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#anyways... this is why I don't like having many friends I'm too particular about things and it makes me feel exposed to ask to be-
yvesbuprofen · 5 months
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I have the object permanence with people, so if I don't see people I kinda forget about them, but there's this friend I used to spend everyday on uni, and I have many gifts from her, so I'm reminded of her from them like , the undershirt I always use is a gift from them, my favorite totebag was made by her, she crochet me a little jellyfish as a key ring, her most listened song always comes up randomly when I'm listening 80s music, so she's always on my mind and I miss her a lot, she was always conscious of what bothered me, and I felt very safe around her, I didn't even have to talk too much around her, if I didn't feel like it, because she always has something to talk about,,, idk I just miss my friend, she came back to a place she feels the most comfortable, so I'm happy for her, but I would like to see her again, and listen to her talk about her ex boyfriends lol
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Not to be a downer, but I actually finished my novel and now I’m confused because I don’t want to publish it. I don’t even particularly want anyone other than maybe my two close friends to even read it. What on Earth did I write 40k words (which I know is not really long enough for a novel, but it’s still far and away the longest thing I’ve ever written) for? I know people say “write for yourself” but like… am I just wasting my time? Help?
(p.s. you can leave this off anon)
(p.p.s your blog is really great 👍)
There's No Such Thing as Wasted Writing
I'm going to tackle this two ways...
#1 - "Write For Yourself" - there's a reason this common phrase has echoed through the Hall of Writers since time immemorial. It's because it's true! Writing doesn't have to be anything more than a pastime. It doesn't have to be anything more than something you do for your own benefit and enjoyment.
I have an in-joke with family members about how any time one of us does something the least bit crafty, DIY, skilled, whatever, a particular family member will always say, "You did a great job! You should do it for a living!" Like, someone can't even crochet a Kawaii mushroom without being pressured to turn it into an Etsy dynasty, or paint a cabinet without being pressured to become the next Property Brothers. And that's such a BANANAS capitalistic mindset, isn't it? This idea that nothing can be done purely for our own enjoyment. That you can't just write a novel because you want to... you can only write it if you plan to share it or publish it? It's just so silly.
And, the thing is, we don't even apply that mentality to a lot of other things people do purely for enjoyment. No one is streaming all of Bridgerton in two nights and saying, "I enjoyed every second of that, but why did I do that? Such a waste of time!" No one spends an hour strumming their guitar under the stars on a beach, and then says, "That was so relaxing and fun, but I didn't charge for that performance and I didn't record it to sell it, so that was obviously a waste of time."
You know what I mean?
#2 - And Anyway, Practice Makes Perfect - And if you keep writing--even if you continue not to share or publish--you'll get better and better with each story you write. Which, maybe all that means is you get to appreciate your own improvement, but also, should you ever change your mind and decide to write something to share or publish, you've now spent time honing your skills. Even if those other stories never see the light of day, they're still an important foundation of the writer you become. Do you know how many unpublished novellas, novels, and short stories I have? Too many to count. Hundreds of fan-fiction and original fiction short stories I've only shared with one or two other people, if anyone. A dozen or so novels and novellas that have only been read by a few people, and some haven't been read by anyone else or have only been read by my CPs. I would never consider those stories and novels and novellas to be a waste of time, because I know every single one made me a better writer. My published work is better because I wrote those other things.
So, I hope that makes you feel better. At the very least you hopefully enjoyed writing your novel--or at least got something out of it--and you definitely honed your writing skills, which matters! ♥
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starcurtain · 25 days
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I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?
I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:
I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."
I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.
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Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™
Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.
Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:
Endearing vulnerability/helplessness
Gay ship tease
Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.
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That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.
So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.
We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.
He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!
The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.
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When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.
And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.
Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.
His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.
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Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--
Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.
Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.
And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.
In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.
This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂
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Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.
Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?
Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?
It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)
Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.
The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.
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Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)
So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.
Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.
To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.
The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.
He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.
He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.
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This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.
He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.
He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.
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His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??
People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?
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Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.
The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:
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Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.
At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:
Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.
You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.
He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.
He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.
He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.
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He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.
He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)
He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.
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He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...
To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.
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Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.
In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.
Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.
Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.
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cherrysweather · 1 year
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can i rq edgeworth who has liiike a huge crush on fem reader :3 but reader is like super oblivious to it and she keeps accidentally doing things to fluster him 😭😭
Hellu anoon! I hope you're doing fine and that you take care of yourself! This is so cute, so I hope I wrote it well enough for you to like it ;v; Have a good day and remember the water! <3 -----------------------------------------
Miles Edgeworth x an oblivious crush:
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We all know that Miles becomes emotionally incapacitated when it comes to handling feelings different from discomfort, anger or simply his neutral state of mind;
So you can perfectly imagine how many times he stumbles over his words and blushes per se when he's with her;
To start a conversation he has to think about what to talk about, at least two possibilities of her responses, and how to continue it afterwards;
That's the exact motive why her behavior DOES NOT help him, at all;
He doesn't understand if she does it on purpose or if she's that unaware of his own behavior in her regard;
But, from many points of view, Miles doesn't dislike it completely, since it allows him to be somewhat more free without necessarily embarrassing himself, since she doesn't suspect anything;
He often buys her small gifts or takes her to eat after work, but even if he tries with all his strength (which he never can fully use), she always sees it as a "date" between friends;
She probably starts to doubt after Miles' continuous kind gestures, but it's also the last thing she wants to illude herself of, so that's the main reason why she believes anything Miles does for her is just form a friend to another;
So she just tries to reciprocate his affection;
When she finds some particular tea leaves, he's the first one that comes to her mind, so she buys them for him;
Whenever they're together, she likes to hold onto his arm or when they're in very crowded spaces, she holds his hand nonchalantly and just drags him;
She sends some photos of her days and always makes sure to wish him a good morning and a good night;
When she can, she comes to his office to keep him company if she knows that he has to work for many hours (and sometimes even falls asleep on his sofa);
U s e l e s s to say that Miles is even more confused and flustered with each of her actions;
Mostly when she proposes to help him choose the outfits of the day and, once together, she fixes every inch of his, from the shirt collar, that irregular fold on his jacket and her beloved hair;
Oh dear, she has to only skim his scalp to make his temperature rise suddenly, his hands trembling in his pockets when he feels his locks being gently pulled to be styled;
And, of course, the nonexistent distance between their faces (a thing that Miles tries to ignore by keeping his eyes closed);
And at this point, even a whole poster on which is written "I LOVE YOU" will leave her doubting.
"Miles look!" She tugged his sleeve and dragged him near the lakeside "There are little ducklings" She knelt immediately and tried to have a closer look at them "Maybe we should leave them alone; if the mother's around I don't know how she would take two strangers" He lowered himself and made sure she wouldn't fall into the water "I'm not doing anything, yet" She grinned and looked around to see if there was something to feed them "Don't- They probably aren't even developed yet to digest something that isn't water-like textured" He held her still when she tried to get up to take whatever she saw "But I wanted to hold one" She got up anyway and waved to the babies when they started to go away "We should adopt some ducks" She went behind him and hugged his neck, slightly putting her weight on his back "Some? I think one is more than enough, and I'm sorry to say but you'll be the one to keep it" He tried his total best to control the trembling of his voice and put his hands in the water to stop them too, from trembling and to at least try calming the hot wave that started from his face and went everywhere "But why! They're cute, maybe noisy and not exactly calm in the house, but they are soft" "Dogs are also soft, and are way more manageable than a duck" He stood up, attempting to get her to break away from him, but she remained hugged to his neck, on her toes "Just becaaause, you already had one and blah blah, we'll see who's truly right" She moved her arms from the neck to his chest, squeezing him to bother him and prove her point. The laugh that came from her mouth made Miles melt for a second, breathing to calm himself down and -HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW AND WHY- placing his trembling hands on hers, taking the courage to turn around and seeking to clarify whether something could actually exist, between those two.
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wc-m0ch4 · 2 years
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Shadow the Hedgehog x gn! Reader Headcanons
I watched all the Sonic Prime episodes in one day LMAO I LOVE IT SO MUCH
Anyways,
PROLOGUE HCS
As most hcs with this mf starts, it took forever for him to finally trust you, let alone get into a relationship with you
I mean, can you blame him really? He's lost a lot, he's gone through a ton of shit, it's kinda to be expected
He talked to Rouge one day about how he felt more comfortable around you than others and she teased him relentlessly
"Shadoooow, you like them?"
"I prefer them over others, if that answers your question. Why are you making that face?"
Lowkey funny thing, when it finally hits him that he liked you he tries to figure out why he likes you.
At first he thinks maybe it's your looks so he stares at you a lot trying to pinpoint what part of you he likes, but he's got a rbf so it concerns you gravely
"Shadow are you angry at Y/n?"
"No, of course not. Why?"
"You're kinda... glaring... at them..."
"Oh."
Then he theorizes that it must be something from your personality. So he starts asking you a ton of questions randomly, but like, theoretical questions
'What would you do if two of your best friends were drowning and you only had enough strength to save one?' Type questions y'know
Then he tries to see if it's something you do, like if you're 'useful'. So he keeps a mental tally of how many times you do something for him or others. When you pay for yours and Amy's lunch, when you give Sonic the rest of your bag of chips, when you hold the door open for Rogue, etc.
Finally he realizes that it's not something in particular, he just likes you
He reveals this revelation to Rouge and she snorts lmao
She sets up a whole date-confession-thing without either of your knowledge to get Shadow to confess
REAL TIME HCS
He's very quiet with his affection
He'll pat you on the head or back, give you a small smile, make you lunch, help you with some work, small things y'know
If you're a human and a lot taller than him he uses this to his advantage and climbs you so he can see more
^Some of the few times he will allow you to carry him
He'll text you updates about what he's doing and when he'll be home and expects you do the same
If you forget he'll scold you like a toddler lmao
Don't forget the skin-care routine and ironing the sheets every night according to the Twitter takeover LMAO (it should have been me)
He's not one for going out on dates but he does enjoy going to the library or the park with you, somewhere quiet with not a lot of people
Shadow would enjoy theatre all the way (I don't say this cuz I'm a theatre kid nope def not)
Also not a fan of PDA but he'll hold your hand or have a hand on your shoulder
He gets jealous easily lol
Like if someone starts talking or, God forbid, flirting with you he'll be standing right behind you glaring at them
His pet names are demeaning LMAO
Like how he calls Sonic 'hedgehog' it's the same for you
He'll call you more typical terms of endearment if it's laced with sarcasm
"Well, dear, if you had done like I said earlier this wouldn't have happened."
"I'm sorry, I should've known making toast was too difficult for you, darling."
Shadow has a phone and social media and the only reason is so you can send him memes you find funny to him
I like to imagine showing him a funny video and he just sits there staring at it for a bit before turning to you and going "This is hilarious."
If you're in college or work from home he'll help you with some of your work
Okay but imagine he's standing behind you helping you with homework and he leans over to grab a pencil or something and then you're pressed between him and the desk JAGFHEBAUWVDHJ– ANYWAYS
He likes keeping his space clean so if you're mentally ill like me (LMAOOO) or just messy in general he's willing to help you clean up
Just enough to keep him satisfied :)
Okay but imagine stay-at-home dates with him like:
Cooking dinner together
Laying your head on his lap while you two watch a movie
Playing games or doing puzzles
Speaking of games, game nights are a regular thing with the group and Rogue drags Shadow along so in turn he drags you along
I ask you to imagine a huge game of Uno between Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Cream, Big, Team Chaotix, Rogue, Shadow, and you.
Yeah, fucking insanity.
If there's any game where you have to pair up Shadow immediately grabs you
Absolutely NO chance he's pairing with Sonic lol
Moving on, he likes playing with your hair
If you need help doing a complex or a protective hairstyle he's got you fr
If you wear makeup, whether it's natural or more bold, he will compliment it
He'd probably help you with your makeup too if you asked lol
On a more sad note, he has times where he gets upset about his past so just give him space or comfort, whatever he needs at the time
If he gets upset about Maria ask him about her. It helps talking about her in a positive light when she was alive than replaying her death on repeat
So if you have your own bouts of depression (*cough cough* me *cough*) he'll understand and try to help in any way he can
On a more happier note, he likes getting you gifts
Homie is a very gift giving/ acts of service type of lover fr fr
Btw dating Shadow means being friends with Rogue and Omega, no exceptions
Ugh sorry this took forever to make I'm really lazy lmao
Did you guys notice that Jacksepticeye voices a character in one of the later Sonic Prime episodes cuz I did and I almost SCREAMED–
Anyways, send in requests if you want :)
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asleepinawell · 1 year
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sorry if this seems a bit out of the blue, but ever since youve been posting about fallen london, im a bit curious about it! What is the game about and where can I get it?
oh no worries! I'm happy to ramble about it
fallen london is a free to play browser game you can find here. the basic premise is that sometime in the 1800's the entire city of london is engulfed in a swarm of bats and then falls through the earth into a cavern a mile below. this is the neath, a huge underground cavern where london sits on the shore of a vast ocean. queen victoria is still around locked in her palace being a typical shitty british monarch, who, amongst other things, decided that 1900 was cancelled and we were just going to have 1899 for a second time
things are a little...different down there. humans are far from the only ones running around. there's devils, rubbery men (think mind flayer vibes), clay men, and the shadowy cloaked figures running the bazaar (and the city) called the masters. death mostly isn't permanent and the dream world is a little too real. also, most importantly, cats can talk! and there are tons of them! and tigers too
it's got victorian, gothic horror, dark humor, lovecraftian vibes. also it's extremely queer as is everything the dev, failbetter games, makes. something I especially appreciate is that you don't have to give your character any particular gender (though you can) and some of the little avatars are very gender neutral:
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since it's free to play it comes with the normal things that type of game has such as real money transactions (completely optional and unnecessary for enjoyment (though some of the bonus side stories you can buy are extremely cool)), limited number of actions you can take (max of 20 at a time and refills 1 per 10 minutes). it is definitely grindy too though there's so many things to do (cannot emphasize the insane amount of content enough) I will usually just switch things up every so often
it's single player for the most part but you can ask friends to assist you in certain actions and there are some specific items that can be sent to other players
(if you like the setting but not the free to play part you can check out mask of the rose which is a visual novel they just released set right after london fell. it's a romance but with full aro and ace options (which I actually preferred) and a murder mystery. that one is a normal just buy the whole game deal and I think it's on most platforms. there's also sunless seas and sunless skies which take place in the same world but are a very different type of game and would require their own post. all of these have great writing in them)
but back to fallen london. it works based off of 'storylets', or little short stories when you usually do a skill check to accomplish something in return for advancing the story, levelling your skills, and reward items. you unlock more and more things as you go and get access to new stories and areas. here's an example of one of the little activities and its resolution
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since it's a game designed to be able to play endlessly there isn't really a way to lose or game over. you can die but dying is just a minigame of its own and sometimes even a thing to do purposefully. (the only actual way to die is the notorious story called seeking mr eaten's name which you may have seen me post about, which is a very unique story that will permanently erase your character at the end. why you'd ever want to do that would also be its own post. it's pretty hard to stumble on accidentally I think and extremely well-marked as a thing with severe consequences that you probably shouldn't do. or should you...)
anyway I'd definitely recommend giving fallen london a try if you're interested in the premise and aesthetic
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tamelee · 6 months
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pls bottom naruto is disgusting stop drawing this ooc cringe
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Eh? And it hadn't even been a full day.
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Anyway, do you know what this means?:
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It means… that I don’t give a damn about your whiny gibberish about this top/bottom bullshit, because it sounds incredibly silly. (And wrong because I draw both?)
It’s fine to have a preference, good for you (I have one too!), but if all you care about between a character-dynamic is the single notion which establishes a rule within a fandom that demands only this particular dick in only that particular booty and nothing else, while dividing yourselves between "us and them" while seeing the people who like the same exact characters as your "enemy" and treating them as such— well, 
I have nothing to say to you, I couldn’t care less what you think about me and I don’t know you. 
But for the sake of other creators who are often a target also, some which I know quit because of this… there is a little something I'd like to say about these servers:
You don’t think I (we) know what is said in there and by who? 👀 That your rules of "what is said on here stays here" with a bunch of people online that you don't know, is actually respected? Why do you think I never join any. And bet your ass that I'm not the only one. This constant fighting between NS/SN is such an embarrassment for this fandom, seriously. I hope you realize that.
Because, instead of encouraging a (new) creator to share something about the characters you claim to love (for fucking free) you go off chastise them for not “doing it right”/“your way”, pretending it's some unspoken commission no one knew of or was paid for. Instead of being happy there’s still so much creative contribution for characters from a story that ended years ago, you go complain under fanfics and dishearten writers, often grinning away with your little server-“friends” and make fun of work someone poured their heart in. Or, you huff, puff and breathe fire as you make plans to cancel them out of pure bitterness, to the point (especially new) creators are too scared and dispirited to ever share anything again. It's easy to do anonymously, aye? And if you think that doesn’t affect their lives and sends them right back into a crestfallen pit of dark hell because it prevents them to do/share the single thing in life that gave them a bit of joy, then...
Congratulations; you’re a heartless bastard.
And you, as a fan, did yourself dirty too.
Do you know how many people don’t want to share anything at all for this fandom because you people leave comments, tags, asks, tweets constantly complaining about an incorrect portrayal of the (in your opinion) only acceptable dynamic, like a bunch a brats? Do you? Because I’ve talked to quite a few of these discouraged creators, they have to hope for the best and pray they’re spared from your scrutiny. I receive it from both sides every now and then.
Again, congratulations: you’re the reason there’s less chance of you getting what you want in the first place. 
Do you... really not realize?
The more you squabble with "your enemy" (lol) the more it affects the "us" you care about while the rest of us just bask in the glory that is SNS/NSN and couldn't care less about what you think/have to say. So, keep everyone else out of it and go mope elsewhere.
But, between you and me? There are better ways to share what you think is right. Make something yourself, because what's stopping you?
You’re perfectly capable, it doesn’t have to be art or a fic, maybe there’s just something in the story that you really enjoyed— write about it. Make a meta. Post the panel, show the moment that determined your undying love for this single dynamic and why— whatever.  Because, wouldn't it be nice having someone encourage you to create something you like? 😬 Especially because you and your server feel so strongly about it? And then you don't have to depend on others either?
Wouldn't it be nice?
Well?
Hm!?
Try it, ffs.
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desideriumwriter · 5 months
Note
hi! i saw you opened your requests and i have one :) i love fred, and i love angst even more. however, most of the angsty fred fics rotate around his death, which yes, it definitely hurts, but i'm looking for something else. i'm a sucker for unrequited love, maybe the reader could be pining after fred and he doesn't reciprocate the feelings or something along those lines. the only particular i'd like is hufflepuff!reader, other than that it's all up to you.
i love love love your writing, thank you in advance 💖💖💖
YES god yes, we all know i'll be on my hands and knees for any sort of angst, plus i've been thinking of writing one of these for awhile now. anyways, i hope you enjoy this lil blurb <3
wc: 682
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“Something on your mind?” Fred’s voice ripped you from your daze as he began to walk beside you.
“Nope, nothing.” You shook your head reassuringly. Hoping he wouldn’t be able to see through your facade.
He did.
“Come on, you’ve been staring off into space.” He nudged you playfully, a small smile appeared on your face.
“Just thinking.” You shrugged and shook your head.
“Just thinking about what?” You mimicked your mumbled tone.
“It’s nothing!” You let out a breathy laugh, Fred stopped and stood in front of you.
“It’s something.” He grabbed your shoulders, his touch made it feel like there were fireworks bursting in your stomach.
“And you’re going to tell me.” He squeezed, tilting his chin down slightly to look you in the eyes. 
You sighed as you tried to decide if you should tell him the truth or come up with a lie he wouldn’t believe. It was a shitty shot in the dark, and you were going to take it.
“You.” The word came out muttered, yet Fred was still able to catch it.
“Me? Why me?” He smirked, removing his hands from your shoulders and crossing them over his chest.
"Because you're funny, and you know how to get me out of a mood." You fiddled with your yellow tie, not knowing what to do with your hands. “And you’re super smart and talented, you know how to make all these insane potions, you don’t care how others see you or if you get in trouble,” Your eyes darted around, looking everywhere but his face. You didn’t know where you were trying to go with this, but you continued on. 
“You’re charismatic and super handsome.” You sighed, you should quit talking now and cut this conversation short.
“And I just really like you Fred…I’m in love with you.” You scoffed in disbelief at yourself, by the time you were able to finally look at him, the smile had ranaway from his face. 
He said your name softly, pitfully. You both knew what was coming next.
“Look, I like you too. You’re a really great friend, you’re brilliant even.” He began, your gaze fell to the floor. 
You felt like an idiot, you felt humiliated.
You’ve been pining after him for so long, and now it feels like a moment of confidence has just ruined it all. You wanted to do so many things at this moment, you wanted to run, you wanted to kiss him, you wanted to slap yourself, you wanted to burst into tears.
Fred bit down on his bottom lip as his brows knit together, he was searching for the words.
“You’re talented and smart. And it’s kind of you to think of me like that, but...” He let out an awkward sigh, it felt like the ground was crumbling beneath your feet. 
 "I'm sorry, I just..I don't see you that way. I can’t say that I feel the same.” He gave you a tucked in smile.
A small, barely audible “oh” escaped past your lips. You nodded and tried to blink away the tears that were building up in your eyes.
It was quiet. So quiet and the look of sympathy on his face only made you feel worse.
“Well, uh, I better get going.” Your voice wavered, you tried your best to collect yourself. “I’ve got some papers to finish.” You sniffled and pushed past Fred, your steps speeding up as you walked down the corridor.
Fred called out your name once more, causing you to stop, you took a deep breath before you turned to face him.
“I really am. Sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on.”
“No, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have misinterpreted our friendship.” You gave a weak smile through watery eyes, turning away and continuing down the corridor.
Fred stood there, rubbing the back of his neck in guilt as he watched you quickly escape. George came out of his hiding spot from behind one of the stone pillars, giving his brother a rough pat on the back.
“Congrats mate, you’ve broken her heart.”
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tell me what you thought!
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drdemonprince · 5 months
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I've noticed a pattern in anticapitalist books I read (specifically I'm talking abt Mark Fisher here, in Capitalist Realism). They do this great anticapitalist analysis etc and then go on to critique their students? and sometimes it's a bit ableist? it's like all the critical thought goes out of the window and they cannot understand the situation because for once suddenly they are in the authoritative position. It always gives me this "I don't understand these kids, back in my day-" vibe, and I see this with lecturers at university too. like Mark Fisher maybe we can think outside the box about your student who "needs" headphones to focus in class "even though no music is playing". and maybe it's not to do with the "Matrix"(????) I'm well aware this was written in 2008 but it's weird that I see this pattern continue today. Not to mention Mark Fisher took part in some ableist studies, and was a guy with questionable intentions on occasion.
it's like you Just said that reducing labour is good why are you calling your students lazy, that's so unprofessional and privileged. I wonder of coincidence that he is anti-meds when his right wing, pro-eugenics, accelerationist friend was addicted to amphetamines.
Or even just the amount of people who have written books about laziness and anticapitalism (excluding you) and just saying the most contradictory shit ever?? or not following their own ideology???
Anyway, I wonder if, when writing Laziness Does Not Exist, you came across any of this and were equally as baffled.
Materialism is just *so* true that high-status academics don't have a vested class interest in seeing their student struggles as legitimate or in recognizing the struggles of disabled people in general. For many edgy academic leftists having the correct opinions is just a way to flex one's intellectual status, not a lived experience they give a shit about. I'm not shitting Fisher in particular in saying this, it's more that it's a really widespread problem in the culture of these kinds of (very white, very academic, very cishet) leftists communities. You see the same kind of thing among some of the Chapo stan types, too, you don't have to be specifically an academic to do it -- lots of people throwing around the r-slur and flexing on how much they have read and doing fuck all for the oppressed people around them. I tend to find it especially common among people who inherited leftism from their (often academic) parents? Whereas leftist communities populated by Black & brown anarchists and working class people tend to fare a lot better in this particular respect.
Note that I'm not saying a person's identities are a guarantee of them being any more radical -- there's lots of liberals lurking in our midsts of all identities for instance -- more that someone's orientation toward power tells you a lot. and unfortunately there is an approach to leftism that puts a lot of stock in either institutional power via the academy, or in a kind of soft power of intellectual authoritativeness that tends to punish anyone who is supposedly less well read, less intelligent, lazy, needs disability accommodations, has trauma triggers, or what have you.
The simple answer is that power and privilege obscures other people's challenges from you, and the desire to preserve one's power (be it actually institutional academic authority or just the status of the person who supposedly knows the most in the room) leads to a lot of oppressive behavior. a lot of these guys that you're talking about believe in communism sincerely but they don't have humility, they believe themselves to be superior to most everyone else. and they tend to be white guys from wealthy families who either do not have any disabilities of their own, or they have the undiagnosed intj mastermind rational flavor of autism that makes you feel incredibly alienated from others but interpret that alienation as a sign of your intellectual superiority. (i had this type but i got better. a little)
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loveandlegacy · 1 month
Text
ngl i think there are a lot of cool/interesting things to say about the sex scene between jayce and mel, but i am not wild about justifying it by pointing to its plot relevance. its presence IS justified, i just think the furthering-the-plot argument is using the wrong framework to understand the function of sex in media at all and kind of belies a deeply conservative impulse about what sex is or does or what it's for in art. and like i don't really blame anyone for this. i think this attitude of 'well it has to be plot relevant to be present' particularly in film is born partly out of a reaction to a long history of film & tv having gross attitudes about women and very unpleasant assumptions about roles in sex.
in tv in particular, hbo comes to mind as having been the only prestige network for a really long time where nudity/semi-explicit sex was permissible. and like while it was/is permissible, a lot of hbo productions deploy sex in a way that feels deeply unimaginative and misogynistic. obviously hbo isn't the sole culprit. the whole concept of the male gaze was developed bc of film's treatment of women, and the games industry stacks on top of that by being so misogynistic in its sexualization of women that it feels like a joke. so i get why people balk at that — i do too — but these media properties and outlets shouldn't be the gold standard for sex in media anyway and the solution to them shouldn't be "well sex is only Allowed when it serves the very utilitarian and quasi-calvinist purpose of furthering the plot".
if nothing else, sex is an important part of life and connection for many people. including it in art to demonstrate or reflect that fact is ideally something normal, or could be if we in the united states could at least deconstruct our neuroses about sex. my one friend always says that sex in itself is a kind of character study, which is valuable regardless of how much it furthers the plot. you can even see this with jayce and mel! people joke a bunch about jayce being the little spoon and not to be like too annoyingly into close readings of a sex scene but the entire arc of his encounter with mel tells you a lot about both of them as people that arguably could not really be presented in any other context. mel initiates but she does so in a moment of vulnerability, right after talking about her family, a major pain point in her life (and not lol after she supposedly like...bamboozled him with Sexual Allure and alcohol or whatever people say). jayce follows her lead for a while (she kisses him first, he is happy to have her push him onto the bed) and eventually breaks from this pattern to go down on her, not to demand something for himself.
either this says something about him as a person or says something about gender and expectations for sexual courtship overall in the world of arcane. like in our world men who "submit" (lol) to women's sexual desires or who give primacy to a woman's sexual interest are still framed kind of as a joke in mainstream US culture even though 'mean mommy dommy' jokes abound on the internet. but is that also true in piltover & zaun? is jayce the exception to the rule or is he in keeping with the rule? we kind of don't know ironically bc we have no other information about in-world sex in the whole of season 1. even with the brothel, there are open-ended questions: is trading sex for money illegal? is it illegal in piltover but a weird grey-market activity in zaun? what kinds of sexual mores exist in piltover, zaun, or both, and what relationships to people have to them? vi describes the brothel as 'the one place where all the secrets are spilled' and that seems like it's in keeping with how civilian clients are about sex work irl in the united states but that's more or less all we have to work with.
i'm not saying arcane should seek to answer all these things or to deliver a complete taxonomy on in-world sex and sexuality. the story is dealing with other themes. it just seems strange to me to laud arcane for it's skill in efficient but well-textured worldbuilding and then to abjure the possibility of the presence of sex outside of plot-relevant reasons when sex would tell us as much about the world as the touch that smoking is a sign of power in the undercity.
if the concern is that somehow any non-plot-sex would be too gross in its treatment of women, i guess i would say that it was amanda overton who advocated for the sex scene in the first place, not alex yee or christian linke. so like why not trust that she may be capable of writing/directing further instances of sex without defaulting to something unpleasant?
and if the objection is "well i don't want to be made to feel horny in an otherwise non-horny experience" my answer would be that the point of sex in media can be communicative sometimes, not always titillating. going back to jayce and mel and character studies, i wasn't (and i don't think most people were?) suddenly horny during that scene. i thought the literal art direction was weird, but mostly what i took from the scene about these two characters was that their mode of relating to one another was actually very tender. it cemented that mel was falling in love with jayce, and that the we the audience were supposed to understand their sex as sweet, not particularly provocative or designed to fulfill an assumed sexual fantasy on our behalf.
but there's also no reason to assume that any two other characters in the story would have sex in that tenor, even if they were in love. there's no reason to assume that any two other characters might NOT have sweet sex outside the context of love. the only way we could know that is if it were to occur on screen, and getting a greater diversity of sex and sexual encounters on screen requires the audience to be open to sex not just as a normal part of life, but as a semiotic object in art that has value beyond driving the plot forward.
tl;dr it's nice that the sex in arcane had some greater impact on the plot mechanics, but i don't think that's the primary value of its presence and i'm glad it's there with or without it mattering to the plot. it's unlikely but i hope s2 can give us a fuller picture of how other characters relate to sex as well.
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echantedtoon · 2 months
Text
Ocean Deep Ch17 Miscommunications And Escape Plans P2
(Warnings: Mentions of Yn's wounds, Koyuki's condition, and some fighting/blood/scratches from the mers.
The story is almost done! Almost a few chapters left!:))
taglist: @six-eyed-samurai @lavenderdrxp @jjamsbangtan @camilo-uwu @hopefulworld1
@shadyd3ar @amypop122 @azuredragonstrike
@mimisweetz @chaoticoperatorduckhairdo @staarflowerr @aleee-386 @summrwalkr
@nicora04 @miniverse-zen
Remember if you want to be added to the tag list lemme know.
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You wished you knew what happened to them all after they started sparing. Or in Akaza's and Tengen's case actually fighting after purposely antagonizing him. The two hissing at each other and snarling out. Honestly you couldn't even tell who was winning because most of the fight was UNDER the water with them randomly popping up every few seconds either splashing up huge waves or showing themselves punching, or Akaza having Tengen in a headlock or some other thing 
Actually it was Kanae who once again took action after a particular shark mer shouted out-
"KANAE!! ARE YOU FUCKING WATCHING!?" Somehow he had gotten himself free from the deadpanned Giyuu and now held the bored merman in a choke hold of his own looking hopefully at the pink eyed woman. "I'm dedicating this win to you!"
Her pretty face quickly turned to a frown and she had enough. Reaching out to grab the window and slam it back shut with surprisingly enough strength to shake the glass panes. The loud THUD from the window had everyone aside from Tengen and Akaza still clawing and biting at each other to give pause, looking up just as the curtains were harshly drawn. 
"I am at my limits! This has gone too far! I explained it to him how many times?!," Kanae muttered to herself turning around and beginning to stomp off towards the door. "I'm going to go work off some stress and make everyone lunch! Let them all sort themselves out!"
Everyone flinched as the door was thrown open and Kanae stomped out of sight. The footfalls echoing away heading towards assembly the kitchen area before everyone looked at one another. You exchanged looks with Mitsuri before slowly turning to Shinobu, mouth opening-
"Don't worry about her." Shinobu didn't look the least bit bothered waving a hand. "She needs to blow off the stress anyways. Why don't you just try to relax and get some rest. Today's already been pretty exciting for you wasn't it?"
"I-..Well maybe I should on them first?" You gave a glance at the window. "To make sure they're alright?"
"Don't give them anymore attention." She shook her head no firmly. "You'll just be feeding into Tengen's 'fantastic' ideas and who knows what the gems for brains will do next?"
Actually...After that whole scary chase sequence and sudden kiss attack (which you were NOT blushing remembering!) you think you had better let everyone cool down and maybe take a stand back...Yeah. that's probably the better idea. So you followed Shinobu's advice no matter how difficult it was, and busied yourself with just going back to read the book. Who knows? It might have more helpful information. 
However you had a hard time sleeping that night. There was some kind of..low humming along with the wind. It started out as some kind of low baritone but then pitched up to a few high notes. It almost sounded like a wind chime was ringing alongside the deep humming of a horn. A strange mixture to be sure, but it wasn't unpleasant. It was more annoying than anything since you didn't fall asleep for at least an hour. 
The next day was when you were sure going to be interesting. You really hadn't seen your friends in so long and was wondering if they were ok. You wanted to really go out and see how they were but shortly after you woke up there was another meeting with all of you courtesy of Kanae. The Kocho girl had pushed in the door startling both you and Koyuki as she practically forced her way in and carried a large black slate with white chalk, with more of that fish soup(yuck) and some bread. At least there was something else to wash it down with. Again Kanae was careful in making sure no one else was around before setting down the chalkboard. 
"Alright. I think I have most everything figured out, but because you're new we need to clue you in " she explained already drawing a sixth stick figured next to the five ones already present.
"Where's the others?" The only ones here were you, Kanae, and Koyuki but Koyuki was still fast asleep. 
"Mitsuri is keeping Obanai busy. He's decided to help himself inside again, and my sisters are out gathering more herbs to make it look normal."
"Good idea." You looked back down to the chalkboard between you two trying not to jostle your shoulder which was still extremely more too much. "Clue me in here." You motioned towards the stick figures and the mini drawings around them.
She nodded looking focused. "In about a week the tides rise and the current near here is strongest! Because of the abundance of wildlife during these hours, they usually all go out hunting for most of the night. All we need is a good few hours of a strong current and we can be on land."
"What do we do when we get back to land?"
"We'll figure that out when we get there. Right now the problem is getting onto land." The chalk made a small line as she circled the stick figures and what looked like a crudely drawn window.  "We found enough pillows to stuff under our blankets to make it look like we're just sleeping in." In case of Obanai you supposed. "We'll wait until they're all gone and climb through the back window. It's on the side of the house not facing the beach so they won't see us if we go that way."
"Good idea! But where's the boat exactly?" 
Her voice dropped to almost a whisper as she quickly glanced at the locked door before looking back to you. "It's just up the beach nearly on the far side, but we know a short cut to get there through the woods. We found a few oars in case we need to paddle our way there." She pointed out a crudely drawn boat.
"Sounds good, but what do we do in the meantime?" 
"Act as we always do. If they don't suspect anything, then we can have a better chance of escaping." Her smile came back a little bit looking at the board.. before her hand wiped across the black smearing the white away and erasing any existence of their plan. 
"Oh, wow." 
"I know! I thought about this a lot-"
"No. I can see why Sanemi fell for you." Pink eyes blinked up to kind f/c orbs as you smiled. "You're really pretty when you smile! I can see why he might like you."
She stared at you longer before frowning and looking back down to the slate. "I don't care. I want to go home. N-Not spend the rest of my days being hounded by a shark. I don't care how many times he tries to serenade me."
You paused in the middle of taking a bite of your bread to look at her. "What?"
"Ugh. He does it every other day. You wouldn't know only being here for four days. He just sits on the beach and starts singing, and he always looks like he's after my approval or something! He never goes away unless I say it's nice O-Or I'm too tired!" Her face turned into a pretty pour as she grumpily gestured at nothing. "Who does he think I am? I'm not some girl who he can just woo into his arms and-"
"Oh that's cute." Her face snapped to your smirk so fast that her head might've popped off if it wasn't attached to her neck. "You so like him."
"WHAT?!" Immediately her face lit up a pink and you laughed. 
"Oh come on. I didn't know that I was being flirted with before because I knew absolutely nothing about mermaids." The bread was pointed right at her. "But I'm certainly an expert on detecting human emotions."
"Yes? A-And how w-would you kn-kn-know that?!"
"I'm a florist. Do you know how many people bought flowers from me?" Your deadpanned brows rose higher at her face which mysteriously started to go a pink. "How many couples have come in looking for flowers for their crushes?" A bite was taken out of the breath making your voice slightly muffled. "How many weddings I did arrangements for? I've seen so many people in love, that I know it when I see it."
Her mouth opened up and no noise came out..Her head shook before she frowned harder. "I-I am not!"
"Uh. Stuttering, blushing, hardcore denial.." You swallowed. "Not to mention we all saw the way you watched Sanemi tussle with Giyuu the other day. Can't say I blame you. A nice beefy shark man, all soft for only you."
"S-Stop!"
You laughed as she hid her face in her hands, it went from pink to red. "Come on. Every girl dreams of being serenaded by moonlight. That's like the most romantic thing a guy could do other than coming to you on a pure white stallion." You grinned wider. "He's outside right now you know. I bet he'd be really happy to know that you like him-"
"My god's! If you say anything about this, then I won't treat you anymore!"
"Aha!" You pointed at her frowning face. "You aren't denying it!"
"Let's just get back to what's really important!" She quickly changed the subject grabbing the chalkboard off the floor as you snickered. "S-So you know what this entails?"
You decided to cut her a break and stop teasing her no matter how amusing it was. "Yes. I understand perfectly. But do you have anything else besides fish soup? It tastes bitter."
You were about to answer but a noise from up the hallway caused you both to whip to the door wide eyed. Quickly you snatched the chalkboard on the floor and shoved it under your knees to hide it, shoving Kanae's hand still holding the chalk as she flinched. Hiding it in one of her dress sleeves before the door slid open and you nearly fainted on sight. Right there. Standing in the doorway. Was A GIANT NAGA!! His human half looked about normal height as he stuck his head in. A mess of choppy black hair swaying messily from his head, and a mitch match of green-yellow slitted eyes narrowed on the inside. You couldn't see most of his body thanks to the black cloak hanging from him, the white scarf tied around his neck, and some kind of homemade mask slapped over half his face. 
His eyes narrowed more at the both of you before he pointed. "Why was this the only door closssed in the house?"
Good lord if his voice didn't send a fearful shiver down your back. You could see why Kanae was so careful around him. However she only turned to him with a polite smile. 
"Hello, Obanai. I was just giving Y/n her food." She gestured to the bread you were thankfully still holding. "We want her to feel comfortable with that wound on her shoulder you know."
"That still doesn't tell me why the door'sss closed?"
"What are you? A pervert?!" 
Kanae looked at you wide eyed and the snake snapped an annoyed look at you. "And what is that supposed to mean?!" He demanded.
You did your best to look very annoyed and pointed accusingly to him. "She has to check my bandages which I remind you are on my back! I'm supposed to just leave the door open so you can peek at me?!" His expression went shocked quickly- "WHAT KIND OF PERVERTED SNAKE ARE YOU?!"
"I-I'M NOT!! IT'S JUST-" He sputtered wide eyed but ducked as you harmlessly threw your bread at him. 
"GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I GET TENGEN ON YOU, YOU SLIMEY SERPENT!!"
THUNK!!
Obanai rammed face first into the doorframe in his way to try to get away. His eyes rolled a bit dizzy before he shook his head-
"GET OUT!!"
"M'sorrymsorry-" 
He jumped, quickly slithering away from the doorway and you both saw a massive black and white stripped tail before the rest disappeared from sight. There was a pause before Kanae sighed again and turned back to you. 
"Nice save."
"I just thought of the quickest excuse I could think of. Seemed like a good enough one."
She smiled wider at you. "Well try to eat  for now. I'll discuss more with you later when I get a chance to chat normally."
You nodded as she stood up to leave and turned back to your bowl of soup still on the floor. And sighed. Too bad you threw your bread, but food was food you guessed. Kanae smiled as she slowly walked out of the room and into the hallway. Obanai was no where to be seen so that means Y/n's scare tactic worked in driving him off at least. She settled on heading towards her room (or temporary room as she wouldn't be staying here for long) and starting on sewing those few extra pillows together for dummies come the night  
"Kanae!," a woman's voice called out followed by a series of rapidly approaching footsteps. She paused in her steps and turned around to the sight of Mitsuri speed walking towards her waving a hand. "Wait up!"
"What is it?"
She skidded to a stop in front of her and looked excited about something. "You're never going to believe this! Obanai gave me something really important!"
Her face dropped. "Mitsuri, you know that we can't accept anything or else-"
"I know, I know. But it's not for me. It's for you! TADA!!" Her hand was thrusted up and held out a familiar shape. "Obanai was gonna give it to you before he left but for some reason he was in a hurry or he asked me to give it to you instead!"
"Obanai got a gift? For me?"
 Why would the serpent do that? Was he trying to court her now because Mitsuri kept saying no? Or was he trying to butter up Mitsuri by getting gifts for her friends? Maybe he was hoping Kanae would help him out with Mitsuri if he flattered her enough?
Her pretty pink braids swayed as she shook her head. "It's not so much a gift as he was just returning something of yours." 
She again nudged what was in her hand at her. A familiar sight of a small clippy was in her hand, in the unmistakable shape of a green and pink butterfly. Pink eyes widened greatly looking between her and the clippy- Mitsuri held it further towards her and she slowly took it, hands shaking. It felt heavy yet light in her hands. The usual shiny outside dirty from sand and other dirt catching onto it, but it looked generally unharmed. 
"My clip." A bright smile broke into her face as she clutched it to her and beamed. "Our father gave us these, but I lost one when they-...H-How did he find this?"
"Oh it wasn't him." Mitsuri corrected not registering for the reaction she would soon receive next from her correction. "Sanemi found it actually!"
Her face. Dropped. And goodness being sapped away like a cloth slowly wiping up water from a spill. "..What?"
She nodded happily. "Yeah! He wanted Obanai to give you it since he can't move on land! Isn't that so sweet!" She gushed in light of the new emotion crawling over Kanae's face. "He went through all the trouble just to give it back to you. Isn't that-"
She blinked as a formed walked past her, slightly bumping into Mitsuri on her way down the hall and towards the still open front door. You had just stood up holding the bowl your soup had been in, and on your way to drop it off in the kitchen. Maybe there was more bread there or some fresh water to wash down the bitter taste of sardines away. Your feet had barely taken two steps-
"Is this some kind of sick joke to you?!"
You paused in your walking. Koyuki startled awake with a soft snort, blinking tired pink eyes and swaying messy black hair as she sat up. 
"No really?! Is this just some kind of sick reverse phycology where you think I'm going to fall for you!? Oh yes! I'm surely going to fall for you after you returned my clippy. Nevermind it's your fault I lost it in the first place!"
That sounded like Kanar. A much more angry version of Kanae.
"What's going on?," Koyuki asked as you passed by her to peer out the window to the beach.
Kanae was there. Her back was towards you so you couldn't see her face, but her hands were clenched and her arms gestured wildly. In the ocean in front of her was a few mermaids which included Kyojuro lounging in a shallow part of the water, and the Sanemi guy. All were looking shocked and wide eyed at the wildly gesturing woman as she continued her tirade.
"When are you going to get it through your head!? I DON'T LOVE YOU!! I don't even like you!!" Her hand pointed directly at the wide eyed shark mer. There was no mistaking who she was talking about. "No matter what you do! No matter what you try! I will NEVER love you! I DONT WANT YOU!! I WANT TO GO HOME!! AND DON'T YOU DARE SAY THIS IS MY HOME!! THIS IS NOT MY HOME!! THIS IS A PRISON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU KEEP US TRAPPED BECAUSE  A L L OF YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU ALL!!"
You could only stare wide eyed and speechless at what you silently witnessed. If you had looked behind you, then you would've seen Koyuki sporting a similar reaction to what she was hearing.
"I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU ALL! WHY CAN'T YOU ALL JUST LEAVE US ALONE ALREADY!?"
Her form turned and ran back towards the home to which you strained your neck to watch her from the window for as long as you could become you couldn't see her anymore. Koyuki jumped when a loud sound of a door slamming shut signaled her arrival back inside. Without thinking about it your feet jogged up to the door, at the same time rapid footsteps ran up the hall. 
"KANAE?!" 
If she heard your voice then she didn't react to you. Only continuing past you as you leaned out the doorway in time to catch a glimpse of her form disappearing up the stairs at the end of the hall. A loud slamming of a second door echoing  throughout the house. There was a pause as silence resumed..And then the distant soft sounds of loud crying filtered through the air and softly sprinkled down onto everyone's ears. 
Still reeling with shock, Mitsuri approached the stairs gingerly and quietly. Her footfalls barely making a sound as her guilty face stared upwards. "Kanae?" Her voice did not reach her ears making a heavy guilt weigh in her chest. "..Oh me and my big mouth. This is all my fault."
"Don't say that." She jumped turning to monotone f/c eyes as they also stared up in the direction of the loud sobs. "This isn't any of your faults. I know how she feels, and it can't be easy for anyone."
"Oh. What are we going to do?"
"...You go up there and see if you can calm her down." A head turned. F/c eyes narrowing at the door. "I'll just step outside and make sure everything is okay out there."
A gathering of mers outside in distress and argument did not notice the small figure step outside or open the door. Did not see her stomp up towards the shore's edge. Didn't see her scoop up a fist of wet sand in her hand and reel back her good shoulder. Until looked up-
SPLAT!! 
"Now that I got all of your attention- PAY ATTENTION OR ELSE!"
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pluto-rainstorm · 1 month
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I’m forever wanting more Fics of Tommy coming out to hen or chim (any time really but I especially love when they’re pre Evan/buck)
I've written a fic that has been uploaded to my ao3 and is on here where Tommy and Chim have a heart-to-heart about it all, no really coming out but talking about it if you wanna check that out!
----
Tommy coming out to Hen
Hen looked around the bar, eyes scanning each booth until they land on the person she was looking for, Tommy.
Two days before, she received a text from her old colleague asking to meet up for drinks. She thought maybe he's invited Chimney too but there was no one else there.
Tommy sat on his own, nursing a beer nervously and looking down on it, like he was super focused on the alcoholic beverage.
Walking over to the table, Hen cleared her throat, making Tommy jump slightly. She smiled, "Hey, you alright?"
He nodded, giving her a tense smile as he swallowed hard, "Uh, yeah, you?" He gestured for her to sit down in front of him, a beer of her own waiting for her.
"I've been good, me and Karen just renovated our new kitchen, she loves it," She sat and took a sip from her bottle, "thank you for buying me a drink, you didn't have to."
"It's nothing, I invited you out, it's only fair I buy you a drink." He fidgeted in his seat and Hen noticed, eyeing him up and down.
She put her beer down and tried to catch his gaze, worry falling over her as she reached a hand over the table for him to take. "Is there a particular reason you wanted to meet up?"
He didn't take her hand, just laughed nervously and waved off her worry, "No, just wanted to catch up," he smiled again, "how's the 118 without me?" He needed to talk about something, it was clear as day.
Hen straightened up and sat firmly in her chair, "The new kid, that replaced you, he's a bit of a pain in the ass," she airily laughed, "but I know his hearts in the right place, he's just young."
Tommy drinks and nods, he's not fully listening, too many thoughts are swimming through his head.
She just continued, "Oh and the other day, while we were in the middle of a call he started flirting with-"
"I'm gay."
Hen was taken back by the sudden interruption, she stared at him in shock. Collecting herself, she smiled and nodded proudly. Tommy just looked scared, like he was waiting for her to say something, anything at all to put his mind at ease.
"Thank you for telling me," this time when she reached her hand out he took it, "I'm proud of you."
Tommy exhaled, a sigh of relief. He could finally relax.
"How long have you known?" She asks gently, "If you don't mind me asking."
He smiled, a genuine smile this time, "Pretty much most of my life, I just pushed it down, but after your speech, I started to reconsider things," he squeezed her hand, "I wanted to be myself for once, even if it took me a while to tell people."
"Well, I feel honoured and I guess I can welcome you to the club." They both laughed, she meant every word. Over the years, with a lot of development, Tommy grew on her, she got to see him come out of his hard shell and now she has seen him flourish.
"Anyways, this new guy!" As she continued her story, Tommy thanked whatever god out there that he got to meet friends like Hen, he had forgotten why he was so nervous in the first place. From then on, he knew he'd be alright.
----
Thank you, Anon! 💐☺️
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epiphainie · 4 months
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I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.
Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.
Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.
Hi anon!
I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.
I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.
I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.
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olderthannetfic · 1 year
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I found myself rereading an old discussion about AO3 commenting culture (ye olde "Authors aren't owed comments" vs. "Readers aren't owed fic either" wank). And you know, it strikes me that a lot of the drama in such discussions is rooted in the fact that people only ever seem to engage with the worst things the opposite side says. And of course that leads to miscommunication, because the extremes are not generally applicable to most people.
Like, for instance. Someone going "I comment so regularly I practically gave myself burn-out commenting". Authors complaining about people who act entitled to stories aren't talking about you, I promise. They're talking about people who genuinely can't be bothered or go on flippant "Why don't you just write for yourself?" rants, while still enjoying other people's work. Ditto on the other side: people get offended at being called entitled authors, but odds are good the person isn't referring to you, who would simply like to not shout into the void, odds are good they're referring to the asshole authors they've met who'd throw hissy hits over comments that weren't phrased exactly to their liking, because yes, people like that do exist so it's simply flat out wrong to say "Just comment, authors are always happy to see comments, no matter how short! :)"
Also, a particular comment jumped out at me:
"It's not a consumer's job to compliment a promote an artist's work"
I generally agree that acting like people are owed comments is useless and stupid, but if I had to pick a phrasing that sums up my misgivings about common commenting culture, it's this. So many people seem to act like authors are getting a paycheck for this and don't need any additional motivator.
The other thing that bugs me is when people talk about all the reasons they don't comment (low spoons, anxiety, tired, etc.), but ignore the fact that authors have to deal with all of the above, too. And not just in fanfic. It seems any time there's any kind of social conflict being discussed (like, say, replying to a friend's messages in a vaguely timely manner) a ton of people will trot out excuses for why they can't do [insert what's generally seen as the vaguely courteous thing to do], but inadvertently act like that makes them special and like they're the only ones who have these legitimately valid excuses.
This started in one place and led to another, sorry. I guess I'm just frustrated with the Tumblr mental health culture of "I have a semi-specific reason I struggle with this so I'm not even going to try". I think people overcompensate too much for "Just don't be disabled!"-style ableism and swing too hard in the embraced helplessness direction.
Back to fanfic, every time I see the "I can't do it because of X" thing in the context of commenting, I can't help but think of how many authors also deal with depression, anxiety, self-esteem issues, low spoons, etc. and how easy it would have been for them to give up, but they got through it and posted the fanfic anyway, and how often they're then met with silence because the prevailing attitude among their audience is e.g. "I read this before bed and was too sleepy to comment, and too forgetful to comment the next day". I think about some of the fic I've written, often fic written when I maybe should have been doing something else, or fic written at the cost of sleep, or hyperfixating at my keyboard for six hours instead of going for a nice hike with my family, and it's hard not to get a little bitter, you know? Talking about legitimate reasons for why commenting is hard just so often comes across as "You're free to make sacrifices to write the stuff I read, but I won't make any"
I also feel a bit bitter that it's impossible to even discuss these things in a vacuum without someone going "Discussions like this are why I've stopped commenting", as someone inevitably will in the notes of this post. "Just shut up and make your Content(TM) and don't complain about anything", is what it feels like.
--
The entire phrasing of reward and owing is stupid.
The reality is that lots of people won't produce work unless they feel like someone cares. No amount of moralizing or excuses will change that.
It's also the reality that posting to the masses on AO3 or tumblr will result in maybe one like or other interaction per hundred hits if you're really, really lucky. The rate has never been much better than that, and it never will be. It's often very much worse.
If one personally wants to encourage people, sure, go out and do that, but any call to action that ignores the above two realities is like fighting the tide.
I do think "It's not my job to promote you" typically comes up in the context of meltdowns about letting artists "languish in your likes" instead of being reblogged onto your actual blog and/or contexts where the artist/author/etc. is selling their work.
Here's the thing: people who never comment do not count.
They think they're part of a community. They're not. If you don't participate, you're a ghost.
When some author moves to a more enclosed space, a lot of people who saw themselves as part of something are suddenly left out in the cold, wondering why. But the fact is, if you don't pay the entry fee of socializing with others, you're nobody to them.
The entitled randos don't matter. If they bug you enough, take your toys and retreat to a discord with your friends.
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garfunklefield · 23 days
Text
Carnation of the valley
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18+ viewer discretion is advised
trans!sub!omega!Sanji/dom!alpha!Zoro Roronoa Warnings: Omega verse, dom/sub undertones, bratty Sanji, induced rut, oviposition, ovipositor Zoro, please google that, making out, intense breeding, poorly timed love confession, balls deep L bomb, implied Mpreg, knotting, abrupt ending, goodluck Word count: 3611 DESC: Zoro was never sexually active until he was much older. Some could call him a late bloomer but he preferred to say he had interest in other areas than women. For the longest time, he had assumed he was asexual or something, because how could beautiful women not tempt him? When he would see a woman or a sword, he’d go for the sword. Being gay or anything of that nature never crossed his mind until his friend Sanji was over.
The only thing I've written in the past 48 hours has been Zosan I'M GETTING TO YOUR REQUESTTTS
NOTES: I had this idea last night about ovipositor alpha Zoro and I had to make it happen! If you don't know ovipositor means an insect or fish that has an organ that deposits eggs, but it's also a fetish where you use a sex toy to shoot eggs inside ya - or at least I believe that's the name of the fetish. I've been dreaming about Sanji as an omega for so long you don't understand!! I've read so much omega Sanji I NEEDED to come up with my own thing! I might also play around with this ovipositor alpha thing and write more about it, maybe not this universe but something else regarding it. Also I love how its kind of just universal: Sanji IS AN OMEGA!!!!!!!!
Zoro was never sexually active until he was much older. Some could call him a late bloomer but he preferred to say he had interest in other areas than women. Besides, when it came down to it, women did not satisfy him in ways that a nice cold sip of beer could. No matter how many times they complimented him, or rode him till the cows came home, he never finished. It wasn’t their fault, his mind was always busy. Busy with life or busy with anything other than the naked women in front of him. 
For the longest time, he had assumed he was asexual or something, because how could beautiful women not tempt him? When he would see a woman or a sword, he’d go for the sword. Mainly because, in this day and age having an extensive sword collection was a bit of a flex. He enjoyed keeping his swords all around the walls of his house, in glass casing, and showing off every blade with a different story behind each one. Their craftsmanship was stunning, way more interesting than breasts. They were just … plumper pectorals. He enjoyed seeing men with bigger pecs anyway, it meant they had gained something he was working to achieve. 
Although the moss head did have to admit he stared a bit too long at the Calvin Klien billboards when he would walk past, or shirtless men on their runs in his neighborhood. To him though, he chalked it down to admiring their physique and aspiring to be like them, even if they were on the scrawnier side. Being gay or anything of that nature never crossed his mind until his friend Sanji was over. 
It was a day like any other, he was having girl troubles and coming over as an excuse to lay it all on his friend with no consequence. The other man didn’t mind, he had nothing better to do. Besides, what’s funnier than hearing the omega womanizer having issues with his alpha girlfriends? Why was it he so attracted to alphas in particular? No matter who it was it was always brought up that she was an alpha. 
Zoro sat himself down beside his friend on his couch, leaning back as he listened to him ramble, “And she doesn’t even call me back, but then she wants me to call her back! I just can’t with women sometimes.” He scoffed, although they both knew he’d be calling her back later that night. He was so obvious when it came to women, and women were just complex. They weren’t like swords or men, men were more interesting to read. Men never liked to open up right away, making him want to dig deeper to find the jewels beneath the surface. Men made him feel funny when they stared too long or touched his muscles. But truthfully, the man never liked it when anyone would touch his arms without asking. So he ruled it out as purely that, nothing more. As for the staring? He had no way to rationalize it.
“What if you just… I dunno, dated men?” He asked, looking up at his ceiling. It was never something he considered for himself, but for Curly, sure! He could see it for him 100%. It would fix all his issues, aside from being obvious. No, men like Zoro [not that he considered himself a candidate for Sanji] took a lot more effort to uncover. But that was the best part. Just like finding a sword on EBAY, the elusive reward was very profitable.
Sanji sputtered a bit, the few words he was going to say dying on his tongue. To say he looked horrified was an understatement. Had he said something wrong? He didn’t know his chef friend was an omega and homophobic. The blonde's cheeks raised with red burns of embarrassment and his eyes glared holes into his friend's skin. Was it wrong to say he should try men if women were so damn hard for him? If he found them to be difficult, go to something that would be easier on the brain. A more soothing puzzle. Zoro found men hard to figure out in a way that was mentally stimulating not outright annoying. 
“What are you implying … Moss?” Was all he managed to say, trying to hide behind a mask of horror when something else lurked deeper. And he knew there was something else behind those blue eyes. 
“I mean, go for a better chase than something confusing,” he clarified, again, not thinking much about it at all. 
“And what do you consider a better chase?” There was something different in his tone that made Roronoa stop and slowly blink a few times, before focussing his eyes on his friend's face. Well if he wasn’t gay he was definitely questioning it now. He had to admit, there were times when his mind would wander during … self-pleasuring activities [especially in his rut], and he would find himself imagining Sanji bent over and begging for mercy. But, that had to be normal in some way. Everyone had thoughts about their friends every now and then. 
Yet, this voice Sanji was putting on, was doing something to him. Not to mention that stare. It was something unsure, but it said ‘If you’re down, I’m down’. Down for what exactly? Exploring each other? Pleasuring each other in ways he knew he could? Even if he never finished with women he always intended that they would. Putting people's pleasure above his own was something Zoro did even in his personal life. He couldn’t help but serve others as a way to make himself feel good. There was a word for it but he could never remember it.
“Well…” His voice was low, trying to be seductive. But the moss wasn’t very good at being flirty, especially in this new territory. I mean, were men just like women when it came to flirting? Did he just have to use the same lines but switch ‘nice tits’ to ‘nice bulge’? “…A man is a better chase, I feel.” He ended up spitting out, pressing his lips together. 
Vinsmoke was looking at him, waiting for him to make a move it was obvious. God, he was submissive too, wasn’t he? Was that why he wanted all alpha women? So they could toss him around and let him be their little sex slut? He didn’t want to admit it, but thinking about that was doing a number on his breathing. It was labored and border lining on mere pants between breaths than actual, well, breaths. All he could see was his friend before him, staring at him with a level of thirst he had never seen before. All by a simple misworded error. And yet he was willing to risk their friendship on that for some fun? Hell, if he was down, Zoro was down. 
It wasn’t until then, that he had decided his next move that the pheromones hit him. Slowly, they began to fill his nose and pretty much soon his whole house would be bulging with that scent. It was citrus and honey- no sweeter than that. It was something he’d find in a bakery, of course with the chef everything came back down to baking or cooking. It was easy on the senses. Almost like an instant relaxer.
“Curls-” He went to speak but was interrupted by an impatient, “Oh my god, do I have to ask?” Roronoa blinked at the man before him and he let the other continue, “Do you want me to hold your hand while I ask you to fuck me or are you gonna grow some balls and do it?” 
Oh right, he was an annoying pain in his ass. 
He was wondering now, even through all his thoughts and fantasies, what was the most satisfying part? What was it that made the image of his friend being pounded into oblivion, hot? The fact that he wasn’t just an omega or a sub, but the fact he was a submissive bratty omega. Something about how he ground the moss’s gears was getting him off in more ways than he could count, probably eliciting a wave of pheromones from his body. He knew his scent well, something musky and warm rather than that sweet shit Sanji was practically oozing. And he knew just a bit of an Alpha’s smell was enough to cause an animalistic urge to grow in an Omega, even if he didn’t want there to be. 
Zoro felt his body lean forward, almost on its own before he spoke, trying to have that air of dominance he knew women liked so much, “Oh you want me to fuck you now, huh?” Then he smirked, just a small pull at the corner of his lips. Just enough that it looked effortless, rather than a calculated move he had practiced in front of the mirror before a date. It was something women liked, and Sanji liked women, so he would probably like that too. 
Sanji swallowed, another fierce blush rushing up his cheeks and down the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t expected that, had he? He was all bark and no bite. All those words, all that taunting, and all that bullshit was just that, bullshit. The Omega was a brat but more importantly, he was a sub, and what did subs always do? Submit. 
The green-haired man continued to lean, before he knew it pressing his weight into his hands to hover. Hover just enough to get into the cook's space and just enough he was able to get the rest of his body onto the couch. So, like a predator to prey, he began to inch forward, a hungry look in his eyes. This was arousal. This was something he hadn’t experienced with someone else to such ferocity. With women, sure, he’d get horny. But he wasn’t itching with lust, or oozing with pheromones that it was stifling. The air was thick and they hadn’t even touched each other. Were words really just that powerful? 
“M-Moss…” Vinsmoke trailed off, leaning backward, evading his touch just for the thrill of it. When Zoro finally did touch him, it was fire. His hand brushed against the other’s side and he couldn’t help it, leaning down to brush their noses together. It was more intimate than he intended, this whole thing was way more intimate than he ever meant for it to be. If this was supposed to be a hookup, it felt more intense. There was a flame that had been ignited, a flame that had been dormant for so long. Something that had always lingered, waiting to be struck. 
“Have I grown some balls yet, bitch?” He smiled, almost tauntingly as the man pulled back. It was a teasing move but he couldn’t help it. In some way, the moss liked to see his friend pout and get all worked up. It was kind of … cute. Yeah, cute. 
Sanji let out a huff, just as expected, lifting his hand to gently smack his friend's cheek. He went to speak, but his hand lingered for too long and it was sending the Alpha into shock. Had he always been this soft? This warm? And not to mention the Omega’s hair too, it was so radiant. Full of life, color, and texture, even in this position. 
Zoro pressed his nose into his friend's cheek, just inhaling before he spoke, “That’s what I thought.” All bark no bite, just the way he liked it. Then, like a bottle to his lips, their mouths connected. Sparks, practically, flew from his mind as they melted together. It was slow, but it was making something build deep inside him. Just the action alone, of skin on skin and lips on lips was sending shockwaves down his spine. Then he heard the blonde begin to whimper into the kiss, opening his mouth for more leverage and bucking his hips up just enough for some kind of stimulation. But when the other man moved his knee in between the Omega’s legs, he didn’t feel a bulging press to his thigh, but instead a warm wetness. The swords collector pulled back from the kiss, blinking a few times. Oh. 
“Something to tell me love cook?” He raised his eyebrows knowingly, although they were far from being all judgy. In all fairness, he couldn’t care less about genitals or what anyone had going on down there. Whether it was balls or a clit, if it was a guy he’d fuck it. Oh … so then he was gay. 
It dawned on the man; It was just women that he wasn’t into. 
“Surprise, Marimo. What? I thought you’ve had sex before. Is this too strange?” Sanji teased, voice dripping with want and desire. They both knew they were far too horny to care about each other's parts. Instead, he focused on that tone, god, that tone. It was gravaly, just low enough to be a murmur. It was driving the moss absolutely insane how wrapped around his finger he was. 
As an answer, their lips met again, pulling and molding into one. He was on fire, in a way he had never been. Worse than a rut or … Was this what a true rut felt like? To be so fucking horny you could barely think? To only want the Omega beneath you who was causing it? All the while they kissed, that sub was grinding his clothed wetness against Zoro’s mid-thigh. It was clear, it was involuntary. And, god, that made it hotter. He wanted to fuck him so bad, he wanted to be inside his cunt and pump him deep with eggs, thousands of eggs. Get him so pregnant and full that he couldn’t even move. God, that would be nice, right? Making Sanji such a perfect father and making sure he’d never have to move a finger.
He could just imagine a life with him, a life with … Sanji. 
“Sanji,” he forced out, straining against his pants and pulling back from the kiss. Their faces were pressed together, sweat mixing and breathing heavy, “I think… I like you.” Then they kissed again, teeth on teeth and tongues on tongues before he pulled back again, “I mean it… I think I really want to impregnate you.”
“Mm Marimo… I like you to- what.” The cook put two hands on his friend's shoulders and pushed him back so they could make eye contact. His blue eyes were staring back into the man’s dark and brooding ones, trying his hardest to search them. Roronoa was being genuine. I mean, he hadn’t thought about it until that very moment, but he really cared about the blonde. He cared so much for him, and they had practically known each other forever. He couldn’t remember a day going by without seeing him, or even texting him. 
“You want to… impregnate me?” Vinsmoke finally whispered, looking with intensity in his eyes. I mean, when was the last time they were reckless? If they both loved each other, why didn’t they start a family? It almost felt right at that point to be with him, it always had. He was right. He was always right. 
“I think.. Yeah, yeah I do.” He nodded slowly. It was silent, no noise but their breathing as they watched each other. Was this the wrong thing to say? Did Sanji not feel the same? Was this just going to scare him away instead of inviting him in? 
Sanji swallowed and let his eyes flutter closed, “Do it.” 
“What.”
“Impregnate me!” He opened his eyes and frowned at the moss, “Do it before I change my mind, idiot.” Well, he didn’t have to be told twice. That was it, on an impulse decision and an impromptu rut, they were starting a family. Their lips met feverishly, pecking a few times before Zoro took the Omega deep in his mouth and groaned at the sensation. He was doing something with his tongue that was utterly making him leak in his jeans. He needed to get them off and put himself deep in the other’s wetness or there’d be trouble. 
They kissed, slobbering all over each other as his hands wandered. Big and burly, they fumbled a bit with Sanji’s jean buttons before the smaller one slapped him away to do it himself. If he wasn’t about to explode, he would have cared. Instead, the green-haired one focused on his own pants. They slid down to his knees and off came his underwear. The air was cold on his cock, as it sprung from its confinements. Already, it was leaking a bit of precum with soggy eggs floating from his tip. Each time they passed his urethra he struggled to breathe out, hitching in his throat and moaning gutterally. 
“God, Zoro… You’re so hot…” Sanji smiled, pulling from the kiss to wipe his mouth. His hips lifted ever so slightly to pull both his jeans and underwear down. If the Alpha got sight of that pretty pussy he knew he’d have the hardest time pulling himself away, forcing his mouth onto his swollen clit. Just the thought made him groan. He needed to be inside him it started to hurt. Not just in his dick but in his skin, in his face, everywhere. If he didn’t have that blonde cook he was going to lose his damn mind. 
“I need…” Zoro pressed his face down into his friend's shoulder, letting his hand trail to his dick to align it with the other man's entrance, “To.. to be inside you.. Bad.” And once his tip touched that warm wetness he nearly came. God, it was so warm and plush, expanding to fit him as he thrust forward. 
“A-ah~” Sanji gasped at the sensation, feeling his Alpha’s cock stretch out his cunt. He wasn’t hung by any means, but safe to say his dick wasn’t small. The smaller one’s arms wrapped around the moss’s head, pulling him in and gripping bits of green hair. “D-da.. ah.. Damn, Marimo.. You mm.. F- fuck!” 
And Roronoa pulled himself out, just to slowly sink back inside him. Slow, that’s the pace he wanted to take. He was going to savor this and press their bodies together, feel skin upon skin as he fucked him. Every inch of his penis was inside his friend- no lover's pussy, squelching slightly. That’s how it was, as much self-control as he mustered, he made his strokes painfully slow. It was perfect for the blonde, making him squirm with pleasure. Every moment, every touch of his tip was pleasuring the Omega’s G-spot. His cockhead was kissing it slowly and gently, brushing against it in a way that he never wanted to end, making him cry out in ecstasy. But when his lover started to pick up the pace, it wasn’t long before he’d spill all over the Alpha’s throbbing cock. 
Zoro couldn’t stomach going slow anymore. He had to cum, he had to get Sanji pregnant. It was basically embedded in his DNA, every moment of his life was leading up to this orgasm. Every second he breathed was another second he was balls deep inside his lover. Someone he really cared about. When he heard the cook whimper, it was sending shivers down his spine. As long as the other one was pleased, he’d get off. And that’s what started to push him over the edge into a prolonged orgasm, something that was starting to swell at the base of his dick [literally]. 
The Alpha pushed himself back, so he could be face to face with Sanji, who at this point was a snivling mess. He was crying out in pleasure at every second he could, every stroke and every thrust. When Zoro started to spill, splattering bout after bout of white eggs into Sanji’s womb, was when he let out a cry, “I.. I love you.. A-ah f-f.. Fuck!! I.. a- ahah.. Mmm.. S-..shit!” He thrust forward, letting the sensitivity of his urethra overtake him in pure bliss. Every time an egg [and these were very small, so like 50 at a time pass through each splatter] would pass through his slit he was closer to losing his mind and closer to passing out. 
I haven’t even gotten to Sanji. 
He was sobbing, tears rolling down his eyes as he came to his bliss. When his lover started to breed him, fully knotting him deep with his cum, he was done for. He climaxed almost instantly as he was filled, thrusting his hips forward to ride out his waves of pleasure as best as he could. 
The sensitivity didn’t subside for either of them, as Zoro’s cockhead’s leakage slowly began to turn to a dribble, rather than an open faucet. Of course, now that he was knotted, they were stuck for a bit. He let out a breath of air as he came down, a relaxing buzz filtering through his mind. So that was what sex was like. No wonder his blonde was such a pervert, sex was amazing! It felt as though he was one with Sanji without even trying. He molded their souls together in a way that could never be undone, never be touched again. The bigger man rested his head against his Omega’s neck, trying to steady his breathing. Vinsmoke’s eyes were closed as he was inhaling, almost purring through his breaths. It was relaxing as the two rested against each other, trying to come down from that high. 
“Zoro,” he heard a faint voice whisper, “I think I love you too.”
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separatist-apologist · 3 months
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I just read an article in that guy who murdered two women. Absolutely horrifying. All the booktok crazies fawning over him reminds me of the women that would write letters to Ted Bundy while he was in prison.
I wasn't gonna answer this because I felt like I said what I needed to say and like, I was just preaching to preach but THEN while I was asleep, an anon came into my askbox to accuse me of not being a girls girl while intentionally missing my point. I blocked them before I thought of a good comeback (tragic) but like fellas is it anti-feminist not to stan a man who killed two women because (and this is so important to me) he hates women?
I'm gonna put the rest of this under a cut with a heavy trigger warning for domestic violence, I just want to say it and then I think I'm done talking about it because it's genuinely so disheartening.
Anyway, I think sometimes I get nervous to answer these kinds of asks because as a therapist I should know better than to speculate on people and what they're going through and whatever else, but as a person, its like...do you want to be picked that badly?
I think we all know by now that I work in DV and all the people fascinated with men like this fuck me up because like..."oooh what makes him tick, I want to talk to him, why did he do it-" and for me, I sit on the opposite end talking to survivors of violence asking the same questions with hollow eyes, with shaking hands, with safety plans meant to buy them just enough time to get out of their house so they aren't killed. I still think about some of the people I spoke with who didn't survive it.
When I was in grad school, I took a summer internship at the local DV court helping survivors with orders of protection. The system was set up better than a lot of other courts, but its still the legal system, you know? With all its flaws. My job was to flag for lethality based on what I was reading in the OPs and then reach out directly to survivors to help them navigate the process, connect them with resources, and sit with them in court. And I still remember this one particular woman who's situation was so desperately dangerous. We did a safety plan- and at that level, a safety plan isn't like, "remember to take your keys and wallet with you when you go", its "don't go into the basement or bathroom if he's in the house with you because there are too many hard surfaces, exposed pipes, and basins of water that making killing you easier. Go to a bedroom or closet because strangling a person is really hard and takes time," like THAT kind of safety plan. Anyway she thanked me, I remember this so well, she said thank you and I told her I'd call her the next week with an update and over the weekend he bludgeoned her to death.
And I guess I just don't think there is anything fascinating, interesting, or otherwise unique to men like this (obligatory yes I know women kill/abuse too). They're everywhere. I saw another post about how some podcaster is trying to get him on to talk to that guy and its like, why don't you just call up one of your friends' exes. Like. If you've got more than one female friend, you've probably got a friend who has experienced violence at the hand of a male partner, call him. Talk to him. Ask him why he did it, let him give you his made up story about trauma and sadness and oh life is hard because whatever whatever.
That's my thing. Books, movies, tv- they're not making people like this, and I'm not condemning people for what they enjoy in fantasy spaces. I am condemning it when you bring it out of those spaces and side against the women who were violently murdered because, and this is so important to me (did I say this already??), he HATES women. You are not special. You cannot fix him. He's not smart, or interesting, or fascinating and the having an attractive face is literally just chance and not something inherently moral.
And like, lastly, when you prop these men up and give them a platform, you signal to EVERY man just like him that there is something special and tragic about him. You let him play the victim, you let him rewrite the narrative, you shift the blame of his actions off of him and onto the people he hurt. Like with this particular man, you also side with a white supremacist so what are you saying to all your BIPOC/Jewish friends/mutuals, you know?
Anyway. That's my self-righteous rant, I guess.
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