#and my ex has been really great about wanting to be careful w how he describes us and talks to me as we've been figuring things out

[callixton]

i genuinely don't know what changed where i experience active romance repulsion so much now but like. goddamn that shit is not for me. good to know! important to know these things about yourself!

[lxkeee]

BEGGING FOR A LUCIFER X FEM!READER SMUT ABT HIM EATING READER OUT AFTER SEEING HIM DO THAT GESTURE AT THE LAST EP PLSSSS 🛐🛐🛐🛐 would do anything for that man omfg I'D KILL FOR HIM TO CALL ME GOOD GIRL

genre: plot with some smut ig

warnings: cunnilingus, oral (fem receiving), soft dom! Lucifer, thigh marking, praising (both receiving), pet names (love, darling, sweetheart), whiney Lucifer.

notes: I don't do porn without plot so yes... There's a little bit of plot to this 💀 it is quite long as they're not having sex but making love soo you better bet he's going to take his time with herr... This one is hella long btw.

additional notes: banners are made by cafekitsune, reader wears gloves and I can't explain what kind but the kind Child/tartaglia wears from genshin impact. Also, I don't know if this will be good as it's been a long time since I've written smut 💀

tags: @adaizel @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx @thedarkitten (I can't tag you </3) @brithedemonspawn @dinawss @froggybich

“Good luck kiddo.” Lucifer said to his daughter before eventually slowly teleporting away from the hotel and back to the palace. His body manifested on the arm chair that's in his room and his shoulders sagged a bit. A heavy sigh left his lips.

“She grew up so fast but I still can't help but get worried...” he muttered underneath his breath as his eyes gazed upon the hanged picture frame of Charlie. Removing his hat from his head and placed in ton the table then his eyes slowly gazed into the framed picture that was on the table it was him and his new lover, [y/n]. He gave himself a second chance at love and he met [y/n], the only sinner that he actually likes being around with. Despite her mysterious yet charming personality, [y/n] is a nice woman, very patient and understanding. Although, there are moments his heart would yearn for his ex-wife, Lilith during his relationship with [y/n] but surprisingly [y/n] herself is very understanding, she understands that he cannot immediately and completely erase a love that lasted for so many years and with that, he is grateful for [y/n] and with that he always reassure her that he loves her and is happy with her. Though, right now, he is completely missing her as she's currently away for a week due to her status as an overlord. Despite [y/n] being an overlord, she didn't become one because of cruelty but many sinners would want to work under her as she treats her souls with care, providing a roof under their head, food, medicine, and protection as long as they follow her orders. [Y/n] didn't really specify how long she'll be gone as there are important matters to deal with but she promised that it won't take two weeks. She reassures him and vice versa.

“Oh [y/n], I've missed you.” Lucifer says to himself, shaking his head with a small toothy grin on his face that shows off his perfectly white sharp teeth. The circles of his cheeks turning a darker shade of red as he thinks about her. He sighs longingly as he squeezes a rubber duck that looks like her, the small rubber toy making a loud 'squeak' sound.

He didn't realize it as the arm chair was facing the opposite direction of his door, he didn't notice the said woman arrived awhile ago and decided to surprise him and opened the door without any sound. [Y/n] grins as she watches the man she loves plays with his rubber duck, her body leaning against the doorframe and her arms crossed over her chest.

“[y/n] come back soon, I need your insights on whether my decision of allowing Charlie a meeting with heaven was a great idea.” Lucifer whines to himself as he talks to the rubber duck version of [y/n].

This caught the woman's attention, [y/n] has met Charlie and she absolutely loved the girl. She heard that Charlie's opening a hotel that redeems sinners, she saw it on the TV and she honestly found it funny how she fought the TV host. She supports her cause but [y/n] thinks she wouldn't be joining it, not because she doesn't believe it will work but she doesn't want to leave Lucifer alone.

[y/n] let out a silent sigh as she continues to listen to her lover ramble to the rubber duck version of her, “If only you could see how motivated she is, love. I couldn't say no and I am afraid they'll crush her dreams like they crushed mine.” he says softly, his voice dull as he recalled what happened to him when he had so much hope and dreams for his people.

“I am sure Charlie would be fine, she's an amazing kid and she has an amazing father who will support her.” [y/n] says with a small smile, finally announcing her arrival. Lucifer slightly jumped from his seat from hearing her voice, turning around quickly to see his beloved leaning against the doorframe with her arms over her chest, the black suit she was wearing hugged her figure perfectly, the red tie adding a pop of color to her outfit. She looked gorgeous, she always does.

His eyes widened before a smile finally found its way back to his gorgeous face, “[y/n]! You're back!” he exclaimed, jumping out of his seat and quickly running towards her. [Y/n] chuckles as she moves away from the door, spreading her arms open for a hug—only for Lucifer to hug her and dip her, the action causing her to place her hands behind his neck for support and his actions caught her off guard when he finally kisses her.

The lovers stayed in that position, Lucifer supporting her weight as he held her waist while in the dipping position. Her hands behind his neck, playing with his light blond locks, causing the man to groan against her lips. Sharp teeth occasionally clash as they kiss, two weeks apart made them yearn for each other.

Lucifer's lips slowly moved away from her lips making [y/n] whine softly as he began to kiss the side of her lips, her jawline, and then her neck. Wet sounds of his kisses fills the room, along with [y/n]'s whimpers as she felt the devil himself began to mark her flawless neck with his hickies. Lucifer gave her a smirk before placing a gentle kiss on the newly made mark he just made on her neck.

“Welcome back, love.” he says softly, looking down at her flushed features. Admiring her as he held her in a dipping position. [Y/n] chuckles softly, her cheeks warm and red after the passionate kiss, “Oh, Lucifer... You always know how to make me swoon.” she mutters and he laughs, his laugh is like a gentle breeze that calms you down, so soft. His cheeks are turning a light shade of pink, “Well, it's a natural thing I can do when it comes to you.” he says with a chuckle before eventually helping her stand properly, making her chuckle softly.

“Aren't you romantic today?” [y/n] says with a small laugh escaping her lips, he could listen to her laugh all day and not get tired of hearing it. Lucifer smirked before softly holding her hand, bowing to place a gentle kiss on her knuckle, “I just missed you, that's all. I haven't seen you for almost two weeks.” he says before the hand that was holding her hand slowly glides across her arm, reaching her chest by her tie and then gently tugging her tie downwards so he could reach her face, “And we have a lot of catching up to do, my love.” he says with a smirk, making [y/n] blush slightly at the action and from the tone of his voice, “Indeed we do...” she replied with a suggestive tone and eventually closed her eyes as Lucifer presses his lips against hers, tugging her tie to lower her more and turn the kiss deeper. [Y/n] chuckles against the kiss, parting away from him for a few moments as a smirk finds its way to her lips, “My... Someone's eager...” [y/n] says teasingly making Lucifer blush slightly and pouted, “Don't blame me, I have truly and deeply missed you.” he says before slowly intertwining his hand with hers, pulling her towards his bed and [y/n] complied with a smirk, deciding not to tease him further. She wants him and he wants her. It's been so long since they've last touched each other. They needed this.

Lucifer gently pushed her down into his bed, [y/n] landing on the soft mattress on her back with a soft 'thud.' Lucifer followed soon after, climbing on top of her, his hand caressing her jawline while his other hand supporting his body weight. They stared at each other, eyes dilated and filled with love and adoration for each other. [Y/n] shudders a little as she feels the soft material of his gloves against her skin, her eyes looking up at him, admiring his beautiful features—the red aesthetic of his room making his light blond hair and pale skin pop, complimenting his beautiful ruby colored eyes, sharp jawline, pearly white sharp teeth, so angelic yet sinful, “You are so beautiful...” she murmurs softly and she swore his eyes dilated more before his hand moved back to her tie and gently tugged her upwards so their lips pressed against one another once more.

Mouths moved against each other, soft whimpers leaving their lips as they tried to match the other's pace. Lucifer groans softly as he feels her fingers combed through his slicked back hair, making it messy but he doesn't mind. He can taste the cherry flavor of her lipstick as he kisses her, the taste of her making his mind swirl, “Fuck... I can't get enough of you...” he groans softly as he gently bites her lower lip, asking for permission in which she obliges, parting her lips slightly to allow him to slip his tongue inside.

[y/n] moans softly, fueling his passion for her. Sharp teeth clash against each other as they lose themselves in the moment. [Y/n]'s hand slowly found its way to his, intertwining her hand with his own. Lucifer squeezes her hand as he continues to kiss her, savoring the sensation of her lips against his and his tongue exploring her mouth.

Her other hand is exploring his body, caressing his chest through his suit, making him shudder slightly. Lucifer's kisses once more moved away from her lips, moving downwards from her jawline to her neck, placing a gentle kiss on the previous hickey he made awhile ago before gently pulling her arm that had her hand that he was squeezing, bringing her hand to his lips and gently bit the end of her gloves with his teeth to pull her glove down. [Y/n] gulped from the action, her body heating up from how attractive he is. Fuck... Why is he so hot?

“You're such a tease...” she mutters softly with a pout making him laugh as he holds her other arm and does the same thing to her other glove, biting it down to remove it before throwing the gloves somewhere out of the bed, “But you love it, don't you?” he asked teasingly with a smirk and she sighs softly with a smile, “I do, I really do.”

“You better say those exact words to me one day but that time, it better be when I'm kneeling down in one knee.” he says teasingly making the girl blush and groan softly and nodded, “that's my girl... Now, how about we take these off as it is in the way hmm?” he asked as his finger traced her chest, running across her suit, a silent question for her consent and she nodded.

Lucifer began to loosen her tie, throwing the red fabric across the room before he began to unbutton her top. Revealing her lacy black bra underneath, fitting her breasts perfectly. Ah fuck, she's so gorgeous...

Removing the black fabric off her figure, finally showing off her torso. [Y/n] did the same to his suit, helping her remove his clothes as he could feel the heat of his skin beginning to heat up more.

Slowly and surely, one by one their clothes were removed. Leaving them naked for each other's eyes. Both Lucifer and [y/n] had to avoid each other's eyes as they felt shy, it has been awhile since they've done something so intimate.

[y/n] slowly moved her eyes back on him, admiring Lucifer's bare figure—hair messy, cheeks red, eyes shy and avoiding, beautifully handsome face and body—clearly sculpted by God. She allowed her hand to graze at his arm up to his jawline, holding his chin gently and then slowly tilt his head back so he's now once more looking at her.

Lucifer's breath hitched as his eyes finally landed on her, [y/n] looked so beautiful—her hair sprawled behind her, her [h/c] complimenting her gorgeous face, half-lidded [e/c] eyes and dilated pupils looking at him with so much need and adoration, plump lips that he oh so wanted to desperately kiss all the time, her body most especially... He just wants to leave kisses all over it.

“You're so beautiful, I can't believe you're mine.” Lucifer whispers softly with his cheeks flushed while he was above her, his arms supporting his weight. [Y/n] blushed and chuckled, “You tell me that everyday, love.” [y/n] says with a small smile and Lucifer can only chuckle, “It's because I want to,” he says with a small smile, pausing a bit, “I want to remind you everyday, that my love and adoration for you will never change and I am grateful that I've met you.” he says softly, his voice gentle and vulnerable as he expresses his love for her, his hand caressing her cheek. [Y/n]'s blush turned into a deeper shade of red as she listened to his confession, a small and flustered smile on her face as she intertwined her hand with his once more, “With that, I am eternally grateful that you chose me, for loving me and with that I would love you till the end of time.” she says softly, Lucifer can only smile—the same dorky smile you always loved seeing on his face.

Lucifer leans down so he can kiss her again, [y/n] instinctively snaking her as arms behind his neck—pulling him deeper into the kiss. Their kiss was needy, fiery, passionate yet gentle, soft moans and whimpers escaping past their lips. I love you's being muttered occasionally between them and against each other's soft lips. Occasionally, Lucifer would let out a small whine as [y/n] began to stroke his cock while they were kissing, his whines were music to her ears, “Y-yes... That feels amazing...” he whimpered softly against her lips, his hips thrusting against her hand for more friction. She could feel how hard he is for her, she can feel the veins running from base to the tip, she can feel the precum staining her hands.

Lucifer's kisses once more slowly went down—to her jawline, neck, collarbone and finally on her chest. He looked up at her, his eyes needy and dark with desire and love for her before he finally took one nipple into his mouth, suckling and swirling his long tongue around the sensitive nub while his other hand played with her other breast.

Whimpers and whines left [y/n]'s lips as her hand moves away from his cock and squeezes the pillows, Lucifer really knows how to pleasure her, her other hand running through his hair and massaging his scalp while he moves to her other breast.

“Luci... Mhmm... That feels so good...” she softly moans out and Lucifer feels a sense of pride from hearing that, his mouth continues to suckle on her left breast before eventually releasing it with a small 'pop.'

Lucifer's eyes went back to gaze on her face—disheveled, flustered, and cute.

“So utterly beautiful...” he murmured before moving his body downwards as he finally reached her legs, “Spread your legs for me, love.” he asked with a small teasing smirk, enjoying the flustered look on her face. [Y/n] obediently followed and shyly spreads her legs for him, avoiding his gaze.

Lucifer smirked as [y/n] spread her legs for him, his eyes turning into slits as he saw how turned on she was and how much she needed him, “Good girl.” he praises, his voice teasing, “Only for you.” [y/n] replies with a smirk of her own.

“You better be...” Lucifer says with a chuckle as he begins to kiss her thighs, leaving hickies while his hands squeeze the softness of her flesh, his lips slowly going up and dangerously near her womanhood. Looking up at her, his eyes were soft but filled with want, “May I?” he asked and [y/n] looked at him shyly and nodded.

Lucifer's smile widens before he eventually allows his head to dip into her most intimate part. His mouth began to suckle on pussy, moans escaping both of their lips.

Lucifer felt hungry and he can only satisfy this hunger with her. He suckled greedily like a man dying of thirst. His tongue lapped along her folds, circling her clit that invokes loud moans from her. He misses this, he misses her so much.

[y/n]'s eyes rolled back and her back arching from the pleasure, toes curling, whimpers escaping her lips. She can feel the texture of his tongue against her most intimate part, a gasp left her lips as she felt him slip a finger inside, his long and slender finger thrusting in and out while his mouth worked wonders along with it.

“So utterly wet and so good for me, sweetheart,” Lucifer praises as he continues to eat her out before finally adding a second finger inside her, he could feel how easily his fingers slide in and out—a perfect manifestation of how much she wants him, he enjoys how she can no longer form coherent words aside from moans she let out. He is incredibly hard but this isn't about him but this is about her pleasure, she always comes first after all.

“You are so good to me... I love you...” [y/n] whimpered softly making him chuckle, “I love you too, darling.” he murmurs with a small smile, his tongue flicking through her hidden areas of her intimate area while his fingers continue to thrust in and out. Skins heating up from the passion.

Lucifer can tell whenever she's close, from the obvious sign of how her toes curl, how high pitched her moans are becoming, how hard she is gripping his hair and how far her eyes rolled back at the back of her head.

“Is my love gonna cum?” he asked teasingly making his girl whimper, “Yes...!” she replied and he chuckled as he increased the pace of his fingers and tongue, “Be a good girl for me and cum for me, [y/n]” Lucifer says and that was enough for the knot in her stomach to break, “I'm gonna cu—” her voice was cut off as she let out a loud whine.

Lucifer greedily lapped at her essence, like a nectar from the gods that he cannot get enough of. Small whimpers leaving [y/n]'s lips as she felt so sensitive.

He eventually removed his lips from her intimate area and along with his fingers, he looked up at her disheveled, breathless and flushed but beautiful face. Lucifer smiled, “Are you okay...?” he asked, his voice was gentle and worried and [y/n] nodded, “More than okay, my love.” she replied with a small smile, “We can stop here if you want? I don't want to force you or anything...” he says and [y/n] shakes her head, their love was both giving and receiving afterall, “I can still go on and besides, I know you need help with that.” she says with a smirk as her eyes landed on his painfully erect cock that was begging for her and he blushed, “Now, be a good boy and let me take care of you this time.”

[heretodestroyou]

heart-shaped sunglasses.

pairing(s); matthew lillard!william afton x reader

fandom; five nights at freddy’s [movie]

w/c; 592

trigger/content warnings; slightly unholy thoughts from william about you in your uniform, fem!reader, (reader wears lipstick, has boobs, is called 'girl' by william and has medium-length hair), heavy lana del rey influences (diet mountain dew), mentioned that reader smokes cigarettes, age gap (william is late 40s, reader is mid 20s), no explicit romance but it's heavily implied there's mutual pining, written from william's pov, reader knows his real name, not proof-read, NO use of y/n, lmk if i missed anything.

stella speaks! at this point someone reblogs/tags me in a shitpost about this man, i add tags while my brain is inconsolably horny, and then all of a sudden i'm writing a new draft. and yes, ik lana wasn't really a thing in 1990s, but for now let's pretend he's still a silver fox in the 2020s.

tags; @truecobblepot bc ofc🫶🏽🫶🏽

inspired by this post and the shenanigans that ensued.

“I just wanted to know how much I appreciate you staying late these past couple weeks.”

William’s voice is smooth, he’s demeanor calm, the slight tilt of his head and the casual clasp of his hands in front of him giving no hint to the turmoil in his brain.

You’re his employee. His best employee, no less. He can’t afford to lose you, to drive you away. So he’ll make sure you’re not looking him in the eye when his roam your body.

The words that come from your mouth are sincere. He knows this. He doesn’t much care in this moment however. That red vest is pulled across your breasts, and the top button of your shirt is undone, your tie looser now that the building is empty.

It’s his fault, how tight your uniform is on you. He has your size on file, but he always orders a size down, just for him. He doesn’t pay mind to the way teenage pizza boys and older brothers here with siblings watch you, because he knows he’s miles better than they are.

His eyes linger in the plastic heart-shaped sunglasses hanging from your collar, and he nods towards them. “And those? I do hope you haven’t been wearing those all day.”

It’s a gentle correction. No matter how much William favors you, he still must keep his image up. You shake your head. “No, I just got them out of my locker when I closed up with Robyn.”

“Where did you get them?” He asks, leaning forward. The movement is subtle, but he knows you catch it.

“It was a gag gift from some party,” you answer, taking them off your vest and sliding them on. William's breath barely catches in his throat. The frames are the same shade as the blood red lipstick you love wearing.

It’s your signature. It’s how he knows you’ve been in the break room, paper coffee and water cups stamped with your lips in the trash, lipstick printed cigarette buts in the back alleyway that he’s convinced himself are prettier than anyone else’s.

William's brain is rapid firing all kinds of signals, ranging from you're nearly 20 years younger than him, to why have I never felt this was about my ex-wife?

Everything about you seems to catered to William's preferences. You hold eye contact with him and customers, you're great with kids (including his!), and you actually appreciate the care he takes of his animatronics.

He chuckles as you look around his dim office with your heart-shaped sunglasses. "Well, now, look at you. Never was there ever a girl so pretty." You giggle, tugging on a strand of hair and sliding them up into your hair. "That's so sweet, Mr. Afton!" William chuckles. You're picture perfect and William is damn well aware that he's no good for you. "Please, call me William. It's only fitting that we remain on first name basis...as of your promotion to assistant manager."

Your eyes widen, and you let out a little gasp. "Do you really mean that, Mr. Af-- William?"

God, the way your lips form his name is intoxicating. He nods, his demeanor wavering slightly as you beam at him, thanking him.

It’s a power move, he knows. A selfish one, no less. But he can’t risk losing the one competent employee. And besides, the assistant manager’s uniform is closer to his, the pale purple shirt and darker tie, black slacks and black shoes (of your choosing, of course).

And who is he to deny himself that view?

[oldmanffucker]

my first instinct upon seeing this was to get angry and want to hit this person with hammers, but actually I want to talk about this.

this post, and I didn't even want to click in the read the rest bc it made me to sad to see, is saying that Wilson and Amber only dated for a maximum of three months, so should he really be this torn up about her loss?

So, as a grief support specialist and house fan, let's talk about it.

First and foremost, it's the depth, not the length, of a relationship that matters. Quality over quantity, all of that. Of course. But also, if we look at Amber and Wilson's relationship itself, this is kind of the first time Wilson is in a relationship that feels really good to him. Amber doesn't just want Wilson bc she needs him and needs to be put first by him, she wants him to take care of himself too. He's being challenged for the first time (in a romantic context) (canonically) to not put himself on the back burner for everyone else, but to think about what Wilson wants. House, of course, does this too, but in different ways. Which is also to say that Amber is a revelation for him because she is like House--House who is his longest and arguably only real friend, the person he trusts the most, is most able to be himself around. And now he's found this person who he can feel all that in a romantic and sexual context too.

Which is all to say that this relationship wasn't like any other three month fling he had, this one had a depth to it from the very beginning that was really important and profound to Wilson, and was changing some parts of himself in a way that was really kind of life altering, even as it was also pretty subtle in many ways to the casual viewer.

This, plus the fact that her death itself was really sudden, very traumatic, and prolonged (a couple days and many really traumatic failed attempts to save her life, including his best friend risking his life for her), really adds up to someone being profoundly affected by this loss.

But beyond this, Wilson did not only experience the loss of Amber with her death. There are losses we grieve beyond simply dying. The whole experience before finding out she was even missing and hurt, of seeing House without memory, of even for a little while thinking they may have had an affair, of watching House kill himself (literally) to bring back his memories - this portion of the situation alone is an experience of a loss of safety. He's realizing that life is random, and terrifying in a whole new way than he may have known it before. His best friend was in a bus accident. Life is random and he could have died. There is no guaranteed safety. His best friend who knows everything suddenly knows nothing. A loss of the status quo, of what he's assumed is the way things are. he's watching his best friend go to extreme lengths in order to capture his memories. he's watching his best friend fucking die on a bus floor as he tries to revive him with his boss. Loss of control, loss of the norm, loss of the future they could have had if none of this happened.

THEN.!! He's made aware that Amber was involved in all of this. And we don't know where she is or how she's doing. He's now been introduced to ambiguous loss (which he has experienced at great length with his brother who went missing, and is now experiencing again). Now they have to find Amber. Okay and now they've found her and she's in a coma and really on the brink of death. And this too is an ambiguous loss of another variety. He's experiencing both sides of ambiguous loss about Amber back to back (1. Physical absence and psychological presence (ex. someone missing/estranged) 2. Physical presence and psychological absence (ex. parent w dementia, someone in a coma))

He then has to skip over the grieving part and jump into problem solving and trying to keep her alive. and then his boy best friend has to risk his life for amber and wilson and almost die. And then Wilson has to realize that now, his kind of technically-alive-but-not girlfriend, he has to let her go. And she's woken up and he has mere moments to say his goodbyes and I love you's.

And ALL OF THAT is just the loss itself.

Then he is "grieving" or "mourning" in the way that is generally understood by the average person. If you ask the average person (esp in the US) what grief is, they'd usually point to this--after someone dies when you're sad--and none of the many paragraphs of grief and loss grappling I wrote about just before that.

The average bereavement leave is 3 days. Grief will invariably last more than three days. The amount of time we see Wilson grieving is frankly, really fucking regular. Even for a death less fraught and traumatic (subjectively) than this one.

Besides all of this, there are a number of different grief styles, and I think that Wilson's grief style is that of the Intuitive, or Heart, Griever (isn't that just perfect? I wonder if the writers knew that when they named the episode Wilson's Heart...).

This type of griever is more overtly emotional than the Intellectual, or Head, Griever (the other 2 styles are the Blended, or Head & Heart Griever, and the Dissonant, or Head vs Heart Griever). But is again, really common! Perhaps the asker of this original Reddit question is a head griever, or a dissonant griever, or perhaps even someone who has never yet had to grieve, and has only been fed the myths about grief, and they're trying to make sense of such a large grief.

There is no right way to grieve, there is no correct length of time that that grieving should last. There's no correct amount of time you are allowed to know someone before you grieve their death or pain. The way you grieve is the way you need to grieve, you simply have to try to honor it.

(I don't have a reddit so I can't respond to this directly, but feel free to link this in the responses to the post itself if you feel so inclined)

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

ICYMI: There are so many Japanese qls airing weekly, so I’m going to start posting this little round up at the end of each week. All but one of these are on Gaga and I highly recommend watching! Yes, even the ones I'm not loving! We need to encourage these Japanese studios to keep giving us access to their content. Changing up the order this week so as not to lead on a bum note (we can end on one, instead:)).

Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yara ka

When we left off with Kazuyo’s confession last week, I said this: “Kazuyo is such a sweetheart that I really hope she'll stick around rooting for this pair once she inevitably gets let down gently.” And we got all that and more this week, because this show is my perfect angel that has never done anything wrong in its life. I love that Kazuyo is not only at peace with Sakae’s feelings for Soga, but very enthusiastically supportive of his pursuit. I love this friendship, and I love that we’re spending real time on Kazuyo’s feelings in the aftermath of this rejection. And we continue to see bits of the past relationships that have been weighing on Sakae and Soga. This show really cares about its characters and it shows. Sakae’s confession at the end of this episode was another great moment of grace and kindness and I’m looking forward to Soga’s response once he has a chance to process alongside some healthy jealousy as Sakae’s ex returns.

Perfect Propose

The first two episodes of this new jbl dropped today, and I loved it. Overworked young salaryman, Hiro, is falling apart. His childhood friend, Kai, finds him lying exhausted on the street and invites himself to move in to take care of him. Kai explicitly declared 1) that he is gay and 2) that he considers himself Hiro’s fiancé within the first five minutes, and helped Hiro get off so he could sleep properly in the first episode. This drama really said eat real food, have a nice orgasm, and get a good night’s sleep and you will be happy, and it seems to be building to some themes about the harm caused by the culture of overworking. I support this message!

Ossan's Love Returns

...where to even begin. This "honeymoon" episode was bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S. I went from crying to laughing hysterically to gasping to staring in mute horror at my screen to laughing to crying again. This show is so good at keeping these characters grounded in authentic emotion even as their behavior spins far out of the realm of how real people behave. It's a minor miracle that I can be gaping at Maki in disbelief and then bursting into tears two seconds later because of one perfectly executed line. I don't even want to talk about what specifically happened in this episode, I just want you to go watch it.

Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna 2

WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK, BABY!!! I got my hot little hands on the first four episodes of this excellent second season and let me tell you, the joy I felt to see Yuki and Kasuga again! I love that we came back to find out the gals have been eating like queens and blowing the budget. Plus, there's a new baby lesbian in the building! This season is really delving into Yuki's exploration of her sexuality, and the show is handling it with the expected gentle grace. I am enjoying the journey and putting on my patient pants to settle in for a long wait before these two actually officially get together.

Chaser Game W

This was a rougher week for this show, in that the pacing felt very jerky as the story suddenly executed a rapid turn in the romance that did not really work. The backstory reveal was weak (very poorly motivated noble idiocy), Itsuki's casual decision to start caring for Fuyu's child at the expense of her own life and Fuyu's decision to let her was under-explored, the messages about the importance of these women's work was decidedly mixed, and the sudden love confessions straight to sex didn't get proper build up. Add Fuyu continuing to be a violent drunk who treats Itsuki like shit, and it's hard to root for this pair--I am not really invested in the romance. This show is clearly going somewhere with its commentary on gender roles as it relates to Fuyu's behavior, and I hope wherever it is will feel worth it.

Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun

This show ended this week, and I pretty much hated it, but I will always love Toki despite the mess this show made of his story. We have one more show coming from Drama Shower for the season, and I sincerely hope we can end on a good note with this project.

[hana-no-seiiki]

Saw that post you made a little bit ago and was hit with an idea (ow)

A yandere that tries so damn hard to hold themselves back from crossing boundaries because while their love is, in fact, incredibly twisted and probably unhinged, they do love their darling. Hearing that Darling never had anyone respect them the way they deserved really grinded their gears. So the Yandere asks for permission before giving hugs, kisses, ect.

Is it out of genuine respect? Is a ploy/plot to gain Darling's affection a bit faster? Up to you, I'm very tired. I'll also let you decide how successful the Yandere is at Not Crossing Boundaries

My yans in general are yans because they have no sense of boundaries, do not care about these boundaries, or expect you to have no boundaries because they have none themselves.

I think the only yans in my roster that will definitely respect that in a direct sort of manner are the Midnight Darling (Yan! College) ones. Purely because the reader there is at the top of the foodchain and they have a system for organization’s sake. Most of them would still stalk you, or ‘feel’ you indirectly by taking your stuff. But if you ever voiced it out, they’ll make sure that no one messes with the lines you’ve set.

That being said, they do expect a reward and will very much coax it out of you if not outright force it if enough time has passed by that they get impatient.

Try not to implicate who didn’t respect your boundaries, unless you want them dead or humiliated to death. Though I do see them hunting your family members down since that’s where stuff like that usually happens eitherway (totally not speaking from personal experience h a h a)

Particularly speaking, Justin (Yan! Jock) is actually the best at keeping his hands to himself. He’s great at adjusting. You just have to not tick him off or intentionally provoke him and he’d basically do whatever you wish. He cares more for how he can serve you rather than how you can reciprocate his feelings.

Amir is also very good at respecting your boundaries. Physically speaking at the very least. He is incredibly bad at verbal boundaries and can easily say something real bad at the worst times, but he does apologize and feels awful afterwards. He does awkwardly hover over you sometimes and is too shy to ask for permission, so you have to read him yourself to know when to ply him with kisses.

The worst for respecting your boundaries would be Yichen (Yan! Himbo)

What are boundaries? You’ve been bros for forever! Friends don’t have boundaries! You guys should always be open to each other! And y’know what he’s been feeling rather pent up lately. Won’t you be a dear and jerk him off as you sit prettily on his lap?

God while his is more innocent in nature, there’s also someone I haven’t written specifically here yet but have been brainrotting in dms w/ @not-a-bot-just-shy . Caterpillar (Yan! Ex Goon/Now-A-Villain) who just doesn’t care entirely. You’re hers whether you like it or not. Who are you to set boundaries when she owns you? Possessions don’t have rights much less should have the ability to say no.

She’s very similar to The Scientist (it’s in the name) who doesn’t even see you as human. Reader in that story is a monster so it makes sense but 🤷‍♂️ i dunno sounds kinda fucked up-

but yeah, a lot of my ocs are crap at it ngl. They’re needy sluts.

[raccoonscupoftea]

🍙 In love with Food

Timeskip!Osamu X Y/n

Summary: You had a date scheduled, but life was being life again.

Warnings: slight angst, fluff, shitty day, shitty boss, uh swearing, grammar mistakes cause english is not my first language, food

| MASTERLIST | REQUEST INFO |

//----//----//----//

As you woke up from a nice deep slumber, you were happy, exited even, because there was a date waiting for you after work. you were happy while showering, happy while eating, happy while talking, heck even happy while working. It's been ages since your last date and this new one brought back old feelings of a high school crush.

Even you're work bestie was happy for you to see such a big smile on you. She complimented you back and forth "Happiness looks good on you" "It's like staring into the sun" or "Keep that smile going. You look stunning" were her go to compliments. True a great day so far.

Until your boss came along.

"Miss L/n, nice to see you smile, but care to explain to me what this is"

He slammed down a file, opened it and pointed to a specific spot. As you looked on it you recognised the paper and there was a huge mistake on it. One which you made. To your defense it was late, you worked longer than anticipated and was tired, but your boss wanted the papers done this very day.

Seeing such a big mistake, only a rookie would do, was devastating and your very heart stoped beating before increasing in an alarming rate.

You wanted to speak up "I-" but then realised there's actually nothing to talk you out of this situation. You made that mistake. You remember putting in that number, but only now you know it's wrong.

"Miss, you have made many mistakes in this company. I'm questioning your intelligence"

You're eyes widened and looked up to the boss's face. "You're fired. Take you're stuff and leave immediately"

He really did just fired you. Out in the open, with every employee to witness. It was just an office job but it payed your bills and payed your food.

There was no word coming from you as said ex-boss left back to his office. He only came out to fire you. You weren't even mad at him, probably a bit, but all these mistakes did come from you. It was the company's fair right to fire employees who only deliver mistakes and complications. All fault lay within yourself.

So it wasn't helped. You placed your stuff in a box and before you left the building one last time, you placed you're personal card onto the table. Walking throu the glass door of your former work space, made you dive into the drowning reality.

You were happy this morning, but life gave you the middle finger and teard down thos ray of sunshines. Life truly is unfair.

After placing your stuff into your car, you'd drive home. The drive was a little emotional, but you arrived safely at least.

This reminded you of the rent. It was due every beginning of the month. What day is today? Oh, great the 27th. At least the last paycheck can cover up the next rent. Until then you have to find a new job to no be homeless.

So many new responsibilities and fears. And it feels like it's all your own fault. If you haven't messed up, if you would have just been more efficient than tired all the time, then maybe you would have kept your job and not worry about finding a new job.

How would you even explain why you were kicked out in the first place? Telling the truth would do you any favour.

A sigh escaped your lungs, and the box got placed on the coffee table by the couch. Your body let itself fall down in the next room, right onto the bed. There again was this feeling of tiredness after work a full shift with overtime, but this time oh has only been 3 hours.

You could luckily only create an alarm for a few hours later, until sleep was catching up on you. Now you laid there in full work attire, hair still made. You sleept on your stomach, head twisted to the side while the phone was still in your hand.

It only took a minute until you were knocked out of reality and Into the dream world.

---

You're phone vibrated in your hand and the loud alarm sound woke you up immediately. It felt like time moved faster and shot you to the day, but it was still the very same day as you fell asleep.

With the tiredness still all over, you sat up and looked down on yourself. The shirt was wrinkled and the rest was nowhere were it was supposed to be. One glance at the time and you knew, it would be wise to start getting ready.

Fired or not. You wouldn't let these negative things mess up your long awaited date.

You took a comforting hot shower, spend a little longer in it and then picked out a caual but still stylish outfit. The meeting spot was a restaurant specificly for Onigiris. It was a small but still very comfortable shop in the city.

You never been in this restaurant but you're very curious about the food. At the desired time, you just arrived and went inside. The date was no where to be seen but you still sat down on one of the chairs.

There was no notification on you're phone that someone had texted you, but maybe they were just stuck in traffic. There still was hope.

There seems to be only one guy working here and he came up to you, thinking you were ready to order "Do you know what you want or should I recommend something?"

You glanced up to him. His cap is a little deeper in his face but you still could see the smile on his face while he hold a little notepad, ready to write down whatever you wanted.

"oh, I waiting for someone. In a few minutes they should be there"

The guy first glanced over to the door then back at you. His smile didn't fade, but something in his eyes had shifted. He put away the notepad "if you change you're mind. I'll be right there" and so he wandered of to another customer.

With another glance in your phone you noticed it was now 20 minutes after the decided date time, but you still waited. Disasters always happen when one needs to be on time.

Time passed and passed by like it always does, but the supposed date was no where in sight.

Another glance at the time. Nearly one hour passed.

Well, guess they're not coming. No message, no call.

When you wrote the person "Are you still coming?" Only then did you see that they actually blocked you. A little message from the system told you so.

Your eyes wandered over to the last message they sent "Can't wait to see you :)"

What a big fat lie.

There were words running around in your head. Words more destructive than a bomb wand way more hurtful. First the debacle at work and now your date stood you up.

You felt the tears climbing up to your eyes, wanting to get out. It took quite some effort to call them back.

"I guess they are not coming. I'm sorry" this smooth voice from the store worker reached your ears. Upon looking up and glancing right into his worried eyes, you immediately felt the tears backing up with full force. They couldn't be stopped anymore and so you broke out crying, placing your head on the counter and hiding your head with the arms, hand burring themselves into your fresh showered and styled up hair.

Another hand reached out and touched your wrist. "You wanna talk 'bout it?"

You looked up to him "Uh, I don't want to bother you at w-" while you talked your eyes had wandered around the store, only to find it empty.

"Yeah, I'm about to close the restaurant"

"Oh I'm sorry. I'll leav-" you immediately stood up

"Don't worry. You can stay. Have some food"

As one foot was on the floor, he had interwien and you fell back onto the chair. Well, at least you can eas something and pay for occupying a seat an while hour long. The crying had stopped a little but you were still a bit stuffy on your nose, eyes red as well.

The guy Infront of you smiled, quite charming actually, and he then walked over to the kitchen.

"Don't worry 'bout paying" He shouted from behind "These are leftovers from today. So they either get eaten or thrown away"

The guy then appeared with a large tray full of Onigiris. You're eyes widened at the amount of food. He then continued to talk "And I don't really wanna throw them away. I would have probably eaten them this night, but then my stomach would have hated me again"

His comments about his stomach made you giggle a little bit and as the sound reached the guys ears he began to smile a little more.

"My name's Osamu, by the way. But you can just call me Samu"

"Y/n" you smiled a little.

Osamu placed down the plate full of Onigiris, grabbed himself a chair and sat down infront of you.

He also leaned down to grab two bottles of beer, opening them as well and giving you one "on the house" he simply smiles and gives you a wink.

You accepted the bottle, cheeks a little tinted red.

"Then you may dig in" he called out. After thanking for the food you bit into the first one.

You date may have stood you up, but this Onigiri may have just became your new date. The taste and the mixture all fit well together and you couldn't just not devour this art piece of food in an instant.

Osamu was watching you inhale his food and his smile grew bigger. Happy to have found another who loves his food.

You began to talk while still chewing on your food. At first he couldn't understand it but on a second thought he had heard you say "This is amazing"

Foods the best when one loses all of their social manners, you had just experience this first hand and started to hide your mouth with a hand in suprise.

Osamu laughed "No worries. I don't judge, besides I'm guilty of it too" He then as well began to eat.

You don't know why such a simple dish made you so happy, but for a second you had forgotten your misery and the curent problems you life with. May it also be the company of Osamu or just simply both.

The two of you ate the whole plate clean. No corn was left, no sauce was not licked up.

You fell in love with this food. It was the perfect comfort food for you, and eating it in an empty shop with the one who made them was like a big hug "thank you" you had voiced out after a minute of silence, comfortable silence.

"No problem. Just promise me to come back soon" He smiled at you widely. How could you not return to this place. This is heaven.

"will do" you nodded at him with a smile of yours. A genuine smile. A smile you had held at the very beginning of this day.

[lostonehero]

I'm late to mermay, but well, uh, no excuses have Siren! Martin doing such a great job in the archives.

Tim loved going to the ocean. He loved the water in general, and when Danny was still with him, he would try and fail to convince him to try to go with him during the winter. Danny always quoted old legends, but Tim didn't believe in them. Well, he does now, but that's besides the point.

The reason Tim believes is the 6ft5inch man in his apartment who is technically his husband or mate in his words. Of course, this happened years ago he's now a much more jaded man. He works for the insistute now trying to get answers for his brother, and somehow, his husband works there too. He really doesn't understand how he lied about everything on his CV.

"Tim?" A male voice pulls Tim out of his thoughts. "Should I wear this one or this one? We work together now in the archives, and you don't want me to match you."

"The blue one is fine, Martin." Tim smiles softly. Martin wasn't human, and he's honestly surprised nobody has figured it out. He's also grateful for the face that he's his husband, even if he keeps it secret.

"Are you sure? You want our mate bond to be kept secret. I don't know if they can smell it.... I should wear one from the dryer." Martin sighs.

Tim chuckles. "Just because I wore that to bed doesn't mean you can't wear it. We humans don't have the same abilities as you guys."

"Yeah, but I don't know if everyone there is human." Martin huffs.

They have this argument about once a week, which is fine. It's better than the raw meat debate. Tim smiles softly. "Alright, alright, won't wear your jumpers anymore."

Martin huffs. "I didn't say that! You always do this."

Tim chuckles. "Maybe I like seeing you riled up. Seriously though, it's fine as long as we don't arrive at the same time." They've been together years at this point, so they both know when they are joking.

"I know the drill, Tim." Martin sighs. "Can we share the same bed tonight?"

"I'm not sleeping in the tub with you again it took weeks for my skin to heal, and before you suggest it no I'm not going in the ocean either we were both incredibly late to work." Tim raised his brow and pauses. "Oh wait, you meant my bed."

Martin rolls his eyes. "Forget I asked."

"No, wait, yes." Tim moves closer to Martin. "Then I don't have to wear things that smell like you."

Martin smiles. "You're already my mate. You do not need to scent yourself of me."

"What if I want to?"

"I suppose that can be arranged."

......

Sasha rolled her chair closer to Tim. "So Jon totally has a crush on Martin. I was talking to his ex, and she totally agrees. How about a wager? I mean, Martin is totally into him. Have you seen how aggressive he is about taking care of Jon?"

Tim chokes on his tea. "W-what?" He wipes off the mess the best he could. "Sasha, he's that way to everyone."

"Not you, and nowhere near that way to me or anyone else in this building. Besides, the timing is perfect. We have that mandatory institute day out on the beach. Sure, we're picking up trash and sending flyers out about the institute, but there's also games and food. We can totally set them up." Sasha claps her hands together with a smile on her lips.

"No." Tim could feel that green eyed monster rear its ugly head. Danny always made fun of him because he insisted he felt nothing of their marriage. Danny was right, of course. He was about to out them, and he had to think of something. "No, I mean well, what are the stakes? Is Jon's ex going to be there?"

"Oooo, that could be even better." Sasha smirks. "She can help us, and she is bringing her girlfriend. Tim you're a genius."

Tim gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

......

Sasha pushed Martin and Jon together. "You two can start at one end, and Tim and I will start at the other. Then we'll meet up and get some American fair food they have."

Jon raised a brow. He was in a binder with a loose tank top above it and a pair of shorts. He was also in boots and long socks. "Ok? I don't understand why Elias has this to be mandatory."

Martin looked like he was about to growl and hiss. They were so close to the ocean that the instincts to take his mate to the ocean screamed at him. "Yeah, it's an odd choice."

Tim grits his teeth as Sasha pulls him away. He was still mostly human, well it was slowly changing but he was still mostly human but even he could feel the pull of the ocean he can't imagine how Martin feels.

......

Jon rubs his brow as he looks over to Martin, who is carrying about six full bags of trash without breaking a sweat. It was impressive and kind of depressing that there's that much trash. "Martin, we can stop and drop those off, we have a ways to go."

"Why?" Martin tilted his head in a way that Jon thought was adorable.

"Isn't it heavy?" Jon sighs he only had two half full bags since Martin keeps taking the full ones away from him.

"No, not really. Are you alright? Do you need more sunscreen? We are nearly done with our side." Martin puts the bags down and takes out a bottle of sunblock.

"I'm dark skinned Martin I don't need that much." Jon, let's out a noise of surprise since Martin already started to put on a fresh layer.

"Dark skin still burns." Martin is quick but thurough. "It's better to be safe."

Jon blushes a deep red. "I uh right, of course. Let us continue. We're almost done."

.....

Sasha and Tim waved from the start of the stands. "Took you guys long enough!" Sasha laughs.

Jon frowns. "Martin insisted I drink some water and put on another layer of sunscreen. However, we did collect the most trash."

Martin nods. "Yes! We found a big pile someone buried under the sand. Also your health is important."

Tim looked between them, and something clicked. The green eyed beast was dead, and Martin was treating Jon like a pod member who couldn't care for themselves. He did this before with Danny when he was really into extreme sports. He felt the tension drain from his shoulders. "How about some weird American food? Heard double boss man got some cool stuff like pickled lemonade, and fried oreos."

"Good lord, that sounds like a heart attack." Jon scoffs.

"I would like to try that. Sounds like a perfect hangover cure." Sasha chuckles.

.......

Martin somehow ended up on a cliffside. He loved watching the waves from this high up, Tim was behind him talking to Jon's ex, um Georgie was her name. It was very nice and he really wanted to jump.

"Pretty view." A old man was next to him. His white hair was wind swept back. "You can get lost in just how vast it is."

Martin nodded, not realizing he was moving forward until he was tumbling over the edge. Well, he wanted to do this anyway.

Tim did a double take before he started to run. "MARTIN!" He went over the edge as well, and he could swear he heard an old man laughing.

Georgie and Sasha ran to the edge. They saw Tim hanging on grabbing Martin on a ledge.

"Holy shit are you two ok?" Sasha stared down at them wide-eyed.

Tim huffs. "I know you're making that face. I'm not dropping you." He did not hear Sasha, but she can hear the two men.

"But Tim, the ocean! Pleaseeeee I wanna go with you." Martin huffs.

"No, Martin, you're going to out us!" Tim groans his grip was strong but not enough for their combined weight. "Grab onto a ledge! Use your damn claws."

"I will bite you." Martin holds his hand out and then slams it into the side of the cliff and lets go of Tim. "You owe me!"

"We can go swimming when it won't out us." Tim rolls his eyes and adjusts his grip with both hands. "Now focus, we need a way back up."

"I'm not helping you." Martin sticks his tongue out and climbs the clifside like he was a lizard and stops above Tim. "You're also banned until I see fit from taking my clothes."

"Seriously? We're literally hanging from a cliff." Tim huffs.

"You are. I am climbing." Martin kicks off his shoes then his socks. "Last chance."

Tim looks up at the two women staring at them, and of course, they see Martin sink his claws into stone. "Fine. Not because I want to, but because Sasha and Georgie already saw you sink your hands into the cliffside." He lets go of the cliffside and falls with his arms crossed.

Martin follows in a diving position.

Sasha and Georgie screamed.

......

"Now, Sasha, let's not be hasty." Elias hums, walking by the bottom of the cliffside. "You also said Martin pushed his hands into the cliffside."

"I'm sorry, Sasha, but he's right." Georgie frowns. "I believe in the weird, but that's like impossible, and to fall at that height."

"Well, I hope the supernatural exists." Jon mumbles. "They could survive the fall right?"

"Not likely, water becomes -" Elias is cut off by laughter.

"Martin! Bloody hell!" Tim said through laughter.

Martin was carrying Tim. They were walking out of the waves. "Oh, I love cliff diving. We should do that again!"

The four people stared at the two with jaws open.

[georgiapeach30513]

This may now be a controversial opinion (lol) but I definitely think CE got hotter as he got older. Especially when he became a dad in defending Jacob. He looked so naturally fine in that era of 2019-to even 2022. I wasn’t a fan of younger versions of him because it was too frat boy hs jock looking. But Steve era and onwards = chefs kiss. Until maybe this last year. I felt like summer of 2022 something was already starting to crack for him publicly - people were saying he didn’t seem so happy to be at the premiers and there was all this dumb Deuxmoi BS and I felt like his repeated mentions of the industry and what it makes you do was his way of crying out for help or frustration. I don’t think he was just making it up to be dramatic because Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle yeoh in particular have also alluded to the woes of the industry. Jen especially was more open about it and it was after the Harvey W stuff.

I also feel like there’s been a serious (sometimes unfair) projection and fantasy of him by fanfiction writers and fans who want to be like “husband CE or husband his characters” so they were expecting him to thrive into his looks and persona once he settled down and got married. They were expecting husband and father era and domestic settle down era CE. So far - whatever this is that’s happening isn’t apparently showcasing it (or at least, not publicly) so fans and former fans are extra disappointed because a part of their fantasy has been burst. I do get it and I do understand it but I also don’t think it’s fair. It’s his life to live and he can’t just please everyone and look a certain way and just because he doesn’t look great in a photo doesn’t mean he got too much Botox or is drug addicted or etc. also - he JUST “got married.” Like two months ago. who knows what the future will look like. I’m just tired of all these negative comments but these same negative nancies won’t just buzz off and leave these spaces either.

However…I do think if he’s with the right person or married the right person - you’d definitely see a difference. You’d see a more genuine smile and glow because I do think that’s what happened for Tom Hiddleston. While I really enjoy his personality, I personally don’t think Tom is my idea of handsome and his hairline isn’t great - but he looks genuinely and candidly happy with his partner. Those out in the wild pics don’t lie.

I know lots of ppl disliked Jenny Slate for CE, but publicly I felt like the candids ppl got of him while with her - he actually looked happy. Similar IMO to how Tom looks with Zawe. They actually looked good together and TBH if she was who he married I really think you’d get more legit sightings of them living their lives and less trolling anons and blurry photos. His looks and persona didn’t fade drastically while he dated her and didn’t fade while he dated his other public exes. I know some people on here who hated the Jenny era will disagree but 100% if you compared photos and public behavior he definitely seemed more free and comfortable to be out with her, seen with her, etc.

Right now tho…something deeper is happening. Who knows what. But something isn’t right. It feels like a marvel Skrull has taken over CE and the real or previous him is either gone or just trapped in another lost dimension.

Again - this could all just be projection. IDK

Can I just say, because I don’t think there’s anything further to add that you could see his care for Jenny written all over his face.

I have been a longtime fan of his, I don’t always believe his words. I believe his actions.

[dead-boys-club]

†  finale : rindou.

request: not really

* these are the 3rd/extra endings to: ‘do you love me?’ p1 / p2

beta’d: yes but typos are always a thing

a/u: kind of want feedback on if i should finish all of the members?

* banners do not indicate age or timeline.

'You haven't spoken to him in five months.'

'I keep forgetting to change the locks, too.'

Ran hummed in acknowledgment before joining you on the couch, an arm settling behind your shoulders while his leg crossed over the other. 'He doesn't seem to be handling this little break up of yours well, you know? Drinking, sleeping around, spending like he has brains. Aren't you even a little disturbed?'

Closing the book in your hands, you tilted your head to look at him. 'Am I supposed to be concerned about a man who never once cared for me?'

'You know very well he cared.'

'And yet, here we are. Shouldn't you be at his place, playing the role of caring older brother like always?'

Sighing deeply, the latter shifted to let his head fall back against the couch, frame shifting down enough to be comfortable. 'I've given enough years of my life to make sure my brother was happy.. have I not earned the ability to cater to my own happiness for once?'

With a shift in how you sat, you reached up to start undoing the pastel colored tie, chuckling weakly. 'Older siblings have no time for happiness,' you pointed out, settling the now removed fabric neatly on the arm of the couch, 'I'm sure you know that by now.'

'You're really going to say these things while trying to undress me?' Laughing softly, he took one of your hands and tugged, guiding you onto his lap. 'Why don't we change things, then? I do believe it's time for the older siblings to have a turn.'

You could take the words in multiple ways but you decided not to seek out the one that would end up annoying you both. Instead, you turned your attention back to the buttons of his shirt, letting him initiate a kiss. It was passionate and slow, like it always was and you'd never get tired of it.

---------------

'You're fucking my brother?'

As the door slammed open accompanied by the harsh accusation, the conversation between Hajime and yourself came to a halt. You didn't bother lifting your head to look at him, continuing to write down a few numbers. 'Was this really necessary?' You questioned, finger tapping at one of the purchases.

The white haired male was more than happy to go along with you, ignoring the latter's sudden appearance. 'It was, actually.. if you're really curious, it may be in your best interest to take it up with Sanzu.'

That made sense. Before you managed to continue, a hand was pulling your ledger away and causing your mood to sour just so. 'I know you heard me,' came Rindou's voice again, 'are you serious?'

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you shifted to lean back in your chair and looked up at him. 'I don't think it's any of your business who is in my bed, first off. Secondly, if you're so angry, I believe you should take it up with your brother. No one held a gun to his head.'

'Take up what with me, exactly?'

Ran seemed to always have great timing, walking into the meeting room with a raised eyebrow. Hajime clicked his tongue and collected his books and whatnot; 'I doubt we'll finish this with.. all of this happening. I'll be in my office when this is over.' With that, he passed by Ran, clearly annoyed that his business was interrupted by the younger Haitani's obsession with drama.

No one really paid him any mind.

'Were you planning to tell me you were screwing my fiancé?'

'Ex fiancé.'

Rindou's expression showed that he was unamused by your little correction but he didn't voice that. Instead, his attention went to the older, waiting for some explanation.

'I was unaware I was supposed to keep you updated on who I was sleeping with,' Ran began, stepping further into the room to set a thin, rectangle box next to you, 'the last several months have been you going on about how this never meant anything to you.. or, was that to impress the girls you were sleeping with? Shouldn't you be giving that list to Y/n?'

When he didn't get an answer, he shifted his attention. 'We have a birthday lunch to attend.'

Your eyes widened only for a second at the fact someone other than Kakucho remembered your birthday and it made your skin tingle, heart fluttering a bit. 'You remembered,' you mumbled, almost inaudible, as you tapped a finger against the box.

Rindou straightened at the scene in front of him. 'So, what? You're both against me now?'

Ran rolled his eyes. 'Don't blame others for your inability to hold a relationship, Rindou, it's unbecoming of you. I'll never not be on your side when it comes to most things, you're already aware of that.. as for Y/n.. she simply decided what was more fitting for her.' Helping you to your feet and gesturing you ahead of him to go and try on your gift, he stopped to briefly look at his brother.

'You put yourself in this situation. I tried to help countless times and I wasn't the only one but you didn't want help. I told you several times you were going to end up alone if you didn't get your head out of your ass.. look where it got you.' Ran offered a frown, something of genuine empathy for him but it was no one's fault but his own. 'Now.. I expect you to get over it and leave my fiancé out of it.'

Without another word or staying to hear him out, Ran left to seek you out, wanting nothing more than to enjoy the remainder of the day with you.

'Is he okay?' You finally asked, looking up to the latter with a soft frown. The last thing you wanted was to cause a problem, regardless of who approached who first.

'I don't believe he's coming to the wedding,' Ran mused and offered you a reassuring smile. 'He will eventually get over it.. it may take time for him to realize just what he's done but he'll get there. I do think he'd appreciate, later on, his childhood friend back.'

It was something you'd have to think about and you'd have to deal with your own feelings but someday, you were sure it wouldn't be too difficult. 'One day,' you answered, reaching to take the latter's hand, 'I love you.'

'I love you, too, darling.'

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

don't wait for tumblr to give u more tags. go off about tony and steve and zola pls i am humbly requesting

As a part of my ongoing war on my ask box this is a very old post regarding a tumblr tag essay i made forever ago. i half answered this ask when it came in and then forgot to finish. without further ado:

Anon is talking about this post about Steve and Tony’s relationship. I HIGHLY recommend the original post it's great but i copied the original tags essay below since it's been so long since the ask arrived.

#I feel like anyone who writes Tony stark for marvel should have to go watch bojack horseman first as like a mandatory assignment#because that show understood the premise of Tony stark better than any MCU writer ever has and it wasn’t even writing for tony stark#in sum bojack horseman follows the titular bojack who is a washed up 90s sitcom television star#bojack himself is extremely self destructive and the show follows him as his selfish and egotistical tendencies erode at his relationships#However bojack himself is an extremely sympathetic character. his harmful acts are all tied very directly to the trauma of his life#he’s a survivor of generational abuse whose own substance abuse problems stem from the fact that he was in such a neglectful environment#that he had started drinking at an INCREDIBLY young age got himself sober only to relapse due to a spiked drink after fame

#this sympathic is increased by the fact that he does geninuinely love and care for his friends and often goes to extreme lengths to show it#but what the show understands that MCU writers dont is that his tragic past doesn’t excuse the harm or pain he causes and the show goes to#LABORIOUS extents to emphasize the consequences and suffering his actions cause in his attempt towards making amends#it is FASINCATING to me that MCU just fails to grasp this because it’s really the core of Tony’s character. his story is one of redemption#and regret. but what it never seemed to get is that requires recognition of wrongs and change and his relationship with steve is a prime ex.#when they meet tony is 40+ and Steve is 23-25. steve has been awake from world war 2 for less than 2 weeks everyone he loves is dead and hes#visibly haunted by his time in the ice. his ptsd flashbacks to crashing the plane is how his character is introduced. Tony spends the time

#calling him ‘capsicle’ and talking about how much he can’t stand steve. the narrative plays it off as a gaff of little consequence but#practically speaking that’s INSANE. like can you imagine you’re a traumatized war vet who got out of a coma 2 months ago and woke up to#discover everyone you ever loved is dead and this stranger twice your age at your new work nicknames you coma boy and hates your guts bc of#his daddy issues? like Tony in avengers is borderline cruel but the narrative and the fandom never acknowledge it. it’s like removing the#laugh track on a scene from one of those old sitcoms and realizing how mean it is. and while we can fully acknowledge that Howard hurt Tony#that doesn’t make it Steve’s fault and doesn’t give Tony the license to take it out on him. like at the end of the day your healing is your#responsibility and the MCU fails to grasp that with Tony. honestly it does a disservice to the depth of his character b/c Tony should have#already grown past this by the time of Avengers. he had already gone through iron man 2 and grappled somewhat with his relationship w howard#while that doesn’t mean he’s healed yet it does mean that his character needs to learn to grow past it or he risks stagnation. mcu just#happily embraced stagnation and it made the character worse for it. Theres a scene in the comics where Tony is the first to reach out to#Steve post ice. he takes him to the air&space museum and welcomes him to the future. THATS the growth we want. Bc fundamentally even if we

#sympathize for Tony’s abuse by Howard lashing out at someone who was functionally dead at the time of ur dads mistakes is a very juvenile#mindset. /growth/ is deciding to be better than the person who hurt you and the MCUs obsession with blaming Steve for howard cut that off#CW would have been SO MUCH MORE COMPELLING if Tony had formed a relationship with Steve bc Steve would be torn between past and present but#instead Tony is saying how much he hated Steve during the fucking movie and Steve’s taking it with grace. like you’re 50 man you gotta work#past this at some point. out of tags but I have Opinions about Tony and actually zola too but we won’t get there give me more tags tumblr

Fundamentally, my issue with Tony and how he's written for the MCU is that he has the potential for one of greatest redemption arcs ever and the writers are fucking allergic to giving it to him, and his dynamic with Steve is a a prime example of it. How poorly Steve's relationship with Tony was mishandled is a pretty perfect case study as to how Tony as a character was mishandled as a whole.

As stated in the Tumblr Tags Essay above, by the time Steve came on the scene, Tony should have already grown past his hate for Steve. To be clear, that is not saying he should have gotten over Howard or any harm that he suffered as a result of his. Howard was his parent who was, to some degree, at least emotionally neglectful, if not abusive. Healing and learning helping coping mechanisms does not demand you forgive your abuser.

But Steve was never his abuser. He's a 20-something year old guy who has been trapped in a block of ice for Tony's entire life and who woke up two weeks ago to find out that everyone he ever loved is dead or suffering from alzheimer's and that his sacrifice was for nothing because he was just told the thing he drove a fucking plane into the fucking arctic over is Back Again Because We Learned Nothing.

And the thing is that the realization that "This man can hold literally no complicity in my abuser because he was frozen in the Arctic Circle the entire time" requires a level of emotional maturity you generally achieve at the age of thirteen or so. Tony is fucking fifty. Mentally, he's over twice Steve's age. At absolute best, the way Tony treats Steve from the outset is immature and more accurately it's downright cruel. Voluntarily killing himself by driving a plane into ice only to wake up and discover that he has lost everyone he ever loved is undoubtedly one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to steve, and he just woke up from it. He is two weeks out from this. He's actively having flashbacks of what happened right before Tony starts cracking jokes about it. It'd be like if Steve walked up to Tony right after he got back from Afghanistan and called him Waterboarding Boy and everyone treated it like it was a cutesy character trait.

That's one of the most egregious parts of how Tony's character is written--things that are objectively things that need to be addressed in his character arc area treated like acceptable and borderline justified quirks in his personality. Tony's relationship with his father is one of the cornerstones of his backstory and who he became. While he doesn't have to forgive his father on the road to recovery, he does have to realize when he's using it as an excuse to hurt others and stop it.

That's also something he never does, and one of the reasons why i think that the writers for him need to watch Bojack horseman. In the same movie he's claiming to that he was Steve's friend, he's still saying to his face how much he fucking hated him over things that happened when Steve was supposed to have martyred himself to save the world.

There's multiple parts of Tony's character that could have formed the basis of an amazing character arc if he grew and improved from them, but the narrative refused to even recognize them as problems, let alone have him overcome them, and his relationship with Steve is a perfect example of it. The writer's refusal to recognize that brings down the quality of his entire arc and cheapens him as a character.

If Tony had been allowed to recognize that Steve was not to blame for his father, accepted it, and given a man half his age who just lost everything a lifeline, that would have shown an amazing amount of growth. Instead, they left him as immature and cruel. It's a shame and an insult to the potential of his character, and it's a mistake that they repeat again and again. Tony was supposed to be completely against developing weapons for others, but he canonically helped build a major part of Project Insight. Tony's entire stance in Civil War was meant to show that he had accepted that he made mistakes and that he needed to be held accountable for his actions, but then he went and unilaterally built EDITH, whose existence violates multiple international treaties including the Accords and had so few safety precautions that a teenaged boy was able to accidentally call out a missile strike on his teenaged classmate. He's in a movie where he's driven by his guilt for causing the death of someone's college-aged son, and in that same movie he blackmails a high-school-aged boy to join in on a fight he knows nothing about, that goes directly against his interests, and could get him killed even if he was certain that Team Cap wouldn't use lethal force. Rhodey got paralyzed from the waist down from friendly fire. Tony had a moment in the same fight where he had reason to fear that Peter had been injured if not killed.

Ultimately, Tony's entire character is built on a foundation of repentance and growth. That's why he has so much potential and why he's so compelling. The fact that his writers were unable to recognize when he even needed to repent, let alone allow him to grow, was honestly insulting to what he could have been.

Zola:

The reference to Zola is actually more of a response to fandom’s response to Zola as a whole than the actual specific person who made the comment.

Overall, the majority of fandom response that I've seen just seemed to be sort of besides the point? The thing about Armin Zola working for SHIELD is that I personally have only seen discussion about this in context of talking about how Peggy and Howard are Bad or talking about how steve would feel betrayed when he discovered it. To be honest most of the discourse I’ve seen has just been about hating Peggy Carter and using this as a sledgehammer in that discussion.

It’s not that I disagree with that reading of it—like, I do think Steve felt betrayed by the realization that Zola was recruited in the end, and I think it’s bad to have recruited literal Nazis—but I do think that fandom elevated the most tangential point of it to the detriment of its entire narrative purpose. I've only ever personally seen it used in character discourse and shipping wars--which like, anyone can draw on any plot point they so choose while participating in fandom. But Zola's recruitment was the thematic core of Winter Soldier, and it always seemed kinda weird to me that it was treated as a personal defect in Howard and Peggy when it was the entire argument of the movie and one of the best social commentaries that the MCU ever made.

Zola gives what I think is one of the better MCU villain speeches in the bunker about how Hydra recovered after the war. He states that they realized that taking the freedom of the world by force only galvanised people against them. It led to their own downfall. But he explains that Hydra realized that the people of the world would freely give away their own rights and freedoms if you made them comfortable. If you say you’re doing it for their own safety and comfort, then they’ll effectively look the other way while Hydra seizes control of the world. And that entire monologue is bolstered by the fact that that is exactly what happened in Zola’s case.

Zola was brought into SHIELD as a part of operation paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a post-war initiative by the United States government to recruit key Nazi scientists into United States scientific development. This entire initiative was brought about in response to the Cold War arm’s race and it was justified on the basis of dire national security need. Both America and the Soviet Union were EXTREMELY CONCERNED about losing the cold war. As a result, they were willing to take pretty much any strategic advantage they could, including After, President Truman, who gave the final go-ahead for the initiative, said that "this had to be done and was done."

Even after it became public knowledge, it was defended as more of a necessary evil and the cost of the practicalities of governance than a world power welcoming war criminals with open arms. Multiple participants have been linked to human experimentation, slave labor factories, etc, though none were ever formally found guilty of anything--which may be because the US aggressively whitewashed their pasts and then went so far as to help relocate one of the members of the initiative to Argentina.

This was, again, all a part of the Cold War arms race with the USSR--who had an identical program going at the same time, Operation Osoaviakhim.

En arguendo, let's just assume that all of this was done with the best possible intentions and execution. The nominal rationale was the Cold War. While analyzing the Red Scare and the entire Cold War period would take way too long, I think a solid premise we can agree on is that nuclear war is bad. It would have been disastrous for anyone alive if the Cold War had escalated, and recruiting top scientists from the Nazi regime 1) kept the USSR from doing it instead, which they were actively doing, and 2) helped prevent strategic advantage in one country or another that may have led to an escalation. Now, I'm not a historian, and all of these premises can naturally be debated, but these were the like, best faith premises that world leaders had at the time. If you want a nuclear deterrent, you need the biggest stick.

The thing is that, if you assume these premises as genuine for the sake of the argument, the absolute best this leaves you with is doing a very bad thing for a very important government purpose. You're supposedly preventing nuclear war, but you're doing so at the cost of justice for all the people who suffered at the hands of these people, and the risk of future harm that they may cause.

Which, thematically, is the core of the Winter Soldier.

I've usually seen Zola's recruitment discussed in terms of Peggy or Howard making the decision to let him in, when in reality, they probably didn't make the call themselves so much as become complicit in it later. Zola was captured and recruited right at the end of CA:FA (he later clocks this at 1945) but Peggy and Howard didn't even have an organization at that point, let alone the power to recruit a head Nazi scientist. This was two decades before SHIELD was ever founded, and if we take the Agent Carter series as binding canon, at the time of Zola's transition into American government would, Peggy had so little sway that she couldn't even get anyone to listen to her, let alone recruit a nazi scientist, and Howard was potentially on the run and definitely not involved in any formal governmental decision making. Even if you assume that they were somehow in charge of a government agency at the time of Zola's recruitment, the actual recruitment and function of Operation Paperclip was conducted by independent agencies (Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency and the Counterintelligence Corps) that Peggy and Howard weren't a part of, and the person who made the call for Operation Paperclip itself was The Literal President Of The United States. Whatever way you cut it, Peggy and Howard probably had nothing to do with Zola's initial recruitment--what most likely happened was that two decades passed (the time between Zola's recruitment and SHIELD's founding) and when resources were being allocated some big-shot in the overseeing body was like Yeah You Do Weird Stuff? We Got A Guy Who's Been Doing Weird Stuff For Us For Like Twenty Years and then when Peggy and Howard saw him they were like Oh Its This Motherfucker.

To be clear, this is not at all to absolve howard and peggy for working with a guy they knew did literal human experimentation because he did it on one of their best friends. But this is to more clearly reframe it from Decision They Personally Made to The Ways Being At A Certain Level Of Government Makes You Complicit With Horrible Things, which perfectly encapsulates the heart of the movie.

At the open of the movie, Steve is visibly on a fucking ledge with SHIELD. Fuck, Fury and Nat spend most of the opening trying to keep him from flying the coop. And it's because Steve for the very first time has to grapple with the consequences of being an active participant in a governmental body.

Straight up--Steve spent the entire war going AWOL. His entire military career was spent doing what he wanted and flipping his superior officers the bird. The man was a terrible fucking soldier but by the time anyone figured it out they had already given him a comic book and the Medal of Honor and the man could bench press a tank it was simply too late. Then, he got encased in ice for 70 years, woke up, had two weeks of fun future integration activities like Not Getting Therapy For His Problems and Looking At Pictures Of His Dead Friends, got tapped in because they fucked up with the exact thing he lost everything to stop, immediately went AWOL again, almost died again, went on a roadtrip of self discovery, and at some point between then and CAWS started working as one of the main STRIKE members of SHIELD. This is likely his first time having to ever deal with the realities of being a hand of the government.

One of the most insidious things about high-level government work is there's rarely some Main Guy sitting behind a desk signing Evil Decrees and responsible for everything. Power is allocated and things get messy very quickly.

Take Ghost for example. One of SHIELD'S Main Guys falls out with another Guy, smears his name, which makes the Ex-Guy so desperate that he takes unnecessary risks in his experiments that predictably blow up in his face and leads to his young daughter having a debilitating power that results in her uncontrollably phasing through objects. Another Guy tries to do the right thing and help her, but Other Main Guys think "This kid would make a GREAT assassin" and leverage a cure for her debilitating health condition into turning her into a forced operative. This health condition starts to kill her, but the Main Guys were so happy with their new forced assassin that they never looked for a cure to begin with and was going to use her until she died. She goes rather reasonably goes AWOL, and in her attempts to cure herself, she's willing to do just about anything to get cured, and including contemplating kidnapping Scott's daughter as an option.

Steve obviously wasn't called in to help with that (he was AWOL himself at that point) but assume he was--he would only get pulled into this mess at the very end when all the damage is done and there's a highly unstable assassin kidnapping little girls. SHIELD was at fault for every horrible thing that happened to this person. He has a strong sense of justice, and he'd likely to be furious to find out that SHIELD took an orphanged child and abused their incredibly painful and terminal medical condition, which was indirectly caused by them, in order to force them into becoming a highly skilled operative.

But there isn't just one person that he'd be able to find and blame for what happened with this--culpability was stretched out over Multiple Main Guys who made bad decisions, a lot of Lower Guys who built the suit, trained her, handled her in the field, and experimented on her to learn her limits, many of whom likely didn't even work for the organization any more.

Who do you go after for that? The Main Guy who smeared her dad? But he didn't have anything to do with the assassin business or the actual accident. The Main Guys who made the calls for the assassination thing? Better candidates, but is it that simple? What about the guys who just get orders every day and have no decision making authority, who were handed a little girl who was vulnerable and in pain and told to train her to kill? What about the ones making a child-sized tactical suit with no details about what was going on but who had reason enough to suspect it wasn't all good? They were just following orders, but so were Nazis working the camps.

How do you go after people for that? Fire them? It's been decades. Most are probably retired. And that's a pretty lame punishment for what they did. He doesn't make the calls for legal action, they definitely have qualified immunity for their decisions, and there's a whole host of problems with proving anything.

But, on the flip side, what does he do about Ghost? what happened to her is terrible, but if she had kidnapped Cassie Lang, he couldn't exactly sit on his hands and let it happen no matter the justification. There's a very good chance he has to stop her and become another link in a chain of what's been a lifetime of abuse. Things get messy when you're just a cog in the machine of a sprawling agency that has a lot of power to abuse.

While we don't know what Steve's been doing while he worked for SHIELD, we do know that it pissed him off to high heavens. The very first thing we see him doing for SHIELD is recapturing the off-course Lemurian Star from pirates, and he is the exact opposite of a dutiful soldier during it. He doesn't just salute and follow his orders without question--one of the first lines of his mouth is calling them out for lying about the ship being in those waters because it was off-course. He's like "Oh, so it's not off course, it's trespassing" to which Nat says "I'm sure they had a good reason" and Steve replies "I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor."

He's saving the hostages, and then all of a sudden he finds Natasha in the control room downloading the drive and realizes that this was about SHIELD's data to begin with but no one clued him in on that fact. He's pissed because the hostages could have died, which is a fact he immediately goes after Fury about.

There is so much character jammed into those few minutes of screen time. This is visibly an old argument--at one point, Fury says to him "It's damn near getting past time for you to get with the program, Cap" to which Steve tells him not to hold his breath. Steve doesn't like or approve of a lot of SHIELD's actions, but he's called in after all the bad things they did went to shit. Like, what's he going to do--say, sorry, the Lemurian Star was obviously Up To Some Shit that I don't want to be a part of, RIP to the hostages but I'm just going to let them get shot in the head? He's the janitor and he's sick of getting called into SHIELD fucking something up through their own immoral actions and calling him to pull their ass out of the fire. He spends the entire first half of the movie on the verge of flying the coop entirely, and Nat and Fury visibly know it and are trying to get him off the ledge in every interaction they have on screen with him--which directly contributes to the fact that Steve doesn't trust either of them for the first half of the movie.

It also is likely the motivator behind why he does ultimately trust Sam. Steve spends the first half of the movie getting Managed. He's increasingly pissed and distrustful of SHIELD and its agents, and he's got good reason to be--Nat and Fury hide things from him and keep trying to persuade him to stick with the program (to be clear Nat's (and to a somewhat lesser extent Fury's) own actions and whether any culpability for things like project insight could possibly be imputed to her has to be analyzed under an entirely different lens due to the difference in her personal history and character type, but this is already way too long to tackle that here. this isn't actually meant to assign blame to her, but more to analyze the likely results on steve). Fury takes him for a tour of his Fascist Death Machine and tells him that's what the world needs. The neighbor he was growing increasingly intimate with was a SHIELD agent who lied to him about her name and the fact that she was spying on him. At the end of the day, the majority of the of the early movie is spent with his desires and principles are treated as secondary and unwanted complications to the fact that they really need him to keep throwing that shield on SHIELD's behalf (whether this is actually what nat and fury specifically are trying to do is, again, a separate analysis we don't have time for, this is just to go to how it likely affects and appears to Steve).

Sam, meanwhile, is beautiful and charming is the only one who openly expresses a genuine concern for Steve as a person and not steve as a solider. Sam spends the entire first half of the movie reaching out to someone in a position he's been in himself and trying to get him help. his entire first meeting with Steve is defined by him trying to help a fellow Vet recover from war. he tries to gauge where Steve's at with the future, invites him to the VA, and packages it in a easily-seen-through excuse that gives them both plausible deniability--Steve can come by and get the help he needs not as Captain America The Man The Myth The Legend Who Is Really Fucking Struggling, but as Steve the guy helping Sam impress the girl at the front desk.

When he comes to the VA, Sam has the direct opposite response that everyone else in the movie has to Steve questioning his place in SHIELD and in government work--he's like "Quit. Quit now. Be free and beautiful like me. become an ultimate fighter or whatever the fuck you want." He doesn't give two shits about what the world will do without Captain America keeping it safe--he just cares about what Steve needs.

This all goes to a greater analysis about how Sam is beautiful and charming the perfect parallel to Steve, the only one who could possibly have taken up his shield, and actually wrong in that line he says about how he does what Steve does but slower because he consistently decides to do the right thing before Steve is another analysis that would go too far off the point to get into. The point being is that Sam exists in the narrative as the direct opposite and alternative to the reality fury and nat offers Steve. Steve spends the beginning of the movie with Nat and Fury seemingly sacrificing the means for the end, but there's Sam, beautiful and charming someone who made the same decision he's now faced with, being like "fuck it. sometimes you have to walk."

Steve's entire struggle about his position with SHIELD reaches its climax when he first finds out the truth of Project Insight.

For the avoidance of any doubt, SHIELD secretly being infiltrated by HYDRA has no effect on how wrong Project Insight was from the start--it just emphasized how horrifically wrong it could go. But "Space Super Death Weapon That Can Immediately Kill Dangers To National Security" is a bad idea no matter who is in charge of it. First off, Steve is right--punishment follows the crime. No government has a crystal fucking ball and anyone who justifies things on the basis of "taking out threats ahead of time" is talking out their ass. to be clear, i'm not saying you need to wait for someone to be on a plane and flying at the twin towers to stop a terrorist attack--in law, we have a designated level of "closeness" that lets us say "yeah you were totally actually doing what we don't want you doing" at which point you can charge them with attempt, and often a lot of the earlier steps leading up to the Big Harmful Thing are actual crimes you can intervene with.

Project Insight was the flagship of of a "quantum surge in threat analysis." It did exactly what it was designed to do: it took out threats before they became threats. The only difference between SHIELD being at the helm and HYDRA is who gets defined as a threat. HYDRA would have defined that as anyone from a high school valedictorian in Iowa to Stephen Strange, but it's not any better if SHIELD's defining that as some random kid in Afghanistan who shows whatever traits show a risk for one day becoming a combatant.

And yet, steve's the only one in the movie who says this. We don't actually know how much Nat knows about Project insight itself, but Fury is fully aware and a participant in it, and Tony Stark apparently took one look at the thing and said "your engines are shit. i'll improve them." Steve takes one look at them and calls it fascist bullshit.

At the end of the day, you can never justify shit like this under the assumption that the people controlling it will use it for the best, because you cannot trust the people controlling it. Yeah, Project Insight was probably pitched with being used against the worst threats. Dangers to public safety, terrorists, that kind of thing. Do you want to know who else was considered a danger to public safety? MLK, who the FBI fucking murdered. The people who define threats to national security are the ones who have the same incentive to maintain the status quo in an unjust world. Even if we assume Project Insight was made to stop the next 9/11, we also have to assume that at least some of the strikes it would have carried out under not-HYDRA control would have been for the wrong reasons.

What the fuck does all of this this have to do with Zola?

Operation Paperclip and Peggy and Howard's decisions within it directly mirrors Project Insight and Fury's decisions within it, directly mirrors Steve's journey and central conflict over the course of the film, and directly contrasts with the alternative Sam poses within it.

CA:WS at its thematic core, says that initiatives that sacrifice justice for claims of national security and public safety are exactly what robs us of our rights and freedoms and ultimately endangers us all. It's not even subtle--Zola says it out loud in his evil villain speech. but operating at a high level in a government agency puts you in a position where you're meant to make that decision again and again, even if we assume you have the best of intentions.

Peggy and Howard were people who believed that they had to make the hard decisions to save the world. They were handed a decision where perception of culpability was obscured by how distributed out the blame was, and the direct public benefit to national security was posed to be overwhelmingly good. It leads to SHIELD's infiltration. Project Insight went through on the exact same reasoning. Fury, Maria Hill, possibly Nat, and Tony (off-screen) all do the exact same thing and justify the means by the end, and it leads to the helicarriers being made.

Steve spends the movie being told, explicitly, to "get with the program" and start making the same decisions. His central conflict is being someone on the inside of this club, being told that he needs to start understand what keeping the world safe demands, and his journey leads to him refusing to do it. The climax of the movie is a character so minor that we never learn his name refusing to launch the helicarriers with a gun pointed at his head, even though the complicity he carried in it would have been just as attenuated as Steve's was as SHIELD's janitor. And all throughout it, there's Sam, someone who left the military explicitly because he couldn't follow the rules he was being given anymore.

Peggy and Howard's decision to go along with Zola in Operation Paperclip is a direct parallel of the decisions Fury made with Project Insight and the decisions Steve ultimately refuses to make himself. Making Peggy and Howard complicit in what let in Arnim Zola encapsulates the entire core argument of CA:WS and it's so weird to me that I've only ever seen it discussed in shipping wars and discourse as to whether a Character Is Bad.

Peggy and Howard, ultimately, were members of a governmental task force who made the Hard Decisions for The Public Good. As an inherent part of that role, they did bad things. Unjust things. They undoubtedly saved the world multiple times over as a part of their tenure as the head of SHIELD, but it would be absolute naivety to assume that anyone in that position didn't become complicit in terrible fucking things. It's the direct product of their positions in the government, and it's exactly what leads to Steve's position in Civil War. it is absolutely bonkers to me how people watched Winter Solider and then reacted to Steve's opposition to the Accords like Local Imperialist Military Boy Refuses To Listen To Anyone Else. Steve just had a masterclass in how people in the government make decisions that sacrifice justice up to and including people he once trusted with his life. Of course he didn't fucking trust General Human Experimentation And I Consider Bruce Banner The Property Of The United States Military with his every action as Captain America. He had just learned that he couldn't even trust Peggy and Howard with it.

[serenasoutherlyns]

passionately, i'd say

chapter 2 of my woman!jack au. ao3 rewrite of s5e10 house counsel.

“We would’ve been more comfortable in Aruba,” Jack says.

“You prosecutors don’t have the time for frivolous travel like we do. It’s too bad such a great mind is wasted on this office. Third in the class,” Paul volleys right back with a nod to Claire. “But I’ve never lost a case on account of my 2.5, have I. And what do they say, the C students end up kicking the A students in the ass? That’s probably not it, oh well Jackie, I can’t wait to do it anyway.”

“We have Furini on tape,” says Claire. The case is a slam dunk.

“Another A student?” says Paul. He’s smug.

“Law review too,” Claire says, trying not to seem too defensive. “But you don’t have to be to see where this is going.”

Jack leans back a little in her chair and pushes her hair behind her ears, tousling it ever so slightly. Claire likes Jack’s hair a lot. She likes the shine, how soft it is to touch, how it smells like coconut and honey. She does dye it, Jack confirmed one day, looking in the bathroom mirror. She had to get her roots redone. Claire likes her faint crows feet and smile lines, too. She presses play on the cassette. “Mr. Parks is all taken care of, Vin. Bada bing, bada boom.” “Good job, John.” “I think the meaning is obvious,” Jack says.

“Sure it is,” says Paul. “They were talking about Miss America. Look Jackie, I hate to burst your bubble but this case is gonna go the way of all flesh.”

“Because you’re the defense counsel?” Jack says, playfully incredulous.

Paul grins and cocks his head to the side. “Motion to suppress. That tape will never be heard by a jury. Oh, and Anna sends her love. She wants you to come over sometime.”

“Tell her we’ll all go to Aruba this weekend.”

“Sounds wonderful. See you in chambers, Jackie, Miss-”

“Kincaid,” Jack says.

“Miss Kincaid. She seems like a good one,” he says on his way out.

“Jackie?” Claire says when the door closes.

“Yeah, well. Old nicknames die hard.”

“You two seem close,” Claire says, not even trying to hide her annoyance. He wasn’t her typical type. Jack generally has little patience for macho posturing. For dick measuring contests. She does usually win those, however.

“Exes,” she says. “Two years and we never did anything but argue and try to beat each other at pool.”

“Two years,” Claire says. “I didn’t know you had that in you.”

“I didn’t,” Jack says, her voice matter-of-fact. “Ask Carolyn Waters.” Claire thinks she would not have gotten along with 23-year-old Jack. ---

“It’s about the battle, Claire, not the prize,” Jack says.

“You would agree with me if it was anybody else,” is her response. “You’re acting like defending a mob boss is some sort of noble cause.”

“It’s all a part of the game,” she says. Jack can really piss Claire off. Something about Paul Kopell brings out her cynical, egotistical side.

“Last I heard, it was about justice,” Claire says.

“Justice is a story we tell to make ourselves feel better, not something we can reasonably seek. Effective prosecutors should do their best to let it be the byproduct.”

“Of what?” Claire says, knowing that Jack was about to say;

“Of winning, plain, simple, and as often as possible.”

“I’m not in this to score points,” Claire says.

“Well you better change that, Claire, or you’ll never sleep again,” Jack says with that charming, fond, smile. It’s hard to stay mad at her when she looks at her that way. Claire does her best imitation of a frown.

“Adam, we have the tape on Furini. If we’re lucky, he won’t want to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

“Good,” says Adam in that tired but sure tone of his.

---

“I meant what I said, about winning,” Jack says, and takes another sip of scotch.

“Do we really have to talk about work?” Claire responds. She’s had about enough of the case today, and Jack will not let this go. She insists on winning her over.

“What else is there to talk about?” She says, and she has a point. It’s not like they do much else.

“You could ask me about lunch with my mom,” she says after thinking for a second.

“How was lunch with your mother, Claire,” Jack says, mock-interested (because she can guess how it was). She leans into her space Claire leans in too, matching her challenge.

“Awkward and unpleasant,” she says. Claire takes a sip of her pinot noir and rests her her chin on her hand. “She wouldn’t stop going on about my biological clock.” Jack lets out a bright scoff.

“You’ve got some time on that one,” she says.

“I’m in no rush,” Claire says, and brings her bottom lip between her teeth. She touches Jack’s calf with her own. Jack places her hand on her knee.

“I’d hope not,” says Jack. “Cause, I’d be of no help.”

“Thank God.” Jack raises her glass to that.

“Anyway,” she says, “if you get too focused, you’ll drive yourself insane.” Claire goes to respond, to say something pithy, but Jack doesn’t let her. “I’m being serious, Claire.” Claire opens her mouth and closes it. She lowers her head and picks it back up. She puts her hand on the back of her neck.

“I know,” Claire says. “I can feel it happening.”

“So stop,” Jack says. “Don’t beat yourself up if you lose a motion, hell, if you lose a case. Move on, and do your best to win. But if everything is about justice, and you don’t get it, you’ll--”

“Make myself miserable, I know.”

“Good,” says Jack. “You’re getting it.” She touches her shoulder affectionately. Claire sips her wine.

---

“Your friend plays the game by a different set of rules,” Claire says. She’s standing, leaning over the table. She’s been pacing the room, trying to come up with a way to reindict and coming up empty. Paul Kopell is certainly a smart guy. “He and I are not playing the same game anymore, Claire,” Jack says from the couch. She is sitting back, sunk into the leather, her heels are on the floor and her legs are tucked under her. She’s been staring off into the distance for ten minutes, thinking about what, Claire can’t say. This revelation concerns her, she wonders what Jack is about to get into.

“Is that disappointment, or the sound of your ego deflating?”

“It’s contempt,” Jack responds. “He’s reprehensible. First day of law school, ‘What’s the cornerstone of the adversarial process?’” She rises from the couch.

“I don’t need the socratic attitude,” Claire says. Jack walks up close to her, comfortable. The top of her blouse is unbuttoned and Claire’s eyes linger at her collarbone as she tilts her chin up to face her.

“Just answer the question, Claire.”

“Two independent counsel, arguing points of fact and points of law before an impartial judge and jury,” she responds reluctantly.

“Right,” Jack says. “The operative word being ‘independent.’ Paul crossed a line.”

“He didn’t do anything illegal, Jack. He listened to Dasso brag. You heard the tape.” Claire rests her hands on the desk behind her. Jack stands across the room from her with her arms crossed, anger apparent on her face-- she’s even a little red. Her hands are balled into fists.

“He facilitated the operation of a criminal enterprise.” Jack is enraged. That must be why she hadn’t said a word for so long. “How do you think he knew Lempert’s spending habits?”

“Maybe they had cappuccino together,” Claire says. She can’t help the it. Jack is reaching at best but there was no telling her anything when she got like this.

“The juror questionnaires,” Jack says, realizing mid-speech. “How much do you owe, how much do you make. He knew exactly what he was doing in voir dire, he asked the questions that would find him the person most likely to take a bribe. I can’t believe this,” she says.

“I’m not sure I do,” says Claire. Half of her is trying to spare Jack the pain that finding out something like this is true would cause her. “Paul Kopell goes the extra mile, every time. I just didn’t expect him to drive the car into a wall.”

The clerk leads them to it. Claire sees the devastation in Jack’s eyes, the pain of betrayal. It’s heartbreaking. In the cab back to the courthouse, she takes her hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. Jack sighs and squeezes back.

---

“Twenty-five years ago, Paul stayed up until 3:00am with me teaching me the rule against perpetuities,” Jack says.

“Smart has nothing to do with honest,” Adam replies. “What are you gonna do?”

“Burn him at the stake,” says Jack. She looks tired.

“Even if we can implicate Kopell, it’s only an E felony.”

“No,” says Jack, determination and rage in her voice. “It’s an A felony. Conspiracy to commit murder. Paul picked Lempert’s name.” Jack is taking things to far, Claire thinks, or she’s going to. She thinks about asking her, if this were any other attorney, would she do something like this?

She thinks better of it, but tries to sway her anyway. “You don’t think he knew they were going to kill Lempert?”

“It doesn’t matter. He set the chain of events in motion. Do you want to convict Dasso?” Claire and Adam nod. “Paul can give him to us.”

---

“You son of a bitch,” says who must be Paul’s wife.

“Anna, calm down. You could’ve called, Jack, you have my number,” Paul says, bursting with anger, spitting the words out.

“I’m sorry, it fell out of my rolodex,” says Jack. The room feels like it’s going to light on fire.

“Are you happy, Jackie?” Paul says bitterly.

“Happy yes, I’m so happy to discover one of my closest friends is a felon.”

Paul actually laughs. “Even if Dasso bribed the clerk, what the hell has that got to do with me?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid, Paul.”

Anna looks Claire straight in the eyes as if to say how could you. “This is really getting your juices going, isn’t it,” she says.

“Anna, if you can’t let me proceed, you’d better step outside.” Paul gestures to Claire. Jack makes a stop motion to her, and though she wasn’t going to leave anyway, she appreciates the show of respect.

“Paul, you can put an end to this, right now,” says Jack. “Give us Dasso.”

“Give you Dasso, who the hell do you think I am? You know what, Jackie, you can’t even carry my briefcase, you never could.” Jack shows how hurt she is: her eyes dart to the side, where Claire is standing. She can see Jack starting to lose her composure, like she’s going to cry, or like she’s going to hit Kopell. “I’m gonna get this bullshit charge dismissed and then write you a civil suit that will have your great-grandchildren answering motions.”

Paul storms out and Anna is close behind him. When the door closes, Jack sinks into the couch. Claire sees one tear roll down her cheek. She goes to take her hand, but Jack pulls it away.

“I’m going to go get a cup of coffee,” Claire says. “Want anything?”

“I’m good,” Jack says. She looks out the window.”

---

“I don’t need your sarcasm right now, Claire,” Jack says as they walk back to the office. It’s fair. Claire could stand to be a little kinder.

“Look, Jack,” Claire says as she takes her arm. “Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?” Jack stops walking in the middle of the sidewalk and turns to face her.

“Do you want to convict Dasso?” Jack asks.

“Of course I do.”

“Well I’m fresh out of ideas,” she says. “This is the only way I can see of doing it.”

Claire looks at her and sighs. Jack is right. Her argument against Kopell is sound. But she hates seeing Jack so distraught, so hurt. They haven’t had a moment to themselves since the arrest.

“Alright,” Claire says, takes Jack’s arm again, and walks them down the street.

---

“He’s a murderer,” Paul says. “He’s my client. I don’t judge him. I defend him. It’s what I do.”

“You don’t have to climb into bed with him,” says Jack. “That’s where you’re wrong. I have to get into his bed. I have to think like him. I have to attend his grandchildren’s christenings, I have to eat his mother’s cooking. It’s the only way I can defend him with any kind of passion. How can you not see that, Jackie?”

Claire can see Jack start to bristle at the nickname where she hadn’t before. It was like watching two angry dogs bark at each other.

“That’s your only agenda?” Jack says, disbelieving.

“Hell no,” says Paul. “I do it because I like it. I do it because it’s fun. I climbed macho mountain and it feels damn good.” Jack grips the table tightly. Claire is disgusted. Jack must be too. He really isn’t Jack’s type, after all.

“We’re offering you a way out,” Claire says. Paul looks at her like she’s nothing. Jack bites her cheek.

“Maybe you should hear him out, Paul,” Anna says.

“Absolutely not,” Paul says, stretching the first word out to five syllables. “Don’t you see, Anna? He called this meeting, that means his case is weak. This is a game of chicken. And you just blinked. See you at trial.”

---

They convict him.

The foreperson stands and delivers a “guilty” verdict. There is no celebration, no after-work drinks, no congratulation from Adam. Nobody is happy.

“That sounded like more than a game,” Claire says as the elevator door opens.

“You better take the next elevator,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t be very good company.”

[thedragonlover95]

Don't Change Who You Are Klonoa

Klonoa was just looking around town, it had been a nice day. Till he heard that tourists were coming by, he had seen plenty before and many would give him greetings. While also asking if they could give him hugs or pets, which he did not mind at all, it made him feel happy to know he could make others happy. This time however, was different, and that was during the event where some of his friends were there too. Each where given their own greetings, and appeared to be going fine, , ,that was until Klonoa noticed someone approaching, they were a red head while wearing some weird robes. Klonoa greeted them. Klonoa: Hi and welcome to Breezegale- Dumb: Wait are you Klonoa? Klonoa: Uh huh that's me. Dumb: URGH! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR EYES! Klonoa: WAH! W-what's wrong?! Dumb: YOU WERE SO MUCH BETTER IN YOUR FIRST GAME! BUT NOW YOU LOOK LIKE THAT BLUE HEDGHOG SONIC! Klonoa: Why would I? Did I do something wrong? Popka: Hey bucko what are you trying to do to our buddy?! Dumb: Oh great the none expressive peanut gallery's here as well! This as dumb as-insert cringy meme here- Lolo: Klonoa hasn't done anything wrong, you're the one who seems to have a problem! Leave him alone, he's not hurting anyone, if anything you're the one who's causing issues and it's very upsetting! Leorina: And I think you owe him an apology. Dumb: Oh great, it's the edgy pirate girl, along with those who'd want to fuck this-Get's Blasted- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Tat: Yeah this one's getting kicked, if they don't want to play by the rules, or be at least decent, they should be escorted out in style. Leorina:-sighs-At leas that's got taken care of. . .Hey you alright Klonoa? Klonoa: Yeah, I am now. But I don't get why that guy had an issue with my appearance. Guntz: It's clear that they're a hated Sonic fan. Anything that remotely has the eyes that you have. They will do what they can to break you down mently. Leorina: Which isn't really right. I'll never get why these kinds of people have to make it a big deal. Popka: That guy got what was coming to him. I bet he's total loser where he's from. Lolo: That still doesn't make it right. Klonoa: But I am glad you guys were around, i'm not sure what I would do if you didn't show up. Guntz: Hey it's the least we can do. Besides that guy was just some trouble maker. You're fine just the way you are, so remember that. Klonoa: Yeah, you are right on that. I'll continue being me, because it's who I am and no one can tell me otherwise! Huepow: That's great to hear. And no one will break that. End Author's Note: So yeah I based this of a "Review" on a Klonoa video, that was made by washout EX Sonictuber Dumbsville. Where he didn't really talk about the stories of the two games, just cringy cutaways and memes. But what really got my blood boiling, is of his Sonic Hate Biased, he hated Klonoa's modern look, all cause of the eyes and body shape. Clearly the guy dosn't know that Klonoa is suppose to be a pre teen. And that was one of the few Klonoa videos I disliked. Also the video was just not very good. This guy's only good t reviewing trash movies, and not charming games. So I made this story, and how Klonoa and friends arn't bad people, and how much they shouldn't let losers like this get to them. This also goes for Sonic as well.

[aplaceforthesoul]

Anonymous submitted:

29f here  hi there, I started to "officially" date my boyfriend bout a year ago. Im really happy with him. I adore him, and our relationship is amazing.  I had never been in a commited relationship before, and there is a small thing that has been bothering me lately. I m not a jealous at all, I have never been like this, yet I feel worried about him and his exgf. It all starts when we first met... when we met they werr together and we were not even friends (my bf and me) and then "they broke up" or thats what he said. We started going put as friends and then went on a trip together... we started being friends with benefits after he asured me he was no longer in a relationship with this person. Well turns out one day I was at the beach and I saw them together.he didnt even speak to me. Then he said she still lived in his house bc she was broke and unemployed and that he took her to the beach "cos she wanted to go". We were not a couple just friendswb ... so yeah I distanced myself bc I didnt want to be w someone with a gf... ok so fast forward. After a month or so he  calls me to tell me she trashed his house bc he asked her to leave. So another month ... we start dating. I decided to Just let go of that bc we were not even together. Everything is great and he is like my bestfriend. BUT this lady has messaged him twice.1st saying he saw us together at the beach he didnt answer. 2nd to tell him she was over him and that she was dating sb el se. And he answered hope u r doing well ... like this bothered me ... cos a guy that i was seeing in the past also messaged me and i was like mm yeah idc ... anything else?... bc i genuinely dont care. ...We have a fb Page of a bussines we started together.  The ex often watches stories reels and Leaves reacts here and there but doesnt follow said Page. She blocked a friend of mine bc she thinks she is the actual gf... she doesnt even Know it is me ... but like this shit is toxic. And I now DO belive what he told me about them not being together and him lettting her stay out of pity, bc he often allows ppl to take advantage of him and doesnt set boundaries. This worries me bc im scared she might try sth w him and he May accept bc of this.it also fills me w doubts about HIM having moved on from her. Idk how to approach this wo sounding crazy. I already told him about the fb thing and her blocking my friend and he just says ah yeah .but i dont know how to tell him about my concerns. Hope you could help me. I feel very anxious and like this could be a thing that could ruin the relationship and trust

Hi there. It's understandable that you feel anxious since it seems to be a messy situation. It does not seem like a healthy relationship to me :c

It seems to me that a lot of focus has been put on him and his ex but not you. Have you asked yourself what you want from the relationship and from him? Are you happy being in this relationship/ situation?

As an adult, I think your bf needs to take accountability as he continues letting things happen (even if he no longer has feelings for her). If you are not happy with how things are going, perhaps it's best to find a time when you and him are both calm to have a face-to-face convo

You may approach the conversation by stating your observations and feelings without any criticism or judgment (This link about four components to the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) model, may help). Tell him calmly how the situation (him letting his exgf take advantage of him) makes you feel uncomfortable and you would like to see if boundaries can be put up.

I can also feel that you feel insecure about this relationship as you worried that she may steal him away. Trust and honesty are important qualities of a healthy romantic relationship. Currently, it seems to me that you do not feel secure about your place in the relationship and his behaviours. Apart from talking to him regarding the situation, perhaps try putting the focus back on yourself? Engage in your hobbies, hang out with friends and family or join a new community? When you focus on yourself more, you will have less time to worry about him. You are loved regardless of his feelings for you. You are valued no matter how he treats you. <3

There is also no certain way to know if he/ she was lying. You can only do what's best for you in this situation. Please always take care of yourself first!

Love,

Sam

[camelspit]

yeah fitz makes me sad ngl I feel like his character has been kind of ruined by shannon when he had so much potential

I still kind of want a lil bit of a rebel fitz arc

I’ll just keep thinking of him as a very repressed gay who’s desperately in love with dex, but is in this really privileged elite family that’s deeply homophobic and he just becomes sad and bitter to lash out and escape from his feelings as that’s what I prefer (and relate too a lil being repressed sksjsk) but I think he really needs to have a rebel? arc where he becomes more mature and Shannon just doesn’t really seem to care to give him it

it’s easier to keep him the toxic ex. He’s just become more and more of an asshole in canon when he was a sweet kid once which makes me sad. She could have just made him full evil too, it’d still be interesting and still provide g r o w t h

biana is just the best vacker sibling ig lol, only one that isn’t an asshole atm in canon. like fitz does not deserve dexeth at the moment

brb I’ll just try to forget canon ahshwjwhp so I can have my fedex wholesome relationship, your art is so lovely and gives me the good gay feelings hehe

oh a rebel arc would be interesting, actually! part of the series has been him slowly discovering all the shit the council covered up and lied about, it'd make sense that he'd turn away from that. especially since trust has always been a big part of his character. sophie broke it in exile when aldens mind broke, even if it was unintentional, and wouldn't let him in and tell him about all the matchmaking shit in legacy. and we've seen how that ended. same with keefe, I don't think things have been the same between them since keefe ran off to join the neverseen. on top of this, him splitting off from the black swan makes sense as well I think. they've failed so many times, especially regarding his brother. they're not reliable, they don't tell him things, and at this point in canon they mostly straight up ignore his ideas in meetings. istg this kid gets run over in favor of Sophies idea every single time. I think if he did become a rebel, it would be less to take down the neverseen and more to fix the elven world? if that makes sense. He seems smart enough at least to not go after them without a solid plan, even if he wanted to. he might focus more on fixing everything the council broke and lied about, which I don't think the black swan sees as their top priority rn and the council would def not want. It'd also be interesting to see how him splitting off would effect his relationships, specifically his cognate bond.

god theres so much more to my boy than the "toxic ex" role shannons shoved him into, and I want so badly for her to realize that. hes such an interesting little dude! a good kid! he deserves a hug not yet another arguement with sophie for plot convience.

also, you are right about fidex, it's great

[tamedgod]

negativity below the cut.

if this is you kat then please just leave me alone. this blog has been re-open for three damn weeks and i haven't even remotely wrote or posted any shipping material. i have barely even sent feelers out. i'm tired of you stalking my tags and blogs and doing this shit, man. just talk to me in a fucking private message, this is beyond ridiculous after four years.

if this somehow ISN'T kat, then again please come talk to me. i NEVER want to make anyone feel like i'm forcing ships or coercing you into writing things you don't want to. there are so many things to write that as long as we're WRITING i do not care. if i pass an idea your way and you're not into it it's not going to be the end of the world. i'm not gonna get mad or yell at you or be shitty. we can find something we're both into and be adults about the situation. i am too old and tired for drama.

on another note; the reason it's easy for me to mark xiao as someone's ex or like a previous fling is because he does date and sleep around. he's a guy that is terrible with expressing his real feelings despite them being so obvious, and he messes around with other people in a piss poor attempt to cope at not being able to share how he feels with people he ACTUALLY cares about. please don't mistake it for me being a "ship whore" or w/e bc nine times out of ten i am not interested in genuinely shipping xiao with anyone. he's stubborn and rude and an all around asshole and in many verses harms or kills whoever he touches. i just want to write true to his character, which atm is not a great guy.

i'm sorry if i've upset or offended anyone. i'm just going to chill on disco for a while, this has really killed a lot of my energy.