#Counter Intuitive Records

[pretendpopstar]

Somewhere City by Origami Angel

[punkrockmixtapes]

Charmer - Watercolor

[brokensoundkuci]

Song of the Day (Day # 565)

🌧️🌧️🌧️

Song: Arrowhead

Artist: Charmer

Album: Downpour

Year Released: 2025

https://charmermusic.bandcamp.com/

Lyrics:

Got me tangled in ivy Like a smile with too much teeth Try to forget me (Sudden death seems distant lately) Sick and sunk, I've used up all my luck What's the point in trying when I miss it all so much

Arrowhead in the sky, are you coming for my dreams tonight (Please, please don't take my life) Got caught scared, now nothing ever seems quite right (Please, please don't wipe my mind)

North star feels like forevermore (A bouquet of burnt bedside roses) Knocked down but I'm always coming back for more (You know I can't quite keep focus) North star feels like forevermore

Cursed me, I fell in love with morning blues Everything is leading me right back to hating you Slowly on all the ones and twos Follow my directions as you tie your homemade noose (Got me all tangled in ivy)

Cursed me, I fell in love with morning blues Everything is leading me right back to hating you Slowly on all the ones and twos Follow my directions as you tie your homemade noose (Sudden death seems much more likely)

[the-physicality]

the nwsl website is so hellish

[communistkenobi]

“transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement. It is making a claim about how a specific bigotry operates in the world, and its supposed analytical value is in revealing something about transphobia that appears on the surface to be counter-intuitive - “while you might think transphobia only hurts transgender people, that isn’t the case; it hurts cisgender people too.” The follow-up to this statement, sometimes implied and sometimes explicit, is a moral imperative - transphobia is a social ill that hurts us all, so we should seek to get rid of it.

This analytical-moral chain of logic isn’t unique to this statement; a lot of analyses of the social world come from a broader desire to “figure out what to do.” When we investigate a social phenomenon to uncover its inner workings, and in this investigation we identify the scope and impact of the harm it causes, we are in a better place to understand how to reduce harm in the world. Of particular interest in this investigation of transphobia is highlighting its illegitimacy - if transphobia also harms cisgender people, this is evidence of its illegitimacy as a social force in the world. We have uncovered some fundamental contradiction in the workings of bigotry, and this contradiction provides a rational ground for us to oppose it. Of course transphobia is irrational and must be opposed; it harms other groups of people who are not transgender.

This is also why people object to this statement on analytic grounds - disagreeing with the argument that transphobia hurts everyone is a critique of analysis. Importantly, it is not a dismissal of empirical evidence; we can see many direct real-world examples of cisgender people being targeted for transphobic abuse, such as cis people being attacked in bathrooms for “looking transgender.” A critique of the claim that transphobia hurts us all is a methodological critique, it is a critique of analytical framing; we are operating from the same set of social facts, but reaching different conclusions. The reason for this is because we are using different investigative and theoretical tools in our analysis. And these differences are not trivial; how we define the social phenomena under investigation directly informs how we understand the facts in front of us.

So first, we must settle the problem of definitions - what is transphobia? Simply defining it as a hatred of transgender people is insufficient for all parties. If it does indeed also hurt cis people, then this definition doesn’t do us much analytical good. Where do we go from here? Perhaps a better place to start is to investigate its origins - what assumptions does transphobia operate from? Where do those assumptions come from? This is where we start getting somewhere. Transphobia draws its core assumptions from cissexualism - the belief that there are two mutually-exclusive and irreconcilable sexes, sexes which are immutable and biologically hard-wired, meaning that it is a difference in human beings that exists independent of the social worlds that human beings build. This idea is bound up in many forms of power, one of which being patriarchy; yes indeed there are two sexes, and one of them is better than the other. And because sex is hard-wired, then patriarchy is likewise a simple fact of nature. These assumptions are also bound up in reproduction; one sex impregnates (this is the powerful sex) and one sex gets impregnated (this is the weak sex). These ideas and assumptions structure much of our social world, being embedded in many social, political, and economic institutions, from family to labour to dating to census records to political office, and so on. 

Transphobia is thus an output of these logics - if sex is biological, and sex determines your place in society, then attempting to change your sex means you are thwarting the natural hierarchy of human beings. You are either trying to rise above your station, or abandoning your post. Either option is grounds for punishment. Why would you go against nature? How dare you?

So, transphobia is a bigotry that comes from cissexualism. We could investigate further where cissexualism comes from (and indeed those investigations are taking place), but for our purposes we now have a much more analytically rich definition. Transphobia is a social technology of discipline; it performs a regulatory function for the continuation of cissexualism, much the same way that misogyny is a regulatory apparatus of patriarchy, and homophobia is a regulatory apparatus of heterosexuality. These bigotries perform a very ‘rational’ social function; they reproduce existing forms of power by policing their borders and brutalising anyone who does not behave in accordance with their logics.

We now return to the original question: does transphobia harm everyone? This question now feels methodologically inappropriate, because we are ignoring the role cissexualism plays in producing transphobia. This is as absurd as describing homophobia without mentioning heterosexuality. The question should instead be: does cissexualism harm everyone? The answer of course is yes - we can see how cissexualism produces the social conditions for people to assault someone in a public bathroom for “looking transgender,” for an adult to force a child to report what their genitals ‘really look like’ so they can continue playing soccer, and for a billionaire to spend the latter half of her life dumping money and resources into political legislation that makes it more difficult to, among other things, correct administrative mistakes on your birth certificate. 

But because we are now talking about cissexualism, it is much easier for us to see how its violence is differentially applied across groups. Cisgender people can point to their cisgenderism as grounds for being exempt from transphobia - “don’t target me, I haven’t done anything wrong! I’m following the rules!” Their societal position as cisgender allows them to argue that they are illegitimate targets, that they are being unfairly treated. This animated much of the surrounding discourse around Imane Khelif - I can’t believe JKR is targeting a real woman! Can’t you tell she’s biologically female? Here’s her birth certificate to prove it, and anyway, don’t you know it’s illegal to be transgender where she lives? 

This is a defence that transgender people cannot mount for ourselves - we are by definition fraudsters in the cissexual regime of gender, we are abandoning our stations, we are perverting nature. And in this difference we come to see that it is not transphobia that harms us all, but cissexualism; we are all subject to scrutiny under cissexual surveillance, but cis people can generally pass the test. Transgender people cannot. 

This distinction also has implications for the second sequence in this investigative chain: what do we do about transphobia? Again we see that this call to action is methodologically inappropriate - you cannot “deal with” transphobia in society while leaving the cissexualist structure that produces it intact, in the same way that getting rid of misogyny without first getting rid of patriarchy is impossible. You cannot get rid of an output without destroying the machine that produces those outputs. This is also where many cis people, even those who count themselves as trans allies, become uncomfortable; abandoning the idea of a metaphysical property of being, hard-encoded into their DNA, means abandoning a whole host of other ideas about identity, about social organisation, about institutional operations. Even minor reformist calls by transgender people, such as removing sex markers on birth certificates (which determine your ability to access all kinds of administrative and civil services), is met with intense hostility by cissexuals - how will we run our hospitals, how will we raise our children, how will we track population data, how will we do anything without sex markers? You people are insane! Look how you deny reality! What is wrong with you freaks? Why can’t you just be happy with the way you were born? And on and on, ironically refusing to concede the fact that states, hospitals, child care, and census data are not natural facts of the world and can be changed. Because if those things can be changed, perhaps sex is not this monumental biological destiny after all!

“Transphobia hurts us all” is an analytical statement that advances a set of cissexual assumptions about the world, and as a consequence, it is severely limited in its value for advancing a moral imperative about how to resolve the problem of transphobia. It is not a neutral statement, nor is one that is helplessly subservient to “the hard facts.” We know those facts - describing them is the role of the social scientist. Whether you are in a laboratory or on the street, you are doing social science by analysing social phenomena. And when you say transphobia hurts everyone, you are doing a poor job of it

[bigwishes]

I went to the gym yesterday. I don't go there regularly, just to keep fit. When I was looking for a free locker, I accidentally opened one that was occupied but not locked.

I totally slammed that thing shut like, ASAP, no questions asked! It was, like, a matter of serious honor, you know what I'm saying? Yo, I swear I can't shake off the stench of those gnarly gym clothes from my nostrils!

Like, what's the deal with that, dude! It's like my nose has been hijacked by the funk and it won't let go. Send help, bruh! And y do i say "bruh"?

Hmmm seems like some curse left behind and forgotten, not to worry I'm sure its nothing too serious, in fact a lot of guys get scared by the word "curse" and don't see it for the blessing that it really is. That terrible smell hasn't just latched onto the inside of your nose dude, its latched onto you that's why you smell it non stop and you'll probably notice that when you don't go to the gym for a day the smell gets worse. A little counter intuitive I know but hey some people use thing sort stuff to encourage them to hit the gym more. You might want to up your 1 day a week routine to a 7 days a week policy unless you want to hold the world record for the worlds worst stench by the end of the week.

What's with saying "bruh, bro and duuuhhh" so often you ask? I dunno maybe the original owner of the locker made a wish to fit in at the gym more but that's most of your vocabulary now. You are still you, at least on the inside but nobody really knows about that anymore because you talk like a fucking moron so you get treated like one. It seems your muscles are really ballooning up too. This is probably for the best, you sweat a lot, say bro non stop may as well have the size to go with it otherwise people might think you are weird, better to just conform to the stereotype.

Huh? what's that? "like duhhh, bro can you errrrr, fix duuhhhh curses bro" Sorry my dumbass is a little rusty but I think you're asking for these wonderful gifts to be removed? nah man I won't be doing that you definitely came to the wrong place because I think all men should be like this. In fact I think you'd look better 10x bigger and sweatier but I guess this is a good starting point. But hey, the choice is still yours, either turn into a putrid smelly dumb cunt.....or be that with huge muscles. Better hit the gym dude I can already smell you getting worse.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

True Crime can be interesting sometimes but other times you have a whole swath of people who I can only assume have negative brain cells who think, because of 1 documentary and the flimsiest evidence imaginable, that a 9-year-old with no actual documented history of deviant behavior before nor since, fashioned a complex garrotte, sexually assaulted his sister, and then bashed her over the head killing her, all because she allegedly ate a bit of his snack.

Seriously if you think Burke killed Jonbenét Ramsey you're a fucking idiot and you need to learn like, 14-year-old levels of critical thinking. Even me at my little age of 16 when that documentary came out was like ".... This seems like an incredible stretch and like this documentary has a disingenuous agenda." If whole ass adults can't reckon that out, it's no mystery to me why our society is failing sideways.

"tHe PiNeApPlE" so these siblings shared a snack that the parents didn't mention or weren't aware of. What ground-breaking evidence. "BuT tHe GoLf ClUb" you mean the hearsay that one family friend said that Burke had thwacked his sister with a golf club at one point as young kids? That was never documented in any police or medical records? You're so right, what incontrovertible proof.

Yeah. That seems like sufficient evidence to try and destroy a family and a person's life over. It's not like the Ramseys were documented to have given out dozens of keys to their home at parties, or that putting a little girl in hypersexualized pageants would maybe attract stalkers and child abusers who would seek to harm her. It's not like the DNA didn't match Burke, or anyone in the household, for that matter. It's not like the father hasn't been consistently trying to get the DNA re-tested which, if he was protecting his son, would be extremely counter-intuitive.

Grow a fucking brain.

[eldritch-spouse]

Pinnie help! I can't stop thinking about being sandwiched between the Retail Hell boys.

Funny, they keep thinking of the same thing!

Dealing with an incubus in the midst, however, is tricky. Because not only will Babesley (I suppose I'm calling him that now) scent arousal on you at record speeds, he will know if it's directed at him, even if only partially. He informs Mozgrag of this, who has a much more direct approach, and short of slapping his own cock on the counter, he's straight up just going to demand you confess your dirty fantasies to the two of them. What are you, some kind of bitchmade animal? When you want something, you proclaim it!

One way or another, they're going to piece it together. Be it due to Babesley's incubus intuition or the confession getting squeezed out of you- They'll find out. And you have a bit of time to come to terms with your fate now, because the two will fight over this. See, Babes thinks this is an important moment, that needs to be perfectly executed in order to bewitch you into wanting them exclusively, Moz believes this should be done as soon as possible so as to avoid anyone else getting to put their claim in. The two clash and retreat to sort this out.

Next time you clock in it's guaranteed they'll find a way to catch you and crush you between each other. It would be almost pleasant if Babesley's cock wasn't digging an indent into your back and Moz wasn't compressing your ribs with his excitement.

[pretendpopstar]

Feeling Not Found by Origami Angel

Feeling Not Found has had such a creative album rollout. No one is doing it like Gami Gang! This is easily the coolest band merch I've ever gotten my hands on.

[tmbgareok]

Hi! I was wondering what your typical studio process is like. I've only found a few clips of you working on songs in the studio (Am I Awake, John Lee Supertaster and with Homestar), do you tend to experiment a lot in the studio or do you usually have a pretty good idea of what you want from your demoing process so it's more a case of getting it on tape? Looking forward to the 8 hour documentary of you recording your next album :)

JF: BOTH. I know this might sound a little counter-intuitive but I think this is true--BECAUSE we usually have a good idea of what we are doing in the studio, and we have some real experience, we work efficiently enough to feel like we can try some things out, move some things around, slow things down or speed them up, experiment with additional textures, or odder approaches. Because we can see a piece of the finished product already materializing, you can see how big changes could alter things. If a song is really clicking as a demo, it might not invite experimentation, but if it seems undercooked or there is some tendency we want to work around, we can afford the time to explore options.

Going into track without a demo or a solid head arrangement of a song usually ends up confusing us and the folks we are working with, and confusion usually makes people work more cautiously and slowwwly, not more boldly.

I should also point out that sometime we rehearse in a rehearsal hall with the band just to hash out a band arrangement without any studio pressure. This can making tracking a breeze, and certainly affords us time to really dig in on details.

[brokensoundkuci]

Song of the Day (Day # 532)

☀️☀️☀️

Song: Hide Out

Artist: Macseal

Album: Permanent Repeat

Year Released: 2024

(Album Stream)

Lyrics:

I tried feeling elated Nothing satisfies The world's so complicated Without you by my side

I know it's hard to see When you're away from me I know you make believe now

Slow down You wanted to hide out in my head But you were already there

So I'll drop the barricade and Open up the blinds I'll keep it decorated Without you by my side

Slow down You wanted to hide out in my head But you were already there Slow down You wanted to hide out in my head But you were already there

Scarred in a gown Freaking you out Land in the morning just to Take it lying down

Slow down You wanted to hide out in my head But you were already there Oh, you know now You wanted to hide out in my head But you were already there

[fear-liath]

i may have fallen victim to the curse of the Bad Aziraphale Take with this post, so i'd like to right my wrongs:

i still agree with this, however i would like to add some insight: the metatron is definitely orchestrating their falling out. he knows exactly what he's doing & he knows that he can't control aziraphale as long as he has crowley on their side--that's emotional abuse 101. the victim is isolated from their real support systems, and the only place they have left to turn is their abuser. i believe that aziraphale knows what he's doing, and that he's just going along with heaven as far as he can in order to protect his demon, but from the metatron's perspective things have to look like they're going according to plan.

i think... maybe this is only half true? not sure what i was thinking when i wrote this; it was late. whatever.

crowley is an optimist, but he clearly had his doubts about how aziraphale would respond, which is indeed based in reality. aziraphale doesn't have a great track record as far as assuming the best of him in the moment (which, i must add, isn't his fault. it is one of his flaws, however). i think the important thing is that he trusts aziraphale to do the right thing in the end.

i still agree with this. however, i want to acknowledge that i felt this was unfair at the time, but in retrospect i was ignoring aziraphale's dependency on external validation that crowley does not have. crowley is far more independent than aziraphale, and i acknowledged this, but i framed it originally as "crowley has an unfulfilled need," rather than what i now think it really is, which is that AZI has an unfulfilled need.

yeah, there it is. different people, different needs.

as far as it being strange that aziraphale didn't pick up on what crowley needed in that moment right away, i do still feel that way--sort of. i honestly at this point just want to pin it down to him being excited.

whatever you have to say can wait--we have all of eternity to say whatever we want, in complete security. we won't have to hide. we can be together. and he wants so badly to be together. that's literally all he wants. he wasn't even a little interested in returning to heaven until the metatron told him that crowley could tag along. this is manipulation 101, people! the metatron knows, or at least can intuit, that crowley wouldn't want to become an angel again. he knows exactly what he's doing to them. this is not a good faith offer.

most of the rest of that post is me rambling about my interpretation of aziraphale's actions and the reasoning behind them. feel free to read the full take if you'd like, but i don't believe it's necessary to break down the whole thing. it mostly boils down to aziraphale needs to see people as people before he can respond properly to their needs. i may or may not still agree with that, i'm on the fence, but if that is the case, it's 100% because heaven has conditioned him to be that way. you need to earn salvation, you need to earn love, you need to earn humanity.

i originally used job as a counter example, but he may actually be a paragon of this interpretation. if anyone deserves salvation, it was job--righteous job, level-headed job, job who lost everything but never, ever lost faith in the Almighty. if anyone has earned aziraphale's sympathy, it's him.

this is just a wonky take. he does care, or else he wouldn't be making the offer. interrupting crowley might have been selfish in the short-term, but to aziraphale, the long-term result is eternity together unhindered. they will have all the time in the world to be an us if they can only get out from under the watchful, dangerous, probing eye of heaven.

i think i was getting close to the point here, but i was still framing it from the perspective that aziraphale had woefully wronged crowley, and that he's not also a victim of the system here. i was in far less certain terms falling into the "aziraphale is naive" trap, when in reality he just wanted to be safe. as archangel, he can do as he pleases without fear of retribution. he has never, ever felt safe before--not safe to ask questions, not safe to be seen with crowley, not safe to run off to alpha centauri with him. blaming him for prioritizing crowley's safety is more than a little silly.

this is just... the ick. it feels like a whole other person wrote this. i am trying so hard to give myself grace for this absolutely rot-gut take.

yikes. yikes yikes yikes. i'm not sure anymore if crowley has ever expressed a pointed distaste for being an angel again; that may just be misguided on my part. somehow i'm victim-blaming both of them here, while also completely misrepresenting aziraphale's intentions. i'm falling into the "he doesn't love crowley enough/the way he deserves" trap, painting him once again as naive, blind, and selfish. oopsie daisy.

i still believe the kiss was an offer akin to the ox rib, extremely alcoholic breakfasts, what have you. it's possible crowley doesn't feel seen--i might even go so far as to say that that's likely--but not in the way i stated originally. he's heartbroken. he's devastated. he might even feel betrayed. but just because he feels that way doesn't make it the truth, and i think a mistake i've made throughout this particular text is mistaking how aziraphale's actions look from the outside for his actual intentions.

i think this was mostly right up until the part about azi being selfish. he's far from selfish, he's not even close to naive. assuming he made a mistake in the f15 at all, he absolutely knows it now. he will do anything it takes to be with crowley.

at the time of this addendum i think he's made a Plan™ and is trying to convince himself he's made the right choice. all will make sense in the end. or maybe it won't. we'll figure it out--some things take time, and we don't have all the information.

i do believe that about covers it. in summary, they are both victims and treating either of them like they're naive or stupid for making the choices they did is unfair because they're both doing the best they can with the information they have available to them. it's heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and really, really unfortunate. but it's neither of their fault. it's literally all the metatron. if heaven and hell were out of the picture, crowley would've been free to confess and aziraphale free to reciprocate--but that's just not their reality. everything aziraphale does is in order to keep crowley safe, in the interest of us long-term. crowley knows he has a hard time expressing himself, and so he wants to get it out fast, and that's valid; aziraphale having reservations due to safety concerns is just as valid.

it's neither of their fault.

[elvisbdoll]

The Mystery in Memphis

Prologue: “the journal”

The soft glow of a neon sign flickered above the entrance of the pawn shop, casting a faint blue hue on the rain-soaked pavement. Elvis pushed the door open, the faint jingle of a bell breaking the quiet of the evening. Inside, the shop smelled of aged wood and forgotten memories, with shelves lined with everything from tarnished brass instruments to dusty old books.

It wasn’t the kind of place Elvis usually wandered into. At 22, he was just starting to taste fame, his voice capturing hearts across Memphis and beyond. But something about the sign—“Larry’s Treasures and Oddities”—had drawn him in. Maybe it was the restless feeling he couldn’t shake lately, the urge to escape the chaos of the music scene and find something real, something grounding.

He idly picked through stacks of records, his fingers brushing over the glossy covers. Then, on a shelf tucked in the corner, he spotted it: a leather-bound journal, its edges frayed with age. It didn’t seem like much, but when he picked it up, he felt a strange pull. The cover bore no title, only an engraved symbol—a circle with an arrow piercing through it.

Curiosity got the better of him. He flipped it open, revealing pages filled with hurried handwriting and intricate drawings. One line, scrawled across the top of the first page, made his heart skip a beat:

“To whoever finds this, you are my only hope. The fate of countless lives depends on you deciphering these words before it’s too late.”

Elvis frowned, flipping further into the journal. The entries were cryptic, full of phrases like “The clock tower strikes twice” and “Look where the river bends.” Some pages were smeared with what looked like ink—at least, he hoped it was ink—and sketches of symbols he didn’t recognize.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” asked the shopkeeper, an older man with a thick mustache and a keen eye. He leaned on the counter, inspecting Elvis with a curious tilt of his head.

“Just this old journal,” Elvis replied, his Southern drawl casual despite the unease crawling up his spine. “You know anything about it?”

The shopkeeper squinted. “That thing’s been sittin’ there for years. Came in with a box of junk someone brought in after a house clearance. Nobody ever paid it no mind—except you, it seems.”

“How much for it?” Elvis asked, already reaching for his wallet.

The man scratched his chin. “For you? Two dollars. But I’ll tell you somethin’—things like that have a way of stirrin’ trouble. Sure you want it?”

Elvis hesitated for a moment, but something in him—a strange mix of intuition and determination—urged him on. He slid two crisp bills onto the counter.

“Trouble’s part of the fun,” he said with a grin.

Walking out of the shop, the journal tucked under his arm, Elvis had no idea how true those words would prove to be. By the time the moon reached its peak that night, the pages of that journal would set him on a path of danger, mystery, and a truth far stranger than anything he’d ever sung about.

He just didn’t know it yet.

[foxufortunes]

So like, just to put my previous post about the Raven's undefeated streak, how game wise it's a nonsense and championship wise it makes a little more sense, into context and to expand my thoughts on it. Let's look at lacrosse. NCAA DV1 men's lacrosse has been going for around 50years now. So actually it was formed just a little before exy was invented and if we take Nora's confusing timeline, anywhere from a few years to 10 years before NCAA exy was approved. So, they're about the same age actually.

In that time there have been 14 teams who didn't lose a single match during a season, the record being 18 teams in a season (this makes the lacrosse championships closer to the exy fall season in scale). These notably, all came in as either #1 or #2 seeds. And of these teams only 2 have ever managed consecutive undefeated seasons. These are also the two teams with the most championships (Syracuse with 10 and Johns Hopkins with 9). Syracuse has the highest win percentage of 0.691 while John Hopkins is 4th on that list with 0.651. And the most championships any team has won in a row is 3.

With pro lacrosse, the longest undefeated winning streak is 22 games, and the most titles won by one team is 6 and the highest win percentage is 0.603.

Now, if we look at the Ravens. To be generous we'll only count the five years the Foxes have been up and running, when college exy is fully funded and exy players are some of the highest payed athletes in the world and their stadiums are some of the biggest in the world, and exy is an Olympic sport. And to match up a bit better with the lacrosse size, we'll only count the fall season and assume the distract the Ravens transferred from is roughly the same size and the SE District. With those perimeters that is an undefeated streak of 75 games, 5 championships and a win percentage of 1. (And overall, if we're generous and ignore the finer details of Nora's time line, and say NCAA exy has been in full swing for let's say 15 years and still restrict it to 15 matches for the fall season, that's still a conservative estimate of 15 titles in a row and a 225 game winning streak).

The idea that even this far in the two biggest competitors with massive, well funded teams, and (if I remember Nora's extra content correctly) who got in on the ground floor just a little after college exy was created (wasn't the first ever college exy game between EA and one of the big 3? I'm not looking at the EC sheet right now, forgive me but the timeline on exy is shaky anyway), have never won even a single game by a single point or in shoot outs, is utterly ridiculous. Sure, I could by they're undefeated as champions, but never a single game lost ever is ridiculous. And counter intuitive to the spread of your game. Not only are fans not interested in a sport where they know the outcome (in both well funded and less popular sports, this usually leads to fans either turning off or paying attention to lower leagues) but especially in small unpopular sports, there's a sense that you need to spread the talent around to make the sport interesting so people will watch it. For a sport just starting out like exy was back in the day, the idea that one team will always come out on top is a death sentence. Like, even the best teams in the world sometimes play teams they're supposed to beat easily and take them too lightly and lose (actually this is stupidly common and probably the sort of thing the Foxes would face all the time, and partly how some bottom of the league teams have done what the Foxes have done and won the entire seasons yes, looking at you Leicester Foxes winning at 5000-1 that one season.) and even if we like to pretend it's not a part of sport, bad days do actually happen and sometimes your team just plays a nightmare game or the other team just pops off and is at 110% and there is just nothing you can do.

[chr0n1c-ag0ny]

Kunidazai reunion sparking them finally, actually, truly getting together (cause they're idiots who have essentially been and old married couple for years and were the last to notice)? I think yes.

kunikida offering his apartment to Dazai, as his partners was in no shape to be lived in, after all the time that had passed with no upkeep and the time it spent in police custody, being milled through for any potential evidence. there was no way he could let him go back to it, not now, not tonight. Kunikida needs him close tonight.

Dazai takes him up on his offer. he doesn't want to be alone. he won't admit it, but he can't be alone, he doesn't know what it would do to him, what he would do to himself if he was left unattended. so he gratefully, while making jabs and cracking jokes at his partner, follows him home.

their night proceeds as normal, as it had for years of Dazai crashing with him. Kunikida cooks while Dazai sits up on his counter, rambling on and on about anything he can think of. Kunikida never realized how much he missed Dazai's voice until the relief of not cooking in silence hit him.

when they eat Dazai drags his partner to sit on the couch, even though Kunikida hates eating on the couch, knowing he would make an exception for him, just for tonight. they sit too close to just be friends, coworkers, partners even. their arms touch, their knees lean into one another.

when Dazai's finished with his dinner he lays a head in Kunikida's lap, turning on the TV, flipping through all of his partners recorded media until he finds the show they had been watch together, every episode that aired since he was arrested is recorded and unwatched. with blurry eyes he hits play. Kunikida's hand is in his hair and it doesn't leave.

they don't talk, they don't have to, they've talked enough. for now they just want to sit and feel each other's touch and hear each other's breathing. it's all they need.

its nearly 3 in the morning when Dazai finally starts to doze, he'd curled up into a ball, halfway in Kunikida's lap at that point, holding onto one of his partner's hands. Kunikida knows he should get them both to bed, he should offer Dazai the room and take the couch, that he should have the man some space after all he'd been through. but he aches at the thought of leaving his side, at being separated again.

but he doesn't even have to say anything, should have known he never had to, Dazai's always been sharp as a tack, his intuition, almost terrifyingly, even sharper.

His partner turned lazily in his arms, looking up at him with tired but knowing eyes. let's go to bed, they say. you don't have to go, you can stay, they assure. please don't go, they beg.

Kunikida breathes a long, heavy, sigh of relief.

"ok," he answers, before finally getting up after hours laid up on the couch, watching as Dazai continues to doze.

his heart aches with feverish heat. he'd missed him so much he had begun to go mad, had gone mad really, and now his partner was back, he was back and alive and mostly well, and now he was so relieved it ached in its own right.

he went about making up his bed for two, for Dazai, knowing he needed enough pillows and blankets for half a dozen people, but kept stopping to look over the back of the couch to make sure he was still there, still with him, that he hadn't been taken away again. by the time he's done he's probably crossed his apartment two to three dozen times, from his room to the couch again and again, before he's finally decided the room was good enough, there were enough blankets for Dazai to cover himself with and pillows to hide in.

when he goes to Dazai this time around, he kneels in front of him, carding a hand through his hair, tracing a thumb over his brow, to his nose, and then his cheek. his partner's eyes flutter open, a smile graces his lips.

"come on," he whispers, worried too loud a voice would shatter the delicate air of safety and comfort around them, "time for bed."

Dazai hums, getting up with a stretch and a yawn, much like a cat, before gingerly hopping off the couch and into Kunikida's arms, a false smile and air of cheekiness to him, hiding the ache Kunikida knew all too well resided in his partner's heart as much as it did his own, if not more. he holds him for a moment, savoring the feeling of him in his arms, before taking his hand and leading him to their room.

Dazai knows the drill. he goes to the other man's dresser and picks out a pair of his own sweatpants, ones he kept here for nights like these, and as per usual, one of Kunikida's shirts, gliding across the room, out into the hall, and into the bathroom.

Kunikida crawls into bed, feeling like he's been hit by a bus by the days events, and ends up half asleep by the time he feels Dazai crawling into bed next to him.

he expects to see bandages peeking from the borrowed nightshirt, to watch Dazai shield himself from the world, from his partner's touch, with a swarm of blankets, for Dazai to lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for him to fall asleep first.

but tonight's different, so different.

Dazai's skin is bare where the shirt doesn't cover, his scars on display, each and every one of them, the burns, the cuts, the bullet wounds, the ones Kunikida has never one been able to decipher the story of. they're all bared to him, with no visible hesitation on Dazai's end.

when his partner climbs into bed he neglects the pile of blankets laid out for him, the pillows too. instead he lifts the comforter that's draped over the entirety of the bed, Kunikida included, sliding beneath it like it's natural to him, like he'd done it every night for months, years even.

he looks at Kunikida for a moment, silently asking for permission, which Kunikida cannot give fast enough, and then Dazai's in his arms, his own wrapped around his neck, nothing between them but the clothes on their backs.

Dazai pulls away, just a bit, Kunikida almost cries out, almost pulls him back in, but knows better. he lets dazai go, but he never leaves. he's moved just far back enough so they could both look each other in the face.

"I missed you," he spoke softly, his hands shifting to hold the blonde's face.

"I missed you too,"

there's a moment of silence.

"I love you." the words are hesitant, skittish even, like he's unsure of how Kunikida would take it.

"I love you too," he replies without a second thought. he loves his partner, he loves him, more than he knows what to do with, so much it drives him mad and makes him ache.

Dazai nods. he's thinking, Kunikida can see it on his face, his mind is going a million miles a second. worry flashes on Dazai's face, and Kunikida panics, goes to pull away, goes to give Dazai space, even if his own skin burns at the thought of parting with Dazai's.

but Dazai doesn't let him, he clings to him, "Don't go, please don't go, please," he begs.

his voice is desperate, so Kunikida doesn't. he watches his partners face twist and turn, watches as fear spreads across his brow and tears gather in his eyes, and he doesn't know what to do because this has never happened.

but than Dazai leans in, slowly, tugging Kunikida closer so they can meet in the middle. Kunikida feels his partners lips on his. he kisses him back. he can't decide if that was a foolish decision or not. It's soft, softer than either of them knew they were capable of, it's gentle and earnest and good.

Dazai stops after a moment, lingers in Kunikida's space before looking him in the eye once more, he doesn't speak, they don't need to. Dazai looks at him, tears running down his face, but he's smiling, he's ok. his thumbs wipe away tears Kunikida hadn't realized he'd shed. they're ok.

"I love you," Dazai mutter's again, speaking again before the other man can answer "Kunikida?"

"yes, Dazai?"

"don't go."

"I won't."

"promise?"

"I promise." its a foolish thing to say, but Dazai needs to hear it, hell, he needs to hear it, "I'm not going anywhere, so long as you promise me the same."

he hesitates, his eyes avoid Kunikida's for a moment, before returning from their shared gaze, "I'll try, I promise, I'll really try this time"

Kunikida nods, slowly moving to kiss Dazai's forehead, the brunette leans into it.

"I know you will," he whispers into Dazai's skin, "and I'll always be here when it's too hard to manage on your own."

there's silence again, but it doesn't feel wrong or heavy, its soft and warm and it feels right.

"I love you," Kunikida finally returns.

there's more silence, Dazai just looks at him, just watches, fingers playing with Kunikida's hair and drifting over his face until something clicks into place in the other man's mind, something nobody but Dazai could ever understand.

he leans in once more to kiss his cheek before he settles against Kunikida's chest, letting out a pleased huff as he curls himself into a ball, "goodnight," he muttered, almost instantly going still with sleep.

"goodnight," Kunikida replied, knowing Dazai wasn't going to hear him, pressing his own goodnight kiss to the top of Dazai's head before burying his face in the other man's hair (Dazai doesn't smell like his shampoo anymore. it makes something in him cringe. he tries and fails to ignore it).

it takes Kunikida a while to fall asleep, he's too busy running the night over and over and over again in his mind. he holds Dazai close and lets his fingers trace over scars, feeling over his too-thin frame, feeling each bone beneath his skin. there's so many thoughts rushing through his mind, to many fears, worries, anxieties, what ifs. what if I hurt him? what if I break him? what if I ruin this?

his thoughts are only stopped when Dazai gently nudges his head into his jaw, hands pulling Kunikida's off of him, holding them gently in his own (he should have known sleep wouldn't come that easy to Dazai).

he takes a deep breath, steadying himself and his mind, his partner's hands squeeze his gently, good, they seem to say, and sleep finally starts to pull at him once more.

he lets it happen, let's his eyes close and his mind go blank, knowing Dazai is safe, he's safe in his arms, he won't be taken away again. he sleeps knowing Dazai loves him, that he kissed him, that tomorrow they'll wake up like this, and maybe, just fucking maybe they can finally have this one happy ending.

[the-sieve]

main gameplay wise, yes Quantum Break is lacking, with them introducing powers or ways to get around obstacles that are either a. never used again or b. can be ignored/forgotten completely by the player aka me because they aren't essential to beating the game, even on the highest difficulty. by the time Control came out they had polished and refined a lot of the combat mechanics seen previously in QB, making the flow of combat smoother, more intuitive and fun, and cutting most of the fat from the bone.

QB also suffers from something I personally love these games for, the collecting of notes, diaries, recordings, music and videos that are hidden throughout the levels and add to the lore, and gives additional insights into characters and the world. QB however goes to the limit of this however, making these extras so integral to understanding the plot that you have to find them or risk missing out on key details. And some of these "extras" are so well hidden is such obscure places that even if you're the kind of player that explores behind every waterfall, in every crevice, you're bound to miss a good amount on you're first playthrough. and if you do find most, you'll be doing a lot of reading. a lot. or just standing around and listening.

again, Control does this much better, another improvement. You'll still be doing a fair amount of reading, and standing around and listening or watching something occur in the environment, but most of it feels additional, a reward for exploring and playing in the space instead of just necessitating important exposition dumps. also, Control doesn't have a counter telling you how many notes you missed, thank the light for that. and since you can go back and explore most of the game world at anytime, even if you miss something you can backtrack and find it later at your own leisure, unlike in QB where unless you want to play through an entire part again you are kind of just left accepting the loss and moving onward with the story and hoping that whatever you missed wasn't the key to understanding a characters motives.

but the reason you play QB, and the main line Remedy games, is for the story and those characters. And QB is as much a game as it is a movie, where what you do in game and the choices you make will reflect and change what happens in the show between acts. To an extent. But that all plays into the themes of fate, control (or the lack there of) over destiny, the inability to escape ones actions, being your own worst enemy, and so on.

if you like very meta stories about time travel and being doomed by the narrative but choosing to fight because fuck going gentle into that good night, and don't mind clunky combat and spending a majority of the game reading emails, then please play QB.

then go play Alan Wake. and Control. I am very normal about these games. Trust me. And you too can also be very normal about them as well. also the music is good. anyone remember Poets of The Fall?