#which is fucking naive of me but goddamn it's so depressing

[swagyna]

i think the worst part abt usamerican capitalism is that it's dictating and dominating other cultures.

what currently sells right now? well, let's just check what us teens are consuming en masse and then cater to them, because their parents have money! because the world is run by wallets, we can't take the chance to create media that isn't at least a bit marketable to the us!

[viv-hollande]

Ok, so this is a post that I should have made sooner. I've been somewhat out of the loop with regards to current events and the state of discourse on this website courtesy of a pretty serious depressive episode from which I am only just now recovering. As I have emerged from this state I have been pushed towards a conclusion about this website and the state of discussion around the ongoing Israel-Gaza War that I had thus far avoided due in part to my barely possessing the energy to keep myself alive and due in part to my denial that the conclusion could be true. But that denial can no longer hold.

It has become openly apparent that the pro-Palestinian camp on this website has become popularly infused with a degree of blatant, aggressive antisemitism that I, in my naivety thought impossible in the days just after October 7. I am trying to avoid turning this into a mea culpa because that would be unproductive and feel self-serving, but I do feel an obligation to admit that I disregarded prescient warnings from Jewish users whose warnings I dismissed as over-blowing a problem that I felt was real, but more limited in scope than they made out.

I'm neither an idiot nor am I ignorant. I am well aware of the long history of antisemitism in leftist politics and in the Palestinian Liberation movement. Back at the beginning of this crisis I was prepared to see the occasional instance of antisemites using the inevitable, overwhelming Israeli retaliation as an excuse to air their hateful politics. I was prepared to see both the well-meaning but ignorant and the malicious alike sharing tweets from antisemitic pro-Palestine accounts, spreading and normalizing low-grade, subtle antisemitism. Make no mistake, this should have been condemned. Antisemitism, like all bigotries, has no 'safe' level. There is no background level of antisemitism that society should just accept as normal. But I was more focused on the inevitable cacophony of suffering that Israel would almost certainly begin meting out, and so I failed to act.

The fatal blow to my denial was the increasing prevalence of the use of quotation marks around the word "Israel" and "Israeli". The first few times I saw this, I didn't really understand what it meant. Still laboring under the belief that antisemitism was a manageable problem on the left, I was certain that most of the users on this site, well-intentioned, goodhearted, critically thinking people that they were, would have recognized and called out even disguised antisemitism before it took over a good 20-40% of all posts about the conflict. I was a damn naive fool. For those, like past me, who have not cottoned on to the meaning of the quotation marks, they have become a way to express the denial of the legitimacy or even existence of, individually or all together, the State of Israel, the Israeli people, or the right of either Jews or Israelis to identify as Israelis.

CONGRATULATIONS TUMBLR! You have successfully revived from depths of 4chan neo-Nazi boards the (((fucking echoes))).

Are you serious? Are you fuckers for real? This, right here, encapsulates the pitch-black absurdity of this whole situation and why I remained in denial for so long. Never, in a million years, would I imagine that the proudly pro-Social Justice, anti-fascist, 100% Certified SAFE-SPACE(tm) website would end up using the same language as the goddamn Nazis on 4chan. I thought this website was smarter than that. But noooo, it turns out that I was a damn naive fool.

This was where the post was originally going to end. I say my piece, hope to change a few minds, and commit myself to actually fighting antisemitism instead of sitting back and dismissing the problem. But I figure, while I'm here and while I still have the driving forces of anger and guilt pushing me along, I may as well put pen to paper and spew forth my other thoughts on the ongoing crisis. I am thus compiling a much longer post detailing my thoughts on some aspects of the current situation. [EDITED ~1:25 AM GMT, 5 Dec 2023: add link to finished post] That post will definitely be long, probably be angry, possibly wrong on some aspect of fact, and will absolutely be pretentious, preachy, self-righteous and hubristic to a positively Hellenistic degree. Brief, non-comprehensive summary so you can decide whether or not get mad at me ahead of time;

Israel does apartheid, or near enough for government work.

Israel is definitely conducting a campaign of forced displacement, possibly amounting to ethnic cleansing, but I remain unconvinced of the claim of genocide.

Hamas may or may not be a anti-colonialist revolutionary group, but it definitely is an antisemitic terrorist organization with genocidal aspirations and actively supporting them is morally indefensible. Yes, this includes the Al-Qassam Brigades.

Anti-colonial and other revolutionary movements do in fact have fundamental moral obligations and suffering oppression does not give you carte blanche to do terrorism, even when an oppressor attempts to render peaceful opposition impossible. There is a middle ground between peaceful marching and 850+ dead civilians; aim for that.

The left is just as prone to unhinged conspiracism as the right.

Verify your sources, for fuck's sake.

Use nuance. It won't kill you.

There's more, but it's a little difficult to summarize an unfinished post. If you want to argue with any of these points, go ahead, just keep in mind that a longer, more comprehensive post is in the works that might have the answer to your argument/complaint/insult/intellectual disagreement. If that post isn't up by midnight GMT on Friday, assume I forgot about it and argue away. In conclusion, antisemitism is bad, apartheid is also bad, Tumblr is a hellsite (derogatory), "From the river to the sea" is, in fact, antisemitic, seriously, stop saying it, take Jews seriously when they warn you about antisemitism instead of writing them off like a damn naive fool, and last but not least, free Palestine.

[dichromaticdyke]

hey another thing since my brain is broken and i have an MA in literature i'm gonna analyze the lyrics of "aortic desecration" and "SOS."

under the cut this time since last time my brain vomited a bunch of aotd analysis it went on for way too long sorry.

but seriously i wrote a fuckton here over the course of two sleep deprived sessions, so you'll either think i'm a madman or a divine genius.

okay for simplicity, "aortic desecration" lyrics are gna be in red and "SOS" lyrics r gna be in green. i hope tumblr made those colors distinct enough for ppl with colorblindness.

[intro] we're all going to die [x3] eventually [verse 1] toxic waste, acidic paste degradation crushed by a plane, driven insane mutilation cranial glitch dumped in a ditch gangrenous stitch

this is already a lot. nathan's coming at this with the idea that he has to write the most brutal and fucked up song of all time, so he just reminds everyone of their mortality and lists a fuck ton of ways that might happen (many of which do happen during the performance of this song). but even his point of adding eventually after saying how everyone wil die is interesting—it's like that was also tacked on during the performance like, "yeah but not today please haha." not a whole lot to go into here, except the way the first verse ends.

failure has entered your soul

now first of all, some sources have this line as "madness has entered your soul," but i've only ever heard "failure." and i think that makes sense—before this song even started, nathan realized that he wrote the wrong song but it was too late. i think once he got through the majority of the first verse, he went off-script, so to speak, and instead of singing about death, he started singing about realizing his own failure and mistake and how that was about to lead to the apocalypse. this continues into the next verse

[verse 2] how could you be so fucking naive? you fled for refuge and fell to your knees you spoke the words and brandished your heart you left yourself open to be torn apart, torn apart

hi brendon small i would like some recompense. he's speaking exactly to himself, how he was so naive to think that a song of salvation would be a song of death, how he was running from everyone and tried to do this all on his own. he sang about death because that was what he believed was the only thing he knew how to do, he refused to actually do some introspection and figure out what salvation was. and now here he is.

[chorus] aortic desecration how could i be so wrong? disemboweled publicly this is the dying song [bridge] look out bleed [x8] [chorus] [outro] aortic desecration atrial annihilation pulmonic devestation

so this chorus and the outro are fun for me because they're doing that thing that brutal death bands do where they just throw in a bunch of big words that sound scary and fucked up. and they are! aortic desecration essentially refers to a violation of the heart, since the aorta is the main part of the circulatory system and it's been desecrated. nathan broke his own goddamn heart by doing exactly what he feared—causing the apocalypse. he says as much in asking how he could be so wrong? as for being disemboweled publicly, well, here's what my literature MA ass immediately thought of. in sylvia plath's The Bell Jar, she writes about being suicidal and depressed, and one of the ways she considers killing herself is by disemboweling herself in her bathtub. this also reminded me of the way the god character killed himself in the film Begotten. so my initial thought, as gruesome as it is, is that nathan has kinda metaphorically killed himself in front of the whole world by singing the song that he knew was wrong. historically speaking, disemboweling people while still alive was also a form of torture and capital punishment, so that checks out. then he says "this is the dying song," fully recognizing what he's done. the final lyrics of the song once again refer to fucked up shit happening to the heart, with the atria being your heart's upper chambers, and "pulmonary" referring to your lungs, though typically in the sense of bloodflow.

then of course we get him chanting for the world to bleed, but also proclaiming, "look out." now at first i thought this was just kind of an ad lib—it's not uncommon in music to have lyrics like that that are added just to help the flow but don't actually add much to the content of the words. i don't think this is the case especially when comparing this to "SOS," but for now i'll start by just pointing out that "look out" very easily could've doubled in meaning as being a warning to the world. like, this isn't just fun and games any more—actually look out, you're actually going to die.

as for "SOS"...

[verse] last breath skyward dark sign closing line no time to mend this life take this hand this last time

alright this is pretty straightforward. this is their last chance to get it right, if it isn't too late already. but there's also that line of "skyward," which is the first instance in this song of recognizing the doomstar itself. there's no mention of the doomstar at all in "aortic desecration," which is kinda strange if you think about it. not even in the dying song is there an acknowledgement of why the apocalypse might be happening, mainly because the dying song—once nathan realizes what it is anyway—is primarily about hopelessness and fucking up. why even acknowledge the greater power at work when this is nathan's fault (in the context of the song)? but instead nathan acknowledges that the focus has to be on the doomstar, but also on everyone coming together and standing against this force that is greater than all of them. this song immediately establishes the haste in what they're doing, immediately countering the deflection in the dying song. nathan tried making the dying song work by saying, "we're all going to die eventually," but nathan here has the perspective to realize, no. people will die now, are dying now, it might already be too late to fix this, but dammit they're not giving up yet. [chorus] we're the shadows of the infinite we stand alive we're nothing but the soil of time beasts in the night reach with my open hand bound for all time in the shadows of the blazing star fused, we're the light

"shadows of the infinite" is an acknowledgement of their godlike powers, which they've either been completely ignorant to during the majority of the series or just didn't want to admit (think back to "how can i be a hero?" when none of them wanted to step up and do what they had to do). yet despite this acknowledgement of their divinity, their power, they are also recognizing that they are still just people. they can't do anything by themselves, they have to work with other forces. being "nothing but the soil of time" is a reference to being a gear in the wheel of the klok—clock, time, etc., yet also being "beasts in the night" refers to this unhinged power and danger they still hold. "reach with my open hand" is the most obvious line, with the animation in this scene directly reminding us of nathan's conversation with the whale prophet. once again, a reference to the doomstar, and the final line foreshadows nathan using the dethlights alongside both dethklok and the army of the doomstar. these are the people that must work together with this divine power to take out something greater.

it's also worth noting that while the official line seems to be "fused, we're the light," i can ALSO hear it is "fused with the light." so it can be interpreted either as, nathan and the band and the army of the doomstar all coming together to becoming the light/dethlights, or nathan and the band and the army of the doomstar being fused with the light/dethlights. it's not that much of a difference i guess, but a slight different implication of whether or not they themselves are the light or if the light is a separate entity. [bridge] now rise (rise) [x8] movin' out, movin' out [chorus]

this is the part that convinced me to make this a comparison. this is a direct parallel and contrast to the bridge in "aortic desecration," with calls to bleed being replaced with calls to rise. they even chant it the same number of times, guys idk what to tell you. PLUS there's an echo repeat of "rise" throughout this bridge, and while it could very well be a literal echo, who else wants to believe it was all the other members of dethklok singing it? kinda like the "die, die" in the duncan hills jingle? and then the "ad lib" of "look out" is instead replaced with "movin' out." instead of nathan telling everyone to run away, be watchful, be fearful, he's calling on them to come with him and fight with him.

have i talked enough about how brendon small is a fucking genius?

plus based on a few shots from this performance during aotd, i think toki might have been playing lead. which would be super cool, because this would make this the second song that is confirmed to have toki in the lead, the other being "blazing star."

anyway i've fooled you all because now i wanna talk about "blazing star." i know this song has been out for a decade now and has been analyzed a bunch, but i wanna look at it specifically now with the context of the movie.

first off, before i get into the analysis, i'm pretty sure the performance of "blazing star" at the end of the doomstar requiem never happened. i think it was purely non-diegetic, just like half the songs in this whole opera, but it was presented as a proper dethklok song to symbolize the band being reunited and looking towards their next big hurdle of the actual metalocalypse. my main reason for thinking this is that the idea that dethklok saved toki, wrote this song, performed it for the world while announcing, "hey toki's back and he's okay," is DIRECTLY in contrast with the opening scene of aotd where the band makes their first public appearance since saving toki and a standard dethklok performance trigger's nathan's ptsd. i know metalocalypse isn't known for continuity, but they would've mentioned dethklok having a performance post-rescue. and nathan in aotd is so ready to not face his destiny, there's no way he would write and perform a song about exactly that. he's also adamant that he doesn't sing about hope or life, but that's exactly what "blazing star" is about.

enough preamble let's look at that song.

[verse 1, nathan] the glowing clouds, the diamond's birth the spiral cluster descends to earth the nebulas conspire to bring the signifier and the death of a king

already with more context from aotd, i'm obsessed with this. it's setting up the doomstar and the destiny of the doomstar being either the death of salacia or of nathan. i haven't spoken yet about the parallels between nathan and salacia, that's something that's going to take a WHILE to work out, but the long and short of it is, they're powerful beings who can only achieve their full power when being reunited with four other souls/people. GUYS. they are very clearly meant to parallel each other. knowing now that the doomstar is a portal meant to reunite salacia with the "four souls," it's unlikely that this "death of a king" is inherently meant to refer to salacia, because the doomstar would have to be inherently anti-salacia, which it's not. at that, it seems like this "king" is probably meant to be nathan, or all of dethklok, since it's through their deaths that salacia would be reunited and the metalocalypse would happen. it's hard to tell tbh, the doomstar is a neutral figure—all we know is that it can bring death, and it holds power that other figures can harness.

i'm a man with a tortured sight i fear this dream will end tonight the water beasts continue singing we try to wake but we're not dreaming

THIS i find incredibly fascinating. it's no secret at this point that nathan had been dreaming about the whale prophet for who knows how long, and this is very clearly referring to that. the first line of this section even foreshadows nathan being the only one to remember the night they rescued toki. what i find interesting is the contrast between nathan "fear[ing] this dream will end" but also "try[ing] to wake but [isn't] dreaming." these are directly contradictory at first glance—he's scared of this dream ending, but he also wants to wake up? unless these are two completely different dreams.

the first half of aotd, nathan, pickles, skwisgaar, and murderface aren't rescuing toki, aren't even letting themselves think about him. they're only focusing on partying around the world, and they sing a whole song about how they love being useless billionaires and don't want to be heroes OR regular jackoffs. i think that's the first dream—being DETHKLOK, having no problems, doing whatever they want, that's the dream nathan is scared is ending. because after that night of rescuing toki, of harnessing the dethlights, everything has gotten so real. they can't ignore it anymore.

at the same time, realizing that there are greater forces out there trying to destroy the world, trying to use them to destroy the world, everything with the church of the black klok—that must feel like a dream. that's the dream he wants to wake up from.

he wants to stay in his dream of being rich and powerful, but he doesn't want to be stuck in the dream—the nightmare—of the literal apocalypse.

i'm gonna find you i'm running out of time i gotta play this part this is my lot in life with this power i am endowed the end is coming so bring it on now

again, another reason i don't believe this song was diegetic. this is the first moment of clarity he had about the metalocalypse, about how he had to do something about it, whether he wanted it or not. again, in the beginning of aotd, he had no interest in this. i guess it's possible he went back and forth on that (i wouldn't be too surprised), but again, this is a pretty hopeful message, all things considered. he even says "bring it on" to the fucking apocalypse. tell me again about how you don't write songs about hope, nate. i only buy that if he never wrote and performed this song.

[verse 2, pickles] oh the keeper wields his scythe oh you gotta kiss this life goodbye there is another place beyond we'll meet in time and i will greet you all in the next life, yeah

having pickles sing in general is based, but i've never fully understood why he was in this song. like if anything, this song feels like the kind of ballad that would have EACH member of dethklok sing a little bit, so it's strange to have just pickles and nate. it gets less strange with the hindsight of aotd, where their relationship was the primary emotional focus. but let's actually look at what pickles is saying here. it's pretty standard stuff: death is looming, but if worst comes to worst we'll be together in the afterlife.

i wanna fucking throw up (positive). what was that offdensen said to pickles in aotd? "be a true friend, even if it gets messy." pickles's verse is NOTHING but, "hey nate things are getting bad but i'll always be with you." I'M NOT REACHING THAT'S ALL THIS IS.

[chorus, nathan] the blazing star, it burns so bright the darkened power, the dethly light bring it on now, this is our time we're the new regime, together we'll fight

again, standard stuff. doomstar, dethlights, fighting together. all things considered, this could have been the song of salvation. there's not much i can really say other than the fact that since it wasn't, it must not exist in the metalocalypse world, right?

toki had the solo on this song. i don't have to speculate for that, it's made abundantly clear with the animation in the ending sequence of the doomstar requiem. he had the solo because this whole song is about the band coming together to face something greater than them, and they wouldn't have had the power to do that if they didn't have toki with them. it's also them recognizing the worth toki has in the band—at first, it seemed like his worth was just making skwisgaar play better (that was certainly the implication at the end of "the duel"), but it's greater than that.

let's say i'm right—let's say i'm right and toki also had the lead/solo during "SOS." what does that tell you that toki is granted the opportunity ot have the lead SPECIFICALLY DURING SONGS OF HOPE AND CAMARADERIE?? he, much like murderface, is foundational to the band. murderface is the voice of dissent, toki is the voice of hope.

and let's say i'm wrong, and toki only had a solo during the song that doesn't actually exist. that's fine too, because if "blazing star" is meant to be a symbolic, non-diegetic song, then that still proves my point of toki being foundational to the band ("even if you don'ts do nothings") and, more importantly, their divine power.

wow that was a lot if you got to the end pls like comment and subscribe.

[minghaos-pet]

sucker punch (1/?)

eventual smut

group: ateez

member: fighter!jongho

word count: 3k

warnings: violence, language, sexual suggestion, drug use, fear???

“Can you not drive any smoother?” Jongho groaned beside you, clutching his side and wincing each time you drove over a bump or pothole.

“I’m trying my best,” you glared at him for a short while, “it’s not my fault the roads are fucked up.”

“You could at least try to avoid them,” he spat, “I’m fucking dying in your passenger seat.”

“No you’re not,” you clenched your jaw trying to look as steely as possible, but deep down you had to admit you were a little worried he actually was dying in the seat next to you.

“Fuck,” Jongho cursed amidst a sharp exhale as the road beneath you turned from pocked asphalt to straight gravel and sand. The car bounced violently along and your face was practically pressed against the windshield trying to see the road in front of you enough to avoid rocks.

“I need to turn the lights on,” you reached for the knob when his hand shot out in protest, “I can’t see a goddamn thing on the road, Jongho.” All he could do in response was whine, too agonized and exhausted to form words. Regardless of his lack-of-response, you didn’t turn the lights on, knowing that if you did your chances of being stopped by any stray cops would raise tenfold. An injured-Jongho was one thing to deal with, having someone dig through your car in the middle of the night was another. “Are we--”

“Stop the car,” he interrupted and swung the door open as you slammed on the brakes, practically throwing yourself across his lap to prevent him from rolling out of the car as he vomited outside the open door. After a minute or two he righted himself, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and pulled the door closed.

“You good?” You looked at him with (mostly fake) disgust.

“Fuck you,” he smiled weakly as you pressed on the gas, “I think I ruptured my spleen.”

You bit your lip and kept silent, continuing to drive the last couple miles to your destination. A ruptured spleen, or any other medical malady that could bring Jongho practically to his knees hurling onto a dirt road was far from good. You knew the medic you were visiting could fix up some lacerations, a broken rib or two, but something more internally damaging was out of the question as far as you were concerned. “Jongho…” your voice was quiet and riddled with anxiety, you looked over at him, his forehead drenched in sweat, lip split, and bloody knuckled pressed tightly against his right side, “should I take you to a hospital?”

In the darkness you could see his eyes soften as much as they could, “I’m fine, baby,” you could hear the effort he was making to hide the pain in his voice, “I’m just being a bitch, is all.”

You hummed in acknowledgement and refocused on the road, scared that if you tried to speak your voice would crack. Your relationship with Jongho was complicated, and definitely not one that either of you filled with emotions. You found him a year ago when he needed a manager, someone to allocate his earnings and pay-off his debts, patch up any injuries, someone to fuck if the occasion called for it. For 13 months you’d done exactly that, he paid you relatively handsomely (but you always snuck a little extra cash if you could) and it got you out of the depressive post-grad hole you’d been trapped in. It was mutualism at its finest.

When you pulled up to the house the lights outside were off. They were supposed to be on. You parked the car in the driveway and watched Jongho swing the door open and struggle greatly to exit the vehicle, if the circumstances weren’t as pressing you might have laughed at him and thought it was cute. “Do you need help?” You asked.

“No, y/n, I can exit a fucking car on my own,” you watched him struggle for a few more seconds before he turned to you pouting, “...yes, please.”

You sighed and slammed your door behind you, walking around the front of the car to Jongho; “where can I not touch?” 

“Avoid my entire right side if you can, and my shoulder’s a little rough too, but not as bad.” You wrapped your arm around his back and under his shoulder as gently as you could, preparing for his weight as you helped him slide out of the car, “you might have to help me walk too,” he said sheepishly as you did your best to close the door behind you and lock the car.

“Anything for you,” you rolled your eyes and sarcastically smiled at him, hoping he was smiling back in the dark. When you reached the door of the mobile home you knocked quietly, not wanting to wake up any neighborhood dogs. You were about to knock again when the porch light flickered on and the door opened slowly. “You’re late. I thought you died along the way,” the gruff man in front of you said to Jongho, ignoring your presence entirely...not that you were complaining; it was better to be invisible in situations like this.

“Yeah,” Jongho shot you a glance and in the yellow light you could see the blood caked on his cheekbone, “she can’t fucking drive, I guess.” You transferred Jongho to the man in front of you, relieved to let your shoulders and back have a break. The house was small and poorly decorated. A box of medical supplies set on a dining room table next to a glass of water and a picture of an old 1970s grandma. Jongho collapsed into the pulled-out chair and you helped him take off his shirt while the other man washed his hands. “So what’s wrong with you this time? You look like shit.” He asked from the kitchen. “I think I have a broken or bruised rib and maybe a ruptured spleen,” Jongho kicked his shoes off under the table, “but nothing too serious other than that. Might need to pop my shoulder back in though.”

“Can’t do anything for a ruptured spleen,” he responded, “needa go to the hospital for that one or you’ll bleed out internally in a day or so.”

You gulped, feeling the anxiety raise in your body once more. You stood awkwardly in the corner of the room, disappearing nicely into the ugly floral wallpaper. You could have sworn Jongho’s eyes flicked up to you, but you weren’t completely sure.

“Well then,” Jongho placed his hand on the table, “I’m sure there’s no ruptured spleen here.”

“If you get nauseous or pass out you should be worried.”

The doctor--could you call him a doctor?--stitched up Jongho’s face and looked at his side, pushing slightly on the purple flesh as Jongho’s face screwed in pain. Surprisingly, he was quiet though, a glaring contrast to the whiny, annoying mess you drove for an hour and a half through the dark. You wrung your hands, wondering if you should tell the doctor more details about what happened; surely it would allow Jongho to get the care he needed, even if it wasn’t pertaining to his bruised ribs or cut up face. “Um,” you squeaked from the corner and cleared your throat to speak clearly, “he did throw up on the way here...could that be a spleen-thing?”

Jongho looked up at you and gave you a look that told you you should have kept your mouth shut.

“Next time don’t bring your mouthy girl,” the doctor glared at you for an instant, “I don’t like people telling me how to do my job.”

“Not my girl,” Jongho said flatly, “woulda left the bitch at home anyway if I could move without feeling like I was gonna keel over dead.” He looked at you while he said it, his voice monotonous but his eyes apologetic. You crossed your arms over your chest, you knew he didn’t mean it, but it still didn’t feel good to be disrespected like that.

“What’s her name?” The doctor asked Jongho and looked you up and down more thoroughly.

“Don’t--”

“It’s y/n,” you cut him off, receiving the harshest warning look from Jongho. He shook his head slightly, but you didn’t pick up on it. The doctor pushed his chair back and stood up, walking slowly towards you while you sunk further into the wall, Jongho went to move as well, but his condition left him glued to the chair.

“How much?” He asked Jongho, but his focus maintained on you, his eyes sweeping over your face.

“Not for sale.” You could hear the resentment drip from Jongho’s tongue. A twisted part of you wished you could see through the man and watch Jongho get angrier, the way his fists balled up and his jaw set.

“Then get out of my fucking house,” the doctor backed away from you and made his way back to Jongho.

“W-what?” You were confused and a little frightened, even though you knew better.

“Get out of my fucking house,” he repeated, “unless you having something to offer me I’m not in the mood for guests.”

“Just wait outside, y/n,” Jongho said exasperatedly, “I’ll be done soon.”

You gave him one last look before crossing to the door, dragging your feet over the threshold and onto the small porch. Moths fluttered around the porch light and you could hear insects in the trees behind the road, you sighed deeply as you squatted down, your back against the laminate siding of the mobile home. You reached into your coat pocket for your phone before remembering you left it in the car...the locked car. The key to which was on the dining room table of a man who kicked you out of his house to sit outside alone in the cold. “I’ll never hear the end of this,” you said quietly to whatever creatures were listening in the dark. You should have gone in with no questions asked, no words spoken and stood against the wall quiet until everything was done, but why should you have? You weren’t Jongho’s girlfriend, you weren’t some naive teenager, you were his manager. In technical terms, you were the one in charge, not Jongho, not the sleazy, illegitimate doctor. You contented yourself on the porch for the next few minutes, fuming and running over the various ways you would chew Jongho out when you got in the car in just a few minutes; until the light shut off.

You weren’t sure if it was automatic or if the doctor shut it off purposefully, but regardless of the intent or lack-thereof you were in the dark. Sitting on a strange man’s front porch in a backroads neighborhood with no car keys and no phone. “It’s okay,” you whispered to yourself in reassurance, planting your butt on the ground and pulling your knees to your chest, “it’s already been like fifteen minutes,” you wrapped your arms around your knees. Fuck, it was cold. “Jongho’s probably already done and he’s just talking shit with the doctor.” You could see your breath now that it was dark, the grey clouds of condensation hanging in the air momentarily every time you spoke. You hummed to yourself to keep track of time, going through songs you remembered one by one until seven had passed. “Jongho…” you whined quietly in the dark, “it’s been over twenty minutes, just leave already.” Another seven songs, another twenty minutes. Your heart began to race slightly, blood pressure rising as you wondered why you couldn’t hear anyone talking inside while your brain conjured up countless horrible theories that involved one or both of them being dead. Should you stand up and knock on the door? Should you go inside? You wrapped your arms tighter around your knees, knowing that if you went inside and something had happened to Jongho there would be no way for you to defend yourself. If anything, your best bet was to wait outside until morning and find someone to break into the car, or maybe someone from another house nearby would help you. Your breathing slowed a bit, anxiety evening out as you formulated a plan just in case what you feared came to fruition. You sat there like that for another few minutes, running over new plans and courses of action; managing the situation, even though you usually handled other peoples’ affairs. You were mid brain wrack when the porch light clicked back on and you heard footsteps towards the door, and you unfolded yourself from your position and stood up, preparing yourself to run until you heard Jongho’s voice from the other side of the door.

“There you are,” Jongho hobbled out of the doorway smiling, obviously feeling much better than he had before, “I was getting a little lonely in there without you nagging me every 30 seconds.”

“I just gave him some oxy,” the doctor said to you, pushing Jongho out of the door towards you, “there’s more in his coat to take later, he’s gonna need it.”

“Thanks,” you forced yourself to say, not wanting anything to do with the man who kicked you out of his house in the middle of January, “did he pay you already?”

“Don’t give him anymore,” Jongho put his hand on your shoulder, steadying himself on his feet, “the motherfucker already cheated me out of everything I had.”

“The Blues are gonna kick in soon,” the doctor ignored him and backed up back into his house, “get him in the car before you have to drag him.” The door closed behind you and the light shut off once more, affirming your earlier suspicions that he had deliberately left you in the dark.

Jongho shuffled down the steps and through the dark to the car, head lolling onto your shoulder as you neared the passenger side, “keys?” You lifted your arm to get him upright again.

“In my pocket,” he mumbled, “my arms are asleep.” You reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a handful of assorted pills, but no keys. You sighed and shoved your hand into the front pocket of his jeans, and wrapped your hand around your pepperspay keychain. Almost instantly he shot away from you, eyes wide, “damn, y/n, can’t it wait until we’re in the car? Fuck.”

You scoffed, “here I was thinking it was perfectly acceptable to grab your dick in the middle of this bumfuck neighborhood,” you pretended to aim the pepperspray at his face and lightly smacked his butt, “I’ll just settle for this I guess.”

Giggling, Jongho’s hand came down heavily with your lower back, sending you jolting forward, you pulled the door open for him and rubbed your back with the other, knowing it would bruise, “you missed, you fucking asshole,” you muttered and shoved him into the car.

“I can’t help it baby, I’m high as shit right now.” The drive to Jongho’s apartment was peaceful, primarily because he was knocked out the entire hour and a half. By the time you pulled into a parking space you could see the sunrise peeking through the dark; you unbuckled your seatbelt and rested your head on the steering-wheel, glad to finally have a break. You turned your head to face Jongho who was still asleep, his mouth formed into a pout and his head slumped forward to rest on his chest. Regardless of the narcotics he’d taken, you knew he was exhausted. Normally a fight night ended with him walking home from the gym after splitting the money and you driving safe, comfortable, and a little bit richer to your apartment. You reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out the ziplock bag of cash, you loved this--even if it wasn’t all your money--but the thrill of being able to hold a few hundred (or sometimes a few thousand) dollars every few nights was indescribable.

“Jongho,” you poked his cheek, hoping he’d wake up easily, “Jonghoooo,” you poked him harder, not wanting to have to carry him up the stairs of his apartment.

“Mmmmwhat,” he hummed and peeled his eyelids open.

“We’re at your apartment,” you tucked the money into your coat pocket and reached over to unbuckle his seatbelt, “wake up so you can go to sleep in a real bed.”

Jongho groaned once more in protest, but didn’t press the issue any further, even in his altered state. You were not above leaving him to sleep peacefully on the curb outside his apartment building, and he knew that. You had your arm wrapped around his back once more, but it was mainly to make him feel more emotionally secure as you both stumbled tiredly up the stairs; if he legitimately started to fall backwards there was no way you’d be able to catch him--break his fall, maybe, but you’d rather one of you be seriously injured than both of you.

When you reached his door you punched the code and practically pushed him inside, he uttered some sort of complaint about you knowing his lock-code, but you were too exhausted to open your ears to him anymore.

Arms hanging loosely at his side, he beelined straight to his bed, collapsing onto it with nothing more than a slight squeak of discomfort. You sat on his bed next to him, leaning over to take his shoes off, “you can’t get in bed with shoes on, Jongie,” you smiled at the nickname, knowing that if he was in his right mind he would have thrown a fit hearing you call him that, “that’s gross.” After tossing his shoes out of the room and into the hall, you worked on the rest of his clothes; his shirt was soaked with sweat and some blood, and you cringed at the thought that he had so willingly gotten into bed in them. You made a mental note to remind him to wash his sheets in the morning.

“Take yours off too,” he mumbled and grinned to himself while you pulled on the hem of his shirt, “it’s not fair that I get to be the only naked one in this house right now.”

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Okay start us out with those Magicians Opinions!

the first character i ever fell in love with:  LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT QUENTIN COLDWATER.  Okay, but yeah, they really introduced him in a way that worked-worked for me – that whole opening sequence that cuts between Quentin being tense and closed-off and miserable in this hollow, almost angry way in the office of the hospital, and Quentin trying to act normal at a party, making wan jokes while the misery and the anger leaks out of him and makes him just so unpalatable to be around – I mean, Jason Ralph just takes the character by the throat instantly and Goes There.  I remember thinking as I was watching it that this was the first “anxious nerd dude” character I'd ever seen who wasn't being framed as actually funny/weird/charming/vulnerable/the clear audience stand-in, but framed as if he were a real person who's really eaten up by depression and self-loathing, and just as off-putting as that is in real life.  I vividly remember just having that reaction of, “Oh. This is about someone who's really hanging on by his fingernails, not just Hollywood Depressed,” and latching on so hard, because I needed to see that so much, and I needed to root for him to find his reason, not in spite of but because as a character he was resistant to being liked by other people, by the audience. It's not loveable and charming, to hate yourself, to find your life barely tolerable.  It's not a position from which it's easy to see your way forward, and to me Quentin is the most honest expression of that reality that I had ever seen in genre tv.  So like, I get why some people didn't like him in first season – he's intentionally tough to like – but I was ultra-invested from minute one, and literally everything he ever said or did made me love him more.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I think I was kind of intrigued by Fen early on – I liked the idea that she was this naive fairy-tale girl who was going to have this harsh awakening when her Destined Prince turned out to be a real person who couldn't fulfill her fantasies, who was going to have to figure out who she was beyond “going to marry the king someday.”  That seemed like an interesting arc, and here and there they were kind of doing it – I love the realpolitik she occasionally comes out with, particularly that one scene on the boat when she's like, “The dipshits from my hometown are going to execute me because of you, so sticking with you is kind of my only option and that's just happening.”  But then...I don't know, she's really irritating, and they got this weird thing in their heads where her problem is that Eliot sucks, instead of that being The Girl Who Will Marry the King Someday is a sucky role to be forced into making a real life out of, and I just gave up trying to like her eventually.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: I liked Penny/Kady all right, until they started doing the weird thing where “in Doomed Love with Penny” was Kady's only emotional arc, like – they actually had her say that all she ever cared about was being Penny's girlfriend, and that's the kind of thing that kind of retroactively ruins the pairing for me.

my ultimate favorite character™: So after everything I said up top – it's actually Eliot.  That snuck up on me!  And my love for Quentin never went away, not by any means, but.  God, Eliot.

prettiest character: If I try to take an objective stance, I'd say it's probably Margo?  Like, she's just unearthly beautiful.  But there's something about Jason Ralph's goddamn face that – I don't know, it just enthralls me; he does okay-ish at playing Normal-Looking for TV, but also if I look at him for too long it kind of hurts, he's so stupidly gorgeous.

my most hated character: Hyman.  And I thought we were supposed to hate Hyman, but then season 5 allegedly happened, and everyone was like, aw, Hyman's okay!  But – no he's not?  He's obviously not okay? He deeply sucks?  Ugh, season 5.

my OTP: Hi, I'm Milo, and welcome to my Tumblr.  But yeah, it's Quentin/Eliot, canonical soulmates and The Ditch I Will Die In.

my NOTP: You know, they kind of wore me down to the point of “fine, what the fuck ever,” but I still don't support Margo/Josh.  It's bad, it's a bad relationship, it was a bad idea.

favorite episode: I really love Be the Penny, but the actual answer is Escape From the Happy Place.  I feel allegiance to Be the Penny, I have not a negative word to say about it, but Escape from the Happy Place is just a level beyond, it's astonishingly good.

saddest death: This question is a microaggression and I will not stand for it.

favorite season: I'm about to break your brain, but – it's 4!  It's season 4!  I fucking love the first ten episodes of s4!  I love the Monster, I love Bad News Bear, I love Hard Glossy Armor, I love fucking Santa Claus.  I think s4 has this great propulsive energy where the rest of the series has always been plagued by a tendency to kind of throw everything at the wall and see if anything sticks, the stakes are clear, the external villain and the emotional stuff work together for once, everyone's performances are so strong.  The collapse at the end feels so appalling to me in part because I was totally on the ride for most of the season.

least favorite season: I mean, it's season 5, but it didn't have to be.  I was never going to get over Quentin's death, per se, but I think there were ways to structure the next season that would've been workable, and honestly there are things about s5 that I do like.  I watched most of 5 feeling like it was – messy, but messy in the same way that s2 was messy, the same way The Magicians has always been a little messy, and it wasn't until the end when I really just threw up my hands and was like, okay, I get it, there was never a plan, none of this was going anywhere.  God, the last couple of episodes still frustrate me so much, because right up until that point, there was still time to salvage a lot of character work, but nope!

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: So I don't hate her, and in fact I came to kind of like her eventually, but I did actively hate Julia for a long, long time.  Just.  Like, she really – pushes my buttons in a very specific way, and if she were a real person I would absolutely love myself by having as little contact as possible with Julia, but because everyone except me loves her so much, I really kind of forced myself to delve into her and try to see what people liked about her, and I do think it was a pretty successful project.  I would definitely say at this point that I appreciate Julia as a character, and I have a pretty good sense of what Stuff she activates in me that produces that ruffled reaction, which has allowed me to go beyond Julia Sucks Actually to This Character Is Not Really For Me.  I love and support the 98% of fandom who like Julia!  In my way, I love and support Julia!  But kind of like – a sibling you're sort of forced to into a relationship with, that you love even though they drive you crazy and you're not too sure you will really ever like them.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: The Monster.  I mean, it's not that I wanted a redemption arc for him or anything (although @portraitofemmy has always been onto something with the idea that if the Monster is essentially a child, allowing Quentin to save the world by parenting him would've been a pretty clever payoff for long-term arcs), he's just the kind of villain that is just endlessly fun to watch.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: I mean, that's a pretty succinct summary of the entire Eliot Waugh Experience.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: With the caveat that I still don't believe in guilt because these are just imaginary people in imaginary stories, I definitely still think there's a great romantic tragedy right there for the taking with Eliot/Seb.  I wouldn't say the show should have done it, because that would obviously have been just a very different direction than they intended to go, but as a non-canonical ship, I think it's so potentially rich, and someday I'm going to have time to go back to that story I was writing about them, whether or not anyone else ever gives a shit about it.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I never could figure out what people's issue was with Julia/Penny23, they seemed to make each other happy.  He was a sweet, supportive dude, and I like their little Wild Thornberrys Interdimensional Adventurers family at the end, although I wish they'd done it on purpose, because “guess what life-changing thing is happening to Julia's body without her consent this week!” was not a well the writers needed to go back to, in my opinion.  But I like the idea that Julia ends up with a good guy and a magic kid and is off doing quests and shit, the whole shebang, I thought that was a nice ending.  For whatever that's worth, and I imagine that from the perspective of a real Julia fan, my opinion at this point is not worth much!

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Hey, I’m here once again with the ranting (if you don’t mind)! I just finished playing Yakuza 5 and damn I have a lot of feels I want to share. When I was first introduced to the franchise, I thought that nothing could beat Zero for me, but here I am now, holding back my tears and thinking what a fine game 5 turned out to be! I really loved the bonds that characters formed along the way, it just felt so sincere and warm that my heart throbbed nearly at every dialogue Х) Like Saejima/Baba, Mirei/Haruka (and Akiyama too!), Shinada/Takasugi were absolutely delightful. And don’t get me started on the ending scene with Kiryu and his daughter. I fucking lost it there. So damn emotional and pure. And while I adore Zero for its majestic tragedy and fatalism, I also love the kind and inspiring atmosphere of 5. Of course, there were some flaws, like I didn’t find the main antagonist all that interesting (especially after Ryuji and Mine), but in the end I was ready to overlook it just because the heartwarming scenes between the characters were so well done. So yeah, for me it’s top tier along with Zero. What’s your personal opinion on the game (and your favorites in the series in general)?

Congrats! Oooooh, Game 5. I’ve got a lot of feels about Game 5 too ^^; It’s a real fav c: There’s an awful lot I love about it, but there’s one or two things that really stick in my craw. I’m not sure I could put it up with Zero, but it’s definitely a game I treasure c: 

I find it interesting that your interpret Zero as fatalistic and 5 as inspiring. Zero definitely has a lot of high-key tragedy, but I think the fact that we come through the other side, that Kiryu doesn’t go into the ground with Tachibana, that Majima decides that even though he could be happy with Makoto, it isn’t what he wants, I find that really powerful and even hopeful. Not inspiring perhaps, the choices we all make in that game are crushingly hard and frequently we’re punished for things that aren’t our fault. But seeing Kiryu confront his potential for the first time and, perhaps for the last time, deciding he’s not afraid of it, that this is a mantle he can carry and do good with, really does things for me. And I’ve gone on at length before about how we ought to read Majima’s choice at the end as not sacrificial, not denial, but rather a choice of identity. What stopped him from going with Makoto isn’t fear for what it would do to her (though certainly those protective instincts are still alive and well), but rather a... with nothing holding him back, he would still choose the life he started. He could leave it all right here but... there are things he wants to do, not has to do, wants to do. And he makes the choice to be yakuza, to be the Mad Dog, crucially, before he sees Kiryu. He could leave it all behind, but then he wouldn’t be himself. He wants to be yakuza. And he couldn’t do that if he was with her. I think that’s really cool and really life-affirming. 

Meanwhile 5... it’s hard for me to articulate what 5 is about because we have a bunch of different character arcs, some of which mesh quite nicely and some of which have nothing at all to do with each other. It’s probably best if I just break this down piece by piece ^^;

(spoilers follow for game 5 my little chili babies)

Kiryu’s arc, as I have articulated before, I fucking love in game 5. However, I do have my criticisms of it. In many ways, the conflict we’re facing in 5 is something that should have come up awhile back. But, even delayed, it is satisfying. It is satisfying to force Kiryu to confront his mistakes. It is satisfying to at least reach a turn on Kiryu, to have him decide that he wants to live and does feel worthy, even if it’s at the last possible second. Like, I interpret 5 as much more fatalistic because Kiryu’s dying in the snow in the middle of saying how he wants to come home to his daughter. Like... he may have finally gotten his revelation, but he was already in the middle of repeating the cycle. What would have been truly satisfying was to force him to live, to insist that he grow up and learn how to live with people because dying won’t fix it. This is a problem we’ve had since the beginning and have never really addressed. This was our chance to address it and it breaks my heart that game 5 comes so close and was going the right direction, but doesn’t quite give us that resolution that Kiryu’s going to continue his relationships and be okay now, that he isn’t going to back out this time. And if the creators had been brave they would have ended the fucking series here with that resolution. That’s SO OBVIOUSLY the main conflict in Kiryu’s plot and here, at last, we were finally fucking dealing with it and this SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE END. THIS WAS IT. THE ACTUAL FUCKING END, I- *breathes* Let me not derail this entire thing with game 6. Let’s just... never talk about game 6. 

That said... one of the things I ADORE about game 5 is this is the clearest sense of motivation we’ve had since Kiwami 1. For the first time in FUCKING FOREVER character choices made sense! HALLE-FUCKING-LUJAH. I CANNOT TELL YOU what it did to me that it was Majima that got Kiryu into the game. I cannot tell you the breath of life it gave me, after all this fucking BULLSHIT, that the game came FUCKING HOME on the most important person to Kiryu is Majima. Daigo needs help? Kiryu can’t help. Haruka needs her dad? Kiryu can’t help. These are both mistakes, don’t get me wrong! Absolutely terrible decisions, but they make sense out of Kiryu’s depression, out of his fears and doubts and feelings of unworthiness, his guilt. He’s so caught up in “better off without me” and so scared and so guilty, he can’t answer people even when they ask for help. But Majima. He can’t turn away from. He hears Majima’s dead and Kiryu loses his goddamn mind. Because it’s his fault. Because he wasn’t there. Because he left him out there and now Majima’s dead. Kiryu asked him to do something and, for all Kiryu knows, Majima’s dead because of him. And... as much as Kiryu hates himself in this moment, as much as Kiryu is sure that it’s all his fault, he’s SO upset, he has to go help, he HAS to go fix it. Majima’s dead and with his last breath, Kiryu will make this fuckign right. He’s gotta try. Because Majima being dead is... unacceptable. He can’t handle it. I fucking love that. At long last, it felt like the same story I’d been watching from 1. At long fucking last, we got some fucking proof of Kiryu’s feelings. And for that alone, I love game 5. I’ve got some issues with it, but that was... vindication. Spent 3 games waffling and pretending we didn’t know him unless we’re literally in the same scene, but even Kiryu’s denial isn’t that strong. Majima’s dead and Kiryu can’t anymore. He’s gonna go there and, god help him, he’ll go into the ground with him. You look at that and tell me it was un-fucking-requited. 

On that note, I just gotta gush for a second about that scene where the girl is naked in Kiryu’s apartment and Kiryu just ???? He’s not even “no thank you” he’s like PAINED. Like... she hugs him and Kiryu looks like he’s being fucking tortured! That is not the reaction of someone with even an iota of attraction to feminine bodies! This gay icon! Like, if you’d done that to Majima he would have been like “You’re pretty, babe, but I am Emotionally Unavailable” like the bi icon he is, like... you may not take her up on it, but you can still appreciate her or at least turn her down gracefully. But Kiryu out here doing his best to touch her as little as humanly fucking possible like’ he’s TERRIFIED. That’s not someone being overly polite, that was “cannot conceive of being attracted to this.” Just... this gay fucking dad. Holy christ. 

Related GOTTA love Kiryu’s boss being “Hey, there’s a rumor going around that you’re gay! Any thoughts?” and Kiryu just “That Is A Thing People Ask Me” which is the EXACT RESPONSE of a queer person who doesn’t want to out themselves but also doesn’t want to lie. Game 5 fucking iconic for those 2 scenes alone, god bless. 

Moving away from Kiryu for a second, although this game is VERY about Kiryu’s story, let’s talk about Saejima! Saejima FINALLY gets to come into his own as a character, we get to handle him properly as a character and not as a crux in Majima’s character development. I love the marked differences in how Kiryu and Saejima respond to Majima and handle him. I love that they fucking NAILED motivation here. That Kiryu and Majima mutually code romantic, that they both make batshit decisions because of each other, in that way that you do when you’re madly in love with someone. Meanwhile, Saejima loves his brother but isn’t in love with him. Saejima’s relationship with Majima is stable and trusting. He’s not losing his mind over Majima’s death because he trust him and knows him. If he’s dead, Saejima trusts that Majima did all he could and it was just his time. That’s why he’s not losing his mind, he’s resolved. He just wants to know what happened. And it’s this stability that really tells us who Saejima is and how he functions as a protag. His strength is his trust in others, which at times IS naive, but it’s also what turns Baba. It’s what keeps Saejima strong when Kiryu’s falling apart. It’s so cool to see a character who isn’t paranoid, who isn’t tore up with guilt, in this series with very complicated leads. Saejima is functional and necessary because he isn’t any of those things. He doesn’t get swept up in big emotional turmoil. He cuts through a lot of foibles that would have tripped up his brother or Kiryu and it’s just really refreshing to see and exciting to experience Saejima’s brand of problem solving. He’s not terribly clever and he’s not subtle, but he’s honest and sure that counts for A LOT in this series. Gotta love Saejima. 

And, as I have gushed about before and will again, Baba. Baba. Saejima turning Baba hand me fucking ascending. Baba Known Whore Shigecki turning on a time because Saejima screams “Because we’re kyoudai!” I am LIVING. I love their relationship. I love that Baba’s a little shit. I love that he’s inexplicably a supermodel. I love that his constant vibe is “would like to choke til he cries on Saejima’s dick.” I love that Saejima has a gorgeous prison boyfriend. Well deserved! I love the idea of Baba getting integrated into the group. I need WAY more fic about him coming back to live with Saejima in Kamurocho and Saejima just has an ex-assassin boyfriend now and we all get to live with that. Ugggghhhh, bless. So good. No notes, no criticisms, just good.

Haruka was LONG overdue to be a protag, I’m so glad this game did it. But... pop idol? The thing she explicitly said in Kiwami 2 she didn’t want to be? *siiiigh* Like, I get that she can change her mind as she grows up and that that’s the Thing You Do with Japanese teenage girls, but... Imagine Martial Artist Haruka! Raised by the yakuza, surrounded her whole life by people with incredible fighting skills, who would gladly teach her self-defense. Imagine! Or even training her to become a yakuza! My wife and I joke about Seventh Chairman Sawamura Haruka, but imagine how satisfying that would have been! A whole Tojo dynasty of Kiryu’s kids! She’s so ripe for it! And I know the yakuza is a male-only organization but... c’mon, this is fiction and sexism is boring. I guess I can understand the creators unwillingness to depict violence against women, even if it’s being perpetrated by other women but uh... *eye twitch* game 5 is maybe not the BEST example of their... respecting women... 

*screams into a pillow for several minutes* *breathes* *screams for another fifteen minutes* Okay... I uh... I um... can’t talk about Mirei Park without having an aneurysm. PLEASE skip this bullet point if you don’t want to read Mirei Hate. I just... I Hate Everything About Her And I Don’t Know Why She Fucking Exists. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade and if you like Mirei, y’all welcome to feel how you feel but... she is the only thing I truly Hate about game 5. I just... leaving aside my personal feelings about the... Majima part of her story which we just... Won’t talk about... Leaving that aside... I don’t know why she’s here? She’s the person who convinces Kiryu to leave his children. She’s predatory, she took advantage of a vulnerable young girl to live out some personal dream? Like, sure, economic opportunity, independence, but we don’t get a lot of motive from Haruka that it IS her dream to be a pop idol. She has said in the past that’s not what she wants, she makes mention of doing this for the money to support her family, Mirei LITERALLY SAYS she wants Haruka to do the things she couldn’t, and ultimately Haruka asides not to do this anyway because she’d ratehr be home with her dad! So what was the FUCKING POINT of Mirei Park? Is she a villain? Is she sympathetic? What the fuck was I supposed to take from her? How the fuck am I supposed to read her? She tells this TRAUMATIC story off-hand to Haruka to... justify her decisions? Motivate Haruka? Dragging in another long-term character for no good reason and reframing how we have to think about said character. But then THIS NEVER COMES UP AGAIN. The information wasn’t even important! It’s just traumatic! If it was supposed to keep Haruka doing the pop idol thing, it didn’t work! Haruka still leaves! If this was meant to deepen our relationship to Mirei or complicate her or whatever, IT DOESN’T, SHE WAS LITERALLY DEAD THE NEXT SCENE. I just... WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE?! What even the fuck was I supposed to do with any of this?! Leaving ASIDE my VERY intense feelings about what this did for Majima (for the sake of not going ogg Even More than I already am, I just won’t talk abotu it here), I just have no goddamn clue what the point of Mirei even was. She’s not useful to Haruka’s arc and she only serves in Kiryu’s arc to be a villain. We could have had Haruka leave home and decide in the end that Kiryu’s her dad and that’s where she wants to be a MILLION different ways, we could have done that MUCH more kindly and consistently with the rest of her character and values, but we don’t! We have this shitmess instead!

I’m really really sorry to anyone reading this who likes Mirei. You don’t have to agree with me! And I’m not trying to make you feel bad! I’m not trying to tell people how they should feel or what they should get out of the story. If you got something out of her, you related to her, you found her part in the story meaningful, that’s great! I’m genuinely glad that you did. I... didn’t. I have a lot of negative opinions about what happened. Usually I try to just not talk about it because I don’t want to ruin someone’s good time. I’m not here trying to start shit. So I apologize for my tone and I did try to put a warning before it and recommend it be skipped if it’s the sort of thing that would offend you. My Mirei rant is over now, I won’t talk about it again.

I have absolutely no idea why Akiyama is in this story, tbh? He contributed very little, but I’m glad Haruka got to hang out with someone cool and that one of her uncles was here watching out for her, since Majima was “dead” and Kiryu was in the middle of a personal crisis ^^; I love Akiyama, always happy to see him, but he really had nothing to do here ^^; I was sad for no Hana though 8C Wherever there is Akiyama, there must also be Hana!

Shinada... is adorable and actively injured the plot. I’m sorry, I just... no one ever talks about the fact that including Shinada in the story actively hurt it. I love him too! He’s an incredible idiot and very sweet, but why the fuck is he here? What did an ancient baseball cover up have to do with anything? This was the only way you could think of to put Daigo in the game again? Really??? And Daigo doesn’t even do very much here! So like... not really worth it. You could have had a whole substory of Daigo finding out what happened to Majima, fuck DAIGO COULD HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE PROTAGS. THERE’S A THOUGHT. We could have utilized, y’know, characters we already have, but no, instead we introduce this dumb fuck to do... what exactly? Oh right, beat up Baba AFTER HE HAD ALREADY DECIDED NOT TO SHOOT HARUKA! Like, YOU DIDN’T EVEN NEED SHINADA FOR THE THING YOU NEEDED HIM FOR. Saejima and Kiryu were enough of an influence on Baba to stop him! And that makes sense out of Baba’s character arc, since it’s about personal redemption and learning to be a person and his faith and love of Saejima, y’know, the character he actually HAS a relationship with, is about that. The point of Baba was him learning it WAS his choice and him MAKING that choice. See, I can’t argue that Baba’s superfluous to the plot, but he WAS the threat! He was actively involved and he’s what makes Saejima involved. Shinada doesn’t occupy the same space, he has no horse in this race, he’s not yakuza, he’s only here because he and Daigo kinda like each other or whatever, and, again, HE WASN’T EVEN NEEDED! Baba’s arc was complete and the threat was terminated without this shit! Like, Akiyama has no reason to be here either, but at least he was a true neutral, neither helping nor harming the plot. We actively waste time to bring Shinada in and he hurts Baba’s arc by overly punishing him and potentially risking the decision he just made. Like if I was Baba, I might have gone “you know what, fuck you, I will shoot her just because your self-righteous ass decided to hit me for MAKING THE RIGHT CALL” Jesus... 

I hate to be nothing but a curmudgeon but just... no one brings that up and I just had to say it if no one else was gonna. 

As for villains, the game would have been a lot stronger without the “thwarted destiny, I should be on the throne” bullshit especially since the story has done a SHIT JOB with the legacy of Nishiki and in NO WAY utilized the fucking koi or the burden of Nishiki’s death properly for this to hit the way it should. It makes theoretical sense that Kriyu’s last villain should be the reincarnation of Nishiki, but the story did not build that up or support it so it falls really flat. That said, the main problem in Kiryu’s arc is that dying is not a resolution. Dying doesn’t fix a problem, it only delays it. THAT’S the thing we have to confront and we almost nearly do and... I’m just so excited that we finally articulated that, I’m willing to forgive A LOT. 

And finally we wrote Majima entirely out of the game only to confirm that his only reason for living is Kiryu and then, again, didn’t resolve it because, y’know, fuck ending things, I guess? But he did have that sweet fight with Saejima and can do shadow clones now I guess? Fucking ninja magic or whatever. Sure, Majima’s so OP he can do fucking shadow clones now. No, teleporting wasn’t enough, he can fucking shadow clone. That’s like a staisfying story arc right? ...right?

[devil-in-the-d3tails]

It’s the End of the World as We Know It - Chapter 2

summary: During the international quarantine in your first-ever pandemic, the people around you slowly begin to disappear. As the world grows quieter and quieter, you find yourself all alone-- no power, no friends, and only one goal: to find whoever of your friends might be left and reunite with them.You're naive to think anything can be that simple. As you're faced with ever-increasing loneliness, you run into some boys who apparently went to the same high school as you. Will you join forces with them to figure out your strange circumstances together, or will you brave loneliness in a world that is slowly crumbling apart?

Link on AO3!

words: 3,341

rating: M - Mature

genre: angst/humor, romance, adventure, apocalypse AU, reader-insert

warnings: sort of depressing content, a smidge of violence, cursing

a/n: this one’s a little short, but please enjoy nonetheless!

- Can I Crash Here? -

It’s raining outside. You sit on a mattress that’s been grouped together haphazardly with a number of other mattresses in the dark, cold gym. Akaashi has been sitting next to you quietly this whole time, and you’re appreciative of the silent comfort. Indie lays at your feet, heaving a great sigh every now and then.

When you’d shown up at the gym, you were relieved beyond words to see some familiar faces-- even though you hardly knew these boys at all, they were still alive. You remember falling to your knees and screwing your eyes shut as the grief and fear from the past few weeks came pouring out of you in shaking sobs. Akaashi had been the one to awkwardly pat your shoulder, while Indie sniffed and licked at you nervously.

Somehow in your hysteria, you had been ushered to sit on a mattress while you sobbed into your knees. After a few minutes, you hesitantly looked up to find Akaashi next to you, and Bokuto and Kuroo kneeling in front of you with distress and hesitation-- of course they wouldn’t know what to do in this situation, as you hardly knew yourself.

Akaashi had gently asked you what happened, but you shook your head, unwilling to think of what you had just been through. You remember when a fresh wave of panic overcame you, and you had gasped, which only worried the boys even more.

“M-my car!” You ran your hand through your tangled hair. “I parked it outside the school-- shit, I’m sorry, I-- I didn’t even think-- oh, fuck, they’re gonna find me--”

“Hang on.” Kuroo asserted, placing a firm hand on your shoulder as he hooked you with a steely, calm gaze. You remembered how his bright eyes grounded you somehow, how they brought you back to the present. “We can drive your car over here and hide it. Here, gimme the keys. Akaashi, wait with her-- Bokuto, come with me.”

“Huh? Why do I have to come?” Bokuto exclaimed.

“In case I run into whatever’s got her so scared, I don’t wanna be alone.” Kuroo shrugged as he stood, your car keys having somehow made it into his palm.

“Ohhh, scared, are ya?” Bokuto teased.

“Yeah.” Kuroo said, and that definitely sobered up his spiky-haired friend as the gravity of the situation settled uncomfortably around you four. Bokuto had cleared his throat, and then he had patted your head awkwardly.

“Don’t worry! We’ll fix everything for ya.” He had beamed at you, but you could only stare blankly back. Bokuto shifted awkwardly, then gave Indie a few pats. “Good dog! Okay, we’ll be back. Take care of her, Akaashi!”

The two boys had left about ten minutes ago, and here you were, now sitting in the spacious, cold gymnasium of your high school next to a boy you barely knew who gave you poptarts only a day before. Was it a day? It feels like weeks ago.

You look up at the high ceiling as the rain pitter patters against it soothingly, and you can feel Akaashi’s gaze land on you at your movement. You lick your dry lips, and glance at him.

“A-are none of them awake?” You whisper, and you’re referring, of course, to the number of other sleeping humans surrounding you and Akaashi. The sleeping lumps are unidentifiable, as far as you’re concerned-- you’re surprised there are so many people grouped together in one place. There’s some snores here and there, but no one besides you and Akaashi are awake.

Akaashi shakes his head. “These guys can sleep through a fucking typhoon.”

You laugh a little, and Akaashi’s chest warms up a bit. It’s nicer to see you smile instead of cry. He clears his throat.

“So, what happened?” He asks quietly.

You bite the inside of your cheek and glance at him. He seems to always have the same calm, apathetic expression on his handsome features, but his voice is comforting and tinged with worry. The two of you have been sitting in the quiet for some time now, and you’re sure you gave him quite a scare upon your sudden arrival, so you suppose he deserves an explanation.

“Well, I… went home, unloaded some of my groceries.” You clear your throat. “Then, um, I tried to text my friend Callie, but it wouldn’t send, so I fell asleep. And then I woke up around 3:30 and heard some guys in my house…” Biting your lip, you remember being grabbed by the red-head, and subconsciously wrap your arms around yourself, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Akaashi. “Um, so then I ran out and drove here.”

Akaashi hums and studies you for a moment. He can tell you’re troubled, so he doesn’t want to press the subject. But he doesn’t want you to stay troubled.

“What’s his name?” He asks, petting Indie behind her ear.

“Indiana, Indie for short.” You smile sideways at him. “And she’s a girl.”

“My bad.” Akaashi returns your smile, glad to see you relax just a bit. “She’s trained really well.”

“Yeah, she tackled one of the guys back there.” You say proudly, but after you think about it for a second, you hope she didn’t kill him. Indie looks up at you, panting happily, and you give her a pat on the head.

“Damn. Guess we shouldn’t mess with you, then.” Akaashi sits back, and you suddenly notice how close the two of you are sitting. Maybe it’s the extreme lack of human contact you’ve had recently, or the fact that Akaashi is insanely cute, but you feel a blush creep up your neck despite yourself. It’s also stupidly late. And you’re tired.

You glance away from him as you hear footsteps outside the gym, and the doors open to reveal Kuroo and Bokuto, the latter twirling your car keys on his finger.

“We have hidden your car!” Bokuto announces triumphantly, and you shush him, only to find that he hasn’t actually disturbed any of the sleeping people behind you. Akaashi was right, you think as you glance at him again.

“Getting cozy while we were gone?” Kuroo grins, looking between you and Akaashi as the two close the doors behind them and walk up to you. You stand abruptly-- it’s the goddamn apocalypse, you don’t need a crush. Still, yet another blush creeps up your cheeks. Akaashi rolls his eyes as he stands up beside you.

“Where did you hide it?” Akaashi asks.

“Behind a tree.” Bokuto gives you your keys back.

“I should add, we also put some leaves over your car for added security.” Kuroo says, and you nod appreciatively.

“Just so long as you parked it near the gym, it should be out of sight from the street.” Akaashi yawns. You feel a wash of guilt at your realization that you’ve kept these guys up really late, after they’ve done who-knows-what kind of hard work during the day. Not everyone has your fucked up sleep schedule.

“Thank you so much-- um, I’m really sorry for keeping you guys up.” You say sheepishly.

“Don’t apologize!” Bokuto exclaims. “We were up when you got here anyways. Hey, here’s a question-- if your leg gets cut off--”

“We should get some sleep.” Kuroo cuts in. “As much as I’d love to hear her input on that topic, it can wait until the morning.”

Bokuto sighs in resignation, but rubs his eyes tiredly. He wanders over to his mattress and flops down, burrowing himself into his pile of blankets. Kuroo stretches, then stops abruptly as he whips around to look at you.

“Oh shit, where are you gonna sleep?” He asks you, then looks to Akaashi, who frowns.

“Oh, I can just sleep on the floor.” You wave your hand dismissively-- you really don’t want to put them out of any comfort.

“No.” The two boys say at once, and you’re a bit surprised at their severity. Bokuto is already snoring, much to your surprise.

“I’ll sleep on the floor-- you can sleep in my bed.” Akaashi offers, already pulling a blanket off of his mattress.

“Please, you can sleep in my bed.” Kuroo asserts, peeling off one of his own blankets. The two boys look at each other, and you could swear they were glaring.

“No!” You exclaim. “You guys already helped me enough-- plus, it’s cold as hell in here and sleeping on this cold floor is bound to make you sick, and you can’t get sick during the apocalypse-- do you know how easy it is to die from the common cold, especially when there’s no doctors around?!”

The two boys are a little taken aback by your exclamation, and so are you-- this is the most emotion you’ve shown in quite a while. You bite the inside of your cheek and frown, crossing your arms. “None of us are gonna sleep on the floor.” You assert, and Kuroo tosses his blanket back onto his bed.

“What do you suggest, then?” He asks, crossing his arms right back.

“You could sleep with one of us.” Akaashi says quietly, like that has zero implications whatsoever. Your eyes widen, and you’re so glad it’s dark in the gym because you’re sure that your face is as red as a tomato. Kuroo snickers.

“I’m down if you’re down.” He says teasingly, and raises his eyebrows at you.

“Up to you.” Akaashi adds quietly. Clearly, this decision is in your hands-- and you don’t want them to sleep on the floor, and you certainly don’t want to sleep on the floor yourself, and sharing a bed with one of them couldn’t possibly be that terrible, could it?

You gulp, and glance at the floor. Kuroo is hot, you’re not gonna lie-- you’re sure he pulled all the girls in school. He also seems like he’d be really nice to curl up against, since he’s much bigger than you are. And Akaashi, he already makes you feel safe. Plus, his broad shoulders and undeniably fit body cross your mind as you imagine how it’d feel to tuck your head under his chin...

You shake your head. Even though you are touch starved, you will not make things worse for yourself by imagining how it would feel to cuddle with any of these boys.

You clear your throat, aware of how long you’ve been silent.

“Um, I’ll sleep with Akaashi-- if, if that’s okay.” You mumble, hoping to any higher power that they can’t sense your immense embarrassment. Akaashi nods, though you don’t miss the almost triumphant look he tosses Kuroo’s way. The latter only shrugs, flopping down on his own mattress a couple beds over.

You bite your lip, unsure of where to look as you slip off your shoes, then begin to peel off your outer layers. Akaashi undoes his belt, and you look at him alarmingly. He looks confused for a second, then seems to realize what that might look like.

“U-um, I’m gonna keep my pants on.” He says, and it’s the first time you’ve heard him sound nervous. You nod quickly.

“Yeah, me too.” You hate sleeping in pants, especially jeans-- usually it’s a huge tee shirt and undies for you, but you are not about to strip down to only that with a boy you’ve only just met, no matter how cute he is. You slip off your socks, then sit on the mattress with your back to Akaashi. You feel the mattress dip as he sits down too, and you take a deep breath before laying down on your side, facing away from the boy next to you. He does the same, and you can feel the warmth of his backside against yours as the two of you are just inches apart.

The rain falls steadily above your heads, and after a moment, you feel Akaashi shift behind you, and a blanket suddenly finds itself draped over your body. You roll over onto your back just as Akaashi begins to pull away, and he shrugs.

“You said yourself we can’t afford to be cold.”

“Thanks… You have a blanket too, right?” You whisper. Akaashi doesn’t answer, but that in itself is an indication that he doesn’t. You pause, then toss a portion of it over him, only to find it’s just a bit too small to cover the both of you.

...Unless you scoot closer together. The two of you lock eyes with that realization, and you know that he has to be blushing as much as you are. You quickly face away, and he does the same, as the two of you scoot closer together so that your backs are pressing against each other. You take a deep breath to try and calm your racing heart as the warmth from Akaashi begins to spread throughout your whole body. You feel his breaths, which even out rather quickly. He must have been really tired.

You, on the other hand, are wide awake. Your heart won’t stop racing, which is super annoying. Still, you screw your eyes shut in the hopes that you’ll at least get some sleep tonight.

The rain continues falling, and eventually, you are lulled to sleep.

[-]

The first thing you register is a pleasant warmth and an even pleasanter smell. You instinctively nuzzle your face closer to it, and in response you feel whatever sensation that’s wrapped around you tighten its hold. You’re properly wrapped up, though you don’t know what’s around you or where you are. All you know is you’re extremely comfortable and happy.

As consciousness slowly seeps in, memories trickle in one by one: running down your stairs, frantically gripping your steering wheel, wandering around your abandoned high school, dropping your hammer on the concrete outside the gym while staring at--

You furrow your brows, and your eyes flutter open against your will-- you haven’t gotten nearly enough sleep, but you can’t stop waking up as you take in your surroundings.

Your face is currently burrowed into Akaashi’s chest, your head tucked under his chin. Your hands are actually curled into his white shirt, and as you let go of it bashfully, you find that his arms are wrapped around you-- one laid flat on the mattress beneath you, and the other resting over your waist.

A blush once again lights up your face as Akaashi shifts in his sleep, unconsciously pulling you closer. He lets out a contented sigh, and you feel a foreign tingle spread throughout your whole body. You bite your lip-- as sunlight slowly filters into the gym, you’re sure that no one else is awake yet, otherwise you would’ve been woken up to the sound of Kuroo teasing you and Akaashi to no end.

You can’t let the other guys see you and Akaashi like this-- you can’t handle the embarrassment. As much as you don’t want to wake Akaashi up, you have to. Biting your lip, you move to pull away from him, but almost instantly, he tightens his hold on you, and with a grunt, he rolls over onto his back, pulling you with him. You suck in a breath, trying to stay silent as you now rest on top of his chest, one of your legs between his.

You bury your face in his chest, completely unsure of what to do. He was so exhausted last night-- you don’t want to wake him up! Just as your mind begins to race for a flawless escape strategy, Akaashi groans and rubs one eye open.

“Mnf….” He says your name groggily, and you ignore how his gravelly voice sends tingles up your spine.

You decide to play dumb, and turn your head to the side with a big yawn.

“Hmm?” You answer quietly, and relax your body as much as you can. You feel Akaashi freeze in place beneath you, and he quickly removes his other hand from the small of your back.

“U-um… you’re… on top of me…” He mumbles, and you groggily lift your head to face him, making sure to keep your eyes lidded so that you can play this off effectively.

“Huh?” You furrow your brows as you meet Akaashi’s gaze, whose face is now bright red as the sun slowly illuminates the gym. You catch the subtle, perhaps accidental, glance he takes towards your chest, and realization hits you then.

You’re just in your undershirt… a tank top… and your chest is pressed against his… You can imagine exactly what kind of view he had just then as you quickly roll off of him, your arms crossing over your chest quickly.

You both stay very quiet, unsure of what to say to each other. You ignore how nice it felt to be held by him, and how much you didn’t really want to leave his embrace. God, how childish of you-- it’s just the fact that you’re starved for human interaction, that’s why you’re feeling like this.

Somebody yawns really obnoxiously a few beds over, and you look up just as someone hurls a pillow towards the offensive yawner.

“Can it, Shitty-kawa.” Somebody grumbles.

“I can’t even wake up without getting scolded, can I?” The yawner answers.

The gym slowly starts to stir as the sun grows brighter through the high, square windows. You sit up at the same time as Akaashi, and you both can’t help but glance back at one another bashfully. Reaching down, you pull your flannel over your now cold shoulders, and Indie gives your hand a good morning lick.

“Morning,” Kuroo yawns, and grins over at you and Akaashi. “Sleep well?”

You blush, and only mutter a “good morning,” back.

“Huh? Who’s that?” The yawner exclaimes, and you turn towards the sea of mattresses to spot a boy around your age-- also insanely cute, with somehow perfectly styled hair-- sit up and openly stare at you. “Hmm, nice one, guys. She’s pretty cute.” He grins, and you’re not quite sure how to respond to that.

“We’re just ignoring the social distancing rule now, huh?” The guy who threw the pillow sighs and sits up to look at you, as well. You feel like a deer in the headlights, so you look for any possible way to escape this conversation.

You shoot to your feet, and turn to Akaashi. “Where’s the bathroom?” You mumble, but Kuroo answers for him.

“Down that hallway, to the left. No-- sorry, right. That’s where the girls bathroom is. And the plumbing still works!” Kuroo grins, and you nod quickly, turning to rush off to the bathroom. Indie follows behind you loyally, and you hear the boys begin to talk about you openly as you run off.

“Yeah, we met her yesterday…”

“...showed up in tears…”

“...Call her cute again, see what happens, Shitty-kawa…”

You’re in the school bathroom before you know it, and you laugh wryly to yourself as the familiarity of it makes you almost feel like you’re back in school. Small groups of the dirty tiles are arranged in your school colors, and there’s still a very old flier hanging on one of the stall doors, advertising a school play that never happened.

You rush to the sinks, and turn on the cold faucet water. You grip the sides of the sink with ferocity, and dare to look at your reflection.

There was no way you looked cute in this moment. That guy was either extremely thirsty or a cruel liar-- your hair was matted, eyes drooped and tired. You’re sure that your dark circles never looked darker. A wave of embarrassment overcomes you at the realization that you slept next to cute Akaashi looking like this...

You shake yourself of those thoughts, and look at yourself with hardened resolve. You splash your face with cold water, and that wakes you up a bit. Deep breath in, deep breath out. This is only temporary, just until you can gather your thoughts, enough supplies, and enough courage to travel to Ohio alone. This is only temporary…

But it’s your life now.

[ckret2]

Okay so I got an ask like,

anonymous asked: whose ur favorite Hazbin character? Like your absolute #1 and why?

and technically my answer is Alastor, but Sir Pent is such a close second that I gave my reasons for him too in that ask, and now I’m making a second post about Alastor.

Reasons I really like Alastor but like, only slightly more than Sir Pent:

- Honestly “I can suck ya dick” *IMMEDIATE BRAIN BREAK FACE* is probably the moment I, like, mentally latched on to Alastor’s character, and at that point I don’t think I even knew yet that the creator had said he was ace. It just... I could feel the aceness in my soul. Like that thing where Jedi run into somebody and go “oh you’re strong in the Force, I can tell.” That was just such a perfect and succinct ace joke, and by that I mean like it feels like a joke from an ace perspective. Like it was so relatable.

- tbh half my reasons for liking Alastor are “oh that’s relatable,” which is hilarious, because like... I don’t like characters because I relate to them, ever, but because I think they’re interesting in their strange/different ways. Alastor is the sole exception I can think of where half the reasons I like him is because I look at him and go “oh big mood.” Other ace or aro characters I’ve seen in the past just make me go “oh... okay. cool. nice, representation for me” and then I don’t really care about them. Alastor, though, the SECOND I learned he was ace, something in my brain went “FUCK YES. ONE OF OURS.” I immediately sat down and started writing a character study fic about Alastor being ace/aro in the exact same precise way that I’m ace/aro, and that was even before we got confirmation that he was aro. I was ready to go all in on him anyway.

- Half the reason I like his ace/aro-ness when I don’t care about it as much on other characters is because like... usually, when you get an ace/aro character, it goes one of two ways:

1) their entire character is built around/“in tune with” their ace/aro-ness, in a way. Most obvious when you have the stereotypical “robot/alien that cannot love,” but also seen in “character that is naive and pure and innocent and lustless,” “character that acts like an actual literal child,” “character that acts like a bad autism cliche,” “character that’s too cold or cruel or emotionless to feel love,” etc. And that’s boring, when they’re only ace/aro because the writer cannot imagine a character Like That being any other way, or because the writer cannot imagine an ace/aro being Any Other Way. 

Or, 2) they’re written as “too normal,” as in, like, NOTHING ABOUT THEIR PERSONALITY or life experiences or anything seems shaped AT ALL by the fact that they do not share an internal sense of lust and/or romance that most of the rest of the human species not only has, but also is obsessed with.

And Alastor falls in neither camp. He’s gregarious and talkative and puts on little performances wherever he goes, and he obnoxiously butts in on somebody else’s group project by begging for an opportunity to help out and then obnoxiously volunteers his friends who hate him to help with the group project, and he’s manipulative and dangerous and secretive and violent, and he hides his emotions and he disguises when he’s feeling weak... and also the quickest way to throw him off his game is to make a sexual pass at him because he’s blindsided so hard by it that it’s like for a moment there he forgot that sex exists.

And that’s what I want to see. A character whose personality isn’t based on/tied into his ace/aro-ness, BUT we can clearly see his character IS INFLUENCED by the fact that he views the world through a completely different lens from everyone else.

I can imagine that Alastor had to puzzle through What Is Love/What Is Desire, purely on a psychological “what’s going on inside other people’s heads?” level, as an outside observer incapable of participating it and trying to understand it based on anecdotes and fictionalized accounts and descriptions and conversations, comparing it to the emotions inside his own head and trying to go “so it’s kind of like this feeling plus that one and those, but More, and Different, and in that Other Direction.” I can imagine that as a kid Alastor “decided” to have crushes because he knew it was about that time it should be starting, and it hadn’t happened by then, so maybe what he needs to do is pick whoever he thinks is best-looking and get going with the crushing on them, right? I can imagine that Alastor spent his teen years waiting for his desires to “turn on” the way they did for everyone else, and being slightly puzzled when they took so long, but also okay with it because the more he thought about it the more it seemed like it was probably a nuisance—no one around him was someone he’d like to be attracted to—so he was fine with the fact it was taking so long, and he sort of assumed that it wasn’t because he didn’t have the capacity for desire but because none of his peers were desirable to him. I can imagine that he had his first kiss at like fifteen and thought it was horrible and gagged on it, and within an hour decided this was absolutely hilarious.

I can imagine Alastor having all these experiences—which are experiences I had. I’ve never seen another ace/aro character I can easily and naturally imagine having a single experience in common with me. Because no other ace/aro characters feel to me like ace/aro characters. They’re either characters with an ace/aro sticker arbitrarily and meaninglessly slapped on them, or they’re a walking stereotype about lovelessness.

- Besides Alastor’s spectacular Asexuelle Panique™ face, the other single line that made me latch onto him was “Why does anyone do anything? Sheer! Absolute! Boredom!” There are some very specific character types that I’m an absolute sucker for, and one of them is: extremely powerful character, at the top of their game, unstoppable and uncontrollable and unmatched, a loner who likes it that way, BUT they’re bored as hell, either because they’ve met all their goals or because they don’t know how to set any—and the boredom is eating them up inside, it’s driving them slowly mad, the sheer tedium of trying to fill one day after another with nothing to do is weighing down on them, if depression is usually compared to a heavy rain then this depression is like an endless empty waiting room, or depression like solitary confinement, or depression like an unmoving sun shining on an infinite flat desert, the depression of a completely empty hollow life leveled flat by infinite interminable boredom, a boredom they would do ANYTHING to get rid of, a boredom that’s like a withdrawal, a boredom that makes your hands shake and your pulse quicken with desperate need for the drug to stave off the withdrawal symptoms, but god, you don’t even know what the drug IS, you just know you NEED it, some form of stimulation, ANY stimulation, you’re going mad in this empty desert with your hands trembling and the withdrawal clouding your mind—

Have I mentioned that I have ADHD? Did you know that untreated ADHD can result in depression specifically due to chronic mental understimulation? I keep telling myself “bruh, don’t headcanon Alastor as having ADHD, you don’t even headcanon that he has any other traits that line up with ADHD symptoms,” but like. That one line. “Sheer! Absolute! Boredom!” I felt that in my very bones. There is desperation in that man. There is desperation in him that speaks to me like nothing else does. Like to the point that if it turns out that Alastor secretly DOES have a secret evil manipulative scheme going on I’m going to be annoyed/disappointed specifically because his driving motive isn’t boredom, lmao.

Anyway I feel for characters like that. I like to explore that desperate despairing boredom. I like to force them through that understimulation withdrawal, drive them to do stupid wild desperate things to try to get the stimulation they need. And then, when I’m feeling nice, I like to help them find a cure. Usually I imagine the cure is “dude, you’re such a loner that you’ve cut yourself off from the rest of the human race, you have NO human connections, even when you’re technically interacting with other people you’re still completely emotionally isolated inside your own shell. Make some goddamn friends and start to care about other people and their lives and you’ll find that the act of having other people exist in your world who matter to you will give you that stimulation you’re desperately missing.” Because these desperately bored characters are also desperately emotionally isolated. And they might be happy/content in their isolation—but they’re not doing anything to cure their own understimulation like that.

(“Hey OP is that how you cured your understimulation?” nah I got ADHD meds.)

- Remember everything that I just said about how much I love that Alastor is aro? Well forget everything I just said. Chuck it out the window. Bye.

So every once in a while I find a character that, for whatever reason, I really, really, really want to see pining. I want them to be in love, and I want it to be unrequited, and I want it to go on for years. I want them sobbing in private and then hiding it completely when they face anyone else. I want them to hurt so bad they feel like they can’t breathe. I want them unable to think about anything but their beloved. I want it festering inside them like an infected wound. I want it to hurt. Forever.

(“Hey OP do you uh, do you ever, yknow, want them to get their loved one?” yeah sure whatever)

For some reason, Alastor is one of those characters. Why? I dunno. I haven’t figured out my mental pattern on these ones yet. Maybe it’s specifically because it’s so incongruous with his outward appearance/and attitude. Maybe it’s because he’d do a really really good job at hiding it, but also I think he’s probably kind of a mess inside under his mask, and I think adding unrequited desire under that mask would mess him up anymore in really spectacular ways. Like a china cabinet that shifted in an earthquake so that if you open all the doors all the plates will fall out and break, except they’re already all broken inside of the china cabinet, but he’s in denial about that as long as he doesn’t open the door. I dunno, I’m speculating.

- On that note: I feel like he’s probably, like, hypercompetent and super powerful and super successful on the outside, but actually he’s a sort of screwed up dork who’s got no idea what he’s doing. (I present the furby organ as supporting evidence.) I like extremely powerful deeply feared dorks, ESPECIALLY when they have no idea what they’re doing.

- Also, affable villains. Totally friendly/sociable and totally evil.

- I dig his weird radio schtick. Like, Radio Stuff isn’t a thing I specifically like about characters, but on him I think it’s cool. Character gimmicks that can go a lot of ways and that you can do a lot of stuff with in character development are fun.

I think that covers all the important bases.

[lovenliterature]

evermore thoughts

willow

I wasn’t sold on this on first listen but I really liked it on second listen with more attention to lyrics

video is also really lovely, big fan of that

really really like the difference in melody for the diff appearances of “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind”

favourite lyric: “I come back stronger than a 90s trend” - the look she does at the camera cemented this as my fave line even more

champagne problems

down as one of my faves from the start

love love love the narrative

proper late night with cider, melancholy vibe

kind of like a grown up/worse feeling august in terms of vibes?? as in like the experience described feels like a more intense heartbreaking august in a way

really like the conclusion too

favourite lyric: I really struggled to pick here but: “you booked the night train for a reason/so you could sit there in this hurt” for sheer visceral emotion, “dom perignon you brought it” for the way its sung, “How evergreen, our group of friends/Don't think we'll say that word again” and “she’ll patch up your tapestry that I shred” for lyricism

gold rush

again, one i wasn’t super sold on the first listen, music and the vibe didn’t really interest me

first notes made me think of epiphany

but then i listened to it watching the lyric video and holy shit

now v appreciative of the melody and bass and the pace of the lyrics

really really like her embracing talking about jealousy

love love love the ending and beginning being the same holy shit

favourite lyrics: “at dinner parties, I call you out on your contrarian shit” and the way she sings “with your hair falling into place like dominoes”

‘tis the damn season

again preferred on second listen, wasn’t on the list of early faves

the best xmas late night walks vibe, walking through frosty streets at home between houses, embracing the only time you get to think, losing yourself in music and nighttime with freezing hands and cloudy breath

would’ve fit my 2019 xmas vibe too

melancholy and nostalgia

favourite lyrics: “sleep in half the day/just for old time’s sake” and “and the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own”

tolerate it

god girl you deserve better

kinda like a sad last great american dynasty in terms of searching for approval

naive innocence taken advantage of

drunk in my garden walking round to try and forget my life kinda vibe

favourite lyrics: “i know my love should be celebrated/but you tolerate it” and “now I’m begging for footnotes in the story of your life” 

no body no crime

holy shit did i sleep on this at first but oh my god its so good

start gives me show of hands vibes which is great

her husbands acting different and it smells like infidelity - just the way she sings this is so so fucking good

this is the easiest song to listen to and holy shit its just great

favourite lyric: “she said “that ain’t my merlot on his mouth/that ain’t my jewellery on our joint account”

happiness

“all the years I’ve given/is just shit we’re dividin’ up” - v v true, you have to rebuild your life after every relationship and taking it all apart is so much more sudden than building it up

like an alternative to the 1 which I LOVE

but also some parallels to this is me trying: “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool..... sorry I didn’t mean that” vs “my words shoot to kill when I’m mad”

the whole bridge is iconic - “I can’t make it go away by making you a villain” - in the short term, anger at an ex can help, but eventually you have to move on, and its easier to accept that there was good in the relationship after a while, and it makes looking back on it better

“no one teaches you what to do/when a good man hurts you/and you know you hurt him too” - blame on both sides is much harder to take and grieve and its hard to know how to cope with that. it also makes advice more complicated because there isn’t much you can say to help

favourite lyric: “both of these things can be true” - always love duality and nuance in literature and its nice to hear it acknowledged in a climate of binary oppositions and no shades of grey

dorothea

nostalgia for the future

now prob my most listened, gets stuck in my head and one of the few i do listen to in isolation - like august

Reminds me so much of Ella - each other’s history, not each other’s whole future but in there somewhere

again sapphic vibes, real strong esp because of the ella vibes its the whole in between romantic and platonic affection

“hey dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me” - that’s the way I think of people I love esp ella and people from that era of my life, and anyone where its kinda open ended or just grown apart

favourite lyric: “and damn dorothea, they all wanna be ya”

coney island

instant fave - marked down from first listen and probably still one i actively look forward to 

much like with exile, the male vocals GOT me

“did I shatter you” that line broke my goddamn heart

favourite lyrics: both for the sheer feelings of the vocals and the lyricism “were you standing in the hallway/with a big cake, happy birthday/did I paint your skies the darkest grey” and “and when I got into the accident/the sight that flashed before me was your face”

ivy

the way she sings goddamn could be the whole fucking song its so beautiful

“my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand/taking mine, but it’s promised to another” - the passive here is great

“he wants what’s only yours”

the trilogy of these lyrics “what would he do if he found us out?”, “he’s gonna burn this house to the ground”, “and drink my husband’s wine”, the recklessness, the drinking his wine like a secret defiance

“my house of stone/your ivy grows/and now i’m covered in you” - fucking hell this is the best imagery - even with the strongest walls and foundations, the love crept through and grew inside her til she was covered in it

favourite lyric: quite literally just the words “oh, goddamn”

cowboy like me

“dancin’ is a dangerous game” - hell yeah I get so many feelings from this, it just reminds me of the intimacy of dancing and the feeling of swaying in someone’s arms

“and the skeletons in both our closets/plotted hard to fuck this up” - both like active interference of exes or just simply trauma, unresolved issues

“forever is the sweetest con” - believing hurts and everything ends but its worth it for the time you have

favourite lyrics: “now you hang from my lips/like the gardens of Babylon”

long story short

first notes make me think of between the saltmarsh and the sea even though its SO different but also a bit like august idk why

“if the shoe fits walk in it/til your high heels break” - i just love the imagery of this line

“fell down the rabbit hole” - living for this line and the wonderland vibe

“but if someone comes at us, this time i’m ready” - the vibe of like not looking for a fight but defending what you love

favourite lyric: “past me/I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things” - YES BITCH also the energy I give to past me and future me gives to me now or “long story short I survived”

marjorie

another song I come back to on its own

this is the exact wistful vibe i look for in calm ish songs, can be sad, can be happy depending on a mood and this is perfect

the video is incredible and marjorie providing the backing vocals made me cry also it being in the same place on the record as epiphany was on folklore

“never be so polite/you forget your power/never wield such power/you forget to be polite” - love the use of wield, it also feels like the medium women try to find between being a “bad bitch” and being ladylike, but not a medium society will accept bc fuck that, the exact way THEY wanna do it instead

really the song i needed after the year of so much grief, and i know it’s gonna bring me comfort when grandma goes, especially the line “what died didn’t stay dead”

favourite lyric: “watched as you signed your name: marjorie” - the way this is sung will literally stay with me forever, its like a legacy in one line

closure

again, instant fave

the vibe of you don’t owe someone shit just bc they feel guilty is so good

“yes I got your letter/yes I’m doing better” “I know that it’s over” - I’ve moved on and I don’t need your permission for that or your well wishes thanks

Moving on doesn’t mean forgiveness

I just love the melody so much and its such a good song agh

favourite lyric: “I know I’m just a wrinkle in your new life/staying friends would iron it out so nice”

evermore

“grey november/I’ve been down since July” - most explicit pandemicy vibes i get, I was home and it was almost possible to just regard it as a normalish summer, looking after the dog and living at home and now its coming up to Christmas and I’m living away from home, our family is split across 5 homes in 4 cities and its fucking hard (not even sure if its that type of down but that’s how it made me feel)

“writing letters/addressed to the fire” - literally just picked up on this lyric and has kinda a dual meaning for me. 1 -feeling shit about things you create, putting in effort, just to throw it away. 2 - tactic for tackling anxiety, just getting rid of thoughts and releasing them from my brain

“Cannot think of all the cost/And the things that will be lost/Oh, can we just get a pause?” - again, v pandemicy and so relevant to the fam’s 2018-2019, we just needed a pause, we had to keep going and not process what we’d lost or we’d never carry on

such a good depression song

favourite lyric: “staring out an open window/catching my death”

[lollytea]

What are your opinions about Jungle cubs? I loved that show as a kid!

hi hello!! thank u for humoring me!! i love getting asks about the stuff im currently obsessed with that nobody really cares about, it makes me feel valid! also i dont have well constructed opinions, i just have a very messy, manic head so i just babble all my thoughts. for that i am sorry 

im not gonna say jungle cubs is the best damn cartoon to hit the tv and maybe its just my own biased love speaking when i call it a good show but it means a lot to me personally. it brought me comfort as a little kid, i came back to it as a teen when i was feeling very alone and came back to it again as an adult just cuz of my recent love of baloo and talespin and needing something to keep me upbeat during the quarantine. 

and ive watched quite a few cartoons i loved as a kid that i dont really vibe with anymore. i tried rewatching gummi bears. its not my thing. but jungle cubs is?? really good?? its just so charming to watch. i love the expressive animation, i love the smooth flowing dialogue, i love the playful and naive tone it has of just a bunch of kids being kids, i love the depiction of these characters, i love the performance of the voice actors, i love the layers it adds to the original film. layers that were never intended to be in there in the first place but isnt that just the beauty of interpretation and ones own imagination. 

its such a formulaic concept isnt it. to take a classic show/movie and make its protagonists babies for a spinoff. but i dunno, i always got the feeling that whoever was the backbone of this story actually cared about the characters they were writing and took a sincere approach to it. 

they thought in-depth about how to devolve them from their current personalities in a realistic way and what aspects of themselves are so core to their being that they would have been ingrained since childhood. the cubs feel pretty three-dimensional and considering theyre cash grab spinoff babies, that is an amazing feat.

but also, i love it for the very very very simple reason of its really adorable. bagheera especially. to see such a stoic and levelheaded character in his earliest stage as a child just Hits for me. cub bagheera is clever, hes cautious, hes a little stuck-up, all traits he has in the movie. hes also not the best hunter, doesnt know how to roar yet, is a little cowardly, sorta awkward at times and is often trying to prove that hes the best even though hes aware that he is nowhere near the best.

like its easy to believe the kind of person he grows up to be but at the same time, its really interesting to see the more childish aspects of himself that he eventually matured past. and hes adorable dude! baby bagheera voiced by EG Daily is the sweetest goddamn thing, i love him so much 

also shere khan who is a fuckin doozy. hes very interesting in this too. everything about his attitude is reminiscent of a preteen who says mean things to you on voice chat while playing overwatch but if you tell him you’re gonna call the police on him, he starts panicking. thats shere khan’s vibe, a real edgy little tiger who thinks hes hot shit cuz he probably caught something bigger than a mouse like one time and its gone to his head. 

hes constantly stalking around, subtly bragging about what a natural predator he is. but at the same time, he’s still around?? hes still hanging around with the other cubs cuz hes ALSO a cub and likes to play around with other kids his age. and he fucking loves his friends. the amount of times he’s scared off bigger animals who were about to harm them. and its really sweet cuz they like him too. while his attitude is definitely annoying sometimes, they still consider him their friend and enjoy his company. its just wholesome. 

plus hes also pretty vulnerable as hes a cub. he doesnt stand a chance when they come across a grown animal as a threat. he gets scared just like the rest of them, hes just so arrogant that he never admits it. 

in fact the appeal of the show in general to me, is the vulnerabilities of all the characters that comes with being in their most immature state. they dont know any better when it comes to stuff. this show is real dumbass hours 

EVERYTHING about baloo is just great. he does not change even slightly. he is exactly the same except hes little and his voice hasnt broke yet. his child voice is amazingly fitting also.

i mean i guess one thing that differentiates him is adult baloo had some semblance of a philosophy. he was wise....in a way. baby baloo does not know shit about shit. he does not think. he just vibes, okay?? i love him mwah

i dont have much to say about the others but i DO like this interpretation of them more than their adult selves. it also just feels bittersweet that they grew up to be such dicks. Haithi is lovely, i love that hes just out here TRYING to be a colonel but he lacks the authority that comes with being a grown elephant and he doesnt have the self confidence to command anybody yet. he is simply babey.

 louie is a very cute little dude, i love him and baloo as just an idiot squad. he also has a very good voice

kaa.....i dont trust. on one hand, hes very sweet as a child but on the OTHER HAND he grows up to be the creepiest fucking creation disney has ever put in a movie so that snake will always rub me the wrong way even when im trying to like him. 

also ONE THING thats driving me crazy about this show is like. it has the best depiction of pre-adolescent boys that i have ever seen in a cartoon ever. just the way they behave. theyre sweethearts one minute, extremely mean the next minute, going from building eachother up to lightly bullying eachother, lots of unprovoked play fighting, laughing over dumb shit, rude to strangers for no goddamn reason, theres just a lot. 

it fuckin knocked me back like 15 years cuz it reminded me so much of kids i used to play with. and these arent even human children whose brain development is documented, these are animals, this show had no business being this spot-on.

i dont like season 2. it has a few gems here and there that i get a kick out of. but as a whole, its really disappointing. since the show swapped production companies, they seemed to uproot it completely and start from scratch. and its kinda sad cuz i think they were TRYING to do something poignant when it came to a future narrative but it just didnt land. firstly there was a huge animation downgrade and looking at the two season in comparison is kinda depressing. 

also they redesigned the characters, some looked worse than others. baloo looked fine but i still preferred his og look. bagheera....was the worst. rip bagheera. 

they all underwent a huge personality change. and not in the way that showed subtle maturity, i mean a vapid exaggeration of their original personality. the only characters who were left relatively alone in this regard were baloo and kaa. and i dont mind gradually changing a character since there IS an adult version of them that they should be growing into. but the season 2 depictions are literally the furthest things from their adult selves that its unbelievable.

 another pet peeve is they changed a few of the voice actors and.....i love these season 2 voice actors in other work theyve done. dee bradley baker and cree summer specifically who are both very talented people. but they did not fit these roles in the slightest. (not to mention having cree summer play an APE and suddenly having her do a LOT of monkey noises that the previous va never had to do. im not gonna get into all that BUT hmm.) and if youre gonna recast the characters to make them sound “older” as least make them sound somewhat similar to the jungle book actors, so you can picture them eventually growing into those voices. 

also the tone shifted so much between seasons. the way they tried to make this jungle more of a “society” with shit like talent shows and sports games and celebrities and like fuckin. STOP. theyre animals. just let them be animals. along with that the writing just feels really off and its just. not fun. i dont like it 

and as i mentioned, they WERE trying to do something here. the fact that the cubs didnt hang out with eachother as much and were starting to drift apart is kinda sad and wouldve liked it see it handled a little better. but instead i got season 2, which was stupid. and im 21 and im petty. 

anyway i am very sorry that ended so negatively and im very sorry that rant was completely all over the place i have no sense of proper organization i just wanted to gush about what i love. but on a positive note i love jungle cubs!! its very dear to my heart and makes me very happy and i wish it had gotten more episodes

[ink-as-i-sink]

Break Free

Last week I read this amazing quote. It said something like “Normal people bleed over pain, but we writers, we bleed over paper.”

So I am here to bleed. I will bleed it out and take it out of my shoulders, because I need to. I need to stop pretending that everything is fine and that I am focused on my future and working hard towards it and nothing else. Because I am not. People don’t understand that it is hard to work for something when you don’t see it even existing.

Life is never easy, I’ve came to grips with it a long time ago, and also came to the conclusion that it is not suppose to be, because then you would lose all the fun.

But these times we are living, these times are being far more difficult than I ever imagined I would have to endure. And it is, deeply, taking a big tool on me. For quite some time.

I’ve been feeling lost in this reality we are living in. Suddenly the human race seems so weak. How a tiny little thing you can’t even see, can change everything so quickly and so drastically.

And what they are demanding, is so innocuous, and people are incapable of rebelling against it, and it makes me so goddamn sad. 

You can’t live your life, be with the ones you love, do what you love. You can’t be free to do all that but you must keep going to work every single day, you have to keep buying because economy needs to keep selling. How are you not mad about it? 

Maybe I am insane.

I feel imprisoned. I feel like all those oh so sad little birds trapped in the cage some heartless human put them in. It’s like I have these beautiful wings and this outstanding ability to sing. But I can only leave when they want me to, and talk for whatever they want to listen to.

It drives me crazy how the world is dying and nobody cares.

And then I drown in my own thoughts. How I can’t fulfill my desire of being a mother because I can’t happily put a child in this miserable god forsaken hell, we call world, that all these careless and naive people turned my beautiful Earth into.

And then I feel so stupid and crazy and abnormal for having these kind of thoughts. I feel so god damn lonely. Because no one understands my suffering or my tears. They can’t bring themselves to comprehend how a person can feel so desperate and utterly sad about this thing that it’s not even their business.

And maybe they are right. And I admit it that sometimes I wish within the darkest parts of my soul, that I was a little bit more like them. I wish I could live in that mesmarizing pink bubble where it doesn’t matter if fifty years from now this world will be up in flames and will no longer exist orangutans and polar bears. I do. I wish it so strongly sometimes. But it’s only this brief sentiment, simply because that is not who I am.

I am a romantic little bastard that loves everything with a breath and everything which does not possess even life. I love the wild animals and how they evolve to be so perfect for where they were placed. I love the immersiveness of a forest so rich you can’t even see anything but trees in any direction. I love the sound of the crushing waves while a bunch of seagulls search for tones of fish underneath. I love the dance of a hunting whale and the way everything fits perfectly in this huge blue and green ball we were lucky enough to have known. I love it. And I’ve never even seen half of it.

And god, please tell me I will see it. Because the thought of it ceasing to a dramatic and ugly end, depresses me from the tips of my curly hair to the cells of my tired bones.

And people don’t get it.

I know, I know. Why would I be depressed? I have the most beautiful and fun family I could ever ask for. And I love them deeply, and they love me. My friends are exquesite, loyal, and the best family I could ever have chosen, and they love me so much, and I love them so much. I love what I chose to do for a living, I love the place I was born and raised, and I am a very healthy, inteligente and interesting person. I have a person who saw me for who I am, and loved me still, and I love him too. And most people aren’t lucky enough to say not even half of what I just did. So how can I be depressed?

Well, but I am.

That is not enough for me, and I feel the most shitty and bad person I could for that exact reason.

Why can’t that be enough for me?

Then I feel this huge string of mess so thin, about to break. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I fucking hate it.

And then, I feel more depressed.

And in this spiral that only goes down I enter. And I go. I go as it tightens around me so hard I feel like I’m choking. I drown in this spiral of thoughts and then I run out of air and then I turn against the world, and humans, and everything we represent. And then I feel even worst for being part of it.

And so I drink, and I smoke cigarrettes, and I listen to sad and angry songs. And I want to hurt myself, to erase myself. Why, you ask. Beacause I don’t want to be part of it, at least not most of the goddamn time.

I don’t want to be human.

I want to be

A bird

Or a wave

Or ashes.

I want to break free.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

another relationship PSA advice post:

okay so i know that i’ve already made a big post about this... but i just had a flashback to when that weird chick at public school was trying to set me up with men in their late 20s/early 30s back in 2012 when we were LITERALLY 16.

like one of the excuses i used back then to deflect this girl’s constant pressure of talking to those men was “uh, *zara*.... my drama teacher at catholic school literally turned fucking 30 last year (or back in 2010) and my whole drama class called him old as fuck! so these men are the same age as my drama teacher from catholic school!!!! how the FUCK is that okay and NOT creepy???? they’re LITERALLY OLD ENOUGH TO BE OUR BLOODY TEACHERS AND WOULD BE FUCKING ARRESTED FOR DOING ANYTHING TO US IF THEY WERE????!!!! PLEASE! GET! IT! THROUGH! YOUR! HEAD! THAT! THIS! ISN’T! FUCKING! NORMAL!!!!”

but she obvs deflected the above with: “but we’re old enough to and are legal to fuck, so just fuck them and it’ll be ok!!!! just suck it up and do it!!!” like i just wanna say to my younger followers that:

if anyone your age pulls you into this sort of totally fucked up situation, and just refers to sex by saying “just fuck them” or as just as “fucking” without realising that sex is actually FAR MORE than that... then they don’t care about your safety and boundaries AT ALL, and you should dump that friend, STAT.

after all, if they were really your friend, they would care about your safety and understand your refusals/rejections towards the men. they would also care about your bodily autonomy and boundaries and understand that you’re not comfortable with this situation.... and so, stop harassing you to flirt and sleep with these men.... which literally NO TEENAGER in their right fucking mind should be fucking comfortable with a man who is basically twice their fucking age (and old enough to be their goddamned teacher) flirting with them and wanting to sleep with them.

finally, NO NORMAL dude in their late 20s/early 30s should be finding a 16 YEAR OLD GIRL ATTRACTIVE. FUCKING PERIOD. after all, these men ARE FULLY AWARE that you are a kid. but they don’t actually care. and that’s because they’re looking for someone to manipulate and abuse/harass etc. because no woman their age will put up with their, more than likely, manchild bullshit behaviour. but a 16 year old girl, according to these men, will presumably put up with it, because teen girls don’t know anything about relationships and sex and life, but they (the men) obviously do. they’ll use that excuse so that then you’ll presumably follow EVERYTHING that they say and want you to do. and the friend that’s pulling you into this sitch is doing the same thing, by being complicit in the same grooming behaviours of those men.

JUST RUN FOR YOUR MOTHERFUCKING LIFE (if it’s safe to). report it if it’s safe to as well. please. because it’s not worth your safety and sanity dealing with either the fucked up friend who thinks men twice your age will apparently “keep you safe”/“look after you” (when they’re obviously fucking not!!!) if you “just fuck them”.... or dealing with the creepy adult men who SHOULDN’T BE FUCKING FLIRTING WITH A GODDAMNED CHILD IN THE FIRST MOTHERFUCKING PLACE ANYWAY.

in short, the real safety in this situation is caring enough about yourself to firmly set your boundaries and standards, which will allow you to block these people out of your life. listen to yourself. if it feels wrong (which for a good bulk of teenagers, it will feel really fucked up), let the friend know. call the friend out and these men out on their behaviour if you feel safe and confident enough in doing so.

if they actually take the time to listen and consider, the friend should realise that they’re wrong and stop.... and in general most decent & normal adult men should stop as soon as you say you’re a teenager and hopefully stop harassing you. if neither happens, just straight up block the men on social media like facebook or snapchat (which was where this girl was adding them for me) and just stand your ground with your friend if they don’t listen.... and report them if you feel like you can. then block them on social media too.

but if you get stuck in this situation and feel like you can’t get out of it, reach out for help to someone else that you can actually trust, like another friend that you’re actually closer with or something (like this girl I wasn’t actually close with at all) hopefully they’ll help you out and get you out of this fucked up sitch.

but don’t hate yourself if you’re stuck with the weird friend or unfortunately stuck in a relationship with one of those sickening men. because i easily could’ve been too, after all of their creepy “you’re so mature for your age 😊😊” etc comments. and it was all because i was young, insecure, naive and desperate for any kind of positive comments/feedback/attention because i’d never received any from any guys in my age group. you may feel the same. but DON’T FALL FOR IT. or don’t hate yourself if you do fall for those comments, because it is very, very easy to when you feel lonely and whatever in your teens. because, sadly, this is EXACTLY WHAT these men are latching onto. they are latching onto your low self image/esteem and giving you the attention that you want by giving you those seemingly nice compliments. they know that’s what you want: someone that’s ready to shower you in compliments. but once you get into a relationship with them, those “compliments” are probably likely to stop... as they’ll try to use the age gap against you, like i said earlier.

basically at this point, i’d come out of a year-long depressive episode/mental breakdown, so i was trying to build myself up again to be confident and everything.... and that’s why i became so suspicious of these men suddenly giving me those creepy comments/so-called “compliments” and my friend trying to set me up with them so forcefully. but yeah. again, DON’T HATE YOURSELF FOR FALLING INTO THIS IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, because it’s so, so easy, at that age, and in that state, to feel that you need love from anyone or anything. but please remember to set your boundaries and standards and stick to them before anything DOES happen. because you are WORTH your boundaries and standards and safety, despite what these people (as well as your depression or low self-esteem/image) tell you.

anyway, JUST BE SAFE OUT THERE Y’ALL.

———————————————————————

this also falls under the whole “hoe phase” body positivity thing. like if you’re 17-19 and some friend is like “be a hoe with that dude in his late 20s/early 30s that keeps hitting on you on *insert chosen dating app here*”..... i again suggest to run from or ignore that guy and to ignore/leave that friend. because if there’s a 10+ year age gap between you and the guy/other person, there could/can be a BIG disparity (well i think there will be idk) in how the guy/other person will treat you....

like obviously it’ll depend on how decent the other person is generally.... but again, if they can’t pull someone their own age, but pull an 17-19yo instead, when they’re like 26-33 or whatever, then you’ve got some serious questioning to do towards that person, to yourself. like my questioning of the men on this hellsite, in this age bracket, that i had hitting on me at 17/18 on me, was: “but they pay bills/rent/a mortgage and shit.... like I DON’T EVEN FUCKING KNOW WHAT ANY OF THOSE ARE!!!??? why the FUCK are they even bothering with hitting on me when they’re adults that i’ve actually told that i’m still in high school????” and that was substantial enough to turn me off them tbh lmao. but yeah. just STAY SAFE in your hoe phases/sex discovery phases y’all.

*side note: again, yes. this post is primarily aimed at straight girls, but also applies to any sexuality/gender orientation. i want all my followers to be fucking safe y’all.*

[squeiky]

Is it weird that papyrus reminds me of a mini undyne?..

And how undyne is pretty goddamn naive. In the sense of "IS ANIME REAL?!" Kinda naive. Not dumb though.

While writing my characters i also found out about a mask and countermask in characters. And certain arcs e.c.t

So i remembered the skeletons bros and undyne.

And then i was like wait, i know undynes comuter mask and sans's counter mask but whats papyrus's? Then i remember that quote of "I wanna meet death" and the other instances in waterfall of him just being really... Vunarble.

And then that "oh shit" moment came to me, and i realised that was papyrus's countermask and i was just kinda stunned.

Sans countermask appears in genocide, and undynes countermask is the fact shes in love with a anime nerd and is just-

UNDYNE YOU MARSHMELLOW OH MY GOD AHE IS SO ADORBALEKWNCIDNE

Why is nobody talking about how that "fandom papyrus" fits undyne was more than papyrus does? Like she does the "uwu" face. She's in love with alphys, a shy nerdy girl. And their duo is so adorable. She literally had no idea is anime was real or not, and on the side note, she pretty flippin stubborn, strong, and very unique.

Man, im writing undyne for UNDERWILD and like JEBFKIWBDJWIEIEBFJD SHE SOOO CUTEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAA but not in that weird "fanon" way. I mean like the way she acts when she is flustered. She pretty gosh darn awsome. Monster kid is right.

And apperently revealed that papyrus doesn't fucking sleep. Well, he zones out, but doesn't sleep. No matter what time of day, he always awnser the phone within 2 rings.

Beacuse of the "2 rings" it means he does zone out or he just doesn't wanna awnsers the phone right away. (Like me, when im feeling a bit introverted and let the phone ring untill it stops beacuse wtf am i supposed to say lmao. Im an antrovert.)

Like THANK YOU UNDYNE MY WONDERFUL SOURCE THAT REVEALS PART OF PAPYRUS I DID NOT KNOW. Beacuse sans is unreliable, and papyrus wont say anything UNLESS ITS IN WATERFALL BEACUSE CKNSIXWJ

Wait a minute-Why is waterfall the depressed place? Like every depressing thing happens in waterfall. Waterfall the place of tears. Like im crying a waterfall of tears.

Also about mettaton beacuse why not-

METTATON NEO OH MY GOD YOUR SO COOL AAAAAAAAASAAAAAAAA HE IS SO AMAZING OH MY GOSH DOES ANYONE EVEN WATCH HIS FIGHT?! ITS FABULOUS!!! OH MY GOSHHHHH

HE REALLY WAS MADE TO KILL HUMANS AAAAAA WHY AM I SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS I DONT KNOW OH MY GOSHHH

Also mettaton and undyne both realised something in the genocide run, that we are also a threat to humanity and monster kind as well. (which they are right)

And i love that these 2 fights, yet both very diffrent give me so much info.

[bugli-bugli]

TW: insults towards depression and anxiety, toxic behavior, father/parent mention, trauma discussion, self-harm mention, suicide idealization

just a rant because im just too fucking tired of the bullshit of other sites.

i’ve really taken for granted how non-toxic tumblr is in the nice little corner i’ve tucked myself into. since i’m pretty desperate for money, cause now i think ill just have to live off disability if i can even get it.

I gotta say my mutuals and the people who reblogged my donation post, im so fucking grateful for you and i cant thank you enough. but besides the point, rant.

posted my donation post on twitter and later reddit, like the naive fool i am. the first comment i got on the twitter one was very homophobic and the guy was just an overall creep upon a quick look on his tumblr. i responded to him but immediately deleted it cause i knew thats all he wanted was to make me angry. think i was able to get him banned but fuck if i know.

this is more about the lovely reddit post i got

sigh im not going to bother replying and i just reported them, but i wanted to get out of me all the shit i wanted to say. just, first of all i know trolls and shit just do this to get attention, but this on the fucking r/donate subreddit like??? why isn’t it moderated better?? besides the point

i dont care if you believe my donation post is a scam, whatever, believe what you want and move on. i understand there is a lot of people out there trying to get money they can easily get themselves, instead they take it from goodhearted people.

you need to grow the fuck up. i redirect back at this person because, you spent your time, what? hating on a post that might be a scam. and they regularly do this to from just a quick look. so immature and annoying. this hurts so fucking much to hear too cause it strikes a perfect nerve of trauma.

anxiety and depressions are perfectly valid reasons to not be able to hold down a job. they sound like my fucking dad. i have panic attacks when people raise their voice or if there is too much going on around me, like tvs and crowds and what not.

ive mostly been sleeping lately and cant even make myself do simple physical tasks. not just because of my depression but because of my chronic joint pain that i still haven’t fucking got working medication for yet.

plus i have 472147921 other disorders that i havent been able to get diagnosed or help yet because of my stupid fucking parents. who finally are getting me help after years upon years of having obvious mental issues. ONLY BECAUSE a big argument that my sister had to speak for me in, because i went nonverbal and was hysterically laughing because my dad denying he called me fat.

but yeah i cant even brush my teeth, or shower, the only hygiene habits i have are because if i didnt do them my brain would make me have a panic attack or some intrusive thoughts of self harm.

how is it fucking entitled to ask strangers to donate, H O W? i dont think i deserve this, i dont think that im better then other people, im posting this because others who are in similar/worse situations posting donation posts gave me the confidence to do so.

yes im so entitled to be begging on my hands and knees for money because capitalism and my body and mind are working against me. im not even saying HEY DONATE AND IF YOU DONT DONATE YOU ARE A FUCKING HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING. or anything even remotely close to that.

i gave the needed information and background as to why we would need money, and why we struggle to get it ourselves. and asked that people at least share, but there is no obligation to go any of these things.

i know i cant live my entire life on freelance transcription but it is LITERALLY THE ONLY JOB I CAN GET. yeah just simply go out and get a real job, because you can totally form sentences around strangers and dont feel like you are going to throw up from anxiety. its not that hard.

i totally have the endurance to do whatever it is necessary in whatever shitty ass 8 hour shift job i could get, because every step i take doesn’t physically hurt. because after walking too much, my knees wont give out ever, that never happens. because i dont have a fear of failure because my dad totally didn’t get mad at me when i took to long to learn something. i have no trauma related to that at all. im a totally capable human being. 

all of these last two paragraphs are sarcasm btw if that wasn’t obvious

i dont even know what couch sufing on craigslist even is. i had to look it up. how is that advice, how. oh yeah just live on other peoples couches, people you dont even know. thats not dangerous at all like HUH?!?! fuck no. if i wanted to get myself killed id do it myself.

also shelters are totally safe, and never have any issues whatsoever. i didnt ask for fucking advice that was going to make our situation worse you p.o.s.

also i know what im fucking doing, im researching and trying to make the most feasible and realistic plan to leave. even if that is i have freelance transcribing jobs and disability and my sister has whatever job and my so probably in the same boat as me. im not just going to move out without the needed things unless i was kicked out. which, as of the moment, none of us are currently at risk of that, yet.

if it really came down to it where Brutus would need to be rehomed, we’d probably do it. but he means so fucking much to us, we dont want to rehome him because we dont have anyone we can fucking trust to take care of him and we arent just going to give him away to whoever. Brutus and my pets and my sisters are all part of our family, and we aren’t just going to fucking give them away.

whatever, the rage is gone, im tired and i want to cry, this wasn’t posted for attention or anything i just wanted to rant. please dont leave negative comments im not in the goddamned mood.

[hercleverboy]

11 Minutes

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Based on 11 minutes by Halsey & YungBlud

ONE : DENIAL

He shoots up from his bed, breathing heavy, a thin layer of sweat covering his body. Though that was the last thing on his mind. His brain raced with thoughts, only of one thing ; her. He flicks his wrist up, his eyes catching on the timer that had began its deadly countdown. He had 11 minutes. 11 minutes to get to her. He’s out of the bed in seconds, wasting no time as he yanks open his front door, looking in both directions before turning left and darting down the street. He knows where she is, he knows where to find her, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get to her.

He thinks he’d sell his soul for a bit more time with her.

2 days ago, he’d gotten a call from a pay phone number. He’d frowned, unsure who it could be, but picked up nonetheless.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Bucky. I- Uh-, I’m in town this week, I was wondering if you wanted to grab coffee, maybe?”

He couldn’t believe that it was her voice he was hearing. Her ; the woman he’d loved ever since he was a teenage boy. They were 19, having a sort of summer romance that became so much more. He’d fallen in love with her, as she had him. But they were so young, that had no idea what it meant to love, how to build a relationship. They fucked it up, both of them. And she’d left, telling him that it wasn’t going to work between them. It’d broken his heart, honestly. She’d left a stain on his body like red wine. When he looked back now, he thought of how stupid he’d been. He was young, naive and in love. He couldn’t believe that he was being granted the wish that he’d hoped for for the last 5 years. The chance to reconcile with her, to tell her he loved her, that he wanted to be with her. That she was the one for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great, Y/N. I’ll meet you at our spot tomorrow?”

“Yeah sure. See you.”

Tomorrow came quickly, that he was thankful for. He’d managed to bag their favourite booth in the small cafe, and had ordered their favourite drinks as he waited. She texted him.

Y/N - “I’m 11 minutes away, Bucky. I’ve missed you. I can’t wait to see you.”

It made his heart jump, the thought of being able to see her made him giddy. The waitress placed the drinks down on the table, and he thanked her, and then waited patiently. 11 minutes go by, and there’s no sight of her. 11 minutes becomes 20, then 40, and before he can tell 2 hours have gone and her hot chocolate is cold and all he can think is that she’s stood him up. Of course she had, she must’ve changed her mind last minute. It shattered his heart all over again. He stared down at his coffee, which had long gone cold itself, as he began to wonder what could’ve been, had she shown up. He’s distracted by the sound of the waitress turning up the small TV in the corner. And he thinks as soon as he sees the breaking news banner flash across the screen he knows what’s happened.

“- the young females car collided with another, sending her car flipping across the road. Emergency services were called but unfortunately she was pronounced dead when ambulance arrived.”

His world seemed to stop moving. She’d been 11 minutes away, when a car had come from nowhere and ploughed into her side, crushing her on impact. And he’d been here, in that stupid cafe, waiting like a lovesick idiot as she died, afraid and alone.

11 fucking minutes away.

He’s racing down alleyways, rounding sharp street corners in an attempt to reach her in time. He flicks up his wrist - 7 minutes - he’s still got 7 minutes. He rounds another corner, a knocks straight into a woman carrying numerous bags of shopping. He apologises profusely, scrambling to his feet as he continues running, not deterred from his task. Another corner is rounded, and his breathing is getting shallow, but he can’t stop now. He’s not looking where he’s going and he trips on uneven ground, and as he hits the ground, he watches in despair as the clock counts down the final seconds.

3

2

1

TWO : ANGER

He’s wakes suddenly, flicking his wrist up, as the countdown from begins again. He’s got 11 minutes to get to her. He’s been given another chance to reach her, and he won’t waste it. He’s running again, rounding corners here and there, running so quickly that he doesn’t see that lady with all those fucking bags, but he doesn’t care at this point. He pushes past her, not stopping to gather her things for her. Those precious seconds couldn’t be wasted. His breathing is heavy and his legs ache, his heart beats harshly against his ribcage, but he doesn’t care. For her, he’d walk through hell and back. He forgets where the uneven pavement is, tripping again, punching the ground in undetainable anger as he pushes himself onto his feet again.

1 minute, 43 seconds.

He’s closer this time, he can make it ; he hopes. But hope is lost, because he’s closer, but not close enough. As he charges through the tunnel the pathway weaves under, his watch beeps obnoxiously, and the numbers turn to 0. He slows to a stop, unable to breathe but not bothering to care.

He’s lost again.

He’s lost her again.

THREE : BARGAINING

The damn alarm sounds again, ripping its way through the silence of his grey apartment.

11 minutes. He won’t fuck it up this time.

He grabs a jacket, pulling it on before throwing open his door, and he’s off again, running against time itself to save the woman he loves. He won’t fail a third time, he can’t. He’ll stop her from fucking dying even if it kills him.

8 minutes left, and he’s swerving around the lady and her bags, missing her completely. He jumps over the uneven pavement, and there’s still 3 minutes left, and he can’t believe that he’s gonna do it this time, he’s going to save her. He rounds the final corner, and he can see it, her black car flipped onto its roof, the smashed glass of the windows scattered around her. She lay there, unusually still but alive, as he races to the end of the street. He’s so close, he sees the blood trickling from the wound on her head, he sees the glass shards that stick to her skin but he knows that if he can just make it to her then he can save her.

And as he’s mere metres away, a force pulls him back. He can’t explain it, but it holds him, forces him to watch as the love of his life takes her final breath, the ambulance siren heard in the background. He pulls at the force, the tears streaming down his cheeks as he begs it, pleads to it to let him save her.

He cries out, “Y/N, I’m here. I promise, I love you I-“ he struggles to breathe, to hear, to see. But he still begs.

“No, Please, Please! No, I love her, please, let me go, I love her so much I can’t please-“

He screams his voice raw, sobs wrecking through his frame as the force drops him, and he collapses to his knees. His eyes dare to look to his wrist, where the blinking red 00:00 is displayed.

And he’s failed again.

FOUR : DEPRESSION

The beeping wakes him, sounding through his groggy apartment. He pays no mind. Yesterday’s football game plays quietly on the small TV, but he drowns the noise out the best he can. He brings his knees up to his chest, hands going up to his hair and he pulls harshly at the strands. She used to gently pull at his hair, he remembers. He’ll never feel that again. The beeping continues, and he looks at his watch, to confirm that the countdown has begun again.

10 minutes, 45 seconds.

But he doesn’t move.

Whatever kind of sick joke this was, forcing him to relive his pain, then taking her away again as soon as he was so close to saving her. 11 minutes wasn’t enough time to reach her, but that was the sickest part. Giving someone the hope that they can save the one they love, when they know it wasn’t enough time to begin with. He thinks perhaps it’s funny, that he even bothered trying in the first place. He knew 11 minutes wouldn’t be enough time and yet he tried so fucking hard to reach her. He supposes that showed how much he loved her. And how much he’d let her down. He simply couldn’t reach her. And he doesn’t think he’ll ever forgive himself.

There’s 9 minutes left and he’s in the bar, head resting on the counter, as he drinks countless amounts, hoping to drown himself and his thoughts. 9 minutes becomes 6, and shot after shot he’s trying to forget about her. Forget that he’d been given more chances that most and he still couldn’t get to her. His heart aches for her, because he’s so goddamn in love with her that he doesn’t know what to do. She deserved the world and he couldn’t give it to her.

He’s throwing peanut shells onto the floor, watching how they crumble as they hit the ground, and his eyes catch the numbers counting down on his watch.

3

2

1

He bangs his head down on the counter, the guilt of not at least attempting to reach her again and despair washing over him.

But what could he possibly do?

FIVE : ACCEPTANCE

He slowly blinks his eyelids open, his first thoughts are of her (aren’t they always?), and he looks to his side with a sigh. He remembers all the times they’d had together when they were younger. When they were in love. He recalled the time they’d played video games together on his couch, and she’d attempted to distract him with a kiss so that she could get the upper hand and win. (He’d let her win anyway, but still.) He thinks of how she used to straddle his back as he slept, using her markers to draw colourful drawings across the landscape of his back. He was always fascinated by her artistic ability. His mind flashes the moments where she’d laughed - god he missed that laugh - at some stupid joke he’d made, or how she even managed to make him cackle with laughter, something not many could do.

He thinks of the 11 minutes that were stolen from them, a measurement of time that he’d never get back. Those few precious minutes that meant a lifetime of regret and yearning and loving. As the final seconds tick down, he finds himself smiling as he falls back into slumber. He thinks of her.

The alarm rings through the room, but he doesn’t stir. He thinks of her. And he thinks he’ll be okay.

[morethanithoughtofficialblog]

Chapter 1: This is how life is going

Hello! This is chapter 1 of “More than I thought”! I’m so glad you are reading my cringy writing xd. 

Anyway... let’s go! 

(This chapter is not edited, so... sorry?)

*Your POV*

I slammed the door behind me, fell to my knees, and closed my eyes. Today was such a shitty day I actually don't want to go back. But I have to. Unless I want to get fired, which actually doesn't sound THAT bad.

I was greeted by my lonely apartment, being a complete mess in anywhere you look. Thankfully, I live alone, and my friends don't visit me often... well, never. I'm the only who has been in this apartment, besides from the original owner.

I sighed, tired, and put my black work bag on a small table I have in front of the TV. I went to my bedroom and changed in the best clothes in the world: my pajamas. Then I went to the couch and turn on the news, not paying attention to whatever was there. My mind had other plans for today, it seemed.

I started to remember when I saw the news on a day like this one, and then there was this unbelievable title: 'Monsters are released from the Underground by a little girl'. Now, that sounds cheap as fuck, but it has been somehow true. A huge diversity of monsters were in the outsides of Mount Ebott, smiling and happily chatting with other humans, who looked like they were going to collapse at any moment. I think a man fainted after seeing a tall skeleton happily greeting him, so I saw it as less serious as I thought at first.

Two weeks have passed since that day, and almost no one is happy about it. I understand, though. Humans have never been THAT naive to trust in something new that fast. However, the discrimination it's starting to get on my nerves. One thing is not to trust them, and another thing is to shout strong insults towards them. C'mon, we are in the 21st century! We are not fucking caveman!

One way or another, my work partners found out my point of view and started a shitty discussion in the middle of an important meeting. It was irritating, and more the thought that this is probably not the first time it will happen.

I still don't see why many people it's extremely racist and unbearable. This is getting out of our hands, and more thanks to the government. Yep, the government is being racist, for Pete's sake! They are putting in doubt the capacities of the monsters to live in society, and, therefore, have decided to not give them the same rights. Now that's messed up! But barely anyone is opening their goddamn eyes and doing something!

I groaned, feeling a strong headache that was ready to fuck me up. I feel angry, and I'll probably feel angrier tomorrow. Everything's been such a mess lately. I can't even tell if I'm a human or a machine, working endlessly to please humanity's "needs".

I swallowed a pill and grabbed a snack bar, remembering that I didn't eat all day. Maybe that's why I was having a headache. Tomorrow not only I have work in the Congress, but also I have college, so I'll probably not eat again. Fuck my life.

I decided to relax and turn on my Nintendo Switch so I could play Mario Kart a bit. It's been a long time since I ever played that game so it may be interesting. I turn on the random-stage-feature and choose my favorite character. A few minutes after, I realized I haven't lost my touch. I smiled, mostly for myself.

It's sad how in this game everyone gets along just fine. I mean, in the Mario Kart way. The point is, that nobody is hitting each other with a blue shell 'cause of their differences, but because it is a competition. In the end, it doesn't matter if you are a hero or a villain; if you won, then, congrats! You are the winner! And that's it. If the world could respect that, I think it would be a better place. But that's just my inner innocence, with the slight hope that everyone can be a good person if they just try.

I was starting to feel depressed, so I just finished the cup and turn off the console. It's been a long day. Dealing with my emotions doesn't look like the best option.

I looked at the clock and see it's 11 pm. I arrived here at nine, so I haven't been playing that long. Barely half an hour, probably.

"Welp, time to go to bed and deal with insomnia again!" I enthusiastically said, throwing my arms into the sky in a victorious pose. Sarcasm has always been good for the soul.

I walked lazily to my bedroom and plopped to my bed, smiling slightly. I don't get to hang out with my bed that much, but it's a great friend. Even if I don't get any sleep, at least I'm comfortably crawling to my death.

"Jesus Christ..." I muttered, feeling how much my back needed a rest "...I guess I'm getting old, huh? Way to go, (Y/N)"

I chuckled softly, feeling like the scum of the Earth. It's hard to be positive when you are surrounded by a shitton of problems, greedy people, and your stupid mind. But I try my best to sleep at night, hoping that tomorrow I won't be lonely as today...