#hes a mass murderer (again) is what he is

[feniksido]

Zenith the Silver AKA The Dark Urge AKA the Chosen of Bhaal AKA the Prophet of the End AKA The Armageddon-Watcher and like a million other things he calls himself throughout the game cus he cant pick one

[midnight-in-town]

A tragic parallel between the F.O.L orphanage and Baron Kelvin’s workhouse

I wanted to point out that it’s interesting “the oldest siblings” of each group actually aren’t the ones getting their “fledging day” first. 

In fact, as we could see with this chapter, little Ginny who was scared of horses, something unbefitting of her aptitude as a Corgi, is the one who got a sudden “fledging day”. 

Thanks to this chapter, it’s also pretty obvious that “the oldest siblings” know where the other kids are sent, as indicated by Oliver’s and Artie’s scared reactions in this chapter.

The “oldest siblings” being aware of what’s going on also explains why Oliver sort of “protected” Daniel, when he conveyed to the adults that he didn’t fit in the Collie group. 

In other words, when the operation needs a kid (for blood or some other reason), it’s those who don’t fit in who get taken first so, Ginny aside, we should also definitely worry about Daniel but also Nick from the Pomeranian group.

Focusing a little bit on Artie, a Mastiff, who brought Daniel, a Collie, to his class and Oliver who interrupted Daniel talking about “fledging day”, it seems the “oldest siblings” are trying as hard as they can to protect the other kids from meeting a terrible fate. This also explains Theo’s helpful attitude with Ginny in the last chapter: 

However, despite Theo’s best efforts, the adults noticed that Ginny was not living up to her aptitudes as a Corgi and she’s now about to reach “fledging day”. ://

The “oldest siblings” also definitely know that Doll is probably the one who’s watching over the whole orphanage operation, as indicated by their reactions when Snake introduced himself as Doll’s acquaintance...

...And it’s very interesting, because I think it creates a parallel with Doll’s own situation, back when she was alive. 

After all, as a kid from Kelvin’s workhouse, when she joined Noah’s Ark, Doll began abducting kids with Joker and co to satisfy Kelvin’s madness but also to protect their younger siblings back at the orphanage. However, this was all for naught, as Kelvin had already killed those kids for his mad project, something our!Ciel discovered at the end of the arc.

At F.O.L orphanage, the “oldest siblings” act similarly: they were probably told the sad truth behind this orphanage and they have no other way but to go along with it in order to survive, which makes them accomplices, while still trying as hard as they can to protect many of their fellow “siblings” so that they won’t get to their “fledging day” too quickly. 

It’s tragic really and, since they think Snake and Finny are Doll’s friends, they probably won’t trust them to help. :/ 

The single silver ray of hope I have is that Theo reminds Finny of someone: could be either twins or it could be a kid from Finny’s own tragic past from that scientific lab in Germany and, in that case, if Theo can eventually trust Finny, then maybe Finny and Snake will learn the truth and help save all these kids.

It would also make a beautiful parallel with Theo reading Fenian cycle... 

...since our Finny is indeed stronger than many others and could definitely help saving them. 

TL;DR Doll probably pushed the “oldest siblings” into the same situation that she experienced when she was alive: become accomplices in order to survive but also to protect innocent children, which is exactly how she lost herself and died. Here’s to hoping that Snake (who wasn’t a part of Noah’s Ark abduction ring) and Finny (who’s very strong) will be able to realize the truth in time, in order to help these children. 

[sophiethewitch1]

undersharer!reader x desperately needs to know literally everything about you!tim now fight

[lgbtlunaverse]

Could someone tell me where the interpretation that, in book canon, the promotion Nie Mingjue gives Meng Yao made Meng Yao's life worse than it was before, came from?

I have seen that claim made multiple times now and I've looked at the text over and over trying to see where the basis for it is and I. Can't find it? Don't get me wrong, it absolutely spells out that it does not and cannot fix everything for Meng Yao, but the idea that it was actively bad for him?

Lacking other evidence, I kind of have to assume that it comes from cql canon being sort of projected backwards onto book canon. In cql canon, meng yao is suffering active and explicit bullying and abuse from the captain while under the nie, and does so because the capain believes he has risen above his station via nmj's promotion of him. (In book canon this... isn't happening. It happens with the captain in Langya instead) However, in cql canon he has also been with the nie for years and is openly close to both Nie Mingjue and Nie Huasiang, whereas in book canon he has only been working with nie mingjue for a few months (though has, in that time, apparently become close enough to him for Lan Xichen to explicitly state Meng Yao is able to calm nmj down in ways no one else can? Ofc he does this... Right after that stops being true. But. Food for thought. Not what this post is about tho.) So, if you project the much more explicit abuse from the nie sect captain in cql back on novel jgy who has a presumably much less stable position in the sect overall you get... a meng yao for whom the promotion only means a bigger target on his back and virtually no protection from nmj, who we must assume he can't trust to talk to his about because he never mentions it. (This also explicitly violates book canon when it comes to meng yao's general behaviour, we'll talk about that in a sec)

And look. We all do frankencanon in this house. I get it. And for fanfiction that is very fun. But for a serious reading of the character, his situation, and the actions that lead from that this... doesn't make much sense, in my opinion.

So. Why is that? Why did I say this was out of character for the novel? Because Meng yao spoke up about the jin captain mistreating him. Multiple times! It's just that none of it mattered because no one cared to listen to him. This is a pretty important line for his character because it flatly shows that meng yao is not and has never seen murder as something trivial. He's not trigger happy. He will only do it if he sees no other way out that doesn't end in himself being seriously harmed. (Whether he's right or justified in these cases is not the point of this post.)

If anything remotely similar was happening in the Nie sect, he would have said so. Cql Meng Yao doesn't do this because cql Meng Yao is a different character, and also the plot wouldn't work if he did. Cql Nie Mingjue, by extension, comes off as a fundamentally less trustworthy figure in cql Meng Yao's life because apparently for whatever reason, he cannot be trusted with the information that the deputy he has already publicly defended is still being harassed, and doesn't notice even when it is really blatant. The assumtpion the audience is given is that, like a middle schooler getting the principal involved when being bullied, it would only make the harassment more viscious.

This... actually has a somewhat solid basis in the book. Because after nmj yells at the bullies in question Wei Wuxian says this.

And it is important to keep in mind that this is Wei Wuxian saying this. Not Meng Yao, not an omniscient narrator. Wei wuxian is drawing on his own experiences, likely from the Jiang family, to conclude that if someone is angry at you and thwarted by someone defending you, this generally does not make them less angry at you.

This is leaving out two crucial things, though.

Firstly, this worry isn't about the promotion at all.

The promotion hasn't even been brought up. In the novel it doesn't ctually happen immediately, it takes another few battles where meng yao continues to do his job well and nie mingjue continues praising him for him to eventually go "yeah, you deserve a raise."

This is another aspect that is being projected from cql canon onto book canon I presume, because it does happen quite quickly there, and it's a throwaway line in the books so it's easy to miss. I can't be mad about anyone forgetting the difference, but it is important to mention for this particular analysis.

Which is the second point: change in status

Wei Wuxian couldn't exactly change status within the Jiang family. (And if he could, that would just fuel rumours that he was jfm's bastard even more and make madam yu even angrier at him, etc etc.)

This isn't comparable to Meng Yao. The worry Wei Wuxian is talking about is explitly about Nie Mingjue's initial very loud defense of him. Before he has any idea Nie Mingjue is going to promote him.

Promoting him would likely decrease his chances of cultivators coming after him because now he was in a higher standing in the sect than they were. If applied to that earlier metaphor of middle school bullying it's like if the bullied kid suddenly got hired as a teacher. Which. Doesn't work with the metaphor at all. Touché. But what I am trying to say is that any payback they would have planned for him relied on the fact that they could make sure that Nie Mingjue wasn't going to be within very convenient earshot a second time, and as a random disciple Meng Yao couldn't just go complain to him every time.

But as his right hand man? Who spends most of his time working directly alongside him? Lmao. Good luck. Oh, sure, it is very likely that they feel offended a son of a whore has been raised in status above them, and many will continue to do so as jgy rises through cultivation society (in fact, Wei Wuxian's observations are absolutely on point for how Madam Jin will be treating jgy later on). But as we can also see from the way jgy is treated and how he treats others throughout the story: you can be upset all you want, but if that person is higher than you in status there's jack shit you can do about it.

If I am correct and Wei Wuxian is basing this on his experiences with the Jiang family, it makes sense why he'd miss this. Madam Yu gets to be way angrier at Jiang Fengmian as his wife than some random disciples can be at Nie Mingjue. Insulting Meng Yao, suggesting that he didn't deserve his promotion or that he earned it through less than proper means (you know who is mother is) is also an insult to Nie Mingjue and the way he chooses to run his sect. They can't do that.

Another thing I see brought up in this regard would be the tea scene. There may be no explicit harassment like in the show, but cultivators still don't respect him! The disrespect is just quieter and more subtle.

Tiny detail: these are actually not Nie cultivators

They're cultivators Lan Xichen is escorting with him, making a pitstop in heijan.

The book confirms this by basically outright stating that this is the first time they see his face, and recognize him as Jin Guangshan's bastard son.

Now, just because there is no proof that it happened doesn't mean it definitely never happened. Mdzs is a novel that often leaves stuff out or up to interpretation. Similar stuff to the tea situtation could very well be happening in the background. But I do think it is pretty significant that there is no mention whatsoever of Meng Yao having any negative treatment from Nie cultivators betwen him and Nie Mingjue meeting and him executing them while spying for Wen Ruohan, and the most we get is Wei Wuxian's personal speculation, after which he immediately goes to wax poetic about how surprised he is that Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue are getting along super well.

And, again, novel Meng Yao would have said something. He doesn't say anything about the tea scene. - Or? Does he? Notably 3zun have some very long in depth conversations that Wei Wuxian zones out from because he's busy thinking about Lan Zhan again. But let's not rely on what-ifs. Let's say that neither he nor Lan Xichen find it worth bringing up. Major reasons for that would be that a) these are not nie cultivators, nie mingjue wouldn't really have the authority to scold them. Especially because b) it's such a subtle offense it could easily be handwaved as coincidence. "They just always brush their cups clean like that!! It's wartime you know, and they were traveling! They're used to drinking from vessels that aren't thoroughly washed everytime! It's just a habit!" And would therefore not be worth reporting.

But anything worse than that? A "price tens or hundreds of times greater" like wwx mentions? He'd report it! I do understand that "well if it was happening why didn't he say something?" would, in real life, be victim blaming. This is not real life, and I am not talking about this in a matter of blame. If Meng Yao was being mistreated in the Nie and stayed silent about it, it would still not be his fault. I am talking about this in a manner of character consistency.

His admission of seeking help in the Jin sect shows that at that time and prior to it (a very good argument can be made that he loses faith in this idea) he believes that if he is being mistreated and someone with the authority to say something about it takes his side, things can improve. If Nie Mingjue standing up for him in Qinghe only made things worse, he would not have tried to ask for help in an even more hostile environment. You can call Meng Yao many things, but naïve isn't one of them.

Meng yao's later habit of completely isolating himself and lying to everyone around him comes from the fact that revealing his suffering would mean explaining several horrible things he's become complicit in and he does not feel safe admitting to that. But he's done nothing wrong here!

The reading where he says nothing would imply an either correct or incorrect belief in Meng Yao's eyes that Nie Mingjue did not much care for his wellbeing or safety. Oh sure he defended him once but doing so again multiple times would be such a bother. This also contradicts his later behaviour, where he banks solely on Nie Mingjue's protective instincts to seal his qi and escape during the confrontation in Langya. After having been caught murdering a man, he is still convinced Nie Mingjue will immediately try to help him when he is in serious danger.

And even if you very badly want to characterize Nie Mingjue as a blundering idiot who is apparently less trustworthy in Meng Yao's eyes than the jin cultivators who had already resoundly rejected him by the time he tries to ask for help with the langya captain. He doesn't say anything to Xichen either! Lan Xichen, who has explicitly and exhaustively been portrayed as kind and understanding to Meng Yao's circumstances and very willing to talk to Mingjue if Meng Yao wants something from him he doesn't otherwise think he'd get. The conversation Mingjue overhears where Meng Yao's new position in the Nie is explictly brought up would be kind of the perfect time to go "yeah I've been promoted but I'm not treated well by other soldiers" aaaand. Nothing. So unless you come to the conclusion that Meng Yao trusted the Jin he told about the captain's abuse more than Lan Xichen you kind of have to conclude that Meng Yao's treatment after his promotion improved significantly. And that even if people still disliked him they could not openly do anything about it because he was high enough in status for that to be socially inappropiate. Which is, explicitly, one of his main motivators over the entire course of the story: Avoiding mistreatment by getting high enough on the social ladder it doesn't matter what people think of him, they can't hurt him.

And I'm not sure how to reconcile that character journey with the idea that he would, at any point, have preferred to keep his head down and stay where he was. When he was so desperate to crawl his way out.

[angryborzois]

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING IN VIVANT

[eenochian]

i loved ur post about how cod fans have been treating the characters!! i found it insane how they were having a moral panic over makarov (is the cod fandom like one of the few fandoms that does this? lol) but it needed to be said… people are drawn to cod characters for many reasons and i’m sure it’s not because of “morals”

Thank you!! I was very nervous posting that, since I know parts of this fandom can get pretty aggressive about other opinions. I wasn’t trying to target or insult anyone with my statement, but there’s very clear double standards with characters!

I actually just made another post about this topic (sounds like self-promo I’m so sorry) because, yeah, this fandom can’t seem to understand that art isn’t always about good morals. Being sensitive and mindful about what you produce and engage with is very important, and doing your part to not be influenced by the problematic content that you consume is very important. However, all media is problematic in some way, especially COD (y’know, the military propaganda series). People need to be able to engage with media like this because, if everything is morally “pure,” then we lose out on important discussions about real-world issues, safe spaces for troubled folks, and lessons on media literacy.

I’ve talked about this and thought about this a lot in the past couple days. Like, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in the past 48 hours stepping back and looking at myself and my behavior in this fandom. I always try to be mindful, sensitive, and very careful with what I produce. That being said, I’m far from perfect. I have an ongoing fanfic for Makarov on my writing blog. Valeria is one of my favorite characters. I’m indifferent on Graves, but will gladly admit that he’s a very compelling villain and an interesting character.

Acknowledging that these problematic things are problematic isn’t saying that you can’t engage with them. You absolutely should engage with stuff like this if you so wish. The important thing to remember if you do choose to produce content of these characters, however, is that there’s nothing romantic in what they do, and they are based off very real issues in our world. Explore the different sides of them, enjoy them, but do not romanticize them.

A very good mindset that I’ve taken to heart is this: these people may be horrible, but they are still people. Humans are not one-dimensional beings. Explore the other sides of them. Humanize, but do not romanticize.

Sorry for the rambling, but thank you again for the response! People need to be kinder to each other and more mindful of the content they engage with, but that doesn’t equate to complete media purity.

[vampyriix]

idk if this is a hot take or whatever but ed being upset about haven in s5 felt ooc. like if he was upset about the fact he was being mind controled that would make sense but he was specifically upset about the fact people had died. my guy you are a murderer.

[catgirlkirigiri]

I simply think that Robotnik should get to have a moment where he’s made painfully aware that Sonic is a child. And it doesn’t make him change paths, of course, but he starts to hold back a bit. Sonic may be his biggest enemy, but he’s just a kid. And Robotnik may be evil, he may be cruel, he may be everything that isn’t good, but he isn’t going to kill this child. After all these years? He can’t. That’s his kid now, as much as he hates to even think it.

[valentines-virgil]

If I interpreted the conversations correctly, the numbers given to the hargreeves children can be changed and represent status and how 'useful' their powers are

Then how. How did Reginald assign the numbers to the umbrellas. What was he on.

Personally, I would have ranked Allison and Five higher up, idk what Reginald was on about

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic! Danny AU- Pt.2

[Pt.1] [Pt.3] [Pt.4][Pt.5][Pt.6][Pt.7]

Danny dragged up another plastic wrapped body from the bay.

“It’s you. What are you doing?”

“Oh, holy smokes!” Danny screeched. “What-! Oh, it’s you! The litterer!”

Batman stood in front of Danny, cape draped around his shoulders and a far better sight to see than the last time Danny had seen the guy.

“… I’m Batman.” He introduced himself to Danny awkwardly.

“Uh huh. You missed a couple of things cleaning up the beach last time.” Danny dropped the body on the pebbled shore of the bay and crossed his arms. He sent Batman an unimpressed look. “You’re just like your city. There’s trash all over the water!”

Batman glanced down.

“That is a body.”

Danny scowled.

“No, that’s plastic. Plastic does not belong in the ocean.”

Batman sighed. For some reason, Danny thought he seemed less… antagonistic. Wait, did he think Danny killed the guy?!

“That is a body wrapped in plastic.”

Fuck it.

“If it was a body, then bury it. Or decompose it before you people decide to dump it into the water. Even the sharks have the decency to decompose when they’re dead. Do you know how long plastic takes to deteriorate??”

Batman glanced to the side, where the line of plastic wrapped masses had caught his eye to begin with.

“I do. Did all of these come from the bay?”

“Quite obviously, yes. I don’t have enough time to clean the waters! Ancients, it’s like they’re multiplying!” Danny knew why they were multiplying. It’s because Gothamites were getting murdered and dumped weekly. The problem is that Danny has classes and assignments to complete and he couldn’t be out here every week.

“I’ll handle it.”

“Oh, will you? And how do you plan on doing that when you couldn’t even properly clean the beach of your plane? I even stacked it up nicely for you to pick up!”

Alright, so maybe Danny had a couple of grudges. Like… a solid one that’s based on the hours of sleep he missed cleaning up after Batman and the wreck.

“We didn’t get everything?”

“No.” Danny huffed. “Whatever. Just figure out what to do with these bodies. I was not looking forward to digging graves for all of them.”

“You were going to dig graves for them?” Batman sounded off.

Danny scowled again. “I’m dead, genius.” And now Batman looked like someone ran over his dog. “Respecting the dead is important and graves are important for the dead. How else would we know we’re remembered?”

Danny threw up his hands. “Humans,” he muttered, like he wasn’t half human himself.

“Anyways, I’m leaving. Handle this properly or else I’m haunting you.”

“Wait-!” Batman said, but Danny had already disappeared.

So, while Batman had an angst crises at two thirty in the morning and thirty new unidentified corpses to contend with, Danny Fenton flew back to his apartment and passed out on his shitty couch.

——

“You need to stop.”

“Pay me to stop, then. What are your villains going to do? Kill me? I’d like to see them try.”

Danny looked Batman right in his lenses and plopped another body down at the man’s feet.

“I can tell you who they are for a fee.” Danny offered the vigilante. “Some of these still have shades of their souls attached still.”

“What.”

Danny tilted his head, moon once more lighting a halo of flickering white flames around his head. “$100 per identity.”

Batman stared.

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

[fairuzfan]

This post is for the anon who sent me that video asking me to debunk it's claims so they can be better equipped against accusations of antisemitism.

Sorry, I won't post the video since I refuse to have that man on my blog but I can give you common Zionist talking points and the illogicality behind it.

To preface: most of the questions Zionists will ask you are a trap, and will make you fall into a "rabbit hole" (as I was once told when I was younger), as we try to apply their reasoning. My advice is to ALWAYS center the humanity of Palestinians. For example, when a Zionist says:

"Don't Jews deserve a homeland to be safe?"

It fundamentally ignores the core issue: Palestinians are being raped, murdered, and expelled from their homes so that the establishment of this so called "homeland" may exist. When people ask this to you, I personally advise saying something like:

Why must Palestinians suffer for the establishment of this homeland?

Always recenter to the issue at hand—the inhumane removal and treatment of Palestinians.

"Palestine belongs to the Jews and Not Muslims"

The whole premise of this claim is flawed—there is a weird tendency to equate Arab/Palestinian=Muslim when it just is like. Completely untrue. There are Palestinian Christians, Bethlehem is famously a Christian city, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Jews, who have been there for centuries. There are Palestinian Muslims, who have been there for centuries. My grandpa told me stories of how he would turn on lamps for his Jewish neighbors in Al-Khalil (or Hebron) during Shabbat.

To claim that Palestine is EITHER Islamic or Jewish doesn't make any sense and completely neglects the fact that dissemination of culture has occurred for centuries, as well as the intermingling of people throughout generations. To somehow assert that for some reason, Jews and Muslims did not have ANYTHING to do with each other—did not create together, did not build families together, did not build culture together, all while being PALESTINIAN—is incredibly racist and nonsensical. "Palestinian" is not a religious identity—it's a cultural and ethnic one.

Also, it does not negate the core issue—Palestinians are being killed, removed, and tortured so that others can live on that land.

"Well what about [something about partitioning land]?"

Honestly like, who cares about the partitioning throughout the 1900 and early 2000s. Sorry, I'm not going to list the whole "partitioning" history nonsense. The whole reason "Israel" exists is because of a Mass Exodus, murder, and rape of Palestinians. Everything after that is rendered obsolete.

"Well, I heard Palestinians allied with Hitler"

I don't know how to tell you this but Palestine was under British Control. No they didn't.

"Israel withdrew from the Gaza and left them to themselves and they put Hammas in charge"

Oh yeah, Israel totally left Gaza, that's why Gazans' water, electricity, internet, and food is completely controlled by Israel (this is sarcasm, Israel still controls basic life in Gaza).

Go back to centering the idea that no human deserves to be shoved into an open-air prison, starved, and controlled. Did you know that the Zionist Entity controls the amount of water Gazans receive, as well as counting their calories to ensure they don't have enough energy on a day to day basis?

"I heard Israel asked Arabs to stay"

Show them these papers and videos when they say this:

If you can't show them these videos, check in the next point what to say.

"Well the Palestinians left of their own will in 1948"

Palestinians in 1948 didn't "leave." They had heard of how the Zionist Entity was slaughtering Palestinians en masse. Women especially heard stories of rape and sexual violence. They fled from *violence*. Again, from an earlier post, that this was a calculated effort on the Zionist Entity's part to try and get them to "leave" on their own and "abandon" their houses so that they can come in and say "hey, they left on their own so, we can come in and take their houses now."

Anyways, the idea that once you leave your house you can't ever come back to it is incredibly odd to me as an argument on Zionists' part. Like if you leave your house right now to go to the grocery store and you come back and see someone in your house and they're like "sorry dude, this is my house now, you left so that means you can't come back," you'd be like, "what the hell!" It would be even weirder if everyone agreed with the guy who took your house, which is what happened to Palestinians.

In Al-Khalil, or Hebron, Palestinians always have to have someone stay in their house or else a Settler will come in and take it from them. So it still goes on today as well.

This is not a point, but when that one person in the video said "Arabs lived under Israeli rule" and showed a clip of a bustling city with mountains, I'm pretty sure that was Amman, Jordan, not Palestine lol. Those buildings in the mountains look like how downtown Amman builds the residential areas. Could be wrong tho.

"There are no Jews living under Palestinian rule in Palestine"

What is this, some sort of gotcha argument? What are they trying to prove, the racist (obviously false) notion that Palestinians hate Jews as a whole? How do they know no Palestinian Jew lives in Gaza? Also, Settlers in Palestinian Territory exist??? I had never heard this claim before, its incredibly stupid lol. You're automatically a citizen of "Israel" if you're Jewish, whether or not you live in or outside of Palestinian Territories. So of course technically they don't live under Palestinian rule, they're granted full rights as an "Israeli" citizen automatically!

Go back to talking about the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, I wouldn't bring up the above counterpoint unless they really won't let it go since the main point is mistreatment.

"Why are Christians supporting Israel then, if it's a secular issue rather than a religious one?"

Well actually for a couple reasons:

Oil interests and regional control of goods (White People Supporting White People).

Weird fundamentalist ideology where they want to enact the second coming of Christ.

And finally because they are racist and don't think Arab Christians deserve to live. They literally bombed a 1500+ year church the other day. Why would (White) Christians cosign that.

Anyways, its a stupid argument again, because it forgets the core issue of Palestinians dying and being displaced.

In summary, always go back to the point of centering the Palestinians being displaced, tortured, and murdered, no matter the argument a Zionist gives you.

[sexlapis]

[◉°] … TOJI FUSHIGURO TAKES A LIE DETECTOR TEST… 9.6M VIEWS

꩜ actor!toji (& implied actor toji x actress/actor reader)

��� synopsis: toji thought this lie detector test was going to be a breeze. he was a little mistaken.

sfw, fluff, crack, ooc toji, toji & reader are secretly together, toji lying!

masterlists

actor!toji masterlist

⪩　 　  ₊　    🍪 　 　✧ 　 　⁺

“i ain’t nervous,” toji claims, cracking his neck and smirking as the crew members attach the needed equipment to his body, “i ain’t no liar either. so i got nothing to worry about here.”

“i sure hope that’s true, mr.fushiguro.” the polygraph examiner replies slyly.

“are you ready, toji fushiguro?” the interviewer asks.

“yeah, i am,” toji claps, “hurry up and get started.”

“is your name toji fushiguro?”

“yes my name is toji fushiguro.” he looks to the polygraph examiner. “it is, right?”

the woman simply stares at him.

“..alright then…”

the interviews asks another question. “are you about to take a polygraph exam?”

“yes, yes and yes, now give me the real questions!”

TOJI FUSHIGURO TELLS THE TRUTH

YOUR CAREER

“we’re going to start with the category of your career.”

toji nods and looks to the examiner. “how ‘m i doing?”

“you’re very calm, nothing unusual yet.”

“hm.”

the interview begins to speak. “one of your most popular roles as an actor was when you played Frank Castle in the Netflix series, “The Punisher”. some would say this is when you became a heartthrob. do you think is this true?”

toji sighs and shakes his head. “nah-”

“LIE.” the polygraph examiner calls out.

toji raises his hand. “…because, i was already a heartthrob before alla that.” he smiles, looking proud of himself. his answer is met with silence.

“ok.” says the interviewer and goes onto the next question. “do you face a lot of pressure being a heartthrob?”

“nope.” toji answers easily. “i’m just that kinda guy. i ain’t gotta try too hard for much, especially not ‘being hot’.”

he looks at the examiner.

“he’s telling the truth.” she states. she almost seems disappointed by the fact.

“see?” toji says, folding his arms, “as i said, ‘got nothin’ to lie about.”

“in the punisher,” the interviewer starts, ignoring toji’s cocky replies, “do you wear a muscle suit to look bigger than you actually are?”

toji throws his back, cackles echoing around the small room. “fuck no!” he gestures to…his whole body, “‘it look like i need a muscle suit? ‘didn’t even know that shit was a thing… i’m big enough without any of that stuff.” he shrugs, looking into the camera. “i think we can all see that.”

the examiner nods curtly. “..he is telling the truth.”

“do you workout often?” asks the interviewer.

toji scoffs. “i thought i’d get good questions..but yeah, yeah i do workout.”

“would you consider yourself fit?”

“yep. ‘hundred percent.”

“would you consider yourself fitter than,” the interviewer slides a photo of the actor gojo satoru towards toji, “this man?”

“pfft-” toji chortles. “oh, ohh yeah. easily. he’s like..” he looks for the correct words, “a little boy. are we kidding?”

he looks to the examiner and then to the interviewer.

“he is being truthful..again.”

toji smirks at the camera, tapping the side of his nose with his finger. “toji never lies.”

POP CULTURE

“this year, you were named “The Most Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine. do you believe you’re sexier than this man, 2022’s sexiest man, nanami kento?” the interviewer slides another photo, this time of the actor nanami kento.

toji looks at the photo for a second, before scoffing a little. “oh yeah. definitely. ‘guy just has a permanent frown on his face. he ain’t ugly but he could smile a little, y’know?”

“what about this ‘guy’, 2021’s most sexiest man alive, ryomen sukuna?” the interviewer also slides a picture of him to toji.

toji strokes his chin. “heh..yeah..yeah i would say so..this guy..he ain’t ugly either but..theres this energy about him..”

“what energy would that be, toji fushiguro?”

“the energy of a fuckin’ mass murderer that’s what!” he laughs at his own joke, looking at the picture of this ‘ryomen sukuna’, who is glaring into his soul through the image. “yeahh, i’d say i’m more attractive than him. just.. just a little.” he holds two fingers close together emphasis. “jesus christ, that’s one scary looking fuck.”

the examiner inspects the polygraph and looks towards toji and the interviewer. “he has been telling the truth.”

“yeah.” toji nods, exhaling through his mouth and sliding the pictures away from himself. “‘course i am.”

LOVE LIFE

toji had been doing well so far, but the category of ‘love life’ would be his downfall.

“do you want to get married in the future?”

“yeah, yeah i do.”

the examiner nods.

“have you ever been in love?”

“..yes.” toji responds, thinking about his past for a second.

the examiner nods again.

“are you in love right now?”

toji pauses for the first time in the whole test. he takes a deep breath. “no. yeah, no. ‘m not.”

the examiner raises an eyebrow at the results. “questionable.”

“oh, c’mon.” toji groans, rolling his eyes.

“is there someone you’re in love with?”

“nope. nobody at all.” he interlinks his fingers, tapping them against each other. “..nobody at all..”

“questionable. again.” the examiner states, pointedly looking at toji.

toji sighs. “oh, brother…”

“did you happen to meet this person..on set?”

“no, ‘cause there is no person?” toji says firmly.

“again.” the examiner says. “questionable.”

“christ…”

the interviewer asks another question. “do you believe in love at first sight?”

toji huffs. “no, that’s just two people who wanna fuck.”

“i see. then,” the interviewer takes out three pictures, all of them being people who he has worked with on set, including you.

“are you in love with any of these people?”

toji gulps, hesitating for a split second, his eyes focused on your picture. “nope. not oneeee bit.”

“LIE.” the examiner shouts excitedly, happy to have finally caught toji out on lying. she rings the negative buzzer repeatedly. “lie!”

“‘you serious?” he asks incredulously, looking between the interviewer and the examiner. “listen, maybe it was just my heart murmur or somethin’ like that,” he looks to side, cheeks rosy and shifts in his seat a little, “i-i don’t-”

“those are the last of our questions.” the interviewer says to toji, smiling knowingly. “thank you for taking part in our lie detector test.”

toji grumbles.

౨ৎ

tag list: @tiredslepz | @hayatslife | @shxyxyxxxx | @snowprincesa1 | @laylasbunbunny | @mimiemie | @ncentic | @rosesored | @imover-18 | @gintokhi | @suzuperstarr | @lostgxrlblog | @jallie10 | @nnsav | @bunnyx-sakura | @bubbabobabubbles | @ladytamayolover | @keiva1000

a/n: this was longer than i planned 🤥

[saetoru]

✩ ‧₊˚ ✩ STRAWBERRY FLAVORED — GETO SUGURU.

contents. here is a lil prequel to this btw, basically this is suguru’s shower scene but if he actually had someone to take care of him, reverse comfort, aka my extremely self indulgent drabble of fixing suguru before he turns into a mass murderer <3

it’s been a while—suguru has been in that shower for long enough that you’re starting to grow concerned. you contemplate for a bit, whether it’s a good idea or not to enter the boys shower, weighing the possibilities of being caught.

satoru’s not here, you reason, nanami and haibara are gone too, and yaga shouldn’t notice either—so, with a heavy sigh, you walk up to the door, opening it slowly. you can see him, standing as the water pours over his body, not even moving a little when you enter.

suguru is not the same—not after everything that’s happened. you can tell, you can see it under his eyes from the lack of sleep, you can see it in his cheekbones as they show a bit more from the lost weight, you can see it in the stiffness of his body when you’re around him. he’s not the same, and no one’s seem to have noticed, but you have. you always have.

you slowly strip from your clothing, walking up to him quietly until your arms circle his waist and your cheek rests against his bare back.

“baby,” you hum, “you’re turning into a prune. look at your skin,” you grab his hand, running a thumb over the tips of his fingers, wrinkly from the water.

he gives you an empty chuckle—you don’t think you’ve heard a real laugh from suguru since that day. “but aren’t i a handsome prune?” he mumbles.

“of course,” you kiss his shoulder, “the handsomest.”

“that’s a relief,” he says playfully—there’s nothing playful about his tone, though. it’s numb, automatic, like he’s trained himself to respond to you the way he always does. but you can feel it. he’s not the same.

“you’ve been in here a while. i got tired of waiting.”

“sorry,” he drops his hand from yours, falling limply to his side, “lost track of time, i guess.”

“suguru,” you say softly, “what’s wrong?”

he’s quiet, probably contemplating his answer. no one else might’ve noticed, but you have. you always do—he knows you always will. finally, he decides to answer, “are you really asking me that?”

“yes,” you say firmly, “i want to hear it. i want you to hear it. stop pushing it down.”

“i’m fine,” he mutters, “just tired.”

“i know,” you say softly, “i know you’re tired. what’s got you so tired?”

gently, your arms twist his body—he doesn’t put up a fight, just spins to face you until his face is digging into your neck on instinct. he can smell your body wash, can inhale the familiar scent of you from here. there are no curses to consume and no people to save at the risk of himself here, just the soft feeling of your skin and the warm press of your lips on his head.

riko would’ve liked you, he thinks. he can’t help it.

for a fleeting moment, when his hand was outstretched to her, he’d wondered if you’d like her too. he’d decided you would—you’re kind, you always have enough love for one more person. you’ll like riko, he’d thought. and then just like that, she’d been on the floor, dark pool of blood under her head.

you never got to meet her, and he never got to introduce you.

“what’s wrong, sugu?” you ask again, voice more delicate this time.

“everything,” he whispers.

he’s tired, so incredibly tired. suguru is exhausted. so for today, he’ll let you pick up the pieces. he doesn’t want to worry about you right now, doesn’t want to think about whether or not the edges will be sharp enough to slice your fingertips. suguru is exhausted—so for once, he lets you worry about him instead.

“i see,” you nod, letting your fingers trail to his head, stroking the wet strands gently as he trembles against your body, “everything is a lot. let’s start with just one, yeah?”

“i hate the taste of curses,” he spits, “it tastes like vomit.”

“that’s no good,” you agree, and then you’re pulling his head out of your neck—he wants to protest, wants to stay right where he is so he doesn’t have to face you, or anything. but you’re insistent, gentle as you are firm, cupping his cheeks as you force him to look at you. “can you still taste it?”

“yeah,” he nods. it’s true, he can’t forget the taste even if he tries. it’s like a phantom pain—but it resides on his tongue, haunting him long after it’s gone, even as he breathes and swallows and talks. “i hate it.”

your lips are on his after that, soft and sweet against his mouth. he can taste the strawberry of your chapstick, the familiar taste of you that he also could never forget. it washes down the vile taste of curses easily, so he leans in for more. and more. and more. he needs more.

“what about that?” you ask, stroking his cheek when you pull away, “how does that taste?”

“good,” he says shakily, “i…i like that.”

“i know you do,” you smile, pecking the corner of his mouth, “i can’t change how curses taste. but if i could, i’d make them strawberry flavored for you.”

he chuckles at that—it’s small, but it’s real. for the first time in a long time. it’s real.

suguru hates how curses taste, and you can’t change that, but you can help make swallowing become easier. he’ll take it—he’ll take anything you give.

“that might make the job easier,” he says, burying his face back into your neck, “they’d taste like you.”

“i’ll kiss you then,” you stroke his hair, pressing a soft kiss to the side of his head. his lips wobble, vision turning blurry. suguru is tired—he doesn’t want to hold it in anymore. “after every curse you swallow, i’ll kiss you. it’ll make it easier.”

“i don’t know if it will,” he admits, “this….what do we do it for? none of it is easy.”

he used to think it was. fighting curses was easy—satoru and him were the strongest. fighting curses was like stepping on ants as they walk on the concrete, crushing them before they can bite anyone. but he starts to wonder if people deserve to be bitten, if the people who kick at ant piles mindlessly for fun deserve to be saved from themselves.

you think for a bit, contemplating his question as the water runs over both of your bodies, slipping into the thin crevices between your skin and his.

“it’s not,” you agree, “it’s not easy. i would’ve loved to meet riko. i know you wanted me to. i’m sorry, suguru.”

somewhere along with the water on your shoulder mixes his tears, and his body shakes against yours. suguru is tired. he’s tired of swallowing curses and tasting bile. he’s tired of pretending the weak are innocent. he’s tired of carrying so much weight on his young, innocent shoulders. they deserve to be free.

“is it worth saving them?” he asks as he sniffles, “if they clap over people like us dying?”

“people like us aren’t always so different,” you point out.

people like us don’t need saving, he wants to argue—but you don’t give him a chance to, turning the water off behind him as you stand there holding him as he leans into you.

“there will always be someone who needs to be saved,” you murmur, “and there will always be something they need to be saved from. it’s not always as simple as curses and exorcisms, though.”

“that doesn’t make any sense,” he frowns, “that’s the whole point of jujutsu. to exorcise curses.”

“and if we exorcised them all? would that make everyone safe?”

“maybe not,” he furrows his eyebrows, “but at least we wouldn’t be dying for them.”

“you never know,” you reach for the towel, slowly pulling away and patting his skin gently as you dry his dripping skin, “maybe you’d die from something worse.”

“what could be worse?” he asks bitterly. he doesn’t understand. but you smile, pressing a kiss to his jaw as you brush his bangs from his face.

“i don’t know,” you shrug, “but i’m sure there’s something. there’s always something worse. but there’s always something better too.”

he still doesn’t completely understand. but the weight on his shoulder doesn’t feel as heavy when you lean and kiss it again—he feels like at least some of his youth is still his, still yours.

“you make no sense,” he grunts, scowling when you ruffle his hair obnoxiously with a giggle.

“well, maybe you’ll make sense of things after a nap,” you poke his chest accusingly, “you really need one. and then you’ll eat something. c’mon.”

“i don’t sleep with wet hair,” he reminds you as you tug him along, stopping where his clothes hang. you gesture at him to hold his arms up, grabbing his shirt. he rolls his eyes and indulges you, letting you dress him.

“i’ll dry it for you,” you chuckle, “my sugu is so high maintenance.”

and then, before you can turn to grab your own clothes, he tugs your wrist and pulls you in, kissing you hard, kissing you hungrily, kissing you like you’re all he has. just because he can. he can taste the last bits of your chapstick—he wants to keep tasting it forever. it’s strawberry, his favorite.

“i like strawberries,” he presses his forehead to yours, closing his eyes, “so don’t change the flavor.”

“okay,” you grin, cupping his cheeks, “i’ll always get strawberry for my sugu.”

he just needed a few kissies and he would’ve been fine. i guess i’ll take one for the team and kiss him a few times 😔 i guess i can take the responsibility of loving him 😔 i’ll be fine guys no need to worry about me 😔

[mikareo]

“ ࣭⸰ ★ THE MOON SAYS HELLO. . . ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀呪術廻船; geto suguru x fem reader ⠀ ꒰ . . part one of three ꒱ . . . word count; 3.6k

⊹ ⠀⠀despite his insistence on never falling in love, suguru fails to stop himself from becoming smitten with his best friend’s beloved. you’ve become a flicker of hope in his darkness— though you’re someone who can never and will never be his to have and to hold.

series contains; if gojo didn’t kill geto n geto was given a chance to redeem himself, redemption arc!geto, human caretaker!reader, kind of e2l but also not really, love triangle, gojo x reader, fluff, major angst, heartbreak, wedding at the end, swearing probably, geto refers to humans as monkeys per usual author's note; rewritten fic, will be 3 parts in total (i'm half done pls be patient w me im a slow writer...)

YEAR ONE, DAY ONE

His face is sore. So sore. It’s red, swollen, and sore after he’s spent the last three hours screaming in frustration with his current predicament. This is absurd, Satoru should’ve just killed him when he had the chance. Geto’s lost count of how many times his palms have slapped his own face; over and over again with wishes that he can wake up from this hellish nightmare the higher ups call ‘rehabilitation’— though he can somewhat still recall the first slap that he’d given himself around the half-hour mark. He’s got a pretty good memory…that doesn’t stop him from hoping his veins aren’t too noticeable as they angrily protrude from his forehead in crimson currents.

He’d rather be dead than imprisoned like this…like an animal…like one of those damn useless monkeys.

The intensity of his wails continue to bounce off of the barren walls— barren aside from the dark mark he’d punched in earlier— and echo like a party of lost ghouls in the bottom of an empty well. Geto feels like a mad man.

He’s only just begun his isolation and he’s already growing mad with boredom. 

A huff escapes his lips as he plops himself down onto the twin-sized bed that’s nestled in the corner of his so-called ‘suite’. With linen sheets and a dark maroon comforter, it’s almost a cozy living situation; in another life, Geto could imagine himself cuddling beneath the covers with his favorite book and a soft record playing in the background for some ambience. That world is far far away now. Even if he asked for a record player, he doubts the higher ups would grant him one. He’s their most valuable prisoner, and they’re sure to keep him as miserable as possible until he’s one-hundred-percent pure hearted once more. However, despite their reluctance to grant him the things he wants, these aren’t the worst living arrangements he’s ever encountered and he knows that Gojo did his best to give him the best commodities he could to…well…a highly dangerous criminal. 

This is the only path to forgiveness, he reminds himself, constantly trying to be optimistic about the utter absurdity of it all. 

Optimism hasn’t been his specialty in a long time; anyone with a working pair of eyes would be able to deduce that, and he despises it. He’s quite rusty with the characteristic and has looked on the darker side for a while now— but wishes that he could be as reckless as he once was as a teenager. He can vividly remember how loud his laughter was with Gojo and Shoko, laughing as they chased each other throughout the school yard and using each other's cursed energy to their advantage in games of tag— but that would be near impossible now. His two best friends can barely look him in the eyes after the treason he’s committed. Gojo views him as a ticking time bomb and Shoko’s healed too many people to count that he’s harmed.

If he stepped one foot out of this room, he believes he’d be smothered on sight.

The Jujutsu Society fears Geto Suguru..

…and Geto Suguru fears himself. 

In all fairness, he deserves everything that’s come to him. What he did was awful; mass murdering humans…trying to murder even more humans…harming innocent students…starting a war during the holiday season…the whole gist. There are obviously bad actions from the past that continue to haunt Geto to this day and will continue haunting him so long as he breathes— but that’s all it is now…the past. He wants redemption. He needs redemption. If Gojo managed to reach clarity within Geto’s awful decisions, then maybe he can too. 

Geto wants to get better, to be better…not only for Gojo…but for himself. 

This is exactly why he and his best friend has devised a plan, one that will hopefully help lead Geto on a better path— a five-year path that will only be completed if he truly wants it to, and a half a decade seems like quite a bit of time to most; but for Geto, he doesn’t know if it will be enough. 

For Satoru…do it for Satoru…

He wraps his arms around himself in an attempt to comfort his heart that beats with fear every second of every day. It’s been so long since he’s been hugged by another, and he doubts he’ll ever feel that love and comfort from someone in his life. It’s the first time in a long time that he’s been alone with his thoughts with no one else to turn to; and if he’s being honest, there’s nothing in the entire world that scares him more than his own mind. 

“Geto Suguru?”

He doesn’t recognize that voice.

The soft sound comes from seemingly nowhere, startling Geto with a slight jump. Whomever it is sounds frail and weak, obviously intimidated by whom they’re going to be in the presence of in mere minutes; and Geto already finds nothing but annoyance at his new companion. Of course they’re going to have prior judgment. He bets you already hate him for the rumors and stories. He doesn’t really have a choice whether or not you come in, though. Gojo insisted on a caretaker— someone to talk to so he doesn’t go insane by himself— and Geto will do anything to make his best friend happy. So, he stands up and dusts his pants off, making sure to look more presentable, and stalks towards the entryway. His hand meets the knob, yanking it open, and ready to meet the stranger on the other side. 

Standing before him is you, a woman around his age. You can’t possibly be older than twenty-six, but perhaps you’re a few years younger. In your hands are various sweets and snacks that Gojo knows Geto loves, balancing on a silver tray that shines more light in the room than he’d care for. The reflections dazzle straight into his eyes, blinding him briefly with a scowl on his face. Of course Gojo would know to send you in with his favorites. He’s so predictable. His best friend is less surprising than he thinks, causing Geto to roll his eyes to the top of his head; though he appreciates the kind gesture. It’s far past dinner, though. Gojo must’ve struggled to convince the others to allow him a proper meal. 

“Don’t just stand there, monkey.” Geto commands whilst gesturing to the small dining table in the center of his confined space. “Come inside.”

The instant you stepped into his presence, it was horribly noticeable that you have no cursed energy. Zero. Not a lick of it…and he struggles to hide the disgust with his body language. He can’t help but be annoyed that a monkey such as yourself is going to be in his company for the next five years. 

With his distaste for you clear as day, he pulls out a chair for himself and disregards the kind option of pulling out yours prior; expectantly looking towards you with the expectation that you’re going to serve him his meal like a servant. 

“Well, monkey…” he trails off disinterested, “I’m waiting.”

You hustle towards him, quickly and efficiently placing the special grade sorcerer’s meal on the placemat before him and taking the empty seat opposite. There’s a small breath you’re holding in, Geto can see it in your throat— it’s suffocating you with fear for your life as your fingers lightly tap the dark wood in a nervous fit. 

You’re completely pathetic. As if a monkey would ever have the courage to speak to him. This is ridiculous.

His hands slam against the table with a loud bang. “What are you doing?” he questions, heavily interrogating you as you cower in your seat like a meak mouse. “Does Satoru expect you to monitor my meals?”

He really is nothing but a prisoner, isn’t he?

“What damage could I possibly do with this slob that’s been served to me by the scum of the earth? Start a food fight in the halls? Overthrow the Jujutsu world with a biscuit?” (If that is the case, in your defense, the biscuits are quite hard. There must be a new kitchen hand in training who based them.) This is a horrible day.

As Geto impatiently awaits your answer, a deep breath escapes your lips— perhaps a way to soothe your heartbeat into something less than a record-breaking speed— and you attempt to focus your stress and fear into a fleeting moment of zen. Your large eyes shut for a total of three seconds; one, two, three…before opening again. This time, as his own eyes make contact with yours, they’re shining with slightly more confidence than before as you swallow hard and settle your gaze on Geto— the look in your eyes evolving from that of anxiety to empathy. 

“Actually,” your lips rise into a thin smile, “Gojo Satoru didn’t send me here, the higher ups did.”

Your eyes search Geto’s for any signs of discomfort or inner rage that could be boiling beneath the surface of his poker face. It appears that he’s grown even stronger at hiding his true emotions towards humans; however, you can see through the veil. Yes, it’s thick and difficult to brush past, but there’s a slight opening in the center that you peek inside— and what you can see in his heart is a man who simply wants to finally do what’s right. 

“The higher ups are aware that Gojo Satoru has a soft spot for you— hell, everyone who knows your name is aware that when it comes to you, he has no reason. He has no right of mind. I’m only here to monitor and report your progress in an honest manner. That’s it. That’s all. I promise I won’t intrude on your life more than necessary.” 

Shit.

“I’m sorry, Geto Suguru…but you’re stuck with me.”

It’s as if his left and right sides are arguing between themselves. His good conscience says that he should give you a chance, perhaps you could be different than the monstrous humans that attempted to kill his beloved Mimiko and Nanako; while his bad conscience tells him to let out one of his cursed spirits to devour you where you stand. Listening to his right side would definitely get him his best case scenario…a chance to see his girls again…but the left side would be so much more enjoyable. Oh well. At least the higher ups sent someone somewhat his age and not an ancient and decaying corpse like themselves. That’s a disgusting thought. He’d rather be hugged by a hundred humans than be forced to befriend a higher up. A shiver runs through Geto’s spine as a newfound appreciation for you is birthed within him.

“Do you have a name?” Geto taunts as he begins to pick at his meal, slightly disgusted with the stale quality of some of the snacks but nevertheless thankful that he at least has something to subside his aching hunger. “Or should I just call you ‘monkey’ as I do with the rest of your kind?”

That sound?

You’re laughing?

Your giggles are surprisingly pleasant to Geto’s ears as they harmonize into a song that he can imagine himself listening to each morning. Why did you find that funny? He was quite literally insulting your entire existence. Geto is dumbfounded by the strange humor you seem to have, considering that he was being entirely serious with his question. Humans are so strange. He’s never really been able to understand how your peoples’ minds work, but perhaps he could begin to learn the basics. It’s not like he has anything better to do, and some entertainment would be nice. 

He’ll keep you around…it wouldn’t hurt and you can be his companion kind of like a pet.

Pets are cute…

…your smile is cute too.

You smile once more, answering his question with a blush on your face. “Please,” your cheeks redden, “Call me by my name, Suguru.”

YEAR ONE, DAY NINETY-FOUR

“You’re late.” Geto crosses his arms over his chest, exhaling a large breath of air in a loud and annoyed huff as he attempts to seem seriously angered by his new friend’s awful timing. 

It’s nearly twenty minutes past the time that you were supposed to be here; emphasis on supposed. He’s been waiting with his eyes staring at the clock, watching it tick and tick as the time passed by with no you knocking on his door. That’s twenty whole minutes of time in which he was forced to entertain himself rather than listen to your rambles and rants about whatever the latest scandal is in the outside world. You love that pop culture gossip stuff that social media and magazines rave about, and in a weird way, you somewhat remind him of his daughters— personality-wise…not attraction wise…that would be weird. 

Over the past few months, Geto’s grown severely accustomed to the daily routine that you’ve developed, becoming so fond of you that he strangely pictures your smile and recalls your laughter when you aren’t even here. Friendship is a funny thing. He doesn’t think he’s ever had a friend like yourself; yes, Satoru will always be his closest confidant…but his relationship with you is different in a way that he can’t quite put his finger on. He’s never considered anyone else the highlight of his every day like he does you. Your company is the kind of presence that he overwhelmingly enjoys; with such a positive and warm nature exuding comfort to Geto’s loneliness, and your judgment-free outlook on life rivaling his pessimism in a perfect mixture of negativity and optimism. He wishes he’d met you sooner, perhaps when he was a child— and if he had, maybe he wouldn’t have turned out the way he did. 

It’s too bad you would’ve only been an awful human to him back then…he would’ve called you his infamous nickname without batting an eye…a monkey…

…a mere monkey whom he never ever thought he’d develop unwanted feelings for.

For his entire life, Geto always told himself not to fall in love. That love isn’t real. It isn’t obtainable, not when there are people like Satoru in the world— people that you can’t help but love— and then people like him; people who you can’t help but hate. With that being said, he’s never necessarily been looking forward to any potential love matches in his future.

…no matter who he was involved with…

…until he met you.

“Sorry about that, Suguru!” you hustle through the doorway, your appearance a tangled mess with dusty dirt particles littered with gravel. 

There’s a large scratch on your right cheek, not deep or in danger of infection in any way, but noticeable enough that he’s able to see it from a distance. Knowing you, it’s most likely accidentally self-inflicted in some sort of way; you being notorious for tripping or snagging your skin on the sharp end of a table. How do you always manage to be so uncoordinated? Geto can’t help but let out a short laugh, his eyes scrolling up and down your body and taking in your entire appearance, dirt and all. You even manage to make dirt look good. What the fuck? He hates this.

Your voice carries on as you approach him. “I was running on time, but then I saw this adorable shop downtown and I just had to make a stop.” The overexaggerated tone you hold is amusing as your hands wave through the air in a physical storytelling of your experience. The skin of your cheeks is flushed red from your sprint through the city, looking beautiful in resemblance to that of a blooming rose. 

Geto can feel his own face heating up at the sight of you, choosing to shrug nonchalantly in an attempt to seem as if he doesn’t care at all about your dilemma…

…as if he doesn’t care about every second of your everyday…

…as if your overall excitement isn’t the only thing that truly keeps him going nowadays. 

“You tell me these things as if what you do outside of this room matters to me.” He hopes his words mask his rising blush. (Spoiler alert: They don’t.)

Flawlessly, you brush off Geto’s phony disinterest without the slightest acknowledgement. It’s as if the phrase had never even left his lips, with no evidence and proof of insult. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence when the topic of what you do when you’re not with him comes up in conversation, as the prisoner typically tries to ignore his interest in your daily shenanigans— and you can’t deny that it hurts. Most of the time, it feels as if Geto never actually listens to anything you say, and you were able to quickly realize that in the early weeks of your arrangement when the pain began to torment your heart; ripping and shredding it to bits with every eye roll and mocking scoff. You don’t seem to matter in Geto’s point of view. He doesn’t care…at least that’s what you believe. 

In contrast to Geto, you’re an emotional spirit— you crave love.Love is all you’ve ever wanted, needed, and desired. In your time with him, you’ve developed inklings of feelings as well. However, you’ve chosen to let your feelings grow and blossom out of the dirtied patch of grass they were planted in— ignoring the warnings every single person in your life has given you in advance. Despite that, Geto continues to stomp on your budding flowers. He takes a heavy watering can, filled to the brim with hose water, and drowns your garden in the tears that you shed in the privacy of your bedroom. Those tears that are a never ending waterfall due to the fact that you know it isn’t your job to fall in love with your client. Your duty to Jujutsu Society is to help Geto learn to love humans and sorcerers as one in the same and to gain the trust of his community once more— not to love you.

“Okay, before you judge me, at least give me a chance to explain myself.” Stumbling towards Geto, you accidentally trip over your own feet in embarrassment, and proceed to hold out a single flower not yet in bloom. “It’s freshly cut. I saw a bouquet in the window and it caught my eye, because it reminded me of you; but I knew you’d hate a flashy bunch of them so I just bought the one.”

It reminded you of him?

Taking the gift into his own hands, Geto studies it intensely. The rose is a dark shade of red, crimson, or scarlet depending on your vocabulary. The petals are a brighter color while the plushness near the stem turns dark, more sinister as it approaches the thorns lining the sides. Just by looking at the rose, he can understand why it made you think of him. It’s gorgeous, but practically untouchable figuratively and literally. There’s only one angle that he can hold the stem at that doesn’t prick his fingers. Ouch. And he just did the very thing he was being so careful of avoiding.

All his life, he’s never been the kind of person who longed for gifts or compliments, but when coming from the right person…perhaps he is. 

Whilst he struggles to come up with a reply— a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘i appreciate this’— you mentally applaud yourself as you’ve finally found a way to make him speechless…

…but your praise for yourself is short-lived.

He can’t be weak. Not even for you.“I guess it’s not terrible.” Geto throws the flower to the ground and lightly kicks it away with his right foot. As one of the beautiful petals drifts away from the lonely flower, he turns away, not being able to endure the heartbroken look on your face and the offended rose on the floor. Why does he have to be like this? “I’m sure that garbage is all a monkey like you can afford anyways.” Why is he so cruel?

His eyes clench shut as he hears the door begin to close. You’re so gentle even when upset. He admires that about you— you’re the calm to his ever-raging storm, the sailor to his tsunami, and the lifeboat to his wreckage— you’re the most pure-hearted person he knows, and you don’t deserve this awful anger he holds within him. 

Is he…crying?

As tears begin to drip down his cheeks, Geto collapses against the wall with his knees buckling beneath him and his weight crumbling down to a pile of patheticness. He’s just a shell of a man undeserving of someone like you. Soft sobs escape his lips and silent cries fill the hollow room, absent of your joy, crying out until he notices the faint outline of the young rose beside him. With the flick of his hand, he snatches the flower off the ground and lifts the thorny plant with careful hands— finally and truly understanding your meaning behind the gift. This is how you see him? He’s dreadful and hurtful to others on the outside, prickling kind people away with his thorns…but when encouraged and supported, he has the potential to become something beautiful.

Someone that could one day be compared to the beauty that is of a blooming rose. 

With the budding rose in his grasp, Geto sits alone. He realizes that he’s only able to become that person with the help of you. You’re the only person that has even come close to seeing him for who he truly is; aside from Satoru you’re the only person who would think of giving such a gift to the number one enemy of the Jujutsu world. You’re the only person who he’s ever come to feel true and honest romantic love towards. 

Geto has to become better. Not only for himself and Satoru…but now, for you.

⋆⋆⋆⠀ ⠀thank you for reading! reblogs are greatly appreciated! ⋆⋆⋆⠀ ⠀i promise i'll post the next 2 parts soon pls be patient :3

[luveline]

your bombshell!reader x spencer is feeding me so well, i'm obsessed!! SJSJS since we've seen reader jealous, is it possible to have a fic where it's spencer that's jealous?

thank u!! fem!reader

Your outfit today is simple. Pencil skirt, dark stockings, hair pristine. The thing that catches Spencer's attention, holds it between two squeezing palms, is the shirt and blazer ensemble you've styled. It's cut to fit, sleek and dark and hard to look away from. 

You brush past the back of Hotch's chair with a sigh, clearly unaware of the attention you're garnering from across the way. “What's wrong with him?” you ask. 

“The same thing as usual,” Hotch says. 

“It's not like we've ever instantly solved a case. Gideon knows this takes time.”

Elle pokes her tongue into her cheek, eyes flared wide. She says a lot without saying anything, flicking through the police files in front of her dispassionately.

“How come you stayed?”

It takes Spencer a moment to realise you're talking to him. “What?” 

“You didn't go with Gideon?” You hold your chin in your hand. “Not getting along anymore?” 

Spencer isn't not getting along with his mentor. He would've accompanied Gideon to meet with a past mass murderer, only you're here, and so he'd found unrelated reasons to stay. 

“We're fine,” Spencer says, not wanting to say more and give himself away. 

“Well, he took Morgan.” You pout, your voice dripping to a wistful whine. “What am I gonna do now without him? None of you guys ever wanna play with me.” 

Hotch smiles to himself. Spencer's stomach ties itself in knots, a tight noose that grows tighter still when you notice his expression and lean in toward your superior. “What's that smile for, Hotchner?” 

“Don't you have emails to look through?”  

You hold your cheek in your hand lightly, fingertips digging into the soft of your cheek. Your smile is like a kick to the chest, achingly sweet on such a pretty face. “No…” Your pinky digs into the corner of your mouth. “I don't remember that being on my agenda today.” 

“Consider it an addition.” 

Is Hotch flirting back? Spencer isn't sure why that strikes him so hard. Maybe because Hotch would actually have a chance with you if he wanted it; your flirting with Hotch is more real than if it were with Spencer, because Spencer is a twenty-something know-it-all who still dresses like his mom buys his clothes. 

“It's a lot of emails, boss,” you say. 

“You have time. Start with the ones sent by Hughes and work your way down.” Hotch slides the login information across the desk into your reach. 

You look at it unhappily. Look up at him. 

Just being looked at by you is a full body experience. Whenever you look at him, he begs himself to play it cool as Hotch is now, to treat it as the affectionate playfulness of a friend rather than serious flirting. He'd have a better chance of being taken seriously by you if he didn't blush whenever you so much as breathed in the same room. 

He wishes he could respond calmly like Hotch. (He wishes you'd flirt with him and him alone. He buries that deep.) 

Envy eats at his hands. Pins and needles he tries to shake away. His movements draw your attention, and your smile worsens, which is to say sweetens, like seeing him again is a treat for the eyes. 

“You'll help me, won't you, baby?” you ask.

He goes a little blind. 

Hotch and Elle watch the encounter with similar parts pity and amusement. 

“You can read through them so quickly, I could really use your…” —you drag your fingertips down your face until your nails are at your jaw— “expertise.” 

“Reid has his own tasks–” 

“I can help,” Spencer interrupts. 

You drop your hand from your face altogether. “Thank you. Have I mentioned how much I missed you while I was away?” 

“Only five times,” Elle says under her breath. 

“They try so very hard to keep us apart. It's not fair.” 

Because unlike Reid, you don't have multiple degrees. You're still learning, and you can't be here permanently, but your talent, your knack for profiling, is unignorable. You're guaranteed a place on the team as soon as you can prove yourself to Strauss. Without a Gideon to vouch for you, that could take a while, and yet you're never jealous of Spencer skipping a few hurdles to get here. 

If anything, you admire him. “They don't understand our bond, that's all. And together we're hard to beat. Isn't that right, Spence?” 

Perhaps Spencer shouldn't be jealous. You don't call Hotch by anything so saccharine, after all.