#( here have a thing )

[banannabethchase]

Lance Archer. That's it, that's the prompt.

Proposition

~

Lance blinks down. “Excuse me?”

“You and me,” Austin repeats. “Dinner. Or lunch.” He presses his lips together, determined not to panic or go back on what he wants. Colten is definitely watching and is sure to mock him if he bails. “Or, like, the locker room right now, if that’s more your speed.”

Lance’s face breaks into a grin. “Now what does a handsome young guy like you want with a guy like me?”

Austin can’t fight the shiver. “I – okay, that was…that was a yes?” He can’t read Lance’s expression. He can’t slow his racing heart.

“If I could, I would,” Lance says. He reaches out and rests a hand on Austin’s shoulder.

Austin sighs. “Married?”

“Even worse,” Lance says, and the sad little smile on his lips makes Austin want to climb up a tree and hide there for a decade. “I’m straight.”

Austin groans, throwing his head back. “Why does this keep happening to me?”

“Keep happening?” Lance asks. “Who else have to propositioned?”

Austin sighs, and begins to count off on his fingers. “You, Wardlow, Satnam, Christian’s not straight but he said I’m too old, which was a dick thing to say,” he pauses, mentally scrolling his list. “Oh, and Brian Cage. But I shouldn’t have asked.” He wrinkles his nose. “He’s kind of mean.”

“You – you have a thing for big guys, don’t you,” Lance says. He presses his lips together, eyes on Austin. It’s a little too intense, but Austin can’t look away.

“A little,” Austin mutters. “I’m not as bad as Nick Jackson, though.” He leans in. “Did you know he’s fucking Luchasaurus?”

“This is so much more information than I expected to learn today,” Lance mutters, and Austin decides he didn’t hear it. “Tell you what. I’ll put in a good word with Joe.”

Austin’s entire body feels electrified. “Samoa Joe?”

Lance nods. “We chill sometimes. I’ll tell him to hit you up.”

It’s his white whale, he thinks, fucking Samoa Joe. AEW champion. Man with a mean streak a mile wild. He bounces on his toes. “Okay,” he squeaks. “Um. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Lance pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, man.”

Austin watches him walk away, and thinks, perhaps, things are looking up.

[aparticularbandit]

We Were Never Friends With Darkness And Would, In Fact, Prefer It Leave Us Alone: Chapter One

Summary: The problem with running from your problems before they become problems is that they don't just disappear. They're still there when you return, and as it so happens, sometimes they've gotten bigger than you can handle (if you could even handle them before).

Or: Kyoko makes good on what she told Yui and runs away before Yui can be used against her by the Victims' Relief Committee. But running away and remaking herself and hiding doesn't fix anything, and coming back later to a class full of people who might want to be friends with her only makes things worse.

Especially when one of those friends might just happen to think that she's kind of cute.

For DR Rarepair Week 2024 Day Five: Gift Giving/Peace, hosted by @dr-rarepair-week-blog.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: T.

AO3

next chapter

Kyoko runs.

If asked, she’ll never say that’s what she did.  It’s a tactical action.  When in a fight with a stronger enemy, sometimes it is best to pull back and regroup.

Never mind that Kyoko and Yui have been constantly and consistently winning each of their battles, never mind that right now things seem to be in a bit of a stalemate, never mind that if Yui does fall to their temptations then they can reach Kyoko no matter where she goes throughout the world—

Kyoko runs, and Kyoko determines to never open a single black envelope sent her way, and Kyoko uses her detective skills to hide herself as completely as she can because she would rather run and hide and disappear into the vast darkness of the world than confront the possibility of Yui’s hands being stained.

(Her very identity screams against this.  She’s on a case.  Even if she’s not being paid for it, she’s still tracking down the Victims’ Relief Committee with Yui.  That is the thing that she is doing.  No matter who dies, no matter who gets sacrificed, no matter what happens – this is what she is doing, and it’s shooting her rank in the DSC higher and higher, which means that Hope’s Peak has to notice her, that her dad its headmaster has to acknowledge her existence – but she will literally throw all of that away if it means….)

((It’s harder to run from Yui.  She tells herself that it’s necessary.  She refuses to say it’s because she doesn’t trust her onee-sama.))

Kyoko runs, and she runs, and she doesn’t look back.

~

That black envelope never comes.

Kyoko fulfills cases under another name, stealing from the ideas that Lico laid before her (What’s in a name?  If she leaves behind Kirigiri, then what is she?  Still the same, still the same, still the same), and sends those in months later to the DSC.  Her rank grows, but they cannot know where she is or where she is going, and so her original plan, at least in part, is still fulfilled.

Hope’s Peak still scouts her under that other name because they are better at finding wayward children to fill their coffins than the DSC is (or maybe the Victims’ Relief Committee always could find her and gave up the moment she ran; she doesn’t know what their plans for her were, and so she cannot say, can only guess, and the ache of that hole beats harsh in her chest every now and again, if she allows herself to think on it, which she doesn’t) – and Hope’s Peak still invites her because even under all of her disguises, her dad its headmaster still recognizes her (it makes her sick, he makes her sick, she makes herself sick) – and she hesitates before accepting.

It’s been years.

If Yui was going to do anything, she would have done it already, and either she did and the Victims’ Relief Committee never tried to break Kyoko’s heart by forcing her to return and confront her fall or she didn’t and the time away, maybe, saved her.

Yui’s an adult now.  She’s likely in college somewhere.  If she’s smart, she’s somewhere far, far away.  Somewhere safe.

(Kyoko knows better.  Yui would throw herself away to save someone else – anyone else – not because she thinks so lowly of herself, but because that’s her duty as a detective.  Not to find the truth, like Kyoko does, but to save people.

Yui would make a good Super Sentai or magical girl – the hero of the story.  She has so much hope and so much guilt and—

(The Victims’ Relief Committee tempted people of a variety of ages.  They could still tempt Yui as an adult.  But if she’s survived this long without giving in, then Kyoko likes to believe she will survive just a little while longer.))

Kyoko hesitates, and Kyoko accepts, and Kyoko puts herself in a place where the Victims’ Relief Committee could find her again, if they wanted.

(Kyoko runs her fingers along the black ribbons she’s never stopped wearing and wonders if she’s just giving in.)

~

At school, they call her Hibiki Haruko.

The name is as fake as Junko Enoshima’s smile (or Sayaka Maizono’s – both Ultimates chosen for their ability to fake a personality to the population on a large scale – or even Celeste’s entire everything – because from her name to her accent to her hair to her supposed heritage, everything about that girl is fake), but outside of their headmaster (and perhaps his scout), no one seems to know.  She’s learned, in her time away, to be gentle with people, to put on an air that makes her seem both trustworthy and forgettable, and she knows – she knows – that a few of them catch her out (Junko, again, who seems carefully curated to catch out those who don’t want to be caught, with those piercing eyes that cut right through her; but Sakura, too, who notes when she doesn’t go on donut runs with Hina, who tells her that if she ever needs anything (even if that means protection or a bodyguard) to just ask, and Mukuro, who looks at her like she’s someone familiar, like she’s seen her before, even if it isn’t Kyoko that she’s seen).  Sometimes Makoto gives her a curious look, sometimes it seems like he’s going to ask her a question, but either he gives up or he forgets before he asks.

The thing about running away once is that Kyoko – Hibiki – keeps running.

If they could use Yui, then they could use any of her classmates, provided she gets close enough to them.  It doesn’t matter that, in the end, they hadn’t used Yui, just like it doesn’t matter that there’s no proof that they would use one of her classmates. It’s that they could, and once she believed that enough to flee the literal country, that belief was never really going to die.

Sure, it’s lonely when the rest of her classmates pair up – or group up – and she’s left on the outside of the fish tank, one hand pressed against the glass, as she looks in on the rest of them.

But it’s safer.

For her them.

~

Junko drunkenly kisses her exactly once.

“Hibiki,” she’d slurs, “you’re so….”  Her voice trails off, and she falls forward until her forehead rests on Kyoko’s shoulder.  “So cute.”

Kyoko stays still, straight, as though that will do anything.  “Junko, you’re drunk.”  (But she can’t smell the alcohol, so maybe Junko is only pretending.  If she is, she’s doing a very good job of it.)

“No, I’m not.”  Junko brushes her nose along Kyoko’s neck, which makes it a lot harder to stand still, but she does it anyway.  “I’m just—”  She chokes back a sob. “You’re so pretty.  You’re like a ghost.”

How did Junko even get alcohol anyway?

(One of the upper classmen is literally the Ultimate Yakuza, and one of their own classmates is old enough to drink, and Kyoko’s asking how Junko got drunk.  She’d been talking about a huge party she wanted to go to earlier.  That was probably it.  Kyoko never goes to their parties.  At least, not for long enough to be more than an appearance just so that no one questions why she never goes – they can’t say she never goes when they’ve seen her there, even if only briefly.)

“You should…you should let me dress you up, Hibiki-chan,” Junko purrs soft in her ear.  “Celeste thinks she’s so pretty, but put you in deep violets, and you’d…you’d be….”

Kyoko flinches.

“No, no, no, no, I’m not gonna hurt you.”  Junko wraps an arm around Kyoko’s waist and burrows her head into Kyoko’s collarbone.  “I’d never hurt you—”

“I didn’t say you would.”

But Junko pulls back just enough to search Kyoko’s face with those bloodshot eyes.  “You’re scared of me?”

“No­—”

“You’re scared of all of us.”  Junko’s eyes narrow, and she sways a bit, even though she sounds more sure of herself when she speaks.  “You don’t need to be,” she whines, drawing that last word out as her face grows redder.

Kyoko sighs.  “I already told you, I’m not.”

Junko takes Kyoko’s face in both of her hands, the tips of her deep red nails sharp against her skin, and she pulls Kyoko closer to her.  “Did I tell you you’re pretty?  Because you’re sooooooo pretty, Hibiki-chan.”

“Junko.  You’re drunk.  You need to go—”

Then Junko kisses her.

It is sloppy and uncomfortable (and doesn’t taste of alcohol, which means Junko’s definitely pretending) and then, suddenly, it isn’t, and it doesn’t matter because Junko should not be kissing her, no one should be kissing her, they will see—

Kyoko pushes her away, ignores the pain in Junko’s face (and even more ignores the whining “Hibiki-chaaaaaaan!” behind her), and runs away.

It’s an instinct.  A necessity.

And it doesn’t matter.

The next morning, Junko is gone, and a black envelope waits in Kyoko’s mailbox.

(At least they addressed it to Hibiki Haruko and not to Kyoko Kirigiri, but at this point, does it really even matter?)

~

Kyoko wonders, idly, what will happen if she never opens the envelope.

Technically, if she doesn’t open it, that’s just putting off the starting time.  It isn’t, strictly speaking, choosing not to play.  That would be opening the envelope and then choosing not to chase the trail.  If she never opens it, then maybe….

(She knows that isn’t how this works, but she wants to pretend.  She wants to pretend for as long as she can.)

Kyoko shoves the envelope into the inside pocket of her tailored jacket, glances at the single bullet mark scar in the center of her hand, and sets off to find the nearest detective agency.

~

In a world where she didn’t run, maybe Kyoko would have ended up working at Samidare Detective Agency.  Perhaps if she had, it wouldn’t look nearly as empty as it does now.  She can imagine more than the single desk in the back of the office, more than the single filing cabinet, more than an old desktop (not even a laptop, but a desktop so thick that she’s honestly surprised it still runs), more than an office that seems so pristine and dustless that it’s clear its single occupant rarely gets any cases at all – or, if she does, certainly doesn’t take any money from her clients to upgrade any of the rundown furniture scattered here and there.  The chairs don’t match.  The bookshelves don’t match, and they’ve barely got a book or two on them.

In that world, Kyoko imagines three desks: hers, Yui’s, and Licorne’s.  (Lico would be here, she’s sure of it.  He would travel back from wherever he’d landed to be part of their little family again, regardless of whether she wanted him there or not.)  Lico’s, of course, would be just as pristine as Yui’s now is, not because he didn’t get any cases but because he didn’t need anything to figure them out.  Yui’s would be covered with papers, the computer would be significantly better, and there would be multiple filing cabinets here, there, and everywhere.

Kyoko cannot imagine what her own desk would look like.  Her brain fails her there.

In this world, Samidare Detective Agency is as it is now.  Empty.  Unadorned.  Hidden in a little spot in an alley where there’s probably just as much crime outside as there is brought in here to be solved.  Kyoko has just enough time to run a finger along Yui’s desk and note the picture before the bell at the front door jingles.

“I thought I locked it.  Hope no one tried to steal the computer—”

“No one’s going to steal that thing, Yui onee-sama.  They’d lose money on it.”

“Well, it’s all I could aff...ord.”  Yui pauses with her right shoe half off, her fingers still curved into it, her other hand pressed to the wall to hold herself steady, and glances up.  She hesitates, the wheels in her head turning, whirring, and finally, she says, “Kyoko?”

Kyoko’s gaze drops.  “I’m sorry for worrying you, onee-sama,” she murmurs, tucking strands of her hair back behind one ear, “but yes.  It’s me.”  She sucks her lower lip between her teeth.  “And I….”  When she glances up, when she meets Yui’s eyes, her heart pounds hopelessly.  “I need your help.”

At her words, Yui softens.  She drops her shoe to the floor with a soft tap and eases, almost.  “Alright,” she says, hiding the smile that threatens to break across her face like the first glimmer of sunlight through a storm cloud.  “I’ll see what I can do.”

[forgotteneilionora]

For Love or Justice | Eilionora & Roderick

Flashback -- the night before the Ice Ball

This was meant to woo her. It was a strange thing, this meeting, brought by special invitation to her own Thone Room where a table had been lain just beneath her dais, intimate and set for two.

Roderick had replaced the simple bench Eilia had always used with a gilded and cushioned throne, and he did not assume it to hear each week whatever it was the people wished to say to him -- he assumed it to issue iron-clad commands. He assumed it, now, as his dining seat, with Eilia seated in a comfortable yet overwrought seat which was too low for the table at which they dined. This, she knew well enough, was yet another tactic, and despite herself, she smirked. Could it be he must work so hard to seduce a conquered queen?

"Why do you smile?"

Eilia looked up suddenly from her soup. The room was all but empty, simply the queen and the so-called emperor, as well as a volley of footmen who stood unobtrusive by the doors, whom Eilia imagined from their expressions, wished for all the world to exit the nearly silent chamber.

Each week, the emperor arranged at least one intimate supper with his would-be queen. Did he do that for those he had already wed, Eilia often wondered, or was this dubious honor meant to persuade an unwilling bride to the altar?

Eilia set down her spoon, arching a single brow at his inquiry. She could not very well tell him that she smiled because he was foolish -- though but two years hence she might have said as much. A conquest did something to curtail one's errant tongue, and high-vaulted pride, Eilia had found.

"This soup is quite splendid," said Eilia, fastening upon the first thought that crossed her mind though, in truth, she may have overplayed her hand.

"You like it? Then we shall have it at each of our suppers together," he said, looking towards one of the footmen, who nodded.

"I--" She did not like it quite that much, but it did not seem wise to object. And she did not wish to invite the question of why she had, then, smiled. "You are generous, Your Imperial Majesty."

He smiled a smile which did not reach his eyes. "It is always my intent to please those who please me, Your Grace."

"I see."

His glance was sharp. "You judge me for this?"

"I wish to better understand your character."

"And what characteristic is it that you would have better understood?"

Eilia paused, glancing down to her plate, the thick creamy bowl swimming with crab and scallop and lobster flesh. It was a moment which requested honesty, and Eilia liked honesty most of all. Tilting her expression to meet his, she gazed a moment into the sea-deep of his eyes and inhaled, steeling herself. "In truth, Your Imperial Majesty, I think I may say in all honesty that you and I little understand one another in...well, in truth, there are few respects in which I think our considerations align."

He visibly fought a sneer and Eilia squared her shoulders, preparing for wrath, but it did not come, not all at once, at least. The Emperor only stared and stared into his own dish and then, all at once, he dropped his spoon into it, and shoved it aside, leaning forward upon the table. His tone was a sharp thing, and cutting, his gaze a razor's edge. He was daring her, and Eilia knew that perhaps it would be better to step back, to plead for forgiveness of her female foolishness...but she raised her chin, instead, and curled her fingers around the arms of her chair as if she too sat a throne, and she met the cold-scalding wrath of his eye without fear.

"Do you know, Imperial Majesty, how many faithful Astairans died in the fighting? How many souls I sent to their deaths? I know the very number, repeat it to myself every morning and every evening as if it were a prayer, lest I forget how many I doomed -- how many died...for me. For my pride. For my ideals. For my crown." She swallowed hard. Her fingers tightened to white-glowing knuckles. "For nothing."

Roderick's face was a beacon, queerly bright in the gloom of the throne room as he leaned forward as if to better hear her. It occurred to her, then, that he did not often have the opportunity to speak with other rulers, others who understood what it was to send their people into the fray: his approach upon meeting other leaders was often to behead them. And he did not long sit with defeat, as Eilia did. His answer to such a feeling as she kept coiled in her gut, a hard, tight, choking knot, was the Pyre Walk. Had he ever endured hardship, she wondered with a flare of disgust, without lashing out like a child?

"I thought I fought for freedom, for justice, for the good of all," continued Eilia, leaning forward now, herself. "But all I got was death. Death and death and more death. Good men and women, true and loyal folk, gone forever to pointless ends."

Eilia shook her head. It was hard to breath, a rasping, retching, cloying clog in her throat, and she could not pull a full, a deep breath, could not feel the satisfaction in her chest because it could not break free, could not crack past the sharpness which ended in her shoulders. Her eyes burned and she breathed hard against the block. She leaned forward, clasping the edge of the table.

"How?" she whispered. "How do you do it? How do you settle yourself against all those souls, snuffed out forever by your own ideals? Your words? I cannot bear it." She pressed a fist to her breast. Her voice was tight but she pressed forward. It was this. It was this that she needed to know. This she needed understood; needed to understand. "I cannot."

Roderick's look was hard, eyes hooded as, at once, they fell away from hers, regarding the flickering candle that danced its death between them, burning down to its stalk. At once, he turned to the footmen with a dismissive gesture. At once, they filed out. At once the door shut behind him, and he turned to her.

"Astaira ought not to have asked this of you," he said.

Eilia's brows creased. "What?" Even in her own ears, her voice was a whisper.

Roderick shook his head. "You are only a young girl. It was cruel in these people to ask you to bear so heavy a burden."

"I am happy to bear it for them--"

Roderick shook his head sharply. "Do you know how I bear it?"

She sat forward, clinging to the edge of the too-high table as if it were a life-raft.

Roderick rolled his shoulders, sitting back into the chair. He nodded slowly. "Do you know why I conquered my first kingdom?"

She shook her head.

"I was seventeen -- did you know? -- old enough to think myself a man grown; young enough to be but a boy at heart. My father's...cares had landed him in an early grave, but my father was a weak man and he'd left the nation I inherited weak and poor and crippled. Our enemies, whom he had once cultivated as if he might by his feeble negotiations turn to friends, circled. They smelled chum in the water. They meant to cast me down, Your Grace, to destroy me. To dash all I held dear to death."

Eilia swallowed hard. His gaze was upon her, and her mouth was dry, terribly dry. It was a terror she knew well. "What did you do?"

"I did what I had to do, Your Grace. Do you imagine I relished it?"

"Yes," said Eilia, hastily. "Why else did you continue it?"

Silence. She looked to him, again. She expected to take in a face full of thunder, but instead she found he did not even look at her, his gaze resting, unseeing, upon the flagon of wine resting between them, viscous, but red as blood. "I did not have the luxury, Eilionora, of being a young woman. I did not have the luxury of resting in my marbled castle, safe amongst my high walls. I marched at the head of my men. I watched our foes cut them down, butchered till the river below ran red with blood, till even the mud beneath our feet was rusty with it, till the air smelled thick with it, sick and close as death. I--" he shook his head.

Candlelight flickered against the burgundy of the wine, as if it indeed flowed with some ghastly current, and the emperor looked and looked and looked. His face was unreadable in that shifting light. He was no man, now, she thought, but a slab of marble chisseled into features as lifelike as wax, but wherever his soul was, it did not now inhabit his body: it was lost on a distant battlefield, fighting, fighting, fighting, and Eilia shrunk back from the living corpse languishing across from her and, for a long moment, she said nothing.

She leaned forward, at last, and whispered. "How did you go on?"

Life came back to him as his gaze flicked to hers, ice-blue hues meeting her limpid ones as his mouth set into a severe line. "I was right. My cause was just. My god is good. I did not send those men to death, Eilionora: I sent them to paradise."

His gaze was a frigid hollow, stripped bear of any fat, stern and severe as absolutes, and Eilia shivered beneath it, swallowing hard against the clog in her throat. It gave slowly way, freezing and burning to nothing beanth the ice of his look, beneath the fire of her heart, something singing deep in her gut, red heart hammering against the cage of her ribs.

"I sent them one after the one, one after the other, one after the other to paradise. I sent them to the true God where now they feast at his right hand, where now they rejoice in his eternal halls, for they gave all that they had for him. Not for me. For him. For him."

She shivered against his cold, but heat hissed against her breast, kissing her lungs as her fingers closed hard against the arms of the chair not, now, for fear, but for cerainty. He does not bear it, she thought, and perverse hope curdled against her gut. He is too much a coward. He gives it to his god to bear and so alleviates his own guilt. He is no king if he cannot hold it. He is only a vessel. And, all at once, she nearly laughed, her lips quirking upwards, eyes brightening. I am the only true ruler in this room, she thought, and she let her laughter bubble into her blood, resting her head against the chair behind her. She was giddy, then, eyes dancing with the pale firelight, but her laughter was not for him, not really: it was for herself, for thinking even for an instant that he might be the real thing.

"Do you know what my father used to say?" asked Eilia.

Roderick cocked his head.

"He said that justice is the doing of those things which are difficult but necessary, without hope of reprieve." Raising her glass, she smiled at him, then. "To justice, Imperial Majesty. May we have always the courage to see it through!"

"To justice, Your Grace," said Roderick. "May God see it always done."

[martyrbat]

hate when a batman artist isn't committed to bruce's lame bat schtick... give that man a bat insignia on the bottom of his boots rn

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[stil-lindigo]

I am so sorry to bother you with this stupid question, but Bisan has asked for a complete stop in economic activity. Can I still donate to help Palestinians or is it better to avoid any transactions for the week ? Thank you so much for what you're doing

hello anon. don't apologise, you're a breath of fresh air after the recent visitors in my inbox. I think a slightly more accurate description of Bisan’s ask is to stop or minimise all economic activity not in direct support of Palestine. Now more than ever, I would encourage people to donate to escape funds for Palestinians, to direct aid organisations like CareforGaza and the PCRF, and to buy e-sims as they’re running low.

Below I’ve compiled a list of resources below but this is definitely just a small sample size of what you can do to help during this strike. This post here is an extremely comprehensive resource that I’d recommend you have a look at.

credible organisations that are doing work on the ground in Palestine:

Care for Gaza:non-profit charity that distributes money, food and other resources directly to families in Gaza.They maintain a regular presence on Twitter and Instagram. You can donate to them via Paypal here.

PCRF / Palestine Children's Relief Fund: non-profit organisation that distributes essential food and resources to families in Gaza. Most recently, they delivered 30 tons of vital medicine, and 82,000 pounds of flour.

Medical Aid For Palestinians: deploys medical teams to treat Palestinians suffering under Israel's malicious bombardments.

Donate e-sims to Palestine: massive post with tutorials and relevant links, with discount codes included in the post and in the replies.

help people leave palestine (donate what you can)

Help a Family Evacuate Gaza (GoGetFunding)

Save Sanaa and her Family (Gofundme)

Save Amjad Saher and his family (Gofundme)

Help a family of 13 escape Gaza (Gofundme)

Help a Palestinian children's book illustrator save her family of 12 (Gofundme)

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[krysmcscience]

I have some questions about karaoke night, Alex Hirsch. Very Important Questions. Which I will happily scream at a poor hapless baby triangle who can have no answers for me, and possibly also does not have object permanence yet.

Follow-up that is I guess suggestive, but let's be real here, Bill's a fucking triangle:

Dude slipped right into his birthday suit, lmao

this is so stupid :D

Anyway, I don't care what anyone says, this brilliant individual knows what's up - Bill is absolutely way more of a monsterfucker than Ford could or ever will be, full stop.

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[talaricula]

Things I've seen tumblr memeing about James Somerton doing à la "How did no one see how bigoted he was!" as if those things haven't been a significant part of tumblr culture for over a decade :

Presenting untrue and bordering on conspiratorial versions of (queer or otherwise marginalised) history without any sources

Completely disregarding and disrespecting any expertise on socio-cultural topics/humanities and distrusting academics and historians (incl. acting as if no academics or historians could be queer or marginalised)

Downplaying the role misogyny played in the historical oppression of queer women and concluding that queer men must have been more oppressed than queer women

Bi women are, at best, not as queer as "real" queer ppl, and at worst, simply equivalent to straight women

Despite nominal trans inclusivity, transmasculine ppl are functionally women when convenient (combined with the above, bi transmascs are functionally straight women)

Despite nominal trans inclusivity (bis), shamelessly attacking, threatening and actively endangering any trans woman who questions them or smth they find important (often by unfairly presenting her as violent or as a threat)

Having absolutely fucking wild and reductive takes about ace ppl, the oppression they face and their place in the queer community

Stating that marriage equality is an assimilationist fight while completely ignoring its direct roots in the horrifying consequences of the AIDS crisis for partners of ppl who died of AIDS

Praising western media creators from the past for queer coding even under censure and in the same breath condemning current non western media creators for being homophobic bc their representation isn't explicit enough

Blaming China for all existing homophobic censoring in western media

Assuming all queer media would be better told by western creators and by western standards

Only out queer ppl get to tell queer stories

Heavily criticising almost all queer media created by women or ppl they see as such (see above points about trans ppl) or involving/starring a significant amount of women for any perceived or real amount of "problematicness", but fawning over and praising and negating criticism of queer media created by and starring mostly or even functionally exclusively men (even when it could be argued that, you know, not involving/seriously sidelining women is a pretty clear example of misogyny which should probably be considered "problematic")

And I'm probably forgetting stuff or there's stuff I have internalised myself and don't recognise as an issue

Like idk but I feel like the takeaway from Hbomberguy and Toddintheshadow's videos should maybe be "be aware of such patterns in your communities bc they definitely exist" and not "this guy is uniquely awful" and I feel like a lot of the discussion I've seen surrounding this has been severely failing at that. Most ppl who've spent any significant amount of time on tumblr prob either have internalised at least one of those thought patterns, have had to de-internalise them, or have had to be extremely vigilant to not internalise them (which is done by, you know, seeking out other sources, which also seemed like an important takeaway from the videos)

[banannabethchase]

7 mox / both bucks

Thick Thighs (Make a Buck Rise) - also on AO3

~

Mox finds his gear pants cut up with scissors and he's pretty sure he knows who may have done it. The question is which Buck.

~

It happened when he was in the fuckin' bathroom, Mox is sure of it, and he's pretty sure he has a clue of the culprit.

"Fuckin' EVP idiots," he grumbles, shoving his way through the hallway and to the locker room where his least favorite pretty boys live.

He shoves the door open without knocking to see Matt and Nick on the couch. Matt, inexplicably, is upside down.

"Can we help you?" Nick asks, barely looking up from his phone.

Mox looks between the two Bucks, trying to read guilt on one of their faces. Or both. It could easily be both. “Which one of you came up with this bullshit? It had to be one of you.”

Matt flutters his stupid, pretty eyelashes and Nick stares unblinkingly. "What do you mean?" Matt asks.

"We've got no clue what you're talking about." Nick looks like he believes it, too.

"This!" Mox holds up his gear pants, cut into booty shorts. "One of you shitheads cut up my gear pants, and now I'm gonna have to wear jeans to the ring." He huffs, trying to remember those breathing calming things Claudio's been trying to teach him. "This is a really stupid prank right before a show."

Matt bites his lip and Nick rolls his eyes. "Goddamnit, Matt," Nick mutters. He drops his head into his hands.

"What?!" Matt exclaims. "Look, maybe somebody mistook them for their own gear." He shrugs.

"I'm not defending your crap on this one." Nick stands and backs away, hands in the air. "This is all you."

Matt looks frantically between Mox and Nick. "Wait, no," he says, leaping to his feet. "Wait, you wouldn't leave your big brother to get pummeled by a big scary man, would you?"

Nick rolls his eyes, then turns away to walk out the door. "You like getting pummeled by big scary men," he calls over his shoulder.

Mox snorts and turns back to Matt, who is very clearly panicking. "So it was you," he says, folding his arms over his chest.

"You can't prove it!" Matt's almost shrieking.

Mox shuts the door behind him. "You got them big stupid boo-boo eyes going, Matt, come on." He walks into Matt's space until Matt's back bumps against the wall. "Don't lie to me."

Matt's eyes are wide as he searches Mox's face. "Okay," he breathes. "Okay, yes, I cut up your gear pants."

"Now why the fuck would you do that?" Mox asks. He doesn't know why, but he's compelled to rest a hand on Matt's waist, to touch, to squeeze just a little bit. Matt's eyes flutter shut for a second, then snap back open.

"I -" Matt exhales, shaky. "I - thighs."

Mox blinks. "Excuse me?"

"Your thighs," Matt says. "I - you wore trunks a few times, and they looked so good, and I was dying to see them again and just - I couldn't come up with a better way." He licks his lips, eyes flickering between Mox's mouth and eyes. "I cut up your pants because I was being weird."

Mox grins. "Weird how?" He's gonna make Matt say it.

Matt whines and stomps his feet a little. "Don't - you know."

"I wanna hear it." Mox leans in to speak into Matt's ear. "Come on. Tell me how much it gets you off."

Matt whimpers. "Okay, fine," he whispers. "You - you look so good in the trunks, Mox, and I got weird about it."

"You should'a just asked," Mox says, tugging at Matt's earlobe with his teeth. "Could'a shown you a whole lot more."

Matt moans, cut off, like he didn't mean it. "Don't make promises you can't keep," he mumbles.

Mox pulls back. "Who says I wasn't gonna keep my promise?"

"Huh?"

Mox slides his fingertips under Matt's shirt, dancing along the skin. "I'm a nice man," he murmurs. "I can give you what you want." He steps back and undoes his belt. He's pretty sure Matt's eyes roll back in his head a little.

"No, no," Mox says. "You look at me while I'm doing this for you."

Matt's eyes snap back to Mox's. He nods. "Yeah."

Mox makes a show of taking his belt all the way off, fighting a grin as Matt watches him with an open mouth and wide eyes. He goes for his button and stops. Matt makes a miserable little sound.

"Oh, you want me to keep going?" Mox asks.

Matt nods. "I wanna see."

Mox grins. "Alright then." He pushes the jeans down his legs, shuffling a little as they get caught on his boots. He glances up to see Matt straight up panting. "You like?"

Matt nods. "Your - those boxer briefs are really small."

"More thigh for you to enjoy, baby." Mox waits to see Matt's reaction to the nickname, and Matt looks...more than intrigued.

"Can - can I see..." Matt trails off and licks his lips.

"What do you want?" Mox asks. It's a little awkward to lean back toward Matt with his jeans around his feet, but he makes it work.

"I - I want - I want to -" Matt swallows and turns those giant brown eyes onto Mox's. "Do I have to see your thighs?"

"What?" Mox asks. "I guess, no?" He leans down to pull his jeans back up, but Matt catches him by both wrists.

"No," Matt says frantically. "I mean - I want you to - to -" He exhales shakily. "I want you to fuck me."

Mox's eyebrows flying almost as high up as his hairline, which is saying something. "Really."

Matt nods. "I think I like more than just your thighs. I - yeah." His face is fire engine red, eyes flickering all over Mox's face but his eyes.

"I think we can work with that." Mox leans in and kisses Matt, because he's a man of substance and if he's gonna do this he'll do it right, who sighs like a romance novel heroine. "Jesus, you sound pretty. Why can't you shut up and moan like that all the time?"

Matt's eyes are closed as he drops his head back against the wall and, for once, doesn't have a retort. All the better for Mox.

He gets his hands on Matt's hips and turns him, biting at the back of Matt's neck. Matt makes a delightful little noise, something in between a moan and a gasp, and Mox is worried he's about to get obsessed.

Mox is glad Matt seems to be a bit of a slut, because he mumbles, "Blue bag, front pocket," and Mox reaches over to pull out lube and a condom.

"You expecting this, Buck?" Mox asks, sliding a slick finger around Matt's rim. Matt wiggles his perfect little ass against it, sighing as Mox sinks in to the first knuckle.

"No," he mumbles. "That's Kenny's bag."

"So, to be clear, we're about to fuck with Kenny's supplies," Mox says, working his finger in a little further. "And that's not weird to you?"

"Mm - no," Matt says, pushing back, like he can't get enough. "He stole my underwear once, so now we're even."

"I don't even want to know."

Mox is impressed at how shamelessly Matt takes his fingers, how desperately he whines for more, and teases the third finger long enough to get Matt straight up pleading.

"I'm ready, please, just fuck me," he begs, hands flat against the wall. "God, Mox, please."

"Aren't you, like, embarrassed to be this desperate?" Mox asks. He slides his fingers out. "Not judging, just asking."

Matt turns his head, pressing a cheek against the wall. "What, like you're so chill fucking me out of nowhere?" He grins as Mox slides the head of his cock inside him. "I think you're just as desperate as me."

"Don't get bitchy now, Buck," Mox pushes all the way in, head in the clouds with the heat of Matt around him, "I was just starting to like you."

"Jesus, just fuck me already," Matt mumbles, pushing back onto Mox's dick.

"Was that a swear?" Mox asks, pounding into Matt. He's determined to get him to shut up, somehow. "I thought you Bucks don't do that."

"Only when I really think the moment deserves it," Matt says, words punched out of him as Mox fucks into him. "And - Christ - you being a brat seemed worth it."

"Me?!" Mox asks, reaching a hand around to grab Matt's cock. He gathers precome to add to the glide, grinning at Matt's moan. "You're the one cutting up my fuckin' clothes for attention."

"Not attention," Matt says, breathing ragged, "horniness. Needed to - oh my god - see your stupid sexy thighs."

Mox laughs and puts a little more work in. "Yeah, well, you're hot too, baby. Makes up for the fact that you're fuckin' annoying."

"Shut up," Matt grumbles. "Also, don't you dare stop. I'm close."

"I could walk away right now," Mox says. He grips Matt's hips and fucks harder, feeling it build in his spine. "I could leave you here without anything."

Matt laughs, cut off by a moan. "No, I don't think you could." He comes hard against the wall, pulsing into Mox's hand and moaning Mox's name so loudly he can barely stand it. One, two, three more and Mox is coming too, his brain turning into mush, and falls against Matt. He crushes him against the wall a little bit, but he thinks Matt deserves it.

"So," Matt mumbles. "That happened."

"Yeah."

"You're squishing me."

"You're a bitch."

Matt laughs and wiggles his hips. Mox's dick feels super weird as it's exposed to the air conditioning again. He wants nothing more than to sink into that warmth again. "Yeah? Takes one to know one.”

~

Mini Playlist:

Thick Thighs - Willam feat. Latrice Royale

Bad Things - Jace Everett

Strip Tease - Danity Kane

Hit it From the Back - Kim Petras

[aparticularbandit]

for jealous prompts, 24 agatha x r

jealousy prompts 24) “Do you want to make me jealous?” ...more previous lives because why not?

“Who is this?”

It maybe isn’t your best moment.

But it isn’t – it isn’t like you’ve been hiding anything from Agatha.  She just swept into your little village one day, found you on the outskirts keeping an eye on the sheep, and wrapped an arm around your waist, kissed your neck like she couldn’t smell the stench of shepherding on you – couldn’t smell it or didn’t care, you aren’t still aren’t sure which – overwhelming you with the sweet cinnamon apple scent of her, the tang of vanilla cold on your tongue the first time she kissed you.

You’d guided her to the barn after you’d set the sheep there (it was too cold, then, for them to stay outside, though they needed to graze during the day), taken her to your hay-strewn loft above it all, and assumed she only wanted you for a sweet moment before she took her travels elsewhere.  Strangers were nicer to you than the townsfolk, who you had a tendency to avoid.  They spoke of your stench even after you’d washed yourself in the nearest stream, but strangers didn’t mind.  Some of them had gone just as long without a wash as you did, and while their rutting often left you feeling unfulfilled, it was better than nothing.

Agatha, on the other hand, filled you and, more surprisingly, was still there when you woke as the sun crested the horizon, awake even before you were, running fingers through your tangled hair and murmuring something about soulmates and love.  You weren’t certain what she meant, but in the time since then, when she hasn’t left your side, when she’d taken up shepherding just to be alongside you (and was surprisingly good at it, for a stranger), you’d found yourself growing attached to her, more and more as each day passed by.

Of course, that she continued to share your loft certainly helped matters.

But a month ago, one of the women you’d fallen for hard when you’d first—

She’d left when the villagers called her out as a witch, left when it seemed that the villagers would try to kill her if she didn’t, and she’d stopped just long enough to press a kiss to your freckled cheek – warm, comforting – before riding out of town.

You are older now than you were then, and although you couldn’t hope that she might have feelings for you, you are…older now.  You can take care of yourself.  And she smiles at you so sweetly, bright green eyes sparkling when she commented on how much you’ve grown.

“Wanda,” you say, gesturing to the not-quite-friend you’d been spending more and more time with over the past month, unable to keep the shame from scarletting your cheeks as you say, “an old friend.  She’s been out of town for a while, and I thought—”

Agatha’s eyes sweep across Wanda once, and for an instant, you are certain that Wanda’s smile turns smug before it flicks back to one that is much more confused, her eyes moving from you to Agatha and then back again.  But Agatha’s eyes find you again, and she grabs your wrist, pulls you away.  “Do you want to make me jealous?” she asks, voice soft, blue bright eyes searching your own.  “Is that what this is?”

You shake your head.  “No.  No, it’s nothing like that.”  You turn back to Wanda, press your lips together, and then glance back to Agatha.  “She’s just a friend.  Really.”

Agatha’s grip tightens on your wrist, nearly painful, and you can almost hear her hiss that she doesn’t believe you.  Then her grip softens.  “Okay,” she says, voice still soft.  “Just be….”  She glances over to Wanda and doesn’t look back to you when she says, “Be careful with her.  I wouldn’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” you say, taking her hand in your own and giving it a little squeeze.  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“But I do, dear.”  Agatha presses a kiss gentle to your forehead.  “I always worry.”

[lazylittledragon]

if i had a nickel for every au spawned from twitter that i SWORE i was going to be normal about

[oars]

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

I remember discussing Tintin casting choices with a friend from Germany and remarked how it was odd he often has an English accent in adaptations rather than a Belgian one, and my friend just replied "that's because Tintin gives incredibly strong English boy energy (derogatory)"

Here in the UK there's a lot of weird classism tied into accents. Today accent diversity and representation in broadcasting is actively pursued but in Tintin's time there certainly was a preferred accent to have.

imagine this exchange happens between pages 28-29 in The Crab with the Golden Claws

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.