#apology of two words

[juan-francisco-palencia]

Things that were not made for me...

"Which is more important, transcribing life or transcending destiny? - asked the deluded apprentice writer to the restless Aghata - "Love, companionship and honesty" - the little girl replied with a smile.

—  Juan Francisco Palencia.

[killjoy-prince]

House M.D. but it's when a character says the name of the episode

[hrokkall]

You are the angel that I couldn't kill

[raccoon-queer]

unfriendly reminder that childhood trauma does not mean childhood abuse. it means any trauma that happened during childhood. it can be the death of a grandparent, it can be being bullied in school, it can be isolation and a lack of friends. abuse is not the only trauma, and small traumas are just as valid as bigger traumas

[whump-galaxy]

“Could I have said anything that would’ve stopped you?”

“I’m sorry.”

[mewtwo24]

Sasaki and Hirano, Compare/Contrast Brainrot

Okay like I saw a post about Sasaki and Hirano’s friendship and I just. Started thinking about it and now I can’t stop. Especially after reading Hirano to Kagiura. 

I feel like they’re messed up (repressed is probably what I actually mean) in the same way but in opposite directions and that’s why they like…get along, but in the strangest manifestation of that phrasing? They care about each other almost from a periphery, from the vantage point of someone who understands, but, since they’re also still figuring it out, they don’t know quite how to interact with or guide the other?

And it’s killing me because--idk if it was just me--I kept going feral over every single time I was reading the manga and Hirano would go “oh yeah I do [insert fuckign batshit intimacy] with my roommate, this is a normal senpai/kouhai thing to do” and Sasaki literally always reacts with:

“.” (Huh. I don’t think that’s normal but who am I to judge these things. Let’s ask the local social barometer.)

“Hey Hanzawa, this [reiterates what Hirano said word-for-word] isn’t normal is it?” (Translation: “this would be inappropriate to do with Mya-chan even though I’m clawing at the walls just thinking about it”)

And Hanzawa, bless his heart, who is only a fraction more normal about social interaction than everyone else is just like:

“.” [W H A T]

“Sasaki, what. Of course you shouldn’t be doing that. W H Y ARE YOU ASKING ME THIS”

AND THIS HAPPENS MANY TIMES IN THE SPAN OF TWENTY CHAPTERS. I CANNOT EXPRESS ENOUGH THE HILARITY BUT ALSO CONCERN IT INSPIRES TO WATCH.

More detailed analysis under the cut, I just can’t stop laughing at the way the manga compares them:

Sasaki fascinates me because, as I take stock again, it feels like he’s got this dread when it comes to change (e.g. Ogasawara and his gf dating--thus changing his relationship with both of them, asking Miyano out--risking losing him, confessing that he’s dating a boy to his sister--risking her enduring and fervent disapproval). So much of his younger teenage angst was related to being reluctant to start or do things, and while it’s easy to assume laziness, I don’t think that’s the case? He says in the manga: “There’s nothing I can do, so how am I supposed to know what I want to do then…?” I get a sense that this trapped feeling contributes to his dissatisfaction and stasis more than a refusal to do anything at all. I don’t think he lacks capacity; he’s proven to be exceptionally clever and even studious when he feels motivated. 

Considering the lack of interest his parents had in his life (let alone his hobbies/skills) and his sister’s overbearing scrutiny, I feel like it makes sense he’s struggled so much with his self-actualization. I feel like he perceives it as being caught between hot and cold extremes constantly; like no matter what he does, he’ll either receive indifference or loud chastising. So why bother at all? It would explain why he likes Miyano’s temperament so much, considering the latter quite literally is defined by his normalcy and even keel. When Sasaki wants to move forward in their relationship, Miyano seriously considers both their feelings, and thoroughly weighs the realities of what it would mean to be together before replying. While Sasaki wants to be closer to him, I think so much of his willingness to wait was the fact that Miyano wasn’t evading him. Miyano was being honest and thorough about meeting him halfway, without insulting his feelings or flat out ignoring him.

(Side note: I fully agree that Sasaki’s sister is a positive influence in his life, in that she actually gave a damn when he was downspiraling and miserable, and pointed out that all kids need limits and guidance. But she is loud and forceful about her acknowledgement, and I feel like this is very grating to Sasaki. For better or worse, it’s clear he has a hard time with such a direct and intense approach about what he should think and feel, and about what he needs. Sasaki shows indications of a kind of mindset where he thinks he needs to shoulder all the tough and heavy things alone, so it makes sense to me that he would be uncomfortable with his sister proclaiming how he is lost or bereft of attention/discipline.)

I think there’s also the fact that Miyano witnessed Sasaki at his most vulnerable--and instead of lashing out--offered him help and sympathy, real warmth and patience. Sasaki has always meant a lot to me as a character, maybe because he resonates in such a poignant way. He’s somebody who has lived under such emotional extremes, and as a result deeply values a sense of normalcy. Where one could argue Miyano is unassuming and ordinary, I think that’s part of why Sasaki likes being with him.  With Miyano, he doesn't have to guess at the distance between them; Miyano is earnest and careful about those differences, and is very direct about addressing them with reciprocity.

Now then, Hirano. I know very little about Hirano’s home life other than his being an only child. But to be honest, that does tell us a bit--paired with his subtle social anxieties. I will never forget Sasaki saying to Miyano ‘that’s because Hirano plays favorites with his kouhais’ about the gap between his behavior towards his younger classmates versus everyone else. While Sasaki’s petulance is uproarious, there is something to that. (I also love how this exposes Sasaki, lowkey, because he’s basically saying that he’d only do that with his favorite people, aka Miyano. But otherwise he could never be bothered to care about a rando, and that’s hilarious.)

I think Hirano--because he doesn’t really have a sense of how he’s supposed to relate to other people--tends to follow the same strict guidelines you might see in a rule book (DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE COUGH COUGH). Supposing he was taught--or simply feels responsibility towards younger kids as a result of reflective parental neglect--it would explain why he feels this rigid need to treat kouhais like little siblings. At first glance, and honestly when you consider his general aloofness, it doesn’t make much sense that he has a mothering sensibility otherwise. 

Now then, because I realized this while writing and I have to inflict this on everyone else in rapid succession, this would explain his initial staunch discomfort with Kagiura’s affection. In the context of Hirano’s lifestyle/mindset:

Hirano → relationships with people? Don’t understand that, refer to following flowchart:

→ younger = responsibility, must protecc

→ same age = keep them in line

→ older = respect (but only if I feel like it HAIR DYE NOISES INTENSIFY)

Mind you, I don’t think this is limited to his platonic/friendship relations. I think this permeates into so many other aspects of his life, since sociality is inevitably a focal point for all human life. If he feels an uncharacteristic leniency and profound affection for Kagiura, then it must be because he's a kouhai he wants to protect, nothing more. He has no other reason or definition by which to ascribe to those feelings. Hirano doubly insisting he can’t be attracted to men is because he’s been so inundated in the widespread social signals, the social rule that has been long standing--and remains a pretty powerful message even now--that it’s unlikely (and that’s a gentle term) he’s attracted to another man. 

After all, He is So Good At Being A Normal Young Man. He’s in the discipline committee. He gets excellent grades. He’s a kind and helpful senpai. He keeps his classmates in line. Of Course He Likes Women, What Do You Mean Gay.

He’s basically that meme like: “'Men can be attracted to other men' actually statistical error. Average men only feel attraction for women. Sasamiya is an outlier and should not be counted."

Both Hirano and Sasaki hate change/unpredictability, but I really love how complex their differences are in regards to how they experience that and feel that. Sasaki hates change, but he’s not necessarily emotionally repressed? He’s able to express what he feels for Miyano because he feels it so strongly, and it comes naturally when he does. In fact, it’s so natural that he becomes impulsive--and that’s why he gets so anxious about moving too far or too fast by accident. He has the overthink override, where if the attraction is too strong he simply Can’t Shut Up About How Much He Loves Miyano or stop hugging/kissing him.

Hirano hates change in the sense that he’s so ensconced in this idea that This Is Normal Human Behavior, that he completely loses sight of how he actually feels about anything--because he rejects/suppresses anything he can’t coherently define in a scripted, linear way. And being asked to tread that unstable, unsteady ground is tantamount to throwing a cat in water with no warning. This is why it’s so sad but also HYSTERICALLY FUNNY to see him like “wym I have feelings for Kagiura. It's perfectly normal to start yelling with all the wounded rage of a scorned housewife over my kouhai not letting me wake him up for morning practice. That is what it means to be a senpai.” Because he has no blueprint for how he’s supposed to express a love that goes deeper than friendship (with a man no less), he defaults to these overly simplistic structures that can’t support the complexity/maturity of such adult human feeling and exchanges. They worked for him just fine before, so why won’t they work for him now?

Relegating Kagiura to the role of kouhai makes it easier for Hirano to conceptualize why he cares so much for him, but it also limits the scope of his view. He’s using it as an umbrella term in a sense: of course he doesn’t find every little thing about Kagiura infuriating/boring/troublesome. Being the older person means being responsible and chill about everything. But that’s the thing. He’s not indulging Kagiura the same way he indulges Miyano, despite him qualifying them the same way. With Miyano it’s super clear Hirano really does just see him as a baby duckling, someone to treat gently and usher around. His behavior around Kagiura is so astronomically different in comparison, it’s nearly comical to try to compare them:

It’s Kagiura’s birthday. Hirano, who probably hardly remembers people’s birthdays, deadass went around asking every person he was close to (like, 5 ppl) for advice. He agonized over it for days on end. He gets Kagiura tickets to a basketball game and an alarm clock, and spends the entire day with him. He asks Hanzawa if he can use party poppers to celebrate Kagiura on the day of, and to get around the rules when he’s told no he has everyone go hog wild with them at the Christmas party in a loophole maneuver to celebrate. Reminder to myself and everyone reading, this is BEFORE he even hears a word about Kagiura’s feelings.

THIS IS BEFORE EITHER OF THEM ARE IN ANY KIND OF INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP. HIRANO, WHO IS MR. “i only study or drag people to baby jail, what do you want,” SPENT ENTIRE DAYS PAINSTAKINGLY PLANNING ALL OF THIS. FOR KAGIURA’S BDAY. AFTER ONE OFFHAND COMMENT FROM KAGIURA OF LIKE mannnn having an xmas bday sucks ass, they just try to lump it tg with holiday presents booooo :///

That Hirano conceptualizes Kagiura as a kouhai has been established. But another angle that’s equally crucial is this equation:

Hirano → adore person? Devote Every Minute To Being Nice^TM

→ hate person? angry cat hissing sounds/smack with paper roll

→ mild dislike? Lowkey grousing/sarcasm/dismissal

→ neutral? (this is most people btw) refer to earlier chart for appropriate social etiquette

This is pretty much where Hirano gives himself away. Because even in his most inflexible rules for himself, we’ve never seen him convey so much feeling for anyone around him so helplessly. It can be argued that he might have in the past, but honestly, I doubt it. The feeling is so confusing and new to him that it leads me to believe so much of his difficulty accepting what he feels is related to its unfamiliarity. He can’t trust it as real precisely because he can’t control or neatly define it. (This made doubly disconcerting by the fact that he doesn’t have a typical social structure to work from either. If his parents, for instance, are anything like Hanzawa’s, it’s possible his conception of love between a couple is about devotion to remain together to fulfill a sense of status/purpose to create a new life. He would have zero concept of love that comes from the very depths of a person’s emotional being, a call and response that is as instinctive as it is fulfilling.)

Sasaki feels an intense desire to be close to Miyano, and thus acts accordingly because he trusts his feelings. On the other hand, he has trouble measuring the distance between himself and others. (e.g. he thinks he will lose his friends if they date, his sister acts like a parent but is also a kid and that makes it hard for him to know how to interact, he struggles to convey himself properly to Miyano when he brings up escalating to dating). Hirano, on the other hand, doesn’t realize the intensity of his affection and heartfelt proximity to Kagiura because he’s so busy tying himself up in knots over what he’s supposed to feel and think that he doesn’t trust his feelings. Rather, he is only given away by how obscenely his actions expose him. Comparatively, he has less trouble measuring the distance between himself and others when it comes to anyone but Kagiura.

(Perhaps obviously, Kagiura has Sasaki’s whole ‘if I don’t hug/kiss/bark at him I’ll die’ emotional expression and Miyano has the cautious measuring of distance between people and difficulty accepting gay like Hirano.)

God they’re both so quintessentially queer it hurts me. One can’t shut up about his love, and the other literally cannot open his mouth and express his feelings or he’ll die. 

NARRATIVE FOILS EVERYONE

(Also unsure if it’s me but wow. They are so. Autism. And that also kills me akhfjldghjgdsfhkdfjhg)

[canary-song]

Due to what little on-screen interactions we see between Noir Peter (Pete) and Peni in ITSV, it's no surprise that a lot of people have agreed upon the popular fanon of them being a sort of father-daughter duo (or, for those who subscribe a bit more to Pete being younger due to the comics, a sibling-like relationship). It's cute so I support it, but it got me thinking about the two in comparison to eachother, specifically in terms of corrupt systems and how they're handled in their stories. I think the two have a bit more a contrast than just the surface level stuff, so let's look into it!

(Essay + comic panel evidence beneath the cut)

From the very start of Peni's (unfortunately short) comics, she's shown as very resigned to her fate - when brought in to discuss her father and her future "career" in the SP//DR program, she's upfront and blunt; My father is dead, and I'm the only one who can replace him, so I will. It's a foregone conclusion, and one she doesn't shy away from.

Furthermore, even though we see how, throughout the comics, she's basically given no life beyond her work, and even her school hours are eaten into, she's told again and again that all of this cost means something.

She has to sacrifice everything, because there's no other choice. Her own Guardians, her Uncle Ben and Aunt May, work for the very organization that her father did, and persist to remind her of the importance of the job, even if they do try to remind her that she can't handle this alone. Very telling, when faced with threats to the multiverse, she briefly asks her Uncle Ben if she should stay with him, only for him to tell her to go.

Duty calls.

This isn't the point of this, but of course she joined Spider HQ and went along with what Miguel was telling her - she's grown up surrounded by very like-minded, sacrifice-willing adults. Of course she has to do this. What other option is there?

On the other end, Pete is quite the opposite of Peni's story. Yes, 100%, like all Spiderpeople, there's the element of responsibility, that looming recognition that not doing what you can gets people hurt, but while Peni's story is set up so that she's fighting for her system of authority, Pete is unsurprisingly against his. At any point that he can, even pre-spiderbite, he's picking fights and trying to fix things. He's so set in his beliefs and outspoken that he makes his own mentor question his actions, constantly in pursuit of a better world.

It's the responsibility of the people to give a shit, and Pete cares so much that it drives him a bit mad, I think.

Where Peni is told that this is the way things work, Pete is demanding that it change, asking questions. Peni was raised to accept her responsibility, whereas Pete was raised to fight against the expected status quo.

AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THEIR RESPECTIVE BENS.

I'll try keeping this fragment of a thought short because we're already clocking in 6 paragraphs pre-edits and I need to feed the dogs their dinner soon, but the TLDR is that Uncle Ben is the last surviving legal Guardian of Peni, and though distant, he tries his best to support her while she's in the SP//DR program. Pete's Uncle Ben is, by no such surprise, dead, but specifically, he was a WWI veteran, decorated but guilty.

Uncle Ben is, in the Noir comics, yet another symbol of how doing what you're told can haunt you. He was very vocally against the war machine he was a part of, while Peni's Ben has known nothing else but his work.

This is how completely dead opposite they are in so many regards. They contrast eachother!! It's really interesting! Honestly, I could see Pete getting into an argument with Peni's Ben over how she's been treated, even if it probably wouldn't go well. He cares too much to keep his mouth shut, often.

[amaranthdahlia]

love valley - shigaraki brothers short pmv

[sentientsky]

read this gut-wrenching (and very relatable!! who said that) excerpt from Gabrielle Bates and Jennifer S. Cheng and now my tired brain is being annoying about it and won't let me work, so enjoy some gay yearning infused ramblings ab crowley or whatever

you greet the dawn like a blade, the sun cutting every sliver of longing out of you (this is a lie and you know it / this is a lie and he knows it / he must, oh god he must, after so many stretches of forever). the want that you hide in the hollows of too-dark glasses and too-casual words is the same want you've carried for six thousand fucking years; the same want you've held between clenched fists and in the shallow of your ribcage and under the floorboards and anywhere that might keep it captive, might make it small enough that you can one day stop burning up kerosene at the thought of his hands and the bend of his elbow and a mouth that speaks only softness (your want will never be small, and you know this). he turns his face to catch the light and maybe it would have been better if you'd burnt up in the fall because now you're all teeth, all hopeless, heavy desperation, and he's right there. he's right there and he's been right there for an endless infinitude. and yet you will never know him except from the teetering precipice of the lines you've both drawn in the sand (reaching, forever leaning towards warmth). because the walls have eyes. because the walls have maws that open/close/bite/break/rend and to touch him would be to doom you both. he turns his face to catch the light and you dig half-circles into your palm; the only physical evidence of a love so gaping and blood-red it may as well be a wound straight through your side. he turns his face to catch the light and you look away. you cast your gaze up and away, as though She might absolve you of such gentle sin.

[juan-francisco-palencia]

May my words accompany you.

. . . Love

Tell me "my life? Can you give me a hug and a kiss as soon as possible? Of course my love. But why the rush?

Because I feel someone calling me and I don't know if I'm awake or asleep. . . I don't know until when I will find you again or dream of you.

    —  Juan Francisco Palencia.   " By someone I know it was."             

[stevethehairington]

okay but i need ALL of the fics that take place during crozier getting sober. like i feel like there is SO much potential here bc it is THEE biggest turning point for him! esp with regards to fitzjames and their relationship. like fitzjames seeing crozier's choice to sober up as this huge defining moment, one that ultimately and unequivocally earns his respect (back, really, because he DID have respect for crozier at first, before he met him. and now he sees that that respect wasnt misgiven, not really). and like the way this choice is what causes the first crack in james' mask around crozier! ugh it's just DELICIOUS.

[brainworms-all-night-long]

Being absolutely fucking neurotypical while thinking about an improbable scenario of Nine realizing that he's kind of been a hypocrite with not really taking Sonic's wants and needs to account and only seeing the nonexistent idealized version of him that Nine fixated in his head in their first meeting (also something something, Sonic does gradually begin to differentiate Nine and Tails in his head while Nine only kept modeling this perfect figurine out of sonic that he planned to keep in the Grim forever) but it has the same energy as realizing you're wrong halfway through an argument and it would also mean that all his anger and disdain is baseless

But after the dust is settled Sonic forgives him anyway because of course he does, exept Nine doesn't yet comprehend how kind Sonic can be at times and has a Flowey moment

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

【CN】 Victor’s Upcoming Date

Event PV: here!

“Children can have many different personalities too, and being mature and steady is one of them.”

“It’s not the end of our romance until twilight descends.”

—

[legacydevice]

Hi! My roommates and I are moving, and we could use some help!

This year has been pretty hard for us financially and if you have any cash to spare, we'd really appreciate it! My roommate has made a thread on twitter here with more details!

I currently have some pride stickers and kirby keychains for sale, and my future roommate emil has several stickers, zines, and pins available!

my roommate's ko-fi / my ko-fi shop / my other roommate's etsy

reblogs and retweets are also appreciated <3

[totaled-drama]

Your sketches are adorable and you need much more attention!

As for an idea. Why not Wayne being super apologetically for the burger incident to Raj. Not because of what he did to the car, but because he never saved a piece for his bud.

THATS SO FUNNY AJSHSJSH

These two are like the definition of the phrase “boys will be boys”