#sometimes i feel like I'm manipulating people

[042502]

☆༉ — CHRIS STURNIOLO. The Unwritten Rule.

about. Everyone knows the rule, don't fall in love with your best friend's boyfriend.

author's note. This is the chapter 6, I hope it sounds interesting to you. My first language is not English. masterlis!

Anna's house is quiet and empty, and I stand hesitantly in the kitchen as I check her messages.

Anna's house seems normal enough. Anna drops things on the floor, his mother leaves half-eaten cans of peppermint candy that she always has with her everywhere. But I still haven't felt comfortable here.

I don't think Anna will either, but I feel even more uncomfortable than usual. I can't believe Chris is coming. I can't believe I'm here. Why did I agree to this?

Because I want to see it.

I'm not here for Anna, I'm here for me and I'm a horrible friend.

I can't help it. I still want to see it.

Anna threw her cell phone on the table with some anger, clearly she wants me to ask her what's going on. So I do it.

"What's happening?"

"The usual, mom is working late and dad doesn't call," she rolls her eyes and sighs frustrated. "Why do my parents hate me?"

"They don't hate you" This talk again? "Your mom is... she is what she is, and your dad is not always far away if it seems that there will be something else legal."

"There is always something else legal" it seems obvious to me. I'm like this bone that he and mom fight to get. Sometimes I think it could be a dog or a vase and they would still act exactly the same." I look away." “I would be lying if I said it wasn’t true.”

"They know you're not a dog or a vase" I'm not lying. I think Anna's parents know she exists and that she is their daughter.

I just don't think any of them care, it's not important to them, like it should be and I know it's really hard for her.

I walk over to where she is standing and put my arms around her to hug her. “You are better than them.”

"You think?"

"Completely."

"I would never treat my son like they do, when I have my children, I will make him love me more than anything."

"You shouldn't have to make them love you, Anna. They always will."

"No, sometimes you have to make people love you."

"You can't make someone love you" I laugh.

"Of course you can. Just know what they want it to be and eventually they will" basically manipulation...

"That's... horrible, I mean, but the look on Anna's face was a mix of rage and helplessness. "And what about being yourself?

"Tell me, what's so good about that?" He looks at me seriously. "Look at you for a second, you're small and quiet, so guys never notice about you. That's because they're stupid and only think about looks and things, of course, but still."

"Okay" I remove my arms from around her and return to my seat.

"Don't be sad" I bite the inside of my cheek. "It will be different in time, I'm sure of that. Besides, your parents love you in a crazy awesome way, and you know I love you. If I could have a sister, it would totally be you, but I like to think that we are already sisters. You do not believe it?"

"Yes" Does she try to soften it with a friendly comment every time she says something hurtful to me? but what I really wonder is if there are sisters where one feels like she is the shadow of the other. Yes there is a girl with a sister who sometimes makes her feel like nothing. In that case it would be Anna and me.

"Oh shit, Chris will be here soon" he changes the subject. "Will you wait down here and let him come in for me? I have to go get ready."

"But you look good" I admit that, if I wanted to see Chris, but I didn't want to be alone with him, not yet.

"I have to be Perfect" she smiles. "All you have to do is talk to him for a few minutes.

"Anna…”

"Okay, don't talk. Just do homework with him. You can do that right? We're going to do homework tonight anyway."

"Anna" I repeat, but she ran up the stairs.

"You are the best, you are great Adi!" He yelled at me as I went upstairs.

I grab my notes and look for a place to sit waiting for Chris.

I ended up sitting at the kitchen table, and when the doorbell rings I jump. I go to open the door knowing that I would meet Chris.

"This is new, I always have to ring the bell more than once before..." he finally looked at me and smiled "Ada, hello."

"Hey," he greeted, looking at the ground. "Anna is upstairs getting ready. She will be with us in a few minutes.

"Well," he runs his hand through his hair, combing it back. I could see how the strands of hair were messy. Jamás lo observó tanto, But I've been waiting and regretting that he shouldn't see me here and now he blushes, I want to touch him so much that my stomach is boiling and shaking because of it, my fingers tremble.

"We should sit down" I spoke at the same time he said 'Do you want to sit down?', we both sat down, we smiled at each other at that.

It's Chris, it's just Chris. I can do this, I've known him forever and we're friends, he's dating my best friend. I have to do this, be normal. Stop looking at him so much, stop wanting him Ada.

He pointed to the room in which no one in Anna's house ever sits, and cocked his head.

"I'm really a little scared about that room."

"Me too," I admit, still smiling openly at each other. I can't seem to stop smiling, and he seems happy, like he's glad to be here. I could reach out my hand and touch his. He's so close, I could just touch his hand and slide my fingers up his arm so he'd lean toward me and...

"I'm coming down!" Anna shouted.

Of course, he's happy because he's here for his girlfriend. What were you thinking, Ada?

I walk towards the living room, blinking several times to avoid the tears that burned my eyes, I hear his footsteps behind me.

I sit on the reclining sofa, so he and Anna can sit together, so then they can say 'Ah, my books, I have to go get them', go to the kitchen and avoid seeing them. I will come back and be clean in heart and mind, I swear, I just need a second or two.

In the kitchen, I gather my things and then head over to the refrigerator, resting my head against it. Then I had some cans of grapes and a beer for myself.

I'm calm, I'm relaxed. This will turn out fine.

Although I know it won't be like that.

Silence falls when I give him his soda, a silence I am familiar with, a silence I know. I look at him and notice that he casts his gaze into the distance as if he were looking at me, his throat passing saliva. Anna finally comes down. When she does it I'm sure she must see how hard I try not to look at Chris and how hard he tries not to look at me.

Taking a sip of my beer, my throat feels closed making it harder to pass the intoxicating liquid.

"Hello," he greets us both. "That's what you say when someone comes in, you know that? Why so silence?"

“me” Chris clears his throat “Is that the only beer?” ask.

"That's progress," Anna smiles. "Just for that you earned a kiss!" I notice how Anna leans towards Chris.

But the moment Anna intended to join her lips with Chris's, he stood up and Anna froze.

"I'm going to get a beer," his voice was firm, I rarely heard him speak that way.

"I'm going with you," Anna is quick to say.

"Okay, I'll be right back" then I see him walk past me and into the kitchen.

"Hurry up!" Anna's voice sounded bubbly. “Did you see it? Did you see that?" She approached me, whispering irritably.

"I'm sorry" I wasn't saying it because of what she believed, I was saying it because I regretted kissing Chris, but not that much.

"Don't do it, I'll fix this myself," she stretched her lips and walked into the kitchen.

A few seconds later he heard some sounds, her voice being soft and Chris's voice calm. Followed by a long silence.

Silence of kisses.

I left my beer. I see Chris return, his gaze connects with mine and I notice that in his hand he was holding a can of beer like mine.

"I like this more than grapes," he had something in his eyes, something that made me take a breath.

"Me too, obviously," I responded almost obligatorily, looking at my notes.

"I know" then I look up and see him smile at me. Damn it Chris don't make it so obvious.

Where the hell was Anna? Why does it take so long in the kitchen?

"Did you start reading history?" he asks me, like he's trying to make this all normal, but he knows it's not, it's not normal at all.

"No, I don't have it yet," I replied. "Did Anna call you last night?" I opened my eyes wide looking at him. “The things that happened, I didn't think would happen. But I'm serious..."

"Why are you two looking at each other so intensely?" Then my best friend appears, my gaze almost unwillingly moves away from his and looks at Anna. She was standing in the doorway looking at us. "And Ada I was only gone for a few minutes. Did you think I was gone?" true I called her.

“We were just waiting for you,” I shake my head. “You should sit on the couch.”

"You mean with my own boyfriend?" Chris rolled his eyes. Did he like her saying that? “Are you ready to pay attention to me now?” He sits next to Chris and kisses him.

I concentrate on looking at my history book and open it. I'm not even on the right page, but I didn't care about that. What really matters is not looking at Anna and Chris kissing.

I try not to wonder what he was going to tell me before Anna interrupted, I try not to think about how his mouth feels.

He looked up and Anna was looking bad, but her eyes were worried, Chris isn't kissing her, he's opening his own history book. He gives me a look and then looks away.

"We should get started," he tells his girlfriend.

"I should have known that Ada here would manage to embarrass you and put you in 'studious boy' mode. Ada, you really owe me for taking away my real boyfriend.

"Yes," I held that history book tightly in my hands. "I know I do."

author's note. If you want to be part of the taglist leave a comment below and I will add you. Thanks for reading, remember to like, share with your friends and leave a nice comment ^^

taglist. @l34n @jetaimevous @jnkvivi @loveyoumatthewbernard @d1tzy-bl0nde @laxbabe131147 @slut4chriss @dontellaf1lms @surniolozzzprincess @sturnlova @inlovewithchriss @whicked-hazlatwhore @mattsgirlsblog @nsjsnshey @always-reading @y-s-a-p @h3arts4harry

[sad-fool-i-guess]

Currently fighting back tears because of something stupid

How fun /s

[ferretwhomst]

alright guys. poll time

just wanted to ask because from what i can tell the gf fandom doesn't really seem to have a general fandom-wide consensus on this ship. rbs would be appreciated!!! also feel free to elaborate in the tags which option you chose and why! i'd love to hear people's reasoning :-)

[lord-squiggletits]

One TF fandom argument that confuses me is when people put Megatron and Starscream versus each other like, when people say that it's "unfair that Megatron gets redemption but Starscream doesn't" (in regards to IDW1) because like. One, IDW1 in phase 2 was written by like 4 different writers, so you can't try to claim that there was some unified vision where the nonexistent Singular Writer of IDW was like "no Starscream isn't allowed to have nice things."

And second, I don't think the writers would even think of it that way? It's not like the writers were like "okay we have one Get Out Of Jail Free Card and we're going to spend it on Megatron, sorry Starscream maybe in the next reboot you can get it." The divisions fans make between X character likers and Y character likers are completely made up fandom drama and sometimes I feel like people don't understand that the writers aren't privy to fandom infighting/drama and wouldn't write Megatron and Starscream in opposition to each other as if one character's gain must come at the other's expense.

And finally............. IDW1 Starscream literally does get to be portrayed as a more morally gray person, have his feelings shown and treated as human, even make some friends/have people treat him nicely? IDK what fucking comics people are reading where they think that Starscream is treated as an evil villain with no redeeming qualities at all. Maybe it's the same Starscream fans who shit on TAAO/Scott or something, that's the only way I could explain it.

[brinnanza]

you guys know stuff can just be neutral right. like it doesn't have to be good or bad it can just Be ykwim like sometimes an experience is Weird but that doesn't necessarily imply that it was good or bad sometimes things are just so unfamiliar that the sheer novelty overrides having an opinion about it. sometimes you hear someone's died, but it's no one you knew or would ever know and it's so many degrees of separation from the source that they have no emotional investment in it either and that's not automatically a tragedy OR a relief it's just a statement of fact.

sometimes stuff just Is. and it's okay that it is.

[mudstoneabyss]

neurodivergent but in the opposite way from what I see a lot. "neurotypicals are always using unspoken social rules and cues instead of just stating things clearly and actually saying what they mean like neurodivergent-" brother I am playing 5 dimensional chess with multiverse time travel

[mad-hunts]

barton being awkward at first or even completely throughout a whole interaction whenever he's trying to comfort people is so in character for him TBH and let me tell y'all why because i think it's important to his character:

he can fake a lot of things. barton can fake being nice to people, he can fake being innocent, and he can even fake having a much stronger sense of morality around people if he wants to — but whenever it comes to empathizing with someone on an emotional level... barton finds himself often struggling with faking it because of the nature of it. and this is due to it being different than whenever he's trying to feign something easily comprehensible like innocence. but empathy is something that's usually viewed as innate in us as humans and has to do with love, which doesn't depend on logic. it's something that comes from within, so it doesn't have clear parameters as to how you should do it, so whenever barton tries to fake it in the event that he's trying to make someone feel better; he'll stumble. and so although barton can cognitively empathize with someone, his efforts to actually put himself in other people's shoes fall flat, as he just can't physically imagine himself being in someone else's position probably more than half the time.

so if your muse were to ever come to him seeming upset, barton would likely not know what to do / how to comfort them, at least for a bit before referencing back on how he's seen other people do it. because i hate to say it (i don't, in reality, but y'all know what i mean LOL) but barton does actively mimic behaviors that he sees people do whenever he feels the absence of a certain emotion. he especially does this whenever he's trying to appear charming to other people, but like i said, he'll also try to use what he's seen his peers do as a guide as for what he should do in regards to empathy. and sometimes he may even seem a bit flustered before he's able to do this because he knows that it is expected of him to be able to empathize with people and can identify it in other people BUT knowing how to approach faking it has always been sort of hard for him even as an adult.

but yeahhh, that's just my own two cents about how barton sometimes break character that he is quote unquote ' normal, ' though he does try to mask this around people who aren't really familiar with him as simply being social awkwardness. however, it is part of a larger thing with him as despite the fact that he can blend in with the population REALLY well and also is pretty good at manipulating others, i suppose you could say that barton is still not an expert at ' constructing empathy ' because whenever someone is visibly hurt in front of him... he is more liable to act like he isn't sure what to do, than to put on an act immediately since he is likely to feel nothing first before anything else. and i realize that that is a rather unsettling thought, but i think that he is a lot more suspectible to doing this with people he doesn't know well / who he isn't particularly close to, as he's got a lot more practice with being falsely empathetic towards friends and/or sometimes even family members.

[skrunksthatwunk]

found out that rascal's owner took him again while i was out, and he's probably not gonna be back since the semester's almost over. i don't even know if his owner's coming back next semester, if i'll ever see him again. if he'll ever see me again. why do they wait until im not around to do this? why do they never let me say goodbye to him?

[leatherbookmark]

oh god okay i understand that maybe not everyone is as indecisive/comfortable with saying "it depends!" as me, but like, i'm sorry, i'm sorry, but i just can't take people who call izzy a villain seriously

[bluehairperson]

Imagine MC getting into an argument with Asra regarding him always being so secretive and fickle, and starting to descend more and more into paranoia and an identity crisis, wondering if what he says is even reliable at all.

Asra could pretty much just make up any fact about MC, even basic things like their name, age and birthday, and because of their amnesia MC would just have to take them as face value without having any way to disprove them if they were false. Asra could have made up who they are entirely.

[insertsickusername13]

The pinkberry fic I want to read more than anything is 'the end'. I don't know, the more I think about Chloe the more toxic she seems. I analyze the way she behaved in canon and apply it to other aspects of her relationships and honestly, she's probably ruined Brooke's self-esteem beyond simple high school girl fights. Brooke probably bases her own value off of Chloe's opinion of her, and irreversibly so (to some extent), and I bet Chloe knows it, because she did it on purpose. I want a fic where Brooke begs in tears for Chloe to stay because she doesn't know anything but Chloe, because she's endlessly loving and forgiving and, as Chloe spent years constructing and perfecting, she's all Brooke has. And Chloe, finally, after everything, realizes the best thing she can do is leave. That the only way Brooke can ever learn to love herself is if she gets as far away as possible. As a Chloe Valentine hater, that is the only way I will ever see Chloe as truly redeemed.

[whumpering-heights]

Hi!;)

Do you remember the “Hero, do you have limits?” question? Well, it was me! I don’t understand Hero, (but he is really interesting, and basically a living meme.) in my opinion, he is very ambiguous (And I LOVE it, it’s not a flaw at all!).

Now, “But even if Villain were a woman”…

If Ethan had been a woman, would Chris have done the same things? (You know, gender roles, toxic masculinity, blah, blah, he doesn’t seem to me a very morally independent person…)

What an interesting question!

CW: Female whumpee, mention of non-con/sexual content, sexism (ish), manipulation, implied minor whumpee, toxic masculinity and gender roles.

If Villain had been Villainess, Hero would have made some public comments about how "conflicted" he was on fighting a woman. He might have even gone easy on her a couple times. However, this has nothing to do with any ethical dilemma, and everything to do with his public perception.

Once she got captured, the main story beats would have been the same. Any "issue" about hitting a woman would vanish.

Now that I'm thinking about it, Sidekick would actually go through more change in this AU than Hero. He's certainly adapted into this toxic mindset of "boys/men don't cry" (thanks for that, Hero), and seeing Villainess cry would cause him less distress than in the original story. She's "allowed" to cry. On the flip side, I think he would soften up quicker to her. He would be the type to genuinely object to hitting a woman, unless she was attacking you first. So he'd sooner cross his tipping point of realizing what he and Hero are doing is wrong.

That's not to say Hero would be unaffected by this change. There would have been a couple details different:

- He would have made comments about her appearance, once the captivity started to show. That particular method of breaking self esteem didn't occur to him in the original storyline: since he wasn't attracted to Villain, in his eyes there was nothing "lost".

- I think that while his dialogue wouldn't change that much, the tone might be more faux-affectionate. Using petnames, belittling her, almost pretending to have pity. Those things would happen more often.

- He wouldn't have send Sidekick down there to clean her up. He was telling the truth in his answer to your question: he wouldn't do anything sexually inappropriate. And sending a teenage boy to clean an adult woman would feel icky to him. He wouldn't be gentle or anywhere near patient with Villainess while he cleaned her himself, but there's line he won't cross.

Well, one sidenote about that, actually.

There's a hint of an inflated ego in that one standard he has: in his eyes, if you can't get someone in your bed of their own accord, then that just means you're not very good at it. For him, people who commit sexually explicit crimes are basically confessing they can't get anyone to like them consensually, and he thinks very lowly of those people.

I've been thinking about how Hero would view women. We've seen what he was willing to do to Amy in the flashback. I hesitate to call him sexist, for one simple reason: yes he sees every woman as a means to an end. But he sees everyone that way.

As you can imagine, his relationships usually didn't last very long. Either he got bored, or she realized how he truly saw her.

The closest he can get to being fond of someone, is enjoying the role they fullfil to him. Jackson was good at accepting Chris's manipulation, and he was socially vulnerable, so Chris enjoyed his company. It was the closest Hero/Chris has gotten to having a friend.

Sidekick is also easily manipulated (due to being a minor and in Hero's care), so now and then Hero will feel a spark of fondness. Not really parental, more the way you like your favorite mug.

[heartsdefine]

for the record: i, personally, do not care who reblogs from me on the reblogging website, especially since i struggle to remember who all expects me to reblog everything they post from the source myself. obviously no one should reblog roleplay/headcanon posts they're not involved in, and i do think it's generally polite to reblog a meme from the source if i don't send one in, but if y'all wanna reblog aesthetics or gifsets or whatever from me, idgaf. that's life.

[senadimell]

I’ve realized I have a particular soft spot for characters with no guile in them. Characters with hearts on their sleeves, with their reactions written on their faces. Sometimes they’re left out of grand plans or restrained to prevent their interference—this tends to happen in those vast, epic stories that put a premium on intrigue and cunning. Other times, though, (and these are particularly dear to my heart), their honesty is not portrayed as a flaw that holds them back but as a core and valued part of who they are that enables them to do what is needed, even though it’s not always without consequence.

[electrosquash]

Sometimes i tend to be quite bossy at work. But also i'm right. I have a VERY specific model of how to structure our documentation in my mind and i can't have ANY divergence and i WILL argue for it because i honestly believe it's the best path forward.

[nny11writes]

i dunno, i feel like there's one thing with saying that adora hurt catram and another with saying that it's all her fault and she's an abuser too and i feel like that person's posts have always veered towards the latter category

you dont have to reply to this ask but thats the impression ive gotten from that blogger, excusing other characters while somehow shifting everything onto adora

I can see where you see that, but I’ll be honest I don’t interpret their posts that way. 

I like the tag line “Adora needs to own her shit” because that is a part of her character growth that we don’t talk about. Adora, just like Catra, does some awful shitty things during the show. Like, on screen explicitly bad behavior that often gets swept under the rug due to Adora’s usually good intentions.

I interpret the posts less as everything is Adora’s fault and she’s an abuser, and more as Adora has fucked up and been able to side step a lot of things she needs to unlearn. Some of these things can be abusive, especially if she never works on it.

But the posts also aren’t there to be well rounded extoling the bad and the good. They are laser focused on the bad behaviors and why they’re bad with a dash of here’s some reasons this happened which usually boils down to Shadow Weaver’s abuse of Adora, Adora’s maladaptive coping mechanisms, or ego. All of which are things that negatively impact Adora’s reactions and behaviors.

Just like any meta analysis, I don’t think it’s all true nor do I agree with everything presented. But I also think that the goal was to explore hurtful things that Adora does, so it’s going to focus more on that slant that anything else. In a hilarious twist one of the biggest things I really disagree with was an interpretation involving Glimmer, but there was plenty in there that I went “huh, that is a way to interpret the show”.

One of the things that is difficult with metas specifically is that they are often presented as a be all end all because that’s what makes a strong point. The point that Adora does often guilt trip Catra or that she does behave more physically violently at times towards her has to be broken down and explored, and stopping that to reassure (even more than was done in those posts) that Adora is a good person is reductive to the point of the analysis.

I don’t know if that makes sense, and this is probably just something we won’t see completely eye to eye on. But yeah, for me the posts don’t feel like they’re saying “Adora is an abuser who does everything wrong to hurt Catra on purpose” so much they read to me as “Adora is a victim of abuse who is struggling to learn new ways to live, who doesn’t (in the show) get to fully confront the ways she hurt someone due to growing up in such an unsafe and cruel manner. So let’s talk about the hurtful things she does that are heavily influenced by abusive behavior and tactics, the same way we’ve dived into Catra’s side of this coin.”