#aka i am panicking but trying to ignore it

[izzy-b-hands]

i am not panicking bc hr isn't getting back to me with my ID number which will prove im registered with them and that im actually hired (and allow me to set up direct deposit)

what if i just choose the send me paper checks option like

my new bank lets me cash them via the online portal, maybe that's the secret to solving this

they have a form that says they'll pay me that way at least and if the id number never shows up...

i dont want to think abt what that means bc i Know what that would mean and that possibility terrifies me

[caramelstarlight]

So like this isn't specific but what about certain stoic genshin men with a reader whoa incredibly bubbly and happy all the time.

"Someone is going to die."

"Of fun!"

Yk?

sorry for not doing anything the past week and two (haha two.)

(FUTURE ME BY LIKE 2 MINS I FORGOT THE ✅/⭐️ Your prayer is accepted friendo) (other two in progresss.)

I was going to animate the “Hey Two!” Video bc I am a fan of bfdi. (Have been ever since I was little!)

But don’t worry everything will be out today and tomorrow! (Most likely.)

if you follow me on wattpad you would’ve saw the post I put 3 days ago most likely. There’s also 6 options for me to animate on there! Feel free to look at my acc and vote. (You can also vote for one by sending a message.)

Also holy so many frames 😭

I forgot Diluc existed sorry :d

cough cough Two worlds one heart next part tomorrow cough cough (aka part 4)

*cough cough ignore that it’s coming Friday bc I forgot about picture taking cough cough*

Stoic x Bubbly

(Alhaitham, Xiao, Wanderer, Cyno (in work mode) Tighnari (He’s stoic when he’s working like Cyno) I forgot Diluc existed mb.

And my limit for requests is 4 and I decided to add Tighnari bc I realized it. (No more than 4) (No part two. Sorry for those who thought Diluc would be here :d)

under cut r the stories. : D

Alhaitham

“Alhaitham” you said as he read his book forgetting about the noise canceling stuff he had. You continued to call out his name as kaveh watched. Softly laughing at you.

Alhaitham sent a glare towards kaveh and his gaze went back towards his book. “Alhaitham isn’t fun.” He pouted as you nodded. Eventually leaving his side to go outside with kaveh. Trying to bait him into becoming more fun.

“Kaveh I don’t think this will work.” “It might but prob not.” He replied as you both waited. He didn’t come out soon and you both came up with another idea. “We should make him mad about something…”

“Like Tighnari at cynos jokes?” “Exactly. I know you make him mad but maybe it should be something about knowledge?” “Wh-hey!” He bonked you on the head as you hit him lightly. “You do have a point though.” Kaveh said afterwards.

“Where would we find a dummy in all of sumeru?” You asked knowing majority of sumeru are smart fellows.

“We just need to get lucky.” “Maybe you should try make him mad again.” “Whyyy?!” “Because you make him mad numbskull!” Hitting him again lightly as he thought about it.

“I heard you two were trying to make me mad?” You both jumped slightly as both of you turned your head to see Alhaitham. Both of you becoming nervous by the second.

“I uhhmm.” You said trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t sound stupid to him. His gaze turned to kaveh shortly after.

“Well I accept your challenge.” “Wait what?!”

“Someone is going to die.” Both of you panicked becoming more confused.

“Of fun?” You thought out loud as he nodded. Both of you partying slightly. Finally doing something other than work and reading.

Xiao (During lantern rite)

“Xiao!” You called as he appeared by your side. Sitting at a table with Zhongli and a few adepti. His eyes widened in surprise as he quickly composed himself and sat next to Zhongli.

Playing a few games to pass the time after having lunch with everyone. Xiao managed to smile and become more happier.

When it was time to play tag (yes tag.) he was not like his usual self but still tried. “Someone is going to die.” He said as a joke. Watching people be tagged from a distance. He though someone might fall and trip.

“Of fun!” You said afterwards. Tagging yaoyao as you ran away. Watching her touch xiao as she ran. He was caught off guard and teleported to someone randomly touching cloud retainer.

“Why must one be touched for a silly game?” She said as she used her beak to touch mountain shaper. He stayed silent and ran after Moon carver.

Xiao returned to yours and Zhongli s side as you started to lose the adrenaline in your heart. Drinking water as you watched them all finish.

Wanderer

(HAHHAHAHAHHAHA MY SISTER LOST HER 50/50 TO MONAAA) (I have won none of my 50/50s *crying* (I’m serious all 5 that I had I LOST, 3 to qiqi once to Mona and once to jean. Keqing was on standard)

He watched you come inside not expecting you to be crying. He rushed to your side and asked why and who (or what) caused it.

“Someone almost poisoned me…” You told him. “And do you know who? I’ll gladly make them cry louder than you and regret their life.” (Get it?????? I’m not funny :D) “what-?” “Nothing.”

“Someone is going to die today Y/N. Just tell me their name.” “Of fun right wanderer…?” It stayed silent for a few moments as you became more nervous then sad.

“Of fun right?” You asked again clasping your hands together worrying for the person who did it to you. “Let’s put it that way…” he said as he asked you. Looking for that individual after he spent some time with you.

He was always so interested in how you were always trying to see positive sides of anything. He has witnessed cruel and unjust acts and behavior.

Cyno

“Do you wanna pull a prank on them?” Someone asked gesturing to you. “Dude are you crazy?? Almost anyone and you choose them??!” They said calming down as they drank their water after the spat it out.

“What’s wrong with them?” They asked kind of nervous of them freaking out. “That’s the General Mahamatras Partner! AKA Cyno.” Cyno listened closely as he strained his ears. Behind a wall as you talked to a friend. Unknowingly cyno was going to pull a prank on them in return.

“Pssht! He’s prob on a mission it’s not like he’s hearing us right now.” “I guess you’re right but be careful.” They replied as they began to talk. Cynos prank wasn’t going to be good but it would jump them. That’s how pranks are.

They pulled the prank and scare you from behind. Telling how they got you good. Before you smirked and stocked your tongue out. Cyno was right behind them with his usual cold gaze and activated spirit. (Basically his idol animation, the one with the polearm)

“Someone will perish for their actions against Y/N.” They both froze up and turned slightly scared and worried. “Of fun!” You perked in. They both got caught off guard as cyno laughed off the joke before giving both of them a slight cut on their bodies.

“Run.” You suggested as cyno chased them away. Coming back toward you after he had his fun. “That’s fun to you? Chasing innocent beings cyno?” You asked jokingly. “Yes. Think of it as tag but it doesn’t end as quickly as tag does.”

“Fair enough.”

Tighnari

“I swear I am going insane if one more person consumes a fungi that’s poisonous or has dangerous side effects.” Tighnari stated as you tried to calm the agitated fennec down.

“Nari it will be okay. On the bright side it teaches not too and can help you improve on your methods of healing them.” You watched as his ears and tail perked up slightly motivated him. His tail wagged slowly as he stopped his rant.

“Someone will die.” He said and caught you off guard. “What-?! Of fun I hope!” You said as he nodded. “I’m going insane I need some days offff.” He told you as he buried his face into the pillow on the couch.

“Don’t worry the others can take at least 2 or 3 days off I’m sure of it!” You played with his ears as he felt calmer. “Thank you…” He got up and sat next to you. Waiting for your hand. You placed it on his head as he melted into your touch. His tail swishing ecstatically. Finally getting a well deserved break.

You scratched behind his ears as he spoke. “I really needed this.” Beginning to become sleepy due to the amount of comfort. Soon after you heard light snores.

Laughing to yourself as you got up and gave him a blanket. Going to go help the others with their tasks and to tell them what would be planned.

(I need a two plush. Omg it looks amazing. My birthday is in November tho 😭)

[roweclementine]

Getting ready to end my Spotify subscription when it expires at the end of the month but I’m keeping the account up so here’s all of my playlists that I’ve made since I joined back in summer 2020

Downloads (the Big One)

2023:

March 2023 (v proud of the cover for this one; can’t believe I’ve been doing these for a whole year)

April 2023

May 2023

June 2023

Fourth Of July 2023 (Rowe’s Version)

august 2023

September 2023

October 2023

November 2023

December 2023

March-December 2023

2024:

January 2024 (platonic breakup season woooo)

February 2024

March 2024

The monthly playlist idea was stolen from @trenchcrows. Each playlist has as many songs as there were days in that month (except when they don’t because some of them used to have Lovejoy/Wilbur songs in them). They were my favorite/most listened to/most looped songs from each month. It was a fun project and I think that it’s cool that I can look back and figure out exactly when I got into certain songs or when certain things were happening to me. November-January was certainly A Time.

Queer Playlists:

Aspec (aro and/or ace songs)

🏳️‍⚧️ (trans/nb songs)

🏳️‍🌈 (gay gay homosexual gay)

Podcast Adjacent Playlists:

Favorite SFBO Episodes

Favorite Podcasts

Songs from Let’s Learn Everything!

Playlists For Specific Artists/Albums:

GLOOM DIVISION (new idkhow album go stream it)

We’re Not Panicking! At The Disco Anymore (by Fall Out Boy)

Everything by Jon Walker (all of the songs/bands mentioned in Everything)

Jon Walker favorites

Waterparks songs named after colors

Waterparks Songs Named After Pixar Quotes

Sparrow Sleeps

Infinity on High but it's my favorite parts (by fall out boy)

Local Dreamers (the Wait I Need to Listen to Twenty One Pilots More So They Show Up on My Wrapped playlist)

American Beauty/American Psycho, but with 9% more Demi Lovato

Razzmatazz, but with 9% more Tessa Violet

Playlists For Specific Situations:

Songs to listen to at the end of the year

Beachy

Therapy :( (Rowe is not having a good time)

Therapy :) (Rowe is not having a good time but she’s trying to be optimistic now)

✨ Seasonal Depression ✨ (Rowe is not having a good time part 3, now with more Christmas)

Christmas Songs That I Actually Like (We’re going to ignore the fact that Every Snowflake is Different isn’t technically a Christmas song ok?)

Relationships:

Breakup songs

Show Me The Door (break up songs; a playlist dedicated to my mother)

/ (love songs)

Hopeless Romantic Bittersweet Yearning (more love songs)

& (songs about friendship)

Spotify Wrapped:

Rowe’s 2020 Wrapped

Rowe’s 2021 Wrapped

Rowe’s 2022 Wrapped

Rowe’s 2023 Wrapped

Rowe’s Wrapped 2019-2023 (I had Spotify in 2019 but was using a different account at the time)

Minecraft:

Fallen Kingdom Saga

Minecraft Songs

The Minecraft Archives:

TMcA

tmca!Tommy

(The Minecraft archives was a mcyt (dsmp/Hermitcraft season 8) tma au that I was working on which I am no longer writing because of Current Events)(I also had a TMcA!Wilbur playlist but I deleted it back in February along with all of my other Lovejoy playlists because fuck Wilbur)

The Rest Of Them:

Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday (sometimes you just wanna listen to songs with Saturday in the title; here’s a playlist for that)

Favorite Covers

Walmart Radio but it’s the songs I actually like

# (songs with numbers in the title)

Duets & features

Inside you there are two wolves (aka Fall Out Boy are liars)

Eurovision Favs

and finally,

Some Songs That Aren’t Lovejoy:

When did this happen why are there so many of them this post took like an hour to make

[plural-aita]

am i the asshole for not wanting to be friends with someone who fakeclaimed us? so. we're a system. (bodily a minor, as are all in this post.) we've been pretty open ab our plurality to some of our friends in the past, and this is where the problem comes in. our host, M, made a joke about forming a fictive about a certain character (that a friend, R, had a crush on). this made R uncomfortable (this isn't what we're asking ab lmao) and M apologized as soon as they realized that it made them uncomfortable. however, R did some 'research' (aka browsing fakedisordercringe) and said that you can't purposefully form fictives (whether we/you believe that or not, this was a JOKE that M made, they weren't being serious.) which led them to believe M was faking. they forced a mutual friend of ours to 'confront' us about this, making said friend so anxious that they were physically sick. when M tried to talk to R about it, they just said they wanted some time apart. reasonable ask, so we give it several days. but this was making both M and i anxious, making them doubt their plurality and worry about others in our friend group deciding that we are faking. so after a few days of them not talking to us, we asked the mutual friend to tell them not to bother talking to us about it. (yes, it was a bit of a dick move to make the mutual friend do it. however, M was spiraling and i didn't want to fuck their mental health even more by making them tell R to their face. that's my bad.) now, it's been about a year since this happened, and M has started to be friends with this person again. they haven't apologized for what they did, and haven't actually talked about it at all. M says they want to leave it in the past and try and be friends with them again, but it's making me really uncomfortable and panicked as i don't want to be friends with someone who did this to us. i don't think it's good for us to be in this friendship, but M would like to try and be friends while just ignoring what R did. also: not sure if this is relevant but R also began lying about having a psychosis diagnosis (yes, we do know for a fact that they were lying) around the time that they fakeclaimed us, so like??? idk if they were projecting or what but i still don't wanna be friends with them. please tag this post with 🌈 so we can find it when it comes out!

Hey anon, I really only use one tag to avoid exposing people's stuff to random strangers. But yours is the only ask I have rn, so...here you go.

[wonderneverlandsystem]

So I am in the Life Is Strange Fandom & the Stranger Things Fandom (i like strange shit ig), also She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Fandom and jesus fucking christ. This is gonna be a long one so sit tight.

SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE (& BEFORE THE STORM), STRANGER THINGS, and SHE-RA and the Princesses of Power. TW/CW for all of the things in those games and that show, you can look them up online, LIS especially has lots of results for looking up trigger warnings and stuff.

If you look through our page there are. a lot. of billy defending posts and stuff. I am a hardcore Billy apologist/defender. But I'm also a defender and sort of apologist for Nathan Prescott. And they both are just about universally hated by their respective fandoms.

I am very much against the demonization and villainization of both of them and any mentally ill, abused, groomed & manipulated teenager/barely adult (*cough cough* Catra, and i will bring this up later as well *cough cough*). And I also am very much against comparing trauma, abuse, etc. to say that one person deserved better than the other. That's not what I will be doing. This is an analysis post, and while I will be comparing them at times, NEVER, will I say that one of them is better or worse. Because THAT'S THE FUCKING ISSUE WITH YOU BILLY ANTI'S. And I will die before I end up like you guys. There is no "bad" abuse victim or "good" abuse victim. There is no "good" or "bad" abuse. Lastly by the end of both of their lives and respective piece of medias (at least the parts that have them in it) they are both redeemed. If you believe otherwise just fuck off, I don't want you here.

——————————————————————————

Let's start with Nathan Prescott. He is a 19 (barely) yr old at the time of the first LIS game. He is barely an adult, and still a teenager. The thing that kicks off the game is the mc Max rewinding time unknowingly after watching Nathan shoot a girl (Chloe) with a gun in a bathroom. While impact is always more important than intent, you don't get to ignore intent either. So let's go over what happens in the moments leading up to the shooting of Chloe.

He enters the bathroom (keep in mind we see all of this from Max's perspective hidden behind a stall) and goes to one of the sink mirrors and talks to himself, basically trying to calm himself down and get some sense of control. Chloe then enters and they have a conversation about her demanding money since she knows he is from a rich family and has been giving out drugs at the school, in turn for not telling everyone that, in her words, he is a "punk ass who begs like a little girl and talks to himself." While they are having this conversation you can tell he is becoming more erratic, his breathing as he talks is faster than natural and he is panicked.

When she threatens him with that and pushes him he cuts her off, pushing her off of him and pulls out a gun, notice HE DOES NOT DO ANYTHING UNTIL THREATENED AND PHYSICALLY TOUCHED. She backs up against the wall and he gets close to her, aiming the gun at her stomach and yells, "Don't EVER tell me what to do! I'm so SICK of people trying to control me!" and again his breathing is uneven.

He smacks his hand on the wall a couple times while he talks to her, which could be seen as an intimidation tactic but it seeing as he is also panicked and the fact that he very much has BPD, C-PTSD, and he is probably autistic (while this is not confirmed, if you are autistic it is very easy to see the, probably unintentional, autistic coding of him throughout the games.), this could very well be more of a self regulating (aka stimming) behaviour. Everytime he does it it's when HE is talking, to calm himself down a bit for when it is her "turn" to speak which will no doubt push him to being more upset.

Speaking of pushing. AGAIN. She pushes him, which this time is completely fair and valid for her since he has a gun leveled at her stomach and she is scared, but again, he doesn't actually accelerate his actions until physically touched/pushed, this time he shoots her. And while not necessarily as obvious until you see the same scene again at the end of the game if you choose the Save Arcadia Bay option where the scene actually gets to play out more instead of being rewinded, Nathan did not mean to shoot Chloe.

He shouldn't have had the gun, and he shouldn't have had his finger on the trigger, and he shouldn't have shot her, none of that should have happened, and it's not excusable, but it is COMPLETELY understandable if you look at his behaviour during the scene as well as the fact that he is and has been abused for his whole life and he is mentally ill. When he accidentally pulls the trigger after being pushed off, the gun fires and shoots her in the stomach and she falls to the ground dead, in the Save Arcadia Bay ending we see his reaction to this where he drops the gun, and proceeds to freak the fuck out. there is no dialogue that we can hear from him during this, but he starts pacing holding his hands to his head, he even goes and tries to shake her awake at one point, obviously she is dead and it doesn't work but he is scared and panicked and doesn't know what to do.

This is just the first like 10 maybe 15 minutes of the game. Throughout most of the rest of the game he is just a bully and a privileged asshole, until the end. We'll get to that later. That's really the main thing he does during the game that is that bad, all the other stuff happens before the game takes place. Now lets go to the prequel Before The Storm which. takes place before the storm.... duh doi. It takes place either 2 or 3 years before the first game if I remember correctly and is from Chloe's perspectice and Chloe & Nathan and a lot of the other characters are roughly 16.

Nathan was still kind of a prick to people back then though I don't know if he was necessarily a bully? He definitely was getting bullied though, even in the first episode we see one of the other jocks takes his photo album/portfolio (which is a very fucking important and often times sentimental to anyone who does photography). The jock is angry that Nathan is on the team and even fucking calls him Twitch. (I very much consider this a slur, and unless you suffer from this shit and have been called it like we have you don't get a say on whether it is or not.) MULTIPLE. TIMES. He is very fucking ableist and a pos.

He even threatens to throw the portfolio into a water fountain, which would destroy all the photos. For those of you unaware of photography stuff. Portfolios. Take. Forever. To put together. It is hourssss of work and effort. Nathan does say something in response to the jock that is not cool, and normally I would not let slide, but if you're called a slur by someone I feel like you should have every right to fight back and be a bit of a bitch. Later in BtS we see and overhear his shit excuse for a father be verbally abusive to him and by the behaviour of both of them in that scene and with Nathan's language (both verbal and body language) you can tell this isn't new. This has happened before, a lot, and absolutely will happen again.

So to summarize, he is an abused teenager with C-PTSD, BPD, and is probably autistic, who has no actual father figure or any ounce of actual support in his life. (Sounds very similar if not exactly like Billy, the only difference being Billy is poor and Nathan is rich) Then a teacher from Nathan's school, Mr. Jefferson, comes along and takes him under his wing and protection, basically becomes like a father to Nathan. But Mr. Jefferson over the years also manipulates and gaslights him, he's just better at making it not as obvious, and he grooms Nathan into being like him, and doing things for/with him.

Mr. Jefferson is able to get money from Nathan's abusive pos father, and have a Dark Room built. And he has Nathan drug girls at Club parties and they kidnap them, bringing them back to the Dark Room and taking photos of them and shit. Remember. Nathan. Has been. Groomed. And Manipulated. Into. Doing this. He does not actually fucking want to hurt anyone. Also. He is a vulnerable fucking teenager boy.

Skip forward by a lot to a bit before the first game takes place. Rachel Amber (Chloe's girlfriend) has gone missing, we find out by the end of the game that she is dead and buried in a junkyard. Through Mr. Jefferson we learn that Nathan drugged her and brought her to the Dark Room and was attempting to do what Jefferson had been doing. But that he messed up and gave her an overdose on accident and it killed her. WE LEARN THIS. FROM THE BITCH. WHO HAS BEEN MANIPULATING EVERYONE SINCE BEFORE THE GAME EVEN STARTS. HE EVEN SAYS AT ONE POINT THAT HE CAN/WILL BLAME ALL OF THIS ON NATHAN AND THE PRESCOTT FAMILY. I absolutely do not believe that Nathan actually killed her.

Right before the game takes place another party happens and Nathan has to drug another girl and take her back to Jefferson, Kate Marsh. This girl survives like most of Jefferson's victims did presumably, we don't see any of the others in the games but based off context clues we can assume deaths were not intended, 'cept for Rachel by Jefferson. Kate Marsh was recorded at the party and then bullied and slut shamed for the... content. of said video. She had already been drugged by the point the video had been started, she remembers during the games time that Nathan took her somewhere, she thought it was a hospital but it was actually the Dark Room.

She gets bullied to a point that in Episode 2 you have to save her from jumping off a building in front of everyone and commiting suicide, you can fail or succeed, it all depends on your choices. Nathan was in the crowd of people at the bottom and saw this happen.

Now let's cut to the end of the game. Max was kidnapped by Jefferson (also Victoria if you successfully warn her about Nathan and the Dark Room. so... don't warn her. ik that sounds wrong but it actually saves her.) and Chloe has been shot again and killed, by Jefferson. Jefferson tells Max while she is kidnapped in the Dark Room that Nathan is dead and buried. Jefferson killed him to cover his tracks. It is implied he was dead before Max and Chloe even left the party and ended up getting kidnapped at the junkyard when they went to check to see if Rachel's body was still there.

A bunch of time shit happens and eventually David (the security guard and Chloe's step-dad) comes and save Max (potentially killing Jefferson if you tell him he killed Chloe). Max leaves the bunker and takes Jefferson's car and heads off to the Two Whales Diner, during the cutscene of her driving she checks her phone that Jefferson took and left in his car. She has one missed call and she lets the voicemassage play. It's from Nathan (and I'm gonna be 100% when I heard his voice during this, I fucking broke down) and it was from 9 pm the night before, the night of the party, not long before he died.

He called to tell Max he was sorry, that he didn't wanna hurt Rachel, or Kate, that he didn't wanna hurt anyone. Everyone used him. And that Jefferson was coming for him, and that he'd be coming after Max next and for her to watch out and be careful. He had to hide and basically wait for Jefferson to come kill him. And he could've done anything with what little time he had left, but he chose to warn Max for her safety and tell her as much as he could, apoligize as much as he could. All while crying and sobbing while waiting for his death. He is 18 when this happens.

The same age Billy dies, sacrificing himself for his sister, her friends, and a stranger who is the first person to ever show him any kindness since his mother left him as a kid to be abused for the rest of his life.

Billy had no chance from the get go. Since he was a child. For a while he had his mother to take the abuse for him from his pos excuse for a father, Neil. He had to watch his mother get abused to protect him for years, until eventually she left. And she didn't take him with her. Then Neil turned his abuse on to him. Then Neil started dating Susan, and her, and her daughter Max move in. (I am gonna be referring to Max as a girl for the sake of this because that's what cannon but I absolutely believe Max is trans)

The only sense of safety he has left at this point is that he lives in California, where he grew up, where he knows the ins and outs of his neighborhood, and as someone who has and is still growing up in an all too similar situation to his, he absolutely had escape routes planned and hideouts all over the town he grew up in. Then that gets taken away too. He's forced to move with his abusive father, step-mother who doesn't fucking stop the abuse, and step-sister who he takes the abuse for like his mom did for him, to a new town, with new weather, and new people, across the country.

He asserts his dominance at school as soon as he steps out of his Camaro, STOMPING his feet onto the new ground. He has to gain as much control and power as he can as quick as he can or else he won't survive here, and he knows that. He quickly becomes the new top dog, the spot being left open now that Steve has sort of left his title of King Steve. When you are being constantly abused, at "home" and you have no control or any way to stop it. You do whatever you can to survive, and anytime you can leave and go get a sense of control elsewhere? You do it. School as horrible as it is, is an escape for a lot of people, same with sleepovers, they're a way to escape the abuse for a little bit.

Let's keep in mind that he doesn't just get abused for "his actions". (Idk how to word it otherwise but I wanna clarify, no ones deserves abuse or brings that upon themselves, the blame is on the abuser) He gets abused for "Max's actions" too. If she runs away or does something Neil doesn't like, Billy takes responsibility. Some people like to say that he only does that because he has to, because Neil forces him to be a parent for Max and take responsibility for her. And while that is absolutely what Neil does. He absolutely would take it for Max anyway. Especially after growing up with his mom doing that for him.

Also, I am not gonna touch on the "racism" bit because I have other posts that go in detail about that and debunking/explaining that. So feel free to go look for those, but I will say, racism is not inherent. It is learned.

His relationship with Max is not healthy, I absolutely will never say that it is. But. again, it is understandable. Neither of them necessarily love the situation they've been forced into. We know that they do actually care about each other, but that doesn't make their relationship any healthier or less toxic. He is verbally abusive, and one time he is physically abusive. I clarify that it is only one time not because that means "oh well he isn't an asshole it only happened once" abuse is abuse, it still happened.

But to bring attention to the fact that people think what happened in the car was normal and frequent when it obviously isn't. He grabs her wrist loosely causing her to flinch and look at him in surprise and shock. As someone who was constantly physically abused and who literally has trauma in relation to being grabbed by the wrist and pinned to the ground. YOU DO NOT REACT LIKE THAT AT SOMETHING THAT IS A FREQUENT OCCURRENCE. Would you flinch, absolutely, but when you get abused, especially physically, on a frequent basis, or even if it's just happened more than like once or twice, you get used to it. You get conditioned to expect it.

She didn't expect him to grab her. And when she got her barings and he was done talking she was able to pull her wrist out of his grasp easily. Later in season 2 she runs away from the house WITH the person Billy told her to stay away from. Neil and Susan return home from a date(?) and see she's gone, then the infamous abuse scene happens. Susan just watches while Neil calls Billy a fag(got? o don't remember if it was the full word or not) and physically, verbally, and emotionally/psychologically abuses him "because" (again he does not deserve abuse but idk how else to word this) he was supposed to watch Max and she ran away while he is preparing for a date.

So Billy has to cancel his date and and go on a goose chase around this still unfamiliar town to look for her. He stops at the Wheeler house and Mrs. Wheeler opens the door and immediately it is obvious that she is.... interested, in Billy, a 17 yr. old. she's like 40. Billy gets the information he needs out of her and he ends up at the Byer house. Where Steve comes out to talk to him, and tells him a straight up, bold faced, lie. right to his face. That Max isn't there.

Billy then points out how fucking uncomfortable and creepy this situation is, this guy who is his age, has his sister, who he knows is there for sure when he sees her in the window, in a strangers house, and then lies about it. And coming from the situation at the Wheeler house, and the fact that he doesn't know Steve or any other sit about this town, the people, or any of the supernatural shit going on, it is absolutely sound reasoning that he would come to that conclusion. So he decks Steve and knocks him out temporarily.

He goes into the house and sees Max with a group of boys, one of them being the one he told her stay away from. And you can tell at this point that he is dissociated. He is having a panic attack, not the "good" kind where he simply just shuts down and hyperventilates like a lot of u fuckers believe is the only form of panic attack. He has tunnel vision, and he repeats the abuse scene from earlier, with Lucas. Steve eventually gets up, comes in, and pulls him off of Lucas, then Billy and Steve get into a fight. Billy beats the shit out of Steve, knocking him unconscious, after having taken a couple blows himself. His facial expressions during this scene make it very apparent that, IN HIS MIND, he is imagining Steve as Neil. He isn't almost k!lling this random classmate who has maybe done some creepy/fucked up shit. He is attempting to kill the man who has abused him his whole life, and has sent him here. BY NO FUCKING MEANS. AM I DEFENDING HIS ACTIONS (other than decking Steve outside because he had every reason to believe what he assumed was going on to be true).

Eventually Max does something, which is not nearly talked about enough and is JUST AS BAD as what Billy was doing to Steve. She took a syringe of SOMETHING, she didn't even fucking know what was in it or how high the dosage was of whatever it was, and injected Billy with drugs. That literally could've fucking killed him, just as easily as if he had finished what he was doing to Steve. She literally could've knocked him out with the bat! SHE USED IT LIKE FIVE SECONDS LATER TO THREATEN HIM INTO SUBMISSION, WHEN HE WAS ALREADY ALMOST PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR, WITH THE SAME WORDS AS NEIL! And if any of you try to say some stupid shit like "oh the bat has nails" i will bite you. bats have two ends, and a long ass middle. I HAVE A NAILED BAT. Trust me, the bottom and other non-nailed parts can easily fucking knock someone out if you swing right.

He passes out and they leave him, UNCONSCIOUS & ALONE, in the house with no fucking protection. THERE ARE LITERAL DEMODOGS AND SHIT EVERYWHERE. HE COULD HAVE DIED AGAIN. And we don't see him again until the next season. Where he, other than the fatphobic comment he gives one of the kids at the pool, doesn't do shit. Him and Max are at the very least back to how it was before Hawkins if not better (aka neutral). He has been groomed by Karen and sexualized by her as well as many other older women at the pool, keep in mind. HE IS BARELY FUCKING 18 AT THIS POINT. BARELY AN ADULT. Also I would like to mention that Karen doesn't cancel her and Billy's date because she realized "Oh I'm a creepy, disgusting, groomy fuck." She canceled it because she "has a family and doesn't want to hurt them" (and then continues to for the most part ignore everything that's going on with them for the rest of the season and show, tho not nearly as much as T*d)

Until the very end of the season he is Mind Flayed. He is a vulnerable, abused, mentally ill teenager, just like Nathan (other than the class difference), and he gets controlled/brainwashed and forced to kill a bunch of people and do the Mind Flayer's bidding. He is only freed of the MF's control when a random girl, he has never met, shows him kindness. pure, genuine, innocent fucking kindness. This girl who owes him nothing, who he has never met, looks at him and sees what all of you idiots refuse to see. The truth. That he is a scared. And hurt. Teenager. Who was robbed of a fucking childhood, and life. Just like her. And she reminds him of the last time he was happy. A beautiful day on the beach with his mom, when he was just a little boy and could still see the best in people. And that is all it takes to break him out of the MF's control. And he doesn't get to verbally apologize like Nathan did, but lile Nathan he did sacrifice his life to protect those around him who were in danger. His sister, her friends, and this young girl who just saved him, and gave him one last moment of happiness and peace.

These two characters are treated so horribly by the creators and fandom. While Catra, while in the first couple seasons people absolutely treated like shit, eventually, and especially by the end of the show, just about everyone forgave. She has C-PTSD, BPD, and again is (although maybe unintentionally) coded to be autistic. She grew up and wasn't able to escape her abusive "home" for a majority of the show. And the two times she does she almost immediately starts getting better.

She went from having one person who was supposed to be a parent figure control and abuse her, to someone with even more power control and abuse her, taking advantage of the whole that was left from the first abuser and her sense of safety, Adora, leaving/being taken away. She has multiple panic attacks, and in the wasteland where she has started healing and getting better, finding out that her abuser/mother figure left her for Adora, sends her into a fucking tailspin. She has full tunnel vision and returns to the only thing familiar she has left. "Home". And she almost destroys the entire planet/universe as well as attempts to kill herself because she has nothing and no one left.

Then the she gets save in season 5, she did "One good thing" and sent Glimmer away from her prison, back to Adora, and apologized. That was the moment a lot of us generally agreed she was redeemed. She didn't think Adora would come back to save her, she expected to die, and she was fine with that. But Adora did save her, and she, along with the rest of the group, showed her kindness. And she started healing.

There are maybe 3 differences between Catra and Billy & Nathan.

1. Catra was younger, by like a year or two. I believe she was 16-17 throughout the course of the show (other than flashbacks obviously duh doi).

2. She wasn't given only the option of death or prison (if u choose Save Arcadia Bay at the end of LIS he gets arrested and sent to prison not a mental help facility or anything just straight up prison). Once Adora saved her she had the choice to get dropped off on a planet to wither away and die on, which she almost chose, though not out of not having another way out or self-sacrifice. And the second option she was allowed, life. Live and fight with the group and help make the world better.

3. Before I say this one, I'm gonna clarify something because I KNOW, someone is gonna try to say I'm just a misogynistic piece of shit, when I am literally only talking about statistical facts. I am a trans man. and yes trans men can be misogynistic, ANYONE CAN BE MISOGYNISTIC, WOMEN TOO. But I am only actually percieved as a man by myself, my fellow system members, and SOME other trans people. I don't have male privilege, and by almost eveyone else in the world I am seen as a girl and am treated as a girl.

She's a girl. It is a hard fucking fact, that when boys (and people percieved by the general population as boys, the world is transphobic, thats another fact) get abused and end up lashing out (except for when they SA someone then society always believes the guy) they get demonized and treated like shit. Compared to when that happens with a girl (or someone who is perceived as one by the general population, again the world is transphobic) most people will say either choose to defend said girl and say she had no other choice or, there are those are just SO sexist and misogynistic that they will say shit like "oh she must be on her period" and other stuff like that. Girls are listened to and believed when being abused not even half the time (except for SA which again is EVEN LOWER), and boys are believed even less than that. Because this stupid fucking world is sexist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic, and all of that shit. And especially. Ableist.

If someone is a victim they are expected and forced to be the "shy meek victim" if they want any support or kindness. The moment they aren't what people perceive as a "good" victim they not only don't believe them and belittle them. They demonize and villainize them, and, like with Billy, even say they deserve to be abused and deserve to die.

Wrap-up Time/Final Notes: Victims. Are. Victims. There is no "good" or "right" way to be a victim. And there is no "bad" or "wrong" way to be a victim. I say this not only for you pieces of shit who treat us like we're horrible people for acting out and fighting back against our abuse, but also for anyone who has gotten this far who may need to hear it. Obviously not everyone can fight back and stuff, that could put you in more danger. But know that no matter what, you are valid, you're feelings, experiences, trauma, everything. There are some us out there who will listen and be there for you, we might not be able to help you escape completely, but we can at the very least lend an ear. No one is "better" or "more deserving of help" than you. We shouldn't be fighting each other for air, that is how the world works, it pits us against each other, but we can fight back for the right to live, and for those of us who are unable? I can't speak for eveyone, but we will gladly fight for you're air to breathe to the best of our ability. We all deserve to not have to survive, we deserve to live. ACTUALLY live. And be happy, and safe, and at peace.

-Signing off. Jace Rudolph Briar

(It/Its, Lem/Lemon, Pix/Pixel, and Muff/Muffin)

[leoparduscolocola]

it’s both a blessing and a curse being interested in animal welfare because i constantly see things that are just downright cruel. don’t get me wrong, it’s important to be educated and i’m glad i am, it’s just painful to watch so many things that other people love and feel uncomfortable. two days in a row on the news they showed these feel-good segments that actually involved shitty animal handling. the first one was children playing soccer mounted on elephants, aka wild animals. they were visibly being hit with bullhooks but the narrators just laughed along like it was hilarious. that’s also such a risk to the children. the second one was an orangutan at some shitty zoo being allowed to be petted by guests and stealing someone’s hat and putting it on. like… why the f in the year 2022 are we still letting the general public come into free contact with apes??? not only is it inhumane and dangerous, but it promotes a cavalier attitude about animals. the lincoln park zoo literally did a study proving that people who see monkeys in clothing and playing with humans are less likely to care about monkey conservation and have a harder time understanding that they are endangered. these same news corporations sided with p*ta bashing the cincinnati zoo after they had to kill harambe, then go and promote the same attitude and disrespect towards wild animals that will lead to similar tragic incidents. also why couldn’t the fablemans use a cgi monkey??? and the fact that the australia zoo, run by the irwins, still practices free contact with big cats. i owe steve irwin so much, he was an amazing man and i even have his funko pop. his family is wonderful too, they’re good people who have done so much for conservation, it just makes me sad to see the zoo they run still using such outdated and irresponsible practices. and i’m just trying to enjoy watching critical role, a d&d show that i really love and has inspired me a lot as a dm, and i’m suddenly reminded of when they brought a real owl on that was clearly panicking, in severe distress, and literally tied down. and don’t get me started on the anti-coyote hysteria in my area… so much ignorance it’s depressing

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

yall wanna know the emotional rollercoaster ive been on today?

-best friend that i literally have spoken to every day since august, and since we've met and started hanging out there have been a total of 16 days we haven't seen each other face to face, is sick with a minor infection

-subnote: said best friend is also the only person to consistently not only touch me (cough cough touch starvation), but talk to me too

-spend all day home alone

-dnd got cancelled today while waiting for more people to arrive for dnd (didnt happen)

-spent an hour making a oneshot for it to be shot down for a 2 hour compilation video

-really touchy about isolation and being ignored and already wasnt doing good so i end up "hiding in plain sight" aka headphones and computer

-they finally interact by standing riiiight behind me and making me flip the fuck out before leaving for albertsons, which they know i wont do bc im not walking in the fucking cold (cold sensitive ;-;)

-end up talking a little to my best friend on the phone, who tells me im probably overreacting (which yea i know i was)

-on the phone call i start to do this thing that i do when i want people to think im not worth being around and get really angry and upset about it

-i get told by my best friend that im paranoid and scared about people not liking me, and i cant trust that they do (true)

-he tells me that he loves me, he loves being around me, and that if he wasn't sick he'd be there

-the people come back, i hang up and i drive everyone home (im the only one who can drive out of the whole group), and go home

-immediately feel better, get to talk to my parents a little bit, vent a little and get advice from people much older (while my best friend is in his mid 20s, my parents are 45+)

-realize that while i do like having someone who can look at me overreacting and tell me that i am, when im in a depressed/manic overreaction to something i have very very touchy trauma with, i need someone to also recognize that there is a very very real reason that im feeling so panicked and upset and reclusive and the best thing i can do is try and put everything objectively

-turns out my mom's whole classroom (that i volunteer in) made me a card saying that they loved having me around (how on point)

-i get 7 papers done in 3 hours and finish my first college semester

[benedictscanvas]

glimpse of us | eddie munson

eddie munson x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

summary: with eddie facing his fate in the upside down and reader trying to stop him, they reminisce on their favourite parts of their relationship, and maybe what could have been

read on ao3 here

a/n: this content in its entirety belongs to @ellesgreenaway​ aka the beautiful light of my life ruby, whose tumblr tags aren’t working and has asked me to post her work on my account. i am only too happy to do so for three reasons - 1. i love her, 2. she’s insanely talented and 3. i still love her your honour. please find the rest of her work on her ao3 account as linked above!!

Your foot was tapping impatiently, neck craned upwards as you stared into the Upside Down.

Eddie’s hands were gripped onto the makeshift rope of bedsheets, but his eyes were wandering. You know Eddie, and you know that whatever he’s focused on is whatever he’s looking at. Focusing on the Upside Down when trying to run away from it wasn’t the best thing to be doing, and you’re worried, actually terrified, that he’s thinking of doing something stupid.

Dustin radiates the same anxiety as you, screaming through the little gate; “Eddie what are you doing?!”

He’s visibly sweating through the fear of what the heck Eddie’s doing, and though you’re not showing it for the sake of the poor boy by your side, you’re feeling the exact same way.

“Eds, you better be climbing up that damn rope.” You warn with a stern voice, shaking a little.

Then those big brown eyes look up at you through the gate, full of apologies and heartache, then lets go of the rope, your heart dropping with it.

Dustin begins to freak out beside you, his eyes crowding with tears that you so desperately want to let go of yourself, but a fire lights inside your heart. There’s no way he can do this, not to Dustin, not to the gang after everything you’ve all worked for to get here. But he also can’t do this to you, to what you and Eddie are. No way.

Turning to Dustin quickly before Eddie runs off and makes any more stupid decisions, you touch his shoulders delicately, wiping the tears from under his eyes with the pad of your thumb gently. “I’m gonna get him right back, okay? Gimme two minutes.” You smile, however unconvincing, but Dustin nods desperately, anything to get his Eddie back.

“Edward Munson, you better not be doing anything beyond idiotic right now.” You shout angrily as you throw yourself back down the rope. Eddie’s hand was lingered on the handle of his trailer door, about to open it and no doubt kill himself in the process.

His body swivels back to you, panicked, eyes wide. “Y/N, go back to the real world.”

“Then so should you be, too!” You cry out, tears finally starting to swim on your eyeline. Eddie frowns, eyebrows drawn together sadly.

He stammers, looking between the door to hell and you, “T-They need more time, the plan won’t follow through if we just go right now, they might die.” His voice croaks as he speaks, heart breaking as he sees you shatter infront of him.

Smashing into smithereens just to have him.

At long last Eddie lets go of the handle to the trailer, ignoring the impending sound of the bats banging and crashing in his room, a reminder of his fate. He brings himself, inch by inch, closer to you, almost as if we was scared to. Eventually when he does reach you, his hand touches you first; cupping your cheek, the metal of his rings sending a cold chill through them. You catch his wrist in your hand before Eddie could leave you again.

Your voice is a distressed, choked sob when you next speak, voice croaking with a mix of anger and premature grief. “Don’t do this to everyone. N-Not to Hellfire, not to your poor uncle, not to the boy that worships you up there,” You point up to the open gate, where Dustin continues to call for Eddie, “And…And don’t do this to me, Eddie. To us.”

Eddie feels himself sniffing, blinking out the tears that are pouring out of you now, his thumb gliding across the side of your face he had a grip on.

•

This reminds him of his first kiss with you, funnily.

It wasn’t long ago, just a few weeks short of the spring break, and you and him were both sprawled out on your bed, feet lying against your wall as you both lay upside down, contemplating the study session Eddie had just begged you to help him out with.

“You’re gonna ace this test, and if you don’t, then it’s not my teaching skills, Munson, you’re just a lost cause at this point.” You giggle, feet dancing around on the wall as you watched.

The night was exceptionally warm in Hawkins for March, thick muggy air making the bedroom stuffy, the open window providing no freshness. Eddie studied your moving feet, chuckling to himself with a wide closed mouth grin, turning his head so he could peacefully study your side profile. “If I do ace this, then I get the credits I need to pass history,” He points out matter-of-factly.

You release a self-satisfied grunt, turning your head to face him, but not realising he had done the same moments before. Both your noses now kissed chastely, like a butterfly landing on your skin, and it made Eddie’s heart leap. Of course, he never showed it on his face, remaining vigilantly poker, but he knows how he feels about you.

He could have asked anyone from Hellfire to help him study, but he went out of his way to ask you for that little perk alongside studying.

The move has made you visibly blush, eyes shifting away from Eddie’s as you grow bashful under his gaze. “You’re a bit close, Munson.” You say timidly as you face straight-on once more, avoiding another nose kiss.

“Oh? You want me to move away?” He raises an eyebrow in question, a small smirk on his lips.

You scrunch your lips to the side of your face, nose wrinkled as you pause for a moment. “…No, you’re good.”

Eddie smiles with pride, feeling your sudden shy nature radiate through hot cheeks.

“Quit staring.” You mumble with a pursed smile, eyes shifting to your peripheral and seeing Eddie look at you the way he was with puppy love eyes.

The blunt talking from you made Eddie burst into an even wider smile, if it were possible. “Ah, come on sweetheart, you know I only come here to study to look at that gorgeous face of yours.”

You snort, facing Eddie once more, the contact of the tips of your noses resuming, and suddenly Eddie’s heart has flown out of his body.

“Really? So you’re not really flunking history?”

Eddie sighs, sucking in a harsh breath of the muggy air. “Unfortunately my love, I’m still flunking history, that much is true. In fact, the only thing I am passing right now is math and art. But my point is, Henderson could’ve taught me every single thing you did. Hell, any one of those dorks could have.”

“Then why didn’t you?” You blink, and Eddie wants to remind you one day in the future of this very moment, and how embarrassingly oblivious you were to his advances.

He huffs defeatedly, “Why do you think?” And the penny finally drops, your eyes widening. Just as the silence and the shock wears on for a few too many seconds for Eddie’s liking, your lips scrunch in a pursed smile, arms folding across your chest.

“You know, most guys would just ask me out on a date instead of this complex game of charades.”

“Fuck most, sweetheart, I do my own thing. Besides, it worked, didn’t it?”

You roll your eyes, the smile never wavering from your lips, just as you notice Eddie’s gaze flicker from your eyes to your lips, your hand coming to cup his cheek, thumb gliding across its apple. “You talk too much, Eddie.” You say just as Eddie connects his lips with yours, the taste of cigarettes and the feeling of his chapped lips overcoming your system.

Eddie felt like he was in heaven.

•

Eddie blinks away even more tears, feeling guilty the longer he looked at you.

“I’m doing this for you, Y/N…I-I just wanna hold off those bats a few minutes more, maybe cycle somewhere and do a loop.”

You screw your eyes shut in annoyance, shoving his hand off your cheek. Eddie frowns when you do. “That’s not how this works, Munson! Doing that sort of thing by yourself? In literal hell? It’s a suicide mission.”

You always knew Eddie was a bit of a dreamer, it’s why you liked him so much in the first place; he saw the dreams and utopias most others couldn’t. But right now, when all you needed to do was get yourself home along with Dustin and Eddie by your side, dreaming was not an option.

“I won’t let that happen. I’ll come back to you, I always do.”

Even in the most heart-wrenching moment of your eighteen years on this earth, you feel yourself soften a little when Eddie throws a little side-smile your way. He knew it’d comfort you, even by the tiniest percentage, but the smile was received by an even deeper sadness that swam in your eyes just a few seconds after that feeling of warmth that spread through your chest was cut off by premature grief.

You realise in this moment that you really might never see Eddie again. You’ll never be able to live out the silly promises of forever and eternity to spend with one another that you’ve made in the last few days. All the things you’d done, all the things you could do, all cut off short because some evil bastard had decided to take over town.

“What if…you don’t?” You mumble, biting your lip and edging closer to Eddie once more.

He shakes your question off with a nervous chuckle, “W-What do you mean? We ran from those bats before, I can do it again.”

You’re standing so close to him your noses are almost touching, your hand gripping his, swinging lightly past your thighs and his, so close your tears are mixed together in one concoction. “There’s a chance, you know it.”

He kisses your forehead tenderly, “Knowing you’re waiting for me, angel, I know I’m surviving.”

•

You thought your heart was broken enough just days before this awful one, knowing your Eddie, your love, was hiding from the disgusting likes of Jason Carver and having a whole town hunt for him. It didn’t take much to be accused of such a thing, murder, murder of Chrissy Cunningham too, someone who was a friend of yours even. But you knew it wasn’t Eddie. As much as he was into D&D, it wasn’t satanic, it wasn’t a cult, and it didn’t murder students of Hawkins High.

Along with Dustin and the rest of his friends; Steve, Robin, Nancy and Max, you had managed to find out where Eddie was hiding, and you nearly burst into tears on sight when you saw the condition he was in; broken, paranoid and on edge constantly, his nerves making him jump up at the slightest side. His nails had been worn down from biting them constantly.

The next day you had nominated yourself to go and bring supplies to Eddie along with Dustin, a whole backpack of items stuffed on your back. There was such mutual relief between all three of you, and you had found yourself in Eddie’s arms within seconds, clutching fistfuls of his leather jacket, his hands stroking your hair gently but with a desperation in it that you rarely feel from him.

“Hey there, sweetheart. You’re home late.” He jokes, and you laugh through the threat of tears, your arms wrapped protectively around his waist as you looked up at those shining brown eyes that flecked pieces of green in the sunlight.

“Sorry I’m late, honey.” Playing along with the joke, you feel engrossed in his gaze until Dustin coughs impatiently, his feet tapping impatiently on the hardwood floor.

You both turn around to him, his arms folded and eyebrows raised expectantly, “I’m right here, guys. Literally ten feet away.”

Eddie shakes his head, extending his arm to smack the side of Dustin’s head. “Quiet now, boy. Mommy and Daddy are having some special time together.”

“Why did I even bother coming? I knew this was gonna happen! Every single goddamn time I am around you two it’s like watching a bastard metal version of some cheap-ass rom-com..” Dustin fumes as he walks away from you to put the food he carried in his bag to the fridge in the kitchen, you and Eddie giggling as you watched.

You pout in sympathy as you then back to your newly-made boyfriend, “Maybe it is a bit much around him, bless.”

Eddie scoffs, bending down to plant a firm kiss on your lips. “Who cares, angel? Anyway, it’s not like I can ever do this in public, lest I be scorned and burned on the stake.”

You frown, “Don’t talk like that, we’ll clear your name, I promise.”

He nods, unconvincing, but he was trying his hardest to believe it because it was you who was the one telling him.

You had decided to stay with him that night, your parents believing you were in Indianapolis for a prospective visit to the college for the last day anyway, and to give Eddie some much needed company.

You were standing over the kitchen sink of the cabin, toothbrushes in mouths as you silently had created a little night time routine for being a fugitive. You had bought Eddie a toothbrush in the pharmacy you stopped off at on the way, and you had never seen him light up at such an everyday item.

You notice Eddie staring at you through your peripheral, smiling though his mouth was full of toothpaste. Smiling back, however strained and bashful it was, you knock your hip against his playfully. He does the same back, eyes twinkling under the dim light.

“This is nice, despite the circumstances.” You hum when you finish, the tap flushing away all the spat out toothpaste you and Eddie had accumulated.

He grins, toothy and wide, fitting a piece of your hair behind your ear, hand lingering on your cheek. You lean into it, reminding yourself of only a few weeks prior when he kissed you for the first time. “Same, oddly. Y’know, when I forget that a whole town wants me dead. It…it feels like this could be what we do. In the future.”

You raise your eyebrows in pleasant surprise. “You think about me in your future?”

He chuckles, “I’ve had a lot of lonely hours to think, sweetheart, imagining my future with you is pretty much the only thing in my shitty mind keeping me from going insane.”

Your heart blooms at those words. “What do you imagine?” You whisper timidly, almost afraid to break this fantasy of your future Eddie had imagined with you.

He brings you with him to the couch, your fingers interlaced with his, an enamoured curve playing on his lips. “We’d get the fuck outta here, man. I’ll go with you when you go to college in Indianapolis, not too far from Wayne, too. I’ll get a job or summin, maybe at a record shop, o-or one of those places where they sell instruments. Eventually I’ll save up enough and we can buy our own place, small, but home,” He says whimsically, a glimmer of hope shining on his eyes as he spoke, really believing this was gonna happen. You continued to sit intently, your head resting on his shoulder. “We’d do such boring, and dare I say conforming, domestic shit like this, like brushing our teeth together in our bathroom, g-going grocery shopping on a Saturday morning. You’d cook all the food but I’ll clean all the dishes, you know? That sort of stuff.”

You hum, drumming your fingers on his chest in thought, a warmth of comfort spreading through your body. “And then I’ll get out of college, get a worthwhile job, make some real money for us, then we can get a bigger place, like a house. Maybe even move to another state, see more of what’s outside Indiana.”

Eddie chuckles, “I love that, my girl’s the breadwinner of our home, and I’ll make sure our kids know how smart and hardworking their mom is.”

He’s so proud, and so are you, and you’ve made note to dream about this more when you go to sleep in a few short minutes.

“And they’ll know how much of a rockstar hero their dad is.”

•

A sigh leaves your lips, “Please, Eddie. Please come back through the gate.” You’ve saved this pleading as a last resort, but you’re backed against the corner.

Losing Eddie means losing everything you could enjoy with him, every single inch and detail of your fantasy that you’ve created together. built on in your dreams and his, and yet staying exactly the same.

His eyes soften slightly, and you take this as getting to him, wasting no time to drag him back to the bedsheet rope, relief washing Dustin’s face, who’s close to pulling out all of his hair at this point.

“We’re going home, and we’re going to go to Indianapolis and live the life we’re meant to, okay?” You ask, firmly, panic still flushing your system.

Eddie gives you his signature grin, squeezing your hand. “Sure thing, Y/N. Let’s go back.”

You let go of a breath you never realised you had been holding, handing him the rope. He shakes his head, arm extending to you. “Ladies first.” He glinted.

It was then you made your grave mistake.

You were too engrossed in your happiness to know the real reason he made you go first. Too happy and smiling like a fool to Dustin, who was just as much drowned in oblivion as you were to see that Eddie had taken his pocket knife out from his jean pocket, waiting as you get sucked from the Upside Down into the real world.

There was even still a hint of a smile still there on your face when you look up, though it began to falter. Eddie was still standing at the gate.

“Come through!” Is all Dustin called through, but your insides have fallen through to your stomach as you see Eddie raise his arm ever so slightly, revealing the knife he was beginning to raise to the rope.

Tears were running down your face stressfully as you climb back up again, your voice echoing loud. “No, no, no. Eddie don’t do that please baby just—“

You’re interrupted with your own oof as you fell down onto your backside, back rippling with pulses of aches and pains, but you stood as if nothing was the matter with you, staring at the cut bedsheets.

Dustin’s cries, though centimetres away from you, sounded like miles away as a wave of white noise overwhelms your senses. Looking upwards, you see Eddie, that fire of determination returning as he waits for your eyes to meet his.

“I’m gonna buy time for you guys.” He says solemnly, and you let go of a held back choked sob.

“But…But I love you, Eddie.”

He frowns as he watches, but you know his mind is made up. He’s gonna do this whether you went with him or not. “Hey, sweetheart. You know I’ve loved you ever since you first started giving me those lil’ study sessions. Look after the kid for me, okay?” Eddie says, voice cracking, and before you could respond and delay him from wandering off any longer,

He’s gone.

[strawbearisamu]

promises [summer collection: vol 3]

❀ timeskip! matsukawa issei x gn! reader | wc: 1.2k

summary: snapshots of the promises he made you, 8 years at a time from when you were 8 to 16 and finally a proposal at 24.

note: volumes are not connected this is a standalone story.

"hey! you can trust me," he smirked.

"oh yeah? do you remember the first promise you made?" you grinned.

❀ eight — accidents

in the sweltering heat of the sun, slippers warm from the heat, slapping against the tarmac in your little cul-de-sac, you chased him. the humidity of summer enveloping you, you wipe the sheen of sweat off your forehead, panting to catch your breath, "i give up, you win issei!"

he beamed in response, so obnoxious yet so pure, you couldn't help the little smile that graced your lips too.

"that means you have to try it! ride the bike side to side, it'll go faster!"

"side to side?" you asked, a little unsure of what he meant, getting on your little bicycle.

"yeah! it'll work, trust me," he boasted, "i saw it on tv!"

"promise?" you asked, fingers gripping a little tighter on the worn rubber handles of your bike.

"promise!" eight-year-old issei said in excitement before riding off ahead of you.

"side to side," you mumble under your breath, before pedaling up the slope, fast, your younger self blissfully ignorant of the burn in your calves and thighs, you steer your bike towards the left, then the right, then the left, and again and again. somehow convincing yourself that it was working, you gave him a thumbs-up as he looked back towards you, "catch up slowpoke!"

"i will!" you huffed at him, provoked, speeding up, as the gears of the bike started whirring louder, the wind whistling in your ear. you reach a hard corner and issei is still way ahead of you, one harsh turn tips the scales in the equilibrium of gravity as you crash and collide onto the ground.

"yn!" issei shouts, turning back and pedaling towards you.

you sniffled a little, rubbing the bloody gash on your knees, hands now a little grimy and stained from the tarmac, the rough road scraping your arms and knees, blood running along your elbows.

"you promised it would work!" you frown at him, as he leaned towards you, poking your bruise in curiosity, "OW!"

"i'm sorry y/n! they said it on tv!" he said panicked, scratching his head, before pushing you back to his house as you sat on his bike. his mom horrified at the wound, patching you up and forcing her son to apologise to you again.

"okay that's a little unfair, i was 8!" he crossed his arms.

"okay fine. ah! what about that one time!" your eyes lit up as you recalled the memory.

❀ sixteen — sneaking out

"issei," you squeezed his forearm, "we'll be fine right?"

"relax, i've done this before, we'll be fine." he assured, a playful glint in his eye. "i promise, don’t you trust me?" he inched down towards you as you nodded.

and so the both of you snuck past the napping guard, the small rusty back gate creaking as he gently pried it open, grabbing onto your wrist and dragging you along behind him, navigating the overgrown path.

giggling, you clutched onto your bags and each other as you ran, in the sports shoes you changed into just for this, in the humid summer heat, uniforms clinging onto the layer of sweat on your skin, palms sweaty against each others, a burning ache in your calves and thighs as you tried to keep up with him.

tapping your cards hastily, and hopping onto the first train. settling onto the seats of the semi-packed train. with the cool air of the air conditioning blowing in your face, and issei by your side, you still yourself in the moment, admiring him, his face, memorising the texture his curls, the slant in his lids, the curve of his lips, the scenery beyond the windows, imprinting it all in your mind, hoping you would never forget, only smiling when he raised a brow at you.

four stops later, you guys arrive at your destination. all the elaborate stealth just to eat at your favourite little ramen shop tucked away at the fourth stop. the both of you bursting into adrenaline-fuelled giggles as soon as you stepped onto the platform.

—

you slurped the last of your ramen, letting out a satisfying sigh. "we actually did it!" you grinned, proud. you and issei occupying two of the eight limited counter seats in the cramped little shop.

"we sure did," he smiled at you, resting a palm on your head before wiping away the layer of sweat on his forehead as you stared. "something on my face?" he teased, eyes finally meeting yours as your gazes lingered on one another, allowing yourselves the privilege to indulge. his deep-set eyes boring into yours with an emotion so raw and indescribable that even in the years you would spend apart, you would never forget them.

"aha! another broken promise, we were called into office the next day issei, and i distinctly remember you saying we would never get caught," you snickered.

"hey none of that matters now, only the promise i'll make you today," he defended, reaching across the candle-lit table for your hand.

❀ twenty-four — proposals

"yn," he reached into the pocket of his blazer with his free hand, pulling out a red, velvet box, popping it open to reveal a ring.

you let out a soft gasp, your bottom lip quivering slightly as you blink back the tears welling in your eyes.

"yn, i may have broken a lot of our promises, and i will admit i’ve been a bit of an asshole. but this time, i promise you, i will do everything in my power to be a damn near perfect partner for you, to make you the happiest spouse, to love you through thick and thin, through the good and the bad, through everything. as long as i’m with you.”

"issei…” a tear rolling down your cheek, “you promise?" you whispered.

"i promise." he nodded, thumb gently caressing your cheeks, wiping away the tear. the same grey eyes from 8 years ago boring into yours once again.

"that's what you said all those times too," you laugh.

"i guess you'll just have to trust me again, will you marry me?" he smiled.

"issei, i’ve never said no to all your dumb ideas, not when we were eight, not when we were sixteen," you paused, gaze falling to the ring in his hand then back at him as you soaked in the moment. the soft candle light illuminating his face, his eyes sparkling a little as they reflected the light, curls falling softly, the expectant look on his face as he fiddled the ring between his fingers.

"so are you marrying me or not?" he pouted a little in frustration.

"and i certainly am not saying no at twenty-four, yes, of course i'll marry you issei." the smile on his lips widen impossibly, impatiently sliding the ring onto your ring finger, as though he couldn't wait another moment longer.

"i can't believe you said yes, now you're stuck with me forever," a goofy smile playing on his lips, issei gets up, moving towards you, pulling your sitting form into a hug. "i love you so much," his leans his forehead against yours before guiding the back of your head into his chest, an arm wrapped around your shoulder.

"we still have to do a ceremony dumbass and you better not break your promise again," you warned, voice muffed into his top as he kissed the top of your head, "i won't babe."

sol’s comments ❀: wahaha self indulgence again :> that whole bicycle thing is based on a true story and im positive he meant sway side to side instead of steer side to side now that ive watched yowamushi pedal (aka now that im a pro cyclist). also me and my bff used to sneak out a lot during free sessions so the 2nd part was inspired by that hehe.

m.list ·˚ ༘ ꒱ | each and every reblop is appreciated ☻ (+ free hugs)

[beetsandskzreads]

silent bright summer night

bang chan x gn!reader, y/n works with skz and became their friend (the ultimate dream haha)

genre: tooth-rotening fluff, slight angst with a happy ending

notes/warnings: nothing intense, this is very fluffy, there's brief mentions of cheating, long distance, y/n's exes, fear of abandonment, slight insecurities, deep talks, reader and chan are slightly wine drunk, y/n and chan are whipped, y/n makes it explicit they want to date someone very warm and caring (aka chan), i don't think that's a warning tho djsjs just saying

scenario: on a balcony, at a beach apartment on a summer night of vacation, y/n opens up to chan about their past and current lovers. what y/n doesn't know is why chan is so interested listening to it.

It was 1:01 am when chan and I found ourselves in the balcony that overlooked the city and it's bright lights on a summer night. Skz had gone to sleep right after all of us came back from a night out of lots of fun, buying stuff on stores by the beach, having ice cream, seeing the view of the city lights reflecting on the sea water, appreciating street artists...

The two of us had been talking the whole evening, we hung out as a group but mostly just spoke to each other and laughed at the members jokes, both of us having a sparkle in our eye every time we saw the group happy. There was this unspoken pleasantness, a bliss, calmness in the air but with a lot of excitement. Chan was so happy to be around the sea with "the kids" as he refers to them and being at the beach almost 24/7 this week, it was like his natural habitat, his home, a comfort place. It left you feeling even softer for him, and as you shared your love for the sea, your feelings were at a peak. You liked Chan, and you loved this place as much as he did.

The night was so great, everyone was out like a lightweight as soon as we arrived to the vacation apartment we're in. Chan and I were testing the theory that a glass of wine would help us get drowsy and help us fall asleep as well, since we both have trouble falling asleep and felt nothing but a remaining excitement from the night out. It came to me especially because of the enthusiasm of talking to him, we were connecting so well, I didn't want this to ever end.

And so we drank (one glass quickly becoming the whole bottle) and we talked for what felt like hours on end, that neither of us wanted to cease.

- My ex best friend, she never quite knew how to choose guys, she always went for the ones that would never turn her way, the ones who obviously wouldn't care about her, not because of her, but because they were really careless guys, walking red flags. - I told him, I couldn't remember where exactly the conversation started but we were talking about nice people picking shitty people to date.

- What about you? - he asked

- Me? I barely even like guys, I mean I do, but I'm really picky actually, I don't allow myself to fall for cold people, I wouldn't forgive myself if I took interest in someone rude, I try so hard to take care of myself so I either stay alone that way or I find someone who makes me feel better, who knows how to take care of me, after all we chase happiness, I think a caring person could do that, someone gentle who isn't scared of emotions or who at least is open to face that fear with me by their side.

- I get it, it's hard to get by if you don't have emotional support, a partner should be able to provide that support, yeah. Did you ever... find someone like that?

- Yeah, in the past I did and even now I do know someone more than ideal... I guess my ex partners when I was young were going through a soft phase tho... I guess everyone has an emotional limit they were scared to cross... once I found that barrier the relationship stoped evolving, reached a dead end and so there was nothing left for me anymore and I left, plus, you know, cheating, long distance, a bunch of stuff really... it wasn't meant to be and I'm okay with that.

- What about that someone right now?

Silence ruled for about 3 seconds before I knew what to say. That someone right now is him. Ever since I've known him feels like he's the only man ever, but I don't think I'd tell him that, not soon anyways.

- What about 'em?

- What's that person like? What makes you trust they're any different from your exes?

- Sometimes I fear they're not, but I set the bar really high and I reset it constantly, to make sure I'm seeing it right, sometimes they seem so perfect to me that I wonder what good have i done in my past life to deserve to be around such a bright person. Of course they make mistakes too, but even the way they deal with them is so... mature, it's so easy to just solve things communicating, it's insane to me. Then I remember it's probably because they're eventually gonna leave me too, or just not reciprocate my feelings and after they break my heart I'll probably loose all hope in love, be heart broken for two years until I decide I'm gonna focus on myself again... it's a cycle after heartbreak, but with this person I'm really scared, because they mean more. I'm way too deep in before I've even expressed my feelings, it's gonna be devastating. - I'm rambling, the wine made me do it.

- What makes you think they wouldn't like you back tho?

- I'm not sure I just... it would be too good to be true and it's complicated... he's amazing and I'm just not sure if he'd be into me, I mean, I think I'm lovable and I think I'd be a great lover, I just don't know if I'm his type or if he'd consider me. We have a bit of an age gap, I'm not someone who's typically pretty or specially good looking, I have my charms but I have no idea if that's enough for him to be in love. It's complicated with each others work too... - I notice chan's gaze on me, he has his head leaned on his hand on the table and he's looking at me with bright eyes, eyes that look tired and a little drunk but somehow, he manages to look at me in a way that makes me feel adored, I don't know why you have to make me feel so much love, Bang Chan - Why are you looking at me like that?

- You have no idea how other people perceive you, do you? - he ignored your question, probably because of his drunk-ish drowsy state - Everyone I know likes you, see, you're a naturally kind and caring person, you're attentive to people's needs, you make sure everyone feels comfortable around you... that's so appreciated by everyone. I think you're exceptional y/n, you have this charismatic way of existing, a refreshing and comfy presence everyone can feel, but to me... it feels like home. You feel like home y/n. So... I have no idea who that person is but I sure as hell know they'd be more than lucky to have you as a partner and they're definitely dumb if they let you go.

- Are you dumb? - my heart's pounding quicker as I'm about to do something I didn't plan on doing ever.

- Huh? No, why w-

- Because that person is you... I like you, Chan. In a more-than-friends way - I interrupt him quickly before I lose my newly found courage.

Chan could've sworn his heart stopped for a few seconds. Suddenly sobriety hit him like a truck. It was the alcohol that made you say that, he thought, but he wished it was true and you didn't drink enough to be lying about this kind of stuff, you had a full on conversation and you seemed pretty sober.

- Y-y/n are you sober? - he tries to navigate through the situation.

- Oh my... yeah I am, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything, it just rolled out of my tongue. I'm sorry... - you said as you panicked and tried to go back inside, regret filling up all your organs.

"I messed up" your brain keeps repeating as desperation starts entering your body, until Chan grabbed your hand, stopping you from leaving.

- Wait! You don't need to apologize, I'm glad you told me... You didn't think I'd say all that about you if I didn't like you as well, did you? - he asks suggestively.

- I don't know - you blush as you realize what he's getting at - You're just so nice to everyone, I didn't make a big deal out of it.

- Well, you should've made it a big deal, the biggest deal actually because I've been trying really hard to show you how I feel these past few days and you were so clueless I thought you were purposefully ignoring the signs because you didn't like me back.

- I'm sorry Channie, I just didn't want to assume stuff and get heartbroken if it wasn't true.

-Well it is true, so you don't need to worry anymore. I really like you too, y/n. And I've wanted to say it for a while too, I was just wondering if it was a good idea since you work with us, but I can't contain my feelings anyways... you always treat me so softly and you look after the kids really well... It just feels like you were made to be by my side, you're the embodiment of the person I've always dreamed to be with, and these past few days with the kids and you... it just felt like we were the perfect family you know? I don't think I could be without you by my side anymore... - he stops, he's been staring at your eyes the whole time and now they're starting to water.

How could you not cry when he's saying the things you thought you'd only ever hear in dreams?

- Why are you crying sweetheart? - he whispered, as he wipes a tear with his thumb, the other hand holding your hand as he stands closer every second.

- It's just... I'm so... happy - you smile through your tears - I'm so happy to hear that, you said it in such a beautiful way too... I feel exactly the same, it's like I've gained a family with you guys but you... I've grown really attached to you, feels like some parts of you are tangled in my heart in ways I couldn't tear apart if I wanted to... I'm drawn to you and when I'm with you it's comfortable, blissful, it's right. You're so good to me, it's unbelievable, but it's true, and it warms my heart. - you say as your foreheads touch and your smile grows, his eyes showing so much adoration for you, you could melt.

Suddenly you share your first kiss together, a soft yet passionate mix of sensations, and it felt like everything you ever felt around Chan but better.

You stare into each other's eyes, smiling like the little lovely goofballs you both were, noses touching, ocasional little pecks filled with giggles because you were whipped for each other.

- So this means we're exclusive lovers now, yeah? - he asks with a blushing face, a very silent giggle and a huge, uncontrollable smile.

- Definitely, yeah - you answer biting your lip until eventually you let out the largest smile you ever had.

Needless to say, you didn't leave that balcony to go to sleep that evening. In fact, you two watched the sunrise kissing and cuddling, talking about the feelings you had for each other, when they started, why you liked each other, covered by a blanket, not wanting to let go of each other now that you were openly romantic.

Han found you both sound asleep, you on chan's lap, head on his neck as his arms wrapped around you gently, on a chair in the middle of the morning. He obviously called all the members to watch you two as they assumed you two finally got together. All of them saw it coming, Chan wouldn't shut up about you and had written what could be an entire album about you.

They were happy at least you'd be around more often to cook your delicious food. And you both blushed really hard once you woke up to lot's of teasing from the kids, it was fine tho, you liked it just like this, it was home.

[selfcontrol-idkher]

Glow stick

Pairing: alien!Namjoon x human! reader

word count: 6.2k

Genre: crack, a bit fluff, a sprinkle of angst.

a/n: BEHOLD. the first thing I finished after 2 years and google docs full of wips later. I tried something new, aka headcanons and not full angst, didn't work out that well but I'm still proud of myself and I really really hope you'll enjoy it.

link to the prompt || jikook smau

You are weirdly calm for a person who has just been kidnapped.

Yes, you heard it right. Kidnapped. You have no idea where you are or how you got here. The last thing you remember is walking home late at night with one thought on your mind.

What if every time you don’t study and you think you failed the test but you get a high grade is because your present self, sent a message to your past self, telling them to study and they did. Nailed the test and that's why you got a good grade.

It’s really not your fault you weren’t paying attention to the strange noises coming from above you, since that theory had been eating you alive for days.

Distracted by your thoughts, you didn’t have time to do anything when suddenly, there was a blinding light that made your eyes shut tightly and they didn’t open after that. Until now.

You wake up with a groan and a slight headache, gazing up at the white ceiling.

Am I dead?

Because if you are, hell has very comfortable beds, with the softest pillows and warm blankets. You look around with narrowed eyes, trying to take everything in. The room itself is big but the unreasonably huge furniture makes it seem much smaller. It’s furnished simply, resembling your college dorm and a hospital room at the same time. Demons must be huge and minimalistic. Also, you expected a lot less white but hey, who are you to judge a demon’s taste.

You groan again while sitting up. The bed is really soft, you don't want to get up. So what if you don’t know where you are? They have great quality beds and that alone speaks volumes. Of what? You don’t know but it must speak of something.

Even though you just woke up you can't even bring yourself to overthink and panic from how tired you are. And before the fact that you have been kidnapped and you’re sitting there admiring their bed, settles in, the door to your right (which you didn’t even know was a door) slides open and a frantic man hurries in.

Your eyes widen as you take the sight in front of you.

Whatever drug they gave you is strong because damn, you are not looking at a human right now.

The man in front of you is huge. Not only tall, probably more than 7 feet, but his shoulders are also fucking wide. He definitely works out. Now huge furniture makes sense but you’re too distracted by the man’s skin to even think about that. His skin has a light blue tint and it is glowing. No, you’re not exaggerating, it is literally glowing, like a glow stick.

But unlike a glow stick, he looks panicked, more than you do.

“Please, please, pleAse, down freak out. I'm not going to hurt you. I swear...You have no idea how many rules I'm breaking right now. You shouldn't even know I exist. I'm gonna get in so much trouble if they find out. Please don't freak out. I'm really not going to hurt you.”

His English is good but the weird accent that he has, tells you he definitely is not a native speaker or heard a lot of the language in his life. He tries not to move, slightly hunched and hands up in the air, afraid that he will scare you away. The way he’s shaking on the spot makes it seem as if you’re the one who kidnapped him.

His unnaturally big eyes are panicked, glossy, and look like they’re about to start fucking bawling any minute now.

He seems human enough even with his unusual appearance and that’s when you decide that you are not in danger, because this, obviously, is not reality.

A laugh escapes your lips and he flinches. You swiftly stand up ignoring the dizziness as your feet hit the ground and you feel somewhat lighter as you take a step in his direction making him back up.

“This is so cool!” you exclaim, giggling. “I never thought I could lucid dream, oh my god, is that a door?” you practically yell, darting towards the weirdly shaped metal. “Yes, yes, please, I so wanna astral project.”

Before you can reach out and open, the glow stick jumps in front of you, trying not to touch you. He politely asks you to back away. Explaining with a little stutter that you’re not dreaming. You stare at him for a little while, your brain needing time to catch up with everything that’s going on.

Eventually, you do back away after he starts uncomfortably squirming under your gaze. Your excitement quickly dies as you sit back down on the bed again. You count your fingers. Well, there are definitely ten of them. It’s not blurred, you can clearly see them.

You sigh. What a disappointment.

But if it’s not a dream, then….

“I have finally lost it. I can’t believe this. I mean I knew it would eventually happen but I thought I had like a good 3 or 4 years at least.” The glow stick in front of you looks concerned for your sanity as you nod somehow content from your theory. “Do you think I have corona and I'm hallucinating? Wow, this is still great.”

“It is?”

“Fuck yeah. I'm not afraid of my subconscious. She’s my bitch not the other way around.” you roll your eyes, hands crossing in front of your chest as you stare at the strange man. He looks troubled the least to say. And then the sudden realization that if this is you hallucinating, you are definitely your subconscious bitch, dawns on you and you hate that idea more than anything. You point a finger at the man in front of you as your eyebrows knit together. “That was a joke okay? Don’t torture me.”

The moment the last sentence fully registers in his head, he loses it. Having a full-blown breakdown, while grabbing his silver hair and pacing back and forth. Half the things he’s saying, you don’t understand since his language is something you haven’t ever heard in your life. However, you do catch some English words.

“I shouldn’t have done this... What if you go crazy from this…. This was a bad decision no, no, no…. You already think this is not real...how are you supposed to help me... I'm screwed.. no, no, no...”

He ends up crouched on the floor, breathing heavily and a step away from crying. You feel bad. Subconscious or not, you know how horrible panic attacks are and the glow stick here is definitely suffering from it.

You slowly stand up, make your way towards him and lower yourself to the floor. You don’t touch him in case he doesn’t like it and just simply try to help by talking.

“Um, hey there buddy. Can you look at me? Breath with me okay? In and out, in and out, there you go. Good. you’re doing good.”

You help him breathe and calm down. Trying to ease his panicked mind. It works and after a lot of deep breaths, he stops shaking. You praise him and he looks away shyly.

Well, my anxiety looks cute.

He coughs, avoiding eye contact and his face pales a little as he whispers “I’m not your anxiety”

You smile at his odd way of getting flustered.

“You know, I would be embarrassed but the fact that you just read my mind proves my point.”

He groans before looking at you with pleading eyes.

“Please, believe me, this is real.” he starts whining but suddenly his face relaxes. “Wait no, yes you’re right, this is your imagination. Yes, definitely, you’ll wake up soon.”

You narrow your eyes at him. There’s no way...no way right?

The glow stick gives you a nervous smile and you lean back, eyebrows shooting up “Shit this is real. No...What…no…no.”

“Are you joking? I said it’s fake,” he says exasperated. Good to know he has more emotions than fear.

You shrug your shoulders and tell him how your mind would never tell you the truth and he quickly tries to cover it up.

“Or it would...because it knew... you wouldn’t believe it.”

“That's also definitely possible,” you say seriously but for now you still think it’s real. After all, talking to an actual alien rather than your imagination is way more exciting.

Glow stick assures you that he isn’t going to keep you here forever, although you doubt he would after you gave him a mental breakdown. He tried to explain why you're here but you were too busy being distracted by his looks.

Now that you somewhat believe that this isn't high yn dreaming of a hot alien, he looks more magical and beautiful in your eyes. He even has a tail. A fucking tail and you absolutely love it. He tries to make you stop talking and yet, still enjoys the way your eyes lit up at every strange detail of his body.

“Yes, silver hair is natural. But please we don't have a lot of time. I really need help.”

He pleads and you finally finish checking him out (for now) and wait for him to start talking. He gets flustered now that he has your full attention and takes a minute to compose himself before he starts explaining his situation.

“Um.. well the reason I took you... Kidnapped you...is that... I have this big test coming up and I forgot to study. I really need help because if I fail this exam I’ll get held back a year and I really can’t do that. The subject is human studies, so I thought who’s better at teaching me than a human, so...please help.”

Your deadpan expression makes him fidget nervously. For a glow stick, his mannerism is very much like humans.

“My dude..”

“Namjoon..”

“Namjoon… oh that's a nice name.” if he was human he would blush but he goes pale, looking away.

“Be honest.” he quickly nods. “Am I high?”

At your words, Namjoon lets out an actual whimper, and this time you're sure he’ll start crying. “I should have just studied…”

Before he can go into another breakdown, you tell him you will help him, high or not. And that calms him down surprisingly quickly.

Namjoon leads you to the bed and he pulls out a device, a tablet to be more specific, but you soon realize it’s a lot more advanced when a literal hologram spills out from it. The hologram looks like the notes you keep on your laptop for your classes, but, once again you don’t recognize the language. You try to touch it and unsurprisingly the hologram slips through your fingers.

You ask Namjoon what he exactly needs help in and when he says it’s about the 21st century, mostly about slang and social media, you actually sigh in relief, because god knows you have no idea what's going on in politics, not to mention history.

You don’t voice your thoughts but Namjoon reassures you that you won’t have to worry about them because he already wrote exams on those topics the previous week.

Studying goes smoothly and you wonder who would be so stressed about exams on social media. That’s the easiest topic ever, but then you remember that Glow stick is from a completely different planet and everything you do is new to him.

It is endearing how concentrated he is and how he writes down everything you say word by word. His eyes sparkle with excitement when you explain how the music industry works and what impact it has on others and he tells you how smart you are.

It’s funny since you never thought being a social media addict and a simp for celebrities would ever pay off but here you are, in fucking space, with an actual alien looking at you like you hold the secrets of the universe.

Sparkle in his eyes quickly dies down, and enthusiasm turns into concern when you explain to him how racism still exists in the 21st century and how social media is so fucking toxic for literally everybody. Somehow he grasped that better than the whole dilf/milf situation.

The disgust on his face when he asked you why somebody would want to fuck their dad actually makes you laugh. You spend a good amount of time trying to make him understand it's a compliment in its own way. He pales when you tell him in the future he would be a total dilf material.

Time passes quickly and you don’t feel it until your stomach growls. He brings you your bag so you can eat whatever you brought on your way home. At this point, you have actually finished answering all his questions and even quizzed him a bit.

So now that he has fully calmed down and isn’t crying every 2 minutes, he looks a lot cuter.

“I swear I'm not normally like this. It's just a stressful few weeks and I really need to pass this exam. Plus I kidnapped a human.”

You reassure him that it’s alright. You do the same when the finals week is coming up and you’re glad you could help him out.

When you pull out snacks from your bag he looks at them with so much interest and curiosity that you can’t help but giggle and ask him if he wants some. He refuses for the same reason he didn’t offer you his food. He’s afraid it will cause an allergic reaction and one of you'll die on the spot.

You nod. That thought hadn't even crossed your mind and knowing your reckless ass it probably would've never. That’s when you realize that Namjoon is smart, very smart. He passed exams on human politics and history with the highest grade when even you wouldn’t be able to do that and it’s about your planet. Somehow that makes him more attractive.

A little thanks he mutters your way is cute but it makes your brows furrow.

If this is real, how the fuck can he read your mind. So you ask him and he tells you not to freak out.

“I think we have established that the only person freaking out here is you,” you say laughing and he smiles as well.

Namjoon explains how he put a little microchip in you. Just in case you thought of escaping once you woke up, that way he would know where you were. He also adds that he knows how humans feel about chips and he will take it out once you’re ready to go back.

You’re more nervous that he can hear your thoughts than the fact that he put a tracker in you. Your head is not a pretty place and you’re desperately trying not to think about anything inappropriate.

Reverse psychology is a bitch.

You end up thinking about if he has a dick and if yes is it as big as the rest of him. The worst thing is that your thoughts don’t stop there and you see the color draining from his face as he fixes you with a wide-eyed look.

“YN”

”I’m sorry, I can’t help it”

…

“Please stop.”

“I'm trying, okay?!” you yell at him, hands going up to cover your face. Now you’re definitely embarrassed.

When you start eating he asks if he can ask you some questions outside the exam and you agree on the condition that you can do the same.

And that's how you find out that Namjoon wants to be a scientist. More importantly, studying humans. His kind has found out about earth a long time ago and has watched you grow into the chaotic mess that you are right now but have never tried to actually communicate with you.

You’re disappointed when you find out that they haven’t even stepped foot on earth, not to mention had anything to do with pyramids. Old people and their fucking genius brains.

You also ask him about others. There is a whole population of his kind but he can’t tell you a lot about them. He does mention that the reason his skin is that color is that his blood is actually white and his organs are built just a bit differently from humans. The height is also normal. He is considered tall but not a giant.

While you eat he asks you how different things taste and how it makes you feel or affects your body. You try to explain as well as you can and he once again writes down every single word, sometimes asking you the definitions of words you use. You ask a few more questions, but he says he can’t answer them so you just pout, a bit annoyed.

After you've finished eating he offers to return you home, clearly wanting you to stay, and honestly so do you. You have lost the sense of time, having no idea how long it has been.

“Four hours?! Are you joking?”

“Yes, but for you, that's two. We slowed down the time so we could monitor the earth better and not miss anything.”

So time is really an illusion. That’s nice to know.

You can’t lie and say you aren’t happy that you can spend more time with Namjoon. Even if it means he won’t feed your curiosity. You wonder why you’re not that enthusiastic about meeting a fucking alien and being in space. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you still don’t 100% believe this is real but still, you should be excited, blown away, asking millions of questions, and not sitting there as if you’re tutoring a fellow student. You should be over the moon.

Turns out you are over the moon. Literally.

Namjoon tells you how they stay far away, so humans won't be able to spot them. From where they stand (more like levitate) they can perfectly see your entire solar system.

He also mentions how not everyone’s able to come to the spaceship. He, himself, worked his ass off to get here and if they find out you’re here they will cut him from the program. You assure him not to worry, that you’ll be on your best behavior.

“Wait, am I the first person from humans to interact with you?”

Namjoon nods and your face stretches into a grin. If everything in your life goes wrong, you at least achieved something by looking kidnap-abel. Although no one will believe you are the first person to have ever made contact with aliens, that knowledge is enough for you.

You fall into a comfortable silence as your mind races with a million questions. Now, this is the reaction you should have had hours ago.

You wonder what their planet looks like. Is it more damaged than yours? Better? Worse? Are people rude? (but you doubt that since Glows stick here is fucking adorable) what do their food taste like? When you eye Namjoon again you wonder if his skin is as smooth as it looks. Probably a bit cold as well.

You don’t want to ask if you can touch him since your nerves are finally acting up but luckily for you, you don’t have to. He already knows what you’re thinking, thanks to the little device under your skin.

He goes a little pale as he clears his throat. He already had the privilege to touch your skin when you were unconscious. Now he realizes how creepy it must have looked but he couldn’t help it, he was in the presence of a human for the first time. How could he have passed up the opportunity to poke your cheek? Thus it’s only fair for you to touch him too.

Namjoon extends his hand towards you, not meeting your gaze. You look at it confused for a second until you remember that he can hear your thoughts. A little oh leaves your lips and your face gets hot.

You slowly reach out and gingerly graze your fingers over his wrist. He flinches and you quickly drawback, startled.

“Sorry, it just tickled... Am I using that word right?”

A huge smile makes its way up to your face as you nod and touch his hand more firmly. He’s warmer than you expected, smooth, and nice to touch. You poke him and he chuckles and still, you don’t hear him, too lost in the moment. His skin is a lot softer than humans but still firm, glowing against yours.

You take his hand in yours, shaking it softly. You don't see the fond expression on his face and he's grateful for that. He already broke so many laws, he really doesn’t need forbidden romance to add to his stress.

You hold his hand for a while until you realize what you’re doing and you softly let go, flustered. You’re afraid you have made him uncomfortable but when you look up at Namjoon, he has a soft smile dancing on his lips. And oh your god, he has dimples. Pretty light blue dimples that you want to poke. Instead, you smile back, since you think poking might be a bit too much.

It’s hard to fully process everything that’s happening to you right now, still, your mind is at peace, unsurprisingly. You’ve always been a person to do something and overthink it later. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to take advantage of this situation.

“Namjoon?”

“Yes?”

“Is there a window I can look out from?”

Namjoon not so quietly sneaks you out from his dorm. You stifle your laugh when he manages to bump into a wall and crash into a metal drawer at the same time. He’s a little bit ahead of you, checking to see if the area is clear, and then signals you to follow him.

After a third nervous glance in your direction, you sigh and reassure him you’re not going to try to escape, because where can you go? nowhere. You don’t say the words out loud but the way his posture relaxes a bit, tells you he got the message.

Everything is going well. Namjoon’s leading the way through grey, empty halls as you try to keep up with his long strides. He’s taking you to a place that according to him has the best view.

You’ve got to admit, you were surprised when he agreed to show you space. But you did threaten him with a tantrum (which would have been just a pout and a huff but he doesn’t need to know that).

Namjoon gives you another signal to follow but when you go near him, a long hand reaches out, giving you a soft but strong push towards the hall next to you. You crouch down, realizing why he shoved you when you hear someone stopping in front of Namjoon.

They start talking and Glow stick is surprisingly calm. Unlike you, who is holding your breath. You really don’t want to be caught and experimented or worse get Namjoon in trouble. Their language blows your mind once again and you slowly shuffle forward wanting to get a glimpse of the other man who has a deep ass fucking voice.

Namjoon had positioned the man, actually a boy, in a way that he can’t see you but you can. Not fully but enough to think that he's cute. The other glow stick is also tall, not nearly as tall as Namjoon but close enough.

Namjoon says something to make the younger laugh and his boxy smile makes your heart melt a little.

Adorable

There’s a glare sent your way so you offer the silver-haired man a sly smirk and

Don't get puffy. You’re the cutest, Joonie.

He does pale at the nickname and maybe your face goes up in flames as well, but he doesn’t have to know that as well.

He sends the younger boy towards the way he came from and lingers in halfway awkwardly until sending you a signal to follow. He quickly rushes you into a room after he manages to open its door with shaky hands. You can’t blame him. His entire future and career are on the line here. Man has the right to panic.

He locks the door with a click and you turn around. The sight in front of you takes your breath away.

The entire room is made out of glass. Making you feel like you’re floating in space. The almost bare walls, letting you see the space wherever you look. It’s beautiful, captivating, unlike anything you have ever seen and it makes your head spin.

You slowly lower yourself on the floor and stare at the little shiny lights that seem to be winking at you. You look in front of you and try to find earth. She’s there, tiny next to Jupiter and even tinier next to a round ball of fire.

You look up and you’re met with purple stars, shining brighter than the ones you see from earth. It’s mesmerizing and you don't even realize a tear has slipped out of your eye until a concerned Namjoon lowers himself next to you and hesitantly puts his hand on your back.

You look up at him with a small smile and wipe your cheeks. Even on his knees he easily towers over you. You want to hug him but that might make him uncomfortable and you’re not about to risk ruining this beautiful moment.

Your gaze falls back to the Earth. It looks pocket size and you frown remembering what humans have done to it. How they continue to ruin their own home. Just because they don’t realize the Earth is their home, their mother.

Brows furrowing, you scold yourself. You’re in a fucking space, looking out at the most beautiful sights in your life. There’s a literal alien next to you and you’re sitting on the floor thinking about how cruel humans are. The fact that he can hear your thoughts doesn’t help your conscience. God, he must think you’re ridiculous.

You don’t know if it’s drugs still running through your veins or the wall-less room, but you feel nauseous suddenly.

There’s a little huff next to you and the arm on your shoulder makes its way to the other side. Namjoon’s hand gingerly wraps itself around your back and tugs you towards him. Your body rests on his side while he softly rubs your forearms.

“You’re not ridiculous.”

You offer him a smile and he returns it, there’s his dimples again. Beautiful, pokable dimples.

Maybe him being able to read your mind isn’t that bad at all. Although you probably should control your thoughts. His laugh shakes your body.

“Yeah you definitely should”

Your smile turns into a grin and your focus returns to the stars. This is nice. It's more than nice. This is the best thing you have ever experienced.

Before this, the best thing was when Jungkook accidentally sent very explicit, 102k long, stony fanfiction to his project partner who actually read it and gave him feedback on it. Which went more like “dude, are you a virgin?” and then proceeded to give him tips on his smut since apparently, he wasn’t impressed. - and this definitely beats that.

Your memory makes Namjoon laugh and you join, chuckling with him as he throws his head back, shaking your body with the force of his laugh.

You don’t know how long you sit there, Namjoon holding you while you enjoy the beautiful sight in front of you, occasionally giggling at the way your mind works, as the weirdest things pop in your (and his) head.

And yet, somehow you know it’s time to go back home. You don’t want to leave, You don’t want this to end. You want to stay but it’s not an option and you both know that.

Namjoon tightens his hold around you, giving you a reassuring squeeze until letting you go completely. You both stand up quietly, not uttering a word, and make your way back to his room. The silence would have been comfortable if not for the heart-wrenching sadness that comes along with it.

You try to remind yourself that you can’t dwell on something that might not even be real. This could all be a dream for all you know. Yes, a dream and nothing else.

“Namjoon.”

You call out for him when he asks you to lay down on the bed. Getting you ready to go back. Having spent a good 20 minutes writing on everything you owned “Namjoon, glow stick, it was real.” there’s nothing much you can do to stretch out saying goodbye.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you kidnapped me. And um.. If you ever need help in human studies, feel free to do the same."

Well, that sounded more Stockholm syndrome-y than you wanted.

He smiles. Dimples are nice, everyone should have them.

“I’m glad as well.” Your glow stick is nice. Very nice. “And yn?”

“Hm?”

“Can you stop calling me a glow stick?”

You laugh before a familiar light reaches your eyes and you lose consciousness.

✦✦✦

“Ugh”

There's a groan. Your groan, groggy, ripped out of your dry throat. It sounds unfamiliar, far away and you wouldn’t know it was yours if not for the vibration from your chest.

You slightly open your eyes but the bright light makes you shut it again. Beeping from your left matches the pounding in your head and makes you want to shut whatever that is making that horrible noise, off, but the lack of energy in your body makes everything sound impossible right now.

The fog lays thick on your mind, mouth dry and hands turned to jelly, all you can do is groan again.

What the fuck happened to you.

The last thing you remember is going home from the store when you suddenly passed out.

Fear works as adrenaline, fear of not knowing what happened, where you are, or how you got here. You can feel the cheap blanket over your body and the uncomfortably hard bed beneath you. It feels nothing like the soft cloud you were laying on hours ago.

Soft pillows and warm blankets.

Where were you a few hours ago?

Memories are trying to resurface, but you can’t quite reach them. Like a dream slipping away when you wake up. But unlike a dream, this feels important. Everything in you tells you to remember.

Remember.

Your breath quickens and the beeping follows suit. You try opening your eyes again and you succeed, only for them to close a second after. You feel your throat tighten and you try to take a few deep breaths.

This is not a place to panic, to cry. You need to see where you are. You need to open your eyes. You need to remember.

You focus on your eyes, trying to pry them open. They feel unnaturally heavy and you fail again and again. But you’re stubborn. Numerous people have called you a mule and for what? For you to not be able to open your eyes now? You once told a thief pointing a knife at you-

“what are you gonna do? Stab me?”

So damn everything if you don’t open your eyes right now. If you don’t look around and see where the hell you are.

You struggle. Concentrating on your sight, you forget you have other scenes. You don’t feel a doctor touching your shoulder or hear the way they are calling your name. You just need to open your eyes. A little more, just a tug, small and you’ll be able to see.

See a glow stick.

Your eyes shot open. There’s a face in front of you, shouting at you. Your eyes slide shut. You frown. No one screams at you. You’re a mule. No one dares to scream at you.

You open your mouth to shout back but nothing comes out. There is a scream somewhere far away though. They are screaming at you.

How dare they.

You take a deep breath to scream back.

They scream.

You’re not letting up. You’re a mule.

You scream.

They scream.

So you scream harder.

Their scream grows louder.

And you’re about to rain hellfire on them, taking a breath so deep that it burns your lungs and makes you even more lightheaded when something clicks.

Their voice sounds awfully familiar. Too familiar. You don’t even realize you're holding your breath until there's a hand on your chest, pushing down. The breath leaves your mouth and your heart beats in your ears, yet, your hazy mind only zeros in on one thing:

Their voice sounds too familiar.

You open your mouth, shouting lightly. And there it is again, a heartbeat later, same tone, same length, the same person.

Have you been screaming at yourself this whole time?

Shit, have you been screaming for no reason the entire time?

Why did you even start screaming? Why?

Your mind supplies you with a memory, the memory you don't need as much as the other.

Ah yes, the man shouting at you, that's why you started screaming. But now that you think about it, he looked scared. Oh god, poor dude. He had to see you screaming at yourself because your brain is practically useless, not realizing you startled him. He was also pretty.

“Um… miss y/l/n you’re talking out loud.”

You’re doing what?!

Yes because screaming at yourself wasn’t embarrassing enough.

“You’re still doing it.”

You groan, wanting nothing more than to die on the spot or roll over and bury your face in the pillows but you can’t do either.

This is mortifying, maybe you should play dead. They’ll leave you alone then.

“This is a hospital, we’ll know if you’re playing dead.”

Ma'am, this is McDonald's.

“No miss y/l/n, this is a hospital.”

Okay, they didn’t get the joke. God this is so humiliating, quick act dead.

“Miss y/l/n”

Playing dead won’t do it. What was that article about giving yourself a heart attack if you think hard enough?

“Okay, miss y/l/n we’re gonna give you some Midazolam now. We’ll see you when you wake up”

✦✦✦

The second time you wake up is less...humiliating.

The pretty doctor that had to witness your dumbass screaming and talking to yourself out loud is a lot nicer than you expected. He gave you a small smile and reassured you that he has seen worse things. He even tells you a few dad jokes to make you laugh and you try, you really do but the feeling that something important has slipped from your brain makes sadness settle over your lungs, not quite suffocating you but still present. So you just offer Dr.Kim a smile.

The information you receive does calm you down just a tiny bit. They found you on the streets with unfamiliar drugs in your system but there aren't any physical indicators of any sort of abuse and your valuables were still with you. “Do you know what happened?”

Do you? Because there’s a blurred scene when you think hard enough. Soft bed, light blue dimples, and twinkling stars.

You shake your head.

Dr.Kim sighs, telling you to rest before the police come in and ask you questions.

You nod and lay down, closing your eyes.

Crying sounds really nice right now. Ugly, pathetic, whipping. With a hug. Where is Jungkook and his big cuddly body when you need him? Probably with Jimin, fighting over a fanfiction. You smile at the memory of Jungkook's hysterical phone call at 8 am after he finished reading the feedback. You smile but suddenly sadness hits you harder. Somehow that’s not the best memory you hold anymore.

Now you’re definitely going to cry. You’re really making a full of yourself today. You’re Ridiculous.

You’re not ridiculous

You bolt upright.

You’re not ridiculous

A light blue dimples. Soft, glowing skin. A tail.

You’re not ridiculous

Soft pillows. Warm blankets. Grey walls. Boxy smile. Twinkling stars. A hand on your shoulder.

You’re yelling again.

“Doctor Kim? Doctor Kim? Kim Seokjin.”

The tall, handsome man appears quickly, worried but calms down when he sees you smiling. You ask him to bring your belongings and rush him outside when he asks you what's going on.

There’s a bag in your hand after a minute.

Please, please, please.

You chant in your head, maybe even aloud as you go through your stuff. You grab your notebook and flip through your pages.

Please, please, please.

A sigh of relief leaves your lips, followed by a giggle when you lie back on your pillow.

Namjoon, glow stick, it was real.

Seokjin nonchalantly looks at your notebook and hums quietly.

“If that makes you that happy, you should definitely look at your arm.”

He says as he leaves your room. You look down confused. There’s a square drawn on your forearm, with an arrow pointing at it, followed by the horrible scribble, that makes your face light up more.

Namjoon. Your glow stick. I’m real.

Your fingers graze over the square. There’s a subtle bump there. Practically nonexistent. And before you have time to come up with an explanation. The familiar, calming voice that you’ll grow to love more than you do right now, rings in your head.

Please don’t freak out.

Your laughter makes others think you’re still high on whatever that is running through your system, but it makes a certain, tall, handsome, black-haired doctor smile knowingly, that an octillion kilometers away, an alien is trying to explain, how his dumbass “forgot” to take the microchip out.

Thanks for reading ✧

Jikook smau about that situation!

[itsclydebitches]

I’ve been seeing an uptick in “anti-RWDE” posts lately  — which is a phenomenon I’d like to comment on at a later date  — but for now one of them (quite unintentionally) made me realize something about the finale that I haven’t seen others discuss yet. 

So RWBYJNOR saves everyone, right? Let’s just put aside the animation for a moment  — which didn’t show any army members making it out  — as well as the forgotten side characters  — Maria, Pietro, Qrow’s group isn’t forgotten, but still left behind  — and take things on good faith here. We’ll read the finale through the thematic intention: RWBYJNOR saved “everyone” in the Kingdom of Atlas in Volume 8, deliberately contrasting them with Ironwood who was willing to sacrifice a chunk of the Kingdom in Volume 7. Forget all the messiness and just accept that regardless of the consequences  — like a destroyed Kingdom and a “dead” team  — the heroes are heroic because they didn’t give into a “lesser evil” thinking and managed to save everyone. 

Now, how was that possible? 

Let’s go back to the beginning of the seventh episode of Volume 8, “War.” Salem’s grimm have just burrowed through Atlas’ defenses and taken them out. The shields are gone. She flies Monstra into the fields and releases an army of darkness that immediately heads for the city. What’s the very first thing Ironwood does? 

Soldier: Yes, sir?

Ironwood: I am evacuating all citizens to the subway. Prepare Manta Squad Omega, and dispatch to every part of Atlas.

Soldier: But sir-

Ironwood: Now!

He evacuates the people, with “the people” meaning all the Atlesians and however many Mantle folk got to the city prior to Salem’s arrival. When this episode aired I mentioned being confused as to why the soldier was so hesitant. Why wouldn’t you want the people to get to safety when a grimm army is heading their way? Fans against Ironwood took the soldier’s side, claiming that Mountain Glenn proved that any underground evacuation is a death sentence and thus he obviously doesn’t really care about the peoples’ safety. Fans in support of/neutral towards Ironwood pointed out that this is a pretty big leap, no one is coming up with a better idea for what he should do instead, and that within these circumstances it reads like the soldiers is illogically against this idea simply because everyone is against Ironwood now. The show wants characters criticizing his decisions and making him out to look like a crazed dictator... even during moments when it doesn’t make any sense to be upset with him. Shooting the councilman yes, trying to keep the people safe no. Basically, this small exchange was a mess, but the rest of the volume proved that this was a sound call. The subway never collapsed and no grimm ever made it to that enclosed space to pick the civilians off like fish in an underground barrel. 

So, why didn’t that happen? Well, one answer is because Oscar and Ozpin destroyed the whale. But how did they have time to do that? Without the people dying while they were being tortured, talking to Hazel, escaping with Emerald, fighting Salem, etc.? A lot happened between Salem starting her attack and Oscar ending it, so why wasn’t 2/3rds of the Kingdom’s population decimated during that time? 

Because Ironwood sent his army out to keep the grimm occupied. 

Outside of Ironwood’s cartoon villain actions  — random murders and bomb threats  — which get the most attention due to how deliberately, over-the-top horrific they are, these are the two actions that get the most negative attention from both the story and the fanbase. The soldier seems horrified by the order to evacuate. Marrow is devastated that young adults are fighting in this battle. The fandom is disgusted by both aspects of Ironwood’s character: giving orders that, as general, he expects to be obeyed and having an army that follows those orders. Putting side that cartoon villainy, this is what supposedly makes Ironwood the antagonist here. These are the qualities that have existed since Volume 2, resulting in a “he was always a bad guy” interpretation. These are the qualities that have resulted in anyone who likes his character being labeled as a “bootlicker.” We know these qualities make the fandom hate him because otherwise, more people would be confused as to why a presumably heroic character randomly shot Oscar. Orders, armies, and general military associations are at the heart of Ironwood’s presumed villainy. 

So let’s remove them. 

Ironwood has no evil army. Ironwood gives no evil orders. Power and control lies solely in the hands of our non-military heroes. Everything is better! 

...well, no. Because we saw in Volume 8 precisely the choices our heroes made when the attack started: half of them focused on saving a single individual (Oscar) and the other half kept to the sidelines. At no point did our RWB group act after sending the message and prior to securing the Staff. AKA, during the attack of Salem’s army. We got a very explicit moment in which Ruby looked out the window at the battle going on and turned away from it, continuing to discuss ethics instead of joining the fight. The people of Atlas (which, again, includes many Mantle citizens) had no one but Ironwood and his army because a third of the group was trying to rescue Oscar (they never even had a plan to blow up Monstra — that was also Ironwood), a third of the group was up in Amity, and a third was sitting in the mansion. They did nothing to help the people of Atlas being attacked by grimm. 

Thus, if you remove Ironwood’s actions, everything goes to hell. There is no longer an order to evacuate to the subway. Maybe some people go there anyway. Most probably don’t. They run in a panic wherever they can. Hide wherever they can. Go back home for some semblance of safety. 

There’s no longer an army. Either it doesn’t exist because we’ve determined it’s simplistically bad despite RWBY’s grimm-specific context, or Ironwood likewise never gives the order to protect Atlas’ border. Salem’s army moves unimpeded through the city, killing countless people as it goes. How do we know? Because they’re civilians who can’t defend themselves and there’s literally no one else to help. Remember: Ironwood is not giving orders, there is no army, RWB is in the mansion, YJOR is in the whale, Penny is out of commission, the Happy Huntresses are in Mantle. Those in Atlas are entirely alone. In time, Oscar destroys the whale, but by then it’s too late. There’s no concrete way to theorize how many have died, but it’s inevitably a lot. Everyone else is scatted across the city, trying to survive. 

So this scene 

no longer exists. 

When the group gets the Staff and creates portals for “everyone” to escape through, Mantle is ready to go. They’ve gotten everyone into the crater and can funnel them straight to Vacuo. Atlas, however, is in chaos. When Jaune enters the subway there’s only a few people there, many of which may be wounded or dying. He’s right back where he started, in Mantle at the beginning of Volume 8: needing to go door-to-door to find where people have hidden themselves, trying to convince them all to follow him (remember Oscar commenting to Ozpin about how difficult that was?). Except now, he and Nora are the only ones trying to get people to safey, the city is filled with far more grimm, a significant amount of time has passed for people to be killed or injured (making evacuating them even harder, both due to injuries and an unwillingness to leave hurt/dead/missing loved ones behind), he’s trying to convince these panicking people to go through magic portals, not just walk to a crater, and he’s aware that there’s a very short time limit for this task. 

Jaune returns in a panic of his own, explaining how difficult it will be to get that 2/3rds of the Kingdom to Vacuo. How many are already dead. Barricaded. Missing. Closeup on Ruby looking horrified, but then she rallies. They can do it. Atlas is falling, but residual dust gives them just enough time to find, calm, and evacuate those people. They’re heroes after all. Beating the odds is what they do. 

Then Cinder attacks. 

Suddenly, the group can’t evacuate people because they’re trying to keep themselves safe from her. Maybe Cinder gets the powers because Jaune was off looking for civilians, leaving Penny without a mercy kill. Maybe Nora dies because she’s still trying to help people on the city that plows into the one below. Regardless of how details might change, they’re not getting a spread out, decimated population through those portals before Cinder changes the wish and makes them disappear.  

In this version, the story starts with Ironwood wanting to sacrifice 1/3rd of the population to save 2/3rds and the future of the war. It ends with 2/3rds of the population dying instead. 

This is what I mean when I say the majority of the fandom wants to view a very complex situation through a ridiculously simple lens. The fandom wants to denounce every bit of RWBY’s fictionalized military, the context issues of that aside. The story wants to paint RWBYJNOR as the only heroes, in part because they succeeded in saving everyone (“everyone”) in the Kingdom when Ironwood gave up. 

But they only managed to save everyone because of Ironwood. Because he kept fighting for his people to the bitter end. This is why, though his horrific actions obviously exist in the story, they make no sense (he’ll threaten to kill his people so he can... save his people?) and mess up what little is working in the finale. The story wants us to celebrate the group for evacuating Mantle and Atlas, but the Atlas evacuation would not have happened if not for Ironwood’s actions  — the actions that are ignored in favor of having Winter blame him for everything and then killing him off. The rescue of “everyone” was very much a joint effort. RWBYJNOR’s win is not actually a contrast to Ironwood’s intended sacrifice, for the simple reason that their win depended entirely on Ironwood’s actions. 

If we’re going to celebrate the group getting everyone to safety, we should probably also celebrate the guy who got them all to an easy evacuation point and ensured they weren’t eaten before then. Does that mean Ironwood never did anything wrong? Of course not. As established, the story went out of its way to make him into a villain. Rather, it means that other parts of the story failed to maintain that black and white view, complicating the heroism of RWBYJNOR in the process. If we want Ironwood to be incapable of heroic action, always the bad guy, nothing good to say about him whatsoever... then we likewise need to accept that the group is rather unheroic in many regards too. That, on their own, they would have failed to save everyone, just as Ironwood’s plan failed to save everyone at the end of Volume 7. Because they chose their friend over a kingdom. Because they sat around in a mansion. Because by the time they took action again and tried to escape, without Ironwood’s help they would have lost a larger majority than they originally insisted be saved. 

[another-fantasy-world]

The Idol’s Inspiration

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Title: The Idol’s Inspiration

Pairing: Valkyrae || Rachell x Fem! Reader

Summary: In which the international singer find’s her inspiration in a certain brown eyed-often screaming- streamer

Warnings: None? Fluff. Awkward Crushing. Top Rae? (Oh Gosh)

Word Count: 2,905 Words

@short-kid27​ helped me with this one. Go check her out she’s actually great

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-

You scoffed when you saw what your bandmate tweeted out, tweeting as if he wasn’t using his phone either. Deciding to throw something at him, you spot a plastic perfume bottle, reaching out for it, only for Luna, your other bandmate to slap your hands of her perfume bottle.

“Don’t you dare.” She playfully glares before turning back to her original position, with her hair stylist tending to her long reddish-brown hair.

“Sebastian, you are so lucky you’re on the other side of the room right now or I swear to God, you would have a concussion.” You frowned, before turning back to your phone, further proving Sebastian’s point.

“See?! What are you even doing?” He loudly asks, you barely hearing him from the noise of blowdryers.

“Writing.” You answered, annoyed. It wasn’t a lie tho, You were now writing a new song, since your management once again are rushing you to write at least 12 songs for your new album.

“We wrote 3 songs yesterday. Calm down.” Your bassist, Luna reassured you, who just finished her glams.

“We’re supposed to be finished with this by the end of the month. How am I supposed to calm down?” You complained.

Ever since your band, Coldify, got enough attention, your management barely gave you enough time to just breathe and write like you used to, How were you supposed to produce quality music?

“Choco Milk?” Jace, your drummer offers you his second cup

“No thank you. Hot sweet things stress my throat. Maybe later though.” You stood up, thanking your stylists, before changing into your casual clothes, since you would be doing a Q and A session first as a soundcheck and also for extra fan service before the concert proper.

Once you finished changing, you walked out of your dressing room, only to find that your bandmates are now all set up, all except you.

Jace is fiddling with his drum sticks

Luna is tuning her bass guitar

And Sebastian is playing a random tune on his electric guitar.

You rolled your eyes at them, before slinging your own acoustic guitar over your shoulder, the familiar weight and pressure of it’s strap makes you smile.

“Are we ready guys? We can start now, there’s only 5 minutes left.” You asked them, plugging in your “in-ears”

They all nodded at you and you guys started to do your signature intro, you playing a few notes on your acoustic, followed by Sebastian and Luna, then you all run out, hearing the screams of your fans intensify, before Jace started banging on his drums, ending your intro with all of you guys harmonizing your band name and lifting your right arms up, showing the compass tattooed into the insides of your wrists, symbolizing your band and the friendship that will never grow old.

“What is up LA!?” You loudly said into the mic, chuckling when they screamed louder than your own mic.

“Well, we certainly need to up the mic volume later.” Luna giggled, sitting on one of the chairs positioned in the middle of the stage.

“Mhhmmn. Let’s all calm down first yes? You guys save your energy for later.” Sebastian winked into the crowd, also sitting on one of the chairs, with his mic in his hand.

“Great, great. We’re all settled in, Please sit down and let’s start this 1 and a half hour Q and A? Soundcheck? Fan service? Whatever you want to call this whole shebang.” You joked, thanking the staff that gave you your own water bottle.

“You know the drill, if you don’t that’s fine. My name is Luna and I am the one who plays the amazing silver-gray bass back there.” Luna introduces herself

“That amazing silver-gray bass that you would marry someday. I swear you are inlove with that thing.” Sebastian teased, earning him a loud smack to the shoulder.

“That is animal abuse. Stop it.” You hold in your laugh, but bursted out laughing anyways when you saw the appalled look on his face.

“My name is Jace. And I bang my sticks into a hallow cylindrical thing for a living. I heard they’re called drums but whatever. I also live with these idiots and I, unfortunately, am the one who holds their leashes.” Jace introduces himself, smiling into the crowd

“Okay, Father. My Name is Sebastian. aka the most attractive one in this group. I play the guitarrrrrr. You guys can call me Seb, Sebastian or Daddy. Your choice.” He winked.

“Ew.” All three of you pretended to gagged, before laughing at Sebastian’s pouting face, your audience also laughing at your antics.

“Okay- Okay, Stop. We need to be serious. Gosh. My name’s Y/N! And I’m your local sapphic lead singer. Yes, I need to say that everyday because people still debate that I’m straight. It’s annoying” You introduce, taking a sip of your water

“Right. So this is how it’s gonna work. There are multiple Coldify interrogators, as we call them, roaming around, all you have to do, is raise your hand, first one they see wins the first question. And the cycle continues until we run out of time.” You explained

“HmmHmmn. So are you guys ready?” Luna asks, earning a few “Yes!” and “WHOOOOO” making all you guys chuckle.

“Okaaaay! on 3. 1,2,3! OH! That redhead with the all black attire. I like that.” Sebastian calls, waiting for the guy in the uniform to hand the girl the mic.

“What’s your name love?” Jace asked the now blushing girl

“Ah. Kadie. I just wanna say that I am such a big fan and I wanted to know if, besides the tattoo you guys have right now, the compass, are you guys still planning on getting a matching tattoo?”

“Ooooh. Tattooes. Hmm. I personally would love to have another tattoo. But you see, Sebastian here cried when we first tattoed. And I am not looking forward to that at all.” Luna answered, laughing when Sebastian whined.

“Oh yeah. No. Not again.” Jace agreed, while you just smiled and nodded.

“Next Question Please.” Sebastian interjected before you could even talk

“Hi my name’s Catherine-” You guys interrupted her to say hi

“Hehe. Hi. Uhm, I wanted to know if you guys have like, favourite youtubers or streamers?” She asks shyly, which made you smile.

“Oooooo. Okay, now you guys get to know why I tweeted that earlier.” Sebastian chuckles

“Okay Mr. Snitch. But uhm. I would have to say... Sykkuno. His voice is just the best-”

“Excuse me? Corpse?! Hello? Corpse has the best voice don’t even. He’s my favourite, what you said was just Corpse slander” Sebastian interrupts Luna, to which Luna answered with a glare.

“Uh-huh. Okay. As I was saying, Corpse’s voice is good, but Syk’s is just this wholesome anime type voice that just melt’s your heart you know? He should be a voice actor for like, an anime protagonist. AND HIS PERSONALITY IS SO GOOD AND WHOLESOME LIKE WHAT THE FUCK?” Luna gushes, nodding to Jace before she goes on a full rant

“I’m sure you won’t match with him, expecially since he’s quiet and you’re loud and abnoxious.” Sebastian casually says

“You know what?”

“Pokimane...” Jace speaks into the mic, interrupting the siblings from fighting. “...Because she’s actually a really good gamer, and she also has a cat called called “Mimi” and that’s major points in my book.” Jace says, smiling.

“Hmm. That’s actually a tough choice... I would have to say-” You were interrupted when your phone let out a noise, letting you know you forgot to silent it.

“BABUSHKA!” Your face felt hot as you desperately tried to put your phone in silent, but it was too late.

“My phone just outed me what the hell?” You mumbled into the mic, hiding your face as you hear your fans laugh and coo at your cuteness and embarrassment.

“Anyways, if that didn’t answer your question, I don’t know what will. But uhm, Valkyrae. 100 percent. She’s just really skilled in video games and has probably played more games than me. Also, she’s absolutely fucking gorgeous and I just love her personality and all.” You smiled, still feeling a little bit embarrassed

“I just love her personality- Please, last night you fell asleep to her playing a horror game. She screams alot in that video, I’m just saying. How could you sleep to literally her screaming in your ear?” Sebastian shrugs, ignoring the glares you sent him

“Just this morning, you were frowning because there was another viper on the team Rae was fighting against in Valorant, and you accused that viper of being a copycat.” Jace added

“Or the fact that you always flinch, or dodge and curse whenever someone shoots at Rae-” Luna finishes making you cover her mouth before she says something more

“Okay. I think it’s pretty obvious that I have a crush on Valkyrae but please- Stop.” You grumbled, frowning playfully at your fans when they awed at your band’s interaction.

“Next Fucking Question Please.” You huffed, closing your eyes and leaning back into your seat, trying to settle your beating heart

Rae will for sure see that. Oh my god. Thoughts of Rae seeing your clip of literally simping for her has your heart running marathons.

“Hi! Uhm, this question is for Y/N”

You hear the gasps of your bandmates, but you pay no attention to it since you were still gay panicking inside

“What will you do if you ever met Valkyrae in person?” a familiar voice echoed in your ears, you of course can’t figure out who it is.

“I honestly don’t know how I would react. Maybe faint? But then probably hug her? I dunno? Kiss her cheek maybe? I mean, how would you react if you meet your long time crush?” You answered mindlessly, chuckling silently knowing that you probably faint and be knocked out for God knows how long. Or maybe you’d fumble and embarrass yourself.

You hear your bandmates join in the laughter with the audience, and that made you open your eyes, throwing a confused glace to Luna who just patted your back and made eye contact with who, you presume, asked the question.

You followed her gaze, eyes widening when you saw the brown-eyed brunette beauty holding the mic. Your brain lagged, trying to comprehend the situation.

“Uhm, I mean- Unless, You know? She’s uncomfortable about it. I don’t wanna make her uncomfy, you get me? First impressions are a thing. I mean- I’m just gonna shut up.” You just spat words out before your brain could even comprehend it.

Come on Y/N keep it together. She gotta think that you’re cool. Not an awkward gay mess.

“Pfft- Little too late for the first impressions that included you being cool.” Jace threw his empty water bottle at you

“...I said that aloud didn’t I?” You asked, now trying to hide your face behind Luna’s back, who’s doubling over from laughter

“Please, someone tag me when you decide to upload this very moment. I wanna blackmail Y/N with it.” Sebastian wheezed out.

“I think we can do something with the hugging thing. Just don’t faint on me.” Your eyes snapped to Rae’s as you see the smirk etched on her face, her hands still holding the microphone

Your eyes widen as your fans, screamed and a series of “OOOOOOHHHH” and “Get it Y/N!” erupted, making your embarrassment amplify even more.

“Is it embarrass Y/N day today? God, please- Next Question please. Oh Jesus.” You put your face in your hands, trying to hide.

Thankfully, they didn’t pry anymore, your embarrassment slowly subsiding as they asked about your daily life, career, albums and upcoming awards. After finishing a couple more questions, you guys sang a couple cover songs, and that’s what concluded your soundcheck. (Sebastian managed to sneak in Janet’s PETTY song, which you rolled your eyes on but sang nonetheless.)

You walked out and to the backstage as you shoved Sebastian playfully for making kissy faces.

“Y/N and Rachell sitting on a tree-” He was suddenly cut off by someone

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G” Your gaze wonders to Pokimane, or Imane who just interrupted Sebastian

“Kissing?! Isn’t it a bit too early for that? Why would they kiss-” Sykkuno says glancing between Rae and I

You wondered if they said anything else because you’re going to be honest to yourself, you were only looking at Rae’s eyes. The deep brown orbs you only ever saw through your screen, was now staring right back at you, her brunette hair tied up in a bun- She’s staring back at you.

Quickly averting your eyes, you felt yourself grow shy, you now also find your shoes very attractive.

“Keep your head up or else you would faint on me and I don’t want that. I prefer to hug a conscious person, Thank you very much.” you lifted your head so fast you could’ve given yourself a whiplash. Darting your eyes around Rae, you quickly find that your friends + Imane and Sykkuno have left the both of you alone.

“Sorry. You just caught me off guard there. Hi! Uhm. I really don’t know what to say to you- Uhm.” You rub the back of your neck, nervously smiling at Rae you in turn smirked at you, raising her brow in the process.

She quietly chuckles before opening her arms, signaling for a hug, to which you launched yourself in, trying not to breathe because that would be so weird.

“Okay so now can you take out your knife and stab me just to make sure that this is real.” You stated, looking directly into her eyes

“...But I’m not the Impostor?”

“...Okay that’s clever-” You laughed, taking a sip out of your water bottle, leading her to your dressing room

“Speaking of, do you mind if I play with you guys sometimes? I’ll find time, I promise.” You say, watching the time considering you only have half an hour to change and get ready, not to mention your crush is right in front of you as well.

“Wait really? Yeah! Just DM me on twitter! I’ll organize a lobby just for you.” She replies, plopping herself on the sofa you have.

“Awe, I feel so... special” You smiled, finally composing yourself, emerging from behind the curtains, already in your performance outfit

“The almighty Creator of the Year, creating a lobby? For lil ol m-” You were greeted with a facefull of pillows thrown at you, just for that statement. Which made you laugh.

“Shut up.” She grinned

“I’m sorry, m’lady” You curtsied playfully, expecting her to start smacking your shoulders, instead when you lifted your head up, she was just sitting there with a soft smile on her face.

“You’re wearing my merch.” She stated

You widened your eyes then looked down, the hoodie that you just randomly picked up was her merch.

“I’m sorry, do you want it back?” You spit the words out before your mind could comprehend how idiotic that sounded

Rae bursted out laughing at your statement, putting her hand over her mouth while doubling over. You rolled your eyes at her and plopped down on the sofa, crossing your arms.

“Yeah, Yeah. Go on. Laugh. At least I can spell broccoli right.” You teased, poking her side

“OKAY! LISTEN HERE HOTSHOT! I-”  she was interrupted by a series of knocks on the door.

“Y/N! PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE DECENT AND IS NOT SEDUCING RAE BECAUSE THAT’S JUST WRONG” Sebastian loudly asked through the door

“Oh My God. Please just kill me.” You rubbed your face with your hands

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be the one doing the seducing but okay.” You hear her mumble under her breath, making you look at her with a scandalized look on your face

“DOOR’S UNLOCKED SEBASTIAN. DON’T BE AN IDIOT..” You replied

“Don’t mind him Y/N We’re just coming in to say that you have 5 minutes until we have to go onstage.” Luna softly replies, shoving Sebastian out your field of view.

“I’ll be right there Lune.” You stood up, smiling at Rae

“I guess that’s it. I’ll talk to you later? I think? Just check your DM’s soon yeah?” She pulls you into a hug, kissing your cheek as she pulls away.

“Good Luck out there. I know you’ll do great.” She smiles, walking out, leaving you to your thoughts

“Huh?” You touched your cheek, a smile slowly paints itself upon your face

"Come on, lovergirl we're running late." Jace drapes his arm around your shoulder

"She kissed my cheek." You say, still shocked

"Lucky You." Jace says, his ears reddening.

...lucky bastard

"POKI KISSED YOU TOO DIDN'T SHE?!" You screeched

'Hush!" His cheeks are also red now.

"Huh. I guess today's our lucky day." You grinned, now extremely happy and hyped

"Oh, check your e-mail now by the way. Manager says she sent our line up there." he pats your back, getting into his position, as best as he can considering the stage is now pitch black

"Huh. Okay." You pulled out your phone, sending a piece of paper flying. Bending down to pick it up, you feel your heart soften into mush and then it decides to run another marathon.

Just incase my Twitter DM's don't work, or if I'm streaming. xx 09-xxx-xxx-xxx

"Be still, my beating heart." You sighed out

Valkyrae just gave you her phone number

[theyarebothgunshot]

jib 6 breakdown and analysis

standard disclaimer: i am not gonna be linking to every single thing i talk about, but i will try my best to link to the moments that stand out to me the most. i have read long posts about this panel before, so not everything in this post is gonna be original or said for the first time ever, simply because there is a good chance that information has stuck in my mind and has subconsciously formed my view of this panel. this is also in no way, shape or form gonna be coherent, unfortunately. i’m just gonna hope that the cockles hivemind will be able to make sense of this regardless. love and light. and lastly, this is all in good fun, so don’t come at me if you think this is too out there please and thank you.

if i would have to give this panel a signifier, i would say this is the panel of the inside jokes. it’s the panel that shows us how well they know each other, to the point that they finish each other’s sentences and start telling the same punchline to a joke at the same time. 

but besides all of that, it was also the panel of the shoulder touches, husband behavior, and rescuer misha. let’s dive into it.

-

i adore the fact that they are laughing and joking with each other from the first second they get on stage. the way that they tell that story about how they planned to have misha nap and have jensen drink whisky and humm, really reminds me of something that i mentioned a lot during my jib 7 analysis: they are very much in sync.

jensen slinging his arm around misha of course had to be compensated with a manly face and manly grip. the rituals… i know they are intricate.

it’s kind of cute how misha tried to both encourage jensen to try that step, and wanted to make sure he wouldn’t hurt himself lmao. dare i say husband behavior? (i do dare and i will do it again, bam bam!) 

something about the way they talk about j*red just makes me feel like they are such a team, if that makes sense? like, they both think the same things about j*red’s antics and talk in such a united way about it (“and jensen and i were like…” “i don’t even care. he [points at misha] doesn’t care.”) that it just sounds kind of coupley to me. *whispers* husband behavior.

i love that jensen’s first instinct after talking about missing j*red was to go over to misha, put his hand on his shoulder, and talk about his fucking flirting way of pranking misha versus j*red’s painful pranking of misha. “with you it’s like my friend and protector is....” i truly wish the audience wasn’t as loud as they were in that moment because i would love to fully hear that sentence. 

the look on jensen’s face when misha says “save it for when we take off our pants” is just priceless. ‘oh god here we go again, when will he ever learn’ but the funny thing is, he will make the same face later on in the panel, after talking about riding a dragon. that’s the face he makes when one of them goes slightly too far. just thought that was interesting.

what stands out to me the most is his reaction when misha turns around just as he is ‘fake unbuttoning’ his pants like: ‘i’m just kidding i’m innocent’ literally no reason to respond like that if misha is just his buddy.

misha’s “what are you doing?” as jensen is tying his flannel around his waist also stands out to me. he clearly does not like the look and can’t keep his mouth shut (“that was bothering me too”). why would you find the need to comment on your buddy’s fashion choice. (....husband behavior.)

just wanna take a moment to say that it’s very fucking funny that jensen said “don’t take selfies” when you know that just a few years later he would take the chest to chest selfie with misha. oh, jensen. 

we have all heard the “jensen pranks misha on set by flirting with him” story countless of times, but it’s still funny to me how flustered misha seems to get by the fact that jensen can get to him that easily. and jensen’s laugh here is so cute, he fully knows what he is doing. 

misha jokes that he spends more time sunning on rocks now as a merman than he used to, and jensen immediately starts to walk to the apple juice, something i have noticed that he does whenever he wants to avoid something (be it a question or a situation that’s happening on stage). it almost feels like he is stopping himself from making a comment or something. it’s interesting, because he just turns right back around and starts telling the grasshopper joke without getting anything to drink.

which leads to one of my favorite moments between them: misha, beaming, says that he has heard it before but he wants to hear it again, and mouths the words to the punchline along with jensen. he looks at the audience as if to say ‘good one, right?’ and when jensen goes “is this thing on?” misha immediately tries to distract him from his failed joke by using an inside joke (the first inside joke of the panel) with him. aka good husband behavior.

something tells me that “i’ll see you again, grasshopper” is another inside joke, so we’re counting it: number two. 

jensen. jensen pspsps come here. can you please explain to me why you are so horny for misha’s indianrussian accent? i cannot believe him (i can), trying to get him to use the accent to ‘help the girl in the audience’. 

so uhm. i think i just heard something while i was rewatching this panel that i never caught before. when misha reads what is on the box that was put on stage, he says: ‘please take this box and open later in private - daniella.’ and jensen goes: ‘yeah that’s from me’ with a flirty Look on his face like. hello??? why have i never seen anybody talk about this??? i’m??? internally screaming??? rest assured i had to take 5 when i saw this shit. 

can we take a second to appreciate the fact that jensen gave misha a once over when misha says the glitter is everywhere, and then jensen said “fairy herpes”. why did your mind go to a sexual reference jensen? why? (we know why).

“i hate when you get that look in your eyes. don’t! i’m sorry!” is one of the most coupley things to say, ever. just wanted to point that out. 

i love the playful vibe they have during this portion of the panel: jensen asking misha what he will do for the audience (thinly veiled excuse for wanting misha to do something that jensen will also enjoy), throwing the rings at misha, both of them “panicking” and lapping up the spilled apple juice.

look, i couldn’t not include the shirt lift. i had to. especially because of the way he looks at misha afterwards lmao and misha, darling misha, tries to defuse the situation by making a joke and it works because of course jensen does his signature unicorn laugh. sidenote: how cute is jackles when he grabs the guitar, begging people to erase the picture jsfhs. gotta love that man.

“you done messed up” inside joke number 3.

you know what is funny to me? the fact that jensen and misha often pretend not to know certain things about each other when they are on stage together. one example of this is during the underbear debacle, when jensen asks misha to proof he wears orange underwear and pretends he is shocked, even though the whole world knows that misha wears orange underwear. 

in this panel, it happens twice. the first time is here, when misha asks jensen ‘do you actually not smell?’ as if he isn’t one of the people in this world who would know that best. and then he, of course, immediately takes this opportunity to sniff jensen’s armpit. i mean. okay. which is extra funny because jackles doesn’t play along with the whole ‘i have no clue’ bit and just goes “yeah you’re not a stinker” without checking because, clearly, he already knows. 

i love jensen’s little smirk when he hears misha’s dragon would be pink + misha’s reaction to it.

before i read this post i always thought jensen meant that his own dragon would be salmon colored. but now i think that it’s not far fetched to believe jensen was actually thinking about the fact that he has stated he was wearing a salmon shirt. which means that, in this moment right here, he was implying that instead of pink, misha’s dragon (aka jensen) would be salmon. which makes his reaction (looking down, laughing but shaking his head as if he can’t believe himself) very understandable. remember what i said about that being the face he makes when one of them takes it too far? yeah.

but then, something happens that is quite remarkable to me. instead of backing down from what he said, he fully commits to it. he turns to misha, and goes “if i could ride a dragon”. listen to the way he puts extra weight behind “ride” and “dragon”. 

then he asks if he understands the question correctly and repeats “what would it look like?”, the girl in the audience says “yes, but also any special abilities…” but jensen just ignores that because obviously, in his head the dragon is misha and he is not gonna shake that thought process any time soon. so naturally, he goes “i think my dragon that i would want to…” but stops JUST before saying “ride”, the guy KNEW what he was sounding like. lmao jensen i gotta give it to you buddy, good effort. you did well. you came far. you even said “look, i’m just gonna go for it here” even though misha’s face speaks volumes. i love you for that. because everything that came out of your mouth right then sounded very not straight.

in fact, it’s only because of misha’s interference (a reoccurring thing during these panels) that he stops himself completely and goes to talk with misha. i really wonder what would have happened if misha didn’t stop him. i also REALLY wonder what misha and jensen discussed when they turned their backs to the audience. sigh. 

now we get to the juicy stuff. jensen’s little slip up here is really really strange, when you think about it. he says “i have kids” before quickly covering that up with “i have a kid now.” i’m not saying the ackles and the collins are one big happy family or anything like that, but i do think that they are close enough for him to slip up like this. maybe the kids hang out together a lot. maybe they have given each other enough support during those early days of raising kids that it sometimes feels like he had multiple kids at that point in time. idk. but in any case, i don’t think that’s a slip up you’d make unless there was some sort of truth in it. he also kind of stumbles over his words right after that. [before anybody runs to my inbox to tell me that j/2 tinhatters think this is about him and j*red raising their kids together: trust me, i know, but we’re not talking about that.]

misha’s cheeky “i thought you were talking about danneel” followed by the both of them simultaneously saying that jensen does not tell her what to do, made me grin like a fool. that is all. 

the way jensen says “misha, apparently you were looking pale and you need some sugar. there you go.” is so SOFT AND CUTE idek how to explain what i am feeling but it’s just. a lot. oh wait a minute, i do know what to call it: HUSBAND behavior.

“by the way we’re gonna pay so dearly when we get home” “yeah we are” lmao the jdmv vibes are strong in this one. 

look. i know it’s possible that misha woke up alone after that dream, thought to himself ‘i miss her’, went for breakfast, saw jensen, and told this story to him verbatim. but misha is literally telling the story from the pov of waking up from a dream and saying that out loud. it would make sense that he would explain that dream to the person who he woke up with, and that he would follow the dream explanation up with “i miss her”. plus jensen is REPEATING IT as if he was right there when misha said that. add to that the way jackles stumbles over his words here and gets flustered and sits down? and misha’s face? yeah. you done messed up jackles, part 2. 

jensen doesn’t know what to do with himself. just look at his face right after he sits down. and misha, once again, comes to the rescue, trying to continue the conversation about poop in order to distract both jensen and the audience. bless his soul. 

it leads to the second instance of misha pretending that he doesn’t know something about jensen, namely that jensen can’t stand poop even from his own daughter. misha goes: “no? not for you?” as if he didn’t already know that. 

round of applause for the jib team, for putting on ‘this thing called love’ to get jensen and misha to dance……. just saying.

jensen’s little nod to misha right here? husband telepathic communication at its finest. even their silly dad dances are in sync. 

jackles you are NOT being slick we can SEE you tossing the mic to your other hand so you can pull misha in by the waist (or honestly maybe his hand landed lower idk idk it’s possible).

it really is something special, though, what happened right here: jensen, macho masculine grumpy performative jensen, is smiling and laughing and enjoying dancing on stage, doing some ballet moves, all because of misha (and by some extent felicia). not just with felicia or by himself, but with rob, osric, etc. honestly it’s heartwarming to watch. it makes me smile so much. 

-

and that was jib 6. thanks for reading everybody <3 

[probsjosh]

Just a Bit More

Three times you were out here flirting with Sapnap on stream and the fourth time when ya'll straight up confessed to eachother

AKA Flirtationship but with a lot of Mutual Pining

Sapnap × GN!Reader

No warning! All fluff :)

@svgarbees I love your writing challenge bro <3

-----------

The first time Sapnap had met you it was very briefly, as George had been placed on your team for MCC and Sapnap had come into the discord call to taunt him just before the games began. 

"Well if it isn't Team Bottoms."

The second the taunt was out in the open air, a roar of protests came from George and Antfrost. BadBoyHalo sat in some confusion, "Bottoms? Bottom of what?" was all he asked, and after he didn't receive an answer, he shrugged it off and quickly muted to talk to his chat. You, however, were practically wheezing, desperately trying to get air into your lungs as you laughed at Saps opening line, causing the other three to pause their bickering long enough to ask if you were alright. "I'm fuckin' great- I don't know who you are dude, but I think I already love you." 

Sapnap laughed lightly as his face turned a light shade of pink, "If you liked that one so much I have a lot more where that came fro—" He was cut off mid-sentence as he was kicked from the call back to his own teams vc. 

"We are not 'Team Bottoms'," George scoffed out, as the MCC timer got to zero.

"George. We totally fuckin are," You laughed out as everyone rushed inside.

"Language!" 

~

The second time had been when George invited you to play Proximity Chat Among Us on stream after realizing they didn't have 10 people to play a full game. You two had actually hit it off really well during MCC and stayed in contact afterwards, but this was the first time he had invited you to play anything with his group of friends.

After happily agreeing, you received the game code and joined the vc, only to be greeted with George desperately trying to tell everyone to shut up for just one second and Sapnap loudly arguing that George wasn't the boss of him. It was only after you'd joined the game and let out a soft, "Hello," did he shut up.

"Oh-" Was all Sap could get out before George cut him off, "Yeah 'oh', that's what I was trying to tell you. Everyone this is y/n, y/n this is everyone," 

There was a chorus of greetings as everyone welcomed you to the soon to be shitshow. The smile on your face didn't fade once the entire time, being able to properly introduce yourself and crack jokes with everyone once you were in game. The one person you weren't surprised to see you were getting along with amazingly was with Sapnap, immediately remembering him from your first unofficial meeting.

"So you think I'm a bottom Sapnap?" you questioned as you caught him in a room by himself. "I- uh- why? Are-are you a bottom?" He asked, a hesitant grin on his face, he wasn't sure what boundaries he was pushing, but he was certain he was toeing the line. Luckily for him, you let out a laugh before you teased him, "Wouldn't you like to know." Suddenly feeling more confident in himself he hummed before teasing right back, "I mean, with your consent, I would." 

Your laugh sounded out as you tried and failed to stutter out a response when someone walked into the room and yelled, "George! Sapnap is flirting with your friend!" They ran away yelling for George as Sapnap laughed and ran away,  chasing after them, "Don't snitch on me you bitch!" 

You stood there in the middle of the room giggling as Sapnap quickly ran back into the room, "If George asks, I'm totally telling him you hit on me first." 

"Okay sure, Mr. I'd Like To Find Out If You're a Bottom," You both laughed as a body was reported and you were thrown into a meeting.

From that moment it had become a running bit for you two to needlessly flirt with eachother at any given moment, and by the end of the stream every chat was filled with debates on what the ship name should be. 

After saying your goodbyes and leaving for the night, you sat in your chair thinking about Sapnap, and trying to ignore the butterflies in your tummy as you thought about every exchange you'd had with him that night. 

~

The third time had been the first time you logged on to the Dream SMP after George had very sweetly asked Dream to whitelist you, because he missed playing the Craft with someone he now considered a close friend to him. 

At first it was just George and yourself sitting in a call as he gave you a very messy tour of the world that consisted of a very bad history lessons of the lore. "I'm not very involved in the storyline so I don't really know what happened," George explains as he leads you over to the now crater of L'Manberg, "But I do know that, canonically, Dream is crazy." 

The familiar sound of someone joining the call sounded out, followed by a very familiar voice, "George, Dream is crazy both in game and out, you give him too much credit." 

There was soft laughter before you spoke, "Sapitus Napitus!" the happiness in your voice evident, and George chuckled, "What? You miss your boyfriend?" Despite how flustered you'd gotten you managed to bite back, "What? Jealous I got a boyfriend before you did, Georgie?" 

Sapnap joined in as well, "Yeah Georgie, at least we have a significant other for Valentines day. Not our fault you broke my boy Dreams heart by turning him down." 

We all laughed at that as Sapnap joined the game as well as the tour. At first, it had seemed like you and Sap had fallen back into your endless flirting to annoy George but after a while it just became a casual thing between the two of you, compliments and innuendos being tossed between the two of you.

All three of you had actually become really comfortable with one another over the course of the accidental five hour stream. So comfortable in fact that before you left to end your stream George sent you off with a final tease, "Of God, I'm never gonna hear the end of this from either of you am I?" You and Sapnap glanced at each other in game before turning to George, "What do you mean, Gogy?" Sapnap asked carefully, as he slowly scrolled through his hotbar to pull out his sword. George, oblivious to this, continued, "I mean you two blabber on and on about each other to me all the time, why don't you two just talk about how much you like each other to each o–" George cut himself off with a scream as Sapnap went after him with the intent of murder. 

Before you could fully process the words that had come out of George's mouth, you phone pinged, alerting you that you needed to end stream. "I'm sorry guys, I gotta go, I have something I need to do." Both boys stopped in their tracks to give you a proper goodbye, "Bye, message me when you're free again," George said innocently as he crouch walked away from where Sapnap stood turned towards your character. "Or you could message me–" Sap said, the cheeky smile on his face falling as George teased him again, "Yeah you wish, Snapchat." 

And with that Sapnap returned to his assassination attempt as George screamed for his life. You laughed before mumbling a goodbye and leaving both the game and the call.

After ending stream you walked over to your bed before falling face first into the mattress and screaming. 

George really had to out you like that huh?

~

The fourth time was just a couple days after the third. You had been streaming for a little bit, your first grind session on the SMP to get yourself started, when George entered your voice channel and startled the hell out of you. 

"HI y/n!" he greeted innocently as you yelped, hitting your desk and nearly spilling your water everywhere. "George! Dude, you have to stop scaring me like that," you tried to scold him but your laugh broke your angry facade. "Sorry, sorry, I hadn't meant to scare you- hey is Sapnap online right now?" 

"Um," you glanced over at your chat briefly before pressing tab, "Yeah, he's online, why?" You didn't receive an answer as George disconnected from the call abruptly. "Wow okay, rude." was all you commented before returning to entertaining your chat as you mined away. 

A couple minutes later you were startled yet again as George reconnected, immediately letting out a loud yelp, as a skeleton shot you simultaneously. "George!" you panicked as you swiped your sword at the skeleton, going down to threw hearts before finally killing it. "I'm sorry! I don't mean to scare you, I just wanted to tell you that Sa–" He disconnected again mid-sentence, this time your curiosity was peaked. 

"If George reconnects and scares me one more time, I'm flying to his country to kick his ass." You laughed as your chat began speculating what he wanted to tell you, and clipping your scared reaction.

It was peaceful for a while, you had been caving with not trouble, but eventually you ran out of food and needed to resurface. Unfortunately for you, a loud ping from Discord sounded out, distracting you long enough for a creeper to sneak up behind you and kill you before you had a chance to react. "George I'm buying a plane ticket to go kick your ass, I swear to..." a soft laugh makes you trail off. "Well, I'm not George, but I'd love to see you kick his ass," Sapnaps voice rang out and you slapped a hand over your mouth. 

"Fuck, sorry, sorry Sap, George has just been coming in and out of the vc and scaring me" You clicked respawn and began running back to your things. "Yeah, sorry about that, I kept pulling him out of there because he's trying to embarrass me." 

"Embarrass you? How?" You found the cave you had gone down and made your way to your things. 

"Well, um, he- where are you? On the server I mean." It was a bit odd to you that he was stuttering this much, he was usually very confident in himself, but you made no comment on it. 

"I'm in a cave getting my things back, I'll put my cords in chat, I'm not far from my house," You gathered your things before quickly typing into chat, and running to the mouth of the cave to get back home.

There's a beat of comfortable silence as you emerge seeing Sapnap running towards you in the distance. 

"Hi, hello!" You crouched at him once he'd gotten close enough. He giggled and answered back, "Hi," as he crouched in return. 

"So why's George trying to embarrass you?" you asked making your way back to your house, Sapnap following close behind. "He keeps saying some bullshit that I don't believe, so I've come to just- just ask you." 

Your stomach began to fill with butterflies, but you shot down your hopes and tried to keep a level voice, "Oh? What have you come to ask me, Mr. Sapnap?" You opened the door to your house and entered to turned around to face him once more.

He crouched his character and took a breath, "George has this idea that when we- when we flirt, it's not just a bit. And, I just wanted to ask you," he comes closer a bit, as your air catches in your throat, "is it just- do you see it as just a bit?"

'Because I don't,' the words die on his tongue, not wanting to sway your next words.

You sat for a second, thoughts going a million miles a minute as you finally find the will to say, "Sap, I–" 

"Its okay if you do, I mean yeah, like if thats how you see it then that's how I see it too, yknow? I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything and the last thing I want to do is ruin the friendship we just started like a week ago, and I–" His nervous ramblings are cut short when you hit his character, a smile finding its way onto your face. 

"Sap, we really need to start letting people finish their fuckin sentences," you laugh, your nerves building again but you decide to say fuck it and push through before you chicken out, "I was going to say… I don't know if it's just a bit or not but, if you're okay with it… I wouldn't mind taking the flirting a bit more seriously?" A nervous smile settled on your features, the butterflies in your stomach going wild, as you waited for his answer. 

Another beat of silence as Sapnap gathered his scattered briancells to finally form a coherent thought. "I- yeah, yeah, I'd love to," a relieved laugh turns into a genuine one after he realizes, "Oh my god, George was right." 

You grin, nerves now mostly gone, "Motherfucker really was tired of our bullshit, huh?" Easy laughter flowed between you two before another Discord ping rung out.

George had joined the call, presumably to gloat about being right, but instead: "Hey uh, y/n? You do realize you're still streaming, right?"

[serene-victory-77]

Why The Crows Being Teenagers Is Actually Perfectly Realistic

There’s a TL;DR are the end because wow I like to rant.

I lightly discuss the general situations they’re all in to explore how they are frighteningly mature and competent, but it’s not particularly depressing or descriptive, it’s definitely lighter than the books

I thought about this post with a joke first: “People who think that Six of Crows is unrealistic because they’re so young clearly have not spent much time with traumatized honors students.”

It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the point stands.

But I decided that, hm, actually, I could make a point about this. I totally agree with the aging up of the characters in the Shadow and Bone show, but when people straight up say that the books are wrong or unrealistic for having a young crew, I get annoyed, and here’s why (other than me reading the books for the first time when I was 13 and thinking ‘Huh okay, I see it’ and now being lowkey offended when people say they ignore it for being unrealistic):

On Inej

- At first I thought Inej’s wisdom and general demeanor was one of the most unrealistic things in the book

- When I thought about it longer, I was like “Actually, she’s 16, right? I’ve sent some of the most lyrical philosophy trying to help my friends while in high school. My friends have done the same. It’s valid.”

- Frankly, teenagers love hard-hitting philosophical truths. They love repeating what they’ve read or heard in movies and in books and from family stories. They love sharing little bits of wisdom they have come up with

- Inej’s ability to hear and understand philosophy and wisdom that she was surrounded by for 14 straight years and then sit on it and elaborate it for her friends to understand, or even just to piss them off in Kaz’s case? 

- Teenagers have that. They do it. So, Inej’s Wisdom passes, to me. It’s valid. 

As for her being calm

- You know how everyone jokes that Kaz seems calm on the outside but when you get to his POV he’s like “What the fuck” at the Van Eck house or just straight up “Huh, is this revenge for making tree jokes” at the Djel River thingy in the Ice Court?

- Inej is like that, too. And she gets angry, and she gets confused, or exhausted.

- AKA every quiet kid ever. Like, are you kidding? Have you ever been in a situation in which it’s literally chaos all around you, people are screaming and things are being destroyed (think middle school classroom with bitchy long term substitute and even worse students), and you’re just, calm? You pick up your things, you do what you need to do?

- That’s Inej. Like, what else is she gonna do? She’s smart enough to know that panicking won’t help anyone, and so she just rides it out. Internally she might be like “Why is this happening” but frankly, her being quiet and controlled in most situations is probably a coping mechanism and I respect that

- Pretty sure this is also based on the fact that the Suli have no land for their own and constantly have to keep moving. It might align with generational trauma, I’m sure someone could explain it better than me, but being able to keep your cool while constantly having to change and adapt to new situations, in, say, a country with hellfire politics and no land to call your own? Seems like a hereditary trait that could be useful in Ketterdam, although it’s sad.

On Inej’s abilities

- Simone Biles started training when she was 6 and went to the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships when she was 16, where she qualified in all the events. 

- There are videos of people walking over tightropes as young as three years old. We know Inej didn’t start that young, but not only was she naturally talented at it, but she spent a lot of time practicing. I think it’s valid. Plus, some of her family members do some pretty crazy things in her flashbacks, because that’s the whole point of what they do. 

- Youngest person to beat American Ninja Warrior was 16 year old Vance Walker

- Inej has a variety of of tools that help her wall climb, and while it’s true that she started young and got good really fast, she already had a history of physical work that would help her, and from what we can gleam from the book, a surprising amount of free time in which she was actively encouraged to learn everything she could. 

So that’s Inej! I think her skills are perfectly possible for someone with her history and situation. It’s true that she’s naturally skilled, but that’s not actually all that unusual. And her demeanor and wisdom do fit in with what a lot of teenagers are like and the circumstances she was brought up in

Onto Kaz!

- One thing I hear about is that Kaz is too smart for not having gone to school and also too young to know all that he does

- Do you all KNOW how many self-taught people there have been in this world? The word for people who are self-taught is autodidacts, and honestly a huge amount of famous people apply. Like many, many other people in history (there’s a whole list of them in Wikipedia), he had an vested interest in a field and he learned all he could. Sure, those fields were magic tricks and math, but still.

- Suddenly I have a lot of thoughts

- Okay, think, hyperfixations. That’s essentially what Kaz’s thing with magic tricks was, right? Have any of you ever spent time with an eight year old that clearly really, really loves dinosaurs? Those kids can spout names and facts and identify them by their skeletons and frankly know more than I ever will. Kaz’s was magic tricks. All kids are special.

- Kaz continued working on magic tricks and practicing them for years, so, I think that gets a pass. 

- As for the math! Look, a Fact Of Life is that some kids are just Like That, whether it be possibly from neurodivergence or other factors:

- Flo and Kay Lyman are twins with Autism who basically have the calendar of EVER memorized. Kaz memorizing card decks is sensible, and these ladies don’t need to look up anything to figure it out, so Kaz doing sums inside his head seems plausible. His “photographic memory’ isn’t impossible, although the term itself might be incorrect.

- Katherine Johnson who worked at NASA (yes, the lady from Hidden Figures), was so good at math that she was in high school by age 10 and went to college at age 15. It’s true that she had some teaching, but 1. There’s no evidence Kaz had absolutely no schooling, even if it was just at home with books and 2. Kaz was 9 when he came to Ketterdam, and after Jordie died, when he wasn’t surviving, he was learning. 

- Human calculator is a term that is applied to children a lot and there’s definitely plenty of videos showing how smart these kids are and them doing mental math easily, which he does in the books

- He had a LOT of pressure on him to figure out all he could, and if he wanted to move forward, he was going to have to learn a lot. He spent hours practicing magic tricks, for all we know he spent hours practicing math too. We know Jordie was a bit of a bookworm too, so Kaz from a young age probably already had a reason to learn. Personally, a lot of my love for books was inspired by my older sibling when I was younger

- Young people are adaptable. Kaz is incredibly adaptable. The term prodigy exists because of people like him through history. 

- As for him being rational, there’s no other way to survive. Some of the greatest soldiers in history have been very, very young, and very, very smart. It’s true tacticians are generally considered to be older, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been very young ones. 

- A lot of the generals I found were like, 19 years old, but Kaz is 1. not a general and 2. in a place where young people take up the mantle really, really quickly, and frankly it’s been like that for a long time. I still think this passes. This isn’t relevant but William the Conqueror was apparently called “The Bastard”?

- Frankly, underground communities of thieves probably don’t go around publishing their escapades so to me it makes sense that I can’t just look up “famous young thieves” and get anything that makes sense, but I did try

- Y’all I tried to do research on youngest escape artists since I think Kaz qualifies and I found myself in what I think is a magicians forum? It’s from 2002-ish and I feel like I’ve just found a relic. I can’t definitely prove they’re all saying the truth, but some of the people there talk about 10-11 year olds at magic camps, so, it’s not impossible for this to be a skill Kaz learned really young, particularly when he made a habit of following around magicians

- I think he passes the realism check overall

For the other Crows:

- Nina being so proficiently multilingual makes sense to me, because she’s been in the Little Palace almost her entire life with all the best teachers they could afford at her disposal. Some people just click with languages. One such would be Timothy Doner, who spoke 23 languages at 16. 

- Nina is a child soldier. She of course can handle the battlefield, although I imagine there’s a degree of trauma that she has to deal with (although it’s true that most of her work was always meant to angle her towards being a spy).

- Jesper was taught to shoot from a young age by Aditi, who was likely incredibly proficient. Plus, there’s mentions of him and his father being on some sort of frontier at one point in the books, so, it’s likely that Jesper got his fair share of ‘being a child soldier” since he would’ve been 15 or younger. Plus, with being a Fabrikator, he gets a leg up

- Jesper’s smart y’all, he just also likes to have fun

- I am a little terrified by the fact that I looked up ‘youngest sharpshooter’ and found out about a 9 year old girl (Addysson “Addy” Soltau) who can indeed shoot guns, but uh, it does prove my point

- Matthias... I haven’t heard anyone really argue about Matthias. He’s the oldest at 18 and again, he’s essentially a religious child soldier. Of course he would be built af and know how to handle himself in a fight, and in a flashback about meeting Trassel, we’re told that he was actually distanced from the other boys and was the biggest and strongest/smartest of the group. Perhaps not compared to Kaz, but still

- We know how Wylan ended up how he is, so I don’t think i have to defend how he’s both a musical prodigy, good at math, and good at chemistry. Plenty of kids who can’t do one thing will immediately gravitate to a different field (think AP math students who can’t write essays, or those kids who could analyse a book and it’s metaphors in class but didn’t understand geometry).

- Granted he took it far but it’s kinda implied that  his father ignored him eventually and what else was Wylan going to do

- I don’t really know how he did chemistry while not being able to read the symbols and stuff, but that’s likely because I’ve never had to learn the way he did and also I really suck at Chemistry, but I refuse to believe that it invalidates his capabilities

Final Thoughts:

- They’re Traumatized Honors Students

- People might say that “it’s unrealistic that all the smart ones somehow ended up together” but again they’re traumatized honors students and those gravitate to each other

- Of course the smart ones ended up together, they’re the ones in those crazy situations precisely because they are prodigies. Nina wouldn’t have met Matthias if she wasn’t skilled and a spy, Kaz wouldn’t have known Inej if she hadn’t been skilled at silence (I can’t explain that one but uh ninjas did/do exist and it IS still a fantasy world). Kaz would have never been a leader of the Dregs in a position to find Jesper if he hadn’t been so determined to rise to the top, and Jesper wouldn’t have been in Ketterdam if his father hadn’t thought that Jesper was smart enough to get that chance.

- You know how those fringe revolutionary artists for new eras end up knowing all knowing each other and even hanging out? That’s them.

- I have decided there is a strong basis for Autistic Kaz, someone who is more studied than me should feel free to explore this.

- I read this book a few years ago, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It’s about this guy’s experiences as a boy soldier and it’s a painful read so I’m not sure I recommend it as a casual read, but he talked about these young kids being able to actually make competent military strategies and handle warfare. It’s an extreme example of what I’m trying to explain when it comes to them being able to handle the brutality of their situation, but it’s true, essentially

- They are definitely serious, but if you think they’re not teenagers I just, disagree so much. They have moments of lighthearted banter, they make light of their situation, they try to support each other Nina covers it so well in her farewell at the end of Crooked Kingdom: The little rescues of laughing at each others jokes or eating together and just supporting each other, is not only a very human thing, but a very teenager thing. 

- Scary experiences that shape us happen all the time, and although for most it’s not the things that the Crows experience, picking each other up is a big part of why they do read as teenagers to me. I’ve seen kids be able to seriously converse about things like being questioned by the police, or being left to their own devices for days at a time, or the general impending doom they all feel, and it’s dark, but they’re also going to joke about silly puns 20 minutes later. 

- Teenagers aren’t exempt from terrifying maturity and competence

- Finally: Despite all I said, it’s a fantasy story and doesn’t have to be realistic

In the end, everyone can believe what they want to believe, but this is my case for my opinion.

TL;DR The Crows are all prodigies and a lot of their achievements and capabilities are based in reality and there are real people who actually achieved things like what they’ve done. Messed up prodigies gravitate to messed up prodigies, hence how they all end up together. When it comes to their mental state, most of them have been brought up their entire lives in situations that required for them to problem solve and keep their cool even when things are going to hell.