raduvidestroysteyvat

[ravarui]

@rcmancedawn continued from here

Running into no problems, while they made their preparations during their little alliance had been wishful thinking on his side. Of course the defeat of two emperors of the sea had led to more rookies getting cocky and overconfident, thinking they could achieve the same.

Yes, the alliance and their goal was important, but Shanks still had his other responsibilities and those included taking care of whoever thought it was a smart idea to stir up trouble on islands under his protection. Which was what lead to the current situation.

There was one good thing to this whole scenario however: It allowed them to get used to fighting at each others side. While Shanks trusted his crew blindly the same couldn't be said for his alliance partners. They had to learn to adapt to each others fighting style. The more attuned they would be, the better for them once they set their plan fully in motion.

Speaking of the alliance: Shanks had kept track of the youngest member during the fight. He had given Trafalgar his word to keep an eye on the young marine after all, with the other pirate away at the moment and on his own little quest.

The red-haired knew where Hibari was and from where she had lend her support as sniper. He had to admit that it had been hilarious to see their enemies reactions upon realizing their weapons were suddenly jammed by flowers. However his instincts were telling him that something was wrong, very wrong actually. And it didn't take long until his observation haki allowed him a glimpse into the future. A future that would lead to death if he didn't intervene now.

He reached the spot where Hibari was just in time to see the raised blade, ready to strike her down. There was no hesitation or mercy from his side as he brandished his own blade, felling the one who had been closest to the young commander, while the others crumbled under the burst of his haki that had been focused solely on them.

His expression turned from serious into concern as he sheathed gryphon and turned to look at Hibari, who was apologizing to him. The emperor lowered himself down onto one knee beside her, so he wasn't towering over her. "Don't be." She had no need to apologize in his opinion. "You alright? They didn't hurt you did they?"

[copepods]

crazy how 4 hours of work will literally take up my entire 15+ hour day. who allowed this

[shrubsparrow]

It's in the eye of the beholder

[kenapiece-main]

Can you believe I'm having to make this meme even after successfully finishing up taxes and applying to job

[robyn-i-guess]

liking someone platonically is so embarrassing like. yeah i admire you. yeah i think about you all the time. yeah i look forward to every time i see you even if it's only for a minute. yeah it's all platonic and yeah i couldn't explain this because it'd sound romantic. fucking hell

[vamprisms]

i feel like a lot of the 'i hate kids' crowd would be more tolerant if they understood that due to a kid's limited experience of the world that 4 hour flight might just be the longest they've ever had to sit still for or that trapped finger might literally be the most pain they've ever felt in their short life or they might not have ever seen a person with pink hair ever so of course they want to touch it or nobody's told them yet that they can't run around the museum and they only just learned cheetahs are the fastest animals so of course they want to put that to the test. how were they supposed to know etc etc.

[arnab-factory]

Fascinated by this phenomenon

[straightlightyagami]

u ever see someone with extremely fucked up views (or actions) and think wowww if a couple of things in my life went the tiniest bit differently that would have been me

[agoodflyting]

David Tennant pissing off the Prime Minister bc he told government officials to stfu over their anti-trans bigotry and Michael Sheen literally poisoning himself investigating corporations dumping toxic chemicals in underprivileged areas is NOT the energy I expected from 2024 but oh man am I here for it.

[briarrolfe]

Sometimes I think about my old manager at work who, in order to prove that the organisation was safe for trans people, told me about a fellow trans employee—a woman who was passing! who wasn’t out to me or to anyone else!—and about how chill everyone in management had been about her needing to take time off TO GET VAGINOPLASTY. He was not her manager! He was not her friend! He did not work in HR! There was no way he could have come into this PRIVATE MEDICAL INFORMATION without being told by another manager who had gossiped. And even if there had been, why the fuck was it any of my business!

Likewise, a friend of mine was just told by a school principal about how a prospective school was safe for trans kids… because a trans girl whose parents don’t affirm her at home is able to be affirmed at school. This information about this child’s gender and home environment was relayed along with her FUCKING GRADE LEVEL. This incredibly vulnerable kid was wheeled out as a selling point by the school with way more than enough information to figure out who she was.

In order to make the argument that a place is safe for trans people, cis people are wayyyy too happy to give out private information about trans people. With allies like these, who needs enemies!!!

[goldensunset]

advice i think we should tell children is that when adults say stuff like ‘now that i’m an adult i get really excited about stuff like coffee tables and bathrooms and rugs etc’ they don’t mean ‘and now i don’t care about blorbo and squimbus from my childhood tv shows anymore’ bc your average adult still loves all the same pop culture stuff they always did; they just have a greater appreciation for the mundane as well. growing up just means you can enjoy life twice as much now. you can get really excited about a new stuffed animal AND about a new kitchen sponge. peace and love

[etherealspacejelly]

sometimes you just have to let yourself be a bit neurodivergent.

i hate going out, it gives me a lot of anxiety and sensory input that i dont like, and i am often forced to talk to people.

so i do this thing on more difficult days, or sometimes just for fun, where i "bring a fictional character with me". i walk and imagine Fictional Character walking next to me. they talk to me, reassure me, hype me up, whatever i need them to do.

today dean winchester came christmas shopping with me. he went over the list with me of stuff i needed to get, told me i was doing a good job every time i finished in a certain shop, reminded me to take a deep breath when i got a little overwhelmed.

and yea. its kinda silly. and i know its just me talking to myself in a different voice, but it Works! especially since all of my special interests/hyperfixations tend to be tv/movie related.

so do what you gotta do to Get Shit Done. stop holding yourself to neurotypical standards. if you need Fictional Character to tell you you're doing a good job, do it! if you need Favourite Singer to walk you to school, do it! yea it might feel silly but you're literally fighting against your own brain to get stuff done every single day. you can have a little self indulgent daydream, as a treat.

[inbabylontheywept]

i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.

adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.

right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.

it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.

still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.

i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.

i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.

so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.

coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."

and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.

still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.

i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.

so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went

...oh.

and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.

so i did.

i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.

i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.

it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:

*ptooie.* "that all you got?"

i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!

but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.

my coach did not.

i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.

"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"

and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said

"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."

which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.

and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.

fine.

but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.

and then he left.

and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."

but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.

and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.

he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.

and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

License to Kitty.