#'she tried to state her point and try to come to a conclusion' i've never really thought about it this way but now that you bring it up

[clonerightsagenda]

In honor of my nth W359 relisten, here is the breakdown of how I accidentally independently headcanoned most of the characters as Catholic:

Eiffel: He was born in Boston, where Catholics are the largest religious population. I've been told the Lord's Prayer he mumbles is the Protestant version, but that prayer is used a lot in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is probably where he's remembering it from. Perhaps his issues with authority stem in part from having to go to Catholic school.

Minkowski: Her father's surname is Jewish, while her mother is French, where the dominant religion is Catholicism. I envision her as growing up in a mixed household (which I believe is also the case for her VA) but she leans harder into celebrating Christian holidays on the station as part of her attempt to assimilate into white bread apple pie Americanism. After the events of the show I like to think she reconnects more with her Jewish heritage, especially as she could relate to the theme of so many holidays being 'they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat'.

Hera: Hera quotes St. Augustine, quotes the Bible to Maxwell in Memoria, and says "amen" during the funeral despite never being exposed to religious services. Conclusion? She had Catholicism installed in her to nerf her. Why? Because Pryce is also Catholic. More on that later.

Lovelace: I hc Lovelace as having a Puerto Rican mom. Puerto Rico is heavily Catholic. (Her dad is probably Protestant, but when it came to parents from different denominations choosing which to raise their kid(s) in, my mom won for us, so I shall assume her mom won as well. It's possible she also went to a private Catholic school. She may not have considered herself very religious at the start of her mission, but I think about her leaning on hopes of an afterlife when her crewmates start dying as a scrap of comfort.... only to be forced to contemplate the state of her soul later.

Cutter: It was at this point that I realized I was hcing a whole bunch of the characters as Catholic and decided to lean into it. Luckily for me, he's from Carmel-by-the-sea, which is in fact fairly Catholic due to the presence of a historic Catholic mission. (Did I know this because of a probably Buffy-inspired YA paranormal series I read in high school? Maybe.)

Pryce: Again, was leaning into it at this point, but also it makes sense. She was raised in an orphanage, and a lot of those institutions were run by religious organizations. How many of her problems can be traced back to being raised by nuns. She quotes the Bible to position herself as divine. Why Catholicism specifically? The cannibalism. It's all coming together.

Non-Catholics (Hilbert + the Midwestern Corporate Hit Squad):

Hilbert: Grew up in the USSR. Likely not religious.

Maxwell: Her father was a pastor in Montana, where the biggest Christian denomination is Evangelical. Likely ex-Evangelical. Sorry that happened to you Alana.

Jacobi: His name is Jewish, which is supported by his disdain for office holiday parties and ordering Chinese food on Christmas. Catholics are the dominant religious group in Milwaukee though so he gets to the station and goes ah not this shit again.

Kepler: I do not care about him and thus have not spent much time thinking about him, but probably not religious. When he is trying to turn everyone against Lovelace, he doesn't appeal to religious language while dehumanizing her. There are quite a lot of Catholics in Chicago though so he is also used to them.

What's funny about this is I'm not even Catholic. I did not start out doing this on purpose. Somehow Wolf 359 is a more Catholic podcast than Greater Boston, set in Boston, where the character who talks about religion the most is a Protestant.

[peacerisendove]

Big Ethel Energy Season 2 Episode 19

Just diving into it today.

Overall, I feel like the webcomic continually tries and continually misses with its presentation of serious topics and in turn those topics feel shoe horned or surface level as I continue to read. Some topics are treated well, but I think the primary difference is that in those instances where the presentation is better, multiple pages are dedicated to the topic rather than a few speech bubbles. If the time or effort isn't going to put into the issues when they come up then I feel like it's meaningless for the webcomic to try to present them because it present such an unsubstantial surface level discussion or commentary on them.

This perspective isn't wrong, but Veronica didn't treat Tim like that at all. Perhaps it's the way I read the encounter between Tim and Veronica or if it was portrayed overtly. Veronica certainly had an abrasive attitude, but they both did during their first meeting.

Big Ethel Energy continues to shove perspectives down the readers throats and villainize characters without displaying them doing wrong or sticking to that characterization. At least make it apparent. Like if Veronica had stereotyped or perceived Tim in a myopic way because he was gay I would understand and agree with what Tim was saying in the context of the story and how it happened, but my issue is that their meeting didn't read like that to me. They were equally abrasive and snide with each other. It was on the same level.

He called her out on her history of bullying and she accepted that. If he called her out on any of her other wrongs like the body shaming or cheating I would have understood that. I understand Tim is doing all of this with the intentions of protective Ethel, but bringing this up without the meeting displaying it feels empty and feels like a failure on the part of the comic's presentation/display.

...I'm going to real I have no idea what Seth's ethnicity is because I don't think it was mentioned until now. I'm assuming he has an Indigenous American background because of the comment he makes here, but I'm honestly not sure because I don't believe it was mentioned until now. But I will be checking on that and editing the paragraph accordingly.

But I personally feel as if this exchange between Tim and Seth is clumsy and continues with with the pattern of the comic bringing up important topics and issues just for the sake of bringing them up, but never expanding upon them.

Big Ethel Energy continues to mention these important topics and perspectives, but the comic really does nothing with them. They feel shoe horned as I've repeatedly stated across my reading of the webcomic because the characters do nothing with them. I understand being stereotyped as a racial minority myself, it's a lived experience and at times it feels like you can do nothing about it in social situations, but having a couple characters talk about race and sexuality and the stereotyping that comes with these aspects of one's self when interacting with people and then having no real conclusion or message other than "We contain multitudes, bro!"

It feels simple? Shallow? A way to cut off the conversation with an easy and nice bow? I'm not sure how others are perceiving this moment. Like of course we contain multitudes. It just feels...way to simplified. Personally at least.

Other than that in this episode. I am glad someone finally said this because I wasn't sure if I was reading it correctly. The comic is pointing toward Seth and Ethel potentially being a thing.

Just considering Ethel's crush on Seth I wonder if the same issues/anxieties she expressed having with dating and that she solely associated with Jughead are going to come up again? If they don't I feel like her issues with dating were really more just issues with Jughead.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

do you have any thoughts on Raven and Trigon’s relationship?

Great gods, do I EVER! And none of them are Good.

Fair warning, I draw the most from the early 80's comics and a fair amount from 2003 cartoon. As a matter of personal choice, I'm going to disregard the Sons of Trigon storyline, most modern comics in fact, and Teen Titans GO. I put some stock in the DC animated movie universe (after all, I roleplay that Raven now and then), but I'm not too fond of the way that the creators, in the bonus content, said Trigon was just a "mad dad". As if what he does to her every moment he's on screen isn't outright abusive.

Because that's what it is.

Trying to control your child and disregard their agency or right to make their own choices is abusive. Threatening them is abusive, threatening their friends is abusive, trying to separate them from their support system is abusive. Calling them names is abusive. The majority of this is coming from DCAMU, but it's present in the comics and cartoon, too.

No, a "power struggle" in itself between parent and child doesn't precipitate abuse, that's normal, but his intentions aren't for her safety, her happiness, or her well-being. They're all for HIMSELF. It was narrated (in New Teen Titans 4 or 5, I believe?) that the reason Trigon pursues her so much is that, if I have my phrasing right, "Even the demon called Trigon longed for family." But wanting a family isn't the same as wanting to LOVE them.

(Adding a cut here because I am Rambling On. You asked me about Raven. That's inevitable, really...)

I do not, in any sense of the word, believe he "loves" her. He wants to control her, he wants to possess her, and that is not love. He wants to use her to make HIMSELF happy. That is not love. He has literally, on MULTIPLE OCCASIONS, intentionally overcome her and eradicated her will, her personality, her desires, her dreams, her love for her friends. He tried to kill her mother and kill her friends. He FORCES her to give into him.

Yes, I believe some kernel of "the real Raven" is there in Demon Raven too, but to me personally, it always reads as Her Will being overcome by His Will. How many times has she said she doesn't WANT that? She doesn't WANT to become like him? She doesn't WANT to do the things he does? She never wants to be overcome by that part of her. She spends every waking moment of every single day struggling to assure That Does Not Happen.

I've explored this in my fanfictions through my OC that's Raven's half-sister by father, how I believe it's a sort of separate entity inside them, and because that story is about 250k words of said OC struggling against it, it's a thoroughly well-developed concept in my head. (That's DDD, for those who have been paying attention.) As it IS fanfiction, I won't claim that specific aspect is rooted entirely in fact, but I do draw heavily from canon to reach that conclusion.

In the New Teen Titans, Raven doesn't describe Trigon's influence as urges or anything she's ever tempted to indulge in. (Again, note my disregard for Sons of Trigon on this point.) She calls it "the part of her that is Trigon". It's Him, as if it's separate from all her other parts, the parts she DOES care to indulge in (her compassion, pacifism, etc.).

Also in NTT and subsequent series: "the part of [her] that is Trigon" is her soul-self, which is quite literally a separate entity, blatantly and explicitly, whenever it's shown.

In "Nevermore" from the '03 series: His influence is compartmentalized separately along with all her other emotions.

In DCAMU, and drawing a bit from the creators' commentary following the first screening at a convention (stating that in Judas Contract, that was Raven using her father's power): Even the power she inherited from him is something she uses as a separate ability. It's in the red vs. the purple, the sort of liquid texture vs. smooth black, her eyes when she uses them.

And then, I know it's (for some reason) really controversial to say Trigon is abusive to her. But how has he ever talked to her as anything else?

In the 80's comics, he seems to delight in calling her foolish, errant, insolent.

In the '03 cartoon, he simply doesn't care about her after she becomes the portal. He doesn't even care enough to, like, know that she's still ALIVE? He calls her "some remnant of my daughter". When she goes after him, he starts calling her "Wretched, insignificant--" And of course, her famous monologue proving he'd never raised or protected* her.

* (Supposedly, the moment with Juris either didn't happen in the cartoon or someone else stopped him from killing her? But that's a rather heavy thing to contemplate with very, very little canon evidence either way.)

In the DCAMU, we don't know how he treated her while she was with him, but the way he treats her during the carnival is enough. It's not in the argument or disagreement, but in the rays he strikes her with, the "batteries" he sends after her, everything he does to force her to comply.

Oh, and that little moment he calls her a disgrace for losing a sparring match? What the fuck.

How many times has he stricken her on screen? It may be magical, but is it any different from physical abuse with one's hands?

And in End pt. I and JLvTT both, he literally BLACKMAILS her by threatening to kill her friends! How could you POSSIBLY see anything but ABUSE in that?!

I have a lot of very strong feelings on their relationship, and while I can respect that other people have various headcanons on how "grayscale" it may be, I feel my interpretation is very firmly supported by canon. (At least, the canon I care most about.) I've seen fanfiction authors take quite interesting angles on it, but it's not something I care to do for myself.

Abuse is simply not something I can overlook.

[thesillykittyworld]

What's a ghost to do?

s/m/n- stuffied moon name

Moon plushie- https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwj97YrFnN39AhWnyJQJHRG3DiYYABADGgJ5bQ&sig=AOD64_39bwGnLWokGddgGkVfl12_1vpiHg&adurl&ctype=5&ved=2ahUKEwiI5f7EnN39AhU31skDHQFvDeIQvhd6BAgBEGc

What I was listening to while writing this: https://youtu.be/gxL_pZxeyg0

-

You were soooo bored.

I mean, what’s a kid to do in a big house like this?

The black walls were pretty sure, and the gold frames on the painting were nice, as well, but surprisingly, there weren't any ghosts in this house—other than yourself, of course.

As soon as you properly died, you became attached to this house, a house you'd never seen before, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t leave.

So again, what’s a ghost kid like you to do?

A constant thought you had during your time at the strangely cool house; a thought that was interrupted by the sound of jangling keys.

-

"Okay gang, here’s our new home!" Wolf announced, his arms turned toward the group, displaying the house.

"Oh you gotta be kidding me" Snake muttered as he face palmed with his tail.

"Um. Wolf. What the heck is this?" Piranha stated with genuine confusion.

"Okay, don’t panic, people! We may have just gotten the wrong address." Tranuala announced while clacking on her computer before coming to a conclusion, "Yeah no, they scammed us." She groaned while turning her computer around to the group to see what their new warehouse was supposed to look like.

"Yeahh, that don't look nothing like that," Piranha conveniently pointed out.

"I’m going back to the car." Snake turned to return to the car, but was grabbed by Shark.

"C'mon, Mr. Grumpy Pants, it can’t be as bad on the inside; have faith!" Shark cheered while marching to the front door.

As Shark opened the front door, everyone in the group grimaced.

"Yeah, it is that bad," Snake affirmed, still in Shark’s arm.

-

Who were these people?

Animals?

Whatever.

Everything in this house is so weird and frightening; now there are new people in YOUR house >:(

You crept behind the red and black-patterned armchair as you tried to figure out if these people were a threat without being seen.

"Well, ain’t this a fixer-upper?" Wolf verified this by swiping his finger on the dust-covered stairs.

"Yeah, as Wolf said, it's a fixer-upper, so we can fix her up." Shark asserted, trying to take the optimistic route in their new situation.

"I guess this is alright. I’m gonna go check the place out!" Tranuala cheering while running up the stairs.

"Yeah, me too!"  Piranha beamed, following right after her.

-

Okay, so they didn’t seem so bad.

Everyone went to search around the house except the wolf.

Oh no.  What if he’s on to you?

Wait, can wolves sense ghosts?

Even if he does, he doesn’t seem bad, right?

You went to look at him from a different angle when you accidentally knocked over a small stool.

With the speed he turned to the area of the noise, he might not be able to see ghosts, but he could definitely hear them.

Or maybe you’re just a really noisy kid.

"Hello" Wolf spoke cautiously to you.

You turned your head to see if someone was behind you, because surely he couldn’t be talking to you.

"I’m talking to you, kid. Come out from over there." Wolf stood by the chair in front of the knocked-over stool.

You did the exact opposite—you ran through a nearby wall. Don’t blame yourself; you don’t know who this guy is!

"Fine, I’ll just nap here until you come out. I've got all day, kid; I’m not going anywhere." Wolf nuzzled himself in a chair across from the wall you went through.

That resulted in you pouting to yourself—why won’t these people just leave?

-

For added courage, you took your moon plushie to confront Mr. Wolf.

You floated in front of Wolf until you were face to face with him, which made Wolf bolt back in his chair.

"Hey, hey, hey, no need to get that close!" Wolf said while straightening his clothes and running his fingers through his fur.

"Oh sorry." You spoke quietly while hiding behind your stuffed moon.

Whether you are a noisy kid or not, all of that went out the window when talking to this tall wolf.

"Whose that, hmm?" He was pointing to the moon in your arms.

You jerked your plushie away from him out of protectiveness, scared he was going to take it from you.

He crouched to your eye level and said, "Relax; I’m not gonna take it from you. I just wanna know its name."

"It’s s/m/n." You mumbled into your moon’s plush body.

"I don’t know why you were so against telling me; that’s a nice name."

Wolf’s smile felt very parental; it made you relax a bit and float more towards the ground.

"Thank you!"  You giggled.

"So how’d you get here before us?"

"Oh, I spawned here, and I can’t leave." You commented as you looked down sadly.

"And what do you mean by that?"

You looked to see if he was joking; was it not obvious that you were a ghost? Though, you only saw hesitation on his face.

"Can't you see I'm a ghost?"You snickered while looking at your ghostly body.

 -

Well, you kinda thought he was the ghost with the way his face paled at your "confession."

And you didn’t even get to say anything as he ran away.

You thought adults were supposed to have better manners than that.

How rude.

-

Part 2 Coming Soon !!! ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ

[blushing-titan]

My thoughts on ch. 139

Some of you may be familiar with my previous writings - I usually try to stay as collected as possible, but today's post will be different. Ever since the chapter came out, I've been reblogging a lot of rants and memes about it. Those of you who follow my blog (thank you so much, really happy to have you here! ❤) know that I didn't really enjoy this ending. I want to elaborate more on that in this post - my only advice is to buckle up, because today we may get a bit heated (I apologize in advance for the sassy approach - I usually try to stray away from that, but guess today's post is more of a stream of conciousness/rant) :'D

1. Ymir

Starting up with one of the most controversial things about this chapter. Up to this point, I felt really bad for Ymir. Her life was terrible - she was a young girl, who was enslaved and abused by king Shitz Fritz. After she was forced to run away from his hounds, she acquired the power of titans and used it to help the king's cause. For that, she was awarded with the king's seed (🤢), and eventually became a mother of three girls. Through her entire life, she was treated as a slave and a lesser-being by the king - she also died while protecting him, and her daughters were forced to eat her remains after that (🤢🤢).

It felt so tragic to see her 2000 years later, still walking blindly in the paths. It wasn't enough that she was hurt so badly when she was still alive - she remained enslaved to the abusive king even after she died. I was rooting for her to finally be freed from this nightmare - hence I was so happy when ch. 122 came out and we got this scene:

I was genuinely emotional when I saw her reaction. Finally, someone expressed some authentic care for her and tried to snap her out of this blind state. She would finally think about what she wants and try to free herself from the paths because, as Eren said, she was never a slave or a goddess - just a regular person. It's just like she finally let out all the pain that she's been suppressing for all these years.

Yeah...except, as it turns out, her awakening here changes nothing. She doesn't come to any conclusions, like, perhaps, that she doesn’t want to let herself be hurt and mistreated any longer...or that she should fight for herself, try to change her fate - because, after all, her life belongs to her - not anyone else.

Nothing like this happens. Why? Because, as it turns out, she's in love with king Fritz and needs to be proven by Mikasa that she can break this bond first.

....

💀💀💀💀

Excuse me, but...what?

Okay, first and foremost...am I supposed to believe that, during these 2000 years, no one else has gone against their unhealthy affection to someone toxic and unworthy of their love? No one? 🤡 Come on, we even saw that happen in the manga. What about Historia, who thought that her own mother hitting her was a sign of love? Who wanted to believe that her father was good, despite wanting to turn her into a titan? Where was Ymir when Historia stood up for herself against her father's wishes? Or when she flew up to him and delivered the final blow against him?

On top of that...what a disappointing conclusion to Ymir's story. I hoped that she would take her fate into her own hands, and - for example - be reborn and experience life as a free person, surrounded by people who actually care about her. Free herself from paths and destroy it - not because someone shows her that she can indeed detach herself from it, but simply because she wants to.

Instead, 80% of the world population is gone, because she needed to see that Mikasa is able to "free" herself from Eren in order to do the same.

🤡🤡🤡

2. Abandoned plotlines and plot-holes

Mikasa being a Hizuru princess? Never heard of that. Hallucigenia's fate? Who cares. Eren directing Dina's titan in Carla's direction in order to save Berthold? Nah, who would want any more info on that - guess he just couldn't direct her anywhere else. The Ackerman's headaches? Pfff. The fact that Mikasa shouldn't be affected by the memory altering, but somehow still is in the ending? "I guess she just forgot that she should be immune to this". Why was Historia's pregnancy implied as relevant if it wasn't in the end? So many precious panels wasted on that, when they could be used to help solve some other "unanswered questions" instead. Ehhh...🤷

3. Blatant character assassination

There, I'm saying it once again. I have no idea what happened in this chapter but the characters are off. What about Eren - the one who has always believed that freedom was his birthright, and has been fighting and moving forward for his goals? Yeah, turns out he has no idea why he was doing all of that. 

Remember Kenny's quote - everyone is a slave to something? I thought that this implication was pretty poetic in context of Eren's character. Through all his life, he sought freedom, but ironically, he was a slave to that dream...

...turns out it may have been a bit too poetic for this story because Eren is a slave to destiny. Literally - he's going on auto-pilot in order to reach that one moment in which Mikasa beheads him, so Ymir can watch and understand that she can do the same.

Nice joke...except not. Here go our main character's motivations 🗑

He casually commits unjustifiable crimes against humanity - not because he wants to be free or because he found the world beyond the walls disappointing, (...as we were led to believe). He did that because he doesn't know why - and then, he cries that he doesn't want Mikasa to ever find another guy.

:'))

Turns out Eren was somehow always in love with her too...? Yeah, weird way of showing it. Or should I say - not showing it at all.

If you read my previous writings, you know that I'm not very fond of Eremika. The way I interpreted it while reading the story: it was unhealthy, suffocating and one-sided. I hoped for Mikasa to move on and start thinking about herself for once.

Right, what about Mikasa? Has she finally moved on? Is she content with her life? Are her dreams coming true? What's her daily life after all this? Sadly, I don't have the answers. The thing we are shown instead, is how she's sitting next to Eren's grave and, once again, thanking him for wraping the scarf around her. The only thing that implies that she may be somehow still seeing other people is one bubble of text. After all 139 chapters of hoping for her character developement, that's it.

Keep in mind that all other characters are shown together - with their spouses, families and friends - yet Mikasa is still separated and alone. That's right - after she disappears with Eren's head, she's not shown with anyone else until the end of the manga.

While we're on the topic of others, too...do I have to talk about the scenes in which everyone shows some level of gratitude to Eren...for wiping 80% humanity for them? Because I have no words for this.

One last note: I found the humor to be slightly out of place, too. Seriously, after all these terrible events, with so many unanswered questions and character developement of these two...Reiner is still weirdly simping for (now married) Historia and Jean is called a horse face :') Idk, but it feels somehow surreal after everything that's happened.

4. Conclusion

What else can I say...the final chapter disappointed me and I'm pretty sad about it. I'm happy for the people who liked it, but also can't help but feel like it was very far from perfect. I've been following SnK ever since 2013 and it's a bittersweet moment for me. The series had a lot of amazing moments that I'll definitely remember forever. Meanwhile, I would like to read some of the author's thoughts about the way he chose to end the story - perhaps it would clear some confusion (...although I can't help the fact that my first opinion is already formed).

Thank you very much for reading my thoughts - as always, it means a lot to me! ❤ The images used in this post are obviously not mine!

[komotionlessqueenmm]

Imagine # 775

2,183 - Words

Gif NOT mine. (Found on Pinterest.)

If this gif is yours (or you know who's it is) please let me know, so I can give you/them credit.

Gif credit goes to - Unknown.

Year posted - 2021

----

Curled up in bed comfortably, (Y/n) tried desperately to fall asleep. Yet as the minutes ticked by she found herself restless, and inevitably annoyed. With a distraught sigh (Y/n) sat up in bed, flinging her blankets away from her body. The moment the cool air of her room hit her bare legs (Y/n) shivered, but as she rubbed her face tiredly, a loud ringing sound rang through the room. The sound and pitch being loud enough to make (Y/n) cry out, her hands covering her ears and her eyes screwed shut. Hissing in pain she fell from her bed, but instead of hitting the floor she continued to fall. In an instant her eyes sprung open and (Y/n) screamed, she was falling from the sky at rapid speed. She hit the pavement with a painful grunt, the air being knocked from her lungs, and her head spinning. Dr. Schreber had nearly jumped out of his skin when this strange looking woman landing a few feet away from him on the sidewalk. "Ah." (Y/n) hissed under her breath as she tried to move, freezing when she someone called out to her. "Don't move!" Schreber cried out with worry, as he hobbled to her side as quickly as he could. (Y/n) frowned as she looked up to the man, as he slowly knelt beside her, his hands upon her face as he looked into her eyes. "I'm a Doctor." He murmured softly, as he continued to observe her, looking for any wounds. "Where am I Doc?" (Y/n) licked her lips, holding back a hiss of pain as he helped her sit up. "You don't know?" He frowned a little confused. "Look Doc about twenty seconds ago I was laying in my bed in (Y/h/t), next thing I know there was this deafening ringing, then I was falling from the sky." (Y/n) pointed to the dark sky, to which Schreber looked up, half expecting to see some portal or something. "How I didn't die on impact is freaking me out." (Y/n) added before she observed her surroundings, frowning as she took note of the cars lining the streets. "Check that... This place is freaking me out." She looked to the Doctor, who looked rather alarmed and nervous. "I-I can help you." He stammered. "How?" (Y/n) wondered aloud as she stood to her feet, the cold night air nipping at her exposed skin, as she stood there in her night time attire. "I can't e-explain here, please come with me." The Doctor looked around frantically, walking off in the opposite direction a moment later.

Following the Doctor (Y/n) ignored the strange looks she was receiving from the people they passed. "I-its safer in here." He waved for her to follow, leading her into the indoor pool. "Safe from what, Jason Voorhees?" (Y/n) murmured to herself, her eyes almost hypnotically casting to the ceiling, smiling faintly at the sight of its artistic beauty. "You can change in here." The Doctor showed (Y/n) into a more private room. "Excuse me?" (Y/n) arched a brow at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's safer in the water, please trust me. I want to help you." He encouraged her, and while part of her told her these were some serious red flags, she indulged his wish. Stepping into the room she found a locker with a clean swimsuit, however when she looked at it she sneered. "So not happening." She sighed under her breath, looking around she attempted to find something more to her liking. However after a few minutes with no success she simply exited the room, finding the Doctor waiting in the water. "You didn't change." He pointed out with a distraught frown. "Please you need-" (Y/n) was quick to silence him by holding her hand up. "You're the strangest Doctor I've ever met, however I feel inclined to trust you. But before I do as you ask, I want to know your name." (Y/n) rest her wight on one hip, propping her opposite hand onto the opposite hip. "M-my name i-is Doctor Daniel Schreber." He stammered with a small blush, his eyes involuntarily trailing up her bare legs. "My names (Y/f/n) (Y/l/n)." She introduced herself before she stripped herself of her tee shirt and shorts, leaving her in a matching set of bra and panties. "Oh!" Daniel squeaked in surprise, quickly averting his eyes elsewhere.

(Y/n) sat at the edge of the pool before she slipped in slowly, the temperature difference sending a shiver up her spine. "So Doctor Schreber, why are we here?" (Y/n) asked as she slowly swam closer to his side, tilting her head with a faint smile at Daniels nervousness to look at her. "B-because t-this." He cut himself off, taking a deep breath before he continued. "This is the safest place to talk." He explained, trying to focus his eyes on (Y/n)'s, finding the sight of the supple looking flesh of her breasts almost unbearable. "Safest from who?" (Y/n) asked as she moved to sit beside Daniel. "The Strangers." He pushed his glasses up a little, quickly glancing around them to make sure they were alone. "Please... I need you to tell me everything that happened, before they find us." Daniel was almost whispering. "I already did. I was at home trying to fall asleep, but I couldn't. In my frustration I pushed off my blankets and was rubbing my face when this loud ringing started. I covered my ears and fell from my bed, but I never hit my bedroom floor. Instead I just kept falling, when I opened my eyes I was falling from the sky. I hit the ground, and then you came to me." (Y/n) explained, only confusing Daniel further. "Where did you come from?" He murmured with a tilt of his head. "(Y/h/t)?" (Y/n) frowned with confusion. "I've never heard of it." Daniel mirrored her frown. "Am I dead Doctor Schreber?" (Y/n) whispered softly. "No I don't think so." Daniel shook his head dismissively. "Then why is this place familiar to me?" (Y/n) whispered even quieter. "I don't know... I've never seen you before... I've never seen anyone like you before." Daniel admitted, quickly sparring a glance at one of her tattoos. "Good observation Doctor." A voice called out as a tall man dressed in all black entered the room, Daniel gasped in surprise, fear pooling within his eyes. While (Y/n) simply looked at the new man with questioning eyes. "Who are you?" (Y/n) asked, ignoring the fact that Daniel was swimming back to stay away from the approaching man. "Mr. Book." He stood up a little straighter. "Right." (Y/n) rose her brows with mocked sarcasm. "And who are you?" Mr. Book asked in a bored tone. "(Y/n)." She only offered her first name, not trusting this man like she had the Doctor. "Well then (Y/n) I suggest you get out of the water." Mr. Book waved his hand towards the pool ladder. "And if I don't want to?" (Y/n) argued. "(Y/n) please do as he says." Daniel whispered pleadingly. "You should listen to the Doctor." Mr. Book mused, (Y/n) looked to Daniel, finding his fearful gaze locked onto her. "Fine." She exited the pool, Daniel following behind her when Mr. Book demanded his presence as well.

"Sleep." Mr. Book waved his hand in front of (Y/n)'s face, who frowned at him. "What are you doing?" She scowled taking a small step back, both Mr. Book and Daniel looking at her with astonishment. "Sleep." Mr. Book tried again, this time however (Y/n) shoved his hand away. "Fuck off." She hissed, thoroughly annoyed with the pale humanoid being. "Fascinating." Daniel muttered with an amazed grin. Mr. Book however was not quite so amused, trying to throw her back like a ragdoll with his powers. "Why are you looking at me like that?" (Y/n) frowned at the stranger. "What are you?" The stranger frowned when his powers failed to work on her. "I could ask you the same question." (Y/n) retorted, unknowingly making Daniel internally snicker. "You're coming with us." Mr. Book concluded, two more of his companions entering the building. "No." (Y/n) crossed her arms, ignoring the cold chill that ran down her body, caused by both the beings presence, and the fact that she was still dripping wet from the pool. "That wasn't a request." He retorted as he pulled out a knife, Daniel wanted to intervene, but he was afraid it would only make matters worse. However (Y/n) simply rolled her eyes as she uncrossed her arms, pushing passed Mr. Book she grabbed her clothes and pulled them back on. "Fine." She sighed as she re approached him, crossing her arms again. Daniel found her bravery both admirable, and worrying. Mr. Book allowed Daniel to get dressed before he and his companions escorted them out of the building, leading them down below into the strangers lair. As (Y/n) observed her surroundings, she linked her arm with Daniels, momentarily starting the man. She smiled softy at that, leaning in to his side she whispered into his ear. "I remember why this is so familiar now." His eyes widened as he turned his head to look at her, a blush fanning his cheeks when she winked, keeping her arm linked with his.

"I'm of no danger to you all you know." (Y/n) stated casually, Mr. Book stopped walking, turning to look at her. "I've been trying to will that knife of yours through you, and it ain't working." She whispered dramatically, her free hand beside her mouth. "I can't do what you do, your mojo just don't work on lil old me." (Y/n) added with a small giggle. "How can you know what we were thinking?" Mr. Book glowered down at her. "I don't know what you're thinking, I just happen know what conclusion you all jumped to, because well I hate to be the one to tell you. But you're not real, at least not in my world. In my world you're all just characters in a movie that come out in the late 90s. However by the looks of things, this is set before that timeline." (Y/n) shrugged casually, her words momentarily stunning everyone within ear shot. "He's played by Kiefer Sutherland, one of my all time favorite actors." She added pointed her free hand to Daniel. "I just didn't realize it earlier, guess I was still in a daze from that blow to the head." (Y/n) admitted to Daniel specifically, his shocked face undeniably adorable. "If you don't believe me, you should know that I was born (Y/b/d) and I was living somewhat peacefully in the year 2021, even with a global pandemic going on since the very end of 2019." (Y/n) pointed to herself with her free hand. "Hence why I look so strange compared to everyone else here in Dark City." She smiled faintly, giggling to herself when the strangers began chattering among themselves in their native language. "Is all of that true?" Daniel whispered. "Yeah." (Y/n) nodded her head, with a grin cast his way.

After a few hours of the strangers asking (Y/n) questions about this and that, along with some tests they demanded to run. She was allowed to leave with Doctor Schreber, with her memories intact. (Simply because they couldn't alter her memories along with everything else.) With an almost exhausted sigh, both she and Daniel sat down on the couch in his apartment. "Is it true that, that Sutherland fellow is one of your favorite actors?" Daniel hesitated to ask after a moment. "Oh yeah, he's a good actor. It also helps that I find him incredibly handsome. Plus I have a weakness for blondes." (Y/n) admitted shamelessly, her words causing a blush to bloom on Daniels cheeks. "O-oh." He stuttered bashfully. "Did... Did you like the movie, this one?" He asked after he gathered his composure. "One of my favorites." (Y/n) smiled as she turned her body to look at Daniel. "You're my favorite character." She added in a whisper. "R-really?" He turned his head to look at her, his eyes as wide as saucers. "Yep... You're just so cute." (Y/n) cooed with a wolfish grin, her words making Daniel all flustered. "T-thank you." He stammered with a nervous chuckle. "You are very welcome Doctor." (Y/n) hummed casually, her tone making Daniel swallow thickly. "I think it is going to be quiet interesting to get to know you (Y/n)." Daniel mused aloud. "Likewise Doctor." (Y/n) hummed. "Please call me Daniel." He murmured quietly. "Alright then... Daniel." She cooed his name, making it sound oh so heavenly to the flustered man.

----

Not my best work, but eh I still like it.

[tobi-momo]

Let's talk about the hori slander (horimiya)

me and my friend @iicekking have seen all over the place Hori slander for multiple reasons. I will go over these reasons in a second but i also want to establish the fact that this anime just came out and has only 10 available episodes. This anime is a romantic comedy.

The synopsis of this anime is that Hori-san is a popular, smart high school student, while Miyamura-kun is the complete opposite. Outside of school they run completely different lives. They meet for the first time outside of school when Miya helps return Hori's little brother home. He stays over and they eventually develop feelings for each other and go through an interesting relationship.

Now that you know what this anime/manga is about, lets go over the reasons why ppl think Hori is 'toxic' and 'homophobic'.

People are now coming to the conclusion that Hori is toxic in general because of her attitude towards Miya and the expression of her kink towards him. If you've seen the anime, you know that Hori has a specific kink. She likes being yelled at and she likes to be put in her place, sometimes even slapped. Just like a lot of people literally everywhere on social media. Especially here, on Tumblr, and TikTok (from what i'v seen). Miya sees this and tries his best to compromise and give her satisfaction from this and make her happy. People have stated that it was toxic for her to 'make' him do that when he cried after.

Let me get something straight. She did not make him do anything. She has asked him multiple times to slap her, to yell at her, and he has seen the way it affects her. He started to experiment with it, trying to find out what works best and when he should do it, and he comes to the conclusion that he only wants to do it in the bedroom.. She complies and agrees with him. They both compromised for this to work, so how is that toxic? How is it toxic that the experiment and find a way to work it out? It isn't. Experimenting with sexual kinks and finding out what both people want in bed is actually really good and a really healthy thing to do in a relationship.

Here is a link to another article that explains it so well and many other aspects of it: https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-horimiya-and-experimenting-with-kink-through-fiction/

Her attitude. Hori is a nice person to most people she doesn't know, but she shows aggression towards the people she loves, like Miyamura. This isn't abusive, and it isn't toxic that she is just being herself around him. She has never made him feel uncomfortable and has never once put herself before him in any way. She isn't selfish and she isn't greedy and she isn't a bad person. Her words aren't harsh towards him and her words don't even affect him in a bad light at all. He knows her, he fell in love with her, he knows how she works, what attitudes mean what.

Now let's talk about why people think she's homophobic. In the 10th episode of Horimiya, Hori has stated that she doesn't want Miya to fall in love with a guy while they are dating. Many people thinks that this means she's bi/homophobic. But let me just sprinkle some common sense before you come to the conclusion, okay? Hori and Miya are in a committed relationship, right? So of course she doesn't want him to fall in love with another and/or cheat on her. She feels insecure and jealous when he hangs out with his best guy friends- she feels as if she can't compete with them as well as she can with women. This isn't homophobic at all?? As a bi person myself, I don't take any offense and I don't think this request is weird. She doesn't want to lose him to somebody that she doesn't feel she has a chance to compete with. It's about insecurity and wanting all of Miya. Not in a possessive way, of course, she just wants him to love her with is whole heart, and he does, and he agrees with her, telling her that she won't lose her to a guy.

I am not interested in debating with people or starting arguments that you guys can't finish. I made my point, so please understand that I do not want any comments towards me or my friend that I tagged at the beginning of the post.

If anybody would like to add to my argument, not to slander Hori, but to show how Hori's actions are okay and not toxic, please reblog :)

anyways :) have a nice day/night remember to drink water and eat!

[dorminchu]

ALL THESE THINGS THAT I'VE DONE

The war against Paradis is over. Eren and Annie are forced to confront their mortality in a world that seems to have no need of them, and their significance to each other. [Post-Canon]

I didn't know there was an ereani week this year until a couple days ago, but I figured: cool, I should probably post something. Title comes from the track of the same name by The Killers.

The prompt is: Day 3 (4/12): "I love you" / "I loved you"

[Ao3 | FFNet]

i.

When the war was over, it was Armin who took the glory. That was a new look for him, Eren thought. Smart but eternally overlooked until he inherited the role of the Colossus Titan. Willing to carry the burden of humanity's savior without much complaint, unlike his teenage self who had always been plagued by doubts and fears. Eren wouldn't have thought Armin would be ready to chew the bullet while he quietly slipped into the background—but he was the leader, and Eren had always been accustomed to his status of figurehead.

Their roles had inverted with age.

As part of an overarching deal with Queen Historia, Eren was granted quarters—a cabin ten miles from the border of what had once been Wall Rose—and a modest pension, as long as he held his tongue and did not make any attempt to intercept the negotiations between Paradis and the surrounding countries. Eren put in an application for professor at the local military academy and spent the days trying to record what he could remember of his experiences in Marley.

The cabin had been around since the start of the war. About ten or so miles from the nearest village. Perhaps even before Eren was born, when Paradis was just a penal colony in name and the boundaries on inhabitable territory were less strict. The pipes still worked and there was evidence of an outhouse as well as quarters for a small animal—he wondered if it had been a hunter’s lodge.

After growing up in the back end of Shiganshina for the first nine years of his life and living in barracks and halfway houses for the next ten, it was a lot quieter. He felt oftentimes as if he were on a permanent state of leave, awaiting orders that would never come. There was so much time to fritter away now, without a war on the backburner.

ii.

In a bid to lessen the severity of his scarring, Eren tried growing a beard. He couldn't sprout a full one like Zeke could, just the chin-hairs, an innate reminder of his days in Marley. Most often he kept his hair pulled back in a short ponytail or else cut it short in the warmer seasons, though never as short as it had been in his days of adolescence.

He'd regenerated his leg and other limbs since the ceasefire, regained his motor functions in a week-long, agonsing process that he was sure Hanji would've loved had she been alive to witness it—but a day or so after settling into the cabin the old pain was flaring up again. He had a vivid memory of asking Commander Hanji once, at seventeen, after exhausting his father’s journal, but the only conclusion either of them could come up was phantom pain. Even if he were whole and unmarred, he did not anticipate sleep as any source of relief. Colours in his right eye gradually turned dull and it was getting harder to read even by candlelight, disorienting to walk out into harsh sunlight. Eventually he just began wearing a patch for the sake of simplicity. His other eye was unaffected.

He could still remember Ramzi's face better than most of his dead Scouts and it kept him up at night for hours. His way of life—the Titans, ODM gear—was quickly being phased out, trading blades and canisters for rifles and ammunition. His place among the armistice seemed moot.

Eren thought more often of his father. He did not wish to, explicitly, but the memories of him that popped into his head were usually indecipherable and triggered by stress.

The doctors in Marley would define this as shellshock. Other times they left impressions like the outline of the sun under closed eyelids; warmth, family, agony, guilt that would eat away at him for the rest of his remaining life.

Eren was, at least, confident in the fact that he was nothing like his father. He didn't pretend he was doing anything morally righteous, nor had he allowed himself to be molded into a pariah like Zeke. He had only accomplished what those same men were afraid or unable to do. It was nothing to crow about. He did not blame Zeke for that upbringing. Eren had taken action, knowing he would be hated and feared by his own comrades. He could only leave behind his memories in print, and if by some Godforsaken chance they somehow managed to fall into the hands of a like-minded company—well, perhaps one day he would be understood or misconstrued further. Rotting in the ground he could not defend his truth or bias.

But while he was alive, he could not rest. He knew better than most that all of this was fleeting.

It wasn’t as though he was out of shape with all the walking. He still stuck to drills in the morning to keep himself busy; awaiting orders that would never come. It sounded like something Armin might say. But Armin was content to busy himself with the sons and brothers of deceased bureaucrats; the succeeding generation to the brilliant men and women who'd led them right into the mouths of hell and out again.

Commander Hanji was dead. Commander Irvin had been dead four years now. Captain Levi was on his way to retirement and attempting to get Mikasa to replace him.

After seven years of military service his soldier’s inclinations remained unshakeable. He'd wake up every morning, going through the motions as though he were still a stowaway in Marley. He'd never allowed himself to consider a life beyond the pretext of enlistment and eventual expiration within the Scouting Regiment, much less the seemingly endless war between Paradis and the rest of the world. In the best case he had assumed he would die eventually, of old age or a more unheroic death out in the field. He'd never allowed himself to be ruled by that fear of mortality because he had to eradicate the Titans first—it was a child’s logic that had gotten him through military academy. Yet here he was, nineteen, with four going-on three years left to kill. Annie had three, going-on two. That was the only certainty she'd admitted to him without need for prying.

So Eren had to be sharp for the rest of their sakes. The war on Paradis had ended and brought with it economic turmoil. A mourning period that seemed to extend indefinitely. The next decade of prosperity would not be won in a year, nor three, and it would come on the backs of the losing side and breed the same old resentment, and then inevitably the same slow descent towards outrage and madness and oppression. Always in the back of his mind like the learnt urge to drink, or his inherited memories—he could almost convince himself of his hard-won stability. It was a good enough reason as any to stop answering Mikasa's letters.

iii.

The door opened to reveal the very last person he had ever expected to see again. She was every bit the woman he had seen in Marley and little of the girl in the crystal remained. What could he say to a four-year old crush-turned-heartbreak whose face he could scarcely recall among the hundreds of thousands of other casualties? "You shouldn't have come back."

When he moved to close the door, she stopped him with her heel. "I'm no longer a Warrior, nor a soldier. I have nowhere else to turn. You and I understand each other, so there's no point in bloodshed."

He gauged this, chewing his tongue. "Did someone send you?"

Her shoulders stiffened. "No one you'd know."

"I suppose you were sent here to finish the job for Marley?"

"No." Bluntly, she forced herself into the doorway. "I came here on my own. I just—"

"—all right, it seems like there's been some kind of miscommunication between you and whoever sent you."

"I was told you'd be able to accommodate me." 

"I don't need anyone else here."

Annie squinted at him. Her hand was clenched tightly on the doorjamb. "You must get bored living up in the mountains. And you could use another pair of hands if you're not regenerating." Eren said nothing. "Did you carve your eye out again?"

"Goddamn you," he growled, and wrenched the door open.

He let her walk past the threshold. Looked at her once, and then away. "I'll set a place aside for you to sleep," indicating a well-worn sofa, "you can stay as long as you need to until you find somewhere you like."

"I don't know why you're so upset. You could have killed me years ago. You've had every opportunity, and yet—"

"—I've moved on." He said it flatly, almost resigned. "You haven't, obviously."

Annie didn't flinch. "So you're just going to stay here and wait to die?"

"I keep myself busy."

"What do you do?"

"I teach the new cadets over at the Academy. It's about two hours from where we are; nothing special, but they seem eager to learn."

"I see."

He turned finally to face her. "What about you?"

Annie hesitated. "Used to work with the other displaced soldiers up until a few days ago."

"How'd that treat you?"

"It was all right. Why, are you too good for it now, now that you're a war hero?"

Eren ignored the barb. "It's been a while since everything settled down, so I wondered how you would fare."

"What, so you just popped up in this house?"

He scoffed. "Of course not. There was a tribunal, and it was decided to let me live on the condition I'd be kept far away where I wouldn't bother with anyone. I can't say the same for the others."

"You sold them out?"

He chuckled. "I didn't have to say much. They did it to themselves. We shared a common goal at one point but never the same ideology. At the very least, I can say I took no pleasure in what I—"

"—Ackermann gave you an out?"

Eren gauged the sharpness in her tone, the stiffness of her posture. "I didn't ask her to." He frowned. "You never told me how you got here. Did Mikasa have something to do with this?"

Annie froze, then averted her eyes. "I didn't have much of a choice. It was either come here or work myself to death doing manual labor. I wouldn't have minded that."

"Why didn't you tell me that she sent you?"

"I don't know. She seemed to pity you."

"Oi, it's not your fault. She can feel however she wants." He sounded bemused, scowling. "What the hell else she she think I'm going to do in four years? I have no plans to start another war."

Annie finally eyed him in her peripherals. "We didn't talk much other than that."

Within the next few hours he'd gotten a few more details out of her. In exchange for agreeing to be quartered here, her record was wiped clean. She had recently reapplied for the MP brigade under a new name and secured a position as secretary in the Karanese district headquarters. She had also admitted to him that she was dying to get back onto the streets again.

As a bedfellow Annie was, in some ways, more than he could've hoped for. Despite the introduction, she talked far less than they had as cadets. She did not seem particularly happy or unhappy, just neutral. She woke up each morning at six hours and left to do her drills. She would come back in an hour and offer to help him with whatever menial tasks needed doing, as if they really were holed up together in the remnants of a cabin lost ten years ago to a threat that would live on in sordid, haunting memory. The kind of life one would find beyond the realm of a weathered photograph. 

Unobtrusive without becoming idyllic. The best outcome he could afford her was three years of uneventful domesticity.

They didn't spar anymore. Not for lack of want, or kicking the habit. Eren just couldn't keep up with her the way he used to. His leg was shaky and she pointed it out first. It would have an impact on the kind of punishment he could take as opposed to when he was fifteen and shrugged off every injury like it was nothing. His eye was not healing. 

Annie was in better condition. Just by studying her gait it was obvious that she'd taken better care of herself. She had not had to bunk up with a gang of stinking, vulnerable soldiers riddled by shellshock. Trying to communicate with them in German worked, but it got him a lot of funny looks and no end of comparisons to fathers and grandfathers enlisted or long since dead.

Annie wasn't interested in his stories from Marley but she didn't brush him off either. She just tolerated it in a much more polite way than Mikasa or Armin would.

At twenty years old she came up to his chest. Either the crystallization had stunted her growth or she was naturally short. She was also scarred enough down her face but it was of the same sheer consistency as her hair. You would only know what she was if you were paying close attention.

She got skittish and temperamental if he tried to push his luck training with her. Initially it had pissed him off:

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

She'd looked at him bluntly. "You're still recovering. Why overexert yourself?"

He'd never told her about his injuries but the idea of her picking up on it this quickly rankled for reasons he did not care to discuss. "I'm not a kid."

Something flashed in her eyes. "I'm not going to push you."

And that was the end of it. He'd decided that this ritual mattered more to her than him, and respected her space. He still did his own drills.

But every time they locked eyes now he'd get that same, absurd itch in the back of his mind from a year ago. Sharpened his tongue and made him want to speak in ways he didn't think he should attempt to justify whilst sober.

iv.

Days passed. He did not always see her until late in the evening.

In the middle of the night he rolled over onto his bad leg and the pain woke him. In silence he got up, not enough to require medication but still pretty uncomfortable.

“Eren?”

He went still. Annie was up herself, over by the window, staring at him as though he were on his deathbed. In the low light her eyes looked strange and luminous. “Does it hurt?”

“Does—what?”

“Your leg.”

Eren sat up slowly as not to aggravate his condition. She didn't say anything else. “It’s not so bad that I can’t sleep.” He studied her face for signs of age, finding naught but scars, a weariness in her eyes he could speak to. She didn't frown. She just watched him coolly. Eren shrugged. “You can’t sleep either?" No answer. "Thinking about to-morrow?”

“I can get you something for it.”

Eren shook his head. “That's not necessary."

"Don't be stupid."

"This isn't something I can just take pills for.”

"It's chronic." Her tone pregnant with incredulity. "Why haven't you seen a doctor for this?"

"Annie, what the hell is a regular doctor gonna do for either of us? We already fix ourselves. There are other veterans that have been stranded here, they aren't growing their limbs back. They need all the help they can get. Anyway, it's only, what, three more years of living? I can take three. Fuck, I've taken ten."

The more he kept talking, the darker her eyes became. Clench in her jaw, tautness of her shoulders, pronounced enough to notice from a distance—an involuntary reflection of his own revulsion.

"I don't know how you managed to win one war, let alone, if you can't even prevent yourself from running into the ground." Her voice was icy and distinctly contemptuous. She stalked over to him. Cold fingers dug into the meat of his naked shoulder, pushed him upright between the wall and headboard; tight, controlled movements. "Four years later and you still want to pretend you're a fucking martyr. It might've worked on Mikasa, but I'm not your sister. I'm not going to help you hurt yourself."

She kneaded at his leg in a much brusquer way than the way the orderlies in Marley. Eren didn't argue. She was not going to take no for an answer. When it was done she coaxed him to lie down again. He stiffened as he felt her weight join his on the mattress, curled almost tentatively against his chest. She didn’t try to hold him, just huddled as though for warmth. She did not explain herself.

Eren had a vague recollection of the last time this had happened. Back then she came up to his chin, rather than the middle of his chest; their disparity was only thrown into relief. He could feel the human warmth of her through the thin undershirt, the softness of her hair on his cheek. He’d dreamt about this a lot when he was sixteen, while the tragedy of her betrayal was no longer fresh but still painful in his mind. He had no energy left to hate her then, for she was not his enemy.

He heard her breathing even out.

She had stayed this long. There was no sense in abandoning her now.

v.

Sometime after that, Eren started noticing her in more tangible ways. Smell of her hair. The subtle glint in her eyes in lieu of a smile. She'd wait up for him in the mornings before he left. He'd tell her good-bye.

When he came home he’d catch her eyes lingering on him in profile.

Just one day too many of the same quiet inactivity. The fact that they had slept in the same bed was just a catalyst of how familiar they were with each other already.

She woke up an hour later than usual and, fuming, went out to train. A light rain had started. Eren made breakfast. Over the next twenty minutes the light sheet became much more torrential. Annie came back in about half-an-hour, dripping water all over the floor. He would've told her off but she grabbed his wrist. He turned as she leant up and took his face in her hands and kissed him like her life depended on it.

Maybe the situation had always been building to this. He had forgotten about its immediacy until the moment presented itself. But now there was nothing left to say. So he gathered her up and placed her on the counter, kissing her breathless, bunching up her threadbare shirt, palming her tits through the military-issue brassiere—he muttered, "see, I thought you were just being nice," and she scoffed, set her heel to the small of his back even as he put his mouth on her. She was chilled from the rain; it was not yet summer. Half-dressed and needy, he took her right there on the countertop. Afterwards, there was no shame or lingering uncertainty that would have been present as cadets. She pressed her cheek to his.

"I'm going to be away for a while. It's higher pay if I stay in Karanese. Maybe two or three weeks." She looked up at him. Her eyes were bright but her tone was stoic. "I just…" She trailed off because he was only looking at her face. Eren smoothed her damp hair away from her cheek.

"I love you." Then he stopped. Like he was finally coming to grips with the idea. Annie blinked rapidly. A crease formed in her brow. Her mouth worked but no sound came out. Eren kissed her chin. "But, if you're gonna be trackin' mud everywhere you'd best clean it up after yourself."

She finally came back to herself. Shoved him lightly in the chest. "Fuck off." Then hoisted herself off the counter, fixed her trousers, and asked in a dry voice where he kept the washbasin.

vi.

On his own the cabin felt distinctly empty. Sometimes he'd wake up hard and just—take care of it. Annie on top of him. On her knees. Pulling him up to her. He missed her a lot more than he'd care to admit to her face and it wasn't just in the sense that she was available. She'd probably just smirk at him anyway.

But when she returned it was nice to have her around, even for a little while. She kept to herself and he gave her space; it was as though she had never left.

It was still morning. He was working when he felt her come up behind him, hands slipping over his wrists. “Oi,” he muttered, “I’m a little busy.”

“You’re just sitting there.”

He scoffed. “Really? How would you know what I’m doin’?” No answer. Eren closed the book. “You really are demanding, ain’t you?” Faux-annoyance. But he turned.

She looked prettier in uniform. Hair pulled back into less of a bun, more of a severe ponytail. She was looking him up and down as though deciding something for herself.

She leant down, kissed him firmly, nipping at his lip until went with it, half-amused. She stepped back, breathing evenly, eyes glinting. She cupped his face, a vestige of tenderness he did not anticipate.

Then her eyes shifted, something empty, strange. A harsh crack against his jaw he could not anticipate and he took it, worked his jaw, blinking rapidly. “What the hell are you—?”

Annie jerked her head back slightly, fixing him with the same expectance he realised he’d completely misinterpreted. “Hit me.”

Eren didn’t move. Her jaw trembled, then set. He caught her wrist. “That’s enough.”

“Why?” She sounded annoyed. “It’s all right. I can take it.”

“What is this?”

“I’ll be dead before you anyway, it would be easier just to take—”

“—I said that’s enough,” he said, terse. “I’m not going to do anything to you."

Her brow furrowed. "I thought you understood.”

Eren just stared, fighting to keep himself calm when he wanted to grab her shoulders and demand her to justify why the hell she wanted to be hit. "What am I supposed to understand?"

Annie’s eyes darted over his face and then to his wrist. “I want you to hit me back.”

“I’m not going to do that.” He cupped her jaw and she almost flinched; his stomach twisted. “Do you understand me?“

Silence built up between them. "I know you’d stop if I asked you to.”

“I’m not going to wait until after I’ve hurt you to stop.”

Annie pressed her face into his chest. He took her by the shoulders, watching her stiffen.

“Do you hear me?”

She nodded.

"Why d'you want me to hit you?"

"Do you want a list?" He gripped her tight enough to make her flinch and immediately regretted the look of fear that came across her face. He let go of her. "I’ve been complicit in the death of your comrades.” Her voice thickened. “And I’ve taught you everything I know. You don't need me here for anything other than your own gratification.” Returning to the facade of impassivity with unnerving ease. “So, there’s no point in comparing our tallies.”

“Annie—"

“Are you stupid?” Annie spat, the most emotion she had exhibited thus far. “You've taken my country and my life and my father and you—now you want me to love you back. You want to marry me as if we're ever going to—I'm the one who killed your friends, why would you ever want to be reminded of—"

"You love me." She looked helpless in her vulnerability. "What? What's the matter?"

"Why would you want me? I—I can't even have children. I'm going to die in four years. I'm going to watch you die unless I kill myself fir—"

"—Annie—"

"—you could fuck anyone you wanted!" she exploded. "Why does it have to be me?"

"Because you don’t have to earn anything from me! I just want to be around you—can’t you accept that?”

Annie kissed him hard. He trembled though he was holding her.

“Take me to bed." Eren opened his mouth and she kissed his chin. “I want you to take me to bed. I—”

Even then, he was hesitant to touch her. She led the way, stripping down to skin and splaying on his bed. He caressed her when she asked him to, a gentleness in his hands that betrayed his own sympathy; for once she didn’t chastise him.

Her scarring was far more pronounced in the light. He'd noticed before, briefly on the counter and more clearly with enough attention, but not like this. It clustered around her sternum and down her spine. He wondered, briefly, if that was why she'd wanted to do it quickly. Now her eyes were bright and shimmering but she took him into her, reached for him.

"Is this OK?" His voice was a croak.

Her eyes flickered to him. Cautious, sure. "Yeah."

He was on his knees, lifting the small of her back, working her towards a much sweeter surrender. He slid one arm around her waist to support her and touched her breasts, the side of her neck, cupping her jaw. His thumb ran over her scarring.

“Annie.” She gasped at the sound of her name. “Ann. Look. Come here.” She was biting her lip. Head fallen back, her hair was almost diaphanous in the light. He murmured her name and she was shivering with emotion. She turned into her elbow and told him in an unsteady voice to go faster, and the bed creaked to match him.

Her body arched, jaw slack. She wouldn't stop shivering. Her voice did not rise in expectation. It just wavered, edgeless.

He took her wrist away from her face and—she flinched. This serrated, ugly, sound that jerked out of her body. He pulled out, holding her. “Look at me,” his voice hoarse and horrified, “please.”

Annie curled up against his chest and shook. Eren just kept apologizing. She didn't push him away.

Eventually she stopped. Raised her head. Their eyes met and she lost composure again. He brushed her hair from her face. “Stay,” she croaked, “please. I need you.”

He kissed her brow. She almost flinched. He tucked his chin into her shoulder, arms around her back, until she’d calmed down.

"You don't have to do anything," he said quietly. "Do you understand that?"

"I know."

Laying prone, she only came up to his sternum. Annie sat up first. She got to her feet and went over to the window. Her shoulder was parallel to the glass. His attention stayed firmly on her profile. “You’re gonna get colder than hell. Come back here.”

She turned and glanced at his forearm curled half-surreptitiously against his stomach. Scar tissue along her breasts was prominent. In the dead light of this cloudy, April afternoon she finally looked her age.

There was a naked uncertainty in her eyes that made him freeze. "You're not my father and you never will be. You've been kinder towards me than I deserve, given the circumstances. I wish I could despise you."

Eren rolled his shoulders. The silence held for a while. "I don't know if what either of us have done can be forgiven. But, as long as you’re here, I want you to know that I don't hate you." All she did was stare, a slight crease in her brow. “I never could.”

“You love me,” she said. Not with scorn. Like she was testing the idea in a way they would have shied away from as kids. She averted her face towards the window.

She watched him get up and tensed. He limped towards her in a couple strides and draped the blanket around her shoulders with the same tentativeness. She did not put her arms around him. She pressed her face into his shoulder. His arm came around her back and she closed her eyes, just existing in the cold slats of wood against her feet and the rise and fall of his breast.

He put the blankets around her and laid beside her.

He’d always supposed he would heal with enough rest. He didn't know how to put what he felt into words, but eloquence had never been his forte. It was not unlike laying on your deathbed, mulling over all the things that hardly seemed to matter until there was no time left to spare.

There was no pain now, just certainty in the presence of another—the old urge to drink was absent.

This is a cleaned-up version of a couple tumblr WIPs + some old/new material blended in for fun. Think of it as a pilot episode for a much larger fic.

For what it's worth I did like the ending of AoT. Elements of that ending will likely factor into the aforementioned larger fic. I am totally disinterested in arguing about ships or wasted potential—at this point, I’d rather write whatever seems interesting, and leave it at that, canon or not.

And hey, if you think acknowledging canon will override my crippling addiction to the "morally challenged antihero/problematic blonde" dynamic… I really don't see that happening. Even after exiting this fandom, it's like, ALL I've been writing for a year (looking at YOU Insult to Injury) and I feel like I'm going insane. Back on topic though: Now that AoT has concluded, I find I am far less stressed at the prospect for writing for this series again. It won’t be my main focus, but I do like this fic’s concept enough to flesh it out.

[scuttleboat]

Parenthood as a Major Theme in The Witcher

aka a defense of Yennefer's fertility arc

In some commentary on The Witcher season 1, I've read about disappointment that mid-season Yennefer spends her story time dedicated to hunting a fertility cure. The primary critique of this 2-episode arc for her is that it appears to conform too readily to a trope that "all women eventually want babies", and also seems counter to her previous disregard and cynicism for the idea of motherhood.

I think there's two cases that can be made that demonstrate why this element of the series deserves more than to be judged as "lazy or reductive writing". The first is Yennefer's personal journey--which after two viewings I believe holds up strongly. The second, even bigger case is what the theme of parenthood means to the show, and why Yennefer is only one of several aspects of it. That's what I am going to talk about in this post. Expect full spoilers for season 1.

Birth, Babies, and Legacy in Season 1

To put it bluntly, the topic of reproduction is all over The Witcher. The show is kind of obsessed with it. Let's go through the ways that parenthood and/or reproduction feature significantly in every episode:

1 - The conflict in Blaviken is a result of Stregobor's murderous obsession with killing babies born under a supposed curse. Those  infants and girls represented power that he wanted to terminate. In Cintra, Ciri becomes an orphan.

2 - Yennefer's mixed elven parentage is the source of her power and her physical deformity. Trauma is inherited generationally, seen again in Fillavandrel's outcast society, stripped of heritage and legacy. Jaskier's first song references abortion.

3 - A striga is made when a pregnant woman is cursed and her undead fetus becomes a ravenous monster. Foltest wants her to be rescued to live as his child and heir. Her monster body still has its umbilical cord--a gnarly cosmetic flourish that drives the point home. In Aretuza's scary gyno chair, Yen is sterilized in exchange for ultra-performative femininity. Although she consents, it is a corrupt bargain designed to exploit her.

4 - The Queen of Aederin and her newborn are assassinated for being unable to birth a male baby. Yennefer almost dies trying to prevent it, then gives a monologue about how the patriarchy only sees women as vessels.  Queen Calanthe tries to protect her daughter from the Law of Surprise, only to see it initiated again on her grandchild.

5 - After some 50 years as a mage Yen goes hunting for a fertility cure, using alchemy and then a djinn. She tells Tassaia that although she knew what she was giving up in Aretuza, "I didn't know what it would mean to me." Also, wow a lot of sex is had.

6 - Geralt and Yen talk about parenthood and their respective lost opportunities. The episode mcguffin is a dragon egg, whom they both fight to defend. Borch Three Jackdaws states the theme of parenthood outright. On the surface he is proclaiming his own motivation, but in the context of Geralt and Yennefer's prior discussions we know that he is speaking for both them and the show as a whole:

"This is my final 'first'. A child. This treasure, this legacy, must endure. There is no other reason to go on."

Episode 6 also shows how Geralt and Yen have grown since episode  4. She is forced to accept that natural birth is impossible, and Geralt is forced to reflect out loud that it's only fear of parental failure that has prevented him from claiming his own child. 

7 -  On getting news of the Nilfgaard invasion, Geralt decides to claim Ciri. Calanthe and Eist go to extremes to keep their child in their family.

8 - Everyone wants to be Ciri's new family, including this nice woman who doesn't have any daughters. In the end, Geralt finally becomes a father. 

Destiny = Family 

I firmly believe that the show is leading us to a point where Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri form an eventual family. The desire for family is verbalized multiple times for Ciri, notably in Brokilon Forest when she calls Dara her family, and then when Dara leaves her and tells her find another family. Twice in the show women try to adopt Ciri, promising safety and care. Yet she's driven by a strong directive to find Geralt as "he is your destiny".  She is his Child Surprise, essentially this universe's fucked up version of a godchild. And the Law of Surprise is not just tradition, but a cosmic binding with tangible consequences. Geralt initially denies this, but Duny, Eist, Mousesack, Yennefer, and Borch all vocalize it, and season 1 events bear it out.

If Ciri is steered by a bond of destiny, so is Geralt. When he rejects the Child Surprise at Pavetta's wedding, Mousesack warns that doing so will bring ill fortune. Episode 5 and 6 subtly but persistently imply that this prophecy is true, as the witcher's next several years are filled with sleeplessness and an undefined longing. Magically binding himself to Yennefer alleviates some of that (essentially by making him happy), but I don't think it's only because of love, but also because his destiny being intertwined with Yennefer is a step towards his destiny being intertwined with Ciri. Because even after getting some peaceful nights with intermittent Yennaffairs (get it? hah!), something still seems off with Geralt.

"You feel it just the same as me that hole inside you. That itch inside your brain keeps you awake at night. Come with me, I'll show you what you're missing." - Borch Three Jackdaws

This is a cute screenplay trick because we assume that he's talking about nostalgic adventure, but on review he's actually talking about parenthood. Later when Geralt gripes that the thing he was missing is Yennefer as she walks away again, Borch replies, "What you're missing is still out there. Your legacy, your destiny. I know it." (hello Ciri!) We never get a clear idea of why Mr. Three Cool Names knows all this stuff, but I didn't care because a dragon being cryptically omniscient is exactly the sort of thing I want from my fantasy shows.

Conclusion 

So it's family, family, family. Yennefer is just one corner of this thematic tapestry; the other three are Geralt, Ciri, and #destiny. Their journey to find each other, to accept these bonds, is what the show is about. I expect the theme to cement even more in future seasons.

Consequently, to reduce Yennefer's storyline to cliché alone is to miss the way everyone on this show is obsessed with parenthood in some form. It also misses how much fatherhood will be central Geralt's journey.  Even if he came to the same decision 2 episodes (and 13 years) later than Yen did, Geralt actively decides that he want to claim his role as a parent figure. That isn't the easy gripe target of "women want babies", but the point is that Yen and Geralt are both on the same path, with Ciri as the destination. A character can have something that resembles part of a cliché without being negatively defined by it. In The Witcher, the greater context is relevant to this critique.

So I urge you to look at the full season and see how her fertility arc fits into the big picture. If you still wish that Yen had continued to be proudly child-free, then I respect your desire to see that story told. However, it would be worth it to recognize now that this probably isn't going to be the story you want. Parenthood is a big part of it. This story is going to be about two magical adults and one magical child becoming a family.

A family of total badasses, adopted through destiny and love.

[nightswithkookmin]

GOING ON A HIATUS

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time out to read my posts and has enjoyed it so far. It's really been fun and entertaining exchanging thoughts and having these much deeper ship discussions.

I thought this issue was gonna go away but I woke up this morning to more people messaging me about finding my last video analysis on several other platforms without appropriate credit.

But that's not disturbing. The disturbing part is the people sliding into people's DM'S on other platforms to get them to take down my video because they don't want people sharing my content on other platforms as they believe it would only make my blog popular.

For those worried about this whole credit business, thanks for showing this much concern for me? I really appreciate the love and concern if it's from a genuine place of concern. Thank you...

I think some of you already know this by now or might have figured it out, I am a law student, I am very much well aware what is and what isn't within my rights? Lol

I honestly didn't see this whole credit thingy as a big deal. It's not. Not to me. Lol. I repost people's photos without credit too all the time. Often, it's because I don't know who to credit and most time my lazy ass just forgets to. Lol. I think it's normal? It's inconsequential I mean.

The videos I use are usually often water marked by the appropriate owners so I don't go through the hustle of figuring this whole credit business out. If I should decide to come back here again I will check that habit of mine?

While this whole credit business is not a big deal to me, malicious slander and defamation to my character is and I don't take it lightly.

It has been brought to my attention that some Jikookers from Tumblr have since been sliding into people's DM's on other platforms asking them to take down my video and or remove the credit they give to my post.

They are telling people I am problematic, calling me the Taekook Lives of the Jikook community. That I have been spreading lies about Jikook, that the Jikook Tumblr community hates me or something like that and to further caricaturize me and make me appear more evil in order to get people to turn on me and hate me, they make up the most ridiculous lies about me claiming that I believe a notorious serial killer is innocent.

Now I have since deleted my YT account because I don't want my colleagues to find out I am into shipping too lol- shipping is a guilty pleasure of mine and I know how this fandom works unfortunately. I've been a silent part of it since 2014. I mean it's started already. The Doxing and shit.

The original post under which these replies are from couldn't save sadly as my account has been deleted but you can see from my notifications the general feel of what my interests outside shipping looks like.

I am interested in a myriad of topics, from literature, Aliens, writing, Harry Potter, history, activism, advocacy, philosophy, law, politics, NASA, and mystery and murder among other things.

My quora is mostly filled with notifications from my Book community and True crime community and often I do share my thoughts and answer questions with regards to the psychology of murderers, legal evidence, notorious villains in literature- well I guess now you know the kind of lawyer I want to be if and when I'm able to complete law school.

But what has my interest in these topics got to do with Jikook and shipping please?? How does this prove I hate Jikook and spread lies about them?

This Kookie Min Monsta person slipped into someone's DMS and asked the person who had put up my video analysis to take it down or discredit me because to her I am problematic. She is not the only one.

You want so bad to paint me black- no pun intended just to win an argument? You claim I am the evil malicious person here but I am not the one sliding into people's dms trying to take credit away from people for their hardwork, spreading hate and negative energy, making things up to manipulate people's perception of others and get them to hate and turn on them- and all because of A SHIP? Damn. This is pathetic.

Who died and made you the gatekeeper of the jikook shipping community? Honestly antics like these don't work on me try again.

I made a video commentary on my Booktube YT account- yes I am part of the book YouTube community as well sue me or better still slip into their inboxes and tell them I voted for Trump therefore I hate chipmunks.

The commentary I made on YT months ago was when I was in the highs of finding a new passion and it was on Ann Rule's book, The Stranger Besides Me- a true crime novel on Ted Bundy which I found so poorly written that at the end of the book it left with me wondering whether or not Ted Bundy was guilty at all!

The Author's writing style which deviates from most writing styles of True Crime novels I have read gave me trust issues as I stated in the video. It felt more as if she was writing a made up fictional novel than an actual True Crime novel but because she knew Ted Bundy in person she made it seem as if we just had to believe her account.

Then there was this whole thing about the police not being able to match the DNA samples taken from his rape victims, to his own Semen because his Semen was DNAless- in lay man's terms. I'll spare you the technicalities involved.

As I stated in that video, I do believe Ted Bundy was guilty but I do not have much faith in the Judicial system, or criminal procedures or even the Author of that book- a sentiment most people within the true crime community share as well. We just had differing views on whether the writer's style took away from the narrative and waters down on the extent of Bundy's guilt.

We had a Similar conversation about Chris Watt. If the community I was engaging in didn't have a problem with my commentary why do you? Please don't meddle in things you know nothing about. It's embarrassing.

The conversation about whether or not Ted Bundy is innocent is moot but a philosophical one. It has nothing to do with Ted Bundy's guilt but more so the criminal procedures involved in his case and the different accounts that exists surrounding his case.

He was electrocuted, he confessed to his crimes no damn person with brains would think or assume he is innocent and I never said anything of that nature drew any conclusions to that effect.

Besides, I moved on from Ted Bundy a long time ago. Now I am into the Serial Killer who writes death poems and signs it off with drawings of the size of his dick at his crime scenes- mind your own business please or don't and let's have an intellectual discourse about him? Lmho.

I am also into cat memes if you care to know and have a whole IG dedicated to cat memes. I believe human beings are the most dumbest species in all the galaxies and when the Aliens arrive I am snitching.

When my mind is at rest, I often wonder if Aliens have masculinity complex and if they do whether or not their masculinity is contingent on the size of their dicks or whether they have to engage in a battle to the death with an alien grizzly bear to determine who is the man.

I love BTS memes too- a little too much and often end up debating over the internet with random people over whether BTS memes are funnier than cat memes- I'm weird, true. But how does all of that make me a bad person?

It's crazy how these people can go on these other platforms to ask people to take down the credits to my posts as well as my posts itself but can't ask people who run to these other platforms with misinterpretations of my work to take those down.

Instead they come on here to call me out for people's interpretations of my work?? It doesn't work that way. You are the author of your own opinion and interpretation of other people's work. You don't call out the original author for someone's opinion of their work. If that were so I would be emailing Stephanie Meyer for Anna Todd and her After series. Get some education.

I have since blocked this person and others whose Tumblr I have been able to find thanks to all those that's helped me finding them on here.

My gf also tried reaching out to the persons who shared my post after we realised this was becoming an issue and had asked them to credit her or my blog- but honestly I don't care about that yet she won't give it a rest. Lol. My ride or die this one. Sigh.

However, we realized soon that this is not about 'stealing' credit- can't call someone out for not giving credit when I suck at that myself. Lol.

This is about people's malicious intentions and their attempts to silence me and take away my right to freedom of expression however way that they can. This is wrong and evil.

I honestly don't care for all these ship politics these people are engaged in. I've had enough intelligent conversations to know the distinction between arguments that flows from bruised egos and actual conversations around a subject matter.

This whole I am right, she is wrong politics... y'all get that the point of having an opinion is not to be right, right? We all cant have the same perspective and you can't call someone a liar for holding views that is different from yours. That is a bizarre mentality to have.

As I stated in my post, that content I made was a rebuttal to the Taekook theories running around on the internet alleging JK glared at Tae when he pulled on his shoulder because he was jealous Tae and Jin were having fun behind him. He wasn't. He was worried Tae was gonna expose him and JM holding hands behind Suga.

If you don't think they were holding hands then Taekookers were right and his reaction was because he was Jealous of Taejin I guess...

But thats your truth. That's not my truth. I don't believe Taekook is real. JK isn't jealous of Taejin he is not Twelve- but then again he was sneaking around behind Suga holding his boyfriend's hands so I guess he is twelve? Lol. Jikook!

Do you.

But please stop the evil malicious attacks and seek immediate help. There is such a thing as right and wrong and this is just plain wrong. Your Karma and chakra are in the negative nodes and you need to fix it. It is not funny anymore.

Thank you to everyone who has shown genuine concerns for me in the past few days and thank you so much for trying to stand up for me. There are good people on here and I have met and interacted with a lot of them and thank you so much for such a wonderful experience and insightful discussions.

I don't hate people because of our differences in thoughts, beliefs, opinions. There's always room for dissenting opinions in every sphere. At the very least, we can agree to disagree and shake on it. But You can't make up shit about people just to prove your opinion is right and their opinions and views which differ from yours are 'wrong.

I am not a victim though, and they are not bullies, psst. They are just vile pathetic human beings exposing the greens of their insides. What you do says more about who you are as a person and human being. And this is who they are.

Just be a nice decent human being. That's what this world needs. Fix whatever is broken inside of you and free your mind and spirit. Hate is never the answer.

I'm going to be away for a while because I have studies, work and other interests I want to pursue at the moment- it's just my AADD flaring up so if you see me henceforth raving about Nana at least you'd know why. Lol. She's wrecking my Jimin bias. Lmho.

Spread positivity, do the right thing, stand up for a good cause and keep supporting Jikook. Jikook is real.

Until we meet again.

Signed,

GOLDY

[meetmeatthecoda]

Lately, I've found myself drawn to stories ( and I mean drawn to as in envisioning those stories in my head, thinking them through to the very last detail, not reading, let alone writing them down, because I've long since accepted that they will never turn out quite the same on the paper ) where Red is the one who'd been seriously hurt and, therefore, rendered unconscious for an indefinite amount of time and worried Liz is the one who doesn't leave his side, hoping and praying and pleading that he would wake up. Probably, something that has to do with how unfair it is that we've seen Red keep vigil by hurt!Lizzy's side – playing music for her, holding her hand, reading to her etc. – a number of times and yet, over the course of 8 seasons, never have ever been allowed the pleasure of seeing Liz do the same for him ( not even when he was shot – because she left to retrieve the Fulcrum and couldn't come back until the fight was over – or when he was poisoned – because she'd been waiting to be cleared to see him and he ran away the moment he wasn't actively dying, because that's Red for you all ), even though she loves and cares about him as much as he loves and cares about her.

I mean, just imagine the possibilities!

Liz pacing around the waiting area of Red's mobile hospital while he's in surgery, unable to think about anything else other than how he looked – battered and broken and barely alive – when they've found him and how his head rested in her lap ( she could almost convince herself that he was merely dozing, if he wasn't so deathly pale and still and there wasn't so much blood on his clothes and her clothes and her hands and the backseat of the car ) and his hand was limp in her death grip as they rushed him to his doctors and she whispered words of reassurance and encouragement to him even though she knew he couldn't hear her and how she had to fight the instinct to curl around her lover and snarl at anyone who would come close because she can't let him be hurt further as the medics took him away from her, exchanging observations and orders that didn't sound particularly reassuring. She's also acutely aware of the fact that Red is fighting for his life – there, just a few feet away from her �� and, though he's the strongest man she's ever known, he may not win, and so she makes a promise to the empty air in front of her that she will kill him herself if he dares to give up on her and Agnes like that now, when they've just reached the good, right place in their relationship, just confesses their feelings to each other. At some point, Dembe most certainly pulls Liz in for a hug, letting her cry in his shoulder, doing his best to comfort her ( even though there's nothing that can bring her more comfort than Red's hug, when he – alive and whole – wraps his arms protectively around her and holds her close and lets her hide from the whole world in his arms, his chest, his shoulder and neck – wherever she prefers to burrow her face at the time – and the memory itself makes her cry harder, because there's a possibility that he will never hug her like that again ), even though he's just as worried and scared as she is, and Mr Kaplan helps Liz clean up, washing away Red's blood from her hands and producing seemingly out of the thin air fresh clothes for her to change into.

Red, of course, pulls through the surgery, beating all odds, and Liz's heart floods with relief at the good news before sinking when the doctor explains to her and Dembe and Mr Kaplan the extent of Red's injuries and that it's impossible to say when – or even if – he wakes up.

And so the waiting game begins. Liz doesn't leave Red's side, holding his hand, stroking his knuckles with her thumb and never letting go, constantly talking to him and reading to him and even asking Dembe to bring the record player and some records from the Bethesda apartment to play to him, hoping that it would elicit some kind of response from him. Yet, as they days go by, there's not a single, smallest sign that he's aware of anything that's going on around him, that he's still there somewhere and is trying to find his way back to her, to them – he doesn't stir, doesn't so much as flutter his eyelashes, and Liz grows more desperate with each passing day, even though the doctor assures her that Red's slowly but surely improving ( but she can't see it with her own eyes, and if she can't see it, she's less likely to believe it, the more time passes with him just lying there, undisturbed by the loud, chaotic world around him ).

And then there's Agnes... While Liz keeps vigil at Red's bedside, the babysitting duties are split equally between Aram and Samar, Charlene and Cooper, Ressler and Audrey and Dembe and Mr Kaplan. Yet more often than not whoever picks little Agnes up from school and / or her ballet classes brings her over to the safe-house where Liz and Red are. She doesn't seem to be as unnerved by Red's state as her mommy is, climbing on his bed each time she visits ( after giving her mommy the biggest hug, of course ) and leaning in close to him, examining his face thoughtfully before half-asking, half-stating "He's still tired, mommy?". And Liz usually replies with a hoarse "Yes, baby" because she doesn't trust herself not to get choked up if she tries to answer more eloquently. Agnes simply nods then, satisfied with the explanation why he hasn't woken up yet, and settles against Red's side – mindful of his injuries and the spider web of wires and tubes connecting him to all sorts of monitors and machines – and either naps ( especially, on ballet classes days ) or tells her mommy and Red ( she talks to him just like Liz does much too easily – promising him to show him the new moves she's learnt when he wakes up etc. – as if she's already done that before or seen anyone else do that... unbeknownst to Liz, she did both – when Liz herself was in a coma, Agnes both saw Red talk to her mommy and was encouraged by him to talk to her, too, because it may help her mommy sleep easier and maybe she'll get better sooner and finally wake up ) about her day or does her homework or draws ( more often than not, she draws either cards for Red to read when he wakes up or just things she wants him to see ). And when the time comes for her to leave, she always kisses Red on the cheek, wishing him "sweet dreams" and to get better soon, and then gives her mommy, who tries so very hard not to tear up but fails miserably, a hug and a kiss, too, and tells her frequently that she shouldn't cry because Red is just too tired, just like she – Liz – once was, and that he just needs to sleep a bit more.

And when the door behind Agnes closes and Liz is sure her daughter won't see / hear her, she breaks down hard, in big, ugly sobs, because her little girl shouldn't be acting so naturally in this kind of situation and because she wishes so hard that Red just woke up, because she can't do this, any of this, without him.

In the end, once his body has healed itself enough and he regained enough of his strength, Red, of course, does wake up. It's a slow process, and Liz thinks she might either faint or go mad from the overwhelming feelings that are swirling inside of her when Red moves for the first time in what seems to her like forever – squeezing her hand feather-lightly – and when he leans slightly, unconsciously into her touch when she strokes his cheek – out of habit, without even expecting any sort of reaction from him and being pleasantly surprised – and when he opens his eyes for the first time – it's a brief occurrence, with his eyes slipping shut tiredly again after just a few moments, and he's still pretty much out of it, apparently, not even noticing her presence by his side, but for Liz it's a major event – and when he finally, finally looks directly at her – alive and conscious and alert – and calls her "Lizzy". He's still weak and his voice sounds terrible and Liz knows she shouldn't let all of her pent-up feelings – the fear and despair and frustration and love and relief and exhaustion – out on him like that – he's just woken up, after all – but she can't hold back the tears nor the jumbled mess of "thank you"s and "I love you"s and " "I've missed you"s and "I'm so so happy you're back" and "I was so worried" and "Don't ever scare me like that again" that spills from her lips as she leans in to kiss him lightly and give him the gentlest of hugs...

(Since I'm not a ficwriter and, therefore, have no intentions of using this pile of ideas/images/feelings myself, I wouldn't mind at all if you or any other writer drew inspiration from this rambling of mine)

Ahhhhh 😭😭😭 Are you sure you're not a fic writer, anon?? Cause this reads like some quality hurt/comfort to me!! 🥲🥲 Honestly, this is a lovely scenario to imagine & it gives me a slightly bitter sense of satisfaction to think of Liz suffering through just a fraction of the time Red spent by her side while she was in her coma... especially if it's the catalyst for fEeLiNgS to emerge tee hee bc, you're RIGHT, we were woefully deprived of those situations in the show & I'll never not be sad about it tbh. More specifically, things I love the most about this in no particular order: Liz having to "fight the instinct to curl around her lover & snarl" *swoon*, Liz swearing she will kill him herself if he dies LMAO, Dembe hugging her for comfort & Mr. Kaplan helping her get cleaned up 🥺🥺🥺, Liz playing records for Red yasss, AGNES & everyone taking turns babysitting her while she misses her Daddy desperately but deals with the situation with a maturity & grace beyond her years in an effort to help her grieving Mommy through it cool cool mkay mkay, Liz only breaking down once Agnes leaves OWWW, anddddd Liz being a blubbering mess when Red finally wakes up & calls her "Lizzie" & they kiss *whispers* it's fine, i'm fine 🙃 IN CONCLUSION, I love this anon, thank you for sharing this lovely little AU with me!! 🥰 And much, much love to you, of course, my friend!! ❤️

[shimmeringclouds]

♔ | 𝐈𝐕

»»-----　♔　-----««

Chorosuke had long since given up on trying to kick the two out, seeing as they had absolutely no intention of moving. Instead, he hesitantly sat himself down amongst you all, eating with a sour frown on his face directed towards Ozo, who either didn't notice or didn't care.

"So, why Akashika?" Ozo asked suddenly after a few moments. You stifled a laugh at the crumbs scattering his cheeks, taking a sip of water to stall for time, noticing how all eyes were now on you.

"Well," you started, pushing your food around lightly with your chopstick, "I just wanted to go on a holiday for a little while. Akashika seemed like the best place." You shrugged nonchalantly, going back to eating your food.

"Akashika? Really?" Ozo drawled, raising a brow.

"Is.. Is there something wrong with that?" you asked nervously.

"Not really," Chorosuke replied, a thoughtful look on his face. "It's just that, since Akashika District is a small village in the countryside, not many people know that this place even exists. We rarely ever get visitors, other than those who already have a direct connection to this place."

You hummed. That did make sense, in a way.

"How did you find out about this place, anyway?" Ozo pushed, resting his chin on his palm.

"I came across an article online about Akatsuka Village," You paused, thinking about the contents of the article with a slight smile. "It was talking about a bunch of mysteries this place has, and after a bit of digging around, I found that this area of Japan was quiet and unknown, which was convenient for me."

"'Mysteries,' you say..." Chorosuke groaned.

"'Convenient?'" Ozo asked.

"Karamatsu-niisan must've wrote that article!" Jyushimatsu chimed in.

"Karatsugu." Chorosuke iterated.

Your mind raced to come up with an answer to Ozo, leaning away from him as he came closer, waiting for you to say something.

"Uh, 'convenient' as in..." you cleared your throat, "..I-I've never been to the countryside before. I've always lived in the city, so I wanted to start somewhere that wasn't overwhelmed by tourists and such." You ended with a nervous chuckle, which quickly died down under Ozo's unreadable stare. Should.. Should you say something? Did he even listen to what you said? Why was he looking at you like that? Your cheeks turned pink the longer he held your gaze.

"Ozo," Chorosuke kicked him from under the table, a 'huff' leaving said man's lips. "Stop being creepy. Ignore him, [Y/N]."

"Yeah, yeah..." Ozo muttered something under his breath, which you couldn't quite hear, but it didn't seem to matter as his grin came back onto his face.

"How long are you staying for, [Y/N]-chan?" Jyushimatsu suddenly spoke from beside you, making you squeak. You did your best to ignore the chuckles from Ozo and Dayoko, although the flush on your cheeks only darkened in embarrassment.

"T-Two months."

"Aw, that's it?" Ozo whined. "Well hopefully by the end of it, you'll want to stay for longer!" He winked your way. You glanced away, taking larger sips of water to distract yourself. With that, everyone focused back on their food, finishing the last bits from their bowls. It was mostly silent, save for the clinking of utensils and the gentle song of birds from outside, adding a sort of serenity to the air. It was comforting, an atmosphere you very much appreciated. It was a far cry from what you were used to.

Eventually, you all let out a hum of satisfaction, praising Dayoko for the fulfilling meal. Ozo and Jyushimatsu lay comfortably on the floor, spreading out their limbs as they shut their eyes, large sleepy grins on their faces. You smiled softly at their antics. With the way they acted, you would have thought they were brothers. You didn't want to jump straight to conclusion, though. You'd probably make things awkward if you said something like that.

Dayoko stood up and began gathering everyone's dishes. You attempted to get up and help, feeling bad about her doing all the work, but she waved you off with a smile. Chorosuke placed a gentle hand on your shoulder, gaining your attention.

"[Y/N], why you don't you head on upstairs, instead?" He offered with a smile. "I've had a bath drawn for you. I'm sure it will help you relax before heading off to bed. You've had a long day, after all."

"Can we have one too?" Ozo perked his head up, eyes hopefully.

"No." Chorosuke shot sternly, glaring at the man as he let his head fall back to the floor with a grumble.

"Choromatsu-niisan's no fun..." Jyushimatsu's voice was muffled, his face pushed against the floor.

"Stop calling me that.." Chorosuke was exasperated by now, but he opted to ignore the both of them, turning back to you expectantly. You mulled over the offer. A soothing bath after a warm meal sounded very appealing to you, especially since your back did feel a little sore still after sitting on a rocky train for most of the day.

"That sounds lovely, actually. Thank you, Chorosuke," you smiled appreciatively, slowly picking yourself up from the floor.

"It's nothing. Our guests always receive the best of treatment here in the Midorito Estate," he stated proudly with a bow of his head. Ozo glared up at him from the floor.

"Careful. You're rising again, Chorofappysk-"

A pillow was thrown harshly onto his face, startling him as his head smacked onto the ground with a hollow 'thud.' You gasped, covering your mouth to hide the giddy smile from the others in the room. You felt bad that he got hurt, but you couldn't deny that their childish ways of bickering was starting to become comedic for you.

Dayoko re-entered the room before things could escalate, hooking her arm with yours.

"Ah, Dayoko!" Chorosuke's smile was thin and forced, his brow twitching dangerously as the pillow he threw hit against his side. "Could you please escort our guest to the washroom while I deal with those?"

Dayoko looked unimpressed, not even replying to her brother as she tugged you out of the room, closing the door behind her without so much as a second glance. As soon as it slid shut, loud voices erupted as an argument broke out. You managed to pick out a few insults that were so ridiculous, you couldn't help but splutter a laugh. You tried to cover your mouth to stop them leaving your mouth, but eventually, you couldn't hold it in any longer.

"S-Sorry..!" You apologised to Dayoko through your bouts of laughter, clutching at your stomach as you followed her on shaky legs down the hallways. She looked at you for a moment in surprise before joining in with a playful roll of her eyes. You both giggled and chuckled endlessly, almost completely breathless by the time you had made it to the washroom.

Slowly, you both regained your composure, wiping a couple of stray tears from the corners of your eyes. Dayoko sighed happily.

"Dayon! Dayon!"

'That's the most I've laughed in a while!'

You smiled brightly along with her. "Same here!"

Dayoko took your hand, opening the door to the washroom to reveal, yet another, large washroom. It was slightly steamy in the room, a low mist of wafting over the tiled flooring, which was emitting from a wide bathtub on the other side of the room. You glanced around with wide eyes. The mirrors were somehow clear of any fog, the small plants scattered around the room were perked up and lively, the towels looked so soft and fluffy, hell -- even the toilet seemed to sparkle in its environment.

The girl tugged on your hand, snapping you out of your daze. She wore an amused smile on her face, but didn't comment on your surprised look.

"Dayon, dayon..."

She began telling you where everything you needed would be, and that she would leave fresh set nightwear for you to put on once you were done. You thanked her profusely once more as she left you to your own devices, closing the door to give you privacy.

You looked around, somehow feeling unsure of where to even start.

'..That's stupid,' you thought to yourself with a shake of your head. You began stripping down, neatly placing your clothes in a basket nearby so they could be washed later. Then, you moved over to the bathtub, gingerly placing the tip of your toe into the water, delighted to find it just the right temperature.

You slid in, settling down comfortably with a long sigh of relief, feeling the tension in your muscles fading away. There was a faint aroma of lavender and peppermint in the air, and you took deep and steady breaths to help clear your mind for a moment. It was truly heavenly, sitting in the warm water with your eyes closed and body relaxed. You wished you could do something like this all the time, but of course your situation back home wouldn't allow any kind of relaxation for you...

Another sigh left you, heavy and full of built up emotions. You brought a damp hand up to your face, resting it against your forehead as you frowned sadly. Your chest felt tight for a moment as a memory flashed through your mind. Your ears rang with loud voices, yelling and screaming, a complete one-eighty from what you had just heard downstairs a few minutes ago. It made your head throb uncomfortably, and your eyes suddenly prickled with un-shed tears.

'No,' you thought immediately. You sat up and reached over to a shelf beside you, grabbing a bottle of shampoo that Dayoko had pointed out to you earlier. You squirted a handful of the liquid into your hand, the scent of cherries hitting your nose as you began lathering it into your hair, using the time to give yourself a brief massage over your scalp.

'I have two months to not think about that,' you reminded yourself, finally pushing away any other intruding thoughts from your mind as you busied yourself with washing up.

After a nice long while relaxing and cleansing yourself, you stumbled out of the bath, rubbing at your wet skin with a towel (which was just as fluffy as it looked). You looked over to the door, finding your nightwear and undergarments folded neatly on a small tabletop beside a pot of blooming Dahlias. You admired their vibrant layered petals for a moment before taking your clothes

You slipped on your oversized short sleeved shirt and shorts, perfect for the warm summer night, briefly ruffling your hair with the towel before exiting the washroom. Upon not seeing Dayoko nearby, you decided to make your own way to your bedroom, somewhat confident in being able to find it yourself.

It was clear to you, though, that after only a few turns, you found yourself lost.

"How can I get lost in a house?" you muttered with slight panic. You glanced behind you, turning around. "I'll just... head back to the washroom. She's probably there right now, waiting for me..."

You turned back down the corridor you were sure you had just come from, but... you couldn't' find it. You couldn't' find the washroom you had just been in two seconds ago. Worrying your lip between your teeth, you wondered if it would be childish to start calling out for her, or Chorosuke, to come and help you. Just as you were about to make a decision, a set of footsteps sounded behind you.

You breathed a sigh if relief, turning with a sheepish smile.

"Finished with your bath already? And here I was thinking I could jump in with you!"

You froze, cheeks ablaze for what felt like the hundredth time that evening. It was Ozo, not Chorosuke or Dayoko, wandering causally down the corridor towards you, a hand tucked into his trouser pocket. He kept walking until he stopped right in front of you, leaning against the wall.

" 'Sup?"

»»-----　♔　-----««

[glitchkilldelphinixdj]

Mild Discourse: Of All the Things (Thesis of Anger)

Foreward: This is usually to point out discrepancies of what some things were called out to me by a different individual whose name shall not be stated upon this. This was nearly a month ago when this shit ass "barring" happened to me on three places on a famous app which I will never mention also. I had cried in frustration upon after this shit issue.

I will only mention what the discrepancies are, since I have been noticing after screenshotting of the reasons I saw, were either a bit correct at some parts or incorrect. I'm not gonna show the screenshot either since it's best to not get any criticism. I will point out my own truth in reaction to the statements seen in the screenshot privately. Each one quoted sentence is of the said problematic thing about me, and the paragraph is how I am actually answering and reacting to the said problem as honest and fair as possible.

1 "My family is on the spectrum and doesn't act like you."

That's one thing that infuriated me the most because I am a high func autie with ADHD, but each individual with autism with and/or without comorbidities has a different personality and family background, depending on where they're from. I came from a family who had a military background, specifically the Greek Navy from my dad, plus my maternal grandfather worked as a naval CB in Korea during the Cold War for the United States, prior to his death in Janurary 2019. This sometimes explain my rough, coarse, militaristic personality (henceforth why Heavenly/Monster Triangle Sciences exist and Hellspire Sciences exist, two different military factions) a bit. Plus, being in a rural community in the Southeast United States, there's not much opportunity to socialize in real life, so I pretty much veer to the Internet for socialization since there's not many local individuals who I trust.

2 "You are self-serving and arrogant"

The only times I get into self-reliance is when stuff goes into dire situations. The arrogance is from all the bullies I had encountered in the past in school times when I was a kid. I had tried to play nice with others at least and try to thicken the plot of the HTS and HSS factions during my times here, henceforth a little of the militaristic behavior I have involving order. I also pretty much had faked some of my happiness or empathy because I am trying not to put in any facade of sadness within. I somehow come up obnoxious and rude at times because I'm trying to be nice, but it goes the opposite direction of what is intended.

3 "You need to see a therapist."

Not when the 'Rona is around. The only last time I ever saw a therapist was in Georgetown of last year in Spring once over to see what I have: Autism with ADHD and some instances of paranoia. Only people who have very serious problems would usually seek therapeutic help and interventions to improve themselves and I am not one of those individuals. I've only been to speech and occupational therapy in school as a kid until I was 12, so don't assume things out of the blue that I haven't even been to a therapist. I've taken Adderall to relieve of my ADHD issues before in school, but it made my mentality so fucked up and losing my creativity, so post-school, I had to find ways to regain my creativity where I lost it in school. That's why I made a lot more OCs than what others usually made because my creativity levels amped up after I graduated from high school, away from the bad chaos, some of them were remakes of my old OCs I did in middle school (Jamine being one of my bare examples), but the Adderall overtook me of my creativity.

4 "Why would a couple of characters do self-harm on a budding f/f relationship?" (trigger warning)

Do you mean that budding m/m relationship of two different male characters, the self destructive behavior clinged by it involving with the use my two female OCs, Munphine and Jamine (pronounced Juh-mine, Jamie for short)? Listen here, I already had pretty much stopped that shit a few weeks prior to the barring and several weeks after the barring cos it was getting a bit too boring and a bit out of context, so that shit is quitted out. Both these characters had bits of dark backgrounds, pretty much involving both of their families (Jamie, involved with the death of her father and also her mother Ryuke being buried alive in a metal coffin, Munphine, whose parents whose faces were beautiful had shamed her for having an ugly facial appearance and kicked her from her town, so to cover her mouth from others to see, she uses bandages to cope that.), in general. Or do you mean the one involving my stable B8 Ghost Variant Yellow Missingno OC, Vesparada, and some other female character a few months ago? If it's already stopped weeks and/or months ago, it's already stopped. Period.

5 "You bragged about treatment of a physical problem I had."

What I was meant to say was that a medicine is suppose to help the problem, not actually treat it altogether, though with some side effects. It was an unintentionally misspoken statement, because my mind was in dire thought mode and accidentally typed too fast. I shouldn't have stated about a said medicine in the first place. I wished I thought and knew better about that. I'll leave that behind.

6 "You had guilt tripped in someone's place multiple times."

Most of the guilt tripping was unintentional at most because it's either me trying to come up with at least a statement/sentence and/or if it was a dire situation involving a decision. Some auties, like me, do have some problems making decisions, and at times, I unintentionally chose the wrong decision without thinking twice, though I do mostly think twice before I speak at some non-dire times. Sometimes I usually am impatient to my peers because I'm just excited over certain fun things coming up within my sight. I mostly never intentionally guilt tripped, lest if it's anyone I hate to be fair. I do have occasional preconditions that sometimes come in also.

7 "You had shrugged shoulders on a relationship with two different individuals."

This is me after being told at to stop and the mild shrugging of my shoulders is usually saying a way of, "Okay, I will stop digging into the nitty gritty of a certain relationship and let them do their thing." , as per se. By the words of ebony and ivory, that means I drop my guard of thought and accept it. It's been hard and rough for me to have at least a bit of attention during an RP story. I know that was nearly a couple months ago and it's best not to bring that up, since that is just an old thing. I'm a person whom does go by the cross a bit, being Greek Orthodox and all, but I'm trying my best not to scare anyone from advancing their creativity.

8 "You have been playing around with a victim."

Could you at least please elaborate this said victim and who it was? I didn't know I ever even played around with a victim nor I would recall it. It would be better for me to acknowledge who it is. I cannot fully understand certain things sometimes, lest if it's fully elaborated and stated to me. Who was this victim and how long? That's one thing that I am asking of.

Conclusion: Here on out, after the barring, I have been playing about in my garden, taking care of my own pets and whatnot to live my fullest life. It's been a bit of zen away of what happened. At least I am honestly covering what had been said and stated to me why have I been nixed from these places to others, and telling my actual side to what they had said with my utmost, undivided attention. I pretty much rest my case what I am telling my side of the actual allegations against me. There is no cover-ups or lies whatsoever of what had I said. I am literally straight-up speaking this in my own words. This ends the conclusion.

[nothingbutfangirlsmut]

The Girl Out of Time

Pairing: Bucky X Reader and Sam X Reader

Background: Willow Roffe was born and raised in Brooklyn. She lived her life as happily as she could with her two childhood best friends Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. When they both left her to join the military she tried to continue with life but that didn't get to happen for her for the simple fact that she meant something to James Buchanan Barnes.

Rating: Story will be overall MATURE but not every chapter. There will be strong language, talk of both mental and physical abuse, some good ole angst, and smut. There will be a warning at the beginning of the chapter when it includes smut.

Chapter 17

A few weeks after everything had happened with Shield, Hydra, and Bucky I found myself back at Gracie's. She had excitedly let me in. Turns out her children and grandchildren were there. She had introduced me to everyone then sent the kids upstairs to play while Gracie, Greg, Lucas, Anna, and I sat together in the living room.

"What have you been up to since returning?" Anna asked me.

"A lot of things. I use to work for Shield with my friend Steve but then I helped him take that down. Now I've been helping him search for a friend we thought was dead." I told them.

"James?" Gracie asked.

"Yea, turns out he's still alive. It's been an insane past few months." I told her.

"Sounds like it." Greg chuckled.

After the kids and grandkids left I sat alone on the couch with Grace.

"I've been seeing someone." I told her softly.

"Really?" She asked excitedly.

"Yea, his name is Sam. He's been in the middle of all this with me. It's rough sometimes though because I know we are eventually going to find James. What happens if I remember him and all those old feelings everyone says I had come back? I really do like Sam and I don't want to loose him or hurt him." I confided.

Grace chuckled softly then turn in her seat to face me. She grabbed my hand holding it gently between both of her's.

"Does Sam know about James?" She asked.

I nodded.

"Is he aware of your memory loss and your history with James?" She asked.

I nodded again.

"He still chooses to he with you even though he knows all this. I'm sure he knows there's a possibility of loosing you to James. The thing is, even if you won't be together forever, the time you have with Sam now is precious and full of memories you will cherish forever. I can't tell you what to decide when the time comes. All I can say is follow your heart. The right choice is not always the easiet." She spoke softly.

I just stared at her for a minute.

"How did you get to be the wise one?" I asked her quietly.

Grace chuckled then patted my leg.

"It comes with years and years of mistakes." She smiled at me.

"I hate that I didn't get to experience life with you. To be there for you when you needed me." I told her feeling the sudden need to apologize.

"Things were hard after you disappeared. Mom was an absolute mess and dad seemed to get even worse than he was before. I hadn't realized how much you had protected me and Amy from him. Things were rough but Amy and I kept pushing on because we knew that's what you would have done." Grace's voice was shaky.

I hugged her feeling even more sorry that I had been taken away from her and Amelia. I never wanted them to suffer at our father's hand. That's why I always took the beatings. I wanted them to be free and happy. I could handle the pain plus I had Steve to get me threw. I had James too but I couldn't remeber what impact he had made on me.

A few months later I woke up in bed cuddled next to Sam. I had ended up staying with him in his apartment in DC. He was already awake typing away on his phone. I wrapped my arm around his torso then moved closer to him. He chuckled then started running his fingers threw my hair.

"Steve sent me another lead for us to follow. Said he and the others are going after another Hydra base." Sam said quietly.

I groaned then rolled over on my back. Ever since we found out Bucky was still alive we've been chasing down leads. It's been months with no result. Each time the trail ends cold.

"Where to this time?" I asked him as I sat up.

"Looks like Mexico" Sam said.

I got out of bed wrapping my arms around myself from the sudden cold that hit my naked body. Sam whistled at me as he usually did. I hurried to the dresser and closet to get my clothes. Sam was quick to do the same. When we were both dressed we each packed a bag that would last us a few days.

"Let's grab some breakfast before we head out." Sam said as he walked out of the bedroom.

I pulled on the dark brown leather jacket that Steve had given me then followed Sam down the hall. When I got to the kitchen I gave Sam a quick kiss then started to pull out everything we needed. Sam did most of the cooking as usual while I helped here and there.

"How are we getting there?" I asked Sam as we ate.

"Flying" he said simply.

It took us a few days to come to the conclusion that this lead was just like the others. It's possible Bucky was there at one point but he was long gone by the time we got there. Once we were back in the states Steve called to invite us to New York for a party.

I showed Sam where the Avengers tower was in the city then we made our way all the way to the top. By the time we got there the party was in full swing.

"Sam! Willow!" Someone shouted from a small group.

Steve appeared out of the people then walked over to us quickly. He hugged me tightly to him.

"How'd it go?" He asked us.

"Cold" I told him.

He nodded with a look of disappointment clear on his face.

"I want to introduce you to some people." Steve said pulling me by my hand.

Sam followed behind us threw the crowd. Steve stopped in front of a tall, extremely muscular man with long blonde hair.

"Will this is Thor. Thor this is Willow the girl I told you about." Steve said with a smile.

Thor smiled then extended his large hand out to me. I made it a point to shake his hand using my super soldier strength. He laughed then shook his hand.

"She is mighty" his voice boomed in a foreign accent I didn't recognize.

"He's the God of Thunder and king of Asgard." Steve said to me.

"God?" I questioned in surprise.

"You've heard of the Norse god Thor right?" Steve asked clearly amused.

"Well yea" I answered.

Steve pointed to Thor. I looked up to the man who wasn't a man at all. He was a mythical god.

"You mean to tell me you're casually friends with a god?" I asked Steve.

"He's apart of the Avengers." Steve shrugged.

I just looked at him like he was crazy. He had to be joking. Steve laughed as he pulled me behind him again. This time we stopped at the bar where Tony, Hill, and another man were standing.

"Willow, nice to see you again." Tony said raising his glass to me.

"You too Stark" I smiled at him.

"This is Rhodey. He's an old friend of Stark's. He's also known as the War Machine which is one of Tony's suits." Steve explained.

"Pleasure" I said as I shook his hand.

He pulled his hand away then slowly stretched his fingers.

"Quite a grip you got there." He said in surprise.

Hill, Stark, Steve, and Sam all laughed. Apparently he hadn't been told about me yet.

"Sorry about that sometimes I forget no one other than Steve can handle my normal hand shakes." I chuckled.

"Why's that?" Rhodey asked curiously.

"She's a super soldier like Capsicle." Tony said.

"Capsicle?" I questioned him with a brow raised.

Steve sighed and shook his head while Tony laughed. Steve continued to pull me around the room to introduce me to a few people he had met. Eventually the three of us decided to go off on our own.

Steve started quietly explaining what had happened at the Hydra base. Turns out it wasn't very stealthy. They had two "enhanced" as Steve called them that really did a number on them. In the end they did end up with the septor.

"Sounds like a hell of a fight. Sorry I missed it." Sam said as we started up a set of stairs.

"If I had known it would be a fire fight I absolutely would have called you two." Steve chuckled.

"No, no, I'm not actually sorry. I'm just trying to sound tough. I'm very happy chasing cold leads with Willow on our missing person case. Avenging is your world. Your world is crazy." Sam explained as we came to a stop on a balcony overlooking the room.

"I'm kinda upset I missed it." I shrugged.

"Of course you are." Sam chuckled.

"Be it ever so humble." Steve laughed.

"You find a place in Brooklyn yet?" Sam asked Steve.

Steve sighed.

"I don't think I can afford a place in Brooklyn." He said softly.

"Well, home is home, ya know?" Sam said.

I can imagine all the reasons Steve would want a place in Brooklyn. Sam was right. Home is home. I would give anything to be able to go home. There were even days I wished I could go back to 1946. Then I had the days I was so happy to be where I was. It was a rough rollercoaster ride. Each day was different but I pushed threw and made the best of it.

"Come on we should join the others." Steve said moving to go back downstairs.

Steve left Sam and I alone to go talk to Bruce. Sam and I found a seat on a couch. Hill, Tony, Rhodey, and Clint were already sitting in the same area as us. Nat was quick to join us. The party dwindled quickly until it was only the avengers and their close personal friends.

---

Masterlist

[sunflowerbloomss]

Hi! I've seen your post about Unorthodox. As a person who is not Jewish I wanted to search for opinions about this show here on tumblr to get to know different points of views, especially from Jewish people. Then I found your post and a few other posts. Many of them were criticising the show for using the "escape from the cult" trope. Yours was rather positive. Those people said that it's making Hasidic people look bad and that it's ignorant. What's your take on this?

hello!!! i actually have a lot to say about this so bear with me for a sec. my tl;dr is basically that the “escape from the cult” trope is always bound to showing “the cult” in the worst way possible, while on unorthodox the only person with bad motives from the community is moishe.

i’ll start by saying that the hasidic community they’re talking about is satmar, which is located in brooklyn and has many of the “rules” (for a lack of a better english word i know) that are presented in the series. they didn’t state the name in the series because they would sue their asses, but keep in mind that we’re talking about one of the most strict hasidic communities there are in the world. i am not as familiar with the subject as i would like to be, but i know names of a few hasidic communities and approximately how strict they are (though it’s complicated). satmar are known for leading a pretty strict way of life. when i told my mom i’m watching a show about a girl running away from satmar, she said “yeah, well, with them, the only way out is running of suicide”. (keep in mind that my mom really doesn’t like religion). so, generally - we’re talking about a very strict community that is known for being so strict.

now, to the series - i don’t think  they’re showing the community esty runs from to be a cult. i think that when we see esty “following the rules” she’s happy even after she runs she still loves her community. when things are not getting complicated for her - and even when they only start to - esty is still happy. she’s married and she has her family and she’s doing the things she loves. she realises she doesn’t belong there when she understands she has to give up the things she loves to do things she doesn’t love because “that’s the way it is”. when she gives up her piano lessons to go to this woman who tries to teach her how to have sex, when she forces herself to have sex even though she doesn’t want to, when she realises she has to live with yanky for the rest of her life even though she wants to go back to her grandmother’s house for a bit. this is where things start to get complicated for her - when she has to do the things she doesn’t want to do.

that’s when she decides to run. that’s when she thinks she can’t do this anymore, becuase she doesn’t like the idea of doing things simply because she must. now, here’s the time to stop and get back to reality again. i believe some of the criticism is about the fact that the series shows esty “having” to do things she doesn’t want to do to make hasidic communities look bad and sexist. i do not know personally someone who came from a hasidic communities (and frankly, i’m too lazy to google it) but i do know religious and haredi jewish people, and i’ll tell you this - from my personal experience and from many different people’s personal experiences, the more religious you are the more it’s okay for you to be sexist. this is a huge generalization, but i’ll say that orthodox jewish communities have a sexism problem (just like many other communities, yeah? i’m just saying that for our own discussion). i can talk a lot about sexism and judaism, but i’ll shorten this huge essay to this - ignoring the ways orthodox jewish communities use the bible and the rules of judaism to justify and amplify their oppression of women is also a problem. we don’t like to talk about it, because then we feel like we portray judaism as bad, but imo not talking about it or trying to soften it is unfair to every woman who gets beaten down by it. so i think showing the community pushing esty to have children and listen to her husband is not only okay but important. that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about other good things that happen in religious communities, but if we decide to talk about orthodox judaism we have to talk about this. imo it was very well done.

anyway, back to the story - so esty decides to leave. and she doesn’t tell anyone about it, because she knows they wouldn’t let her go if she would. how does she know that? she sees how much they despise anyone who decides to leave. this is also something that is important to represent about hasidic communities (and also about any orthodox communities, the more religious they are the importance of representing it grows) - they don’t like it when people leave. sometimes it’s because they’re afraid some things that are secret about their community would get to other people who are not part of it and then the community would lose it secrecy (which can be both good and bad, if you’d ask me). once again i don’t know a lot of stories regarding different hasidic communities (and every one of them is so different so the stories would be different) but i know many stories of people from religious and haredi communities who told their family they don’t want to be religious anymore, and their family had abandoned them. my disclaimer is that there are in fact some stories about those who are still in great touch with their family, and that they visit on holidays and so, but there are many stories about people who end up losing their family because they didn’t want this type of life anymore and the family couldn’t agree to that. (there are also many stories like this about families disowning gay kids in the name of the bible, but that’s for a different show). so anyway - the community wanting esty back even though it’s clear that she doesn’t want to go back to them is not portraying them as a cult. it’s pretty realistic imo.

and hey, she never says that she ran because she hates them and that she wants “to take this cult down” (which is a very important thing in the “escape from the cult” trope). she said she left because “i didn’t fit in there”. she didn’t try to take with her anyone, she didn’t try to “save” anyone from her community. if this show had really taken the road of showing hasidic communities as a cult, esty would’ve tried to take her aunt and grandma with her. she didn’t.

another thing that is important is how the only person from the community who is supposed to be unlikeable all through the series is moishe. now, i have something to say about this. there is a chance it’s by chance, there is a chance it’s just because how this turned out, but moishe - the character we’re supposed to hate - is the only character from the community (who isn’t esty or her mom) which “enjoys” sins. we have him betting (forbidden), and even though i think it’s not forbidden we have him taking yanky to a strip clup with him, which isn’t something i believe the community would look at as happily. moishe, then, is a character that sins both in the religion and in morals. he scares esty and he breaks into her mom’s house, he constantly lies to yanky just because he wants to. looking at all the characters who stayed in the community, the only one the audience is supposed to dislike is moishe. we’re supposed to like yanky, because he just wants to bring esty back; we’re supposed to like the grandmother, because she feels bad that both her daughter and her granddaughter left the community; we’re supposed to like the aunt, because she cares so much about esty and she doesn’t really know what to do.

so, really, after all that, we’ve come to the conclusion that the community esty comes from is shown both positively and negatively. the criticism isn’t there just because the director wanted the viewer to hate everything esty came from - it’s there because it’s important to show the negative sides of strict communities. we’re only supposed to dislike one character - moishe - who is someone we probably should’ve disliked even in another show, at a different time. 

i do want to say something about yael, since she’s the only representation of secular judaism in this show and imo her character is fantastic. as i said on one of my posts - i hate her guts, but i love her character. she’s the representation of the secular judaism, and when we see her from esty’s pov we see just how many things she does are not to many people’s liking. when esty says “my parents lost their whole families in the holocaust” and she replies “so did half of israel” we can understand how for her it’s not as a big deal as it is to esty. she talks about hasidic people the way this series is blamed for showing them - “they’re nuts, the men study the torah every day and the women are baby machines”. if this series truly would’ve wanted to show this pov (which would think esty escaped a cult) we would conclude that yael is right. but she’s not, and it’s something we see a lot in the show.

this is long and this concludes to the point that i don’t think this show uses a trope of “escaping the cult”. it clearly has criticism about the hasidic community, which is pretty justified in my opinion, but it’s not seen as a cult. i would also like to mention that this series is based on a book by a woman who also left the satmar community. i haven’t read it so idk how accurate to her story the series is, but the themes are first and foremost introduced here by someone who actually lived there.

this was long and if you’ve actually read all of this i’m really happy!! i hope this is good enough of an answer. kinda messy and i probably forgot a few things, but my main point stands. i do get however why there are people who don’t like this show, but i personally think it’s very well done, so. yeah. that’s all

[bluboothalassophile]

hello, i don't know if you are doing the 76 kiss prompts too blu, but, i was thinking jayrae with #55 but, inspired by the movie Serendipity (2001), is one of the sweetest rom com movie i've ever seen, but i don't know if you have seen it before?

Hello,

Um… I have no idea what Serendipity is. I can promise you the closest to the romantic comedy genre I’ve gotten for movies is Fool’s Gold and 50 First Dates (I love her beating up Ula with a bat). I can promise everyone I don’t watch chick flick movies. So sorry, but this is the closest to JayRae I can do right now.

Returning a Soul…

True Love’s kiss was complete and utter-Bullshit. Of this he was certain. And this topic was only on his mind because of his niece who’s school book project was on Grimm Fairy Tales. And she wouldn’t stop pestering him about true love and that utter bullshit, and she kept asking him if he felt this way about Rachel, Raven, Rae, and it just wouldn’t stop. He had placated her with the fact Fairy Tales were tales created to teach lessons, not just love, and true love wasn’t real in reality.

There’s no ONE person made solely for him, there’s no one sole person made for anyone. Damn anyone who felt that he was a cynical asshole, but he had been screwed over enough times by fate and life to think differently. Oh sure if there was chemistry sex and companionship were great but to have a single person that was supposed to be with you it was a romantic con. A scam. A chemical mix up in the brain.

And the other thing, love wasn’t always neat, pretty, fluffy and happy like media insisted it be, it was a lot of fucking work, and he had enough work with just himself.

So no fucking thank you on the true love, fated lover, life companion pyramid scheme from life. He would happily remain single for eternity. Life was complicated enough with just himself.

Of fucking course though, with everything else that had happened in his life it couldn’t just work out how he wanted to just for five minutes. That would be too simple.

Jason had been amusing his many siblings, and nieces, and nephews, with the True Love bullshit. Or what he thought was utter bullshit for a long time. Jason felt that he and Raven; despite what everyone in this demented universe thought; were not an example of True Love. Evidence to back this:

He dated other women, and Raven dated other men.

He had sex with other women; exclusively not Raven.

He had never in his entire life entertained the idea of seducing or being with Raven in a romantic manner.

He was not a bastard blessed with True Love.

And that was evidence. So while he was hanging out with Mar'i and Jake while at Terry and Lian’s hockey practice he was completely relaxed. He had broken up with Jessica; or rather it was a mutual break up if such a thing existed. But they were never going to be serious, Jessica was in love with Simon Baz, she just needed to know she could be with someone without overwhelming them. He thought her methods a bit sporadic, but he was fine with it, Jessica kept him from turning around and murdering Koryak where Koryak stood. Jason wasn’t in love with Raven, but she was his best friend and he and Victor Stone agreed there was no guy good enough for her. Also, Koryak always glared at him whenever he was near Raven, which irked Jason greatly. Rachel, Raven, whatever name she went by, he had known her longer, they were best friends, they would go to the ends of the earth for the other; that trumped her boyfriend’s right to be petty and act like a territorial jackass. There were times Jason wanted to punch the idiot in the face.

But here he was, Mar'i doing her school project, and Jake napping on his chest. He had already been mistaken for this brood’s dad, but B had B Jr., Matt, and Tommy today for the park, while Cat was taking care of Alina and Helena who were at dance class. Jason honestly didn’t know how the Bats managed family shit and vigilante shit but somehow it worked. He didn’t know how.

He looked up from his current read; le chevalier d’Harmental, by Dumas when Mar'i gasped and ran up the bleachers, dragging her project with her. Jason put his book down just as Dick and Zatanna walked towards him.

“We had an arrangement, Dick,” Jason warned. He didn’t want Dick and Zatanna’s relationship near Mar'i and Jake when they were just acclimating to having a father. True both kids like Raquel, but Zatanna was Dick’s girlfriend and the outbursts about that, thus far, were fiery and spectacular.

“Jay, it’s Rae,” Dick said. Jason snapped to attention looking between Zatanna and Dick. Zatanna for the first time in his knowing her, looked genuinely apprehensive about this.

“Lucifer and Mazikeen have ordered you to come, and Constantine thinks you can help her,” Zatanna supplied. “And trust me we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“Terry and Lian…” he started.

“I can watch them, I’ll take them straight home, and I’m sober, Jay.” Dick promised.

“You fuck this up I’ll skin you alive.”

“NO!” Mar'i shouted as she ran over to him as he hoisted himself upwards, she clung to his leg glaring at her father and Zatanna.

“Mar'i, Jay’s has to help Rae, and it’s really important,” Dick said.

“Mar'i can come with me, you watch Jake, Terry and Lian, and do not give them fucking snacks unless it’s apple slices or Alfred will have your head,” Jason warned picking up Mar'i’s backpack and taking her hand. Dick awkwardly held his sleeping son, but sat on the bleachers too. Jason knocked on the glass, Lian and Terry looked at him and he pointed at Dick before picking up Mar'i on his hip.

“Let’s go, witch,” he said as he followed Zatanna.

“I’m warning you, Mar'i should stay.”

“She doesn’t want to so she’ll go with me,” he stated firmly. Zatanna seemed to think her relationship with Dick was enough to parent Mar'i and Jake and it annoyed him.

Zatanna portalled them up to the Watch Tower, and he set Mar'i down. Zatanna started walking briskly away and he pulled Mar'i in front of him. “Mar'i I don’t know what’s going on, but you should go to the cafeteria, stay there until I get you, wear this,” he said putting a domino mask on her as he wore his own.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Be right back kiddo,” he promised ruffling her hair as he followed Zatanna. He knew Mar'i would either do what was asked of her or follow him, but he was more worried about what was going on with Rae. If it was really dangerous then Mar'i would be smart and run.

They rounded the corridor and Jason was greeted by a passionate five way shouting match between Koryak, Victor, Lucifer, Constantine and Mazikeen. His patience ran out seeing Rae laying prone on the bed, she was so small, and her hair spilled around her, which had him shoving his way through everyone as he leaned over her.

“What the hell happened?” he asked looking over her chart, and looking at her. She was so small, she was always small though, but when she was awake she was indomitable.

“Sleeping curse, cast by Faust,” Constantine stated.

“Sleeping curse?”

“Like the Grimm fairy tales only worse,” Constantine stated.

“How do we wake her?” he asked looking her over, her chest was rising and falling slower and slower, she was dying. He could see that on the heart monitor.

“True love’s kiss!” Mar'i said from the doorway running into the room, clambering up on the bed. He stared at his eight year old niece.

“Tried that, it didn’t work, we need something else!” Koryak snapped.

“And I’m telling you, you couldn’t possibly be her true love! Even if she wasn’t bonded, which she is, she has always sought out Jason, I would place money on him being her True Love if such a thing exists.” Lucifer snapped furiously.

“Obviously!” Mar'i snorted.

“And demons don’t have true love!” Zatanna shouted.

“Everyone who is not Lucifer or Constantine OUT!” Jason snapped. Victor glared at him, but Jason raised a brow. He couldn’t get rid of Mar'i now, but he wouldn’t have this conversation in front of Raven’s brother.

When the door was sealed behind the arguing party he looked to Raven’s grandfather and Constantine.

“What exactly is this about?” he asked, his fingers tracing her brow and hair absently.

“She took a sleeping curse, and Faust the idiot botched it to need True Love, not an act of pure love like in the story, actual soul mate true love,” Constantine hissed in frustration with a dramatic gesture to Raven.

“And we got to the terrible, improbable conclusion of me being her true love for this nonsense how?” Jason asked. Raven was fighting, he could feel it.

“You are her bonded. Rachel, Raven, it doesn’t matter, she comes for you, she seeks you out, her soul is tied to yours, you know this. So the reasonable conclusion is in a thousand lifetimes, in a thousand years, she’ll pick you and you’ll pick her, that is about as true of love as any.”

“And if this Hail Mary doesn’t work?” he asked looking at her. She was so still, but Raven was annoyingly still by nature. Even now as she was Rachel, she was still, Rachel, Raven, they were the same and the just emanated calm.

“Then we’re back to the drawing board,” Constantine snapped. “All you have to do is kiss her, you don’t have to marry her or change your relationship!”

“That’ll work though, you love her,” Mar'i stated.

Jason said nothing.

“We’ll give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work I’ll have a little chat with Faust, in a private room,” he hissed.

“Thank You Father, we’ll give you privacy, come on tiny spawn!” Lucifer grabbed Mar'i like she was a bomb, she laughed and Constantine walked out of the room.

Jason glared at her. “If this works, this changes nothing,” he warned. He was swift in leaning over her and kissing her softly. She gasped to life and sat upright.

“It fucking worked?” he sputtered staring at her.

“Jason? What happened? Where the hell am I?”

“You’re in the Watch Tower Rae,” he said. She stared at him, and he saw the black force of a soul flowing between their hands, straight to her.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “I thought… I died?”

“Nice try but no cigar, love,” he chuckled.

“No… not with Faust,” she said as she looked at him. He grimaced.

“Yeah, you did die,” he murmured. “I killed Ryand’r, you’re back.”

“I… I’m Raven, not Rachel,” she said.

“That’s a given, I’m just happy to have you,” he admitted sitting carefully on her bed.

“It’s like a dream, a strange dream,” she whispered touching his face. “I’m alive.”