Sae Niijima is such a good character it drives me insane a little. She's not a mother nor a maternal or doting older sister but instead a twenty four year old who was thrown into a position of responsibility that she never asked for. She loves Makoto just as much as she resents her and its so apparent every time they talk up until November. "Are you studying?" (I want you to do well) (I need you to get a job and stop making my life harder) "I'll use any method necessary to get this promotion" (Life will be easier for us) (So stop distracting me with your problems) "Focus on your future" (I know that you're capable) (I can't afford to waste my time on you, so stop wasting time on others)
Makoto is not only the sole reason she pushes as hard as she does for a promotion, for success, and the reason that she loses herself in her animosity over her fathers death, but also someone she can't stand for so long. Makoto was 14-15 when their father died. Sae was 21. As soon as she got the career she wanted and things started to look up, her stability was robbed from her and she was disillusioned with the system that her father had taught her to rely on and completely adhere to. How do you manage, the daughter of a cop, following his footsteps towards law enforcement, when you're suddenly reminded of how unfair it is? You can't quit, your little sister relies on you and she's so young and struggling just as badly with this grief. So you pick yourself up and you get moving again. You push harder, press further. You abandon your morals and your ethics because punishing criminals (guilty or not) is almost like punishing the man who killed your father.
And the whole time she's fighting for promotions, going for drinks with the SIU Director to make herself more favourable for promotions, trying to navigate being a woman in a competitive, suffocating, male-dominated field, falling behind despite doing so much where others are promoted for doing so little - all the while your little sister comes back from school and her biggest issues are so small compared to yours.
Persona 5 revolves so heavily around grief and loss and change and Sae embodies all of that so well, all of the sharp and unpleasant and jagged parts of grief.
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Nightwing's car guy
Dick was doing well to establish himself in Bludhaven. He had an apartment, it was shitty but it was his. He had a day job as police officer, half the people there were in the cartels Nightwing was trying to crack down on, and the other half were in the cartels Nightwing was still trying to trace. He had his suit, still bat-grade, blue instead of the red, yellow, and green Jason got to wear now.
He did't have a cave. Or maybe it should be a nest because the whole bird thing. Burrow? What was the thing owls lived in called? The point is he made due without it. He had his apartment, and he had his supplies stashed away. It wasn't as much as in the Cave, but he didn't have Cave-funding. He could make due.
He didn't have an Oracle in his ear. But that came with the added bonus of not having a Bat either. He could do his own research, find his own information. And it wasn't like he and Babs were totally cut off. It was just only a little weird, because she was technically his ex. Sure she would be in his corner, but she was still his ex. He needed to save some face. Especially since he knew that Bruce and Babs liked to... talk. He could make due.
The only thing Dick was maybe, sorta, just maybe having a little trouble was with his bike. Well it wasn't his bike, it was Nightwing's. Which was precisely the trouble. He'd found a place to stash it, but Dick had never been a car guy... or in this case a bike guy. He would chase his rouges, speeding through the streets, and sure the bike was made for the tight corners and quick turns and the high speeds, and sure it could take a hit or two. But what about three or four? Or five?
Point was Dick needed a car- a bike guy. One that was cheap (he was only a cop), and knew how to not ask questions and keep his mouth shut (again- Nightwing's bike). All that on top of knowing enough on how to fix his bike. (it wasn't exactly the type you could find in store).
But the solution seemed to find him. Which Dick was aware was not generally how it worked, but he would count his blessings. He had been out on patrol, the type that had involved his bike and high speeds. Unfortunately it did not involve the perp in handcuffs and on his way to jail. Dick had been on his tail, could've had him too, if the bike hadn't started sputtering. Dick had done as much as he could for it, but she really needed a pair of eyes that actually knew what they were looking at.
Mumbling curses to himself, Nightwing had been ready to head off to at least catch a dust trail of what operation he'd find himself in next. He could feel the eyes watching him. His hair stood in edge, and when Nightwing turned to look around he couldn't see anyone. Maybe he was being haunted. Trying to arrange his bearings, Nightwing turned back around to get on his bike. When there was suddenly a mop of choppy black hair couched down next to it.
Nightwing blinked at him. How had he managed to get there? "Uh, something you need, man?" Nightwing asked the boy, totally not freaked out.
The boy- teen, he was only a year or two younger than Dick- looked up, large blue eyes staring. As if it was odd for Nightwing to have addressed him. It took him a moment longer to realize that the bike was, in fact, Nightwing's. "You need to change your [important engine part]." He pointed lamely, standing up to his height of only a hair shorter than Dick.
"How do you know that?" Nightwing asked before he could think of the danger the unknown person might pose.
"That's why it was making that sound. It'll put too much pressure on the engine so it won't be able to go as fast it would be otherwise. Which, I take it, would cause you problems." he tipped his head in the direction the rouge had run off in.
Nightwing considered it for just a moment, not wanting the perfect opportunity to get away from him. "Do you know how to fix it?"
The guy looked almost offended, "Yeah."
"I'll pay you." Nightwing jumped at the opportunity, "If you fix it."
Any normal person would've said no to a guy dressed in bullet-proof spandex with a blue bird on his chest and a weird mask. "Sure." He shrugged easily, a glimmer of excitement in his eyes as he eyed the vehicle. After a moment, "Name's Danny, by the way. You'd probably need to know that." Danny eyes his suit, "Who are you, like, blue-jay?"
"Nightwing." He corrected easily, his name hadn't made the streets yet.
"The Robin reject?" Was Danny immediate response, eyebrow arched up in amusement.
"The what?"
Danny grimaced, the laugh never leaving his face, "Ooh, sorry. Touchy subject?"
"I am not a Robin reject." Dick couldn't tell this civilian that he was Robin. Had been.
Nightwing's bike ran better than it had since he had moved to Bludhaven after Danny had gotten his hands on it. And Danny's payment of ("i don't trust ur money, just buy me food") lunch had been a steal in return. Maybe next time they should go somewhere a little nicer.
Because the bike was doing so well, after Danny fixed it.
Not for any other reason.
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today, my coworkers’ refusal to see me as a man put one of our patients in a position where they felt unsafe for the third time. i’ve been at this job for less than two months total. i don’t even care about getting misgendered anymore, i just want the people we’re supposed to be taking care of to feel comfortable around me.
i work at a hospital where we have to supervise our patients in a lot of vulnerable situations. there are safeguarding rules in place for certain things that male employees aren’t allowed to be present for when it comes to female patients. and yet, the people training me and telling me what to do have repeatedly put me in situations where i’ve been forced to do things that the female patients aren’t comfortable with me doing. and because they have repeatedly failed to teach me the rules for doing my job as a man, i have no way of knowing when i’m crossing one of those lines unless one of the patients tells me.
i’ve had to watch a victim of SA stare at me in abject terror as my coworkers asked her to strip naked with me still in the room. it took several minutes for her to even be able to speak enough to ask if i could leave the room. i found out after that she broke down crying the moment i walked out. my biggest regret is that i didn’t realize what was happening fast enough to leave before she ever had to say something, because she shouldn’t have had to say it. i never should’ve been allowed in the room in the first place, because that’s not something male employees are supposed to be present for. but i didn’t know that yet, because i was training and i thought surely, they wouldn’t train me to do something that directly violated their own safeguarding rules. that moment was the first time, and it’s haunted me ever since, but it wasn’t the last time. not only did it happen for the third time today — it almost happened for the fourth, and would have if someone hadn’t spoken up to say they should pick someone else. i care for these people so deeply, it’s why i took this job, and i’m so tired of hearing the fear in their voices when they have to ask me not to do something i never should’ve been told to do.
i’m very used to the personal discomfort of being misgendered. i willingly deal with it a lot at work as well as in other situations, not because i’m in the closet (at this point in my medical transition that would be impossible), but because it’s such a frequent occurrence with my coworkers that we would never get anything done if i took the time to correct them every time. but to see it get to the point of causing such visceral discomfort in other people? people i’m supposed to be taking care of and keeping safe? that’s something else entirely, and i’m fucking exhausted.
and after all of that, some of them still look at me like i have two heads when they tell me what to do and i say “i can’t do that, only female employees can” because i’m learning now. clearly i’m already seen as a man by our patients, but my coworkers would still rather put them in an unsafe situation than just train me as a man.
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