#I MISS WHEN I MADE SENSE TO MYSELF !

[kingofanemptyworld]

Rin, identity issues, and the complications of being an isolated, alienated teenager

It feels sort of weird to say but I generally don’t head canon characters as having particular sexualities. Whatever people go for in fics is usually fine with me - gay, lesbian, bi, pan, something more general like queer. As long as it makes sense for the story they’ve built and the character they’ve shaped to fit it, I’m good. Unless you’re ignoring a canon LGBTQ+ sexuality, in which case, yeah, I’ll take issue with that.

But anyway. Rin.

I’ve got my personal ship for him (BonRin my beloved), but regardless of the pairing I see him as bisexual. He’s so open with his infatuation with Shiemi, and okay, sure, fandom likes to ignore the love interest in shounen for the most part because we’ve got gay ships to peddle. But I don’t see the point in that unless it really reads like it’s a front, or a result of a character suppressing themselves for one reason or another. And with Rin, I think it’s pretty clear his affection for Shiemi is sincere. You technically have the in-universe evidence of the demon that brought out his true desires to back that up, but even without it, Rin likes her. It’s complicated because of Yukio and Shiemi’s own inexperience with romance, and yet I never once doubt he really likes her.

That being said… he’s very appreciative of the guys in his life, too. (Peddling my gay ship here) Bon in particular, considering he’s often admiring how cool he thinks Bon is, that his haircut suits him whether it’s the blonde rooster look or the undercut. If you don’t want to see it as romantic interest, that’s your prerogative, but to me Rin comes across as seeing cool and cute as different traits he finds attractive (in Bon and Shiemi respectively).

I also think his bisexuality would fit neatly into his narrative struggles to “pass” throughout the early parts of the series. Rin has grown up as the neighborhood problem child, ostracized for being violent, and eventually he decides he’s fine with just his brother and his father — and the rest of the monastery, presumably — for company. (Except that’s absolutely not true and clearly he’s starved for friendship and support.) People looked at him and saw a monster, even before his demonic heritage made an appearance; why would he bother giving them even more ammunition when it comes to reasons to hate him? So no matter when he figured out his attraction to guys, he’s not going to lean into it, because he also likes girls, right? (Ignoring for a moment that bisexuality is a lot more nuanced than that.)

Rin likes girls, Rin is human — that’s what’s going to get people to like him, or at the very least tolerate him. That he likes guys, that he’s half demon, he can shove that shit down and pretend it doesn’t exist. Lock up any stray thoughts and keep the sword sheathed around anyone who doesn’t already know.

(Excuse me for being amused by Rin wielding his humanity and supposed heterosexuality as a sword and shield.)

The problem, of course, is that he can’t keep up the facade forever. The narrative won’t let him. Rin has to embrace his demonic side, because it’s the only way to move forward and to continue to help his loved ones. And once he’s moved past the issue of his friends being upset over the deception, when they understand he’s still Rin despite what he’d hidden from them, Rin is finally allowed to be himself. He uses his flames, he lets his tail move freely in the open around the Cram School kids. Rin still doesn’t like this side of himself — it’s inextricably tied to every moment of pain and isolation he’s dealt with his entire life, including the death of Father Fujimoto (and, y’know, his mom). But he is moving forward, he’s trying to adapt.

And isn’t that some great fucking subtext for his bisexuality, too?

[obessivedork]

Was.... that supposed to be the end of FO4? 😐 Like once you've blown up the Institute you get this random nostalgic slideshow that has nothing to do with ANYTHING and that's it? You beat the game! Good for you! But we'll place you back into the world to keep playing I fucking guess? What's going to happen to your friends and The Commonwealth with all the decisions you made?😐 Don't ask us! Not like we're going to make an RPG with the infamous RPG IP, that would be silly!

[girls-and-honey]

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[sugarpopss]

November 30th, 1942

This is very much inspired by that post thats like 'remember how Bucky said he enlisted so Steve wouldn't worry about him'. I just couldn't stop thinking about Bucky getting his draft letter and being so worried about people worrying about him. This draws heavily from the lore developed in the chat with @bucknastysbabe , inculding but not limited to: Rebeccas food thing, George Barnes the WWI vet who died from a medical problem caused by his time in the amry, Steve and Rebecca being close, Ma Barnes being one of the kindest people in the world and a midwestern girlie...etc etc. Sources for the bits of research I did for this fic are here and here.

November 30th, 1942

In 1942, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Bucky got a letter. He saw it when he got home from the docks, slightly crumpled between Rebecca’s algebra and geography books on the kitchen counter. It had gotten a little damp in the mailing process and was stuck to the front of a letter to his mother, from her own mother back in Iowa. He didn’t think too much of it-he was too exhausted to think much of anything. Unloading crates from ships was far from the worst work in the world, but it sure did zap his energy and fill his sinuses with dust and dirt and smoke. Some of the old timers-guys who claimed to remember striking for a 5 cent raise-liked to joke that pretty soon ‘pretty boy Barnes’ would get to know the sort of back pain that went hand-in-hand with a lifetime of hauling cargo, and that would trump exhaustion every time. 

Bucky always laughed it off. They were just joking around, and he’d take any ache in the world if it meant being able to take care of his family, anyway. Even if his Ma kept bringing up trade schools that weren’t too far or too expensive, and Steve was champing at the bit to join the military, Bucky was fine right where he was. He was just fine in the apartment he grew up in, working hard, flirting with the girls running telegrams in the harbormaster's office, walking Rebecca home from school when he got off in time. He got fantasy novels from the library with Clark Gable knights and Lana Turner princesses on the covers; He boxed on the weekends and was always a good sport; He caught Rebecca in the short hallway connecting their bedrooms every morning and gave her a noogie; He went to the cinema with Steve when they both had a little change in their pockets and flicked popcorn kernels at each other like they were kids. 

All that to say-Bucky was doing perfectly fine. He wasn’t raring to make a name for himself or see some great bloody glory. He definitely wasn’t interested in signing up for the war. The picture of his father on the mantel, clean shaven in an army uniform from twenty years ago, kicked the sense back into him whenever he thought about it. If the photograph of the man Bucky could barely remember didn’t work, the urn next to it surely did. 

And all of these things were reasons why, when he unstuck the damp mail from his sisters schoolbooks, the bottom just about dropped out of his stomach. The ink was a little smeared from getting wet, but still perfectly legible: for him, with the selective service system logo stamped right on the front. 

It was like the entire apartment tilted, rocked like a seesaw and threw him completely off balance. Without even thinking, Bucky stuffed the letter into his pocket. He didn’t want to look at it, think about it, deal with it. Whatever it said-as if there was any question as to its contents-he would worry about later. Preferably not standing in the middle of the kitchen in his grimy work clothes, whale eyed and frightfully pale.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The letter remained stuffed deep in Buckys pocket until after supper. Bathed, comfortably full and bone deep tired, he was usually out like a light after working a full day. But instead of passing out underneath the quilt-a gift from the elderly widow two floors up, after he’d spent the summer of ‘35 bringing up her mail and groceries and painting over the water damage on her kitchen ceiling-he fished the letter out from the pants strewn on the floor and just…held it. Looked at it. Turned it over, looked at where his address had been smudged a little by the damp. It was definitely for him; no mistake there. His full name was right there on the address line, middle initial and everything. 

Maybe it was completely mundane! Every guy had to sign up for selective service-tons of them probably got letters about misspelled words or unchecked boxes. Maybe he’d written something down incorrectly back when he had filled out the forms. 18-year-olds were stupid, after all, and he probably hadn’t been paying that much attention to the information he was putting down. That was most likely it; He’d put his birthday down as October 3rd instead of March 10th by accident, or initialed something that was supposed to be a signature or vice versa. So what if it’d been four years since he filled out that paperwork? Tiny errors like that were probably pretty low priority for the selective service, especially after America joined the war. 

He was just going to open the letter and see what they needed him to fix or resign. 

He opened the letter. He read it once, then twice, then three times. 

There was no problem with the paperwork he’d filled out at 18. 

He didn’t need to resign any forms or recheck any boxes.  

He did need to report to the local selective service board the following Tuesday. 

Oh. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. 

Buckys first thought wasn’t ‘I don’t want to join the military’. It wasn’t even ‘I’m scared’. Buckys very first thought was for his family. He couldn’t be in the military! He was an important part of the household! The Barnes had only recently edged back into a relatively comfortable financial situation because of the combined incomes Bucky and his Ma brought in, and someone had to be around to look after Rebecca-as much as she’d protest and whine that she was 16, she didn’t need to be looked after-when their Ma couldn’t. Someone needed to haul Steve out of fights and into dance halls, because yes, Steve was as good as family, would’ve been even if Rebecca hadn’t declared he had ‘adopted brother rights’ years ago. 

Buckys second thought was ‘I don’t want to join the military’, because he didn’t. He’d never wanted to, never even seriously entertained the idea. There had already been a Barnes man in a war and it had destroyed him; robbed a good man of his peace and his health, robbed Buckys mother of a husband and himself and Rebecca of a father. Hell, Rebecca had never even met their father-he had died two months before she was born. A couple of old photographs, a ceramic urn, and a watch and wedding band with no hand to wear them were all she knew of the man. 

It made Buckys stomach turn to think about leaving his family for the thing that had put his father in the grave before 40. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning he started to think. He couldn’t tell his Ma he’d been drafted-he certainly couldn’t tell Rebecca or Steve. They’d all worry too much for him. The downside to having loved ones was that as much as you loved them, they also loved you. And loving someone meant worrying for them when they were about to get scooped out of their life with less than a months notice. 

It’d be less worrying if he'd just enlisted, if he had made a choice, even a rash, ill-advised one. At least that would imply he had some sort of excitement or confidence in joining the military. At least that would imply that he was ready, that nobody needed to worry about him because Bucky himself wasn’t worried or scared or hesitant. 

That was the thought that he chewed on all day. Chewed on it so much, in fact, that he barely chewed anything else, including his supper. And that was strange behavior for Bucky. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Rebecca had asked him. It sounded incredibly blunt, but to be entirely fair, she had first made a frantic gesture towards the peas on her plate with her head-because Rebecca was not eating peas that week, and if she could switch their plates without their Ma noticing she could avoid a stern look and a ‘clean plates club’ lecture-and then kicked him under the table when her head tossing got no response. 

Their Ma was looking at him, too. If there was one thing the Barnes siblings were, it was chatty, and although Rebecca had been blathering on about how a girl in her geography class had gotten in trouble for wearing lipstick, Bucky had been almost entirely silent. And he’d barely touched his food even though he wasn’t on the same legume strike as his sister. 

He shrugged, trying to play it cool, casual and calm. He took a bite of his food-the peas were fine even if they came from a can, because their Ma was an excellent cook. Rebecca was just weird about food sometimes-to give himself time to think. 

He settled on “I can’t walk you home next week.” 

Rebecca sighed in that ‘God, you’re all so uptight and dramatic’ way that teenagers do. “I don’t need you to walk me home. I’m not a kid, I know how to get home from school.” 

Their Ma gave him another curious look, though. “Did you make plans?” she asked. “With Steve? With a girl?”

She didn’t sound upset, just…curious. It was odd, after all, for Bucky to not want to walk Rebecca home. He tried very hard to align his hours at the docks with her school schedule. It was important to him, to make sure she was safe and that nobody bothered her. 

“Sort of.” He replied. 

He knew that wasn’t a very good answer, and his Mas face reflected it. He’d never in one million years chose some dame over his sister, and Steve was as good as Rebeccas second brother. He was more likely to just join in on the walk than make plans over it. Hell, half of the time they did things as a trio-things like pooling Christmas and birthday money to go to Coney Island, an outing upon which the then teen boys had ridden the Cyclone, Steve had vomited into a public trash can, and Rebecca had proven that she was somehow remarkable at darts despite never having played before in her life. 

His Ma raised her eyebrow. God, he was bad at lying, bad at keeping secrets, bad at misleading people. 

“I-” He met his Mas eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, steeled himself. “It’ll be a few days next week, actually. I enlisted and I’m reporting to induction on Tuesday.” 

The world didn’t end once he said it. A small part of him-the part that reminded Bucky he hadn’t lied to his Ma since he was 17 and she asked if he had cigarettes in his bedroom, and even then he’d come clean about two hours later-had expected something huge and dramatic to happen. Maybe both his mother and sister would drop their forks and snap their heads up, maybe a police siren or fire alarm would go off somewhere nearby, maybe lightning would strike the building. 

But none of that happened. Rebecca continued pushing her food around her plate. “No you didn’t.” She scoffed.

Their Ma didn’t dismiss his statement as a joke, but her expression was difficult to read. “You did?” She asked, her voice stern and level. 

Bucky kept going. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I was just thinking about it and it seemed like a good idea. I stopped at the recruiting center last week. I…” 

He trailed off. This wasn’t a perfectly thought through lie, but it felt like a necessary one. 

“Yeah.”

Rebeccas fork actually did clatter to her plate once he finished talking. She looked up at her brother, agape with bright pink spots at the high points of her cheeks. 

“You’re fucking joking! You can’t just leave!” 

“Rebecca Grace!” Their Ma snapped, though it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it. 

Rebecca shot up from the table, her eyes-bright blue like Buckys, like their late fathers-welling up with tears. “No! You can’t leave, that’s not fair!” 

With that she stormed off, the slam of her bedroom door in the small apartment sounding like a gunshot. 

Bucky swallowed and looked down at his food. He wasn’t hungry anymore. 

“James.” 

He looked up at his Ma. Guilt immediately began to eat at him. Guilt for the lie, guilt for having to leave them, guilt for everything his Ma had been through and would go through in the future. 

“What branch?” 

He swallowed again. The guilt was crawling up his throat like vomit. He wanted to admit it was a lie, to say he was scared and didn’t want to go and didn’t know what to do. But there was nothing to be done. All he could do was help the people who loved him to not worry so much. 

“Army. Like dad.” 

She raised her eyebrows. They barely ever spoke about George Barnes military career. Not to say that they never spoke about Bucky and Rebeccas father at all-he’d been the love of their Mas life, she had plenty of stories about him. But they didn’t talk about his time in Europe. Bucky had always gotten the impression that his father hadn’t spoken much about his time in Europe when he was still alive, anyway. 

“Your father was drafted. He didn’t choose the army.” 

He shrugged. 

She sighed and put her fork down, picked it back up, put it down again. 

“I don’t-” She sighed again. “I can’t tell you what to do. You’re a grown man and you get to make your own choices.” 

Bucky didn’t feel like a grown man at that moment. He felt like a little boy trying to convince his mother that he wasn’t afraid of the dark. 

“Do you genuinely want to join the military?”  

The earnest concern in the question was what broke him. He took a very deep breath and met his Mas eyes, blue on brown. She had asked like there was any changing it. Even if he had voluntarily enlisted, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it after the fact. 

“No. I-I…the letter came yesterday and I have to go on Tuesday and I-.” Bucky cut himself off, feeling something far too much like tears in his eyes, something far too much like a sob beginning to choke up his throat. 

“Jamie, sweetheart…” She stood from the table and opened her arms to him, a hug that he gladly accepted. Three inches taller than his mother or not, 22 years old or not, there was nothing more comforting than his Mas embrace. 

“It’ll be alright, Jamie.” 

By god, he hoped so. 

[misssophiespice]

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[asinglesock]

just realized my fatal flaw and the great struggle of possibly the rest of my life. while watching a cdrama.

[apatheticlexicographer]

MOTHERFUCK i did not realize how much those antidepressants made me feel physically psychologically and dare i say spiritually like a peat mummy

literally 2 days off them and i've experienced more joy, lucidity, motivation and general good vibes than i did in the whole 2 months i was on them 😭😭

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

You are seriously my favorite blog right now. You opinions and meta for ikevamp are so spot on. You somehow are able to flush the characters more than the canon. I just wanted to say I appreciate all the time you put into your writings and I love everything you have written so far!!!!

In Comte and Leo we trust 🫡

Aww, thank you so much! 💛💛💛

Honestly I have no control over the brainworms, I feel like Ikevamp is so saturated with implications that extrapolating becomes so much natural fun for me. I started writing and analyzing (with no supervision to stop me, big mistake) and I'm still so fascinated with it. I can't believe it's been almost what...four years? Five years? Since I started playing the Japanese version where this all began. I'm frankly flattered a lot of people agree/like my takes, it makes sharing my work really rewarding in ways I never expected~

I don't always have time for more than Comte thirsting and silly quotes these days, but you're more than welcome to enjoy what I've curated here! I imagine I won't stop shitposting until the app is discontinued, and even then I'm not confident I'll shut up 🤣🤣🤣 Comte's the best baby girl I've ever known lmfao

o7 PUREBLOOD STAN OR BUST HELL YEAH!

[the-kipsabian]

whiplashing so hard rn, google told me they'll shut down one of my old email accounts if i dont log into it, managed to actually get in and now im going through emails from fucking ff.net from 2018 what in the fuck

[toxooz]

wip cause imma b spending Chrimmus in las vegas so ill finish it when i get back but 🥵🥵🥵

[curiosity-killed]

Fic writer asks: 14, 16 or 27 (whichever haven't been asked yet). If all have been asked: minus 2 from all of them and see if those numbers work 😂

XD i appreciate the strategy here

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

oh this is hard. I feel like while I love writing for storytelling, I also just genuinely love the vehicle of writing/language so it's not super intuitive to me to think of switching the media of any of them? Ironically, I think I'm probably more into the idea of an adaptation of the fics I like the least XD

So with that in mind, I think the letters of your name could be a fun movie maybe? and through the desert could be adapted pretty well to a comic format

16. At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

it depends but usually pretty early on. I do sometimes get to the point of posting on AO3 without a title, but it's relatively uncommon. A lot of times I sort of organically decide on a title in the process of writing a fic; sometimes I have a title before I have a fic; and oftentimes I pick a poem to use as a title either while writing or when I go to post.

27. 25. Have you ever upset yourself with your own writing?

I have but it's not like...common. I am more likely to work myself out of upset through writing and I tend not to be very affected by my own writing—see: the time in childhood where I read an injury description from my own story to my dad and made him nauseous while i was just like >:D hehehe. With more time between writing and reading it, I am usually more affected but for 90% of the worst scenes I've written, I'm the person doing it with a completely unbothered mien (or cackling to myself lol). I might make myself a little sad, but yeah, ya girl compartmentalizes like a container store

fanfic asks

[triggeringtommy]

..... i miss him .......

[debaucherries]

I love being so sad it makes me want to vomit. I think that's a really fun sensation that adds to the general mood of grief and despair

[steviescrystals]

my tags on the post i just reblogged got me thinking so here’s my current stream of consciousness

[squirmydonnie]

I feel like I tend to have pretty bad ideas

CW: unreality in tags

I don't know that I'm venting. But it's hard for it to not sound that way.

But I'll put warnings because I don't see how else I'd feel okay without putting them there.

It's just more fair that way

[crownspeaksblog]

I have never deliberately or consciously seeked academic success, i was just trying to avoid failure.