#the fact that i considered it a very real possibility if not an inevitability?

[loyalhorror]

forgot we had to live with our great uncle while my gran was recovering from surgery and how uhhhh fucking scared i was of the men there! cool cool cool.

[sparklingblu]

Eroverse

Pt.3 - Alpha & Omega

Yeji x Male Reader (ft. Kazuha)

Good news. None.   

Bad news. Where do you even start?   

The worst would be the fact that you can't feel your body. Your eyes seem to be the only functioning organ. To add insult to injury, your whole body is bare, and your clothes are nowhere to be found. You curse yourself for not grabbing your clothes before you get teleported back from that boxing ring. No use regretting it now. Even if you manage to move your limbs somehow, you are trapped in a bar restroom butt naked. Can this day get even worse?   

To be honest, you expect yourself to develop some kind of resistance to all those headaches and pain after passing out four times in a day. Seems like there's no improvement. You can just hope no one comes knocking at the door. That leads you to wonder, how long have you been gone? The first time you encounter Rei or what seems to be Rei, it takes almost an hour. But at least she obeys every command you give so it isn't much of a struggle. The second time, however, you have to wrestle with Eunbi first before you finally tame her, as the quest had said. You are certain more than an hour has flown by.    

Your phone chimes with a notification nearby. No doubt from the 'Ero' app. You desperately want to check it but there's not much you can do when your body feels like a lump of clay. So, you continue doing what you initially were, staring at the ceiling. Funny enough, seeing the ceiling has become a kind of relief after losing and gaining consciousness multiple times. At least, it reminds you that you are alive.  

Once again, you can't help but think of all the unanswered questions that have piled up even more after your encounter with Eunbi. The voice that consistently keeps praising you after you complete a quest, the idols that you have met who are not actually idols. You are pretty sure about that now. Are they replicas? clones? Then what does that make you? A test subject for some crazy experiment that involve fucking idol clones? As usual, no answer.  

If you look at it from the bright side, ignoring all the pain and confusion, you have used two idols for your release already. Getting to fuck one idol should be considered universally lucky. But two? You had to save a nation in your past life for that. Whether they are real or not, they still look exactly the same so it doesn't really make a difference. However, the downside shouldn't be ignored either. If you try to complete one more quest, fuck one more idol, you might not wake up again. With each jump, your body seems to weaken. It starts with headaches and soreness and now you are paralyzed. Not really a price worth paying. You are not perverted enough to trade your life for sex.  

Actually, you might have passed that point already. If you inevitably have to die, you want to go out with honor. Not as a naked corpse in a restroom. "Oh, how did he die?" "I don't know, probably from jerking off naked in the toilet" Yep. Not a good idea.   

A few minutes pass and you start considering screaming for help. You have to sacrifice every bit of dignity you have but at least you won't die. Thankfully, it doesn't happen. Blood starts to flow again in your fingers and soon, you are well aware of the cold floor on your skin.   

You sit up groggily, propping yourself against the toilet for support. Taking a few deep breaths, you picked up the phone. The screen is full of cracks, it covers almost every part of the notification on your lock screen but without a doubt, it's from the 'Ero' app.   

"Congrats on completing your second quest. Please wait patiently for the next one"  

Typical. Just congratulations. Not to mention you nearly got killed. Thank you very much.   

Then your eyes move to the upper corner of the screen displaying the time, 8:48. You can't be sure, but you are certain no more than a few minutes have passed since you passed out. How is it possible? Even without the time you spent laying paralyzed, it takes at least an hour to do everything you have done with Eunbi. No wonder no one comes looking for you.   

Maybe time flows differently in whatever places you get teleported to. Another mystery. Your head starts throbbing, a sign of an oncoming headache. God, can that app let you off for once? There's a silver lining though. Your clothes lie in a pile in a corner. You have to shut your mouth before you start screaming with joy.   

After changing hastily and washing your face, you exit the room. Russell and the rest of the crew are still at their table, their voices getting louder by the second. The effects of all the drinks they had had are evident on their red puffy faces. They don't even seem to notice your absence except Russell, who raises his hand at the sight of you.  

"Man, you have been gone pretty long, you ok?" he asks.  

"Yeah, I'm fine.."  

"You sure? You look like you just woke up"  

He's not wrong but no use making him worried.  

"Trust me. I'm ok. Just a bit tired, i guess"  

"Have you been working late again?"  

Gosh, this guy cares about you more than your mom. You take this as your chance to get out of here.  

"Yeah, got some articles to finish. I have been procrastinating on this one I have to send tomorrow. Mind if I leave early? I need to sleep early"  

"Of course. Don't work too hard, huh? You still have to write a best-seller remember?"  

You simply smile and leave, grabbing your coat. The cold breeze offers you some comfort to the headache that's becoming unbearable. You just want to lay down on the spot and fall asleep. You walk back to your room, trying not to pass out on the way. The night is still young, and the sound of traffic and the chatter of people follows you everywhere. Ordinary people enjoying their lives unlike you, who have become a different person in just a day. You were a writer, not a good one but still an average Joe. Now, you fuck idols with the help of an app. Anyone who hear it will suggest you talk to a therapist, and you won't blame them.   

And what is it that makes the app choose you? You have no special abilities other than the fact that you can mimic animal sounds and that's not even a real talent. Perhaps luck has finally found its way to your ever unfortunate life. But can it be called luck with how you become a step closer to death with each quest you take on. 

You are so busy debating with yourself you are completely oblivious to your surroundings. If only you have turned your head to an alley across the street, you would have seen a dark figure with sparkling eyes that follow every one of your movements. A predator lurking in the shadows. 

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎  

A week has passed. The 'Ero' app is silent as ever. 

You find yourself expecting a message for another quest despite promising yourself you won't let your perversion lead you to your demise. You should really start thinking with your brain rather than your dick. 

Three days after your last quest, you even try to enter the 'Ero' app out of curiosity. The app closes automatically. After a few more tries, you give up out of disappointment and shame. Shame for trying to enter the app even after knowing the risks. Shame for being a hopeless pervert. 

You should just stick to jerking off to fancams and pictures, at least that way you won't be playing with your life or getting beat up by an idol. That's what you have been doing since you got smitten by those kpop girls but after the quests you have done, it becomes tedious. You will still pump a load or two after seeing Karina's tits or Sohee's ass but it's nothing compared to Rei's blowjob or Eunbi's titjob. You have become addicted.  

Ironically, you even find yourself dreaming of the darkness, the mahogany room and the boxing ring. This is what Eve might have felt when she's told not to eat the forbidden fruit, you think. Because forbidden things are the most tempting.  

You still write but no longer out of pleasure, just to survive. And that reminds you, you should stop eating take outs and cook something yourself for once. Your room was a mess but now it's a whole trash pile. Plastic boxes and cups from all the take outs you order lie in a mountain at the sink. The trash car comes, you are just too lazy to throw it out. And if you don't do something about that stack of papers on the table, it's gonna touch the ceiling soon.  

In short, you have become a mess. Every time your phone chimes, you would check it in a heartbeat, expecting a text from the 'Ero' app. But of course, it isn't. The app has gone ghost quiet. You are desperately seeking to complete just one more quest. One more idol to fuck. 

You rarely go outside and ignore all the messages your friends and colleagues sent you. There's only one message you want to receive which never comes. 

After a week of living like a vampire, a realization hits you. One so obvious you feel like an idiot not thinking about it sooner. All the problems you are facing are rooted from one single thing, the 'Ero' app. If you delete it, your suffering might end. You can even pretend everything that happened was a dream. 

So, you get out of the bed which you have been laying on for hours and grab your phone on the table. The sudden burst of light in the dark room as the screen opens leaves you seeing black spots. It is nighttime but you haven't opened your curtains in a while, so it doesn't really make a difference.  

You swipe till you land on the 'Ero' app. That little black heart icon. You press on it and the uninstall option pops off. 'Finally' you think. 'It's gonna be over. No more crazy stuffs' though a small voice somewhere in your mind keep insisting. 'But what of the pleasure that rivals no other? What of the idols you will meet?' 'Fuck this' you answer. It's true you are a pervert, but you are not hopeless. You won't die so that you can fuck some clone of an idol.  

Determined, you raise your thumb and nearly press on the uninstall button until-  

Your phone chimes. A notification on the top of the screen.  

"New quest ready, ready for your next adventure chosen one?" 

God damn it. Just when you are determined, this app has to come and ruin it. All the walls you have put up about not being a hopeless pervert crumbles in milliseconds. You want this after all. You don't want the app gone. You are just mas that it won't give you a quest. Now what you have been begging for a week is right in front of your eyes. You have to make a choice. Yes or No? 

This quest can be your last. A punishment for letting your dick makes your decisions. You can ignore it. Delete the app and go on with your life as normal. But will your life ever be normal after deleting the app? Who can say you won't be wondering what the third quest would be and which idol you would meet? And worst of all, you will become ordinary again without the app. No more magic portals to creepy rooms.  

You don't want to be ordinary. You have tried your best to become something others aren't all your life. Now, the chance has been presented to you. Your own personal paradise. All yours. No one else's.  

So, you tap on the message, opening the app to the loading screen with the black heart. Even the sight of it gets excitement creeping up your legs already. Then you close your eyes immediately before they get torched by that blinding flash. After waiting for a minute just to be safe, you open your eyes again. A text box sits in the center of the screen, instructions to your next quest. Except that you can't read them. 

The words are fuzzy and blurred. Some even completely redacted by black lines. It is as though someone has made them unreadable on purpose. What the hell is going on? 

This can be another challenge, a harder quest. Even more difficult than trying to defeat an idol who nearly crashes you to pulp. A higher risk of death. A tinge of regret starts to overwhelm you but it's too late. 

The all-familiar darkness envelopes you once again. Then comes the icy cold spike that tears through your organs. Your vision fades and you crumple like paper. 

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎  

Your old friend accompanies your wake. Of course, it's the headache. Fortunately, it isn't as strong as before or maybe you have just been out of touch you forget the pain. Nevertheless, you are alive.  

You don't get to celebrate much though because the sight that greets you when you open your eyes sucks the joy right out of your heart. It isn't the ceiling this time. At least seeing the ceiling would have been a comfort. What you see is anything but comforting. 

To start, you are not in a room like you were the last two quests. You are surrounded by marble columns that support the circular dome on top. A temple like those in Greek times. A huge part of the building has crumbled, giving you a clear view of what lies ahead.  

Your heart leaps. Before your eyes lies what you can only describe as an apocalyptic city. Actually, an apocalyptic Greek city. Smoke billows from several temples writhed in flames. Most of the bronze and marble statues lining the sandy paths are missing a body part, some have been completely destroyed. A colosseum crumbles to dust right in front of your eyes though you have no idea what a Roman structure is doing in a Greek city. It would have been a beautiful place if it's not for the fact that it looks like a war zone.  

The temple you are in is not holding out really well either. From time to time, debris would fall from the ceiling, and you can only hope the roof won't collapse on top of you. You try to move and that's when you realize you have been tied up. Looking down, you find yourself bound to a chair with metal chains, your hands at the back. Your legs are no exception either. They have been tied up as well. 

This quest is starting to look hopeless already. It would be so easy for someone to gut you right now and you can do nothing but watch. You could call out for help except that there isn't a living being in sight. Even if someone does come, you can't be certain if they are friends or foes. 

You remember the surge of strength that has come to you when you were at the brink of death. It would be really really helpful if you could get that kind of help right now. Though you doubt that kind of chance will be given twice. 

"Oh, he can't help you this time" As if reading your thoughts, a voice rings out behind a column.  

The owner of the voice emerges. A figure with fiery red hair wearing a top of matching color. The black jeans accentuate her slender legs. Her ruby red eyes fixed on you with a steely gaze. Yeji, the leader of Itzy. 

"Ehm....Yeji?" Obviously, the idol before you is not the real Yeji. But you ask anyway. 

"In a sense" She replies. "But that won't matter anymore after I kill you" 

Just wonderful. Another idol who wants you dead.  

"I gotta praise you though. You are pretty strong compared to those before you" 

"Others? What are you talking about?" 

"Oh, do you think you are the only one chosen by the app, chosen one?" She strains the last part just to sound sarcastic.  

"Look, I don't even understand what's happening much less answer your questions. I don't even know why you want to kill me" 

"Oh, you very much do" She snaps back. "Rei? Eunbi? The things you did to them. You are lucky I let you live this long" 

"I was just doing what the app told me to" 

"Oh, yes. That stupid 'Ero' app. You love it so much you walked right into my trap" 

The realization hits you like a bucket of cold water. The quest that arrives right when the app is nearly deleted. The distorted letters.  

"It's you" You say. "You are the one who set up this quest" 

"Correct" Her voice is dripping with glee. "Aren't I clever?" 

"Ok, Yeji....or whatever. If you let me go, I promise I won't-" 

"Oh, shut up. You will follow where your dick leads you" 

She's not wrong. Still, it sort of hurts. 

"There's nothing you will get out of killing me" You try the other route. 

"Oh, there's a lot I can get out of killing you" Yeji muses, walking closer. "And I will start by destroying the thing that have been distracting my kind" 

You don't know what she means but you don't need to wonder for long because with the flick of her wrist, your shorts come off. Look, you know some guys are really into the bondage stuff when the girl ties you up and all, but it isn't much fun when your partner is trying to kill you. But there's a bigger threat than getting killed right now. 

"Wait, you don't mean my-"  

"Dick? Yes. If it's gone, you can no longer bother us, right?" 

"You can't do that! It's illegal" 

"Look around you. You are no longer on earth" 

You are making empty threats, and you know it too well. But you don't want your bloodline to end with you. 

"Look, maybe we can make a deal or something" 

"Too late" Yeji unfolds her palm and a gladius, a roman sword, manifests out of thin air. She's definitely not human. 

You tilt your head in panic as the point hovers over your throat.  

"I should have just killed you but where's the fun in that?" 

Your breath hitches. You don't trust yourself to talk without blabbering out more pleas that will make Yeji even madder. And even worse, your dick is rock hard because of the adrenaline.  

"Bye bye" She raises the sword and brings it down on your springing mamba. You close your eyes. bracing yourself for the pain. But it never comes because a voice cuts through the tense atmosphere.  

"Wait!" Another female voice and running footsteps. You open your eyes. 

Behind Yeji is Kazuha, the japanese member of Le Sserafim. Her pink satin dresses look out of place among the ruins of the city, like a runaway bride.  

"Kazuha?" Yeji lowers the gladius. "Oh, let me guess. He sent you" 

"You need to stop this. Killing him won't stop our problems" 

"You don't know that for sure. One less candidate means less chance for the mark to emerge" 

"What mark?" instantly, you regret not keeping your mouth shut. They want to cut your dick off for christ's sake. 

"The mark of-" Kazuha starts to answer but Yeji cuts her off.  

"Shut up" Yeji snaps. "He's going to die anyway" 

"Stop this, Yeji. He's going to be so mad if he finds out" 

"So what? He has been a dick all those times. You still take orders from him?" 

"He can be crazy sometimes but it's our job to serve him" 

"Bullshit. You are just too scared to disobey" 

"Yeji, please" 

Kazuha's words have no effect. Yeji closes in on you again and raises her gladius. This time there's no escape for you.  

Then the strangest thing happens. A burst of energy erupts from your core, spreading to every cell in your body. All the fatigue and panic are gone. It's like being dipped in water when you are high. You feel pumped, ready to do anything. More specifically, ready to fuck anyone because the lust inside you has never been so strong. 

"It can't be..." Yeji backs away, dropping her gladius. Her face that of pure horror. 

You look down and nearly scream yourself. On your pelvis is an upside-down pentagram, like those used in cult rituals and its glowing red hot though you don't feel any pain. Further down is an even stranger sight. Your dick is literally glowing. Upon taking a closer look, you realize it’s surrounded by a golden aura like it's something powerful. All the chains binding you shatter to pieces, and you rise.  

"The mark" Kazuha mutters dreamily. "It's real" 

"No!" Yeji screams, falling down. "It's a myth. How could it be-" She picks up her gladius and instantly charges. You back away but there isn't a need. Because Yeji got thrown away as though hit by an invisible force. 

She crouches on the floor, panting. "This is madness" 

Kazuha just stands there frozen. Hey eyes fixed on your glowing cock. 

But you only have a single objective in your mind. Ruin Yeji. Use her. Punish her. She is nothing but an easy prey.  

"Stay away" Yeji shouts. In the end, the hunter has become the hunted. 

You close in, grabbing her wrists and pulling her up. Then you slam her onto a column. You don't intend to hurt her though. She's in for something much worse.  

"I will kill you" She mutters but the panic is clear as day in the way her words stutter. Grabbing her waist, you trace your lips across the pulsing veins of her neck all the way to her jaw. Then a bite on her earlobe. Yeji squirms. 

"Still want to kill me?" The question is left unanswered as Yeji's lips part to give way to your tongue, which invades into her oral opening. Yeji's pupils widen when her own tongue got tickled by the foreign one. Her screams come out muffled. Yeji tries to pull away but the grip of your lips on hers is stronger than ever.  

All the while, your hands make their way down to her waist belt, enjoying the feeling of her firm skin. Sliding down further, you slip into her jeans, squeezing that tone ass of hers.  

The writhing of her body is cut short when you slid a finger into her tight asshole, which makes her limp like a rug doll. At first, it's hard to move much with how hard her hole grips you but after a few pumps, it starts to oblige, allowing swifter movements.  

As you finger her asshole, you don't stop the mouth action either. You can no longer tell whose mouth is moister as your saliva got mixed from how long you have been tasting her. All that matters is you keep her mouth shut. The strands of red hair fall over, obscuring your vision partly but you press on, taking in her taste each and every second. Your dick is pressed flat against her tummy in this position and it's getting you even more riled up. You can take care of it later. 

With your unoccupied hand, you squeeze her soft cheeks, which fold like rubber under your touch. The pace of your finger that keeps fucking her asshole remains unwavering. In fact, its pounding her now the same way your cock would. At the same time, you are tongue fucking her. Both of her holes are stuffed and there's nothing she can do about it except produces more degraded sounds. 

Yeji's legs start to shake, inevitably nearing her peak whether she likes it or not. Saliva drips from the corner of her lips and a strand of the remnants connect your lips as your tongue exits her mouth. You are not letting her off. You just want to hear her moan. 

"I...will kill you..." Her voice comes out husky, so it sounds more like an empty promise than a threat. 

"Just shut up and cum bitch" Your thrusts become forceful. Perhaps you are hurting her but Yeji's moaning too much to care. Unable to resist the sight of her skin, you bite down on her neck, pitching up her voice.  

Finally, Yeji breaks. In a frenzy of pain and bliss, she lets out a carnal groan which rings out through the temple. Juice gush out from her pussy when your finger thrust in one last time. Each time her body convulses, she lets out a moan, each one louder than the last. She is still trembling nonstop even after you pull out, her jeans stained with her own bodily fluid. 

"Did you just come from getting your asshole fingered?" You ask. Yeji can only pant as she props against a column not to tremble from her legs that are on the verge of giving out. 

From the corner of your eyes, you can see Kazuha, her arms folded, watching the whole thing without a single word. She seems to be on your side for now. 

"Tired already?" You ask Yeji. "It's just starting" 

The mark on your pelvis glows brighter, the red rays casting a translucent glow on Yeji. With an iron grip on her shoulders, you turn her around, allowing you the view of her round ass in tight jeans. The stain on her crotch area makes the scene even more lewd. 

"Admit it, Yeji. All this time you have been a slut. My cock is all it takes to wipe that bitchy look off your face" Your cock presses against her clothed ass. 

"I swear I will kill-" 

You pull down her jeans just enough to expose her round butt, stealing the air right out of her lungs. Your palm connects with her supple flesh in a harsh spank, leaving a handprint in red. You deliver a strike for each word that leaves her mouth. It goes like this. 

"I-" 

Spank 

"will-" 

Spank 

"kill-" 

Spank 

"you-" 

The white canvas of her skin is now streaked with scarlet stripes. And you intend to keep it that way because the way her ass jiggle with each spank is too hypnotic to get tired of. The cherry on the top is how she keeps protesting even through the stinging pain. But you are gonna change it real soon. 

With one last strike, you pull back, admiring your handiwork on her ass, which is now the same fiery shade as her hair and tops. Yeji mutters another curse through shallow breath. This bitch is still as cocky as ever. 

Pulling her hair to tilt her head, you whisper into her ear. "Still resisitng, hmm? Should we move on to your next punishment?" Yeji's eyes blaze with fury. "Bastard"  

"So, we are doing it the rough way" You hold her throat in a tight grip with your other hand, restricting any more words from coming out of her vocal cords.  

You rest your rock hard cock between her cheeks, the glow it radiates merging with her reddened buttocks. "I'm gonna fuck your brains out now. And then I wanna know if you still want me dead"  

Yeji can do nothing as you enter her moist slit with one forceful thrust that ripples her cheeks. You don't know if she's a virgin or not but the way her walls hug you tight is giving you ideas. Nevertheless, you push on, breaking through the barriers of her fold with each thrust. It doesn't take much time for you to pound her freely with how wet she already is from earlier. 

Soon, you are hammering her cunt without a care in the world, solely focused on using her as your vessel for pleasure. You will take anything her body can offer and that will be her punishment, to become nothing but your cumdump. Resentment and triumph take over your movements and each thrust leaves her even more breathless despite being choked. 

You loosen your grip on her neck just enough for her to make audible sounds. "Still hate me?" You ask as you pull back all the way and thrust into her slit with all your force. She tenses, her back arched. She answers your question with animalistic sounds only a whore would make. 

"Hmm, you still got a lot to learn" You slip your hands under her top, reaching for her mounds. Yeji's tits aren't qualified to be called huge, but they are still big enough to fill your palm as you knead them. When you twirl her rosy nipples between your index and thumb, she mewls like an animal in heat which is only natural with the way she's getting bred. 

You slow down your thrusts, moving in and out slowly to enjoy the full feeling of her slick velvety walls that trace every inch you fill her up with. Somewhere far away, another building collapsed with a sickening crunching sound. A wave of hot air grazes your skin. But they can do nothing to disturb you from claiming Yeji's cunt thoroughly.  

Her walls start to contrast around you, the sign of an oncoming climax. You thrust with inhuman speed, empowered by the mark, as Yeji had called it. Jolts of energy course through your veins at every moment and you are surprised to find that you are not even sweating, much less tired. You can breed Yeji all day if she isn't already worn out and used up. 

Yeji's eyes roll up, her tongue hanging out in the perfect replication of the ahaego faces you see so often in certain animes. Another flood of her nectar pours out, coating your shaft. You keep fucking through her orgasm, chasing your own high. Yeji's body twists and bends but you keep her in position by wrapping your arms around her waist.  

The friction over her slick walls becomes unbearable and soon you are pumping jets after jets of your fertile seeds into her womb, all the way to the hilt. If Yeji sounds animalistic before, now she's no different from an animal. Guttural sounds betray her lips as she gets filled up to the depths she never knows existed before. When your orgasm subsides, she becomes motionless, her hoarse breaths the only sign of life. 

You pull out and cum drips out of her hole which is clenching onto air as if it needs something stuffed inside. Her punishment is a success. Yeji's got destroyed by the very thing that she wanted to destroy. As you stand there, grinning with victory, the adrenaline starts to drain out of your body. Your legs become sore, and the fucking headache is starting again. The mark on your pelvis dims and fades along with the glow of your spent rod.  

"We need to leave" You are so caught up in the joy of dominating Yeji, you forget Kazuha exists. She's still at her old spot, watching you with interest and a slither of worry. You quickly pull up your shorts though there's no point being shy now. She has seen everything. 

"Leave where?" You ask. "My quest is completed right? I will just pass out and go back" 

"It's not happening this time. He wants to meet you" 

"He?" 

"Look, we don't have much time. He will explain everything to you. I promise" 

"But-" 

The temple rumbles. More debris and dust fall from above.  

"Alright. Good idea" You and Kazuha make it outside just in time before the whole temple collapses. The sound of explosions and crumbling buildings ring out all around you. The air burns your lungs with each breath. 

"Ok, hold my hand" Kazuha says and you oblige. There's no point arguing when you are in the middle of an apocalypse. As Kazuha closes her eyes, a gleaming orb surrounds both of you and you spiral down into a tunnel of light. 

♥︎ ♥︎ ♥︎

(Have been procrastinating on this. Anyway, enjoy~)

[thealogie]

I think people need to prepare themselves for MS and DT defending him. Especially MS, who have been friends with him for a long time and is therefore more likely to believe his excuses. It can be incredibly difficult to admit to yourself that someone you consider a friend is capable of committing sexual assault. Men like this often do not act the same way among their peers and can be very good at hiding or downplaying their behaviour.

Also, be prepared for this to be the end of their friendship. since it's a real possibility that one of them will support Gaiman and the other one not.

Expecting either one of them to publicly denounce Gaiman or drop out of Good Omens will only make you disappointed. And I think people should start accepting the idea that neither DT or MS are necessarily as good persons as they seem to be.

personally i never get attached to actors/public figures without being keenly aware of the fact that I don't know them and they might do/say something at any second that will make me drop them like a hot potato. I think stan culture of the type where you're not prepared for that is so unhealthy and i certainly think we should be prepared for two white rich guys to be disappointing in this regard.

At the same time, though, i don't find this type of speculation and "preparing yourself for the worst" to be that helpful. I'll admit I do not have high hopes but i also don't think we should see bad outcomes as inevitable. Do I think it's likely either of them will pleasantly surprise me here? If i'm honest, no, but it would be really fucking helpful to those women if one of them did say something (eventually...i understand neither of them will unless this is reported more widely) and it's ok to hope for it.

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Let Him Go

Summary; If you love someone let them go... That's what yn thinks when she overhears Eddie's crush, Chrissy admits he's cute.

It's Chrissy he wants, not her...

If you love someone then let them go... Eddie has always thought it was a stupid fucking saying.

Warnings; Angst, heartbreak, fluff.

If you enjoyed this then please consider giving it a reblog. It's very much appreciated 💞

I don't give anyone permission to copy my work.

💞

She should have known that she would get her heart broken.

"It's fine Eddie. This is just sex, no strings attached, we can just have some fun"

God, she was an idiot. It wasn't Eddie's fault though as she always knew that it was Chrissy he wanted.

She was just in the way of that and she knew she couldn't stand in the way of Eddie's happiness.

Now knowing that Chrissy thought Eddie was sweet and cute had put things in perspective for her.

That's why she had told Eddie she wanted to end this... thing between them.

His eyes widen and something flickers in his big brown eyes but she can't make out what it is.

Perhaps it's relief that he can finally be with the girl he wants and not her? The thought makes her chest ache.

"Sweetheart..." she cuts him off before he can say anything else.

"Eddie, I've always known what this is between us. That you really want to be with Chrissy and I can't... I won't get in the way of that"

She deliberately avoids looking at him because this is hard enough without his beautiful brown eyes staring at her.

The ache in her chest is threatening to rip open and she fumbles over her words to him.

"I can't... I don't want to be selfish and keep you from being with who you want to be with and I know it's not me. No matter how much I hope it was" she murmurs and he inhales sharply.

"Chrissy thinks you're cute and sweet and no doubt will probably plan on asking you out sometime soon, I overheard her saying to her friend Casey" she walks over to him and kisses his cheek.

"We had a good time Munson, I wish it lasted longer but that's life. I hope, - her voice nearly breaks but she plows on- I hope you're happy with Chrissy. I know you will be"

She lingers for a second and desperately wants to kiss him once last time as if sensing this Eddie gently presses his lips to hers and they kiss as they have never kissed before.

It's desperate and filled with longing and she doesn't want it to end but eventually, she pulls away, and with a last small smile at him, she leaves.

Maybe somewhere deep down she thought he might fight for her, tell her that he had fallen for her like she had fallen for him.

But that was just a fairy tale and she knew real-life was never like that.

💞

Nancy is talking to her about something for the school paper and she tries to listen but her head is pounding from lack of sleep and this constant ache in her chest.

It is in no way helped by the fact that she sees Chrissy immediately head over to Eddie's table and strike up a conversation.

The smile on Eddie's face is enough to know that she made the right decision in letting him go and even though she had no idea how to prepare herself for watching them be a couple, she would just have to deal with it as best as she could.

Watching Eddie look at her like she's the only girl in the world, holding her hand in his large one, knowing that Chrissy will get to fall asleep in his arms every night makes her want to throw up but she has to get over it.

Just because she knows Eddie will inevitably be with Chrissy she doesn't want to torture herself even more by seeing the first flush of their romance.

As long as Eddie is happy that's all that matters but she had to protect some of her shattered heart.

She supposed she could have been selfish and clung onto Eddie for as long as possible but what kind of person would that make her?

A mean, selfish one that's what.

Also, she wanted to be someone's everything, not just a fuck buddy. Not just... convenient.

Nancy speaks to her in a gentle tone and she turns away from Chrissy and Eddie feeling sick to her stomach.

She chose this though, this is what Eddie wants so she just has to deal with it.

💞

He can feel the stares of the Hellfire boys on him and he does his best to ignore them.

They know he's in a strange mood but not why and he can sense the curiosity in them.

"You sure you're okay Eddie?" Dustin asks him concerned and he nods and opens his locker his breath coming out harsh as he finds one of yn's scrunchies.

A blush pink one with white flowers, her favorite and his, it smells faintly of her shampoo and the pain inside him worsens.

Quickly he grabs his D&D notebook and slams his locker shut.

At this point, Chrissy approaches him, she's been hanging around for the last few days and he gathers that what yn overheard was right (about Chrissy thinking he was cute)

The thought doesn't fill him with the joy he thought it would.

"Hey Chrissy" she beams at him and out of the corner of his eye he sees yn with Robin, they are both getting picked up by Steve.

Eddie waits for Chrissy to ask her question but all he can think about is the deep ache in his chest that isn't getting better since yn left.

Or the fact that despite knowing Steve is only her friend- the sight of him with his arm around her and making her giggle makes him want to hit something.

Preferably Steve.

"I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date," Chrissy asks him, and a month or so ago that question would have made him so fucking happy.

It would have been everything he ever wanted but now? He had gotten what he thought was his dream and it felt... it felt all wrong.

"No," he says quietly and Chrissy looks up at him surprised and then blushes.

"Um... shit. Do you have a girlfriend?" she asks and a look of horror appears on her face, he shakes his head.

"No. Chrissy if you had asked me this a month or so ago I would be a happy guy but now? I... I'm in love with someone"

Her eyes widen and she turns to see what he is gazing at then notices yn and she smiles.

"Shit, if I had known Eddie then I would never have asked" she stammers out and he sighs.

"You know she ended things because she overheard you say to your friend that you thought I was cute, I could see it hurt her but she did it... so I would be happy, get to be with you" he rubs his head wearily.

"I'm not happy. Jesus Christ, I am miserable without her" Chrissy softens and pats his arm.

"Then tell her, make her believe it. Fight for her" fight for her? He looks back to yn again and he nods his resolve hardening.

That's exactly what he is going to do, he's going to tell her how he feels.

💞

It was one of those stormy nights in Hawkins that made her burrow under her blankets and read one of her favorite books.

She had made hot chocolate and was quite content to just snuggle up and forget the ache in her chest when she heard a gentle tapping on her window.

At first, she thinks she is in some very vivid dream because Eddie is perched on her roof and the tapping sound is him.

Gasping she gets up and let's him in.

"What the hell are you doing out in this storm? You could catch your death, Eddie"

He takes off his jacket and she can't help but admire him clad in sweatpants and a Judas Priest shirt.

"I had to see you" his teeth are chattering and she grabs an extra blanket from her closet and wraps it around him.

She eyes Eddie confused, why is he here? Is it to tell her about him and Chrissy?

"Shouldn't you be on a date with Chrissy?" the words come out of her mouth before she can stop them and she waits for his answer slightly dreading it.

He shakes his head and she sits beside him still unsure what is going on.

"Why? You want to be with Chrissy?" not with me she thinks sadly but doesn't say it but here's the thing, Eddie can read her like a book.

"Things change" she stares at him stunned, trying to work him out.

"Eddie, I don't understand. I know you like her so why are you with me right now instead of her, did she not ask you out and that's why you're here? "

Was she a second choice? She didn't want to be that, the thought makes her already bruised heart hurt even more.

He brushes a lock of hair away from her face and her whole body warms.

"She did ask me out and I said no and maybe I'm here because since you ended things I've felt like a wreck inside" she swallows and feels a tug in her chest.

"I don't understand" she admits and he takes her hand and squeezes it tightly.

"Chrissy stopped being my dream a long time ago, I have a new dream. An even more incredible one because it involves you... because somewhere along the line I fell deeply in love with you and you are all I think about"

He loves me... He loves me. Tears spill down her cheek and she smiles as he kisses her tears away.

"I don't want to be with Chrissy, I want to be with you. It's you who I love princess" she grins and wraps her arms around him.

"I love you too Eddie, that's why I let you go because I wanted you to be happy" he cups her cheek and gently kisses her forehead.

"I was miserable without you. Being with you makes me so happy sweetheart" his head rests against hers and he holds her close to him.

He leans back and pulls a book out of the carrier bag he was holding.

Lord of the rings, is one of their favorite books to read together. It was something they had been doing for a while now.

It relaxed her and she loved cuddling up on Eddie's chest as he read to her doing all the voices and making her laugh.

They settle in her bed and they kiss happily whispering words of love before he opens the book and begins to read.

The storm grows stronger outside but they are too wrapped up in each other to notice as Eddie gently strokes her hair until they are both lulled into sleep.

💞💞

[bestworstcase]

What specifically makes you say that the Ozpin circle is basically a cult?

not "basically" a cult—it is a cult.

ozpin's inner circle is a religious organization dedicated to safeguarding four divine relics entrusted to their leader, who is literally the god of light's chosen one, until he deems humanity prepared for the final judgment. its notionally secular nature likely exists because ozma figured out that publicly doing this:

“The others cheered in agreement. The man considered. He had wanted to bring people together, and his efforts were finally bearing fruit. The accidental experiment was working, far better than any attempts he had planned in his previous lifetimes. “The people here believe in magic, though many have never seen it,” she said. “If you show everyone that it’s real, that the man with infinite lifetimes has returned as he promised—” [...] “She shook her head. “We trust in you and the fate you’ve laid out for us. We believe in the good of people and our shared responsibility to protect one another and Remnant. So many have heard our stories about you, but now you’re here, in the flesh. Your presence is living proof that everything you’ve said is true. It reinforces our beliefs and commitment to the Circle. Together, now, we will make ready for the final judgment.” [...] “And for a time, all that the woman had said seemed to come true. Many more followers flocked to Circle and their reputation and message spread all throughout Remnant. This was what he was here for, he thought. Perhaps, in the end, he would be able to rest.”

inevitably leads to conflict because, surprise! people don't like being told what to do by eschatological cults!

but ozpin's circle is not in fact secular—ozpin tells his hand-picked loyalists that the gods he serves are the Only True Gods and the whole point is that he's working to fulfill the mandate given to him by the god of light. the huntsmen academies are, inescapably, a religious institution.

moreover ozpin's circle is a cult not just in the broader sense of being religious in nature and dedicated to worship of a particular god but also in the narrower modern connotation of a high-control group organized around a charismatic leader. this is not a matter of interpretation; this is overt text. half the point of pyrrha's arc in V3 is to reveal this fact.

members of his inner circle are expected to work in absolute secrecy and—evinced by the antagonism between qrow and ironwood in V2-3, and the immediate suspicion of lionheart in V5—subject to intense scrutiny by other members against the possibility of betrayal. likewise, pyrrha is deliberately isolated from her peers (primarily through secrecy) and put under immense pressure when ozpin et al attempt to recruit her as their next fall maiden—all without informing her of anything beyond the very bare minimum facts of what they want her to do. "we can fill you in on the details once we know that you're with us."

and like. with the way those scenes in V3 are framed, with the very direct line drawn between ozpin's ruinous paranoia and secrecy and preoccupation with betrayal and ironwood's ruinous obsession with loyalty, and with the whole thing where the narrative continues to highlight how deeply and profoundly traumatized everyone who comes into contact with the inner circle ends up being... like, this is the intended reading. it is so unsubtle.

salem's circle is also a cult in the religious sense—she's, er, very explicitly receiving cult from tyrian and i would argue at least notionally from the others as well—and while it remains to be seen to what extent tyrian's belief that she would send him to hunt down anyone who left is grounded in reality, at a minimum she doesn't bother to do anything about it so the implicit threat is there to keep people in line.

[bu-blegh-ost]

EP. 114 spoilers

Okay, guys, I have an insane theory. An absolutely bonkers unhinged one and I'm absolutely sure it's getting debunked by the info we'll get from ep. 115 fucking immediately, but let me have this, entertain the madness I'm about to spew from my lips.

"Praise the Solar Mother" means that Faye Ferin is not only conscious and aware of the prophecy, she BELIEVES it. The question is, which version of it, right? Well, she was warned abt Black Sea beforehand and this allowed her to get the upper hand in expanding Navy's influence, but not only that, she says "the day it spreads is coming and we'll be ready" And which prophecy speaks of it? "the seal remains locked by a key of divinity, its release, in time, an inevitability"

The real one.

She fucking knows that the Black Sea is about to spread soon and wants to either use it in some way or be the one to control the world after the calamity. And here comes my absolutely deranged idea.

"The Machine is stable. My son is stable"

What if the machine is an artificial Leviathan and the son is Jayson Ferin. Picture this madness. See into my crazy gay-ass mind.

What if Faye Ferin wants to control the world by making Jayson Ferin into a new Chosen one. She is constructing an artificial Leviathan, but why? To somehow connect Jayson to it and make him "a Sea god's last egg". We SAW the Leviathan bones, the Navy is strong enough to kill real Leviathans, they don't need them as weapons, they have things stronger than them! So what if they need one to literally trick fate? Jayson is literally raised like Gillion. Only under his mother's influence, controlled by her agenda, her vision of justice. She makes him consider Drey and Jay as traitors, feeds his hatered, feeds him her own perception of reality to use him for her gains. His almost ethereal sun-angel form. Where does his power come from? Was he modified? I fully believe he is not replaced by Black ops. She doesn't need to do that. She had full control over his way of thinking ever since he was born simply bc she is his mother. She enjoys that control. She is confident that Jayson won't break from her grasp.

And now see this. Jayson just so happens to come for a visit to the Undersea, not so long ago. Could the Elders be replaced as Black ops at this point? They very much could. Why would the real Elders banish Gillion if they believed he was the Chosen One? Why not imprison him, keep him in their own control? Well, cause they were Navy clones, possibly. And Navy wanted Gill out of the picture.

The important meeting in the Undersea arranged by Elders (impostors?) a while back. Suspiciously high amount of Triton torture victims in the stronghold. "You abandoned us". What if they are taking over Undersea from the inside? What if fake Elders spread propaganda, saying that Gill was not in fact banished but that he abandoned his people willingly? So maybe they are willing to appoint a new Chosen, Jayson?

Why would Edyn want to help them with all that? "I just want you to be able to come back home again"

If Jayson is a new Chosen, then Gillion doesn't have to be. If Gillion becomes a regular person Edyn can take him home, they can live a normal life and if the world has to burn because of it, so be it. Gillion will be free. That's all Edyn cares abt.

Let me know if I fully lost my mind please.

[zzthekaiju]

Geez...

Call this whining, but now that Wingard's out of the director's seat (here's hoping they either get Dougherty back in the saddle OR someone like Guillermo del Toro on the line), I've been noticing a LOT of people wanting the next Godzilla movie to basically be "Godzilla gets fed up with humanity and turns on us all". And I really don't want that for a number of reasons (reinforces the bias against reptiles, been done before a million times, personal bias, etc.), particularly one specific detail...

It renders Serizawa's sacrifice, and the overarching themes of coexistence in the Monsterverse, entirely pointless.

That heart-tugging scene of him putting the fate of the world and its number one guardian above his own, of him making one last connection with the beast that inspired him, that moment they lock eyes before he gives his life to save him...it all goes down the drain if the ultimate endgame of the Monsterverse is Godzilla becoming our greatest threat when the OH SO PERFECT AND SQUEAKY-CLEAN APE gets to be the hero all the time (don't get me wrong, I love this version of Kong, but it just feeds into the "mammal good, reptile bad" trope I despise so much). Everything Serizawa and Monarch stood for as a whole ends up being for nothing if that's how it all goes down. And really, we've now done the whole "Godzilla gets pissed at us because of the actions of a few" thing with the Mechagodzilla situation.

NOW, I'm not saying Godzilla needs to be totally spotless. Absolutely not. I'm fine with him being kind of a jerk at this point...but what if he changed? What if, instead of just keeping him that way...we saw him develop? Y'know? As a character? Which is what he very much is, and NOT some glorified plot device?

Listen, making our relationship with Godzilla the centerpiece of the conflict isn't a bad idea. Not at all, as a matter of fact. A good way around it could be that the new monster he has to defeat is Hedorah, or a monster very much like Hedorah (considering the involvement of Yoshimitsu Banno, it feels inevitable). A horror conceived by our hubris and lack of care for the Earth. And yeah, Godzilla would be really angry at us...but he could also be tired. Overwhelmed. Borderline depressed at his Sisyphean life of having to undo every mistake we make. Maybe the real conflict could be him trying to find something, anything that makes his job worth it and not him not feel completely out of place in a world that's changed so much in the centuries he's been dormant. Maybe Monarch and/or a new cast of humans could help show the Big G that we appreciate him. They already teased this with how he acts around the Roman Coliseum (the novel confirms that he's homesick, awww), so why not give him that sort of emotional arc like they did for Kong? Maybe even give him more than just one scene with him and Mothra together, and show why their relationship works so well, ESPECIALLY when Big G's having a crisis! A unique jerk-to-nice-guy plot! I don't know, something that doesn't begin and end with him doing nothing but destroy things. That was cool for a while, but we need to get out of this "Godzilla can't be relatable because reptile" bunk that I have no doubt the higher-ups think. Heck, give him that son that Wingard clearly wanted to give him. Maybe the twist is that Little G absolutely adores humans and convinces his old man that they aren't so bad. That would work amazing! The possibilities are endless!

That, or they could go with my pitch for a "Godzilla X Mothra" movie. Please...?

I'm kidding, Twitter user Riamus came up with a WAY better premise, to be honest.

[the-s1lly-corner]

jealous/clingy spot/johnathon headcannons?

Jealous and Clingy hcs for Jonathan/Spot!

Knocking this out before I take a nap (eepy <\3)! Usually I would split this into 2 sections buuuuut since I think there wasnt much change in this department I'm not gonna bother!!

So!! Yeah!!

Fair warning that this will probably be OOC and/or have mistakes since I'm eepy but I'm too stubborn to leave this for later ☝️😔

This ones gonna be on the shorter side, maybe

Idk I write these opening/author notes before + as I'm writing

Starting off Jonathan is.

Whoooboy!

Like he tries not to be toxic about it, he doesn't want to hurt you or drive you away, and that sentiment is still there even after he becomes spot

He doesn't have many friends and he'll never forgive himself if he makes you leave

What he needs is loads of reassurance that you only have eyes for him, and communication is key! Let him know when you're going to be late or going to hang out with someone for a bit; if he sees you with someone else, or another *guy* it'll eat him up all day

Though sometimes he can still jump to conclusions so arguments are inevitable every now and then but again, communication and patience is key; he'll never go as far as to accuse you of cheating though (unless he truly has reason to suspect)

He doesn't think hes the prettiest, or nicest, or smartest, or-

I mean of all people, you chose him?

He feels lucky to have you, but he believes you can do so much better than him and that thought is constantly plaguing his mind

Not very self assured tbh

After the collider incident his self image issues get way way WAY worse; from the fact he can hardly consider himself human, to his new powers, to the fact everyone from his old life dropped him

Except, for you

You stayed

Through it all the fact you stuck around does give him comfort, more so than if you were to meet him after the collider incident

Like

Its one thing to meet him as spot

But I feel its another to see and know how he was before, as just Jonathan, and to still stick around after his life was flipped upside down

His jealousy still spikes up every now and then

As a side thing I feel like as Jonathan he liked having you in his sight and, if possible, he liked holding your hand. Think of it as a "you're still here, you're here for me, you're not going anywhere and you love me," sort of thing

As spot that turns into him wanting to be even closer to you anytime he has the chance

The whole "oh I'm not the most (x)" thing REALLY amps up when he becomes spot, especially in the beauty department

Remind him that you dont mind the holes, shower him in affection

Overall it's going to be a while until hes confident in himself, both as Jonathan and as Spot

So please be patient with him, but remember to set clear boundaries for the relationship! I feel like with a lot of hc lists for insecurity and jealousy stuff, boundaries are hardly touched up on!! No hate to those writing like that and not including it but I feel like its important to stress that the other partner has the right to enforce their own things

Though that might be because when I was younger, jealous hcs were more... yandere-esque or getting REAL close to it, and it kinda. Made me think that was normal and desirable and okay in relationships so

Idk maybe that's just that part of me wanting to prevent that from happening to someone else

With that aside, ultimately Jonathan/Spot will try his best to not get too intense or pushy or controlling; again, he loves you, and he doesn't want to love you

[opalobviously]

Me personally, involving the Drake n Kendrick beef?

I'm a full Kendrick fan, West Coast Mfs-but, I can see what Drake was *going* for.

His problem was he was treating this like he was just battling a rapper with less numbers than him. On Paper? this is true, and Drake's strategy for the beef makes sense.

-Respond to Like that with push-ups, a decent hit, clearing out all of his opponents at once except for Kendrick (And, little did he know, Rick Ross n Future)

-troll a bit and goad Kendrick into responding faster so he could slam him (I don't think he went abt this right, and I will elaborate on that in a second)

-after he gets a chance to let his responses out? Killshot. Bring in the heavy hits, the allegations, make it clear you won the beef, and dip, make it clear the smaller artist simply isn't worth more time and effort.

It's overall not a bad strategy....on paper.

But this is Kendrick Lamar.

As Any Avid Kendrick Fan will tell you, Kendrick is a Masterful Lyricist, a pretty deep dude in general, and, above all, a man who is persistent in using his music to push a message no matter what. Beyond the Moral high ground this seems to place him on at times, that simply means he isn't gonna give up. Drake should have expected more bombs after Family matters-in fact, he should have expected a lot. So, I'm gonna be going over how I personally would have done the beef with Kendrick, because at a certain point it was inevitable.

Pushups:

To be perfectly honest, I think Pushups was a great song. It was a decent response to Like that, as well as snapping back at the other people aimed at Drake, like Rick Ross, Future, Metro Boomin, the Weeknd, and I believe Ja Morant, even aiming a light stray at J Cole for dipping. At this point in the beef, it was still up to either side, so I make no changes here.

Taylor Made Freestyle

Definitely what I consider the first Lyrical Fuck Up of the beef. Considering the Allegations on Drake not being a real rapper, being a culture Vulture, and having ghost writers, I genuinely cannot see how he thought using AI voices was a good idea in the slightest, not only of the legendary Snoop Dogg, but of the Late Great Tupac Shakur. In the eyes of almost anyone west Coast, it highlights the fact that you don't give a single solitary FUCK about the culture, much less are a part of it. What I do here, is simply adjust the angle. I still think that dropping Taylor Made is important, but I abandon the AI idea in it's entirety. Instead, I focus much more heavily on the Taylor swift and K dot thing, calling him pussy in as many ways as possible without using AI. Maybe a couple bars along the lines of:

Sniper from the mountain aiming low so I can Pop a Vet Aimed at the king but you missed, now I'm Cocking Back Can't believe some white chick is the reason you ain't Dropping yet She probably make you get her more money for her Private Jet

Reasonable lyrics for a beef like it was at the time I think. Contains a couple double entendres, sounds decent, hits pretty hard, and has the same general intent: Make Kendrick mad, and give him more that he has to respond to.

Family Matters

Family matters is probably drake's best song in the beef, and it makes sense. he had intended for it to be the KILLSHOT, and I am willing to wager that he had at least some parts of it ready as soon as he dropped Pushups, just waiting to see Kendrick's response so he could add something responding to his own song and make it a complete slam. If I'm Drake here, I focus more on the wife beater allegation, just by a little bit. To be clear, how Drake (or his ghost writers?) did it was very good, with a hard hitting quotable line

"When you put your hands on your girl, is it self defense cuz she bigger than you?"

Even my family, all west coast ride or dies, thought Drake got Kendrick when Family matters dropped. It was great, the timing of it, the intensity of it, the fact it dropped same day as 6:16 in LA, it was just awesome.

Then....the real bomb dropped.

Dealing with Meet the Grahams

It was at this point in the beef that Drake was CLEARLY cooked. that was a fucking horror scene. The worst part is that Drake couldn't use the same route: Kendrick aired out his own dirty laundry on Mr Morale. It would be stupid to try and use that angle anyway, Kendrick predicted it all the way back in Euphoria. So, the KILLSHOT didn't work. Here, if I'm Drake, I'm panicked, because a response is needed, but if it's lackluster, that's it. First, deny the allegations of pedophilia IMMEDEATELY (I'm pretending that in this universe I am a Drake, who did not commit anything listed here). The daughter I can reveal as a fake later, let them talk, let hype build up. but the Pedo shit? can't fly, can't let me turn into P Diddy. once that's in place, I spend maybe 2 days working on a final kill shot

The Heart Part 6

My problem with this one is that it felt like he was trying to go out on his own terms when the people clearly did not want that. his biggest fans needed to see him Whoop Kendrick back, not say it's summer vibes time. now, the fake daughter drop? genius if it's true, however, the IMMEDEATE denial of it earlier makes the move have less oomph, so I don't do that myself. also, FOR GODS SAKE DONT BRING UP MR MORALE IDIOT, HE LITERALLY TOLD EVERYONE YOU WOULD DO THAT IN LIKE THE FIRST PART OF EUPHORIA

"Fabricating stories on the family front, cuz you heard Mr Morale

A pathetic Master Manipulator I can smell the tales on you now..."

Exapserated sigh at this Canadian Dumbass

Anyway. What I do is the daughter drop, and deny, questioning the Validity of the rest of Kendrick's claims. Maybe, just maybe, make a hint to Michael Jackson having been Alleged of the same stuff? they never did prove he did it you know, and they straight up patted him down, took him to court, everything. It'd be a decent comparison, because a decent amount of people are still conflicted on whether he did it, even with all evidence pointing to say he did not. After that? idk, but I would personally make a song on BBL drizzy to make fun of Metro Groomin.

ACTUALLY.

that's exactly what I would do.

Make a song on BBL drizzy, dissing Kendrick for affiliating with Metro, of whom just as much if not more proof of grooming tendencies is out as Drake, thanks to those damn tweets (Metro was born in 1993, no matter how you spin it, the earliest of the tweets he was 18, 2011, and the tweet "She may be young but she ready" happens in 2014, when he's 21 years old. concerning to say the least)

"You a hypocrite Dot, Idiot Dot, and above all you a liar. How you shooting at any pervert that lives, but Metro's out the line of Fire?"

and yeah, that's about it.

Kendrick totally won btw, this is a theoretical "What if Drake was ACTUALLY a rapper, not a little bitch boy who uses ghostwriters and AI to do all his work?"

[velvetvexations]

tbhhh seeing how you've been treated on this site (love every trans woman before it's too late... unless she can't be used for our political stuff) makes me think that like... some trans women on this site seem to have an in group, if that makes sense? like... not to victim blame-- absolutely not-- but like

it comes off as if there's a very big in group of 'popular trans women' who will even exclude other transfemmes who don't fit a particular aesthetic/same tastes/same opinions. like they all missed the opportunity to be mean girls in highschool so they're recreating it on tumblr dot gov. i absolutely think transfemmes, esp baby ones, should get to experience feminine things they may have been denied earlier on in life-- if anything it's very sweet. however... in thinking about it, it makes me wonder if it's become this whole trickle down cycle of 'you're not a real trans woman unless you do this/like this/act like this/have this opinion/think like this'-- not in the 'oh people are being TRICKED into being TRANS' so much as a 'i feel very bad for if there's any transfemmes out there who feel like they're trying desperately and failing to commit to certain community aesthetics and opinions just for SMIDGEON of a chance that they MIGHT be acknowledged and be in the 'in crowd' and be allowed to have ANY friends with experiences like theirs-- except, if their experiences aren't exactly like the in-crowd's, they will be swiftly discarded and ignored'. like they're being put into a box they're not allowed much say of what's in it (transmascs also get this-- albeit imo it doesn't usually come from transmascs themselves). like instead of it being using community aesthetics to help find or even fuel your identity, it becomes 'i will modify myself to fit in better even if it's ingenuine to my true self'. this is especially cruel when one considers how much trans women are said over and over again to be targeted in callout posts (granted, i feel it veers into 'shaming victims' territory when ppl go off abt it now a days), so denying the ones that don't fit into a community that ironically constantly says how they don't fit in anywhere would naturally make a less-popular transfemme feel like she has nowhere to go if she were ever attacked (which, is inevitable according to these groups).

except, it's a catch-22-- because when you're popular, you have a target on your back-- this is a fact of the site no matter what identity you are. but unfortunately-- because unless you're Velvet who got there for being Right and Cool and having Good Taste (/j)-- the way you usually become a popular transfemme is hitting all the in-crowd points... including blaming transmascs for every bad thing that happens to you and suspecting them at every turn. this isn't me saying popular transfemmes have nothing to worry abt so much as i think a lot of it comes from hysteria-driven group think, among other things.

and don't get me wrong-- tumblr is transphobic as fuck. it's disgusting. but everyone not only ignores that trans masc and nonbinary blogs have also been deleted, but then turn around and seem to hold more malice for the supposed ''''tme mob''''.

i feel like all of what i described is like... a product of community hypervigilance that-- while understandable-- not only harm the transmascs around them, but even other transfemmes who don't fit the mold, as they too are now viewed as 'dangerous and will do us harm'. like the whole community is wrapped up in doing everything possible to be this... version of themselves that could 'avoid harm' and blaming the wrong sources for it. it feels like instead of taking away 'society put us in a hierarchy and that's bad' it became 'we will make our own hierarchy in which anyone who disagrees with us or is different to us is bad'. it comes off as... kinda unself aware to a point? like making everyone around you the 'problem' whenever you're challenged?

ig i was wondering what your perspective on being on tumblr as a transfemme has been like?? bc i'm not sure how accurate i am about there being a transfemme/trans woman in crowd as someone who's outside looking in. i know i rambled a lot-- and even if you disagree on some aspects, i do thank you for reading through as much as you can.

I don't think I'm a good person to ask for the typical t-fem Tumblr experience, although needless to say I agree it's not a nightmare of constant transmisogyny from every corner. The world is, generally, but yes, there is a hysteria at play.

But I can say that Velvet Nation, most especially AFAB transfolk who follow me for discourse, have always been wonderful supporters who show me a lot of genuine care and appreciation, not just as a transfem but as a narc, as a writer, as someone entering a faith outside their own cultural context, just in every possible way you can imagine, and it's all been so very nice. Obviously, positive things coming my way doesn't discount the negativity others face, but that's been most of my experience on Tumblr - in spite of some fairly grievous transmisogyny from the people demanding I read Whipping Girl.

[drowninnoodles]

Back to UT/DR phase, baby

I spent way too much time looking for this information so if anyone is curious...

Its mostly some pseudo physics things :p

Well, I think everyone here knows this quote:

I haven't seen anyone actually break down Undertale and make references to quantum physics, but if someone did, I'd be grateful for the links because I find it very interesting. Well, I thought I'd try to do it myself, even though I don't know anything about mathematics or physics. I will rely entirely on internet sources, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes.

I will also speak rather briefly because no one will want to read long descriptions about something neither of us will understand.

We can start with an obvious introduction about the fact that, of course, this science is about photons and protons. I don't know if there's a point in explaining what I'm referring to, because of course it's the whole thing with Negative Photons in UT, but I'd like to remind you again of my old theory about the black hole. But that's in a moment.

However, this physics is deeply connected with philosophical issues and this is what I am initially going to talk about. So let's start with the, so appropriately named, view of Determinism. In short, it says that all decisions and events are inevitable. Of course, this is the opposite of free will, the ability of individuals to make decisions, because everything is already written down in advance. There are different visions of this view, but I want to specifically address the fact that, according to some, the universe is a determined system. Of course, what I'm pointing to here is that every game has a script that assumes what will happen after making some decision and what ending we will have at, well, end of the game.

Determinism leads us to the next theory, the multiverse or many words theory. This is, by the way, my favorite theory of the world and I'm not talking about Undertale, but about our real one. However, I will explain it as simply as I can, and also remind you that Toby himself said that there are “AUs” in the UT and DR universe. Multi worlds theory is basically that DR may be a world existing in parallel with Undertale, but some event or decision made them go in two different directions. Quite hypothetically, let's take into account that the point in history that divided the universe into two, into Undertale and Deltarune, was the war between Humans and Monsters. During this war, humans and monsters had two possible outcomes, humans winning or monsters winning. We know what happened when the humans won, because this story is basically what we know from Undertale. But what if the monsters won? For now, we can only guess that this is a story from Deltarune, but nothing has been confirmed.

Another example would be that when you play Undertale you have a lot of options to choose from, right? So let's follow this lead and choose the most significant one, i.e. killing or not. Of course, the ending of True Pacifist is generally considered to be the true ending, but in Genocide we also get one. Here we started one story in the same way, but our choice created two different worlds existing in parallel. One world is the one where everyone is happy and the other is the one where everyone is dead. Of course, the fact that we have a choice does not give us complete free will, here the theory is combined with the already mentioned determinism. Because although we make decisions, their consequences are already determined, they exist because there is a game script. By the way, maybe why there are so many cats in Deltarune is simply a reference to the so-called Schördinger's Cat, but this is just a guess.

In any case, quantum physics nicely explains the existence of what we call the timeline.

While searching Wikipedia, I also came across something called String Theory, but I can't understand it, so you'll have to forgive me.

Now I will talk about what I consider to be the most logical explanation of the history of what "Dark Darker Yet Darker" refers to. Black Hole, of course.

The Black Hole has such a strong force of gravity that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. When an object falls into such a hole, all information about it is lost for observators. There is a black hole information paradox, but once again, my brain is too small to understand. We can also keep in mind that "darkness keeps growing” didn't mean it was getting darker. That meant there was literally MORE of it. Black Holes grow by eating matter, and I dare to propose a theory that opening the Fountains in Deltarune creates small micro black holes that, if not sealed, can devour the world.

Now let me remind you of the well-known fact that passing through this Hole is called Spaghettification or the Pasta Effect. In this process, the object or, in our case, a person, is torn to pieces and their matter is added to the black hole. Poor Gaster, I guess.

As for Sans, Quantum jumping isn't just thing, it's an actual thing in science. Yes, it's something that gives you access to alternate universes. This goes completely back to what I said earlier, that every decision opens up another new world to us, and somewhere we probably exist in another world at the same time. These jumps involve visualizing yourself in a given place and... that's it. You will then attract events that will help you achieve this, which will make you appear in the timeline you wanted to jump to. So personally, I don't think Sans teleports per se. For example, imagine that you meet Sans near his house, and then you go on and meet him again, but this Sans is not 100% the same because he came here from a different timeline. Does this make sense? It depends on whether I explained it well XD.

Also remember that moment when Sans is in several places at the same time? Yes, this also applies to jumping.

I think a good explanation for this might be "It's raining somewhere else". It's raining somewhere else because there was a possibility that it might or might not rain. It is not raining in this world you are in now, but in a parallel space-time it is raining because factors have occurred that allow it to happen.

By the way, according to Google, it is impossible to create a black hole in a laboratory. Oh well.

However, if someone hypothetically created one, intentionally or not, being close to it would have no chance of escaping.

Whoops?

I think it's also worth noting that it's damn cold inside such a hole, -237,15°C is, yeah, a little bit of not sunny.

Maybe that's why Black Holes are so Cool…

So summary at the end:

-Determinism means that everything is written down in advance, i.e. basically the game script.

-Many worlds and Multiverse theory explains why Sans is everywhere, and also that all timelines are happening at once

-Black holes tear people to pieces and it's called Spaghettification. (we all know it)

I don't know anything about physics, so these are just my thoughts.

[petedavidsonscock]

i want to talk about the sun/moon motif in in other lands. let’s go let’s do it.

luke is a blonde guy with tan skin. his last name contains the word “sun.” serene is inhumanly pale with dark hair. the two of them have a unique warrior bond and swore never to ride into battle without the other. luke is the sun and serene is the moon; simple enough, right?

wrong.

let’s switch gears and look at elliot’s dad’s description of elka. “‘she was the first thing i saw when i walked into a room … whatever she said was brilliant and startling … she was like that, a constant bright surprise … she was never what i expected. i was even surprised when she left’” (page 128 in my ebook).

the scene is so sad, primarily because of what his dad next says to elliot: “‘you’re not like her. … nobody will ever love you enough to stay.’”

this is heartbreaking for two reasons. first, because what the hell kind of parent says that to their own child. but second, because elliot is like elka. he is brilliant, startling, surprising, and very bright. he’s not to everybody’s taste—we know that—but elka here is being described by someone who was (is still?) in love with her. i have no doubt that serene or luke would consider elliot’s dad’s words a pretty solid description of elliot.

(elliot’s character mirrors elka’s in other ways too. obviously, they are both able to travel to the borderlands; both experience more ambivalence than most real-world recruits seem to about whether or not to stay. they have similar senses of humor [i think? hard to tell if elka is joking around but it seems like she’s less than fully serious] and are abrupt and spiky. elliot likes elka, gets her. they have the same color hair. and both of them ultimately leave elliot’s dad and go to the borderlands.)

the parallels between elliot and elka are numerous and crucial to understanding the text, which allows us to pretty safely analyze the only real description we get of elka as applying to elliot as well. and what else is true of that description? it’s super sun-coded!

elka is (was) obvious, unignorable: a source of brightness, light, and warmth. just like the night that follows each day, her abandonment is framed as inevitable and unstoppable.

(note that the same is true of elliot! the dialogue here is “‘You know what day it is. You know what’s coming.’” / “‘I know that you’re going’” [876 in my ebook]. elliot’s leaving is also expected, unsurprising; a given.)

in conclusion, elka is the sun, elliot is elka, and therefore elliot is the sun. but then… who is the moon? let’s look at our options.

luke is not all that sun-like, but he’s also not much of a moon archetype. he hates crowds, hates being the center of attention. he’s shy, which i guess could be moon-coded? but he isn’t very mysterious about it, which to me is key to the moon part of the dynamic.

serene, as mentioned, is a better candidate, except that she and elliot don’t make a pair; elliot is wrong about their being fated for each other, just as he was wrong about luke being a perfect golden hero. serene gets her own sun, too: golden-hair-scented-like-summer. perfect sun motif.

as for luke and elliot… i don’t know. i’m not really that into the whole moon/sun dynamic as a general trope, so i’m not that invested, but i think you could pretty convincingly argue that luke is in fact the moon to elliot’s sun.

anyway that’s the post. elliot is the sun, serene is the moon but not elliot’s moon (this i think contributes to why elliot was so sure they would end up together: on some level he was aware of the tropes at play), luke seems like he’s the sun but is either the moon or possibly, like, some sort of cloud formation, and golden is the sun to serene’s moon. okay bye.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Considering how rapidly the right's "war on woke" is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified "mama bears" on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the right-wing mania for censorship into a dark parody of itself. At issue? A poster that seemed to imply that interracial friendship is possible.

According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."

"I wish I was shocked," Dungan said of the poster. "I am aware these trends have been happening for many years."

Some other members of the school board did, in fact, argue that there was nothing objectionable about such a poster. But Dungan was backed up by another trustee, Misty Odenweller, who insisted that the depiction of uh, race-mixing was in some way a "violation of the law." The two women are part of "Mama Bears Rising," a secretive far-right group fueling the book-banning mania in Conroe and the surrounding area. At least 59 books have been banned due to their efforts.

When another trustee asked Dungan if she personally objected to an illustration of cross-racial friendship, she demurred, simply declaring that she was just trying to avoid "situations like that." Situations like what, exactly? She didn't say.

Dungan's behavior is a perfect illustration of the "anti-woke" tap dance. The person alleging nefarious wokeness never admits to their own bigotry, instead pretending that they're reacting to "woke" people who are "pushing" an agenda, in this case through innocuous poster art.

Of course, the entire premise of the argument is rooted in bigotry, as this example shows. It presumes that the feelings of real or imagined bigots who might take umbrage at such an image are of paramount importance, and that everyone else's freedoms must be curtailed to appease them.

It's tempting to shrug it off as one-off weirdness from Nowheresville, Texas. But while this was an especially ham-fisted example, it's part of a well-funded nationwide effort, led by a group of interlocking far-right groups, aimed at destroying modernity, undermining democracy and imposing authoritarian government against the will of most Americans.

Donald Trump sucks up most of the oxygen in the discussion about rising American fascism, but even without him, this movement is powerful and widespread, and it's using these local culture-war skirmishes battles to seize even more power. And old-fashioned racism, the kind on display in Conroe, is very much at the center of it all.

Last week, the New Republic published a lengthy and terrifying investigative article by Katherine Stewart about the Claremont Institute, once a vaguely respectable conservative think tank and now among the leading right-wing organizations pushing the anti-education and anti-democratic agenda below the surface of the Conroe incident.

One of the many Claremont alumni Stewart profiles is Christopher Rufo, who spearheaded the recent hysteria over "critical race theory" in education. In reality, critical race theory was an approach used in law schools and other graduate-level academic spaces, and had basically nothing to do with public schools.

Rufo's ingenious idea was to turn it into a catch-all scare term that could be used to demonize any and all forms of anti-racist education, even something as previously noncontroversial as a poster depicting interracial friendship.

The far-right, anti-democratic politics of the Claremont Institute are so grotesque that many readers will dismiss them as preposterous, but it's all carefully documented and disturbingly real. As Stewart chronicles, Claremont has promoted the work of Costin Alamariu, who holds a PhD in philosophy from Yale and writes under the name "Bronze Age Pervert." He has declared that the "liberation of women" is an "infection" that requires "the most terrible convulsions and the most thorough purgative measures."

A frequent contributor to Claremont's online journal, who writes under the name "Raw Egg Nationalist," argues that "men and women shouldn't work together in the same spaces" and describes the Black Lives Matter protesters of 2020 as "hideously ugly, malformed people." Claremont-associated blogger Curtis Yarvin argues (in Stewart's words) that "America needs a king, a dictator with total military power." Claremont's most famous associate is board member and former law professor John Eastman, now known as "Co-Conspirator 2" in the indictment against Donald Trump for attempting to overthrow the U.S. government.

Because of their tight link to the book-banning efforts, the relatively new but suspiciously wealthy group Moms for Liberty has received massive media attention in the past couple of years. Even so, the group's radical ideology has not really been covered in most mainstream news coverage, which tends to portray the Moms as a bunch of overzealous church ladies. As Flux editor Matthew Sheffield, Media Matters vice president Julie Millican and researcher Olivia Little explained in a recent "Theory of Change" podcast, however, underneath the facade of "Christian moms" is some startling far-right radicalism.

For instance, while it was widely reported that a Moms for Liberty pamphlet from one branch was caught quoting Adolf Hitler, the group was able to spin that as a misunderstanding and a mistake. But at their summit a few days later, speaker Tiffany Justice yelled, "I stand with that mom" — the one who quoted Hitler — while the audience whooped its approval.

Moms for Liberty has heavily promoted trainings for conservative activists on how to take over school boards, which ought to make clear how we should understand stories like this one, which just sound like a racist tantrum in a Texas suburb. These aren't random or isolated events — they're part of a large, well-organized and well-financed attack on public education across the country.

Mama Bears Rising, the group that fueled the Conroe school board takeover, in unsurprisingly discreet about its connections to the larger national movement for censorship. But screenshots of online communications by local anti-censorship activists suggests that it's no coincidence that the books targeted for censorship in Conroe are the same ones that show up on book-ban lists across the country. Mama Bears Rising is drawing on the same playbook that's being disseminated nationwide through a well-funded network of Christian nationalist activists.

These days, it's almost never just one nutty lady at a school board meeting. It's about a movement with a committed ideology, that has deep connections to Donald Trump's campaign to end democracy.

[fabbyf1]

I think it’s inevitable with RPF that characterizations are going to be similar. We all rely on the same basic facts and we build what we consider to be canon together, so I’d honestly be worried if characterizations were vastly different—it’s still fanfic, we’re not building brand new characters each time. People get into RPF by reading RPF, so while there’s some variation we all share a vaguely similar idea of what these characters are like and we form those ideas together whether we know it or not, and that in turn gives us a sandbox we can all kind of mess around in together. Obviously lifting whole bits of dialogue or common phrases is very different, though. I think ‘thinking with [character]’s dick’ is a common one but the other two you mentioned seem pretty specific. Again sorry, literally stumbled in off the street and am only distantly aware of what’s happening—I hope this doesn’t come off as rude

Hello, anon.

I appreciate your non-biased and objective opinion on this matter. Really, I do. You make a lot of great points that I wholeheartedly agree with. RPF is a beast. Every story is going to have "similar" characteristics if we're following canon timelines and making our characters as realistic as possible.

I also agree that, as a fandom, we tend to... make up a lot of common personality traits and use them over and over again until it’s hard to remember that they aren’t necessarily real. And they’re not based on facts. But we all continue to use them in our fics, and it helps them to be cohesive and easy to follow along from fic to fic. It helps us writers not have to character build as much as we would in an original fiction. 

A quick example of this is Max referring to Charles as "schatje". I think that's a very commonly used nickname in F1 RPF, even though Max himself has never publicly called anybody that. We have just decided, as a fandom, that that’s the dutch endearment he would use. It’s also easy to take commonly repeated phrases from Max The Person and shove them into our dialogue to make it easier for our characters to have a voice. For example, the phrase “of course” is used a lot in Max's dialogue because Max Verstappen (the person) says it a lot. 

But I think it's important for this instance, for the plagiarism that I'm speaking about, that you know the full context and don't just "stumble in off the street". You openly admitted that you're not fully aware of the situation, and that's totally okay. It's actually kind of refreshing to know not everyone is as concerned about this and that not everyone sees the copycat works as much as often as I do. 

If you’re a casual reader of F1 RPF, you probably don’t know it’s happening. 

But it’s not just me it’s happening to. Lots of other prolific authors are being taken advantage of and having their works stolen from them on an every day basis, and it really needs to stop. We all create this content for free, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have ownership over it. And the only logical reason I can see for people to steal our work is that they are attention-seeking and looking for clout. They want to be known as one of the great RPF authors. They want love and admiration. 

And it’s fine to want that. 

But you shouldn’t want it so badly that you’re willing to steal other people’s work to get it. 

That’s... disgusting. 

This is not the first time I’ve had my work stolen, and it won’t be the last. It’s not the first time somebody has been too heavily inspired by my work, and it won’t be the last. I know that is the risk I take with every fic I publish. It’s just a shame that it’s gotten so out of hand. 

I would like to correct you on one thing, though.  

You said: “I think ‘thinking with [character]’s dick’ is a common one but the other two you mentioned seem pretty specific.” but that’s not what I said. If you’ll go back and read my original post, my direct quote was, “but maybe that was [insert characters]'s dick talking," which is a very different phrase. If you’ve ever read my work, you will see that my characters often go on and on (and on) for a paragraph or two, lusting after the other character, sometimes spiraling further and further until it no longer makes sense and will end with “... but maybe that was [their] dick talking.” 

Again, I will say that I do not own that phrase, but I wouldn’t say that was a commonly used phrase in Formula 1 RPF until I started using it. 

I would know because I’ve been reading F1 RPF since it first started getting posted on AO3. 

I have read a good majority of the (completed) F1 fics posted to AO3. 

I know what existed before I started writing and what has appeared afterward. 

And again, let me clearly say I am not claiming to own that phrase or any other combination of words. But when that phrase, along with other commonly used phrases from my fic, all appear one after another in someone’s work? It’s too much of a coincidence to say it wasn’t intentional. 

But I do not expect you to know that since, as you said, you stumbled in off the street. 

I hope that makes sense. 

I hope we can all stop stealing from each other, or this fandom will be over before you know it. 

[thatbadadvice]

Dear Advisor,

I (M 21) have formed a tight-knit friend group in college. Yay! My closest college friends are the members of my ttrpg group, who we’ll call A, B, C, D, and E. A (F 21) and B (NB 22) have been dating for the whole time I’ve known them, about a year. Last year, A, B, and C lived in the same residence hall and were rarely apart. Now that B has graduated, the plan next year is for A and D to be roommates while C, E, and I live in a similar residence hall. I expect to see a lot of B, who plans to find a job and apartment in this town.

B is my friend, so this is *almost* fine. Except that while I like A, and I like B, it is painful to hang out with both of them at the same time. B is a fairly jealous person, and they get very upset and mean when A hangs out with friends without including them. When we get lunch together and the topic turns to an interest of A’s that B does not share, B usually ends up monologuing about how much they dislike the interest. These monologues often turn into teardowns of A as a person that the rest of us awkwardly sit through. A and B have a lot of their fights in public, and they’re mean to each other.

At this point, I’ve seen enough meanness that I don’t consider B a close friend anymore, and I’m wavering on A. I like both of them, but the way they’re willing to treat each other in public, especially the way B treats A, throws up a lot of red flags.

Any good options? I’m worried that if I tell A that I don’t like how B treats her, it’ll torpedo my friendships with both of them. C is A’s best friend, E is B’s best friend, and D is about to be A’s roommate, so it’s not like I can avoid either of them. And I do still like them, especially A. When it’s just the two of us, A is a good friend.

What do I do? I’m tempted to bring it up to our other friends, but I don’t like talking behind people’s backs.

Readers sometimes send Bad Advisor their real-ass questions to answer, so the Bad Advisor is periodically going to try her hand at answering them. If you’d like to submit a question for a Good Advice Interlude, use the “ask” form!

What a surprise it is, going on a decade-plus of Bad Advice, to finally have some TTRPG drama on the blog! ("Table-top role-playing games," for the uninitiated.) The Bad Advisor is all too familiar with the Darth Partner/Missing Stair dynamic (h/t Captain Awkward, the Pervocracy) in TTRPG scenarios and it's a real goddamned bummer, because you can mostly scoot away from the DP/MS at a party but when you're stuck at the gaming table with them, woof.

My first inclination, as an old-ass gamer lady, was to simply tell you that B will probably just move the fuck on from your group now that they're graduated and doing non-college things, but that doesn't help you in the moment, and they might not, and frankly DP/MS folks will show up for your entire fucking life if you're a game-type person in many and various modes, and it's good to figure out how you're going to handle them now and get some practice in with not tolerating nonsense in your circle. I'm gonna use some elaborate/belabored RPG metaphors in this response and want to emphasize that it doesn't mean your life is a game! (I also believe TTRPG life is real life, because it's my real life, too!) But you've given me a delightful tableau within which to work.

Your instincts for not just straight-up shit-talking and gossiping about A and B's deal are correct! You will never be able to keep those conversations totally private (nothing that starts in the TTRPG side-chat ever stays in the TTRPG side-chat), and for both A and B, it will suck to inevitably find out that their buds were engaged in such conversations. Is it possible you could safely feel out the other members of the group on the A/B relationship dynamic, as a fact-finding, temperature-taking mission? MAYBE. But it's a very risky maybe IMO, and if you don't love the dynamic, I don't necessarily think you need side-chat validation on this point. You have information the other players may or may not have; you are entitled to act upon it. I think we dispense with C, D, and E. You aren't them, and you can't control what they do or say or feel, and they aren't asking me for advice. But you can model behavior and steer your party!

So. What are you gonna do?

You start by describing B as a friend, but waffle on that some -- you've become less close because you dislike B's treatment of/behavior around A, which is fair! You're allowed to decide, with new information about how B behaves in particular situations, that you don't really like parts of a person, or maybe even that person at all! You don't have to set the whole motherfucker on fire to make your feelings known in a thoughtful, polite, and even kind way; if somebody else (B) blows that shit up, it's on them! They are a whole other person who will act a way in a game/life that you cannot control; the only thing you need to feel good about at the end of your turn is that you did something that was true to you/your character. Because for real, if there's one thing I know about people, it's that telling people to do a thing because you want them to do a thing (such as: "Y'all are miserable and you should split up!") will almost always result in the told-parties doubling down on the opposite of what the telling-party wants them to do. (This is what I do to torture my folks when I am the dungeon-master, because it is what people do!)

Assuming we're talking about garden variety shitty relationship behavior (which is what I think you've described here) and not full-scale abuse in public, I think you have a number of options depending on the situation. I don't mean to suggest that you should accommodate bad behavior; you already know that feels crappy and sows discord and confusion because you're doing it, now, by trying to side-step around the ick. You gotta choose your move depending on where you are on the board.

The next time A and B get into it in front of everybody (during a game, or at the bar, or the coffee shop, or the student union, or wherever), you pretend-roll a charisma check and imagine you got a 15+ and they rolled a combined 3 (because they have??? nobody likes this!!!!), and you say something to this effect: "Hey, A and B? These vibes are not great, can we table this tiff until later?" Repeat as needed! Passive voice/vague antecedents are great in these kinds of situations: "Can folks not get into this right now?"/"Moving on! Let's focus on XYZ!"/"Feels like we're getting off track — can we do ABC instead?"/"Wow! That's kind of awkward and private! Let's not do that here!" If it helps, imagine B is the obnoxious NPC you need to get the bare minimum of compliance out of to continue the game of not blowing up the entire situation. You already have a good bead on what people do when they feel attacked, because you're literally playing games wherein that make-believe happens! People fight back and get defensive! It's a bad scene!

Other people's bad relationships are theirs to solve, so you can treat interactions regarding those relationships as open-ended puzzle games that are not for you to finish. You are the Oracle, not the puzzlemaster. If you get A or B on their own in a safe space where you're not rushed to get somewhere or hungry or otherwise pissy or wanting, why not ask: How does it feel when A/B does that? What would you like to see happen instead when Bad interaction happens? What might you do about that irritating/annoying/weird thing A/B does? Despite what I said in the prior bullet points, your friends are not NPCs, and of course you know this or you wouldn't be asking — they are the main characters in their own lives, and you can neither save nor sink them.

It might be that A and B stay in this weird bad relationship! If it continues to cause bad vibes at the game nights/within your circle, I think you're well within your rights to say, either to one or both of them if they haven't gotten previous messages: "Hey, I like you both, I want to keep doing XYZ fun things with y'all, but this dynamic is actually really, legitimately killing the vibe, because I don't get to see the fun part where y'all make up and feel good about everything, I only see the bad arguing parts and it's just a real downer!" Don't let them off the hook about this! Stand your ground when they come back with "Oh, we're just joking" or "Ah, well, that's just how we are." Okay, they're joking and that's how they are, but it SUCKS TO BE AROUND and if it's not a big deal, they can cut that shit out!

The whole deal blows, and you're in a sorry position to have to navigate it. It just absolutely is a shit situation to have a friend-group whose dynamic is messed up in this way. But you're asking because your interest is in maintaining a collective good-feeling, and I can promise you that skipping the missing stair of A and B's bad vibes (and maybe specifically B's behavior) will absolutely in the long-term result in the precise kind of bad-feeling you're trying to avoid by skating past it today. Resentment, distrust, annoyance, back-channeling — all of the things we build and do to avoid being emotionally honest with people who care about because we think it'll hurt less in the moment, or get better later, or just change, somehow — are also 10000000% guaranteed ways to push us farther apart from the people we love, rather than keep us close and friendly.

Your people will always be your people. You have a wonderful and beloved friend group, and you will lose and add members of your party throughout your life, but you will never lose any people who were supposed to be your people if you commit to being kindly forthright while modeling your needs, boundaries, and appreciations for them. This isn't a skill you pick up once and do automatically forever; it takes work and commitment throughout your life and it's fucking annoying and awkward and so, so worth it.

[insomniac-101]

I have to say, after having gone out of my way to see what the alternative interpretations of the overall plot of the RTD era are on YouTube and reddit, it confuses me how often I see people fall into the trap of thinking that the 10th Doctor is the hero of his story. A mere victim of circumstance that was undeserving of the end he got.

Although we see him do many heroic acts throughout his run, he is not incapable of doing any wrong. And when I say this, I mean way before the time lord victorious arc.

He is not faultless. He is capable of making selfish decisions and calls. At times he makes decisions not because it's what's best for the people around him, although he tries to convince himself otherwise, but because it makes him feel better knowing that it is no longer his responsibility to deal with. That it is more comfortable to ignore the problems around him, then confront them because that would mean acknowledging it's existence.

Hell one of the biggest examples of this is the tension filled interaction Rose and Sarah Jane had upon first meeting. That in turn, arose because the two women unintentionally took out the frustration they had towards him, on one another.

The doctor should have told Rose that she was not his first companion.

The fact that Sarah Jane had to find out through Rose, that he had not mentioned her, in spite of the deep friendship they once shared, is heartbreaking and rightfully a reason why she was so frustrated upon finding out. Here you have, the most wonderful man who so suddenly disappeared from her life, come back by chance and she's so excited! Elated to see an old friend who she feared had suffered something terrible given he never visited, only to be confronted by the reality that he indeed moved on. In her place, a young woman who is both pretty and brave who up until now was unaware she wasn't the only one.

And Rose, finding out that he had a history of leaving behind his companions without even the bare minimum: a proper goodbye, felt uncomfortable at the revelation. Because again, the uncertainty of the nature of her relationship with the doctor is likely a touchy subject, given that he has a habit of withholding his feelings. So here she is confronted by someone who personifies that very possibility. Someone who appears to have been close to him at one point, but yet he so callously left behind and never mentioned. She is left to face this fact with no warning, no reassurance, and no real reason to believe that she is the exception. All while Mickey, taunts her about it.

So can someone explain to me why people boil down this very nuanced interaction into a cat fight between two jealous woman who were in love with him? When in reality:

1) Sarah Jane never indicated that she cared for him in that way. Her jealousy does not stem from romantic interest, but from the hurt she feels at having been thrown out and replaced by a person she considered a beloved friend (in her perspective, because again the Doctor has yet to give a valid explanation)

2) Both were justified in feeling wronged, and from how easily the two make up, it is quite obvious that the interaction was not that deep. Both were mature enough to realize that the problem was in fact, him, and even bonded over it lol (talk about girl power)

Because again, the narrative demonstrates the perspective of the three involved but subtly separates the time lord's perspective from that of the humans. After all, this is the episode where the inevitable truth that one day Rose will die is confronted, and so it's not far fetched to think that this was indeed the intention.

We humans don't have long to live. We're aware of that fact. And so, we derive value from such inconsequential formalities such as goodbyes because we reason that it's best to anticipate never having another chance to say it. To a time lord, this is silly given how long they live. They are guaranteed a regeneration in the case they die, and given how very little time they spend with him on average (not lasting more than a few years, or until they die) he doesn't see it as wrong to leave without saying anything, because they can move on. Live a normal life, have a family, and have security.

His life is not one that grants him that privilege of hanging on. He knows what happens when humans die, they cease to exist and out of the duty of preserving his own sanity, he leaves them long before it ever reaches that point.

So with that in mind, the episode makes both sides confront these two drastically different perspectives. If it had been merely a romantic tiff between the parties involved, then the first question Rose would have asked is what are we? But no, what truly bothers her is how easily he can simply forget the people he claims to treasure.

"how many of us have been traveling with you?"

"does it matter?"

"it does if I'm just the latest in a long line"

The doctor makes them feel special. Valuable. Irreplaceable. She assumed that what they had was special, but upon seeing what happened to Sarah Jane she begins to reconsider. Viewing herself as a mere assistant or friend, rather than something more.

"I've been to the year 5 billion, right, but this... Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind."

She doesn't assume she is above Sarah Jane, or that she is more important. If her hurt had been out of mere romantic interest, she would have asserted herself as his partner. Someone that is owed an explanation because they chose to take part in a relationship. But no, she advocates for herself and Sarah jane.

Mentioning how he never mentions her in spite of having been so close to her once. To her assumption, perhaps on the same level.

When she asks if he will do the same to her, he tells her that no she's the exception but that is not enough of an answer. She wants to know why she was never mentioned because it's important to them, to know their place in his life. She never threatens to leave, but the least she deserves is an explanation so that her heart doesn't suffer the backlash. They give him the time and patience to be honest about his intentions, not out of the threat of leaving but out of sheer decency.

But one of his main flaws is that he has this knack of withholding feelings, because he fears the repercussions that may come from giving in to said endearments. He's emotional and incapable of repressing said feelings, the complete opposite of what is expected of a time lord. He should be above this, according to his people. And yet with a body born out of the love he holds for humanity, can one really blame him for the internal battle he is experiencing?

Well we can confidently say that the episode ends with the conclusion being he can suck it up lmao.

Because when presented with the chance at achieving godhood, he almost caves. Not because of the power that it grants him, but because the thought of no longer experiencing loss is something he craves given how traumatized he is by it. This is what separated him from other time lords, thus showing that he is indeed capable of growing and maturing. But ultimately it's not him who makes the call. He has to be reminded by Sarah Jane, someone he hurt deeply by his inconsiderate actions, that the pain and loss matters. That it defines us just as much as happiness and love but that eventually everything ends, but that in itself is not enough of a reason to avoid it.

Because it's that pain of having left her behind that allowed him to find other great people and change lives. And in return, it's that pain that also allowed her to pursue a life that is just as great. Granting her a son of her own and the opportunity to help out in a manner fitting of her.

Had the episode been advocating for his perspective, he would have been validated in his assertion that he should avoid pain at all costs. But no, the episode ends with Sarah Jane finally getting the farewell she wanted. No longer allowing him to run from the issue, but instead, confront it.

Not to mention, it can also be asserted that he took this lesson to heart given that later on he even burns a sun in an attempt to grant Rose that final goodbye. And he makes it clear to the companions after her, that there had indeed been companions prior to their time on the TARDIS. A brilliant young woman by the name of Rose Tyler that inspires him to keep going, being one of the many.

His treatment of his companions is something that the narrative often criticizes throughout the RTD era. Ranging from the manner in which he unintentionally takes them for granted, explored heavily throughout Martha's time on the TARDIS and how he often decides what is best for them without asking. Time and time again we are shown that the doctor is flawed. That he makes mistakes and is capable of falling into the same problems humans do.

By him insisting to impose his views of situations in the manner a time lord would, he dismisses the importance of human customs which in turn, heavily affects the outcomes of his relationships. This is why the lives of the people he holds close often improve after they leave. Because while they embrace the change of perspective they have while exploring the universe, he stubbornly refuses to do so. Instead feeling comfortable in the self pity and misery he imposes on himself and unintentionally pushing away the people who love him. It is no coincidence that he falls into the same bad habits of self hatred his ninth self was privy to after Rose is taken from, because with the reason of his initial change being gone, he is left to heal on his own from scratch.

All this to say that the story the RTD era is not one that is always explicit. It's relationships are often filled with many subtle details that allow for numerous interpretations. However by not acknowledging the faults and shortcomings of all the characters alongside the good, you risk taking away the nuance that makes the story so special.