#just in case people think I’m claiming the opposite

[luxurybrownbarbie]

I think that one natural hair anon was weird but I think I get what they’re saying. a lot of the natural hair movement was for us to see our hair as our crowns, and you seem to not have that same mindset, like maybe youre ashamed of it or something since youre always dyeing or straightening yours. 🤔

…Okay. What am I supposed to do about that?

Not to swing a bat at a hornet’s nest here, but I don’t see my hair as my crown. Sorry. It’s literally just a dead protein that grows out of my scalp. It’s a mass of slightly loose, z shaped coils. It grows super quickly in the winter and very slowly in the summer. It starts breaking when I’m under even the slightest amount of stress. I’ve damaged the hell out of it before; I’ve chopped it off and moved on.

The natural hair movement has been amazing to witness and be a part of, and I’m so happy it is in full swing. It is beyond important to reframe the view of our natural hair, be unashamed of it, and learn the right ways to take care of it. It is fantastic and empowering to view your hair as a crown. But you also have to understand that for others, their empowerment comes from viewing their hair as simply hair, and nothing more. For some, assigning importance and expounding the uniqueness of their natural hair gives them comfort and joy. As it should. For others, it’s about not letting their hair be something bigger than them, no matter what society may think. It brings them comfort and joy. As it should. Both views are valid, and should be respected.

I don’t want to see my hair as my crown. I want to know how to take good care of it, how to moisturize it well, and how to minimize (or fix) whatever damage I’ve put it through. For me personally, seeing my hair as my crown would be exceedingly detrimental, because I would spend my time agonizing over anything I did with it. As a little kid, I was afraid to even get a trim because I didn’t want to compromise it in any way. Now, I’ve shaved it off, straightened it, bleached it, permed it, put it in dreadlocks, etc.

The act of surviving as a WOC (especially a Black woman) in society is hard enough. Society makes a huge deal out of our natural hair; I don’t think it’s such a shocking thing that in my own life and day to day existence, I don’t want to put any more stock into it besides doing something fun with it or changing it up every couple of years.

My body is not a discourse temple, nor is it the site on which I fight all of society’s racism and sexism battles.

[carriesthewind]

Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

The court listener link is here, for those who want to grab a few bowls of popcorn and read along.

For those of you who don’t enjoy reading legal briefs for cases you aren’t involved with on your day off (I can’t relate), I will go through the highlights here. I will screenshot and/or paraphrase the relevant portion of the briefs, and include a brief explainer of what’s going on (and why it’s very bad, but also extremely funny). (Also, I’m not going to repeat this throughout the whole write-up, so for the record: any statements I make about how the law or legal system works is referring exclusively to the U.S. (And since this is a federal case, we are even more specifically looking at U.S. federal law.) Also, I don’t know how you could construe any of this to be legal advice, but just in case: none of this is, is intended to be, or should be taken as, legal advice.)

First, let’s get just a quick background on the case, to help us follow along. In brief, this is a civil tort suit for personal injury based on defendant’s (alleged) negligence. The plaintiff is suing the defendant (an airline), because he says that he was injured when a flight attendant struck his knee with a metal cart, and the airline was negligent in letting this happen. The airline filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is an international treaty that imposes a time bar for when these kind of cases can be brought against an airline, and the plaintiff filed this case too many years after the incident.

The fun begins when the plaintiff’s attorney filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. (So far, a good and normal thing to do.) The opposition argues that the claim is not time-barred because 1) the time bar was tolled by the defendant’s bankruptcy proceedings (that is, the timer for the time limitation was paused when the defendant was in bankruptcy, and started again afterwords), and 2) the treaty’s time limit doesn’t apply to this case because the case was filed in state court before the state statute of limitations expired, and the state court has concurrent jurisdiction over this kind of case.

I’m struggling a bit to succinctly explain the second reason, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, the whole opposition reads a bit…oddly.

This is how the opposition begins its argument, and it’s…weird. The basic principle is...mostly correct here, but the actual standard is that when reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (which is what the defendant filed) the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. But even then, you don’t just put that standard in your opposition. You cite to a case that lays out the standard.

Because that’s how courts and the law work. The courts don’t operate just based on vibes. They follow statutory law (laws made by legislature) and case law (the decisions made by courts interpreting what those laws mean). You don't just submit a filing saying, "here's what the law is," without citing some authority to demonstrate that the law is what you say (or are arguing) it is.

Again, this isn’t wrong (although I'm not sure what it means by new arguments?), but it’s weird! And part of the reason it’s weird is that it is irrelevant to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The defendant filed a motion stating that based on the facts in the complaint, the plaintiff has not stated a claim based on which relief can be granted, because the complaint is time barred by a treaty. There is no reason for this language to be in the opposition. It’s almost like they just asked a chatbot what the legal standards are for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim, and just copied the answer into their brief without bother to double-check it.

The opposition then cites a bunch of cases which it claims support its position. We will skip them for now, as the defendant will respond to those citations in its reply brief.

The last thing in the brief is the signature of the lawyer who submitted the brief affirming that everything in the brief is true and correct. An extremely normal - required, even! - thing to do. This will surely not cause any problems for him later.

The next relevant filing is the defendant’s reply brief. Again, the existence of a reply brief in response to an opposition is extremely normal. The contents of this brief are…less so.

Beg pardon?

Just to be clear, this is not normal. It is normal to argue that the plaintiff’s cases are not relevant, or they aren’t applicable to this case, or you disagree with the interpretations, or whatever. It is not normal for the cases to appear to not exist.

Some highlights from the brief:

Quick lesson in how to read U.S. case citations! The italicized (or underlined) part at the beginning is the name of the case. If it is a trial court case, the plaintiff is listed first and the defendant second; if the case has been appealed, the person who lost at the lower court level (the petitioner/appellant) will be listed first, and the person who won at the lower level (the respondent/appellee) will be listed second. There are extremely specific rules about which words in these names are abbreviated, and how they are abbreviated. Next, you list the volume number and name of the reporter (the place where the case is published), again abbreviated according to very specific rules, then the page number that the case starts on. If you are citing a case for a specific quote or proposition, you then put a comma after the beginning page number, and list the page number(s) on which the quote or language you are relying on is located (this is called a “pincite”). Finally, you put in parenthesis the name of the court (if needed)(and again, abbreviated according to extremely specific rules) and the year the case was decided.

So the plaintiff’s response cited to Zicherman, which they said was a case from 2008 that was decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the defendant was not able to find such a case. They were able to find a case with the same name (the same petitioner and respondent), but that case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996, and the lower court cases associated with that case weren’t in the 11th circuit either. (The United States Reports is the only official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court, and only includes SCOTUS decisions, so it’s not necessary to include the name of the court before the year it was decided.)

Just to be clear. The defendant’s brief is saying: the plaintiff cited and extensively quoted from these cases, and neither the cases nor the quotations appear to exist. These “cases” were not ancillary citations in the plaintiff’s brief. They were the authority it relied upon to make its arguments.

This is as close a lawyer can come, at this point in the proceedings, to saying, “opposing counsel made up a bunch of fake cases to lie to the court and pretend the law is something different than it is.”

That, “Putting aside that here is no page 598 in Kaiser Steel,” is delightfully petty lawyer speak for, “you are wrong on every possible thing there is to be wrong about.”

By page 5, the defendant has resorted to just listing all of the (apparently) made up cases in a footnote:

(skipping the citations to support this proposition)

This is where I return to my struggle to explain the opposition’s second reason why the motion to dismiss should not be granted. I struggled to explain the argument, because they failed to explain why the argument they were making (that plaintiffs can bring lawsuits against airlines in state court, and the state court have specific statutes of limitations for general negligence claims) was relevant to the question of whether the plaintiff’s specific claim against the airline was time barred by the treaty. Because 1) this case is in federal court, not state court, and 2) federal law - including treaties - preempts state law. Again, it’s almost like plaintiff’s attorney just typed a question about the time bar into a chatbot or something, and the machine, which wasn’t able to reason or actually analyze the issues, saw a question about the time to bring a lawsuit and just wrote up an answer about the statute of limitations.

We also end with a nice little lawyerly version of “you fucked up and we are going to destroy you.” The relief requested in the defendant’s original motion to dismiss was:

In their reply to the opposition, however:

“The circumstances” in this case, being the apparent fabrication of entire cases. Because courts tend to take that pretty seriously.

And the court took it seriously indeed. The defendant’s reply was docketed on March 15th of this year. On April 11th:

AKA: you have one week (an extremely prompt time frame for federal court) to prove to me that you didn’t just make up these cases.

On April 12th, the plaintiff’s attorney requests more time because he’s on vacation:

The judge grants the motion, but adds in another case that he forgot to include in his first order.

On April 25th, the plaintiff’s attorney files the following:

(And he lists the cases, with one exception, which he says is an unpublished decision.)

But he says of all of the cases except two, that the opinions…

Which is…nonsense?

First of all: if you cited a case, you had to get it from somewhere. Even unpublished opinions, if you are citing them in a brief, you are citing them because you pulled them off of westlaw or whatever. Which means you have access to the case and can annex it for the court. (There are even formal rules for how you cite unpublished opinions! And those rules include citing to where you pulled the damn case from!)

Secondly: remember that long digression I went into about how to read case citations? Remember that bit about how you include the name of the reporter (the place the case was published)? Yes, cases are published. They are printed in physical books, and they are published online in databases (e.g. lexis or westlaw). If the specific online database you are looking in does not have the case, you look somewhere else. If you have a judge telling you to get them a copy of the case Or Else, you track down a physical copy of the reporter if you need to and scan the damn thing yourself. You - literally - can’t just not have a copy of the case! (Especially published federal circuit court opinions, which multiple of these cases are! Those aren’t hard to find!)

And what kind of “online database” doesn’t include the entire opinion anyway? I’ve literally never heard of a case research database that only included partial opinions, because that wouldn’t be useful.

Maybe if we look at the attached annexed copies of the cases, that might give us some answers.

...

My friends, these things are just bizarre. With two exceptions, they aren’t submitted in any sort of conventional format. Even if you’ve never seen a legal opinion before, I think you can see the difference if you just glance through the filings. They are located at Docket entry #29 on Court Listener (April 25, 2023). Compare Attachments 6 and 8 (the real cases submitted in conventional format) to the other cases. Turning to the contents of the cases:

In the first one, the factual background is that a passenger sued an airline, then the airline filed a motion to dismiss (on grounds unrelated to the treaty's time bar), then the airline went into bankruptcy, then the airline won the motion to dismiss, then the passenger appealed. And the court is now considering that appeal. But then the opinion starts talking about how the passenger was in arbitration, and it seems to be treating the passenger like he is the one who filed for bankruptcy? It’s hallucinatory, even before you get to the legal arguments. The “Court of Appeals” is making a ruling overruling the district court’s dismissal based on the time bar, but according to the factual background, the case wasn’t dismissed based on the time bar, but on entirely other grounds? Was there some other proceeding where the claim was dismissed as time barred, and it’s just not mentioned in the factual background? How? Why? What is happening? Also it says Congress enacted the treaty? But, no? That’s…that’s not how treaties work? I mean, Congress did ratify the treaty? But they didn’t unilaterally make it!

In the second case, there’s an extended discussion of which treaty applies to the appellants claims, which is bizarre because there are two relevant treaties, and one replaced the other before the conduct at issue, so only the new treaty applies? There isn’t any discussion of the issue beyond that basic principle, so there is no reason there should be multiple paragraphs in the opinion explaining it over and over? Also, it keeps referring to the appellant as the plaintiff, for some reason? And it includes this absolutely hallucinatory sentence:

…the only part this that makes sense is that the argument is without merit. I’m not going to discuss the actual merits of the legal arguments in the opinion, because they are so bizarre and disjointed that even trying to describe them would require a Pepe Silvia-sized conspiracy board. Like the previous case, both the facts and the legal posture of the case change constantly, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

The third one…oh boy. First, large portions of the “opinion” are individual paragraphs with quotations around the whole paragraph. What’s happening there? As far as the content of the opinion itself - I can’t. I mean that, I literally can’t. What is being discussed seems to change from paragraph to paragraph, much of it contradicting. It makes the first case seem linear and rational by comparison. The court finds it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the defendant so dismisses the case based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction? But also the defendant hasn’t contested jurisdiction? And also the court does hold that it has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the defendant? And then it denies the motion to dismiss the case? Also, at one point it cites itself?

…also, even if this was a real case, it doesn’t stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited it for in their opposition? I’m not going to go into the weeds (honestly it’s so hallucinatory I’m not sure I could if I tried), but, for example, the plaintiff’s reply brief states that the court held “that the plaintiff was not required to bring their claim in federal court.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal court, and there is no discussion of any filings in state courts. The closest the “opinion” comes is with the statement, “Therefore, Petersen’s argument that the state courts of Washington have concurrent jurisdiction is unavailing.” (This statement appears to be completely disconnected from anything before or after it, so I am unsure what it is supposed to mean.)

Moving on, case number four is allegedly a decision by the Court of Appeals of Texas. It includes the following line:

Honestly, the plaintiff’s attorney best defense at this point is that he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead the court, because if he was doing this on purpose, he would have edited the cases to make them slightly more believable. (Context in case you’ve lost track: these documents are supposed to be copies of the opinions he is citing. The screenshoted line makes it clear that what he is actually citing is, at best, someone else’s summary of an "opinion". It would be like if a teacher asked a student to photocopy a chapter of a book and bring it into class, and instead the student brought in a copy of the cliffs notes summary of that chapter. Except that the book doesn’t even exist.)

The actual contents of the “opinion” are, as is now standard, absolutely bonkers. First, the court decides that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over Delta because “Delta did not purposefully avail itself of the benefits of conducting business in Texas.” This was despite the fact that the factual background already included that the appellant (sorry, the plaintiff, according to the “opinion”) flew on a Delta flight originating in Texas. Like, this is just wrong? It’s not even hallucinatory nonsense, it’s just facially incorrect legal analysis. Then the court starts discussing the treaty’s time bar, for some reason? Then it goes back to talking about personal jurisdiction, but now the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the appellate court agrees with the trial court that it does have personal jurisdiction, even though this is the plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and the court already ruled it didn’t have personal jurisdiction? And even though on page 1, the plaintiff was injured during a flight from Texas to California, now on page 7 she was injured on a flight from Shanghai to Texas? Also the trial court has gone back in time (again) to grant the motion to dismiss that it previously denied?

Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pointing out the wonky text of these submissions, but:

Everything ok there?

Case number five is similar enough to number four that it’s not worth repeating myself.

Thank god, cases six and eight, as noted above, are real cases, so I’m going to skip them. The defendant alleges that the cases do not stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited them for, and I’m going to assume that is true, given the rest of this nonsense.

Case number seven looks legitimate on the surface. But neither the defendant nor I could find the case through any legitimate search mechanisms. The defendant looked up the purported docket numbers on PACER and found completely different cases; I was able to find a case with the name “Miller v. United Airlines, Inc.,” but it was for a different Ms. Miller, it was a California state case (not a Second Circuit federal case), it was decided on a different year, and the substance of the case was entirely different from the alleged opinion filed with the court.

On top of that, this might be the most morally reprehensible fake citation of them all? Because it is about the crash of United Airlines Flight 585, a real plane crash. Everyone on board - 25 people in total - was killed. 

The individual cited in this fake court case was not one of them.

I cannot imagine conducting myself in such a way where I would have to explain to a judge that I made up a fake case exploiting a real tragedy because I couldn’t be bothered to do actual legal research.

Now, I know you all have figured out what’s going on by now. And I want you to know that if your instincts are saying, “it seems like the lawyer should have just fallen on his sword and confessed that he relied on ChatGPT to write his original brief, rather than digging himself further into this hole”? Your instincts are absolutely correct.

Because obviously, the court was having none of this b.s. On May 4th, the court issued an order, beginning with the following sentence:

That is one of the worst possible opening sentences you can see in an order by the court in a situation like this. The only thing worse is when judges start quoting classic literature. If I was Mr. Peter LoDuca, counsel for the plaintiff, I would already be shitting my pants.

“I gave you an opportunity to either clear things up or come clean. Now I’m going to give you an opportunity to show why I should only come down on you like a pile of brinks, instead of a whole building.”

We are getting dangerously close to “quoting classic lit” territory here.

If I learned that the judge in my case called up the clerk of a circuit court just to confirm how full of shit I was, I would leave the legal profession forever. Also, the judge is now also putting quotes around “opinion.” When judges start getting openly sarcastic in their briefs, that means very very bad things are about to happen to someone.

So I’m guessing the delay between this filing and the court order was because the judge’s clerk was tasked with running down every single one of the additional fake citations included in the "opinions", just to make this sure this order (and the upcoming pile of bricks) are as thorough as possible.

If you are following along with Dracula Daily, the vibe here is roughly the same as the May 19th entry where Dracula demands Jonathan Harker write and pre-date letters stating he has left the castle and is on the way home.

Also, hey, what’s that footnote?

Wait, what?

Folks, it appears we may have notary fraud, on top of everything else! Anybody have bingo?

So on May 25, one day before the deadline, Mr. LoDuca filed his response. And oh boy, I hope ya’ll are ready for this.

Hey, what’s the name of that other attorney, “Steven Schwartz”? Where have I seen that name before…

...I ran out of room for images on this post. So I'm going to have to leave this as an accidental cliffhanger. Part 2 to follow once I refresh my tea.

[diluc33rpm]

What fundamentally matters to you?

[matan4il]

Buddie 612 meta

I don’t think we’ve had this much fodder with such few scenes in a long time, and I am LIVING!

Okay, so first of all I have to mention the parallel between 217, when the team was coming in, one by one, to see the suspended Bobby, and this ep, with everyone dropping by one at a time to be there for the recovering Buck. The similarity is of course in the found family connection. In both cases we see the importance of the absent member of the team through these visits. The difference is in the way the team came to Bobby because they need him to be there for them as their captain and friend even when he’s not on the job. But in Buck’s case, they don’t need anything. They’re coming by because they want to be there for him when he needs his team members and friends. Buck’s parents needed a reason to love him. Buck’s found family in this ep is loving him anyway. ~~

I’m gonna scream about the couch in a second, but I have to admit that while I was watching the ep, the moment that REALLY had my eyes shoot wide open and my breaths go into hyperventilation is when Maddie reads the note saying Buck has gone out. Because as soon as it was made clear Buck had chosen to escape his apartment and all of his visitors, I knew where he was headed. First off, the very fact that everyone else came to him, while Eddie was the one person Buck chose to go to already had me biting my fists. Once more, like in so many other cases (for example, when the lightning hit and Eddie was filmed differently to everyone else in the 118, or the way he was the only absent person in Buck’s dream and the only one Buck remembered without needing a physical object to jog his memory), Eddie is singled out as having a unique space in Buck’s life that no one else occupies. And of course there is this domestic quality and element of choosing each other as we see them repeatedly opening the door for and to get to the other one. ~~

But just think of the meaning! This man puppy, who only ever wanted to be loved and who’s being showered with attention and care, is absolutely restless because he’s having a hard time and feels like he has to pretend with the people he loves the most, and therefore he’s failing to fall asleep on his own couch. He seeks comfort in a connection that’s even deeper than the people who have been to see him, where he can really be himself without pretense. And that’s what’s insane, because he was visited among others by Maddie and Hen, his loving blood and adoptive big sisters. NO ONE can claim that his r/s with them is anything other than deep, and yet when he needed something more, when he needed an escape, when he needed a place where he could simply rest and be himself, he went to Eddie’s. This isn’t just Buck standing in Eddie’s kitchen declaring, “I’m not really a guest” in 311. This is him being more of a guest in his own apartment than in Eddie’s house. This is him being home and safe and able to JUST BE in Eddie’s space.

This is Buck beginning his healing by sleeping on the SAME couch where Eddie did in 514, connecting their healing in a parallel that is going to make me tear my own hair out. Which actually connects us back to 407, when Buddie talk about Buck’s need for his loft to be his safe space. Now it’s canon that this desired safe space is Eddie’s home, and I will chew through every piece of glass out there before I calm down from this. Once again, there are opposite sex canon couples on TV who never get this level of soulmate development! ~~

Oh, I also found it very interesting that Buck tells Maddie about his list he goes through every time he wakes up, to make sure he’s not in the coma world. We didn’t see him going through those steps when he woke up on Eddie’s couch. Remember how I said Eddie had to be absent in the dream world or Buck might not have made it out of there? Well, this ep adds to that. By virtue of being the only one who’s fully absent, it means Eddie is the one person whose very presence is a cue for Buck that he’s in the real world and safe, the only one who, by simply being there, negates the need for a list. I AM MELTING. (my gif, please excuse the awfulness) ~~

Speaking of soulmates bonding, I have to point out the opposite sex soulmates we do have in this very ep. Bobby confesses that Athena is it for him because she makes him feel like he’s standing on solid ground, she helps him be himself by finding again a piece of him.

We also see her becoming a part of his healing process when he allows her to come to his AA meeting. This is exactly what we see Buddie going through in 612! Eddie is Buck’s solid ground, the person he can count on and who can provide him with rest (that’s what solid ground represents), who allows him to simply be himself, and Eddie is also a part of the healing process that Buck allows him into by seeking out Eddie, and by opening up to him when Eddie asks him to, after finally getting some rest on the couch... ~~

That brings me to the couch because that in itself is just... Wow, this show really hates my nails and wants me to chew on them fully, I see how it is. Let’s not forget for how long the couch metaphor has been with us! Once Taylor and Buck discussed their couches situation when she was moving in with him in 513, and it was clear there was an incompatibility issue because she was bringing in a couch while he already had one (meaning they had already failed to communicate about this pretty basic point), it was clear they’d have to choose only one and dispose of the other. Very tellingly Taylor doesn’t really leave room for choice, so Buck (who only asked her to move in out of guilt) gave up his for hers. That’s the start of the couch being a metaphor for his romantic relationships, and I can’t believe it started a whole season before this ep! And then when Taylor moved out in 518, he was left with none? But that wasn’t unhinged enough for our show, so they brought it into an even greater focus with the lasagna scene in 601, when it was made even clearer that the “right couch” for Buck is about his romantic partner, that he’s aware of that significance, and that he admitted to it IN EDDIE’S PRESENCE. I can’t believe Buck fell asleep like that on Eddie’s couch, when they BOTH KNOW what the couch means. This is the most naked two men have ever been with each other on a TV show without taking their clothes off! Then Buck’s parents get him a couch he doesn’t want, one that’s all wrong for him, one he didn’t get to CHOOSE, so unsurprisingly he can’t sleep on it. That would have been a lot already, but then this ep turns around and SLAMS US IN THE FACE with Eddie’s couch being the right one for Buck to fall asleep on and to do so effortlessly! Two seconds on it, and Buck was out. That’s okay, 911, I just have to work a double shift while I’m sick today, I didn’t need to also have my sanity. You absolutely can have everything left of it. (my gif, please excuse it) ~~

I know it’ll sound dumb, but I was happy crying over the beers in Eddie’s fridge and the zoomed in shot we got of them. Look, it’s their thing, right? We’ve seen the two of them sipping on beers together in the iconic 309 kitchen scene (NGL, the oral sex scene in my Blue Against Blue fic was inspired by this), and it’s been a repeated theme, so when I saw Eddie had no less than 6 beers easily accessible in the top shelf of his fridge, chilling away, it screamed “This is my Buck stash” to me.

I will forever be a mess that Eddie Diaz, tough war veteran, actually has a supply of beers ready in his fridge for whenever soft man puppy Evan Buckley drops by unannounced. Can you imagine when Eddie goes grocery shopping and he probably smiles softly to himself when he buys his Buck beers? These two are so domestic and in love and equally soft about each other, it’s gross. And by gross I mean I love it, please gimme more. ~~

Oh, but the domesticity just keeps leveling up in this ep! Because then Buck wakes up and makes his way to the kitchen, where he just… lets Eddie take care of him by serving water. And it’s so tender and husbandy, and affectionate, and connects so perfectly to Eddie asking Buck to share with him. Because Buck wouldn’t let others fuss over him, but he lets his hubby take care of him. And he doesn’t tell others, even ones who are significant people in his life, where he’s really at, but he will share everything with Eddie. Not to mention that it doesn’t take much to get him to open up. All Eddie has to do is ask, and despite Buck’s initial announcement not to, he just goes right ahead and spills. I am inhaling and exhaling into the palms of my hands.

Of course, tucked in there is also Buck asking Eddie about the shooting. We all remember Buddie holding eye contact through that and Eddie reaching out to him, right? Or everything that transpired between them in the ambulance, all of it so romantically coded... This scene tells us that Eddie doesn’t remember those bits. I find it interesting to consider that maybe Eddie really doesn’t. That maybe the reason he hasn’t figured out yet how he feels for Buck is because he blanked out on the way he turned to Buck during the most intense moments of his life, and the ones he thought were his last. ~~

I mentioned during the hiatus in replies to asks I got that I suspected just like the distance between Buddie in 5a served to bring them closer together in 5b as Buck helped Eddie with his healing, the same structure was being followed in s6, just in the reverse, where Eddie will eventually help Buck. You can’t imagine how deep and meaningful I find it, that the show has actually structured these two seasons as counter paralleling each other, and showing Buddie as being a vital part of this mutual healing, so I tried to demonstrate that with this gifset. ~~

Last one! The cardiologist. Look, I already mentioned in my previous weekly meta that the heart theme started with Eddie, and then it was expanded to Buck. I find it insane that the show really hammered it home by having the same cardiologist be the doctor for both men, and that while she’s at it, she hints to both that their issues are not purely physical. How long before the metaphor-loving Buck catches on? IDK, but every single choice about this ep feels incredibly deliberate, when so much is condensed into so few scenes.

(my weekly meta posts) (my Buddie gifs) (all of my content)

~~ I can’t explain how much I’m asking of the amazing @whosoldherout​ for the gif requests, and the results are always so stunning, I’m deeply grateful!

~~ My tag list will follow in the reblog, please let me know if you wanna be added/removed here. Thank you in advance for any reblog and like! I’m sick and took three different medications to be semi-functional, so I really hope you’ll like this. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you did! xoxox

[trans-androgyne]

Sorry if this is an irritating ask or anything, but could you please explain to me what people find wrong about the term transandrophobia? As far as I’m aware it’s literally just a word to describe trans men’s oppression. I’m not against the idea that it might have something wrong with it (as a transmasc person), but through all this fighting I’ve never once seen someone clearly explain what the problem is.

I’ve seen people claim that transmascs keep throwing transfems under the bus, but the only thing I’ve ever seen is actually the OPPOSITE way around, and only when I go searching for it (but that might just be because I make an effort to keep my dash free of that kind of thing) again I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, I just… don’t quite understand all this.

Sorry abt this rambly ask, I’m just tired and frustrated and I HATE that we’ve been pitted against each other

I will do by best to genuinely present and respond to the main arguments I have heard made against using the term. Apologies in advance for the length.

The most common in my experience is that “androphobia/misandry doesn’t exist,” or “men aren’t oppressed for being men,” based on the terms transandrophobia and its origin, transmisandry. It feels like a non-sequitur to me, completely bypassing the actual meaning of the term. Some people do include androphobia or misandry in their definition of the term, but many more don’t and just use it to describe the intersection of transphobia and misogyny in the lives of transmascs or even just “transphobia against transmascs.” I personally do believe androphobia exists in a literal sense—the fear of men that has serious consequences—but not in the way they mean it. They are attempting to paint us as MRAs, but nobody who gets any eyes on them using the term has ever argued that women oppress men as a class. MRAs are antifeminist, and the transandrophobia conversation is very much a feminist one.

The simplest is just that transmascs just “don’t need a word” to talk about their oppression. Our experiences are called “just transphobia” or “just misogyny” based on whatever they think applies most in the moment. Our theorizing is painted as useless infighting or just being jealous that trans women have a word to describe their oppression. I vehemently disagree with this one, I think everyone deserves language to describe their experiences. I think it’s impossible to ignore the way that both transphobia and misogyny interact to affect us in a new way (the very definition of intersectionality), and that we deserve to recognize and describe that intersection. Even the coiner of the word “transmisogyny” appears to agree with us on this.

Other people will focus on the term’s perceived origins. They frequently call the person who changed the term “transmisandry” to “transandrophobia” a “lesbophobic transmisogynist” and rape fetishist. From everything I’ve been able to put together on the matter, it seems to be that they’re referring to him having engaged in someone else’s detrans kinks as a sex worker on a private blog. I’ve heard from others he may have harassed people, absolutely cannot verify that. To me, it feels like another case of accusing trans people with kinks others find unsavory of being a sexual predator/sex pest, which people generally recognize as transphobic. In any case, even if every single part of their outrage was true, I do not think the behavior of a person who didn’t even come up with the ideas means that transandrophobia theory is inherently transmisogynistic.

In regard to “throwing trans women under the bus,” I think a lot of those ideas come from oppositional sexism. It’s assumed that what we’re saying is true of men must be the opposite for women. Trans women, including the woman who coined “transmisogyny,” have been using trans men’s perceived “opposite” experiences to prove their points for many years. They try to make a claim for transmisogyny by saying trans men don’t experience similar issues (violence, sexualization, demonization, safety issues, misogyny, trouble passing). But the reality is, trans men do experience those issues — some to a lesser extent, some in a different form, some just less visibly due to our chronic erasure — and have other issues of their own that trans women don’t face (like abortion rights issues). An attack on the idea that trans men have it easier is seen as an attack on transmisogyny as a concept. But it isn’t!! Transmisogyny is so blatant and oppressive of a system that it doesn’t need to compare itself to transandrophobia/trans men’s issues to have ground to stand on. Trans people are all harmed by transphobia in different, complex ways and none of us have gendered privilege.

Very few people engage with the actual meat of transandrophobia theory. We have really bad optics, I’ll give them that. It’s hard to like a word with “androphobia” in it, talking about men’s issues puts people on edge due to MRAs, and there are TERFs actively trying to recruit us. (The last part is used against us when it shouldn’t be, they try to recruit transmascs of all stripes for detransitioning and are only using us in particular because so many transfems have been awful to us because of the term. They are trying to widen that divide while most of us discussing transandrophobia are trying to close it.)

We (people who use “transandrophobia”) are often characterized as a unified movement that hates trans women (like in that post that blew up in the wake of predstrogen’s banning). We are not a movement any more than “transmisogyny” or “exorsexism” are. We don’t all believe the same things, the only thing we share in common is that we feel transmascs have a specific kind of oppression and deserve a word to describe it. And, obviously, we are doing our best not to perpetuate (trans)misogyny! The number of disclaimers I have seen people put on their post to make it exceedingly obvious to the piss on the poor website that they’re not talking about trans women is absolutely astounding. I’m sure our circles do have some transmisogyny in them, everywhere does! We do our best to combat it and I know my personal spaces have a couple transfems in them that help keep us in check. If we were being genuinely transmisogynistic, I would ask people to actually point to what they’re seeing that’s harmful instead of just dismissing all of us as evil bigots.

I think what contributes to the backlash the most is simply that trans men do not fit into current understandings of feminism well. People have gotten it into their heads that men are gender oppressors and not gender oppressed — which doesn’t shake out so well when you put being trans into the equation. I grew up hearing “ew men are gross” “I hate men” “kill all men” sentiments due to being in LGBT spaces. Some people really, really do not want to let go of the idea that men are bad and icky and dangerous and women are good and pure and safe, especially when it benefits them as non-men. Many transmascs themselves have internalized the idea that they are gender oppressors, traitors to feminism, more likely to be dangerous/predatory/misogynistic, and take up too much space because they are men/mascs. I sure felt like that before finding these conversations! I sincerely think that as we grow our transfeminism and heal from our gender essentialism a little more, this rhetoric will be left in the past.

[wrenreid]

Do you take requests? I had a prompt to send in, but I wasn’t sure. I saw a fic for another fandom where the guy was having wet dreams in bed with y/n female reader and I thought it would be a great smut Spencer friends-to-lovers story. ❤️

Wildest Dreams

I haven’t before, but I’d love to take requests! Thank you:)

synopsis: Spencer Reid has a wet dream about his good friend and coworker. He’s highly embarrassed from where his unconscious mind wandered, so he avoids her. That is until she forces him to tell her what happened. When he does, her reaction is not what he expected. Had to add some angst because it’s who I am. Hope you like this! i hate my smut

content: 18+ MDNI, oral (m and f receiving), penetration

The team piles onto the jet after a long case. All of your faces read tired, especially Spencer’s. He plops down on the couch, something he has practically claimed as his own.

“Mind if I join you?” You ask him. “Can’t sleep on the seats.”

He scoots over, allowing space for you. Gratefully you sit down next to him, leaning your body the opposite way of his onto the arm of the couch.

Both of you are dead asleep within twenty minutes, which is highly unusual given your records of mild insomnia.

The two of you sleeping in such close proximity isn’t strange at all like one might think. You’ve been friends since you joined the BAU two years ago.

You started out as an assistant of sorts. You were still in the academy, but you were given the opportunity to work on real cases, just not in the field.

Spencer and you clicked that week since he was the only agent, other than the talented Penny Garcia, that you spent the most time with. He was off the field due to his injury from getting shot in the leg.

Watching his mind work was fascinating. It seemed like he knew everything, and honestly he kind of does. He taught you a lot that week, showing you how to apply all of the psychology and people-reading you’d learned in the academy. Being in the BAU with him was more beneficial than your classes at the academy.

You’re woken up to the sound of your own name. It’s coming from Spencer’s lips. He’s still asleep. You wake him up, worried he’s having another nightmare.

“Reid,” you say softly to not wake up the others. “Spencer. Hey, I’m right here.”

He stirs awake from your gentle shaking, his face beat red. “Y/n?” He sounds like he’s still partially asleep.

“Are you okay?” You ask him, voice still in a whisper. “Did you have another bad dream?”

Spencer shakes his head. Then he nods. He seems confused. Embarrassed.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t real,” you comfort him, patting his knee gently.

He pulls the blanket over his lap more, causing you to move your hand. “I know,” he sighs, nodding.

“We should be landing soon,” you say. “Maybe you’ll get better rest at home.”

Spencer shrugs slightly and turns his face away from you. You don’t take it to heart. You know how these dreams can be for him. Real. Terrifying. You know because you have them too.

When the plane touches ground and comes to a stop, all of you get off the plane gratefully. It’s late. Nearly 2 in the morning. Hotch tells everyone to get home safely.

“Do you want a ride?” You ask Spencer once both of you have your bags situated.

“I’ll just get a cab,” he tells you quickly.

“Really, it’s no problem,” you say, “It’s late.”

“It’s fine, Y/n.”

His voice has been clipped and distant for the last half hour. Why is he acting this way? It couldn’t have been something you did because you don’t remember doing anything.

Instead of fighting him on whatever it is that’s up his ass right now, you nod and walk to your car.

The two of you take turns driving sometimes. It saves gas money and allows you company on the 40ish minute drive from your neighborhood in D.C. to Quantico. You don’t live too far away from each other, only an 11 minute drive. It would’ve been no problem to take him home. But he opted for alone time. You guess you can’t blame him.

“Are you going out with us tonight?” You question your friend, rolling your chair to his desk.

“I don’t think so,” Spencer answers quickly.

“Why not? We haven’t had a team outing in ages. Let loose, Reid.”

“Y/n,” he warns.

“Fine,” you huff, rolling your eyes. “Movie night then?”

“Movie night?”

“Yeah. Just you and me. That new horror movie is on HBO now,” you wiggle your eyebrows, knowing his love for horror can persuade him.

“I don’t know,” Spencer says, pressing his lips together. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“You don’t think what’s a good idea?” Your eyebrows raise.

The two of you have had movie nights multiple times in your two year friendship friendship.

“Just leave it alone, okay?” Spencer says, shrugging you off.

You don’t want to make a scene at work, so you roll your way back to your own desk and continue the paperwork from the last case.

Spencer has never acted this way toward you. Sure, he’s been secluded and reserved, but he’s never been one to shrug you off, to push you away.

Something is up. Something has made him close himself off. He can’t keep shutting you out like this, not without telling you why.

So after work, you try to catch him before he leaves. Unfortunately, Morgan decides to tell you and Emily a story, and Spencer slips out of the bullpen while you listen.

You’re a confrontational person. And your closest friend is avoiding you. This means one thing. You force him to tell you what’s up.

You knock on his door, not too loudly. He opens it after a few seconds.

“Y/n, what are you-?” He starts.

“What did I do?”

“What?” He huffs softly.

You fold your arms, standing in front of him with a serious face. “You’ve been avoiding me for days. I don’t know why, so tell me. What did I do to make you mad at me?”

Spencer’s face softens. “I’m not mad you.”

“Then why are you being so short with me? Why are you avoiding me? You’ve been a little bit of a dick.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” he says then pauses. “Okay, I’ve been avoiding you. But I’m done now. You’re right, it’s dickish.”

It’s always a little funny when Spencer curses. It never sounds natural.

“Why though?” You stay stern, needing to know what’s up with him.

“Come in,” he motions his head toward his living room.

You oblige, making your way to his couch. He sits beside you. You’ve been on this couch a thousand times together.

“So?” You question.

“You’re really going to make me say it?”

“Yes, I am,” you tell him.

Spencer sighs. “When we were on the couch the other night on the jet, I had a dream…”

“Yeah, I know that,” you say.

“It was about you.”

“Did something bad happen?”

He shakes his head. “Well, it depends on what you think is bad. We were in bed together.”

A laugh bursts through you. “Wait, you’ve been avoiding me because you had a wet dream about me?”

“Don’t call it that,” he groans.

“That’s what it is!” You chuckle, a big grin on your face. “That’s no big deal, Spence. It happens to people all the time. You have no control over what your unconscious mind conjures up.”

“So you’ve had one?” He asks.

“No.”

The blood has rushed to his cheeks deeply. He’s embarrassed.

“I haven’t thought about you like that in my sleep,” you tell him. “But perhaps I have while awake.”

Spencer lifts his head off the back of the couch. His eyebrows are furrowed. “What?”

It’s your turn to blush. “Yeah. I mean, the thought has occurred a few times.”

“I don’t quite know how to respond to that,” he presses his lips together.

It’s cute when he does that. It’s nerdy and shy.

“You don’t have to,” you say softly. “I just wanted you to know you’re not in the wrong for having a dream about me.”

The two of you have absentmindedly inched closer to each other. Your hand rests on his leg.

“Are you about to kiss me?” You ask, looking into his brown eyes.

“Only if you want me to,” he says.

“Show me what we did in your dream,” you whisper in his ear.

What happens next is not something you ever thought you and Spencer would do. You weren’t lying when you said you’ve thought about it, but you never thought he would’ve felt the same.

Your lips make contact softly at first, but his neediness takes over and his mouth dominates yours.

You always thought Spencer would be more of a gentle lover, but it turns out he’s an all consuming powerhouse.

He pulls you onto his lap, his hands squeezing your thighs and ass. He’s grown into himself well in the past year, and he’s definitely gotten more confident. You like this side of Spencer. A lot.

He tells you to lift your arms up, and you obey the order, eager for him to do more. Your shirt comes off quickly and his hands leave your ass and grab your tits. He’s not too rough, but he’s definitely not gentle.

You smile down at him before connecting your lips to his neck, careful to leave your marks in places he could easily hide under his clothes.

“Was I on top or bottom in your dream?” You ask, voice low and raspy.

“Both,” he answers, fingers working on the buttons of your pants.

You slide off of him and shimmy out of your work pants. You stand before him in mix matched underwear. He doesn’t care that they’re different colors. He wants them gone.

He lifts his shirt above his head and tosses it to the ground. “We should take this to my room. There’s not much space on the couch.”

“Yes sir. Or should I say doctor?” You wiggle your eyebrows.

“Yes, yes you should,” he grins, obviously liking the use of his title on your lips.

He follows you into his bedroom. You’ve laid in his bed on late nights multiple times. But he never shared it with you. He must’ve been too scared his true feelings would come out at night like they did on the jet.

“Lay down,” he says softly.

“I thought I would do something for you first,” you say, pulling him in by the belt loop.

“No need, sweetheart.”

“But I want to,” you tell him.

He nods. “As you wish.”

After slipping down his pants, you position yourself on your knees. He hands you a pillow so you don’t get sore. That makes you smile.

You take just the tip at first after running your thumb along it. After getting use to the feeling of him in your mouth, your head bobs up and down on him. Spencer’s hands tug on your hair as he finishes in your mouth.

“Your turn,” he says with a smile, looking down at you.

“If you please, doctor.”

His mouth is on your clit in no time. His tongue and lips work magic, causing you to call out his name.

“God, Spencer,” you whine, your hands tangled in his hair. It’s much shorter than it was when you met him, it makes him look older. In a good way.

With a combination of his fingers inside you and mouth working on your bundle of nerves, your legs are shaking and you’re finishing.

Spencer hardly gives you time to catch your breath before his lips are on yours and he’s hovering above you. You don’t mind. You need him.

“Are you ready, darling?” He asks.

When you say yes, he slowly slips himself inside you. He gentle at first, giving you both time to adjust.

His thrusts gradually speed up, and the slow and gentle turns into fast and rough. The sounds of your heavy breaths and moans fill his bedroom.

“Fuck, Y/n,” he groans, hand on your neck.

“Don’t stop,” you breathe out, wrapping your legs around his torso.

It doesn’t take much longer for you both to be moaning loud and shaking once again. You clench around him as you come, causing his own finish to release from him.

You bask in the high of the adrenaline coursing through your body. The two of you breathe heavily, your hearts pounding.

“Wow,” you sigh, moving your hair out of your face. “So, was that as good as your dream?”

“Much better,” Spencer says, rubbing your cheekbone with his thumb gently.

tags: @shakespear-picaso-lovechild @kylakins88 @jazzerbelle14 @cynbx @yazzyu @regulus-black-223048 @virginmusicloverr36 @sebs-oxygen @jolotta @booktvmoviefangirl @nevielei @pauline5525mgg @necromaniackat @r3idsp3ncer @impossiblynoisywasteland @jazzerbelle14

[butch-reidentified]

do you think it’s possible for a lesbian to be somewhat attracted to a trans woman (who passes well) if the only place she sees the tw is online/in videos/in pictures? i’m gender critical and i believe attraction is based on sex, but if somebody strongly resembles the same sex and you’re only seeing them from a physical distance, wouldn’t it make sense for somebody attracted to that sex to be able to find them attractive? (not referring to pursuing a relationship with them)

its almost 4am at the end of a long work week, and I'm still recovering from covid, so I hope this is coherent lmao

ik this will be controversial but I urge people to really mull over this before reacting in anger, though I really do understand the impulse:

honestly, as a (former) neuroscience researcher and someone still deeply passionate about neuroscience who likes to read neuroscience journal articles in her spare time... I think it's fucking complicated and there's a bit of intellectual dishonesty on both sides. the TRA side claims you can (only!) be attracted to someone's internal identity or ~gender feelings~ while the gc side claims that there is NO circumstance in which a person could pass well enough as the opposite sex to be perceived as attractive by someone whose orientation includes that "passing" sex.

and yet, I've had the experience of being at an lgbt bar or club and seeing someone I thought was a cute masc woman initially, only to realize it was an androgynous or slightly effeminate-appearing gay man - and many many lesbians I've told this to have shared similar experiences with me. I know a male transitioner online who is really cool and calls himself a eunuch rather than a woman or anything, and while I don't find him attractive, I have to admit that in the ~100ish photos I've seen of him (incl many candid full body ones taken by other people), I've not been able to "clock" any distinct male characteristics. maybe that would be different in person, but we live on totally different continents so idk.

I've known a TON of trans people irl, likely far more than most people on radblr or anywhere. this is partly because Florida has the second highest # of trans people in the country, and partly bc of where I went to college, and partly because my life is just strange like that. but I'll admit I've known a couple mt"f"-transitioned folks who I truly had no idea were male for quite some time - physically or behaviorally.

the reality is that your brain only knows what it perceives, and if it perceives a male as a female without your knowledge, and your orientation includes females, then it could be possible to feel attraction. however, I'm preeetty damn sure that would not persist beyond learning that person's sex is male, at which point you'd probably suddenly start noticing whatever male traits you were able to overlook initially. but I don't think it makes rational sense to claim that it's never possible to experience "mistaken" attraction for a period of time. there are known cases of historical women who lived as men who were flirted with by straight women who believed them to be male, for instance.

this is one of those situations where the truth (what I've said above) could be twisted and deliberately misinterpreted by the opposing party, which I believe to be why so few, if any, are willing to acknowledge this. but it's a question I've pondered a lot and this is the only logical conclusion I've reached. and it simply is not rational for anyone to act like anything I've said here implies that homosexuals can/should be open to dating/sleeping with the opposite sex. anyone who could come to that conclusion from this response needs a seriously intensive review of reading comprehension.

like I said I'm not fully awake so I'm sure I could have made my points here more clearly and I'm sure I'll get retaliation from people who want to nitpick my wording or whatever, like usual, but o well.

[batlleonafc]

She’s a scab. She only cares about herself and what she can personally gain. She let her “friends” take the fall more than once now so she could get a world cup and continue to push that she’s the best player in the world when in reality she played like absolute dog shit and really that second ballon dor shouldn’t have gone to her in the 1st place. She’s just trying to stay relevant sorry that I’m giving you guys the truth 🤷‍♀️

Welcome to @handmeascalpel's ted talk, I'm your host @batlleonafc buckle up and enjoy the ride

Hello, anon. I've read everything you've mentioned. Do you have any evidence to support your claims? Considering that I'm reading this now, you don't. So, let me present the evidence I have. If you understand after this, great. If not, I can't stop people from forming their own opinions.

Exhibit A:

You said, "she only cares about herself and what she can personally gain."

On September 1, 2022, Alexia tweeted in support of Irene Paredes when the RFEF essentially blamed her for the players' opposition to the federation. Alexia was injured at the time and wasn't even in camp or eligible for a call-up. She was the first to tweet, sparking the revolution against the RFEF.

Ironically, on September 23 of the same year, exactly one year ago, Alexia was the first to post the Las15 statement, stating that the players wanted a "firm commitment for a professional project" and expressing their unhappiness that private conversations with the federation were leaked.

Exhibit B:

You said, "she let her friends take the fall more than once so she could get a World Cup."

As I mentioned earlier, Alexia was injured and therefore ineligible for a call-up. So her statement and email were never considered valid.

Every statement has always been posted by her first because she has a large following. She has consistently spoken out loudly and clearly about the problems. She never let friends take any fall. More proof is attached below.

She went to the World Cup because she was fit and couldn't escape sanctions, in case you forgot about them. I'd like you to tell me how many players who came back from an ACL injury immediately played well, or maybe just give me some names.

#seacabo was started by Alexia, and she took the lead for everything. It's not hard to find this evidence. Regardless of what people like you want to say about her, both on and off the pitch, you can see what kind of person she is.

Exhibit C:

You say, "that second Ballon d'Or shouldn't have gone to her in the first place."

Who do you think should have won it then? I'd be happy to hear your answer.

But since you brought up the Ballon d'Or, let me share a few things:

Official stats from the 2021/22 season:

La Liga Femenina:

- 26 games played.

- 18 goals scored.

- 16 assists.

Copa de la Reina:

- 4 games played.

- 4 goals scored.

- 1 assist.

Supercopa de España:

- 2 games played.

- 1 goal scored.

- 1 assist.

UEFA Women's Champions League (UWCL):

- 10 games played.

- 11 goals scored.

- 3 assists.

Regarding the Ballon d'Or voting, she only missed out on 29 days, equivalent to one tournament (the Euros). Nobody came close to her stats, and she's a midfielder. These stats are only for her club. Her national team stats are just as impressive, as she has been crucial in every single match, not just easy ones. She essentially surpassed her own record from the previous season when she won the Ballon d'Or. In short, she deserved it.

There's more to a player than just stats, especially for defenders. But the stats Alexia has as a midfielder are outstanding.

Exhibit D:

Finally, you said, "she's just trying to stay relevant." Sorry to say, but she doesn't have to say anything to stay relevant.

She uses her influential platform to talk about what's true and important, unlike many players. Ramona Bachmann is a good example, and even Athenea, for that matter.

I hope you've learned something today, anon. If not, good luck with your opinion of Alexia. You might just look foolish for hating on her.

Thank you for listening to @handmeascalpel's ted talk I hope you learned something today!

[sweetercalypso]

med! abby is top tier but what about

lawyer! abby + lawyer! reader

they have been rivals since law school, but when a mutual friend needs all the help they can get, they need to work together and maybe they'll find they have a lot more in common than they thought

I got so carried away with this, I’m obsessed with snarky lawyer Abby <333

Word Count: 704 💀

・・・・・・・・���・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Abby is a cutthroat defense attorney for a big corporation and you’re one of the top prosecutors in the city, so you’ve been on opposite sides of the courtroom more times than you can count.

Abby is mean and vicious and will go to any length to make her client’s case, and you’re a headstrong attorney who’s hellbent on holding people accountable for their actions. Maybe you went to the same law school or you had a very memorable case against her, but the feud between the two of you seems to go further back than anyone knows.

When your mutual friend, Yara, asks you for help on her case, you drop everything to be there for her. So does Abby, not knowing that Yara had called you both to work through her case.

When you show up to see Abby sitting in Yara’s living room surrounded by boxes of files, you have to bite your tongue to hold back your comments. Abby isn’t as gracious.

“I see she called in the B-team — you gonna do a coffee run for me, sweetheart?”

“Don’t know why she called you for help. What d’you know about innocent clients, Anderson?”

Yara quickly separates the two of you, leaving Abby in the living room and sending you to the kitchen table with your own stack of documents and a comment about how the two of you need to “kiss and make up”.

Hours later, you’re forced to leave the quiet sanctitude of the dining room to look for a document from Abby’s pile.

She’s hunched over the small coffee table, running her hand over the back of her neck and scrunching her brows together in deep focus. The floorboards creak under your steps and Abby quickly sits up to regain her composure.

“Did you need something? Or did you come in here to stare at me?”

You roll your eyes at her snarky remark, but answer her anyway. “Have you seen the last two pages of this anywhere?”

She looks at the papers in your hand for a moment and then snaps her fingers, reaching over to sort through the mountains of files that are sorted around her. The coffee table is a mess of papers and Manila folders and you wonder if she keeps her office in this state too.

“They’re right here,” she says, holding up the papers to show you. “I was looking for your half earlier, figured it was somewhere in this mess.”

She reaches for your papers at the same time you reach for hers, and you’re both left dumbfounded that the other had laid claim to the document in question.

“Let me see those,” you say, reaching further until your fingertips brush the edge of the papers.

Abby snaps them back towards her, holding them close to her chest. “No way, they were in my pile. Let me have yours.”

“You’re kidding, right?” You scoff, putting a hand on your hip. “You think I’m just gonna give these to you? I’m not messing around, Abby.”

She rises from her place on the couch to meet you head-on. “You’re wrong if you think I’m gonna let you fuck up this case,” she spits. “This is for Yara, she deserves someone who’s not afraid to get the job done.”

“What Yara deserves is someone who actually cares about her case.”

“Hey, I care!” Abby is practically red in the face at this point, shoving her finger into your chest to make her point clear. “I’m here because I want to get the best outcome for Yara.”

“Well so am I,” you say, stepping closer to her, faces no more than two inches apart.

She’s silent for a moment, eyes flitting over your face before she finally replies in a much calmer voice. “Fine, we’ll both read it. Let’s go.”

And then she’s storming past you into the dining room, her half of the document in hand.

You stand there shocked, not expecting Abby to be the one to compromise. Her head pops through the door way after a moment, a playful smirk on her face as she motions you towards the dining room.

“Well come on, big shot. Let’s get back to work.”

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

[taranida]

Tom the Poet or Tom the Filmmaker

I would like all my theories to have evidence that back them up. I’ve come from fandoms where things said are a cute thing, worth considering, but solid theorising comes with quotes, screenshots, counting toes and following the writer’s pattern of three hint and foreshadowings before the big reveal. Therefore, I’m going through the first game yet again to collect all this information and put it in something coherent, something I will be happy with. I hope that the waves of my research will carry me to the proper essay with all the proofs necessary on every statement I’ve made in my first pinned post.

But there are still questions that have no answers as far as I know. One of them: why Tom Zane was made into a filmmaker and by whom?

In Control’s AWE the cutscene where Tom and Alan meet is a toned-down version of their encounter in Room 665. Alan asks if Tom is the Tom, the poet and the diver and Tom replies that it was just a beloved character in his old film. They have the same conversation at the start of Room 665 in Alan Wake II.

Alan seemed always forget that he (or someone else) changed Tom’s identity to filmmaker, still convinced that Thomas Zane he encountered at the start of his journey was a poet and a diver. First, when Tom-the-filmmaker was introduced, I thought that Alan forgot who Zane was and what he learned about him (I wouldn’t put it past Alan: he forgot many things he wrote, even his birthdate somewhat slipped his mind — in 2010 or in the Dark Place; the guide for the first game states that he’s 31, when the statue near the Parliament Tower claims he was born in 1977), but in both cases he kept insisting that Tom was a poet. So, the opposite is true: Alan forgot that Tom now is a filmmaker.

But why is Tom made to be a filmmaker? Even the second game insists that the Tom was a poet: Cynthia notes this in her journal, marvelling at why everyone thinks that he was a filmmaker; even the boys of Old Gods of Asgard say “you need him [Tom] to write the ending,” “art, like Tom’s writing” and “it’s Tom’s story we are dealing with, he’s gotta be the one to rewrite it”. And they are the only three people who knew the real Tom Zane and have some credibility in what he really was: a poet or a filmmaker.

The boys, of course, are a discussion on their own; Tom and Alan are interchangeable in their heads, they might talk about Alan the writer, hence “write, writing, story, rewrite”, but Cynthia has no such issues. She never mistook Alan for Tom, she loved Tom her whole life, devoted to his wishes and for sure wouldn’t mess such a big part of his identity in her head.

Then we have This House of Dreams, where we can read poems, some of them are by Thomas Zane and the Bright Presence shows Samantha that he was indeed a poet. Let’s add Jesse Faden into the mix, who as well, remembers Thomas Zane being a poet and even recites one of his poems in Control’s recordings. She still believes he was a poet somewhere around 2019, judging by her words about her needing to be in New York soon. Only in AWE DLC when she hears Tom claiming he’s a filmmaker, she changes her mind. But at this time, she’s already in yet another Alan’s story, her beliefs shaped by his writing (or by the words of her therapist and this vision of Tom and Alan; take your pick).

So, the question remains: why was Tom made a filmmaker?

My belief here is that Alan (or Scratch — do not confuse with Mr. Scratch) had no need of a poet. In This House of Dreams we see two sets of poems: one is by Thomas Zane and another is by Alan himself, in Control’s AWE Alan also claims that he wrote poems, and what value can Tom-the-poet add to Alan’s attempts to escape? A filmmaker on the other hand, as Tom says in AWII, can make a companion piece for his manuscript. Hence the filmmaker, the auteur.

As a side note. I do believe that the real Thomas Zane never makes his appearance in any games, first we see the Bright Presence possessing the body of Tom, then we see yet another Alan’s face in the Dark Place, that takes shape of what he believes Tom Zane was, and this part of Alan becomes a filmmaker at some point in his journey. After all, as the real Tom once wrote:

When you’re lost You’re lost in your own company

[hamartia-grander]

Please I’m begging you on my hands and knees please elaborate on Luis and Ada being foils

I am SO happy that someone finally asked me to talk about this I know I asked you to ask me I love you so much thank you because once I had this realisation it made me love both of their characters - and the re4 remake as a whole - so much more than I already did.

Explanation below the cut:

So first lemme define what a foil is when it comes to characters, not because I think you personally don't know Wilfred but in case anyone's reading this and wondering why I'm calling these characters aluminum wrap. I'm not, I promise it's a real narrative device. A literary foil is "a character whose purpose is to accentuate or draw attention to the qualities of another character". Essentially, a foil requires two characters to be identified, and they exist to contrast, reflect, or exist in an opposite way to their co-foil so as to highlight the other character's weaknesses, strengths, and personality. However, they are often also very similar in technical ways, and thus their behaviours and/or quirks that set them apart show the audience how some things just work for one character but not the other. Think of it like an inverted image, how some details look better in negative space but worse in positive space. This is true of narrative foils. In the remake of Resident Evil 4, Luis is written as a literary foil to Ada.

We first meet Ada in re2, and she's introduced as this mysterious woman who claims to be of the FBI but reveals no further details about herself. We as the audience/player behind Leon have to trust her to get to where we need to go, and she proves herself worthy of that trust. Leon doesn't question why she's helping him, because he believes that she really is FBI and that helping people is her job. He doesn't know her goal, but he's willing to help, and receive her help. However, at the end of re2, we find out that she's actually not FBI, that she was using that as a cover and she is actually a mercenary and spy, whose goal was to acquire a sample of the harmful G-virus and bring it to Wesker who was obviously going to use it for nefarious purposes, and she knew that. Leon (the audience) doesn't know this until the very end.

We first meet Luis in re4. Now in the original, he barely had any substance as a character, and his personality was simply an expression of cultural stereotypes and misogyny, masked under "charming flamboyance". In the remake, however, Luis does have substance as a character. We not only get more out of his personality, but we now know his goals, his flaws, and his interests. And just like Ada, he is a mysterious character with a dark past that led to him making bad decisions and aligning himself with bad people. However, the difference between them and the beginning of what sets them up as foils is that Leon (the audience) finds all of this out about Luis almost immediately. Unlike with Ada, where Leon took her word and went the entire game believing what she said, Leon was sceptical of Luis and had Hunnigan look him up - and sure enough, Hunnigan was able to find all sorts of information on Luis, despite Luis actively trying to make that information as well as himself untraceable. So rather than having the audience trust Luis outright like we did with Ada, and then having that trust threatened when we learn who she is later one, we learn who Luis is immediately, setting him up as someone who we should be sceptical of.

With Ada, by giving us a character to trust and see good in for an entire game only to end it with the reveal that she's actually working for the "bad guys", we are led to think that all of her actions up to that point were fake, that she was simply putting on a cover of kindness and care for Leon. And of course that's the wrong idea, as she clearly does care for him, which we see when he stupidly dares her to shoot him. And she refuses. IDK, even if I loved Leon, I would've shot him then just because he was being a cocky shit about it, but Ada is certainly stronger than me. Ada's actions prior to us finding out who she really is now are tainted, and we're led to see her actions as that of a facade. Adversely, with Luis, by giving us a character who's bad past we know outright and repeatedly meet up with throughout the game, we are led to see all of his actions from that point on as acts of redemption.

We first see Ada as a Good character and therefore all of her actions are that of someone just being herself, but with Luis we first see him as a Bad character, and therefore all of his actions are that of someone who must redeem himself. However, they are both very similar characters; but in the way the stories introduced them to us, and in the order they revealed information about these two characters to us, the narrative influences how we see these characters. Imagine if we had gone the entire game not knowing Luis used to work for Umbrella, thinking he was just Some Guy who happened to live in this village. Leon most definitely would have trusted him much quicker. But that 'Umbrella' background being the first real thing we learn about Luis means that his dark past will always be on our minds when we see him next. And it makes sense to us, given the events of re2, that Leon wouldn't trust Luis, even if the audience does. (Same with Ada; the audience could be distrusting of her, but narratively we see why Leon would've trusted her implicitly in re2.)

Both Luis and Ada are mysterious characters whose real moral alignment we are uncertain of for almost the entirety of their games. Both Luis and Ada tell lies to protect themselves or their cover. Both Luis and Ada withhold information they either feel too ashamed to admit or can't admit, again, to protect their cover. Both Luis and Ada - specifically in re4r - have a recurring theme of change. They both speak to Leon about people changing. They both show their own relationships with change. And yet, their endings are vastly different.

Where Ada withholds information and succeeds, Luis withholds information and is found out by Hunnigan. Where Ada can double cross Wesker and escape, Luis attempts to double cross Los Iluminados and gets found out and captured, which is how we meet him. Where Ada gains Leon's trust almost immediately and loses it at the end, Luis doesn't gain Leon's trust until the very end. Even when Leon shows situational trust in him - accepting Luis's help in the safe house, agreeing to partner with him to get the suppressant for the plaga for Ashley - he still doesn't trust Luis's motives, his goal, or even his character. Leon constantly questions Luis throughout their interactions, unwilling to believe this man would help them unless he had some ulterior motive.

That brings back up the theme of change. Luis asks Leon if he thinks people can change, and then Leon asks Ada if she has changed. Luis's death scene could very well be the first time - or at least, the first significant time - Leon has been forced to confront the idea that people change. His confusion regarding Luis's real motives the entire time as a result of learning that Luis used to work for Umbrella seems to be proof enough to Luis that Leon does not see him as someone who has changed, even though Luis desperately wants that to be seen. Adversely, Leon desperately wants to see some proof that Ada has changed, that she's not using him. He's learned from Luis, but he's stumped by his own personal lack of change. Leon doesn't understand how to identify that kind of change in someone; or at the very least, he doesn't know how to voice it. Ada replies "what do you think?", and this could be passed off as her usual way of avoiding the truth, but really she's asking him "Are you even able to know if I've changed? Did you ever pay attention to who I am, or did you lose sight of my character as soon as you learned something bad about me? Have I changed, or has your perception of me changed? Can I change to you if you never really knew me at all? What do you think about how people change?" (And I love this about her.) Luis is Ada's foil because the way Leon perceived Luis's change was so abrupt that now Leon is looking for change in everyone, even himself. And where Luis doubts himself and has to ask Leon - as he's dying - if Leon thinks people can change, Ada is sure of it.

And of course I have to add some serennedy in this. As @thebrokengate kindly mentioned, the dynamics between Leon and Ada, and Leon and Luis, are opposite. Leon trusts Ada and then that trust is broken; Leon doesn't trust Luis, and then that trust is earned, but too late. Luis isn't just a foil for Ada, but his relationship with Leon is also a foil for Ada's. We see where Luis fails in ways that Ada succeeded when it comes to their characters; but when it comes to their relationship with Leon, Luis succeeds where Ada failed. And it makes his death even more devastating as he had the potential to go further with Leon than Ada could, but he was killed, leaving Leon alone regardless. In both instances, Leon lost someone who affected him personally; but where one was lost with trust broken, the other was lost with their life taken.

Again, by giving us Ada's personality first and her background last, we soften up to her as a character before having to question everything we thought we knew about her, as who we find out she is contradicts what her actions have been. However, by giving us Luis's background first and his personality last, we start out sceptical of him, and when his actions contradict what we found out about who he is, we forgive him. I'll also take this opportunity to point out the misogyny in this fandom, as many fans still dislike Ada or believe her to be a bad person, when they love Luis. in many ways, they are the same character. We were just given details about them in a different order that influenced how we perceive their actions.

[tamelee]

Hello! I've seen you around before but never really visiting your page and now i have! (✨I don't regret it✨)

I have an ask but I don't know if you're comfortable about it so answering it is a choice, not an obligation

Ask:

Why do you ship sns?

(i also ship it but i like to ask people what they think about it)

✨I’m very glad you have✨- hi~!

Yes of course. I talked about some of it here

There are quite a few of ships that I like, but I rarely talk about those. I know they’re just that— a ship. But even if there’s more to it… maybe? None of them come even close to the amount of wealth of supporting evidence that SNS holds to prove that yes, Kishimoto sat in front of a desk for 15+ years hunched over an entire love story, deliberately meaning for it to be romantic, but not ever really able to spell it out directly because… Shonen demographics. Probably. Mostly. And company decisions; alas the sequel. (That’s why I don’t really ship SNS, it feels off to me, I rather am a fan? Not important at all, just a distinction I’d like to make anyway.)  

And at first it was mostly because other people claim their bond really is romantic through their observations. I wanted to find out for myself and coming to that conclusion took me a lot of digging. The more I did that, the more I started to like SNS, Kishimoto as a storyteller and ‘Naruto’ as a story overall because it stands out in ways other stories don’t.

But.. if you want specifics of my reasons story-wise.. (I will not apologize for the upcoming rant ���� you did ask me about SNS after all.. ’s what happens)— feel free to read further:

Major Reason 1— the Manga

Because how do you really start to see layers within a story that aren’t spelled out? I’ve seen some SNS-fans questioning their own beliefs and intuitions, but that’s not a bad thing, nor is it surprising. Kishimoto is a sneaky bastard and we love him for it, but I wouldn’t really agree with people saying how “easy” it is to see true meaning, because “it’s all so obvious” when ‘meaning’ isn’t really always. And it discredits the necessary skill and literary devices Kishimoto used to tell this story from his position as Shonen Mangaka imo. Severely.

Majority of me becoming a fan only started after reading the Manga. Here is where all the extra noise and influence in the Anime from the many (and often different) episode directors and other decision-makers, is removed completely. (I’m not saying that’s all done with ill intent, just, intent best suited for Anime goals that I don’t necessarily agree with in ‘Naruto’s case. I don’t really care otherwise.)  

Manga vs. Anime: In Manga is where all the Mangaka’s true subtext is and where their messages through the Theme are a lot more clear than when you view it through episodes. Each episode has separate goals not necessarily tied to the overall Story (like in Manga), but to structure it in a way that optimizes entertainment within the timeframe of an episode. It’s true art of deliberately selecting and stretching of source material. People sometimes don’t believe me when I say that, because if you ignore fillers and the Anime covers the same things as the Manga, surely it won’t make a difference? But it really does. You can use all the extra elements in Animation to strengthen a message (like voice, action, music, pacing and camera-direction), but the opposite is true also. Even as “simple” as coloring can subtly influence subtext. You can use all the elements in whichever way to tell the story— together very powerful, but not all nearly as aligned with the Mangaka’s “truth”.  To test this out of curiosity, I have put the Manga and several episodes side by side and when you study a scene from the Manga (a case study), the underlying messages are sometimes completely removed in the Anime. Or other perceptions are strengthened by showing moments a character thinks back on to show what they mean with their words even if it’s irrelevant at the time. It doesn’t mean it’s not relevant at all, it’s just not the same thing as in the Manga. (I don’t recommend testing it the way I have because it takes an ungodly amount of time ><) And it’s only natural for the Anime to do that because… it’s literally their job to fill in episodes in a way they think is best and fits their goals with their audience in mind. Anime and Manga audiences aren’t the same even if someone belongs to both. This is true at least in theory and from my understanding talking to animators when I traveled, they aren’t treated the same if you compare strategies. That’s also why saying Kishimoto helped with certain movies or his approval of whatever doesn’t say too much (or at all) regarding his personal vision regarding the source, because the execution of the final product has too many elements that have nothing to do with his role or skills in the project, whereas that’s completely different with the Manga. It’s fairly obvious in ‘Gaiden’ and Minato’s story as well. Yet his name is always used to prove otherwise because it’s a marketing tactic and it (unfortunately) works. 

Major Reason 2— Subverting Expectations

It’s true that a lot about SNS and their bond is just blatant text and spelled out directly making them both sound incredibly insane and incredibly in love. Meaning, that even if you would watch the Anime or read the Manga on a surface level— you’d realize there’s something more going on regardless. If you question whether your intuition is true on this, watch any reaction to certain moments— you’re not alone. It isn’t for nothing that majority of the general audience mockingly calls Sasuke ‘Sasgay’ since the beginning or are only able to filter an opinion about his motivations through what the surface-narrative says it is: bad. (We can talk about that more in a different post.)

Or people hate Naruto for prioritizing something other than his protagonist’ self “should” prioritize; what is narratively seen as “good”. (Konoha for example. Often why people put Konoha vs. Sasuke when there’s a lot more to it and categorizing it as such only enhances that surface view of good vs bad— it works against the argument these people try to make because that automatically puts Sasuke in the bad-category for most people.. ’s kinda funny, but not really.) 

Or how there are complaints because neither Naruto or Sasuke have shown even the slightest interest towards their ‘supposed’ (read: Shonen-‘expected’) love-interests because there isn’t any. Arguing that they should love another character simply because the girlies are stalking and fawning over them holds no ground at all, yet people take it as truth because they don’t know where else to look. To accept or even acknowledge the unexpected means you gotta swim a little deeper to explore the rest of the iceberg. (Yes, ‘Naruto’ really is that special.) If you don’t then it’s pretty easy to blame everything on bad writing, but I don’t think that’s fair at all simply because some people are unwilling/unable to actually see what’s truly written in the first place and can’t connect things otherwise because “no that’d be gay” and “it’s not possible, it’s Shonen so the Hero should fall in love with the most obvious girl-option” despite there being no mutual foundation to support a decision like that. Nor is there any significance that contributes to anything else. (Or in ‘Naruto’s case, Kishimoto mocks the idea of them liking these girls back, which should tell you a lot as well.) 

Major Reason 3— Subtext, Plot-Goals & Theme

So alright, there’s text. There’s them giving up their goals for each other, willing to trade their lives for the other’s wellbeing or dreams, wanting to understand and reach hearts being each other’s one and only’s in different ways as well as driving strength, motivation and the cause of inner conflicts… but all of its meaning is found in context. (Yes, that thing that people love to ignore to make up their own.) The foundation of SNS’s bond and what it means to them (and even other characters) is primarily subtext weaved through their character arcs. Their change as a character has all to do with each other and very little with the actual plot, hence their final battle being an emotional one and more climactic (in theory of storytelling) than the actual war. 

And yeah, possibly the reason why no one could really connect with the war was because it actually had little meaning beyond the surface.  

Naruto was already celebrated as future Hokage and got the acknowledgement he believed would make him happy. But it didn’t, not for long. 

Sasuke killed both his brother (sorta) and Danzo. He had the perfect opportunity to demolish Konoha because he believed that would be the solution, but he didn’t. Because he realized he had to question the former Hokage and learn more to tackle the problem behind his suffering (the system) on a larger scale. (Revolution.)

These things by itself should tell you there is more to it, because had it been any other story, it would’ve been over. It’s the entire revelation that halts a story completely, but it went on didn’t it? The war only strengthened Sasuke’s resolve for his plan for revolution (we can talk about that in another post) and Naruto’s status as Hero is conflicting and can’t actually ever soothe his anger (in fact, you can see during the war that it became worse) which is why Kishimoto sorta lamely (I’m sorry) brushed the problems off during the Waterfall of Truth arc… by having Naruto believe in himself (which he already did) for arguably the wrong reasons. Although admirable and touching, it’s not very believable considering the rules Kishimoto set before.

So, their arcs continue and the characters have to keep growing. As Main-characters, it’s saying “you aren’t there yet, there’s something you have to discover still”. It isn’t “anyway, you still have a war to fight”, because the war isn’t an obstacle to their inner needs. It’s plot conflict mostly. When it comes to Naruto and Sasuke, Kishimoto masterfully used plot conflict between each other as an obstacle to represent how they feel. Naruto’s existence really is an obstacle to Sasuke’s goal, but you gotta wonder why exactly that is. Naruto couldn’t ever become Hokage if he couldn’t save a friend, but if that’s true, then Naruto failed long before that, so why is Sasuke so special, huh? Hehe.  

On top of all that, overcoming these obstacles means they have to fight for it— emotionally and literally. And fight they do, which is why it is so emotional, because it’s both. The discovery lies in acceptance, something a character can’t go back from in a good story and it’s very prevalent during their conversation after VotE2 and Sasuke’s inner monologue at the end. They are each other’s answer to the Thematic questions the story posed in the beginning. These aren’t “can Naruto become Hokage?” Or “Will Sasuke decide to destroy Konoha?” Or “will our heroes be able to win the war?”, those are plot, not Theme and they don’t argue for a Universal truth nor does it repeat throughout the story constantly like their bond is. It's why Sasuke's "I've lost" has nothing to do with giving up the reason behind his goal, nor the physical fight they just had.

Together it creates a promise saying their understanding is the solution to the Narutoverse’s problem we unfortunately weren’t able to see in action because it jumped from that to delulu lala-land. But that didn’t make the former any less true.

Because if it wasn’t, then Kishimoto spent 72 volumes proving a message he never intended to prove which is ridiculous. As is saying that doing so is accidental (lmao).

And come on now, if their love for each other is the growth within their Character Arcs, the answer to the problems the Theme and Plot posed, both supported by Context and Subtext with some insane blatant Text on top, then I’m sold completely. 

Ooohhh and don’t get me started on the insane amount of symbolisms and metaphoric elements and how Kishimoto used minor characters to support and deepen its meaning because I'll be typing forever... ><

[whatlovelykdramas]

At first I figured that the library Noona was going to be a thorn in my side, but after that convo with Yeo Reum, she is genuinely pissing me off. She is acting like Yoo reum is taking advantage of Dae Beom, when in reality she has never asked anything of him. In some cases he has actively asked to help and in other cases he helped with her knowledge. And for the instances that she is aware of her help she has always been extremely appreciative and has also tried to return the favor (although clumsily).

All this bullshit she’s spewing isn’t even for Dae Beom’s sake, it’s drenched in her jealousy. And that became obvious when she claimed that she could “take responsibility” for him. Which is honestly just laughable because she can’t.

Here’s the thing, Dae Beom’s past is full of back to back turmoil and trauma which he hasn’t healed from. It appears that in one point in his life he tried to fight through it and went to university, but he must have gotten burnt out and then everything caught back up to him and he had a mental breakdown (I’m assuming, from the scene we saw of him melting down in class). From there he probably realized that what he was doing wasn’t working so he returned back to his small hometown to work in that library and to relatively recover. And from what we can tell, he is happy there! He likes what he’s doing and he feels comfortable in it. As said before, he still hasn’t healed from his trauma and grief, but he seems to be in a better place, mentally.

So when she looks at Dae Beom she doesn’t see that he is content with his quiet life, instead she sees the gap between what he is and what she thinks he could be. She’s in love with potential Dae Beom, not current Dae Beom. And so she ignores his feelings, wishes, and comfort zone to try to push him towards a future that she thinks he should have all while under the guise that she’s doing it for him. That’s why I said earlier that her claiming she can take responsibility for Dae Beom is laughable. You can’t take care of someone (or love someone) if you are actively ignoring their wants and needs.

And this is exactly why she can’t understand why Dae Beom is so enchanted by Yeo Reum. Yeo Reum is the opposite of library Noona. She accepts people for where they are at. She listens to them without judgement and empathizes with them. She is content with the small things in life. She has a kindness and softness that draws Dae Beom in. After all this trauma and stress she must seem like spring after a harsh winter to him. I think he can tell she is a safe place for him to just be, and so it’s no wonder why he wants to be around her and to make her happy. Because she makes him happy.

[fraddit]

For the choose violence ask game:

8. For 9-1-1, if you please.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

This one got away from me…

It’s not everyone, but I see it often enough to really be annoying. The premise that certain interactions with women that Eddie’s had over the seasons are proof that he’s not interested in women. Specifically, scenes like him rejecting the women hitting on him at the Saddle Ranch in s2, him being uncomfortable and trying to avert his gaze with the sleep driving woman in s6, and his reaction to Pepa’s ambush setup in s6, etc.

I know people are often joking, but I’ve also seen these moments touted as objective proof of him being not into women. And, to be clear, the offense I take over this isn’t about debating his sexuality. It’s about how such claims are based on a premise that I find very skeevy.

If Eddie’s canon behavior in these scenes is evidence that he’s not into women then logic dictates that the way to show that he is into women in these scenarios would be if he did the opposite behavior. So let’s explore that thought experiment.

Eddie is at work, trying to do his job, which in this case includes the serious business of trying to get a woman’s head safely out of a truck tailpipe. Drunk women are aggressively hitting on him. He’s not enjoying it. This is apparently proof of him not liking all women, instead of him not liking these particular women. The implication is that if he was interested in women, he’d be having the time of his life and getting all their numbers. However, if the genders were swapped in this scenario, nobody would ever claim that a woman not enjoying several drunk men hitting on her while she’s just trying to do her job is indication of anything other than that those men need to back off and leave her alone.

A woman unexpectedly crashes her car into Eddie’s place of work and when she gets out, she’s completely naked. Also this happened while she was sleeping. She’s now awake and understandably distressed. Eddie is reacting with shock and trying very hard not to look at her. This is apparently proof that he’s just so gay, he can’t stand to see the nude female form for even a moment. Even jokingly, this is gross. The implication here is that if he were into women, he’d be what? Excited that a naked women drove into his place of work with no warning? Ogling a women in a very distressing and vulnerable situation? Salivating at her like a cartoon wolf from a Tex Avery cartoon? If I were that woman, I would absolutely be wanting every single person in that room to be averting their gaze as much as possible. And I don’t know about other people, but personally, I’d be pretty uncomfortable encountering any naked person in a location and scenario where I wasn’t already expecting it. Just saying.

Eddie stressing about Pepa’s ambush date setup? I literally don’t know a single person in my life who would enjoy being invited somewhere under one pretense and then being unexpectedly introduced to a complete stranger for a date. Maybe every person I’ve ever met is a complete weirdo, but I doubt it. I think people generally don’t like high pressure surprises about their personal life. Like, I’m really trying to picture how any of the other characters would react to such a thing, and even Buck, who I think would likely be the best sport about it, would probably be pretty taken aback about the whole thing. But maybe I’m just too much of an introvert to see the vision.

Tl:dr the essential implication behind all of these, is that in any scenario, a man who is into women is expected to respond to all women in all situations with clear enthusiasm at minimum and desperate horniness at most and that’s, frankly, a gross, all men are pigs sort of outlook that I really do not vibe with at all. Like, it literally sounds like homophobic frat boy talk. “Bro, you didn’t want to hit that? What are you gay?”

[lovefairymina]

(Sorry if this is long)

“You must be (Name),” Maedhros’s voice reached through the tent. You glanced at the elf that had walked through the entrance. He stood taller than any of his kin. His crimson hair nearly glowed with the light of the lambs within your tent, and his sharps eyes were locked with yours, filled with caution yet determination, determination to claim what he came for. 

“I am lord Maedhros. I have come to discuss the returning of the Silmaril in your possession,” he stated. 

You glanced at a couple of your men that stood on the sides of the tent. They respectfully nodded their heads and gave the elf a chair to sit on. 

“Of course you are. Why else would you be here, lord Maedhros?” you started as he sat on the opposite side of the table that separated you. “I am willing to return the stone, but it depends on what you are willing to give in return,” 

“Give in return? What are you implying?” Maedhros frowned at your last statement. You nearly chuckled in amusement. “I am proposing a trade, my good elf lord. Did you honestly think I would give your precious stone for free? We have gone through a lot of trouble to win the battle and acquire that pretty rock. I believe it would only be fair if we would receive a little compensation — for succeeding where you and your house failed,” you explained.

“And what are you asking for compensation?” Maedhros questioned.

“Anything that will benefit my people, land, money, provision, protection. Just like you, I am a leader. My duty is to look after my people. Thought, in your case since your loss in Nirnaeth was rather severe. I’m going to give you the chance to come up with a compensation price worthy enough for your precious silmaril,” you replied with an amused grin.

Maedhros kept himself calm even though you could notice a small frown forming up. “Is this why you agreed to a discussion? To squeeze me from whatever you can with a possible false promise to return what is rightfully ours?” he questioned. You chuckled. “Oh, you judge me too harshly. I am no Morgoth. I have my own reasons to hate that foul god, and besides…” You crossed your arms. “Do not tell me you wouldn’t pass such an opportunity to trade with people who are so desperately after the rock you possess?” you said. “Especially if your own people can greatly benefit from it,” 

“I have no use for the rock. The trinket is pretty much good for being a pretty decoration over the fireplace, but when I see an opportunity–- I take it. And I believe this is a fair business proposal. Not to mention you kinda have contest for the stone,” you mentioned. “What do you mean by contest?” Maedhros questioned.

“There are other people who are willing to trade for the Silmaril. I only postponed them because you were the first to reach out about the matter,” you revealed. “So fairly said, time is ticking for you,” you stood up. 

“And I believe you are more inclined to this deal than result in possible violence,” you walked around the table to him. “Taken our current situations. If we decide to resolve this by blood it will only end up badly for both of us. You and your people are experienced in war, but so are we and we have more people to rebel against yours. Plus, I do not think you can risk tarnishing your house’s already tarnished name,” you leaned against the table and looked down on him. “So think about it. Don’t you think doing a fair trade for the silmaril is much more plausible than a possible mass murder? That way you will avoid bloodying your hands and perhaps people would look at you more in light than take you for mindless murderers. Of course, we can do this the hard way, but then we both will gain nothing from this,” you explained. “Most of my people do not like you, but I will do what I think is best for them, especially during these crucial times. So, what say you, elf? “ you looked down on him. 

Maedhros was quiet for a moment. “And what if my contest offers a greater price?” he asked. “That will remain to be seen unless you are willing to add yourself as a little bride price,” you chuckled and returned to your seat. “So… do we have a deal?” you asked, waiting for his answer.

Astonished by your straightforwardness, a brow was cocked and his head tilted. Crossing his arms over his chest, he then tossed his head backwards as the oncoming laughter was no longer able to be contained. “So, that was your plan from the very beginning, me? You say that you are uninterested, and yet you request that I possibly offer myself to make a fair trade. How impossibly confounding you are,” he whimsically remarked. “I believe we might have found a common ground.”

[coraniaid]

I do often find Xander incredibly frustrating – especially in the high school seasons which I’m rewatching now – but I don’t particularly think the issue is that Xander is a “Whedon self insert” (whatever that means).  In fact, Xander is often at his worst in episodes written by people other than Joss Whedon, whether that’s Teacher’s Pet or The Pack or Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered or Dead Man’s Party.  If the self-insert theory were true, wouldn’t that be the exact opposite? Or is the problem that Xander is a Marti Noxon self-insert too?

No, I think the problem is a lot simpler than that: I just don’t think the writers are very good at writing sympathetic teenage boys (which is why Oz is painfully underwritten and why Xander is … well).  And in particular I think that the writers really struggle to work out who Xander is (beyond being the token boy with no magical powers or super-strength) after Season 1.  Other than his unrequited attraction to Buffy, what does he want?  What motivates him?  I genuinely don’t think the writers have a consistent answer to this question yet, and although The Zeppo (which I’ve not quite gotten to on my current rewatch) will start to address this, I think they won’t really have one until Season 4 at the earliest.  Yes, there are fragments here and there that you can build on if you want – the hints that imply his parents are abusive, a suggestion that he looks up to Giles almost as much as Giles look down on him, the occasional moment you can claim as evidence that Xander might be attracted to men –  but if you do start building on those fragments you’re ultimately engaged in fanfiction as much as you are analysis of the actually-existing material.  The writers themselves hadn’t put in the work to make those pieces coalesce into something cohesive at this point in the show’s history (and some of those hints will never be developed further).

And the other problem, which isn't quite unique to Xander but probably affects him more than anybody else, is that the show is still mostly very episodic in these three seasons.   So – even when we’re clearly not supposed to approve of Xander’s actions – the show never really allows them to have any long-term negative consequences for him. (Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered might have Giles rage at Xander for trying to cast a love spell on Cordelia for a few minutes, but it still ends with Buffy cheerfully thanking him for not sexually assaulting her – despite his admission that “for a minute it was touch and go” –  and with the popular girl he was actively trying to take “revenge” on at the start of the episode deciding she’s so touched by the romanticism of this act that she’d rather be with him than worry about the good opinion of any of her friends.  And the events of the episode are never mentioned again.) So it’s very easy to get the impression that the writers don’t particularly think Xander’s doing anything wrong after all, even when I don’t think that’s the case.

Ultimately, I think you just have to accept that Buffy and Xander are close friends and that this friendship means a lot to both of them for the show to work, in much the same way you have to accept a lot of the show’s rather silly worldbuilding.  Which … is fine, really.  If I can accept a magical human-detecting chip in somebody’s head or Sunnydale’s ever-changing geography or the nonchalant way everyone in school reacts to their fellow students being violently killed on a weekly basis or any of the nonsense the show says about the Watcher’s Council I can, I suppose, accept a teenage girl with poor social skills and a reputation that makes her something of a social pariah becoming friends with a teenage boy who is mostly well-meaning but often kind of sucks.  This aspect of the high school seasons is perhaps a bit like the Season 6 issue of Willow and Tara living rent free at Buffy’s house while telling her she has money problems and has to get a job: in order to appreciate the show the way you’re meant to, you just have to handwave away a lot of what the writers actually show happening.