with them, they're going to know you want the book destroyed. You have to come up with some reason they'll believe that will give you an in. Once you do that, you'll destroy the book and their hopes of ever finding a cure.

Once you do that, you're going to hunt down your children and take them away from Dean. His time has expired. It's time for you to make good on your threats.

"So, road trip?" you ask when you step foot into the library. The look on Sam and Dean's faces almost has you laughing. They look so scared. You can't wait to see their faces when they've realized they lost. "Yes, I know you found the book. If you're going to put someone on speakerphone, do it when you know I'm not around."

Dean opens his mouth but can't seem to form any words. He's so scared you're going to go after his kids now. You love having this power over them. You have to give them a reason to believe you're good now, that you want to change otherwise you won't get very far.

"Don't worry, I've done a lot of soul searching." You laugh at your joke. "Life without the Mark wouldn't be so bad."

"What?" Sam asks.

"I want my old life back."

"You do?" Dean asks when he's found his voice.

"Look, I'm tired of you two hunting me, beating me down, and all over my ass. The sooner I get the Mark off me, the sooner I can find my soul. I'll be back to normal. You know, all gushy and full of emotions." Sam and Dean look at each other but they're still not sure if it's a good idea to bring you along. "If you don't take me with you, I'll just follow you anyway."

"Fine. Get in the car."

"Gladly."

You turn and leave the library. Step one is done. Now all you have to do is play the part like a good little girl. Sam and Dean look at each other once you're gone.

"Shit, she knows we're still looking for it," Dean panics. "Is this another one of her tricks?"

"We'd be idiots if we think it's not. Look, if she's with us, she's not with your kids. We just keep her busy until we figure out what game she's playing."

"I hate this," Dean sighs.

"I know. Me too."

"Come on, Charlie needs us."

Sam and Dean pack what they need including a metal box that is lead-lined and warded. If they are going to be messing around with the Book of the Damned, they'll need something to protect it with. Plus, Sam thinks it'll be enough to get it off the radar. Once you're on the road, you're spread out in the backseat with your legs stretched over the entire bench while Sam and Dean are in the front. They're scared to talk about anything with you in the car which gives you joy.

They make it so easy.

"So, are you really on board with the cure for the Mark?" Dean asks wearily.

"What, you don't want your wife back?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Then take me to that book," you cut him off.

You put in your headphones to make it look like you're not listening to them to give them a false sense of security. Just like you suspected, they immediately start yapping when they think you can't hear them.

"How are you doing?" Sam asks.

"Actually good. You heard Charlie. We got a shot at fixing this thing. We can get Y/N back."

"Yeah, if by 'shot' you mean a spell in a book that we can't read that's currently being tracked--"

"We're due for a win, okay? Overdue. I'll tell you another thing, if this actually does work, we're gonna take some time off. "

"What, like a vacation?"

"Yeah, and I'm not talking just like a weekend in Vegas or sitting in some shit motel watching pay-per-porn. No, I'm talking about a beach. Drinking Mai Tais, going for a swim, and mingling with the local wildlife. When was the last time either one of us was on a beach?"

"Never."

"Think about the sand between our toes, Sammy. Sand between our toes."

You open your music app and play one of your songs. They have hope which is what you want them to have before you burn it up and take it away. By the time you get to Charlie, it's already the next day. She is sleeping at one of the tables. Poor thing has been up all night reading notes. You look around the place and feel the book here. It's calling out to you. It wants you to have it.

You're going to get it and then destroy it so no one can use it ever again. You know, after you learn all of its secrets.

"Charlie?" Dean asks and puts a hand on her shoulder. She gasps awake and bolts up with a sticky note on her face. "Hey, it's just us."

She barely registers that you're there. She winces when she stands up. Right. She was shot.

"Were you followed?"

"No."

"How are you feeling?"

"I may have just passed out, but better." She sees you by the door and trails off fearfully. "What is she doing here?"

Dean turns to you, ignoring Charlie.

"You're on our side? Prove it. Heal her."

In order to keep up this facade, you have to do what they say. You push off the wall and walk over to Charlie. She backs up slightly for fear of what you might to do her.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. I've turned over a new leaf."

You touch her shoulder and allow your magic to sink into her skin. Seconds later, her wound is healed. She grins and moves to get feeling back into her body.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

Please, don't.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[box-architecture]

I was rereading some of your stuff on Ao3, and went “huh. I know Sapnap kidnaps Dream out of a misguided idea of what’s happening at one point, but how does that all go? How did Dream react? What was Sapnap like?”

So now I’m asking you. At 12:20 am. I have class in 7.5 hours!

Okay so we're going to ignore how long this has been sitting in my drafts, half answered. Okay? Okay. Awesome

-

So at some point during the Discovery Of Many Kinks (because when you're having a weird poly relationship with your former Warden, you're going to try a bunch of different things. For Science) awesamdrunz attempt to do a sex tape. It gets left around and found within like three days. By Sapnap.

So of course because of burning curiosity he has to watch the mysterious tape to see whats on it.

Then the only reason he kept watching was shock and also trying to figure out who the hell the third person was, why they looked familiar but also what the hell happened to them. Fun ways to find out your former best friend wasn't lying when he said he was horrifically tortured by your kind-of finance: finding his sex tape.

And listen, originally it was a fun crack idea to have him see this relationship nonsense where awesamdrunz was basically fucking in sex dungeons (made by Sam) after kidnappings, and decided that this was actually a really good template to fix his own relationship. He ends up trapping Quackity and Karl in what might be a previously unused sex dungeon!

(Resounding success: both of his boyfriends did not murder each other (due to bars in between them) and even spoke to each other in order to escape. This is the most progress he's had in months.)

But then! Alternate Idea! Sapnap sees the sex tape and (honestly not unfairly given his prior knowledge) believes Punz & Sam are at minimum, pressuring Dream into this relationship, and somehow this is a worse crime than murder. No wonder Dream couldn't stay in the prison! (Which. Not inaccurate.) So Sapnap sets about needing to find and protect Dream.

Sapnap finds Dream, and tries to convince him that he'll protect him. Dream is confused about what Sapnap saw, and has a tough time refuting anything. He also does really miss his friend. So he,,, doesn't really fight when Sapnap takes him to a secondary location.

-

"The windows are nice. Not as defensible, but you'll know if the enemy approaches." Dream commented, staring at the cloud-covered sea.

Sapnap laughed nervously, pulling open kitchen cupboards. "Yeah, I don't know. There shouldn't be any way for someone to find us out here though; its not like I told anyone where we were going."

Dream pursed his lips, but said nothing, eyes following the way the waves crashed against the shitty boardwalk Sapnap cobbled together half asleep. He figured Dream wouldn't want to be cooped up in the cottage all the time, not after… everything, so they could go sit out on the beach and fish, maybe, or go look for seashells. They hadn't built a sandcastle since they were kids, either, so it would definitely be something fun to try. Just like old times.

The wheat was crumbling in his hands, so Sapnap quickly tossed it on the counter.

"Are you hungry?" He called out, trying for a bit more cheer. Dream's gaze pulled to his, and Sapnap began pulling more ingredients out on the granite. "I know I'm not usually the person who cooks, but I've been getting into it lately! I made rabbit stew for Karl the other day, and he didn't even make a face when he was chewing."

He didn't really think about the potatoes as he dumped them into the sink, but he did notice the way Dream flinched, drawing in on himself and towards the doorway.

"Dream?"

"Just…" Dream looked back out into the sea. His fingers, what remained of them, dug into the fabric of his pants. "Nothing with potatoes. Please."

Sapnap felt his anxiety roll like the tide.

"Yeah, dude, that's cool. Doesn't sound appealing right now anyway." He said uncertainly. Dream's shoulders relaxed marginally, but Sapnap still felt off. "Anything you're in the mood for, though? Beet soup? Cheese sandwich?"

"Whatever you cook is fine." Dream reassured him. A brittle, but teasing edge appeared in his smile. "Unless you somehow got worse at baking bread."

He had, but god forbid would he ever admit to that. He grinned, and sat up on the counter. "Oh, like you're so good at it. I tried your stupid 'Everything' bread, and it tasted like ash."

"You turned off the timer and it burned."

"Well maybe next time don't leave random timers on the oven and expect anyone to know what they're for."

"Maybe next time you should assume its there for a reason and not touch it." Dream said in exasperation. Sapnap stuck his tongue out, and Dream threw his hands up, exiting the kitchen. He was so dramatic, Sapnap thought fondly.

-

Its a lot of Sapnap attempting to reestablish their previous connection and realizing how much Dream has changed, and staring at the scars when he thinks Dream isn't looking. He gets Super Protective and promises he wont let anything else happen to him. Dream is instinctively upset (why now, why does it matter now, why do you care, I am Perfectly Fine) but its one of his People and he is So Tired.

Sapnap is sorta kinda keeping Dream with him. It's not exactly against Dream's will, but it's also like, if Dream could walk out the door and come back later without Sapnap freaking out he'd rather do that. But Sapnap is freaking out, and seems to believe that there is a credible threat against Dream if he leaves. Given Sapnap's previous relationship with Quackity, Dream is willing to believe he might know something and that alone makes him anxious enough that he wants to stay.

Sapnap gets more horrified the longer he's with Dream (Dream flinches under his touches, his fingers are gone, Dream makes a snide comment about Quackity when Sapnap asks about the scars,) and this only convinces him more that clearly he needs to be protecting Dream. Sapnap expresses a lot of fury towards Sam, and Dream doesn't have any good arguments against it. There's a lot of stuff that he just sorta, decided to ignore, and now that coming back up is messing with him.

They get into a brief yelling match when Dream gets tired of what he presumes is pity and fake behavior, and it ends with Sapnap holding Dream to keep him from leaving or collapsing.

(The irony(?) of Dream comforting Sapnap for most of his life only for them to switch places in this moment is not lost on him.)

He gets to snuggle with him under the covers and gets a kiss on the chin (Dream is half asleep, and thinking about how much he missed him.)

Meanwhile, Punz is going to Murder Sapnap.

Punz has no context for why Sapnap took Dream so he is assuming Sapnap is going to attempt to imprison Dream again (after failing to kill him) and while he is 100 percent confident in Dreams abilities he also is aware that Sapnap is one of Dreams People and therefore capable of hurting Dream emotionally. Hurting Dream is Not Allowed.

Sam is having a panic attack because Dream isn't within sight line and isn't with Punz and therefore everything is Wrong and Bad in his world.

When you finally get a confrontation between Sam and Sapnap (because at this point, they don't know that Sapnap knows about Punz, so Sam is going in first), Sapnap responds viciously, tearing into Sam both for the scars on Dream's body, but also stating he knew they were fucking, and there's no way that's even remotely acceptable given the position of power Sam had (he's not wrong. this is a true statement of fact for everything that occurred prior to the prison break. it's just that things got weird after that). Sam has no good rebuttal, and faced with violence from Sap, has to flee. He's left shaken from everything.

Dream: listen he may have enabled my torture and abuse, and starved and isolated me, and accepted sexual favors from me while being in a position of power over me But he's also a very sad wet cat of a man, and I'm a control freak

Punz tries to talk with Sapnap on slightly less,,, angry grounds? On his part. Knowing about the interaction with Sam, he feels better about the fact Dream is probably safe and Sapnap probably has good reason for what he's doing.

To be clear though, Sapnap is furious with Punz. Right out of the gate he reveals he knows Punz was involved. At first, he's assuming that Punz was paid off to help Sam, but Punz decides "fuck it" and reveals at least part of things. He explains he was working with Dream after the prison break, that he felt bad for betraying him, and that they had a relationship. Dream wanted to involve Sam post-prison, Punz was against it, but wanted Dream to be safe.

Sapnap: you're forcing him to do this! Punz: I DON'T EVEN WANT HIM TO BE DOING THIS Sam: >:(

Sapnap needs to take some time to processes that, but he then presses to clarify; Dream and Sam had a relationship while Dream was in prison? Yes.

Sam had a hand in the torture and Dream's condition? Also yes.

After he broke out, despite all of this, Dream still felt like he wanted to return to Sam? Yes.

Sapnap: And you LET him?!

Punz doesn't have a good answer for that, other than Dream is his own person, and Punz can't stop him from doing what he wants with his life. To which Sapnap responds, yes you can motherfucker

It's a very fundamentally rift in their two perspectives. Punz, particularly post-prison, couldn't morally justify restricting Dream or telling him how to life his life or cope. Sapnap, thinks that Dream was not in a position to make a choice like that.

Punz doesn't have a good answer for that, it's the exact thing he's been feeling guilty over. So he ends up leaving, Not for forever. Just to think.

Meanwhile, Dream overheard everything. He now understands what Sapnap is seeing as the "real issue" (or at least, the current threat at hand), and he knows that he's going to make his own choice here.

Dream: I understand that my decisions are problematic but have you ever considered that I've made my choices and will continue to make them, even if you don't agree Sapnap: NO

Dream tells Sapnap gently that he's leaving now. He wants to go back. Sapnap doesn't want him to, he makes fair arguments about how much Dream could be hurt here. Dream understands, but he's also an adult, and he's decided what he wants. He's forgiven his stupid creeper hybrid boyfriend. It might not make sense to, but he has. It's his choice in the end.

Sapnap doesn't like it, there's a long people where he's just holding Dream and in tears. He's apologized a lot. For leaving Dream there. He says it again for good measure. Dream gives him a soft kiss on the forehead and he doesn't say it's okay, but he does say that he loves him. That it will be okay.

Dream has to go now, but he promises to come back, they set a time and they get to just spend time together. Talking about things one at a time.

(Sapnap and Dream see each other a lot now, as he slowly enters Dream's life again. Occupying his space and checking up on him and fretting. They get more kisses, more cuddles in bed. Once a week they come back to their little cottage and grow something that isn't what they used to have, but its still good, and its full of love.)

Later, Dream will be reassuring Punz that he made the best choices he could make, sighing and pulling Sam out of his prison depression hole. Kidnapping once again proves to be a great way to solve problems.

[tsuunara]

,, BSD FANDOM STOP FUCKING MISCHARACTERIZING CHUUYA FOR ONE SECOND CHALLENGE

i need to get this out of my head because i can't do this anymore with ppl who mischaracterize chuuya so much

tw ; opinion and lots of stormbringer and 15 spoilers! i think it's safe to put that here (also sorry for my poor wording of this i'm trying my best here sob sob justice for chuuya!!!)

"chuuya would be a red flag in relationships because he has incredible anger issues and gets violent!"

,, what a bullshit statement LOL i'm (not) sorry for saying this but i really don't think chuuya has any anger issues whatsoever?? NOW JUST HEAR ME OUT FOR A SECOND being short-tempered ≠ having anger issues!!! ,, having anger issues is something you CAN'T control and causes you to say or do things that can cause harm to others. chuuya does NOT have anger issues!!! we relatively don't see chuuya taking his anger out towards ANYONE with NO CONTROL over his actions whatsoever (arahabaki excluded, it's literally a god of destruction)

,, "but he takes it out on dazai!! he fought with him!!"

,, chuuya mentions that it was to SPITE him. when dazai and chuuya are together, i'd say chuuya is more pissed and annoyed because dazai is usually pushing is buttons. he's just a bit short-tempered and loses it a little more easier than others! of course he also does loses his temper a bit whenever he's stressed as well (that one cannibalism arc episode!!! where he said "son of a bitch") but he didn't particularly go KABOOM KABOOM, ifykwim. ,, we can also see him relatively calm and serious with his work in some episodes too!! he's not yapping and exploding all the time, because obviously he's a 22 year old man. throughout these 7 years, chuuya WOULD'VE learned to mature himself and control his emotions ESPECIALLY after going through his trauma.

,, "but chuuya is violent all the time!"

,, "all the time" ? bffr LMAO. okay sure, chuuya is MAFIA EXECUTIVE and that's part of his job. but that doesn't mean he's always killing this and that!! literally in the official wiki it mentions how chuuya isn't "impossible to reason with" when dealing with his enemies!!

,, ALSO FURTHER PROOF THAT CHUUYA ISN'T SOME COLD-BLOODED KILLER WHO KILLS EVERYONE HE SEES!! in stormbringer, we're up to the scene where N literally tells chuuya that he wasn't human and literally TORTURES HIM, verlaine - the man who KILLED off all his friends - gets him to kill N. but guess fucking what? CHUUYA DIDN'T!!! he tried to go for verlaine instead!! and he also sympathized with him because he KNEW where he was coming from as well!!

,, also!! when he was betrayed by the sheep in the 15 arc, dazai gave chuuya the choice of what to do with them when he was ordered to kill both the sheep and the GSS. and chuuya told him not to kill any of the sheep - most likely due to the fact that he actually still sees them as his family (give this man a break wtf) ,, even if we see chuuya angry at times, at most we can justify his anger - i mean who wouldn't go feral if you had to face the man who killed all your friends or the man who literally killed off your original self, tortured you and told you you weren't human? if anything, it's a very human thing if im being honest. (further proof that chuuya is human) ,, now, bringing back to our bullshit statement - why would chuuya need to get angry or violent if he loves his s/o? chuuya may be a red flag and has his flaws but i REALLY don't see the need for him to take any of his anger out on his s/o. he's really not angry 24/7 all the time, nor does he always NEED to use violence even as being part of the mafia - and just so you know, it's confirmed that chuuya would treat women the best out of everyone!!!! so let's just call it a day and go home guys 🤗🤗🤗

tldr; there would be no need for chuuya to get angry or violent if he loves his s/o, being a mafia executive does NOT necessarily mean he is violent all the time as he sympathizes with others, chuuya does NOT have anger issues and just loses his temper a little more easier than others (especially when it comes to dazai), and asagiri literally confirms he respects women.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. have a good day, evening or night ^_^

[sapphic-agent]

A question I'd ask MHA: Is killing people bad? Nezu and everyone at UA was on board with killing Tomura, deciding to turn the school into a "Coffin In The Sky" with people like Kaminari and Momo helping to keep it running. Hawks killed Twice. Endeavor tried to kill AFO and the entire fight after AFO rewound himself was to push him so he'd be rewound out of existence. The vestiges are constantly harping to Izuku about killing Tomura. Their society has a death penalty and their torture prison exists to punish people and be a fate worse than death. Gran Torino's last words to Izuku before he fell into a coma were telling him to kill Tomura. We had Hawks see Toga clones disguised as Twice and his first action was to scream to kill him now. Hawks gave a begrudging press conference after Twice's murder where he showed no upset for what happened, and no one cared. Previously, the government was assassinating people who were against its interests and Izuku's reaction to learning this was to decide he'd be a hero. This somehow convinces the ex-government assassin to put her faith in him. He does not reflect on how the peace of the past was built on a mountain of corpses. He and the heroes then don't have to deal with this at all because Redestro proceeds to kill them, and a new government gets formed off screen. Why's this series send so many mixed messages? If we're just going to kill people, how do they decide when and where? There was a group of guys sent to go free Gigantomachia and Kurogiri, but the heroes could have just killed them both. Thus making the rescue efforts totally worthless. The PLF would have arrived to find corpses. If we're at the point where we plot to assassinate our enemies and convert schools into elaborate death traps, why not do summary executions? Mic was about to kill Kurogiri himself, after he waited in his cell to ambush Spinner. They could have just shot Dabi and Toga. Well, Dabi's a lot harder to kill than Toga, especially with bullets, but he wouldn't exactly expect Shoto to pull a gun on him. Why not just fire guns into the crowds of people outside the hospital? Real talk: if they already created a trap to kill a high ranking PLF member, why not use the hospital as another? That's exactly what it was. They had intel that the location of Kurogiri was leaked, and they didn't move him to another location or evacuate the hospital. And the story acts like the villains are the bad guys for attacking a hospital which they're using as a prison for one of their allies? Why would they keep him here if not to round up all their foes and take them out in one go? Shoji is there to lecture the mutants, but he doesn't pay any attention to why this is even happening in the first place. If they put Kurogiri on a boat and only told the crew of said ship about the mission, the PLF would have never had a chance of finding him. Are they gonna search the entire ocean around Japan?

It's odd. The hero kids designated to save their villains don't reflect on or discuss anything related to killing nor are they pressured to do so. Izuku was going to be on a strike team designed to KILL TOMURA and he didn't have any issues with this. What was he going to do had Toga not dragged him away? Beat Tomura down and go "Actually guys, I want to take him alive." He would have sat through this briefing and had everything discussed with him...and at no point did he say anything. I'm not advocating FOR them to do this, I just think that they should be consistent. If you kill once, there's no reason not to keep doing it. The public has already shown they don't care. The heroes aren't troubled at the idea of taking lives, nor do they hesitate when they feel they must.

Right, so I'm glad you asked this.

The canon explanation is, it's frowned upon to kill but heroes are allowed to if they deem it necessary. This is why Hawks received so much backlash for killing Twice even though it was his legal right to do so. But that explanation is flimsy at best.

A lot of people harp on Batman, but he's right. Or at least, he has the right mindset. There is no singular force on Earth- or even the galaxy- that can stop the Justice League should they ever turn evil or take over. So the minute they stop abiding by their morals, it's up to them to "leash" themselves so to speak. But in some instances, they can't.

Everyone will talk about Injustice, but I always felt like "A Better World" from the Justice League animated series was a better example. Basically in a parallel universe Lex Luthor becomes president and kills Flash (Wally West in this show) which leads to Superman killing him. Him and the rest of the League (they call themselves the Justice Lords) then become authoritarian dictators, squeezing every ounce of freedom out of the world in the name of "justice" and killing whenever they deem it necessary.

What makes the DCAU so great- and what DC fans who've never watched it tend to miss- is that it isn't about whether certain villains deserve to die or not. It's about the League (especially Batman and Superman) holding themselves accountable and to a standard. They hold an insurmountable amount of power and all if they let themselves snap, they're at risk of abusing that power. Their no killing rule is about self-control.

(Wonder Woman (and a few others) is a little different as some versions of her have been shown to be able to kill and not lose herself in the process. But that's not important here)

Horikoshi's never taken any of this into account. His heroes are a bizarre, toxic mix between celebrities and cops who are given too much power and publicity. Giving all heroes the legal right to kill is a horrible decision. Not everyone is All Might or Izuku, mercy and empathy don't come naturally to the majority of heroes. Bakugou is one of the primary examples, he revels in violence and doesn't know how to hold back. He'd kill a petty thief and not even blink twice.

There has to be a measure of control and accountability enforced on the heroes. They can't make arrests, but they can kill whoever they decide needs to be killed? What sense does that make? That's just more incentive for them to kill if they're facing a villain that's difficult to contain.

Honestly, it's an aspect of MHA I have to ignore or it'll drive me insane

[catras-breakup-song]

im crying my fucking balls out i'm just out here scrolling on tiktok at night and baked and suddenly this bitchass motherfucking tiktok of people claiming catradora is abusive using s4 ep3 like LEAVE ME ALONE. I JUST WANT TO WATCH CATRADORA??? these people are making me sob because they're coming to the conclusion that catradora s5/post-canon = toxic and abusive because of this while ignoring the literal steps catra takes to change oh my god i'm going to eat the wall

i feel sooooooo tempted to drop a whole rant about how catra is portrayed as a villain up until the end of s4 where she finally starts becoming better and is on the side of the good guys and these people are failing to differentiate these versions of her/failing to recognize the differences between villain catra and rebellion catra. like hello is growth and change not a thing with you?? is redemption not a real thing??? "ohhh she said ilyiah but she hurt her so much!!" I cant take it anymore. Can you take it anymore?? I cant. how do i permantently block anti catradora tiktoks.

i know exactly how you feel, it stresses me out just as much and i get anxious about the next time i'll have to see anti-catradora content. often i'm not sure how to argue at first and it messes with me mentally to think that they may be right until i reflect on it more and sometimes consult with friends to get their thoughts.

without exaggerating, i've made this media my lifeline. it's what i look forward to when i'm bored or sick or having a hard time emotionally. i've never been so hyperfixated on any show for so long. not to mention, i take attacks on catra's character very personally because of how much i've related to her over the years. it truly feels like when they hate her, they hate me and would believe i'm irredeemably bad (which is unfortunately rather accurate to how people see punitive justice for whomever they dislike). my anger issues do not cope with receiving all this backlash very well. to be fair, i wouldn't end reality over it, but i can't say i blame her (joking... mostly)!

i get it completely and take this vent to heart by seeing myself in your concerns. but here are some things that i always try to remember when i feel overwhelmed:

1. no matter what else catra theoretically/hypothetically could've (not) done throughout the story, whatever was different for better or worse would never change the minds of these critics. they're dead-set on ignoring, out of hatred, the fundamental themes of the show (which is a kids' cartoon) about what traits hurt people need to be given externally in order to make the right choices and what drives their motives to either descend into self-destruction or grow into their full potential for greatness, depending on what their environment tells them. not only that, but fiction has much different standards for what's excusable or can at least be let off the hook easier, since a literal world war with soldiers under the age of 20 does not tend to be relatable to the typical target audience. if SPOP was meant to be portrayed as realistic beyond just the psychological & interactional aspects, maybe we all would be more worried about the stories we're consuming with the messages we're being taught, but that's not nearly the case.

2. if the fact that catra quite literally died and physically suffered at the hands of countless others in her life both before + after was not enough to mean anything, then they don't want rehabilitation ─ they want endless torture for their own entertainment, which honestly makes those hypocrites exactly like her but i'm sure they'd hate to be told so. the point is though, they're not worth listening to because they're approaching these "common sense" takes with bad-faith, and despite how that crowd is rising in numbers by "waking up to the truth", popularity does not equal righteousness. they neither know nor care about what effectively holding someone accountable actually involves as proper accountability is not the end goal regardless of what most of them claim. i may have mentioned before that these people never bring up ideas such as social exile or community service in terms of post-war; they just wish adora, shadow weaver, hordak, and/or prime had thrown her around more. i think that speaks for itself plenty.

3. i know the "media literacy" argument is overused now but they truly lack any amount and fail to consider let alone apply it to their conclusions, and will remember every single time she made life harder for others but conveniently never when she showed empathy and tried to protect them. although they're entitled to their opinions (i.e. "i just can't move past everything catra has done and believe she still had a long way to go before potentially earning a romantic relationship with adora but even then i still wouldn't support it"), the problem with it is that they force that bias into their analysis that they paint as an objective truth and end up willfully misunderstanding how the characters were written (i.e. "catra was always an inherently evil abuser who never once looked out for adora and therefore cannot believably improve, & adora was a pushover who was forced/pressured to forgive catra which ruined her own arc by sidelining/backtracking it").

i know that got rather long, but i hope it made you more confident & assured! if you ever want to write that rant, i'd love to be directed to it in the future (or you can always return to my inbox, but no one would know who the author is unless you come off anon)!

on a final note, i wish i could tell you how to avoid coming across catradora hate on tiktok but if there's a direct way then i don't know it. i can tell you to block the creators as you see them and not engage at all (even if it's negatively), or else the algorithm will get the opposite information and think you want more. that being said, it's quite easy to do on tumblr if you aren't already aware, you just have to filter out these recommended tags. also, everyone else is free to add onto any part of this post!

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 827: Shellac 1000 Hurts

This is a long and tough one, so I'll spare your timeline and force you to make the jump.

On February 21, 2001, one of my husband's closest friends was murdered by a man named Michael Gargiulo. She was stabbed 47 times.

Not surprisingly, my husband does not share my appreciation for slasher movies. I still feel like an asshole for dragging him to a midnight screening of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on my birthday years ago. I was an idiot for not realizing that someone who lost a loved one in a brutal act of violence wouldn't find a film recreating that kind of violence entertaining.

"I don't enjoy the sound of people begging for their lives," he told me after the movie. I can't blame him. Even music with "tortured" vocals tends to get an immediate "can we listen to something else?" from him.

Transgressive art is a weird thing. People will always be drawn towards art that's shocking, forbidden, or taboo, but I also assume most people have a line they don't want crossed. I love Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I hate Cannibal Holocaust. As far as music goes, I have a much easier time ignoring the cartoonish violence of death metal than I have sitting though music laden with brazen sexism or homophobia in the lyrical department.

Content aside, art gets even trickier when the artist's life comes under scrutiny. Again, I assume most people have a line they won't cross. You might not have an issue listening to Michael Jackson, but you would probably have a major issue listening to an artist who assaulted a member of your family. Or maybe you do have an issue listening to Michael Jackson. Maybe you also have an issue listening to an artist because of their political alignments. And maybe you have an issue with an artist simply because of something they've said in the past. There's no shortage of music out there, so why give your attention and money to assholes? On the other hand, artists are human beings, which means they've inevitably hurt someone in the course of their lifetime, so if we blacklist every artist who's ever done something hurtful, we're eliminating art from our lives. Everyone has a line, but I think any rational individual understands that the line will vary from person to person.

I've been thinking about transgressive art a lot since the passing of Steve Albini. The public overwhelming seems to mourn his loss, but I've seen a few people weigh in online with some valid criticisms: he was in a band called Rapeman; he said some sketchy things about child pornography in a zine back in the '80s; some of his lyrics reflected racist elements of society without taking a clear stance against them. Albini addressed these incidents later in life, acknowledging that though he was not advocating for the kind of behavior he was portraying in his art, the ambiguity that made his songs feel dangerous could also be construed as promoting or celebrating the subject matter.

By the time Albini got around to forming Shellac, he seemed to have shed the dodgiest parts of his confrontational persona. That said, I know a few people who take issue with Shellac's most popular song: 1000 Hurts album opener "Prayer to God." True to the title, the song is a literal prayer to God asking for the Almighty to kill the singer's cheating lover and her partner. It's essentially a murder ballad without the actual murder. Or maybe it's more in line with The Beatles and Elvis singing "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man," except in Albini's case the majority of his ire is aimed at the male lover. It's a visceral song, and while it might feel cathartic for someone who's been betrayed by their romantic partner, it might feel too harrowing for someone who's actually dealt with a potentially dangerous jilted ex.

I played "Prayer to God" for my husband once. He wasn't a fan. To be fair, I don't think Albini's brand of minimalist tone-scrutinizing math rock was ever gonna be his cup of tea, but the lyrics certainly weren't going to help. Consequently, I reserve 1000 Hurts for times when I have the house to myself.

And ultimately, I would hope that his reaction to Shellac would be the kind of response we'd see in people who take issue with Albini. Simply put, it wasn't my husband's cup of tea, but he didn't try to convince me that I shouldn't enjoy it. Yes, Albini dealt with some ugly and uncomfortable themes, and by his own admission he took some of it too far. But his music was both a reflection and a reaction to the things he saw around him. Just as the slasher films of the '80s were a reaction to the era's conservative bent and puritanical attempts at censorship, so were Albini's songs (particularly with Big Black) a rebuttal of that decade's benign soft-rock FM radio staples, PMRC campaigns, and right-wing fundamentalist attempts to whitewash the media.

Much like those slasher films, Big Black has aged with an unexpected patina. Yes, there is something still "dangerous" about it, but that danger seems less rooted in pushing back at "the establishment" and more like it's picking at the wounds of the most vulnerable and injured parts of our society. Given even a minimal amount of context, I'd think the average person could appreciate its attempts to say "no, this world isn't perfect and we're not going to pretend that it is," even if those attempts are admittedly a little ambiguous and sloppy at times. But that kind of context doesn't arrive as a disclaimer on the album packaging, so its reasonable to understand how someone could find Big Black's unflinching first-person villain profiles to be a little problematic.

Consequently, I completely understand why someone would take issue with Big Black's "Jordan Minnesota" or Shellac's "Prayer to God." On the other hand, I want art to be uncomfortable sometimes, even if that unease is unintentional. There's no shortage of art out there that aimed to be progressive but aged to show the inherent biases of its time. Just consider the contingent of people wanting to change the racist language in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I'd argue that sometimes the shortcomings, biases, and outdated perspectives in an artist's work are as much a statement on the times as the actual subject matter.

Everyone has a line. And for a lot of folks, Albini probably crossed it a few times in the course of his career. For me, listening to Big Black or Rapeman or Shellac is like watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre---I don't need Steve Albini to explain his lyrics anymore than I need Tobe Hopper to explain that we shouldn't cut people up with chainsaws and turn them into human barbecue. But Albini also dealt with minor horrors that impacted a far greater percentage of the population, and that's something he had to reconcile and acknowledge later in life. For me, his charity work, fierce advocacy for marginalized people, and willingness to stand up to bullies in public forums offset any of his early artistic missteps, but I also understand that making art about human suffering is always going to elicit pain from people who have endured those particular trials.

Everyone has a line.

[incogmarley]

@anynomous268 here's the creek angst story you requested!! It's short but I think you'll like it, also I put it here so you didn't have to go to a google doc or anywhere to read it ^^

What if the Breakup Happened Differently?

(for anynomous268)

Another day of school, which means another day going to the principal's office, which means another lecture about being gay and consent…eugh. The thought of it makes my stomach twist into so many knots I'd be surprised it wasn't turned into a pretzel. I sluggishly tossed my backpack into my locker, grabbing my notebook and pencil before shutting it and walking to my first class of the day.

The asian girls were sitting at the staircase, talking in their own foreign languages and drawing me and Tweek again. It was horrendous. I mean, come on, I'm the straightest person in our entire class! Can't they get a fucking clue?! I'd never actually date anyone like Tweek, it's just a setup.

I scoffed and stepped on one of their artworks, smushing the paper beneath my boot discreetly before continuing my walk to class. Once I arrived and settled down in my seat, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Psst, Craig, why're you so pissy today?”

It was Clyde. He always noticed when my mood was anything other than my usual stoic self.

“I'm just tired…three hours of sleep doesn't exactly sound like the start of a great day, does it?” I mumbled back.

“Chill dude, just asking. Not trying to provoke anything..”

He moved back to his desk as Mr. Garrison walked into class, handing us our assignment and walking up to the chalkboard, writing down some equations. I didn't follow anything he said, instead clenching my fist to the sounds of that spaz attack’s twitches and tics. Even the loud talking of Cartman, bragging to his friends about the newest console his mom bought him, couldn't even compare to that annoying blonde losing it in his chair.

I only had to wait for the bell. Once that bell rang, me and Tweek could begin our fake breakup.

But I suddenly didn't feel like going with the script we planned.

It felt like an agonizing, torturous wait until the bell finally blasted through the school's intercom system, students piling out of classrooms to get to their lockers. Me and Tweek made our move to the entrance of the building, where the asian girls were, still chatting and drawing. It made me sick.

I sighed.

“Hey Tweek, wait up!”

The blonde turned his head, looking back at me with those paranoid yet almost gentle eyes, preparing himself for our staged breakup. To finally end this…this yaoi tirade once and for all.

The look in his eyes almost hurt me to go off our planned process, but I had so much to say.

“Listen…this, us? This isn't going to work.”

“What? Why no-”

“You and me?” I interrupted, “never should have happened. I can't even stand you! Those stupid tics of yours, the way you pull your hair, the fact you can't button your shirts up correctly…I can't take it!”

His skin seemed to turn pale at my rant, his mouth opening to try and say something, but the words never escaped his throat.

I continued, “I only got with you because I felt bad, because these people,” I pointed to the girls sitting on the staircase, shock all over their features, “kept making that stupid yaoi of us! That presentation Wendy made? The art? The way your parents loved the idea of us being gay? It made me feel bad. Truly, it did.

But I won't spend another second with you because I don't love you.”

Silence.

Silence was the only sound that filled the area for a long time. And, if I'm being honest, it hurts more than any words could. My chest tightened. Why was I feeling guilty? This is for the better. For both of us. I just told him how it is; we're not gay and do not love each other.

Then why, and why now of all times, did I want to hold him, to hold Tweek and tell him I didn't mean it? That I didn't want to see him cry?

“...what..?”

That was all he could say, before tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. I kept my stoic facade as the blonde ran out of the school, watching Wendy say his name once to no avail. She gave me a nasty look, and I flipped her the bird.

“I'm telling him how it is. What position are you in to choose my sexuality, huh?” I uttered.

That got everyone's agitated looks to disappear really fast. I put my hands in my hoodie pocket, walking away, but not without muttering a final,

“We would've never worked anyways.”