#and constantly pushing the blame on the system which makes sense but also he hates himself lol

[jrueships]

True love: winning

Skip bayless: exists

[anarmorofwords]

Hi! You're probably not going to like this ask, but before getting into it I'd just like to say that this isn't meant as Kamala hate or anything, and I don't really want to offend.

Having said that, wouldn't it make sense that we get to see how Kamala treated Anna after she came out? It's in all likelihood one of the things that's weighing on Anna the most.

Obviously Kamala had her valid reasons: her parents aren't as liberal as the Lightwoods, she believes (knows?) their love is conditional as she's adopted, she's not white and not being heterosexual could further any treatment she's suffered from being different... Her reasons have already been listed multiple times by multiple people. Kamala has the right to stay in the closet and fear coming out. And while that shouldn't be villianised, we can't forget that closeted people can harm those around them.

If Kamala had kept treating Anna like a good friend, rumour would've sparked, and even if it was denied, she'd have been harmed by merely associating with Anna. Especially with the life Anna began leading; she could have been labelled as one of Anna's 'conquests' by the Clave. That, as we've established, is detrimental for her safety.

But at the same time, it would create a breach between Anna and Kamala. And Anna had the right to be hurt by it and weary of it when Kamala said she wanted a relationship.

If we look at it from that perspective, Anna's actions (though inexcusable in how they treated Kamala --who was also at fault for not accepting a negative for four months) make sense. Kamala wasn't only a fling of a week*, but also the girl she lost her virginity with, who asked her to be her secret (until she married Charles, after which Anna's affections would be discarded), who hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna suffered from homophobic commentary, and who now wants a relationship hidden from most of the people that know her.

Kamala shouldn't be forced to come out; but the harm that can do to the women she may engage with is reflective of what happens nowadays. I can mostly think of examples with gay men, so my apologies in advance. But how many women have seen their marriages ruined by their husband having affairs with men?

Creating characters that reflect a toxic part of the 'hidden' LGBT community shouldn't be seen as hating or villinifying. Thomas isn't out and he isn't labelled a villain by the narrative --because his actions don't harm anyone. The hate Alastair gets in-universe is because of his past as a bully, not because he's gay. Matthew's not fully out and he isn't villianised --like Thomas, because the decisions he makes to keep his sexuality hidden don't impact anyone negatively.

I'll even go as far as saying that not even the narrative villianises characters like Kamala and Charles. If it were, they'd be seen more like Grace in Chain of Gold. We'd see how Kamala's actions are affecting Anna's in more ways than anger (that in itself put the fandom against Anna), and the characters would note so. We wouldn't see scenes were Cordelia empathised with Charles, nor Matthew said he loved him.

Be it as it may, Kamala and Charles represent ugly parts of being closeted that can naturally occur when someone is in their position. LGBT people are human. Humans, when put into very difficult situations (and Charles risks his career; Kamala her safety), can make decisions that harm those around them. Consequently, the people they're harming have a right to feel, well, harmed in whatever range of ways --this goes mostly for Alastair, and very partly for Anna, whose treatment of Kamala was horrible.

Readers need to understand what is pushing these 'villianised' characters to harm (again, mostly for Alastair) the more prominent characters and go beyond how they are instantly depicted. Because these are complex characters based on complex real people influenced by very ugly realities we will move on from someday, but sadly not yet.

By the way, Charles and Kamala's situations aren't that similar beyond the closeted thing, but I crammed them together because of a post I saw you reblog.

Please understand I'm not justifying Charles's actions; that I understand the pain he's put Alastair through, and know that he shouldn't ever be near Alastair. Nor am I trying to justify Anna's actions nor hate on Kamala.

I'll just finish my pointless rant by adding that I do think cc has sensitivity readers. I think she asked a gay man to go through tec (I don't know if he still revised her other books, though), and know she asked POC's input when writing someone for their culture. I don't know much beyond that, but I doubt who revises her stuff is up to her. Wouldn't that be something the publisher is responsible for (honest question)?

*I've also noticed people using the argument that they didn't know each other long enough for Anna to harbour such ugly emotions towards Kamala, but Kamala also remembered Anna pretty deeply and is 'in love' with her. I just wanted to say that considering cc writes (fantastical) romance where someone can ask a woman they met two months ago marriage, stressing over time spaces doesn't make much sense. Just my take.

hi!!

alright, where do I start? probably would be best with stating that while I can analyse Kamala's situation with what I know/see/read about racism and discrimination and reasonably apply things I've read/heard from PoC to the discussion, as well as try to be as sensitive about it as possible, I'm still a white woman, so not a person that's best qualified to talk about this.

that being said - if someone wants to add something to this conversation, you're obviously more than welcome to, and if there's something in my answer that you don't agree with or find in some way insensitive or offensive - please don't hesitate to call me out on that.

back to your points though: (this turned into a whole ass essay, so under the cut)

I don't think Anna shouldn't be able to reminiscent on Kamala's behaviour/reaction to her coming out, or be hurt by it. what bothers me is the way CC talks about it - I can't remember the exact phrasing, but the post where she mentioned this suggested something along the lines of "you'll see how Kamala sided with the Clave and didn't defend Anna after her coming out", therefore putting the blame on Kamala and completely disregarding the fact that Kamala wasn't in position to do much at all. It suggest that their situation was "poor Anna being mistreated by Kamala". therefore I'm afraid Kamanna's main problem/conflict will remain to be portrayed as "Anna having to allow themselves to love again and forgive Kamala", while Anna's shortcomings - and Kamala's vulnerable position - are never discussed. I think it would be possible to acknowledge both Kamala's difficult situation and the possible hurt her behaviour caused Anna without being insensitive towards Kamala's character, but it would take a really skilled - and caring - author to do both of the perspectives justice. CC would have to find a balance between being aware of the racism/prejudice Kamala faced/ writing her with lots of awareness and empathy, and still allowing her to make mistakes and acknowledging them. As it is however, I'm under impression that she's just treating it as a plot device, a relationship drama.

I'd say no one expects characters of color to be written as flawless or never making mistakes, it's mostly the way these mistakes are written and what things these characters are judged/shamed/

And that's - at least in my understanding and opinion - where the problem is. it's that the narrative never even addresses Anna's faults, and portrays Kamala as the one that caused all - or most of - the pain, without ever even acknowledging her problems and background.

White characters in TLH make mistakes and fuck up - because they're human and they're absolutely allowed to - but the thing is, non-white characters aren't afforded that privilege. Anna's behaviour is never questioned - none of it, shaming Kamala for not being able to come out, dismissing her desire to be a mother, or any of the questionable things she did in ChoI. Same with Matthew, James, Thomas. Alastair and Kamala however? they're constantly viewed through their past mistakes, and forced to apologize for them over and over, forced to almost beg for forgiveness. Moreover, those past mistakes are used as a justification of all and any shitty behaviour the other characters exhibit towards them now, which is simply unfair and cruel. They're held to a much higher standard.

So I'd like to say that yes, Kamala was in the wrong to keep nagging Anna after numerous rejections, and she was in the wrong to not inform Anna about Charles prior to them having sex - but that doesn't give Anna a free pass to constantly mistreat Kamala. And let's be real, Anna isn't stupid - while at 17 she could be naive and uninformed, I can't imagine how after years of hanging out with the Downworlders and numerous affairs and being out and judged by the Clave she's still so ignorant about Kamala's situation. I definitely think she's allowed to be hurt, but to still not understand why Kamala did what she did? Anna isn't blaming her for not telling her about Charles earlier - which would be fair - but instead for refusing to engage in an outright romance with her. She's being ignorant - and consciously so, I think.

Overall, I think you're definitely right about how coming out - or staying closeted - can be messy and hurt people in the process, especially in unaccepting environments/time periods, and I've seen enough discourse online to know there will never be a verdict/stance on this that will satisfy everyone. I, for one, would really like to refrain from putting all the blame on a single person - but, at least the way I see it, CC is pointing fingers. maybe not directly, but she is. Kamala, Alastair and Charles have no friends or support systems, and the only people in the narrative that defend them are themselves (ok, Cordelia does defend Alastair from Charles, but not from shitty takes about him and his "sins"). Also, sorry, but I don't like how you say "hid her sexuality for two years and sat back while Anna experienced homophobic comments" - it sounds very much judgemental. Kamala had every right to do that? The fact that she slept with Anna doesn't means she owed her something, and certainly not coming out and most probably destroying her life, or even defending her at the - again - expense of her own reputation, or more possibly safety.

As for Charles - it's a different issue here, at least imo - I fear that it'll be implied that his refusing to come out will is his main "sin", and therefore not something he can be judged for, which ironically, will be villainizing, but mostly will mean his actual sins are dismissed. This is where the scene with Cordelia feeling a pang of sympathy for him comes into play, and it worries me. I've never hated Charles for not wanting to come out, but rather for, let's see - grooming Alastair, disregarding Alastair's needs and feelings, disrespecting his mother, being a sexist prick, being low-key far-right coded "make Shadowhunters great again" etc.

As for sensitivity readers - I'm no expert, so I don't think my input is worth much. From what I've gathered from multiple threads/discussions on twitter, tho it is probably consulted/approved by the publisher, many authors push for that - and authors less famous and "powerful" than her. I'm not a hater, but seeing fandoms' opinions on much of her rep, I think she could do better. Because if she does have sensitivity readers, then they don't seem to be doing a great job - maybe they're friends who don't wanna hurt her feelings? Or maybe she thinks a gay guy's feedback will be enough for any queer content - which, judging by the opinions I've seen from the fans, doesn't seem to be true.

Again, these are mostly my thoughts and I'm more than open to reading other opinions, because *sigh* I really don't know how to handle this.

Bottom line - I really really don't want to be hating on the characters in general, playing God in regards to judging the struggles of minorities, or even criticising the characters too harshly for being human, flawed etc. What my main issue is is how CC handles those complex and heavy topics.

I hope I make sense and this answer satisfies you somehow - I also hope someone better equipped to answer might wanna join this conversation.

* I desperately need a reread of TLH before I engage in any more conversations like this, but I didn't wanna leave you hanging. So yeah, I might be remembering things wrong. Again, let me know, I'm very much open to being corrected as well as to further discussion.

* I use she/her pronouns for Anna because that's what she uses in canon

[in-tua-deep]

au where five found out about vanya's powers in the apocalypse? Like maybe he found Reggie's book or he saw the eyes of vanya's corpse?

oh man like. that would be interesting to be sure, if Five managed to find Reginald’s book in the apocalypse

(He doesn’t read it at first, not for a few months after he finds it. He opened to the page that detailed Reginald’s experiments with how long Deigo could hold his breath in clinical unfeeling words and has to put it away while he breathed - not too deeply though, he didn’t want to breathe in more ash than necessary)

But he eventually does. He sits Dolores up and rages and vents to her, cursing Reginald’s name with every new sordid detail, every new terrible sin he now knows to hurl at Reginald’s feet. He reads no great loss under his section and he’s too dehydrated to weep but something breaks inside his chest nevertheless

(He’d never thought that dad loved them, not really. He might have hoped, back when he was little but he knew better now. He was thirteen, old enough to know better. But he’d at least thought that dad found them useful. 

Five had tried to hard, trained so much, been so adaptable. Even then he was no great loss.)

Five finds out from Reginald’s book about Ben’s death. Cold words that describe the way his brother died. Reginald seemed to care more about Ben’s death than Five’s presumed death, but that could be becuase Ben’s power was always bigger than Five’s. More violent. More efficient. Of course Ben was a greater loss, Five’s power wasn’t even inherently useful for fighting.

(Klaus’s power wasn’t useful for fighting either. Reading Dad’s dismissive words calling Klaus a failure makes him bristle. Reading about Reginald locking Klaus away in the mausoleum for days make Five want to hurl the book against the wall.)

Finding out about Vanya is - it’s weird. Vanya was always so ordinary. He loved her of course, for fucks sake he was the only one who cared to interact with her half the time. He loves all of his siblings but he has no illusions about how casually cruel they could be to one another.

But he reads about her powers and clenches his fists and wonders what Reginald would have done if Five had stayed, if Five had kept on his path of rebellion. Would Reginald have drugged him, too?

(Reginald had the power to take their powers away. Five wonders what Klaus thought when he found out, if he had cursed and sworn and raged at the man who watched his son suffer and turn to drugs to deal with seeing things no child should ever see. Reginald had the power to help, and he tortured Klaus instead.)

Because - of course Five assumes that they know. He reads Vanya’s books as well when he comes across it, tucking it into his wagon. He wonders when the truth came out, because the rage that drips from those pages is very real. Vanya doesn’t mention her powers in the book of course, but she would have been what, in her 20s when she wrote it? 

Vanya said in her book that she left home at 18, which means she’s had years to get the drugs out of her system and discover what their father had taken from her. Did she think that they knew? That they had kept it from her? Is that why the pages of her book drip with bone deep hurt, making Five’s fingers shake with the ache of them

(Or it could be the hunger, a now constant companion)

Five keeps both books close, even though he wants to vandilize Reginald’s book half the time. It’s strange to see the insight on them and their powers from the perspective of a scientist, odd to see the written results of the torture they went though

(He almost rips the page on the effects of electricity on his warping powers out on principle, but he just ends up curled around Dolores as he trembles involuntarily at the memories)

Five has so few belongings when he is recruited to the Commission, or at least has very few personal ones. He leaves Dolores behind in the apocalypse with a heavy heart but she’s too big to take with him. Too big to hide.

(Five always learned to only take what you can hide, because what you can’t hide will always be used against you.)

He tucks Reginald’s notebook in the waistband on his pants, the hard edges against his back a constant almost reassuring pressure. Vanya’s book gets pushed into one of his deep pockets. The glass eye gets shoved into his sock the same way he used to hide scavenged bills and quarters he would then place beneath the floorboards of his room

(He wonders absently if his money stash was ever found, but it doesn’t really matter now does it?)

He goes through the Commission with the knowledge that he has a bomb hidden away. As much as he keeps the notebook around out of a sense of sentiment he knows he doesn’t want it to fall into the hands of the commission, doesn’t want them to have this dissection of his powers on hand

(he has so little of his siblings left, just the bitter words of Reginald and Vanya both - the irony is that no matter how much Vanya extolled being excluded she had constantly been by Reginald’s side to write down observations, listening to his words, by his side more than any of them. sometimes he reads Vanya’s vicious words and hears the echo of their father in them. It makes sense. He still hates it, just a little bit)

He writes his equations into Vanya’s book instead of Reginald’s. He doesn’t like to read the red book, only opens it to look at the photos included so that he won’t forget what his siblings look like, tries to ignore the words that detail exactly how much force it takes to pop Luther’s bones out of his oh-so-durable joints

He solves them one day, or at least comes close. Closer than he ever had before, and he figures why not? Time for another little experiment. Who knows? Maybe he’ll add this one to dad’s book.

He pushes, and pushes, and then he falls and he’s in a courtyard he hasn’t seen in decades staring at people he hasn’t spoken to in just as long. He looks at them all with wide eyes

(He looks at Allison and hears his father’s clipped tone stating how Allison in improving at overriding survival instincts, he looks at Luther and hears Vanya’s childish voice accusing him of caring more about being a hero than anything else in his life, including his family, he looks at Klaus and sees a face covered in ash and blood with unseeing eyes)

He looks down at himself and sees smaller hands with smoother skin, absent of the burn marks from the variety of fires he’d set in the apocalypse, absent of the crooked knuckles from when he’d crushed two fingers in some rubble trying to get to a can of food, absent of the cracked and brittle nails from malnutrition and food issues

“Shit.” He says, with feeling.

He can feels the press of the glass eye against his leg, the solid weight of Vanya’s book in his pocket, the edges of Reginald’s notebook digging into his skin as he hauls himself off the ground and into a standing position.

They have a family meeting in the kitchen.

Sort of. Five flits about, snagging bread and peanut butter and marshmallow fluff from the cupboard to make himself a sandwich, trying to avoid looking too desperately eager. He hasn’t had his favorite food in so long that the anticipation is actually insane.

“What’s the date?” Five asks, and learns that he doesn’t actually have all that long until the end of the world. But hey, it’s doable. Probably. Unless the reason the world ended was like, political nuclear war or something? But there would probably be survivors of that somewhere, so it was more likely something bigger scale.

(It has to be something he can stop, or this was all for nothing. He refuses to believe he doesn’t have a chance.)

“Cool, so like, the world is ending.” Five says, because why the fuck not? He has all his siblings in one room (except Ben, he has failed Ben, will always have failed Ben because he’s a coward who couldn’t return to a time when Reginald Hargreeves was alive) and he has Reginald and Vanya’s words pressed into his brain, “We have eight-ish days to fix that.”

“Five, what the hell are you talking about?” Luther demands.

Five waves his hand, “Dad sucked, I time-travelled, the end is nigh. I figured even you could grasp that.”

(His eyes ghost over Luther, skittering about the room. He can’t look at Luther’s body without remembering the cruel diagrams pain stakingly inked into the book as Reginald grumbled about failed experiments.)

“You went to the future?” Diego says, voice full of doubt that make his voice harsh. It’s so much deeper than when Five left, no more of the cracks of puberty.

“No shit.” Five says, and he’s so tired. “I was in that hellscape for forty-five years.”

“Forty-five years?” Diego squawks, as though he’s personally offended.

“That would make you... fifty-eight?” Luther’s voice also has doubt in it, and Five can’t really blame him looking at his squishy little barely teenage body.

“Dad was right,” Five manages to get out without gritting his teeth, “Time travel is a crapshoot and sometimes your body does fun and wacky things on you, blah blah blah trees and acorns.”

“Prove you’re from the future!” Klaus demands, eyes bright as he leans across the table, “What’re the lotto numbers, baby brother?”

“I think they’re ‘fuck you the world had already ended by the time I ended up stuck there,’ Klaus.” Five says, mock thoughtfully before tearing off a chunk of his sandwich.

It tastes like ash and peanut butter. Only Five’s genuine trauma regarding food waste and the fact that most things tasted like ash in the apocalypse have him still chewing his food and swallowing.

“Rude.” Klaus says, making a ‘blat’ noise in disappointment.

“Dad’s rich as fuck, wasn’t him kicking the bucket essentially like winning the lottery?” Five points out, and this time it is Luther squawking at him in disapproval.

“Don’t talk about Dad like that!” He demands, and Five has some more uncharitable thoughts about the way Luther’s arms flex just a little unnaturally underneath that big trenchcoat.

“I like this version of Five better.” Klaus declares, looking like Christmas has come early.

“Dad was murdered and you guys don’t even care.” Luther spits out, looking very offended.

“You were murdered and I care very much about that.” Five retaliates, and the entire kitchen goes quiet.

“Can you elaborate a little, Five?” Allison says, ever the diplomat.

(That’s a lie. Allison started more fights than Diego, probably. She just got caught way less often.)

“Well. I mean, I dunno if murdered is the right word considering everyone was dead. You might have just been collateral damage, who knows? Does murder imply intent?”

“Everyone was dead?” Vanya says, voice very quiet.

Five shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. He doesn’t like thinking about it. “Yeah, but that’s not going to happen this time.”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense.” Luther mutters, and Five valiantly tries to ignore him. 

“Five, are you - are you sure you’re alright?” Vanya’s voice wobbles and she looks like she wants to reach out and hold him or something ridiculous like that. She looks at him with big sad brown eyes, “Dad did say that time travel could... mess with you a little.”

Allison nods and oh, Five does not have time for this bullshit. 

“I have proof.” He says, and he reaches back and pulls out Reginald’s red notebook and slams it onto the table.

“Is that Dad’s - ” Luther cuts himself off, looking at the notebook with wide eyes.

It is very clearly beaten up to hell and back. Ash has stained the edges of the pages grey and there may or may not be a gouge across the front from a near miss with a bullet while working at the commission. It is a book that has clearly been through hell.

Five also dig’s Vanya’s equally beaten up book from his pocket to dump on the table as well, equally stained with ash and barely held together after being read over and over again for decades, including being used as a notebook in the final years.

(Vanya lets out a little gasp, hand flying up to her mouth with the knowledge that at least one of her siblings read her book. Certainly not the one she thought it would be.)

Five reaches into his sock to pull out the glass eye triumphantly, setting it down on his small stack of treasures.

“What the fuck?” Diego is the one to ask.

“If I time travelled from that day in 2002 to right now, how the fuck would I have Vanya’s book?” Five says triumphantly, “It came out in 2015.”

“Why do you have an eye?” Allison sounds slightly horrified.

“It’s the key to figuring out who caused the apocalypse.” Five says, turning it over in his hands, “It’s gotta have something to do with it at least.”

“Why does he have Dad’s notebook?” Luther demands, sounding equally outraged.

“Found it.” Five shrugs, like the little scavenger he is.

(Emphasis on little. His suit still almost fits, and reading the numbers in Reginald’s notebook versus seeing how fucking tall all his siblings got in person is frankly unfair.)

“Oh my god, okay.” Allison says, throwing her hands up in the air like they’re all nuisances. It’s a familiar Allison look, and Five actually feels a little soothed by the memory. “So the world is ending, Five is back from the dead, and our only clue is a goddamn eye?”

“I was never dead.” Five points out, “But basically, yeah.”

“I don’t have time for this, I have to get back to my daughter.” Allison says, shaking her head.

“I mean if you want Claire to live I would think stopping the apocalypse would kind of be a priority.” 

This draw Allison to a halt from where she’d been gathering herself to leave, “You... know her name?”

Five makes the executive decision to not mention the torn out magazine cover featuring his sister and niece that is pressed between some of the pages in Reginald’s journal. “I’d like to meet her one day.”

Just like that, Allison has been won over.

“Do you think it has something to do with whoever murdered Dad?” Luther asks seriously, even if the question makes Diego groan like this is an argument they have had before.

“Who knows?” Five shrugs, “But if we’re splitting into investigation teams, I call Vanya.”

Vanya startles from where she has been sitting quietly, “Me?” She asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” Five nods, “I mean, with Ben gone you’re probably the team’s heaviest hitter.”

“What?” Several voices ring out in confusion.

Five blinks, a little confused himself. Unless - “Wait, did you never train your powers?”

“Five,” Vanya says slowly, like she’s explaining a simple concept to a particularly dim child, “I don’t have powers.”

This was - this was unexpected. Why did he not think of this explanation? It’s just - he has now known about Vanya’s powers for like way longer than he hasn’t. It’s almost second nature to think of Vanya as having powers by now. And she doesn’t know.

“Oh boy.” He says, picking up Reginald’s notebook, “This debriefing may take a bit longer than I first thought. Oh, and at some point we should probably cut the tracker out of my arm as well.”

“The what out of your what?”

Yeah the day doesn’t really get much better from there.

[crazy-czech-fangirl]

Kristen Stewart - Howard Stern interview

Yesterday I saw the interview with Howard Stern and wow. I’ve never seen her so openly speak about the Twilight era and relationship with Rob. So I decided to transcript the parts about Twilight and Robert because I couldn’t find it anywhere. If you have time go watch the whole interview it’s really worth it!

****

H: The way they’re covering your romance with Robert Pattinson and all this.. I had him on the show and he said no relationship could survive the intense scrutiny that we were under. It was insane.

K: Yeah it was. I mean we wanted to like keep it ours so it was like this thing of going like..well do you like live openly and share your life in a way that actually entitles you to living it sort of more freely and naturally or do you like put it on lock because you hate the idea of perpetuating this like commodified version of your..something that feels real to you and you’re like ‘I’m not selling you shit’! But then you actually deprive yourself of like so many experiences. Like we didn’t walk down the street holding hands because we were like ‘Don’t wanna give it to them’ but then we didn’t get to walk down the street holding hands. And it sucked.

H: Of course it sucked because the best part of the relationship with anyone..

K: Is screaming from the rooftops!

H: ‘I’m in love!’

K: Yeah!

H: And walking around holding somebody’s hand.

K: I know.

****

H: ....Not only were you falling in love with Rob on the set.. Which by the way I think is the biggest mistake an actor can make.

K: There was nothing I could do.

H: The director was even nervous because the first time you guys kind of auditioned together to see the chemistry..it was an immediate chemistry between the two of you.

K: Yeah, yeah. It’s so weird like actually being honest about this like it’s been so heavily consumed and I have this fear that people would assume that maybe I’m like..’oh cool you’re still pushing that narrative’ and it’s like ‘No I’ve actually never been allowed to just say what happened’. Because I was so self conscious about seeming like an attention seeker.

H: Or taking advantage of the fact that you guys were dating.

K: Yeah exactly. We were together for years. That was like my first..you know..

H: Love.

K: Yeah. I mean like I was super in love with my high school boyfriend. Super in love with him. But me and Rob were like little older and it was like *GOGUM*.

H: He’s a charming guy.

K: Yeah he’s the best.

****

H: Rob when he was here told me with Twilight that they wanted to go a whole other direction . They wanted you to be smiling and him to be smiling. Be a lovable little vampire. And he said it was tremendous pressure to act that movie the way he wanted to.

K: Yeah. Honestly thank god he had that.. I mean he like..he wouldn’t do it the other way. And I don’t think he even had that in his wheelhouse like his body wouldn’t do that. And I mean mine either. I was like..The only reason this is good is because it’s like “Aaargh” and they were like ‘But it’s not fun!’. We took a lot of slack. Like we were constantly being like reprimanded and thank god we stuck to our guns because that’s why the movie works.

H: Yes. Yes that’s exactly why the movie works.

****

H: Would you recommend to other young actresses that they fall in love during their movie or should they avoid it? Because that’s my point. You say you couldn’t have stopped yourself falling in love with Rob.

K: I don’t think it’s really a choice..

H: Isn’t it dangerous because the set is such an aphrodisiac. It’s like..

K: Maybe it’s not real. Yeah but then you could apply that to any other...What is?

H: What is real?

K: Yeah.

H: Because they cater to you, they’re treating you like you’re a star..

K: Mmmm no.

H: No? It wasn’t like that?

K: No. Not at all. ‘Get your ass to set and start smiling bitch’. And I’m like ‘Nope’.

H: But did you have a sense that you were in trouble now that you were in love. Because you’re like ‘oh this is cliched I’m falling in love with my costar’.

K: I thought that was the coolest thing ever and I was so proud of it and I was like ‘We’re like rockstars dude’. I was like ‘Yeah you wish you had this.’ You know when you have that thing and you’re like ‘This is the coolest’.

H: Well it’s cool too because you’re really trapped in like high school or college and at least you have this great outside romance going on.

K: It was fun.

H: But it’s always doomed isn’t it because it’s just too much pressure when you got famous as you did so quickly.

****

H: Trump was consumed with the fact that you and Rob Pattinson had broken up.

K: Sure. Yes.

H: And he started tweeting against you saying ‘Hey Rob you can do much better than Kristen Stewart’.

....

K: You would think that he had more important things to do. It’s absurd.

...

H: Did you ever talk to Rob about it? Did you ever say ‘Can you believe the president of the United States is carrying on about our relationship.

K: Yeah we got back together. We like went through a thing and it fucking sucked but like we really wanted to be together...I don’t remember that particular conversation but we definitely were talking about everything at that time.

****

K: I had people genuinely asking me if that relationship was real or fake. And I was like..

H: Like the movie fabricated it for publicity.

K: Right yeah.

H: But they did used to do that in the old days.

K: I know it’s such a weird studio system old school way of...You really think at this point after all these years like that I’m..like that’s how I live my life?

H: There’s no way a relationship could survive the types of scrutiny that you guys had.

K: We were also just so young you know what I mean like there are stages..life is long..yeah.

H: Was there a point you would have gotten married do you think?

K: I don’t know.

H: I wonder..imagine

K: I wanted to..Yeah no I mean like I think I’ve never...

H: If he proposed you would have gotten married.

K: I don’t know. I’m not like a super duper traditionalist but at the same time like I...every relationship that I’ve ever been in I thought ‘This is it’. I’ve never like casually dated..I mean maybe one or two..Yeah I’m not giving everyone that. But like I’ve never really been the most casual person.

****

K: (what she could have done better while acting) .. and certain parts of Twilight. New moon I totally screwed up the like devastating..I was so in love with Rob and so happy that I couldn’t imagine losing him. But now I’m like ‘oh man I could have really done better work in that movie’.

****

H: (Snow white and the huntsman) That movie did really well. And then they didn’t ask you to be in the sequel.

K: We lived in a different time then you know what I mean. I feel like the slut shaming that went down was like so absurd. And they should have put me in that movie it would have been better..not to be a dick but..

H: You’re sayin there was slut shaming of you?

K: Well they didn’t put me in that movie because I went through a highly publicized scandal. So they were like scared of touching that.

H: Because you fell in love with the director? So that’s why they didn’t have you in the sequel? That was a dumb move.

K: I think so.

H: Isn’t that wrong though? Not to put you in a sequel because you fell in love with the director?

K: Well I wouldn’t say that I fell in love with the director...

H: Oh you had an affair..

K: Yeah that was weird..that was a kind of a weird thing. But I definitely...It wasn’t that big of a deal. Do you know what I’m saying. It’s like literally..

H: No because I’ve actually forgotten about it.

K: Yeah..

H: People at the time think it’s a big deal.

K: The work is so much more important. It’s like what do you care if I..I just thought that that movie actually..we could have made a great second one and we could have done it in a functional and healthy way. And then we didn’t ultimately do that and that’s okay because I did other stuff and it’s fine but yeah..that was weird.

H: So you were blamed for not being in the second movie because you had sex with somebody. That’s what you’re telling me?

K: I did not fuck him.

H: Oh you didn’t fuck him?

K: No I didn’t.

H: Oh so why not clear that up? Why not say that?

K: Who’s gonna believe..It doesn’t even matter

H: I believe you.

K: Honestly I feel like you do and I actually feel like this is the most honest setting I’ve ever been involved with.

H: You have been so honest with this so why did you get pegged as fucking..

K: Well because it looks like..you know you make out with a dude in public it definitely looks like you...

H: Oh oh so it was an innocent sort of thing and the media made it out to be a big deal.

K: Yeah I mean look it wasn’t innocent that was like a..you know that was a really hard period of my life. I was like really young and like um...

H: Well it’s understandable you’re a young woman. Yes ok you were going out with Rob...

K: Yeah I didn’t really know how to deal with that and I made some mistakes.

H: Hey guess what everybody does.

K: Yeah exactly. And honestly it’s no one’s business and people get over shit like that. You know what I mean? It’s really not a big deal. Basically what I’m saying is the work to me genuinely was ignored in a really sort of frivolous like silly petty way. For a group of adult people who were like supposed to be running studios and making films that’s what you..I mean honestly the film industry in Hollywood is so fear based and there are like equations that lead people to massive decisions that you assume are creative that are not at all.

H: Yes.

K: And so like that didn’t fit in their equation. And I think they are idiots because if you take a little risk and you make something good people will watch it and like it and pay you.

[snapeaddict]

Hi, what do you say to the people who claim Regulus is the real Slytherin hero, and not Snape? To me RAB always seemed like a plot device and nothing more so I don't get why he's being worshipped... He's just another rich pureblood kid...

I say this is a very bad take, and it is disrespectful (that's a strong word for something that isn't really important but I cannot think of a softer version) of the actual people who enjoy his character. I'm going to write down some thoughts, but there's more to it than just what I would reply to them - allow me to ramble a little on the roots of this claim and on the thought process embraced by Snaters and Marauders apologists (I've seen that some people don't like this term, so I mean people who erase the Marauders' flaws and make them morally superior to Snape, justifying them being abusers and him being abused.)

The nonsense of comparing a plot device to a complex, layered character: Comparing Severus and Regulus is ludicrous. You are comparing one of the most (I would argue the most well-written and complex, but Dumbledore is quite something as well) well-written, accomplished character of the books to a plot device. It is indeed what Regulus is, no matter if his character could have been really interesting/seems to be interesting: we know very little of him, and he exists solely for the Slytherin locket plot. The very little we know of him certainly isn't enough to express any critical judgment of his character; he is mostly made out of white pages which are filled out by his fans, which is great, and by the people making this kind of argument, which is unfortunate.

The interest in the character only stems in his usefulness: I would argue that the vast majority of people making this claim do not care at all for the character himself, despite using him as a moral high ground. It is not his character which interests them, but how useful he can be to fuel their hate and biased claims. His personality? Having being sorted in Slytherin. His merits? Being a Slytherin. This is the only fact that matters, because it allows them to 'prove' that Snape wasn't a hero (being a hero does not mean being a good person, by the way) and diminishes Severus' merits. Using a character solely for the purpose of depreciating, downgrading another is not appreciating them: it's just completely hypocritical. This is often the kind of flat argument used by people opposed to social justice movements, if you will allow the broad comparison: using something you have never cared for before (often minority populations) in an attempt to depreciate something, even though the very fact you are using them for this purpose shows how little concerned you are with the actual people you are talking about. Well, it reminds me of this a bit. The true purpose is to try and impose your own views, and here they try to legitimise them by filling an almost inexistent character with their views to carry on with their agenda.

The sudden leniency toward privileged characters: Making such a claim in fact once again proves that Snaters have an extremely biased, subjective and elitist vision of what being good means, an opinion on what is moral integrity (and superiority because they keep comparing people), which they also apply to James and Sirius. I think Regulus is loved because he is a Black, respected by the fandom because he comes from a pureblood, rich family. It is very easy to prove: look at how much love Draco and Lucius get, despite being supporters of blood supremacy, active members of a terrorist group, using discriminatory insults on a daily basis, being actively supportive of the murders of muggle borns/participating in these murders [do not misinterpret this - I'm pointing out double standards, not saying they should not be loved. One's interest in a character does not depend on the character's morals]. Look at how respected Snape was in the fandom before book 6, when people thought he was a rich pureblood from an ancient family. Social hierarchy has a great impact on how people view characters, and they tend to be much more lenient toward privileged characters, because prestige is attractive, even in fiction. Similarly - but it is more concealed - there is the usual refusal to acknowledge that social inequalities do impact one's life, choices, and opportunities to be or do good. The quote "You didn't make good choices! You had good choices" (Little Fires Everywhere) works quite well in this context, especially regarding James and Severus, but also regarding the Blacks versus Severus. Severus' survival was completely, utterly dependent on his adherence to blood supremacist values. This must be taken into account - but weirdly, this is an argument that is often used to prove Sirius' moral superiority, because his family required him to share their beliefs. This is ignoring that despite his difficulties, he still beneficiated from a support system and privileges that others did not have access to. Similarly, you cannot compare Regulus' and Severus' choices. And in my opinion, both are tragic; but if we had to take part in Snaters' silly arguments, then I would remind them that Regulus effectively had no obligation to join Voldemort, his parents were not death eaters. The pressure both characters experienced certainly wasn't of the same nature - even perhaps not of the same intensity. But does comparing them makes any sense, again...

The social biases: While Snape is blamed for his decision to join the death Eaters (rightly), Regulus is praised for his decision to leave them. While Regulus is pitied because he came from a family who brought him up with this ideology (just like Draco is), which apparently takes off all responsibility from him, Severus' background is never considered as a factor which pushed him right into extremists' opened arms. Regulus' privilege is used as an excuse; Snape's social disadvantage and familial issues are, at best, ignored, at worst, interpreted as proof of his inherently bad nature. Some people associate his upbringing with him being bad, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. While Regulus is headcanonned as handsome, Snape is constantly described as 'greasy' and 'ugly' by these same people, and you can see exactly how important appearances are to them. I'm even going to argue that worshipping a rich, handsome, privileged pureblood must sound better to them than being fond of the 'greasy git', and I am also saying these are mostly internalised biases. When you read these claims carefully, it sounds like in the mind of these people, Regulus is more legitimate as Slytherin's hero because he is better - inherently. And it is easy to see why.

The double-standards and their disturbing roots: This is also plainly ignoring the fact that Regulus and Snape defected for the same reasons, if we must make comparisons. Voldemort was targeting one of their loved ones, Kreatur for the former and Lily for the later, which made them realise, because they are humans and thus not selfless, how wrong his methods were when they turned against them. However, in Snape's case, turning against Voldemort in an attempt to save Lily is often held as proof of his selfishness/absence of morality: he wanted her for himself, he only deflected because someone he liked was in danger. In Regulus' case however, his gesture is seen as heroic and compassionate. Why? Well, there are a variety of reasons apart from Snaters' double standards, but I have noticed that most of them seem to think of Lily as 'belonging' to either James or Snape, and think Snape unworthy of having ever had Lily as a friend because of some kind of deep rooted flaws he had even as a child ('He tried to hurt Petunia with accidental magic when he was 11, he was always bad'. In fact I should make a post about how horrible this claim is.) In Regulus' case however, wanting to save Kreatur is seen as an act of compassion. Why? Not only because they want to make Regulus look better than Snape. I think it is also because Kreatur is a house-elf, an inferior being: Regulus' wish to protect him becomes praiseworthy, laudable, because house-elves do not really deserve consideration. So wanting to save him becomes an act of generosity. Even when you're not thinking of the double standards, this way of thinking is disturbing. Snape also turned against Voldemort at the age of 20, 21? Like Regulus did if I recall? They weren't death Eaters for very long. They both actively fought to bring Voldemort down. It would be tremendously hypocritical, wrong and plain bad faith to think of Regulus' action as superior to Snape's 20 years of hard work to bring Voldemort down.

So why can't Snape be a hero? I think this claim is a confession. To me it shows a very simplistic vision of heroism, of good and bad, of models, and a complete refusal to consider the grey, sometimes praise the grey- it's a failure to accept the complexity of the human functioning. Thinking that the people we praise for certain actions, or consider to be examples must be flawless is vain, simply because it is unrealistic, and we could not admire them/relate to them/like or dislike them/learn from them if they were not like us, layered and flawed - but this is exactly what this claim desperately wants us to believe. Or rather, what Snaters want to believe, while imposing their very biased views of good and bad, themselves rooted in prejudices. This is why they are using a character that is mostly inexistent: an empty, one dimensional character can fulfil this aim. This is also why so many people fail to appreciate characters such as James, Sirius and Remus without completely ripping off their flaws, and thus complexness - they cannot be loved if you can find fault in them.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Runaan, the Dragonblade

I woke from a dream this morning where I figured out half of this and came up with the rest while I mulled it over, and now I have a new angsty headcanon: Runaan was raised by Avizandum and trained to fight by Skywings at the Storm Spire.

Runaan is a soft elf who's learned to adopt Hard Mode at a moment's notice. Avizandum is a rat bastard who truly thought of humans as lesser beings. Runaan's Hard Mode and his attitude that humans are liars, nothing in them worth sparing, etc etc, is all learned behavior. It makes sense that all his harsh attitudes are part of his assassin training, since Ethari and Lujanne don't share them. And we’ve seen how certain other old dragons feel about humans. Considering that Xadia once wanted to wipe them all out, and that the dragons live by far the longest, it seems to me that the source of prejudice against humans lies with the dragons and is taught to the elves over and over with each new generation.

Then there's that casual line in the Book One novelization where we learn that Xadia wouldn't necessarily choose to avenge Avizandum because he was a morally gray bastard, but it would absolutely cry for justice over Zym being killed. That scene is Rayla's, and all her assassin information comes from Runaan. Bitter about his upbringing at Avizandum's claws, maybe? I don't blame him.

If Avizandum really did raise Runaan and see to his training, then S1E1′s title “Echoes of Thunder” just keeps having more layers to it, doesn’t it? Gosh. Runaan is connected to so many parts of the plot, to so many characters, but behind him lies Thunder. Just like Aaravos lies behind Viren and his own web of connections.

I keep trying to puzzle out Runaan's scars, where and why he got them. This headcanon has yet another guess. See, Ethari is eager to use the Sun's Tears salve to keep Runaan healing quickly--he hates to see his husband hurt, of course he does, he loves him! So I don't think it's very likely that Runaan got those scars after he married Ethari. And then there's his bio clue about "learned to put his mission above all else". If you learn something, that's a lesson, and lessons usually are learned early, especially when assassin training begins before you can even walk.

So if his training supervisor was Avizandum, and Runaan wasn't hard enough during training... I can see it. Typical dragon behavior, a little smack of the tail. It wouldn’t do much damage to another dragon, not with their thick scaled hides. But used on elves who are short and tiny and delicate in comparison? Ouch. 

None of Runaan’s scars or even damage from his fight in Harrow’s chamber, none of it is on his back. Runaan never turns his back unless he’s spinning with his blades out. So whatever hit him, he was facing it directly. And if it was Avizandum’s judgment, then he stood there and saw it coming and took it like the stoic Moonshadow he is.

This poor angst-ridden elf, god.

I'm dancing around it here. But Avizandum losing control of Zym was a good thing, and Viren interrupting his hatching storm was beneficial for Zym and therefore all of Xadia - once the Dragaang got to hatch him, anyway. Because however much Avizandum cried at dying and being unable to reach Zym, whether from love or fear or loss of control, he would've raised him to be hard and trained him to be ruthless. Just like Runaan.

Zym was spared all that. But maybe Runaan wasn't. Maybe it's tradition for the Dragon Throne to raise and train each assassin leader, and that's where the blood promise thing comes in. A Moonshadow elf, separate from their people, surrounded by dragons and Skywings, needs to bond with someone. So they make the promise, swear their honor and loyalty in service to the one being who has seen to their education and whatever guidance and comforts they are given in life. And then they go home to the Silvergrove and bind others to the will of the Dragon King.

I had a really old headcanon once that Runaan was raised by Skywings, lol. This version is cooler though. It's just the way he fights. It's so aerial! And all the spinning! Everything about Skywings being strong and fast really just adds more strength to this headcanon. Rayla believes Runaan is the best assassin, and he's described as basically unstoppable. A Moonshadow who fights like a Skywing would have serious advantages over most other combatants. Maybe this will be one more connection between Runaan and Callum someday? How fun would that be? Runaan actually being able to train Callum in Skywing aerial techniques to some degree. Whether he would... ehh. I could see him silently adjusting Callum’s elbow or something and nodding for him to try again, though. Perhaps in a “but I doubt you’ll get it--oh huh, look at that” sort of way. Which would be awesome all around, tbh.

Unfortunately, if Runaan were trained by Skywings, he would have thought himself slow and sloppy during training. It probably influenced his constant training regimen in the Silvergrove. If he trained all the time, he'd at least get closer to Skywing standards. But maybe he still lives with a deep-seated sense of inadequacy for not being as swift and light on his feet as his trainers. And I can see Avizandum allowing that mentality, and even encouraging it, since it would urge a young Runaan to constantly push himself harder.

Now, let me headcanon about Rayla: if she were the child that Runaan chose to follow him as the assassin leader, there is no way in hell he'd let her go back to the Storm Spire for instruction at Avizandum’s claws. So maybe he told Lain and Tiadrin what happened to him, or maybe they already knew. Heck, maybe they were there with him, or maybe Lain was and that’s why he’s Runaan’s best friend. In any case, no one wanted to put Rayla through that, so they all managed a compromise. Lain and Tiadrin went in her place and served on the Dragonguard. And Runaan got to keep Rayla away from Avizandum.

He was so gentle with her when he raised her, it kills me. The irony that he was still training her to be an assassin despite his own history is very deep. But I don't think anyone knows how to get out of that one yet. Still, he raised her softly and with encouraging guidance, not with tail smacking. Somehow, that sense of "I'll never be good enough" did carry over, though... Rayla really is as perceptive as her mother sometimes. She picks up things Runaan never meant to teach her. Luckily that also includes kissing techniques.

Runaan helped Rayla avoid his harsh upbringing at the Storm Spire, but he raised her so softly that she got him captured. He keeps using those Skywing moves like mental chess to try to get around the dangers in his life and protect his friends and family, but the board is set against him. And I'm guessing the only way to win is not to play.

tl;dr: Runaan was raised by dragons and trained by Skywings and it shows, but he didn't want Rayla raised the same way because it was traumatic and scarring, so her parents went to the Storm Spire instead of her. And everything still fell apart because the system is broken.

Extra hc’s: 

Runaan got over his fear of heights and death at the same time because Avizandum made him jump off the Spire repeatedly, and he’d have to be chill and calm and accept his fate, and when he was at peace with it, then a Skywing would catch him.

Runaan gave Hendyr his cheek scars for catching him too early one time. Dude was trying to help, and Runaan was trying to be perfect, and it ended with shades of Amaya.

Rayla throwing herself off the pinnacle when she killed Viren was something she may have heard about before, and once again she’s copying Runaan.

There’s a Moonshadow room at the Spire because there’s always a Moonshadow there for training, and that’s where Lain and Tiadrin were living: in Runaan’s childhood room. They’ll know him so much better after having spent time there.

Runaan’s got chronic stress about messy windswept hair now, and that’s why Ethari does his hair for him every morning with those dexterous hands of his, to make sure Runaan feels calm and ordered and as far from the Storm Spire in his mind as possible.

[not-your-damsel]

I Gotta Let it Out, Please Forgive Me Guys

I got a random message on Facebook messenger from my bestest friend from the tail end of middle school until onwards… or so I thought.

*Names have been changed for this… mess? I’m so sorry guys, I’m all over the place 😑 and this is kinda long so, head’s up

She was like a sister to me, we told each other any and everything. We wrote fan fics for *N’Sync before fan fics were even a goddamn thing, before there was a place to even post them! She made the life move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania bearable and then livable after having my whole life uprooted once again. My Mom and I always moved a lot when I was a child so I was always bouncing from school to school once I thought I was finally settled and was steadily making friends only to up and move again. That coupled with constantly having to go to the hospital because of my illness didn’t bode well for my learning abilities. I’m great at everything else now as an adult but don’t even come to me about math or I’ll spit on you, I don’t make the rules 🤷🏽‍♀️

However, once my Mom met my Sister’s father, our living situation somehow downgraded from living in a beautiful brownstone house to then living in a trailer in a trailer park. Please don’t take that as me shitting on trailer parks or folks who live in them. I just despise them because they immediately remind me of the verbal, mental abuse/gaslighting I endured when we lived there which continued into PA and the house we moved to there is all. My stomach churns when I pass by one as I immediately feel like I’m 10 again and about to be in trouble and grounded for the next tiniest thing he deemed wrong of me.

Anywho, we moved to PA when I was 12, my little sister having been born in NJ just before we left it to come here and I was livid. Leaving all my friends behind after finally having a taste of actually settling in and making friends and not moving away right after the fact only to pull the rug from under me and do it again. As an adult now, I get it. It’s safer here than where we’d been and the taxes rock, no tax on food or clothing or pharmaceuticals and also utilities for heat and shit and not to mention, a better school system.

And school is where I met my immediate bestie, around the second or third day being there, we had to swim for gym and since I didn’t know I had to sit out for the period where the other girls and I started talking about *N’Sync and she asked me who my face was, which was Lance and then she said hers was Justin Timberlake and that she fantasizes about him. Anyone who can tell me that right off the bat with the same energy as telling me what their favorite color or animal is has immediately won my friendship. Immediately.

That’s how we met, that’s how we rolled and we stayed joined at the hip throughout the rest of our school years together. We’d been through it all, crushes, familial loss, pet loss, watching mutual friends come and go or fuck each other over, and yet her and I remained as though we were born sisters. I never needed a whole entourage of people to call my friends. Whoever’s gonna hang with me, I love and appreciate and protect dearly and those who won’t that’s fine as well. But she was a constant in my life, we both were constantly in each other’s lives.

She provided an escape and safe haven away from my home when it got to be too suffocating to be within my own home because of my overbearing stepfather and I taught her how to appreciate and accept and play video games, specifically of the survival horror genre and we’d get together for a sleepover when a new release would come out and we wanted to get lost in stories and scream for dear life at perfectly crafted jump scares. She turned me on to being a drama kid since her and I were in chorus together being Soprano 1’s, and it turned out to be one of the most fun things I did in high school.

But time passes and we graduated. Sad as I was to be parting from everyone, we all began to scatter, coming together during breaks to party and catch up. After moved to Queens NY to be with my fiancé at the time and she was doing her own thing. Over time, life got in the way. There was no grand fight to speak of, no secretly harbored feelings of ill will or hatred, nothing of the sort. Which is why I’m left feeling so baffled over how what was meant to be a great reaching out and reconnecting moment ended up turning into me feeling angry, dejected and feeling as though maybe there were some things she never spoke to me about when she should’ve.

It started out great, happy to hear from her especially out of the blue since the times I tried to reach her would always fall through. We caught up with one another, as you do, and then the conversation turned from catching up to suddenly me being questioned about why I never contacted her. I explained everything that happened, how I tried several times apart from the yearly birthday wishes and such, and how I never got a reply back, that I assumed it meant she had a different phone number. How as the years passed more and more, my insecurities of no longer being wanted by her ran rampant and that maybe she had better people in her life. I apologized for that, seeing now that I was blinded by that insecurity and that was something for me to sort out. That and that life literally got in the way.

I told her everything as honest and truthful to the best of my ability because I’d never lie to her, never had and never would/will want to. I admitted to her that I’m definitely different from the last time she’s seen me and that I’m now utter shit with the phone. I personally think it’s a mix of my Major Depressive Disorder mixed with my anxiety that I prefer messaging over actually talking on the phone. But that’s not for my lack of trying to reach her over the years.

However, that wasn’t good enough for her though apparently. She kept pressing me and questioning if “I ignored her” because of scenario A, B or C. She said that. She literally said, “Did you ignore me because of…”. She started labeling despite me telling her what happened, putting words in my mouth. It got to the point that I was just repeating myself over and over because she kept interrogating me on the issue, bringing up weak reasons as though she just knew that was the “reason I dipped and left her in the wind” when meanwhile, when you look at which of us two was the last to try to contact the other through Facebook messenger, it shows it as me and before that all my attempts to reach her through something I knew she’d see my shit to her through and yet I was never answered.

I ended up saying to her, “Look, I don’t know what it is you’re wanting me to say here. I feel like you’re trying to get me to admit to something to please you but I’m not gonna do that because if I did, then I’d be lying to you and I’m not here for that. I told you everything on my end here, what has happened and that’s exactly what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t secretly hate you, I could never hate you. It wasn’t your fault about what happened with my ex and I at your party, I’ve never held you responsible for his cheating actions. He cheated on me with Stan, not you, so don’t think that has anything to do with you when you stuck up for me when we all found out the next morning. Please stop fishing for a conflict that’s not there.”

I don’t hear from her after a long while and I explicitly tell her that I want to talk about this more the next day because this isn’t right and I want to clear up whatever it is that she thinks is wrong, that I love her and to have a good night as it’s past 2am at that point. She proceeds to bring up past scenarios hours later while I’m well asleep and she knows this, guilt tripping me about how she was there for me whenever I needed to be in the hospital but that maybe I had forgotten what it meant to be best friends with her and she then blocks me on all socials knowing I can’t even fight for myself because I’m asleep. All socials save for one and that’s Insta.

I call her out on that shady bullshit and tell her that it’s absolutely unfair that I sat there and I was being an adult and admitting to my mistakes and apologizing for them only for her to push all the blame on me for not contacting her which we established that I had many times and not been acknowledged. I said, “The phone works 2 ways, Sadie, 2 ways. Do not sit there and act like you’re not to blame as well, especially when I’m here admitting fault and apologizing for it and you haven’t even bothered to claim some of that faulted responsibility. That’s fucked because if it were me having come to you, yet again, and this time you answered, I would’ve taken my part of the blame and admitted to my faults here as well, I wouldn’t’ve piled it all on you the way you did to me. I was honest with you and it seems that’s not what mattered to you, what mattered to you was putting untruths into my mouth to fit your narrative that “I hate you”, “that you never mattered to me” and so on. Again, not cool. Will it hurt to lose you? Absolutely, it’ll kill me to lose you permanently, but not at the expense of a lie you want so badly to be true.”

Not only that, but several times throughout this conversation, she would bring up something factual that happened, that she knew happened, only to turn around and say something snarky like, “I wouldn’t know what happened or I wouldn’t know about that because you never told me about it.” I sat there for a good moment afterwards, seriously questioning if she was drunk or high or a combo of the two and just crossfaded because it made no damned sense!!!

I’m not gonna lie, I’m truly hurt by all this. I cried happy tears when we first started talking because it had been so long, and then by the end of it, I was left baffled, hurt, confused, and feeling like I didn’t even know this person anymore and crying in a panic that this was all actually happening. That I somehow unknowingly became a villain to my own best friend, my sister. It still feels unreal, the whole thing was so all over the place, it gave me whiplash. I don’t know what to do and I apologize for putting a portion of me and my troubles on here, I just needed a safe space to vent and let loose because I’m warring with myself of if this is even still worth it with her because this feels so… icky. Like in my gut I can feel that this isn’t the same person I once knew and I’m only gonna find more upset, hurts and disappointment and that feeling causes even more hurt.

Idk guys, I’m tired and worn out. I cried a lot so that’s gonna and made me even more tired only with puffy, splotchy pinky/red rings around my eyes that now are sensitive to the touch from wiping them so much. But thank you for letting me do what I felt I needed to do and just let this mess out. I know it’s all over the place but I can’t even bring myself to fix anything if there’s errors and shit. Love y’all.

[anyu-blue]

~

I know a big part of it is the sleep deprivation.. again.. but I'm hella depressed.

Like overall I'm.. content? I guess? I have job. = Good. I have place to live. = Good. I have my game(s) I can play anytime I have time/want. = Good. I have appointments to try and get feeling better and keep trying and keep trying when I don't. = Good. I have Kizzy and will probably have him for at least 3 more years, if not longer. = Good. I have contingency plans in place for paying for my surgeries. = Good.

I've got a lot of good right now. And it's not that I'm ungrateful. I am EXTREMELY grateful. Considering my issues I've done extremely well. Even if some of it was on accident.

It's just.. well.. I'm tired, of course. Not sleeping well or much for days on end sucks. Especially because I could have, but people are going to keep living their lives and accidentally waking/keeping me up because they just don't think about my situation 24/7. Or even know it. Or consider it. Because life's too short for that according to, like everyone but me.

I'm sick of course. I've definitely tried the 'I'm doing great/not sick!!' mindset.. and it doesn't work.. cuz stuff HURTS. I don't have the energy to keep pretending either... And I don't think there was really a time I wasn't sick. Not in my whole life.. and It feels impossible to have any hope I'll ever not be physically sick... No matter what or how hard I try. Especially because I'm aging as all people do. Especially being forced to constantly check what I eat because if I don't I can hurt myself/make myself even more sick. Or starve, which hurts me too but is better than the alternatives. Especially being I have to rely on a healthcare system that looks down on what I can afford. Especially because what I can afford is so little. Especially because of our healthcare system being so politically charged people like me with the needs I have (even just replacing bones!!! Hello?! Our STUPID society forgets teeth are BONES and NECESSARY ones at that- but the instant you say teeth people literally don't give two shits, think you're just vain, and 100% brush you off. Even doctors.. and I have cried so hard over this stupid stuff and tried to rally and I'm STILL trying to save my own god damn life. I hate saying that's what I'm doing because I have some of that stupidity in me of thinking vanity... But I'm literally trying to save my forsaken life and be a LOT less miserable, and I feel so hopeless because only the little people who get it actually seem to want to help/be able to push aside that vanity thought and it hurts so badly to ask them to squeeze for me-- thank you if you're reading this and you've reblogged/shared my post. And I cannot thank you enough, and feel I owe you so much if you've donated... Every tiny bit helps. You and I are little people in the sense we don't exactly have $10,000+ to just throw around an have no worries about lol)

I'm.. also lonely? I guess? .. it's probably the best way to describe it. I don't like people all over me. Or really messaging constantly because moods change and People have lives.. but I miss... I want... Stress free interactions. Getting to spend time and go and do things. Not being alone all the time or missing out on everything. Time is meaningless pretty much right now in the sense I've missed all the holidays. 100%. No time spent celebrating or using the time or even seeing people. Im so much a damn adult and yet I still feel like crying whenever my siblings/cousins talk about last halloween because they had so much fun... They spent the day together in matching costumes by themselves at a park. And that's it... I was delirious from sleep deprivation when I saw them for the 5 minutes I did.. and stress because of my ex being the bastard he is to me. And work. So I couldn't join them. And it doesn't bother them in the least. It's such a happy memory for them and I am struggling to let go of the envy. They have so many days they spend together too.. remotely mostly, but they have so much fun. They wake me up alot with their calls.. and get pissed when I'm like hey guys I'm sorry but could you tone it down? I honestly stopped asking lately because they get so pissed and have even been like 'It wasn't me at all!!' even when I can quote what they said back to them and try to find anything and anyone else to blame... My little sister especially is CONSISTENTLY Telling me she has no idea what she even just said so I know it's bullshit it's not her.... And it just hurts. I try so hard. I drug myself to fall asleep almost every single workday now and I hate it. It's not good for you I feel. Says non habit forming but I just. Uck. And I have familiar, soft sound on. And I've shut my cat out. And I've consistently changed my bedding and cleaned and worn masks/covered my eyes, and done everything I can think of to try and make sure I'm going to sleep as long as possible. I don't go to bed and wake up early in the evenings to cook or spend time with them anymore because I'm trying to give myself more sleep. I don't stay up to see my sisters during the day anymore. Because I'm trying to give myself more sleep. I turn everything off (besides what I hope will help with the noise) at noon and try to lay down as soon after noon as I can every day. Anything blue gets covered or turned off. Everything has red light filters too to get rid of the blue.. but I can't seem to get more than a few jagged hours any given day unless it happens to be their early days where they take naps or I end up so exhausted I'm passed out at night when I should be awake so my shifts aren't so hard... So all that adds up to my being alone and lonely as my own damn fault. Because obviously I stopped making the efforts... The thing that hurts most about that is I was the only one making ANY effort at all to include myself in people's lives (still rings true for everyone in my own city at least- family, friends, the works).. and when I HAD to stop and told them why and asked if they'd be willing to meet me sometimes when it was hard for them (even like once a month fully planned out if need be, or spontaneous because I'm NOT picky)... I got yesses. I did. But. Do you think it ever once happened besides the very day we talked about it?

No.

I can and have gone through every single message and note I have (my memory isn't what it was after I got as sick as I did last fall so I try to keep track of everything instead of relying on my memory anymore)... The only person who even slightly tried was only doing so because he wanted every gd opportunity to beg me to sleep with him (pretty much- he wasn't subtle).. and I had to cut him out because he's not a good person in his own right, sadly. Which left me entirely alone in many ways. Which leaves me entirely alone unless I reach out first and sacrifice sleep.

The continuance of this unfortunately has contributed to my depression.. and the fact no one wants to be around cuz I'm a bummer. And the sleep issues have caused irritability I try so hard to control, but at certain stages I just lose my filters and don't want to say stuff or ramble but I also don't want to miss the opportunity with the person (usually one of my sisters) so stuff gets awkward and they don't like being around THAT. And I don't blame them. But I'd do?

Ugh... I know night shift is my fault... And is a major part of the problem... But I work it to avoid People who don't care about me and mine. To keep myself safe. To keep myself from having panic attacks. I'm doing a lot better with them... But I was breaking down so often at or about work it was getting out of hand... With night shift I'm not overwhelmed like that and I don't have to worry do much about my poor mind losing its sharpness as much. I can take my time more or less. And I get paid enough to survive. ....

I'm just depressed and I know it's on me but I wish I had more help than I do..

Wishing is also the problem. Instead of being happy with what I have.

Blargh...

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Soulmate Shenanigans Five: The Order Of The Shenanigans

Hey! Guess who has returned? 

Me!

Just the March doing her prompt writing thing, as seen on previous episodes :)

Parts one, two, three, and four here!

Prompt #5

Any intense emotions your soulmate feels you will also experience

Warnings for kidnapping mention and gifted kid “potential” mention

Okay. Not going to lie, I kind of tweaked the concept, but I like how it turned out. The idea of the sides having sides in human AUs has been in my brain, and now it’s in yours!

World Building

At first, the symptoms of having a soulmate was seen as symptoms of witchcraft

It was a reasonable assumption to make, as seeing into someone’s head and emotions wasn’t really a thing that humans did. 

However, as the population grew and communication across the globe became a thing, the instances of people finding their soulmates grew as well, and not everyone could be a witch (or, if they were, being a witch was simply being human).

It took a while for the culture around soulmates to shift, but shift it did, and people eventually figured out “Oh, that person is my soulmate, not my eternal enemy that I need to destroy via my demonic powers, which I totally have”

But people’s minds are kind of a lot, and it’s hard to process it all.

So, in modern day, people have learned to separate the pieces of their soulmate’s personality that they get bombarded with into different pieces, or sides

The sides are Logic, Morality/Emotions, Creativity (with there sometimes being a divide between dark and light), Self-Preservation, and Anxiety.

Characters

Roman: Roman is looking forward to meeting his soulmate so much!

Just...later.

When he’s a famous writer and people know about him and he’s evened out his insecurities and he deserves them!

Being perfect for them is going to take work, but most people meet their soulmates over 30, so he’s got at least fifteen years to prepare.

Until then, he was working on his fantasy story and dreaming of the day he’d get published or get the lead in a school play.

The writing club had been his idea, so you could say that everything that happens in the story was his fault. He’d just wanted to be around people who liked the same things he liked!

Roman’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Note: Names are hard. Aaaagh.

Magnus, his creativity, romance, passion, etcetera. Magnus is really the one who calls the shots around here. He’s just as goofy of a fifteen year old (if not more) as Roman, but he has the unenviable position of running a mind palace and being the ego of someone who hates himself.

This guy just wants to listen to Hamilton, but noooo, he had to have an evil reflection of himself and self-worth issues.

The Count, his self-preservation and pretty much Roman’s inner Roxie Hart/Velma Kelly. Randomly suggests poisoning their mortal enemies a lot (note: they don’t have mortal enemies). 

The most like canon Janus out of any of the self preservations, except instead of “we live in a society” it’s more “fuck it, we’re going to be *famous*!”

The other sides will pay him to stop saying, “that’s showbiz”

The Medic, his morality and emotions. Sort of has a medieval healer thing going on (which means herbs in a satchel, not plague doctor mask).

A lovely person on his own, but when he and The Guard team up, it’s ✨Guilt time!✨

He has the question of “Am I a terrible person?” on his hands, so...good luck to him. He’s trying to hold the five of them into a cohesive unit, but it’s hard!

The Guard, his fears and anxious thoughts. He has a shield and a spear, and is kind of dressed like a (dark and stormy) knight.

No one particularly likes him, but it’s his job to recognize The Shadow, so they all need him.

He hangs around on the outskirts of the mindscape, ever vigilant.

The Alchemist, his logic. No one listens to the voice of reason in this house. Al isn’t really a fan of this, and being Roman’s logic, he thinks that if he can find a way to prove himself it’ll turn out okay.

The Shadow, everything Magnus discarded. You could call him dark creativity, but he’s a lot more. 

They used to call him Rex, when they were kids.

Patton: Patton isn’t thrilled with having to move to a new school, but he’s keeping a positive attitude

The new town is creepy and making friends is harder than he thought, and he just wants to right a sappy love story about ghosts without feeling sad.

But if he keeps his chin up, he knows it’ll all be fine!

And hey, maybe he’ll find people who like him in this writing club thing!

Patton’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have: 

Patrick, his morality and emotions. Patrick feels all of the loneliness and desperation that Patton feels daily, but pretends he doesn’t feel it, since he has to be there for them!

Them meaning his family, meaning the rest of Patton’s mind, as well as Patton, since he’s kind of an older brother/role model to the guy.

Covering the full scope of human emotions isn’t great when the other half of your job is enforcing the sense of right and wrong (and the general consensus in Patton’s head is showing negative emotions = burden = wrong).

None of them can cook, but that won’t stop him from trying!

The Canary, his fears and anxious thoughts. Constantly popping up to remind everyone that they’re failing. It’s kind of his job.

Stress plays the piano when things get to be too much.

The Gardener, his creativity, romance, and passion. Conjures flowers a lot. Projects wishes for a soulmate into the sappy ghost love story, which he’s mostly in charge of writing.

Hasn’t split yet, but that’s mostly because nearly all of Patton’s negative impulses that would be considered “dark creativity” already come from The Miser.

Dr. Picani, his logical side. Knows everything about cartoons, and tries to be professional, but a complete sweetheart.

Secretly knows his name is Emile, but is waiting for the best moment to tell everyone.

The Miser, his self-preservation and deceitful side. No one’s a fan of him. Patrick is kind of his mortal nemesis (in the sense that Patrick claimed the title and he just kind of went along with it?)

Everyone else in the Pattonsphere refuses to curse, but he says many a “fuck” with ease

Trying to protect The Gardener from splitting by taking responsibility for most of the things a dark creativity would do.

Virgil: Virgil just didn’t want to join the yearbook committee. 

It was irrational, maybe, to have a deep rooted hatred of the yearbook committee. 

They were just trying to categorize things, design pages-it wasn’t malicious! 

And yet, being in that classroom and seeing Amelia’s dead eyes and smile near rang every alarm bell in his system, so he needed a way out this year.

His parents weren’t going to let him not choose an activity, so he flipped a coin and ended up in some writing club.

He came into the club determined to fake some pretentious poetry about death. Just because they say the club’s about expression or whatever doesn’t mean that they can know anything about his comics.

Virgil’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have: 

Dante, his fears and anxious thoughts. Dante has too many eyes. Dante is lowkey a cryptid, but he’s sadly a cryptid in charge of life decisions.

There’s no way to dance around it. Dante’s a spider-human hybrid.

Dante would prefer they never be perceived by anyone for anything. He does not want to be seen, he does not want to be heard, he does not want to be perceived. Period. 

But he’s a very conspicuous spider-human hybrid. 

The Competent One, The One Who Can Actually Do Math, Steve, whatever you want to call him, he’s Virgil’s logical side.

His theories are just....

See that image? That kind of sums up his characterization.

Parker, his creativity, romance, and heroic side. He’s the one who got them obsessed with comic books, and is trying to write his own. If people don’t like the comics, he’ll probably just start screaming and never stop

He gets the purple eyeshadow!

Remy, his self-preservation. He mainly just wants Virgil to just...rest

Nap. Sleep. Take a self-care day. This is Remy’s goal.

Also to continue to have the most style out of anyone in the Virgilsphere

Remy has a talent for never being anywhere at the right time, and then popping up at the worst moments, caffeine in hand.

Tam, his morality and emotions. The most into the emo phase out of any of them, since he feels all angst!

Sometimes just hovers and screams. Everyone’s pretty used to this.

Logan: Logan was trying to ignore the things he’d seen

Logan was a scientific guy. He knew that magic wasn’t real, that the fae were just stories.

So, clearly, the nightmarish things he’d seen that night were just that: nightmares. Just nightmares caused by stress over his academic struggles.

That was the immediate problem at hand: academic struggles. Logan was always the top of his class his whole life, and words like “gifted” were thrown around. Lately, however, things have been harder to keep up with and pay attention to, and it’s a bit of a mess.

Logan joined the writing club because he thought it might help him with English class, and he did like speculative fiction.

But, more importantly, he joined it because he thought it would be a simple task he could easily ace, so he wouldn’t have to keep being told that he wasn’t trying.

Logan’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Mimir, his logical side. Mimir is pushing himself to take care of all academic matters and keep Logan afloat.

Mimir is over his head, but doesn’t really have anyone to talk to (or so he thinks), so he’s just putting Warby Parkers over his panic and faking cold distance to make everyone think he’s doing okay.

Alastor, his moral side. Half of his job is repressing Logan’s emotions, which isn’t a great thing to be doing, but he think he’s doing it for a good reason.

Kinda strict and blaming Mimir for everything going wrong. He does care about the others, he’s just bad at showing it.

Cassandros, his fears and anxious thoughts. 

This dude-

He’s basically just [puts feet on coffee table] “Hey, did you know everyone hates us?? I made a PowerPoint that proves it!”

He’ll get character development, though.

The Chessmaster, his overdramatic self-preservation.

Tries to be clever, walks into walls.

The Detective, his creative and fanciful side. He wants to swashbuckle, but instead he’s restrained to geometry. 

But now he has a project in the writing club! He has something to do!

And The Mad Scientist is trying to ruin it!

The Mad Scientist, Logan’s dark creativity.

They never used to care about the creative side one way or another. There was no need to make a dark side when it was already looked down upon.

Now, however, there are things in Logan’s mind that he’s trying not to think about, and so the Mad Scientist has joined the fray.

The Actual Plot

This is going to be an actual fic that I write. So, I’m not going to fill out the entire plot here.

I can, however say a few of the plot lines

Plot One: Everyone’s sides are in a state of constant screaming and must learn to communicate.

They also need to let their main guys figure out they have soulmates, because they’re all repressing that information for their own reasons.

Plot Two: LAMP in a writing club, falling in love and being disturbed by first drafts!

Plot Three: The fae are kidnapping people.

And everyone needs to get them to Stop.

I guess you could call this a trailer??

I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA

[cherubchoirs]

An Explanation of Yaldabaoth

So with Christmas Eve coming up, let’s finally talk about Yaldabaoth – who he is, his motivations and goals, and why he suits P5’s story. Basically, I see a lot of confusion (as well as frustration) surrounding his character and his status as the final antagonist, but I totally get that. His writing is messy and his execution left a lot to be desired, despite the idea of him being sound, so I understand why so many players felt he came out of nowhere and screws up the story’s themes. As I am (unfortunately) a big fan of his character, I wanted to put together a post that might help people confused by him see how he fits in, why he was included in the story, and why he makes a satisfying final boss for the plot of P5. And even if you still hate him (totally fair! Everyone’s got different taste and no matter what, his handling is god awful), I just hope I can sort of explain him so he at least makes more sense. This is going to be long, so let’s get started!

First, Yaldabaoth (also known as the Demiurge) is a figure from Gnostic lore, the false god of the material world. He came to be when Sophia, a part of the unknowable, Supreme God, decided to create something separate from the Pleroma (the divine totality) all on her own, without divine permission. So she gave birth to Yaldabaoth; however, he was so monstrous she grew immediately ashamed of her creation, and so provided him with a throne which she then wrapped in a cloud to hide him and make him ignorant in turn. Unable to behold his mother or the divine, he then believed himself to be god. Because of this, Yaldabaoth set about creating the material world, a place he unwittingly based upon the true world of divinity. His creations are animal, like him, but with Sophia’s divine spark as she provides him the power to create. This world is poorly made due to Yaldabaoth’s own incompetence and so that divine spark is trapped in the material, making it something like a spiritual prison. Because of this, however, humanity can ascend while Yaldabaoth cannot, making him envious of human beings. He grows to hate humanity, angered by their imperfection (as he bungles their creation) and the fact that they can ascend while he’s forever trapped in the depths – he turns spiteful, and he is sometimes thought of as the God of the Old Testament as an explanation for his cruelty. Obviously this is incredibly simplified (as I am by no means an expert on Gnosticism), but this is the basis of his character, and I think it really is something the writers played with (including that Satanael, his son, is the one to rebel against him and his ignorance, which is why he is cast from heaven).

A false, artificial god who believes himself to be the Supreme Being, resents humankind, and traps them in a prison...sounds pretty familiar. So what’s different about his character in P5? This Yaldabaoth is the creator of the Metaverse, and he is born from the will of the public – people wished for ease and comfort over free will, the luxury to be free of making decisions and taking responsibility for themselves, which the Holy Grail explains to the PTs as its origin.

However, Yaldabaoth is also just a manifestation of that need - one that gained sentience through the power it was fed, but he is still simply the unconscious desire of the public made material as pointed out by Lavenza (but this explanation scene is where things get rushed, confusing, and glossed over to a frustrating extent)

Yaldabaoth IS society, a tangible stand-in for the true villain of P5 – The people of the public that allow, condone, and even encourage those the PTs have fought. They can defeat criminals, but as long as society remains intact, another will immediately spring up to take their place. Makoto actually states as much when Joker comes to retrieve her from her cell:

Yaldabaoth, therefor, is not just a god thrown into the plot randomly for the biggest bad possible – he is the evils of society incarnate, the people who allow the heinous crimes the PTs had been fighting against, the people that consumed these devastating crimes as entertainment or turned a blind eye to people in need, the people that threw the PTs out the minute any doubt was cast on them. The apathetic, uncaring, callous public as a whole, the ones who constantly ignore or support these criminals until it is no longer convenient (more on that in a minute) – The palace rulers are absolute monsters and yet...we see them all over society because they are a product of that society. And then there’s Futaba, an orphan and mentally ill girl left to rot by society; Sae, a woman trying so hard to achieve her justice and support her sister, constantly stamped down in a society that says a woman can’t, a woman shouldn’t. Society is the true villain and Yaldabaoth is their collective will, manifested so that the final boss battle of the game can just be the PTs taking down the whole of a corrupt society. It’s really the ultimate culmination of their efforts and what they’ve fought against. Because as awful as they all are, the palace rulers are products of a screwed up society (one that reflects our own) – Totally and 100% responsible for their acts, but they were allowed to exist due to this society.

SO if they’re made by society, why are they “escaped convicts” from the Prison of Regression? This is a representation of how society is broken – it creates these criminals, it condones their actions, but once they become too “disruptive”, THEN and ONLY then do they become an issue. Yaldabaoth, to me, is similar to a supercomputer type villain (think AM, a very similar character imo) – the palace rulers are errant, erratic variables that upset the status quo and so must be culled. His dialogue reads very much like a sterile computer program and I think rather than completely outright malicious in his intent, he is performing what he believes to be a necessary function:

Society creates them, encourages them, and then becomes upset when their actions are brought to light and so punishes them (or in Shido’s case at first and so often irl, are let off) so as to quickly restore equilibrium where they can once again ignore all of their ills. Essentially, the palace rulers exhibit that the whole system is sick and doesn’t work, yet people by and large pretend it does because it’s so much easier to say it was one “bad apple” or blame the victims rather than admitting the entire framework of society is completely rotten from the inside out.

What is Yaldabaoth’s goal then? He sets up a game to see if society can be shaken from this apathy or if they no longer wish to lead their own lives. Joker plays the trickster, an antihero the public can root for, the rebellious and glamorous rogue that punishes criminals without help of the establishment. If he wins, this would indicate the public no longer wishes for the status quo, but for a new society that wants to reinvent itself, which is generally well explained...

Goro Akechi is his opposite – He creates chaos and fear in the public to push them back into their comfortable boxes, make them wish for the status quo represented by Shido so they can stop living in fear and return to their lives where they can ignore everything around them. If he wins, this would signal that the public don’t want to fight but instead only want security and familiarity, choosing to turn a blind eye to everything the trickster had accomplished in order to remain safe. (This is made much less clear in the dialogue, because they don’t go over Goro’s role much at all.)

He sets up the entire game on this premise, and the experiment runs...however, it ends unexpectedly. Joker succeeds in taking down Akechi and the PTs expose Shido’s crimes as well as the conspiracy itself, but the public still does not support the Phantom Thieves. They clamor for a disgraced Shido and THIS is why Joker still loses – remember, Yaldabaoth is only a representation of society itself, and society no longer believes in the Phantom Thieves. Yaldabaoth did expect the loss, he knew how far gone humanity was, he just didn’t expect this exact scenario. Of course, the game was rigged – as Lavenza says, Yaldabaoth expects Joker to fulfill the role of the Trickster and so he keeps him close, watching over him in an attempt to stall him out as Lavenza explains. 

However, due to the set up of the game, the only win condition is public support. Joker doesn’t earn it and therefor he loses, a decision that is not arbitrary despite possibly appearing so (although it is certainly unfair, pointed out by Morgana).

After offering Joker his deal (that’s a whole OTHER post I could write, y’all know I’m a clown), Yaldabaoth then moves to merge reality with Mementos in order to exert his will over the whole of the public. He wishes to rid them of their free will because, as Yaldabaoth sees it, it seems a vast majority of the public wish to no longer have it anyway and the ones that do merely become anomalies that must be purged from his system before they become too disruptive. Of course, this is an oversimplified way of viewing the issue, but again, he’s sort of like a computer – he will take care of the issue in the most efficient way possible, and that is to rule over society himself. (Again, using the word “administrator” invokes computer terminology and likens him to a mechanical program):

Interestingly, his defeat is brought about by the public backing the Phantom Thieves 100% - an action that triggers Arsene’s evolution into Satanael, Yaldabaoth’s rebellious son. Satanael is of the Fool Arcana, the confidant that represents Joker’s bond to Yaldabaoth himself...to the public, in a sense, and so it’s fitting that this persona is the one to destroy him as he is no longer needed.

So Yaldabaoth is both a character in his own right and representative of the will of the public as well. His writing is confusing, lacking in explanation, and relies heavily on obscure references to his Gnostic roots along with religious symbolism (eg., the floors of Mementos taking their names from the Qliphoth and the palace rulers being representative of the seven deadly sins), and I think that’s why he feels so out of place to so many players. However, the best possible final antagonist for P5’s themes and plot is society itself – the society that shunned them, the society that created the palace rulers, the society that desperately needs to be done away with if we wish for these travesties to come to an end. Because P5 isn’t about individual evil, it’s about institutional evils that create and perpetuate so much individual pain that goes unnoticed and uncared for. Yaldabaoth is the amalgamation and manifestation of that broken system, he gives it a presence and a voice so that the PTs can fight back against it physically. So even though his writing is handled poorly and his execution is lacking, I find him to be a perfect fit and a satisfying conclusion to P5’s themes as an unfair, cruel society turned into a dogmatic god. 

This meta really just gives an overview of everything he represents, so I can always go into more detail about any of the points but I hope this explanation helps those that were confused by his inclusion in P5! I’m perfectly happy to elaborate on anything I talked about and clear up any confusion (I didn’t want this post to go on literally FOREVER, so I know some things might require more info), so feel free to ask questions! Other than that have a happy Day of Reckoning and remember to celebrate Bad End Akira’s birthday 🥳🎉

[feuilly-cakes]

Eclipse - 3* Review

Alright, so, this book dragged on. Lots happened, but in my opinion it should have been split up, perhaps pre-graduation and post-graduation. I couldn't tell you what order most things happened, whether half the scenes were necessary, or whether I really enjoyed most of the book, because it was just so long. I can say I didn't hate it, and though I was wishing for it to be over by page 400 I knew certain points that were upcoming that had to happen first, so I used them as little goals to reach. For a first time reader I'm not sure how well the length of this would go down as the plot is a bit repetitive, with Bella running off to La Push, going back home, running off to La Push again, running off home, and arguing with Edward, arguing with Jacob, arguing with Alice, arguing with Charlie, arguing with herself... I'm simplifying of course, but it was really a bit long. Despite all this repetitiveness there was growth. This book was mostly about wrapping up old plot-lines and Bella working through her complicated emotions around being changed into a vampire and giving up her human life. Spoilers from this point on. Bella, in this book, has discovered she's not ready to be a vampire yet. Amongst being targeted by unknown vampire threats and her complicated relationship with Jacob, she feels "unease" at her impending deadline, only a few weeks away, after graduation. Edward, bless him, is really trying to convince her to go to college even for a year to give her time to make up her mind fully, but she's having none of it, while also having very real terror at the realisation that she will be leaving everything and everyone behind after graduation, only a week away at this point, to become someone bloodthirsty and wild. Emmett and Jasper have been taking bets on her body count, the news of crazed newborn vampires on a killing spree in Seattle has reached her ears, and she is Panicked. Adding to this, Edward wants her to marry him before he will personally change her, and later add the condition that he will only sleep with her as a human if they are married first. So she's not ready for marriage, not quite ready for vampirism, and her best friend Jacob is being mean about it all. It takes her nearly 400 pages to work through these feelings, and I greatly appreciated her arc in this book. It's very realistic to have these emotions right before massive life changes like marriage or eternal life as a creature of the night. When she is finally ready, she's ready for everything. Another aspect of Bella's story is her new knowledge of her selfish actions regarding Edward and Jacob and even Charlie. She feels very guilty about keeping Jacob around when she's chosen Edward, for both of their sakes, and also for threatening to move out every time Charlie is unnecessarily antagonistic towards Edward. It's a big step up from the last book, where she was constantly behaving badly, though she never acknowledges that Jessica is against her because of her own actions putting them both in extreme danger. Some Vampire things, including Edward, because he didn't really stand out much. -On Edward: He was pretty much obsessed with the idea of being a soldier when he was human. He said he was "too eager to be a soldier" for love. Edward is once more coded as Demisexual, obviously unintentionally, but I'm sticking by this one. He "wasn't the least bit interested" in Rosalie, when everyone else was, and in Rosalie's words, someone who has known him for 70-ish years: "he never wanted anyone" and "never showed the slightest preference" when meeting the beautiful Denali sisters. I will die on this hill. Edward tells Bella he actually wants her to be a vampire "more than anything" but feels that he's being selfish and so denies that wish, hence his being so against it. - Bella feels relief when Edward touches her, "as if [she'd] been in pain and that pain had suddenly ceased." This is either a Bella thing or a vampire thing, and one is more interesting than the other. - Jasper feels gratitude towards the Volturi for their part in keeping the Southern Vampire Wars in check. Bella doesn't understand how he could see them as the good guys, but there's definitely a middle ground to be seen. - Victoria has a babyish voice, "the kind of voice that went with blonde curls and pink bubble gum" and I still can't compute this information. - On Rosalie: She, like Bella, knew the Cullens as a human. She said she "never liked Dr. Cullen or his wife and her brother" because they were all more beautiful than her. She isn't actually that vain in current day, as after what happened to her she "began to blame the beauty for what happened" and wished she looked normal and not beautiful. As far as victim blaming, this isn't really the best point of view, but she goes on to describe how she murdered her attackers. It's still a harmful mentality to be sharing with a teen audience though. After explaining her history and her full reasoning for her dislike of Bella in the beginning and the reason for not wanting her to become a vampire, she apologises for her behaviour and they share a smile. Bella knows they aren't friends yet but they are on their way to not being against each other. It's a good moment of development that I missed in all my previous times reading. Onto the main differences to the films. - The terms of Bella's grounding are different. She must go home straight after school and work, but Edward is allowed over for a certain amount of time in the evenings. - After the Florida trip, Jacob calls Bella's house to check in on her and see if she would be at school the next day. Bella assumes it's to check she's still human. Jacob was checking to see if Edward would be there to talk to him about the treaty in a public area. Bella never gets on his motorbike. She goes to class and has a bizarre conversation with Edward. Her actual first trip to La Push happens a different day, as a split second decision after losing a shift at work, and she drives herself down quickly to avoid being caught by Alice. - The motorbike scene takes place on another day, with Alice as the vampire instead of Edward. Alice has kidnapped Bella to prevent her going to see Jacob when they made plans. At school he turns up and she bolts with him, then later has a fight with him and rides herself on her own motorbike back to Alice. She does take the bike back, after she makes up with Jacob, Edward buys his own motorbike and Bella realises that's weird, and Edward gives her a helmet and jacket so she can ride back on her own with him following for protection to the treaty line. - Jasper tells Bella his story at the Cullen house, in front of everyone, and explains the history of the Southern Vampire Wars in detail. - After getting back from the fight, Bella gets the story from Charlie's point of view. He heard howling, Billy was acting weird all day long, like he knew Jacob would get hurt, and when he was at Billy's he heard a wolf yowling in pain right outside, only for that to stop when Jacob starts swearing up a storm as he is carried inside. Charlie remains oblivious. There were several instances of creepy/gross behaviour, offensive language, uncomfortable situations, and straight up disgusting behaviour that I noticed. I should just call this Red Flags at this point. Let me count the ways, in chronological order. 1. Edward displays some creepy and controlling behaviour when Bella decides to go see Jacob and gets to her truck only to find Edward there and the truck missing a vital part. He refuses to allow her to go to La Push. Throw the whole man out. 2. One of Bella's school friends calls Jacob "the big Indian". 3. "You're kidnapping me, aren't you?"Edward bribes Alice into kidnapping Bella and guilting her into going along with her plans. 4. The bonfire scene. Stephenie Meyer made up those legends entirely, which begs the question: why not make up a whole new group of people to be werewolves instead of bastardising the belief system of a real group of people? 5. Jacob assaults Bella. He kisses her against her will and acts like he hasn't done wrong even after she punches him and makes it clear he's done something terrible. Trash. 6. In response to this information Charlie, a police officer and Bella's father congratulates Jacob and takes his side. He praises him for assaulting his daughter. ACAB. That's all I can say. 7. If the previous incident isn't enough, Jacob later threatens suicide to make Bella kiss him. For clarity: he threatens to kill himself to manipulate Bella into kissing him, then when he doesn't like the kiss he does it again to get a more enjoyable one. Kill it with fire, you disgusting future r*pist. I hate him here. Considering at the beginning he was defending Bella's right to choose and to know everything that happens that could endanger her, these vile actions are a huge departure from his character, and I don't know how we are supposed to believe the idea that he can go back to being the good, friendly Jacob who would never ever hurt Bella. None of that should have happened, and it was pure laziness that there wasn't a more believable reason to make them kiss instead of an assault and emotional abuse. It makes me so angry because when I hated Edward in New Moon his actions were actually in-character for him and made sense, but these efforts to make us hate Jacob and then forgive him are so out of character that its clear how Stephenie Meyer wanted the story to go, and she did a bad job of it. To end on a less angry note, let me slip in these little tidbits. Sam feels "betrayed" that Bella let the Cullens back into her life after they hurt her, and that information makes me want to know even more what went down at La Push in New Moon. Who was she close too? How close? Did Sam become friends with her or does he really know her through Jacob's memories? Also, Edward's been dropping hints about the Pack not being normal werewolves, so there's a bit of foreshadowing for Breaking Dawn.

[writingsofmyimagination]

Instinct |4|

An unwelcome blast from the Captain’s trainee days comes back to the Scouting Regiment and old habits die hard

Levi x Reader

Warnings:SMUT (fingering, penetration, BDSM, Dom Levi), swearing.

Instinct: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Words:3379

Want to be tagged? let me know.

Not 100% happy with this chapter but I’ve been staring at it for long enough now.

Happy Reading :)

You’d be lying to yourself if you denied the small smirk etching onto your face as you dressed and felt the pangs of soreness from last night. You ventured down passed the full food hall buzzing with noise; it was easy to forget there was nearly a whole regiment here and not just the Special Op’s Squad and the newbies. There was a slight breeze in the air which toyed joyously with your hair, the new recruits should be joining you in a few minutes. You took a moment to look up at the sky high enough to ignore the walls, it was a false comfort but in the current situation it was as good as it could be.

“Ah, Corporal Y/N glad I caught you” you turned and waited a few moments for Erwin to join you.

“Are you off somewhere exciting Commander?”

“I have a meeting with Commander Pixis, I’m just about to head off. I heard about your altercation yesterday and just wanted to check in” He waited and looked at you expectantly.

“Oh, I’m sorry Commander, it won’t happen again. We’ve spoken and sorted things out”

“Well I’m glad to hear it, I would be lying if I said I didn’t expect any minor bumps with you two. But I cannot the stress the importance of us all being united at such a crucial time”

“I understand that Sir” You expected him to carry on and prepared to be scolded but it never came.

“Besides, I dare say your actions will cement your authority and strength among the regiment” a slight smile crept onto his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Well taking Levi out like that” he chuckled lightly before continuing “I guarantee no one else here or ever will have the courage or even dare to raise a hand to him, I’m sure your actions will be remembered” Before responding you had to have a light chuckle to yourself

“To be honest Commander I think I’m the only one he’ll ever let get away with such things” you stated.

“What tortures are you exposing them too today?” Erwin enquired strategically changing the topic of conversation.

“Fitness, I don’t want them to use the ODM gear as a crutch as many in the Garrison tend to do.”

“Ah, very good. Hope all goes well, I will see you later Corporal” Relieved Erwin approved of your methods you saluted him as he took his leave.

    “Morning Cadets, hope you rested and ate well” You scanned all the faces trying to get a sense of their moods today.

“Ready as ever” Eren blurted out enthusiasm high. You repressed a smile as you glimpsed all the others rolling their eyes. Levi finally made it over to you still putting his jacket on.

“So today you will be doing fitness circuits so you can leave your ODM gear here” the unanimous groan indicating you’d considerably deflated their moods was heavy in the air.

“I know, I know, no one likes fitness but you must learn that while ODM gear is great you must also have good physical fitness. If you look just beside the trees” you gave them all a few seconds to follow your gaze. “That’s the start point, every 200m there will be alternating coloured markers. Red markers you will sprint at 70%, orange 50%, yellow 20% and at green you can walk”

“For how long do you expect us to do that for” Mikasa asked bluntly.

“10 laps”

“What but the laps are huge” the young Connie Springer whined.

“Look you can have me set the fitness out or Levi who’d you rather?” The recruits stripped off their gear and made their way to the start marker.

“Using me as a threat now?” Levi looking ahead at the course you’d set.

“Well it worked didn’t it, whether out of fear or respect I’m not sure but it works” you chuckled.

“I don’t care as long as the brats do what’s asked of them” Levi folded his arms maintaining his strong stance.

“Can’t argue with that logic, you do command well, they all listen to you” His eyebrow raised slightly as he gave you a sideways glance

“Ugh, I’d much rather you go back to attacking my face” he never could take compliments.

“You’d enjoy that too much, just take a compliment for Christ’s sake”

You both observed the suffering recruits in silence and for once you felt like you needed to get some things off your chest that had been clawing at you ever since you arrived.

“You know I never blamed you for what happened right? It was my choice to ignore orders and save you” His head dropped, a reluctant sigh left his lips. He contemplated for a moment and your stomach turned to knots waiting for a response.

“The worst thing was that you thought my life was more valuable than mine” The response kneed you in the stomach, you’d never expect him to reply so solemnly and with such sadness in his tone. You forgot how equally Levi valued all life and how deeply he hated innocent, fruitless deaths.

“Well considering how you turned out to be ‘Humanity’s Strongest’ I don’t see it as a bad choice” you neglected your feelings and responded more light heartedly than you wanted to. He knew you well enough to know your defence mechanisms. You watched as the frown grew deep on his forehead

“Enough of that bullshit!” he growled “I’d happily fuck that attitude right out of you”

Your lips twitched upwards at his words.

“Not a bad idea Captain” his expression rushed to mirror yours

“Is the old cabin area still there?” you inquired

“Not been touched for years” Levi responded with a hint of excitement he couldn’t contain.

“Well I guess you’ll be keeping me awake tonight then”

 The day dragged, each minute longer than the last. You waited constantly for the sun to go down, you were agitated and everyone around you knew it. The lethal looks you shot to Levi at the dinner table as his hands kept wandering up your thigh never reaching where you needed them. You made little conversation, all your energies focused on not smacking him in the jaw and trying to maintain some control over your aching core. The HQ once again sipped into stillness, you avoided the creaky floorboards with expert precision. Your hands suppressing any movement of your ODM gear, Levi was waiting for you outside holding a torch and the reigns of his horse in the other. You didn’t speak as you collected your horse from the stable. The mouth of the forest was dead in front of you when you finally broke the silence.

“Race ya” you exclaimed, kicking in your stirrups and racing ahead through the trees. The heavy snorts of Levi’s stallion approaching on your left shoulder spurred you on further. The air rushing passed your ears in cold whooshes. You reached a small clearing amongst the trees and yanked at the reigns halting your horse with a loud neigh.

“Still a better rider than you Captain” you bragged, dismounting from your steed and Levi from his.

“I know you secretly hate losing” you spoke in his ear pushing him up against a tree, he tangled his hand in your hair and tugged.

“Get into that watchtower”

You separated from him and released your gear and flew up in to the tower. The wooden planks had grown dark and patchy with moss, as Levi joined you with the torch the misuse of the watchtower was even more apparent. You unhooked your gear and it clattered to the floor. You took the bag Levi had brought up and pulled out the thick blanket and flung it over the floor.

His fingers hooked through your belt loops and pulled you crashing into him, your heavy breathing seemed amplified from the silence around you as your lips battled and danced on his. He pushed you back

“Now, you will do as I say no exceptions, understand?” you responded biting your lip arched in a devilish grin.

“Turn around and take off your shirt” he ordered, that tone wreaked havoc in between your legs. You complied teasing the buttons one by one, Levi gently swept your shirt from your shoulders and it dropped to the floor. Although it wasn’t particularly cold your nipples were stood to fierce attention. You looked down to your left shoulder and followed his fingers ghosting along your shoulder delicately before crossing over to your stomach, his other hand was clamped at the back of your neck

“Don’t you move your hands” he warned, his hand sinking below your waistband. You gasped, rolled your head into his chest obediently keeping your hands at your sides.

“Good girl, now lose the rest” His hand leaving your core throbbing and untied his cravat. You stripped down to just your briefs, you felt your own eyes flash as he took off his clothes. He paused for a moment absorbing the view until the bubbling desire within him spilled over and he pounced on you. One hand firmly gripped at the sides of your throat, the other digging into your hip. The intensity of the kiss funnelled so much heat through your system your lungs could not capacitate the air you needed.

“On the floor princess!” he scowled. Levi fished out two lengths of rope from the bag.

“Hands to ankles! I know how much it frustrated you when you couldn’t have your hands on me” You wriggled subtly as he pulled of your underwear before tying your left wrist to you left ankle and the same with your right wrist, there was a small amount of length he’d given you to move but not much.

“I can’t believe I get to do this to you again” He climbed on top of you pressing his knee against you

“Levi” you breathed

“Oh you need to be louder than that brat!” his words rolled of your neck. You almost squealed as he thrust two fingers inside you. You pulled at the rope, the roughness already making work of grating on your skin.

“That’s better” he praised “You always feels so good for me”. His palm pressed onto your clit, his fingers angled up in a come hither motion but tortuously slow.

“Faster, please” you begged through your heavy breathing.

“You’re not in a position to make demands princess” He pushed in even harder dragging your back off the floor into an arch as your muscles tightened.

“Tell me how good it feels” he fished. You smiled up at his stern face, his hair had fallen across the front of his face.

“Feels like you’re out of practice” you lied, pushing into him.

“Is that so? Well I’ll guess I just have to keep you on edge a bit longer then so I can practice some more” Regret swamped you instantly, his fingers sped up inside you, consistently stroking your sweet spot, his mouth clamped onto your neck; his teeth biting at your skin. Your wrists were sore, you twisted what rope you could in your hand to bring some relief to your sore skin. His fingers left you, teetering dangerously on the edge. His tongue wrapped around your clit and you pleasantly suffered with each lick and circle, he slowed his pace. An exasperated sigh left you, you felt his mouth twist into a smile.

Bastard

He removed all contact, gripped your arm tightly and pushed you onto your side.

“You ready for me beautiful?”

The slight undertone of his affection sent you back reimagining the rare moments when you were training and he’d look at you with a certain fondness or he’d tuck your hair behind your ear with delicate fingers slyly in hallways.

“Fuck, yes!” He untied the ropes and allowed you to get comfortable, you completely ignored the ache in you limbs. He swept you hair away from your back and kissed you with soft lips. You twisted to see him lay down behind you, he swept your hair over the front of your shoulder and kissed the back of your neck before re-tying your hands behind your back. Fingertips danced eloquently down your outline ghosting over your sex before he pushed you more onto your chest and spread your spread legs just enough for him to run his cock through your arousal before slowly pushing into you.

“Fuck!” you exclaimed under your breath.

“I’ve missed hearing you say that” You was way too absorbed in how he felt to respond, his thrusts were slow and back to being torturous. He remembered your body, how your body writhed against his, how your leg muscles started to twitch as the coils wound tighter and tighter, how you clenched around him when he yanked your hair back.

He halted all movements earning nothing but protested whines and whimpers from your lips. The cool air around you didn’t affect you anymore, your own rising body heat keeping you insulated.

“You’re going to ride me until you cum, I want to see your face, I want to see you come undone and lose yourself on me” Levi was never one for much detailed pillow talk but when it happened it certainly did things.

“You must be feeling generous” you teased with a slight tinge of suspicion climbing onto his waist; a perfect willing partner, he normally played with you until the point of tears.

“I’m not as selfish as I was” he offered as an underhanded apology. Your wrists were red raw and burning you didn’t even dare try and soothe them, holding his hands you lowered yourself onto him and savoured the sensation before your hips started rocking. Levi hummed a moan, both of your movements fell into perfect sync, the sound of your moans escalating amplified by the silence flooding the area; neither of you had the capacity to care at this point. You could feel his thighs begin to tense spurring your hips into a faster rhythm racing him to the edge. His eyes were determined, focused on you despite the pleasure trying to drag them closed and roll them back

His body began quivering shortly followed by a deep groan as his cock twitched inside you. The small contractions were enough to send you tumbling of the edge into your own powerful climax.

 You both redressed in silence with the occasional smirk at each other, you couldn’t deny sneaking around heated the situation.

Arriving back at the base the flicker of candles illuminating the large meeting hall was the only light remaining, you stole a glance at one another

Okay lets be quiet you thought

“I don’t think so” boomed Erwin’s deep voice as you both tried to play stealth past the meeting room door.

“Oh shit!” Levi exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

You quickly scurried into a chair opposite where Levi had flung himself with Erwin stone faced at the head of the table.

“Get the lecture over with Commander” Levi requested

“As you wish Captain” Your eyes burnt shame through the table, not once could you look up.

“This explains a lot” he stated “Why you were at each other throats so much and also why you clicked so well in the field. Also why you both nearly got each other killed, not to mention contributing to the breakdown and deaths of that expedition” Your mood sky dived further heavy with shame, Levi casually leant back in his chair and his casualness grated on your quickly souring mood.

“Convince me to allow something that has already proved fatal” he asked not really expecting an answer. The bright glow of the candles now seemed dimmer around, darkness closing around suffocating the atmosphere.

“With all due respect Commander It’s not any of your business” Levi stated. Even Erwin couldn’t suppress his eyes widening at the response.

“That was the past and we both have to live with those consequences every god damn day, we’re adults now and so what if we like to fuck to find some solace in this shit storm of a world then so be it”

Blood rushed to your cheeks at Levi’s bluntness, you could be pretty blunt but when it came to your superiors you was a model subordinate.

“Well Levi” Erwin cleared his throat “That wasn’t a response I was expecting” He looked uncomfortable and coughed and readjusted himself in his chair.

“This is the reason I requested not to go on the mission Sir” You affirmed finally speaking up even though you’d rather be crawling under a rock or throwing a punch at Levi.

Levi’s knitted brows and glare now refocused onto you

“What? You’re not coming? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, those kids …” His tone had faded dark and hearing it spoken to you released the gates holding back the guilt you’d tried so hard to suppress. Guilt, anger and embarrassment was not a healthy concoction.

“Enough!” Erwin boomed immediately silencing the room. “Right, there’s a bigger picture at hand here, if we can lure another titan shifter to capture it will be an invaluable victory to humanity. Only Levi’s squad will be in the main firing line with Eren as bait. Y/N the others are all going to have trust in the survey corps and wait, they will be blind to the plan and well those kids will need a authority to figure to keep them from questioning too much and someone to help increase their survival chances dramatically and that needs to be you” Erwin visibly released a lot of tension as he exhaled and gathered some more thoughts and stood.

“No more is to be spoken of this, if you two can remain professional and private then I can see no problem. Y/N I appreciate your reasons for not wanting to be present on this mission, our past haunts us all from time to time but we have to overcome our fears otherwise we will remain behind the walls of our mind. Think about it” With a salute he left, leaving a silent screaming silence.

“What were you thinking being so blunt with him like that, do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me” You threw your chair back as you stood.

He replied with a forced chuckle and his gaze did not move from the floor. “I need some bloody tea” his lack of reply heated the already boiling anger, you glared at him with nothing but lava as he poured himself a cup of tea from the small desk pushed against the wall.

“For fucks sake Levi at least once acknowledge I have emotions we’re not all gifted with the emotional range of a teaspoon like you! And just maybe, just maybe consider that at times I need more from you than just a fuck”

He still said nothing,

Bastard

As soon as his lips touched the rim of his cup to take a sip you were done. You left him refusing to let him see your eyes flood themselves, every move you made was heavier. You made no attempt to sneak back to your room, your clothes were rushed off, your equipment was launched on the floor; you even ignited your lamp still with a frown across your face.

You slowly allowed the silence to consume you and steadily began slipping into a more peaceful state. A light knock at your door followed by a small creaking caused your eyes roll as you purposely rolled over facing away from him.

“Seriously Levi I’m in no mood” you warned

“Don’t be such a brat, move over!” he demanded, you responded with an exaggerated sigh but obeyed begrudgingly. Levi slipped under the duvet and pushed himself flush against you wrapping his top arm over you and resting it in between your chest. He even kissed the back of your neck triggering a single tear to fall and soak into the pillow beneath you.

“I’m sorry” he whispered.

“Sorry I didn’t quite catch that?” He gently kneed you, you felt his lips curve up against your skin.

“I seriously think you need to come on this mission, those kids will need you”

“I know” you breathed.

[freddiedearfriend]

Plus One - A Night at the Fandom “Secret Santa” Gift!

This is my gift for @brianmays-badgers​ for @dtfrogertaylor​‘s A Night at the Fandom event! This story ended up quite different from what I set out to do, but I’m kind of into it. It’s less “enemies to lovers” like I intended and more “Reader is a badass who doesn’t take shit from men.” I hope you like it! 🐛💖

Plus One

Gwilym Lee x F!Reader

Word count: 4.3k

Rating: Explicit

A/N: No offense to any Caitlins out there! Also, this is actually the first fic I’ve ever completed (let alone posted online) and I have no beta reader so I’d love to hear your honest opinion, criticisms and all! Like for real, I know I have a lot of room for improvement so I’d love to hear what you liked and what you think could be better. 

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It had been a while since you felt so relaxed. School was just as busy as always, but you had been feeling especially tightly wound lately, unable to shake the tension that seemed to permeate your entire being.

But now, for the first time in weeks, you felt like yourself again. Dancing always seemed to have that effect on you. Some god-awful remix of an Ariana Grande song was playing, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You had just enough alcohol in your system to make you feel relaxed, loose, but not out of control. You didn’t remember exactly how you had arrived at that point, but that didn’t really bother you.

You were dancing with someone, but it was dark, and everything felt a little blurry in a pleasant way, and you couldn’t see who it was. You could certainly feel him, though, your bodies pressed impossibly close together as you moved to the music. Large, strong hands held your hips, which you swayed back and forth to the beat of the song. You sensed the pulsing presence of the other clubgoers around you, but the warmth radiating from your partner overpowered the usual stuffiness of such a crowd.

You sighed, tossing your hair back and running your hands up your partner’s torso, feeling the muscles underneath his (admittedly slightly sweaty) shirt. You brushed his chest with your fingers before sliding your hands up to grasp his shoulders.

Your partner leant down, whispering in your ear. His hot breath, smelling slightly of beer, made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It was oddly pleasant.

“This isn’t real.”

You looked up, slightly confused. All of a sudden, the club’s strobe lighting was too bright and disorienting, and you became acutely aware of the blood pulsing throughout your body. You still couldn’t see your partner’s face.

“What?” you shouted over the music, your own voice echoing loudly in your ears.

Your partner gave a throaty chuckle, and you slowed your dancing a bit, feeling as if you had just realized something important. You couldn’t conclude what it was, though; the alcohol was causing your brain to lag and keeping you from finishing the thought.

This time you saw as the shadowy figure of your partner, who stood well over a foot taller than you, hunched over considerably to speak to you again.

“You really think this would ever happen? Can’t you see who I am?”

You suddenly felt too sweaty, standing still in the middle of the dance floor as you tried to focus on the man’s face. Your eyes worked to adjust to the dimness being constantly punctuated by obnoxiously bright flashes of light, and eventually you were able to make contact with a pair of bright blue eyes staring down at you.

“There she is. Hello, Y/N.”

You startled awake, frantically fishing around in the sheets for your buzzing phone. You found it and snoozed the alarm, grimacing at the bright screen and the ungodly hour it displayed. “Fucking hell,” you groaned, turning over and pulling the covers over your head. You cursed your past self for thinking early-morning training for basketball would be good idea, a way to get more involved at school. Now that the time had come, you decided you really couldn’t care less about team building.

When your alarm went off for the second time a few minutes later, you took a resigned breath and dragged yourself out of bed.

This wasn’t the first time you had dreamt about Gwilym Lee. In fact, the dreams had been increasing in frequency lately, making you more and more irritated and tense as the weeks went on. As if you needed any more reason to hate him. He had ruined your life.

Okay, so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. Your life was still going on relatively smoothly in most respects. But for the last few weeks you really had felt quite on edge, and Gwil was to blame.

It all sounded rather cliché when you thought about it. He was the freakishly beautiful British cousin of one of your classmates, visiting America for an acting apprenticeship and breaking the hearts of nearly everyone he encountered in his tragically short time there. Of course, he just had to get all chummy with your friend Joe, meaning you had to be around his pretentious ass constantly. (You were not going to let the presence of this interloper stop you from hanging out with one of your best friends.) And, the cherry on top of this disgusting shepherd’s pie, it was rumored that he was hooking up with Caitlin, a former friend of yours with whom you weren’t on the best of terms. None of this was helped by the fact that you weren’t exactly known for keeping your feelings to yourself, so everyone involved was aware of your varying levels of annoyance with both parties. The entire situation seemed like it could have been the plot of a bad romantic drama or young adult novel.

You just wished all of this could have waited until afteryour birthday. Nineteen isn’t usually one of the big birthday milestones, but you had been deathly ill last year on your eighteenth and had been planning to make up for it this year—and make up for it big time.

With the help of your parents and a distant yet generous great-aunt, you were able to rent out a barcade downtown for the evening. The place was a bar and was meant for adults, but also had laser tag, a bouncy obstacle course, and a wide variety of arcade games. When open to the public it was twenty-one and up, but they allowed minors at reserved events. You had sent out the invitations before Gwil showed up and stuck his stupid, chiseled jawline in your business, but you invited pretty much everyone he knew and it would be odd—and frankly, pretty rude—if he just wasn’t allowed to come. So he would be there.

All you could do was plan to keep your distance and hope that things went off without a hitch tonight.

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Despite every cell in your body crying out for you to go back to sleep, you made it through the early morning training as well all of your classes. After your last class, you went back to your dorm room and took a quick power nap before it was time to get ready for your party.

Since your party would involve some rather physical activities, you decided to forgo a particularly elaborate or high-maintenance look, instead putting on minimal makeup, your favorite pair of black jeans with a nice blouse, and a simple half-up, half-down hairstyle. You put in a pair of silver hoop earrings and some black velvet flats and admired yourself in the mirror. You looked damn good.

Your friend Lucy picked you up in her car and you rode to the barcade together. You had about half an hour to get things set up before other guests started arriving, and you puttered around pouring snacks into bowls and hanging streamers.

You were standing and chatting with Lucy when people began to show up.

“Wassup, Y/N!” Joe, always one to make an entrance, greeted you loudly. You quickly set down your paper cup of lemonade before Joe gave you a huge hug, lifting you off your feet and spinning you around.

“Looking incredible as always! Feel old yet?”

You laughed and half-heartedly adjusted your hair and top, pretending to be annoyed. “Please, Joe, I’m a year younger than you.”

Joe gave Lucy a quick hug in greeting before turning back to you. “Yes, and I’m telling you from experience, it really starts to hit you around nineteen. My back is killing me as we speak!” he said rather cheerfully for someone who was allegedly in pain.

“Whatever you say, old man.”

“Well hey now, you know what they say about respecting your elders.”

“Yeah, right. You already convinced me to let Gwil come. Don’t push your luck. You’re gonna keep that Laurence Olivier wannabe in check tonight, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Joe replied, straightening up and giving you a salute. “No impromptu soliloquies will be performed tonight if I can help it.”

“Oh god, I would die,” you laughed and rolled your eyes. “Although if he did that then I would have a great excuse to kick him out.”

Joe gave a goofy grin but then spoke with a more serious voice. “Y/N, I know you’re tired of hearing it, but he’s really not that bad. When you get him alone he’s much less…”

“…of a huge douchebag?”

“Well, for lack of a better word, yes. In fact, I really think he acts so weird around you because he—”

“Oh god, Joe, don’t even try to give me the ‘boys pull your hair because they like you’ thing. That’s so second grade.”

“Okay, okay,” Joe put his hands up in defense. “All I’m saying is…he does talk about you a lot. And it’s not all bad.”

You gave a dramatic sigh, wanting to end the conversation. The truth was, the fact that Gwil talked about you when you weren’t around piqued your interest, but you didn’t want Joe to see that. “Oh great, that makes me feel much better. Whatever. I don’t want to spend any more energy talking about him. Let’s get this party started.”

“Great. That’s the spirit. Now, can I interest you in a round of Whack-A-Mole?”

“Oh, absolutely. You’re on.”

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Soon enough the party was in full swing, and you were making rounds, checking in with as many people as possible to make sure everyone was having a good time. You had just joined in a heated debate over which of the university’s physics professors was the best when you felt someone tap on your shoulder.

“Y/N, can I borrow you for a moment?” Joe was behind you looking almost sheepish, an expression you were not used to seeing on your normally boisterous and confident friend. You excused yourself from the conversation and walked a few feet away to talk with Joe in private.

“Okay, please do not freak out right now, but I have to tell you something,” Joe said carefully, his arms held in front of him, fists balled up nervously.

“Uh, okay, but you’re making it sound like I’m definitely gonna freak out right now,” you replied, looking at him with your brow furrowed in confusion and concern.

“No, it’s, well it’s not really that big of a deal, it’s just…Gwil brought Caitlin.” Joe muttered quickly, cringing as he tried to gauge your reaction.

Without thinking, you whipped your head around, scanning the room for either of the offending parties. You looked back at Joe, plastering on a fake smile so as to not appear as surprised and angry as you actual were.

“Of course he fucking did. Bastard. Where are they?”

“I swear he never mentioned it to me, when I told him he could come I never mentioned bringing a plus one. I’m so sorry, Y/N, I should have been clearer. I didn’t think—"

He looked so guilty and sad, and you just couldn’t be mad at that face. You sighed. “It’s okay, Joe, it’s not your fault. You just assumed he would have common sense and ask before bringing a guest, but they must have different party etiquette across the pond, huh?”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N, I’m gonna make it up to you. I’ll take you for Chinese, just the two of us.”

“That does sound pretty nice. We haven’t been to Lucky Kitchen in a while.”

“Great, then it’s a plan. But hey, just ignore those two and enjoy your party, okay? You deserve this.”

“Thanks, Joe. And thanks for telling me, at least I’m prepared to run into either of them now.”

“That’s my girl,” Joe said, patting you firmly on the shoulder. “Now get back to your adoring fans.”

You chuckled and flipped your hair over your shoulder dramatically, turning back to the conversation you were having.

But you found it a little hard to focus on the discussion now. You were on edge, desperately trying to keep eye contact with the people you were talking to rather than checking your peripheral vision for your unwanted guests. Eventually the group you were chatting with decided to start a game of laser tag, and you enthusiastically joined in, letting the thoughts of Gwil and Caitlin’s presence run off your back.

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Several intense games of laser tag and a Dance Dance Revolution tournament later, you were warm and happy and still mostly distracted from the presence of your two uninvited guests.

Then it was time for cake. The lights were dimmed, and your friends and family began to sing as the cake was brought out, sparklers in place of candles. You gasped, covering your mouth with your hands. It was one of the most unique and beautiful cakes you had ever seen.

You had planned on just getting a few sheet cakes from Costco, since they were cheap and actually not half bad, but your parents insisted that they had it covered and surprised you with a huge custom cake from a bakery in town. It was four tiers, alternating chocolate and vanilla, and the entire thing was iced with a mint chocolate chip buttercream frosting and covered in white fondant roses.

You made a mental note to write that great-aunt a thank you card.

After everyone had gotten at least one helping of cake, they began to return to the games or sit in small groups in conversation. You stood near the table where the cake was, taking everything in. You were definitely started to lose steam now, but you mostly just felt pleasantly sleepy as you gazed out over the room. You had had a pretty perfect night so far. Then a nearby conversation brought you out of your daze.

“Like, who wants to play fucking Whack-A-Mole at an adult’s birthday party? I’m surprised this many people actually showed up.”

You recognized that voice immediately. Caitlin. An old friend-turned-frenemy-turned-full-on enemy, a voice you just couldn’t seem to get away from ever since elementary school.

“And she was actually, like, crying over the cake. Like are you kidding? Get a grip.”

You were too shocked to even be angry at first. You pulled out your phone surreptitiously, opening your conversation with Joe and sending him a text.

Omg, Caitlin and Gwil are talking shit

Almost immediately, you received the read receipt and then Joe’s response.

Not if I can help it

You stared at your phone, confused. Joe was nowhere to be seen, let alone do anything about this. You were typing out a response suggesting as much when you heard his voice—but not directed at you.

“Hey Gwil. Caitlin. How’s it goin’?” Joe was sweaty and attempting to catch his breath, clearly having just come from the bouncy obstacle course. He took a swig from a water bottle as he walked up to them.

Oh, no,you thought. What are you doing, Joe?

“Ugh, fine,” Caitlin replied to Joe. “Not really understanding the whole ‘adults playing arcade games’ thing but whatever. At least the cake was good.”

Gwil snorted. “Yeah, would help if I had something to drink, too.” God, he was so fucking arrogant. You couldn’t stand it.

“I have no idea what you guys are talking about,” Joe said cheerfully, “I’m having more fun than I have in long time. Nothing like some friendly competition to take your mind off midterms coming up. Come on, go through the obstacle course with me. Just once. We can race!”

Gwil seemed to perk up a little bit at this suggestion, but Caitlin quickly shot it down.

“Huh, yeah, thanks but no thanks. I’d like to keep at least a little of my dignity tonight.”

Joe frowned at her. “If you don’t like any of this stuff, why’d you even come?”

Oh god. Now he was really going to start something.

“Duh, free food. Free cake. Chance to make fun of Y/N. And I just couldn’t let this one go all alone,” Caitlin giggled, bumping Gwil with her shoulder. Gwil didn’t seem to share quite the same level of mirth, however, and you followed his nervous gaze to Joe, whose eyes were quickly narrowing.

“First of all, Gwil here was never told he could invite anyone. He wasn’t technically invited himself. Second of all, Y/N is my friend. And if you’re going to talk shit about my friend and her bomb-ass party, I’d rather you do it somewhere else.”

You started wracking your brain for ways you could infiltrate this conversation, get it to end without revealing that you had been eavesdropping. You texted Joe, telling him to call off the dogs, but he either didn’t feel his phone vibrate in his pocket or he was choosing to ignore it. You didn’t realize you were staring until Gwil’s eyes met your own and he smirked, prompting Caitlin and Joe to look over at you.

“Well, speak of the devil,” Gwil crooned, his eyes locked on you as you dragged yourself over to where they were, attempting to look as if you had just casually walked by.

“Y/N, hiiii!” Caitlin said sweetly, a distinct change from the sardonic tone she was using just seconds before. “Oh my god, what a great party. That cake was just to die for.”

“Oh, I’m soglad you’re enjoying it,” you replied through gritted teeth. “Isn’t this place just genius? It’s been so long since I’ve played arcade games like this.”

“Yes, well, it is kind of like Chuck-E-Cheese for adults, isn’t it?” Caitlin’s voice seemed to raise in pitch with every word.

Your eyes narrowed slightly, fake smile still plastered on. “Yeah! It’s so nice to still be able to relax and have fun every once in a while, isn’t it?”

Gwil and Joe were following your conversation like a tennis match, sensing a rising tension in your seemingly friendly exchange.

“For sure. Thanks somuch for the invite,”—don’t remember sending you one,you thought— “but unfortunately Gwil and I have to get going now, don’t we babe?”

Babe? So they were using pet names now? You wanted to vomit.

For once in his life, Gwil seemed hesitant. “I, uh—”

Joe cut in. “Aw, that’s too bad. Well, it was great to see you guys! See you for frisbee tomorrow, Gwil?”

“Uh, yeah, but—”

“Well, it was great to see you, Y/N. Happy birthday!” Caitlin practically squealed as she walked away, pulling Gwil by the arm.

Joe waved at them and began to pull you in the opposite direction, but you caught Gwil glancing back at you as they walked toward the door.

“God, Y/N, I’m so sorry you had to hear that. Fuck, I’m a terrible friend, aren’t I? I insisted on letting Gwil come and he just had to go and bring her, and then they have the nerve to say that shit right in front of you? I’m gonna kill him—”

“Joe. Stop. Breathe. It’s not your fault. If we’re going to blame anyone, it’s gonna be Gwil, ok? He knows how I feel about Caitlin and was still selfish enough to bring her along. That’s fucked up, but you didn’t know he would do it.”

“I know, but—”

“Joe, let’s just forget about this for now, okay? I’m gonna enjoy the rest of my night, not spend it being mad at Gwil.”

Joe took a deep breath. “You’re right. God, you’re too good for us, you know that?”

“Oh, I’m very aware.”

Joe laughed. “Okay, okay, your majesty. Now may I request a rematch of air hockey?”

“Hell yes. You are going down, Mazzello.”

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After you had beat Joe savagely at several raucous games of air hockey, you snuck away for a breather. You were leaning against the bar, casually scrolling through Tumblr, when someone disrupted your thoughts.

“Y/N? Can we talk?” A British accent. Of course. What was he still doing here?

“I’m not particularly interested in anything you have to say.” You kept your eyes glued to your phone, but you weren’t really looking at it anymore, mainly wanting to appear indifferent to Gwil’s reappearance.

“I know. I just want to tell you that I’m sorry I brought Caitlin tonight. I…didn’t mean to start anything, I just…”

Any attempt to ignore Gwil went out the window. You put your phone in your pocket and looked him in the eye. Fuck, he has beautiful eyes. “You just what? You just thought it would be a great idea to bring the person I dislike the most to a party you weren’t even technically invited to?”

“Well—”

“Oh yes, please. I’d love to hear whatever convoluted justification you’ve come up with. Let’s have it.”

“I know it’s stupid and immature. I’m kicking myself for thinking it could ever work. But…well, I thought you might be…jealous. I thought maybe you would, I don’t know, be angry enough at her to want me for yourself. Or at the very least pay attention to me.”

You stared in disbelief, mouth ajar.

“God, I know, it sounds absolutely mad when I say it out loud. Look, I’ll drop it now, I just hope you understand that I’m really sorry.”

“You…are interested in me.”

“Um, yes.”

“Like, you like me.”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

“And when being condescending and arrogant didn’t work, you thought you would use my ex-friend to piss me off, and I would end up wanting to be with you to get back at her.”

Gwil was silent.

“Where is Caitlin, anyway? I thought you left with her.”

“She did leave, but I told her I wanted to stay. She got mad. She left without me.”

You stared at him for a minute.

“Jesus…you’re even more of an idiot than I thought you were.”

Then you grabbed him by the hand and dragged him into the back room behind the bar.

“Wha—where are we—”

You shut the door behind you and backed him up against it.

“Shut up and kiss me already.”

“Wait, you—you want—”

“God, yes, you stupid, beautiful piece of shit.”

Gwil seemed to suddenly snap out of his confusion and into make-out mode, putting one hand on the small of your back and one on the back of your head, pulling you up onto your tiptoes as he leaned down to kiss you. You put your hands on either side of his face, feeling the stubble on his cheeks. His lips were warm, and you could faintly smell his cologne.

After a long few minutes of making out, you slid your hands down his chest and began to undo his belt. Gwil pulled back and put his hands over yours.

“Wait, you—are you sure about this?”

You looked up at him.

“Oh, I am absolutely sure. I know exactly what I want to do with you.”

Gwil shuddered and took his hands away from yours, reaching up into your shirt to undo your bra as you finished undoing his belt.

You moaned into Gwil’s mouth as your lips met again, his thumbs gently circling over your nipples.

You jerked Gwil���s pants and underwear down over his hips and pulled out his dick.

“Aaahhh…oh god,” he groaned, clearly trying to be quiet.

“That’s good, huh? I’ll make sure you feel so good,” you purred.

Gwil breathed heavily as you worked his cock, fumbling to get into your pants as well. Once he succeeded, he stuck his hand in, gasping at what he felt there.

“So wet, oh god.”

“Mmm, yes. Because of you. You made me this wet.”

Gwil clumsily crashed his lips back into yours as he began to rub your clitoris with his fingers. The other hand remained on your breast, brushing over your sensitive, aroused nipple.

You began to rut into his hand, a little embarrassed at how close you were already but wanting to come quickly. You were sure your guests were having a great time, but you wouldn’t want anyone concerned about your absence.

“Faster, Gwil, please.”

He began to move his hand faster, but you slowed yours down. “Mmmph, Y/N. More,” he said gruffly.

“No. Not yet. Make me—ah!—make me come first.”

Gwil’s hand practically vibrated off his body as he moved his hand firmly against your clit. You buried your face in his chest as you came, thrusting erratically against his hand.

“God…yes…so good…” you gasped in between breaths, riding out your orgasm until you couldn’t take any more, pulling Gwil’s hand out of your pants. You looked up at him with hooded eyes and guided his hand toward your face.

“Now, let me taste it.”

Gwil stared with wide eyes and put his fingers, dripping with your come, up to your mouth. You sucked his fingers clean, finally speeding up the hand you had around his cock.

“Oh Jesus, that’s hot.”

You smiled coyly, watching as Gwil’s face and neck began to flush a deep pink.

“I’m—I’m getting—close—”

You took your hand away suddenly.

“Now. You’re going to finish the job.”

Gwil stared at you dumbly.

“You heard me. You’re going to finish yourself off alone, in the utility room of a barcade, and walk out of this party alone. And then maybe you’ll remember this moment before you decide being an asshole to another woman is going to make her want to be with you.”

Gwil shuffled to the side awkwardly as you opened the door, staring at you in disbelief as you strolled back out to the bar. With a contented smile on your face, you headed to the bathroom to freshen up before enjoying the rest of your birthday party.

END

[machi-kun]

"Iron Man 1 gets quoted so much but are you really telling me that a self-proclaimed genius needed to be directly hurt by his weapons to know that innocent people were hurting over them too? There’s no way to make weapons and be good, there’s no way to make weapons like Jericho and believe that no innocents are being hurt by them. We constantly hear about how he stopped making weapons after Iron Man 1, but he didn’t. (1/6)

He just made weapons for different people. He made Insight for S.H.I.E.L.D., made Ultron for himself, and that’s not to mention the ridiculous amounts of weapons we’re shown in the tower scene in Homecoming, that if he made that weapon for S.H.I.E.L.D. he’s likely to have made others. Tony also pushes the Accords, which are in violation of several human rights, on the Avengers simply because someone walked up to him and said “my son is dead and I blame you”. (2/6)

Imagine having to be told to your face that an American died as a consequence of your ridiculous murder bot so that you care enough to do something about it. Because he knew people had died in Sokovia but did nothing about it until a photo was shoved in his face. There’s no excuse for Tony teaming up with Ross. A man who drove Bruce Banner to attempt suicide. There’s no excuse for Tony restricting Wanda to the compound and calling her “a weapon of mass destruction”. (3/6)

There’s no excuse for him shooting Sam in the chest after Rhodey falls. There’s no excuse for him bribing blackmailing and kidnapping Peter. There’s no excuse for the vicious way in which he attacks Bucky. He never apologizes for Ultron, he says “and then Ultron, my fault” in Civil War and then in Endgame he brings it up and claims he was right, even though Ultron was a disastrous occurrence. (4/6)

He blames Stee for breaking up the Avengers when Tony himself brought the Accords upon them and then pushed Steve away when he chose to help Bucky, Sam, Wanda, Clint, Scott instead of giving up the glory of being a hero. Tony probably only asked Steve to choose between the shield (being Cap) and Bucky (keeping his family, and I mean all of them not just Bucky, safe) because in Iron Man 3 he gets rid the Arc Reactor, symbolically giving up Iron Man for Pepper and then he doesn’t stick to it (5/6)

And he thought Steve would choose the same way. His monologue in the beginning of Endgame was pretty much just Hydra rhetoric, he says “what we needed was a suit of armour around the world whether it impacted your precious freedoms or not”. Our “precious freedoms” are a human right, Tony Stark has no claim to them. Not to mention that a suit of armour around the world would have done jack shit to stop Thanos or the snap.“ Machi, I do not know if I cry or laugh. (6/6)

OH MY GOD. OOOOH MY GOD. OOOOOOHHHH. MYYY. GODDDDDD.

I don’t… Honestly, thank you for sending me this in ask format because I don’t know what I would have done had I seen this on my dash out of nowhere. I honestly can’t imagine what my reaction would’ve been. I’VE REMOVED ANTIS SO EFFICIENTLY NOTHING BUT THE PUREST LOVE FOR TONY STARK CROSSES MY DASH, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 

I tend not to interact with antis in any capacity because people who hate a character usually don’t hear to what other people have to say about that character, even if it’s in a calm, polite, and perfectly reasonable manner. My only interactions with antis have been on occasions where they come to me, not the other way around, and that’s why this kind of stuff doesn’t even bother me anymore.

Because I don’t get it. I truly, honestly don’t get their logic. I guess laughing is my pick, because I don’t waste no tears on something like this akdhkajshfkjashfh

Let’s go over this, shall we? For some lighthearted fun. 

The weapons manufacturer argument always sounded weird to me - it sounds like a very standard anti-military speech; Which I could get, if that criticism were ever extended to the other military characters, such as Rhodey, the entirety of SHIELD, and Steve himself. Because… you know… the soldier in super soldier is not just a cool nickname. Steve is also part of this war based system and people seem to be very forgetful of that fact. If you want to be angry about Tony enforcing war indirectly, don’t forget to spare some of that anger of yours for the other characters too! Make sure everyone gets their share! Oh, but Steve only wanted to protect the little guy, you say? Did you fall asleep when Tony says “I saw young Americans killed by the same weapons I build to protect them”? Is the use of the word Americans that bothers them? Enough to ignore everything else this sentence is composed of, including meaning? Also, personal morality aside - Tony is not, in any way, a war criminal or profiteer, as many antis like to put it. He is a legalized, certified weapons manufacturer, and all unlawful use of his weapons seen on screen is caused by Obadiah’s double-dealing. Ever since IM1.

And I can’t wrap my head around getting angry about a character that makes weapons in a universe where aliens are constantly knocking at your door asking if they can blow up your planet! What are you going to fight them with? Please, someone, give me an answer, because I can’t come up with any ideas.

Ultron. Aaaah, I love talking about that garbage of a movie. I also don’t understand why people pin Ultron on Tony as if Tony has intentionally made Ultron evil, when the thing inside the Mind Stone is what makes Ultron sentient, and when Tony builds Ultron with the help of Bruce with the intentions of, and I quote, “not letting the next alien get past the bouncer”. It’s the same speech, “weapons are bad! He made a weapon, so he is bad!”. But again, if weapons are not the things we’re gonna use against aliens, against Thanos, what will we use?! The Infinity Stones? Ultron was made of Infinity Stones! Where is the logic in that! I know, we’ll clock Thanos in the head with a frying pan, that’ll solve the problem akjdaslkfalskf No more weapons, everybody. We’ll just close the doors and windows and pretend we’re not home. Let’s get into a fistfight against Thanos, the huge ass purple alien, when that alien beat the shit out of the Hulk once with no problem! I’m sure that will work out just fine!

But by far, my favorite thing about antis arguments is the use of the Accords as a justification for demonizing Tony, when there is no evidence the Accords are a bad thing! No, for real! Not one! It’s all speculative! I’m sure a lot of people immediately draft comparisons between the Accords and SHRA, but the truth is, they couldn’t be more different! It’s not even that hard to realize this, so long as you’re paying attention to the canon cues. If the Accords where SHRA, Clint would’ve received a copy. So would have Scott, Hank Pym, every single enhanced person in the Agent of SHIELD series, every single superhuman. But they don’t! Only active-duty, currently present Avengers. So it’s not a register of every single individual, only of those who are currently working under Avenger’s jurisdiction. Second, it’s hysterical to me that someone would be angry that Tony is supposedly prioritizing American lives, but is okay with unauthorized American military intervention. Because that’s what the Avengers are! They are a government-endorsed and based paramilitary group, a special unit. It makes sense that they, a specialized team, are sent to deal with alien threats, because no country has a say in the legality of who gets to take the alien to court. So that’s not a problem. But when you go to a country to chase a specific person, a totally human person, without permission and you bring your special ops team with you, destroy some buildings, and then act like you didn’t do anything wrong - that is something people tend not to like, ya know. 

It gets to a point that the hate becomes a total lack of empathy. “It’s not fair that people are acting like Wanda is a threat. It was an accident!”. Had a person I love been in that building, would it matter to me if it was an accident or not? “Clint was fighting for his right to freedom, even if he didn’t read the Accords! He has the right to freedom!”. He sure does. How was his freedom endangered, exactly? By this document he never was prompted to sign? “The Accords are a violation of your right to freedom!”. Are they? Is a person forbidding you from entering their home if they fear you might destroy it, is that an infringement of your right to freedom? Do you have the freedom to go anywhere you please and do whatever you think it’s right, even if it destroys someone else’s property, or wound or kill someone, so long as you did what you had to do? “He has no right to lash out against the people who have murdered his parents or almost killed his best friend! They didn’t mean to!”. Oh, doesn’t he? Is he not allowed this distressed emotional response? Alright then. Where was that rage when Wanda, Toomes, and so many others blamed Tony for the weapons Obadiah sold without Tony’s consent?

I don’t have time for this double-standard. I’m gonna be here sipping on my loving Tony Stark juice and having fun with my complex and well-written faves, while antis marinate in their hate for 25 minutes on low heat. Wake me up when it’s time to kill Thanos with a wooden spoon or with a petition for him to leave. One of the two lksahfakshfskajfhkjsf

[flatstarcarcosa]

our love has found its way into our mouths before

Summary: Three months ago, Slade died. Four days ago, he seemingly returned to life. Van quickly finds that something is amiss, and that strangers can wear familiar faces.  Ship: wilson and wilson at large  Warnings: Mentions of death, suicide, drug use, mentions of/allusions to sex (not direct smut)  Word Count: 2800  Note: tumblr fucked up my formatting yea boooooooiiiii, i’ll fix it later, lmk if it’s Too Bad Too Be Readable 

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The man in front of Van is not Slade.

They know this, logically. He's not their Slade, at least. He looks like him, sounds like him and moves like him, but he's not. He may as well be a stranger, but every time they seem to settle in with the idea of that, they catch him watching them with something so familiar in his gaze that it all goes right out the window. It's been four days since he barged into the house, only to stop dead in his tracks and drop his helmet at the sight of Van standing in the middle of his bedroom. They were wrapped up in one of his sweaters, brushing their teeth and flipping through the early morning news. It took just a few minutes for them to realize something was amiss. As soon as this Slade mentioned his Van being dead, it all made sense. He hasn't said where exactly he's come from, an alternate timeline or simply the future, but Van's leaning towards the former. Why he doesn't want to tell them is beginning to eat at them, but it's not surprising he's being evasive.

It turns out a Slade is a Slade is Slade. He's currently drumming his fingers on the tabletop, one hand holding a beer mug as he tries incredibly hard not to look at them. Van stirs the straw in their rum and sighs, reaching for a cigarette. “So, how'd I do it?” they finally ask, flicking the lighter.

“Do what?” he asks, brow furrowing.  “You said your Van is dead,” they say, “and we both know there's only one way and only one reason why that is.”

“Actually...there's more than one,” he says. Van blinks as he continues. “My Joey is dead, and Rose hasn't been around in ages. I was...not around, either. Ignored a phone call, came back to find the house tore up, a message scrawled on the wall...” “That sounds exactly like when Joey got kidnapped,” Van says. 

“It was eerily similar, yes,” he says. He takes a swig of beer. “You and Joey got along, and Joey used to come over for 'surprise' visits if I was going to be gone for too long. Because I got him killed, he wasn't. Because Rose hates me, she wasn't. And I...”

Slade trails off, turning his gaze and lowering his head a little. Van taps ash into the ash tray and takes a sip of their rum.  “The fact that it wasn't an ambien and benzo cocktail that did me in is the most unrealistic thing you've said so far. But you'd find a way to blame yourself in that scenario, too.”  Slade frowns.  “I'm glad you think it's funny,” he snarls. “Really, it's balm for the wound.”  “I'm not wrong, though,” Van says. “Admit it, you're surprised too.”  “I'm not going to admit to being surprised that you were murdered rather than death by suicide!” he snaps, voice raising and catching a few glances from the other bar patrons.  “Oh, well,” Van says, lacing the words with sarcasm, “excuse me for being unbothered by a different version of me dying! I never expected to live to see 21 in the first place, so you know, I'm not too worried.”  “I know,” Slade growls, “you never fucking were which is why you never listened to me.”  “Still don't, by the way.” They knock back the rest of their rum, and then suddenly start laughing. Slade blinks, confusion clear on his face as they speak again. “Do you realize we're sitting here having an argument about the most in character way for me to end up dead? Like, what kind of next level dumbassery is this?”  For a moment, Slade says and does nothing, seeming to freeze in his anger. Then it eases out of him, and his face softens. He snorts, raising his beer.  “At least it's on brand,” he says.

The almost-laugh is like hearing music, and it crashes down on Van just how empty the last few months have been. They weren't bereft with grief when Joey and Bill had come home to say that Slade was dead-- shot in the head with a Titan's arrow-- because they'd known that he had died before. They weren't around when it happened, but hell, he'd been in the process of faking his death when the two of them met and entered into a relationship. Van's response to the news had been to say “he'll be back”.  Technically, they were right.  Technically, they were also so, so wrong.  They'd been waiting for Slade to walk back through the door. For him to collapse onto the sofa, or the bed, or whatever surface he found Van occupying. They'd been waiting to hear the low groan he'd make in the back of his throat when he came home exceptionally tired, the only warning they ever got right before he passed out so his body could repair whatever damage he'd done to it.

They'd been waiting for so much, and instead they got a stranger wearing a familiar face that pulled a knife on them and demanded they stop playing tricks on him. To top it off, neither Joey nor Bill are answering their texts or calls. They didn't bother to elaborate on the situation, something in their gut is nagging at them to let this play out on its own.  Van sighs and leans back in their chair, staring up at the musty ceiling and willing the rum to work its way into their system quicker. Luck of the Irish, I guess...

If they think about it too long, all they can come back to is that it isn't fucking fair. Maybe it's selfish to disregard the Slade in front of them for being different, but they don't care. They want their Slade, the one they've been side-by-side with for six years, not the one they've only known for four days.

“Now that I think about it,” they say, looking back at him, “how long was your Van around? Here it's been six years.”

“Eight,” he says.  “Ooh, did y'all still meet in Florida? OH, did I still have my car?”  “Stop fishing,” he says, “but yes. And yes. I still have your car.”

“Excuse me for being curious,” they say. They pull out their wallet, tossing the money for the tab on the table before standing. He takes the hint, draining his beer and following them. He watches as they light another cigarette.  “You'd stopped smoking, though,” he says, idly.  “That sounds fake, too,” they say.  “Why would I lie about it?!” he asks, and Van sighs. He's so short tempered. Slade never had a very long fuse to begin with, but this?

They don't know what this is.  “Slade, jesus,” they sigh, “it was a fucking joke. You remember jokes? I do them professionally on the side? Often about your cranky old fucking ass?”  There's venom in the words, and Van has no idea where it came from. Slade feels it too and they both stop walking. The heavy silence between them wraps itself around their necks, threatening to choke them both until nothing remains.  “I'm- this is...” Slade runs a hand down his face, exhaustion tainting every movement.  “It's not fucking right,” Van says. “It's not your fault, even you don't know how you got here, but it's not fucking right. I'm the only one that didn't think you were dead, but more importantly, I'm the only one who even cared enough about you to think that you'd be back. Everyone else was almost relieved to say 'Slade's dead', because it meant they could wash their hands of you without feeling guilty. You push everyone away, constantly, and I'm the only fucking person that doesn't let you get away with it. I'm the only goddamn one that loves you enough to deal with it, and then you go and you fucking DIE on me because you can't leave Damian the fuck alone!”  It's all coming out at once. Van hadn't even realized it was bubbling over this much, and now the top of the pot has blown off to fly in Slade's direction.  They're just happy they can excuse it with the fact that it's not really him.  “I fucking hate you sometimes,” they say. They throw their cigarette at his feet. It bounces harmlessly before fizzling out. “I worked so hard to bring you and Joey together, not for you, but for him. Because I care about him, because I'm never going to and have never had a father and I could see it every time I looked at him how desperately he wanted a relationship with you. I worked so fucking hard to give him something I'm never going to have and then you go and you FUCK his FIANCE.”

Van reaches out and shoves him with as much force as they can muster. He steps back, and they don't look at him.  “Not only do you fuck her behind his back, and mine, but then you have the unmitigated gall to tell him to stop overreacting. You couldn't just be normal, you couldn't just sit him down like a goddamned adult and tell him she was spying on him, you had to play your fucking games. Everything is always a fucking game to you and I hate you for it. Worse, sometimes I think it's myself I should be hating, for being fucking stupid enough to always play into your bullshit because sometimes you smile at me and laugh at my jokes.”

They go to shove him again, their anger getting the better of them at the last second and instead they end up punching him in the chest. They bring a fist back and punch him again, and again, and again and for his part, he lets them.  “Then you just fucking die, because of course you do!” They're screaming, in public, and they don't care. “Why should you ever face the consequences of your own fucking bullshit, right? That's what you keep all of us around for! Acceptable causalities.” Slade says nothing. He doesn't even move.  It makes Van angrier.  “Say something!” They bang their fists against his chest.  He doesn't.  They don't have the energy to hit him again. He cups their face in his hand, a calloused thumb brushing against their cheek and it feels alien and familiar all at once.  “I'm sorry,” he says. “I...I never told you enough. I never told anyone enough but you're the only one it would have counted for.”  “Yeah well, I'm dead, remember?”  “So am I.”  God, what kind of fucked up irony.  Van finally looks up at him as they reflexively lean into his touch. The weighted silence is still there, it's grip loosened just enough to allow them both to breathe for a bit. Enough to breathe, not enough to think. If they were thinking, they would know what happens next isn't going to end well for either.  Then again, maybe they do know. Disregarding common sense to plunge headfirst into fleeting whims has always been one thing they have in common.  Slade presses his lips to Van's and they offer no resistance as he pulls them flush against him. There's a deep, ravenous hunger in his actions that they're all too eager to fill. It occurs to them that when he'd answered eight years in response to how long his relationship with his Van had been, he didn't mention how long it's been since his version of them had died.

Too long is their only guess.  Van doesn't take notice of how they get back to the house, but they know it's enough steps and enough time to pump the breaks. They also know they don't want too. They don't care now, they don't care that it's not their Slade. They don't care that this Slade seems so much more damaged, so much more raw than the one they had just a few short months ago.  All they care about is that it is some form of him. They care that he smells the same, that he moves the same, that his weight feels the same on top of them. He explores their body as if he's never seen it before, leaving a trail of marks in his wake. He scrapes his teeth against their skin, giving a notation here and there about the differences from the last time he'd seen his version of them.  His fingers trail over their pelvis, and they feel him grin.  “No hysto yet, huh?”  They let out an annoyed huff, digging their nails into his shoulder blade.  “That's what you're worried about?” they ask.  “You feel a lot better after, is all,” he says, gripping their thighs and nudging their legs apart. It doesn't take much work on his end for Van's mind to fade into static, but then again, it never did. He always knew how to get their ever-collapsing thoughts to settle into place, even if only for a few hours.  This time, they don't remember falling asleep. One moment they're awake, pressed into the mattress and near tears as hormones and emotions flood their system and the next they're waking up to the sun piercing in through the window. They find themself wrapped in his arms, snuggled into the crook of his neck and their first thought is no. 

No, they don't want to be awake, and no they don't want time to move forward and no they do not want to deal with the situation they've created. They want to go back to sleep, and they want to go back to sleep with the knowledge that he's here and he's him and that nothing is wrong-- no matter how false the knowledge may be.

They can't. 

They know they can't, but the desperate burning need for it is enough to bring tears to their eyes and for a moment they wonder what life would be like if the damn dog had never taken off that day so many years ago. They wonder where they'd be right now if they'd never had a reason to take notice of his presence in their building. 

If wishes and buts...  Finally, reluctantly, they disentangle themself from his embrace. They pull his discarded shirt on and pick their cellphone out of their jacket. It's time to elaborate now, it's time to get some outside help. What good the help might be they have no idea, they just know they shouldn't be trying to handle this alone. Joey's phone goes straight to voice mail, and frustration begins bubbling in their gut as they listen to his greeting.  “Joey,” they choke out, padding across the living room and into the kitchen. “I don't know what's going on with you, or Bill, or Rose, but I need one of you to fucking call me back before I lose my goddamned mind. It's about your dad...it's about Slade. Something--” they pause to take in a breath, dragging their hand through their hair-- “something's going on and I need- I need one of you to please...help me.”  Van ends the call and tosses the phone onto the kitchen table. Joey not getting back to them is starting to get to them. Whether it was fate, or just luck, Van and Joey got along from the minute they met. They like to think if they'd met him under different circumstances they'd have still ended up friends. All these years and they've always tried not to drag Joey into any problems with Slade, but this is most definitely extenuating circumstances.  It worries them as well. Joey's been through a lot lately, and the longer they go without hearing from him, the more they worry he's relapsed.  “I can't deal with this,” they mumble. They decide to busy themself for the time being, and dig out the coffee maker. They shuffle around the kitchen, pulling out the grounds and the filters, and they get a nasty surprise when they pull out the pot and find they forgot to wash it the last time they used it.  Slade was always the one that double checked that. They blink away new tears as they scrub at it with more force than necessary.

They're leaning against the counter, watching the coffee drip into the pot when a pair of arms wrap around their waist to pull them close enough to nuzzle their hair. Before Van can react they hear a familiar, truly familiar exhausted groan in their ear.  “Next time I run off to get myself killed, I'll let you know beforehand,” Slade says.

He presses a kiss to the top of their head and reaches around them for a coffee mug, leaving them blinking like a dazed animal caught in a pair of headlights. Slade fills the cup and steps away, falling into a kitchen chair and frowning over his drink. He's staring at them with two eyes, and there's not a trace of his usual beard on his face. His hair hangs over his ears, the shaggy locks nearly touching his shoulders and looking nothing like the buzz cut that he—the other him has been sporting.  “What's wrong?” he asks. What's wrong?  What's wrong?

Oh... so many, many things.

[crystalelemental]

suitsongirls replied to your post: suitsongirls replied to your post: ...

Oh damn, that’s… less good. I’m really sorry to hear that you’re having to deal with that though, it sounds awful. Any idea what’s causing him to act like that? If nothing else I feel bad for the guy, cause he’s not going to learn how to function around others at that rate, which will lead to issues later down the line. Must have hell at home, if he’s learned to get attention and interaction by being like that.

Unsurprisingly, the issue is home.

Parents are both a dumpster fire.  Originally, mom had custody.  She lost custody because she sucks as a parent.  Then dad got custody, also sucked as a parent, and lost custody, which went back to mom because the court system doesn’t learn lessons.  So now the kid’s back with mom, who is on the level of telling me, in front of three police officers, without any sense that what she’s doing might not be a good idea, that when he gets home from school she immediately takes him to the bar to meet her boyfriend, and if he’s good his dinner is french fries, and they’re out until 10 at earliest or midnight at latest.  The kid has zero consistency or security in his life, and there’s nothing a school is able to do with the level of chaos at home.  We’ve gotten as many services to offer support as humanly possible and parents refuse every one, while constantly blaming the other for all of these issues.  Hell, we recently had to have him transported to the hospital because of how intense the behaviors were that day.  They wanted to hold him for treatment, which parents refused to do.  It’s such an unbelievable level of mess, and you feel awful about it, but given the intensity and frequency of this, it’s so far above our ability to deal with.  A school simply doesn’t have the resources or ability to handle it, yet  we’re told this is something we just have to manage for now, until the higher ups in district feel we have enough to say yes, you assholes need to pay for out-of-district placement if this kid’s going to get the help they need.

Unrelated but equally important: district absolutely hates paying for anything, which is no longer justifiable given we recently got all sorts of additional funding granted.  We’re talking at a level where one of our home service students is actively violent, and is big enough to physically hurt people.  Like, badly hurt.  Tore a chunk out of mom’s skin.  District currently pays for outside services to work with the student.  And our higher ups are telling us that yes, if this student weren’t home service, they wouldn’t be in district, they’d be placed elsewhere.  So what do we do with this?  “Make sure you’re keeping data on when it’s okay for our providers to go back into the home.”  They’re so eager to not pay for this that they’re actively encouraging us to push to re-enter the home so they can drop the contract.

I’m just...I’m done.  Between this kind of shit where they can’t support us in the slightly, and the fact that everyone is telling them these new mandates about how to log hours is cumbersome and a huge time-sink that either interrupts service provision or requires wasting our own time to get it done and their only response is “Well it shouldn’t be taking that long so what are you doing wrong,” most of us are ready to quit.  I can’t wait to see the turnover that’s about to hit them, because my god do they deserve it.