#and despite that apology people asked for them to be removed from the event + continue to call them toxic players over a year later

[aeaesabella-hyv]

(⁠ʘ⁠ᴗ⁠ʘ⁠✿⁠) C. 1

Act 1: 𝘐𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦!

The day finally clicked to a stop at the shop.

Thankfully, Y/N managed to get the refund the guy asked and went on her merry way to sleeping once again.

Grabbing her bag, she checked the staff room for any last bits she might have left.

Keys? in her hands. Phone? Holding it. Wallet? in her bag. Work clothes? hanged up on a hanger. Extra clothes? in a plastic bag in her bag.

Once she checked for any missing which she found was none, she closed the brakers and closed all the lights. Deeming the café to be closed.

Walking down the streets with a hum to accompany her, she felt surreal in this quiet place. Usually there would be a lot more noises of people talking and noises of cars but she didn't see any which made her a bit more peaceful.

With her head in the clouds, a accidental bump into someone and a dropping of items made her clouds disappear. She looked at them and immediately apologized. "Im so sorry!" she said, helping them pick their items up.

Although it wasnt your normal items. It was chips, no no, not the food. Gambling chips. Nevertheless she still helped the person pick them up one by one. "Im so so sorry! I didn't watch where I was going and–"

"Oh don't worry your pretty head about it. It's fine, it's fine~ Its no worries." the young man said.

A young man with sandy-blond, medium-length hair and magenta and cyan eyes with black slitted pupils.

"Still, I should be sorry for not paying attention. Have a nice night!" Y/N said, taking a short bow to him as anothee apology and sped walked straight. Being completely embarrassed by that situation.

The blonde looked back at her and found himself amused. Seeing how she reacted made him feel better than before.

He noticed a bear keychain hanging on her bag, it looked a lot like the mascot for the coffee shop nearby. Guessing she worked there, he already knew what type of person she was by such a short time.

Y/N's apartment.

After that encounter, she didn't have any thoughts for the rest of the walk. She only payed attention to the granite and the people around her. Trying to avoid another situation like earlier.

The loud clicks of her shoes made a significant echo in the stairwell as she climbed up. Making sure not to wake her neighbors up as she walked.

Reaching her floor, she grabbed her keys and opened the door which lead to her room. A smell of the small room hit her and immediately made her mind feel sleepy and tired.

Shaking her head, she removed her shoe and closed the door. Throwing the bag in a corner and got changed almost quickly. She checked the time and saw it was still ten o' seven so she still had about a few minutes before the lack of sleep hits her hard.

She thought about the day she had. To the opening of the store, hearing a complain from a the guy until the bumping into that man events. She usually didn't have this much things happening in her works days but she thought it might be a small warning of the most busiest days she will come.

At ten thirty, she was already knocked out on the bed. The blanket no longer covering her despite having it wrapped around her before the sleep striked.

—End of Chapter 1

Description: ✨

Teaser: ✨

[sylaurin]

Iskra eir Baelsar: lore dump

Alright, since people are getting interested in her, lets start with some back story. (apologies as this gets a bit long)

@primamchorus @zylphiacrowley @dragonsongmakhali @kanehon since you all expressed interest.

Iskra was a simple farm girl from a remote area between Dalmasca and the Skatay range. Living a fairly pleasant life learning to live off the land and was a natural hunter, learning some things from the Viera who would travel down from the mountains.

When the Garlean Empire started their second attempt to get to Nagxia and pushing into Dalmasca, a small unit of Garleans that had gotten lost came across the farm Iskra's family lived on. They had no idea who these soldiers were as news of the conflict starting with Dalmasca hadn't reached very far yet, so they provided food and shelter for these lost people until their main host could recover them.

Dalmascan scouts witness the farmers giving shelter to their enemy and marked them as collaborators. While Iskra was out on a hunt, the scouting party attacked and razed the farmstead. Seeing the smoke from the burning fields, Iskra rushed home just in time to see her parents cut down trying to defend their home. Something insider her broke. Rather than be consumed by her emotions they were instead shut off. With cold efficiency, she hunted and slaughtered every Dalmsacan that attacked her home. Only then did she allow herself to grieve.

Drawn by the fires, a Garlean patrol craft lands and investigates finding the young woman sitting on what remained of the stoop of her house with a pile of Dalmascan corpses piled up nearby. While telling them of the events that transpired she learns of the building war with Dalmasca. Iskra asks to join them to enact vengeance on the nation that killed her family.

While serving as a conscript, Iskra quickly found her calling when placed on an intelligence mission. The results of which caught the eye of a visiting legatus, Gaius van Baelsar, who has Iskra transferred to the XIV legion. With even more successful missions under he belt, Gaius devises a strategy not only get Iskra a shot at the Frumentarium Academy but a push to the head of the line. Gaius formally adopts Iskra as his daughter. With fully citizenship and the personal recommendation of a renown legatus, Iskra is accepted and heads to the academy in Garlemald.

Academy life is difficult as she finds her self often held to different standards than her pure-blood Garlean counterparts as well as political meddling from those that think she doesn't belong. Despite this she still managed to graduate at the head of her class, however she gets assigned as a data analyst operating from the consulate in Kugane. Politics.

While in Kugane, the consulate found itself with a leek. Iskra managed to track the leak to a food stall vendor in the nearby markets. This vendor was actually a Doman Shinobi attempting to get the Garleans removed from Hingashi. She befriended the man, never letting slip she was on to him and once he let his guard down she slit his throat. The brass, being thoroughly impressed, finally make her a field operative (which I've talked a little about before in [this] post). Finding herself back in Dalmasca as part of a new counter insurgency unit weeding out the more dug in resistance fighters. It's here that she first meets a Turali man named Thiago who is attached to another unit. They only cross paths a couple times but she finds him obnoxious.

Before her tour is complete, she gets pulled from the field by Gaius and is placed on a new long term deep cover assignment to infiltrate Ala Mhigo and prepare it for invasion...

If you managed to get through all this, thank you for reading my cobbled together backstory of Kabniel's mother.

[daebraeksan]

Scared to talk to Bachira about him hurting your feelings (but then you do it and he apologizes and you forgive him)

Genre: comfort, established relationship, pro player Bachira

Contents: anxiety, insecurity, implied trauma, trust issues, fear of confrontation

Wc: 1289

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

You’re in a little bit of a catastrophic spiral. You feel really tender and sensitive and like anything could send you over the edge. You feel like you’ve done everything wrong (what specifically? Everything. What more explanation could you possibly want?) and you feel like everything is going to be taken away from you.

You get like this sometimes. You try not to. But it’s hard to outrun a childhood. And you aren’t really trying to outrun it. You just want to be happy despite it.

Having Bachira in your life is one thing you have tried to remove from the list of things you have periodic freak outs about. You want to work on your trust issues, and you have, and you know Bachira is trustworthy. He has never done anything to prove otherwise. Logic doesn’t really help your anxieties or insecurities but you still feel the need to point out the facts.

You’ve been off kilter for a few days in a row, situations not going your way, some major, some minor, and you hate it. You hate that you can’t just coping-strategy all of this away—all of these feelings away. You pace around your house. You sit down at the dining table and rock yourself. You curl up on the couch in an incredibly uncomfortable position and don’t move. 

Normally, you are pretty good at feeling secure in your relationships with people. You’ve worked hard to get to this point. You don’t have to second guess their motives, when you’ve known them for a long time, and they’ve demonstrated nothing but respect and kindness towards you. But this week has been crazy for Bachira, too, or something—regardless of the reason, you felt ignored one too many times, felt like you were snapped at, and felt like you were expendable. You don’t blame him at all since it’s your interpretation but at the same time you know from experience that invalidating your emotions isn’t going to make any of this go away.

And then you’ve gone and wrapped yourself up in your old habits of being afraid to talk about something. Your classic fear rears its head: you’re too much trouble, way more trouble than you’re worth, and everyone is going to leave you.

Bachira comes home, drops his stuff off haphazardly in the front doorway, and makes a beeline straight towards you. He ruffles your hair and presses a kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m home,” he sings.

You smile at him, but you feel crazy. He must notice something is off—how could he not?—because he cups your cheek. It has the intended effect—you indeed feel soothed. You nuzzle your cheek into his palm. You want to be completely engulfed in his touch. You hate everything you’re feeling right now. It’s too hard. 

“What do you want to do tonight?”

You know sometimes he asks this as a formality. He always likes having something to do—but he is content to “compromise” with you and create an “event” for something very normal and calm and low-key that you also want to do (at home. Definitely at home.) (You hate that word because it still feels like both people lose something but whatever the word is for both people are happy with the outcome lol.) 

“I don’t know,” you half-lie—at the very least, you know you have to talk to him. The words coagulate like mucus in your throat. You’re so stupid. This shouldn't be that hard.  Bachira loves you and he’s going to listen to you and nothing is going to be wrong.

You can tell yourself these things. And it won’t help. But to be fair, being mean to yourself won’t help either, but. Yknow. You aren’t going to win every battle. Definitely not this one today.

Not that you want this conversation with  Bachira to seem like a battle. You don’t. 

He studies you for a bit. “We could…just relax together until we think of something?”

You like having a specifically-designated task, something delineated, and can make you feel like you aren’t a failure and aren’t causing a fuss or scene or trouble. You aren’t ruining everyone’s night, this still “counts” as “successful”—you give in to all your old habits, all your rigid, self-scaring habits. Why not? When it rains it pours, or whatever. Let the dam break. Etc. 

You hear him heating up food in the kitchen and he spreads everything out on the coffee table in the living room. You look at him adoringly. He knows you don't eat when you’re like this. That bastard. Loving you and taking care of you. 

How dare he?

You both start on your food, him digging in, and you nibbling. 

“Can we talk?” you ask. 

“Always,” he says, and a few pieces of rice fly out of his mouth onto the table. He picks them up and tries to feed them to you.

“No!” you bark jokingly as you twist your head away, scrunching up your face, trying not to laugh because then he will put the rice in your mouth.

“Don’t waste food!” he admonishes seriously.

“Stop!” you finally let out a giggle. He eats the rice himself and settles back down. 

You stare at him and he stares at you.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s your turn again.”

“Thank you,” you say. You figure you might as well ease yourself into it. You don’t have to accuse yourself of manipulation or lying or whatever—you just need to let yourself be. You’re trying your best. You start off with talking about some random topics that were bothering you this week to set the scene. You explain the headspace you’ve been in and how you’ve been feeling.

He puts down his food. “I’m sorry that happened,” he says. “Can I hug you?”

You nod. You put down your food just as he throws his arms around you and squeezes you tight. He kisses your cheek. “I don’t mean for those actions to make you feel those ways.  Is there anything I can do to show you that  I didn’t mean any of that, and that I love you so much?”

You are very embarrassed. You hate to ask for anything—even normal boring stuff, and now, this feels like you are being asked to ask for something extra special. Asking someone to make amends to you feels so wrong. It feels like you’re not supposed to cause other people trouble. But anything you say, Bachira probably has already done before, and is okay with it, and some, he’s even done on his own volition before, and you  might not have even known it was what you liked or wanted before him.

You make your requests of how you want to spend some time with him doing your favorite activities and he happily acquiesces.  

“I’ve been wanting that, too,” he says. He peppers kisses all over your face. “I’m sorry you had a bad week,” he says. “That’s so stupid.”

“It was really stupid,” you say sadly. 

He shakes you. “Do you want me to beat them up?” he asks in the most chipper tone.

You sigh and shake your head. “No. Let’s just watch tv.”

He grabs blankets, and you finish the rest of your food while watching your comfort show, snuggled up next to Bachira, who waits patiently until you’re done eating so he can hold your hand. 

Nothing can make the bad events of this week less bad—but you also don’t have to carry your insecure energy into next week. You know you can do what you need to do and you know it’s okay to feel this way sometimes. And if there’s anyone who believes in you the most, it’s Bachira.

[dreamingofimpalas]

Is the situation still ongoing

The Basic Response

The response below the cut is longer; I don't want my other followers to have to read through it when they aren't involved and don't need to be. Regardless, I'd like to mention that I don't condone any anon hate, harassment, bullying, etc. from anyone (especially considering everyone involved is an adult and should've moved on from this incident a while ago).

As far as I'm aware, no one has been sending any anon hate to the victim at the moment, so I'm thankful that portion has stopped. However, they're still posting about her on Tumblr and Wattpad, despite her remaining silent about the situation.

(Additionally, my previous posts about the situation are here and here, so no one has to try to track it down to get all the information.)

Below the Cut

TW: Mentions of gaslighting, bullying, cyberstalking, harassment, and other covert manipulation tactics; mild mentions of cancer, dementia, & drugs (particularly meth)

There are a few points I have to address that go hand-in-hand, so I apologize if it seems "off-topic" for the initial question. I haven't included screenshots in this response because I'm currently working on putting together a post where I can showcase all of the evidence in one place rather than multiple Tumblr posts.

Main Points Addressed (More In-Depth Below)

Shortened version of what caused all of this

A few explanations/textual examples of President + group's gaslighting

Research that humans who think alike change their speech (because some of their claims are that all the blogs they think are the victim "type the same way" and "use the same insults")

Additional Points Addressed (More In-Depth Below)

They're trying to claim that they have "600 screenshots" of the victim bullying them, but their evidence is questionable at best because of the supposed "amount of evidence" (which they haven't actually proven; additionally, their other posts wouldn't have been lacking in evidence if that was the case) and considering they've already been caught cropping screenshots and leaving information out to make themselves look innocent.

President also deleted 6 years of messages on her Wattpad pretty suddenly after I told her to show the full conversations.

Addressing an anon I received from one of them stating I was "unapproachable", "invalidated the victims", and that the screenshots (the ones President + group included in their posts) were "cropped for privacy". Firstly, there is no privacy involved and secondly, I haven't invalidated anyone (see below for more info on both points).

If you're not sure what started all of this, here's a shortened version of events:

This whole thing started on Wattpad; G0dofstories reached out to President Loki and their interactions came across as snarky, but G0dofstories didn’t swear, call names, etc. The victim (G0dofstories) apologized within hours, but other people were being rude to President and G0dofstories asked them all to remove their comments as promised (note that G0dofstories wasn't aware that they were bothering President and that G0dofstories isn't responsible for other people's actions, but she still did the right thing and asked them to take down the comments). President and her followers/group never stopped (which again, we can see this clearly in the present, as they're continuing to post about G0dofstories, despite the victim being silent), then someone contacted G0dofstories about a week after the incident and showed her the books that President + group had posted about her (and there are screenshots of President admitting to having burn books on the victim up to 5 months after the incident, although the books have since been removed from Wattpad, potentially due to a glitch according to President's post - so she still never removed them herself). President had continued to post about her, while none of G0dofstories' friends/followers/etc. had said a word. President keeps saying it's “all over an unfollow”, but it actually started due to a misunderstanding (because text never translates well) and some pettiness/bitterness on President's behalf. President is the one that keeps it going constantly (which I also witnessed on Tumblr prior to interacting with G0dofstories).

The other ridiculous claim that President is making now is that she supposedly has "600 screenshots" of the victim bullying them - if that's the case, why was their evidence so lacking in the other posts? Additionally, even if they did have a good portion, they have probably cropped them to fit their narrative, as that group has done in the past with me and other people (see my previous posts, linked at the top). Again, no solid evidence has been put forward to prove that the victim is behind the numerous blogs they claim they are; they're going off things like "they type the same way", "they use the same insults", "they both do AI art", etc. Note that there's actual research that indicates that humans adapt to speech patterns.

I'd also like to state that I did receive an anon from one of them about a week ago accusing me of "invalidating them" (President + group) and that the screenshots were "cropped for privacy"; that's not true in the slightest. I haven't invalidated anyone - the lack of evidence invalidates itself, and the ridiculous claims they used to try to state those blogs are all the same person ("they type the same", "they use the same insults", "they both do AI art", etc.). I've also already pointed out that they're welcome to show me the full evidence of them supposedly being bullied by the victim (I can almost guarantee it's a misunderstanding/miscommunication between both parties and that someone got upset instead of clarifying and trying to actually resolve the issue). Additionally, the screenshots they provided in their posts weren't "cropped for privacy" - they're all made from public posts, and the ones that are from private messages already show the person's username. Some of them were also tagged in the posts made by Fang and Laurianne. With that being said, there's no "privacy" involved. They also tried to state that I'm unapproachable; I'm usually polite to everyone I interact with until they've given me a good reason not to be (again, that's why I've been here for 12 years and never been a part of fandom discourse until this incident).

Literally all that group has to do is genuinely apologize, drop the subject (as in stop posting about the victim, stop harassing/bullying them, etc.), remove the posts with false information, and move on. Keep in mind the victim already apologized about three times for the misunderstanding; they also tried to take responsibility for the false claims that were thrown at them, thinking it would be easier to accept the blame to try to end the problem and move on.

The apology that President received from the victim is literally them expressing that they're sorry about the entire misunderstanding that took place and that they were dealing with cancer, which doesn't always leave them thinking clearly. And, if you know anything about cancer (I'm praying most of you don't, because it's really not a fun situation or topic), then you already know that part is true; it doesn't leave you in a good head space at times, especially if you're dealing with treatments (I've unfortunately had to experience this with a few family members, so I'm aware of the effects it can have on people).

Instead of accepting the apology and leaving the incident alone, President went on about being a nurse and said she knew about the medical condition (which, if you're a nurse, you're not supposed to try to tell people about their condition or dictate how it affects them when you don't know the full spectrum, don't have access to their medical history, etc. - additionally, she's supposedly a dementia nurse, not even one that specializes in cancer).

President seems to think the victim's initial apology wasn't genuine and was "gaslighting". By definition, that's not how gaslighting works:

One example of gaslighting is when Laurianne (LokiHiddleston & part of DailyLoki) tried to say she had no part in the "exposed" blogs when I have screenshots that clearly say otherwise (from both the "exposed" blogs themselves and President).

Another example of gaslighting is President denying that she's bullying the victim, even with the evidence we have (at one point, she even tried to insinuate that the victim is on meth, she's tried to belittle and minimize the damage that she's causing to the victim, and countless other incidents - all of which are in screenshots). She also tried to gaslight by saying that it's "only been 6 months" (I have the timestamps in the screenshots that prove it's been a year).

Additionally, 6 months is still too long to be bullying someone, and you just admitted that you were doing it - hello??? I'd also like to point out that President deleted 6 years of messages on Wattpad after I called her out to show the full conversations - why would you keep them for 6 years and then suddenly decide to get rid of them as soon as someone calls you out for hiding/cropping your conversations?? And yes, I'm aware they were getting rid of direct messages on Wattpad, but if you don't care about the conversations to begin with, most people tend to delete them within a closer timeframe, not 6 years later. This doesn't pair well with her gaslighting tendencies, as it only furthers the point that it seems like she's trying to hide her responses - and again, we already saw her trying to hide her replies when she first edited the post she made trying to smear my name, then later deleted it (I did update the link on my other post, so the original post that I responded to is visible again; if that disappears, I already have the screen recording/screenshots of the entire post).

Overall, the point is that the victim is still trying to end the incident; they're trying to move on with their life and they don't want anything to do with the other group. The only thing that the victim asked the group to do is apologize, stop talking about them, remove the posts with false information, and move on from the situation. We're making some progress, as the others have seemingly dropped the topic; as far as I can tell now, it's only President that's continuing to post about her at the moment (although I can't be certain what they're saying in their Discord server about the victim, as President already outed herself on that by trying to accuse me of searching through their server for gossip when I was there trying to find roleplay partners).

[intheticklecloset]

Heyo! Just your everyday anon- totally not someone who you know hehehe 👀👀👀

Hehe, anyway! I saw your Peppermint Mocha event and I just had to run over with a request! Could we have some Big Windup, Lee!Mihashi, Ler!Abe (or if you’re interested, Ler!Hanai and lee!Tajima- just throwing some options out there :3)

For the prompt; maybe Mihashi is struggling to ask Abe to make a snowman with him, and Abe decides to tickle him to “encourage him to use his words” or something like that? :3 If you decide to go with Tajima and Hanai- maybe Tanjima keeps putting his cold hands on Hanai’s neck and the other has had enough of his antics?

I hope you’re having a good week friend!

-Totally not Squiggily-anon 👀

❄️ Peppermint Mocha Special Order ❄️

~~~

“H-Hey, Abe?”

“Yeah?”

Mihashi fidgeted nervously as he always did, his pink cheeks nearly hidden by his scarf. Abe kept his hands in his pockets – he’d forgotten gloves, which he was now lamenting – and gave it five seconds before huffing out a sigh and saying in a firmer tone, “Use your words, Mihashi. What is it?”

The two of them were sitting outside waiting for a ride from Mihashi’s mom. School had let out for the winter holidays and they had agreed to hang out for a while before having to part ways for a couple of weeks. Now it was dark out and they were both more than ready to go home and warm up and eat, but the weather had delayed Mrs. Mihashi’s arrival somewhat.

“D-Do you want…um, I mean, we can…m-maybe…uh…”

Despite having known each other for eight months now, Mihashi still didn’t quite know how to talk to Abe, or ask him for anything directly. Abe, for his part, had gotten better about being patient with him, but when all else failed…

Bracing himself for the cold, Abe removed one of his hands from his pockets and started squeezing Mihashi’s knee on the bench next to him. “Use your words, I said. Come on, spit it out.”

Mihashi’s bright giggles always made the space between them less tense, and Abe couldn’t help but smirk after a few seconds of hearing them. He’d have gone for a worse spot like his armpits, but underneath that bulky coat, he was certain it wouldn’t have done much good. Besides, lighter tickles were just as fun and effective sometimes.

“D-Dohohohoho you wahahahahahant to build a s-s-snohohohowman whihihile we wahahahait?” Mihashi finally stammer-giggled after several long moments.

Abe kept up his light squeezing for a moment, then stopped and replied, “I mean…I guess I wouldn’t mind, but I kind of don’t have gloves. My hands will freeze before we even get started.”

“Oh! R-Right…I forgot. Sorry, Abe,” Mihashi apologized quickly, his cheeks turning even pinker, if that were possible.

Abe hesitated, then smiled. “Buuuut…I think I know something else we could do to pass the time.”

Mihashi glanced at him with a mix of trepidation and excitement in his eyes. “Y-Yeah?”

This time, Abe went for both knees at once, laughing along with Mihashi as he squealed and squirmed in place and clenched his fists in his gloves over and over again, his laughter literally visible as puffs of frozen air around them.

Abe stopped as soon as he saw the sweep of headlights – he’d be caught dead before being caught tickling Mihashi by his mom of all people – but it certainly was a fun way to pass the next few minutes of waiting. And – bonus – they were both feeling warmer by the time they got into the car.

[cloveroctobers]

TOMMY MILLER — spring prompts 🦋

A/N: originally this was supposed to be for Joel — and I jumped on the Pedro train a little late my apologies but I can’t lie and say I’m not a bigger whore/softie for Tommy / Gabriel (this goes for the game version too!) so :) here goes nothing and if we flop, this never existed lmao! Only trying my best to write fluff for the upcoming spring season so let’s cheers to that! Happy first day of spring people!

WARNINGS: age adjustments for this piece + age-gap. Mostly following the live action ages according to their wiki except for Ellie! I aged her up some as this takes place before the events of part ii 😥 Joel is still 56, Tommy is 50, Ellie is 17, and “she” is 35…and would be a year older than Sarah. I know some might find that weird and usually I don’t write storylines around a age-gap but here we are! Tommy and “she” met during the time of the virus. So don’t drag me too much if you’re on the offense, thanks.

GIF SEARCH DONE BY GOOGLE & RIGHTFULLY BELONGS TO: @loregifs

Using prompts from this list and numbers: 2.) listening to the birds when they wake up + 6.) new beginnings + 12.) rolling down the window of the car. + 28.) adopting puppy/kitten.

⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆

He’s still asleep while she’s on the balcony, hunched over the banister watching the town gradually come to life to start their daily routines. Being part of the main committee had its benefits, meaning one would start the day whenever they wished, which allowed her more time to just enjoy the little moments.

The air is touching spring, allowing livelihood to begin sprouting again. She breathes in the brisk air, pacing herself as the air still clings to the biting of its bitter sister while whipping by, reminding her that her asthma would not be leaving for the season just yet. The tree to the right of the house has lost one of its branches, which now lays on the roof of the house, due to the last winter storm which pushed its way through Wyoming with a foot of snow two weeks ago.

She’s not going to ask Tommy again to remove it, she’ll take it upon herself to get it down with some others later. She’s aware that he’s got a lot on his plate with Joel and Ellie back in town…along with this weighing secret Joel’s keeping from Ellie.

A sigh escapes her lips, eyes closing as she feels the brightness of the sun starting to rise behind the foggy skies. She knows if she keeps them closed a little longer, she’ll receive a morning song with the sunrise. The sun is a nice contrast against the cool but dry air in Jackson but it always brings a sense of peace.

The chirping is just enough for a small smile to split onto the corners of her lips and she listens, enjoying the sweet song the birds sing. She was never much of a bird person due to her grandmother having all sorts back in her hometown in Connecticut. She was raised mostly by her grandmother in a town that lacked diversity, since her parents prioritized work rather than spend time with her and her little brother. Sure she understood this now in her adulthood that her parents faced many challenges in their work field but as a child, of course you just wanted your parents around.

To care.

And whenever they were around, she gave them hell about it until her younger brother quickly became upset. He was on the spectrum and sensitive but just wanted everyone to get along. He loved talking about clouds and had dreams of venturing off to Iceland one day. She was thankful he got to experience it before the world officially went to shit.

Now here she stood listening to birds sing, despite being pecked, chased, and shit on by birds for what felt like her whole life and the sun was shining beneath the gray. Perhaps that was symbolism for new journeys along the way—if she bothered to look deeper at this but now was not the time for overthinking.

She did that enough on a daily basis.

“Hey, you didn’t wake me for the sunrise?” A Texas drawl called out from behind.

She turns slightly, facing the screen door to see Tommy with his head poking out beneath the door, dark hair frizzy, and slits in his eyes. He’s not much of a morning person out of the two of them and will usually need five to twenty minutes more before getting up.

He needed the sleep.

She steps to him then, wrapped in her blanket and getting a better view of the freckles that always appear sprinkled on his face whenever the light hits his skin.

“It’s okay,” she softly says, “there’s always tomorrow.”

He hums as his brown eyes peeks over her head and sniffs at the air, “c’mon in, baby. Who knows how long you’ve been out here and I don’t want anything to start acting up on you and I’m not nearby.”

“I’m fine,” she argues, making a show as she deeply inhales and puffs out a breath as she exhales, fighting back a cough, “airs not too bad.”

Tommy gives her a look, alerting her that he doesn’t believe any of the words she’s saying to him. He knows she can get lost in nature for hours, making him think it reminds her of her old home.

He suggests, “Let’s go for a morning drive for a bit before we really start the day, huh?”

“I’d like that.” She smiles at the man who mirrors it back, “we haven’t done that in awhile.”

The pair lived in the most active part of Jackson, right in the heart of the western town where most of the houses were almost on top of each other. There wasn’t much that got pass this part of Jackson and it only made sense since she and Tommy helped keep this town running. Surely she preferred the more secluded parts, which is what she was grew up with but to be married to someone so extroverted changed that.

“Yeah, we sure haven’t. Let me get dressed.” Tommy says with a nudge of his head, inviting her back into their home.

She nods at him, glancing over her shoulder in the doorway as he exits, sending another smile to the birds before closing the door.

Tommy’s driving in the pale yellow Camaro he picked up from his last scouting trip, it’s his new toy that she teases him about since he’s kicked her Chevy SUV to the curb. She’s laying with her arm resting against the door, cheek pressed into her balled up arm, with her black faux fur blanket still wrapped around her and Tommy’s got one hand resting on her thigh.

He’s shuffling between keeping his hands on the steering wheel, steering with his knees and twisting his arm all kinds of ways to get a cassette into the radio slot. The dirt road is empty and full of green hills along with loops that remind her of the path that leads to Ellie and Dina’s home. This part of Jackson feels familiar and like what she’s used to but she knows she doesn’t have to feel alone.

A soft beat begins to play through the car just as she’s rolling down the window. Tommy lightly shakes his head at his wife, who welcomes some of the air through the crack and receives that there seems to be something on her mind. Lately it seems like he’s been so busy with not only the community but rebuilding his relationship with Joel and his additional niece Ellie—although they’ve been back for about two years now, it did not go unnoticed that there’s been something on his wife’s mind.

Surely he was going to get to the bottom of it on this drive.

“What do you know about this?” Tommy quizzed, taking his hand off her thigh briefly to twist the volume knob, before placing his warmth back on her sweats.

She snorts as she listens to the lyrics of the 80s jam, a little shocked it wasn’t Pixies or some rock song this time. However she believed Tommy always picked songs that fit the mood.

…In time you will see

That love won't let you down

You said that you loved me

Said hurt only came to pass me

It sounded so convincing

That I gave it half a chance

And learned the ways of love, my baby

There is so much love inside me

And all that I have

I give my all to you

All, all my love, baby.

She joked, “Did this one play at your prom, old man?”

Tommy scoffed, “i was nine when this came out in 1982 so nice try but even then, I knew good music when I daggone hear it.”

There was a fifteen year age gap between her and Tommy but that’s never been a issue given the circumstances of life now and probably wouldn’t be much of a issue if things were different. However she couldn’t be certain if the infection didn’t cross the globe if their paths would even align. She had southern roots thanks to her maternal and paternal grandparents yet she’s only ever visited Georgia to see her paternal grandparents, cousins, and friends she’s made out there.

Georgia was a long way from Texas.

“Look at you listening to love songs at just a little baby…I’m starting to not believe the whole never been in love until I met you line.” She sat up then, head resting against the headrest while playfully peeking at Tommy, ready to get him riled up.

Tommy shook his head, “I told you before, pre-Tommy was a whole ‘nother person, all about fun moments and keeping those memories strictly as that…temporary. I didn’t like to be attached although I knew I was very capable of loving someone.”

His past relationships did not matter to her. It never did because a new life was happening now, with her and their relationship most likely wouldn’t exist because they lived on different sides of the map. She trusted him to be a good partner and she equally wanted to be the same. The love or lust before was not a factor on both ends because Jackson was about redemption and growing forward.

If they couldn’t see that with each other then there was no need to continue on with this commitment. However she liked sparking this compassion from Tommy just for a sense of not only laughs but perhaps a bit of reassurance?

“I love you.” She slipped a hand around the back of his neck, lightly caressing the warm skin beneath his jacket.

Tommy glanced over at her then, pure light in his dark eyes as a smile quirked up beneath his facial hair, “I love you too…with all of this love.”

“Oh gosh, the corny is killing me. Make it stop!” She gagged at Tommy’s singing while he laughed at her, putting the car in park.

It was his turn to face her, gripping her jaw to place a kiss on her temple. Soon she unbuckled herself from the seat so she could sit in Tommy’s lap who welcomed her with open arms. Together they sat, his arms locked around her waist and her head tucked in between his neck and shoulder.

To be held by the one you love, what more could she ask for?

She could fall back to sleep in the comfort of Tommy’s arms just then. The prickle of his beard against her brow bone, the firmness of his hands secured around her frame, his steady breathing, her light grip from underneath his bicep, and his scent of white musk and eucalyptus was enough for her this morning.

Sometimes people just need to be held by the right person.

Tommy was ready for her to fall asleep. It’s not like it was uncommon for her to rest against him and as much as she claimed he needed rest, he wanted her to take care of herself just like she took care of him. The flutter of her eyelashes fought against the closing of her lids that it made Tommy grin, silently encouraging her to just let go but one thing about his baby, she was a fighter which provided a nice contrast against her dainty appearance.

Her glossy grayish-brown eyes popped back open, eyes gazing out at the scenery while Tommy quickly shifted his eyes elsewhere so he wouldn’t get called out for staring. He followed her line of sight and immediately wanted to reach for what was in the backseat.

“What’s that?” She asked, sitting up as she put more strain on one eye than the other.

It was confirmed by one of the new nurses that she was losing her sight in one eye quite quickly. It was mostly caused by a injury with a clicker that sent her through a glass window face-first but blindness was also hereditary on her mother’s side. Who truly knows what life continues to throw at you? In whatever way, it was not something she dwelled on.

Tommy nodded as he pulled his shotgun up and over the console, “uh huh, I see it.”

She was out the door before he could get the safety off and that sent his heart rate spiking.

Her feet stomped over the rising grass, ignoring Tommy’s hushed calls as she slowly approached the animal. It had height to it, straggly mixture of grey and black hair with a heavy bone structure.

“Honey, I don’t know what’re you’re thinkin’ but you can’t just run up on dogs like that! We don’t even know if it’s infected.” Tommy stated as he took stealthy steps behind the braided woman.

She slipped a hand into her pocket, holding the  thermometer up in the air to silently answer the man’s question who couldn’t help but to deeply scowl.

Squatting down she kept some distance between her and the dog who put it’s head down, sniffing in her direction. Her hand slipped into another pocket, reaching for something green before she lightly tossed it in the dog’s direction. Carefully the dog stepped forward to bite into the green bean, allowing her to slowly get closer to aim the thermometer and get a temperature reading.

“He’s clear.”

Tommy still circled around, gun slightly lowered but not completely as he watched her smile at the dog.

“It’s still a ugly lookin’ thing.”

She scolded Tommy, “don’t talk about him like that! He actually might think you’re the ugly one here.”

‘That’s not possible.’ Tommy thought to himself.

Rubbing his back, she cooed at the animal, “he didn’t mean it boy, he’s just being mean because I didn’t signal that I was coming to introduce myself to you.”

Tommy couldn’t help but to shake his head in disapproval, taking a moment to survey the area to make sure the unattractive animal didn’t lead any unwanted attention. When he turned back, she was still petting him, this time the dog was licking at her hands and seemed to be enjoying his pets as he sat.

“…this isn’t your first time meeting?” Tommy guessed.

She sighed, “no. Joel’s grumpy ass scared him off last time with the horses when we patrolled. You have no idea how bad I wanted to kick his ass…at least you’re being better about this…besides the whole verbal bullying you just afflicted on him.”

“I wasn’t bullyin’,” Tommy started, “I just wanted you to be careful.”

“Yeah and you took it out on someone who didn’t deserve it.”

Tommy sighed, “I—I never took you as a dog person anyway. I would have thought cats.”

“Are you gonna get me a cat for my birthday?”

“Probably not, honey. They’re kinda creepy.”

‘Creepier than people turning into walking funguses? I think the fuck not!’ She thought.

“Then we’re taking him home!” She beamed as she rubbed behind his ears, “hear that?! We’re gonna get you home, bathe you, feed you, and you’ll fit in with the rest back at home, I’m sure of it. And if you don’t, you’ll stay with us.”

“The hell he will.”

The sharp look she sent the curly haired man was enough to get him to clear his throat and almost straighten up. It’s not like Tommy didn’t care for dogs, hell, he was thinking of getting one before Sarah came into the picture—not that he was comparing his niece to a got damn dog! Fuck, he knew she was probably sending him a mean mug from up above right now. It’s just that the loneliness he faced at his own townhome in Austin was erased when life granted him with a niece.

Sarah was his just as she was his brother’s.

Now his wife wanted to bring a dog (as if they didn’t have enough in the community) into their life and it seemed like she already had a connection with it, that Joel didn’t tell him about at all! He could also argue that his own wife didn’t tell him she was forming a bond elsewhere.

The laughter that sounded from her as she got to her feet, facing him with a smile that reached her shining eyes made his heart swell.

Happiness was all he wanted her to have. He was happy if she was happy and he felt himself breaking.

“What if it’s got fleas?”

“Hello…veterinarian school?”

Which was true, she knew what to do and since the community was well-off to take care of everyone and everything, She had what she needed if any of the animals got sick.

“Right…Dr. Dolittle here.”

“Was that a jab, Tommy?” She pointed at the man who immediately shook his head in defense.

“Not really.” He shrugged his shoulders innocently before continuing, “I’m not afraid to say I was in the theaters when that one came out for Sarah…although I love a good comedy family film.”

That’s funny, that’s when she knew she wanted to work with animals after seeing that film. Unfortunately she couldn’t hear the actual voices of the animals she worked with but she still knew how to communicate with them. She can only imagine tommy taking the time to spend with his niece and that brought a smile to her lips.

“So you’ll love him?”

“…I can try?”

She patted the dog’s back, “see it only took some convincing. We just have to find you a name and it’ll have to flow nicely with your sibling.”

A frown dug in between Tommy’s brows at the end of her sentence. It slipped so easily from her lips that Tommy was unsure if he heard her right. She was getting ready to turn and head back to the car with the dog in at her side but Tommy steps towards them.

“What was that?”

“Hm?” She took her attention away from the dog who began wagging it’s tail.

“That last part of the sentence. About the dog having the same sound as it’s..sibling? Meaning what? the other dogs?” Tommy pried.

She tapped on her chin then, pretending to think about it, “I’m thinking Silas for him and Milo, Tyrus, or Linus for this one.”

Tommy watched with wide eyes as a hand rested against her clothed belly.

“A-Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Maybe…what’re you thinking?”

“You’re pregnant, honey?”

“Uh huh. You’ve got two extra babies now.”

Tommy wanted to curl into a ball of happiness hearing this news. He never thought he would be a dad way back then and he certainly didn’t think now…especially with the way things were and she hasn’t had much of a cycle in years. Of course there were discussions of what ifs but it’s not like they were deliberately trying.

His put the safety on and slung the gun around to his back. He exhaled, his hands raised in air before gripping at his hair in astonishment.

“We’re gonna be somebody’s mommy and daddy?”

“Damn straight.”

“Hell yeah we are!” Tommy grinned as he reached forward to lift her up by the waist, gently spinning her in the air before he quickly put her back on her feet, “shit, are you having any nausea? did I just cause it?”

“No love, we’re okay. Just fatigue sometimes. I’m about thirteen weeks according to Rosita’s ultrasound.” She breathed with a smile, flicking her hair back.

“Thirteen weeks?! Holy shit! He’s gonna be here in no time…wait Linus? There’s no way we’re naming our kid Linus—that’s out.”

“Okay let’s talk about it,” she laughed, “walk with me.”

“It’s clear we have a lot to talk about!” Tommy slipped an arm around her waist, peeking down at her baggy clothing as they made their way back to the car.

He halted as she started to give him the details and glanced back at the dog who had its head down but stayed put. He whistled at the animal with a nudge of head, “c’mon, dog! You’re comin’ with us.”

“Silas.” She whispered up at Tommy.

Tommy corrected himself, “Silas! Let’s go home.”

Silas perked up and trotted after the couple, hopping into the backseat as Tommy intently focused on her, their hands clasped together as he held them to his lips, ready for their new beginning.

⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆｡˚ ꕥ ༘⋆ ⋆

Continue along with my spring anthology prompts here.

[dark-frosted-heart]

Villainous Love that Unfolds on a Moonless Night - Alfons Sylvatica (main route)

The Fake Lovers for a Day™ event

Alfons Sylvatica and his gift are their own warnings.

This story is a bit......Especially the end of this part. While I didn’t write everything down, the dialogue can be triggering. Even if things aren't "real"

In order to get to know the members of Crown better, Victor gives Kate her first assignment as the fairytale writer - to pick one of the members of Crown to be her lover for a day! A good idea!

With that in mind, Kate's walking through the halls feeling down. Pretending to be lovers with someone she just met for a day is a good idea, NOT! If she has to has to see something like the pool of blood she stumbled upon again.....

Alfons: My goodness that's quite the dreadful look on your face. It's as if you had just encountered a ghost.

Alfons looks down at Kate from the top of the stairs. Despite his noble and gentlemanly behavior, Kate can sense something sketchy about him. He's heard about her assignment and Kate explains that she never thought she'd have to do something like this. As she goes up the stairs with an stiff smile on her face, she catches a whiff of something sweet coming from the man. With a sigh, Alfons agrees that Victor says the weirdest things. He removes a leather glove, gently touches Kate's neck, and informs her that she already has a lover. The two of them have already pledged their love to each other.

Now that he mentioned it, Kate thinks, she and Alfons are already together. She apologizes for forgetting. Alfons just shrugs it off and runs his fingers through her hair. Her forgetfulness is part of her charm. Now enough of that, they have a sweet day ahead of them.

Kate tells him that she'd like for him to tell her more about himself since her assignment today's to get to know him better. Alfons says she's quite earnest for trying to complete her assignment when she's with her lover, but he'll comply. He pulls her closer and gives her a light kiss. He'll be sure to teach "his cute lover" a few things.

Alfons takes Kate to a bar full of people and she asks if he often comes to places like this at noon. He does; surprising for someone like him, isn't it? While Kate agrees that it'd be strange to see a noble in a bar, somehow it suits Alfons. He'll take that as a compliment. Glamorous ballrooms, street corner pubs, and opium dens in the slums aren't so different from each other. Strip them of their outer layer and you'll find that they're all full of wretched desires.

As the two take their seats at the counter, a young bartender notices Alfons and greets him. He asks if Kate's his partner for the day. Handsome men like him must always have ladies lining up for him. Kate considers the bartender's words. Meanwhile, Alfons says that she is. Cute isn't she? He asks the man if he'd like to join them, leaving Kate confused. The bartender comments on how naive Kate is and Alfons says he'll need to discipline the poor girl. Moving on, Alfons orders his usual for the two of them.

There's too many things that Kate's concerned about and she sips on her White Lady while feeling dissatisfied. Alfons asks what's with the look on her face. Did it bother her that he asked the bartender to join them? He was only joking. Kate asks if he really means that. She heard everything the bartender had said. Is he just fooling around? Alfons smiles wickedly at her jealousy and presses a finger against her lips. How could he fool around when he has a sweet lover such as herself.

Seeing the loving look on his face, Kate suddenly feels ashamed and looks away. If she pouts any longer, he'll think she's childish so she tells him that she's relieved. Well Alfons' glad to hear that she's convinced. He takes a sip of his drink and asks Kate if she likes drinking. Kate drinks in moderation and asks about Alfons. He replies that he loves it. He loves everything that humans rely on to forget about reality: drinking, gambling, love, pleasure. Kate fell for such an outrageous person, she thinks. Nevertheless, his alluring profile makes her heart race. But wait...How did she and Alfons become lovers? As she gets this feeling of doubt in her chest, Alfons sets down his glass. Now that the alcohol's dulled the mind, it's time to get to work. Hearing that he has work, Kate scolds him for drinking before she realizes that she drank too. Alfons tells her that she's got things reversed. Isn't it better to drink on the job? He then asks her to give him a kiss as encouragement.

Kate feels his hand go to the back of her neck to pull her closer, his gaze and behavior unnecessarily sexy and seductive. But Kate can't let herself continue to be pushed around by him. She refuses because she's feeling tipsy. Alfons calls her cold but he likes that about her too.

Alfons ends up taking Kate with him to a workhouse in the slums. The unsettling feeling she felt this morning starts to creep back. Alfons turns her face toward him and tells that there's no need to look so anxious. His mission's to gather some intel here. His ability's useful for infiltration and espionage purposes. When he whispers "with intention", he can cast brief illusions. The corpses at the workhouse have been sold off to coroners, which is legal, but his mission's to investigate if the methods are questionable. He'll be posing as the son of a coroner while she's his lover.

The the director of the workhouse was suspicious of the pair, he welcomed them in with a smile after exchanging a few words with Alfons. Kate suspects that he used his ability on the director. Alfons tells the director about how his father's sad over business not going well as of late. The director apologizes, they've been giving priority to those who've been supporting the workhouse. Alfons says it's only natural for the "product" to go to those who pay more. Though because these "products" are limited, it's difficult to know when they're available. Even if they're nameless corpses that no one would care about, he can't ask the poor to just die right then despite the demand. Kate takes a peek at the director to see if they react to Alfons' words, but he remains calm.

Alfons explains to the director that he came by today to inquire about the value of aid. His father had told him to get the next "product" by any means necessary. The director suggests they continue their talk in the office. He asks the two to wait, he just needs to get some documents prepared. Kate wonders if she should stay put. Her assignment today's to get a better understanding of Alfons so she'd like to see how he does his work. As she thinks about this, Alfons reaches out to her and strokes her neck lovingly. He points out how quiet this place is. You can't hear anything except for the birds chirping.

The director calls out to the two and lets them know that the documents are ready. Alfons asks Kate to wait while he goes talk to the director. There just so happens to be a cat that wants attention. At Kate's confusion, he gestures to the black cat that just climbed onto her lap. They've been hiding under the desk for a while now. With one hand still on Kate's neck, he reaches out to the cat with the other to pet it. The two of them spend should spend some sweet time together as lovers after this. He kisses Kate on the forehead and heads to the office.

Kate spends her time playing with the cat while thinking back on what she's learned about Alfons today. But...why didn't she know about these things already if they've been lovers? Something doesn't feel right to her, but before she can think more on it, a warm hand touches the back of her neck. Alfons apologizes for making her wait. There's a particular smell on him, something other than his usual sweet scent. It's familiar. Her thoughts are cut off by Alfons announcing that he's finished with his mission; it was a bust. Good thing things didn't get bloody.

Perhaps it was all in Kate's head. Sniffing the air again, all she can smell is Alfons. Perhaps it's just an off day for her today. Alfons suggests they head home, she must be tired. Kate agrees and he tells her not to worry. He'll make her forget about all this in no time.

Back in Kate's room, the two strip off their coats as they kiss and sink onto the bed. Alfons continues to kiss and touch her in various places. Something doesn't feel right though. Doing stuff like this is normal for lovers, so why does she feel like resisting. Alfons brushes off her requests for him to wait. He tells her to just focus on what's making her feel good and though her body reacts, the sounds make Kate want to cover her ears. Alfons asks if they should go all the way.

Kate's mind is still plagued with doubts. Why does she like Alfons? She should be feeling satisfied with her lover's affections so why does she feel so terribly lonely? Kate asks Alfons if they're really lovers.

Alfons pauses before he smiles again. So she's "woken up" then, he asks.

Bitter End

Premium End

[erstwhilesparrow]

I just saw that post you reblogged about archiving MCYT stuff - is there a particular reason stuff disappears so often? (That's very cool people are putting in so much effort to preserve it, though; big respect to that tbh)

reyni! :D okay i should be clear upfront that some of my information may be incomplete here because (1) i don't have twitter and (2) i'm not directly involved in any mcyt archival efforts. also putting this under a cut because it's long and i do need to reference recent events involving abuse and sexual assault:

despite mcyt = minecraft youtube(r), a lot of stuff relevant to mcyt happens like. exclusively on stream? really, really ~plot-critical or deeply characterizing stuff happens on stream sometimes and never makes it into a youtube video! and on twitch at least, unless you explicitly set it to save your vods, twitch will just delete them after a certain number of days. i don't know exactly how this works if you stream on youtube but also my impression is that a significant majority of people are not streaming on youtube anyway. since fairly early in my time in mcyt fandoms, there's been concern about creators not saving their own vods, and on top of that, sometimes you save a vod and it gets taken down anyway for copyright infringement (playing copyrighted music, the creator themself asked for it to be removed, etc). so like. as baseline, there's a sense of inherent ephemerality to the medium. that post i reblogged is explicitly pushing back against the description of mcyt vods as "a constantly burning library of alexandria," and in light of the evidence that follows i agree (and also am a little weepy about the efforts people make to save these things), but that sense doesn't come from nowhere, you know?

speaking of that post though, i suspect this archival stuff is coming up More now because it's been a rough couple of weeks in mcyt fandom. several really influential creators in the space were recently outed as being abusive or predatory in a way that's caught a lot of attention, and many people in response have been (understandably!) deleting their fanworks or otherwise distancing or removing themselves from mcyt fandom. i want to be clear, i know stuff gets deleted all the time in fanspaces -- the internet is kind of just Like That in terms of how easy it is to lose things -- and it's incredibly fair to go "no, even if there was a strong distinction between character and creator this leaves a sour taste in my mouth and i'm not doing this anymore." i don't want to pretend that no one has ever deleted a fanwork outside of mcyt spaces, and i don't want to insinuate that it's bad to vocally revoke your support of those creators -- those people have done awful things and generally failed to meaningfully apologize or take accountability, and it is worth remembering and saying so. but to give you a sense of numbers: antimony-medusa does monthly stats on mcyt fic on ao3, and dsmp, which even after it's kind of died off has seen monthly increases in the range of hundreds of new fic per month, saw a decrease of roughly 800 fics. other fandoms have similarly seen decreases, and video blogging rpf, which ao3 treats as an umbrella for basically all mcyt stuff, saw an increase of 51, as compared to last month's increase of (approximately) 3500. and that's just fic -- there's also a rich trove of animatics, fanvids, fanart, etc that i don't have any numbers for, but i've seen people talking about deleting those, too, you know? you see how people might be worried about what we are losing.

at this point i think your question is answered, but if you'll forgive some baseless speculation here, i wonder to what extent mcyt is also. complicated by how closely character and creator can sit? i don't know how other people feel, but there is a difference to me between "i've written fic about This Person Specifically (or, arguably, their streamer persona which may be somewhat divorced from the Real Life Human Being Behind The Screen)" and "i've written fic about a character this person plays." i dunno, there's a sense to me of the flimsiness of the line between creator and character and then also of the line between creator and fandom that i think makes it harder to be like "okay, i am doing my own thing, separate from the creator, so i'm going to keep my stuff public even if i don't stand by it 100% anymore." i remember when i first joined mcyt fandom, there was a period of time people were really worried that the creators were actively on ao3, or that fans would try to send their fanfic directly to the creators. i thought to myself, "well, if anyone Tries Shit with my work, i will simply delete all my relevant accounts and disappear." that's... not really a back-up plan that i feel good about these days, but. you know. it's been a thing, if not always for the same reasons, and i do understand the impulse.

[lightvsdark18]

During the marriage of King Malleus and Queen Alice, a historical event happened in the Kingdom of Briar Valley. An army of individuals invaded the Kingdom and rampaged the homes of the fae. The leader of this group declared a war and disappeared into the mist, gathering their soldiers together and waiting for the battle to commence.

Panic spent through Briar Valley, asking their king and queen on what they should do. The enemy has anti-magic and iron equipment at their fingertips, every possible weakness the fae have was right in the enemy's hand.

The soldiers of the Kingdom were prepared for the battle and told losing wasn't option while the Queen had a plan. With the help of two knights, Alice disguised herself as the enemy's soldiers and earned the trust of the leader through painstaking patience and self-control.

The knights taught her how to fight and deceit the leader. The King and the rest of the castle didn't know what the Queen was doing, the reckless and dangerous actions she was taking.

Malleus questioned his wife on what or where she has been during this stressful time, always getting the answer, "I need you to trust me, no matter what."

The day of the war commence, however, soldiers snuck into the castle and captured the royalties. Iron and anti-magic chains were placed on them and kneeled in front of the castle. Alice, with the help of the two knights, escaped the invasion and crafted a plan to rescue their families.

The three created a dummy with illusion magic to trick the leader into thinking they found her, making it easy to keep herself hidden. Alice adorned her disguise and joined the leader in his speech, secretly puppeteering the dummy as he dragged it up front.

He questioned her on how could she side with fairies, they don't respect other races and see us below them, didn't you see what Malleus did in Night Raven.

She answered with harshness before the leader grew furious and beheaded the dummy. Her heart stopped at the sight as Malleus saw nothing but red. He yelled and screamed, throwing threats after threats when the leader was stabbed in the throat and paralyzed by one of his soldiers.

The soldiers attacked the betrayer and got ambushed by hidden knights, taking them down with poison tipped blades. The betrayer approached the King and untied him, telling him to lead everyone to safety and stay there until the battle was over. "Keep our people safe, Firefly."

The Queen of Briar Valley and her trusted knights fought and freed the people of their Kingdom, winning the battle in less than a week. The knights walked her back to the castle where the King and elder Queen questioned this enemy soldier just for her to remove her helmet and reveal her plan.

How she snuck into the enemy's army and disguised one of them to earn their trust, crafting a dummy to play as herself, finding the enemy's ambush points, adding poison to the blades of their knights and soldiers. She had every chess pieces and placed them in its needed spot.

Then she collapsed from exhaustion.

She woke in her former bedroom and got lectured by her in-law on how reckless she was, how she could have been caught or killed by the enemy or them. However, despite the risky plan, she did save the Kingdom and thanked her for the bravery she displayed.

Malleus felt betrayed and hurt, eventually visiting her to talk. She apologized to her husband for not telling him. She explained she knew he wouldn't allow it if she told him, but then stopped herself and said she wanted to prove herself to the Kingdom, to show she's worthy to be their Queen.

"I'm sorry for scaring and worrying you, Malleus. I guess old habits are hard to break along with insecurities. I promise I wouldn't do it again, not without telling you first."

He was angry and upset, but what he wanted the most in that moment was to hold her close. He spent the night holding her in his arms and kissing her tearstained face.

Meetings on the state of the Kingdom, what to do with the leader and his followers, and the Queen's injuries became a regular occurrence. Malleus grew tired and impatient with the frequent meetings, dreaming of cuddling his wife and staying in bed with her.

It took a few weeks for the Queen to attend the meetings and give her thoughts to the court. The King felt restless when she attended. Maybe it's because his wife is a strong individual that achieved more than the court expected from her. Maybe it's because she did the unthinkable and crafted a risky plan to save Briar Valley.

Either way, he couldn't sit here for another second. He dragged his wife out of the courtroom before it officially finish and spent the night together in their bedchamber, rewarding her for being an outstanding queen.

(That was the night Lance was made XD )

[karen-anti-r-cml]

August 19, 2020: trump against American Made Good Year Tire and Rubber. Calling on his [confederate maga loyalist] to stop buying Goodyear Tires and he threatened to remove them from his custom Presidential Limousine, despite previously railing against “cancel culture,”

FYI: The Presidential Limousine belongs to We The People... not trump.

Goodyear Tire and Rubber was founded in Ohio and after 125 years GTR is still in Ohio, still made in America by Americans.

Why then would trump want to put them out of business?

GTR has a Zero-Tolerance Policy against hate based Propaganda, including trump's “maga”

Goodyear Tire and Rubber held a Diversity Training Event. 1 event was on the GTRs Zero-Tolerance Policy and an employee posted a photo of a slide that shows what is and isn't acceptable

trump tweeted: “Don’t buy GOODYEAR TIRES - They announced a BAN ON MAGA HATS."

Goodyear: We ask our Personnel to “refrain from workplace expressions in support of [politics] that fall outside the scope of Racial Justice and Equality Issues.”

We have “always wholeheartedly supported both Equality and Law Enforcement and will continue to do so.”

maga, Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter

On the surface these slogans seem innocent, but they were not created to bring US together or to build Equality, Respect or Tolerance.

They were created out of Spite and Hate by white supremist

Jan/6/21 Proves This

Jump Ahead 3 Years...

February 3, 2023: East Palestine, Ohio - After Rail Operator Norfolk Southern 100 Car Train Derailed, it Broke Out into a Massive Fire, leading Officials to Issue Evacuation and Shelter-In-Place Orders to nearby Residents.

Michael Graham, a Member of the National Transportation Safety Board said "The Fire spanned about the Length of the Train. The Fire has been Reduced in intensity, but Remains Active and the two main tracks are still blocked."

February 4, 2023: Trent Conaway, Mayor of East Palestine Issued an Emergency Proclamation, stating the village "Has Been or Is immediately Threatened by a Natural/Man-Made/Technological Hazard and or Nuclear or Conventional Attack. The Train was Carrying Hazardous Materials."

Norfolk Southern Spokesperson said 20 of the Cars Were Classified as Carrying Hazardous Materials.

HMs are defined as Cargo that could Pose any kind of Danger "Including Flammables, Combustibles, or Environmental risks."

Graham said "At this time we're working to verify which Hazardous Material Cars, if any, have been Breached, 14 Cars that derailed were carrying Vinyl Chloride "and [were] Exposed to the Fire,"

Conaway added "As of right now air quality, even 1 street back is OK,"

Vinyl chloride is Used To Make the Polyvinyl Chloride, a hard plastic resin which is Associated with Increased Risk of Liver Cancer and other Cancers.

and

There's still concern about other possibly Hazardous Materials. Per Officials with Federal National Cancer Institute

Conaway said surveillance from the air showed "an entanglement of cars" with fires still burning and heavy smoke continuing to billow from the scene as officials tried to determine what is in each Car from the labels outside.

February 8, 2023: Officials in Ohio and Pennsylvania said Residents Can Return Home five days after a massive train derailment in East Palestine.

The fire from the chemical release is no longer burning, and crews are removing wreckage.

February 22, 2023: trump was back in Ohio, of course at the site of the Train Derailment to criticize President Biden’s Administration ’s for the handling of the railway disaster and pretend he gives a damn about Ohioans without an apology to the people of Goodyear.

trump's main reason for going was to make an entrance of course... Here I am, I care, where's Biden, he doesn't care.

However, if you look at the President's absence logically you'll realize this wasn't a regular accident, this event involved Hazardous Materials and Fires

Kind of like January 6, 2021 Insurrection when word has it the Secret Service wouldn't let trump go to his confederate maga loyalist at the Capital

You're not doing your job if you allow the President of the United States to go where there's known and unknown danger

February 25, 2023: It seems the decision for President Biden not visiting East Palestine was the right decision

Debra Shore, of the EPA said Norfolk Southern was ordered to halt transporting contaminated toxic waste after hearing concerns from People in a number of States

Disposal plans including locations and transportation routes will now be subject to EPA review and approval.

EPA testing confirmed vinyl chloride, phosphene, benzene and a range of other volatile organic compounds and particulate matter are in the soil and water

Independent Experts say they are likely contaminated with dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance and other similar dangerous compounds

The Experts and some Senators have requested EPA test for these, but they've resisted

Mary Mertz, Director of The Ohio Department of Natural Resources said they estimate more than 43,000 animals have died in and around East Palestine roughly three weeks after the train derailment.

[sunshineduo]

annoying how when the dteam spends like half an hour talking shit about scott and hbomb and hating on the event and everyone finds it hilarious but when the admins say 2 sentences about them it’s ‘how dare they’

like it’s always ‘it’s just for fun’ when glitches work in their favour or they cross team but the second something goes wrong for them everyone rushes to hate on the admins

yes bc its Hot when the dream team cheat to win. hope this helps

[rnelodyy]

c!Dream and the rules

(/dsmp /rp, all names refer to characters, not content creators)

I think one of the most striking parts of Exile is something that I rarely see talked about, and it’s Dream’s rules. Or rather, how his rules were made to be used as justification to hurt Tommy.

The thing about exile is that, outside of the initial rule of “Don’t go back to L’Manburg”, Dream never told Tommy the rules, yet constantly operated under the assumption that Tommy already knew them, and had accepted them. The rules also changed constantly, without Tommy ever being notified until he was already in trouble.

The second time Dream told Tommy to put his armor in the hole, he didn’t tell Tommy to do that right away. Instead, the conversation went like this (slightly edited to remove stammering and unrelated dialogue).

Dream: Do you have, uh… something you wanna put on the floor here? Tommy: Yes. (drops two pieces of red concrete as Dream digs a hole) Dre-eam! You’re evil. You’re evil. Dream: Anything else, Tommy? Tommy: Nope! Dream: Oh c’mon, I know there’s something else you wanna drop down here. Tommy: (panicking slightly) No, there… (messages BBH “take this and run”, throws him the disc BBH had gifted him earlier) Um… I don’t reckon there is! (pause) Dream: Okay, are you suuuure? Tommy: YES. Dream: Alright… How ‘bout your armor, Tommy? Tommy: Well, no, this is- I actually earned this myself. Dream: I know you did! Tommy: Leave me alone. Dream: Just drop it in the hole, Tommy. Tommy: Wh- no, NO, you can’t just come and demand things from me! I’ve been exiled, I’ve done your shit, what do you mean?! Dream: (sing-song) Tommy… Tommy: What? (Dream hits Tommy with his axe, taking over half his health) Tommy: (screams, drops his armor) OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY OKAY!

The only rule Tommy was aware of at this time was that he wasn’t allowed to go back to L’Manburg. Dream had taken his armor the night before, but there was no indication that he expected Tommy to do this constantly. Taking his armor upon initially arriving at Logstedshire made some kind of sense, allowing Tommy to keep it would run the risk of him trying to fight his way back into L’Manburg. Taking his new, very shitty armor (seriously it was an iron chestplate and a pair of golden leggings he got from a ruined portal chest) made no sense at all, so the fact that Tommy was confused and refused to cooperate at first isn’t unexpected in the slightest.

And the thing is… Dream was aware of this fact. Throughout the conversation, he never really sounded annoyed, and was actively teasing Tommy at times. This isn’t a good thing btw, it’s a sign that he was fully aware that Tommy didn’t know what he wanted from him, and that that would create a situation where Dream could “put him in his place” as it were.

If you’re a parent, and your kid does something that’s not allowed, without knowing it’s not allowed, you don’t start off with a beating. You sit them down, calmly explain the rules to them and explain why those rules are there, then send them on their way with the knowledge that they shouldn't do it again.

This interaction wasn’t an instance of Tommy acting out and Dream correcting him. This interaction was a trap. Dream set Tommy up to fail by not telling him the rules beforehand, and when Tommy offered even the slightest bit of resistance and asked why he needed to drop his armor, Dream jumped straight to beating him. It’s a powerplay, plain and simple.

This is demonstrated again with the destruction of Logstedshire. Dream got pissed that Tommy disobeyed him by having hidden chests with gear under his house, and retaliated by destroying everything Tommy had built, destroying every item he’d collected, killing his pet and only foodsource, barring him from the Nether, banning everyone except himself from visiting, and telling him to start over from scratch after a whole lecture about how Tommy betrayed him.

Again, I wanna point out some specific lines from this lecture that illustrate my point very well.

Dream: You were lying to me! You were lying to me. Tommy: No- Why was I lying?! Dream: What do you mean, why were you lying?! Tommy: I wasn’t hi- I wasn’t- Dream: You hid things in a chest knowing they were things I wouldn’t want you to have! And you hid it in a way that way I would never find it!

Except Tommy didn’t know that. The contents of the stash were all items that Tommy had obtained previously without any issue (diamonds, emeralds, iron, ender pearls, some pickaxes, and some purely sentimental items like flowers, a jukebox, and pictures of Tubbo and L’Manburg). In fact, the vast majority of them came from Tommy’s aboveground storage, which Dream had full access to, and had looked through before!

Dream also never said Tommy wasn’t allowed to hide stuff, and there was nothing to suggest he didn’t want Tommy to keep secrets from him.

There’s been a theory floating around for a while that Dream knew about Tommy’s item stash beforehand, since it was a very strange place to dig a hole (like, right in front of the house in the center of Logstedshire itself, instead of out in the plains where the TNT wouldn’t damage any structures), and Tommy had previously forgotten to cover up the entrance ladder. While Dream hadn’t looked inside the house, he would’ve definitely heard Tommy place the block back.

If this theory is correct, then this was yet another trap. Dream knew Tommy had a hidden room, and instead of just saying “hey, I don’t want you to have a hidden stash, go put this back and fill in the room” (which would’ve still been bullshit btw), he went COMPLETELY ballistic, destroyed EVERYTHING Tommy had, and while doing it, kept admonishing Tommy for betraying him, said shit like “I thought we were friends”, and even accused him of preparing to attack Dream. Again, a powerplay.

Hell, even the exile conflict itself is this! Tommy was exiled for griefing the king’s property while being a high-ranking official in L’Manburg. Except Fundy, the then-president’s son, CONSTANTLY griefed Eret’s shit after the L’Manburg war, ranging from ripping down one of their towers to “shrink” it, filling another tower with water, and multiple elaborate plots to steal the throne from under their nose. But apparently, between all of that shit and the exile-conflict, the rules were silently changed, meaning Dream could exile Tommy for breaking a couple blocks and placing some rude signs in George’s house. Even the punishment itself was changed without warning, as Tommy went from being exiled from L’Manburg to exiled from “everywhere that’s ever been touched.”

...I was originally gonna make a different point here. I may put it in the reblogs, because I still think it’s very interesting. But, in the middle of writing this essay I had to stop because it was late, then I spent the entire next day packing up because I’m in the middle of a move. It's now the next evening, I'm sat in my new room, on my camping bed, I opened this doc because I pretty much forgot what I typed, I reread it, and then I realized… This isn’t an isolated series of events. This is a pattern for Dream.

Before Tommy first joined the server, there were only three set rules: no stealing, no griefing, and no killing people. Except by that point, those rules weren’t enforced at all. In fact, Dream broke all three at once at one point, by killing George and burning his diamond armor because he didn’t feel it was fair that George got to run around in full diamond when everyone else still had iron.

Tommy joined the server, and broke the rules like everyone else. He stole shit, broke shit, killed George for funsies… and he got exiled for it. Seriously, they dumped him in an empty snowfield for breaking rules that nobody had enforced for weeks. So technically, the Exile-arc isn’t even the first time something like this has happened to him!

During the events that would eventually spark the Disc War, Sapnap stole a bunch of Tommy’s items (including the only Netherite chestplate on the server at the time), and told him he’d only give the stuff back if Tommy helped him with a conflict he had with Ponk. Long story short, Dream tried to intervene and was killed by Tommy and Sapnap, and Dream stole Tommy’s discs to force him to apologize. He then kept the discs, and the Disc War followed. Sapnap, despite being the aggressor and arguably forcing Tommy to participate in the conflict, was never punished.

This proves not only that the rules can change whenever Dream feels like it, but that they’re arbitrarily enforced. Dream refuses to punish his friends for the same crimes he endlessly fucks over Tommy for.

L’Manburg was created in part because of the fact that the rules were unevenly enforced. Tommy, Wilbur, and later Tubbo were repeatedly killed, stolen from, imprisoned, and even held hostage for very minor crimes, while the people killing, imprisoning, kidnapping and stealing from them were able to do so without impunity.

This was also the point where Dream just started making up new rules; there was no rule against having governments on the server, or making a separate area where Dream’s rules wouldn’t apply, so Dream banned governments, and used this new rule as an excuse to kill them, take their items, and tear their land to shreds.

And that’s another thing: the punishments for breaking Dream’s rules are INCREDIBLY harsh.

Kill him non-canonically one time? Your most prized possessions will now be dangled over your head and used to hurt you for the next few months.

Make a country with different laws that doesn’t infringe on anyone’s territory, has no desire to expand, is explicitly pacifistic and open to trade negotiations? You’ll be forced to fight a war you’re in no way equipped to fight, you’ll be betrayed and murdered and have your land destroyed in front of your very eyes until you literally have no choice but to surrender.

Mildly vandalize the king’s house, which nobody else has ever been punished for? You’ll be dragged into court, exiled from your home, and subjected to weeks of abuse until you believe that all of your friends hate you and you actively want to kill yourself.

Hide some stuff in a secret chest? Your only shelter will be exploded, your pet/only food source will be killed, all your items will be destroyed, you’ll be banned from the Nether, and none of your friends will be allowed to come see you.

This is all such disproportionate retribution it’s ridiculous. It’s like punishing someone for speeding by blowing up their car with a ballistic missile.

So to sum up: Dream’s rules are arbitrarily enforced, and he can just straight up make them up on the spot if he feels like it. Sometimes, he won’t tell you a rule exists until you’ve already broken it, and you’re treated as if you broke it out of malice instead of genuine ignorance. And if you do break a rule, and he decides you have to be punished, it will always be a punishment so harsh it doesn’t even ATTEMPT to fit the crime.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty fucking corrupt and tyrannical to me.

When people say Tommy deserved exile, or made Dream spiral into villainy, or abused Dream somehow (seriously I’ve seen this take multiple times and every time it makes my brain melt) by breaking the rules, I would invite them to take a step back and ask themselves, why did that rule exist? Did Tommy know it existed? Was it enforced for everyone other than him as well? Does the punishment fit the crime?

Dream has a bad habit of making up rules, or enforcing old ones that were never enforced before, to punish those who threaten his power. None of the Dream Team were ever punished for anything, despite committing the same crimes as the L’Manburgians. That is, until they founded Mexican L’Manburg (i.e. went against Dream’s rule), at which point they were attacked by Dream and George was dethroned for “not being neutral enough.”

Tommy should’ve faced consequences for what he did. But those consequences should’ve come naturally, and been carried out by the people he hurt. Like, if Dream hadn’t intervened, griefing George’s house would’ve resulted in George griefing Tommy back in revenge. In fact, he DID do that, by turning Tommy’s entire house into granite and putting the Jump In The Cadillac picture on his front lawn.

These are natural, proportionate consequences. Exile was none of that. The Disc War was none of that. Everything that happened to L’Manburg was none of that.

Dream’s rules and how he enforces them are inherently corrupt and tyrannical. To pretend it’s anything but is disingenuous at best.

[hiy-breadcheeks]

Setting you free.

Part Two

pairing: bucky barnes x gn!reader

a/n: hi. sorry for the long wait,, i got major writers block so my apologies if this isn't that good. oh and let's pretend Tony Stark never broke Bucky's metal arm in Civil War bc... plot reasons :D

One Three

warnings: tiny bit of swearing, angst, science, medical and psychology inaccuracies lol, fluff????, very very brief mention of police brutality, dark humor (?)

2022 © hiy-breadcheeks– don't copy, repost, or translate.

After months of therapy, his therapist, along with the scientist the government ordered to work with him, deemed Bucky ready to finally break free from HYDRA's Winter Soldier, and you're ready to help him every step of the way.

Re-Program... where?

You stirred awake, still feeling Bucky's hand around your neck despite it not being there anymore. While rubbing it, you sit up the bed, adjusting your eyes to the bright light that lit the room you're in. Looking around, you recognized it to be a hospital room.

Events from earlier still fresh in your mind, the reason why you're in the hospital right now. "I don't know who you are." You feel those cold blue eyes still staring at you, emotionless. "I don't know who you are." It shouldn't but, those words hurt you more than you expected. "I don't know who you are." My Bucky does, you thought.

You quickly stood up but stopped as you started to feel every inch of your body ache, your head even more. Releasing a low grunt, you used the railing on the bed to support yourself up. You needed to see Bucky, and you hoped that someone outside can tell you where he is.

You started to worry about him when the clear fear and worry in his eyes started showing up in your mind again, which leads you to start thinking of every worst case scenarios.

What if HYDRA took him?

What if he's still the winter soldier?

What if they hurt him?

You shake your head in attempt to remove those thoughts as you hurry out of your room. And if no one can tell you where your boyfriend is, you'll find him yourself.

Taking your phone from your pocket and opened it to check the time, you realized it's been 15 hours since it all happened. You swore under your breath. They could have done so many bad things to him by now, you thought as hurry to the hospital reception counter.

Not even ten steps away from your door, you already bumped into someone, "I'm so sorry!" you exclaimed, attempting to continue on your way to find Bucky god knows where when the man you bumped into stopped you. "Kai? KAI! oh thank god you're awake because I honestly did not plan on waiting for you to wake–"

"SAM! What? What are you doing here?? Bucky! Where's Bucky? Do you know where he is??" You were happy to see Sam, Bucky's best friend. Normally, it would worry you to see him around as he's almost always came to take your boyfriend out for a deadly mission, but this time he was the one who's gonna take you to Bucky.

"I came to fetch you, actually. Bucky's... well he's..." Sam trailed off, seemingly finding it hard to explain your boyfriend's situation which did not make you feel better at all. "Well?! He's what, Sam??"

"Just... come on. I'm not the one who should explain, I think." He said, grabbing your arms and dragging you out to his car. "Fucking hell, Sam. Is it bad?" you asked him as you sat on the passenger's seat. "I don't think so..?"

"What the hell do you mean 'You don't think so'??"

"Well, it depends on how you look at it! Personally, I don't think it's a bad thing." The man said as he started to drive where you assume Bucky is. Your eyes never left Sam's face. Waiting for a more serious answer out of him. "Aye, put your seatbelt on. I ain't planning on getting stopped by a cop right now. Them cops and people like me don't have the best history, you see. They finna think I'm kidnapping you or–"

"Jesus! Can you-" you said as you fastened the seatbelt around you. "-please just tell me where my boyfriend and your best friend is?! Sam, this isn't funny anymore. Come on!" you yelled, getting more and more irritated as seconds go by.

"I don't think I'm allowed to say much but I'll say this. Bucky's fine– for now." you furrowed your eyebrows. "For now?? Can you please go straight to the point?!"

"Listen, Kai. Where Bucky is, there are people there waiting for us and we don't want them waiting for a long time so, relax. Bucky is not dead, if that's what you're worried about. He's fine."

"Who the hell is waiting for us?? Why are you being so discreet about it?" He sighed.

"The Wakandans."

You froze in place and just stared at him. The wakandans? What are they doing here... you thought.

"Don't stare at me for too long, now. You know yo mans have some serious jealousy problems." He joked but you were still hung up on the fact that people from Wakanda are waiting for you.

"Hold on, what are they doing here? I thought it was already clear that Bucky didn't kill King T'Chaka??"

"How about you let me concentrate on driving so we can get there faster and you can get all the answers to your questions?" He said, not taking his eyes off the road.

You stopped talking and stared at the road in front of you, a million thoughts coming in your mind faster than Sam's driving.

After many excruciating minutes, you finally arrive to a very familiar place. The Avengers compound. You never thought you'd be back here again since... well, since it all happened. No one really wanted to go back here because it contained a lot of memories, fun but painful memories of people you considered friends who are mostly gone now.

"Why here?" you asked Sam while you make your way to the entrance with him walking by your side. "King T'Challa wanted somewhere private so they moved Bucky here." He said, you stopped again. "The king is here??"

"Yeah, I thought you'd assume that much."

"Well, I just thought Okoye or even just Ayo would be here, along with the Dora Milaje. I didn't even– THE KING?! Shit, come on! I feel like we've been making them wait for a long time!"

"I been telling you so." you heard Sam mutter under his breath but you chose to ignore it.

Both of you took hurried steps to get there faster as to not make his Majesty wait longer than he needs to. When you stepped inside, a Dora Milaje was waiting for the both of you and motioned you to follow her. "Hi" said Sam but the warrior did not answer.

After a very long and awkward elevator ride, you're now walking towards one of the meeting rooms it seems.

The Dora Milaje opened the door and you saw a glimpse of King T'Challa looking over at Bucky who seemed to still be knocked out because of the strong sedatives that he got two doses of, only looking on your way when you entered.

"Brother, they are here." You looked in the corner and saw Shuri standing there, holding one of Stark's technology. "Yes, I am aware." The king said.

You were sure Sam said something beside you but you didn't hear, or cared to hear. Your eyes never left Bucky.

From where you were standing, you tried to see how he was. He looked troubled. Even passed out, his nightmares still haunt him. Relief washed over your body, still. He didn't seem physically injured and he's in no restraints either. He's okay and that's all that matters.

Sam nudged you, "Aren't we supposed to kneel...?" He whispered but the King seemed to have heard it. "Ah, no need. We are all friends here, anyway." T'Challa said.

You dared not move as to not disrespect the royalties in front of you but you couldn't help it anymore. You quickly walked to your lover and held his hand between yours. "Oh Bucky..." Your brows furrowed when you noticed they had removed his metal arm.

You faced the king, "With no means of disrespect, King T'Challa, what brings you here?" He put his hands behind his back. "Well, I heard about your situation and since he is one of our allies and friend, I thought we'd help."

"How- thank you, but how did you know about...well, about this?"

"I have ears everywhere, Kai."

"True. Except for the fact that this information wasn't from your "ears", brother." Shuri stepped in, "I actually heard about it because I was inside a nearby Starbucks when it happened and well, news travel fast in these places. Don't ask what I'm doing in a Starbucks. He doesn't want one opened in Wakanda."

"And that makes you my ears, sister. Now, can I speak?" Shuri rolled her eyes and continued to examine the technology she's holding.

"So, yes. If you approve, we would like to help Sergeant Barnes recover from the programming HYDRA did to him by bringing him to Wakanda to re-program him."

"Re-program? Why are we treating his brain like some computer?" Sam cut in, you sent him a warning look. "Sam..." you warned.

"What?? He said we're friends and that's how I talk to my friends."

"I'm so sorry..." you said with an embarrassed smile. "Ah, it's fine. It's actually refreshing to hear someone talk to me informally other than Shuri." he smiled, "So, what do you think?"

Still holding Bucky's hand and giving it a squeeze occasionally, you spoke "I think it would be amazing, considering that Wakanda has the best and most advanced technology in the world, now that Stark's gone. And it would be embarrassing to reject your offer now that you asked personally..." you paused, looking back at Bucky's sleeping form. "But I think that decision's up to Bucky, your Majesty." you looked back at them but no one spoke, understanding your point.

You felt Bucky's hand squeeze yours and even before realizing he was awake, he spoke. "I think it's the only way, doll."

"BUCKY! OH THANK GOD!" You exclaimed, throwing your body to hug him. He easily sat up right, with your weight still on him. He hugged you back and buried his face in your neck. "I'm so, so sorry, baby. I didn't mean to hurt you." He sobbed, placing soft kisses on your neck and shoulders.

"No, no, no, darling. It's not your fault, okay? No one wanted what happened. You're so much more of a victim than I am, yeah?" You assured him in between forehead kisses. "Here, wear this." you said, wrapping your his sweater around him as to not expose his left side. "Fuck, I'm really really sorry...I- I knew it would–" you stopped him with a kiss on the lips. "You're alright, and that's what matters, okay? Stop the tears now, please?" You smiled softly while wiping his tears away. He nodded and kissed your cheek before turning his head to the others.

"Wassup, Winter Soldier." greeted Sam. While it may be, and should be a sensitive topic right now, Bucky just let out a small, almost inaudible chuckle and greeted his best friend back, seemingly understanding his humor. "Hey, Samuel."

"Sergeant Barnes." T'Challa greeted with a smile. "Your Majesty. Your Highness." Bucky greeted both royals with a nod. "Hello, Sergeant." said Shuri, standing next to her brother.

"So, do we have an agreement?" asked the King once again. Bucky looked at you for approval. "It's your choice, bubba. I'll stay with you whatever your decision may be." you reassured him.

Your lover faced the king again, releasing a deep breath before speaking. "If that's what it takes, I'm honored to accept your help, your majesty."

Okoye came up behind King T'Challa and spoke to him in a language you recognized as xhosa because of the unique clicks in their words. "Perfect timing. Thank you, General." T'Challa smiled. "The tribal council has begun asking where I am so, we must leave right now. Come on."

"Hold on. I'm- I'm on presidential pardon. Does the government know about this?" Bucky asked, glancing between you and the king. And as if on the right time, Dr. Raynor, Bucky's therapist came through the door with the answer to his question. "Yes. I've asked permission once I knew about King T'Challa's offer, and I just got the president's approval right here." she said smiling, waving a piece of paper around where you caught a glimpse of the government's stamp. "Good luck, James. You deserve freedom." she said, patting him on the shoulders.

"Wait, how about you? Aren't you coming?" you asked before she left through the door. "No, but I will be waiting here for him for the rest of his sessions. Yes, he'll move on from his trigger words, but he's still far from fully recovered, Kai." she said and left. "Sam?" Bucky asked. "No, man. Can't come. Sarah needs me at home." He smiled. "Hey, take care of my best friend." Sam reminded you. "Of course, I will." you chuckled.

You held Bucky's hand, "Let's go, love."

@fangirl125reader

...lmao hi. tysm for reading!! the next one is probably not gonna come for a while bc school tings :DDD 'pologies for the grammar mistakes, english isn't my first language </3

[hirakiyois]

Understanding Wai

I would appreciate it if Wai antis could give this a little read with an open mind. I'm up for any discussions too! Just don't leave hate on this!

First of all, I do not condone outing anyone publicly. That is very evidently wrong in real life. However, seeing the kind of hate that Wai is getting outside of that is genuinely just disheartening at this point and making it hard for anyone to enjoy the show. Wai has a reason to be angry too.

I do not mean to excuse Wai’s actions, simply to explain them. I do not mean to change anyone’s mind about him but to show them other perspectives (and yes there are other perspectives) of the whole situation. Everyone trusts P’Aof all the time so I really don’t see why not with this specific plotline. I know it’s easy to hate Wai, especially from PatPran’s POV but he is not a one-dimensional character to be boiled down to a villain. If P’Aof didn’t think he was worth redeeming, he simply would not have done that.

Okay so getting into it.

To be frank, it is just hypocritical to hate on Wai, especially after seeing the events that lead up to everything. A lot of people think Wai started the whole feud but all he did was show the Engineering Gang his middle finger. It was the EG that decided to make things violent, cornering him and trying to fight him 4-on-1. As much as I think the EG have become better, this does not erase the fact that they ganged up on him.

Immediately after this, the EG harass Wai at his workplace. Not only that, they film it and put a video of it online. Again, good on Pat for removing it but it doesn’t erase the fact that this happened. I don’t know how many of you have worked in the service industry but that is the shittiest thing a server can face (not mentioning the fact that Wai was literally held at gunpoint in Ep. 9). Wai is POWERLESS in that situation because it’s his workplace and he needs the job.

That brings me to the next point. Out of all the characters whose stories we see, Wai is the only one that needs a job to support himself. The show has set up multiple times that Wai is not from as well-off a family as Pat, Pa, or Pran. He NEEDS this job. It’s also why he needs Pran’s help with the play. I can see how the scene where he convinces Pran to take the job comes off as manipulative, but looking at it deeper, it’s more desperate than anything. Imagine working a shitty job, on top of keeping up with schoolwork, on top of going through rigorous rugby training which you cannot get out of because you NEED the scholarship to get you through school, on top of working on the sound design for a play. He’s way in over his head and it is not wrong of him to ask his friend, someone who does not need to do any of that, to help share his load. I can’t phrase it well but I also believe in the theories people put forth proposing that Wai saw Pran behaving weirdly on the beach trip, maybe like he did when they first met, and decided this was a way to get him back in touch with music, something that makes him happy.

Circling back to the behavior that the EG showed in the bar, none of them have ever apologized to Wai for it. Neither have they shown any remorse for trying to gang up on him and beating him up. This is where the hypocrisy comes in. I see no one asking for Korn or Pat to apologize for their actions. And that’s FINE because it was a part of the story and we have moved on from it. As should be the case with Wai. Korn is a good ally but being an ally doesn’t automatically absolve him of his sins. He’s suddenly everyone’s “best boy” despite being violent and disrespectful before. AND I GET IT. He’s a multidimensional character too and I love him but if you’re going to extend that courtesy to him, extend it to Wai too.

Last but not least, Wai’s actions are not justified, but his anger is. As viewers, we see Pat as he is with Pran and his friends. Fun, kind, communicative, so on and so forth. He’s a walking green flag for us! Rightfully so, too! But none of this happens in front of Wai. Wai does not see Pat as a kind person. Wai remembers Pat as someone who ganged up on him, as someone who sat by and watched as his friends harassed him at his workplace and recorded it. To Wai, Pat is a bully, simply put.

Now I would like you to imagine your BEST FRIEND dating someone like that. Dating someone who has been physically aggressive towards you (without apologizing) and whose friends have harassed you at your workplace (again, without any apologies) and keeping it a complete secret. You would be mad too!!

Pat has done nothing to redeem himself in Wai’s eyes and neither have the EG. Until now. It makes perfect sense that Wai only opens up to him after he steps up for him in the bar. In the bar, Wai is still powerless as a server but Pat has the ability, as a patron, to look out for him, and HE DOES. This is what redeems HIM in Wai’s eyes. This is what Wai needed to see.

I think Wai still needs to apologize to Pran. But I also think Pran’s apology was needed. I don’t get people who say that Wai is making this relationship about himself. He’s looking out for HIMSELF. Pat HAS hurt him in the past. Once again, in his eyes, without seeing the story that we have, it seems like his BEST FRIEND is dating someone who BULLIED HIM in a place where he couldn’t even fully defend himself. You would be lying if you think this wouldn’t anger you too.

P.S. – While I conceptually do not agree with the outing, I can see why it wasn’t made a big deal out of. Homophobia and PatPran’s sexuality has little to do with the main plot of the show. The conflict of the show isn’t centered around their sexuality but the conflict between their families and their faculties. Of course, this cannot be extended to the real world, but, for me, this is believable in a fictional world. Even with the thing with Korn going with the flow of the seniors outcasting Pran, it’s never about the gender of who he’s dating but their faculty.

P.P.S – I love Pat and Korn with my whole heart but their examples had to be used for this, please forgive me hehehehe.

P.P.P.S – I think anyone working in retail or service industries should be allowed to commit any crime they want. It’s the least they deserve.

[khaotic-kitsunes]

Excuse you?! How dare, how fucking dare!

All of your requests are official, officially amazing and on an ‘immediately write this’ sort of schedule! Buttt on a serious note, wow it’s weird as hell seeing you in my actual askbox instead of my messages! I ALSO had to make a god damn header image for this too because I’m committed at this stage, which is a part of the reason why this took so long to post...the other part is I’m a procrastinating lil’ shit hahahah

As always, hope you enjoy this @himawari-senpaii​

May the angst be with you~

🥃 AO3 🥃 || ✉️My Askbox✉️ || 💬Discord💬

Cheeky Kitsune 🦊💋

.

Fatgum / Taishiro Toyomitsu

 .

🍡 It was over nothing. Something small and insignificant, but strangely neither of you could drop the argument. Instead of walking away to simmer off and apologise later, you kept disagreeing; you kept pushing.

🍡 Right up until Taishiro slammed his hands down onto the kitchen table that stood between the both of you, the sudden and terrifyingly loud noise silencing you in an instant.

🍡 Taishiro had been silenced by something else though. His argument had died off when he saw the way you jumped in response, nearly tripping over yourself to step away from him. To put distance between the two of you.

🍡 He could see the panic in your eyes, the fear.

🍡 No noise was made as Taishiro closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to calm himself of the stupidly unneeded anger that had been bubbling up inside of him; willing it to disappear until he was calm enough to right the fear reflecting in your eyes.

🍡 Despite being such a large man, standing at a full 8’2” inches tall, he was good at approaching frightened people. It came with the job.

🍡 And so, when he knew he would have the patience to help you, he opened his eyes and moved to approach. Slowly, with movements you could both see and understand; reaching out towards you with his palm facing up. Not quite daring to touch you until he knew you would be comfortable with it.

🍡 “Baby doll, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare ya…c’mere…you know I won’t ever hurt ya” – He spoke softly, the sort of tone someone would use for a lost or injured animal; the kind of voice that made you want to run into his warm embrace.

 .

 .

Lemillion / Mirio Togata

 .

🥞 Mirio rarely gets upset when he isn’t working as a pro-hero and even then, it’s an unusual sight; villains are the only ones that get to see his enraged moments.

🥞 Which is what threw you off most when you were arguing with the blonde bombshell of a man; it was over something silly. Unimportant. But in no time at all, it had turned into angry remarks and hurt feelings.

🥞 Shouting followed soon after. That’s when you had thrown in the towel, deciding it was better to leave the conversation for a time when Mirio wasn’t so wound up; but when you tried to leave the room, he had grabbed a hold of your arm.

🥞 While it hadn’t been enough to hurt you, it was enough to startle you into knocking over a nearby object. Though you had no idea what it was until you heard it; the shattering sound of your dearly loved vase. The one with sunflowers that Mirio had brought you as a present for your first anniversary with him.

🥞 Mirio had gone silent at the way you recoiled from the sudden noise, his grip on you disappearing and allowing you to flee the room before you had enough time to process what had happened.

🥞 It had taken Mirio longer than he wanted to admit before he went to check on you, he had actually left the shared home for a few hours; long enough for you to tidy up the broken vase.

🥞 When he found you in the house, you were sitting quietly in the kitchen with some glue and red stained fingertips; trying your best to fix the old anniversary gift with little to no luck and a lot of accidents.

🥞 “…(Name)…? I’m…I’m sorry about earlier, scaring you like that…” – Mirio’s voice was barely above a whisper as he approached the kitchen table, gently setting down a rather large brown bag before moving to kiss the top of your head despite the way you ignored his presence.

🥞 You hadn’t had plans to forgive him yet, the present had meant a lot to you and now that it was broken; you were left feeling strange. Upset. Confused and unsure as to what was going to happen next.

🥞 But that changed the moment Mirio removed the contents of the brown bag he had brought in, a replica of the broken vase now sitting safely in the middle of the kitchen table.

🥞 An apology given without needing to be asked for. It was all you needed to know that he really did care about you, that he hadn’t meant for things to get so out of hand earlier in the day.

 .

 .

Suneater / Tamaki Amajiki

 .

🐙 For Tamaki, loud arguments with you was something that never happened; he was too anxious for such things on a normal day. However, weeks of late nights and early mornings left you in bed without him most of the time and it was beginning to eat away at the both of you.

🐙 He had gotten home around lunch time for the first time in a long time and his mood wasn’t the best, then again, yours wasn’t much better. Especially when he announced that he had asked for the rest of the day off to come home.

🐙 That’s what had started it. You were hurt by the simple statement, not having realised that he could request to come home earlier than he was asked to; but what hurt most was how uncaring Tamaki seemed to be when you voiced such complaints to him.

🐙 It only took a few minutes before Tamaki was arguing back with you, his words short and sharp; the complete opposite to the usual Tamaki you loved. The Tamaki that was warm and gentle with you, the Tamaki that always seemed to be able to split up his time between work and home just right.

🐙 You had actually flinched away from him when he raised his voice, the loud command for you to shut up completely silencing you and while that was exactly what he had been after; you could see how horrified he was at himself for actually shouting at you.

🐙 It was an alarming change in pace for the two of you and when Tamaki reached out for you, his mouth opening to let out an apology you could see written all over his features.

🐙 You ran.

🐙 You left the house and in doing so, you also left behind your keys and phone by mistake; giving Tamaki no way of contacting you. Which destroyed him.

🐙 It was hours before you were found again and even then, Fatgum had been the one to find you; having been searching along with Tamaki and Eijiro. Though they had split up to cover more ground.

🐙 Once you had been checked for injuries, Fatgum took you back to his office with a casual conversation about how hectic things had been over the past few weeks and how grateful he was for Tamaki’s help.

🐙 A conversation you weren’t so keen to have, but one you ended up being grateful for. Giving out information that you hadn’t been aware of, leaving you feeling more than a little ashamed at how selfish you had been to be angry at Tamaki for not asking to come home early sooner.

🐙 He had been flat out helping Fatgum and doing his best to come home to you each day.

🐙 By the time Tamaki had returned to Fatgum’s office after getting the call that you were safe and sound, you were practically in tears and apologising to him relentlessly while he held you close. Mumbling about how happy he was that you were safe, his own apologies for shouting almost burying your own.

🐙 The goodbye to Fatgum and Eijiro was awkward, they had heard everything through the walls and were trying their best not to let you know that they had heard while you thanked them for searching for you.

🐙 With the stressful events of the day over with, you finally got to go to bed with Tamaki; safely snuggled up against his side, enjoying his loving embrace and soft mumbles of affection.

[potteresque-ire]

This post is Part 5 of the five-part meta series on the Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) Incident, based on what has transpired up to 2021/08/22.

1) The 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) & the Yasukuni Shrine 2) Post-War Sino-Japanese Relations; “Every Chinese should visit the Yasukuni Shrine” 3) The Summer of 2021: The Brewing Storms for One 4) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part A 5) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part B

5) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part B

As a highlight to the mob nature leading to Zhang’s downfall, please consider the timeline immediately before and after Zhang’s losing his endorsements on August 13th (or, why August 13th really mattered):

August 12th, evening: Zhang’s 2019 attendance of a wedding at the Nogi Shrine (乃木神社) went on Weibo hot search, and into public awareness. The Nogi Shrine (乃木神社) is of far less fame than the Yasukuni Shrine, but was named after a Japanese general of the Imperialist Japanese Army who was also the governor-general of then colonial Taiwan.

August 13th, ~ 2 am: netizens uncovered photos of Zhang’s 2018 visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which were spread onto Weibo and made the hot search.

August 13th, 1:39 pm: Zhang posted his first letter of apology that began with: “Today, I’m ashamed of my once ignorant self, and furthermore, wants to apologise deeply for my past inappropriate behaviour.” (今天我為曾經無知的自己而羞愧，更要對之前不當行為深刻地道歉。)

August 13th, 2 pm: Nabuo Kishi, Japan’s current Minister of Defence, and a right-wing member of the House of Representative, Yasutoshi Nishimura, made an un-announced visit to the Yasukuni Shrine. The date was 2 days earlier than the 76th anniversary of Emperor Hirohito’s surrender speech (August 15th), as customary for Japanese officials to avoid visiting the shrine on significant anniversary dates of the war.

August 13th, 4:39 pm: People’s Daily (人民日報) published an online critique of Zhang’s apology. “… As a public figure, to be so lacking in historical knowledge, so unfeeling towards the suffering of the nation, it’s too inappropriate. On matters of righteousness of the nation, testing is not permissible, challenges are definitely not permissible. If knowingly committed, one would pay a heavy price.”  (。。。身為公眾人物，對歷史常識如此匱乏，對民族苦難渾然不覺，太不應該。事關民族大義，不容任何試探，更不容有任何挑戰。若明知故犯，就得付出沈重代價。)

August 13th, 5:05 pm: CCTV News (央視新聞) posted the video of Nabuo Kishi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.

August 13th, 5:33: Zhang was dropped from his first endorsement. He would be dropped by all 27 of them within the next 5 hours.

August 13th, 5:35 pm: Zhang responded to People’s Daily’s critique piece, stating he shall repent and learn his lesson, and that as a Chinese, he loves his country and the CCP.

August 13th, ~6 pm: S. Korean news reported that the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs had summoned the Japanese ambassador in Korea to protest the visit of the Japanese Defence Minister to the Yasukuni Shrine.

August 13th, 6:26 pm: CCTV News (央視新聞) critiqued Zhang’s apology. “Whether to take photos in front of the Yasukuni Shrine, or to attend a wedding at the Nogi Shrine, Zhang Zhehan touched the wounds of history, hurt the feelings of the nation. It cannot be blamed on “once ignorance.” Just now, a Japanese Minister went to the Yasukuni Shrine for “demon worshipping” (Pie note: demon, from guizi 鬼子), China firmly opposes to this wrongdoing of Japanese high officials…” (無論在靖國神社前合影，還是到乃木神社參加婚禮，張哲瀚都觸碰了歷史傷痕，傷害了民族感情，不能簡單歸咎為「曾經無知」。就在剛剛，有日本大臣到靖國神社「拜鬼」，中方堅決反對日本政要這種錯誤做法。。。)

August 13th, 9 pm: China’s Ministry of National Defence answered press questions regarding the Yasukuni Shrine visit by Nabuo Kishi and Yasutoshi Nishimura.

Not only did Zhang’s incident happened in August, 2021, it happened on pretty much the worst day for him in August, 2021; the latest of his incident interleaved the unfolding news of the Japanese high officials’ visit to the Yasukuni Shrine.

What I’d like to call attention to, however, is this: Zhang’s endorsements didn’t begin dropping until *after* People’s Daily criticism.

If the companies had been genuinely offended by Zhang’s action, why was the wait necessary? If their Chinese feelings were genuinely hurt, why hadn’t they moved earlier, in the morning of August 13th, when Zhang’s visit went on hot search? Were these companies also ignorant about history, the significance of the the Yasukuni Shrine? The Chinese government has far more important things to worry about than an idol, but what about these companies that had paid good money for their spokesperson? That watch the public opinion, the market carefully?

Even if they didn’t care about the war themselves, why hadn’t they dropped Zhang based on the expected public opinion? What does that say about what these market experts believed, or knew about the public opinion? What does that say about their assessment of whether their potential customers would, as their actual selves, stop spending money on their products because of Zhang’s Yasukuni Shrine visit?

Were the act of dropping Zhang, then, more an act of performative patriotism than anything else? Once the first company started, the rest raced to follow for fear of being the slowest one, viewed as the least patriotic one. Hence, the 5-hour storm of endorsements abandoning Zhang. This herd ... mob behaviour, in which actions were either not taken or all taken at the same time, was also observed in the timing of different online platforms removing Zhang’s works, and fandom content with his name.

A “bingo card” for netizens to cross out Zhang’s endorsements as the sequential drops happened. Similar cards for Kris Wu had circulated in July. 

Were WoH and Zhang’s other group projects removed because Zhang was unpatriotic, or was it because the online platforms (and the tech giants behind them) were trying to protect themselves? Youku explained WoH’s first-time removal as a technical glitch but then, as reports of other platforms removing Zhang’s content poured in, the series was removed again.  

How much is real when it comes to the thunderous online declarations of love and betrayal against China? 

Related to this: turtles may remember the Xinjiang cotton incident in March, 2021, how Chinese netizens harassed anyone who used, endorsed Nike. One may assume, with that outcry, that rage, that anyone with a reputation to keep, with ties to the Chinese state, in particular, have severed their ties with the brand.

As it turns out, the teams of the Chinese Super (Football) League, for example, have kept their Nike kits. The Chinese Football Association (CFA), which, despite being officially non-governmental and nonprofit, is managed by the State General Administration of Sports (國家體育總局), issued a statement on March 27th on Weibo that only criticised Nike’s “wrong actions in choosing its cotton source” (對耐克公司在棉花原料選擇上的錯誤行徑表達了譴責), and reserved “its right to further deal with  contract with Nike” (保留進一步處理同耐克合同的權力). It never cut off the contract with Nike: a 10-year sponsorship,  signed in 2018, which amounts to 3 million RMB (463,000 USD) in funds from Nike for each football club every year. The CFA statement was later removed from Weibo. Photos of the football players have simply had the Nike Swoosh covered up, or photoshopped away. 

Photos from the Shanghai Shenhua football club, with and without the swoosh (Source).

Life is practical in China … and darkly humorous, at times. As a Mao-founded regime should be, perhaps.

I got Asks wondering then: will our non-Zhang-related favourite stars and CPs, dramas and fandoms get affected by the incident?

At the moment, my guess leans towards a no. My basis is this: in the critique piece against Zhang, published on 2021/08/16, by 中纪委 Central Commission for Discipline Inspection—the CCDI, by the way, is the highest anti-corruption, rules and regulations body in China—I believe the reason Zhang was disciplined was clearly stated:

對於所有「拜鬼」行為，中國都堅決反對。但如果我們國內的公眾人物去靖國神社都不被譴責和追究，我們又怎麼挺直腰桿要求外國人不去呢？

“Regarding all “demon worship” behaviour, China holds firm oppositions. But if our own public figures going to the Yasukuni Shrine get no reprimands, no investigations of responsibility, how can we straighten our backs and demand foreigners to not go?”

This has led me to think the state has no ulterior motives in targeting Zhang: Zhang’s “sin” was limited to his visiting the Yasukuni Shrine as a well-known, public figure, and/but that was enough. And the punishment had to be given in a heavy-handed, high profile manner, given the “news “of Zhang’s visit broke out on August 13, 2021. The following observation may be my being over-sensitive, but in the timeline above, Zhang was reprimanded, and his first round of the punishment in full swing (dropping of endorsements), before the China’s Ministry of National Defence talked to the press, which happened later than it had to be (compare the timing with S. Korea’s). Short of removing Zhang’s hot searches—which netizens would’ve noticed—this ordering of events was necessary; otherwise, the Chinese government issuing a formal complaint against Japan for their Minister of Defence’s visit to the shrine would’ve co-existed on the hot search with the report of China’s own celebrity visiting the same place. I therefore believe the state’s reaction had nothing to do with how Zhang achieved his fame, the past and present projects he was involved in, the CPs he was coupled with. Other state agencies and media would likely be careful about not attaching these topics to Zhang’s case as well, so not to distract from the central message of the government that … the Japanese are very bad people in the summer of 2021.

(Whether they’ll attach them to the Clear and Bright campaign is another matter.) 

Another Ask ~ Will Zhang be able to make a comeback? In five years? Ten?

Looking that far ahead is difficult, but one thing has to happen for Zhang to return—the Japanese have to stop being very bad people according to the Chinese government, which isn’t likely to happen soon. The Japanese government has shown few signs that they shall soon revise their attitudes towards their World War II history  (Yasutoshi Nishimura, who went to the Shrine with Japan’s Minister of Defence on August 13th, is associated with a historical revisionist group), while China’s escalating military aggression in the Indo-Pacific region will be seen as a growing threat to Japan, likely push the country towards the right. 

And 5, 10 years later, Zhang will be 35, 40 years old. Even if he’ll be able to work in the industry again, it’ll be difficult for him to achieve the fame he has before. Also, just because the government no longer bans him doesn’t mean production companies will be willing to hire him; he’ll be considered high risk—policies of China are volatile, after all, and the decision to un-ban can be easily reversed.

(I’m so sorry, Anon, I wish I have a better answer for you.)

And... here’s a thought I’ll finally end this meta series with. I don’t see Zhang as the only loser in this incident. I don’t really see any winners in this incident at all. An industry is dangerous for its every worker if its narrative, its list of guilty is penned by cyber mobs and in the name of patriotism; if the accused cannot speak for themselves, aren’t allowed to grow; if its rules of appropriate conduct are every-changing (The Reporter in 2017 = OK; Zhang in 2018 = Not OK); if its workers are penalised not by their own deeds but their associations (the rest of the cast and production team of WoH and other Zhang-associated projects).

The think tank for the National Ratio and Television Authority (國家廣播電視總局; NRTA, ie, the Chinese visual media censorship board), in their criticism piece about Zhang, hinted at even rougher waters ahead, in light of Zhang’s (and Kris Wu’s) transgressions:

明星頻頻「犯事」，說到底還是行業內對明星藝德約束不夠嚴格。據瞭解，電影行業正在籌備全國電影界道德委員會，將對電影從業人員道德規範提出更高要求，並提出，要將明星藝德納入法治化的軌道中來，給明星藝德約束加一道法規之鎖，明確明星的責任和義務，將明星的個人行為與職業利益掛鈎。 “The ultimate cause of stars “getting into trouble” frequently is that the industry has not tied a sufficiently severe bind on the stars’ artistic virtue (Pie note: roughly, = professional ethics). Based on reports, the film industry is preparing a National Film Industry Morality Committee that shall raise the moral requirements for film industry workers. The industry has also suggested that the stars’ artistic virtue shall eventually be governed by laws, to add a lock of legality to the bind of artistic virtues for the stars, to make clear the stars’ responsibilities and obligations, to couple a star’s personal behaviour with their professional (monetary) gains.”

My interpretation of this: should the suggestions become reality, it shall be written in future film contracts that a star who commits an act that the state considers immoral will have to pay the investors the production cost of their projects, and possibly, the projected profit. 

To put some dollar signs to this interpretation: a high-profile star may work on one or more projects with a price tag in the order of 100 million RMB (~15 million USD); box office, merchandise sells, and long term profits expected from online streaming can raise that number by several fold. This is a sum that even the most affluent stars will have a difficult time affording—and that’s before considering the endorsements, for which current contracts already require the stars to pay the damages.

The key word here is that the offending act only has to be considered immoral, not criminal. Immoral acts range from not liking the CCP enough—an easy-to-understand offence—to deviation from the society’s 公序良俗 (“public order and fine customs”), which includes just about anything that disagrees with the state-defined mainstream values.

Stars are stars because they invite the imaginations of their audience, because they break boundaries: from the seemingly insurmountable humdrum of daily life, to something that can be much, much more.

Stars should, of course, be law-abiding; they should be patriotic. But a star who’s mainstream in every way? Are they still a star, something we regular people wonder about, dream upon?

Bind and lock, the NRTA think tank referred to these suggestions. It reminders me of a quote by the famous Chinese director, Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛), who, in 2014, complained to BBC—perhaps in a slip of tongue—that Chinese directors could be like “dancing with fetters” (戴著腳鐐去跳舞) when working with the country’s censorship system.

Yeah. It’s kinda like that.

===

The Zhang Zhehan Incident Meta Series:

PART 1  PART 2 PART 3 PART 4 PART 5 <- YOU ARE HERE