#this whole year has fucking bulldozed me

[brighhton]

why. do thry call it "school holidays" a holiday away from school and then give me assignments i need to do during the holidays and is due first day back. what

[puella-peanut]

[strawberryspence]

this one's for my cassie banana (@henderdads) who wanted a HAPPY grammy related ficlet. but because i wrote it, of course there's going to be a tiniest hint of angst. 🙄 ily and i hope this satisfies ur craving 💗🌷🏆

-

As a gay, rock star in the late 90's, Eddie's had to keep his and Steve's relationship under the wraps. He's had to sing songs and change the pronouns from he to she.

In his heart, he knows Steve doesn't mind, knows that he understands that this is the life his boyfriend chose. But Eddie hates it, hates that he can't scream on top of his lungs, on top of the highest mountains, that he loves Steve Harrington and he, miraculously, loves him back.

As Eddie stares at the wall of awards in front of him, he thinks— knows— that not one of these gold, silver, bronze awards mean as much as Steve means to him. No award is as important as the love of his life.

People still remember the Grammy Awards on 2001. No, it's not because of the famous singers. No, it's not because of the performances. No, it's not because of their outfits.

It's because the singer-songwriter of rock band, Corroded Coffin, won their fifth grammy award and what they thought was a normal award speech would change the course of the industry.

Eddie walks up alone, accepts the award and smiles.

"Well, the band— Gareth, Jeff and Grant— has trusted me enough to do this speech without fucking it up." He laughs as he hugs the award closer to his chest.

"Thank you to the recording academy, our managers and our label, for the last 10 years. The last 10 years has been crazy and amazing and surreal. But just this morning," Eddie takes a deep breath, "We— Me and the members of the Corroded Coffin— has decided to move labels. Somewhere we'll be free to express ourselves and be out true colorful selves."

"So yeah, thank you for them and the chance. But this award," Eddie holds it up, "Is for every gay kid who was scared and who thought they were alone. It's for every gay kid who thought they will never, ever get to express themselves and thought they'll have to hide forever."

The audience starts cheering, people clapping and standing as Eddie smiles, bulldozes on, "This grammy is for little Eddie Munson, Gareth Emerson, Jeff Best and Paul Grant. Four gay kids, in the middle of Hawkins, Indiana, just finding each other. We're Corroded Coffin and we're the proof that you could also be free and true to yourself."

"To my boyfriend. Yes, my boyfriend. Every she in every song I wrote was originally an he. Every word and tune was meant to be for you. Sweetheart, baby, you are my whole heart. Steve Harrington, I fucking love you. This fucking grammy is for you."

He holds up the award as he starts walking back to the back of the stage. The people in the crowd give him a standing ovation.

Somewhere in New York, there's a boy, who once survived death himself, smiling and beaming so hard it hurts his jaw. He'll call Eddie later, and thank him for what he's done for people like them. He'll sleep peacefully, knowing that a few kids will sleep better tonight, knowing that everything is going to be okay.

Somewhere in LA, there's a girl, sitting on the couch with a cold champagne and confetti in her hands, waiting for Eddie and Steve to come home. She'll kiss both their cheeks, happy to have them both home. They'll drink, cheer and celebrate being out to the whole world.

But before that, just behind the curtains, a man is waiting for him, with the biggest smile on his face and tears streaming down his face.

Eddie greets him with a smile, and an earth shattering kiss on the lips.

"I am proud of you." Steve says, and Eddie melts in his touch.

"I can sing with boy pronouns now. I am going to be so insufferable." Eddie laughs.

"You go do that, be what the world needs." Steve laughs, hooking his arms with his boyfriend, walking deeper in to backstage.

"What about what you need?" Eddie asks, looking at the man beside him, the one who saved him and who's still saving him.

Steve smiles, holding Eddie's free hand and intertwining it. There's people walking around them, but they're in their own little world. For the first time, they're not hiding.

Steve holds up Eddie's hand, "I've got everything I need right here."

[soupthatistohot]

BSD: An Absurdist Analysis - Chapter 10

Friends and Foes

[Masterpost]

The chapter opens with the agency getting news of Atsushi’s capture after last chapter’s events. At first Ranpo and Kunikida respectively argue that the ADA isn’t responsible for saving Atsushi and that they have too much other work to worry about on account of a job involving the ministry. 

But then Fukuzawa appears, demanding everyone to suspend their work to track down Atsushi. Ranpo tries to argue with "logic," but Fukuzawa completely bulldozes him, asserting that Atsushi is their comrade and that he must therefore be their top priority. 

Fukuzawa stands out as the absurdist here to me, forgoing all typical professional protocol simply because one of his employees is in potential danger. Bureaucracy would want the agency to continue work as usual, favoring completing the assignments given to them over Atsushi’s safety, but Fukuzawa is not one to bow down to greater powers (at least, in this instance). 

Fukuzawa’s argument is one of humanity. Empathy. Care. For him, all these values trump Ranpo’s cold logic as he prioritizes the life of his employee over a government assignment. It's quite absurdist of him.

And finally… the moment we all have been waiting for… the infamous soukoku dungeon scene with the one and only babygirl himself, Chuuya Nakahara. What a lovely view indeed.

But in all seriousness, there’s something inherently absurd about the whole situation. Dazai has allowed himself to be captured by not only an enemy organization, but one he is a traitor of— all in the hopes of gaining information. Let it also be noted that Dazai’s coworkers have no idea of his plan at the current moment, he’s gone completely AWOL. And on top of that, he has willingly put himself in the position to converse with his former partner who undoubtedly resents him not only for his betrayal, but also for merely existing. 

And it works. 

His plan works! Despite not having seen or interacted with Chuuya for four years, he is able to flawlessly manipulate him into revealing the information he came for and gets off primarily unharmed (except for the bruises I’m sure will form from Akutagawa and Chuuya’s hits). Yes, Chuuya calls him out on his bluff (he knows he got captured on purpose), but Dazai is still able to convince Chuuya not to kill him. 

This is an example of a protagonist embracing the absurd and it working in their favor. Dazai could have tried a more conventional way of obtaining his intel, but he opted for this seemingly insane method instead. Very often, the absurdist protagonist has to take a wild chance on something despite the possible pitfalls. Put simply: you’ll never know if you don’t try.

Not only is the situation inherently absurd, but so too is their interaction. They bicker. They tease. Dazai makes Chuuya do an impression of a rich girl. It’s fucking ridiculous and it’s also all par for the course for their relationship.

I would like to quickly note here that in these analyses I will not be making a case for any ship, and that includes soukoku. It is no secret that I very much ship these idiots, but I can also acknowledge that Asagiri did not write these characters with the intention of building a romantic relationship and reading it as such is simply my interpretation. However, this does not mean that soukoku don’t have a very complicated, close, soulmate-esque bond. Platonic interpretations can still involve these traits.

Admittedly, I am jumping the gun a bit here, as this interaction doesn’t resolve until the next chapter, but I’ve read this scene so many times that I know what I want to say about it, so there it is!

As always, I’m always open to chat about my analyses! I love hearing feedback and additional thoughts, so feel free to reblog or drop questions in my ask box :)

[Previous]

[sp0o0kylights]

aaaaaand we're back, where did I leave off again? oh yeah! number 14! (I'm a sucker for soulmate aus)

my soulmate AU, Illustrated, haunts my fucking life and has done so all year. I'm not gonna swear it'll be updated by the end of the year given how fucking long Chap 5 is, but it is actively being worked on.

Snippet:

Steve was his soulmate. 

Had been, the whole time he'd been in Hawkins. Just a class below. 

Then the same class and then gone from school entirely but--

Eddie's thoughts started and stopped wildly, as if his brain tried to follow several threads of thought at once. 

"Steve." He says breathless, hands trembling. Begins to reach out, to grasp onto Steves hand, show off the back of his own--

"Steve!" Henderson screams and fuck, Eddie is going to kill that kid! 

"Steve, Max is leaving!" Dustin howls this time and Eddie manages to shake off his annoyance as Steve launches off the couch.

Gets to his own feet as Max has her second show down of the day with Lucas and Dustin. 

"I will be delivering these." The redhead snips, a series of letters clutched in her hands and a challenge in her eyes. “I refuse to just stay here, with all my fingers crossed and my head down, hoping Vecna won’t take me.” 

“Hold on.” Steve calls frantically, eyes tracking the freshmen who are swarming around Steve’s entryway. 

Dustin has thrown himself dramatically across the front door, blocking access as Lucas tries in vain to calm down Max.

He’s trying to look into her eyes, her hands smacking at his as he tries to grab one to hold.

“Oh for fucks sake.” Steve grumbles, vaulting over the couch and striding towards the kids. 

“What the hell, Max? I thought we agreed I’d deliver the letters?” He asks loudly, bulldozing over the argument that's brewing. 

Max glares at him.

“I changed my mind.” She snarls, before taking one finger and purposefully jamming it into Dustin’s armpit.

“Ch-hee--ter!” Dustin shrieks in a forced laugh, folding right in on himself as he crashed to the floor. 

“Max. Seriously!” Steve barks, long arm reaching above her to slam the door closed. “I'm not joking, and I am not driving you anywhere.” 

Eddie doesn’t get to see Max’s face, but he does hear the raw fury in it, the way her back goes ramrod straight as though Steve is an obstacle she fully plans on plowing through. 

“Steve, if you think that I'm going to spend what is likely the last day of my life hiding out in your house like a vampire, then you're out of your mind."

She takes a menacing step foreword.

"So either take me where I need to go, or you're gonna have to tie me down which--” Max ducks right around Steve, to take hold of the doorknob. “is technically kidnapping of a minor and if I live to see another day, Steve, I swear to god, I will prosecute.”

She elbows him, hard enough to successfully get some room at the door. Wasting no time, Max whirls around to open it--and quickly finds herself struggling with the lock.

Eddie knows now is a terrible time to laugh, but just barely manages to hold it back when the redhead fumbles twice with the key before whirling back around to glare at Steve.  

“Open the door.”

"Yeah that's gonna be a no, Mayfield."

"Open. The. Door." Max grit out. "Or. I. Tell. The. Cops. You kidnapped me."

Steve stares at her in blatant disbelief, before running a hand down his face.

"Dammit." He hisses and Max gives him a smile that's more feral than anything else.

[salvadorbonaparte]

2023 in Films

I watched way too many films this year. Here are my opinions on some of them

January

Las Cosas Del Querer (1989) - Amazing if you love sad hot people and flamenco

Canadian Bacon (1995) - Incredibly silly and Alan Alda plays the US president

Nope (2022) - A highlight of the year

February

Hellraiser (1987) - This film is actually about miscommunication in this essay I will-

Predestination (2014) - Time Travel and Gender Moments

Malignant (2021) - Camp horror masterwork

Late Phases (2014) - Mediocre werewolf film with some really interesting comments on ageism, ableism, suburbia and religion

March

Sterne (1959) - Plays into some problematic stereotypes from today's perspective but revolutionary for its time, first German film to address the Holocaust

Major League (1989) - A film I only watched to confirm that it uses a weird phrase I also found in my thesis project

Carry On Screaming (1966) - Camp. Gay. Horror. Parody.

Glen or Glenda (1953) - A product of its time and no longer up to date in its understanding of gender but surprisingly revolutionary in its compassion and earnestness despite the bad reviews

April

Taxi Driver (1976) - Isn't it frustrating when annoying people tell you a film is good and then it's actually good?

June

Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936) - Mr Deeds has autism swag

El Espíritu de la Colmena (1973) - I really wanted to like this because civil war era Spain and Frankenstein are super up my alley but unfortunately it was so much slower than expected

Das Boot (1981) - Very long and claustrophobic but holds up to the hype

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) - RIP King

July

Nimona (2023) - His big wet eyes bewitched me

First Blood (1982) - You're telling me the film is about Americans fighting an enemy they view as simultaneously weak and dangerous, escalating the situation, and then sending more and more men into a rainforest to die through guerilla warfare after being warned again and again they can't win this? sounds familiar

Barbie (2023) - Insert a bunch of pink emojis

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Made me crave bagels

Jojo Rabbit (2019) - God I love war satires

Sweet Liberty (1986) - Alan Alda having fun and also using his own film as a therapy session

The Majestic (2001) - A rewatch but it's so tragically underrated, Jim Carrey is very good in dramatic roles and McCarthy-era media is like catnip for me

Joker (2019) - This is just Taxi Driver with extra steps

August

Tin & Tina (2023) - Probably one of the worst films I have seen in a while

Battle of the Sexes (2017) - I love women

Four Lions (2010) - The ending really got me, I love when satire gets serious

The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid (1979) - Can we talk about how the theme song is just going "I'm the sheriff" "yes you're the sheriff"

Happiness (1998) - Nauseating but in a "good film but what the fuck" way

They Call Him Bulldozer (1978) - Italian Lagaan

The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) - Sad and Gay

Twister (1996) - So much better than expected

Magnolia (1999) - Cloudy with a chance of frogs, a really long but really good film and I'm not entirely sure I got it

Doubt (2008) - Somehow I watched 5 films with Philip Seymour Hoffman that month because I was haunted by his ghost or something

September

The Terminal (2004) - I assumed this to be more of a classic romcom but the whole concept (based on a true story) is so terrifying and tragic that it made me feel all emotions at once

Apocalypse Now (1979) - I knew a lot of trivia about the film but for some reason I didn't know anything about the cast so every single actor was a surprise and made me go "!!!", Also I kinda wanna write an essay about it

October

Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984) - Some of the gay jokes absolutely killed me

Last Night in Soho (2021) - I'm Not Like the Other Girls to Time Travel Murder Nightmare Pipeline, actually I really enjoyed this one but it's also super silly

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) - How do you say poor little meow meow in gaeilge

The Menu (2022) - I go to the murder restaurant I order the beesechurger, I was super surprised there's no cannibalism but tbh that would have been low hanging fruit

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) - Explains a lot about religion in the US, I love that she was pro lgbt, also I googled her ex husband and he has a prepper/survivalist thing going on now and scams more people

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - we can't eat pray love ourselves out of this one boys

Holes (2003) - Hated the book as a teenager for school reasons but gave the film a try and really enjoyed it

Renfield (2023) - I expected werewolves but I enjoyed it nevertheless, My Chemical Romance is on the soundtrack, it's very silly, the effects are great

Interview with the Vampire (1994) - Oh people weren't lying about it being homoerotic

The Big Lebowski (1998) - I've had days that feel like that

November

Pappa ante Portas (1991) - Funnier now that I'm an adult, basically half the jokes my mum makes are from this film

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023) - I watched this while sick and really wanted to see a giant shark fight a giant octopus and boy did it deliver

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) - Very nice animation style

JFK (1991) - I actually fell asleep halfway through because it's so long but can we talk about how this film is just A-listers but has some of the worst wigs and makeup I've seen

Bottoms (2023) - A spiritual sequel to Heathers

December

When Harry Met Sally (1989) - They deserve each other (derogatory) but that one restaurant scene was pretty funny

The Royal Nanny (2022) - one of the many Hallmark films my mum made me watch and this is perhaps the worst one, incredibly sexist even for a Hallmark film and they clearly mean Mi5 but say Mi7 which was a WW2 propaganda service? Also they really want me to believe there is a British prince called Colin and that he doesn't look like his family tree is a circle?

I forgot the title but there was also the one where two people get stuck in a time loop while trying to make a sponsored youtube video about baking and I didn't really pay attention much but man that was bad

[thestobingirlie]

do you think jonathan and nancy were equal trainwrecks in st3? you've spoken really well about how nancy bulldozed over him a lot, ignoring the dark room rules and continuing with the investigation even when he said it was a bad idea, and of course after they're fired she shows 0 sympathy for what it means for him financially, but i've always thought if nancy was bulldozer then jonathan was just a doormat, and kind of a two-faced one at that

before they fell into the investigation, he did ignore the sexism nancy faced. the support he offered was passive "they're assholes, but you'll win them over some day", when later during their argument he said she was naive for caring what they thought and thinking she could be a star reporter. when nancy says the whole summer had been humiliating, he likens it all to them being interns, when he was actually treated really well at the job. he's obviously faced shitty treatment in the past from his father, and probably at school and around town, but at the paper he was left alone to do the work he was hired (and interested) in doing, and then didn't have any focus on him when they were being yelled at, even though from the newspaper's perspective he did the exact same amount of bad as nancy (or more, considering nancy was laughed off of any other responsibilities than fetching food; jonathan was treated as an actual employee with a work station he abandoned)

it sucks that only jonathan apologized (though only for not believing in nancy, instead of also entirely blaming her for choices he also made), not just because nancy also fucked up but because it's just more of the same of jonathan not actually being honest with nancy and shows how their characters just don't help each other grow or develop

oh 100%. neither jonathan or nancy are good in their relationship in s3, which i think is what really turned me off to them together.

jonathan is absolutely a doormat. i think it comes from his years of parentification. he doesn’t stand up for himself until he’s finally pushed to the edge. which in s3 happens when they get fired, and he unleashes what he’s likely been feeling and thinking this entire time.

he whines about nancy coming in the dark room, but doesn’t actually try to stop her. he tries to cheer nancy up about how she’s treated, but doesn’t actually do anything to stop it, or make her situation better because he’s too scared to rock the boat. he didn’t want to go along with her rat plan, but did anyway!

he’s just really terrible at standing up for himself, which is a major issue when in a relationship with someone like nancy, who does what she’s set her sights on and doesn’t really listen to other people.

and when it comes to the sexism, i think, like nancy when it comes to the byers poverty, he has a hard time recognising what he’s never experienced.

i think it also might come from this aspect of jonathan’s character that’s been present since s1, which is that he doesn’t really recognise ‘normal’ issues. this is hard to put on paper, but basically we see that he doesn’t take nancy seriously, he thinks she’s just like everyone else, who has the same issues with her parents that everyone else does and she’ll eventually fall into the same miserable dynamics.

i think this comes from the way jonathan retreats from society and casts himself as a loner. he can’t fit in, so he has to dismiss everyone else, and he can’t take them or their trauma seriously. because that kind of means acknowledging them as people in a way he doesn’t want to do.

think back to s2, the way he comforts will is that nobody likes boring people, and that sticking out and being different is the only way to be cool and loved.

i think jonathan just can’t really comprehend nancy struggling because in his eyes, she has it all. she’s got the house, she’s got the dad making six figures, her parents are together. when she complains, i think he sometimes gets stuck thinking about how much she has, instead of what she’s still missing.

i hope i worded that right? it’s kinda jumbled in my head. i don’t think jonathan necessarily thinks his trauma makes him special, but i think he struggles to look past his trauma when considering how other people struggle.

my biggest issue with how rushed their apologies were, isn’t just that nancy doesn’t take back the oliver twist comment, but because we don’t actually get that chance for jonathan and nancy to truly talk about what happened, and their issues, and how their relationship falls apart the second they experience conflict. obviously people say, “oh they’re about to be attacked, of course it was quick”. but, the duffers could’ve had them had a conversation whenever. they go back to hopper’s cabin and spend all night here! they couldn’t have had a talk when everything calmed down?

in my opinion, jonathan and nancy are just two people that, because of their trauma and the way they approach relationships, shouldn’t be together. until they truly work through all their issues and develop as characters, they won’t have a healthy relationship. and that’s because of both of them, not just nancy, and not just jonathan.

[this-is-krikkit]

LH x skating AU when? 🤭

anon, whoever you are, i'm a little bit in love with you right now. i was initially going to reply that i love yuuri and victor so much i haven't really thought about levihan while watching yoi, but....... as always, everything is levihan to my sick obsessed little mind, and that would have been a big fat lie.

i do genuinely love these new characters, so much more than i expected.

but since you insist... here we go for not just levihan skating AU, but actual, full on levi on ice headcanons:

first off, and you guessed it from that title, Hange = Victor. i know this is not the most popular hc in the snk fandom, but i'm convinced Hange's is at least as old, if not older than Levi is, and they perfectly fit the part of being a nearly retiring athlete whose sole purpose in life is to surprise their audience

so yeah, they've had a crush on Levi and his late-blooming but impressive ice skating abilities since they were up against each other in international competitions, and it did culminate at that banquet where he got black out drunk and openly flirted with them

but Levi's dog Hanjo (named after his idol, and of the same breed as their own dog Moblit (i mean that as a compliment, guys)) died during the season and the pressure was too much and Kenny is a useless fucking coach.... and so Levi fucked up his finale, and gets back home all defeated and unsure of his future

until his childhood friends Petra and Oluo's kids film and post him imitating Hange's years old dance on the local ice ring!!

can i add smth real quick btw? i just love the idea of Levi having a family, and him being Yuuri in this AU provides that. he deserves to be surrounded and supported by living loved ones (his sister Isabel, the childhood friends i mentioned before, and his alive and well mom Kuchel who's running the onsen), and i love that for him here

anyway back to the plot and come on, my guys. what's more Hange-like than spontaneously jumping on a plane and moving to another country/into a near stranger's family just because of a video that went viral and the memories of their crush on this very cute, very short, very intoxicated guy showing amazing dance moves (including pole dance!!! like what) and asking them to coach him bc he's such a fan??

you know the "fell first/fell hard(er)" ship meme? i go back and forth on it for levihan because there are so many ways to interpret their relationship in snk. but in this AU, i have no doubts: Hange fell first (no, i am not counting Levi's childhood crush on them here, bc that ain't love bitch) and planned the whole thing. and okay, it was chaotic planning and they had no clue what they were doing and mostly just jumped at the chance to train this rough diamond and maybe try and seduce him if he let them along the way.... but still, they're the one who went it and gave it a shot. Levi, on the other hand, thinks he just has a childhood crush, and he is absolutely the one who ends up falling hard, head over... skates (shut up, i'm hilarious), which he shows by having Yuuri-level Gay Panics anytime Hange's too close to him or by, yk, dedicating his heart WAIT NO THIS ISN'T SNK whole performance of the season to his new coach (but iT'S jUsT bC hE adMiRes tHem riGHt?? (wrong, Levi, you're so wrong. you idiot, ily so much aaaaah))

also, i dare anyone to tell me that flaunting their nakedness around complete strangers and then foregoing all societal bounderies by harrassing Levi so he'll let them into his secrets and life isn't the most Hange thing ever. yeah, you can't, because that is practically their canon relationship in snk, minus snk-Hange's aversion for baths and with an emphasis on just how clueless they are about wooing someone (and just bulldoze right into it so violently everyone mistakes their insane lovestruck behavior for Hange-usual eccentric behavior. what a romantic disaster they are, they desperately need help. i love them!!!!)

i was initially going to say that Zeke is Levi's biggest rival through all this, but something felt off, and you know what? Yurio is actually a dead ringer for the other insufferable jeager brother!! and so, lo and behold: Eren = Yurio! he's young, talented, ANGRY ALL THE TIME, wants to annihilate his competitors... really the only difference here, besides hair color (and the ability to turn into a giant monster, i mean), is that he becomes a decent human being and not a genocidial maniac in this AU. good for you, yoi-au-Eren, it's what you deserved.

i haven't decided yet if Zeke is more Christophe Giacometti or JJ Leroy material. i will have to think on it, anon, my apologies.

anyway, of course, in this AU (just as in my hc of snk, but don't tell anyone) Levi's a blushing virgin. and of course, Hange steals his first kiss after his stunning performance during China's tournament, as a way to surprise him back after he blew their brains out with his dancing (spoiler alert: it's Hange's first kiss too, even though everyone thinks they're a player who fucked their way through the competitions they've won before -nope. they're both ridiculous I LOVE THEM DEARLY)

oh but whatever you do, anon, don't think about yoi-Levihan using snk-Levi's final salute to snk-Hange as a way to support each other every time Levi gets on the ice (well, Hange used to do the simple salute on their own chest before hugging Levi, until the Russia tournament when he grabbed them by the tie, delivered That Iconic Yuuri Line and then transformed the salute into this much more intimate gesture for the first time). and especially don't think about these two fucking assholes choosing to put the hand that wears these ridiculously closeted romantic identical """""lucky charm""""" rings on each other's chest, right before Levi launches himself on the ice and towards breaking Hange's free skate world record. don't, okay? it's dangerous territory.

right. i'm going to stop here (and i've deleted a big chunk of other stuff actually), but i could go on and on and on...

the point is, anon

you win

there is now a "levi on ice ugggh fuck my life" titled document in my precious, already full fics folder

jesus.

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 4, MATCH 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Jumin Han

Propaganda

manipulative and abusive asshole

He's a stuck up trust fund baby, and won't take no for an answer. His route is objectively the WORST

He is in love with his cat and constantly compares you with the damn cat😭 like an actual fucking feline animal that’s not nickname 😭😭😭

unapologetic member of the bourgeoisie. makes his secretary cut her hair and wear glasses so he can take her seriously. 0/10 hate this man so much it has been 7 years since i first set eyes on him and to this day i have carried this with me in silence. my hatred for this man has been my burden. my old mysme mutuals will never know.

ok so fun fact when i tried to play jumin’s route i hated it so fucking much i abandoned ship on day 7. this is a grown ass man who is far too immature (and has too much money) to be romanceable like can he see a therapist first? i’m not his therapist. i’m not. i’m not his cat either. why are you locking me in your penthouse does this LOOK like amnesia: memories. also i hate that in order to gain favor ability you have to act like a jerk to other characters at times and also i love jaehee (his secretary that he makes do Fucking Everything For Him) too much to want to date him romantically. imo he’s a great character in other routes, but in his own it’s just…. :/ . did i mention i hate the whole “getting locked in his house” thing. 

he makes jaehee do so much shit that is WAAAAYYY outside the scope of her job description???? she’s his personal assistant. he makes her take care of his personal — completely unrelated to the company— projects related to cats, makes her watch his pet cat at HER APARTMENT OUTSIDE OF WORK HOURS (as far as i can tell he didnt pay her extra for that, though she does get paid overtime) which is so wildly entitled of him to do, but he’s a rich man so. in every route except for jaehee’s and his own— in jaehee’s she quits altogether and in jumin’s she gets a long awaited and well deserved vacation— he piles her with so much more work than is reasonable. for example: in another story she is tasked with— on top of her regular work tasks — to become the HEAD OF AN IT DEPARTMENT FOR COMBATTING HACKERS. also, he constantly pushes zen —someone who is very, very allergic to cats— to interact with his cat. like he wants to take his pet cat to their charity party/event, and seems very blase and uncaring and disbelieving to the fact that he’s allergic, and that other attendees could be too! and as another example: in zen’s route he offers zen a job when he’s looking work— but it has to do with modelling for a cat food brand, and interacting with cats. which he’s explicitly told jumin he doesn’t want to do. they reconcile and it leads to zen giving in and doing the modeling job :/ now, i don’t dislike cats— i love cats! but i’m also very allergic to them (fur, dander, and saliva) so this hits a little close to home. but constant exposure to an allergen can trigger chronic asthma and asthma attacks, and chronic asthma can be very damaging to someone. it can damage their lungs! it’s not a matter to be trivialized! and even if zen’s allergies were “minor,” jumin’s constantly trying to force someone who’s set up a boundary time and time again about not wanting to interact with cats to interact with them and while it is a small example — at least in comparison to the rest of his route— of him ignoring/overstepping/bulldozing past boundaries, it still makes me itch!

Sam Dalton

Propaganda

Spineless af, no personality but 'horny' for the mc. pretty shit at being a parent. Literally cheated on their fiance, but the fiance is made out to be the 'bad guy'. Character is gender customisable but is written so white male coded urgh. is terribly jealous but not in a cute way. just really annoying. much rather choose their ex wife or fiancé over them any day

He (like it was said before customizable but white man coded) was so bad when I played the game. He’s the only love interest of the story, but after a single chapter I decided I wasn’t interested in him. I went out of my way to avoid any romantic options with him. For me the game was just “The Nanny”. But, despite all my romance dodging, I ended up with a scene where he says word for word “My hands aren't clean, [character name]. How can they be, when I think about you every time I touch myself? Or when I want to murder the next man who touches you?”. BIG RED FLAG. Also at one point, Sam can give you the option to DITCH HIS 9 YEAR OLD SONS BIRTHDAY PARTY and hook up with him! 

[thiswasinevitableid]

42 Sternclay NSFW?

Here you go! I based this on an idea we tossed around on Discord. Content warning for firearms.

42. You’re a supervillain who’s decided to enact your evil plot on Christmas and I’m the only hero in town who’s on duty because I don’t celebrate it

When Barclay was little, his moms had a miniature Christmas scene that they’d lay out on the mantelpiece. It was the Main Street of some imagined town, snow icing the roofs and candy colored lights dotting every window and door. 

From up on the mountain, Barclay could almost believe Kepopolis is sitting above a fireplace in a house he lost long ago. 

He turns away from the view and secures his mask; these bulldozers for Leeshon Industries aren’t going to destroy themselves. 

As rips the engine free of the first machine in the row, a businesslike voice taps his shoulder. 

“Step away from the machinery, Bigfoot.”

He turns, smiling at the man in black who he knew would come. Special Agent Joseph Stern, golden boy of the Bureau of Super Oversight and Barclay’s nemesis for the last two years.

“Hey Agent. Kinda figured it would just be me and you today.”

“For all you know I have back-up just on the other side of that hill.”

“You could, but you don’t. Told me last year you’re one of the only ‘heroes’ who works Christmas.”

Joseph looks annoyed, but his face quickly regains its neutral expression, “Regardless, we both know that doing this is just going to add to the list of reasons why I have to bring you in. This ends today.”

“Chill out, it’s a future ski resort, not an orphanage. Not like Leeshon would open one of those.”

“We both know he has.”

“We both also know what that turned out to be a front for, so save it and either help me wreck these things or get off my ass.” He turns away, fully expecting the sound of feet on snow as the agent makes the first move. Sad as it is, he looks forward to their fights; it’s as close as he gets to dancing these days. 

The bullet whistling past his ear is alarming enough that he shifts on instinct, fur on his Bigfoot form bristling as he whirls and snarls, “What the fuck, Stern?”

The agent reloads, points his weapon at Barclay’s chest, “I said this ends today. I meant it.”

“What the hell, you’ve never pointed a gun at me when I was doing shit way worse than this!”

“I don’t have a choice.” Stern’s face is calm, steel replacing the usual cornflower blue of his eyes. Barclay may as well be staring down a stranger. 

A groaning, rumbling noise from the slopes above him, one he’s certain Joseph’s human ears can’t detect. 

“If you fire again, there’s a really, really good chance it’s gonna set off a fucking avalanche. Which might kill me, but would also kill you in the process which would kinda spoil the victory.”

Joseph studies him; he’ll do this sometimes, pause a fight or an argument to see if Barclay’s bluffing, and Barclay’s always secretly admired the fact he never lets his emotions run away with him. 

The agent’s finger starts to pull the trigger.

“Joseph, don’t-”

The shot bounces off his suit, but the damage is done. A roaring, whooshing wave of white descends towards them and Barclay runs, grabbing Joseph’s arm as he passes him and dragging him into a sprint at his side.

“Let go!” Joseph whacks his hand hard enough to make him obey, “we’re not on the same side!”

“Yes we are! We are on the side of not dying under a thousand fucking tons of-” He skids to a stop, pivoting right before his momentum takes them over a hundred foot drop, and runs until he finds the safer, downhill slope. Joseph stays on him the whole time.

“If it hits us, I won’t have to fucking worry about you anymore!”

The sentence, screamed over the rushing snow, is the last thing he hears as they lose their race with nature. Tumbling, blind and half-smothered in the cold, doesn’t hurt nearly as much. 

When his body finally stops being tossed like a sock in the laundry, he finds himself on his back with a mercifully thin layer of snow above him. He digs out into a blanketed world, trees at odd angles and ice in his fur. 

There’s no sign of Joseph. 

He could leave him. No one would blame him, not after Joseph tried to kill him. 

Barclay kneels in the snow, rests his ear against the ground. Tells himself this is to square them up after Catalina, where Joseph was the only reason he didn’t drown. 

A faint, rasping breath, about a hundred yards to his left gives him his heading and he hurries to the spot, digging at the snow until Joseph’s pale, unconscious body is in view. There’s blood on his arm, something he hit in the descent must have ripped through all his layers. 

Bureau agents have distress signals on them. It wouldn’t take Barclay long to find his and call the organization to him. But something tells him they’ve had Joseph for too long. 

He scoops the limp body from the snow and punches the code into his wrist guard to summon his ride home. 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Gotta say, you’re a lot wilier than the other agents they’ve sent.”

“I was assigned specifically to you from here on out. I studied your combat techniques in depth.” Joseph is remarkably calm for someone currently being hoisted above the head of an eight foot tall monster. 

“So you’re my special agent.” Barclay looks up at him, then snickers, “are those UFOs on your tie?”

“It’s my lucky one.”

“Not sure that’s working out so great.” Barclay’s about to throw him when a high-pitched noise makes him yelp. He drops the agent in order to cover his ears. 

“I’d say it’s working well so far.” Joseph clicks a button on his watch, “I’m surprised no one hit on sonar attacks for you before.”

“Guess they weren’t as sharp as you, pretty boy.” Barclay grins right before tackling him. 

Barclay bounces his legs as he sits in the chair and watches Joseph sleep in his bed. He should have seen this coming. There was a sharp decline in the agent’s interest in banter, in the times he laughed at something Barclay was certain he found funny. He stopped wearing his nerdy ties. No more aliens or bigfoot, no lake monsters or hodags (a creature Barclay found puzzling enough that he stopped the fight and made Joseph explain), just black, black, and more black. 

The agent is stable and escaped the avalanche without a concussion, so Barclay leaves him to rest, crossing into the next room of his cabin and turning on his com system. There’s no response from Dani, but she’s probably out with family. Mama is off in the woods with Thacker. But he has one ally who might just be at home with nothing to do.

He hits the call button and after a moment Indrid, AKA Emperor Moth, appears on screen, red glasses reflecting a string of lights. He’s in a brown and white cable knit sweater, silver hair clearly brushed and pulled half back from his face. 

Before Barclay can ask if he’s interrupting, his friend sighs, “Oh dear, so we are in this timeline.”

“I swear, if you knew I was gonna be in an avalanche and didn’t tell me-”

“Nono, that future did not emerge until the exact instant it happened. Agent Stern decided against literally all odds to fire his weapon that second time.” His friend lowers his voice, “you were right to bring him with you. Had his superiors found him there is a good chance you would never have seen him again. Demoted and reassigned to a position that is functionally cannon fodder.”

“Fuck” Barclay looks back at the bedroom, “then what am I supposed to do with him? He can’t live here!”

“Why not? There have been far stranger arrangements–oh, oh dear, you had better go check on him.”

There’s a crash from the bedroom and Barclay dashes in to find Joseph thrashing against the cuffs he used to secure him to the bed. His black hair is plastered across his forehead and he’s so busy trying to leverage his weight to snap them that he doesn’t notice Barclay until he speaks. 

“Woah, woah, easy agent, if you keep doing that you’re gonna hurt yourself.” He tries to offer a comforting hand on the shoulder only for a long leg to catch him in the stomach.

“Stay. there.” Joseph growls, “where are we?”

“My cabin.”

Blue eyes lock onto him, “So you’ve finally decided to kill me.”

“What? No! No, bringing you to my house and hideout is not me saying I’m going to kill you, it’s me trying to prevent you from dying.” He hazards a step closer, “Joseph, please, even if you’re my nemesis, you know me. You have to know I don’t just see you as some, some disposable obstacle to obliterate. I can tell something is wrong so please just” he brushes the dark strands back into place, “just let me help you.”

The agent takes a deep breath and meets his eyes, “If you ever cared about me, even a little bit, you will kill me right now.”

Barclay pulls his hand back, turning away as tears well up in his eyes, “Do you really think I’m that much of a monster?”

“You’re a villain. What’s one more crime?” His voice is so flat Barclay longs for the panic and anger of a moment before. 

“I’m done hurting you, Joseph. If, if that doesn’t square with whatever weird version of me you made in your head, then that’s your fucking problem to deal with.” He storms out of the room, feeling more over his head than he was when they got here. 

Tea usually helps, so he heats the kettle and pours a mug for himself and for Stern. The hum of a car outside draws his attention to the door, and a glance at his security feed tells him it’s Indrid in a black car he knows doesn’t belong to him. 

He opens the front door, “Okay, why the fuck are you in Ursa Majors car?”

“Because I drove.” A voice drawls.

Barclay cracks the door wider to reveal an unmasked Duck Newton dangling a key from his finger. 

“We were, ah, attending the same function.” Indrid brushes snow off his sweater, “but the futures suggested I would be needed here. Where is he?”

Barclay walks them to the bedroom. Joseph’s eyes are closed and he’s mouthing words Barclay can’t understand. It’s Duck’s footfalls that cause him to look at the door and glare at Indrid. 

“I see. You don’t want to kill me, so you’ve brought in someone who will.”

“There is no need for such dramatics.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Hush, Ursine one.” Indrid approaches the bed, “I am here because Barclay is my friend.”

“Here to do what?”

“That depends entirely on how you choose to comport yourself.” 

Barclay offers Joseph the mug, “This’ll help warm you up after we spent all that time in the snow.”

Joseph takes it, looks down, and then Barclay is being yanked backwards by Indrid as scalding water splashes onto his shoes. 

“What the fuck?” It’s Duck who exclaims this time.

“Well we can’t all fuck our villains!”

“I’m not! And that ain’t what I meant. Even if that’d worked, you still woulda been tied up with two other people in the room. It’s a sloppy play and you don’t usually make those so what gives?”

The agent takes a deep breath, lets it out over six seconds, “Either let me go, or kill me. But if you make me stay here it’ll be worse than torture. Do you understand, Barclay? I can’t live like this, I can’t, I can’t.” His chest rises in panicky breaths and he’s getting the same look he did the moment he pulled the trigger. 

Wordlessly, Indrid steps to the edge of the bed and sticks a small, silvery dot onto Joseph’s neck. There’s a faint buzz and then the agent goes limp.

“He’s just unconscious, do not worry. We have two hours before he wakes up again.” He waves Barclay over to join him, tips Joseph’s head to the side, “do you see this little bump? It’s an ID chip. If I know my tech, which I do, it is also interfering with his body's natural processes. If this is sent to the Bureau, they will take it as a sign he’s dead.”

“Then I vote we get it out.” Barclay murmurs. 

“There is another complication. I foresee that he also has a…a self-destruct button implanted on him. Near his heart.”

“Fuckin what?”

“The Bureau tried to lure me over with promises of wiping my record if I helped them develop such a thing. I declined, but it seems someone else did not. Odds are high they will detonate it to be safe.”

“Can you get it out?” Barclay wants to be sick. That or he wants to hold Joseph to him and keep anyone from touching him ever again.

“I remove both, yes. We will need to take him to your workshop and I will need some supplies from your med bay.” He glances at Duck, “you do not need to stay. I do not wish to keep you from the party.”

“This is more important.” Duck holds the doors as they move to the workshop. As Indrid sets about his task, Barclay retreats to the kitchen to pace. 

“I didn’t realize he’d gotten so bad.” Duck leans against the doorway, “he seemed a little, uh, terser the last few times he did a spot check on us but…but I ain’t ever heard him talk like that. Bettin’ the Bureau was putting some kind of pressure on him.”

“He tried to kill me today.”

“Jesus, really?”

Barclay tells him the whole story. When he’s done, he looks balefully towards the workshop, “I hate doing this to him. It doesn’t feel right, taking the stuff out without asking but…but I also don’t want them to kill him. Or use his location to kill me.”

“Don’t think I gotta tell you that the right choice ain’t always a matter of black and white.” Duck pats his shoulder, “though that chip fuckin with his body is probably why his stomach can growl that bad and he don’t notice.”

“Okay so it WAS that loud.” He turns as Indrid pads into the room. 

“It’s done. I am very glad for my powers for many reasons, but currently it is because they are the only way I got that blasted self-destruct chip out without blowing him and myself up. So” he claps his hands together, “who can help me move him to the bedroom?”

Once Joseph is safely tucked in bed, Indrid writes out instructions and sends the ID chip off in the right direction. As he opens the car door for Indrid, Duck tells Barclay to add him to the list of people to call for help with Joseph. Barclay says he will and waves as they drive off. Then he heads inside to take up his post by the bed.

—-----------------------------------------

“You did what?” Joseph’s whole body hurts and his headache is not helped by what Barclay just revealed. 

“We sent your ID chip to your boss.”

“Do you realize what that means? You just tendered my fucking resignation for me! Without asking me!”

Barclay points at the bandage on his chest, “Hey, how about a thank you for also taking out the fucking thing they could use to blow you up?”

“The…” his heart goes colder than the blizzard kicking up outside, “the what?”

Barclay explains about what Indrid Cold found, and without meaning to Joseph draws his knees up to his chest.

“They never told me that. They, they started pushing for more techno-augmentations about six months ago. Saying that they’d improve our performance, help us achieve greater things. I held out for a long time. I just, I wasn’t comfortable with that kind of device in my body but…eventually they made it clear that refusing them meant I wasn’t taking my role seriously.” He shudders, “there were a few things I let them put in that they never took out. But no matter what I agreed to it was never enough. It was like I wasn’t a good enough agent without the chips, but I wasn’t much better with them.”

“Bullshit. You’re a better agent than anyone I’ve ever met. Hell, you blow doors on some honest to god superheroes.” Claws and fangs are peeking through Barclay’s human shape. 

Joseph twists the blankets with his hands, which are now cuffed in front of him, “They told me that my failure to bring you in was proof I was slipping as an agent. And that if I couldn’t terminate you, they’d demote me. Which meant less protection for everyone in my life, including my family, and you’re not the only villain I’ve pissed off and some of them aren’t as…thoughtful as you.”

“And if they think you’re dead?”

“My sister gets my pension to help pay for my niece’s college. And my family remains protected. So I guess you did do me a favor there.”

Barclay nods, but his big, brown eyes are teary when he looks at Joseph and says softly, “Did you really want to kill me?”

The words stick in his throat, years of tamping down the truth making a web they can’t escape. 

He shakes his head. Barclay sags with relief. 

“If I take the cuffs off, will you try to hurt yourself?”

Another shake; there’d be no point.

Barclay reaches forward and gingerly removes them with a touch of his thumb. When they hit the bed, the truth collides with him; he’s not an agent anymore. Barclay isn’t his nemesis. He isn’t really even a prisoner. 

He never made a plan for this. It was never supposed to end this way, with failure and disillusionment. 

“Do you need anything?”

Joseph looks at his former enemy, “I’d like to be alone for a little while.”

Barclay nods, promising that he’s just in the next room if Joseph needs him. 

He rolls onto his less injured side, body registering sensations that the ID chip had dulled for months. Anger rushes ahead of all of them, welling up in him as he thinks of the years and years of work he threw away just to end up not good enough as he was, to end up accepting modifications that made him a man he didn’t want to be. If he’d aimed right, if Barclay’s suit were lower quality, today he’d have become a man he didn’t recognize. 

He hugs himself, clinging to the aching, exhausted, free man he nearly lost. Crying feels right, but when he lets that emotion come forward his body doesn’t respond and his eyes stay dry. He hides them in his hands and shakes all the same. 

It’s well after midnight when Barclay pokes his head through the door.

“Are you hungry? I’m gonna reheat some chicken posole I made, if you want.”

“Please.” He groans as his stomach tries to eat itself. Christ, when was the last time he had a real meal. 

He still doesn’t have an answer when Barclay nudges the door wider and steps in with a tray bearing two bowls. 

Joseph takes a bite, spice and warmth flooding down his body, and then stares at the soup. 

“Uh, does it taste okay?”

“I’m trying to work out a) how much damage it’d do to pour it all into my mouth at once and b)whether that’d be worth it.”

Barclay chuckles, smiling at him, “There you are.”

He opts to eat the soup at a normal pace, asking Barclay about the items in his room between bites (Joseph finds the framed photo of the Patterson-Gimlin footage that someone wrote “mom????” across particularly funny). When dinner is over, Barclay reassures him that he’s fine on the couch, and that if Joseph starts to feel worse he should come wake him up. 

Joseph promises he will. Then he passes out and sleeps for forty-eight hours straight.

—-------------------------------------------------------

“Please let me clean your kitchen” 

Barclay looks up from the cookbook he’s reading on the couch, “Is it that bad?”

“No, it’s clearly well organized and tidy, but if I don’t have something to do I’m going to start chewing on the furniture.” Joseph hopes his pleading stare is pathetic enough to sway Barclay.

“...I’ve got a steam cleaner that’s really satisfying to use on the hardwood.”

“Yes”

A deep, comforting laugh, “Lemme go get it.”

It’s been a week since the avalanche, though Joseph has only been off of bed rest for the last three days. Barclay’s library is excellent–he and Joseph have lots of series in common–but having tasks helps Joseph feel less like he’s just a lump laying in bed. 

Six days ago, there was a smaller, mini avalanche from the location where Barclay buried the self-destruct chip, continuing the fiction from Indrid’s message that Joseph had been killed in the avalanche. At a guess, it’s so that no one else could scavenge the tech from his corpse. 

He’d felt like shit after learning all this, but it turns out that napping on top of Bigfoot is a fantastic remedy for learning just how expendable you are. 

After his adventure with the steam cleaner, their days take on a pattern: Barclay will wake up and make breakfast, and Joseph will do his best to roll his still-tired  join him before Barclay has to leave for his day job as a cook. Joseph then cleans the house, reads, and generally does all the things he stopped having time for the longer he was an agent (they’ve settled on not discussing heroism or villainy for the time being, which suits him fine). Then he’ll make dinner so that Barclay has a break from cooking, and they’ll eat and watch T.V on the couch or read by the impressively efficient fireplace in the main cabin. 

It’s not always easy; the loss of his job, of everything he sacrificed for, sometimes weighs so heavily on him that he sits down and doesn’t get up for hours. If he were living alone, he’s not sure he could manage it. But being with Barclay means he’s seldom without a tall, handsome, comforting presence to tell him how great he is. 

Two weeks in, his body is mostly back to normal. With one, glaring exception. 

“You can’t cry?” Barclay pours coffee from the french press into Joseph’s cup and then his own. It’s Sunday, Barclay’s day off, and instead of going out and being a super villain he’s been electing to spend them having leisurely breakfasts with Joseph. 

“No. It’s like the physiological response isn’t working.  Maybe it’s silly to be so bothered by it but it just makes me feel…broken. Like they were stealing my emotions from me and I might never get them all back.”

Barclay tips just the right amount of cream into Joseph’s coffee, “Do you think you could, like, trick it into happening? By exposing yourself to something that you know for sure will make you cry?”

“I thought about it. The problem is, even before all the modifications, I had a lot of training in not showing emotion or cracking under stress, so it’s been a long time since I really cried. Except…well, except for an instance of happy tears.”

“We could try that. What made them happen?” Barclay is so earnestly trying to help that Joseph wants to kiss him. Sweet guy, he’s probably assuming something like being climbed on by a puppy or viewing the Grand Canyon will be the answer. 

“It was, um, it was during masturbation. Not to be graphic, but I overstimulated myself to the point of tears.” He smiles at the memory, “I slept like the dead, it was amazing.”

Barclay fiddles with a woven bracelet on his wrist, “We could do that. If you want.”

Joseph turns, cupping Barclay’s face and running his thumbs along his beard, “You’ve done more than enough to help me, big guy. You don’t need to do that, too.”

“Not even if I want to?”

“Really?”

Barclay turns his face to kiss Josephs’ palm, “Yeah. Really.”

Joseph leans in, bringing their lips together. The kiss has been a long time coming, he knows that now, knows that every time he went home after a mission and dreamed about Barclay breaking in and holding him down he was really craving this, these heated, hungry touches and tender kisses that remind him he’s more than his triumphs and failures.

Barclay nips his lower lip, “C’mon pretty boy, I’ve got an idea.”

He follows the cook into the bedroom, shedding his sweater and sweatpants as snow clumps against the windows. 

“Leave the underwear on, undershirt too.” Barclay rifles through a box by the bed as Joseph lays down and stretches with a sigh. Strong hands roll him onto his stomach and he laughs as Barclay bounces onto the bed.

“I’m gonna stay human this time, okay? You’re not all the way recovered and I don’t want to accidentally, like, wrench your leg or your back or something.”

“You’re very thoughtful, big guyOH, oh” he laughs into the pillow as a beard tickles his lower back, Barclay pulling his boxer briefs down and kissing each new, exposed inch of skin.  There’s a love bite to each side of his ass and then the pop of a bottle of lube. 

Barclay works a finger in carefully, keeping his weight on the bed rather than on Joseph, which he appreciates. His fingers are so thick that by the time he’s worked in a second one Joseph is grinding on the bed, savoring how full he already feels. 

“That’s it babe, get into it. All you gotta worry about today is feeling good.” Barclay kisses the scar on the back of his neck, “gonna take such good care of you, even if you’re a fucking crying mess by the time I’m done.”

“Fuck”

“Oh you like that?” Barclay chuckles, fingerfucking him harder as he rubs off on the bed, “my special agent wants to be at the mercy of his villain, is that it?”

“Yes, fuckyes.” He gasps, startled at the orgasm already circling his belly. He spreads his legs wider, hoping Barclay will get the hint, but the cook just laughs. 

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll take care of that soon. But you’re gonna cum for me like this first.”

Joseph moans, bucking his hips as his boxers add just the right amount of friction to his dick, and cums with prolonged moan. 

“Christ, I needed that.”

“I can tell.” Barclay kisses his shoulder, “but you’re not done. Let’s just keep you nice and loose” he slides cool silicone into Joseph’s ass, then does the same to his hole a moment later, “you ever used one of these babe? They vibrate and thrust all on their own”

“Ohfuck” Joseph’s whole body tenses as Barclay turns the toys on and pulls his underwear back up to keep them in place. That second step is how he learns the one at the front is a rabbit vibrator, it’s shorter arm pressed against his already sensitive dick.

“I’m gonna go do the dishes. You wanna pick out a show to watch?”

“S-sure.” 

Barclay helps him up, clearly pleased with himself as he guides him back out to the living room. Joseph tries several positions before laying on his side in hopes of keeping the stimulation from getting too intense. He settles on a holiday baking show and is creeping towards his second orgasm as Barclay nestles onto the couch behind him, propping a pillow under their heads as he spoons him. 

“Comfy?”

“Given the circumstances, yes.”

“You need me to stop the whole thing?” Barclay gently strokes his hair. 

“N-no. I’ll, I’ll say red if I need to stop.” He blushes, “it’s nice to be able to complain sometimes.”

“I hear you.” Barclay cuddles up as Joseph cums with a whimper, kissing his ear before turning up the T.V. 

Joseph squirms, trying to shift the vibrations off his dick, only for a big hand to cup the toy and start actively grinding it against him.

“Doesn’t stop until you cry.” Barclay rumbles in his ear.

“Shit, shit” Joseph’s legs kick as the aftershocks of his second orgasm morph into the buildup for a third, “Barclay, yes, please”

“Don’t worry pretty boy, I treat my prisoners well.”

“Fuck!” Joseph gasps, cumming as Barclay bites his ear. 

“God I love seeing you like this. Love seeing my perfect, put together agent come apart.” 

He whimpers, rolling onto his other side to hide his face in Barclay’s chest. It feels right, like Barclay is becoming his whole world as his mind zeros in on the singular goal of be good for him. 

By the time orgasm number four is wrung out of him, he’s clinging to the front of Barclay’s shirt and his dirty talk is getting very repetitive. Barclay doesn’t mind a bit, kissing him sweetly before rolling him back over to rub his sweatpants covered cock against his ass. 

“Fuck, this is fun. It’s like you’re two sex toys in one.”

“Ohgod.” His voice catches in his throat. 

“That’s what you are now, pretty boy.”

“Yes, yesyesplease.”

“Fuck it.” Barclay flips him onto his back and rips off his underwear. The front vibrator is tossed to the floor, though the one in his ass remains tormenting him as Barclay shoves his pants down and tucks his waistband under his balls. Then he’s on him, as deep in as he can go and Joseph sobs, relief and joy and anger bubbling up and spilling down his cheeks. 

“Yeah, that’s it babe, take it, fucking take it, fuck, every time you fucked up one of my plans I wanted to do this, shove you on my cock until learned where you fucking belonged.”

He clings to him, hooking his ankles around his legs. He might be begging between his tears, he can’t really tell and he doesn’t really clear, all he wants is Barclay, to be good for Barclay, to wanted by him this intensely for the rest of his life.

When he cums this time it actually drips down Barclay’s cock. 

“Fuck that’s gratifying.” Barclay’s dick thuds into him twice more and then the cook pulls out, stroking himself three times before cumming across Joseph’s face and shirt. He smears his fingers through the drops on his cheeks, pushing them between Joseph’s lips, “there we go, that’s how a special agent behaves. Cleaning up a villains’ cum like the needy, pretty boy he is.”

Joseph moans, manages a weak kiss to Barclay’s hand as it pulls away.  The cook looks around, looking a little chagrined as he wipes his hands on a ripped piece of Joseph’s underwear.  Then he’s straddling Joseph carefully, bending down to kiss the remaining tears from his cheeks. 

“Did that help?”

Joseph caresses the face of his lover, his partner, his hero. 

“Absolutely.”

[know-the-way]

On the one hand, getting an autism diagnosis last year, in combination with ADHD, helped me to understand a lot about how my mind and nervous system work and brought me closer to my (also autistic) little brother (and I’m grateful for that).

On the other hand, it’s created a kind of hellscape of self-doubt within me that I thought I’d broken free from a long time ago. At some point in my early 20s, I well and truly stopped giving a fuck what anyone else thought of me. I had worked through a fuckton of trauma, left an abusive situation, and was too exhausted to let anyone else affect how I saw myself. I decided to trust myself. And I’ve stayed trusting myself since, being fairly confident that I lead and communicate with empathy and compassion (and when I don’t, I make an effort to genuinely apologize).

Now, though? I don’t know. There’s a part of me that says “keep trusting yourself, you were doing just fine,” but there’s another part of me that’s been inundated with studies and articles and expert testimonies that all keep saying that people on the spectrum lack empathy. Furthermore, that at times we “won’t even realize” when we’ve offended a neurotypical person. And that’s really been fucking with my head.

The logical part of my brain is like “what a load of bullshit, you know that’s not right, you know the studies are often based on outdated, eugenicist, and disproven information.” But the paranoid little shit side of my brain is like “what if you’ve absolutely bulldozed someone’s feelings without realizing it and your words have stuck with them their whole life since? what if you are part of their most painful memory ‘cause you said or did something insensitive? 🙃”

So now, I’m almost terrified to speak to people (not that it was ever easy for me, but at least I wasn’t scared I’d hurt anyone’s feelings). Unless we’ve known each other a while, but sometimes even then… EVEN THEN. It’s so fucking annoying. Has anyone else experienced this specific emotional spiral? I just haven’t felt this insecure (and, by extension, unsafe) in years and I don’t know how to shake it. Me a year ago would be disgusted that I was doubting myself, but I’m over here like “girl, you’re the one who left, return from war already, I miss you too.”

I know therapy is the ultimate solution to this and I am in therapy, but if anyone can just tell me I’m not alone in this feeling (and, hopefully, that you overcame it), that would be just super cool right now.

[alukardtheabysswalker]

It's important to have people from the cultures you're trying to represent in your team both as writer and consultants, and it would be good to give the opportunity for actors of said culture and ethnicities to play the characters.

It is also important (in general you know?) To have people with common sense

Because this whole Primos debacle has only reminded me of Mucha Lucha.

A show that 21 years before made everything that shit show tried better because it was made with respect

Made by Lili Chin (Australian Woman of Chinese descent) and Eddie Mort (British Man living in Australia) both of whom loved Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling) so much that they wanted to make an animated show about it while respecting latine culture and Mexican culture specifically.

The show has two brown main characters La Pulga and Ricochet, a girl main character Buena Niña who embodies idealized ideas of smart and proper girls that respects and loves her parents while KICKING ASS TRANSFORMING INTO A LITERAL BULLDOZER.

La Pulga's parents owned a Taquería. Which I get it if you think "well of course the Mexican characters own a Taquería". But A) They're all Mexican and B)I don't think you understand how much Mexican people love tacos. And with good reason, they're delicious. Plus they both love their son and their restaurant very much and love the community they work with.

And the premise of the story worked with this fantasy of "Everyone is a Superhero Wrestler" that later stories like My Hero Academia would do too.

But I want to call attention to the Intro. Given that not only is all we have of that trainwreck Disney tried to produce but also because...well, you see when Lili and Eddie decided to produce the iconic Opening of Mucha Lucha they wanted it to be:

1)In Spanish

2)Done by a Mexican band

3)For it to be a C U M B I A

So they got Chicos de Barrio to play it and

IT

FUCKING

SLAPS

[nugsanart09-works]

speedrunning my teapot

okay so as my roster's nova, they know damn well on how i go from "gone for literal years" to "bulldozing through every quest available within a day" — the latter being specifically when i spedrun through the liyue quest (that i've been neglecting for years now whoops) for the taste testing teapot event. yep, i have shit priorities and it shows lmao

little note that i believe the aurora bot allows the sunshines what the nova's current status is at the bare minimum unless asked for further information

if your system aurora is a menace, it would report what your current motivation is if its nova don't talk while playing — for extra ammo, it might even go full throttle by telling the sunshines even the most minute detail it can tell them i.e. if you're too busy staring at zhongli's ass and the like

moving on, so after twelve (12) hours of grinding i finally have my teapot at trust rank 4 and im just gonna bullet point it with a bit of chatbox-esque dialogue thingie:

everyone in my main party (lumine, barbara, xiangling and shinobu) are main victims of the entire ride. the secondary team – dubbed as stamina squad – suffered the second half of the day the moment i got the teapot (razor, rosaria, amber and jean)

《— •▪︎{★}▪︎• —》

first half: the archon quest

AURORA [bot]: 【 NOVA [insert username] IS DISTRACTED. PAIMON AND TRAVELER, PLEASE STANDBY AND PAY ATTENTION. 】 Team: *groan* Paimon: not again!

i will admit it now: i was not paying attention the whole time

except for the perfume part. i was relentlessly choosing the fruitiest options possible and having paimon (and likely the other party members) suffer my bs

timeus you lucky bastard– (if you played the recent windblume event then you know why i'm cursing this man rn)

xiangling be going "really? right in front of my stove/dad" the entire time i was with ying'er lol

sorry gurl but ying'er's everything is too hilarious to pass up

TARTAGLIA: nothing personal~ Shinobu, having just released her skill: wait, FUCK—! 【 SHINOBU (LV.20) HAS BEEN SLAIN 】 Shinobu, in the chat: every. damned. TIME. Lisa and Yanfei: *comforting her because they've been through the same thing*

shinobu dies a fuckton and @yeelimso had once stated that the resident inazuman def would not like me for the bs i put her through

take note that she's stuck at the level 20 the entire time that i've been using her

yeah she def hates me lol

no boss battle ends without shinobu at least dying once

barbara desperately keeping the team alive while she herself is on life support

the team suffering my shit coordination with my keys (setting off their bursts at wrong time or the wrong person gets their burst activated) as i lowkey panic whenever i see the ballista's hp going lower than 20%

barely got through that boss battle ngl

fucking fatui

still felt bad for childe tho but eh stinky red poo poo man + such is politics lol rip bozo

《— •▪︎{★}▪︎• —》

interlude: getting the teapot

aka round two of my team suffering my gay ass feat. yanfei

yanfei is so good in this quest like man her big brain holy shit 😳

sunshine yanfei dying inside as her nova gay panics over her earthshine self

there are literally three moods in this quest: (1) yanfei admiration, (2) head empty hours with paimon, and (3) appreciating madame ping's eyebags for some reason

god, im so sorry yanfei 🙇💦

《— •▪︎{★}▪︎• —》

second half: speedrunning the teapot

if you've seen some of my genshin reblogs the past few days then you know that this was a long time coming

deadass prioritized aloy > everybody else

which def would've made her uncomfy if she is self-aware whoops

oh well, at least she has her little outdoor retreat all the way over the corner of my teapot

left my mansion empty until trust rank 2, which caused me to go on a shopping spree

i felt bad when kaeya's lines hit me with "well decorated" and "homey" but there's only a dining set there

now my lobby is filled with bookshelves for days

along with other knicknacks

meanwhile... razor and jean: *material collecting noises in the distance intensifies*

noelle and rosaria are now with him too! because if i do get isekai'd in the "sagau" these people are my to-go to and i need their friendship rank high stat

i fed them so much food you have no idea—

paimon has a room of her own and that is the only other room that is furnished (for now)

she deserves that much after all the bullying i inflicted on her lmao

hmmm... seeing that i never use my sticky honey roast batches so i might as well feed paimon those later

the event is going to end soon so yee imma try to wrap this up to further speedrun

that's it for now. i haven't slept since yesterday and it's, haha, past noon here... yeah, imma continue the gaming later...

i hope you enjoyed!

again, if you want to use my version of sagau, please tag me. other than that, feel free to use it as your base!

[catastrophe-sandwich]

A little while back Google sent me an ultimatum. Pay 24 bucks a month for my and my parents Google accounts, or lose access to all my email, purchases, books, photos, decades of history. Flickr did the same thing. Cloudflare, another company I loved, got into the business of platforming the alt right. Microsoft bought GitHub and stole everyone's code for their AI training.

All these things that I liked, even loved, existed solely to be bought out, upsold or flipped for a profit and gutted. Maybe not immediately. But there's really one goal in capitalism, and that's extracting as much value from the thing as you can.

I quite love my MacBook. It's easily the best computer I've ever owned. But on the flip side I have friends I just can't contact because they use iPhones. My mum wants to know why she can't FaceTime me, and I have friend groups with group chats I'm not invited to because I use Android. This was a deliberate, documented decision by Apple to lock everyone into their ecosystem and extract as much value as they can with the least effort possible.

I fucking hate it.

But if anything has made me any more anticapitalist it's Elon.

Fucking Elon.

Twitter was a product that I loved. 15 years ago I joined, on a whim, because it was doing the same thing I was trying to make my blog do. Little updates in the sidebar. I never imagined it would have such a big impact on my life.

I think I was 21. Damn. I basically grew up on Twitter. Living through my 20s with (initially SMS access, but eventually) a permanent uplink to the hive mind which shaped who I am today. Initially I was just broadcasting my thoughts, which reflected my narrow worldview at the time. But it slowly became more of a community thing and opened my eyes to the larger world around me.

#btub was a monthly meetup of Brisbane folks, The Brisbane Twitter User Brigade. A hodgepodge group of internet weirdos who would rock up to Greystone Bar and just hang out together. Network. Get drunk. We had those cheesy "hello my name is" stickers which we'd write our Twitter handles on (@goAshley!). It was hilariously dorky, but I loved it in an ironic sort of way.

At its peak we filled the entire deck area and went late into the night.

Through the years I met some of my best and closest friends on Twitter, through btub and otherwise. Eventually it became maybe not mainstream, but a lot less about community. But it was still my uplink to all my internet friends. Any moment of the night or day I could pull out my phone and not be alone. Or sometimes be more alone than I ever was, depending.

I always said I would leave Twitter when they introduced ads in the feed. They introduced ads years ago, but I still loved that place. They introduced the algorithmic timeline that amplified hate and surfaced other people's anxieties to make them yours. But I stuck around because you could turn that off. Jack Dorsey introduced crypto to the platform and I still stuck around, reluctantly, because that's where all my internet friends were.

Then Elon Musk.

I was willing to see it through because I used to like the place. But I don't think anyone was prepared for the speed it devolved. Elon seems to be an outlier in this tale of capitalist bulldozing, because there's no motive here other than that he appears to be a complete fucking idiot. But nevertheless It's clear he has no respect for this thing that we have collectively loved, and he's certainly not going to make it a safe or pleasant place to be from now on.

It's heartbreaking. The end of an era. All because the rich man wanted to own the internet.

The hive mind, my avian companion, custodian and curator of my thoughts existed solely to be bought out, flipped for a profit and gutted. Fucking capitalism.

Anyway this whole post came about because I love Automattic. They do really good stuff and Tumblr is lovely…

[schumigrace]

for the ship ask though kinda late: sariastri/loscar (wtv their name is??) vettonso whats seb and kimi's ship name again 3344

- sorry I've literally never heard of logan sargaent

oh vettonso - my moots know how much I love this ship. It's a lonely venture but I'd gladly captain it🫡 number one way to get me to ship a pairing immediately is to have them despise each other

no but seriously the dynamic has so much potential. like neutral for years and then suddenly there were these super close title fights where nando had to stand and watch as this young twink just bulldozed his way into all his previous records and walk away with everything. and god he hated that fucker, who always used to poke fun and make jokes and leave him out for dead in the press conferences, so he'd give the same back and ugh if that's not sexual tension idk what is

and now ? they're both considered the 'old guys' and their careers are (or was, in one case) coming to a slow end and the guard has (had) been passed on. and what have you got if not the stability of a true competitor that you can yourself in through and through? and so when seb announced his retirement nando took it upon himself to try to make sure he had the best finish possible, that he could go out with the raging applause he deserved (partly because he knew that he'd want the same). and so he made his genuine respect known to the world and everyone lost their minds but not me because I saw them fucking 10 years ago

Simi - I love them love them love them. Lose my mind about them on a regular basis. They adore eachother and they don't hide it, ever. Seb was one of the very very few people who could get kimi to truly relax and open up during media, there's no judgement between these two, just a whole lotta love

3344 - genuinely vile. disgusting. I despise this ship and I don't understand how lewis fans can genuinely enjoy it. sure they might respect eachother as racers but dear god the man dates a piquet and you think he deserves to have his name spoken in the same sentence as lewis? ew

[ninja-nerd]

I posted 5,452 times in 2022

That's 2,849 more posts than 2021!

48 posts created (1%)

5,404 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lightupthenigth

@trainwreckgenerator

@headspace-hotel

@unoriginal-nerdy-nickname-here

@irradiatedsnakes

I tagged 1,512 of my posts in 2022

#to do - 78 posts

#abby - 73 posts

#wordgirl - 57 posts

#hivemind - 53 posts

#portal - 45 posts

#jade tbh - 42 posts

#fav - 34 posts

#april fools 2022 - 33 posts

#cyberpunk - 30 posts

#i <3 capitalism - 24 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#i get that there’s a socioeconomic barrier but the solution to that is not ‘do whatever i think is right because it bulldozes my problem

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

idk what’s gotten into my water this week but I am barking like a dog for Oscar Isaac characters

2 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

#4

was in a class on microgravity and its effects on the human body. Suuuuuuper interesting stuff!talked about how blood pressure and heart rate are super attuned to gravity- we were shown videos on astronauts in g-force training, and how the faster they were spun at the end of a mechanical arm, the more difficult it was to remain conscious. The operator had to walk them through techniques that kept blood from rushing away from the brain, causing them to pass out. One of these was an instruction to squeeze the lower body muscles, which forced blood away from the legs. The other was strict instruction to inhale, hold the breath as tightly as possible, and then exhale.

And my professor then asks the class- “this breathing technique- has anyone heard of the valsalva maneuver?”

And I had the stupidest, most whiplash-inducing flashback to 2020.

4 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#3

Started listening to archive 81. It hasn’t ‘wow’ed me yet- probably because I’m just putting it on in the background rather than listening closely to dissect the whole “stories within stories” thing- but I DO find the main characters really likable. That one episode with the audio tour through a fucked-up artifact collection was great. I also just got to the part where Dan has fun on an operating table, and that was VERY good voice acting.

6 notes - Posted February 9, 2022

#2

I regret to inform you all that the funny jester man brain rot has become terminal.

((I will be tagging any more of these as fnaf in case anyone following me wants to filter. Try it! It’s a fun and useful feature))

9 notes - Posted October 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I'll kill brick whartley myself i dont care how cute these 114 crabs are

330 notes - Posted April 1, 2022

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