#also if anyone wants to get on the topic of how this also applies to scripture i could go OFF

[precious-little-scoundrel]

|| Radio ||

Requested plot points? ☑️

Circa: early February 1944

Immediate previous fic: Favorite Escape

Summary: when your hodge podge radio won’t work, who should ya call? Probably the flight engineer

Warnings: usual universe warnings apply, 18+ but nothing very alarming really happens in this one, references to others are made, some potential slut shaming in the beginning if ya squint? perhaps some queer baiting but it’s the Buckies rolling around on the flooor, they’re one massive queer bait lbr, it’s not me. Also. My shit Crystal Radio making descriptions- don’t come for me I haven’t made one and I spent five hours falling down a rabbit hole as to how the guys made them in the camps and at the end of the day I said: screw it! And went with one of the Brit’s scenarios 🍻

Edited only by my tired little eyes, full warning and have mercy 💋

Also, just a note I feel compelled to make- this fic centers around women in the army, in a war, which they’re spending under dire conditions in a POW camp. Yes there is love here, there is also hierarchy and discipline and the enforcement of that does not make one character or another necessarily callous or less loving. They are their ranks first and foremost as all signed up for.

“They’re forging papers, you know.” Maureen broached the topic to Egan one day, late February and when her cheeks were still bruised from Ida’s book.

Bucky paused his tracing of a map, sooty finger trailing along a river with the same incomprehensible name as its twin running parallel, he didn’t know anything about papers or anyone making them and she knew that. “Who?”

“Good ones. Identification, passports.” She enumerated.

“Who?”

“The Poles. The ones with the-“

“-the liquor.” he finished for her, remembrance and condemnation heavy in his wry tone. “The ones you stayed out all night with.”

“Stayed long enough for them to get drunk enough to show me.”she replied, without heat, which was surprising.

“Some grand plan of yours, huh?” He bit back a laugh, it was a fine way to cover her ass for being insubordinate. It was a way he’d likely try if he was in her place.

“No.” she swore instead. “Just luck, I happened to see them. They got careless. Maybe an answer to all Jack’s prayers.”

“Yeah. Anything to give that rosary a break.”

“Yeah.”

“You asked them?”

“What for?”

Bucky regarded her with thinning patience but something kept him from snapping, the feeling of a riddle still to be solved. “For some papers.” he clarified, measured and intent, she knew how much easier that would make their plans for Ida.

Maureen shook her head, glancing down at her twisting hands, “I didn’t want to-“ her mouth twisted too, “-I wanted to ask a superior first.”

Bucky considered that for a moment, slightly touched at her newfound wisdom, “Why not ask Buck?”

She shook her head again, auburn hair curling under her chin just so, even here in the stalag she had some traces of the old charm. “He’s got too much to worry about for me to be bringing in hypotheticals.” she was so upset by something she would not even meet John’s eye and he felt a slice of remorse for how he hadn’t even noticed the ground down change in her since she got here, his drinking buddy and the soft fleshed rival of merry old English days was a gruff and battered and sullen woman; being a red blooded American male, he regretted that dismal change. “And I'm worried about what to bargain with. What can I promise? We haven’t got much and I don’t have— there’s not much anyway, but what we’ve got I didn’t wanna promise. Not without-“ she still hadn’t met his eye, he tracked hers; a furious roving of pale blue back and forth across the floorboards and it made Bucky itch.

“Who signs these papers?” Bucky asked, thinking the logistics through, knowing she’d perk up if he brought them up.

“Haven’t a clue. Maybe they haven’t figured that part out yet. I don’t know. I just know they’ve got papers.”

“Good ones.”

“Yeah.”

“We haven’t got much.” he agreed, clicking his teeth in thought, “What’d you give them for the liquor?”

“They just invited me.”

“Didn’t have to lend a hand or nothin’?” he balked and Maureen threw him a glare that seemed more hurt than rage, and chastened by a voice inside that sounded much like his mama’s, he amended with sheepish humor, “Hell, feel like lending a hand myself these days, if it’d get me a whisky.”

Her gnarled fist curled white in her lap, she managed hoarsely, “They just wanted to talk about home. To someone who hadn’t heard about it a million times before.”

“They got cigarettes?” he asked.

“As most common payment for their booze -they’ve got enough to insulate their shack three deep.”

“Cigarettes won’t cut it then.”

“I’ve been thinking.”-

“Yeah?”

“The radio. I’m the only one who doesn’t think it’s worth the risk but, I know, it doesn’t matter, it’s happening. Gale’s going to keep trying. And if it works-“ she rubbed at her eyes, tired and unsure, “-that’s quite the bargaining chip.”

Bucky nodded slowly, eyes narrowing as his smile grew a touch broader, “News of the outside world.” he was half in agreement, “Buck asked for a week. Been four days.”

“He’s stumped.” Maureen retorted instantly. “And he’ll stay that way and he’ll go nuts and you’ll go die going over the fence and then he’ll have no reason left not to die too.”

Bucky whistled, low and chiding, “You’re full of rainbows today, Candy.”

“You know who he oughta ask.” she shook off the barb. “But he won’t. And I don’t want him risking it for this thing anymore than anyone else, but you all want it so bad, and they’ll shoot us for it if it works or not. I’m not asking her. But you would. Might as well get shot for it working, right? Isn't that what you said yesterday? You know who he should ask.”

Bucky’s keen eyes showed the moment it dawned on him, his eyebrows shot up and his mouth sagged and he ran a weathered hand over his face, “Awww shit, Candy.” came garbled behind his palm. “Ah shit.” he said again with conviction as he shoved the hand into his pocket, wretched acknowledgment of her point clear on his face.

“I didn’t want to suggest it, told Ida it’s a fucking dangerous thing and I’ll never forgive if— but you all—“

Bucky grounded aloud, “Nah, nah she’s -Lu would solve it.” he muttered, shushing her. “Demarco really pummeled you the other day, huh?” he added, and that got her to meet his eye, she looked spooked and a little incensed, “Saw him fuckin’ you up behind B compound but sheesh, s’like he hollowed you out worse than a jacolantern; yer shifty as hell.”

“He-“ Maureen still felt like blanching at the memory of Benny’s terribly correct opinions, his disappointed eyes and his fist full of her flight jacket asking her what in the living fuck was wrong with her besides a concussion, a sick childhood and an ever nauseating jealousy of Buck Cleven’s paternal time and effort, “-he had some admonitions. After…after the other night.”

Bucky hummed, shitty smirk taking up residence on his face, “How ‘bout that.”

“I’m gonna be better.” she muttered and Bucky felt for her, could almost taste the echo of his identical and hollow determination to climb the mountain of bad habits when weak from spuds and pneumonia. He told himself the same every morning and fell into bed condoning his failure every night, like a ritual.

“You’re gonna get us those papers.” he corrected, shoving off the wall to come near her, give her the full Major treatment and maybe a friendly hand, “And you can promise your drinkin’ buddies news from the radio.”

Maureen nodded in understanding, no joy or animation left in her green eyes. She used to enjoy a bit of subterfuge, now she only felt hollow misery at the thought that she'd dragged Lu into this, too. This risk she hated so much and yet no one cared. Lu would be glad to be dragged in, it’s true, she was itching at the chance to be useful and to make Gale proud, it’s how the girl was wired. It’s how most girls were wired, Maureen supposed, desperate to make Gale Cleven approve. Lu’s enthusiasm wouldn’t make the sight of her being made to kneel in the mud and have a bullet put in her head any easier, wouldn’t make Maureen feel any less responsible for it when her lifeless body thudded to the earth.

All that lovely goodness stamped out.

Over a radio.

Bucky’s hand felt too hard and too big on her shoulder. He had gone before the vision cleared, mud and wire and the freezing main square at Ravensbruck fading back to the musty bunk room. Maureen shook herself and stood up to make herself somehow appealing, reamniante some semblance of the cheerful rashness that had led her to the Polish combine in the first place: she found it hard to inspire. She’d like to count that a victory but she knew better, she wasn’t reformed she was just tired.

A washed face and a fake smile and the promise of news from outside would have to be enough to bank all their risks on, it would have to be.

“Crank,” she greeted the man in the hall, flashing him clean, water brushed teeth and her gentlest, freshly soot lined eyes, “I’ve been tasked by Major Egan with an errand, spare a minute to babysit me?”

__________________________________

Bucky finds Buck Cleven in his own bunkroom, Demarco outside on watch and that’s all Bucky needs to know to guess the radio is out and Buck’s working like a fiend yet again to make it work. Sure enough, he’s hunched over the table with it, mittened hands shaking from cold and exhaustion and a sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the paltry sweater he wears.

Bucky walks in and Gale gives him a soft, acknowledging glance before continuing to his work. Bucky takes up his usual place behind Buck’s left shoulder to watch and Buck, being used to it, goes on.

“My little Kriegie Marconi, huh?” Bucky allows the nagging impulse he has felt for weeks while standing in this position to finally exert itself, and his forefinger lifts and swirls in the curling gold strands of hair at the nape of Gale’s neck, his friend almost bolts away but then seems to choose a prey’s tactic and just stills, goes very still and Bucky scritches the scalp beneath his grab in assurance he don’t meant anything by it. He doesn’t think he does, at least.

Gale, wary and with a voice close to mechanized it’s so stilted, inquires with ever-present politeness, “You alright Bucky?”

It’s better than that whole ‘major’ business; getting called Major as if that meant shit anymore. “Yeah, ‘course I am.” Bucky rakes his fingers through the hairs there at the nape of that dainty neck, scritches the scalp with all four of his main ones, and uncovers a white long scar sliding round once he lifts the hairs there. “Why wouldn’t I be? Gonna be a father soon.”

Buck does jerk then, away from his touch and wheeling his chair around to glare at Bucky; it’s an impressively executed little pirouette and John misses the feel of his warm neck and oil soft hair. “Jesus John.” he reprimands.

“We’re gonna get outta here Buck.” John swears, he’s so sure of it because he cannot in all his thinking and predicting ever imagine a scenario where they don’t, and he chooses to think it’s not delusion but a good omen. “Ida’s gonna have that baby and when it’s safe we’ll all meet up.”

Gale is looking at him like he’s his own father again, Bucky knows that look, it always makes him equal parts ashamed and desperate, “Jus’ like that.” Gale mocks in a husky gust.

It’s devastating, and it’s intended to be, and Bucky could bear that with better humor if he could still touch Gale and his hair. “Just like that.”

Gale hums and it’s a mean sorta vocalization that makes Bucky’s heart thud and his skin prickle hot, it’s the kinda noise you kiss off a person, he thinks, but it’s Buck and so he doesn’t know what to do with it. “It’s gonna get you killed.” Buck is saying instead and Bucky lets him, “I know you all think she’s cracked up and maybe she has but it wouldn’t hurt to listen to Kendeigh sometimes when she’s tellin’ ya shit that a five year old could accurately guess, -goddamn it.”

His voice rose to a strong rage by the end and Bucky takes a chair opposite him, sick of standing there like a dumb dog waiting for his scolding to be over. “So what.” Bucky challenges him, “We just wait around and Brady pops out a child and the krauts let us keep it and it’s our new mascot and we all sing zippidy doo da, huh? Huh, Buck?”

Gale’s hands fell away from his face with a slam to the table, a shocking degree of anger showing for a split second and it gave Bucky an odd degree of gratification. “I jus’ want you to find a plan with better odds.”

Bucky sniffed and leaned forward, went in for the kill and Gale was looking at him like he expected it, like it was his turn to play daddy to everyone here and Gale for once was so beaten down he wouldn’t just allow the changing of the guard, he was close to angry at its lateness. It made Bucky’s heart thud.

“I’ve been listening to Kendeigh.” Bucky refuted briefly, “And we’ve got a plan.” Gale gave him a tired look of encouragement to go on, “How long’s it been since you slept? Huh, well, we got a plan. Practically perfect, or it will be, just need the radio.”

“Ain’t giving this away.” Gale said, “Not for anythin’, even useless.”

Bucky patted the table top in easy assurance, if he could have reached Buck’s thigh, he’d have patted that instead, “No, no, don’t need to give it away, just need it to work. So,” he softened his voice and his eyes tightened, “I’m callin’ Lu in.”

Oddly, Gale does not fight it. Not aloud, at least. There’s an anguished look of hate on his face and Bucky mirrors it. It’s for this place and the fucking awful choices they have to choose from every goddamn day.

“You run this by Ida?” is all he asks.

Bucky pops his flaking lips audibly, “What, need us both gangin’ up on you to agree? She’ll sign off. Smith’s an officer. Gotta remember that sometimes, Buck.”

The way his Buck swallows hard and dry contradicts his words, “I do remember that.”

“Really?” Bucky’s mouth gives a soft smile of doubtful incredulity and Gale’s mimics it, mournful but a smirk all the same, “Feel like she should answer to ‘Gale’s Baby’ these days. Lieutenant Smith who?”

Gale scoffs, “Careful now.”

“No really, she’s an officer and she wants to be treated like one. It’ll do her good to have work. Her kinda work.”

“Could get her killed.”

“Layin’ in her bunk could do that.”

Gale grunts, its sounds like an agreement.

“So I say Lieutenant Smith gets put on radio detail. Like her goddamn job description suggests. Huh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Gale lets out a shaky agreement.

“Aaaaand,” Bucky draws it out as he rises again and saunters over to Buck who is ready for him and loose this time, “how bout I go back to bein’ the one you’re frettin’ ‘bout all the time. Got me almost jealous of the girl. How ‘bout I do. Huh?”

Gale’s scoff is fond as anything as he looks up at John with cheerful derision, “And you ‘bout to be a father? Make me an old man? Fuck no, ya looney.”

“Alright.” Bucky concedes with hands up in surrender before lurching forward and grasping Gale’s rickety chair back by its wobbly spokes and hefting it partially off the ground, beautiful and outraged prude of an occupant still seated in it, “Then I’ll play daddy and put you to bed, how ‘bout that.”

“John Egan for fucks sake-“ Gale’s fists pounded on the meat of his shoulders and his outraged protests wafted against Bucky’s neck and his jabbing knees collided with the meat of his thighs and Bucky hadn’t felt so close to him or so happy to be alive since England.

“Major sir, the hell is goin’ on?” Demarco’s tame inquiry from the safety of the doorway made them both lose their grapple and they collided together onto the floor, bunk bed barely missed by their heads and the hapless chair mixed up between their limbs.

Bucky grinned, hip sore from his fall and kidneys suffering from Buck’s trapped elbow there, “Puttin’ Goldilocks to bed.” he replied.

DeMarco processed that and the scene before him with grave sobriety before saluting lazily and turning to go, “Right on, sir.”

John did his best to rise up without further pinching Gale who was indeed trapped beside him and beneath him, chair legs wound between a lanky human leg in a puzzle that Bucky realized might take some caution to untangle without harm. Strangely, Buck wasn’t moving, he was just looking up at him like a cat would their clumsy master who has done somethin’ stupid which was a surprise to neither. It was so innocuous a look and so nostalgic, it winded Bucky with the realization he hadn’t seen it in ages, just as he hadn’t felt his boney ribs against his own and the feel of his elegant hands yanking him around in a fight. This miserable place really was stomping out the glow in the best people.

“Ya know Buck,” he ventured, clearing his throat for extra casualness, “I’ve missed you.” When Gale only kept looking up at him, perfect porcelain face with its unsettling scars and wary eyes without a lick of storm in them, John Egan grabbed his shovel and dug his own grave a little deeper, drug a finger down his cheek. “Missed all this.”

Bucky didn’t know what he meant by “this” but it felt safer and worse all at once, since he did miss Buck but he and Buck never used to hang out on floors with a chair as chaperone. Mercifully, Buck neither points that out nor moves away, acting very much like he needed to heaped on the floor with Bucky and a stray chair every bit as much as John did. Like it’s doing him good.

“And you couldn’t’ve jus’ said.” Gale murmurs with the softest eye roll of the century and Bucky feels like beaming and it must show in his face so strong and bright after a sunless winter that after a flash Gale’s cheeks flame from it and he averts his eyes.

“I dunno Buck, could I?” Egan asks one blushing cheek and Gale hasn’t got a good reply for that, so they just lay there on the floor.

“Go on now, get off me.” Gale doesn’t shove at him, he presses his hand to John’s forehead like he would a dog and John goes, obedient as one.

———————————————————————-

They found Lu with Murph and Benny and Brady, measuring out what seemed to be lot lines between Love Shack #9 and the next combine, boot scuffed perimeters already visible in the light snow and drawn in a decently tidy rectangle. There were guards loitering nearby, nosey as always with their cigarettes and their antsy dogs anytime someone did something out there besides piss or pace or stare at the fence.

“What’s all this?” Bucky inquired cheerfully, coming up to them with Gale, bundled and shivering behind him.

Benny looked up from tilling a furrow with his boot, right where Lu’s mittened finger pointed out. “It’s for the garden. S’posed to be spring before long.”

“A Chicago man oughta know better, Benny.” Egan snarked.

“Need us?”

Bucky sniffed, a casual set to his body that belied his quest, “Just the little one.”

Smith promptly looked startled, then eager. “All well Majors?”

“Need your advice on the color of my cufflinks with this suit.” Bucky extended his arm and beckoned her, “C’mon back in for a minute. One of you too, need a watch to go with the cufflinks.”

———————————————————————

With Benny on guard, Brady and Kendeigh having excavated the radio’s shell from the floorboard and table leg in which it resided, the Buckies stood over Smith’s small frame as she sat at the table and inspected the simplistic device with keen eyed appreciation for the construct.

“It’s really marvelous.” she assured Cleven, running her fingers over the carefully coiled wire and precarious pin.

Gale didn’t even crack a smile. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked instead.

She shook her head, a frown gathering. “Never made one-“ she cautioned.

“-but you get the idea.”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“So what’s wrong.”

Lu ran her fingers over the wire, again and again, the dusty metal not insulated, just bare copper, likely stripped from somewhere. It reminded her of early days as a cadet when they threw chicken wire mixed with hydraulic lines at herself and her fellow rookie engineers and told them to sort it, testing to see if they knew which was which. It had been so rudimentary she had wanted to laugh until she realized others were being flunked.

This was so basic she was stumped.

“Take your time, Lu.” Bucky spoke up after a burdened pause during which she could almost feel Major Cleven breathing down her neck.

“Candy, can I try with the headphone?” she asked at last, frustrated and out of her element, just a few months out of a plane and she had already lost her touch.

Maureen passed it over and Lu pressed it to her ear, not to discern what was quite obviously radio silence, but to imagine the whole process in reverse, track it down the cord all the way to the base, each possible breakdown of the conduction.

She fingered the ramshackle diode with burgeoning suspicion. “What’s your crystal?”

“That’s just…lead.” Cleven muttered.

“From?”

“Ground pencils.” Bucky supplied cheerfully.

Smith bit her lip, “We need sulfur added. Lead won’t conduct on its own.” She figured Cleven knew that, the grim and unmoving set of his mouth suggested so.

“Just- sulfur?” Maureen asked.

“If I had sulfur we could add it to the lead dust, ignite it and-“ Smith grinned at Kendeigh, knowing that she alone may have shared her enjoyment of a small conflagration from time to time, “burn it down and you’ve got something close enough to Galena. Just need a pinch of it should work.”

Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets and surveyed the mostly morose room. All except for the two girls grinning at each other over the hypothetical of a little chemistry experiment in a highly flammable wooden combine.

“We’ve got sandy soil.” Buck’s contemplative drawl spoke up, “Dunno if we could extract enough pure sulfur.”

Maureen stared back at Egan instead, “Other sectors have gotten portions of kits, chemistry kits, radio kits, they’ve been smuggled in with all sorts of stuff. Inside of a violin, oat bags. Nothing to fully build something. They might have sulfur. I could make inquiries and- well, Jack could pick it up next time the band goes over C compound to entertain the poor Aussie bastards.”

“How do you kno- nevermind, actually. Nevermind.” Bucky broke off, “Alright. Sure, why not. Ya sure that’s it?” he asked Lu once more.

She gave a helpless little shrug. “Gotta be. Or the wire’s dirty. Where’d it come from anyway?”

Gale gave Bucky a long suffering look as Bucky seemed to swell a couple inches and bounce back on his heels at the mention of his scrounging prowess. “The lamp.” he nodded above them all.

Jack Brady scoffed, short, clipped, betrayed, “That why it cuts out all the time? Strobed us so bad last night -thought the room was possessed.”

“Sacrifices Jack, sacrifices.”

———————————————————

Benny had hauled in enough water buckets to elicit some negative attention from the guards, and when the inspection came the inmates of the Love Shack insisted the drenched floors and table of the Majors’ barracks were due to sanitation post regurgitation. At night, with only one stolen torch light from Combine 15 to illuminate the endeavor, a basin of water beneath a smaller bowl in which lay their precious and recently procured ingredients, a science experiment began. The Majors and Ida gathered round, all looking as ghastly and spectral in the light of the flashlight as Brady’s fake ghost. It held the thrill of a bonfire night except for the stakes, which all in the room did their best not to dwell on.

“Zippo, Candy.” Lu gave the word and Maureen, with only the protection of Ida’s bent aviators to keep from a scorched cornea, flicked on her lighter and set the mixed powders ablaze.

It flamed up high and smelly, making Benny gag and mutter something about Meatball’s gas to a tittering Brady, and then died down to a yellow smoking ember.

“We should let it sit.” Lu surmised with a squeeze to Maureen’s only somewhat singed hand, her big dark eyes surveying the burnt bowl and their smoking experiment with glittery excitement at the possibility of success, “Let it cool, settle, maybe strain it. Can you get me a net? Oh Candy come now, get me a strainer?” she begged with a laugh as Maureen rolled her eyes at the idea of yet another trip to the Stalag Market for the most random items imaginable. If they hoped to not be suspicious, they’d need better lies or more money.

“How about cheesecloth?” Kendeigh tried not to grin indulgently- and failed- in the face of Lu and having recently been allowed to set something on fire

Lu kissed her cheek. “Cheesecloth would be perfect.”

In the end, cheesecloth did indeed prove perfect, and amongst the burnt dust of the combined minerals was a gritty little pinch full of the needed crystals. Or so Lu said, Gale agreed but the crease between his brows hadn’t lifted for two days; Bucky’s fingers had begun to twitch in antsy need to manually smooth them out. He imagined Maureen felt the same but she hadn’t said, uncharacteristically forbearant now she had some job to keep her sane. Even if it was playing fetch for Lu.

—————————————————————

“Well, this is it.” Gale muttered when the watch had been set once more, Murph and Hambone on the steps, Crank inside, Brady at the door, Benny at the window. Even Major Clark had joined them in the barracks for this final try and Lu’s cheeks were maroon from the attention even as her deft hands steadily pressed her concoction beneath its intended rod.

“Pass me the pliers, sir?” She asked and for a moment, the teacher became the apprentice and Gale fetched her the stalag forged tool, rudimentary like everything here yet the gripped and pulled and lifted same as the pliers back home. “You could check your look in this wire’s reflection.” She complimented Gale’s buffing of the copper wire.

He shrugged in turn. “Didn't wanna leave anythin’ to chance. That it?” he asked as her hands stalled and she surveyed her work.

Lu nodded solemnly. “Yes sir.”

Gale picked up the headphone from in front of him on the table like it was a gun he was about to bring to his head. “Here.” He extended it to her instead, “S’right, it was your job, you should be the first. Cmon.”

Despite her voiceless protest he pressed the headphones into her hands and Lu, never knowing how to disobey an officer, folded immediately.

For a good ten seconds everyone in the room held their breath as Smith pressed the headphone to her ear and gently wiggled the clothespin along the wire, searching and tuning, her face holding that old peaceful concentration they hadn’t seen since the last mission. She was at home with her mind tuned to another dimension. The pilots in the room knew that look, that was the look of someone at home with something that terrified them all the same, the gut swooping feeling of clearing the take off and sledding along the tops of the clouds. Wrong and strange and utterly incomparable to others, it was the closest to home one’s mind could be. Lu belonged somewhere on those electric currents and searching them out was like finding oneself again.

Then at last, Lu’s eyes sharpened out of their dreamy haze of concentration and she said, gentle as always, “It’s the BBC sir.”

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[hyperfixingfr]

I'm putting this in the tags for the people who are sending me rude asks. Please do the mature thing and just don't send me nasty things. Thanks.

For the last time since I keep getting nasty fucking asks about it insulting me and calling me names; I am not tryna run none of you people outta this damn fandom and that was never my goal so quit playing victim and pretending I am. This is a fandom for everyone, obviously... Which is why I criticize when you guys treat it like it isn't. I was trying countless times yesterday to drop the conversation when the person arguing with me kept insisting that they had an issue with me talking about an aspect they didn't like, because they were arguing with me over an opinion I had that they didn't like, not over something that mattered. This aspect personally affected me, and many others in the server. This isn't an aspect I enjoy people pretending is cute or funny because it caused very, very real damage to things like body positivity. I don't try to fight with ANYONE here, ever. My entire goal in these situations is to educate when someone believes this is bad behavior by explaining why it's problematic to gloss over this aspect or glorify it when it was a very real issue. Please, ask yourself why you're beefing with a minor. I beg of you. This person had no intention to listen to me, OR the server owner, when we told them that they can have different opinions and simply ignore it if they don't like it. They also ignored the countless attempts at de-escalating the situation, proving they just wanted to argue about it.

I should also mention this person said some really nasty things that implied I was apart of cancel culture, or on the "everything is problematic" bandwagon which is kind of implying they think that criticizing bigotry is wrong, even when it's coming from the minority group it affected. My criticizing of a media is not disliking of a media, nor is it "cancel culture". I am not trying to CANCEL a show from the 2000s. I am merely pointing out its flaws. If you can't handle being apart of a morally flawed show's fandom, don't be apart of it. Not only that, but this person made passive aggressive comments such as "wow you ramble a lot" completely unnecessarily when I was speaking. Why was this needed? I know I do. Why are you trying to insinuate that my passion about the subject is weird? Either way, I wasn't trying to have this fight. They were. This person said a lot of insensitive things to me, claiming I pulled the autism card when I rebuttaled the "wow you ramble a lot" stuff, telling me they had an issue with me merely discussing a topic that was 100% allowed in the server (stated by the server owner, the channel was allowed for criticism), and was overall very passionate about putting me in the wrong for simply pointing out and discussing the flaws of a show because it was brought up. That's not okay and that's incredibly judgy. I dunno why this person can't admit they're wrong, but it's not hard to understand that my criticism is not unwarranted nor is it unwelcome. I did nothing wrong by speaking about it in a channel that directly said criticism was allowed.

Do not play victim when you started the argument AND fueled the argument when people tried to stop it. Simple as. I'm really hoping this person realizes they're wrong and apologizes appropriately like a mature adult, because this is ridiculous. This is such a stupid thing for them to have fought me over and no one's gonna be upset if they just... Did the right thing and apologize. This applies to ANY of you who mess up. If you mess up and realize you've done something you shouldn't have, just apologize man. Especially in a case like this where the person was arguing over "toma-to, tamato-e" or whatever. They didn't like my WARRENTED opinion and they got on my ass about it repeatedly, and I got nothing out of asking them why they held it because their response was basically "you don't like this media how I like it, so you can't possibly like it, get out". Hence, them asking why I'm in a server of fans if I... "Don't like the show". Simply because I criticized an aspect.

Please, if any of you don't believe me, the server is open for the public. You can go in there and see the conversation yourself. I am not hiding myself at all from this, and I'm glad to share evidence that I did just as I said and they did just as I said. This is a stupid fvking argument and any of you still dragging it on should be ashamed for thinking this is worth arguing about. People have opinions, leave it at that. What happened to respecting valid stances?

[shedidntevenswear]

Here’s where I think we get how we talk about Taylor’s song inspirations (or what @namemarjorie has called Muse Politics) wrong: while early days I think they were probably a lot more literal, we also know that she’s been making up stories for songs since she was like 12 and that she’s incredibly skilled at writing GOOD songs, not just 100% historically accurate songs. 

Back in 2010 I was at a Parachute concert and ended up chatting with a member of the band (not Will Anderson sadly, I may have passed away if it was) after he commented on my Speak Now shirt and asked about what songs Will had written about Taylor, and he said something that really stuck with me. Will, like most songwriters, takes inspiration from a lot of different places so *parts* of songs are about a person, and the whole song may be capturing the emotions felt with that person, but not very many songs are factually about one single person. 

I think this absolutely is how Taylor writes. It’s diaristic, yes, but not in the way that every word and phrase can be mapped back to a real historical moment in time for her. There are, of course, real things that are public knowledge that she references in songs so we know they are grounded in fact, and probably a lot of private moments grounded in fact that we’ll never have confirmation of. But there are also metaphors and imagery and just things she spun up that sound nice and paint the emotional picture she’s trying to convey. She’s an artist, not a reporter. Dissecting every word to every song and then claiming ultimate knowledge of every relationship she’s had is a wasted exercise, and, in my opinion, missing the point of the art. 

[arolesbianism]

So. Sit with me everyone. We agree that we need to stop worshipping a person or media on the sole grounds of being gay right. Can we finally agree that it's not homophobic to criticize gay ppl with large platforms. Can we finally actually learn to think critically abt how these ppl talk abt ppl outside of their immediate identities and to recognize that just because they say they aren't bigoted doesn't mean they aren't. Please.

[bellestarot]

Pick a Pile

What's Next in Life?💐

♡ Take your time to choose

︵‿︵‿︵ʚĭɞ‿︵‿︵‿

Pile I

You're about to level up emotionally. I see you moving from getting hurt easily to someone who can handle emotions in a better way. Maybe it was hard for you in the past, but I see some major emotional glow-ups happening.

You're also going to get braver. Life's going to throw some challenges your way that'll help you grow.

Your adventurous side is coming out to play. You'll be at peace exploring and discovering more about yourself. I see you traveling and visiting new places, but you're doing it for yourself, not for anyone else.

You'll be surrounded by awesome people. True and genuine friendships are on their way to you in the next chapter of your life. If you had trouble with friends before, that’s about to change. Great people are coming, and the universe has your back.

You’ve been through a lot, but now you can finally trust in the situation and these new friends. I see so much happiness coming your way!

Pile II

I see success and happiness in something you’ve put a lot of work and effort into for a long time. This could be related to academics, work, or something personal. You’ve worked really hard, staying up late, feeling anxious and tired, but you kept pushing through. There were many moments when you thought about giving up, but you didn’t. Now, I see a lot of abundance coming your way in the next chapters of your life.

People will be congratulating you and happy for you because you achieved what you wanted.

I also see some family issues. This won't apply to everyone who chose Pile 2, but some of you might relate to what I’m saying. Maybe some of you have issues with your mom or a strong female figure in the family.

There might be problems related to money or how money is used in the family, causing feelings of sadness. These are more emotional issues rather than health-related ones.

I see some disappointment with the family in certain areas. However, any conflict you might have with a female figure in the family will get resolved. Having this kind of relationship can hurt a lot, but I see it ending and getting better. So, for some of you, this might be a message of support and positivity regarding a connection that's not going well right now, and I can say it will definitely improve in the next chapters.

Pile III

I see you getting savvier about other people. In the past, you might have been too nice, always wanting to help others, but when you needed help, no one was there for you. I see you starting to notice this around you and saying, "No, I don’t want that for myself." You’re becoming smarter about what you share with others and what you post online.

You’ll start realizing that everything is energy and that sometimes people don’t have good vibes or thoughts for you. This will lead you to protect your energy more.

You’re going to become very spiritual. (You’re already spiritual since you’re reading tarot), but I see you diving even deeper. You’ll get more interested in this world, studying more, listening to others, and connecting more with nature.

This will bring you closer to your truth and who you are, and I see that’s what you’re looking for—getting to know yourself better, discovering more about you, praying, and protecting yourself. I see you becoming a very spiritual person in the next chapters of your life.

You used to listen more than you spoke, but now I see you speaking up, sharing your opinions. There might have been some hesitation, wondering if people will like what you say or if it makes sense. But I see you finding the courage to express yourself and your thoughts. You’re super smart and interested in things that others might not be paying attention to.

I see you getting into these topics and being able to talk about them in an engaging and well-expressed way.

[prone-to-fleeting-obsessions]

Dating Veritas Ratio hc's

Out of all the hsr men, I'd imagine he'd be the most irritated figuring out he has a crush

A crush? A stupid little manifestation of his irrational emotions???

He'll stew over it a while, picking it apart like the most complex of equations, his stoic expression not wavering

So what if he's around you often? So what if he unconsciously seeks you out, it doesn't mean anything...

He'll hammer that narrative over and over until it becomes truth, or as close to truth as his mind will allow

You'll act like a married couple, though

He'll scold you without any real irritation, eyes narrowing as he pulls you closer to just fix the problem himself

A leaf in your hair? Your sleeve unrolled? Coffee stain on your shirt?

Honestly, how could you be such a careless mess...

Wait, no. No don't go, you're his careless mess—

It'll become a new normal to just have him occasionally once over your appearance, looking for things he can fix and doing so without a word

He also takes it upon himself to make you a healthier and more rounded person

No you're not eating garbage calories for the third meal in a row, yes you are drinking a full glass of water as he reads you excerpts from his book on how quantum chemistry applies to theoretical engineering under Nous's 63rd law of imaginary quantum information science, and there will be a quiz after so pay attention

If asked about why he's often seen by your side, he'll usually answer with a glare and an insult, commenting on the lack of even borderline decent conversationalists around

You're probably not really going to get an actual confession out of him, because that would force him to admit defeat to those annoyingly persistent feelings that just won't leave him be

If you take the initiative of backing him into a corner, you get to watch him flounder a bit, an expression of agitation and a growing warmth throughout his whole body as he skirts the topic with overly complex excuses

He's a big fan of doing different things in the same space, talking isn't necessary

Occasionally, when he remembers you're still there, he'll glance up from his book to see how you're faring, before getting back into it

He has a bit of a staring problem, in a way

It's just that he's so up in his head often, usually easily loosing sight of his surroundings, and you just happen to be the most pleasing thing to keep his eyes on

He'll look away when he notices you staring back, but it's not long before you feel his eyes trained on you again, as if studying every little movement as he works out equations in his head

Of course he does need alone time, usually spent reading in the bath

But that period seems to be getting shorter and shorter as his focus is constantly broken by unconditionally looking around to find you while deep in thought

He will absolutely use you as a blank canvas to throw ideas and thoughts on if he can't work through something in his head

By explaining it to you in mind numbing detail, he'll usually run headfirst into the solution, and it's a treat to watch his eyes widen ever so slightly as he pauses, immediately thanking you curtly before moving straight to writing

Your sense of curiosity is his favorite trait, the one he wants to nurture and encourage you to feed

He's not expecting you to be as smart as him, that would be an impossible expectation, but he will not allow you to give in to ignorance, to get in the habit of complacency, as it is the enemy of growth

He's an intimidating figure to most, both from his status and sharp tongue, so it's not uncommon for low-level scientists with something to prove to seek you out

Sometimes to get information on him, sometimes to test your intelligence, as if trying to prove themselves better than the company the great Dr. Ratio chooses to keep

He's quick to nip that in the bud, though

His crossed arm stoic faced glare would scare away anyone who isn't keen on being picked apart verbally

He'll claim it's all to avoid tainting you with their idiocracy, and that you really shouldn't keep such company

Tries to use selfish logical excuses constantly to get things he wants from you

"I've already chosen your hotel room for this trip, it'll be next to mine so I don't have to travel as far to compare notes in the morning."

"Honestly. You're coming with me to dinner so I won't waste my time working around your schedule later."

"No. You are absolutely not going to get a closer look at those monsters because I'm not cleaning up the mess you'll no doubt get yourself into by being so reckless."

"You're really going to waste your valuable time entertaining those IPC buffoons? They have more credits than brain cells. Stay here, lest their ignorance rub off on you."

He means well, under the insults and unapproachable demeanor

And, at a certain point, he really can't imagine the rest of his life without you close by

[azullumi]

jealousy — various characters ☆彡

summary — how does jealousy feels for him and how does he deal with it?

characters — kaveh, tighnari, thoma, cyno, wanderer, alhaitham, ayato, kazuha, diluc (w/gender-neutral reader)

tags — kind of fluff, jealousy, possessiveness, i want to kiss diluc so bad, not proof-read; headcanons

words — 1204

note — this was supposed to be longer but my brain is fried and bondee anyone? :D if anyone wants to be neighbors, just tell me

KAVEH — It's obvious when he gets jealous, you could just immediately tell if there's envy and jealousy brewing in his mind whenever he sees you with another person—specifically someone who is obvious with their intentions to you but you're oblivious to it—because of how he shows his emotions and is usually expressive about it. Rolling his eyes as he replies once you have touched upon the topic of what he felt as he knits his eyebrows, and everything, he's conveying it all. However, he would still refuse at the end of it, he won't even admit to it but you'll know. He’ll even lean more on the petty side, making remarks like how you should ask that ‘friend’ you’re so close with but once you’ll go and turn around, he’ll ask you where you’re going and tell you to not leave. 

TIGHNARI — He’s very much open with his emotions to you and doesn’t hide anything from you so when he's feeling something, whether it be sadness, happiness, or anything, you’ll know it immediately. This also applies to that bitter and burning feeling in his chest. At times he doesn’t verbally convey to you about what he feels, he shows it through the subtle actions he makes—wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you close, showing off that you’re taken and you have him whenever he sees you talking with someone who is showing clear interest to you and giving off a scary presence that he’ll only show towards the people he’s scolding. “I don’t like them,” he’ll say as a remark while donning a calm demeanor, and you’ll either think it’s just that or he’s trying to say something more.

THOMA — Gets extremely affectionate and sweeter than usual. He'll silently beg for more affection from you by being more clingy than he already is—he’ll be all over you like some sort of object or item taped or glued on your body, as if he’s part of the design of your clothing because of just how much he’s sticking to you. The intimacy, fondness, and love that you receive from him on a daily or usual basis? You’ll get triple that amount once he gets jealous, the intimacy and closeness being there but overwhelming. He’ll even bluntly tell you, rubbing it all over your face, that he’s jealous, that he’s really and extremely jealous while pampering you with kisses and what can I say besides you have to deal with it?

CYNO — He places so much faith in you, trusting you and being confident with himself thus he doesn’t get jealous easily. However, when he does—on rare chances— he’s grumpy and much more intimidating than usual. Even if he's known to have a good control with his emotions, dealing with it properly, and placing it where it’s supposed to be, when he gets that feeling, all of those are thrown out of the window and somehow, he find himself twitching his eyebrow and giving death stares to the person acting way too close to you. He does get clingy though, staying closer to you, lingering touches, intertwined hands, and longer gazes, and everything, as if he’s trying to say something through his caresses and strokes on your skin.

WANDERER — Understanding and patience is what you need. He gets irritated or irked off once he gets jealous and you’ll first think if he’s just having his mood swings or something. He’ll leave you thinking and confused, basically not admitting that he’s jealous and would get more irritated if you won’t be able to guess or know what he’s feeling. He just refuses to talk about it, rolling his eyes and turning his back away when you'll ask him if he's jealous or what, and you can’t help but scratch the back of your head upon recognizing the feeling being expressed by him. He’ll be salty for a few days, just give him a little bit of time—he secretly wishes that you'll woo him and give him more of your attention and time instead.

ALHAITHAM — He doesn’t even know it—or more like he just ignores and fans off that feeling in his chest which will slowly grow, as moments pass by. He's the type of person whose jealousy will start really small, letting it pass, until it becomes something he can't completely turn a blind eye to. At first, he could have an inner monologue wherein he’s in conflict with his emotions and thinking him being jealous is impossible but then he imagines you with someone else and he’s irritated. He reasons that perhaps he was envisioning you with Kaveh that’s why he’s displeased so he thinks of another person and the annoyance persists. He tries to create logic out of what he is feeling before giving up and admitting that he is, indeed, jealous.

KAMISATO AYATO — The clingy possessive type of jealousy is what you’ll get from him. Through his actions and simple words, he'll tell the other party to stay away from you before he'll have to deal with them himself and you could and probably would think 'awww, that's so sweet and cute to see that he's jealous.' Not when you'll come home and he's all over you, lips all over your skin, kisses all over your face, and hands all over your body. However, once the two of you are in bed and you have already fallen asleep, he'll admire you for a little bit longer before pulling you close as if he's afraid that you'll leave him, was he being too much? Well, he just can’t help it when he holds so much adoration and love for you.

KAEDEHARA KAZUHA — Communication is the key so when he’s upset or jealous over something, he’ll tell you about it. Not in a way that it feels like he’s reporting some sort of news or topic to you, straightforward and clear—”I am jealous because of this guy that was starting at you,”—but in a roundabout way: asking so much questions, going back and forth a certain event, his mouth lingering on the topic that made him jealous without saying he’s jealous. He just gets repetitive, hoping that you’ll realize and thankfully, due to the fact that he keeps on talking and speaking over something, you’ll eventually realize what’s going on and once he sees that you do, he just laughs nervously and says: “I’m being childish, aren’t I?”

DILUC RAGNVINDR — He silently looms his jealousy over. Silence, silence, silence, that's the only treatment that you will get from him at first except for the short responses and such as he’s busy dealing with his own emotions, his mind muddled with the thoughts that he shouldn’t get jealous over something so small or petty. He just doesn’t know how to act and what to do, resulting in you receiving the silent treatment from him. However, he would then succumb to his emotions after minutes, suffering more from what he’s giving and not talking to you than the feeling of jealousy itself which will lead to him eventually telling you about what he felt and seeing how adorable he is, how he tries to maintain his demeanor and composure, kissing him would be inevitable.

© azullumi — do not plagiarize, copy, repost, nor translate any of my works.

[marlshroom]

i will never ever stop thinking about the disability allegories in gravity falls. i cant ever stop thinking about disability allegories in other media and gravity falls is no different. im feeling chatty today, so lets see if i can articulate all my feelings on the matter.

the most interesting thing that stuck out to me with thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com was this snippet on fords medical paper:

we hear about this kind of attitude towards disabilities often, maybe you have heard about autism being referred to as the "next evolutionary change in humans." we can especially see this when a person has a disability, but is also very capable in other fields. there are so many cases in the medical or educational field of a child having specific needs, yet they are ignored due to them being "gifted".

in a vacuum, ford's extra finger may not be considered a disability, the sixth finger allows him more movement and dexterity, and ontop of that, he's a genius. its just an extra finger right? its not like it hurts him. but it does hurt him. he is a child living with a limb difference, he is constantly ridiculed by his peers. they call him a freak and physically harass him.

this is where we dip into the social model of disability here. i know sometimes that can cause a little bit of discourse, but i think its interesting to note here! please if you have a limb difference feel free to add your perspective or correct me where you see fit. if you don't know what the social model of disability is, its the perspective that disabled people would not be as limited in their abilities if it wasn't for the oppressive society that they lived in(think people in wheelchairs could do more things if infrastructure had disabled people in mind). ford wouldn't be experiencing abliesm in his life if limb differences were something people were educated about. then we get to bill cipher. in theory, his ability to see the 3rd dimension is almost a super power. but in the book of bill its literally stated that it is illegal for anyone to mention the possibility of "up". he is forced into abusive medical practices where he is being drugged to suppress his ability. no one in his dimension has the same perspective of him, he is completely alone, and even worse, the people who should be protecting him like his parents and doctors are abusing him(not that his parents are evil for this obviously. they don't have a choice and i assume they want what is best for him, what were they supposed to do? yet it still had this horrible impact on bill).

this social model can be applied to bill cipher. he has this ability that in a vacuum would be considered amazing, but he lives in a society(rip) that oppresses this. they have to, because bill trying to let his dimension see the stars killed every last person. which makes me think that whoever was in power here probably knew this would happen. its unsure if bill cipher knew the true extent of his damage would be, but i am of the belief that he didn't know how bad it would really be.

i just find all of this very interesting. i really love when a story tackles a topic such as disability. its so obvious this is what alex hirsch is going for and its such a unique take that i don't see often in media, as a disabled person myself. feel free to lmk your thoughts :)

[luvvyouforever]

matchmaker, matchmaker - azriel x reader

↳ mor drags azriel to velaris's resident matchmaker, only for him to fall for her instead of his potential suitors.

↳ no major warnings apply! just some fluff and cuteness. not grammar or spell checked. sorry hehe

↳ requests are open! check bio.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

azriel and mor sat at a cafe table in the heart of velaris, steam rising from the tea cups in front of each of them. this was not an uncommon occurence by any means and the pair frequented the many shops and restaurants throughout the town. however, this time, there was an air of tension between them which caused their waitress to carefully place their drinks away from the edges of the table.

"you're telling me you won't even consider seeing her? do you know all that she's done for velaris, az?"

"she's just high fae, mor. she's not some prophecy teller that can see mating bonds between people. i don't understand what she could even do for me."

ah, yes. the topic of conversation was azriel's love life and mor was desperately trying to convince the spymaster to see her friend, the matchmaker of velaris.

what azriel was saying was true. she did not have some special power that allowed her to see the invisible string connecting mates. she could not look into her mind and pull out the best partner for someone. she just knew how to read people and how to do it well. she was responsible for a lot of the matches in velaris, even predicting nesta and cassian long before anyone else could.

"you're lonely, azriel. i can tell! you want to dance with someone at rita's and have a date to parties just as bad as anyone else. you just won't admit it," mor declared. her voice softened and she continued, "i want what's best for you, az. we all do. will you see her for me? please? even if nothing works out."

azriel sighed and took a drink of his tea which was still too hot for his mouth. damn mor and her awareness of the people in her life. and damn him for the way he'd give in to her so easily. "fine," he mumbled. "i will try. but no promises."

that next week, azriel came back from a trip to the mortal lands and immediately, mor was at the door to his room, badgering him about the meeting she set up for later that day. she declared that he could not reschedule or miss the meeting and that he should dress in something nice.

begrudgingly, azriel took a long bath to make sure he looked and smelled fine enough to get a potentially good match from mor's friend. he chose more "normal" clothing as instructed by mor and flew down to the bright townhouse fast enough to reach the door just as his appointment was set to begin.

she surely sensed him because before he even got the chance to knock, she threw the door open and greeted him.

"azriel, right? spymaster of the high lord's court," she said sweetly. "i am quite honored to have you in my home."

azriel felt too awkward for his own good and just nodded with as polite of a smile as he could muster.

"come on! come on!" she ushered him into her home which was brightly decorated in all sorts of eclectic decor, a lot of it being hearts and other love motifs. "can i get you anything?" she asked. "water? tea? snacks? wine?"

"no...no. i'm good, thanks," he said, quieter than he meant to. his eyes raked over the matchmaker, finding her to be a lot younger and more spry than he imagined. mor spoke so highly of her that he thought she must be ancient, having made matches for velaris since the dawn of time. she was also quite beautiful and the way she spoke caused some odd feelings in azriel's chest that he didn't like. his shadows noticed his attraction to her too as they whipped around his chest before hiding behind him, sometimes whispering things in his ear.

"suit yourself," she joked. she sat down on a large armchair and gestured to the matching one in front of her. azriel obediently sat down and watched her moves. she pulled out a frilly notebook from a drawer along with a pen. "has mor told you anything about what i do?"

"not really," azriel admitted. "just praises your name and forces her friends to come to her." the matchmaker laughed and azriel felt incredibly proud of himself for making her laugh.

"well, i just want to know a couple things about you. nothing crazy. just your inner thoughts and desires. and i take that information and compare it to other people and see what comes from it! simple, easy, and usually pain free but i have a feeling you may be a little more introverted than most." azriel shrugged in response. "so, my first question is what are your must-haves in a relationship?"

azriel fiddled with the hem of his shirt as he thought about the question. nobody had ever asked him that before and he honestly hadn't even thought about it. "um...someone who's nice. understanding, i guess. i have a lot of responsibilities in my job so someone who doesn't mind that i'm gone a lot," he thought for a second more. "what do people usually say?"

the matchmaker thought for a moment. "well, i would say my must-haves are patience, kindness...someone who's fine with staying inside," she paused and smiled, "definitely has to own some kind of awesome ancient sword or blade that i can play with."

azriel clocked her statement as a joke but some part of him, deep down inside, wishes that he had truth-teller displayed on his chest for her to see. he was patient, he was a homebody, he was...relatively kind. oh god...what was he thinking?

"all jokes, of course. but really, it's just anything you want in a partner. maybe you want them to be strong and abrasive and can hold their own. it's all up to you, azriel."

she moved on to the next question, which he was very grateful for. this one, however, was harder than the last. "what are you looking for here? do you want me to hunt down your potential mate? do you want something fun and casual? committed? i can do it all."

azriel felt like she was stripping back his layers, one by painful one. all to find someone he can kiss. this was crazy! and he didn't even know her name. "i don't really know, honestly. i...i guess my mate but that seems hard considering it could be anyone. i don't really desire anything. mor just made me come here."

she leaned forward and her big eyes seemed to look into his heart. "i know that's not true, azriel. everyone wants something. you have this...look in your eye that tells me you really want this to work out, that you want to believe in this. you just have to be open with me, 'kay?"

azriel let out a breathy chuckle. "how can i open when i don't even know your name or anything else about you?"

she thought for a second before nodding in agreement. she laid the notebook down on the side table and leaned back. "fair, i guess. my name is y/n, i have lived in velaris all my life, i enjoy pastries, reading, and tea, i started matchmaking as a silly way to keep my friends and i entertained until it started working too much to be a coincidence. i spend all my time finding love for other people but haven't found the one for me. ironic, isn't it?" she smiled at azriel. "there. does that make you feel a bit better?" he nodded. "good. now, let me repeat my question."

azriel and y/n continued their conversation, knocking out the questions she had prepared with relative ease. he felt comfortable opening up to her and being honest about his desires for love. he was completely unused to expressing his feelings like that but it came to him easily in her presence. the way she easily leaned in, eyes focused and gaze unwavering...it did something to him.

eventually, though, the questions ended and azriel knew he had to leave her home. he stalled on the last question, having her reword it over and over even though all she had asked was what his habits at home were like.

"well, azriel, thank you for answering all my questions. from here, i will start comparing your answers to other people i've met with and i will reach out to you with your first match up. you'll tell me if you're interested and if you aren't, we'll move on to the next!"

azriel panicked internally at her words which clearly signaled the end of their conversation. he rose at the same time as her but subconsciously placed his body in front of hers so that she'd have to step around him to leave the room. "so, do i come see you again at all? or...or is this it?" he cursed himself for sounding so awkward.

she laughed. "you can if that is what you prefer. if you want to talk about your dates and how they went then i don't care to. did you enjoy this a little more than you anticipated?" she joked.

he nodded and scratched the back of his neck. crap...crap, crap! he had to do something, right? she was single, she said so. but is it wrong to ask the matchmaker on a date? after she poured so much work into finding him a match? he thought for a second, eyes trained on her. in his ears, his shadows whispered encouragingly. this is it...come on!

"is everything okay, azriel?" she asked innocently.

"so i know that this whole thing was to find me a match but i actually really enjoy your time and i think you're beautiful so would you want to go on a date with me instead of sending me on dates with people that i couldn't care less about?" his words came out at lightning speed and he was pleasantly surprised that she understood everything.

a blush came to her cheeks and it matched the pink and red hearts around the room. "seriously?" she asked. he shyly nodded. "i'd love to. tomorrow night? you come by?"

he breathed out a sigh of relief. "yes, tomorrow night. thank you."

the two of them made their way to the door.

"so, no matches at all? not even helga down the street in the butcher shop? she's been looking for someone for yearssss," she said in a sing-song voice.

"cauldron, no. i want you." he was shocked at the confidence that leaked through his words. she blushed again and rose on her toes to press a soft kiss to his cheek.

"i'll see you tomorrow. tell mor that my services worked, if you'd be so kind." azriel flew off then with no intentions of telling mor anything that happened.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam! Because I just saw the post on ao3 and donations, and a different post about ao3s updated statement regarding chatgpt/ai generated fiction, and you generally have a good read on things like this - what's your opinion on it, and how its meant to be interpreted?

(I want to good faith believe, and its a complicated/ongoing topic, but wanted to hear your thoughts)

I don't know which post about the update you mean, Anon, but I assume the update referenced is the one the OTW posted on 5/13 about AI scraping and ChatGPT. I do have some thoughts but I want to go through the post a little because I don't think I'm actually needed to interpret this one -- I think with some critical thought anyone can, but a lot of people don't get critical thinking training in school, so I want to do a little demo of it.

Pre-emptively, this is a list of things I'm not an expert on: copyright law, data scraping, AI, website design, and the legality of certain forms of freedom of expression. But honestly for this you don't need to be.

First and foremost, we really have no reason to disbelieve OTW when they speak on this subject. While there's debate and discussion about AO3 and certainly it's imperfect in a number of directions, they are pretty transparent, generally speaking. I don't believe there is a reason to approach AO3 with an assumption of disingenuity in a general sense. However, the organization is run by humans, who are imperfect and can sometimes be deceitful, so it's good to always approach public statements with a critical eye.

So the post is talking about two separate but related issues: preventing AIs from scraping AO3, and policy on AI-generated works being posted. What we are looking for, from both, is a combination of things: we want what they're saying to make sense both in the world, and within the statement -- no contradictions, nothing that seems illogical, nothing that seems like baseless assumption or generalization. We want simple prose, and we want a look at the reasoning behind the actions they're taking.

When talking about AI scraping, they start with what they've done to counteract scraping, speaking in relatively simple terms but with enough specificity that if you wanted you could look up anything you didn't understand. They list what they've done to prevent scraping, and they also discuss the issues with the kinds of measures that would need to be implemented to fully prevent it. They mention specific examples that people were concerned about, and they talk about what they'll be doing going forward.

In terms of the text, this all makes sense to me -- here's what we've done, here's the problem with doing more, here's what we plan to do next. Internally, no matter what the topic is, this section is logical, there are no contradictions and no particular evasions. Critically it passes muster. Additionally, with the knowledge I do have of website design and data management, I can tell that they're doing all they reasonably can. From a standpoint of ignorance, the statement makes internal sense; from a standpoint of knowledge, they're doing what I would do in their place.

When talking about AI-generated works, likewise, they're pretty open about their process and reasoning. They say look, this isn't against TOS as it stands, and here's a reminder of why, followed by a mission statement. The bolded text of that statement is very clear, and correlates with what I said in an earlier post: their policy is maximum inclusivity of fanworks. This statement is consistent with policy AO3 has held for years, which is well-known to the community.

They go on to discuss how AI-generated work could violate spam policies, but those spam policies apply to everyone everywhere, and they remind us that we can always have the Policy & Abuse team examine a work we're skeptical of. (Inside baseball, I know some people who have beef with Policy & Abuse for being unresponsive, particularly in certain cases where harassment is involved. However, within this document, they are saying both "here's why we do this" and "if you have a problem, here's the first step.")

Again, after saying what's happening and what's being done about it, they move on to say that these are only current policies, and may change depending on future developments, and that those changes will be made available for public discussion. This is once more internally logical, and with the benefit of outside knowledge, perfectly rational.

Because I agree with them -- when I saw there was an "updated" statement from OTW on AI-generated prose I was frankly alarmed because I think banning AI-generated prose from AO3 causes way more problems than it solves. It's pretty restrained of them not to bring up the issue in more detail, but it's not difficult for those of us familiar with the community to project outwards as to why banning AI prose might be a bad thing.

So, think about what happens if an AI prose ban goes into effect and you read a fic you think was AI generated. How can you tell? Have you read some of the human-generated prose on AO3? Some of it's not great. So really in that case, what you're banning is someone saying they AI-generated the fic, which means AI-generated fic would still show up, it just couldn't be tagged as such. It's like Prohibition -- they banned alcohol and people still drank. They poisoned the alcohol and people drank the poisoned alcohol (check out paragraph five for specifics). If you ban something off the archive it'll still show up there, it just won't be tagged, so instead of a bag labeled "dead dove, do not eat" you just step on a land mine in your kitchen. AI prose is not content in the way that say incest or underage sex is; I'm against banning those as well, but at least with those you can pretty clearly say "yes this is" or "no this isn't" based on objective criteria. You can't do that with "was this made by a human or a machine" when it comes to prose.

Which leads to the second issue: if a text is reported as AI-generated and the author says "No, I wrote that," how do you prove otherwise? If you report an author for uploading AI-generated prose, all that will happen is either they just say "No, I wrote that" or someone on AO3's abuse team unilaterally decides that yes, this is AI prose, and punts someone off the website who might just be kind of a crap writer, which is not a sin or a crime. Either way it's a waste of time. So introducing a ban on AI prose is really just introducing either a useless show-law that will still cause AI prose to be posted there, just without proper tagging, or a tool to harass people with. Harassment is already an issue on the archive.

And we can reason all this out for ourselves simply by asking "What is the good-faith reason for not banning AI prose?" Assuming good faith isn't just for blindly trusting, after all; it's also for reasoning out other peoples' motivations for things.

And frankly fandom gets a little weird about assuming bad faith when it comes to anyone who has the least bit of power within the community. It's something I've encountered personally, as someone with some clout in fandom who is occasionally assumed to have weirdly malevolent intent. I'm not malicious. I'm just an awkward dumbass. But this is just something fandom does, so it's also good to check oneself and go, "Hey, is this person being genuinely malevolent or am I just assuming wickedness because it's easier to be mad at a villain than to explore the complexities of these acts?"

It's why I deliberately didn't speculate about the person who uploaded an AI fanfic and didn't respond to others doing so in comments. That person is right there. You don't have to assume any intent at all, you can just ask them. And it's so much more educational to do so!

So yeah, actually real props to whoever wrote that post by the OTW -- it's internally logical, reasonably transparent, simply written, and avoids a lot of prose pitfalls that I would absolutely fall into (did fall into, in this very post). I think within this area, they are doing what they can to prevent scraping and making the correct decisions, for now, regarding AI content on the archive.

[becomingthatgirl111]

how i organize myself and you can do it too (tips)

i get a lot of questions about this topic and I have decided to make a post about it so that you can understand it better and apply it.

how do i get organized? i organize myself with a to-do list, it's the simplest and easiest way for me but there are other ways, but today I'm going to focus only on this one. I use an app called "todoist" there are many more or even the option to write down what you have to do and your tasks in a notebook.

it is much better to write down what we are going to do the afternoon or the night before so that the next morning we can wake up knowing that we have a list of things we have to do already written down.

do not copy anyone's routine, it can serve as inspiration and motivation, but you have to create your own routine adapted to your current circumstances and even to the goals you want to achieve, this depends on each person.

in the mornings, i recommend that the first activities are the ones that are hardest for you to do, that is, if you don't like to exercise very much, start with that. we can also change our minds about it, look at the positive side of the activity and what it will benefit us, and then we will feel happy and proud of having completed it.

in the evening it is better to do quieter activities so that our body gets ready to rest. here you can do activities that are less heavy, for example, you can dedicate time to your body care or to reading.

If you have to do a heavier activity in the afternoon, like playing a sport because that is your schedule, that's fine. or if you have to study, i recommend that you use the pomodoro method because it includes breaks and this will help you to clear your mind.

i write down in my to-do list every day what i have to do tomorrow, that is to write the list for tomorrow, that will help to keep it.

if you find it hard to find the motivation, ask yourself why? what new activity would you like to include? include it and the fact that you have to do that will give you motivation. it is clear that sometimes we have to do things that we don't like or are more boring, but as i said before we can take the positive side. for example, if you have to clean why not do it by listening to a podcast or music? there is no one way to find motivation, i don't think you have to do anything specific, it's just a mentality towards life, towards how we see things. so if you are a person who finds it hard to find motivation, look for something that you like to do and that makes you get out of bed, because that is much more beneficial. it is important that we start to look more for ourselves and for what really benefits us, for the good that we are doing, I think that is enough motivation.

if you have many things to do in the day, it is not impossible to do them all, on the contrary, you just have to organize yourselves with this list and there is always room for everything! you always have 5 minutes to meditate, to do your skincare.

as i said, you can put the smaller tasks in between or at the end of the day.

this is just a guide and i hope it will help you to create a perfect routine and therefore your best version.

if you have more questions you can ask me of course!

[linkspooky]

Okay, so I received an ask in response to an MHA critical post I received last night that I originally responded to, but then decided to delete the ask and the original post because I didn't want to get into an argument.

However, I feel like I should address one of their complaints about a post I made last night. That I was being too dismissive on the cultural reasons for some of the writing choices Horikoshi made because I am obviously not a part of the culture that Horikoshi grew up in and is commenting on in his piece of work.

I tried not to dismiss the cultural reasons entirely in the post though, I just said I don't think you can entirely blame Hori's writing choices on them. My cited example was there are other shonen jump mangas that don't go out of their way to gruesomely kill their villains (which is what I'm taking fault with.) I understand that the death penalty is a common response to murder in japan, but within the realm of fiction of shonen manga doesn't have a trend of killing all their villains.

But yeah, that might have been a shallow argument.

So there are different lenses of fiction you can criticize Horikoshi's writing on, because every piece of fiction is in fact influenced by the culture it's in, as well as obviously the author's personal life and unconscious biases but that's not all. There's also genre to consider, and influences / inspiration the author might have taken from other works.

For example, there is also genre in particular MHA is written as a response / commentary to both western comics and classic shonen jump manga. Horikoshi said in an interview:

“Probably have to be Goku and Spiderman. To me, when mentioning heroes, these two are the ones that I think of. In Goku’s case, it’s the reassurance that everything is going to be fine he brings when arriving.” 

There are multiple critical analysis lenses that you can analyze a story from. If you're talking about MHA from a feminist lens then you're likely to stick to topics relevant to that, like say japanese feminist movements. If you're talking from the sociopolitical angle then it's relevant to discuss collectivism, and especially how it inspired the Todoroki Family. However, my intent wasn't to dismiss sociopolitical reasons as why Horikoshi chose to write the story this way, but to say it's not the only reason that informs Hori's storytelling choices. MHA isn't just one thing it's multiple thing, me deliberately choosing to talk about MHA as a response to both eastern shonen manga and western comics is a valid critical lens to apply to the manga. You can talk about both obviously, but that was a pretty short post. Perhaps I didn't word my post the best but please try to be understanding that I can't make a post covering all of my bases on leaks night.

For a manga where Horikoshi cited his concept of heroism comes from Goku and Spiderman, they both don't kill their villains, Goku specifically let Vegeta live so if those are his inspirations the choice to kill every villain is weird to say the least.

I can make the argument that MHA fails as any kind of meaningful commentary on comics in general because it doesn't seem to understand the comics it is taking inspiration from. The X-Men are the underdogs in their story, not members of the privileged class they are the outcasts. Batman doesn't kill people because he believes that most of his mentally ill victims turned villains deserve a second chance and he can't dictate who deserves recovery and who doesn't.

If anyone reading this post is curious, here are posts by @siflshonen that discuss both the manga influences and comic infleunces easter and western infleunces on MHA, and also the cultural ones. They are also really long posts because those topics require a great length to discuss critically. This one is about MHA's manga DNA in regards to Bakugo's character, and specifically references Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaiba's character as well as Jonouchi as response for Bakugo's development arc from bully to best friend. This one discusses more about the nuances of collectivism. This one is in reference to the Todoroki family, it discusses both collectivism / japanese family roles / honnae and tatamae concepts that the Todofam is critiqueig, and also how Enji is inspired by eastern ideas of heroes while All Might is inspired by western ones. (Therefore it's not a wrong critical lens to compare MHA to other shonen manga and western comics because that is literally what the manga is taking inspiration from and commenting on).

Here's a powerpoint presentation by @sans-san that discussed Hegemonic Masculinity in Tokyo Ghoul in terms of work culture and how the CCG is inspired by that, which I think also applies to Enji's character as well.

This post by @bnhaobservation spoke about how the Todorokis decision for not disavowing or abandoning Toya after he was sentenced to life in prison would still be a progressive ending to the TODOFAM arc, and while I still wouldn't have been satisfied by that ending I'd at least be able to accept it. That is however, not what we got, we got Toya dying a slow agonizing death while hooked up to life support. So we could have still gotten a slightly softer ending where Toya's at least allowed to live that would have still been in line with the values of the culture that produced MHA.

This post by @bnhaobservation also talks about how the Todofam plotline can still be seen as progressive in some ways in regards to his criticism of Enji's parenting, because of certain outdated attitudes of parenting that still exist about Enji pushing Shoto to his absolute limits.

However, I don't want to debate the person who sent the ask, I just wanted to clarify I'm not trying to make a reductive statement that sociopolitical circumstances have nothing to do with Hori's writing choices, but that you can also analyze it from a lens of genre, commentary on comics and shonen manga, and also the predecessors he's taking inspiration from. All of these things have an inspiration on Hori's storytelling choices.

Since I'd rather not debate, now that I've gotten clarifying things out of the way I'm actually going to use this post as a book reccommendation.

Here's Shigaraki with Underground, one of my favorite books. It is a non-fiction work from famed fiction author Haruki Murakami about the Saren Gas attacks.

On a clear spring day in 1995 five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas in the Tokyo Subway system. In an attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakami talks to the people who lived through the catasrophe and lays bare the Japanese Psyche.

For those who are unaware the Saren Gas attacks were a terrorist attack where members of the Aum Shirikyo cult released saren gas in the public subway system. It is the biggest japanese terrorist attack in modern japanese history and at the time and even the modern day it was a great shock to them as a whole.

The book consists of several interviews with the victims of the attack, and they are incredibly harrowing to read I remember crying while reading this book multiple times. However, at the end of the book after giving considerable time to let the victims share their stories Haruki Murakami also devotes space in the book to interviewing former members of the Aum Shirikyo cult.

Haruki clarifies his intent in his decision to include testimonial from the cult in the afterword of the novel. "As I worked on this book I attended several of the trials of the defendants of the Tokyo Gas attack. I wanted to see and hear those people with my own eyes ad ears, in order to come to some understanding of who they were. I also wanted to know what they were thinking now. What I found there was a dismal, gloomy, hopeless scene. The court was like a room with no exit. There must have been a way out in the beginning, but now it had become a nightmarish chamber from which there was no escape. [...] To all of them I posed the same question, that is, whether they regretted having joined Aum. Almost everyone answered: "No, I have no regrets. I don't think those years are wasted" Why is that? THe answer is simple - because in Aum they found a purity of purpose theycould not find in ordinary society. Even if in the end it became something monstrous, the radiant, warm memory of the peace they originally found remains inside them and nothing else can replace it. [...] However, as I went through the process of interviewing these Aum members and former members, one thing I felt quite strongly was that it was't spite of being part of the elite that they went in that direction, but because they were a part of the elite. [...] However, we need tor ealize that most of the people who join cults are not abnormal; they're not disadvantaged; they're not eccentrics. They are people who live average lives (and nmaybe from the outside, more than average lives), who live in my neighborhood and yours.

Haruki interviews members of Aum Shirikiyo because he wants to make the point that the people in these cult aren't from a dangerous fringe element of japanese society, but rather they are normal people, some of them even highly educated. The capacity to commit those crimes exists in normal people, and also the capacity to fall victim to a cult.

The Ikuhara anime Mawaru Penguindrum is heavily inspired by both the Saren Gas attacks and the questions that Haruki Murakami asked in the Underground. Fully covered here in this article: Exploring Mawaru Penguindrum 2011 from a historical, cultural and literary perspective here.

Underground was Murakami’s attempt to interview survivors of the Sarin Subway Attack. Apart from learning the perspectives of ordinary citizens involved in that shocking incident, he also managed to interview several members of Aum Shinrikyo and tried to get their point of view on the matter. (In the Japanese edition of the book, the interview with the cult members were published in a separate book, titled The Place that was Promised.) It was an important piece of journalistic work that criticized the public’s attitude of questioning what happened, instead of asking the proper question of why it had happened. In the anime, viewers knew that an event took place in 1995 that affected all the characters, but what exactly was the event about? Why did the people do that? What social factors attributed to the occurrence of such event? These are the questions that Mawaru Penguindrum asked, and one that we were left to ponder on.

Ikuhara and Murakami both exist in the same culture as Horikoshi, Haruki is an incredibly prolific japanese author and he was born in 1945 but both of them are able to ask more meaningful questions about the society they live in then Horikoshi accomplishes with the league of villains and the todoroki family. Haruki Murakami emphasizes the humanity of the aum shirikyo members and that they are not lunatic fringe members, and Mawaru Penguindrum is about the extreme social pressures that people especially children can be a victim of.

Literature is influenced by the culture it takes place in, but it's also a response to that influence and the piece of art that Horikoshi wrote just isn't as thoughtful of a response than what was written by both Ikuhara and Murakami.

More book recommendations if you're interested. The Setting Sun, by Osamu Dazai. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. How do you Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino. In the Miso Soup by Ryo Murakami. People who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Perry. Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (I'd argue this is an example of good collectivism). The Memory Police by Yuko Ogawa. Out by Natsuo Kirino. There was a couple more I wanted to include but they had cannibalism in them so I thought it better not to reccommend them.

[transfemlogan]

I have seen people criticise how thomas is currently writing and treating remus' character, because he represents intrusive thoughts & that'a a delicate topic (I am one of these people).

I've also seen people criticise remus as a dark side because that implies he will be accepted and have an acceptance arc. I have seen people say that Remus should not have existed as a character, because they dislike the concept of him "getting accepted". That Thomas shouldnt "accept his intrusive thoughts" because that... implies that they are "good"(?) and that it makes them uncomfortable because "their intrusive thoughts are bad and shouldn't be accepted, so neither should c!Thomas'" or whatever.

&. Everyone who says this has completely missed the entire point.

You... are supposed to accept your intrusive thoughts. That's quite literally how you cope with them. Intrusive thoughts are not "evil" or "bad", they're Thoughts. I've literally seen this said everywhere & it . Shocks me?

C!Thomas should accept Remus & his intrusive thoughts. Because if he is stuck continuously thinking those thoughts are "evil" and "shouldnt be thought about", then he will never learn to cope. And I know with Virgil & Janus, their acceptance arcs involved the idea that "anxiety & deceit have a purpose" & people dislike that concept with Remus & intrusive thoughts... but for c!Thomas, intrusive thoughts do have a purpose for him. They help him understand when his mental health is bad & when he is struggling & needs to take time to relax. That does not mean they are "good", it just means it shows Thomas how he is doing mentally & needs to "listen" to that.

It reminds me of when people on Tik tok say "you can have intrusive thoughts, but you're not supposed to talk about them!" ... you are supposed to talk about them. You should talk about them. They're not stuff to be hidden?? Like you are still continuing to stigmatise intrusive thoughts when you say that.

"Thomas shouldn't accept intrusive thoughts because they're bad thoughts! I would never accept my intrusive thoughts!" They're not bad thoughts, nor are they good. They're neutral. They are just Thoughts that happen to cross your mind that you do not morally agree with. You're supposed to "accept them".

Acceptance doesn't have to mean acting on it, because that would never even apply to intrusive thoughts.

Having a character that represents intrusive thoughts have a sympathetic arc is a good thing that unstigmatises intrusive thoughts. It's a good thing to have this character be treated with respect and to be accepted and "listened to" (not literally). It helps people accept and cope with their own intrusive thoughts and it helps with others feel sympathy towards people who have intrusive thoughts.

Obviously, if other ppl w/ intrusive thoughts want to speak up, feel free. But as someone who has intrusive thoughts, it is so silly to me to act like Remus' concept is inherently bad because it makes "intrusive thoughts out to be good" (no, it doesn't). Obviously, there are better ways for Thomas to have gone w/ remus' character & esp lately, when he treats intrusive thoughts as impulsive thoughts, but.

Hearing fans say that is like... you are continuing to push stigma against intrusive thoughts. You are not helping anyone if you are continuing to act as of intrusive thoughts are bad and should be hidden.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

A few people have defended Chloe and Lila's writing by saying that teenagers being just as capable of heroism as adults means that they need to be just as capable of villainy as adults. I know that's not good logic, but I can't put my finger on WHY it's not good logic, can you weigh in on this?

I actually don't think it's bad logic at all. They're right. Teenagers are absolutely capable of being monsters. A teenage bully may not have the wide reaching impacts of a terrorist, but teenage bullies still do real and lasting harm that can shape victims for the rest of their lives.

This is why you have to be really careful when it comes to redeeming either of these characters (and also Sabrina since she's almost as bad as Chloe in my eyes). You cannot minimize the harm that they've caused by saying "well, they're just kids" or even by pointing out that Chloe and Sabrina were victims of abuse.

Fourteen-year-olds are more than old enough to know right from wrong. Yes, they're not full adults yet, but they're in the stage of life where they're learning how to be adults. That's why we call them young adults! People in this stage of life are very capable of understanding that their words and actions can hurt people. Heck, three-year-olds are capable of that! If you don't think that these teenage characters understood that bullying Marinette was hurting Marinette, then you're arguing that these characters have some sort of developmental disability or psychological disorder or something of that nature that is effecting their development in an extreme manner. If so, then that requires immediate serious intervention by professionals, but I don't think that anyone is making that argument for anyone save, maybe, Lila.

On the abuse side of things: being a victim is not a free pass to hurt innocents. Victims don't get a magic ticket that says, "you may now do one free abuse" every time that they're abused. By that logic, giving Audrey an abusive past would absolve her of everything that she did to Chloe. The same goes for Gabriel and Adrien, which is why this is such shitty logic. Nothing justifies Gabriel and Audrey's actions. What they did to their children was wrong.

The same logic applies to all characters and all types of abuse. Victim status doesn't prevent you from becoming an abuser. It's actually quite common for abuse to lead to more abuse which is part of why you can't grant exceptions on the basis of victim status. If you do that, then you eventually reach a point where no one is accountable because everyone has been abused and is therefore a blameless victim who can do no wrong. No one wants to live in a world like that.

There is of course, a lot of nuance to this topic and a lot of it is heavily situational. For example, I totally believe that certain exceptions have to made for extreme cases that I'm not going to give examples of to avoid triggering content, but you can probably think of some. However, we're not talking about extreme cases here. The characters that we're talking about are reasonably normal fourteen-year-olds. Young adults who have been allowed to be part of society and who know that what they're doing is wrong. And if they don't know that bullying and terrorism are wrong? Then we're back to the concern that something is deeply wrong with these characters and they need immediate serious intervention from trained professionals.

To be fair, Lila may end up being that kind of character, but Chloe and Sabrina certainly aren't. Since Chloe was the character mentioned in the original ask, we'll focus on her for the rest of this. While Chloe has absolutely been abused, she's not some isolated victim who has no idea how the world works. She's been allowed a reasonably normal childhood. This scene from Malediktator is actually pretty solid writing for a character like Chloe:

Ladybug: I'm fine with helping you, Chloé, but first… I need you to tell me what happened. Why is your father— I mean, Malediktator, so mad? Chloé: It's because of this super lame loser named Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She's this horrible girl in my class and she hates me. (Ladybug looks angry, but then contains her feelings) She's ganged everyone up against me and she— Ladybug: Maybe this Marinette girl isn't entirely to blame? Chloé: Uh! Ugh. Okay, it wasn't totally Marinette's fault. She is really mean to me sometimes, but actually, this time, Daddy got angry all by himself. Ladybug:(not buying it) All by himself? Chloé: Yeah, because… there was something he couldn't do… Ladybug:(puts a hand on Chloé's shoulder) Chloé, it's me, Ladybug. You can trust me. You can tell me the truth. Chloé: I— I— Ladybug: Mm-hmm. Chloé: It— it was me. I hurt my daddy's feelings. Because I want to leave Paris, forever.

She knows right from wrong and she knows when she's hurting people. She just doesn't care most of the time because she's never had to face consequences for causing harm so why should she care? It's not like it effects her! This is why she only cares about the damage she causes when it effects her or the people she loves.

That's not a deeply messed up world view. A lot of people only have strong feelings about things effecting those they love. Chloe just needs to work on being more neutral to people outside her circle because that's how we make a happy functioning society. (This is a hint of that nuance I mentioned before. I'll give a few more hints as we go on, but we won't really be digging into it due to word count. Just know that I'm aware of it.)

Giving Chloe an abusive past didn't absolve her of her actions. It just gave us a potential reason for why she does what she does. This actually does make Chloe's abuse important! Once we know the reasons why her character is doing something, we can then understand her character and better guide her story. Understanding that she's a victim means that she can be helped because this isn't some inherent part of her. It's learned behavior and that means that she can unlearn it.

And now we get to circle back to the original ask and discuss why it's still valid to be mad about Chloe and Lila's treatment and why it IS bad even though it's not wrong to have "evil" teenagers.

The reason why Chloe and Lila's lack of redemption is concerning is because full grown adults who have done far worse things are being redeemed based on nothing while these two teenage girls are being treated as beyond hope. If Gabriel Agreste and André Bourgeois are allowed to have happy endings without doing anything to earn those happy endings, then why are Chloe and Lila being treated as devils? What message is this show trying to send to kids? That it's okay to be a terrorist as long as your reasons are good, but be a bully at 14 and you're doomed for life? That's total BS!

It's especially concerning because Chloe's bad treatment of her adult father is being used to justify his redemption while Audrey and Andre's terrible parenting is not being used to give Chloe a similar free pass. Writers, wtf are you doing? No one should be getting a free pass in this situation. They all need to take action to right their wrongs if they want to be redeemed. Andre shipping Chloe off to live with her mother is an adult man saying, "oops, raised that one wrong! We'll let's just pretend that never happened."

Don't get me wrong, Chloe's actions are still fully her own and she needs to own that, but crying, "Daddy" only held power because Andre did whatever Chloe told him to do. He held all the power and was happy to misuse it in order to make his daughter happy. That means that he holds blame here, too. He allowed his daughter to become a total brat by encouraging bratty behavior.

This was not a situation where Chloe was a danger to others for some reason. A situation where Andre was truly doing the best anyone could hope to do in order to keep his daughter placated so that she didn't physically hurt anyone. It was also not a situation where forces beyond Andre's control were effecting his daughter and shaping her personality while he was desperately trying to guide her down the right path. It was just plain old terrible parenting. He spoiled Chloe rotten, got the completely predictable end result, and then threw her out for a better version that someone else raised. What an uplifting message! (That was sarcasm.)

Chloe and Lila would have worked reasonably well in a story where all of the important characters were teens. A story where Lila was always the big bad, Gabriel was a minor character, and Chloe's parents never got any screen time.

That's not the story that the writers wrote, though, so the "teenagers can be evil" defense falls flat because if domestic terrorists aren't evil and child abusers aren't evil, but bratty teenage girls are, then what are we even doing here? This is extra true because the people this show is aimed at are not adult men. They're little girls who may very well relate to Chloe and Lila.

There's also the issue of Chloe being dammed while other teen characters were given a free pass for no real reason. Felix, Sabrina, and Kim have all done equally bad or even worse things. Felix is especially uncomfortable because he's basically a male Chloe who did all of the same actions - and often did them better - yet he doesn't have to give so much as a simple apology for what he's done. He's just good now because Kagami needs a boyfriend.

Chloe outed herself in public while emotionally compromised? So did Felix and he had weeks to plan before hand, too! Chloe did it in a totally reactive manner without any real plan.

Chloe used the miraculous that Gabriel stole? Felix stole the miraculous himself and gave them to Gabriel!

Chloe bulled Marinette? Felix bullied Adrien!

Felix even did some of the same things as Lila! He tried to ruin Adrien's friendships via manipulation and deceit in his first appearance. He knew Gabriel's secret and used it to his own advantage instead of telling the heroes. He used a major terrorist attack as an excuse to further his own goals. The list goes on! So why is he being welcomed onto the team with open arms? And why is no one telling Kagami just how dangerous her new boyfriend is? She wasn't there for most of this so she has no idea who she's dating.

And this isn't even touching the mess that was Derision's terribly delivered message about owning your actions and not blaming others for your bad behavior. That episode makes everything about Chloe's treatment look even more hypocritical.

In summary, the issue is not that teenagers can't be bad guys, they absolutely can! The issue is how all of the other bad guys and bullies are being treated compared to these two and how inconsistent the rules are. Of course, we haven't seen all of Lila's story, so who knows what the end game is for her. Maybe she'll also be trying to restore a dead wife and so she'll get a free pass, too.

[moeitsu]

Since it's pride month I wanna talk about something I've noticed in the Red Dead Redemption fandom:

The Bisexual erasure of Sadie Adler and Arthur Morgan.

I apologize if this comes across as harsh, but it's something that's been on my mind since I started interacting w/ this media. And as a bisexual, I wanted to discuss it further.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with shipping these characters with the same sex. Personally, I am a Charthur shipper till the day I die. I don't ship Sadie with anyone but her husband, but I still enjoy seeing the fanart and headcanons of the women she's shipped with.

That being said, these characters are not lesbian or gay. That's literally a fact, and if you think otherwise it is bisexual erasure.

Let's start with Sadie Adler. Her entire character arc is getting revenge on the O'Driscolls for killing her husband. Whom she mourns for years, and talks about frequently with Arthur/other camp members. Now, if you want to ship her w/ Abigail or Molly or whomever, go for it!! But she has loved and still loves her husband. She is not a lesbian, and she didn't just magically turn into a lesbian after Jake's death. If she had any love interests other than Jake, this would make her bisexual. (even Sapphic is still a more appropriate term than lesbian)

The same goes for women in real life who have dated men first, then dated a woman. Just because their current partner is the same sex doesn't mean we can assume they are suddenly lesbian. Calling characters lesbians even if they have been in a relationship with men before is bisexual erasure.

This same concept is applied to Arthur Morgan. He had previous relationships with women. (one of whom he still has strong feelings for) and he is attracted to women. We see this with his greeting dialogue and when he compliments people. I believe Arthur's character is more likely to be bisexual than Sadie's, given his interactions w/ some of the men in the game. But that doesn't erase the fact that he's still attracted to the opposite sex. Arthur is not a gay man. Disregarding his past relationships w/ women is a form of bisexual erasure.

There is a huge double standard here because if these character's were actually lesbian/gay and the fandom decided to ship them with people of the opposite sex (i.e headcanon they are bi), there would be a major discourse.

Whenever bisexual women and men are presented in the media I always notice a few things:

Bi women are "secretly straight"

Bi women "don't know their lesbian yet"

Bi men are "secretly gay"

As well as this funny little graphic below ↓

Like I said before, I am bisexual. And if I'm being honest this years pride month has been exhausting and mildly infuriating with how the community seems to disregard bisexuals in a hetero relationship.

I stopped talking about my bisexuality with people because once they know I have been in a committed relationship with a man for seven years, I am suddenly excluded from the conversation.

I've had ex-friends tell me that I only identify as bisexual to "fit in" with the queer community. I've had people in college assume I was lesbian bc of the way I dressed, and then try to tell me that I must be secretly lesbian when I tell them I'm Bi. (Ppl also assumed I was non-binary bc of the way I presented but that's another story)

This stuff doesn't just happen to fictional characters, it happens to real people every single day. I'm honestly tired of ppl saying "well my headcanon doesn't hurt anybody, they're not real." Yes it does!! You are supporting Bi erasure!!

That's all I'm gonna say on this topic for now. I'd love to leave it open for discussion, but please be nice. This isn't a call-out or me trying to antagonize the queer rdr community. I just wanted to get it off my mind.

[cacoetheswriting]

celebrity skin. (part two)

pairing: rockstar!eddie munson x popstar!fem!reader word count: 6.5k summary: your night with eddie continues to haunt you. and now you have to work together — what could go wrong?

content warnings: 18+, minors dni: smut with a plot, oral (fem receiving), aftercare, suggestive & mature themes, other mentions of sex (nothing graphic), adult language, use of pet names, mutual pining, emotional hurt / comfort, topics of guilt / regret — if i missed anything, pls let me know!

psa: images used in the header don’t depict readers physical attributes! these are also described vaguely in the story, only that she’s a little shorter than eddie.

celebrity skin. masterlist

Eddie Munson hurt your feelings.

Granted, you were just as much to blame. Rockstars are always nothing but trouble and you knew that when you jumped into bed with him.

‘Cause why would Eddie Munson be any different from all the other musicians you’d slept with in the past? He gave you no reason to think otherwise. He never promised you anything.

Letting him occupy your heart and mind after only one night together was your own damn fault, though it was easier to blame him. And you could make a list of excuses, reasons as to why you did what you did, but it really came down to one simple thing: Eddie seemed… different. Almost as if he also wanted to continue this past some single fling.

You asked to stay over. He immediately agreed.

Why? If he was only going to say the night meant nothing to him, why did he agree? Why did he pull you under the silk covers and wrap his arm around your bare shoulder, placing a gentle kiss to your crown? Why did he hold your hand close to his heart, allowing you to feel his heartbeat as he opened up about his past? Why did he let you trace your fingers along his scars?

If it was just about having sex with you, why did Eddie act like he cared what you thought of him? He could have kicked you out the second you came down to earth following your orgasm, not kiss you again with a feverness that made you believe he was silently begging for more — which foolishly, you gave him.

Then you didn’t call immediately, like you said you would. Again, only you were to blame here, but in your own defence, you didn’t think he’d act so coldly towards you. It was just one delayed phone call and he knew better than anyone how plans often change when you’re in the limelight.

Proof was in the pudding. Eddie didn’t like you nearly as much as he led you to believe he did — as much as you liked him. 

And it was fucking foolish of you to fall for him the way you did. Holly thought so too. She actually had a lot of opinions after you told her why you bailed on her at the party.

“Boys are all the same,” she stated while applying the finishing touches to your makeup. “They have one thing on their mind and when they get it, no matter how sweet they act towards you, you’re unfortunately disposable.”

“Eddie doesn’t seem like that,” you defended, which only caused Holly to roll her eyes.

“Hate to be the one to break this to you, but Eddie Munson is exactly that type of guy.”

The cherry on top of this godforsaken mess was your Nana who somehow caught wind of your salacious activities with the Corroded Coffin frontman. She confronted you at her charity luncheon of all places and was actually the main reason you had called him with such a delay, meaning she was also partially to blame for how things turned out in the end.

“You’re not to go anywhere near that boy again,” it almost sounded like a threat. “He’s no good for you or your image. Can you imagine the news? America’s sweetheart canoodling with a devil worshipper. You would be ruined.”

“He’s not a devil worshipper—”

“I don’t want to hear you defending him,” your Nana interjected and looked around, probably to make sure no one was listening in on the conversation. “Honey, I’m just trying to protect you. You’re still a little young to understand just how long our mistakes can follow us around for.”

“Right,” you scoffed, “But I guess you have experience in this area.” And with that you walked away. She didn’t follow.

A few days later, after your brief conversation with Eddie, you showed up at her apartment with tears in your eyes, repeating how she was right — not necessarily the devil worship stuff, just the “not being good for you” piece.

Mid-September 1992, Eddie was supposed to be in New York with his band to perform on Saturday Night Live. He told you that in between trailing kisses down your jawline: “Just in case it’s hard for us to find time to see together,” where his exact words, “This one is a guarantee.”.

You half-debated going to the after party. It wouldn’t be hard to get your name on the guest list, just one simple call from your management team. You even knew what you could wear. Chanel had sent you this gorgeous little black blazer-dress from their Fall 1991 collection, gold buttons at the front creating a v-neck that perfectly accentuated your chest. It was tame enough to keep in style with your image, but bold enough to hail the attention of the Corroded Coffin frontman.

As you stared at the dress however, you knew going would be a mistake. He’d likely view it as an act of despair and the last thing you wanted to do is give him any more power in this situation. So you opted to watch the show from the comfort of your own sofa. Your younger sister Valentine, named after the most romantic day of the year (according to your parents), Val for short, came over to watch with you.

Turns out Val is a big Corroded Coffin fan. Luckily, she remains blissfully unaware of what had gone down between you and the lead singer of her favourite band.

Val ended up being the person who pushed you to do the feature on Corroded Coffin’s upcoming single. She is the person who actually got you to listen to the demo in the first place.

The opportunity first presented itself around January of 1993. After weeks of trying to forget about Eddie Munson, and the way his touch made you feel, your team flushed all that hard work down the toilet in one short meeting. They presented an idea you really wanted no part of — a quick feature that was gonna cost nothing, but make you (and them) five times as much, if not more.

Your initial reaction was a plain and simple no. You had brushed it off as their music not being within your wheelhouse and for a second, they agreed. Only Val had come to the meeting with you. She was only supposed to be a silent observer and take notes for her Business Management module. Of course, she didn’t listen.

“Oh my god! Your voice blended with Eddie Munson’s would make for an automatic hit,” she exclaimed and you swore then you were going to kill her. 

“Their sound is just not my thing,” you explained calmly.

“At least listen to the demo before you make any final decisions,” Val reasoned, earning herself nods and yeses from your management team.

Losing the battle, you made your way to the nearest empty recording room with the CD in hand. Knowing this was already hard enough, you asked to go alone. Val was the only one to put up any sort of fight, but older sister rules and she quickly changed her tune.

When the first few notes began to play through the speakers, you felt gratified because the song was totally opposite of what your fanbase enjoyed — just like you rationalised. However, then the melody slowed down. The heavy guitar from the intro was instead replaced by a more acoustic sound, and the loud drums, reduced to a simple beat. They were a mere decoration to the main event. Eddie and his hypnotic vocals.

“Honestly, you got me fallin’ to my knees It’s like ecstasy, this feelin’ inside of me Let’s call it honesty

You’re a devil in disguise No, that’s what I want you to be ‘Cause in reality, hon’, you’re a hypnotic dream An angel for sure To a non-believer like me Oh honesty, what have you done to me, honestly”

You’re not sure at which point of listening to the demo you started to cry, but you did. The tears are slow, trailing down your cheeks as you clutch the empty CD case tight to your chest.

Was it egotistical to think he’d written this song about you? Most definitely. Yet the sheer emotion in Eddie’s voice, not to even mention the lyrics themselves, made it quite hard to say otherwise.

“Why do they want me?” You asked once you had returned to the room, after listening to the demo three times in a row and taking an additional ten minutes to compose yourself. “They can have any female singer on this, why me?”

“The request came from someone above the band.”

It wasn’t the answer you had secretly hoped for, but you agreed to do the feature nonetheless. There was no denying, the track had huge hit potential, especially as a duet. And Val was right, your vocals mixed with Eddie’s were going to make history. Your reasons for saying yes, however, were a little different. You really just needed to be a hundred percent sure Eddie wrote this song about you.

March 1993 and the day you’d been stressing about since you agreed to do the song had finally arrived.

You had put on the most comfortable yet sexy outfit you could find and done your makeup differently to what Eddie would have seen you in. sprayed on some rose-scented perfume and plastered on a big smile, the fakest sincere shit you had become quite the expert at over the years — your trademark.

The band's manager, Marianne, greeted you on arrival. Holly and your bodyguard, Hank, had come with you to the recording session. You asked Holly to be there as emotional support and Hank was there just to get his paycheck. Either way, you were quite glad not to be facing this alone.

Everything’s fine, you told yourself as you followed Marianne across the building and to a studio where the producer and a handful of sound technicians were waiting for you. Finn, Jane, Kit, and Gavin — in no particular order of importance, their own words. Happy to be working with you, can’t wait to make some magic, big fans of your work, etc. You just smiled. Then Marianne opened the door to the room behind the sound-proof glass and a shiver ran down your spine once you walked through.

Although you did your best to not look his way, Eddie’s presence was instantly known to your senses. As though no one else was ever here, all you could feel was his eyes on you and it caused your heart to rattle inside your ribcage. The sheer fact of being in the same room as him again, after all this time apart, was infuriating yet exciting at the same time. You wondered what he was thinking, was he happy to see you? Surprised? Annoyed?

Holly was on your heels, saying her charming hello’s to everyone you had just introduced yourself to. She actually met Jeff at Eddie’s party so the two of them hugged like old pals and within a split-second, they were off to the side, catching up. You lost your protector quite possibly at the worst time.

“And our frontman, Eddie Munson.” Marianne introduced, one hand hovering over your back while the other extended in the direction of the curly-haired man,

You focused your attention on her arm, refusing to look up and meet Eddie’s chocolate gaze. From the corner of your eyes, you could see as he wiped his palms on the pleather of his pants and held out his right hand in your direction. You glanced at it briefly, the smile on your face faltering.

Suddenly, he was right there. Right at your fingertips. Just take his hand, you thought to yourself, it’s not that big a deal, just take his hand and look at him.

“We’ve met before,” you said with little to no emotion, and without meeting his gaze, then quickly turned to Marianne. “Should we just get started? I listened to the song, I have no notes, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Marianne seemed to be taken aback by your abrupt change in attitude. She glanced at Eddie then back at you. “Uhm, yeah, sure. Of course. Right this way.”

The two of you silently left Eddie’s side, though you continued to feel his eyes burning into your frame. This whole situation was honestly nauseating. Not only were you forced to face the memories of this one magical night you shared with the famous rockstar, you were also about to sing a duet together, a song he most likely wrote about said night. All while pretending you don’t care about him or the night in question.

Marianne propped you in front of a microphone and handed you a set of headphones and shortly after the band had taken their places. You glanced across the room at Holly who gave you an encouraging thumbs up before hurrying out to re-join Finn, Jane, Kit, Gavin, and your bodyguard, Hank.

Your heart was hammering inside your chest. This was so beyond fucked, you almost wished it wasn’t too late to back out. The only thing making this just a little bit worth it was Eddie’s clear discomfort. He was the last to take his place at the microphone placed only a feet away from yours, his movements reluctant. You still refused to look at him, focusing instead on the carpet between your feet, hands now on your hips.

“You know what I’m gonna say,” Marianne’s voice echoed through the room, “The day I don’t say it though is gonna be the day we make a shit piece of art so, here goes, good luck and have fun.”

An unsettling silence filled the air as soon as she closed the door behind her. 

You weren’t sure how their band sessions really went, who took the lead and who followed. You hoped someone would speak so you wouldn’t be the first, but no one did. Eddie’s eyes were burning into the side of your head. At this point you were starting to think the universe was playing some sick joke on you. So you glanced upwards, first behind the glass to where you located Holly who gave you another thumbs up, and then you tilted your head in the direction of the man next to you.

You exhaled softly and leaned in closer to the microphone before saying, “Honesty, take one.”

-

Eddie had thought about you every single day since that fateful night in August. The memory of you, your smile, the colour of your eyes, how you felt to the touch, the pretty sounds you made just for him, it had occupied his mind permanently. And he tried to get over you, really, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Not the drinking, not the weed, not losing himself in music, not even hooking up with strangers after the bands’ shows.

He was a goner, yet too fucking stubborn to call or try contact you in any way.

But now here you are, a mere arms-length away, and you’re singing the song he wrote about you, harmonising with little to no effort as you stare right into his big eyes. Eddie is staring back at you, holding your gaze ‘cause he’s afraid if he’d look away, you’d never look at him again. He wants to know what you’re thinking. He’s trying to decipher the angry sadness behind your eyes. Not like he deserves anything from you, but he wants to know how you’ve been. Most importantly, he wants to know if you even like the song?

“Okay,” Marianne pops her head in as the track ends, “Let’s break for lunch.”

Everyone starts to gather whatever they might need for the next hour — bag, bottled water, smokes — before following Marianne out of the recording studio. You’re still staring at Eddie and he’s thinking now’s his chance to talk to you. However, just as he’s about to open his mouth to start perhaps the most awkward conversation, you drop his gaze and hurry out the door.

“Shit,” the curly-haired rockstar curses under his breath then proceeds to follow you down the long hallway until you disappear into the ladies toilets. “Shit,” Eddie swears again as the door closes in front of his face. He runs a hand through his locks, debating whether he should continue his chase, though, eventually, he decides going inside would be a total breach of privacy. Instead, he leans across from the entrance, lights a cigarette, and waits. You’re bound to return at some point and when you do, he’s going to be here and you would have to talk to him.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long.

The door opens slowly and you emerge, wiping your hands on your denim skirt. Attention solely on fixing your outfit, it takes you a second to realise Eddie’s there ‘cause honestly you didn’t even know he followed you. As you take a step forward and his worn-out converse sneakers come into view, you swallow.

Closing your eyes momentarily, a desperate attempt at some kind of composure in this situation. Ultimately, there’s no use in continuing this childish game of cat and mouse so you gaze upon him.

“Hi Eddie,” you say with all the confidence you can muster.

He exhales a puff of smoke, then replies, “Hey, sweetheart.”

Your heart aches at the moniker and you can’t help but wonder if it’s a nickname solely reserved for you, or if he goes around calling everybody he sleeps with. After all, with the way things turned out to be, you were simply a number on his undoubtedly long list of conquests. You weren’t special.

“It’s nice to see you,” Eddie admits, though his words only twist the imaginary dagger he had jabbed into your heart. “You look… great.”

This makes you roll your eyes. Truthfully, you didn’t have high expectations for your first conversation with the Corroded Coffin frontman, but there was something about him casually flirting as if nothing had happened, that made your blood boil.

“Fuck you, Eddie.”

He’s taken aback by your words and the harshness behind them. Obviously he messed up, treated you with an indifference no one deserves to experience, especially someone with a heart as pure as yours. To hear you say that though, mixed with the pure agony behind your eyes, it makes him feel sick.

About to walk away, you turn on your heel. Eddie puts out the half-finished cigarette against the wall, letting the bud drop to the floor, and reaches out to grab your arm. Surprisingly, you don’t flinch at his touch, not at first anyway, which gives him enough time to step in front of you and lift his hands to cup your cheeks.

“Sweetheart…” Eddie begins in a whisper, thumbs caressing along your cheekbones. Your skin is softer than he remembers and it only makes his heart ache more, mournful for the time lost.

“Let me go,” you plead quietly and shake your head, fingers attaching themselves to his wrists, digging at the dips in his knuckles and the valleys of space where his hold met yours, in an attempt to separate the two of you.

Eddie doesn’t budge. He’s stood firm as you claw at him, trying to break free from his grasp. If anything, he inclines closer and in the space of a single heartbeat, you can feel his hot breath as he dips his head to your level, forcing you to meet his gaze. There’s a sense of despair behind his brown eyes and you almost stop fighting.

Almost.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Okay? Is that what you wanna hear?”

His words, although an apology, didn’t sound like one. To you, it seemed like Eddie wasn’t actually sorry for his actions, he just hated the fact that you were giving him the cold shoulder. He wanted to be in your good graces not ‘cause your night meant something to him, but because he had a bruised ego. A cruel joke really. 

So you clear your throat and call on the only person guaranteed to get you away from his situation.

“Hank,” there’s very little power behind your voice and Eddie furrows his brows a little confused at first, but then you move your head to the best of your current ability past Eddie’s shoulder and say his name louder, “Hank!”

“Please—”

“Hank!”

Eddie drops his hold on you then and runs a hand down his face as you take a single step forward, arm brushing against his a little too steadily to be called an accident. Seconds pass and neither of you moves, each staring in a separate direction while your bodies continue to press together. Eddie extends his fingers. You feel the metal of his rings and the air hitches in your throat.

How come one second you cannot wait to get away from him and the next you’re aching for his touch? One second you’re pushing him away and the next your fingers are intertwining themselves with his. It was fucking messed up, hating him yet caring for him at the same time, and you didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

When your army-veteran bodyguard appears at the end of the hall, you snatch your hand away from Eddie’s grasp and plaster a fake smile on your face.

“Everything okay, miss?” Hank asks, glancing between the two of you.

“Can you call the car? I’m not feeling well.”

He nods. “Right away.” Then disappears just as fast as he rushed to your aid. 

You’re once again left alone with Eddie. Only this time, the Corroded Coffin frontman makes no attempt to reach out for you. Instead, he slides his hands in the pocket of his jacket and tilts his head in your direction. You can see him from the corner of your eyes and it takes all the strength you have to not look his way.

“I am sorry,” he says in a defeated tone, “Whether you choose to believe me or not.”

With that, he walks away.

-

The world hadn’t stopped spinning since your earlier interaction with the Corroded Coffin frontman.

You felt sick while recounting the moment on loop. The sad look in his eyes, the defeated sound of his voice. His body language was screaming I wanna be closer to you, unfortunately, you couldn’t figure out if he was being sincere, if this whole situation really weighed on him as deeply as it did you.

Holly had berated you for even indulging in a conversation with him, to which you huffed and puffed ‘cause she’s the one who left you alone in the first place for “not-a-date” lunch with Jeff.

“Hope you at least got some,” you tease, rummaging through your half-unpacked suitcase for the box of smokes you carefully hid in there, for emergency situations only.

Holly laughs from her spot on the sofa. You can’t see her face, but you can tell she’s smiling. “Shut the fuck up,” she deflects with a giggle, “We went for some friendly burgers. I wasn’t looking for anything else.”

“Was Jeff?” You quip, placing a cigarette between your lips and reaching for the ashtray. You carry the item towards one of the hotel windows before lighting the tip, slowly inhaling.

“You’re unbearable, you know that?” Holly jests, shifting in her spot to look at you. “Just ‘cause you’re sexually frustrated.”

You smirk, exhaling some smoke. “What gave you that idea?”

Holly raises a brow, an amused look spread across her face, and points to the cigarette you’re holding onto. Before she can make her point of you only smoking when you’re stressed or craving some action — and in this instance, it’s clearly both — there’s a knock on the door. The two of you glance in its direction then back at each other.

“Where you expecting—”

“No,” you answer before Holly can finish her question, “You?”

She shakes her head in response. There’s another knock, louder this time. You quickly put the cigarette out and waved the curtain around, your best attempt to somewhat ventilate just in case this was a surprise visit from your Nana who, despite being a heavy smoker herself, would kill you for indulging in the cancer sticks.

While you spray some perfume on, Holly walks towards the door. She shoots you one last glance, making sure you were presentable for whoever was on the other side of that door, then opens to reveal someone you both were least expecting.

Eddie fucking Munson.

“Oh,” he breathes, brows up, “I didn’t think—”

“What are you doing here, Munson?” Holly interrupts, holding onto the door so he knew he wasn’t welcome inside.

“Shit, if you just let me finish.” Eddie grumbles back. “I didn’t think anyone else would be here. I came to see her.” He looks at you then and your heart twists the second your eyes meet his.

Holly tilts her head in your direction and a sigh escapes her lips. There’s a reason she’s your closest friend. She can read you like a book and the expression on your face right now, gaze not leaving Eddie’s even for a second, is telling her to let the rockstar in — whether she agrees with that or not. 

So she drops her arm and pushes the door wider before stepping to the side. Eddie looks at her then back at you. He walks inside, not wanting to waste this opportunity since he didn’t know how long it would last, as Holly approaches you. The girl places her hands on your cheeks, forcing you to focus on her just for a moment.

“If you need me, I’m right next door, ‘kay?” Holly whispers and you nod. “Shout, scream, do whatever. I’ll come runnin’. I’m here for you, this time.”

“Thanks, honey.”

“Always,” Holly affirms then lets go of you. She straightens her top before turning around and walking back to where Eddie stood with his hands in his pockets. She sizes up the curly-haired man, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she shuts the door with a timid bang.

Silence settles in the air. Once again, it’s just you and Eddie staring at one another with immense longing yet sadness. Only, unlike earlier today, you don’t want to run away.

There are approximately three pieces of furniture between the two of you and the longer he continues to look at you with his doe-eyes, you’re calculating how exactly to manoeuvre around them to hug him, putting an end to this entire charade.

Something is still holding you back, however.

“What are you doing here, Eddie?”

He swallows and proceeds to hesitantly walk towards you, past the sofas you were debating jumping over mere seconds ago. He stops about an arms-length away, careful not to totally invade your personal space in fear of you pulling away again. Instead, he leans against the back of one of the couches and tilts his head to the side.

“What do you think of my song?”

You furrow your brows. “What?”

“Do you like it?” Eddie asks, but doesn’t give you enough time to answer, “I’m thinking you do since you agreed to be on it, but then again maybe you don’t and your reason for doing the feature is to mess with my fucking head.” His fingers are at his temple, pointing to emphasise his words.

There’s an ache in your chest. “You really think that low of me?”

Eddie’s face falls at the deflated tone of your voice and he’s cursing himself for hurting your feelings again. He didn’t mean to. Word vomit, is how his uncle Wayne described it back when Eddie was still living in Hawkins, it’s as though Eddie’s mouth and brain didn’t connect.

He sighs, running a hand through his locks. “I gotta get something off my chest, just in case you kick me out and we never get a chance another to talk alone,” he says then takes in a deep breath, “You probably don’t wanna hear this, and you probably won’t even believe me, but I genuinely cannot stop thinking about you.”

Your face softens at his confession, though you remain in place, arms crossed.

Eddie continues. “And I’ve never experienced that with anyone. I certainly didn’t expect to feel these things for you, especially after spending only one night together. Which is why I acted like a dick when you called. I was hurt that you hadn’t reached out sooner considering how near perfect that night was.”

A timid smile circles your features. Briefly, you’re cursing yourself for giving in to his charm so easily. Very briefly.

“Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll isn’t used to having someone else’s life take priority over his, huh?”

That’s when Eddie laughs, and the second the melodic chuckle falls from his lips, you drop your arms and take a step towards him. Your fingers reach for his instinctively and he takes your hand gladly, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Totally not, no.” He admits. “But I am willing to change.”

“Hmm,” you hum, lifting your other hand to brush a loose strand of his brown locks away from his face. “Hope you’re a man of your word ‘cause I’m booked and busy. Can’t have you throw a fit every time I don’t call you.”

The smile on Eddie’s face widens. His right arm makes its way around your waist and he pulls you in, effectively closing the gap between you. His gaze drops to your lips, if only for a split second as he licks his own, then meets your eyes once again.

“I wanna do this right,” he mutters, his grip on you tightening. “I don’t want us to just jump the gun again and leave things lost in translation, so before we do anything else, I’d like to take you on a date, sweetheart.”

Your heart skips a beat ‘cause who knew Eddie Munson was such a damn romantic — definitely not you.

“And where would we go on this date?” You muse, “Since we can’t really blend in with a crowd.”

Eddie purses his lips together, pondering your question. He lets go of you and places his hands on his hips as he walks around the room. You’re following him with your gaze, the smile ever-present. Then his eyes twinkle. 

“Well, how about right here, baby? We can order some room service and watch MTV in bed.” The rockstar announces, pointing to the California King and wiggling his brows.

So that’s exactly what the two of you do. 

With a tray of overpriced hotel food between you and the current top tracks blasting through the television speakers, the evening was perhaps the most normal you both have felt in a really long time. Eddie, of course, gave his opinion on every song that played in the countdown while stuffing his face with french fries. Most were unsurprising, like Whitney Houston’s I WIll Always Love You, well Dolly Parton’s is miles better in his humble opinion, or Bon Jovi’s Bed of Roses, the guitar makes the song. Then came number three on the list.

You visibly grimace while moving the now empty tray to the floor beside the bed and Eddie chuckles lightly.

“Not a fan of your own music?” 

Shaking your head, you sit back although closer to him since there was no longer anything between you. “Just not my best song, is all.”

Eddie nods, resting his hand on your thigh and turns his attention back to the TV. Suddenly, you’re feeling nervous. For one, he’s touching you, thumb gently rubbing circles into your bare flesh. Then there was the music video which, as you glanced at him from the corner of your eye, Eddie seemed to be totally hypnotised by.

And full transparency, he was. How could he not be? It was a one-shot type video of you singing while walking down the street as it poured rain. The outfit you had on was sticking to your skin as a result, hair wet and makeup smudged. Raw, is the first word that came to Eddie’s mind. Not to mention completely different from your usual vibe.

“You gotta give yourself more credit, sweetheart.” Eddie says after a minute and tilts his head to look at you. “Personally, I like this a lot more than your other shit.”

You meet his gaze. “You don’t think it’s too… desperate? Like yeah, the song is making rounds and charting in all sorts of places, but it’s so—”

“It’s about me, isn’t it?” He interrupts, scanning your eyes for the answer he already knows.

“Yeah…” You exhale. “Like I said, desperate.”

He squeezes your thigh before effortlessly throwing your legs across his lap and pulling you in even closer. One hand remains in your lap while the other makes way around your lower back, settling on the curve of your ass — all without breaking eye contact.

“There’s nothing desperate about you, sweetheart.” He mutters, face now inches away from yours. “I wrote a song too, remember? One we’re actually performing together, which is arguably way worse.”

That makes you chuckle lightheartedly as Eddie continues, “Plus, you look fucking hot in that music video. Anybody that says differently is stupid and/or blind. If anything, I’m glad I inspired all that.” His voice fizzles into something darker for the end of that sentence while his eyes snap to your mouth.

You can feel him under your legs as he presses his forehead to yours, all of him. It doesn’t help that he’s so pretty from this angle. The curve of his jawline. The dips in his cheeks. His doe-eyes focused solely on yours, dimming by the second with longing. And just like that, almost as if no time had passed, you’re back where you both started. Hearts beating in tandem. Eagerly waiting with anticipation for the other to make the first move.

“I really wanna do this right, baby.” He repeats his earlier statement, but the way he brushes his thumb across your bottom lip, dragging it down till it bounces back gently in place, betrays his words.

“We don’t have to do anything right now.” And although you mean it, you hope he doesn’t give up too easily.

Eddie exhales. Eyes closing momentarily. He’s fighting every urge ‘cause he doesn’t want to fuck this up again. For once in his life, he wants to see where things can go. But the feeling of your skin, the smell of your perfume, and the memory of you moaning his name so sweetly, well it’s got his heart racing and his dick harder. 

The hand on your thigh tightening in grip, causing you to whimper delicately. And that’s when he loses the internal battle.

“Fuck it.”

He wastes no more time, slamming his lips to yours in an eager sloppy kiss. You immediately kiss him back, hands settling on his neck, nails digging into the sensitive skin. He’s groaning against your mouth at the contact, pushing into you further so that you can feel his cock twitch against your leg. And you’re convinced that if you were standing, it would make your knees buckle.

Heads rotating side to side, nose grazing against one another with each wet kiss, Eddie adjusts your positions so that you were now fully resting on your back as he lingered over you. One of his hands was now on your waist, holding you firmly in place as he starts to grind his hips into yours.

“Eddie…” You moan against his puffy lips.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good, pretty girl.” Eddie affirms quietly, trailing hot kisses from the dip of your lips down your jaw. And he desperately wants to stay true to his word so before you get a chance to react, he’s removing your underwear then slides down until his head is between your thighs.

You let out a tender giggle as his facial hair grazes against your skin. Eddie shushes you and after adjusting your skirt for easier access, he begins to place kisses along your inner thigh, drawing closer and closer to his desired destination. Aching for his touch, you tangle your fingers in his hair and tug at his curls. He smirks against your flesh and proceeds to spread your lips with his fingertips, revealing how wet you truly are, then blows several cool breaths over your hot clit. 

He proceeds to gently slide his tongue up and down your pussy, so slowly, you feel every moment of pleasure. Then he flicks his tongue over your clit, sucking and licking the sensitive area until you’re a panting mess. And when you moan his name, Eddie works a little faster. Then continues to increase his speed as his tongue darts in and out of your dripping cunt. 

Just when you think you’re on cloud nine, he forces two fingers into you, his lips focusing on your clit. They arch up to reach that sweet spot he didn’t have a hard time finding the last time and you clasp your hand across your mouth, muffling a scream. He’s relentless in his movements and you find yourself grinding into his face, meeting the pace he’s set with overwhelming frenzy. 

Faster and faster, his tongue licks up and down, spreading your pussy lips further as his fingers dig deep within your cunt, sending you over the edge with every thrust. Your legs start to shake and thighs clasp hard against his head, trapping him in place, while he continues to sucking till you go limp. 

It takes you a moment to recover and Eddie’s feeling mighty proud as he places a tender kiss to your cheekbone before moving to your mouth. You can taste yourself on his lips and it’s enough to drive you crazy all over again.

But Eddie’s got other plans. He’s decided this night is all about you, so despite the desperate hard-on currently concealed by his trousers, he cleans you up before asking where you keep your pyjamas. Your heart soars as he helps you get changed and eventually settled under the covers. 

“Stay with me.” It’s a request he’s happy to oblige. Throwing off his t-shirt and jeans, he joins you in bed briskly. The two of you fall asleep shortly after that, MTV still playing in the background. As first dates go, this one was pretty perfect and you were starting to feel like everything with Eddie was going to be this way. 

Unfortunately, the serene moment was short lived, which, in hindsight, you should’ve known people of yours and Eddie’s stature weren’t privy to normality. 

The following morning, you were both abruptly woken up by a frantic Holly. She doesn’t say anything about Eddie being in your bed, for which you’re grateful, just chucks a newspaper into your lap while you wipe the sleep from your eyes.

Slowly, you sit up then reach for the paper. Glancing between your friend and the guy in your bed, you unfold it. Eddie rests his chin on your shoulder and you both focus on the front page.

“Shit,” he expresses exactly how you’re feeling at that moment ‘cause gracing the front page, with a rather raunchy headline, is a photo, taken yesterday, of the Corroded Coffin frontman towering over you, his hands cupping your face.