#again. not the point. why are you prioritizing a relationship over another?? makes me think of those people that can't understand

[d-lissa]

I am biting anyone that takes Tashi out of the throuple of doom and say that the guys only actually love each other and not her, or would've been better off without her or whatever.

Just say you can't conceive being in love with more than one person at the same time and move on, because that movie was not for you.

[magnus-rhymes-with-swagness]

OKAY who wants to hear about why i think nimona challenges amatonormativity? you do! 🫵

one of the main ways this is accomplished is through ballister and ambrosius’s relationship. it’s arguable that it doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional model of romance - not only are they a queer interracial couple, and not only is their relationship ambiguous in the book, but there are certain instances, especially in the movie, that subvert traditional ideas of romance and friendship.

one instance that really stands out to me is when the director asks ambrosius what’s on his mind and he goes on his imagined rant about how arm-chopping isn’t a love language - you know the one. when he mentions ballister, he refers to him as “the man i love, my best friend.” and not just one or the other, but both! the man i love, and my best friend. he places equal emphasis on both the romantic and platonic aspects of the relationship, valuing ballister in both a romantic context and a platonic context without treating either one as more important than the other.

and even moments such as the first “i love you” and the kiss manage to subvert tradition. both of these things are generally seen as a pretty big deal, especially in fiction - if the characters are kissing or saying “i love you,” it’s usually a moment in which everything changes. a line is drawn, dividing the story into after and now. sometimes it’s dramatic and climactic, with fireworks and a swell of music, but even when it isn’t it’s still seen as a turning point of sorts. now it’s official, now it’s real. but this isn’t the case in nimona. both moments are certainly significant - they do a good job of showcasing the character development and where ballister and ambrosius are on their respective journeys, and are certainly important in terms of representation - but neither one follows the path that most fictional romance does.

another way in which nimona challenges amatonormativity would be the emphasis on friendship! in the tavern scene (in the movie) when ambrosius suggests killing nimona, ballister disagrees and says “she’s my friend.” ambrosius replies with “aren’t i more than that?”, implying he’s more important than a friend - thus upholding amatonormative ideas. ballister becomes angry at that and leaves - challenging this idea and prioritizing his platonic relationship with nimona over his romantic one with ambrosius, as nimona is the one he wants to defend.

additionally, a big part of this scene is the way ballister deliberately rejects institute values while ambrosius unintentionally upholds them. and because the story challenges homophobia and transphobia (and other forms of bigotry) through the lens of the institute, it would make sense for it to challenge amatonormativity too! it’s something that’s become incredibly normalized, to the point that lots of people don’t even know it exists, and this is reminiscent of the institute brainwashing, especially when it comes to ambrosius - he’s been manipulated his whole life and probably genuinely doesn’t understand the level to which he’s internalized institute beliefs.

ballister prioritizes nimona many times, actually. when he tells ambrosius she’s “smart, kind, and quite sophisticated,” when he’s overjoyed to see her again at the end, when he refuses to kill her and saves her instead. over and over, he proves how much he cares about her, even when this involves directly going against what ambrosius wants - which, of course, is really what the institute wants. a core tenant of amatonormativity is the false notion that romantic relationships are more important or valuable than other types of relationships, but ballister actively goes against this!

to conclude, as a story that at its core is about identity and challenging societal beliefs, nimona defies expectations and traditional ideas of what it should or shouldn’t be. it’s possible that amatonormativity wasn’t what the creators had in mind, but the story still manages to challenge it with grace and elegance. just like its main character, nimona refuses to conform to what others want it to be.

[celaenaeiln]

On the subject of Bruce, Dick, and the Titans, do you think part of Bruce’s issues stem from jealousy?

Like being jealous over the fact that after his parents died he struggled for so long with only Alfred and it took Dick to break through that and help him cultivate a genuine sense of family again, but now Dick is branching out and expanding his family while Bruce hasn’t been able to do that (at the point of Dick being fired)

Follow up to that, do you think that if it is partially jealousy and insecurity, do you think it’s a contributing factor for Jason’s adoption? Not just that he wanted to help another kid but also because he subconsciously wanted to show Dick/ mimic Dick in being able to move past the tragedy of his past by finding new family. Like a shitty slightly spiteful move of ‘hey you’re moving on and doing better but look so am I!’ even if it’s not exactly true. Sort of like pretending your dating someone at a party your ex is at even tho ur still grieving the relationship and not over ur ex.

Other sidenote, love your posts and whenever I come on tumblr I check to see if you’ve posted. Hope you are having a good day ❤️

Thank you!!

So for the first one, Bruce wouldn't exactly be jealous of Dick for having a support system. He wants Dick to be happy.

Outsiders (2003) Issue #29

But he also doesn't want Dick to go. He's jealous that he has to share Dick's attention and his jealousy stems from the fact that he isn't the one Dick goes to.

The second one is spot on!!! OOF THE ANALOGY WAS TOO GOOD!!!!

The main reason for adopting Jason was not just because he wanted to help him, but because Bruce was jealous and angry and hurt that Dick left. That he chose the Titans over him.

Batman (1940) Issue #416

Like you said, "hey you’re moving on and doing better but look so am I!"

In the other version Bruce literally fires him, and it's name-called, for Dick's devotion to the Titans.

I think it's sometimes hard to reconcile Bruce's relationship with Dick because of how many Robins and how much the family has grown but Dick and Bruce's relationship is different.

Batman: Court of Owls Issue #1

"Dick, you know me better than anyone, except perhaps for Alfred..."

It was and is always going to be Dick and Bruce. The Titans call them out on it, the batfamily calls them out on it, that's just the way things are.

So imagine someone you're this deeply connected to, your lifeline, leaving you for someone else. The Jealousy tore him apart and Bruce does what Bruce does best when he's hurt - he pushes people away.

Dick has talked Bruce out of everything in his life. If he didn't have amnesia and become Ric Grayson, Bruce's mental state would not have taken a downward spiral. During his post-Selina leaving him at the alter- nightmares, he has one where Selina is dying and Bruce says, "this is just like Dick."

Batman (2016) Issue #63

Nightmares about Dick's death are bleeding over into his nightmares of Selina's.

Batman (2016) Issue #63

It wasn't altruism which made him make the move, it was spite.

I made a post a long time ago for an ask that asked me about Dick and Bruce's complicated relationship that really goes into depth about why the two of them are inseparable. Dick's said it himself too in the action comics. They both knew the partnership was going to end because Dick wanted to leave but Bruce couldn't let him go so he decided to hurt Dick before Dick could hurt him.

He's canonically described as a foil to Batman. So, yes, by Batman's own admission, Dick is the person who knows him best so jealousy of Dick leading a life, prioritizing people that aren't him, plays a huge role in his actions and interactions with Dick.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Saw someone saying that most people in the "bnha critical" hashtag mostly just "suck deku's dick" instead of actually criticizing the story. The same person also had another post basically saying that the reason why midoriya gets treated so poorly by the narrative is because every other character's traits were "erased(?) to make up for midoriya's bland character*" * I don't remember their exact words, but they said something similar to that

Those two posts gave me such a headache that I blocked them immediately

I really hate it when people say this.

I’m going to be honest, as someone who likes Izuku, there’s things you can definitely criticize about Izuku’s character. I think that he’s far too naive in certain situations and doesn’t get called out for it much. Him trying to see good in Overhaul is one of those instances. I think he suffers immensely from selective intelligence. He’s supposed to be great at thinking on his feet yet it takes him very long to realize that he could be throwing more kicks. I also think that as the story progresses, he becomes far less creative with his quirks. You get some rare moments like him using Black Whip from his mouth after being inspired by Tsuyu, but we rarely get these moments of his intelligence anymore. He’s also not allowed to really reflect on his past, so he’s extremely stagnant in regards to his views about things such as his quirkless past and the bullying he’s suffered from Katsuki.

However, Izuku isn’t a bland character. The problem is he has a bad writer. We could’ve seen more of his and Ochako’s relationship. Unlike many other relationships, the two are built around the idea that they constantly have each other’s backs. I wanna see more of this. I wanna see more of them bonding. Maybe Ochako asks Izuku for some hand to hand combat training. Maybe Izuku learns more about Ochako’s life/ her hobbies and tries to plan things for them to do that they both enjoy. Maybe they can have a heart to heart about constantly being underestimated and being a part of a group that is looked down upon (Ochako being poor and Izuku being quirkless). With Tenya, maybe the two can study together. Tenya’s great at retaining information but Izuku’s better at being creative, so they can help each other there. They could talk about their feelings of anger and how they feel they have a large legacy to uphold. With Shoto, we can have Izuku and him explore what a normal healthy friendship is like. We can have them confide in each other about the abuse they’ve been through and about their relationships with their moms. These are things that could easily be explored with a character like Izuku and Hori has set up the building blocks of Izuku’s character that allows for these things to be explored. The problem is that Hori doesn’t do any of this. We’re expected to believe that the DekuSquad are close knit with each other, but we don’t see them interacting in anything that isn’t related to heroics. We don’t see much of Izuku’s creativity anymore. He has numerous quirks, but even if some overlap with the others, there are cool combos a hero nerd like him could come up with, but instead Hori would rather have him do the exact same things over and over again. The way Hori writes Katsuki also hurts Izuku’s character. Outside of the first chapter, Izuku’s never allowed to show anything other than fear and admiration for Katsuki. He’s never allowed to be unique or else he’ll utterly surpass Katsuki in something (Katsuki’s latest B.S power up is an example of this). He’s not allowed to reflect on Katsuki’s bullying and the effect it has on him nor is he able to hang out with anyone without Katsuki being nearby or involved.

Long rant, I know, but the point is that while there’s certainly things you can criticize about Izuku’s character, most of the issues with Izuku doesn’t come from being a bad character but from being written by a bad writer who prioritizes other things over developing his MC

[godzillabreath]

wwdits s5 spoilers below

I was so deeply invested in season 3 of wwdits that every subsequent episode that releases just kind of makes me feel… sad? Nothing has since hit the high of Wellness Center and I don’t think anything will.

For me, that was the pinnacle of their storytelling because it combined humor with the genuine ways in which this dysfunctional group of people have come to care about each other. Nandor feels divorced from his humanity and is looking to find ways to regain that aspect of himself. Guillermo can’t understand because he’s fixated on becoming a vampire to fill the void inside himself where he feels self-conscious, overlooked, unimportant. It’s funny to see these genuine, emotional character moments butt heads with a vaporwave 80s aerobics cult. They expertly balanced character development that had been building throughout season 3 with a bonkers premise and it ended up very touching and very satisfying. And then, well. Season 4. It was frustrating, first of all, to see the climax of Season 3 completely swept aside in the first minute of the premiere. This season prioritized episodic, unserious episodes that had no lasting character growth, only to emphasize in the finale that nothing changes and nothing matters. You can’t make that your artistic statement for season 4 when you’ve shown your audience three seasons of dynamic relationships being built and reforged and changed in unique ways! Season 4 and even Season 5 continue to wipe the slate clean again and again. Hypnosis, Djinn wishes, other forms of deus ex machina utilized to undo everything magically and inorganically. There were no stakes for Colin’s death or rebirth, no lasting impact on the relationship between Laszlo and Colin from a season showcasing a very different dynamic between them. Nandor is petulant and rude to Guillermo in irritating ways, as if they had never built a tenuous respect and trust and eventually affection for one another. Does Guillermo care about his family, does he crave their approval, only to have him vaguely continue to push them away after what was supposed to be an emotional coming out episode? Why is Nadja appointed as a leader on the London council only to immediately abandon this position for a wanton night club idea? (Which is then abandoned again in favor of… I’m not really sure what her goals are this season? Vague mentions of a hex with unclear affect on her life.) The audience just has to sit with this continuous lack of narrative resolution.

And it sucks, man. I think it’s a mess. It’s unsatisfying. I see Season 5 trying to incorporate and juggle more plot-dense episodes and they end up feeling too long and weirdly overworked and like all of these ideas are coming too late to feel impactful.

I’ll say I really don’t like Guillermo becoming a vampire, or half-vampire or whatever is happening. I think it absolutely ruins his character arc of finding strength and value in being a human being—with kickass cool Van Helsing abilities even. It would have been way cooler to parallel Guillermo’s realization that he cherishes his own innate humanity with Nandor wanting to regain that humanity he felt he lost over centuries. At this point, I don’t understand what either of them want or need or feel or anything. And the rest of the cast feel like b-plot set dressing.

Well, that’s enough for now I guess. Every episode I just feel like… why did they write this this way. Of course, I’m sure every element of conflict will be magically undone and ironed smooth at the end of Season 5 as it always is and we’ll start season 6 with zero carryover or growth. Again.

[saiakv]

Post-Suguru's departure, do you have any headcanons surrounding him and Gojo crossing paths or intentionally seeking out one another? Or if they just kept a distance for the most part?

Roleplaying wise this depends on the portrayal of Satoru to me. Personally I'm more of a 'reactive' roleplayer, in that I work with what my writing partner gives me, so I don't really have headcanons pertaining to relationships because I don't see them as pre-established.

However since this is an interesting question ( and I'm virtually kissing you for it btw Bug ) I'll talk about Suguru's disposition towards that possibility.

Based on JJK0 we can deduct that Suguru didn't really think Satoru would be interested in talking to him again and maybe even hated him at this point. In the movie's end we can see he seems genuinely surprised to hear a nice word from his old friend's lips. Even though he, himself, didn't seem to have personal beef with Satoru for not being there during his time of need, he recognized and accepted that 'not everyone was going to agree with him' and there was nothing he could do about it, other than keep going.

I also want to point attention to the fact that a lot of people talk about how 'below the belt' Suguru's question to Satoru was, but from Suguru's pov what Satoru said to him was just as hurtful. He was at the point of making this new resolution for himself ( we, the readers, of course, know that his logic here is deranged af ) and, again, from HIS point of view, Satoru shot him down in an arrogant fashion.

As much as Suguru is an empathetic person by nature, Riko's death had driven a wedge between them. Moreso than that, I headcanon that Suguru never really came back from hearing the words 'I killed Gojo Satoru'. Even if his friend was still alive, it didn't feel like the same person — and in many ways, it wasn't. Additionally, the mere experience of that momentary grief and the subsequent loss from Toji was so traumatic to Suguru that he simply never recovered. Toji just beat his ass into an identity crisis :')

To conclude, I don't think Suguru would reach out first. Certainly because he was the one who ended things essentially, so what right would he have to indulge his own nostalgia and craving for his friend? I do think he missed him, a lot, and secretly wished they would have been on the same page. But it's not in his character to try and force it. And, lastly, there is one other major reason why I think he would have never reached out first.

Self-affirmation is one of the most important things to Suguru. So to him, losing this treasured relationship was the price he had to pay in order to pursue his ideals. Because if you want to win, you first have to lose something, otherwise it's just unrealistic to expect that you will win without having to lose anything of your own, right? Easy victories are not a realistic option to him; exactly because he is the other side of the coin to Satoru, for whom everything in life came easy. Suguru always had to fight and suffer to build character.

And, being a curse user, he understands the nature of jujutsu very well; it is an exchange. It's all in the science of binding vows. The bigger the sacrifice, the higher the output. He saw the end of their relationship as something necessary to achieve his goal; and maybe if he finally managed it, Satoru would join him in the new world among the other sorcerers.

( I do however believe that if Gojo had made the first step, he would be open to it — though it would entail a lot of caution and suspicion on his end initially, being that they are on opposite sides of the shogi board. Suguru would not let his emotions cloud his judgement and prioritize the safety of his family in that case, probably feeling conflicted over the situation because he did genuinely care for and miss Satoru as well. )

[inukag]

People who thinks Inuyasha loved Kikyo more and settled for Kagome just because Kikyo died needs to open their eyes! I mean yes ofc Inuyasha maybe did kinda loved Kikyo in the past, but that feeling wasn’t even strong. They had so little knowledge about each other, that even Kagome commented “he would never say such things. Can’t you see it?” when she was saving Kikyo from Naraku shouki and seeing all of hers memories. This comment made me realize after I rewatched the show that Kikyo and Inuyasha did not only didn’t trust eo, but also didn’t actually knew eo. That’s why they fell so easily for Naraku trap.

But another thing that is interesting is how Inuyasha and Kikyo meetings change over time. At the beginning their meetings were kinda messy but they almost always were bringing up the past and mentioning their “fate”, but as time passed by and Inuyasha had spend more and more time with Kagome, their meetings were mostly about giving each other informations about Naraku. I do believe that Inuyasha loved Kikyo to some point, but his love for her wasn’t that strong as his love for Kagome. He even himself said that he was born to meet Kagome and be with her. It was Kagome who taught him how to trust others and make friends , to open up. To be honest I don’t think that Kikyo could ever achieve everything that Kagome achieved while being with him, how she changed him and my main reason to it how those both beautiful women are so different from each other. Kikyo and Kagome had completely different relationship with Inuyasha and only one of those relationships succeeded . It’s kinda hard to explain but the way Kagome has always been stubborn, kinda impetuous , expressing her emotions and not afraid to scold or yell at Inuyasha , kinda helped the development of their relationship. Kagome was also the very first person who actually tried to understand Inuyasha and was always by his side. Kikyo kinda failed at that, still love her, but she wasn’t made to be with Inuyasha. Kagome was. And her bond with Inuyasha is so precious.

Also just because Kikyo is Inuyasha first love, doesn’t mean that the second love cannot be stronger. Many times first love ain’t the right love and when we fall in love once again , this time can the the right time. And this happened to Inuyasha. He has fallen in love with Kikyo, but their love wasn’t strong enough, it wasn’t the right one, but then he once again fallen in love, more deeply… with Kagome. And this one.. was the right one.

I don’t have much to add, I agree with everything you said here.

The crazy thing about this “Inuyasha settled for Kagome” argument... is that Kikyo is RIGHT there? If Inuyasha wanted to be with Kikyo, why wouldn’t he spend all his time and efforts protecting Kikyo and trying to heal her soul so she can be normal again and they can be together? 🤨 Why would he spend all his time with Kagome and constantly prioritize her over Kikyo? If he wanted a “replacement” for Kikyo, why would he even go for someone like Kagome when he made it very clear that he sees them as different persons and that they are nothing alike? 

Also WHY would Rumiko Takashi write a story about a girl who gives up her entire world for a boy who loves his ex more??? RT’s storytelling is always the same: one of the protagonist has an ex and/or there’s misunderstandings between the hero and heroine until they finally confirm their feelings for each other and they end up together. As someone who read a few of her series (Mermaid Saga, Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku and Kyoukai no Rinne), I think Inukag is actually the most developed and has one of the most satisfying romantic ending out of all her couples (only behind Kyoko and Godai from Maison Ikkoku). 

Also people who think Inuyasha would have chosen Kikyo over Kagome are admitting that they do not understand the themes of the series. Kagome represents life and Kikyo represents death. Inuyasha’s spent the ENTIRE series choosing to live with Kagome instead of dying with Kikyo. There’s also the theme of destiny, and how Kikyo failed to heal Inuyasha’s heart (and did nothing to remedy that post-resurrection) and failed to purify Naraku/Onigumo’s soul and the shikon jewel, and Kagome as her reincarnation was LITERALLY born to accomplish what Kikyo failed to do. Kagome was born to be the person that Kikyo WANTED to be. She was born to heal Inuyasha’s heart and live with him the way Kikyo failed to do. 

I have a lot of issues with the way Inuyasha and Kagome’s relationship is portrayed in the anime, and it added a lot of non-canon backstory to Inuyasha and Kikyo that contradicts the manga. But saying that Inuyasha “settled” for Kagome is a take that should not exists in 2022 when everyone in this fandom is grown and should have basic reading comprehension. 

[intrepidradish]

Media: Disco Elysium

Year/my age: 2022-23/32-33

Another long one!

What drew me to the media:

My husband, again, had been trying to get me to play this game for three years, but I'm not a gamer. Games make me stressed out and I'm bad at them. (He tried to get me into Hades, and I entered the first battled screen, and moaned "I have to fight things in this"? ... I did. :C Do not like.) Generally games give me panic attacks, and then when I'm bad at them, I get really sad about it. DE is nice because you don't fight anything. It goes as slow as you want, and even in hot moments there isn't a timer. Thank you DE.

What also drew me to the media was a dildo enthusiast Thongria on instagram loved the game, which as a follower, blew me away. Like hello?? What? How bizarre right?

At some point in the spring of last year a lot of DE fanart started appearing on tumblr too. Ustalabo appeared with her comic, which is incredible. I gave up. I was spending all day oscillating between watching my newborns nap and feeding them, which was in two hour cycles into the night. I was tired. I was really bored. I was really stationary (mostly on the couch) and I was really lonely. (I don't have family where I live, I had no job, and I was new to the state)

So I decided to play a game.

What made me a fan:

How could I not become a fan after the game? It's a really incredible story and its delivery is phenomenal. But ultimately, I think I became a fan because of Harry, the amnesiac cop you possess. On my first playthrough, I was very timid and horrified by the character. I ended up a moralist because of my unwillingness to say anything accusatory or polarizing (hahahahaha! so true to life!). I only drank and did drugs when Kim wasn't around, because his observational judgement made me uncomfortable about my addiction (AAAAAA). I tried to please him too but ultimately failed because of how I organized my skills (I did an empathy run but badly, so badly). It was also deeply cathartic for me as a child of an addict, who struggled throughout my childhood with the question of 'why can't you prioritize loving me over your addiction' and as I am not yet an addict, the game gives you an opportunity to live inside a deeply troubled man and maybe...maybe help him? You aren't entirely sure what the future holds for him.

At the end of the game, I was positive he was still going to detonate. I didn't like Kim/Harry, the default pairing, because I thought that Harry still had so much work to do! One week of forgetting your life doesn't fix you! Having a friend to rely on doesn't either! And Kim has his own host of issues that the game only touches lightly. So many post-game questions!

I've come around on Kim/Harry because I've thought about it a lot. I think in the face of addiction and pain, having a friend really does matter (having the right friend too). Dealing with isolation is a big theme of life (not just DE). No one is perfect either. All relationships are a bit codependent when you are in a depression cycle. That doesn't mean they are bad/good/ideal/not ideal/something to work around/something that shouldn't happen, just tread lightly right?

But also the world of Elysium is fucking incredible. It's enormous. It's got everything you want in a new environment. It's depths are unfathomable. It gives you a framework to both interact with canon, deeply, but also inject some of your own bullshit headcanons like they are the only real opinion to have. Haha it's great. The amount of material behind single sentences in the game, throw-away lines, are enough to fill an world-specific encyclopedia (and there is the skill Encyclopedia too to make it oh so much WORSE).

Have I written fanfiction for it? Why or why not?

FUCK YEAH. I'm sort of taping off now a year later. I wrote so much fucking stuff last year. It really saved my life. I was finishing up some other fanfics too but I wrote about 250K words which is wild.

My most popular story is definitely my longest. Schlep is my masterpiece at the moment. I wanted to explore Kim and Harry's relationship while recognizing they aren't necessarily perfect for each other, but that's okay. Surprisingly, even with all the kink and the unhappy themes, it was smash hit. I really enjoy reading it. That was my second fanfic for the fandom.

Final Flight was first. It has some problems for me, but I think the concept is really fun. The romantic notes were wrong though in retrospect. I was being timid. What is surprising about this fandom too is being timid doesn't win you points being a little unhinged does. Nice. 100%

I wrote a smattering of other shorter stories. Jean/Harry, Jean/Harry/Kim, Harry/Dora, Kim/Harry. I wrote a lesbian story for Dora/Klaasje, which apparently inspired a really good writer to write more lesbians! Thank you!

I think in this period my fav is Cold Front which I wrote while worried that my grandfather was going to commit suicide (he's 96, and my thoughts on it are complicated). I don't often write bittersweet fics, but I think this one hit the notes I wanted.

I also really like The Tide at my Door, which is the Dora/Harry. No one wants to read their train wreck, but I wrote some truly beautiful passages in that one that shock me to this day. Like, hello:

"In the far end of this, whatever time is, whatever this is, you’re going to break each other, but you, a woman, will be the weed in the cracks and he, the man, will be the backed-up gutter. You cannot stop this. This is what happens in gendered society, and even if the sky falls on Revachol, it will take harsher earthquakes to shake that truth."

I started and finished a failed case fic for Jean/Harry's church raid, which I'm only posting now. And I picked up a secret santa that amazingly requested a Western AU. This was in the fall of last year, and both are about 50K words. Insane. Just insane.

Another smash hit, which surprises me, is my Halloween crack fic, Kim's Disco Inferno. I wanted to introduce Kim to the skills, and I wanted it to be a horror theme so its a blend of Silent Hill, Dante's Inferno, and more. It received some amazing fucking fanart from Shower, which got 4K likes on twitter (*giant eyeball emoji*)

It remains a tremendous pleasure interacting with the fandom through fanfiction. Everyone has been very very kind and supportive.

Opinion on the fandom:

I love this fandom! It's basically made of transmen, nonbinary folks, and beautiful lesbians, which is exactly the space I want to be in. It's also made of people interested in discussing leftist politics, the gross (sensual) side of sexuality, and the effects of poverty, addiction, trauma, and disability on people. Sign me up!

I've made some lovely friends who I talk to daily around the world.

Right now the fandom is embroiled in discourse about a lawsuit at Za/um the company that released the game and will eventually, possibly release a second game. It's a very hot topic and people are very impassioned about the issue. We, the fans as outsiders, don't really know much of what is happening outside of press releases and its quite difficult to get a bead on what's going on. People are still hot blooded to point fingers and shout as always.

I'm pretty on the fence about it. My husband bought the game on sale for $10 3 years ago. I haven't dropped a cent on it since and won't until they release (if they do) a second game. Even then I probably wouldn't pay full price because I'm a cheapskate (I'm poor). I also write fanworks for free about it, so I'm very glad the original game exists but that's sort of where my interactions end. It has brought a lot of joy to my life.

I popped into the official discord to say I'm excited about the collage maker for storytelling reasons, and got called a bootlicker (which is hilarious to me since DE made me recognize I like degradation and I'm well known for writing kink porn around boot worship. Peeps gotta come up with a better accusation against my proclivities, sorry bb). That's my contribution to the discourse.

However! I will say of all the fandom discourses I've witnessed, this one is the most justified. Some shit has gone down! It's very poltical. There is money laundering involved! Share holders! The original writers are cast out! Did they get paid? Were they forced out? A guy kicked this whole thing off from a mental institution.

Things I can say for certain is, I don't like that guy, but I don't feel like I have a strong enough understanding of IP law, Estonian millionaires and criminals, or the office politics at Za/um to really know what to make of it. People are definitely throwing themselves on the train tracks about this shit though. I hope everyone gets some time outside touching grass, because it is just a game. A game we love, but ultimately, not super important.

Would I read it again?

Oh yeah. I have such a backlog of stories I need to read from DE.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

i really enjoy your takes on hotd and i was curious to hear your opinion on daemon and rhaenyra and their dynamic

Now that the season’s over I finally know what I think and can answer this.

TLDR, it’s not for me. I’m meh about the ship in the book, it held some promise in the show which got resolved in the final episode, and by that point I didn’t even care all that much because fandom morphed Daemon into this adoring malewife servant to his girlbossyasqueen which is a) so OOC, and b) so flat and boring.

Spoilers for HOTD and mild spoilers for Fire and Blood below the cut.

So the reason why I’m not into the ship in the book is twofold. One, the way it develops or rather concludes. And two, the most charitable argument for the relationship being genuine is that Rhaenyra’s got a major case of unrequited love. The book just doesn’t give me much to work with.

For a while, the show!ship kept my interest because it danced around the question, “Just how far will Daemon go in hurting the people around him to advance himself?” This season showed him as an unscrupulous man who pulls some extreme stunts but stops short of going 100% in opposition against his blood relatives. He’s an entitled baby-man lashing out and wanting to elicit a response, not a calculated schemer working towards a goal. There’s this conflict in him in that he desires the status, unchecked power, and adulation that comes with being the heir and to be genuinely loved by those closest to him but he refuses to give up one for the other and as a result ends up without either. This btw parallels Rhaenyra who also isn’t suited for the restrictive position of the heir or the queen but clings to it as a proof that the father who neglected her for 14 years might care after all, and as a result waltzes from one fuck-up to another.

Applied to Rhaenyra, the question then becomes, “Well does Daemon have feelings for her, or does he see her as his meal ticket?”

I mean, “character uses another character to his own ends, catches fee-fees in the process, hilarity ensues,” is a pretty big trope for a reason, and the night out on the town illustrates this tension rather well. No matter if his motivation was to remove Rhaenyra as the heir, or simply make himself a pest to Viserys again, there’s no denying that his actions were designed to damage Rhaenyra, first by destroying her confidence and then ruining her reputation. The interesting thing about this is that he eventually stops, too late to prevent the scandal, yes, but soon enough not to irreparably hurt Rhaenyra’s feelings by pumping and dumping her. He may taunt Viserys that it’s better for Rhaenyra to punch her V card with him but when push came to shove his dick went on strike he didn’t actually think so.

So the solution to his ostracizing changes from “remove Rhaenyra from succession” to “marry Rhaenyra”. And for a while it works. He’s got it made, there’s no tension anymore—Rhaenyra adores him and he will end up king consort. There’s no need for him to choose between love and the ultimate status. But you as the viewer still can’t be sure what the exact nature of his feelings for Rhaenyra is, precisely because he doesn’t have to choose.

And then in the final episode he does. When confronted with the choice between prioritizing his wife’s wellbeing and respecting her complicated views about her inheritance, or pursuing his own advancement, he picks the latter, twice. If he feels something for Rhaenyra, those feelings play a second fiddle to the Iron Throne.

And that circles right back to why I didn’t care for the ship in the book. It’s one-sided and the show’s keeping it that way.

[hua-fei-hua]

my own thoughts on the discussion questions left in the closet fic

it’s been a while since i actually published the closet fic, since i wanted to let readers come to their own conclusions without my authorial biases influencing them, but now that it’s been a while and i’ve had a few good discussions with readers, i think it’s time to compile all my thoughts into one post to be linked at the end of the fic for people who are curious.

for anyone who may be here from reading would you rather? for the first time because they’re curious about what i have to say, please know that these are all just my interpretations! death of the author is very important to me in discussing this fic in particular, so if you wanted to answer the discussion questions in a comment on ao3, i suggest you read this afterwards :3 i don’t wanna feel like an english teacher saying that any one answer is right or wrong

anyway, since this is pretty much just various essays in response to not only the questions i posed at the end of the fic, but also questions from readers, this is a really, really, really monstrously long post, so all my answers are under the cut~

1. Why do you think Nobara would rather Yuuji save her life and lose their relationship in Megumi's hypothetical situation? Do you agree with this characterization of Nobara at all? 2. In contrast, why do you think Megumi would rather lose his life if it meant Yuuji save himself? Do you think he might have had multiple reasons? Do you think he'd do the same for anyone else?

so questions 1&2 were the ones that i came up with after i started to scribble out my tentative a/n for this fic, and i wanted to justify my characterization of nobara as being more selfish than the boys, but the much-too-long essay that resulted made me decide to have discussion questions instead. it is as follows:

“why would nobara prefer to have yuuji choose to save her life in that situation?” well, i mean, first of all because i like to interpret nobara as a fundamentally selfish, conditioned selfless person. at the end of the day, if full consent is given to her to make the decision that affects multiple parties all by herself, i think she would choose the one that benefits her. when you boil it down to, “hey, do you wanna fulfill the thing you set out to do, or nah? because i’m devoted to helping you first and foremost, so i’m cool either way,” then it makes perfect sense to be selfish, does it not? like, learned consideration might make it difficult to drop the weight of another party’s interests in your decision-making, but this is a really important thing, and nobara is the kind of person who goes for what she wants. even if she suspects the other person is disingenuous with the whole, “i’m cool either way” thing, i think she’d purposefully take it at face value because she’s a selfish person.

and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. we know she cares about her friends, and in episode three, she saved that kid. however, the difference between this hypothetical situation and that canon one is that the child did not give over consent to her decision. her decision affected multiple people, and so she chose to prioritize the person who was in the situation unwillingly because that’s the right, that’s the kind thing to do.

in fact, i think it would make more sense narratively for nobara to be, as i called it, “a fundamentally selfish, conditioned selfless” person. selflessness is a very ladylike trait, and we know from chapter 125 that all her grace, all her refined behavior, her ladylike ideals? is learned. again, i don’t think this is a bad thing. we all have to learn how to be better people at some point in our lives, and it’s not like i think nobara consciously thinks, “well, i WANT to do this selfish thing, but i’ve been taught that’s not a good desire, so i will choose the selfless option.” i think that saving the child in episode three was a selfless decision made for selfless reasons.

nobara is the kind of person who understands her own boundaries. she knows where she begins, and she knows where she ends. she knows where her obligations lie, and she recognizes her self-worth enough not to let others force their obligations upon her. she allows herself to be selfish, unlike yuuji and megumi.

so let’s cycle back to the original theoretical situation. nobara is captured by a curse with no hope of escape, and the orders from earlier in the mission were to leave anyone captured behind. should she be saved, she would also irreversibly lose all her close relationships. would she want yuuji to save her, or himself? the fic posits that she, unlike megumi, would rather let yuuji save her and lose their relationship, and it’s implied that she does this because she does not value her relationship with yuuji in the same way megumi does. which i guess yeah, feels really mean and a disservice to their friendship when put that way.

however, we need to remember that we’re in her headspace, asking her which she’d rather have. it’s implicitly giving full consent over to her to make the decision she wants. realistically, she’d have no control over yuuji’s decision in this situation, but if she could choose for him, what would she want him to do?

i think she would rather be saved.

let’s peel back the layers a little bit, too. yuuji is ultimately an altruistic person to the point of near stupidity. nobara knows he’d want to save her, because he agrees that her life, like any other human life, has inherent meaning and value, regardless of whether they’re friends or not. by wanting him to save her, she allows him to indulge in that selflessness, knowing it’s what she would have wanted, regardless of the actual orders given to them. and, since this is a purely hypothetical situation and yuuji is a crazy optimist, i don’t think either of them can help but to also believe that no matter what the situation technically says, they could somehow achieve the impossible and repair their relationship after the fact anyway.

and i don’t think it should even really be fully praised that megumi would rather yuuji save himself. i don’t really want people to say, “oh, it shows that megumi really loves yuuji/loves yuuji more [than himself] that he’d be willing to lay down his life,” because frankly, i stubbornly believe that megumi would do the same for nobara as well. unlike her and yuuji, he’s a pessimist by nature, one with very little self-worth at that. i don’t think the kind of love that characterizes itself by sacrificing every part of yourself for someone else is the kind of love to be praised.

he values his friends’ lives over his own. that’s worth something. a lot, in fact. but as i mentioned just now, he’s also more of a pessimist-- not to mention the fact that he came up with the fictional scenario in the first place. he’s more willing to fully believe in the “irreparable” part of the situation, and thus does not consider it in his decision-making.

however, yuuji stated earlier in the fic that he’d rather regret being selfish because he never wants to regret a selfless action, which is something megumi would take into consideration. because yuuji being selfish would ultimately lead to a minimization of regret, combined with the fact that he would probably rather die trying to save his friends than lose the relationships he holds dear, i say megumi would rather yuuji save himself. his decision is influenced by his lack of self-worth, but in the context of his mindset, it truly appears to be the best way to minimize regret.

because that’s what nobara and yuuji are doing as well, in wanting to be saved and to be selfless, respectively. they believe they’re minimizing regret. yuuji because he still can’t help but to believe that it can all be fixed afterwards (because remember, this takes pace before shibuya). nobara because, well... she has a fantastic amount of self-worth, almost to the point of presenting as self-absorbed, even. she values her life in a way that yuuji and megumi simply do not, and i think she’d find dying to be too bitter a pill of regret to swallow if she had the choice not to.

i can’t justify my decisions beyond that.

i think it’s a little obvious that this essay was written before i actually received any feedback on the fic, since it feels mostly defensive. i was definitely worried about having people interpret megumi’s decision to have yuuji save himself as an expression of his romantic love for yuuji, which as you have just read i don’t personally like.

3. Why do you think it's so hard for Nobara to admit that she cares about the boys?

okay now admittedly i came up with this question without any clear answer of my own in mind, so the answer i’m choosing to spin right here is one undoubtedly influenced by my own discussions with readers. but anyway:

i think nobara is a pretty prideful character. as i mentioned in the previous essay, she knows where she begins and where she ends, and i think she’s aware that most people have a hard time with that sort of thing, so it’s probably become a point of pride for her, manifesting in her fiercely independent attitude.

her independence in turn manifests in this weird sort of, “i don’t care what you think of me (because obviously you all think i’m pretty and amazing and the best thing ever), and also i don’t need to care about any of you either anyway ((because caring should be a two-way street, and i’m afraid of caring and not being cared for in turn))” attitude. to me, it reeks of being halfway through “faking it” to genuinely “making it”. as a result, i think it’s that pride that keeps her from admitting she cares about people.

her security in being perceived by everyone as a totally independent person is therefore tied up in other people, specifically caring about them (and by extension their opinion)-- but that’s so opposite of what it means to be independent! openly caring about people becomes an embarrassment. so when the second years suggest that she cares about megumi and yuuji, it feels like an attack on her independence, this trait she’s built her entire high school identity around.

she’s embarrassed, because it shows the cracks in the persona she’s worked so hard to build in everyone’s minds. she becomes vulnerable, she’s being perceived, and she’s not ready to open herself up to being truly cared for because she’s also afraid of losing people the way she did saori as a child.

abandonment issues nobara is not something i’d put to words before reading a few ao3 comments, but now that they’ve pointed it out to me, it makes total sense. for nobara to admit she cares about the boys would also be to admit to herself that she’s afraid of losing them, a fear she knows will be realized eventually with yuuji at least.

i think part of her speech calling out megumi’s refusal to consider a future where he and yuuji are together as lying to himself about his feelings was directed towards herself. i think she was projecting onto him, about how admitting you care about someone and allowing yourself to openly care and be cared for in turn makes you feel better in the moment but hurts worse when the other person leaves. and like, i think she was right about megumi doing that, but my point here is that she’s stubborn. her first instinct when it feels like her identity is being attacked is to double down and spit fiery defenses until the other person believes her.

so overall, i think it’s that mix of stubbornness, independence, insecurity, and abandonment issues that makes it so hard for nobara to admit that she cares about the boys.

truth be told, i project pretty hard onto nobara. i’m aware, when i’m writing her, that a lot of decisions i have her make are the ones i’d make in the same situation, either because they align with my ideals or because i’m not above admitting i sometimes make stupid decisions for the same stupid reasons over and over again lol.

ao3 user nocturnus (ceritasium) also brought up the idea that nobara just doesn’t like to show she cares about people that openly, especially since the degree to which she cares for the boys very much crept up on her until about the chair metaphor in episode 24. i think the fact that nobara never meant to care about them and yet still finds herself doing so is a good and important argument here, too, since now admitting she cares is also admitting to herself that she is not the ideal, totally independent person she imagines in her head.

it sucks coming to terms with the fact that you are not who you want to be. it sucks looking in the mirror and seeing all your faults and sins painted all over your face-- it sucks to see how ugly you really are! it’s like pandora’s box: once you look inside and let the ugly monsters into the light, you can never un-see them, never put them back into the box, and you have to live fully in the reality you have created. and you have to be the one to put the work into fixing it.

and for someone who likes to think as highly of herself as nobara, that’s painful. too painful, in fact, so she stubbornly hides away behind this veneer of not-caring in hopes that the “fake it till you make it” will take over.

4. The characters bring up the question, "Can you truly regret something beyond your control?" and discuss it in terms of the meaning of regret. What IS regret, really? And can you really disallow people from it?

the question “can you truly regret something beyond your control?” is a question that slapped me in the face when i was scribbling this fic out by hand in a notebook on a road trip. i had absolutely no answer at the time, and spent a good chunk of nobara and megumi’s dialogue time basically using them as puppets for my own thought process with little regard for their actual character. a lot of megumi’s segment got cut and/or rearranged as a result.

after a lot of thought, when considering the question, “can you truly regret something beyond your control?” i eventually turned to a letter from a little over a year ago, which i never sent, written to someone i was very mad at and had been very mad at for months at that point. it had a line that said, “i like to lead a life of no regrets, but i still fight over this with you in my head every day. i think maybe that counts as a regret.”

this became the basis for my conclusion, “regret is an action, a specific wish for things to be different, and the feelings associated with regret are simply a function of that wish.” i gave this conclusion to megumi (and it’s the view i’m personally partial to) because i think he’s the type of person to try to rationalize away his feelings like that.

now that i’ve gone through similar conversations with several people in the ao3 comments, i think rather than saying that a regret is an action, i think a regret is more of a desire. desires are often specific-- you desire something in particular, but that something can either be a tangible object, or an intangible concept, and in the case of regrets, it’s a desire for something different than what actually happened.

with that definition, can you regret something beyond your control, however? i say no, you can’t regret something beyond your control, because if a regret is a specific wish that you had done something differently, then if there was nothing you could have done in the situation, by definition, you can’t regret it.

as to whether you can disallow people from it, well, we can’t control other people’s feelings. but if regret is not a feeling, instead an action or desire, then perhaps with enough talking, we can keep people from regretting things. depending on the situation, it can be easy to get lost down the rabbit-hole of rumination, in which case it might even be necessary to pull people out of their regrets to the best of our abilities.

since discussing this question with readers, something i’ve noticed is that i’m pretty alone in camp “regret is an action/desire, not a feeling.” so far, most people have been saying that regret is a feeling, that you can regret something beyond your control, and you can’t disallow someone from it.

admittedly, the wording of the final question is really weird, and i’m still not entirely sure what i was trying to ask there??? i think i was trying to ask if you can really regret something beyond your control w/o just restating it like that.

but anyway, someone on ao3 (i can’t seem to find which commenter specifically whoops), brought up the fact that sometimes, in thinking about things that have happened to you in the past, you can sometimes come up with ways you could have acted in the moment, if you had just thought of it then, and i found this to be a very interesting thought. i’d been assuming that in every situation, you know all your options, so the idea of coming up with more options later hadn’t occurred to me, but i think that’s an interesting way of pulling a potential (action/desire) regret out of a situation you could not control.

ao3 user oddball said that they considered regret a result that comes from a lack of commitment to a particular decision, which is something i really like and agree with. something that came up very frequently in my responses to people’s answers to this question is the fact that i like to consider myself a person who leads a life of no regrets. however, that also means i’ve committed to being the kind of person who makes my decisions with my whole heart and never looks back. committing to my decisions means committing to the outcomes, too, regardless of whether i’m happy with them or not, and that’s hard!!!!

tangentially related to this is also my habit of telling the truth, even in situations where lying would be of no harm and honesty would get me into trouble. it’s hard to stare down the jaws of certain punishment and walk into them willingly!! it’s scary to do so!!! but committing to your actions means committing to your outcomes as well, and to only back away when the outcome hurts you feels like cowardice to me. it’s actually part of the reason that “lying, and the consequences thereof” is one of my favorite themes to explore in writing lol.

at the same time, i don’t blame people who choose to look away from the mirror of introspection, who continue to play pretend with their ideal selves, their imagined reflections-- it’s hard to face that decision to not look away from my own faults and sins!!! it sucks to look at how ugly you really are!!!!!!!! it’s like with pandora’s box: once you look inside and let the ugly monsters out, you can never un-see them, never put them back in the box, and you have to live fully in the reality you have created.

5. While the question of "outcome or inaction" was ultimately answered in the text by having Megumi confess, this also meant that "yourself or others" was unable to be answered as explicitly, as it would have meant Yuuji would have been the one to confess. Do you think this was the right call? Do you think it was in-character?

now naturally, as i am the author, ofc i think it was in-character of megumi and yuuji to have their confession go down the way it did in the closet fic. however, i wouldn’t have made this a discussion question if i didn’t feel the mighty need to defend, explain, and just overall justify my choices to the readers lol

i deliberately worded this question with “[the question of] ‘yourself or others’ was unable to be answered as explicitly” because i think that by reading between the lines and examining the subtext, you can actually conclude yuuji’s decision pretty easily.

namely, you’ll find that towards the end, yuuji starts talking about how he’s a pretty selfish person inside, actually. blah blah blah this is him opening up about his own emotional burdens that he’s been placing upon himself, sharing them with megumi because if he never opens up about all the burdens he’s been trying to take from everyone he’ll crush himself with the weight of the world’s problems while simultaneously worrying megumi abt how clearly not-well he is but by refusing to share his burden, yuuji will create a burden of worry w/in megumi he can never take away bc he’s creating the source of the worry etc etc

blah blah blah, this means that yuuji pretty much ultimately chose “others” because to choose himself would mean he chose to keep all his burden on himself, allowing him to tell himself he’s a good person for not burdening anyone. he chose to share in the burdens he carries, knowing that’s all the burden there will be. blah blah blah. 

another reason i chose to have megumi be the one confessing is also bc while i feel yuuji might be able to grapple with the problems “yourself or others” presents him on his own sooner or later down the line, megumi would probably bury “outcome or inaction” if never forced to confront it in a situation as personally desperate as a confession.

we all also already know that megumi is the ruminating type, and he doesn’t do well with committing to decisions as a result. by having him be the one to confess, it shows that he’s finally ready to start committing to his decisions, ready to commit to his outcomes regardless of whether or not he’s happy with them, and i felt like that was a character development best shown by, well, making him commit to a confession. as explained earlier in this essay, yuuji is able to deal with “yourself or others” more subtly; megumi does not have that luxury.

ofc, i’m also aware that characterizing yuuji as someone who DOESN’T just confess the second he’s aware of his own feelings is a bit of a hard sell. in the baseball episode, gojou tells megumi that yuuji is the type to swing for the trees and never hold back, but that’s why i had that whole long segment between nobara and yuuji exploring some reasons why he might not want to confess to megumi. namely, he feels like his feelings are a burden, and i think that yuuji’s desire to not burden anyone outweighs his otherwise happy-go-lucky, go-getter attitude/persona.

some other interesting thoughts i got after publishing this fic from discussion include the comment from ao3 user funkyfreshghost that said that megumi choosing to confess to yuuji felt like he was taking control of his love for yuuji even though he knows and says that yuuji “will never fully” be his.

and i really liked that thought, since a chunk that got cut from megumi and nobara’s conversation talked about “the autonomy of falling in love” -- we can’t control our feelings. love is a feeling. why can’t we control who we fall in love with? love is also caring about someone; does this mean we can’t control who we care about? isn’t that kind of messed up? so to interpret megumi’s confession as him taking control of his love, using it as him coming to terms with the temporal nature of their relationship, is just smth i really really like hehehe.

alternatively, nocturnus concluded that there was no real answer to yuuji’s question of “yourself or others”, because “itadori wanted to wait for megumi to confess to him when he was ready (yourself) but he wanted to be considerate of megumi’s feelings in the process (others).” i think i was aware that this interpretation of the question “yourself or others” would likely come up in discussion, since yuuji’s bits focus primarily on selfishness vs. selflessness, and i had an overall hard time distilling what i wanted nobara’s ultimate question for yuuji to be in the writing process, too. in fact, i have alternate, messier question that would have boiled down to “take or share” as in, take everyone’s burdens (and create one you can never take on at the same time), or share your own burdens, knowing that’s all there is to it?

but anyway, in interpreting the question as a more selfish v selfless way, i don’t think there ever really is a real answer to that question. why is as follows:

reader question (from nocturnus): do you think that every action can truly be divided into ‘yourself’ or ‘others’? humans have to connect scenarios and feelings back to themselves in order to feel a semblance of empathy and in that way, i feel that even empathy is ‘selfish’ in itself. see, without thinking of themselves in others’ shoes, would they be able to truly care? actions and the thoughts that go behind it are very complex. i do feel it��s hard to truly separate it, whether it’s for yourself or others.

as for whether i think that every action can truly be divided into things done selfishly or selflessly, after a few years of rumination, my current philosophy is, "just as there is no such thing as a purely good or purely evil action, there is no such thing as a purely selfish or purely selfless action, at least in complex situations where more than one person is involved."

a few years ago, i was having a few shenanigans that first thinking about the question of selfish vs. selfless motives: i asked this boy i had talked to for about two days to do me a really huge, kind of personal favor that put his image at risk, but i picked him in particular because i felt like doing me the favor would benefit him just as much. he told me he didn't want to help me for those benefits to himself, however; he said he wanted to help because he was tired of being selfish all the time, and he wanted to try being selfless for once.

and for a while, i'd wonder if that was a selfish or selfless thing of him to do.

he obviously wanted to convince himself he was a good person, and helping me would be very good evidence because he was telling himself he was doing it for me, which is a pretty selfish desire, to want to think of one's self as a good person when you believe, not-so-deep-down, that you're not.

but at the same time, he was aware of his selfishness and was CHOOSING to consider helping me as a result, and if he followed through, it would be entirely beneficial to me, and no matter whether he actually did the things that i said he'd benefit from, it was unavoidable that at the very least, his image would take a hit. whether we could have managed that after the fact or not i don't know, since he ultimately backed out and nothing of the situation came to fruition.

it was definitely selfish of me to ask a huge favor out of a near-stranger in the first place, but i also asked him specifically because i thought i might also be able to help him with some stuff he was dealing with at the time. likewise, it was selfless of him to agree at first, but his selfish motives for wanting to be selfless won out, and i didn't push him once he told me he didn't want to help anymore. we're complex beings, and as a result, if we think hard enough about anything, we can come up with ways our actions are both selfish and selfless at the same time. it just makes the world excessively complicated, so i think  ultimately, you can be a selfish or a selfless person inside based off your motives, but those matter less than how your actions will actually affect other people.

calling empathy a selfish feeling is interesting to me, because you're right that i often find it easiest to empathize with a person when i'm able to project my own past scenarios and feelings onto their situation. but if we call it that, then it leads to this ultimate conclusion of, "humans are innately selfish, no matter what! deep down, underneath everything, we only do things for ourselves!" and ahhh i don't wanna believe in a world like that!!

i guess ultimately, we have to say that, "to be selfish or to be selfless, neither are innately good or bad. it depends on how we use those feelings that determines their moral worth." because there's no such thing as a good feeling or a bad feeling. feelings are just feelings. actions are what change the world.

as for whether people are able to truly care for others without first considering themselves in others' shoes, well i guess i have to ask, what does it mean to care? is it a feeling? is it a desire? a desire for what? to do something? to own the thing itself? or is it an action, the act of doing something that will benefit the other person or thing?

i recently did a bit of research into how science separates and categorizes emotion, and it was very surprising how many different ways you can break down the experience of having emotions! and science doesn't fully agree on what exactly makes an emotion separate from the others! some categorization systems included "desire for xxx" as a type of emotion, with a few different emotions that were merely desires for things like change, help, or sex. some say we only have a few primary emotions, and all others are shades of those primary feelings, or mixtures of the primary and secondary emotions, like with paints and colors. it was all very interesting stuff, and i drove myself at least a little mad because of it.

i don't think i really have an answer for the emotion thing right now. i haven't had enough time to synthesize a solid philosophy on what emotions really are aside from really simple ones like “happiness” “sadness” “anger” or “fear”.

like, hope, for example. hope does not exist for nothing. to feel hopeful, you must hope for something. does that make it a desire or an action? is it both? is it also a feeling on top of that? i don't know right now, so i don't think i can truly answer your question about whether human beings are able to truly selflessly care for others aside from themselves, not right now. maybe these will be questions i'll explore later; we'll have to see, but know i'm thinking of them.

and there’s a bit more in my response to a different reader question.

reader question (from oddball): is being in love and professing inherently a selfish act? if so, why is it also the most selfless pursuit?

i've never really thought about it.

i don't think that feelings have any inherent moral value, or the feelings themselves inherently selfish or selfless. we can never fully control our feelings, so it's what you intend with them that makes them selfish or selfless, and what you actually do with them that creates moral weight.

you can love someone selfishly just as you can love them selflessly. selfishly, because by making your own feelings known, you can be seeking to have them reciprocated, or at least validated. you can want a person for yourself, selfishly, because you love them.

but you can also be selfless with your love by the very act of loving them, giving them something they perhaps didn't realize they needed. you might do things for them you might not otherwise do, selflessly, because you love them.

i think that about sums up my thoughts on the subject lol.

reader question (name redacted in case they realize and get embarrassed for being Exposed): opinions on paper eating?

okay so this wasn’t asked directly but we had a VERY LONG GOOD DISCUSSION ON EATING PAPER so i think it’s worth talking about. i have opinions here. and you are gonna listen to them.

tissues have the best texture if you’re looking for something soft, though be warned that they can have a slight taste to them if they’re the lotion-infused ones. receipts taste nasty regardless. avoid them NO MATTER WHAT!!!! printer paper is like, the standard default. nice texture, good to chew on like a cow ruminating! can add hand dirt for flavor, or can be carried around to make texture soft, which is why i personally recommend old math homework as the best paper for eating!

anyway yeah. that’s all~~~ sorry this took over a year lol

[mentalisttraceur]

imagine saying that kind of anti-privacy bullshit to a gay man in the 1940s. or russia. or china. bring blackmailable isn't great, but the solution is opsec not turning yourself into a mindless conformist drone.

[context]

Imagine telling a gay man "let the blackmailer have their way with you forever, any time they want and however they want, each time possibly getting more material to add to the blackmail".

But if we can stop this thing where we misrepresent what the other person is saying:

Obviously opsec is a good preventative measure to blackmail.

But it's a pre-solution. It's not a solution to being blackmailed, it's a solution to being blackmailable. Once someone has blackmail on you, that advice is useless - you can't do better opsec retroactively across time.

When you are already being blackmailed, you gotta figure out what to do. And it's very important to realize that doing what the blackmailer says is the most reliable way to empower the blackmailer to get even more leverage on you.

I think it's pretty clear that this is what my post was primarily about - that's what I opened with, and later words in a small piece of text should generally have their interpretation shaped by the earlier words.

You're right that In the extreme cases you gesture at, if your fear is on the level of "the government or the mob will kill me or worse if this is sent to them", then you can't very well preemptively reveal it to that same government or potential mob members. So a couple of my later sentences are wrong for those cases at face value (though I think they still contribute the right gist to the bigger point of the post as a whole).

In those situations I think your options are just genuinely very limited if your opsec has failed you. But do you really trust that the blackmailer will leave you alone after you do their bidding? Why would they? You've just proven yourself an obedient resource. Better hope they value having a reputation of honesty in their line of work, and don't realize that they can just also try to blackmail you to not reveal their double-dipping.

The three viable options I can think of in those dead-end situations are try to flee the country, go into hiding, or murder if you want to bet on them not having a deadman switch in place for releasing your blackmail. And those are all much more feasible if you built up that network of accepting people I was recommending.

But yeah, sure, opsec. Of course, again, opsec is easier if you've built a network that has more people who are acceptingly on your side.

And in the broadest sense, that thing I said?

"Proactively build a life that doesn't have connections who will reject you for anything true about you and that you can't comfortably lose."

That includes connections to countries - what country you live in for example. I realize it's not a very accessible option for most people, but if I was a gay man in a too-harmfully anti-gay country, I think I'd be constantly planning and investing years ahead into opportunities to move to a more accepting country. Learning another language, biasing myself towards a career that is in demand abroad, saving money, applying for literally any VISA type that I can use to jump, maybe even prioritizing forming relationships with people in those countries over the internet, and if necessary figuring out what the illegal workarounds might be both for exit and overstay restrictions.

God knows I probably wouldn't have the self-control and iron will to do something like that, not with all the pressures of adult life on me, not if I was in bad socioeconomic circumstances, not if fate would have it that I get entangled in a relationship that won't or can't follow and that my heart wouldn't let me leave behind... I know that relatively few will be so lucky as to be able to pull it off. But in so far as it is viable, I do think it should be one of the top priorities. Because the alternative is remaining in a situation where blackmailers can make "offers" that you cannot refuse -again, I cannot emphasize this enough- forever and escalating without bound.

[scoopsgf]

another anon here but “both logan and dean had a habit of reducing rory to this thing they couldn’t let go of, but they never prioritized her” really punched me in the gut and i fully agree, but it also it made me realise how much jess does do that! he certainly had his issues but most of them (imo) boil down to the fact that he left when he shouldn’t have, which is really just him not wanting to overstay his welcome but drawing the line too soon, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what dean and logan do. but other than those miscalculations, he always puts rory first. making sure she’s ok after the crash; leaving (when he visits yale) when she tells him to; and in the paul anka episode, not expecting anything but rather just letting her be there on her own terms and letting her decide what her visit will be like; not expecting anything from her when he comes to show her his book…. sorry for rambling but he makes me so insane

NO ANON THIS TAKE IS SO CORRECT!!!! jess never does anything to make her feel smaller or less than him, he never demeans her, he never degrades her. like you said, he does leave, but i truly believe that came down to him thinking he wasn’t good enough for her, not the other way around. he’s definitely the kind of guy to treat her as an equal. it’s established that he values her opinion and wants to make an effort to be better for her (like spending time with lorelai, or going to the dinner with emily and agreeing to go again even after it was bad—not even dean did that). i think what jess really needed was a better sense of self worth and once he obtained that he was like, the perfect guy for rory. he found himself, he discovered his niche, and that gave him confidence. the lack of those things were really what broke down their original relationship. but anyway, not to get off topic bc ur right: he has always prioritized her and respected her ambitions, unlike dean (who made her feel like shit about wanting to go to harvard) and unlike logan (who encouraged her to ‘loosen up’ and mess around more, which ultimately lead to a really low point for her). i’m firmly in the camp that him asking her to go to NY with him in s4 had nothing to do with ‘leaving yale’. he was proud of rory for going there, so why on earth would his opinion change? i really, really think he was just worried about what the hell dean’s intentions were given his marriage to lindsay, and he wanted a chance to recreate that day in NY they’d had before + talk and smooth things over. he said they had to get away because of how much meddling had gone on before in their relationship, which really influenced their trajectory as a couple. plus yale is literally like an hour and a half from NY and they were out for summer break, so i don’t think he had any ill-intentions (though i do still stand by rory for turning him down, it was a smart move on her part). anyway. god. yeah. i think at the end of the day jess is the only bf of rory’s who truly admired her for her intellect and passion, and instead of wanting her to be more like him he just wanted her to be herself.

[fireofjudgement]

Alice in Borderland characters when they're too big for you

Yes, this is exactly what you think it is. It's not as explicit as I thought it would be but still, minors please do not interact!!

Warnings: f!reader, swearing, established relationship, mentions of alcohol and drugs, princess/whore mentions, vaginal sex, kissing, mentions of children, slight corruption kink, marking, slight restraining, sex in front of a mirror, reader is inexperienced

Karube:

"It's okay princess, take your time." He said, between one kiss and another, his hand gently cupping your cheek, his eyes never leaving yours. He wanted to make sure you're okay, make sure you knew you could stop or take a break at any moment. You were in control afterall.

He didn't know how much it meant to you, all the love he showed you, all the patience and support. He didn't leave room for you to feel ashamed about not being able to take all of him immediately, instead he encouraged you to take over control, get on top and take your time. He kept reassuring you that it'll feel good for him no matter what, simply because he was with you.

That, combined with the constant stream of praises, his gentle touches and passionate kisses, allowed you to feel more comfortable, confident and so, before you noticed your thighs were resting on his, your hands roaming his body, exploring every inch of his soft skin.

Chishiya:

"If you're going to hit me with another fact about the vagina, I will leave." The first one was interesting, you could admit that. The second one was funny. The third one got you a little annoyed. But it only went downhill from there. For you that is, Chishiya looked very amused and as calm and collected as always.

He knew that, with your lack of experience, his size might become a problem sooner or later, but he didn't understand why you were making such a big deal out of it. Afterall, you could push out a baby (or multiple) out of your vagina, so you could most definitely take all of him. The fact that you seemed visibly distressed baffled him.

But, even though he would never admit it, he did care about you in his own way and he would never hurt you on purpose, so he kept his opinions to himself (for the most part at least) and gave you as much time and space as you needed, allowing you to relax and clear your mind.

And when you did, he tried again, this time more gently, clearly prioritizing your comfort and well-being over his own pleasure. Though, seeing you so vulnerable underneath him, so easy to hurt, so easy to ruin, did turn him on, his imagination going wild but he never showed it on the outside.

He knew that if he stayed patient and focus on you for now, soon enough he'd be able to have his own way with you, ruining your innocence and corrupting you. He also knew that, with the newly gained trust, you'd let him do anything he pleased and you'd enjoy it too.

Niragi:

"Aww, look at you! Maybe you're not as big of a whore as I thought you were, huh? That's okay, we'll change that tonight.."

If you weren't this..drunk? Or high? Or maybe both, you didn't even remember at that point, you'd probably feel ashamed listening to him talk to you like that, being under his control and completely at his mercy, but you didn't care, your body feeling like it was on fire, the combination of pain and pleasure definitely not helping your intoxicated state.

One look at him was all it took for you to realize that you won't be able to take all of him but instead of fear, you only felt more arousal rush through your veins, as well as an odd feeling of determination. You wanted to take all of him, you wanted to make him proud and for him to make you his. You weren't a whore, no, but for him you wanted to be.

He didn't waste any time being slow, or gentle, pinning you down to keep you still, his hands holding yours in a tight grip. There was no room for romance or sensuality-he needed you and you needed him, and neither of you was going to give up because of a little inconvenience.

Hatter:

And with his lips already busy ruining the skin on your neck, chest and shoulders, with his body covering yours, with all the filthy things he whispered into your ears, you didn't really have the chance to think about anything else but all the things you wanted, needed him to do to you.

"Do we really have to do it..here?" You weren't sure if having sex with Hatter was a good idea to begin with, but at that point you were ready to just give up leave.

You didn't even really know how you felt about all this. Embarrassed? Insecure? Ashamed? Maybe a combination of all of the above. Out of all the things you considered might go wrong during your rendezvous with Hatter, his..size definitely wasn't high on the list but alas, it could be just what would turn this night into a rather sorrow memory.

At least that's what you thought. Maybe you were being a little dramatic, admittedly, but without much sexual experience and being a natural overthinker, you fully expected him to kick you out, only to never talk to you again.

However, he surprised you once again. Nobody has ever shown you the amount of patience, care and understanding that Hatter did that night. Not even once did he seem annoyed, amused or impatient. Of course, his methods were quite..unconventional-at first he suggested some alcohol to help you relax but you didn't drink, so weed was the next best option. When you announced you don't do drugs either, he jokingly suggested for you to have sex with someone..less fortunate when it came to their size. At least you were hoping it was a joke.

When you rejected pretty much all of his suggestions and were getting ready to leave, he asked you try out one more thing. Sex in front of a mirror. You weren't sure how exactly that was going to help but, since it was the least absurd of his ideas, you agreed nonetheless and fuck, were you happy you did.

Seeing the both of you in such a vulnerable position, seeing with how much care and patience he approached you, and finally- seeing him going in and out of you, deeper and deeper, you felt as if a weird, maybe only temporary, bond was formed, a sense of trust and understanding you've never felt before. Suddenly, you found yourself more relaxed, your instincts taking over. No more words were needed anymore.

Aguni:

"That's it my love, you're doing so good! Try to relax for me, okay?"

Easier said than done, you thought, taking one deep breath after another- in..and out..in sync with Aguni's thrusts.

He wasn't going in deep, not even close to it, but it was still overwhelming regardless- you felt so full, so stretched already despite knowing that there was still a lot of him left for you to take.

Trying to distract yourself, you shifted your gaze to his face, carefully taking in his features. He looked..concerned, more than anything, and at that moment you thanked God, or whoever might have been listening to your prayers, for a man like him-loving, caring and protective.

Despite the intimidating facade he liked to present to the outside world, you know he'd never hurt you, not even when you were at your most vulnerable. Especially not then. Trusting him felt so natural.

Lost in thought, it took you a while to notice that Aguni's concerned expression changed to a more..satisfied one, causing you to raise an eyebrow in confusion.

"You've been so good.." he said, one hand firmly squeezing your hip, the other raising to cup one of your cheeks. "..let me take care of you now, yeah?"

[bbangsoonie]

chaser

member: jaehyun (hyunjae) genre: fluff word count: 1,226 synopsis: jaehyun is the ex-boyfriend who always treats you well—whether you’re together or broken up.

a/n: happy birthday to our present, lee jaehyun

You hadn’t expected to see Jaehyun at the party. Or maybe you subconsciously did, judging by your over-the-top outfit.

Nevertheless, you awkwardly made eye contact with your ex-boyfriend across the room. Even in a crowd, you were able to spot each other. Unsure if you should acknowledge his presence, you turned towards the table and grabbed yourself a drink.

With the music blaring, you could barely hear your own thoughts as you tried to find Sangyeon. He was the host of the party and the one who invited you there. Yet he was nowhere to be seen.

Sighing, you took another sip of your drink and began to search for any other familiar faces. When you spotted Kevin, your face lit up as you headed towards him.

“Y/n! You’re here!” he shouted over the loud noise. He pulled you in for a hug and your eyes landed on Jaehyun. His expression was unreadable as you smiled at your friend.

You tried your best to stop being so mindful of your ex. But you couldn’t help steal glances at him and remain wary of his gaze. Afterall, you hadn’t ended the relationship on bad terms. At the time of the breakup, you were going through personal issues and decided that you needed to focus on yourself rather than dating. Jaehyun respected your decision but was sad to let you go.

Not wanting to spend the whole night moping, you turned to alcohol to let loose. You allowed it to cloud your judgement as you out-drank everyone around you.

“Woah, you should slow down a bit,” Jacob warned. You insisted that you were fine and excused yourself to go to the bathroom.

You felt nothing but bliss as you stumbled towards the quieter hallway. Humming, you concentrated on your feet, willing them to take proper steps.

“You really shouldn’t be chugging like that,” you heard an all-too-familiar voice say from behind you. “Your stomach never feels well the day after.”

You turned around to see Jaehyun crossing his arms. His eyes bore into yours, making your heart skip a beat.

“Well, I’ll be the one to deal with it,” your tone was laced with spite to hide your true feelings.

“Just… pace yourself,” he sighed before leaving.

After you finished your business in the bathroom, you muttered under your breath as you washed your hands. You mumbled something about him paying you needless attention and swung the door open.

To your surprise, Jaehyun was waiting for you outside. Taken aback, you blankly stared at him. He cleared his throat before placing a hangover prevention drink in your hand. When you didn’t say anything, he walked away with another awkward cough.

You stared at the small bottle with a number of thoughts crossing your mind. Shaking your head, you decided to just drink it and forget about it.

By the time the party died down, there were only about a dozen people left at the house. It was only then that you finally saw Sangyeon, who introduced you to his new girlfriend. You joked about how she was out of his league, earning a laugh from her and a sarcastic eye roll from him.

While helping him wrap up, you drank whatever leftover alcohol you found as you cleaned. It was a waste to just throw it out.

It turned out to be a mistake, as mixing drinks in your stomach took a toll on you. Wanting some fresh air, you stepped out to sober up. You sat outside, relying on the wall to keep you from laying down.

You heard the door open and felt someone sit down next to you. You didn’t need to look to know who it was; you instantly recognized his scent.

Your hands held onto your head as you complained of dizziness and scolded the world to stop spinning.

“Drink,” Jaehyun said as he handed you a cup of water.

You took a gulp and kept the water in your cheeks. Your lips were pouted out to hold the liquid inside.

“Swallow,” he raised a brow until you complied.

“You don’t have to take care of me anymore, you know,” you pointed out.

“I know. But I want to.”

The two of you sat in silence. This time, it wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable and reminded you of when you used to date. He was always the same to you, whether he was your boyfriend or not. He was always genuine and caring.

And you hated it.

You hated how you were still unable to get over him.

“Why?” you asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he offered you a tight smile and got up. Extending his hand, he motioned for you to do the same.

You stared at it with a million thoughts running through your head. He made it so much harder to move on.

“Don’t be too nice to me,” you slapped his hand away and stood up on your own. “Our relationship isn’t like that anymore.”

“Right,” he muttered as he shoved his hand back into his pocket.

“Oh stop being such a wuss and just tell her you want to get back together,” a voice suddenly said, scaring you both. You turned around to see Changmin shaking his head at the sight in front of him.

“Shut up and mind your own business,” Jaehyun said as he pushed his friend back inside the house.

Changmin’s words rang and echoed in your mind. Jaehyun wanted to get back together with you? Was that even plausible?

Despite missing him like crazy, you never thought to consider that an option. You were the one who ended the relationship. You didn’t think you had the right to ask.

“Would you… take me back if I asked?” your voice was barely heard over the cicadas filling the awkward silence. “Or is that too shameless of me?”

Jaehyun couldn’t hide his shock. That same question had been troubling his mind for months. Making him wonder what could’ve been. What could be.

He didn’t think you’d be the one to ask.

“O-Of course,” he stuttered. “But… you really want to date again?”

“It’s not a relationship that I want, Jaehyun. I want you,” you confessed. “I broke up with you because I didn’t want to make you feel less prioritized. But at the same time, I’m selfish and realized that even though I was struggling, it was better when you were by my side. And now that I have my own life sorted out, I want to be greedy just once more to ask if we can start over.”

He couldn’t find the words to express how he felt. Instead, he pulled you in for a tight hug.

Surprised, you looked for an answer in his eyes as if his gesture wasn’t clear enough. Seeing your confusion, he chuckled as he ruffled your hair.

“I want you too, Y/n,” he grinned. “I thought you’d never ask so I was planning on clinging to you again.”

“Aw man, I should’ve held back a little more,” you joked.

“This time, I’m the tequila and you’re the lime chasing me.”

“Really? The chaser analogy again?”

“Hey, you used it on me first when I asked you out.”

Despite his teasing, your heart swelled with joy. Jaehyun made you happy and you weren’t going to deny it anymore.

[shinidamachu]

The lack of Kikyo & Kaede interaction reminded me why I found the Kaō chapter ridiculous. Kaō gets Inuyasha to focus on his sorrow over Kikyo's death, and obviously it's painful because she just died (again) but then Kagome loses the beads and suddenly her sorrow is more juicy??? Wut? Inuyasha spent his whole life being persecuted, watching his mom suffer because of his existence, being shunned by his brother, and yet the love drama is a juicier meal for the demon? We could've gotten a perfect manga scene of his childhood, of his parents, but noooooo

I know the Kaō chapter was specifically for the mourning/getting over Kikyo's death plot point, but just like the Kikyo&Kaede relation got shafted for the love triangle, Inuyasha's very interesting history dealing with bigotry is ignored for the love triangle conclusion -_-

Alright, I'm gonna have to be controversial here and say that I enjoyed the Kaō arc. And I actually talked a little bit about it here. I'm aware people have some issues with it and I think it's perfectly valid criticism (it does seem repetitive, especially this far in the story), but I just love the "character lives in a illusion of their deepest desires and darkest feelings" trope even though it's a huge chiclé. That's why I love The Darkness In Kagome's Heart as well.

I think it's a wonderful way to get to know a character and their feelings in depth. And the Kaō arc went off with a concept that was flawlessly excuted. The flowers? The tears of blood? The creepy athmosphere? Everything was very pleasing aesthetically, but I totally agree that the writting had room for improvement.

And I'm definitelly with you about wanting the story to explore more of Inuyasha's childhood and relationship with his parents, especially with Toga. I'm aware he died before Inuyasha could actually remember him, but we could still have gotten something other than the Fire Rat and Tessaiga to deepen the bond between them somehow. Regardless, the prejudice he had to face his whole life would have make up for a more interesting arc than the love triangle.

However, in the especific case of the Flower Demon episode, which happened right after Kikyo's final death, I think it would have felt a bit out of place to address it. It's all about timing. Takahashi could have used this concept in a different time and made it about Inuyasha's strugles against bigotry or she could still save it for the love triangle but focus more about Inuyasha's childhood traumas overall in other places of the story. One shouldn't have to exclude the other if she at least managed to achieve a nice balance between them instead of always prioritizing romance.

As for Kaō's... preferences, we can only especulate. Maybe it was because he likes the feelings to be fresh (Kikyo had just died, after all). Or maybe he finds the sorrow that comes from heartbreak more juicy than the one that comes from spending a life having to deal with prejudice because different feelings taste different to him. Who is to say?

But I can understand why Kagome's sorrow could have been more alluring, though.

I feel like with the obvious exception of Inuyasha, Kagome took Kikyo's death the hardest. And I think it had to do with a series of factors. There was the fact that it happened right when Kikyo was starting to warm up to her, there was the fact that, even if it was a long time ago and Kagome immediatelly regretted it, she did wish for Kikyo to be gone once, there was the fact that she watched Inuyasha and Kikyo kissing their final goodbye. There was the guilt for not being able to save her.

Remember: countless times Kagome had to save Kikyo's life as a test for the goodness of her heart. And she managed to save Kikyo every single time, but there was no way this thing didn't mess with her head to the point where she might be wondering if this isn't another test. A test she failed. Probably because deep down she didn't want to save Kikyo. After all, she wanted the priestess gone, once upon a time, and now that she is dying, Kagome still has it in her to get jealous over the final kiss Kikyo shared with Inuyasha. It's all her fault. She could have fought harder if she wanted to. She's a terrible person for not doing so and having these petty feelings.

Of course none of this is true and Kagome has already faced those insecurities in previous arcs, but that's the thing about insecurities: they can always come back. And Kagome is the kind of character who always feels like she could have done more. She is the kind of character who would always try to save others regardless of wether or not they would do the same for her.

And most of all, on the top of her own confused, complex and overwhelming feelings, Kagome also took into consideration Inuyasha's. She was also sad she wasn't able to save Kikyo because she knew how much pain that would cause to Inuyasha and she didn't want to see him suffer.

I'd say that this is already quite the feast for Kaō, especially because Inuyasha's grief over Kikyo only breaks Kagome's heart further, as she thinks Kikyo is the one he truly loves. Then Kaō comes and states that Kikyo is the woman Inuyasha loved the most in this life, which only makes me think it was a deliberated move to increase Kagome's sorrow, since it doesn't seem to have another narrative purpose and it's not supported by what we have been shown this far.

[selinakidreams]

here’s a lil something for baku (and you) to enjoy on his birthday <3 all apart of the bakugo birthday bash hosted by the lovely @jodrawssmut @phasmwrites @katsukikitten @bakugotrashpanda @lady-bakuhoe @ramen-rambles ! !! thank you guys so much for letting me be apart of this <3

pairing: (established relationship) QUIRKLESS AU kiribaku x fem! reader

word count: 3k+

warnings: alcohol consumption but sober sex, oral (f receiving), mentions of throat fucking, mentions of spit roasting, lots of mentions of spit <3 (and exactly one spit into a mouth), very light degradation, praise

a/n: this is my first time writing with three characters kdjdkdk it’s way out of my comfort zone and I only had 6 days to write it,, but I did it!! trust me I wanted to write more but I actually wanted to make it to baku’s birthday so !! don’t be mad at the endiiiiiiinnnngggg <3

The jazz wafted throughout the empty bar; your silk dress falling from the edge of your seat. It has been a slow night for the bar. You leaned your head into your hand, elbow keeping you sturdy as you swirled the drink around it’s glass cup. 

Your friend's party became a bit too feral for your taste, but you kept your word and stayed as long as you could for the sole purpose of seeing her smile, but then they showed up and you saw yourself out. 

The dim lighting made your eyes droopy with no action to keep your brain going, so you take another swig of your drink before swiveling in your chair to face the other side of the bar. 

Floor to ceiling windows greeted you, giving you the perfect overlook to the twinkling city lights below. It was incredible how your friend could afford a room in this hotel for her party. 

You noticed a movement in the corner of your eye; someone had entered the bar. 

You turn back to face all the expensive drinks displayed on the shelf, the perfect excuse to catch a quick glimpse at him. The contrast of his hair against everything else in the room almost made your eyes pop out of their sockets. 

Platinum blonde hair tufted out like an explosion, a satin red shirt that danced with the warm light of the room, black slacks and from what you could tell, some expensive ass shoes. Too dressy just to be here for some drinks.

Wanting to see more but not willing to fully stare at the man, you signed and waited until it seemed like he got settled on the bar stool before saying, “Is it your party that’s on this floor? It seems like quite the... experience.” 

Your voice came out smooth and velvety to bakugo’s ears, not that he would ever admit it. He scoffed before taking a second to look at the stranger who was daring to talk to him. His first thought settled in his mind and accepted it, almost prompting for silence- waiting to see if you would push to talk to him again.

From what you could tell, he was scanning you up and down. He opened his mouth to say something; his pink plush lips looking extremely inviting as they began to mouth something.

No sound came out for the next few seconds, showing he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. He closed his mouth and took out a phone from his pocket, the screen illuminated his face as he began typing something out. 

With this newfound light, his features became even more alluring- which couldn't be said for most people. Perfect porcelain skin, his profile pointed and devilishly handsome.

He’s well aware that he still held your attention, so when he slid his phone back in his pocket, he responded to your previous question, “yea, that’s the one. I’d rather stick it out instead of hearing them complain about me not going to my own party  for the rest of the week.”

By the end of his sentence, he had a glass of something amber in his hand that seemed to look a lot like whiskey. He didn’t spare you another glance but you could tell he expected to hear a response.

You hummed, slightly nodding your head, “The party I had to go to is upstairs and it’s… a lot. They're all just talking about expensive this and designer that and I couldn't listen to another word so I had to get out of there…” you trailed off at his silence. Noting that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, you introduced yourself in hopes to continue interacting with him. You knew his type, and you knew in some way, he was going to surprise you. 

“Bakugo Katsuki.” He said in turn.

You slowly nodded before posing another question.

“So Bakugo, not really a party goer?” You attempt to ask, only to get a huff in return.

“not one for small talk either, i see?” You add at the end.

Another few quiet moments go by before he responds

“If I was a party goer, I’d be at my own party wouldn’t I?” He quipped back and your eyebrows shot up as you raised your hands in defense. 

“Well hey, I dunno ! For all I know you could have had a really rough night and this specific bar could be your saving grace. Could possibly use this night to drown your sorrows away behind a whole bottle of what… whiskey?” You say, ushering to his drink before turning to face your own, knowing he probably didn’t like being pegged as such.

“but you wouldn’t do that. You’re a strong man who knows what to do when things get bad, huh?” you continue, sprinkling praise to his dignity. He seemed like the type to prioritize that.

He didn’t do or say much in terms of a response but a small smile grew on your lips seeing how his body suddenly released a bit of the physical tension that was winding up.

You moved a few seats closer to him. If he didn’t like it, he hadn’t said anything. 

“So-'' Interrupted before you could continue the line of questions, Bakugo surprised you by asking, “you think you’re better than your friends? Leaving them and comin’ here to drink alone?” his voice coming out gruff and low.

“No, not one bit. I was the one who planned the whole thing for my friend, it’s just unfortunate that she had to invite all those people who aren’t all that nice to her. I can’t stand them. I’ve told them off more than I can count, but they just brush me off. A group of bullies is one thing, but a group of people who pretends to be friends with you then talks behind your back is another.`` 

Bakugo was quiet, not by astonishment or anger; he seemed to be expressionless as he piped up, “fake people are some of the uglies nobodies out there.”

You turn to look at him before sipping your drink and moving a seat closer. This time Bakugo glanced your way but continued to stay silent. 

“You ever beat someone up?” you ask, resting your chin on your palm, tilting your head towards him.

Your second surprise that night, he chuckled. It was soft, the complete opposite to the demeanor he'd been holding.

“Why? You want me to go in there and beat a few of those assholes up?” his eyes were relaxed by this point, no longer sharp and heavily guarded.

“Only because they don't believe I'm intimidating enough.”

“Maybe because you're not.”

You fake gasped, bringing your other hand up to your heart. “Excuse me sir but I'll have you know that I can be quite the fighter.”

“We’ll see about that.”

You hadn’t realized you got so close to Bakugo until you heard the footsteps nearing you both.  When a handsome voice called out bakugo’s name, you slightly jumped. Putting as much space between the two of you as possible, you looked to the source of the voice. 

Handsome would be an understatement. 

With red bangs that framed his sharp toothy smile perfectly and the rest of his hair tied back in a messy ponytail, this man looked a bit taller than Bakugo with a much warmer aura... but radiated the same type of... manliness. 

“Bakugo, I just got your text- Mina has been dragging me everywhere to make sure your party’s going well. Is this her?” the handsome man asked, a slight indistinguishable gleam flashes in his eye when he looks over to you.

“Yeah, ‘nd i wanna leave now.” he almost pouted before looking over to you. 

“You comin’?” 

Your gaze snapped between the two men, only slightly putting two and two together. 

Red hair spoke up, “He probably didn't explain it well but I'm his boyfriend, Kirishima Eijiro!” he held out his hand cheerfully, listening to your introduction. 

“Not to sound too forward or to make you uncomfortable... but do you wanna come home with us? He texted me earlier saying that there was this hottie in a silk dress and… well…” he trailed off licking his bottom lip as his wandering gaze slowly shifted hungrier, “he wasn't kidding.”

There was a lot happening at once but all that you were thinking was that these two hot men wanted you, and the happy buzz that was coursing through your system couldnt object the offer, so with a quick nod of your head, you were handed a water bottle, guided off of the stool, and into the back of the next taxi they could hail. 

The ride was filled with wandering hands and mischievous looks. Kirishima was whispering naughty promises in Bakugo’s ear that you couldn't quite hear, while your attention focused on the big palm that was making its way to the most heated part of your body. The quick inhales that the blonde took went straight to your core, making you incredibly excited for what the night had to offer. 

As soon as the door swung open, lips were on lips and clothes were coming off. The rush to get to the bedroom was heated and messy but once you all entered the room, there was an intense shift that even you couldn't predict. 

Kirishima spoke first, “So what does my birthday boy want? Does he want to fuck or be fucked?”

With a suck at his teeth, Bakugo knew if he didn’t give an answer soon he’d be met with-

“Better hurry up handsome, or I might just choose for you…” Kirishima hummed, bright crimson eyes hopping on over to meet your gaze, “better yet…”

He was by your side in mere seconds. His huge figure towering over yours, you almost flinched when his bulky fingers grazed up your arm. 

“What if you chose for him?” He purred in your ear loud enough so Bakugo’s ruby eyes found yours. Your name rolled off the red-haired man’s tongue like sweet honey, “go ahead, what do you think he would want more?”

Your gaze flickered between them, you couldn’t tell one or the other’s preferences but if they wanted to use you, they could. 

“How about… Eijiro… you could fuck my throat and Katsuki… could fuck whatever hole he wants?” You ask, the question raising an octave out of uncertainty. 

Kirishima raises an eyebrow towards the man of the hour, slightly amused and completely aroused. 

Bakugo is already smirking,“Atta girl, knows exactly what to say.” 

Kirishima starts to kiss your neck as Bakugo stands in front of you, occupying your lips for the first time that night. 

With one arm wrapped around your waist, he seemed to have rubbed on his boyfriend's bulge before reaching for the zipper of your dress. In turn, the feeling of the Eijiro’s bulge humped your back. 

Whether it was your dress hitting the floor or Katsuki’s tongue slipping in your mouth didn't matter, a sharp gasp escaped your lips, causing Kirishima to chuckle and whisper, “get on the bed, princess.” while Bakugo pulls away from you, a string of spit keeps you connected.

With your gaze lustly hazy, you dreamily make your way to the bed, but not without a little show. Before splaying yourself out on the mattress, you stretch out- almost in the child's pose of yoga except you add a deep arch in your back for the sole purpose of showing off your pretty seamless thong. 

As you reposition yourself, you glance over to the side to find that both men are now only in restricting briefs, eyes glued to your figure, both palming themselves over their boxers. 

Eyes half massed and back flat on the bed, you begin to pout, feeling almost bare without anyone’s hands on you. 

As if on cue, they began to make their way over to you, looking oh so hungry. 

You immediately sat up and swiped your tongue over your bottom lip, pulsating at the prospect of having two seemingly thick dicks at once… but they were still in their boxers. Why?

“Ya have to ask nicely in order to get a treat, you ungrateful slut.” Bakugo growled before taking your jaw in his hand, squishing your cheeks with his fingers. 

“Better yet, beg.” he said with a coldness that heated your core and had your eyes going wide.

Whimpering when he let go, you kept your innocent doe eyes as two sets of starved eyes stared down at you.

“W-wanna get fucked, please. Wanna feel both of you everywhere…” you say as you reach both hands out to palm the silhouette of their bulges. “Please…?” 

There was a “christ” that was muttered out before you were pushed back on the bed by Bakugo, then kirishima manhandled you so that your neck was supported by the edge of the bed, your head mostly hanging off.

Even in the midst of the binding tension, Kirishima didn't hesitate to instruct Bakugo to put a pillow under your hips, the blonde eagerly following through with the demand. 

“How’dyou want Katsuki to prep you, baby? He’s skillful in every sense but he really enjoys using his mouth.” 

The bed shifted and before you could string a thought together, you looked down and lost all ability to think. The sight in front of you was downright sinful. A smirk was pulling at the left corner of his lips as he sunk closer to your clothed pussy, his red gaze now a deep wicked crimson as he watched for your reaction.

You didn't have much time to analyze before a thick hand laced through your hair and ushered your view back to the red head’s now exposed cock. You gulped. 

Not incredibly long, a moderate size but with a juicy girth, Kirishima’s cock had a thick vein trailing up his underside. 

If you could make heart eyes, you're sure that you'd be doing them by now. 

Focused on paying attention to his pretty pink weeping tip, you felt your panties being pushed to the side. As tempting as it was to look down, you kept your sights set on the task at hand. Licking and kissing his cock, mixing your saliva with his precum, you earned a guttural groan from the big man above you, encouraging you to do more, please him more- until a warm muscle was met with your sopping core, causing a high gasp of a vibration to hit Kirishima’s head. 

Your mind stopped reeling for a second- it stopped doing anything to be frank. Your hips mindlessly thrust up in attempts to get more of Bakugo’s mouth. He chuckled against you in response.  

Moans bounced off the walls the deeper you guys got with each arousing movement; slurps coming from your’s and Bakugo’s mouth were the loudest noises in the room- that was until you moved down to pay the much needed attention to Kirishima’s balls. He couldn't seem to take it when you began sucking and fondling, moaning about how full he looked. He let out an obscene whine that you couldn’t believe came from him but when Bakugo pulled his lips from around your clit, you followed the noise with a similar one.

Unlike Kirishima who had stayed still, you tried to push Bakugo’s face back down out of lack of patience. Somewhere along the lines, the dominating rolls have switched, but you couldn't really find it in yourself to trace back to when that happened.

 “You really are a fighter, huh?” he chuckled out before adding, “quit whining shitty hair, you’ll get to fuck her throat once I’m done eating.” 

And with that, he dove right back in, causing you to clench around nothing yet and arch your back to get impossibly closer. In turn, your gaze caught the big desperate pleading eyes looking down at you, nearly begging you to do something... 

You were so dizzy with pleasure that you murmured  a mindless, “I didn't forget about you Eijiro.”,  before using your hands to guide his cockhead back into your mouth to coat it in your saliva then pulling off and spreading it down the rest of his length. He bit his lip and let out a cute “mmph!”, which went straight to your abused core. Wanting to hear more, you began to pump his shaft with your messy fist. 

With everything going on, you didn’t realize how built up you were. At an astounding rate, your climax crashed over you, making you shriek against Kirishima's dick as you attempted to cage Bakugo’s head in with your thighs. What pushed you even further was the death grip Katsuki had on your thighs and the sinful sounds he was making while lapping away at your juices. 

Your hands shot from Kirishima’s cock down to grip Bakugo’s hair, freeing your mouth to pant out breathy praises and a whiney “Katsuki!”.

“Fuck,” Bakugo groaned as he came up from your pelvis once you’ve relaxed, whipping your juices from off of his chin with the back of his hand. 

“Kiri, c’mere, you gotta try this,” he said before pulling his boyfriend in for a kiss over your slumped body. Watching their lips meet and seeing Kirishima’s tongue slip into his lover’s mouth sent a dull throb to your core, even moreso when Kirishima sighed into the kiss while his cock twitched upwards, close to your face. 

When they pulled away, Bakugo gave one more little peck to Kirishima before looking down at you with a mischievous grin. You mentally gather yourself and sit up, already ready to be told what to do next.

“Open up, sweet cheeks.”

You did as you were told with your tongue out on display, unintentionally closing your eyes as a sweet little “aaah” came out on instinct. 

The spit hit your tongue dead on and you had to refrain from automatically swallowing. 

A low whisper about how good you were to Katsuki pulled him out of his daze, his eyes darting away from the new wetness on your tongue. 

“Swallow, slut.” and so you did.

“You're right Kiri, she is such a good girl…  Are you ready to get fucked stupid as your prize?” was the last thing you remember before both of them did exactly that.