#ALL PROBLEM SOLUTION

[problemnyatic]

"I think this Category of human being is disposable" okay that not only sucks and is fascist but also makes getting you to deem someone to be disposable a simple matter of convincing you they're in The Category regardless of the truth. Also The Category is often misapplied to a vulnerable minority because it makes people like you agree they're disposable.

"Anyone who disagrees with me about The Category of people being disposable is a Category apologist or probably also in The Category themselves" Oh so you're just totally unconcerned with truth or justice or ethics or human rights and just are feeding your bloodlust for the sake of revenge fantasies. got it 👍

[maze-of-my-design]

Y'know what? In a dying world so cruel and bleak, I think loving is the most powerful thing you can do. In a world where capitalism wants us to break our backs, where peace is scarce, and where some of our brains decide to say mean things to us. It's so important, actually, to be kind and share joy and take care each other, and ourselves, in spite of the way the world is. To love is one of the most rebellious acts one can do

[sesamestreep]

it’s wild to me that like every modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (and by modern I mean “made recently” not “set in modern times”) is like Hell Bent on coming up with a Reason™️ that Watson stays with Holmes and trots around with him on adventures all the time despite the inconvenience and the danger and all, and so it’s like “oh, Watson’s a gambling addict, he loves uncertainty and mystery” or “oh, Watson’s an adrenaline junkie, he gets off on being constantly in danger from criminals” or even like “Watson’s atoning for sins of the past of BEING IN THE WAR by solving crimes with Holmes now” or WHATEVER. And it’s like, girl, maybe he’s just in love! Did you think of that?? Maybe he’s got a crush and it’s making him do stupid things. Maybe he’s just got bad taste and his type is guys who don’t know how to refold newspapers properly but can identify different types of cigar ash by sight, smell, and taste. And wrote a monograph on the subject. Maybe he’s down bad is all. I mean, Keep is simple, stupid!!!

[zarla-s]

Dooo it, doooo it

(Links - neocities, sadgrl.online, w3schools, word to html editor, github, lissa explains it all, beginner's guide to html and css)

bleh I think i caught a cold on my trip, I've got a headache. plz allow for any delays, haha

[patreon]

[bukashki]

@ninadove YOU.

Thank you for making me appreciate the tragic nature of slithering-out-of-grasp design of Aspik. I could not resist :(( I BLAME YOU FOR EVERYTHING <3

rest of you read It brings the world back into tune

Bonus: A familiar voice

[ophernelia]

nothing, just watching his daughter and his girlfriend scheming and plottin' in front of him.

[fruitcd]

Still thinking about the DATV banter where Bellara gets upset at Taash because the Lords of Fortune loot elven ruins but then because we're not allowed to have interpersonal conflict or character flaws in this game five seconds later Taash assures her that they have "the Keeper from the Dalish clan" appraise artifacts and return them to their rightful owners, as if it's not bizarre to claim that ONE guy from ONE clan could know every single ancient elven artifact and who its rightful owners are and how to return it to them. Not to mention they don't even bother giving this Dalish clan a name or location! He's just from "THE Dalish Clan!"

[galacticlamps]

the way Edwin's immediate reaction upon seeing the misery wraith in the Devlin house is to grab Crystal and cover her mouth, even while he's explaining (apparently calmly) that it hunts by sensing negativity and pain - presumably instead of using sight or sound

and the way that he does the exact same thing to Charles when they're reunited in Hell, but here he urges him specifically to be quiet (in what must be the most barely audible line of dialogue in the whole show) because he's found that's the only way he can get a short reprieve between bouts of torture from the spider thing (to the point that when he ran into Simon earlier he - rather nonsensically - believed the sound of tearing paper behind a closed door was also a big risk)

All I'm saying is, it doesn't look like it was actually all that important he stop Crystal from making noise in the Devlin house, and as much as that scene originally read as Edwin kinda having his shit together while Charles & Crystal were both more affected & then literally incapacitated, his head couldn't have been half as clear as it first seemed if his immediate reaction was reverting to Surviving Hell Tactics even when they weren't really helpful or applicable here

[youve-always-had-me-cas]

On a semi related note the more I am subjected to Microsoft products the more I become convinced that the reason so many people these days believe themselves to be “bad with computers” is that the programs they are forced to use in their professional life are utterly incomprehensible to ANY rational human being and they are (rightfully enough) extrapolating out that this is just how computers are. They aren't!!! In their quest to remove all the “scary” details from their poor fragile end users Microsoft have created an ecosystem that behaves completely erratically and unpredictably and is by definition unknowable. Things just happen. Then they stop happening. Nothing ever announces why or how. Just a thousand vague and useless popups that may or may not be there tomorrow. I PROMISE computers are actually extremely simple and logical beasts.

[iamfuckingsorry]

So I've recently realized that murderbot's been translated into my native language and it's apparently a he in the translation (which admittedly makes sense, because it's a heavily gendered language and 1. gender-neutral language doesn't really exist in general and 2. "bot" and all the related words - I believe they use "droid" for mb in the translation - are grammatically masculine).

It made me curious how it's been handled in other translations though!

*e.g. being referred to by multiple gendered nouns/pronouns depending on the context, like both "bot" (masculine) and "machine" (feminine).

[doortotomorrow]

james cole - paradox

[hitlikehammers]

AVOIDANCE: the only real solution to all of Eddie’s your falling-in-love problems!

(0 out of 10 participants in this approach have proven its INeffectiveness; talk to your ✨love interest✨today to avoid this heartbreaking waste of your energy!)

It’s not like they were bosom buddies for years and years. A week at the outset, a couple months since, and now they’re all back in their own homes living their own lives and Eddie can avoid the way he’s most definitely, one-hundred-percent certainly in love with Steve Harrington. Very effectively.  By simply avoiding Steve Harrington. 

rating: t ♥️ tags: post-s4, eddie munson and his newfound obsession/unprecedebtedly-close-to-love feelings for steve harrington, answer: avoid steve harrington like the plague, excellent and emotionally-mature ways of dealing with your problems! /s, primary hiccup in existing plan: forgetting steve harrington doesn’t take well to failure, (oops), miscommunication, boys so dumb, confessions, hint of angst (because eddie is a very silly boy with very silly ideas sometimes), self-confident!steve, steve harrington facing the issues head-on, feelings confessions, peak eddie dramatics, happy ending♥️

for @steddielovemonth day fifteen: “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”―Jane Austen, Emma

True fact: Eddie thought he was playing things cool. Thought he was totally copacetic, in, you know, keeping it all subtle. He can do subtle, y’know: being loud and proud, shouting on tabletops and shit, screaming at drunks—that was a choice, not a…a rule. He’s a freak, he’s an outcast, he’s a weird-ass motherfucker: he’d have had far more brushes with his actual-factual demise in this podunk town if he was literally incapable of blending in with the background, and not just kinda sickened by the concept, let alone the effort involved to appease fucking…normies.

So yeah, he’d…he’d thought he was flying under the radar. And anyway; why the fuck would Steve Harrington even notice eddies absence in his day-to-day? They were apocalypse ‘friends’. Hospital buddies at best.

They’re back in the real world now.

Eddie supposed Vecna or whatever the fuck his name is will come crawling back in the foreseeable future, but brighter minds than his are preparing for that shit. The sheepies will let him know if they need his assistance—pending what that assistance may or may not be worth dependent on how far along his PT journey he stands at that point.

But it’s not like they were glued to the hip. It’s not like they were bosom buddies for years and years. A week at the outset, a couple months since, and now they’re all back in their own homes living their own lives and Eddie can avoid the way he’s most definitely, one-hundred-percent certainly in love with Steve Harrington. Very effectively.

By simply avoiding Steve Harrington.

It’s kind of a foolproof plan, really. He starts wrapping Hellfire earlier, tells the little shitheads he’s gotta run, Wayne needs a hand with a revolving door of household projects now that they’ve got their own place with more than one bedroom. Gotta mount that hangers for that ball cap collection just right, you know, yadda yadda.

He thinks they gave up being suspicious without a week or two, now just hit him with annoyed eye rolls. God bless the scourge of self-centred teenage bitchiness playing directly into eddies hand.

What he failed to account for, however, about eleven weeks into his up-to-now flawless scheme, was…well. The leading man himself.

Showing the fuck up at Eddie’s door, which Eddie answered for once like a fool and now can’t back out of cleanly because there’s no truck in the drive—it’s clear he’s here on his own.

Motherfucker.

One thing can be said for the plan, in terms of like, general side quest observations—absence definitely made the heart grow fonder. Or at least didn’t contribute at all to the opposite. Which Eddie hadn’t been entirely sure was possible, because the speed and strength of how he fell with every fucking cell in him had honestly terrified the shit out of him on its own. But after avoiding Steve, nodding at best if he canoed paths and sneaking away when the man called out like he was gonna snake through a crowd at any of the number of the family dinners for interdimensional-trauma-survivors-anonymous that Eddie couldn’t weasel out of: it’d been clear pretty fucking quick.

The almost-indefensibly-absurd affection he’d developed for the King of Hawkins—it wasn’t just reign over the high school if the parents were so charmed, if the fucking hospital has cowed into acting and quick when they tried to hesitate in treating an accused murderer, as Eddie’d been regaled with by everyone but Steve, who shrugged his kinda crucial role in saving Eddie’s ass with a shrug and of course, man, like there was ever even a question—but his indefensibly overwhelming and absurd infatuation that spent every month expanding further to try and crack his fucking ribs, well.

It was chronic, at best. He wasn’t gonna shake it…any time soon.

Any time soon.

So: best to at least keep the catalyst at bay, stop it from causing the condition to worsen.

He’d made the mistake of thinking it couldn’t get worse already. Learn from your mistakes, and all the shit.

So what if it’s been months now and not only has the malady of being ass-over-nipple in-fucking-love persisted, but got so much fucking worse? Deeper? More, when that shit should have even been possible?

No. He just has to be persistent. Keep at the plan. Eventually, it’ll die off. It’ll whither and blow away. It’ll fucking fade—

He does, however, fail to calculate all contingencies.

Namely Steve Harrington’s incapacity to accept defeat.

He’s also too fucking scatterbrained to check the door before opening it when there’s a knock, just after Wayne’s left for his shift. When Eddie has no excuse to slam it back shut on the exceptionally exquisite face waiting when the hinges swing open.

Exquisite, but looking…pinched. Sour.

Pissed the fuck off.

And worst of all of it—because so far the list only server to underscore that unfortunate state of being fucking beautiful, on every possible level—but worst of it all, because it’s worst on its own but also because it twists, distorts all the beauty, and it’s so clearly Eddie’s fault because Steve is standing right here, and not elsewhere, after all this time.

Looking hurt, under everything else.

“I’m done with this, yeah?”

Eddie could run. He’d only make it to his room; Steve would probably be able to break down the door and get to him before he could slither through the window and run, but he’s still not 100%, right, he’s physically at a disadvantage anyway, it’s not even gonna be a question—

Steve’s got him cornered.

So he just stands. Blinks.

Doesn’t…know what Steve’s ‘done with’, but he feels his literally twist, wring like a dishrag, when he figures out the most likely answer is just:

 Eddie.

Even trying to keep the maximum distance, he either knows, and hates it, hates him, or…

He doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to. He just is over Eddie and his bullshit.

It’s in the heart-piercing distraction of either and both possibilities that Steve pushes past him into the front hall.

“What the fuck is your problem, man?”

Steve crosses his arms as the door latches closed, caging them in.

Eddie’s heart starts kicking hard, which is painful. He assumes that’s because it’s been pierced by the hurt still on Steve’s face.

“I thought we were, like, that at least we were friends?”

He says it like he also has maybe had thoughts like there’s something else they were, or could have been. That by association and context would be somewhere more than friends?

Eddie’s pieced-through heart switches to a double-thumping sort of thing that’s really just as confused as the rest of him.

Hurts like a motherfucker, too.

“Did I do something?”

Steve asks, finally sounds more defeated than any of the other things Eddie can pick up in how he holds his body, and honestly that’s what breaks Eddie’s resolve, of everything; after everything. After holding out this long and failing for the entire fucking effort, after hurting Steve, the last thing he could ever want, probably the main underlying reason he’s been running from him the whole goddamn time—to not hurt him.

He’s suck a fuck up. He’s such a fucking fuck up.

“You know how sunflowers grow?”

Steve startles a little, grows the slightest bit.

“They find the sun, and the grow toward it,” and Eddie’s not stupid enough to think the whole disaster that’s unfolding in front of him, from his own chest, his own fucking mouth—he’s aware.

He can’t do nothing, but he also doesn’t think he can sugarcoat this in a way that goes down easier; sand the rough edges to make it make better sense.

He has to wrench it raw and bloody from his ribs, caught on the jagged bone like the messy fuck he is.

“You were the sun,” Eddie finally says it out loud, and his voice is so small and wondering, he can’t hide it. “You were the sun and I woke up broken, I had to grow back so much and I did, because I had the tools,” he swallows, takes a shaky breath:

“I had the sun right next to me, to do all the growing toward. To…rebuild around.”

Eddie’s always been a weirdo, and outcast—he’s spent a lot of time in libraries; often hiding.

But he’s read a lot of random shit. And enough of it’s stuck to make some sense of this fucking mess.

Steve’s face gives nothing away. It’s usually so…so generous with its feeling, even if there are some feelings Eddie knows Steve’s careful to never let show.

But in the now, he just stares.

“Otters,”Eddie blurts out, fingers twitching, wrists shaking; “they hold hands when they sleep,” and he looks up for a second before looking away again, pulse a mullet in his throat.

“I used to hold onto your hand when I fell asleep in the hospital,” and he says it like it’s a secret, a confession, even though of all people, of course Steve already fucking knows. The part he doesn’t, though:

“I still reach, and how fucked that? Like I deserve it as a rule, like it’s mine.”

Like you’re mine.

He can’t say it. But he doesn’t have it. It rings out on its own.

“But then there are the trees that shoot up all tangled,” Eddie can’t remember what they’re called; “where the trunks split off into one another, or they’re so braided up together the share their bark, whole pieces left Bernal’s, naked but the other tree covers it, makes it strong and safe but only so long as they’re literally fused together indefinitely,” and Eddie hopes that one…that one explains itself.

He pauses, waits for any reaction.

No dice.

“Bats sleep in pitcher plants.”

That at least gets the slightest lift of the chin. Probably because it’s weird, and also…bats.

Right. So Eddie’s gonna have to spell it all out.

Which he kinda knew. The examples are fucking weird. But they’re…they’re true. They’re where he is.

“If I get too fucking close, I will destroy you,” Eddie says, because that’s the fear, right—or no.

That’s the fucking truth. Eddie always ends up with the tatters of the things he loves the most.

“I’ll take too much, I’ll take everything,” Eddie confesses, pleads in his tone to be seen, which Steve’s always been weirdly good at, and understood—the bigger gamble.

“There won’t be any stoplights, there won’t be a barrier or a boundary where I’ll know I’ve gone too far because I won’t even think of what that fucking is, what it could be to even watch for, like the barebones idea of ‘too far’, let alone what it looks like, I won’t,” and his breath runs out, so he gasps, and he thinks he sees Steve move to reach, to help, to steady.

He thinks.

It’s probably just wishful thinking.

“I won’t stop holding on just when I’m sleeping, I’ll,” Eddie licks his lips, because now…now he’sstarting to hurt, closer to what it felt like with teeth ripping his flesh than anything has felt, than any loss has threatened. He has to clear his throat, because otherwise the rest will just spill out like a sob:

“I’ll tear your bark so you bleed, and you’re exposed and you die off slow, because I was selfish, so selfish, I held to close, I fucking…” eddies voice cracks; his eyes fucking burn; “because I fucking demanded the whole of you, and damn the cost because I couldn’t process an end, why would I stop doing to even think to be logical and careful when an end to you was, is, well, fuck,” he huffs, and a tear spills out white hot down his cheek;

“It’s incomprehensible, because that would be the end of everything, that was made real fucking clear for me with the bats, both times,” and Eddie means that—he’s had time to think through the origin of his aching and it was early, it was any hint of being in the world without this person in it, too; “and the end of everything, well,” he shakes his head, some of his hair sticking in the single trail of salt on his skin:

“Tied up in you, so tight we couldn’t physically untangle?” His voice drops to a whisper, and he knows his smile has to look sad, but he means this is the deepest places his heart even holds:

“What better way to go?”

He maybes watches Steve’s throat bobbing. Maybe.

Probably not.

So Eddie just sighs. Because…none of that matters. None of that matters in the face of the core truth:

“Those pitcher plants dissolve things inside them, it’s how they eat,” he half-recites, retreating into those deep-heart places, where the feeling is most saturated, but hard to find, somewhere to hide as he whispers, cowers in himself as he flats his own flesh:

“I’ll leech from you for wanting too much just the same. I’ll fucking destroy you, Stevie,” he moans, feels his arms wrap around his chest, protective. Trembling.

“I’ll love you so hard I’ll suffocate you, I’ll tear you to pieces trying to get closer, trying to hold the heart of you closer to mine,” he doesn’t even make a conscious decision to press a palm over his flailing heart where his arm already holds, hugs himself so fucking tight. His lungs are sore. It’s tight, trying to breathe.

“It’s not an overstatement, though, the other plants, the flowers,” Eddie feels overwhelmed, suddenly, with a need to make clear that there’s only one person at fault for this, and it’s him—Steve didn’t deserve to get hurt. Eddie should have found a better way to keep him safe—from Eddie—from the very start. Because—

“You are my sun,” Eddie makes himself look up, look at Steve. “I didn’t realize how little I was growing even before spring break. I didn’t notice, how fucking thriving wasn’t even in my goddamn vocabulary, until there was you.” His breathing shudders again, followed by the rest of him:

“I turn toward you as a rule,” because here’s the thing. All these weeks and months.

Eddie’s been shrivelling. Eddie spends his nights dreaming of sunlight.

It’s inescapable.

He was going to have to find a more sustainable compromise soon, anyway. Might as well…lay it all out now.

He’s already ripped off his bark. He’s already prepared to dissolve in the acid, to burn for what it means to have left the feeling grow so big.

“I hope,” he coughs, starts slow, formal-like: “I hope you can do me the favor of just,” he has to clear his throat again; fuck, it’s hard; “politely ignoring that part. Like, even at a distance, it’s not something I can seem to stop.”

He was aiming for apologetic for that last bit, honest.

He fucking fails spectacularly, so. That’s cool.

“I swear, I won’t bother you,” he tries to convey how he’s sorry, for all of it, save for the core of the loving, because he as granted. A taste, no matter how it’s fallen to ruin; he’s selfish that way anyhow, to have seen some of the sun versus darkness alone for always.

Still:

“I won’t come near, I’ll do what I’ve been doing but better, I’ll be better, I’ll try harder, it will—“

Eddie thinks maybe he’s finally died. Of heartbreak, of whatever the Upside Down did to him. Of living without his sun for a long.

Any. All of the above.

Because the next thing he knows is pressure. Heat.

On his lips.

He barely processes responding before its town away: of course death wouldn’t be a reward. Not for him.

“Are you fucking telling me,” a voice bites out close enough to Eddie’s lips that he can feel how sharp they cut:

“That you have been avoiding me, running awayfrom me,” and Eddie knows that voice—

“Breaking my heart,” and fuck, fuck Eddie knows he knows that voice because when it’s hurting—and those words are irate and disbelieving and they’re hurt—

“Because you’re fucking scared of loving me too hard?”

And Eddie pulls back, opens his eyes: Steve.

Steve’s eyes are fucking vibrant with feeling, so many feelings. He’s…he doesn’t think he’s dead, because a lot of those feelings are ones Eddie’s not familiar with, and how would he know to place them there if he’s never known them at all?

He doesn’t know of it’s better or worse, to not be dead right now.

Because he just apparently got to feel Steve’s lips on his lips.

But then:

“Because that’s what you’re saying, right” Steve raises a brow, demands in posture as much as in tone:

“You’re in love with me.”

And then on the flip side of being alive-or-dead: he has to deal with the consequences of spelling out the answer to…that.

Which he’s apparently broken Steve’s heart over handling…the only way he could figure out. And still fucking it up.

“That sounds less than what it feels like,” Eddie whispers; it’s the only thing he can latch on to.

Steve’s eyes narrow at him, contemplate him.

“And you think me, of all people,” Steve finally asks, slow, his tone wrenchingly deliberate; “that Iwouldn’t meet someone loving that big and that much,” “and he huffs, shakes his head in searing disbelief Eddie almost wishes he could flinch from, but it’s so warm, it’s his sun:

“That that wouldn’t feel like there actually was a heaven, and I’d died and somehow made it there?”

Eddie’s breath catches, then stops entirely. He can’t seem to properly suck in another one because…

“That finding that wouldn’t feel like I’d won the lottery, like I’d figured out what it meant when people talk about a blessing, and all that shit?”

Because what…what it almost sounds like Steve is saying can’t actually be—

“That finding it, with you,” and oh, oh Steve is a lot closer than he was last Eddie processed the world around him, his chest is grazing Eddie’s chest when he seems to have no trouble breathing, just is doing it really deep and reallt fast—

“That it’d be anything less than a gift,” Steve murmurs half against Eddie’s lips; “a dream come to life?”

And Steve’s eyes flick up, and it’s when they land on Eddie’s and see him that his lungs shiver and he chokes out the only word he thinks his every molecule knows by heart:

“Steve?”

And Steve doesn’t move, neither. Loser nor farther away.

Doesn’t look away; doesn’t blink.

Just asks:

“Do you love me?”

And something in Eddie unfreezes, some string holding him up, holding him back snaps free and he just grabs Steve’s hand and presses it to his chest, like he needs to be tethered now that the string in him’s been cut, and the touch, this touch: Steve is really all he’s been wanting to keep him.

To keep him at all.

And maybe this is the one shot he gets.

But Steve, Steve said…

He presses Steve’s hand to his chest a little harder, because he’s bathed in the sun again. Their hands are linked, and they’re not asleep. He’s peeled off all the pretense, he’s as bare and vulnerable as he can possibly get. His heart’s beating into Steve palm. Eddie will happily fucking drown in this, dissolve and be…

He’s already consumed.

How is it any different, save that maybe, just maybe, beyond all odds and against everything he’s feared—

“More than I can hold in here,” Eddie scarcely finds the air to breathe; “more than I can say.”

“Then share it,” Steve says, the assuredness, the rightness in his gravity that’s always been at his core radiating forth and warming Eddie in a way he’s never known to feel before.

“Let me know it, let that feeling not be alone anymore,” and the words hold more than their syllables, by so much; “let it out to see the sun,” and then Steve’s flipping their hands so eddies the one caught agains this chest, but he’s always pulling them close enough that Steve’s knuckles are still catching the drum of Eddie’s pulse. It feels…

Eddie didn’t know what to expect, to let the feeling be felt beyond his own chest.

It’s breathtaking in a new way. It’s…

“Let it meet its match here, in how I feel,” Steve doesn’t suggest, just speaks, instructs, leads with a match to what Eddie feels, has been drowning in, save where it stole his air it’s breathing into him; where it took his light it’s reinventing the sun as Steve murmurs close, so close to his lips:

“Let it see how it was killing me all this time without you,” and Eddie whimpers for the cost of what he’s done, what he felt so sure he had to do—

“Let the feeling inside here,” and he presses his touch back to Eddie’s chest just a little bit firmer; “know how much sharing it’s like stitching my broken heart back to rights.”

Eddie’s exhales shakes so fucking hard; he can’t be this lucky. It can’t…he can’t…

But his heart’s beating so hard, so fast, so free.

So fucking alive.

“You can’t say it, big enough?” Steve pushes, his breath so goddamn warm, his lashes so thick, Eddie wants to feel them on his skin like a blessing, a sacrament:

“You can’t say it? Then show me, instead.”

And Steve looks up at him before he grabs around the back of Eddie’s neck, pulls him close enough that speaking rubs their lips together, more combative than affectionate but still undeniably intimate as Steve growls:

“Fucking months, Eddie, Jesus,” and his grip is firm, but there’s no force, Eddie could pull back, Eddie could try to run, and fail, but how could he, how could he ever—

His hand’s crushed to Steve’s chest. The same wild thrum he feels in his veins is there.

Let it meet its match.

“Make up for it,” Steve’s breath trembles on Eddie’s lips, taunts him, begs him, asks so many questions.

Eddie flips their hands one more time, presses Steve’s hand to his heartbeat with nothing less than desperation until his ribs goddamn creak, and then he leans, makes the pressure bigger—

Meets the feeling in Steve with all the feeling in him with their lips on each other like they mean it this time, ready to dissolve in it. To grow themselves to protect around the soft parts. To keep their hands entwined for always.

To come alive inside this sun.

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @allmyfavoritethingsinoneblog @anthrobrat @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @dreamy-jeans137 @estrellami-1 @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @madigoround @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here

divider credit here

[redxx95]

How Cherry Magic avoids romanticising self-sacrifice

Alright strap in boys, this is gonna be a long one.

Spoilers for the manga (mostly the english volumes but I will include a bit from vol 12. I'll mark it tho so yall may skip it if you don't want to be spoilered).

So in this one I want to examine how cherry magic does a great job at portraying self-sacrifice in a relationship as an actual flaw rather than a romantic ideal to aspire to. Very often you'll see characters in media putting their own needs aside for their lover. A lot of people will swoon at that because it is usually presented as proof of how dedicated they are to their partner and their wellbeing. (See... well the thai adaptation actually).

But what has pleasantly surprised me is how Toyota handles this in her manga.

Starting from the beginning, we all know the millions of things Kurosawa did for Adachi to get closer to him. After all, that is what's usually expected of him if we talk traditional gender roles. But one of the reasons Adachi even starts falling for Kurosawa is because of how he was for once able to do something for him.

For someone with very low self-esteem, being able to help this super-capable perfect man is a big boost in confidence and also raises his own selfworth.

So now let's look at a few instances of selfless action and the consequences resulting from them.

First one is the disaster-date in volume 4

Kurosawa does his very best to choose activities that he thinks Adachi will enjoy. That is his primary concern.

The effect this has on Adachi though is that the gap between them feels impossibly wide, only worsening his already low opinion of himself.

Whenever Kurosawa does something big, it makes Adachi feel that much smaller. That's why he'd rather them be equals in everything instead of one giving more than the other.

Next is the argument they have in volume 8

Kurosawa attempts to, very selflessly, protect Adachi from his lowkey homophobic parents. He doesn't want them and their opinions to hurt Adachi personally, so he ends up lying to him to keep the peace. The effect this has on Adachi though is disastrous. At first he's just generally worried about why Kurosawa would even lie to him in the first place, but then they have that fight in their living room and you really get a good look at how negatively this affects Adachi.

The very first conclusion he jumps to is that he's not doing good enough for Kurosawa to feel secure with him.

The next one is even worse, where he thinks he's not good enough in general. Both of these show how when pressed, he will default to blaming himself, believing that he is the problem first and foremost.

And then, if all of that wasn't bad enough, this happens next:

He's actually being self-deprecating again, something he hadn't done ever since Kurosawa told him not to in volume 5. And yes you can actually go back and check for yourself. Whenever he has negative thoughts after this point he's always pushing back.

So there's an escalation happening here, one that is entirely caused by Kurosawa not sharing his burdens with him, by making their relationship unequal.

I think it also hurts him extra bad because they've had this argument before, just with their roles switched.

So to him it must feel like Kurosawa is betraying the important lesson Adachi learned from that argument, which is that communicating with your partner is important, even when you feel like it might hurt them.

There's also something to be said about how most people would've probably stopped prodding when someone says "it's something I can't tell you", but Adachi knows that Kurosawa has a pattern of hiding his issues from him thanks to the mind reading, which is the whole reason they had that argument in vol 6 in the first place.

So, to summarize: Whenever Kurosawa acts selfless it takes a toll on Adachi's mental health. Because of his low self-esteem he needs to feel on equal terms with Kurosawa to be able to see himself as worthwhile. (And obviously he also loves Kurosawa and doesn't want to see him in pain just in general.)

So after all that, surely Kurosawa would have learned his lesson, right? Surely he wouldn't just do it again, right?

... Spoilers for volume 12 start here ✨

So volume 12 is all about Kurosawa overworking himself because he's been assigned this big project by their chief to oversee their company's spot at a stationery convention. (I didn't look up whether or not that's a real thing but it is in the manga universe I guess lmao.)

Adachi tries to help alleviate his burdens with mixed success.

(On the left he feeds Kurosawa because he needs to finish his work and doesn't have time to eat. On the right he tries to take a phonecall for Kurosawa but gets told that Kurosawa needs to hear it personally so relaying a message won't do.)

Then Adachi muses to himself how Kurosawa was always helping him out in the past and how Adachi can't do anything for him in return, especially since they're in different departments. He feels very useless, which is once again bad for his mental health.

Later at home, he offers to at least take over the chores for the time being, but gets told that Kurosawa actually enjoys doing chores so there's no need for him to help.

Kurosawa tells him that all he needs is Adachi to be close to him, while making out with him on the sofa. And right here we see how he only got half the lesson he was supposed to have learned in volume 8: In their fight Adachi told him that they should both be happy and he should share "all the hurt" with him, too. Well, the simple solution to that is not to see all his burdens as burdens, then he's not hurting and Adachi doesn't need to bother fussing over him! Win-win. Epic mind gymnastics 😎 (To be honest, I feel like this is actually very relatable to people that tend to give more than they take. We get so used to the weight of the burden that we don't notice it slowly pulling us down.)

So Adachi obviously notices what's going on and berates him about not having understood anything he said from that fight.

Throughout the volume Kurosawa gets more and more overworked, makes mistakes and is confronted with unexpected complications. He's very adamant about not asking anyone for help though, stating that he "can't be bothering his senpais any more than he already has" and that he's "doing this all for the sake of his future with Adachi".

He also still has some hangups about people seeing him as just a pretty face, as you can see in that flashback in the second page. He constantly feels the need to prove himself to others, which prevents him from ever seeking out help.

So when he inevitably reaches his limit, Adachi is finally able to be there for him, being the only one that sees through his facade.

(That hand kiss is so precious 😭)

Also, on that first page Adachi asks him whether or not he's fine, which reminds me of this panel from volume 6:

He really knows him so well.

Emboldened by his husband, Kurosawa finally does ask for help and is, of course, met with understanding and sympathy.

.

Spoilers for volume 12 end here ✨

So all this to say: Sometimes, when we try our best to be selfless and to protect the people close to us, we do more harm than good. Sometimes we cause harm to others (see volumes 4 and 8) and sometimes we cause harm to ourselves (see volume 12). It is of course a noble cause but it's not something to strive for at all times and can sometimes be actually counterproductive to what we wanted to achieve in the first place.

As someone who breaks themselves apart to help all the people around them, this aspect of the manga resonated very strongly with me and is probably the biggest reason I got so obsessed with this silly little BL romcom.

I know that this manga is not like, the best in quality. I know it's super niche and silly and cannot compare to the big popular mainstream manga with lots of depth and thought put into it, BUT.

A piece of art doesn't need to be "good" in order to resonate with people. You don't need to paint the mona lisa to reach someone and make them feel seen. You just need some sort of medium and a will to communicate something to the observer. (Something an AI could never replicate but that is a whole other discussion.)

This manga reached me when I needed it and it communicated a message that resonated with me and that is all it needed to do for me to love it to the point of obsession. 💖

Finally I'm done with this essay it is so long oh my god. If you reached the end of this, I'm so sorry. I hope you enjoyed it tho.

[thats-highly-significant]

It genuinely blows my mind how Red Dwarf has multiple episodes where the problem is that Rimmer has been unloved for his whole life and has a series of genuinely harmful neuroses as a result of his general upbringing. And in one of those episodes (cough cough terrorform) the solution is to make Rimmer feel loved and accepted, and he gets better! And yet! Because it was an episodic BBC comedy from the late 80s they didn’t want to change the status quo too much between episodes so Rimmer just never ever actually gets better. There’s something kind of awe-inspiring about creating a completely insufferable character who usually operates as the punching bag to Lister’s straight man, and then taking a lot of episode runtime to tell the audience in explicit terms that he is the way he is because of a tragic series of life events, and that he could get better if someone bothered to show him some compassion, and then just going straight back to Well, It Is Time to Laugh At Rimmer. It’s like well why don’t you just fucking kill me and be done with it

[princesstarfire1234]

TLDR: I fucking despise ship art and fanfics that infantilize Orion Pax / Optimus Prime

Okay so I just wanna put my thoughts out here right now because I've not seen many people talk about it and it honestly bothers me a lot...

So, it's no secret that I ship MegOp and stuff right? I like and have reblogged a bunch of art of them before and I will keep doing so, but something about how this place (or more certain parts of the fandom) portray the ship gives me major icks and I fucking hate it so much

Detailed thoughts under cut ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Case in point, a massive part of the TFP fanbase likes to ship Orion and Megatronus and I get that, I get why people like shipping those two but it's the WAY they do it. A lot, not all, but most of the fanart surrounding Orion Pax and Megatronus is him being like the smaller and more submissive one of the relationship which fine, whatever, but most people just end up drawing him REALLY small like ik he's shorter than Megs who was a gladiator and all that and he was an archivist but jesus christ... Aside the size which is weird and all but it's really all about the rampant infantilization of the guy. When they remove all agency from the character and act like Orion is gonna fucking combust the moment someone confronts him or tries to fight him like no... I've not read Exodus but I don't think Orion being a nerdy book guy is gonna make him THAT soft, this is still the same mech who became PRIME like cmon

I don't know the exact words for it other than "infantilization" but like y'know what I mean right?? I'm not gonna name blogs but there's this one AU on here where Orion is blind and it has this cutesy artstyle which is fine but I vividly remember reading a comic on that AU where some thugs confront Orion and he's all like sobbing and shit and has to be saved by someone and it's... so you made him disabled and also a crybaby and absolutely incapable of anything??? Does that NOT give you an ick of sorts or seem weird??? God I don't even know anymore because I've seen many people seem to like that so I'm just scared I'm the weird one and wrong for this lmfao... Maybe there's smthn im not getting, you tell me

Anyways this post is getting real long, but this kind of "infantilization" also applies to certain fanarts of TFA MegOp, I always thought the ship was bordering on kind of strange (since TFA Optimus is like the equivalent of some 20-something college dropout and Megatron is implied to have been doing the war stuff way way way back like Ratchet's time) but I won't get into that, I just don't ship that certain brand of the characters myself, but it's fine, do what you want with it. Just know that I have seen art of those two where they treat TFA Optimus as this sort of incapable cutesy uwu boy (aaaghh)

So yeah.... hahahaha stop infantilizing characters and taking a ship where they're both grown ass big men and like straight up turning the other one into some weird ass incapable version of the character that lacks any and all agency and honestly bordering on being really icky as fuck, thank you, idc if you make Optimus the bottom or whatever, that's not what I mean, cya ✌️