#and he addresses this topic like it's a fucking debate too

[apollos-olives]

i'm tired of being treated like my existence is a debate

[words-after-midnight]

I enjoyed your question so much it made me curious so I'm throwing it back to you: what in your WIP would start internet debates if published?

Haha. Can you tell that question was inspired by how I think about this all the time regarding my own WIPs? 😅 Well, two of them in particular, namely Life in Black and White and The Dotted Line.

For Life in Black and White:

The ending and core message will almost certainly be very controversial if the book gets any kind of traction, even just based on the response I've seen to previous books that addressed similar themes and topics. I've tried my best for years to make it come across as intended, but of course, there's only so much I can do. There will be people who will "get it," and people who wildly misinterpret it or approach it with too little nuance (ironic, given that "approaching fundamentally nuanced things without nuance can be dangerous, harmful, and have far-reaching complications" is, like, the core "point" of the story, but I won't get into specifics beyond that because of spoilers).

This story explicitly portrays actual codependency, not the romanticized (and incorrect) version fandom loves to tack onto every mutually obsessive ship. The central dynamic is an ill-defined, intense, and abusive relationship between one person who adopts a permanent caretaker role with regard to the other person, who frequently engages in reckless and unsafe behavior to an extent that is both self-destructive and destructive more generally. The caretaker character has good intentions (you know what they say about those!), but basically loses his entire identity and sense of self in his misguided attempts to care for (read: control) the other character, who does whatever the fuck he wants and is about as "tameable" as a wild dragon. This dynamic is fundamentally cyclical and is only broken when they are separate. If you know anything about libaw, you've probably figured out who I'm talking about. I can only imagine the sheer discourse about their Problematic and Toxic relationship if ever this sees the light of day. I call them trainwreck for a reason!

By the way, that character who allegedly needs to be cared for and protected because, left to his own devices, he just can't help being a living tornado? Yeah, that guy? Main antagonist of the story. Callous, vile, wickedly manipulative, would 100% be either sexualized to hell and back or called "bad queer representation" (among other things) on Tumblr. He is not any of the endearing, hilarious, and/or harmless-looking masks he wears in daily life. He's said and done some absolutely heinous shit. Unfortunately for everyone, the aforementioned caretaker character is WILDLY obsessed with him and thinks he's in love with him. None of these intense romantic feelings are remotely returned, which I expect some readers to understand, while I feel like others will think that there is some particular "special affection" there that Jeff holds for Gabriel and that he just can't express in a "typical" way (I might as well name them, you all know who I'm talking about here), because that's usually how these types of dynamics are written (ie. the "unfeeling" character having one or two close people in their lives they have some genuine affection for).

The exact nature of Jeff's affective disposition will be argued about to shit and probably called "bad representation of neurodivergent people" because he's not a good person - regardless of anything else about him - and displays some aggressive/violent/otherwise unpalatable behavior. He will almost certainly be assumed to be neurodivergent in some way, because it's extremely obvious, but this is why I've never specifically defined or labelled it. I know what he would be labelled as (eg. in a correctional or psychiatric setting), and that's partially what I based my character research on, but I also think labels are just that. They're not an immutable, core aspect of someone, and they're often disputed and debatable. Nuance, right?

I've alluded to this before in previous ask responses, but Jeff experiences a traumatic incident at one point in the story. You see part of his response (which is atypical and not prime-time drama approved), but it's filtered through Gabriel, who is having an overblown vicarious trauma response to this event and handles it extremely poorly, which includes basically making it all about him, because this ridiculous fucking man cannot separate his identity from Jeff to save his damn life (jfc I'm getting heated, lmao). For some people, this will all be completely fine because Jeff is a terrible person, right? Pretty classic Asshole Victim trope going on here. Again, absolutely none of this will pass the social media vibe check.

Speaking of atypical trauma responses: there are several in this story, and I expect to get flack for "unrealistic" or "irresponsible" portrayals of trauma. As in, I have literally seen takes online calling a trauma response I've written an "irresponsible portrayal" in other media, when in fact said response is quite common, just not commonly portrayed. The thing is: if there's one thing I've done in fifteen years of working on this story, it's my fucking research. In some cases I'm also drawing from my own experiences. Most of my characters are trauma survivors to some degree, but I tailor their responses to their characterization. For example: Gabriel lost his mother shortly prior to the beginning of the story, but almost never talks about her or her death, which some may interpret as him being "unaffected" by the loss. Actually, though, Gabriel's grieving process with his mother is functionally identical to mine when my dad passed away at a similar age.

Last but not least (though I'm sure I'm forgetting things): several characters, including Gabriel, have diagnosed mental illnesses, and I don't beat around the bush when it comes to describing the "ugly" symptoms.

For The Dotted Line:

My joking answer is "the whole thing." Like, not literally, but overall it's worse than Life in Black and White when it comes to heavy and controversial.

We've got a realistic American state prison setting in the mid- to late aughts.

We've got a first person narrator with low emotional tone - think A Clockwork Orange. His narrative is like this piece (which is also narrated by him).

We've got a bona fide villain protagonist who is also an incredibly complex character. I try to make you feel conflicted about him on multiple occasions, which I'm sure will go over very well in the world of online discourse.

Not only do we have atypical trauma responses and just mountains of horrific shit that becomes almost mundane given that, again, it's a prison, we get to have all of this filtered by the internal monologue of a guy who lives by his own warped sense of morality, is in warzone mode 24/7, and believes that we live in a world of predators and prey and that "if you play with sharks you can't get all upset about being bitten." Lovely, huh? Can't wait to see how the world wide web dissects this man's behavior and life experiences.

WOW THIS GOT SO LONG AND I'M SORRY, but I'm also not sorry, because this is stuff I think about a lot and it was kind of cathartic to write it out lol.

[moonsuke]

shinsekai yori ending thoughts

As I said, I thought the ending is pretty anticlimactic. While watching the entire series, I didn't really focus too much on its plot even if yes, it deals with interesting topics like (philosophy of) ethics, human rights, politics, psychology, racism etc. All "deeper" and more complex topics than what most animes deal with, and I would say it does dive quite deep into them too. For anime standards at least. The reason why I didn't mull over them is because despite that, its still an anime, such topics will still end up being "touch and go" and more shallow than reading a novel or having an actual discussion about it. It's hard for shows to cover such topics (and so many at that at the same time) but not come across as having a "shallow" take overall. Unless its really well fleshed out over multiple seasons.

And the last episode is where a lot of our plot gets wrapped up, yet there's still so many things unaddressed it feels unsatisfying... We're stuck with the utterly fucked up reveals that're a consequence of whatever topics and arguments this series tries to discuss but since nothing's satisfactorily addressed, it essentially just means these topics aren't successfully covered. And that's why I said it's hard not to feel its a "shallow" take on all these more complex topics after all.

But also maybe, it's intentional. It's left unaddressed so we can reflect back on the state of our society and how many of such issues aren't tackled either. I would love if this is the creator's intention lol, would need to check out the novel for that. I'm sure novels can cover such topics more comprehensively, and it could be the anime just didn't adapt it satisfactory enough?

The most obvious theme is of course what Squealer stood for. Queerats have been seen as sub-humans and used as slaves by humans (or Cantus users) for centuries, why is it wrong for them to rebel and gain equal rights? While I sorta support him, I really can't say I'm a fan of Squealer. I cannot forgive him for lobotomizing the Queens and subjecting them to being broodmares, even if its for the sake of his fight for human rights. The series did a whole ethical debate over it which concluded with "we do not judge animals via human morals" which is so unsatisfying. As for his fight for equal rights, we have Saki as the only human questioning this, yet because of her (utterly frustrating) passive nature, it amounts to nothing! She gets emotional about it, debates with Satoru over it for a bit but eventually everything goes back to status quo. She kept her promise to Kiroumaru to preserve his queerat colony, and many other colonies, but that's it? Are the humans still lording over the queerats? Or will humans stop acting as the "overlords" and interfere with queerats politics (by eliminating their colonies) if they see the need to?

We also see Saki showing compassion for Squealer's fucked up demise, but why was it never explicitly portrayed that Squealer wasn't entirely at fault? We see him getting punished by the humans for killing so many of their kind yet we don't see the humans reflecting on their own actions. We see him right up to his last breath shout "We're humans!" as the humans laughed at him yet he eventually got sentenced to an eternity of neural torture until he's reduced to a lump of squirming, formless, meat blob... His suffering only ends when Saki (out of the kindness of her heart!!!!!) decided to sneak into the museum where he's still kept squirming in pain on display (wtf?) and set him on fire. Saki never argued for him, even with Satoru. I suppose that is part of her character, to enact change within the system in a slow and peaceful way... but it's still frustrating. At least show her arguing the ethics of it with Satoru rather than her just crying and questioning "is revenge worth it?" No! The point isn't even about revenge! It's about whether the humans realized the role they played in subjugating the queerats till the point they're to resort to extreme measures to fight for their rights!!!!!

This is another thing that's frustrating about our main characters. Satoru, while being very cool, dependable, intelligent, strategic and tactical, doesn't really question things deeper. Saki does but she doesn't do much with it. The only other character who consistently questioned was SHUN. He (or rather a fragment of his soul) was the one who kept leading Saki to question things around her which is so... cheap? Saki was written way better before Shun died. She was very perceptive and intuitive like Shun. It's almost like the two of them are the only ones who notice the deeper, underlying nature of things and thus share a connection. But ever since Shun died and his soul is engraved in her heart, all her intuition is now attributed to him? There's another "fan theory" that this "Shun" is actually just Saki's subconscious manifestation, her own voice of reason and perception personalized as Shun. But from how the anime portrays it, it doesn't seem the case. I'll have to read the novel to see if it's clearer there... And it's not just her intuition. Her deductive and observation abilities took a hit too? Everything needs to be spelled out for her when before she would be the one putting pieces together on par with Satoru!

Saki does have another supposed strength though, her high personality index score, which basically just means she's very emotionally stable, resilient and stoic. Very suitable to be a leader to the village as she can endure everything and make tough decisions. I suppose her more "passive" nature adds on to this but I don't know if I'm just justifying bad writing or if it's really intentional. Don't make rash decisions even if what you see before you hurts you, or even if you think it's wrong. Stand back and change things for the long term and from within so that there's effective changes. I guess this trait is pretty consistent especially after learning from Tomiko she wants her as her successor. And despite learning the village is going to kill Mamoru, she still willingly went back to it (but she still lied to them about Mamoru's and Maria's whereabouts). She's the kind who would work within the system rather than push for radical change is what I'm saying.

But anyway back to Shun, he had the sense at 8yo to immediately ask "what happened to the humans who did not have Cantus powers?" after learning restricted knowledge of human history. I bet the series just killed him off or he would be too OP otherwise. Not just because killing off the smartest, kindest one and then bringing him back in the future as some supernatural entity would mean dropping 2 emotional nuclear bombs on us, but also him being alive would have him interfering with every plot point. Saki and Satoru would still be in love with him and never gotten together. He would be smart enough to figure out what the fuck is going on. He would be the voice of morality to finally realize and stop what's going on with the queerats.

So in the final episode, we were reminded that Shun was the one who first asked "what exactly happened to the humans who did not have Cantus powers?" And we got our fucking fucked up reveal that they got mutated so much with naked mole rat DNA they became the queerats :))) A reveal I apparently had some nightmare over lol.

Again, this was only discussed between Satoru and Saki but that's it, a few panels of them looking shocked. I do like what the implication is though. Despite Saki being upset after finding out Cantus users did this to non-Cantus users to maintain their superiority (because mutated non-Cantus now don't look human enough to trigger any death feedback), and that queerats really are humans, deep down she doesn't recognize them as the same kind (human). She can kill Squealer (put him out of his misery) without experiencing the death feedback which proves that. This is the only plot point which I feel sufficiently showed that our characters' reactions are MEANT to reflect our inner biases. It's not just simply touched upon and not addressed, it's meant to show us our flaws, how we can dehumanize another group just because they look very different from us despite seeing their intelligence and "humanity".

Politics-wise it's also resolved in a shallow manner, but more satisfying than whatever I was ranting about. Before this, their society was very controlled and restricted when it comes to information, free-will, and Cantus usage, with hypnosis routinely done on their children to keep them mentally stable and sheltered. Children are also not viewed as humans until 18 so that they can be killed at the first signs of instability by tainted cats (bred killing machines). All these extreme measures are because children are the most susceptible to become fiends or karma demons which can wipe away the entire population since normal Cantus users would be defenseless against them. But at the end, we see Satoru raising tainted cats like pets rather than killing machines, we see the schools' motto changed to "the power of imagination is what changes everything" to signify children are being thought to use their Cantus freely and that it's not something to be feared. Saki's novel also ends with "an object of fear (children/uncontrolled Cantus) changes to one of hope' which adds on to that line of thought. I guess it makes sense that raising children to fear their powers and what's outside the "Holy Barrier", and to keep information from them until they're adults, would create even more mental instability than if taught to them properly since young. I like this conclusion even though I did think some of the extreme methods were justified when I was at the earlier episode lol.

And speaking of karma demons and fiends, I guess this more "psychological" part of the show was my favorite, and not just because Shun was heavily featured lol. I really like the concept that since humans are taught to fear their powers and what's beyond the "Holy Barrier" protecting their village, the natural leakage of their subconscious and thus Cantus, would be directed outside the village. And this caused all sorts of mutations and evolution in the outside wildlife. I wonder if this still happens in the "New World".

I also really liked Shun's explanations on how Cantus defies the "subconscious to conscious transition" before an action is actively taken "rule". So the conscious "control" of Cantus is actually an illusion, it gets called upon on the subconscious level. I just like how this series brought in this psychological/philosophical concept of whether we choose to do something, or we realize our subconscious decided to do something. And since Cantus is called upon through imagery of the subconscious, it can even be seen like a part of your "soul" or "being" that's why a part of Shun's soul got embedded in Saki's heart as she was present when his Cantus went entirely out of control and killed him. It was animated so symbolically too. When he died in the explosion, Saki saw a vision of a masked entity floating towards her and she embraced "it"...

I think I talked enough about the characters interpersonal dynamics especially Shun's lol. I still think he's the most well-written (of the main 5) and I like the role he plays in the series as the sage and lover (to both Saki and Satoru) archetypes lol. I don't like the way Satoru's written as in we don't see enough of his thoughts and reactions outside of being the "logical" one between him and Saki. I wish his reaction to Shun is better explored (which I hope the novel does). I actually don't dislike Saki and Satoru getting together. They only have each other left, and after so many trials and tribulations together, its natural to want to stick together, have each others' back, seek comfort in the other, and even fall in love. I wished we could have seen the Shun entity convincing Saki to stay with Satoru though, and him appearing in front of Satoru too. Apparently this happens in the novel? I wonder why they cut it out, it would have been a great scene, especially since Satoru deserves some closure regarding Shun too. The anime neglects Satoru so much its just sad.

And I've seen that apparently Saki regards Maria as her "soul mate" in the novel, yet I never got that impression unless it doesn't mean "romantic soulmate". Again, maybe I need to read the novel. Another thing I do like about this series is the lack of focus on overt, romantic, almost infatuation-like "one true love". There're many people you can love, your first love, your soulmate, the one whom you end up marrying. They can all be different and you can love them differently but not lesser. Life happens, situations change, and thus feelings evolve.

[upondeafears]

Reconnected. More lies. Disconnected.

Poorly written note to self. Your hand feels like it's on fire but you wrote this because it matters. Do not ignore it. Do not forget the pain and how bad it was.

She chose to keep following the guy. Yo he must be a creator "my guy" and she chose that bum instead of you. She chose the circle. She never once cared about you over them. This has always been the case.

In the end she admitted that private chats happened between them. The fact she lied about that in the first place is insane. She hid 25 guys from you. You watched as she bought time delaying things acting like she had questions or was confused, while you watched those numbers drop. From 691 to 666. The sign right there. Then she removed another to get rid of the sign. One of them guys, the first to come back that you know of. More possibly as she was replacing unfollows with her guys. The one she hid and brought back was also in the dms. She conveniently deletes chats after she has them apparently. Nobody is dumb enough to believe that. So even in the end she tried to make you a mug and lie. She deletes them to hide them. But probably still has them like Dan's, just a safety net justification to delete them later and say they were always deleted, in case one day I ask her to prove it. Her plots are deep. She can't say it's the past don't question it. She can't say God is on her side on this.

She never earned trust and never respected you with truth. Remember that.

The last day we ever spoke, all she had to say was I choose you, not them. They can go. I want to keep you.

But be honest, with a chance that you might not live too long in a worst case, and the lifestyle might not be the same in a bad case, it's a decision she made for herself. She went with the bum instead. So you better get better because we are not letting these bums slide with this one. They will have to answer to you soon. We will have a chat. It won't be friendly. But it will put things in their place in real life. And never ever trust that liar again. No matter how much you love her to bits, no matter how much even right now you want to call her. So badly you were about to delete this and call her. Why? She chooses lies. She chooses other men. She is probably gonna be talking to them again tomorrow. You fucking idiot. Don't believe the bs about how you addressed the lies and the words you chose were so bad. She fucking lied. Over and over. Nothing was true. The final proof was today. Her choices and decisions to keep that guy ove you, she knew the risk of losing you. Even when you told her that's the decision, she didn't undollow him and say decision made. She chose him. So that final lie you were terrified of. It's real. The love was a lie. That's the moat important lie you learned of today. The love can be nothing but a lie, or she is more in love with someone else. There's no other way she made that decision. Don't you ever fucking forget. She took screenshots if your worst times and called it "content". And you took it. You fucking took that and stayed. When you proved you started the topic kindly, she denied it still. Even with proof. And that being the topic of the man she chose. And she ran when she realised the lies can't be contained. Highschool boy. Toxic. Liar. The things you are for asking questions. The liar is entitled but if you don't kneel and kiss the floor before you ask, you are the wrong one. It's not for charity. They just talk and debate mostly. It started with a lie that it was just charity. Truth is she just followed him and the others and wouldn't ever leave that. Not for you. Tiktok is her new tumblr.

She mocked your sorry like you were a bitch to say it. She mocked your pain and said man up, she mocked your exhausted body and mind thay doctors literally say they are moved by how positive and strong you are. Remarkable he said. Remarkable strength and recovery. But she told you stop feeling sorry for yourself. What else did you expect.

She is in love with love, it doesn't necessarily have to be you. Wake the fuck up and get on with your life. Recover. Get better. And live, don't just be alive. You have the means for such an amazing life. Fucking live! She did alll of this, in your lowest time or your life. God literally showed you over and over. You actually stayed so long she killed it off herself because you didn't have the sense to stay away despite the proof. Fuck love. Hers is fake and yours is delusional and covered by her lies, deceit and pure selfish betrayal.

Get better. Promise me you'll get better. You owe so much to the little boy you once were. You were always robbed of something. Do it for him now. There's no elders left that believe in you or fill those voids. You have to be him now. "Man up".

[mrsbsmooth]

The Suresh Problem.

If you’re here from that reddit petition, please be aware that this post was used without my consent.

Okay, I've received yet another four or five asks in my inbox about Suresh, so I'm just going to discuss this properly, once. I'm going to put the majority of this under the cut, because it specifically addresses very triggering topics for a lot of people.

TW: SA, DV.

TL:DR; you're all getting played by Fusebox, and they wrote Suresh to be an asshole on purpose.

I really appreciate that y'all are sending me these asks. Particularly as so many of them have mentioned that they feel that my blog is a safe space for POC. I cannot express how much that means to me. Thank you. I'm doing my best.

After this post, I will not answer, acknowledge, or in any way interact with any asks that compare Suresh to Harvey Weinstein, Andrew Tate, or any of the other real-life sexual predators & abusers he's been compared to, even if it's to defend him. While I appreciate y'all bringing it to my attention, it's just exacerbating it, and I'm not giving it a platform after this post.

I am not an expert in talking about race, nor am I an expert in writing POC. I'm not a POC, nor have I ever claimed to be. I just don't believe in putting discussions like this in the too-hard basket, and pretending they doesn't exist because it's a hard conversation to have. My willingness to have these discussions is not 'bandwagoning', or at least, it's not intended to be. I don't have the world's largest platform, but I have a small soapbox and I'm going to use it properly.

I'm also going to put a disclaimer here and say that this is only an opinion, and an uninformed one at that. I don't work for Fusebox, I don't have a degree in marketing or digital engagement, but I have done some work in User Experience and my degree's partly in Cultural Anthropology, so I know a little bit about human behaviour and the way we engage with online media.

Again, not an expert. Just cynical and sick of the debate.

So here's the sitch.

They wrote Suresh to be a toxic, pushy asshole on purpose.

His behaviour, in some areas, is not great. The gaslighting, the manipulation, implying he used to trick her into sleeping with him. Many people, including myself, have been in emotionally abusive relationships with people who are like this. It's not nice. It's certainly not entertainment.

But you cannot sit there and tell me that this script did not go through multiple rounds of revisions. You think this wasn't brought up at Fusebox HQ? I can absolutely guarantee you that it was.

So why on earth would writers write him this way?

Because it gets you talking about the game.

Ever heard of the phrase 'Any publicity is good publicity'?

There are 1000+ LITG Fanfictions on Ao3. Guess which season has the fewest fanfics? Season 3. Often casually referred to as 'The Disney Season'. The only drama during that season was Ciaran/Tai/Yasmin picking MC, and/or Rafi/Lily flirting heavily with MC. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but overwhelmingly, it was a very sweet season with generally likeable and unique characters.

Season 2 had so, so many characters with different backstories, interests, motivations, etc. that it was hard to find someone who didn't like one of them at least a little. And people engaged so much with that content. Just based off the fanfiction numbers (because I don't have any official stats) at least 75% of the LITG FF content is for Season 2.

But here's the thing: It's far easier to make people angry than it is to make them fall in love.

What is the one thing almost everyone spent gems on during Bombshell? Telling off Juliet. It's basic engagement principle that people are going to be more engaged when they're emotionally invested in a piece of media. It's why clickbait exists. It's why internet trolls exist, for fuck's sake.

So why on earth would they bother spending the extra time in developing complex, multifaceted characters, when as a fandom, we've made it perfectly clear that we'll spend more money, more time, and more brain space into tearing apart characters we hate, rather than doing the same for characters we love?

Fusebox are a business. They do not care if the game offends you. What they do care about are those sweet, sweet advertising dollars. And if they can show a reddit sub with thousands upon thousands of eyes on it, all ranting and raving about Suresh, they can absolutely turn to an advertiser and say "Yo, look at our engagement levels!"

This is just capitalism. It's business. If they take it too far on a TV show, advertisers will start pulling out. But advertisers only pull out when there's an actual, honest-to-god backlash. And most of the advertising (in my LITG2 app at least) isn't for products or companies with a reputation. It's for other games. Meaning that, realistically, if you did want to complain to an advertiser about the game being racist, sexist, misogynistic who are you going to complain to? Apple? The fuck do they care? They haven't broken any laws?

It's specifically designed to be controversial and problematic. That is the entire point. If this kind of thing triggers you, DNI.

Fusebox do not care about individuals' experiences.

A few people will be so triggered or turned off by the content that they'll leave. But enough of us stayed, engaged, and participated in the game to make it worth their while. So Fusebox just continues to exist in this sweet space, where they just insert more and more problematic characters, leading to higher and higher engagement. As long as they don't cross any hard lines, they can do it forever.

The inherent problem with this, is that a lot of people don't know when to stop.

And this is when it starts getting really fucking sad.

Y'all are taking a guy that's specifically designed to piss you off, and deciding he's an abuser, gaslighter, manipulator, etc. There are already so many stereotypes about South Asian men being pushy, or demanding, or that they don't respect women.

I've seen so, so many instances in the reddit sub, on facebook, and even in the official Discord server of language that tars all South Asian men as being this way. People saying, and I fucking quote, "I wouldn't mind it so much if it was Eddie". (Thanks, Reddit).

Firstly, there's a good reason that it's not Eddie. And that's because, as demonstrated by the quote above, a lot of people would be far more willing to excuse this behaviour if it was coming from a pretty white boy.

So why is this?

Why do you think they made the manipulative, 'won't take no for an answer' man be from Southern Asia?

Why do you think they made Hope a sassy, determined black woman?

Why do you think they made Miki a quirky, shy, but nosy East Asian girl?

Even Lottie, who's a whiny little shit isn't from the UK.

This game is most popular in the UK. It's also popular elsewhere, but its main target audience is the UK. It's why most of the characters are from there, the script contains UK slang, etc.

It's so much easier to hate someone when they're not 'from here'.

Check out any American superhero movie. The villain is foreign. In Hollywood movies, they're British, French, Russian, Chinese, South American, Arabic, whatever. They're just foreign. Or different.

They're others.

Because it sells.

It's easier for you to team up with your mates on reddit and condemn Suresh for his behaviour than it is to do it to someone who looks like you.

But guess what?

There are people who play this game who are People of Colour.

(Shocking, I know. They enjoy playing games too!)

And whenever you buy into this bullshit that Fusebox is feeding you, whenever you pile on a character like Suresh, you are making them feel like they're not welcome here.

People of Colour are being used as a means to an end.

Instead of writing complex, multi-dimensional villains with real motivations, Fusebox are using basic clickbait to get you to engage.

And that's super fucking unfair.

I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm not telling you not to play. I'm not going to stop spending money on it. I'm certainly not going to stop.

I just want people to be aware of what they're doing.

Be aware of the fact that they're playing into your preconceived ideas of race, culture, and ethnicity.

Be aware of the fact that they are trying to you to engage at at all costs.

Be aware that your rabid fan-ness can actually spur others into a mob mentality.

Be aware of the fact that you're allowed to criticise characters. But criticise the writing. Criticise the business tactic.

Don't fall into the quicksand!

Don't let yourself make it about race. Stop letting others make it about race.

Stop engaging with it when it becomes about race.

Stop engaging when your friends compare him to Harvey Weinstein, Andrew Tate, Prince Andrew, etc. He's a character from a mobile game. They are real people who have hurt real women.

Show Fusebox you'll engage with the stuff you do like, as opposed to only engaging when it's piling on to a character.

Get rabid about the drama, not about the character.

And look, I'm writing this out in a long, one-shot rant, so I might've completely rambled, contradicted myself, or said something completely wrong, so please forgive me if I have.

I just hope this helped someone see it for what it is.

MARKETING.

So in conclusion:

Do: Make memes about Suresh not apologising.

Do: Hate him for cheating.

Do: Push him in the pool.

Do not: Compare him to a real life sex offender

Do not: Make it about race

Do not: Think for a second that Fusebox don't know exactly what they're doing.

[babyboibucky]

The Match

Pairing: CEO!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: You come across your boss’ Tinder profile.

Word Count: 1,446

Warnings: HMMMM sexual tension 😏

A/N: I wrote this in a whirl and tried to format it through the app last night and it SUCKS so I’m posting this just now. Anyway, there will definitely be a smutty part two to this lmfao ya know it

Edit: PART 2 IS UP!!!

The Match Masterlist || MAIN MASTERLIST

Saturday night and you’re on your bed, wine-drunk and all as you mindlessly swiped through Tinder. You start to frown when none of the guys impressed you enough to swipe right. Their bios were all the same, revolving around their egos only to end up with the good ol’ “DTF” line.

Bored and disappointed, you almost exited the app until a very, very familiar face appeared on your screen.

“Holy shitballs, it’s our boss.” You sat up immediately, bringing your phone to your face for a close inspection.

Indeed, it was your boss James Barnes but he was using “Bucky” as his profile name. You wondered whether it was his real account or a poser one. But then you remembered his closest colleagues calling him that.

You snorted as you checked out his profile. He didn’t have a bio but had a couple of photos uploaded. And oh wow, is that a shirtless mirror photo?

You rarely worked closely with your boss but goddamn, sometimes you wished you did because he was a hot piece of ass.

“Should I swipe right...” you mumbled to yourself.

Would it be unprofessional to do so? But then again, you never really interacted with him that much. Just a couple of polite nods and greetings whenever you passed by him at the office. You weren’t even directly reporting to him.

That being said, you were quite sure that he wouldn’t swipe right on you given that you’re his employee. Of course he wouldn’t want to be the unprofessional one so being tipsy and all, you decided to take one for the team.

“Tss, what the hell.” You huffed out and swiped right.

Not even a second later, the “It’s a match!” message popped up on the screen almost immediately. You choked on your wine and dropped your phone, eyes wide and heart racing because you just matched with your fucking boss.

“Shit!” You hissed, diving onto the floor the pick your phone up.

If the message popped out as soon as you swiped right on him, then that means...

“He swiped right on me first, what the fuck!”

-

Monday came quickly and you’ve never been this restless before. You couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that you matched with your boss on Tinder. Neither of you messaged the other over the weekend but now that you were headed to work, you honestly didn’t know what to expect.

You debated whether to call in sick or maybe, pretend that you died? Pack your bags and perhaps fly to a different country and start anew? You were overacting but matching with your boss on a dating app known for hook-ups should be a valid reason to justify your thoughts.

Maybe James didn’t recognize you that’s why he swiped right. That was possible since you and him didn’t really work together. It’d be better if he swiped right by accident, his phone probably slipped from his hands. He probably doesn’t even know he matched with you, yeah, you decided to settle on that conclusion.

Taking a deep breath in, you fixed your hair before stepping out of your car. Mondays were meant for meetings so he probably wouldn’t be around the office anyway. You rushed over to the elevator and let out a sigh of relief when you didn’t have to share it with anyone.

That was until someone managed to slip a foot in between the doors, catching up to you before the elevators slammed shut.

“Oh.”

Well, well, well if it isn’t James “Bucky” Barnes. Out of all the people you had to share an elevator with, it just had to be him! And judging by how his eyes widened at the sight of you, the Tinder incident wasn’t simply an accident.

“Good morning.” He greeted, clearing his throat as he stood beside you.

James’ scent wafted in the air as soon as the doors slid close and he smelled divine. He smelled like a man, a man man and it almost made your eyes roll. You greeted him back with a soft voice, fighting so hard not to look at him because as always, he looked pretty damn good.

He was restless beside you, adjusting his suit and then his tie. You could see him through your peripheral vision, he kept on fixing his hair as well. Did he get a haircut? It was shorter than before, not that you were paying way too much attention to him.

Meanwhile, you too were fidgeting with your shoulder bag, picking at the leather and praying for this torture to be over before you could even lose control and slam your lips against his.

“How was your weekend?” James asked, glancing at you.

This was probably the longest conversation you had with your boss. You weren’t even sure which was more awkward, striking a conversation after the match or simply remaining quiet for the entire ride up.

“Um, it was good. Yours?” You asked, stammering a little as you stole a quick glance at him.

James nodded, “Good too. Interesting actually.”

Fuck! He knows, he so knows about the match.

You would have preferred complete silence over the elevator music echoing in the air while the both of you were obviously feeling the tension. Was the elevator really this slow?! And when did it get this hot?!

You started fanning yourself when you started to sweat from the awkwardness of it all. Bucky too could obviously feel it, the tension and the elephant in the room waiting to be acknowledged. He loosened his tie all of a sudden, popping the top buttons of his dress shirt which quickly reminded you of the shirtless pic in his profile.

You could feel the heat creep up to your neck and ears. With how bright the lights were in the elevator, it’d be easy for James to notice how red you turned.

“Kinda hot today, don’t you think?” He asked.

You let out a mirthless chuckle, “Yeah, really hot. I think the maintenance should have the air conditioning unit checked.” You breathed out, clearing your throat again as you wiped the sweat forming on your forehead.

For a couple of seconds there was nothing but the collective sounds of you and your boss clearing your throats. The tension was so thick you can literally touch it if you tried. You wanted to address the unspoken issue but how the hell were you going to do that? Jump on his bones? It would seem like a good idea to do so except that he was your boss and that would result to you losing your job.

You wanted to ask James though, whether he was aware that you were his employee when he swiped right. Actually, you just wanted to bring up the topic just to get it over with. Acknowledge the match and then pretend it didn’t happen to save you both from the embarrassment. Yeah, you could do that.

Unable to hold back anymore, you broke the silence to ask James a question.

“Did you swipe right on accident?”

“So are you down to fuck?”

You and James asked at the same time, his straightforward question making you weak in the knees because what the hell...

James bit his lip, shaking his head in response. “I didn’t.”

“Oh.” You blinked, unable to stop yourself from staring at James’ mouth when he ran his tongue over his lower lip before taking it in between his teeth as he looked you over with glazed eyes.

Damn that tongue, though. And damn those blue eyes too.

“Are you...?” He repeated again, reminding you of his question.

Your boss, whom you rarely interacted with in the office, just asked you whether you were down to fuck. Truthfully, you were only on Tinder because of boredom and it wasn’t your goal to actually hook-up with someone. But now that your hot boss swiped right on you and seemed to be really interested in you...

“I...uhh...” you stammered, not really knowing how to tell him that yes, you would very much like to be fucked by him.

The elevator dinged, interrupting the tension between you and James. The doors slid open and James quickly straightened up before walking ahead.

But not without turning around to look at you expectantly, waiting for a response.

Due to the pressure and the elevator doors beginning to close, you blurted out the first thing that you could muster.

“Yes, sir!”

You blushed at your response but it seemed to have stirred something in James because his eyes darkened as he smirked at you.

“Good. Then I’ll see you in my office in fifteen.”

-

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[isagisyoichi]

how do u think the boy would be in a party😈😈

NEW RULES!

SYNOPSIS: blue lock at a party

CHARACTERS INCLUDED: isagi, bachira, nagi, reo, rin, chigiri, naruhaya, niko, nanase, gagamaru, kunigami

WARNINGS: mentions of underage drinking and weed (but no one actually takes anything), swearing, mentions of throwing up and food, again pretend they're all friends and go to the same school because it's more fun to think that way. ooc rin maybe? idk i like pretending he's not as miserable as the manga makes him out to be 🤗 he deserves to have fun i think

A/N: no cause this was soooo fun to write tysm anon, i got through this in a flash cause i loved this suggestion sm :') literally one of the most fun requests i've ever gotten eeee!!!!! also this made me miss my irls bye corona can suck my balls fr

ISAGI YOICHI:

i feel like this would be his first big party aw lol, so he’s kind of nervous LMAO.

gets handed a beer by someone, has his first sip of it ever, and immediately spits it out. mutters “how the hell can anyone drink this?” and “discreetly” pours the rest into a bush.

mainly stays with nagi, chigiri, kunigami, and bachira and they just talk throughout the night

(bachira only sits down and talks after his energy dies down. i'll elaborate on this below the cut).

keeps asking nagi “what song is this?” throughout the night LOL. makes a mental note of what songs to add to his playlists.

slightly nods his head to the music, aw cute. goes a little harder and lip syncs/raps along when he really likes the song, though (i stand by my word when i said he loves “neon guts”)

does accidentally bump into someone, but isagi starts a convo with them after he apologizes, and they hit it off right away 🥰

but, the person left early and isagi, ever the dummy, forgets to ask for their number.

and he's actually so disappointed in himself when he realizes, too 😭

BACHIRA MEGURU:

not drunk or anything at all, but boy, the way he’s acting makes it seem like he is.

the self proclaimed “life of the party.”

can be found “dancing,” though i use that word generously because to classify whatever he’s doing as “dancing,” is a stretch, to every song, even if he doesn’t know the words LOL

really likes when throwbacks come on!!!! he does dance to the lyrics and not the beat sometimes, though 😭

but, bachira looks like he’s having so much fun, it’s so cute, he’s definitely been waiting for this moment his whole life 🥰

if you were dancing with him, bachira would 100% take you by the hand and spin you around

also forces gets isagi to dance with him but isagi’s so awkward 😭

bachira also ends up jumping in the pool sometime later that night. yells “cannonball!” and everything, like, okay michael phelps 😭

he doesn’t have extra clothes so reo has to give him some and they're so fucking big on him LOLLL

texts the groupchat “i was sooo crazy last night😂” in the morning LMAOO, okay babe calm down

KUNIGAMI RENSUKE:

takes it upon himself to make sure none of his friends die LOL

only drinks water and diet coke 👍

his mom calls in the middle of the party to ask how he's doing and bachira and nagi are doing stupid shit like yelling “pass the weed” and fake moaning 😭

isagi and chigiri tell him to tell her they say hi LOL

really likes when the dj puts on 90s/2000's r&b/hiphop songs (i'll die by my hc that kunigami's an oldies fan)

mostly sways side to side to the music, but he did also dance a little, per request of bachira, and ended up talking to a cute person a for little, too 🤗

offers to help clean up in the morning

CHIGIRI HYOUMA:

at least two drunk girls have mistaken him for their friend, and another four have asked to touch his hair.

tried to use one of reo’s many bathrooms, found a couple making out, outwardly said “gross,” and then left to find another one 😭

nods his head and taps his foot to the music, not much of a dancer.

also a people-watcher, and he points out things he sees are happening to his friends.

“guys, i think misa and her boyfriend are breaking up, look.” leave that poor girl alone bro 😭

finds himself laughing a lot that night because damn! his friends are funny, whether they try to be or not.

not really a party person, but chigiri actually had a lot of fun 🥰

NARUHAYA ASAHI:

also on the dancefloor! doesn’t really dance, per say, but he jumps up and down and does the fist pump thing 😭 he has the spirit, let's give him that.

drank a lot of soda, so he’s filled with energy. also pees in at least three of reo's bathrooms.

talks to his friends, but also makes new ones! also i feel like he takes a lot of pictures LOL. he needs the finsta content 😭

plays truth or dare, or something like that. ends up having to do some stupid shit like smack raichi’s ass and run away, but naruhaya did make out with the girl next to him, so fair trade, he thinks.

also ends up in the pool, but he’s playing chicken with gagamaru and some other people. does not win a single round, but he had fun 😇

leaves with like four plates of food and one of reo’s decorative towels for some reason???

GAGAMARU GIN:

goes through a bunch of reo's shit 😭 he's not taking anything, but he's just curious LOL

strikes up very, random conversations with a bunch of people out of nowhere, good for him!

weirdly good at darts, very good aim.

although one round, naruhaya accidentally distracted gagamaru and one of darts ended up in reo's wall 💔

“it's fine, he has the money to fix it,” naruhaya shrugs as he walks away from reo's now punctured, wall. so true bestie!

gagamaru somehow ends up giving some drunk stranger some “life-changing” advice. (whether it's good or not is debatable)

they thank gagamaru for changing their life and he never sees them again

NAGI SEISHIRO:

irritates the fuck out the dj because nagi keeps asking him to play one specific song over and over again.

it was good the first time, don't wear it out for the rest of us bae 😭

doesn't really dance, just nods his head, maybe raps along a little, too

when he talks to the girls that come up to him, nagi says stuff like “yeah, the host and i go way back, we’re best friends.”

“way back,” my ass, but whatever nagi 🤨

knocks out in one of reo’s guest rooms. someone finds him when they’re trying to look for the bathroom and they draw a mustache and a bunch of other stupid shit on him 😭

tries to leave before reo makes him help clean up in the morning. does not work 👍

dumbass also ended up losing his phone (reo bought him a new one so nagi doesn't really care)

RAICHI JINGO:

gasses himself up sooo much when he’s trying to hit on girls.

“yeah, i'm about to go D1 after high school, just wait on it,” yeah, okay raichi 🙄

also tries to show them his highlights, bye. babe, i mean this in the nicest possible way but, i do not care, can we just kiss 🙏

i feel like he’s one of those boys who likes to take his shirt off for no reason, so raichi most definitely ends up shirtless at some point of the night 😭

takes pictures with reo’s fancy cars in his garage to flex 💀 gets annoyed when reo says raichi can’t drive them. raichi doesn't even have his license 😑

plays pool and is actually not that bad. does almost accidentally blind isagi with his cue, though.

IMAMURA YUUDAI:

he's with some girls but, he’s a dummy and he didn’t know his other hoes would be there, so imamura had quite a few drinks spilled on him here and there.

still somehow leaves with like three new girls snaps, four numbers, and a bunch of lipstick stains. not even gonna lie, i respect his game.

actually a really good dancer, and he knows he looks good, too. knows the words to every drake song that comes on, argue with your mom.

lip-syncs the words to you when you dance together and it makes you more flustered than you would think 🙄

the type to pull you close and wraps his arms around your waist or around your neck

actually really fun to talk to. always in the loop with drama and stuff, so he's always got some interesting conversation topics. and he's funny 😭

MIKAGE REO:

obviously, the party’s at his house. what’s the point of having a rich teammate if you can’t exploit them for their possessions?

jokes, but reo did offer to throw it at his mansion house in the first place.

actually really likes throwing parties lmao, so he jumped at the opportunity.

posted on his snap, “party at my place su for address‼️” LOL

natural charm + raised with good manners = reo being an amazing host

but, reo does have a little group of girls following him around the entire night 👎

and it irritates the hell out of whoever reo’s trying to talk to because they’re all up on him, making it hard for reo to pay attention 😑

also doesn’t help that he entertains them and flirts back and dances with a couple of them, too

and looks good when he dances, too UGH!!!! he's the type to run his hands up and down your body while he dances with you 😣

i hate this man 👎 /j

ITOSHI RIN:

practicing. he didn’t come. sike! rin has a social life, too, come on now, y'all 🙄

talked a big game about how he wouldn’t show up then he still came anyways, like rin, what 😭??

super good at cup pong and he knows it. he keeps beating ryusei and if you look closely, rin has something reminiscent of a smirk on his face.

a foot-tapper, not a dancer, which sucks because he’s not even bad at dancing, either 👎

a couple of girls come up to rin to flirt, but rin doesn’t give them the time of day. no response or anything just a little side eye 😭

rin just talks to his friends and that’s it, really.

actually internally glad for the chance to kickback and relax for once, tbh.

but, he refuses to admit he had any semblance of fun. (he did, rin’s just a weenie 😒)

NIKO IKKI:

the team forced him to come 😭

niko’s already a homebody and he doesn’t like loud noises or large social scenes, so he wasn’t too jazzed about going somewhere where the both of those things combine.

also he's picky with music so LOL. does like that one remix to the pursuit of happiness, though

he’s a wall-stander, i hate to break it to y’all. just watched everything from a distance and didn't talk to anyone except for isagi and his friends.

bye, if you don’t get off the damn wall and dance (he'd dance with me i'm different 🥰🤗)

keeps opening and closing his phone so he looks busy but that mf is literally just going through the settings app 😭

called his mom to bring him home an hour and a half in 👎

NANASE NIJIROU:

i hate to admit it, but he’s the annoying first year that documents everything on snap bye

he’s just excited to be there but like, there is no reason for his story to be half an hour long.

i'm not watching all of that! sorry that happened to you or good for you 🤗

probably playing games like spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven. is very proud of himself for kissing four people in one night #bigmoves 🥳

stays with his group of friends and they're sooo loud and rowdy LMAOO. #firstyearthings

you can literally hear them laughing over the music, but they're having fun, so it's fine (at least of those kids hits people when they laugh too)

also dances, too! has super good energy and a natural sense of rhythm surprisingly 🥰 also a good hypeman!!!!! honestly, he's just really fun to be around tbh

overall, has a lot of fun, as you can tell by his story 😇

[foli-vora]

more than words, pt.2

A/N: Really wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction to pt.1 so thank you all so much for your likes, reblogs, kind words and support! I had a few requests to make a taglist so I’ve done it at the bottom - let me know if you’d like to be added! (and I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone) so - on with the show!

Summary: The one person who you thought would be happy for you finally getting with someone decent was your best friend. After all, he had set you both up. Who would’ve thought he’d be the reason it all falls apart?

Pairing: best friend!Benny Miller/f!reader, Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales/f!reader

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: swearing

pt.1 / pt.3 / pt.4 / pt.5 / pt.6

+++

You startle when your phone vibrates on the coffee table, the sudden and abrupt noise of it quick to drag your attention away from the true crime documentary playing across your TV screen. You eye it from your spot on the couch, so far, yet only a mere reach away if you could be bothered to stretch the distance. Your eyes fall back to the TV, happy to just ignore it and address it when you eventually have to move from the cocoon of blankets and pillows you’ve surrounded yourself with, but when the reminder alert sounds two minutes after receiving it, a small voice in the back of your head pipes up, saying it could be something important and you sigh tiredly.

The effort to move pulls a low groan from you and you stretch out, snatching the device from the table and back into the warmth before you could tumble onto the floor and really have something to grumble about.

Hey Benny’s mystery girl, how’s your night going?

The text sends flutters through your stomach, your hands immediately clamming up with a brief wave of nerves. This was the guy that Benny was setting you up with – an apparent very close friend and someone who clearly meant a lot to him. Why did you feel so much pressure to make a good impression?

Blankets, cushions and crime show now forgotten, you straighten up and let your fingers hover over the keypad in contemplation.

Do you play it cool? Act like you have a brimming social life, full of fun and endless options, and are not currently sat at home on a Friday night in your pyjamas watching Netflix, eating an excessive amount of snacks? No. No, you shouldn’t put a false image out there. Honesty is the best policy.

Hey yourself mystery fish. It’s a nice and relaxed night on my end, how about yours?

You leave it at that, briefly wondering if you should quickly chuck your phone on airplane mode, delete the message before it could go through and start again.

Did it sound boring? Is that the kind of image you were throwing out there? Maybe you should’ve acted like you were at least doing something productive. But then… what if Benny was there to call you out on your bullshit, knowing you literally have nothing better to do? He’d gladly do it, too.

You roll your eyes at yourself, wondering why you even cared what this mystery man thought about you and your weekend rituals when you had literally never even met. You were who you were, and that was that. If he didn’t like it, then he could take his handsome face and pretty brown eyes elsewhere.

I’m jealous. Stuck out with the guys and all I can think about is sleeping.

Scratch that. Maybe he was a man after your own heart, after all. A picture of a tray of tequila shots and lemons wedges comes through, another text quickly following which had you giggling quietly to yourself –

I’m too old for this shit.

You grin at your screen, opening your camera and snapping a quick picture of your blanket covered legs, snack covered coffee table and bright TV screen before sending it with a little smirking emoji. You’re not disappointed when he replies almost immediately.

Now I’m really jealous – are those Doritos?

Nacho cheese!

The one and only acceptable flavour. Is that Forensic Files? I binged the shit out of that the other day!

OMG it’s so good!

-

Surprisingly, your eyes didn’t feel as heavy as you thought they would when your alarm drags you from sleep the next morning. You could even say you were looking forward to waking up, which was not how your Saturday mornings usually played out.

Immediately you reach over for your phone and unlock it, smiling like an idiot at the Home safe :) text waiting for you. You chew your lip as you scroll through the many bubbles of conversation, stomach twisting in delight as you re-read through the topics you managed to bounce through in the few hours of texting before you had to call it quits at 2:14am and send a final – Goodnight Frankie x

You had paced your apartment after that, ringing your hands together anxiously and eyeing the clock as the seconds ticked past, scowling at your reflection in the mirror as you took your worries out on your teeth, scrubbing them much harder than necessary. Was a kiss too much? Is it too early for that kind of thing? You had only literally just started talking. Should you quickly text and say it was an accident? It’s not like you can say you sent it to the wrong person – the message had his fucking name in it.

The sound you made when you got a – Sweet dreams mystery girl x – in return wasn’t even remotely human and the words swirled around your head long after you fell asleep.

The reservations you had originally developed on being set up, yet again, quickly dissipated the longer you and Frankie exchanged messages. There had been no awkward block of nothing between texts, no dragging up mediocre subjects to keep the conversation rolling… it had just flowed so effortlessly, so naturally – something which had never happened before with Benny’s previous candidates. The only other candidate that you had managed to have a comfortable conversation with was Will, and that was only after you had both agreed that there was no attraction between the two of you.

Over text, Frankie seemed funny – quick witted and sarcastic – and often had you snorting into your drink over a comment or joke made at his own or his friends’ expenses. No, you weren’t even remotely hesitant about this anymore. If anything, your evening of conversation just made you that much more eager to meet him.

It’s much later in the day when you finally message him, having kept the temptation to message him at bay while you tidied up, keeping it short and sweet with a, How’s the head? You chew your lip, eyes flicking over the message with thoughtful eyes before quickly tagging a little kiss on the end and pressing send. Not even two minutes later, your phone goes off on the coffee table and the clammy hands return tenfold when you read over the message a good fifteen times.

Can I call?

Shit. Shit. He wants to call? And like… talk? With voices? What if you stutter? Choke? Oh god, your throat’s dry. It’s dry – how can you talk with a dry throat? You can’t. Fuck. Fuck. Drink – you need a drink –

You quickly run to the kitchen, filling a glass of water and swallowing it down as quickly as you could, not at all caring that it half spills down your chin and onto your jumper. You gasp for air when you finish, slamming the glass down and catching the drips of water from your chin with the back of your hand. You slide across your floor as you run back out to your couch and grab your phone, typing a quick reply.

Yeah sure.

Too casual. Was that too casual? Should you have added a kiss? Shit – it’s already sent. It’s fine. It’s fine. He asked a short question, and he got a short answer. It makes sense. It’s fine. You yelp when your phone starts to vibrate in your hand, his contact name flashing across the screen.

Oh God.

Oh God.

He’s calling. He’s somewhere out there, phone to his ear, waiting for you to answer and you’re what – standing in your lounge and looking at your phone, watching it ring, like an idiot? What are you doing?

You inhale deeply, clearing your throat a little before swiping the green icon.

“Hi,”

Oh God, what was that? What was that tone?

“Hey. Sorry – looking at my phone screen and trying to reply was making my eyes feel like they’re exploding.”

His voice is deep, hoarse from his night of drinking, and overwhelmingly pleasant to listen to. It brings a flush of warmth across your cheeks, an electric tingle across your skin.

You laugh softly, “It’s alright. Tequila wasn’t a good idea, then?”

He grunts quietly and your stomach tightens, throat suddenly dry again at the suggestive sound.

“It never is.” He groans, melting into a long yawn and you start to feel a little guilty. Did your text wake him up?

“I’m sorry, I should let you sleep –”

“No! No, it’s fine. I uh – I really want to talk to you… if you’re not busy.” He adds onto the end, almost nervously. 

“I’m not busy,” you reassure quietly, smiling shyly down at your lap. “I’m all yours.”

He chuckles lowly, and the sound settles deep in your belly, “Good.”

You don’t understand how conversation could just be so... easy with someone you’ve never met. For a brief moment, you worry you might be talking too much, maybe boring him, but when he keeps asking questions, encourages you to continue, you think that maybe he doesn’t mind, maybe he actually is just interested in what you’re saying.

When dinner comes around, you’re in a fit of giggles as you prepare your food, listening to pots and pans bang and clash on the other end as Frankie prepares his own meal. You cook together, eat together, and then settle in front of Netflix together, debating back and forth on what to watch. The evening melts into night, one movie turns into two, and eventually conversation dies down.

Sometime in the night, you roll over, briefly waking to fix and fluff the pillow under your head when a sound makes you pause. Your head jerks up and you look around, finding yourself sprawled across the couch, and a blanket twisted around your legs.

Glancing over to your phone to check the time, you touch the screen and blink in surprise when you see your phone call is still connected with Frankie, who’s quiet on the other end. You move to press the red button but freeze when a soft snore sounds from the device, and a warm flood of affection grows in your heart and spreads throughout your chest.

He’s asleep.

You listen a moment longer, smiling tenderly when more quiet snores reach your ears. Instead of hanging up, you bring the phone closer, tucking it just beside your pillow before laying your head back down and closing your eyes, letting the quiet breathing soothe you back to sleep.

If the strong butterflies turning your stomach were anything to go by, you were in serious trouble.

+

Tags: @anu-simps @seasonschange-butpeopledont @withasideofmeg @you-got-me-starry-eyed @emilykjh​ @peterhollandkait​ @sara-alonso​ @starlightsearches​ @bookishofalder​ @empress-palpat1ne​ @shadowolf993​ @rosiefridayrogersunday​ @canyonmirrors​ @eoz-stuff​ @blackonemasie​ @layniapetrovnaaa​

[dreamhot]

the terf rhetoric of 'well i know you said those are your pronouns but i'm going to use these ones instead, to make /me/ more comfortable :D my feelings are more important!' getting normalised so much by people who should absolutely know better makes me so upset. like gender the fuck out of c!dream nobody worth listening to cares if anyone calls c!dream she/her, but cc!dream is a real ass person who deserves his pronouns respected like anyone else.

^ all right, so first off, Yes. there's been a bit too much about this debate that errs a bit gender essentialist for my liking in general - namely in how some people are choosing to express 'feminisation' by way of giving a cis male breasts and long hair (this isn't even a strawman cos i've seen the art myself lmao). in this regard, i'd like people to pause and think about what they're implying if making a male cc look feminine is done by giving him 'female' secondary sex characteristics. smells a bit transphobic to me!

(this isn't about outfits or anything like that - just how the physical bodies have been drawn. just wanna clarify that)

on the topic of pronouns ... i think where people have gotten a bit mixed up is in conflating people who go by any pronouns (like ponk or eret) and people who have said they don't mind what you use on your own time, but who still have a personal preference. dream is in the latter category, not the former. his bios say he/him because those are his pronouns. end of story. so what does he mean when a dono asks if they can use something else and he says it's fine? well,

1) the fact that anyone would ask this ANYWAY is still bizarre to me. dream isn't a character you can project your gender headcanons onto - he's a real person. would you ask your friend who goes by she/her if you could call her anything else? i would certainly hope not. it's not any different just because dream is a cc - treat him and his preferences with the same respect.

2) HOWEVER, i could understand if someone wants to ask if a person is okay with they/them only because they/them is frequently used colloquially as the neutral, nonspecific pronoun set. that is to say, sometimes we'll use it when talking about someone indirectly without specifying who it is. for example, i might be talking to someone who doesn't watch mcyt and say 'oh yeah, there's this one creator i like cos their videos are really entertaining' - it just sort of slips out naturally when we're talking about people in vague terms. however, some people - regardless of how they identify - don't want to be referred to as they/them, and it can be worth checking to ensure you're respecting that. THAT basis for the question, i get.

basically, what i think happened is that dream was likely intending for his statement to cover the latter situation, saying he's indifferent to how people refer to him nonspecifically in impersonal contexts. however, that's very different than addressing him directly - in which case you should be using his Actual Stated Pronouns. i'm aware that you could interpret his statement to mean he doesn't actually care either way. i know. but again, his bios say he/him. if you're talking to or about dream, i think you should also be using he/him. that's just basic respect, and i wish people on twt especially would value that over their weird little gotcha games.

[needydanger]

Red Wine | What Turns a Man On

18+ SMUT

pairing(s): levi ackermann x f!reader

content: 69′ing with captain levi

a/n: sorry for any grammar errors!  -scar <3

You held your fancy wine glass in an elegant manner; bringing it up to your lips. However, that classy facade fell short when you downed the entire glass as if it were water. The point of tonight was to mingle with Marleyan soldiers that were betraying their own country in favor of Eldian freedom. 

In your head, tonight was a competition to see who could get drunk the fastest. And you were in the lead by a major feat.

“Seriously, Y/n?”, Connie questions. You glare at him.

“What?”

His judgmental gaze turns into a dramatic pout, “Without me?!”

Soon; you, Connie, and Sasha were drunk. Your booming voices and annoying laughter caught the attention of everyone in the room. “Ah..who let the idiots have wine?”, Levi groans to Hange.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Y/n this happy.”

You were lively. Mingling with everybody. You even got Jean and Eren into the mix. They became competitive with each other, and drank until Jean's face was on the table. “HA! Y/n, look! I won~”, Eren smiles at you.

You were the most fun anybody has had in ages.

It went too far, though, when you accidentally spilt red wine on Zeke’s white suit. “What the fuck?!”, he gasps. You look at the spreading stain on his pants with wide eyes. “I..I am so sorry!”

Zeke realizes it was you and softens. In a quick motion, you grab a napkin off a dinner table, dunk it in a glass of water, and attempt to wipe out the stain on his pants.

Zeke can’t help but just watch as you mindlessly rubbed away at his crotch. 

You knew a few things..

But social cues were not one of them. In sincere truth; you really were dense when it came to stuff like this.

But that didn’t matter when everyone is watching in shock.

You decide that the stain is never coming out and grab your wine glass, “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay.”, Zeke shrugs it off. You take note of the sly smile he had. You felt relieved. Maybe he wasn’t that upset about it after all.

You’re suddenly grabbed by the hair, and everyone watched as you are unfashionably escorted out of the room.

You’re thrown against a wall—immediately scolded.

“Do you have a death wish?”

The voice makes you look up with bambi eyes. “Captain?”

You stumble back when he approaches you and end up on your ass like an idiot. He grabs your hair again, “It was okay for you to drink, but to make Zeke hard like that in front of your comrades?”

His grip tightens and you wince, “Are you truly that dumb?” 

You shake your head profusely, “H-Hard? No he wasn’t!”

“Why do you think he was smiling like a kid in a candy shop?”

You yell, “How the hell am I supposed to know that would turn someone on?!”

Levi lets go of you and debates his next steps. He gets down to your level and uses his gloved hands to spread your legs wide open. Your dress barely covered over your underwear, and it made you blush intensely.

“W-What are you doing?!”

He takes the wine glass in your hand and splashes it in the same manner you did to Zeke. He takes his right glove off to reach for his handkerchief, and starts rubbing your inner thighs.

You immediately slap a hand on your mouth. His hand danced from your inner thighs to your pussy. Rubbing endlessly on your clit. 

“O-Okay! I get it now! You can stop, I’m sorry!! I won’t ever do that again.”, You grab ahold of his arm.

“Why, are you turned on?”, he asks condescendingly, pressing his middle finger slightly into you. The barrier of the napkin and your underwear saved you from any more embarrassment.

“Yes!”, you angrily blush. He scoffs and you almost regret telling him to stop. “If you need any more help knowing what turns a man on so you don’t embarrass yourself like that again, let me know. For now, just go home. You’re done for the night.”

Before Levi leaves your view completely, you wobble over to him. You grab a hold of his hand and ask, “I, uh..can you tell me what turns a man on?”

You’re now in Levi’s room.

On his bed, more specifically.

You’re sitting awkwardly on the edge and he’s in the chair across from you.

“Men can get hard from physical touch. Sexual or not. What you did was the perfect example.” You sink into your shoulders. Ugh. “However, there are some perverted men that can get hard at just the sight of something they find attractive.”

“So they get hard over everything, basically?”

Levi nods, “Depends who we’re talking about. Most of it is all in here.”, he taps on his head, “Thoughts are powerful. Get a man started on just one dirty thought, and their mind will run freely.”

You sigh into your palms, “Now I really feel like an idiot.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know”, he shrugs. 

Sexual Education wasn’t exactly a hot topic in Paradis. There was only 1 school where you grew up, and they taught you mostly about titans; how to kill them and how to survive. 

“What about you?”

“Hm?”, Levi looks up

“What turns you on?”

Silence. 

You feel a sweat bead ready to fall from your forehead. Did I mess up again?

“Why does that concern you?”

“Um, so I don’t make another mistake?” Goddamnit, Y/n. You can at least sound sure of yourself. 

“I already told you what turns me on.”

You blink. Eh? You think back to what he said merely minutes ago, and go through a process of elimination. Okay, well, Levi isn’t a pervert. Sure, he’s a man. But he won’t die without sex...

“Thoughts and touching?”

He nods. 

“Hm.”, you think. What else can he be into? Well, cleaning is one thing.. “Role play?”

His brow raises, “Elaborate.”

“Like..sexy maid outfits and making someone call you captain in bed.”

He tilts his head, “I never thought about that.”

You giggle nervously, “Haha, well. I guess I was wrong.”

There’s awkward silence in the room. Levi is looking at you stare at everything else in the room except for him. 

“What turns you on?”

You burn up, “Touch.”

“Anything specific?”

You look off to the side, “Hair pulling and..what you did earlier, I guess.”

When you turn to look at him, you’re met with his belt. “So, all those years that I’ve been pulling your hair..?”

You nod up to him, “It’s turned me on.”

He’s peering down on you with a clenched jaw. The way his eyes are literally boring into your soul makes you feel small. What exactly was going on in his head? How did it get to this point?

He breaks eye contact with you and just clenches his fists. Hm? You stare directly in front of you and see the bulge in his pants. Oh. 

“Captain.”

“Yes?”, he doesn’t look at you.

You take your hand and gently rub up and down his clothed cock. Levi snaps his neck to look down at you.

“Is this okay?”, you ask coyly. Those damned bambi eyes..

There was no more being clueless. You knew exactly what you were doing now. What you wanted, and what he wanted. 

Levi places his hands on the bed so he can kiss you. It’s slow and passionate.

His tongue got familiar with yours in ways that made you feel butterflies. So this is what it’s like to get excited by just a kiss.

The two of you pull away for breath. “Yes, it’s okay.”, he finally answers. You put your hand back on his cock. This time, unzipping his pants and rubbing him through his boxers. 

He lets you do whatever you want. 

You put your hand down his underwear and can’t believe how nice it feels. “You’re huge.”, you say honestly. His lips fall agape before he kisses you again. You loved to be dominated by him, but you still wanted to follow through with what you were going to do before. 

You roll over on top and push him back. He’s confused when you straddle him with your head facing his feet. It didn’t register in his head what you were about to do, until he felt your lips on the tip of his cock. 

He fists the sheets, getting filled to the brim with arousal. You kissed the tip, licked it, sucked on it, playfully tapped it against your tongue. You wanted to make him lose his mind. 

Levi is face to face with your open legs. You feel a tug on your underwear and cry out when his tongue on you. In you.

You pop off his dick with a moan. Was he seriously going to eat you out at the same time? “Don’t stop sucking until I cum.”, he orders you.

“Yes, Levi.”

He lands a solid smack on your right ass cheek. The sound that leaves your mouth is actually embarrassing. It’s a mix between a scream and a moan.

“Is that how you address your superior?”

You bite your lip, “S-Sorry, Captain.”

He smiles and kisses your clit, “That’s a good girl.”

The compliment is enough to have you deep throating his cock.

The position is a never ending cycle of stimulation. With his tongue working wonders on you, you can’t stop moaning on his dick. He returns that vibrating feeling back on your most sensitive areas—moaning into your pussy.

It’s enough to make you cum on his face.

You stop sucking on his cock so you can enjoy this euphoria. “Agh!! Fuck.”

He lets you ride on his tongue like a desperate whore. The aftershocks of your orgasm are toe-curling.

You collapse to the side and shakingly crawl back down to his legs. He watched as you put your mouth back on him, looking up into his eyes.

“Fuck, y/n.”, he grips onto your hair just how you said you like it, “You look so pretty with my cock in your mouth.”

Again with the compliments. You’re now determined to make him cum like it’s your life purpose.

“Take it out of your mouth, I’m going to cum.”, he says softly.

Instead, you suck as hard and fast as you can. He moans in surprise, “S-Stop!”

You use your hands for the rest of his length that you couldn’t fit in your mouth. He pulls your head back so you’re looking up at him, “If you don’t stop, I’ll cum in your mouth!”

You give him the dirtiest look he’s ever seen. Your cheeks are red, you have tears brimming in your eyes from your orgasm before, and there’s saliva running down the corners of your mouth. Wow..

“Don’t worry. I’ll swallow it all, Captain.”

Soon, he’s spilling down your throat. “Jesus Christ, Y/n.”, he groans. You swallow every drop and don’t pull off until there’s nothing left. Once you both had a chance to collect yourselves, he kisses you.

Your eyes widened.

You can taste yourself on his tongue. And you’re sure he could taste himself too. It’s such a lewd feeling. Was it bad to like it this much?

You’re now both lying down against the pillows with the sheets over your body.

“Ah..I’m so tired.”, you sigh, giggling. 

“Go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you up in time for tomorrow.”, he pushes your hair back out of your face. 

“Okay.”, you reply softly.

[boop-le-snoot]

BUTT-DIAL? NO, BOOTY CALL | tony stark

explicit, 5,4k words. wrong number text, family shame & wedding drama that isn't even his and a ruined first date. despite the implications of the situation, both reader and tony are very entertained. meet-ugly series, part three.

[no y/n, no "you", no name, no reader description - race/age/body type neutral, she/her pronouns]

💚 masterlist ☀️ taglist & faq 💚

Another sunny day spent wasted in a conference room full of boring, old, conceited chairmen. Tony Stark vehemently refused to commiserate with them, their boring speeches and blunt, straightforward thinking. Sitting through a meeting was like walking on nails barefoot: painful, pointless. Mind-numbing.

His phone beeped loudly and he reached into his pocket, pretending to not see Pepper's disapproving look. Both of them knew he was hoping for a sudden Assemble call - that would surely get him out of the meeting - but as much as he hoped, they never struck at the right time.

Except, this time it wasn't a call for assistance, and neither it was an automated spam message with Pizza Hut promo codes. Tony's eyebrows drew close and his lips upturned as he read and re-read the obvious rant written on his screen, typing up his answer before he managed to resist the morbid curiosity that was fueled by his boredom.

Whoever it was, they were justifiably angry and the whole situation was almost too comical to be true, except he'd known people exactly like the runaway bride, selfish, greedy and stupid. He totally understood the woman's desire to just go and load up on tequila shots somewhere - so he bid her a haste farewell, all the while snickering to himself.

"It's Rogers," Tony offered in the way of explanation to a glaring Pepper, locking his phone away and settling in to continue pretending he was listening as another old, crusty white man offered his input on topics he was too much of a dinosaur to even really know about.

He couldn't stop thinking about the incident over the days, the story making him snort more times than he could count as the memory randomly crossed his mind in the lab, at the coffee pot or during dinner. So when a message came through from that very same number, the smirk snuck up onto his face before he even read its contents.

A brief crash course in memes from Parker had turned out to be more useful than ever. Irritating Rogers with pictures got old very fast, however, in moments Tony got rendered speechless they proved to be the perfect substitute for trying to articulate all his thoughts on the matter.

Celebrity appearance, she said? More likely than one would think. The engineer had nearly doubled over in a fit of laughter when she'd texted him that; obviously, the woman had no clue who she was texting with and he decided to further indulge in his curiosity by asking for her name: Friday did the rest.

A phone number and a name, ten minutes, and all her social media were free for him to stalk. Investigate- uh, observe. With little effort, Tony found both her and her brother, the unlucky groom, and the runaway bride and even her step-dad. On paper, they all looked like average middle-class families. Nothing seemed amiss.

It didn't mean anything, but Tony caught himself thinking about the woman. Perhaps it might have been the mischievous gleem in her eyes that was easily spotted in every picture or perhaps the raunchy sense of humour not much different from his own. Pretty, witty and smart - what's there not to like?

"So that's why you've been going around, smiling like a middle-schooler with a crush," Natasha's voice whisper-shouted in Tony's ear as the spy discreetly peered over his shoulder into his phone. He had the chat pulled up, debating on starting a casual conversation-

"Jesus Christ, Romanoff, somebody needs to put a bell on you," Tony snapped, startled, pressing the button to lock his phone immediately.

"Uhuh," The redhead replied, side-eyeing a snickering Barnes. "Who is she?"

Tony rubbed his face, feeling the beginnings of a blush starting to creep in. He felt like he was caught doing something he wasn't supposed to and the rest of the team acting like children wasn't helping the matter. "I got a butt-dial text about some wedding drama. Some chick's brother's fiance was fucking her own stepdad and ditched the wedding for her old man."

Stunned silence settled briefly into the room as Romanoff's eyes widened and Barnes choked on his orange juice. Serves him right, Tony thought, and continued his coffee-making process in quiet irritation.

"Wait, wait, hold on," Wilson half-laughed half-yelled. "You gotta spill the tea, man, this sounds too good to be true. Stories like that just don't fall into your hands."

With a sigh, he recounted the woman's story and read the texts aloud, silencing his snickering enough to be able to keep a straight face - but not for long, Rogers decided it was the time for another one of his Captain America Is Disappointed In You speeches and Tony himself couldn't even disagree.

Now that he thought about it, he came off as a kind of asshole. She and her family was going through something traumatic and he went and treated it like free entertainment. Which, to be fair, it was, but she didn't deserve to be treated like a circus clown. She actually seemed like a good sister and friend.

"Just text her," Natasha rolled her eyes at him, grabbing the coffee pot out of his frozen hand. "You're not Steve, you can keep a decent conversation via text."

Being compared to Steve and his pre-historic messaging habits really did a number on Tony's ego; the eyeroll he gave Romanoff was truly out of this world, all but teleporting him to his lab where he tried to find a way to approach the woman without coming off as incredibly creepy, as if the fact that he'd stalked her on social media didn't already put him firmly into the weirdo category.

Most likely, Tony would have spent many many days on overthinking before just grabbing one of his suits to make a truly impressive landing on her small balcony downtown; thankfully, fate had intervened and saved him from making another epic mistake. He'd made a note to ask Thor about it sometime, settling down with his tablet and popcorn bowl to watch TV on the team's movie night.

Or, more precisely, Tony settled in to watch the drama unfold as the various members of the team fought tooth and nail for the film that they wanted to watch. He never cared about it much, dozing off halfway through most of them - his teammates had the worst taste in movies - so he didn't bother joining the scuffle except when it was Peter's turn to pick. For obvious reasons.

"If you can't decide I'm gonna have someone else pick a movie," Natasha rolled her eyes, equally fed up with fully grown adults acting like spoiled toddlers.

With a stutter of his breath, Tony's hand reached for his phone as he had an Idea.

Seconds tickled as the "typing..." bubble appeared and disappeared multiple times. She must think he's just a thirsty frat boy; Tony's brow furrowed, but the curiosity was far too strong in him. Something about her vibe, her feisty nature captivated him and kept him thinking about her.

The agreement came as a surprise. In the two minutes the woman had spent thinking up her answer, Tony prepared himself to be rebuffed gently, or, worst case, be called a creep. But no - she agreed, but not before vehemently insisting that if he would end up being a creepy serial killer, she would haunt his ass for the remainder of his life.

Friday couldn't come soon enough. Tony spent most of the day loitering between his lab and the penthouse, glancing at his phone every now and then to make sure she wouldn't cancel on him last minute. The engineer wanted to see the witty, no-filter-having woman in the flesh.

And see her, he did. He'd pulled up in front of the hole-in-the wall Ramen&Bar place Clint had been raving about weeks prior - contrary to popular belief, Tony was perfectly fine with going to places that didn't have Michelin stars - and leaned against the door of his Audi R8, eyes immediately taking note of the figure calmly walking down the street, head tilted down where she was typing up a reply to him.

Tony smirked as she lifted her face up to see him, mouth immediately falling open. The shock was obvious; it lasted mere seconds until her shoulders dropped and she sighed almost... In disappointment. He frowned.

"I jinxed it, didn't I? Here's my celebrity appearance," The laugh was a little nervous and quite sardonic. "Hi, Tony, nice to finally see you."

He smiled, unsure, quipping back easily. "Let's face it, I'm not the worst famous Tony out there." Opening the door of the building for the woman, she stepped in eagerly enough, eyes immediately falling on the bartender and the few dimly lit tables in the back.

"Not by any means," She turned towards him, walking backwards. Tony met her stare; it was just like he'd imagined it to be, curious, mischievous and a little daring. She didn't even attempt to play subtle, raking over him from head to toe. "Not at all, I think," She gave another teasing smile, finally turning around, addressing the bartender and rattling off her order without as much as looking at the menu.

Tony couldn't stop staring. He was aware it was creepy, she was aware of his clever brown eyes barely paying attention to their surroundings or the beer or the food. The woman just quirked an eyebrow every time she caught him. His curiosity couldn't wait any more. "Why aren't you freaking out?" He blurted out, cursing himself out almost immediately after the words left his mouth.

"My almost-sister-in-law was fucking her own stepdad," The woman deadpanned. "I ran out of fucks to give, sorry." She thoughtfully chewed her food, briefly looking to the side. "Not to sound like an asshole, but don't you have enough people fawning over you? Doesn't it get old?"

Tony nodded, choosing to stay silent on the matter besides offering an amicable, "That's valid."

The mischief lit up again in her eyes. "You look taller on TV," She snorted, immediately falling into a fit of laughter at his face full of outrage. He sputtered, muttering something about audacity of some people, which made her only laugh harder. "Here's a pro tip from my 4'11 bestie: when someone calls you short, you snarl at them and say you're fun-sized. She swears by it," The woman remarked conversationally, grinning a two hundred watt smile.

Tony was glad at least someone was enjoying their little... Date. "And you know all about fun, don't you?" He aimed for grumpy; it came out as teasing. His famous smirk made a return appearance as he watched her throat bob.

The atmosphere between them had changed at some point; the same old routine of teasing and dancing around each other, but this time, Tony all but purred in satisfaction, finally meeting someone who was an even match to his wit and charm.

"I do," She replied with that cocky confidence, her devil eyes lighting up, lingering on his face. "Got a problem with that?"

The plate was pushed away, napkin falling into the food carelessly as he gestured for the waiter to bring the check. "As a scientist, I cannot confirm whether a theory is true until I have direct evidence," The bullshit flowed easily from his mouth, but the woman appeared to be amused by it - for a change. "M'fraid I'm gonna need that evidence," His fingers drummed on the table, impatiently, inches away from her hand.

"Of course, Mr. Stark," Her voice dropped, she was fully aware of what she was doing by calling him that. That, and those deep, magnetic eyes made Tony's trousers feel a little too tight for comfort.

His phone rang loudly, dissipating the atmosphere they had created with a shrill noise. Captain Cockblock struck again.

Fumbling fingers, Tony tapped the green icon, shooting an apologetic look to the woman. "Rogers, there better be another alien invasion or I'm revoking your phone privileges," The woman chortled, taking a sip of her beer, trying hard not to seem like she was listening in and failing spectacularly at it. "Today, out of all days? Can't Strange fill in for me?" The engineer palmed his face, running a hand through his neatly done-up hair. It would be covered in soot and sweat in an hour anyways. "Fine, I'll be there in twenty minutes. Romanoff better be hauling Barton's lazy ass out of Bed-Stuy." With a frown, Tony poked the red icon and stuffed the phone back in his pocket, looking for all and all, like an angry adolescent.

The woman, however, didn't indicate any signs of displeasure. Her hand timidly reached out for his, giving it a brief squeeze. "Go, save the world, Mr. Stark," Her smile was sympathetic. They both stood up at the same time, Tony watching her incredulously as the woman untied a scrap of red fabric from around her neck and placed it around his wrist, tying the fabric with a loose but, frankly, pretty knot. "I like that bandanna, would be a shame if you didn't return it," She explained, shrugging her shoulders.

Tony snorted, fondly rolling his eyes, before beelining for the door, activating his Iron Man suit on the way out. Turning around before take off, he noticed her throw a couple of crumpled bills to the server who was too busy ogling him.

He forgot to pay for dinner, Tony realized as he made his way to the other part of the city. Well, fuck, he would definitely have to see her again.

---

An alien invasion during her first good date in ages - scribble, scribble, sigh. She couldn't do much more than that - just as she thought her string of bad luck had ended, the world turned around and flipped her a juicy bird, all but laughing straight in her face. Like that already wasn't enough, oh no, she groused as she spied the debris and random abandoned cars on her way home - it looked like some portion of the battle had been close to her home and only the sheer mental exhaustion that resulted from her life being turned upside down during the last month prevented her from having a full-on freak-out in the middle of the eerily quiet street.

Truly, the fucks she had to give had been expired.

The gloomy mood was interrupted by a cry - for help or of outrage, she didn't know, but the kindness in her, the very values she'd been raised with didn't allow her just to walk by, and with another resigned sigh, she tucked the nice blouse she'd put on for the date under her warm sweater and set off in the direction of the sound, finding the culprit in little under a couple of minutes.

Freeing the trapped civilian wasn't easy but, thankfully, neither it required super-strength or any kind of heavy machinery. The man thanked her and with him in tow, both of them set off to inspect nearby nooks and crannies. Logic won that day - if there's was one person, there could be more.

Hours later, sweaty, sore and bruised, the woman greedily chugged the water bottle someone had passed onto her as the amount of medics and firefighters had finally reached the threshold of when her help wasn't needed anymore. While her date and his colleagues fought whatever nasty that thought NYC was a sandbox battleground for their amusement, the woman found herself helping out with retrieval & evacuation of the civilians that didn't make it out of the neighborhood before the heat of the fight reached it. There were no deaths registered as of then and deep inside, she felt proud, knowing that she had contributed to the statistic at least a little.

Her phone was dying, her body was covered in dirt and scratches from head to toe and the bruises were beginning to ache. Tony's worry-worting was cute but the tiredness overcame her, making her brain sluggish and her demeanor short, so she hastily pocketed the phone, trailing over to the closest man in uniform she could spot.

"Sir?" She addressed him, eyeing the unfamiliar logo on his jacket. "Can I go, please?" She pointed to the yellow tape surrounding the makeshift medical station.

"I'm going to have to see your ID first," He replied apologetically, tapping away on his tablet.

With a sigh, she dug through her purse, giving it to him and using the brief moment of respite to smooth back her hair and dust off her clothing. There was a cloud of concrete and dirt surrounding her.

"I'm afraid I can't let you go just yet, Mr. Stark left strict instructions for you to be picked up by him personally," The agent gave the ID back with a suspicious glint in his eye.

"Oh c'mon," The annoyed whine escaped her lips before she registered it. "It was our first date," She offered to the puzzled agent, only succeeding in making him lean back and inspect her with a raised eyebrow. "Bye," She replied none too kindly, walking off to find a place to sit down.

The time passed in a strange way. The aches and pains and exhaustion made it stop, and if someone would have asked her, she wouldn't know how much of it has passed until her eyes reluctantly cracked open at the sound of a familiar voice, coming to see a pair of expensive shoes covered in dust. At least she wasn't the only one that looked like she'd taken a roll through someone's gritty attic.

"Morning, you Tasmanian Devil," Tony sounded jovial, all things considered.

"Hello to you too, Tin Can," The woman greeted him on par, without missing a beat.

"Now, now," He offered her his hand, which she took gratefully, before pulling her to her feet. "I come with peace offerings. Your building is under quarantine and I've got a perfectly good bed and a shower with thirty settings on it at my place. Whatcha say?"

She only pretended to think about it. Her reply was haste. "I don't make a habit of going into strange dudes' towers but I'll make an exception this once." A shower and a bed sounded heavenly.

Finally getting the chance to look at him, Tony appeared to be unhurt but equally exhausted and dirty. A few scrapes on his face and arms, he was missing his blazer, and had a weary tone to his face. Some parts of his Iron Suit were still on him - like the chest plate - but besides that, he was whole. The red of the bandanna she gave him was equally dirty but still neatly tied around his wrist, just like she left it.

"How's your relationship with heights?" He asked her and all she could do was blink, watching curiously as his body was enveloped by the red and gold, crawling over his skin like a swarm of shiny termites. That was all the warning she got before the metal arms - quite literally - sweeped her off her feet. "Faster this way," She could hear the nonchalant shrug in the metallic voice coming from the helmet. "Now hold on."

Awe and fear culminated inside the woman but the weariness had long since surpassed comfortable levels and all she did was give a weak nod and close her eyes as Tony lifted off, gusts of wind making her skin break out in goosebumps and her hair stand up wildly on her head. During the short trip her eyes fluttered open only once just to close back up immediately - all she saw were clouds, white and fluffy, like marshmallows, and the shining beacons of NYC skyscrapers somewhere far away.

The paralyzing anxiety fully dissipated only when her feet found purchase on the tiled floors, Tony's arms never ceasing to support her swaying frame until the breaths she took were her own and not the result of her fluttering heart and muted panic. "You with me, Wonder Woman?"

"Yes, Weird Science," She mumbled. "Thanks for the heads up," The annoyance had to find a way out and that it did.

"You're welcome," The cocky smirk returned to Tony's face as his suit receded, leaving him barefoot, dirty jeans and a torn tee. He stretched with a sweet groan, gesturing towards the door. "Friday will direct you towards the showers. Feel free to grab a t-shirt from the closet."

The woman nodded, too awestruck by the man and his hospitality, eyes darting all over the tastefully decorated room, the expensive knick-knacks scattered everywhere, the absolutely enormous sloppily made bed. Tony Stark liked to live luxuriously - even the shower was a state of the art technological wonder.

Dirty pants and dusty blouse went flying somewhere in the back of the bathroom as the woman stood up on her tippy toes, reaching for the sky, stretching her sore muscles. The glass wall of the shower had began to fog up from the hot water. The knock went barely noticed by the woman who jumped as Tony's voice startled her out of her daydream.

"Forgot I ran out of towels here..." He trailed off, voice dropping as he spotted her only in her underwear. She turned, responding with a lopsided grin, spying the stack of fluffy grey in his arms, the arc reactor in the middle of his bare chest. He smirked, "Damn. Can I join you?" Giving her what only could be described as a respectful once-over.

Tired as she was, her sense of humour and wit didn't go down for a much needed nap just yet. "I don't know, you tell me. Can you?" Turning back around, the woman made a short show of unclasping her bra and tossing it in the general vicinity of her dirty clothing pile. She'd worn a cute matching set of undies that day and the fact didn't go over Tony's head, she was sure.

The door clicked shut just as she raised her face to the stream of water, feeling calmer with each second, muscles relaxing themselves as the hot stream washed away the dirt and the dust off her body.

"And I thought this evening was ruined," Tony's voice insinuated from behind her. A hand reached for the soap, his body heat scorching compared to the steaming water. He stayed just a few inches away, enough to feel him, enough for her body to respond and crave more. "It's nice to be wrong for a change. Refreshing."

The woman hummed, reaching up to run her fingers through her wet, knotted hair. "First decent evening in ages. I wasn't gonna let some uninvited Predator knock-offs ruin it for me," She was more than a little peeved at the space invaders interrupting her nice date. Tony was a great conversationalist, it was easy to talk to him and he had a brilliant sense of humour. Not to mention the obvious, he was easy on the eyes.

"That's the spirit," The voice was closer now, almost in her ear. Even though her eyes were closed, the woman was aware he was reaching for something, letting him butt her hands out of the way to lather her hair, scrubbing at her scalp meticulously, until the sounds that left her mouth bordered on embarrassing. Once that was done, Tony moved onto her body, running his hands over her back, the outside of her hips. "M'not stepping over, am I?" He asked quietly, touch faltering every time he brushed over a scrape or a bruise.

"No, you're doing great, Tony," It wasn't exactly conventional - sharing a very intimate shower after an interrupted first date, but then again, nothing about this man was conventional and her life had already been turned upside down no less than twice recently. The woman didn't lie, the gentle, caring touch felt soothing.

Arching her back, she lifted her arms to repay him with the same, raking her fingers through his hair, leaning into the shudder that ran throughout his body. It was nice to bask in whatever they had going on, so the motion to face him was almost reluctant. Water droplets stuck to his eyelashes and his eyes were tired but not in a way that suggested he'd kick her out first chance.

Their kiss was sweet, slow, like they already were familiar with each other in a special way. The woman tugged on his lip with her teeth - such was her character - and he pressed closer to her, raising a hand to hold the side of her face. In muted curiosity, she couldn't help but wonder if there ever had been someone that waited for him once his battles were over.

Tony's eyelashes, the very same that had no business being this long on a man, fluttered against her cheek as they stood under the shower, letting water wash away the day.

"I've always wanted to kiss in the rain, like they do in the movies. This is the closest I've gotten," She whispered, gently kneading the arch of his shoulders. "Feels better than it looks, to be honest."

Tony snorted, reaching for the knob to turn it off. "Cheesy," He teased her, wrapping a warm, fluffy towel around her body. Both people made quick work of drying themselves, exiting the fogged up bathroom, making way into the bedroom, padding soft on the carpet and falling down on the bed carelessly.

"I'm the queen of cheesy one-liners," The woman raised her eyebrows, scooting under the sheets next to Tony who opened his arms wide, a smirk on his face. She didn't give him the chance to reply, slotting her lips over his instead and groaning as their heated bodies once again rested against each other.

She ran her hands over Tony's defined pecs, glossing over the arc reactor, raked nails over his tummy, eating up the sighs leaving his mouth at the gesture. He was a beautiful man, she wasn't going to lie to herself. The warmth that settled low in her belly grew, spreading throughout her limbs and temporarily overshadowing the exhaustion.

The engineer, too, was quite excited - his erection poked her hip - and content to be steered to her wishes by the hand in his hair. Groans and sighs left his moist, parted lips as his eagerness bled into his hands, grip firm and steady on the panting woman's hips.

Adrenaline did something to her body, caused it to ache sweetly, a hunger to be satisfied only by a lover's touch. And touch she did; her mouth tasted him, alternating sucking gentle marks onto his throat and nibbling on the skin stretched thinly over his collarbones. Tony's sighs grew in depth and volume with every silent action of worship.

No inch of his body was left untouched, the woman was an all-hands-on-deck kind of lover, happily making her way down until soft lips wrapped around the crown of his cock, making his hips arch into it, hands fisted in the soft white sheets. "You devil," Tony gasped out, limbs turning to jelly, watching the woman all but devour his cock.

She popped off minutely, a trail of sticky saliva running down her chin, sticking to his glistening cock. "The power of Christ compels me?" With a smirk, her tongue trailed from his balls to the very tip, paying extra attention to the frenulum, making Tony shudder and gasp out an embarrassed laugh.

"Uh-uh," Stripped of his usual snark, he was but a man at her mercy.

"It's not very compelling," The predatory stretch of her lips widened as she took mercy on him, giving his cock a few slow tugs with her hand. Her mouth, her hand and his cock were dripping. "Gonna let me do all the legwork, Mr. Stark?" She sat up straighter, inadvertently drawing his eyes to the apex of her thighs where the woman's sex glistened in the dim light, lips swollen and inviting.

It sounded like she was mocking him, teasing him, egging him into a lustful frenzy none of them had the energy for but craved anyway. Tony Stark wasn't the one to back down from a fair challenge so he relented, flipping them over with ease, landing between her spread legs, eyes drawn to the momentary bounce of her breasts. Tony wasted no time in suckling a hard nipple into his mouth, humming in response to her choked-off moan of surprise.

"Tony," Her body arched into his touch, tender skin hot under the callouses on his fingertips.

"Yes, demon, dear?" A lopsided grin and laughter in his eyes preceded the wet stripe Tony licked down to her navel. "Wasn't there something about not telling demons your name? Guess you have power over me now," He trailed off cheekily, soft breaths puffing over her mound.

The woman bit her lip, peering down to rake a hand through Tony's hair, snagging a fistful to gently steer him towards her pussy. Tony's smile was one of satisfaction as he obediently followed her silent order, nosing along the line of her cunt, dipping his tongue to run slow, sloppy lines through the soaked folds.

"Fuck," She mumbled, spreading her legs without shame. "Yeah, right there," Her fingers turned white at the agility of Tony's tongue on her clit. He was swift and relentless in pursuit of the spots that made her moan and clench around nothing. The moisture of her sex soaked his goatee but he couldn't care less.

He growled when she attempted to withdraw, wrapping his muscular arms around her thighs to keep her still for his pleasure, wringing noises that increased in volume with every stroke of his tongue on her sex.

"Tony- please, Tony, I'm gonna-" The warning was brief; her back arched as a broken moan found its way past her moist, parted lips, her pussy spasmed, dripping all over his face and the sheets.

The engineer hid his smile against her thigh, discreetly wiping the obscene amounts of moisture she produced. It wasn't very long until her hands, slightly shaky, were tugging him upwards to meet his face in a rushed, graceless kiss. There was an equal lack of finesse in the glide of his erection along her sex.

"Okay?" He mumbled into her ear, lining himself up with her fluttering cunt.

"Please," She gasped, her hands pushing his hips onto her, eagerly lifting up to accept the sweet intrusion.

There was a quiet stutter in both of their breathing, hearts thudding against their ribs as he finally bottomed out, the thickness of him nestled snugly inside the rippling muscle. The pace he started out was agonizingly slow and inexplicably sweet, neither of them wanting to end their coupling prematurely but not being able to hold back the need that consumed them both.

"Fuck, you're so good to me," Tony's mumbling was overshadowed by the slick sounds coming from the place they were joined. "Gonna fill up this pretty pussy."

The woman keened at the idea, digging her nails into his ass, pulling him further into her.

"You'd like that?" He picked up the pace, blunt tip of his cock catching up with the tail end of her previous orgasm and re-lighting the fire in her belly anew.

"Yeah, Tony, please," No trace of the previous coyness in her voice, the woman was more than ready to beg, murder and steal to feel the man come undone in her arms.

It didn't take long, not with the adrenaline making their blood sing and the chemistry they shared. The brutal pace of Tony's hips quickly grew sloppy and erratic, the tightening of her inner muscles egging him on. He chased his release with deep, powerful thrusts that had the bedsheets rustle pitifully and beads of clear swear drip down his forehead.

As soon as her body arched once more, Tony let go of his control, slotting himself deeply into her spasming heat, cock throbbing as he painted her insides white with his seed, groaning incomprehensible compliments and profanities through his teeth. Chest heaving, the engineer couldn't do much more but let himself carefully fall onto her chest, aftershocks making him twitch when the woman began running a gentle hand through his hair.

"We're doing this again," He decided, still breathless but already a step ahead. She laughed.

Tony Stark taglist: @pilloclock @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @downeyreads @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @slothspaghettiwrites @bluecrazedandbeautiful

[omegalomania]

I think tumblr ate my ask or it just didn't sent but what are your favorite Bastille songs / what are some songs you recommend?

i did NOT get this ask im very sorry anon.

it's genuinely hard for me to narrow down cause bastille is pretty up there in terms of favorite artists. i love all their shit, but a special mention goes out to their second studio album wild world since it's the one that made me a Fan

uh so here's a primer i guess i spent too much time on this lmao.

if you wanna listen to their big hits:

flaws - their first single in the uk. if you ever listened to ship playlists on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 then you've probably heard this song or a variant on it at some point.

pompeii - this is the song that really put them on the map and you definitely know it. it dominated the charts all over the place.

happier - the marshmello song that you've definitely heard before too. i think bastille wrote this for justin bieber or some shit but then decided they liked it too much to give it to him? lmao. anyway if you're not digging the version you hear on the radio all the time i recommend trying the stripped down version

good grief - their big hit off their second album. big in the uk, didn't really make as many waves elsewhere, but it's a really solid song anyway. one of those "upbeat tunes that's actually really fucking sad" ones

things we lost in the fire - another one off their first album. if you live in a wildfire area this might not be one to turn to. or maybe you'll find it cathartic idk i certainly do!!

quarter past midnight - a song about escapism, as was fitting when it was released in 2018 and equally fitting now. running away for a night of fucking around with friends, craving any kind of brief departure from the chaos of the modern world

skulls - this one was not a hit or a single and is technically a bonus track but i'm including it because once again if you ever clicked on a ship playlist on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 you've heard this one. and you know what that was justified this one is also good

if you wanna feel existentially depressed:

their whole discography. i mean i kid but i also don't. that's just kind of how bastille does it. BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS ones that hit me in particular would beeee

two evils - kind of a grim, haunting one introspecting about morality of the self.

oblivion - musing about the afterlife, love, and how time changes all of us.

those nights - contemplating what it is we seek when we plunge into reckless escapism, and the inherent loneliness of it; how even when surrounded by people there's still the pressure of the world outside, continuously coming to pieces

the draw - this one was written about the pull of pursuing a career in music vs. staying home with family and friends. in a broader sense, it can apply to a lot of things. i always felt it resonated with feelings of paranoia and displacement

winter of our youth - discusses childhood, nostalgia, and regret. if it feels like everything's slipping away, is it easier to relive the past, especially if the past is tinted rose?

sleepsong - loneliness, desperation, and the cyclical, abyss-like nature of all it encapsulates

if you want discussion of serious topics:

final hour - a bonus track off their second album that also became a bonus track off their third album? anyway this song talks about climate change and gun control. happy stuff

doom days - this one talks about, uh, everything! doomscrolling, political divides, escalating national tensions, climate change again, etc.

the currents - a song centered on political rhetoric and the power that figureheads have over the masses, the way they can orchestrate hate. basically it's not so subtly aimed at donald trump lmao, dan's literally sung it as much in a few live settings

WHAT YOU GONNA DO??? - social media addiction and the way capitalism and corporate interests have annexed our online experiences, fighting desperately for our attention as they seek to monetize every available aspect of our lives

four walls (the ballad of perry smith) - well this one is about uh. perry smith. who was charged with the death penalty for killing 4 people in the late 50's. but it's less directly about him and more a discussion of the morality of the death penalty and capital punishment

snakes - burgeoning anxieties and the impulse to turn to easy outs, like ignorance or alcoholism, to escape the world's global problems

if you want some pop culture sprinkled on top:

icarus - greek mythology. i like this one because it addresses something that i feel isn't addressed enough in discussions of this myth, which is that icarus is a very young lad. less about the pride of the fall, and more about the inherent tragedy of that.

laura palmer - the whole song is a david lynch shoutout. i've never seen twin peaks myself but the song still slaps.

daniel in the den - christian mythology. discusses the biblical tale of daniel in the lion's den and links that up to themes of betrayal and family.

poet - this one's a double feature, referencing both william shakespeare's sonnet 18 and edmund spencer's sonnet 75. also one of my favorites.

send them off! - this is another one of my favorites of theirs. it's also been described by dan as "othello meets the exorcist" and it very much delivers there

if you want something uplifting:

joy - while bastille (understandably) has a bit of reputation as a band that makes sad music about sad things, they've definitely got some happier songs in their catalogue. pun intended cha ching. this one's one of their more straightforwardly happy tunes

survivin' - this was a song they wrote while they were touring and then felt weird about releasing once the panini hit because it felt a bit on the nose. they ended up releasing it anyway and i am so glad they did cause it's a mood

act of kindness - the "happy" part here is debatable but i'm gonna include it anyway. it’s when someone does something nice for you and that impulse Changes you way down deep you know???

warmth - one of those "the world's going to shit but at least we have each other" kinds of tunes

the anchor - one of those "the world's going to shit but you're the one fucking thing that's still keeping me here" kinds of tunes

give me the future - their latest single as of this writing and one of the more optimistic tracks in their catalogue imo! it's yearning, but it's also with a genuine hope for the future.

and LASTLY. because im going to take every chance i can to plug this band. im going to throw some collabs and covers at you because there's one thing this band does SUPER well and it's collabs and covers.

of the night - this is the big one. it mashes up rhythm of the night by corona and rhythm is a dancer by SNAP! and it's so good they still do this one live and it goes off every time.

no angels - a mashup of "no scrubs" by TLC and "angels" by the xx, poured into a strangely mournful tune with clips from the hitchcock movie psycho. doesn't sound like it should work but it does. kinda really does.

torn apart - with GRADES and lizzo no less!!! it's got two parts but they're both excellent listen to them both

weapon - collab with angel haze, dan priddy, and F*U*G*Z and one of my absolute favorites

remains - remix of their song "skulls" but featuring rag'n'bone man and skunk anansie that adds an entire new dimension to the song, really fucking excellent

old town road mashup - lil nas x's old town road meets lizzo's good as hell meets radiohead's talk show host meets talking heads' road to nowhere meets the osmond's crazy horse. "what the fuck that shouldn't work" i KNOW and yet here it is!! BLATANTLY BANGING!!!

we can't stop - one of the few times dan smith subtly changes the lyrics of the song he's covering (most of the time he opts to keep the original pronouns and the like, which is very nice to see). anyway this one mixes miley cyrus's we can't stop with eminem's lose yourself and billy ray cyrus's achy breaky heart. and also the lion king's i just can't wait to be king is there. yes i know it sounds batshit especially because the whole thing is surprisingly melodic and heartfelt and you know what it works.

anyone but me x nightmares - mashing up joy crookes' anyone but me with easy life's nightmares and absolutely one of my favorites.

bad guy mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "bad" in the title? we've got bad guy (billie eilish), bad decisions (bastille), bad romance (lady gaga), and bad blood (taylor swift). bastille even has a song called bad blood and they didnt use it. they used taylor swift's version. also the distinctive guitar riff from dick dale's misirlou is there.

somebody mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "some" in the title? someone like you (adele), somebody told me (the killers), somebody to love (queen), use somebody (kings of leon), and someone you loved (lewis capaldi). seriously these guys take mashups to a new level.

final song - this is a cover of MØ's final song. it also adds in craig david's 7 days and, impossibly enough, europe's final countdown. how does it work. how.

ALL RIGHT. THATS ALL IVE GOT IN ME. HOPE THIS HELPED ANON AND IM SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH

[incarnateirony]

An anti dressed up as a shipper, an idiot, and a terf all walk into the same bar.

It’s the same picture person.

A lesson.

Warning: if the title doesn’t give it away, queerphobic content comes up in this from the other party being documented.

So, some of you may have watched a twitter exercise yesterday.

It started simple: concern trolling white knight “for the writers” comes in to angrily declare fans doing something tagged in support of them about Destiel was “out of line.” She claimed things like “Misha was gaslit into supporting Destiel”, and pulled all kinds of stunts.

She immediately got on a soap box yelling “I HAVE A LIT CRIT DEGREE, I KNOW AUTHOR INTENT” of course implying she knew better than EVERYONE around her how to read text. She then pulled, of all things, @chill-legilimens​​ ‘ article about the network gods gutting the show out of the internet, and somehow misread it SO FUCKING BADLY -- SO FUCKING BADLY -- she thought it aligned with HER. She argued that fans influenced the writers, essentially, and basically pulled the exact opposite of the very clearly delivered message there out. When it was pointed out we know this author and even sometimes help edit their pieces, and she was, flat out misreading it while bragging about how good she is at deciphering text, it turned into a SHITSHOW.

I had watched her give a large group of queer people 2 days of runaround, while they tried to be polite, and similarly tried to prove everything while she proved nothing. Just preached. After 2 days of them exhausting themselves on her, I came in doing my blunt & savage thing, because fuck civility culture when it’s used by oppressors. Of course, she immediately started tone policing, while herself being an arrogant shitbrick the whole way.

She continued to preach author intent and talk down about “headcanons.” You see, she knew the authors very well. Berens’ name was mentioned in passing, and she came back with. “Who’s Berens? Is that the author of the article?” after Deirdre’s name had been directly cited in associated with it about 15 times.

(credit: @judgehangman​ )

But it gets better. She started pulling the “authors have said Dean is straight.” line. Now, at this point, we had already sourced her at least four pieces of information (quite formally too: SPN Official DVD Collection Season 8 episode 13 creative commentary, Edlund and Sgriccia; Dissent Magazine The Attack Queers Bob Berens review; the books in the office with screenshots, and more.) So we issued one simple request: Okay. Source.

For the next-- I shit you not-- 10 hours she bricked the thread to death, finding any and EVERY rabbit hole she could try to venture down. For the first hour or two a few of us tried to actually debate her newly raised points, but still gave reminder that we were waiting for her source. Every tweet was an opportunity for her to drop a 15 tweet thread trying to derail onto a new topic, and often clarifying she had no idea about any of it (Edlund, Sgriccia, Berens, Dabb--who she couldn’t spell the name of--and Deirdre all became an amorpheous blob in her retelling that she swore she looked at sources and wasn’t convinced, while she crossed all the data and comments about the sources). She tried to challenge that anyone could know all the writers and episodes just because she proved she couldn’t, even when multiple people expressed it to her extremely rapidly with not just author and director listings, but cross references on when they overlapped and major elements (like the 15.20 shot 19 tree being the Kim Manners memorial tree). She randomly babbled about Kripke once. Lied her way through and claimed those sources were vague. Etc.

But at some point, I decided, we’re not playing this distraction game. You wanted a debate, you claim you have a lit crit degree, and thus know the entire art is Argumentation. A source, if you’re declaring knowing author intent. One source. Any time she dropped a distraction tweet, I replied to her thread with things like a list of our sources vs her lack of any and a reminder. I installed a counter ticker. How many times had she been asked to either recant her point or give a single source?

Someone made a list of the logical fallacies she used in the argument. It was two tweets long and still missed several obvious ones. That didn’t stop her. Neither did the dozens of requests for a source or a recant. Onwards, she marched, derailing time and again. She brought in a buddy to try to distract, but he fell out real quick when he realized “the burden of proof lies on the arguer” shot him and her both in the feet in record time and he ducked out. 

Other greatest hits came out like “Dubs (Dabb’s) fanfic books”, and calling the ability to list authors and episodes “headcanons.”

Over time, the dialogue shifted: see, she came in trying the snide “enjoy your headcanons” downtalk, but as time and time again she was pulverized on every point about the show, or the authors, or anything else while STILL never even giving a single source to even her FIRST POINT and running distractions, it became a reality-- she was told, “We’ll enjoy our canon and author intent. You can enjoy your headcanon of... Dabb’s fanfic books and Lord Barons and the writers being collective hallucinations and whatever else in your hot takes about the show content itself” and she FLIPPED SHIT. 

As the ticker for sources approached 100, she started becoming flustered. Before that, even, she started repetitively misgendering Ezra (no tumblr to link in), and Ezra screenshot their bio of they/them and asked them to adjust. Ignored. Ezra linked this request and asked it to be addressed again, and again, and again. 13 times. Ezra linked it 13 times. She even replied to several of them. No avail. No change. Not until literally any and every tweet in her vicinity either had “source?” or “address gender?” for her to reply to did she flee there, and write some giant write-around of “oh, I didn’t see this, sorry” but still refused to actually use it. Or “I’ll use the right one now.” No, just completely strickened pronouns from her vocabulary with Ezra moving forward, after not one mistake, not two, not five, but 13 answers.

At this point, I notice a trend: throughout the entire conversation, she had flip flopped on my pronouns, clearly confused as to what to call me. As I generally don’t care (honestly I prefer he but meh), it didn’t ping me as something to react to while she switched religiously between “he” and “she”. But I realized now, despite all of that confusion: she never once thought to use “they.” Also earlier we found tweets of hers that, while now declaring herself bisexual, she used troublesome wording in the past to blur the line on if she was an ally or, as she phrased it “maybe less than 100% straight in the bell curve” in other conversations.

I mutter about this on the side to Ezra and some friends, but continue on towards the 100 ticker that was the goal to show people in this digital terrarium how disingenuous most people you argue with are -- an exhibit for the class. They know they’re lying and have been caught, but will not cede to admit “oops, I guess I was wrong.” but rather stick, unironically, to their own headcanons about things. After all, they vaguely sorta apologized even if suddenly just refusing to use any pronouns at all on Ezra after that. And she’s so quick to disappear into 15 tweet bombs of distraction trying to play victim for being held accountable at this point, we just didn’t jump to a conclusion on that, alarming as it is.

So. You know. Source.

At this point, she RANDOMLY starts evoking the fact that like, How Dare, She Watched Gay Men Die To AIDS, She Is A Great Philanthropist How Dare How Dare. 

I’m sorry, did you just evoke the blood of our dead to run away from the most basic scrap of accountability in what is literally the first wave of a lit debate because for the last 10 hours you have refused to take the necessary steps to move on to the next point? Did you... just... evoke the ghosts of gay men that were genocided to, essentially, pull up a smokescreen and run away from being party to queer erasure? Or even just? Giving a source? or admitting you were wrong on one point in a debate? Wow, you really just did that. 

Naturally, people involved got pissed. Her Sources ticker hit 100, but at this point, all that haunted her was how completely fucking vile and inappropriate that was in this discussion. 

She got blocked. She then tried to glom onto anyone that hadn’t blocked or muted her and run the same argumentation points she had earlier been decimated in the argument with, while yelling “I ship Destiel too! I wanted them to have sex too! Why does this make me the bad guy?” around the block and hoping nobody actually read the thread. She tried to pitch the “headcanons” point of view again, hoping a new audience would lick her boots. She was, largely, ignored; given a few more comments about her leaving the conversation losing all points and only covered in the blood of our dead she was so proud of; blocked by a few more. (unsurprisingly, if you check her actual tweet history, she seems more invested in Megstiel but)

This is when CommaSameleon -- a professor with two lit degrees and a primary focus in teaching the art of Argumentation -- literally -- stepped in. She initially tried to engage the fact that, well, this woman not only can’t argue out of a paper sack but wasn’t even arguing, she was just running in circles and distracting from all the points and hadn’t addressed a single lit point directly while preaching down at people. But Sam, also, noticed something. This woman kept changing things like “queerphobia” to “homophobia.” Sam mentioned this kinda puts off TERF vibes (I think Sam picked up on the gendering thing herself too.)

Her response? Which she deleted since? But Discord’s embed helpfully saved?

Her inacted non-apologies remain weak, especially in any form of debate be it lit or now queer topics.

Oh I’m sorry, let’s recap her viewpoints: TERF is a slur. “They” is made up and should be avoided at all costs. The blood of dead gay men are a token to use in a lit debate you’re avoiding responsibility in. After this, “authors are headcanons” is suddenly not your worst take, but fascinating that you 13 times didn’t even read the blatant ass screenshot. And I mean, these weren’t subtle or easy to miss these 13 times.

100. She had 100 chances, literally, on a timer, to give a source or shut up with her platforming until she had one. Instead, she chose every rabbit hole she could manifest to disappear into, only to be met by another request for a source, and not moving on until we address the first points. We’ve given ours, now you give yours. Instead, you choose this. This is the hill you choose to die on, rather than admitting, “Sorry, I guess I was wrong” or “I guess I heard that somewhere, my bad.” 100 chances. 13 direct QT requests to address gender which she replied to but didn’t reply to until cornered (and still didn’t, truly, reply to), and “TERF is a slur.” Oh, and after waving around the dead men’s blood she also suddenly Can’t Be A Terf Because She Adopted Two Trans Kids. Lord help those children. Or, you know, the more realistic thing is she’s just manifesting all kinds of bullshit at this point to save face, which is probably why she deleted all the related tweets that show she’s a giant-ass TERF.

So anyway, this is very much a lesson on:

Paying attention to how people manipulate conversation to erase genuine discussion and debate.

Paying attention to WHY they do it. Motivation on methods and tactics will clear up a lot.

Figuring out HOW they try to sound woke about shit and when it’s entirely fucking vile and inappropriate to pull

And by all above points, figuring out that these people are among us, and how NOT to let them influence your conversations.

I don’t care if it’s about a discussion on a ship or show or anything else. People do this. A lot. Extremely dedicatedly, if the 100 asks doesn’t make that clear. 

Stop letting people railroad your conversations with disingenuous bullshit.

So anyway in honor of this I made everyone a gif

Use at will. It’s tagged anti-terf if you want to use the search feature on it.

UPDATE: 

Just went and checked. She went and deleted literally her entire side of the conversation, hundreds if not thousands of tweets. Luckily, Ezra mentioned repeatedly -- and I do trust them inherently -- that they were saving the entire conversation, so that zip file exists somewhere. How fascinating, after she accused us that we would want to delete tweets. Someone realized they had a bad look and giant failure all around.

Also, a related anon that links to an earlier part of this conversation I didn’t even document where she was crying about “cis erasure” [x] This shit went on so long I legit forgot about that.

[alirhi]

...goddess help me...

This fucking episode. *deep breath* This... This episode is where I'm expecting to get some serious hate. Let me just get this out of the way right up front:

I. Hate. Zemo.

I do not find him sympathetic, or funny, or charming. I find him creepy and annoying. I did not like him in CA:CW and I do not like him in TFATWS. If you are pro-Zemo, you are not going to like my version of this show from here on out. Just find something else to read and don't bother me about it. You've got the actual canon, so go enjoy that.

Got it? Good. Now, on to the main event!

Episode 3: The Power Broker

First of all, Sam doesn't let Bucky walk in there alone. No matter Bucky's (flimsy and nonsensical) argument, Sam's like "hell no. I go in with you, or you don't go in." The main reason for this isn't to keep Bucky from breaking Zemo out of prison (with decent writing, he would never do that) - it's so that Sam witnesses Zemo taunting Bucky with/about the trigger words. because Zemo is a piece of shit.

Since he doesn't know the full story, Sam is confused, but he files this interaction away to ask Bucky about later. He's listening to Zemo acknowledging that Bucky was "not conscious for most of [his] imprisonment" (which, yes, clearly refers to the time he spent frozen, but can also mean while he was under their control as TWS/"The Asset" - also, key word: imprisonment) and when he calls Bucky a means to an end, Sam scowls, looking ready to go off on him, but he waits. They've got more important issues.

Neither of them entertains the thought of breaking Zemo out for even a nanosecond. He does that shit himself. And literally the only reason I'm sticking with him getting out at all is because I want to address some truly egregious moments linked directly to him in the show. Zemo makes them think he's setting them on the trail when really he's just sending them to his motor pool. Bucky and Sam are confused until they see Zemo in his stolen guard uniform, then they're both angry and want to ship him right back to prison, but he strikes a deal with them: "My help for my temporary freedom. Creating super soldiers cannot be allowed to continue; let me finish my work, and then do with me as you will." He has no intention of going quietly back to prison, obviously, and they're not stupid enough to believe otherwise, but they believe they can keep him on a short leash, so they agree for now. Anything to bring down the Flag Smashers and whoever created them.

After the title, we cut to Raynor on the phone in her office. She's agitated, fiddling with things on her desk. "No, sir," she's practically growling, "it was disrupted. - Walker did! - It's not my fault your new attack dog got off-leash!" She pauses, huffs, and says more calmly, "No. Of course not. I'm sorry. - Well, I don't see how, with the new Cap strutting around barking orders! - What am I supposed to do? Tell Captain America in front of a dozen witnesses that he can't have his predecessor's favorite pet because we're not done reprogramming him? I didn't see that going over too well. I made a call. - No. No, no, no, we can still use him. The work's not finished, but he still trusts me. He'll be back." A pause as she listens. Angry again, she snaps, "What do you want me to do, shove a tracker up his ass? He'll be back, and we'll pick right back up where we left off! - Don't worry, sir, the Asset will be fully compliant and ready to use soon. I'll make sure of it. - Yes, sir. You, too." She hangs up and tosses her phone on the couch, grumbling, "Dick."

Cut back to Sam, Bucky, and Zemo getting going on their trip to Madripoor. On the plane, Sam wants to talk to Bucky about what he's learned so far, but doesn't want to bring it up in front of Zemo... until the notebook incident reminds him that Zemo already knows more about Bucky than he does.

After Zemo's line about the list, Sam angrily corrects him: "You mean people HYDRA used The Winter Soldier to hurt." When Zemo shrugs and his response is basically along the lines of "what's the difference" Sam is like "oh hell no."

"Those words you were reciting at him," he reminds Zemo, "what were they, Russian? They clearly meant something. They were supposed to do something. What are they?" "Sam, let it go," Bucky pleads, unable to look at either of them. "It's nothing." "You wanna drown in your guilt, that's fine," Sam snaps, "but make sure it's for the right reasons." He turns back to Zemo, who's smiling at this exchange because he's a monster and thinks Bucky's suffering is fucking funny. "I asked you a question, Zemo. What did those words do?" "They activate the Winter Soldier programming," Bucky grudgingly admits. He doesn't want to talk about it, but he's sure as hell not going to let Zemo speak for him. "Or, they did, before the Wakandans got all that shit out of my head." "It's a shame," Zemo says with a smirk. "Imagine the possibilities that come with perfect obedience." "I think you mean 'slavery'," Sam growls, "and I think you're in the wrong crowd to be looking so pleased about it. Remember that we can send your ass back to prison any time." "Of course," Zemo agrees, but with an arrogant smile that shows he doesn't believe for a second that these two have any real power over him. Still, he bides his time and sits back quietly, watching Bucky fidget with the notebook. Sam turns back to Bucky, seeing his discomfort; he won't let the topic go, though, not yet. He just softens his tone. "So, they 'activated the Winter Soldier'? What exactly does that mean?" Bucky shrugs, still not looking up. "Pretty much what he said - perfect obedience. What little consciousness they left me between cryo and the chair was squashed down, locked away. And I did whatever I was told, exactly the way they told me to." It finally clicks. He'd had his suspicions before, of course, but now Sam gets it. Visibly horrified, he stares at this quiet, broken man, and finally sees the truth of what he'd been through for 70 years: "They stripped away your autonomy. Shit, Bucky, they didn't even let you be a person. That's..." He swallows, looking like he'll be sick any minute. "That's awful, man. I'm so sorry." When Bucky tries to shrug it off and downplay it again, Sam gets angry. "Look at me!" He waits; it takes a few seconds, but Bucky reluctantly looks up and is surprised to see just how upset Sam is on his behalf. "It wasn't your fault. None of it. When Steve said you didn't have a choice, I had no idea... You really, truly had no choice; not even the ability to choose. That's horrifying." "I doubt it would make much difference to the people he's killed," Zemo points out snidely. "Or their families. Let's ask Tony Stark, shall we?" "You shut the hell up," Sam growls. He watches Bucky flinch and make that face - the face he's starting to really fucking hate - that says he agrees with Zemo. Bucky still can't see things the way Sam does; he still feels the guilt and shame, and even when he himself pointed out his lack of agency under HYDRA, it didn't click for him that Sam is right, not Zemo.

It's too much, too soon. Sam sees that and decides to change the subject, to give Bucky some time to process. He nods at the notebook, and they have their little Marvin Gaye debate, where Sam is over the top about it on purpose, because Bucky needs the distraction.

Of course, Zemo ruins it by opening his big mouth again and reminding Bucky of more trauma: his time fighting in WWII. That's why Sam latches onto the bit about Madripoor; to keep the focus not only on the task at hand, but off of Bucky's past that he clearly still can't cope with.

"James... You will have to become someone you claim is gone." Sam is officially ready to throw Zemo out a window. 😂 The only reason he doesn't jump to Bucky's defense again and basically tell Zemo to fuck himself (in a PG-13 way 🙄) is because Bucky's, as Sam pointed out in ep2, a grown-ass man, and because he's just learned how few decisions this poor man has been able to make in his life. Sam doesn't want to come across as another "handler," deciding everything for him, even if he does think this plan is stupid and needlessly cruel.

At the bar, when asked if he wants "the usual", Sam just casually waves the bartender off like "nah". Zemo already said they had business to attend to, so it's not like anyone would be suspicious that now's probably not a good time to be doing weird shots lol. (wtf even was that? I'm not sure I want to know, but...what part of the snake did he drop into that drink?)

Sam's not an idiot (I'm really so sick of this trend of turning intelligent characters into morons because the writers can't think of any other way to move their plot along) so his cell phone has been off this whole time. No sudden call from Sarah to put them all in danger. There was really no point to that, anyway; Sharon likely would have killed Selby for talking about Nagle with or without the excuse of "saving" Sam and Bucky. I mean, it's not like they know who fired that shot, ever.

"They cleared the Bionic Staring Machine," Sam still jokes, but he follows it with, "and they think he's a mass-murderer." "They think?" Sharon stares at him incredulously. "Didn't he kill pretty much everyone he's ever met?" "Wow." Sam glances back at Bucky. "She really is awful now." To Sharon, he adds, "You met Steve; do you really think he'd have defied 117 countries to protect someone evil?" "He did it for Bucky," she points out. "Let's face it - Bucky could blow up half the planet, and Steve's loyal-to-a-fault ass would still take a bullet for him." "You know I'm sitting right here, right? I can hear you." "Look, I don't think you're evil, Bucky," Sharon assures him. "But I know you killed a lot of people for HYDRA." "I'm not denying it." "He didn't have a choice," Sam snaps, glaring at them both. "But we're not getting into that right now. My point is, the government's afraid of Bucky, and they still pardoned him. All you did was steal something. I'm sure they can be persuaded to see reason." "The day the US government sees reason," Sharon quips, rolling her eyes, "is the day I sprout real wings and fly off into the sunset." "Careful, Icarus," Bucky mocks with a smirk, "the sun and brand new wings don't exactly go together." Then he shrugs and glances at Sam. "But she's not wrong."

At the party that night, it takes a few minutes (grumpy old man Bucky's not sure how to feel about the music lol) but a peek of pre-war Bucky comes out to play: they were told to "blend in", so he dances. At first he's just bobbing around alone looking stoic and out of place, but soon he's smiling and dancing between two attractive people - one male, one female. Sam is surprised, but before he can tease him for it, Sharon comes to get them all. Even she's a little "wait what?" at Bucky having a little fun lol. (recovery is not linear, guys. trauma doesn't mean "perpetually miserable, no fun, doesn't even know how to smile." in my TFATWS, Bucky gets his lighter moments; real ones, not humor at his expense)

When they find Nagle, Bucky's the one who notices and opens the secret door, while Sam keeps an eye on Zemo. Bucky catches Zemo trying to grab that gun; closes the drawer on his hand before opening it and taking the gun away. "Nice try." Nagle tries to get away while there's only one person watching him, but Sam catches him and forces him back into his seat. With a bruising grip on the back of Zemo's neck, Bucky drags him back over to where he and Sam can both keep an eye on him. Nagle is killed in the shootout as they're trying to escape; Zemo still runs off, blows shit up, and comes back with the stolen car so he's not totally useless.

I had no problem with Zemo being the one to kill Nagle; Nagle was the worst and def had to die, and Zemo has never had an issue killing anyone. Where I took issue with this scene was Bucky and Sam being dumb enough to let Zemo wander and get his hands on a gun. Nope. Not happening.

Anyway, shootout! Explosions! Funny banter! The seat thing, which is my favorite nod to CW ever lol... And then the conversation on the plane...

"You okay?" "Yeah." Sam sighs. "Just thinking." "About how to get Sharon that pardon you dangled in front of her?" He shakes his head. "About how Nagle referred to 'The Winter Soldier Program" like it was some kind of after school club; like you weren't standing right there. And 'the American test subject' like... Like Isaiah wasn't even a real person." He turns to face Bucky, looking angry and weary. "Makes me wonder how many times... How many times are we gonna run around in the same circles before people learn? And how many people need to get crushed underfoot in the meantime?" "Did you really just equate me with Isaiah?" Bucky frowns, not sure how to react to that. "That man is a hero." Sam opens his mouth to say something, but his phone goes off and Zemo approaches at the same time, effectively cutting off their conversation.

When they get to Riga and Zemo tries to guilt trip them over Sokovia, Bucky deadpan reminds him, "Neither of us were involved in that fight." "I doubt you'd have been much help if you were." He shrugs. "Probably not. But I like to save my guilt for events I was actually present for. It's a thing." Zemo laughs. "Fair enough."

Bucky goes on his walk, and meets up with Ayo.

[kim-ruzek]

The unit beyond Hank Voight: or, why Hailey being corrupted and/or changed isn't unique or special to only her. (Part One)

This is a meta that's split into two parts. There's this, which is an introductory one, really, that addresses who Voight is and why the greater fandom opinion of him is misunderstood. Setting up for part two: how life for Intelligence should be if/when Voight is written out. Because this is a topic I think people miss the nuance on as well.

Enjoy!

There's been a lot of talk on whether or not Voight, in this time, should really be the face of Intelligence. I, personally, do think no. I get why he first became it, and I get why he still is and in many ways I appreciate it. He's not the kind of cop this world should have, even in the eighties and whatnot, but he is-- especially for Chicago-- a "good" cop. Please take that word with a grain of salt, there's not a precise word in the English language which sums his mix of good and bad in the way he is-- even "morally grey", to me, does not quite describe him.

The world does not exist in a vacuum. We'd love it to, because then it makes life so much more simpler, and it's easy to act as if life does. But the truth of the matter, the world is not a vacuum, everything is complex and messy and grey. And so our shows aren't in a vacuum either, even if they try to be-- which, for the most part, Chicago pd tries not to act like they are, unlike so many shows.

It's very easy to boil things down to being black and white, good and bad, pure and evil. This is human, and something humans have been doing for years. But the world is nuanced, and to ignore that is to misunderstand what life itself is.

Setting a show in Chicago, especially a police show, was always going to be a complicated thing. And there's always going to things they exaggerated and things they overlook, but at the end of the day, Dick Wolf did a rather good job at getting the complexities. I'm not going to go into all he didn't quite get, especially as it's not my place too, it's just my place to look into this myself and learn, and this is not the point of this meta. And because at the end of the day-- it is a show.

Voight isn't morally bad, or good. He's this mix, a man who did bad things to try and get a good outcome. And it's the age old debate-- is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons morally good or bad? I think it's neither, something more complicated but either way you stand, you can't say it's cut and dry. Because it's not.

And I don't even think he's someone who does the wrong things for the right reasons, because that's too simplistic and doesn't show the full picture. What Voight wants is the outcome, and he'll do the wrong things for all the wrong reasons to get it. He'll even do the right things for the wrong reasons and vice versa.

We don't know how our actions are cosmically tallied, that's why we have our own beliefs. And we can want him to not be the lead for those beliefs, but we also need to be true. We need to look at everything, the whole picture and assess it that way-- we cannot just pick and choose.

And that's what a lot of fans are doing. And I hate that, because it's not fair to what makes humans humans. In a way, I don't even care about Voight, but this lack of understanding is what normalises some things, normalises demonising behaviours in your own peers that should be understood.

Media has an impact of real life, not just in what it shows but how the consumers respond to it, and some of this fandoms responses annoys me-- but the thing that pushed me to make this, is that it can sicken me because it's misunderstanding what life is.

I do not like Voight's policing style. It is outdated and it never should've been allowed and honestly, that first scene in the cage nearly made me not watch this show. If I wasn't going in already in love with Burzek, I probably would've stopped.

But you cannot say that he does not care. He does. Chicago is his city, and he cares about it in the way anyone employed by the city should. Everything bad thing he has done is for the city, to make it better. His methodology is not good, and it is counterproductive because it relies on the city being how broken it is. But it does do good, and he does that because he loves the city.

And he cares about the cops he works with. Not just his unit, but everyone. His unit has become his family-- the people he puts first-- over the years but even before then, he cared. In a way, it was very blue line type of way, but in a good sort of way. Still flawed, because he'd protect them in a way he wouldn't others, but much better than peers his own age. This should be appreciated, even in it's flaws-- because if you're going to judge him, take everything into account.

Voight is a bad man, in how he's achieved his outcomes. But he is not a bad man because he's an abuser. He cares, and he should not be emulated but he cares. And he is not a fucking abuser.

To get to the my starting point-- Hailey being changed or "corrupted" by Voight is not special or unique to her.

I see a lot of people saying he manipulated Hailey. And that shooting of Roy-- yeah. There was no way Roy was ever going to get out there alive, but Hailey is not blameless in that. Everyone has been telling her who Hank Voight is from day one, and she dug in her heels and thought she understood that, yet when it came to it-- when she went into that warehouse, she did not.

Voight wants the best outcome. And if we're putting things into a vacuum, Roy being dead is the best outcome. Dead = he can't physically hurt them again. And the world can always do with loosing one more awful person. Of course,out if a vacuum, murder has it's own moral assignments which makes it not the best outcome-- but that doesn't factor in for Voight and some people might agree.

I don't but if the man I fear the most was murdered by someone dodgy but cared about me, I wouldn't complain. I'd actually be able to breathe and not worry that one day I'll be a statistic. And-- it would ensure that everyone's efforts to keep me alive would definitely be worth it. Any time life is kept is good, but if I was just to die at his hands after everything, then my saviours actions... It just would be preventing the inevitable. And they worked so hard, and that's like with Kim. The unit struggled to find her, they fought, the doctors are fighting and if all that Roy survived and managed to get her and Makayla killed.

This shooting is the only time he has outright manipulated her. And he's not an emotional abuser.

But Voight is an arsehole. He can dictate how his unit is ran, but he does do dick things. And this can be infuriating when it's to your faves, especially when you perceive it as corruption. It's not, but for arguements sake, let's say it is. Hailey is not fucking unique in that-- this has happened to EVERY FUCKING MEMBER OF INTELLIGENCE. Even sumners.

So he's not evil-- and if he was an "abuser" it's not because what he's done to Hailey. It's what he's done to them all. In fact, he's done the least arsehole things to Hailey.

And yeah, Hailey projects her daddy issues onto Voight (which, like, same girl) but he doesn't take advantage of it and also-- that whole fucking unit (excluding Antonio and Al, but then they have their own problems) had parental issues that they're clearly seeking validation for. Most notably, as shown more explicitly in the show-- Adam.

So to conclude: Voight isn't some evil abuser who has manipulation on mind and doesn't care about his unit. He does, and would do everything to protect them. And yeah, it won't be in the most easiest way to protect them, but he does want the best outcome and he'll do anything to get it.

That's part one done, because this needs to be broken up into parts. Part two should hopefully be coming soon.

[hysterialevi]

So I'm not exactly sure how to get my thoughts across on this topic (and forgive me if this gets a bit too deep), but I just wanted to bring something up about Sigurd's character that I really fucking love:

How he addresses toxic masculinity.

Idk if I'm the only one who feels this way, but I personally found a lot of comfort in how Sigurd was written because his behavior is something that I've seen from other men in my life, and have even displayed myself at times.

As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I know I don't always communicate my emotions in the healthiest way possible, and there have been moments when I've hidden how I felt out of fear of looking weak or vulnerable (in fact, part of me is even debating uploading this post for the exact same reason). And like I said earlier, I've known other men who have done the same thing.

As a result, they'd always become very irritable and lash out at people in a similar way that Sigurd does after returning to Ravensthorpe. They would never reach out for help or say how they truly felt, and it always led to a lot of conflict.

Now, weirdly enough, seeing Sigurd do the same thing actually..... helped me in a way? It made me realize how important it is to be honest with yourself if you're ever feeling sad or depressed. Normally, I absolutely hate doing things like crying in front of people or talking about my problems, but after seeing Sigurd's story, it doesn't really bother me that much anymore.

So, yeah. I've still got a long way to go in terms of being self-aware of my emotions and showing them to people, but.... I mean it when I say Sigurd's character helped me a lot in that regard. He has a lot of flaws as a person, and that's what makes him so human to me.

Anyways, I'm done rambling for the day. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.