#hes been thru too much its unfair

[sparrowposting]

Like yes tokenism is Bad and does not count as queer rep, having a character on some mainstream primetime tv show be 'the gay one' is not progressive, having contestants on reality tv be 'the gay one' is not progressive, but also maybe it can still do some basic good in some cases.

My mother, a 50 something white Catholic housewife, was saying yesterday at the dinner table how disappointed she was that her fave team got eliminated from this season of the amazing race canada, and she said - in front of my kid brother even! - that the team had been a pair of drag queens. (Yes she did fall into the sassy black queer person trope in explaining this, but y'know, we're taking baby steps with her). And this isn't even the first time she's said smthn mildly positive about queer ppl! The gay intern from the later seasons of grey's anatomy? One of her favourites. Hallmark is even putting out terrible bland movies with generic white gay people instead of generic white straight people, and since she's seen every hallmark movie to ever exist, she's seen those ones too.

So. Idk where I was going with this. She still wouldn't say this stuff at the dinner table if my father were there at the time. But, I'm just. Hopeful? Yes it's (imo) terrible tv for middle aged moms, and often it's mediocre tokenism, but maybe that's a starting point and maybe it can still be a good thing. (It's not like someone like my mother is going to go start watching indie arthouse films or reading weird uncomfortable novels. If this gets her to reach out of her very insular bubble, I'm happy).

[gendrie]

Jon watched them leave, and Arya watched Jon. His face had grown as still as the pool at the heart of the godswood. Finally he climbed down off the window. "The show is done," he said. He bent to scratch Ghost behind the ears. The white wolf rose and rubbed against him. "You had best run back to your room, little sister. Septa Mordane will surely be lurking. The longer you hide, the sterner the penance. You'll be sewing all through winter. When the spring thaw comes, they will find your body with a needle still locked tight between your frozen fingers." Arya didn't think it was funny. "I hate needlework!" she said with passion. "It's not fair!" "Nothing is fair," Jon said. He messed up her hair again and walked away from her, Ghost moving silently beside him. Nymeria started to follow too, then stopped and came back when she saw that Arya was not coming. Reluctantly she turned in the other direction. (Arya, AGOT)

this whole moment is giving me major endgame foreshadowing vibes (especially but not exclusively wrt the outline) at the end of this chapter jon states that "the show is done" and he's referring to the fighting down below but it could be interpreted as a nod towards the end of the series in general. i think thats fair given the nature of the next line.

jon follows up with a warning for arya and it is clearly some very heavy handed foreshadowing. it refers to arya's general arc trajectory from beginning to end: she will be hiding and sewing all through winter but when the spring comes her needle (the symbol of her identity, home, family) will remain locked between her fingers.

this line is totally a carryover from the earliest asoiaf plotline when arya was going to travel to the wall and beyond in the first book. the imagery doesn’t fit quite as well as it would have if arya was spending significant time in a frozen, snowy environment, but the overall idea is still relevant.

after this warning arya, with passion, cries that "it's not fair!" and jon's only response is that "nothing is fair". when this dialogue was written jon and arya were going to have a tortured love affair throughout the trilogy. arya and jon would, after much angst, discover they weren't siblings so they could actually be together......except i think they still would've been driven apart for whatever reason (most likely jon's self imposed? exile to secure bran's throne). its unfair but theres nothing either of them can do about it. i have no doubt arya will want to follow jon (and ghost as we see nymeria, arya's soul bonded animal, try to follow), but that is not her fate.

"reluctantly" arya has to turn and walk in a different direction from jon. she returns to her room. in the end i think jon will have to go north again, for good, and arya will stay in winterfell because somebody has to accept that responsibility if bran rules as king of the seven kingdoms. arya and jon will remain connected thru their wolves and the warg bond they share. that will be a tangible connection that endures since i think ghost and nymeria will be by their sides when all is said and done just as they are in this moment.

grrm has consistently said he's working towards the same ending he's had in mind since 1991 and this does really feel like exactly the kind of bittersweet note he'd end things on.

[yanderu-deredere]

Hello!! Ive been slowly working my way through your ocs and can i just say!!! They are soooo tasty, your brain is very big, also linking the profiles is soo nice im terrible with remembering stuff so its a nice refresher

Anyway i was just wondering how do you think Ayaka would be with a childhood friend darling 🤔

a/n: SORRY ANON BUT YOU'VE HIT THE JACKPOT this is literally my SPECIAL INTEREST i absolutely DIE AND LOVE THE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO LOVERS TROPE

ayaka yamato ★ profile

being childhood friends with ayaka means getting to know the social media super star before she became popular girl material

before, her hair was pitch black and she also had a lot of acne. like now, she wore thick rimmed glasses but they were always plain black. she also wore a lot of formal clothes, chosen by her nanny. stuff like button ups, long pleated skirts, etc

as a kid, ayaka was basically caged so, to be her childhood friend, your parents had to have been really good friends with her parents

ayaka's parents often scheduled play dates with their good friends' children as a way to gain more social power among the rich

unfortunately, that's really the only way you could've met her before she began her rebellious phase

like frfr ayaka was basically isolated as a child. i cannot stress this enough lol

her little brother was doted on by her mom and her older brother was coddled by her father (since he's the heir) so, often times, she was left to her own devices

she, of course, had nannies and tutors but none of them really truly treated her like the child she actually was

to everyone she met, she was a yamato. and that was the only thing that mattered about her

this made her very hungry for affection and she took whatever she could get

and if you gave her any sort of affection? when she's starving? she'd eat that shit up and praise the ground you walk on LOL

though caveat to that is that you'd have to be in the same boat as her LOL becos she's always been easily jealous, especially back then, and if you were more free than she was, she'd resent you too much to get attached to you

she'd definitely use you as her guinea pig when she starts experimenting with fashion and make up too lmao

when she does go thru her transformation from goody good daughter to how she really wants to live her life, she brings you with her

but she won't let you become a socialite like her. no, you're only allowed to be with her, to be close to her, to be her friend

anytime you start slipping from her grasp, she starts isolating you until the only person you feel comfortable clinging to and depending on is her

"Do you think there's more to life than this?"

You looked up from your homework to see Ayaka staring intently at you, her head resting in her arms. She was pushing around one of the fruit peels that she'd left on the desk but it was obvious from her expression that she'd been serious about her words.

You considered her words for a second before cocking your head a little to the side "What do you mean?"

"I don't know... more to studying. More to being the kid of a CEO. More to all of this." She just huffed in reply before leaning back and crossing her arms "Feels unfair that we live like this."

I don't want you to live like this. She wanted to say but the words just stayed lodged in her throat.

Unfortunately, she didn't inherit a lot from her parents but she did inherit their inability to express affection. The sweetness, the love, always felt awkward and tough on her tongue.

She wanted so desperately to tell you about her feelings, to let you in and let you know, but all she could do was peel you clementines and sit by your side, hoping and praying that you'd notice her.

Certainly, if not her, you found yourself thinking about her words. You'd never really thought about that before. You were always following your parents' rules that it felt blasphemous to consider going beyond them, to see what it was like beyond the rules and the gilded cage.

Because you were aware. You knew the life they had you live--the life Ayaka's parents had her live--was one of imprisonment, doomed to never do what you wanted to do.

But you'd lived the life for so long that imagining what life would be like any other way left you drawing a blank.

"Let's start living life our own way." Ayaka suddenly uncrossed her arms and took your hands into hers, that eager grin on her face infectious "You and me. Nobody cares about me like you do, anyway."

"And nobody cares about you like I do, right?" There was something dark to her tone right then, like there was more to her words. But she looked so mesmerizing, so sweet, that you found yourself nodding.

Ayaka only beamed even brighter "We'll decide how we want to become, not our parents."

[littleeyesofpallas]

How do you feel about Ikomikidomoe and hikone? I personally think they’re nice additions to the world but I’ve barely seen anyone else talk about them 

I think I did a post on that at some point actually, but I'm not in a position to go digging thru my archive on mobile. (found it, but it's mostly just poking at kanji in names rather than really commenting on the characters themselves, so I guess I can do more of that here.)

Broadly speaking I'm not really big on the LNs, least of all Narita Ryogo's. I know he is kind of the most beloved of the ancillary creators for actually addressing many of Kubo's obnoxious loose ends, my main beef with him is that even though he ties a lot of them off he never ties them off satisfactorily, and seemingly just for the sake of saying he did it; there's generally no thematic meat to any of it, all his hooksjust kinda amount to shuffling around Kubo's left overs. And granted, maybe that's a little harsh or unfair of an assessment, but I'm also not a big fan of light novels as a gimmicky genre/format to begin with, so take all that with a grain of salt.

Anyway. Of all the things he did over course of three books in Can't Fear Your Own World, I do think Hikone was a really neat idea. I like the general idea of exploring artificial souls and synthetic life forms and the hybrid spirits and how that all relates to the nature of the soulking as a lynchpin of reality, I'm just not super about the specific plot he built around it all.

I'm not especially in love with Ikomikidomoe specifically, I feel like it either needed more or just different lore or that it could have been done without entirely. I really think Hikone being an artificial god candidate and the nature of what that means and as an excuse to explore how the other canonical attempts to replace god could/would have gone was enough to center a story around. In particular I was already not super fond of some of the late throw away lore additions about zanpakutou that exist independent of a singular individual. (ala Nanao's family sword, and Oh-etsu's harem). I feel like it raised a lot of questions that got immediately swept under the rug and added nothing of value to the lore at large. I don't implicitly hate the idea of a zanpakutou that embodies a different kind of identity apart from that of an individual wielder, but that idea feels like it requires a LOT of additional explaining that we never got. So the fact that Tsunayashiro has an ancestral sword for no particularly meaningful reason, and that Ikomikidomoe has its whole convoluted backstory always kind of annoyed me.

It's a shame too because Narita seems to ever so slightly brush up against an idea that Kubo himself danced around in world building --that the identity manifested in one's inner world as a sword spirit, and the mask a hollow forms from its heart are the same thing, and thus a Menos accumulating myriad hollows within itself to consolidate into one uniform identity is basically the same process as what Oh-etsu describes is behind creating an Asauchi. So the idea of a powerful hollow becoming a zanpakutou or something similar has precedent, but the weird convoluted choice to make Ikomikidomoe specifically a product of Ichibee and Oh-etsu's intervention, rather than a natural consequence of a Menos ascending toward Vastolorde doesn't sit well with me.

On a side note, it bugs me that Kubo just casually threw in the idea that Asauchi are made of, what, hundreds if not thousands of shinigami souls(?) and then just NEVER addressed this weird implication that Soul Society, and Oh-etsu personally, have just, like, institutionally and systematically been committing mass genocides on the regular for all of recorded history? Huge huge mess of a world building flub. Not that it "couldn't" be answered, but that it wasn't, and that the effort it would take to patch up the apparent plot holes it introduces would just be so much effort for the sake of nothing but maintaining the status quo of the story.

Since you've got me in this rant, it's almost the same with the Ouken thing. I'm already not fond of the awkward retcon(ish) thing Kubo did with making the keys the bones of the Royal Guard as if that somehow answered any questions, when the bigger issue had been the idea that, literal key or not, each of the royal guard members was implicitly baptized in the fire of an apparent Sodom & Gomorrah catastrophes with whole cities or other swathes of land, densely packed with living, spiritually aware people being scraped off the face of the earth, ala Aizen's unfulfilled (and frankly Kubo's seemingly half forgotten) plans for Karakura.

And in the face of that weirdness there was a fun unaddressed parallel in the Royal Guard's private "cities" floating up in the royal realm with the king's palace looking like the perfect inversion of the hypothetical hole in the ground we were shown during the Ouken explanation. Were those cities populated? By whom?? Or were they empty? I don't know which possibility is more interesting to explore; that the royal guard each had a whole cult of ascended spirits living with them, each under the domain of one guard, or that the guard just lived in the hollow shells of the sacrifice it took for them to ascend alone to nigh demi-god status.

Was it that the ouken itself was the condensed souls of thousands of people, just like the later reveal about both the asauchi and White, and they died or were otherwise sacrificed to make this object(or i guess imbue the object that is living bones into becoming it(?) god the bone keys thing was dumb...), or did the souls serve some other purpose? Could it have been that rather than melting down living souls to make the key, as was kind of implied, that to create or imbue a key with the power required to function as the ouken it simply needed the presence of those souls? Did access to the god realm require being actively worshipped as a god, by thousands of people, a united spiritual power of a singleminded cult, a city of followers united in ascending the key holder into the realm of god? Who the hell knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But on that level, you'd think that's the same as the idea of a family zanpakutou, right? If the zanpkautou imprints or a person to reflect their true inner self which then grows stronger and gains power in the material world thru acknowledging and reconciling with, then implicitly the idea of a zanpakutou shared by a family would imply that its spirit is not a reflection of one person's singular traits, but those shared consistently across generations and in exchange for the lack of personal identity it confers the strength of literally multiple people's worth of power, just all reflected in a single persona.(or maybe not, i dunno, maybe the inner world of a family zanpakutou has some atlab avatar state stuff going on, who knows? Probably not Kubo.) What was the Soukyoku's giant execution blade, its destructive power conspicuously described in a measure of zanpakutou, if not a massive communal zanpakutou?(complete with its own spirit manifest as a phoenix) And what is Ichigo's inner spirit of a younger Yhwach if not the communal spirit of the Quincy bloodline? Andi n the context of these sorts of escalations of scale and power, is then the soul king actually a "human soul" in the way the cycle of human/quincy and shinigami and hollow all traffic in the same base elemental "stuff"? Or was the Soul King not that type of a "person" at all, and just a giant collective zanpakutou, a singular spirit reflecting the inner truth of humanity as a whole, and his "bankai" the wheel of reincarnation itself. Anyway that's veering too far off into speculation and potential headcanon.

Getting back to Hikone, though... I like the idea of there being various different approaches to achieving the hybrid spirit form seemingly central to god status. Ichigo was naturally synthesized that way by the circumstances of his birth, Aizen used the hougyoku and "science" to forcibly and unnaturally synthetize himself, Yhwach was seemingly born not by actively joining disparate elements together but by simply being an offshoot of something that was already a hybrid... And then there's Hikone... and while I feel like plot wise there are a lot of issues to there just having been the means to synthesize artificial life just floating around in the background, while characters like Mayuri and Urahara and even Aizen are out there actively struggling with the process, but I like the idea of a kind of middle ground where, ignoring the stupid contrivance of the Gremmy brain thing, Hikone's fundamental contraction isn't quite artificial "life" in the spiritual sense that Bleach deals in so much as it is a "body" without a brain.

But I like the implicit idea of having to draw a line around that. If you can make a thing that fulfills most of the requirements of life, then which things reserved for living personhood can it do and which can it not? If you elevate that to the level of godhood, then it's a fun question that in the grand scheme of things where apparently someone needs to be stripped of their autonomy and sit in the crystal for forever to hold the world together, then can it just be a fake person with no autonomy to lose in the first place? Where as Aizen thought being god would be cool(and was very probably wrong), and Yhwach doesn't seem to want to be god so much as remove him and replace him with ???(unconfirmed: in which it seemed like(ironically) plan A was originally Juugram, and plan B was Uryuu), Hikone is the Indiana Jones rock and the golden idol solution to the problem: Can I just swap god out for this god-shaped bag of rocks and get away with it?

I'm sorry between being at work, and googling images, and then making this silly edit now, I've totally lost my train of thought... Uh... to summarize:

I like Hikone as an idea: I like "synthetic god" as a plot hook.

I like their name having associations with silk and, like, silk worms, as if they were spun and woven like a fiber but also with cocoon imagery attached.

I also think they're a super cute design.

I'd have liked the artificial souls to have more of plot behind them: like what are Urahara and Mayrui's actual goals in making them in the first place, other than just mad science for mad science's sake

I'd have liked for Ichigo's(and Aizen's for that matter; like how was it different and/or insufficient by comparison to Ichgio, or Yhwach or Hikone) hybrid theme to have a better actual conclusion.

I'd have liked better exploration of the nature of god souls and what that requires/means

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

Working on a fic rn that is killing me, I GOTTA talk about it. Imagine ftm Izaya being asked by Shinra and Celty to be their surrogate bc their options are limited and they assume he wouldn't be able to get attached to the baby bc of his aspd and general disposition (unfair assumption on their part) Izaya only agrees bc he can't stand the idea of disappointing Shinra and proceeds to go through the mental anguish of dysmorphia and carrying a baby that's not even his that he wants to love so much

i. man. ive been presenting this ask to my friends all day because this is such a good fucking idea. this is perhaps the best drr fic of all time by my personal ranking (which also happens to be the correct ranking) and i thought id give you a couple fun little bits of informed mation that could possibly help you with this fic :) one of them is surrogacy related the other is aspd related

SO!!! the first thing i did was show my fiance and i said, well, izaya could keep the baby if he wanted, surrogacy laws are in his favor. but then i thought..... are they? because i was basing that off surrogacy laws in the us..... so i googled it!

surrogacy in japan is um, Extremely Controversial! first off, surrogates do have legal guardianship of the baby, the parents who want the baby have to go thru a formal adoption process, and if it goes to court, courts would most likely side with the surrogate.

BUT!!!!!! the welfare of the child is explicitly stated to be the first and foremost concern. at the end of the day, a married couple could very well win over a single man, especially a single man with antisocial personality disorder, if his diagnosis is on record anywhere. (of course this is all dependent on whether or not izaya GOES to court, and if celty can keep her helmet on and pose as a mute human woman)

either way, this all but confirms that shinra would be izaya's obgyn. imagine at every checkup, shinra is cooing over how well his baby is doing, completely oblivious to how upset izaya is <3 did u know that if you're trans and you get pregnant, you have to stop taking your hrt? too much testosterone can cause miscarriages- very high levels of natural T is actually why i'm infertile </3 so that can be a little extra angst for izaya~ <3

NEXT! THING!!

let me introduce u to the concept of aspd exceptions <3

it's..... kind of like the aspd version of a pwbpd's favorite person? kind of? not really

it's like. sometimes, for one person, the aspd will not be aspding. they're... literally the exception to how your symptoms work. things like empathy and yeah even remorse will work within like, normal operating levels. it's kind of weird tbh and kind of distressing? like, since you're not used to these emotions being there, especially with how strong they are, you have no way to cope with them. it sucks major ass and while it can being people closer together, it also sucks major ass. like.... if you never felt remorse before, suddenly feeling remorse over something you commonly do just because you did it to one Specific Person, leaves you with this very strong, very bad emotion, that you have no way to cope with!

and its not just remorse too, things like empathy fire off at full cylinders, so like... if ur used to just using cognitive empathy and logicing out things, imagine how much itd suck to suddenly be ass blasted by Functioning Normally Affective Empathy

anyway there's this one lady on tiktok who has aspd, and she talks about aspd symptoms a lot. she has a young child, and that child is her exception

get what i'm getting at here? ;) imagine izaya going thru all this then, while already distressed, dysphoric, and hormonal, shit like EMPATHY and strong STRONG emotional ties started kicking in wrt his baby and now he has to deal with extremely strong emotions he is not used to!

(and in case ur wondering, yes i do have exceptions, but who it exactly IS changes from time to time and the feeling ebbs away over time too so sometimes i don't have one)

anyway!!! i love this fic already. PLEASE dm me i need to go absolute ham over this with you. please. please . i can introduce u to my friends so thats like. 3 friends for the price of one

please tell me this ends happily i do not think i would be able to handle it if it did not. please. i am crying and begging and pissing . please.

[ventiswampwater]

Ive never sent anon hate before but you’ve gotten on my last nerve ok? First of all how dare you continue to be a fantastic writer with the very best ideas. Your ability to curate the crumbs of peak level of nasty is unfair. Leave some for the rest of us!!!

I bet youre so gorgeous and i bet u throw that ass in a circle regularly too??? Ugh!??? Every fic u make has me wanting to chew my phone and phase thru walls and i am too poor to deal with the fallout of both.

I guess u hate the poor and horny!!! Ur taking advantage of my THIRST by continuing to make fantastic content because now i cant read anyone elses shit because its like dirty heroin compared to your pure black tar uncut supply. 🙄

U CAN'T JUST SEND PPL SUCH DISRESPECTFUL ASS SHIT????

I'm literally WOUNDED. these hateful anon asks speared me directly through the chest and now I'm bleedin out all over the fuckin floor. somebody call life alert bc the world is cruel. my cries fall on deaf ears. u have cut the phone line.

I can't take much more of this. if u keep sending bitches (me), this VILE ass shit I might have to do somethin drastic and just marry ur ass or smthn.

u wanna be in a forced arranged marriage??? w/me?? the pathetic cigarette munching harlettt??? is that ur end goal??? u wanna be posted up in a shack hobbled together w/washi tape and bubblegum?? drinking sweaty sock tea for eternity??? u evil creature. does mercy mean nothing to u??? I'm sobbing. I'm standing in a jared's w/tears in my eyes. spending my life's savings on a beautiful solitaire diamond ring. what cut would u like? u have beaten me down into a shell of a human. round? pear? cushion? emerald? heart, like the one in my CHEST that u BROKE???? whatever u want ig.

how dare u say that my precious pookie bear of pain n torment would not pass the fitnessgram 20-meter pacer test. how dare u imply that he would trip over his oversized pants and bust his geriatric hip on the ground. how COULD u. my world is crumbling. I can hear the sirens. the wind is wailing and the sky is churning above me. RED and COAGULATED w/the blood of a million screaming hicks. this isn't how it was supposed to go. but perhaps it's what I deserve.

I'm blowing the horn of the last rapture and ur there to whip me w/a rod made of marlboro boxes and the tattered remains of a busted fanbelt. what USE are fanbelts at the end of the world? the cars don't start anymore, their engines useless and dead in their metal shells. ur pitching me forward into a landfill and I'm fallin FACE FIRST into a slimy puddle of expired mayo and beer. I thought u loved me?? but love is lost on ppl like u. my ass bounces and ur transfixed. sigh. but have u ever thot abt the soul that lives within that phatness?? u haven't. u never would!!! I should've KNOWN.

I'm on my knees w/shaky hands placing the engagement ring on ur finger. why am I sticky? how did I get coated in mountain dew? oh no. u scoff @ me. it's the wrong cut. u will have 2 pawn this ugly ass engagement ring and idk how ur gonna do that bc there are no more pawn shops in the apocalypse. shit. I can't deal w/the shame. my strap game is flaccid and ur words are razor-sharp. u made me lose @ wii bowling and I never lose @ wii bowling. u have rerouted my brain and stomped my will into tiny pieces w/ur shoes. they are the color of sunshine, of butter, of happiness. I used to know of such things.

light the match in our gasoline-soaked pussy hell. we shall perish how we lived, throwin it back eternally. so it has been written, so it shall be done.

[deadmunds-ghostbee]

I truly don’t know what to expect with Kanthony in S3, concerning possible sex scenes or generally. There’s no precedent with a former lead couple now being put on the back burner.

I do think the show views Polin as a “it couple” and it’s not wrong — their book is probably tied with TVWLM as the favorite of the series. With the general viewers, though, I don’t think it’s unfair to say they’re not beloved (yet - everyone did a 180 on Anthony, but I also think JB as an actor was a *huge* difference maker there; plus Anthony’s sympathetic backstory. At any rate…) Like, the day they announced Polin as S3, the Twitter reaction was pretty negative, and I mean casuals, not the fandom. So I do think they’ll be careful to make sure Kanthony won’t pull focus from them too much as they make Polin a credible couple to regular viewers. And imo that means little if any K/A sex scenes, which would possibly highlight the difference in chemistry between the couples. Also I wonder if they’ll return to form with the gratuitous sex of S1 after all the complaining about S2’s relative chastity. Even if they do, they’ll probably show Benedict fucking around, until halfway thru when the main couple do. I know it’s been a thing that Anthony’s ass has been out in the first few minutes of both seasons and it could be fun to do that with him and Kate. Tbh Kanthony (and especially JB/Anthony) ultimately won in S2 in that they didn’t have to have Regé’s shadow immediately looming. But that’s not the case now, and there will be more direct comparisons between subsequent couples and prior ones.

I agree that I hope the kanthony storyline is mostly divorced from the main romance one. I dunno how realistic this is considering it seems likely they’ll be living at the main house. And they keep reiterating they’re the “head of the household” - so the problem solvers. The idea of K/A having to conspire to solve the LW thing and spare the family their umpteenth scandal gives me second hand embarrassment idk. I love how Kate somehow never spoke to a Featherington in S2 and wish it could stay that way lol. I hope it’s mostly Anthony supporting Kate’s emotional arc, her being Viscountess, and the baby that’s been hinted at a lot. But I have a feeling with how they qued up a Kate/Eloise friendship, they’ll inevitably get drawn into the romance plot, probably with Eloise tattling on Penelope.

God this got so so long pls dont mind me. There are a lot of s3 thoughts in here I've been keeping in me for a long time and i probably wont care much to talk it a whole lot more. But here they are! (its a lot of polin talk which is very unlike me tbh)

Agree with a lot of things you said here! I think the only thing I don't really see is production viewing Kathony chemistry potentially being a detriment to polin. I def think they're focused on polin and don't want to harp on past couples too much bc of screen time/focused narrative purposes, but I think it would be cynical of the show's creators to view their next love story as something that can be so easily overshadowed. As a shipper, i understand that perspective but in productions eyes Kathony should be nothing more than an added bonus to lure in viewers!

That being said, i do think they are aware that they really have to stick the landing with this one since a lot of people are kinda hesitant to like either character. They’ve def been hyping them, but some of the methods of hype (like posturing colin as a hero) have been odd to me. So like as an example (I haven't been paying too close of attention so someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but any talk of Luke's glo up feels a little weird to me. As friends/coworkers of luke ppl like nicola are just hyping him and colin and I totally get/support that! but if production or promo or interviewers lean into colins glo up, then the insinuation that he needs one in the first place feels a little? insulting? Thats just what luke looks like. It wasnt like with Jonny and those silly sideburns that everyone has opinions about!

I'm interested to see how they intend to deal with polin and their lasting power on the show! Someone like nicola has the most steady career trajectory of any actor on this show in my eyes. People like Rege and Simone broke out big and need to ride that wave so fame and opportunity don't fizzle, but Nicola has steady buzz as an actress and I actually think a lot more likely to get attention from critics/awards because of her recognizability and being a long-time face of the show! (im sure shell do a great job anyway, but that's just how I've been told awards work, a good performance coinciding with a rise to fame. not just the former)

What I mean by all of this is, I know nicola loves the show and the role but will she be famous and busy enough to walk away? Will she be so so expensive that they dont totally have the budget to keep her? Do they have a post LW plot after this season, does it involve her, and does it make her more important to the show than ever? Who knows. Colin and Pen as members of the family dont have a narrative ~necessity~ to be around the way viscount and viscountess do. (Altho all this featherington heir stuff...is their baby becoming the next lord featherington? probably).

Now uhh getting into the sex stuff. Their approach has been kinda head scratcher. If i were a polin stan id want the quality of the kathony one with a little more of the frequency of saphne. Its hard to say whether production will stick to their guns on the "only necessary sex scenes" or if they'll take heed of some of the criticism and go back for more raunch. Who knows but i really feel like they'll just do whatever fits their "vision" of the season. CVDs monologue on only wanting the scenes to be "necessary" was imo only that. He wanted the broken up wedding and sex didn't fit into it easily. I think its as simple as that. So how much sex polin has I think depends on how they plan to structure it. Which is anyones guess really.

Benedict will for sure be a whore. and Kathony, if anything, would have something short. Its not like side characters in s1 had drawn out sex scenes! That was only the main couple!

Now rounding back to what we both actually care about, Kathonys future: I really think Kate and Anthony as problem solvers being involved with polin would be a bad move for both couples! Colin, as someone "lacking in purpose" doesn't grow if Anthony is still cleaning up his messes for him. It was a bad move in the book (sorry JQ) and it would be a bad move in the show. I don't think they'll do it imo but they've made worse writing decisions lol.

I also don't think that Kate or Anthony will care (?) that much about Polin? I do think its wrong to say that they will react horribly to the LW reveal (if they even find out). Anthony would be mad at first, and Kate maybe too but they forgive and are ultimately loyal to family. If colin forgives pen, if they get engaged before its resolved like they do in the book, Kathony is sticking with family for no other reason than that's simply what they do. I don't foresee kate having any affinity for Pen, or caring about the featheringtons in any real way. I don't think Anthony gives a single fuck about that family at all tbh. But fam is fam and they'll come around to the match eventually even if there's initial resistance. But like i said i don't think that's something to worry about to much.

Taking your point about Eloise and Kate's relationship at a new angle--her duties as viscountess could coincide w the relationship with El (and hopefully helping with fran's debut with Violet too). Esp Els insecurities with a new sister out on the market, her BFF betraying her and also getting married herself, she will need someone in her corner. If bens being a depressive mess then she'll need someone like kate by her side. This could also def tie into the main plot tho, who knows!

Ultimately how they distribute non polin time will be interesting! A big question mark for me is the portia featherington of it all. She basically had her OWN large and detailed plot with jack. Violet basically got no time independent of her fam first 2 seasons--will portia now get the same treatment or still get her own again? (actually don't answer this. I'll get too bitter and negative when i don't wanna be). And will adding in fran content take up a lot of time? They need to build up the younger bridgertons, after all.

So...our Kathony content is contingent on a lot. We're probably all overestimating how much they can actually do with them, but the speculation is fun :)

[spillmygutzzz]

Sitting here conflicted and trying to keep it together. If it were any other situation, I'd go to him and I'd just gut myself right there but I can't do that this time.

Maybe I've assumed something and made an idiot of myself but that doesn't change that I luv him- no it's not the same regard but it still means something, yeah? Idk

It kills me to see him like this knowing I can't just fix it. He thinks he's just this unlovable monster and I just wish for even a moment he could see thru my eyes. I wish he could see how kind and compassionate he is. He'll do anything for the ppl he luvs even if it tears him apart- even if it wears him down to nothing. Even when he barely knew me, he has always been there for me and I want to always be there for him.

All those things M has done just ring in my ears but I don't want to harp on it to everyone else. He's just done sm and after I defended him and said he was one of the few not being shit. He digs and pried at me for information on his partner that I wouldn't tell him. He claims he doesn't want to be seen as only wanting to talk to one person but how could anyone think anything but that when all he seems interested in talking abt is him or planning calls. That's what they all do, they only talk abt calls regarding him. It's frustrating. To cause a scene like that in front of someone u claimed to see as a friend but then make him feel like fking shit!? R u fking kidding me!?? To have the balls to bitch at me for how long it's been since u've talked to him as if I have control over that? As if I don't fking miss him too? As if it doesn't brutally rip out every vital organ I possess knowing its been weeks since I've heard from him and he's hurting and I can't fking fix it??? Saying u want me to talk to him becuz ur worried he's purposely staying away becuz he's lost feelings? God if I had a goddamn dollar for every time I've heard that yet u won't fking talk to him abt it. It's not fking fair to him. There's a fking difference between acknowledging it's unfair to think that and acknowledging it's unfair and then actually changing. Not just continously doing the same shit.

He's a goddamn person. He's compassionate and sweet and he'll do anything to help. He has a big heart that carries so much. He'd bleed himself dry if it'd help someone. I don't know how anyone could not care for him or luv him. He'll always have a place inside my heart. Even if there ever comes a time where he doesn't want me in his life, I will always hold a spot for him in my heart and I will always welcome him with open arms. I promised him I'd always be there for him and I meant it. For him to feel as if he needs to "prove" he's worth luv? He doesn't need to prove anything. He deserves luv.

U pry and pry and pry for anything abt him and u don't give him any personal space. U think I know what I know becuz I forced it out of him??? That's not how that works. He's fking worn down and tired and yet u can't find it in urself to be understanding over that. He's completely changed since dating u but u wouldn't know that. But I do. I know these things. I fking pay attention and I'm fking angry.

I put emphasis on him being my best friend. I notice when somethings wrong. He feels so deeply and he thinks its wrong but it isn't. He told me he feels more than he let's on, told me that a long time ago before we got closer and I always kept that in the back of my head becuz I knew that was a raw truth.

He told u he wanted to do something on his own and u still pressed and pushed to do it with him and then told me abt it after I had also told u he wanted to watch it alone. Telling me things he's told u as if I don't know but r u telling me just to tell me or to try and prove something? U get frustrated that he tells me things he won't tell u but have u ever thought for a second that instead of getting worked up over that, u should maybe give him time and space?

U sent me this long confession of feelings and nvr mentioned anything to him once. Were u going to tell him at all? U told Evan. Why not him? U claim he nvr tells u when he's ready to call when I knew for a fact that he tells u every little thing he does before calling to make sure that's okay and ur aware of everything. If it's such a problem then maybe u should fking say something. Oh wait. U don't. Instead u go to me abt it. For Christ's sake I couldn't tell u that I was getting to call him becuz I knew ud be all over that. U remind me how long its been since u called him but do u know how long it had been for me? I prioritized ur calls with him becuz that's all I hear abt from anyone over there regarding him and I wanted to make everyone happy.

I just dont know what to do anymore. I haven't even told him abt the feeling I got yet and I'm anxious to but I don't know when I'll get that opportunity but I'm scared to hurt him more than anything but I also don't want to keep it from him cuz it's starting to look like I was right.

But if he wants to see things thru, I won't stop him. I'm scared that call was the last one on one for a long time but it won't stop me from being there when he needs me. I care for him more than he'll ever know and I'm willing to wait for whenever I can talk to him again. I want him to be happy even if it means I'll be at a distance from him. It hurts thinking abt things going back to only hearing from him when he's talking to Michael with texts that have hours between them but at least I'll get to hear from him.

I'm so tired and I want to stop crying.

[philadelphiadisneyhole]

javelin sufjan stevens sounds a lot like all delighted people EP which has always been my fav work by him. to me this style of ethereal maximalist electronica crossed by classic singer songwriter accoustic is textbook sufjan, the natural culmination of all his musical endeavors prior. this album is not the pit of despair that carrie and lowell is... it is very very sad, and my heart aches for all he's been thru, but i can tell how much he has grown since i first became a fan of his. that was 10 years ago, age 15. i too have increased my capacity for dealing with great tragedy and loss, and i thought back then that id only survive thru brute force, but the opposite is true. you have to let what happens happen because you have no other choice. letting go is what moves you forward.

I do think this album will get a lot of unfair comparison to c&l because thats what people know him for and they havent really paid attention to his carreer since (planetarium slapps so hard.) and this is the dead boyfriend album and thats the dead mom album. Such a reduction is cruel and innacurate, but I would like to note one distinct difference i noticed between the two albums. Carrie and lowell is barren... lonely. Usually just sufjan and a guitar, other noises are just long, droning cries from afar, even harmonies are his own vocals. This album has many moments like this, but its much more collaboratively produced. Accompanyments join in waves, creating such a lush and comforting auditory environment. Small choirs bolster his small voice. He can do a lot on his own. But he doesnt want to. He doesnt HAVE to do it alone this time. :)

Sorry to get sappy on main. But I CANT help it. Its been a hard year for me and clearly for Suf as well and this music comes at just the right time. Love and light World is abundant!

[perhaps-relax]

id like to complain about Barry for a bit.

I came to the show late and didnt watch it as it was coming out, but have been moving thru it over the last month. I have a tendency to just stop watching shows when theres a lull or an arc i dont find interesting, and ive been fighting that urge for two seasons now bc my partner has been enjoying it. we have two episodes left and i cant wait to be done with it. so without having seen the finale, heres where im at:

firstly, its not that the bad behavior of all the main characters bothers me. i was aware from episode 1 that this was not a show about good people, or even about bad people trying to be better. and i kept watching, and really enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, bc i dont need perfect protagonists to remain invested. but. like. the premise was about a hitman getting into acting, right? ...Barry has not acted for the last 10 episodes. they just sort of abandoned that aspect of the character, which was really the only interesting thing about him. ive gone from liking him to hating him to appreciating the nuisance of his character, to literally not caring what he does anymore bc of how often the writers kept flipping the switch on him. hes no longer a reflection of how real people cope with the bad things theyve done. hes just a tool for shocking the audience.

Seasons 1 and 2 thrived on the revolving cast of antagonists, which was a fun way to demonstrate the endless cycle and escalation of violence that barry's trapped in. The absurdity of the martial arts master and his feral child was excellent and imo the high point of the show, and they were only in one or two episodes. but by season 3 and 4, the introduction and immediate execution of new characters gets incredibly stale, because we stop expecting them to matter in any way. the kid actor, the tall blond gal, albert, bong, any chechen or bolivian, they keep setting us up w characters and the impression that they will be important to the leads, and expecting us to be impacted by the subversion of this expectation. and im just...not. im bored of it.

also, I don't like timeskips, it strikes me as a bit of a cop-out that just...kills the momentum of any arc leading up to it. Like the writers put themselves in a position and decide they dont want to deal with writing their way out of it. then they can just waste a bunch of airtime on where-are-they-now exposition instead of actually resolving or elaborating on the existing conflicts or themes they were pursuing earlier. better call saul almost did it right, but even that was a boner-killer of a finale. And the way Barry skips into the future to do some kind of half-assed commentary about 'where society is going' reminds me too much of the toothless politics of parks & rec. the whole podcast Christianity homeschooling thing is pretty interesting, tho.

and finally let me jsut go ahead and say that it was incredibly unfair what they did to cristobal. the electroshock therapy scene was horrific, but the very next episode, hes fine. he never even talks about what that did to him. no, instead, we're supposed to focus on how traumatized hank is from the whole tiger incident or whatever. like, gene's son leo lost his job, and we never talk about why, or what that means for him. and then he gets shot, cool cool cool, really cool wow, so interesting. the black and brown characters are not necessarily unique in how disposable or otherwise unimportant they are, compared to secondary white characters like Katie or Annie or Kristen, but its still pretty gross how the writers seem a little more willing to subject them to violence and trauma.

[thesecretattic]

PLEASE READ THIS ITS VERY IMPORTANT PLEASE HARSH THIS CLARIFIES WHAT U THOUGHT ABOUT THE GIFTS

I again saw 53 and 23 in pairs after that ring, he was so happy he won’t be happy with me, those were mine and his marriage numbers or signs, you’ll find more in my previous posts and these signs are real, go through the one which says “Deepika’s coincidence” read further before I die cuz my head is bursting my convulsions gave increased I’ve cried so much my heartbeats are faint I can’t type much, all this nonsense happened exactly on 23rd of May, yet I saw 53 23 again it was our marriage sign (as stated go thru those earlier posts you’ll find more about it or how it began) I’ve been seeing them in pairs since a year now and I just shared my wedding plans on that date 23rd but I saw his wedding ring which is shocking and it’s not supposed to be individual… I had seen Zara Rajput long back, my first name which is Muslim with his last name. I’m dying I just wanted to say he reminded me of that pic with BMSvenska Swati I don’t know her name sorry I had just seen her birthday pic with him and he was wearing a mao collar shirt it was from 2015 I loved him so much he was wearing similar glasses, I miss him I wish I could go back in time and hug him I would have never left him. Some fortune telling app said he regrets being “friendly” with me what friendly? (He was flirting he was interested he was asking for the bb pin he kept liking my pics it wasn’t even insta) Aur suno IT ADDED he was underestimating me right from the beginning and hence he started blocking all of a sudden he created a bad impression in his mind or some negativity which was based on his own misconceptions, and he married some friend now for money prosperity fame and peace. He kept hating me for the gifts too which I had sent to make up for the book and I saw that all other celebs would get them, except for him so I sent them across I was already dying and getting thrashed at home I was not even able to sleep on one side did to that swelling in my neck which is the most delicate area (I’ve shared about it before and my hand too not just the nerve pic the other one with swellings and purple marks due to beating) but he took it as recklessness (what about when he was relentlessly insensitive towards me when I was dying?) he took it in the most awful manner, he just hated me more after that and he rejected me completely because according to him it was too much too soon (yeah after 5 years and more than 500 signs and coincidences all fking all leading back to HIM, he was the magnet here) I DIDNOT give the chocolates I wanted to add I gave a chocolate bar NOT any of those fancy chocolates so that it wouldn’t look like a “Valentine’s Day” gift just SO HE WOULDN’T FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE, or find it “corny” I even skipped some popular chocolate cuz it was red and white (brand theme) I never sent any tacky Teddy bear with hearts and I can’t dying dying I’m begging for help to god to kill me pls I can’t wake anyone in the house I can’t erase that big gold ring from my mind one day this had to happen it’s final now you all know why it was so unfair too it was on 23rd which was my marriage sign and number and not only Zara Rajput I even saw ZH and hearts and H replacing Danial or Daniel (I had created a fake/fictitious fiancé cuz I was feeling humiliated) I happened to name him Danial and I joked he was Daniel in English when I got DW ring and I realised that the Angel of marriages was also called Daniel and I saw 2 signs where Harsh’s initial was with MINE replacing Daniel’s D and I saw Daniel too twice. It indicated that. So not just our First and Last names but I saw our initials too with a Heart next to it.

Bye I my heart is thudding out of my chest I’m getting wheezing I can’t breathe it’s the worst today cuz I’ve cried a lot since 8 pm its exactly 4:23 in the morning now again 23, I need to die… It’s all over for me. I could never narrate the story behind these signs I always hoped for the best but now I’ve learnt that I was never made for love. I even forgot that I’m a virgin I mention it in every post right? Cuz it’s a shocker in today’s times it’s a taboo or social stigma it’s disproportionately unfair but I wish I could go back in time not to kiss, just to hug him forever…

This is how my story ends.

- Zara Sauleh

[coconut-oil-smells]

Crack baby by mitski is absolutely about Kevin Levin I will not be hearing any arguments and I will be fighting.

[pjinthestreets]

artemiy burakh/child abuse discussion kind of?/longer post re dad artemiy emotions

while i do appreciate a ‘soft ending for the guy whos been through it all’ and i obviously share the instinct to imagine/create that (shuffles 45k of trying to get him to eat a big family dinner with the kids which has spiraled wildly out of control) i feel like i havent seen ANY content where artemiy isnt a gentle papa bear lol. which again isnt to say all of yous are Wrong for your Nice Dad Artemiy content but like. he kills people. he kills kids. theres a multitude of artemiys out there walking the haruspex path differently but you just cant make the argument that theres not room in him for full-on child-murder. and yeah its a video game and harvesting 100+ human organs in 12 days is just not even possible but like. especially classic-flavor artemiy (and i think some versions of p2) has a pretty low threshold for violence and having taken human lives is gonna impact how he is at home yk. plus like, even if you play him as tender as possible in p2 he didn’t come home to start a family..

idk what you guys’ experiences are with unanticipated troubled-youth mentorship but its not gonna be easy or intuitive to jump in as a father figure for two. lets say Troubled kids whove raised themselves halfway. and artemiy absolutely has anger issues, grief, and baggage of his own thats not even touching the ‘ive cracked ribcages to cut out warm hearts and i know what punctured intestines smell like’ aspect lol. one way or another i find it rly hard to imagine him as father of the year and i actually find that rly compelling. even the most well-meaning and stable adults whove actively planned their futures around parenthood fuck up badly because in this bitch of a world no one is without fractures and kids are gonna be impacted by that. i think healing is the work of a lifetime and loving-protecting-nurturing a child can absolutely change everything about a person but i kinda find it unfair to artemiy (and sticky and murky)’s characters to tack on a ‘and then it was all fridge drawings and baseball games and sometimes artemiy had nightmares but he’d go kiss his sleeping kids’ heads and feel better’ as the ending.

i wanna say part of that is the extreme taboo around depicting.. anything at all Problematique, ever, lest ye Endorse, and especially an extreme aversion to portraying someone who harms/abuses a child as anything but a vile monster (or occasionally a repressed alcoholic with PTSD, nonetheless a monster but at least a sad pathetic one?). ive been thinking a lot lately about Redemption Narratives and what we expect from them, who’s eligible for them, and what a Redeemed Character looks like. artemiy is a character id like to see heal and grow as much as the next guy and i can see why ‘artemiy harms a a child or literally anyone and its not done thru gritted teeth for the greater good’ is not a thing this fandom in particular is ready for. i can count the number of even ‘artemiy gets violent with an adult who in some way triggers him’ art/fic ive seen.  but for real, many to most of us have some pretty fucked up shit in our family histories, and most of us will do fucked up shit in our lifetimes. genuinely fucked up shit that changes the trajectory of other peoples’ lives! sometimes those people are children at the time too! how can we hold that harm without denying it, without forgiving it or erasing it?

all that is to say, i dont begrudge the wealth of happy-family endings that artemiy and kids get to have. i AM bummed about the dearth of more complex post-game content, because its something that i think bears thinking about.

[tea-time-terrier]

WHOOPS lol I think i got your blog confused with Maverick's owners blog and just mashed the two together when I looked thru the pics LOL😂 I'm still curious tho! What's it like having a rat terrier?

You're all good! That's my wife (not yet legally) so the Brittany vs. Rat Terrier comparison still works.

(I am likely to forget this draft with upcoming things so I am posting it now in all its disorganized garbage.)

My experience with either breed outside of these two individuals is lacking so please bare that in mind.

Alright so I think the biggest difference is the potential for evil.

Maverick is encouraged to do so many crimes but he simply doesn't do them on his own.

Pike can and will do crimes but most of her attempts are thwarted by management or her own Achilles Heel (she's too short).

For training we've got another split. Maverick needs things to be worth it to him. He is very much a one person dog and has a great reinforcement history with Cat (his owner, my wife) who he works beautifully with.

He is a sensitive man and will let you know if something is unfair/not worth it.

Pike simply wants to be involved and will work for crumbs or bullying. She's very fun to work with as she is ready to Go, but not frantic.

She's got surprisingly good engagement for a puppy in most environments.

Both have very nice off switches and spend most of their time sleeping.

Mav's boredom behaviour is mostly just hanging out with gentle implications that he would like to do something.

Pike's boredom behaviours are punching you with a toy, throwing toys in your general direction, destroying toys, or harassing Mav.

Maverick is friendly or neutral for most people and dogs.

Pike has the fear of the world installed and is mildly reactive towards dogs and some people. She is also at a really fun age so we'll see if this is sticking around or not.

She's been good greeting people and dogs, she just gets overwhelmed easily (she's gaining confidence though).

Rat terriers are not supposed to be DA, but as a terrier they may bring extra spice to interactions.

Both are low maintenance dogs when it comes to grooming.

Pike is wash and wear. (She currently sheds more)

Mav needs some occasional brushing to keep his ears and tail from matting + the occasional trim to keep him from looking like a grinch.

Mav is softer and nicer to pet.

For affection they differ greatly.

Mav usually hangs out by himself and will occasionally sit by us.

Pike wants to be on or near someone. She is very close to being a velcro dog.

Maverick has a large ranging area on hikes.

Pike typically sticks closer.

Both are pretty ideal sizes. Smaller but sturdy.

Maverick is 35lbs. Scoopable but big and agile enough to not need assistance with most things.

Pike isn't quite 20lbs. Very scoopable which is handy bc she is both short and a puppy. She just fits in the largest soft carrier I could find so she gets to go on public transit with me.

I adore Pike but her temperament thus far has not been great. I thought it was a fear period when I first got her but the issues have been consistent and just more emphasized as she's hit teenagehood.

[transpat]

prediction for ep 12??

ik everyone's clinging onto the last thread of hope bc the "teasers have always been misleading" but i genuinely do think they broke up and this just suddenly occurred to me bc i can't stop thinking about it, but i find it v interesting how thru out the show pran keeps reiterating he's quit guitar, he's left that behind when we all know where his heart is and then there's this thing this ep:

thru out this ep they've made it a point to particularly point out just how much pran loves the guitar (that scene where he's watching someone play in awe and pat's staring at him in turn). and verbally, thru out the show pran's kept saying he quit he quit, but then comes clean with pat and admits becoming a musician is in his future plans.

for the time being, pran has entirely given up his guitar and music, bc as much as he loves that he loves his mom too and he doesn't want to go against her wishes. thou its really more from his fear of the consequences than love for that ass, bc pran also knows it's unfair, but he knows he's still under her roof rn, that she has full control over him and can uproot his entire life on a whim, so he has to obey her, has to forsake what his dreams and desires.

still, this is the first time we see pran admit that although he's given it up right now, it doesn't mean he's given it up forever. it's still his dream, it's still in his plans for his future.

so i think that's the same thing him and pat have done. pat can't hide, pran hates lying, if things go badly pran's mom will transfer him again, so they cave in for the time being, do as their parents desire. the 'break-up' is only a 'break', until they're free and independent and can find their way back to each other without constantly watching their back, constantly fearing consequences. pat - like the guitar - is a definitive part of pran's future, once he's removed from his childhood environment.

i mean, this is the only explanation that makes sense to me after every talk they had this ep, about fighting for each other, about going anywhere as long as they're together. i don't see pat simply accepting this fate, or pran emotionally manipulating him into it, bc this very series was about them fighting against that?? pran decides on it bc he knows his mother needs to be babied, that despite what the words he threw back at her, he will be held responsible for her feelings. pat accepts it bc he's seen pran and the guitar, bc he knows pran will never give up on him, bc he's positive he is part of the future pran wants.

(also pran and pat seemed sad but relatively chill about the breakup in the preview. if it was a breakup that was set in stone i think they'd be much more heartbroken and dramatic about it. narratively also it doesn't make sense bc a) its out of character for pranpat b) there's also pha and wai (if that asshole has any remaining conscience) that do have the some power to change things??)

[devilyn]

AHHHHH FINALLY YOU’RE DOING AN EVENT!!! I’VE BEEN LURKING HERE AND THERE TO SEE IF IF YOU’VE GONE THROUGH WITH IT, AND IM SO GLAD THAT YOU DID!!!! YOUR WRITING NEVER MISSES THE MARK WHEN IT COMES TO ANY GENRE, SPECIFICALLY HURT/ANGST AS YOUR BEAUTIFUL AND DETAILED WRITING SKILLS ALWAYS LEAVE ME BREATHLESS AND IN TEARS, BUT THATS BESIDES THE POINT HEGJEJEJS—CAN I REQUEST SOMETHING LIKE AN UNREQUITED LOVE WITH OIKAWA TOORU, USING ANGST LINES 3 AND 4, AND LINE 5 FLUFF

p.s : CONGRATS ON 600 YOU DESERVE IT AND SO MUCH MORE AND IM SO SORRY THAT THIS ASK IS SO LONG AND NOT COMPREHENSIVE AT ALL BDJDKDK❤️❤️❤️

hello hello! omg this is making me blush i’m so shy LMAO tysm!!! 💞💞💞 i rly appreciate the compliments to my writing, bc i sincerely try my best even if sometimes its just a brain dump.......and dw! i fully understood u LOL u were v comprehensive

ty for your request!! feel free to request more since i finally went thru w doing this event 🤡 i did get your other ask on anon btw, i just fell asleep LOL :’) you requested different prompts for that one (angst 2 & 3 and fluff 5) so lmk if you want me to go through with that as well.

but i hope you enjoy this! i used the theme unrequited love a bit loosely here, i hope you don’t mind

Oikawa T.

3. "Did you at least think of me, when you were having sex with them?"

4. "No. The moment you saw me as a bet was the moment you fucked up."

5. "I fucking love you." "Hang up, and tell me this when you're sober."

word count: 536

"Hey, Y/N," he slurred. "Would you consider getting back together with me?"

You contemplated why you picked up the phone in the first place. You massaged your throbbing temples, already able to feel the unbearable headache that Oikawa Tooru knew exactly how to give you.

"No," you stated blandly. "The moment you saw me as a bet was the moment you fucked up, Tooru."

You heard hum chuckle on the other side of the line.

"...I missed the way you say my name. Sounds nice."

You stayed quiet, hearing the familiar shuffle of bed sheets and blankets. At least he was home, and his teammates wouldn't have to plead with you to pick him up from the bar because he would never leave with anyone else.

It was the same discussion nearly every weekend, and everytime he won a tournament and celebrated with his team. You really needed to block his number so he would stop calling. Or, at least you needed to stop picking up his random 2am calls.

"You didn't pick up last week," he complained, and you rolled your eyes at his childish tone. You could picture him standing in your doorway, a pout on his lips until you pulled him over and finally let him kiss you. Then, he'd break out into a grin.

It was too bad. Too bad that he admitted you were a bet all along, and your fragile friends with benefits relationship shattered.

Right. It wasn't even a real relationship. The bet was only that he needed to sleep with you. That's how little you ended up being worth in his friends' eyes.

"Had a friend over," you answered blandly, even though you knew you didn't need to entertain him.

"Did you sleep with them?"

Despite his clear drunken slur, you could tell he was serious. But you didn't answer, opting to, once again, stay quiet instead.

"Did you at least think of me, when you were having sex with them?"

You sighed.

"Tooru, you're being ridiculous--"

He was crying now. You could tell by the way he inhaled and exhaled shakily, trying to hide the fact that he was hiccupping and biting back sobs.

"You're unfair, Y/N."

"What's really unfair is that you used me for a quick buck, Tooru."

You could practically see him flinching at your harsh words, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms.

"...I loved you. I love you," he cried. "I fucking love you."

"Hang up, and tell me this when you're sober," you told him calmly, hands gently smoothing over your blankets.

As he cried, declarations of love turning into incomprehensible babbles, you wondered why you picked up his phone calls every week. Maybe it had something to do with the pain in your chest whenever you heard his voice.

You also wondered why he never called you when he was sober, even though you suggested he do so each time.

You had no idea. But you knew if he called you the next morning and repeated the same confession, sober, you'd actually consider accepting.

So you continued to pick up his calls every week, quietly answering even the most absurd of questions, just for him.