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taliskermortem · 3 years

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some thoughts on the whole gram/eugene/black fiasco (this gets long sorry)

firstly, i am absolutely in love with this series. the rest of the show is amazing, the quality is great, the acting is great, the storyline is great. 10/10 recommend. the one thing that is not great? whatever the hell this gram/eugene/black situation is.

secondly, i started actually watching not me because of the gram/black figurines. it was on my ‘to watch’ list but was planning to wait until it finished. but i kept seeing gifs of the figurines and people talking about gram/black and i got too curious so ended up watching it while it was airing.

so you can imagine i’m a little pissed.

and so are quite a few other people.

these are just my thoughts about why we’re so pissed.

honestly at the crux of it all, i think, is what was the point?

but to begin with, i think people would have reacted a little differently to gram having feelings for eugene if they hadn’t already implied he had feelings for black. i say a little because even without that the whole gram/eugene storyline is not a good one.

but they set it up for gram/black and in doing so they really f*cked themselves over. whilst this show breaks out of the ‘bl’ stereotype and goes beyond the genre completely, it is still part of the bl genre with a prominent ‘bl couple’ as their leads. so the audience is already more inclined to root for the m/m couples just by the nature of the bl world. so setting up a m/m and then having one of them actually be in love with a woman? having them both be in love with that woman fight over her? probably not going to go over all that well.

the only reason i can really think of that they thought this would go over okay is because black is played by gun who is already in a ‘pairing’ with off and perhaps they thought people wouldn’t react well to gun having an extra pairing? i don’t really know, personally i don’t understand the whole exclusive pairing thing that is pretty predominant in the thai bl world. but again they shot themselves in the foot because the quality of the series and of gun’s acting in particular is so good that the audience pretty much forgets that black and white are played by the same person. because the audience is much more familiar with white, gun is white. for most of the series black was just a character we hadn’t properly met, he was abstract, he wasn’t gun. the show also goes above and beyond bl tropes and has attracted more viewers that probably aren’t so rigidly glued to ‘exclusive pairings’. so they voided that problem completely. people wanted black/gram despite one of them being played by gun.

they also set the gram/black storyline up so perfectly. pinning for your best friend? coldhearted character that is soft for just one person? these things are absolutely fan favourites and for a reason. the idea of gram being confused about why ‘black’ has suddenly changed, the angst that comes from him thinking ‘black’ was pulling away from him and falling for sean instead? (the rolling and stretching on the bed wtf?) the image of black, who is solitary and aggressive and angry at the world easily letting gram throw is arms over his shoulder, teaching him how to ride a bike whilst shouting lines like ‘oxygen is the freedom of the soul’... just the general feeling of ease gram seemed to have around ‘black’ compared to everyone else. the idea that gram, at least, was missing his black. seemed to be the only person that was missing black. it was set up so perfectly, how were we not supposed to fall for it. how did we end up here?

people were rooting for gram/black. even if it was ultimately just platonic, people were still rooting for their friendship. it was the only real friendship black seemed to have, it was the relationship that gave black humanity and empathy. people liked black because gram liked black. and maybe they thought people would get behind gram/eugene because the audience hadn’t met black yet? because when we did, he didn’t immediately come off as loveable? but that’s the thing about humans, they will pick something to love and love it regardless of whether it makes sense. and this audience decided to love black and there was no going back. so to see even their friendship left in shatters, one of the most anticipated reunions go down the way it did? you can bet people aren’t happy. they’ve alienated their audience from gram and they’ve alienated them black, because white might be sean’s fear but gram was black’s humanity. and maybe they’ve done that on purpose. maybe they want black completely isolated. completely solitary and difficult to empathise with. but there were definitely other (better) ways to go about it.

finally, the gram/eugene storyline is terrible. okay, falling for your best friend’s girlfriend is a trope. can’t say its a huge favourite because there’s virtually no way for it to end happily and equally for all parties involved. but its the one they picked. unfortunately it’s not nearly as compelling as the ones for gram/black but there we go. but that aside their actual storyline is objectively not good. to begin with it is pretty much completely separate from literally everything else happening in the series. every other storyline ties in together. gram and eugene scenes, however, feel completely unconnected. maybe they’ll tie it in during the last few episodes but i’m honestly not sure how. on top of that, the gram that we know from literally any other scene when he’s not with eugene? yeah he disappears. and we’re left with some lacklustre facsimile that comes across as pushy, desperate and honestly kind of pathetic. obviously this is my personal opinion but the gram i see with eugene is completely different to the gram i see (and love) everywhere else. eugene has shown absolutely no interest in gram, she has pushed him away several times and he keeps coming back - for the last few episodes the only real scene we’ve had with gram have been him coming to pester eugene even when she’s shown she isn’t interested, even when she’s shown on multiple occasions that she’s still in love with black. then suddenly she’s putting her hand over his heart and sprouting some line about dancing to the beat or whatever. yeah i didn’t get it. gram is at most a rebound. there is no depth of feeling on her part. the story just doesn’t draw you in, doesn’t captivate you like every other pairing in this series (including gram/black and even eugene/black).

which begs the question, what is the point? i would understand having some big plot twist about gram’s feelings if it had an impact on the story as a whole. gram/eugene is so separate from everything that the only thing it vaguely impacts is black. literally nothing else. so why take a fan favourite pairing and destroy it? why take something as iconic as the gram/black figurines and have them be for gene/black? why give black that emotional tie with gram only to have them fight over a girl the second he comes back? black/eugene is honestly far more compelling at this point than gram/eugene. which would leave gram with absolutely nothing. but gram isn’t a main character. gram being alone doesn’t impact the storyline in any great way. so he looses his best friend (who let’s face it, he’s been loosing ever since white showed up), so he looses the girl he’s been pinning over for god knows how long? what does it matter? what’s the point?

honestly, unless they plan to make gram a villain because of all this i really don’t see why they’ve done any of it.

#just to be clear i love ever character individually #but they have made a complete mess of this #i cannot think of a single satisfying solution anymore #also please please please feel free to come and tell me what you guys think about this whole thing #obviously i have a lot of thoughts so more than happy to talk about it #the rest of the series is so gooooood that i think it makes this even less underestandable #but who knows #maybe they will find a way to make it all miraculously make sense and give everyone a satisfying ending #im not necessarily talking about a happy ending but just please let them be satisfyin #not me the series #gram #gramblack #grameugene #eugeneblack #gram x black #black nm #eugene nm #gram nm

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curiositydooropened · 2 years

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Walks in the Forest

can she not take a hint? You're a theatre major.

Pairing: Robin x reader

Wordcount: 861

Warnings: Just a bit of fluffy fluff, and stereotyping theatre majors because I was one

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You really thought she’d get the hint by now. You were a theatre major for Christ’s sake. You thought she understood that night you leant your favorite sweater, keening over the way it hung off her shoulders and painted her cheeks rosy red. You thought she understood at that off-campus party, when you tucked her hair behind her ear, or at that other off-campus party when you tangled your fingers with hers to lead her through that crowd of people but didn’t let go when the room opened up.

But maybe you were wrong, maybe she didn’t get the hint, didn’t get you, and maybe you didn’t get her either. Because now, as you walked through the sledge of a soiled path in a little wooded park, she rambled on and on and on about Steve back home. And you knew Steve was her best friend, ‘platonic with a capital P’, but the way she gushed about his idiocy didn’t feel platonic, in fact it felt a little heart crushing. And the forest was too quiet to escape the sounds of her chatter, and suddenly you couldn’t breathe.

You pitched yourself over, head between your knees, stopping abruptly, and she was a full five paces ahead before she realized you were no longer in-step.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” She scurried back to you, her Chuck Taylor’s scuffed and covered in scribbles of handwriting and was that blood?

“Fine,” you managed, squeezing your eyes closed, allowing the chug-chug-chug of blood to rush back through your skull. “Just need a minute.”

“Are you sure? Should we turn around? Do you need like water or something? I’m really not great in these circumstances.”

“Robin,” you breathed.

“Yeah?”

“Just shut up for a minute.”

“Okay.”

That helped, not being able to hear that adorable squeak of her voice, the one that sent rivets through you for every morning class. It helped not being able to see her freckled face, tip of her nose pinched pink from the cold. These things helped, but you could still taste the salted caramel latte on your tongue, and you had shared that before your walk, and you knew her lip probably tasted of it too, and that destroyed you.

With a groan, you thrust yourself upward, stumbling a bit at the immediate black of a head rush. Robin gripped at the crux of your elbow to stabilize you, and the blood from your head rushed to that spot, all tingly and warm. “Are you okay?” She asked again, cruelty.

You ran a hand through your hair and threw your arms in the air. You’d had enough, honestly. Enough of the torture that was this beautiful woman before you. “Are you in love with Steve?”

“What? No. Ew. We’re just-“

“Don’t say it!” You held a hand up to her. “Please don’t say you’re just friends, because then when you tell me that we’re friends, it’ll hurt so much worse.”

Robin blinked back at you, eyebrows furrowed. “Aren’t we friends, though?”

You sighed, pinched the bridge of your nose. “Yes, Robin. We’re friends, but maybe that’s my problem, okay?”

“What is this?” She looked around, the trees, the leaves, you. “You took me into the woods to tell me you don’t want to be friends anymore?”

“I took you in the woods to confess my feelings for you!” You threw your hands in the air again, for emphasis. Theatre major, and all that.

“What?”

“I gave you my favorite sweater, Robin! And when you gave it back, it smelled like you, and every time I wear it now, I just think of you, and it’s even more of my favorite sweater.” You whined, biting at your bottom lip when your brain caught up with the implications of everything you just spewed. What if she didn’t feel the same way? Oh God, what if she didn’t like women at all?

“You have feelings for me?” She wasn’t running. She didn’t seem angry, just a bit taken aback, and God, so slow on the uptake. That wasn’t necessarily a bad sign.

You swallowed and moved a breath closer, the slightest scuffle of feet to mossy ground below. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to be in the same room as you without trying to kiss you for weeks now. Thought the forest would feel bigger.” You looked up at the treeline, cloudy sky painted grey overhead, a bad omen.

“So try.” Or not.

You looked back at her to find she’d scooted impossibly closer, dark lashes on freckle-painted cheeks. She was kissed rosy pink from the cold, tongue poked out to wet her bottom lip. “What?”

“Try to kiss me.” She rasped again, and you closed the gap.

A hand cupping her soft cheek, you pressed your lips to hers. They were full and warm and she tasted of salted caramel and coming home. You wrapped your other hand around her waist to pull her in tight, and when you pulled apart, a bit Robin-drunk and happy, you nuzzled your nose against her own.

“Took you long enough,” she mumbled.

“You knew?”

“You’re a theatre major. Of course I knew.”

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A/N: I've been wanting to write a little Robin sapphic love story for so long, and this made me so giddy and I know I'm going to write loads more. I just adore her. Please send Robin x f!reader recs!

Happy Autumn and thank you for reading! xo

#robin buckley #robin buckley x reader #robin buckley fic #robin buckley fluff #robin buckley drabble #stranger things fic

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waywardsummoner46 · 3 years

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Victorian Vexation

Sam Winchester x sister!reader, Dean Winchester x sister!reader

@spnaubingo square filled: Victorian!AU

Summary: Waking up, you find yourself in a room you don’t recognise and with people trying to force feed some amber “medicine” down your throat. Who are these people? Where are you? And why do these Sam and Dean lookalikes keep saying the just want their sister back?

A/N: Lesson learnt - I suck at summaries but I promise that the fic is more interesting than the summary... maybe even another series idea oops. Anyway, enjoy :)

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Waking up, you instantly had a headache. A very obnoxious one at that. Reminds you of when Dean started to mock Sam in a really high-pitched voice not noticing that it was pissing you off as well (but it’s okay, because he had what was coming to him).

Caught in a memory, with your eyes still clothed, you didn’t notice that a small, slender woman had slipped through your door. Still replaying the memory repeatedly in your head, you exhaled slowly. When a stuttered voice spoke up, you nearly jumped out of your bed.

“Oh I’m so sorry my lady, I didn’t mean to wake you! I just came to deliver your clothes for the day… and to wait to help you get changed, and to administer your medicine” the lady practically blabbered whilst silently shaking and dropping into a bow.

You were going to respond with an angry and confused tone but then you took notice of your surroundings. This is not your room. It seemed to be double the size of your old room, the furniture was mahogany but looked quite old-fashioned and specifically designed to make the room appear bigger than it seemed.

A mere fireplace was placed to your left, it was quite tall and wide, but lacked the modern feel and the carpet was a disgustingly flowery-patterned one to which you abruptly looked away from. Doing so laned your focus on your bed. It was huge! The headboard itself was about a metre tall with an intricate and flowy pattern but the bedding nearly made you gag. Take a stereotypical grandmother’s nightgown right? Yeah that’s the only connection you could make.

Realizing the woman, probably mid-twenties, was still hunched over in a shaky bow, you finally addressed someone who was capable of having an intelligent conversation. You propped yourself up against the head-board searching for the gun you kept under your pillow but coming up empty handed.

“Who are you? Where am I?” You demand. She straightens up and glances at you confusedly, before understanding seems to fall like a curtain over her face. Trying to be discreet, she reaches slowly behind her back for a table you only just noticed for something that looked like a glass jar of amber liquid.

Calmly she explained, “Miss Winchester, you haven’t had your meds yet, I forgot the spoon for it, stay where you are please miss.” Which obviously prompted more confusion on your part, so watching her leave the room and closing the door behind her, you sat silently with your mouth agape.

Once you were sure she was out of earshot, you jumped out of bed and went about trying to sneak your way through whatever captivity you were in. Arriving at the door, you tried the handle to find the crazy lady had locked the door! You let out a groan but remembering she reached for that vial of “medicine”. So you went over to investigate it, it read:

(Y/N) Winchester’s medicine.

To be given twice a day, one before getting out of bed and another before going to sleep.

Do not forget a dose!

Caution: Only to be consumed by her. No one else is to consume the substance.

Now even more confused, you hid the vial in your pyjama pocket (thanking whoever had mercy on you that let you keep them at least) for later because something was definitely giving you a witch’s vibe about this.

All of a sudden, you heard multiple pairs of footsteps seemingly approaching your room. You hid behind the door and grasped the candlestick that was also on the table to use as a weapon. They came to a stop just outside the door and you heard faint mumbling, “Thank you for coming to get us, Lilith. It was a good decision but you’re dismissed now. My brother and I will give our sister her medicine.” You made out a light pair of footsteps get more distant as they left after a few seconds but all you could think of was Sam and Dean? What the hell?

Unprepared for the door opening, you were temporarily stunned out of shock before coming back to your senses and deciding ‘Well hey, they’re most likely not my brothers so what the hell? Might as well whack ‘em’ but that motivation was short lived as two poshly dressed Winchesters barged through the door and immediately pinpointed your location.

Dean went to grab you, so you swung the candlestick at him but he evaded it with inhuman speed and grabbed your hand and brought it behind your back. He reached out for your other hand and grasped with ease no matter how hard you struggled.

With both hands behind your back, you decided aiming for his crotch with your heel might be a good idea but Sam still exists so that plan was foiled. Just as you lifted your left leg to bring back on Dean, Sam hefted both legs up by your ankles and, working as a team, they carried you over to the bed.

Nevertheless and with stubborn determination, you twist and turn in every possible direction but they appear undeterred. Letting out a scream you seethed, “Get off of me. Where are my brothers, you sick monsters?”

Both faces, tight with focus, softened slightly at your words that you took note of and paused you ministrations for a second. A mistake, as this gave Sam the opportunity to sit on your hips and for Dean to restrain your hands above your head.

Sam looked over at the table, before sighing and looking at you. “Where is the medicine, (Y/N)?”

Scoffing, you replied “I chucked it out the window, asshole. Now tell me what you’ve done with my brothers? And where the hell even am I anyway?”

Having had enough of your questions, Sam inserted his hand in your pocket and fished the glass bottle out. Grasping on to common sense for the time, you tightened your lips as much as you could because whatever that potion was it couldn’t be good.

“Open up, sweetheart. It’s for your own good,” Dean piped in and you gave him the best I-may-be-scared-but-I-will-still-smite-your-ass-look you could muster. He sighed deeply, before coming to a silent decision. Releasing one of his hands from yours, he brought the other to try and wedge them between your lips.

He’s persistent and slowly but surely, the tightness lessened and you became mildly more terrified. Once they were too sore to press together any longer, you opened them but kept your teeth clenched.

Sam tutted this time, and reached for the spoon. He un-capped the lid and poured a massive glob of the shitty looking liquid onto it before turning back to focus on you. “You may not want it, but we want our sister, not theirs, so we’ll do this the hard way.”

You silently screamed at him as he literally began trickling the medicine between the crevices of your teeth. You barely registered how at least the liquid tasted good before feeling drowsy.

“There we go, good girl. Now we'll chase away all those nasty thoughts of that unsafe life and monster hunting you had, hm?” Sam.

“Well done, (Y/N). Go to sleep, we’ll see you when you wake up. Love you, darling,” Dean.

They both pressed light kisses to your forehead before maneuvering you under the covers and into a more comfortable position.

“This can’t happen again, Sam. One more time and she’s irredeemable.”

“I know, Dean. Only a few more doses and Crowley said we could have our sister back.”

Dean hummed then they both left the room, but not without another “love you” each. Before everything faded into black, you managed a “what the fuck?” Then you were out.

#sam winchester x reader #dean winchester x reader #supernatural x reader #victorian!au #spn x reader #dean x reader #sam x reader #omg I need to stop making things with the idea for a series #but I can't write short fics #I need help #welp #heh that rhymed

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choicesarehard · 4 years

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I keep my streams about Wolf Bride light-hearted. It’s been a hell of a year, and I think we all need a space where we can laugh together. But part of responsibly consuming problematic media is being aware of where it fails. And that’s why I think it’s important to talk about Morgan, and Wolf Bride’s troubling depiction of blindness.

Morgan is one of the first Love Interests in Choices to have a canon disability. She is representation many players with disabilities, like myself, are eager for. But like any form of representation, writing a blind character requires research. A quick google search will lead you to numerous visually impaired voices who outline the tropes and stereotypes that harm their community. Wolf Bride has included nearly all of them.

signal boosts are appreciated

Not All Blind People Wear Sunglasses

Morgan is shown wearing dark sunglasses from the moment she appears on screen. And there are certainly blind people who wear sunglasses — particularly those who (unlike Morgan) can still perceive some degree of light and dark, and experience painful light sensitivity. But no context is ever giving for Morgan’s use of sunglasses. In fact, they aren’t even addressed for four chapters.

[ID: Two screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box over a forest background, and reads “You glance at Morgan, and are surprised to see the dark glasses still covering her eyes.” The second features a labeled image of her sunglasses, placed over a black background, with a selectable button that reads “What does Morgan look like without these?”] What follows is a scene Pixelberry could have used to provide insight into an assistive device the sighted community may not be entirely familiar with. They could have touched on degrees of visual impairment, or why some blind individuals need dark lenses while others don’t. They could even have explained that for some individuals with visual impairments, dark lenses make tasks like reading or navigating dimly lit spaces harder. Instead, and far more troublingly, MC is given the option to ask Morgan not to wear them anymore. And depending on your choice, the book is coded to remove the sunglasses from her sprite in future scenes. This reduces an assistive device to a fashion choice, something our MC can wish away if they don’t find it attractive. And that isn’t okay.

Unusual Eyes

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a forest background that reads “With a start, you realize her pale eyes aren’t looking at you, aren’t seeing you, aren’t seeing anything.” The second features Morgan’s sad sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “...I’ve been blind since birth.”] Morgan has a customizable sprite. But regardless of the ethnicity you select for her, she is depicted with pale blue eyes. And that troubles me. Because the stereotype that all blind individuals have cloudy, distorted, or unusual eyes is pervasive and harmful.

Even when it isn’t tied to another harmful trope — the blind character as mystical seer or psychic — this stereotype create an expectation that blindness is something that always manifests in a visible way. And for millions of blind individuals, that isn’t the case.

And while cataracts, trauma to the eye, and corneal infections can all cause the clouded effect most of us recognize from media, none turn your brown eyes into blue. Heightened Senses

Another common stereotype in media is the blind character who’s remaining senses have become heightened as a compensatory mechanism, often to a supernatural degree.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Four of Wolf Bride. The first features Morgan’s surprised sprite in a forest setting and a text box that reads “I guess I sort of...feel things. Like the place on my cheek where the branch blocked the wind.” The second features Morgan’s neutral sprite in the same forest setting, and a text box that reads “I can smell the dew on the leaves, and the moss on the bark. Can’t you?] Individuals with visual impairment may learn to rely on their other senses to navigate the world around them. But they do not suddenly gain the ability to sense the location of a branch based on wind patterns, or to accurately throw a dart at a carnival game ballon based on its smell.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a text box placed over a carnival background that reads “Pop! Pop! Pop! Three darts fly through the air, striking their targets.” The second features the white MC with straight blonde hair. Her sprite is surprised, and beneath it is a text box that reads “So you did that by smell, too?]

This trope may seem harmless — after all, it gave us Daredevil, a beloved blind superhero — but it contributes to the unachievable expectations we often place on real-world individuals with visually impairments. And that isn’t fair.

Of course, we all suspected Morgan’s abilities were due to something other than heightened senses. And that in and of itself is a problem.

Magical / Supernatural Abilities

To the surprise of no one, Morgan exhibits these unusual abilities because she is a werewolf. But choosing to give a blind character magical abilities should only be done after asking yourself some challenging questions. As visually-impaired Tumblr user @mimzy-writing-online explains:

Your blind characters don’t need a magical ability that negates their blindness. [Ask yourself why it’s so important to you to give them one]. If it’s because they can’t do all the things you want them to do without it, then should you really have written them as blind in the first place?

And that’s the thing. Morgan isn’t actually written as a blind character, not when it counts. Morgan shoots bullets with accuracy, runs through unfamiliar terrain, and navigates moving objects with ease. She doesn’t use common assistive devices like canes or screen readers. Her sunglasses are discarded at MC’s request. The scientific papers that fill her research facility are not digitized for accessibility or written in braille.

Even her dreams, which should be reflections of how she perceives reality, look identical to Bastien's — which makes no sense for someone who has been canonically blind since birth.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapters Five and Eight of Wolf Bride. The first features a scene from Morgan’s lucid dream. Set in a glamorous hotel, it includes visual details like twinkling lights, and patterned carpets. The color is tinted a grey-blue and the exposure on the image has been increased to an unnatural level. The second features a scene from Bastien’s lucid dream. Set in a forest, it shares the same tinted and over-exposed qualities as the first.]

Her blindness isn’t an integral part of her character. Instead, it’s a narrative device, paraded in front of the reader when it can further a central — and deeply disturbing — plot point. [content warning: discussion of discrimination and child abuse / abandonment ahead] Morgan Was Left to Die Because She Was Blind

And Jesus, what a plot point it is. In Chapter 11, we learn that Morgan was left to die in the woods because she was born “wrong, sickly, blind.” But the only canonical disability or illness she is ever shown to have is her blindness.

[ID: Three side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first two feature the white MC with straight blonde hair’s shocked sprite in front of a forest background. The first text box reads “I don’t understand...” followed by two dialogue options “Why was Morgan abandoned?” and “Is that what you do to full moon babies? Kill them?” The second panel’s read box reads “Just because she was blind?” The third panel features the old woman Noemi’s sad sprite, placed over a forest background. Her text box reads “If we know an infant will not survive, it is best to let it die quickly.”]

I...am frankly having a hard time thinking through the screenshot-induced fury to make a coherent argument here. To imply that blindness is an impairment so limiting that death is the only foreseeable outcome? That being born blind somehow makes a child “wrong”? The ignorance and prejudice shown in this scene is staggering.

But equally troubling is the response of the main characters to this revelation. Yes, in fiction, bad people sometimes do bad things. But Noemi isn’t shown to be a bad person. Neither is Bastien, who knew what his pack had been guilty of in the past, and even seeks to justify it to a limited degree.

Most shockingly, Morgan herself, who in the second screenshot below has just overheard that she was left to die as an infant because she is blind, isn’t angry or upset. She’s almost apologetic, still seeking a place within the pack.

[ID: Two side-by-side screenshots from Chapter Eleven of Wolf Bride. The first features Hispanic Bastien’s sad sprite in front of a forest background. The text box beneath him reads “It doesn’t happen often, Clara, but...” The second features white Morgan’s sad sprite in front of the same forest background. The text box beneath her reads “I didn’t mean any harm. Especially after...what I just overheard.”]

By introducing the idea that a child born blind cannot survive, let alone thrive, without superhuman abilities, and then failing to soundly and thoroughly refute that idea through the characters we identify with, Pixelberry is unintentionally perpetuating the same false beliefs that have led to real-world instances of infanticide for centuries. And that isn’t okay.

I don’t know where Pixelberry will go with the story from here. Perhaps in today’s chapter some of these concerns have been addressed...but I doubt it. In the meantime, I’ve also written to their support staff to express my deep concern and disappointment in the treatment of Morgan’s character. And I’d encourage you to do the same.

Will I continue to keep streaming Wolf Bride? For now, yes. My VIP subscription is already paid for, and frankly, I want to see Morgan’s arc through. I guess the small part of me that was excited for the representation is still hopeful the narrative can be corrected.

But I’ll be adding a content warning at the start of each stream for ablism, and that’s something I never thought I’d have to do. Screenshots courtesy of CrimsonFeatherGames on Youtube

#playchoices #pixelberry #choices vip #wolf bride #choices wolf bride #cw: child abuse #cw: ableism #anti-wolf bride

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whatifyoulivelikethat · 4 years

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pause, m | myg | 2

pairing(s): yoongi x reader

summary: Life is like a cassette tape. It seems like it’s constantly repeating, flipped from side A to side B, and the songs can’t be skipped. You can only pause, rewind, fast forward, play after you’ve already heard the song. After you’ve already lived it. All Min Yoongi knows is his own tape, until it smashes right at his feet, and then he has to learn to dance to a different beat.

warnings: rated M (18+) - please be warned this story has a physically and verbally abusive relationship; language; emotional manipulation; gender stereotyping; non-idol!AU; music producer!Yoongi x dancing fanatic!reader

rated M because I know how sensitive a topic domestic abuse is.

The music reader listens to is inspired by Frederic, specifically their songs ‘oodloop’, ‘OWARASE NIGHT’, and ‘Kanashii Ureshii’ and you can look up the MVs on YT. They have subs, yes the lyrics inspired certain scenes, no I have no idea what is going on, and I don’t know why they’re dancing like that lol

–

She slapped him across the face.

You froze.

The cassette smashed.

“I hate you, Min Yoongi!”

She shouted it so loud that you heard it over your music. Your finger instinctively went to your earbud and tapped it, pausing the sound. You couldn’t believe your eyes. What had this guy done? What had this guy done to be yelled at like that the second he stepped off the night train to stand in front of his girlfriend?

“Useless piece of trash, always fucking late!”

Slapping him over and over, so loud because the train station was completely empty except for you and these two, yelling obscenities and the guy was just standing there, taking it, saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, sorry for what? Why did she keep hitting him? Why? Stop it. Stop hitting him.

“Such a fucking waste of life, I can’t believe I have to be your girlfriend!”

Stop it.

“No one will ever fucking love you, you shithead, so I’m stuck with your stupid self!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Mumbles. Fear.

Stop it!

“You think anyone will ever do anything for you the way I do? I’m all you have!”

Within two seconds, you crossed the space between you and them.

You smacked her hand away from him.

Pause.

You hesitated to press play. Standing in front of this random guy you didn’t even know, fury in your chest so strong that you forgot you were a stranger, glaring at this scowling, rage-filled woman with vehement disdain. You had no idea what the fuck was going on, you had no idea why he was being slapped so much, you had no idea why this woman was so angry and maybe there were very good reasons for it all, but somehow.

Somehow you didn’t think so.

Play.

“Stop it. He said he was sorry,” you barked, narrowing your eyes.

Her pretty face twisted with rage. “Who the fuck is this bitch, Yoongi? A whore you picked up?”

“I… I don’t know her…” the man behind you rasped, trying to move around you, but you kept yourself between the two, shouldering your backpack.

“I don’t know him. I just know you shouldn’t be hitting someone like that.”

The woman snapped at you, rising to her full height, challenging you. “This isn’t any of your fucking business. This is between me and him and doesn’t concern outsiders. Tell her, Yoongi.”

But you didn’t let Yoongi tell you, cutting him off as he tried to speak.

“This isn’t my business, but I’ve seen enough examples to be able to spot domestic violence when I see it,” you growled.

The woman scoffed, flipping her hair. “Domestic violence,” she snorted. “He’s a man. It’s not like I hit him that hard. I’m a woman.”

You curled your hands into fists.

“You stupid bully.”

The woman looked taken aback. “What?”

“I said, you’re a stupid fucking bully,” you snarled, taking a step forward and forcing her to take one back. “You think this is nothing, until you have children and your children have to watch this shit over and over, every night, thinking it’s right, thinking it’s the way it should be, but you’re fucking wrong, because this is not a relationship, this is not love, this is fucking bullying and you are a stupid, dumb bully who can’t admit you have an inferiority complex and your kids will spend years in fucking therapy wondering why they don’t understand how to make relationships with other human beings because their mom was a terrible fucking example, so do me a fucking favor and get the fuck out of here and leave this guy alone, because you are an absolute sewage of a human being.”

She gawked at you, slack-jawed, probably never been talked to in such a forceful manner before, but you didn’t care, because you didn’t spend years in therapy to watch this shit happen right in front of your face.

Never in your entire life had you ever been so angry at a stranger before.

The woman seemed to gather her bearings and spat at the floor, staining the concrete with her spit. You raised your eyebrows, unintimated. She stamped her foot at your lack of reaction, pointing accusingly at Yoongi behind you.

“Don’t you ever think about coming back home. I’m burning all your shit.”

She turned her heel and stomped away.

You almost expected Yoongi to run after her, but he didn’t. He just stood behind you and breathed laboriously. You suddenly realized that you might have done something mildly insane. She said she was going to burn all his shit.

“Hmph,” you heard the mumble behind you. “All I had was clothes anyway.”

You turned around. He wasn’t looking at you. His black hair was all over his face, and his face mask was half-pulled down, revealing his red cheeks. You looked away quickly, taking a step back.

“Are you… okay?” you asked quietly.

You saw his eyes shift around. He didn’t actually respond. Just shrugged.

You bit your lip.

Silence.

“There… are no more trains,” the Yoongi guy whispered.

“Y… Yeah.”

Silence.

The lights above you were harsh, casting large shadows all over the concrete. Nothing but the sounds of the city and the darkness above, the moon witnessing it all.

He turned away from you, walking over towards the benches. Walking away. The crumpled paper of a man, shrinking as he took one step, then another, farther and farther away from you, and you opened your mouth to shout after that black back, extending your hand in the air.

“H-Hey!”

Pause.

He turned his head around to look at you with broken and lonely eyes.

“If you want… I have a couch and some blankets.” You swallowed, knowing how crazy it was. “Because… You shouldn’t go back. I…” Don’t want you to end up like my dad. “Even if it’s one night.”

I want to break this cycle.

“Just one.” You lowered your hand, holding up one finger. “One.”

Yoongi didn’t say anything.

Only turned around wordlessly and walked back to you, stopping in front of you. Saying nothing.

He didn’t say anything the entire walk.

Didn’t say anything as you opened the door and gestured him inside. Showed him the couch, got him the blankets. Asked him if he wanted anything else. He shook his head instead of talking. You ran to your room and got him a spare pillow. Held it out to him. He took it silently. Ran off again and got a new toothbrush from your stash of toothbrushes. An unopened travel toothpaste. Asked him if he wanted anything to eat. A glass of water. He shook his head.

Showed him the bathroom. A shower?

Shake, shake.

Okay.

You told him if he was cold to let you know. You would find another blanket.

Yoongi said nothing.

You nodded and turned away, letting him be. It was hard to look at him. You didn’t want him to think you pitied him or anything. But he reminded you too much of your dad if you stared at him too long. You had gotten him everything you could think of and let him know that if he needed anything to tell you.

You went to your bedroom and let out a big sigh.

No dance party tonight.

You went to your computer and opened Spotify. Put your headphones on and listened to the music, letting it carry you away. Before you knew it, one song flowed into another. You slowly began to bounce your head to the music, the cheerful, quirky beats making you smile, your hands moving on their own, lip-syncing the lyrics.

A happy tune with sad lyrics, but it made you smile at the same.

You failed to notice Yoongi appear at your door, holding his phone. He needed a charger. Did you have one? And then he saw the back of your head, bouncing along, headphones on.

He retreated back to your living room, clutching his phone. Decided to go to sleep instead.

Hours later, you finally decided to sleep, placing your headphones down. Was Yoongi sleeping? You padded over to the dark living room, seeing a bundled form on your couch. His coat was over the blanket. His head was under the blanket. Was he cold? You went back to your room and collected a pink knit one. Walked back to the living room and moved his jacket aside onto the armchair, putting the extra blanket on top of him.

His phone was on your coffee table, flashing. It was low on battery.

You checked if it was Android or iPhone. Android. Good, because you didn’t have a lightning cable, although you would have gone to the twenty-four-hour convenience store nearby to get one if he did have an iPhone. Back to your room. Got a charger and struggled to find an outlet in the dark. You’d think you would know where your own outlets were, but apparently you were too sleepy to remember. You felt around in the dark and poked at an outlet, stabbing the wall repeatedly before plugging it in. Maybe you should have turned a light on, sheesh.

You snaked the cable around and plugged his phone in. It vibrated approvingly and you gave it a thumbs up, even though it was an inanimate object.

Let’s just say living alone made you weird.

You let out an exhale and wandered off to brush your teeth.

Not noticing Yoongi had woken up and been watching your struggle. Saying nothing.

Pause.

Fast forward.

Morning.

You yawned and nearly jumped when you saw the unmoving pink blob on your couch. Oh, right. You were surprised he wasn’t awake, but you shrugged. The blankets were over his head, blocking out the sun. You tried to stay quiet, opening your fridge, staring at the contents.

Staring at it with a million question marks.

You had… kimchi. Eggs. Cheese. Definitely expired take-out. You took that out and dumped it in the trash can, grimacing at it. A stranger didn’t need to see how disgusting that was. You went back to your fridge. Um. It wasn’t that you couldn’t cook, it was that you didn’t have jack shit. And if you cooked on the stove, you would definitely wake up Yoongi.

Your stomach screamed in rage.

Feed me!

Ah, well. Sorry Yoongi. You settled on a kimchi-egg-cheese pancake thing. Was it going to be good? Sure. Was it not the most elegant thing in the world? Maybe. What can you do?

You began to chop the kimchi.

Yoongi turned over on the couch, groaning. He heard the sizzle of the pan. Smelled spice. Eggs. The world was unfamiliar. No one was yelling at him to get up. No one was doing the blankets off of him and calling him a lazy pig.

"Motherfuc–!"

A female voice cursed in a loud whisper. You cut yourself off, muttering.

"Stupid oil, ugh."

Not his girlfriend.

Slowly, Yoongi pulled the blankets off his head. An unfamiliar scent, different laundry detergent than he was used to. The sofa smelled different too, like vanilla with a hint of stale popcorn. Probably from being dropped in the cushions and forgotten about until months later.

His stomach growled.

The smell of the food enticed him. He got up, seeing you at the stove, wearing black pajamas with the sleeves rolled to your elbows, and a cream scrunchie holding your hair up. You made a face at the pan and scolded it.

"Who's the boss here?" you hissed hotly at the sizzling food. "That's right, me, because I'm about to eat your ass, so simmer down and stop trying to singe my arm hair off."

Yoongi blinked.

He got off the couch as you continued your quiet tirade, shoving your hand into a bag of cheese and sprinkling it on top, laying down a generous layer.

You should cover it, Yoongi thought. To let the cheese melt.

You grabbed a pan lid, and covered it. The lid definitely went to a separate set because it was a different shade of silver, but it didn't matter. You mumbled triumphantly at the pan.

"Ha, take that, you stupid eggs, who's in the hot seat now, eh?"

Yoongi stared.

You lifted the lid and checked the cheese. A billow of smoke floated out. You seemed satisfied and turned off the gas. Lifted the pan and spun around.

Froze.

Yoongi blinked at you.

Your eyes were wide, still holding the hot pan.

Silence.

A good ten seconds past.

You slowly put the pan on the cork potholders at the counter. Two plates were at the counter with two sets of chopsticks.

"Uh... I made a kimchi-egg pancake t-thing..." you stuttered. "With cheese on top. You don't have to eat it. But I'm not going to poison you or anything. Er, well, that's something a someone who would poison you would say, huh? Oh, maybe I should have checked the expiration date on the kimc–"

"Why do you talk to your food?" Yoongi asked pointedly.

You turned bright red.

"Um... bad habit. 'Cause I live alone..." You shifted your eyes. "No one... to talk to."

Yoongi stared at you.

You turned around abruptly and grabbed a knife. Took off the pan lid. The kitchen was suddenly filled with the delicious smell of eggs and kimchi. The cheese bubbled as you cut it into pizza-like slices.

Yoongi sat down at the barstool, staring at it. He was the one who usually cooked. He hadn't had a home-cooked meal by someone else in forever. Not since he lived with his parents.

That was a long time ago.

"I seasoned the eggs beforehand and poured it on the sautéed kimchi..." You placed a plate with a pair of chopsticks in front of him, ears still red. You avoided looking him in the eye, scratching your cheek. "I, uh, have to go grocery shopping," you mumbled, taking a slice. "Sorry it's not that fancy..."

Yoongi picked up the chopsticks and took a slice. He blew in it carefully and took a small bite. Spicy, savory, delicious. He took another bite. And another. The food was hot, almost burning the roof of his mouth. This must be a dream. He wasn't in his nightmare. He wasn't going to question it.

As long as he wasn't in his nightmare, he could pretend this was reality.

Yoongi didn't notice you watching him with relief.

He took another slice. The meal was quiet, but not suffocatingly so. It was calm, only interrupted by chewing. You reached into the cabinet below you and produced a water bottle. Put it next to him. Didn't say anything. Yoongi are three more slices, throat prickling with the spice, lips puffy, before he opened the water bottle and drank from it.

"If you want, I can direct you to a shelter."

Yoongi put the water bottle down. Stared at his stained, now empty plate.

"Or you can call a friend to shelter you," you continued. "You can even get a restraining order if we involve the police–"

"No."

He said the word with harsh finality.

"It's not that bad."

It wasn't. He was just being a child, running away.

"... Okay."

Yoongi looked up. For a split second, there was immense pain in your eyes. Why? None of this was happening to you. You didn't know anything. You were just some stranger. Why was he even here? Why had he come here to sleep on some random couch? So dumb. Some random woman couldn't save him from his problems.

... Your kids will spend years in fucking therapy wondering why they don’t understand how to make relationships with other human beings because their mom was a terrible fucking example...

Yoongi stilled as he remembered your words from last night. That was far too specific. His brows furrowed. You let out a sigh and took his plate.

"Do you want a shower?" you asked. "I have spare towels."

Yoongi tilted his head. "I don't have a change of clothes." He stared at the hardwood floor. "And my other clothes are probably burned by now."

You placed the dishes in the sink and began to wash them.

"We can go buy some. I need groceries anyway."

He didn't understand why you were being so nice to him. It was strange. You didn't know him. Well, actually... he didn't even know your name either.

"Uh..."

You looked up from the dishes, hands covered in soap. Yoongi did all the dishes at home. He did all the housework, in fact. This was weird, watching another person do housework. His voice was quiet, timid, crumpled like a piece of paper.

"What's your name?"

"Do you want white or black?"

You held up two multi-packs of t-shirts in his size.

"Uh... Black."

You dumped the black in the cart and put the other back. Yoongi stayed behind you, not picking out anything. You were wearing your backpack, a black cap, red wide-knit sweater, and black jeans. Black combat boots, the familiar staple for you. The two of you are standing in an aisle at the local convenience store. Yoongi was still wearing the same clothes from last night – black parka, black turtleneck, black jeans, black face mask.

He mostly stared at the floor, following your boots.

"White or black?"

Yoongi looked up to see you on the other side of the cart, holding two multi-packs of underwear. White briefs and black boxer briefs. He felt his cheeks heat up as you blinked at him. Instead of speaking, he grabbed the black boxer briefs from your hand, intending to chuck them into the cart.

Except his jacket sleeve caught a strand of your red sweater, the Velcro sticking to and unraveling it, so that when he twisted his hand to throw the plastic pack into the cart, the yarn tangled around his fingers and got caught, rapidly getting pulled around. Your eyes widened, gasping as the red string was yanked from your sweater.

"O-oh!"

"Fuck!"

His hand was tangled in it and the part around your wrist tightened, the missing yarn causing the constriction. Yoongi cursed again, trying to shake free, panic rising. Oh no, fuck, what if you got angry? What if you started yelling at–?

You laughed.

You started laughing. Yoongi froze, slowly lifting his head to witness your laughter. Your shoulders shook, shaking your head, big smile on your face. The yarn hung in the air, shaking a little.

The red string connecting you to him.

Yoongi stared.

At you.

His heart thudded in his chest.

Thump.

"Hold on," you chortled, reaching over and following the red yarn.

Thump.

His heart was like a bass drum. Consistent and loud, rhythm in his own ears. You untangled the mess slowly, carefully, wrapping the exposed end loosely around your wrist. Finally, it was off his fingers. Your fingers were centimeters from the back of his hand. You grasped the red yarn tightly. Yoongi looked at the end, trapped in the Velcro of his parka.

Thump.

A fleeting feeling.

Happiness.

You ripped the red yarn off, the end frizzy and scraggly.

Another fluttering feeling.

Sadness.

You backed up, going back to the cart, tucking the end in next to your wrist, all chuckles. Thump, thump, thump. He couldn't breathe. It was impossible. What was going on? Why did he suddenly start shaking all over?

"I'm sorry," he blurted, breathless in panic.

You shook your head, waving a hand.

"Don't worry about it. This thing is old anyway." You pointed to the rack. "Is four enough? Or do you need more?"

"U-uh..."

"Let's get one more. I can always return it if you change your mind."

"Do you have a job to go to? Because I have to go soon," you were saying as you shoved the groceries into the fridge. Yoongi was unwrapping the plastic and cutting off the tags from the few clothing items you two had bought.

"Um... yeah, I work at a music studio..." Yoongi mumbled. "I make my own hours."

"And it ends right before the last train, right?" you affirmed, nearly dropping the green onions and making a mad dash for them before they touched the ground. Whew. You shoved them back in your fridge. You didn’t really have an organization system. You probably should. Being an adult was hard.

"... Yeah."

"Cool, you should take a shower now then. I'll get a towel, hold on!"

You scrambled out of the kitchen to find a towel in the linen closet, the fridge door still open.

"... Alright..."

Pause.

Fast forward.

Yoongi spent the entire train ride tense. You sat in your usual spot, humming along, bobbing your head to your music in your earbuds. Neither of you attempted to sit next to the other. Yoongi fully expected his girlfriend to be there as he stepped out of the train, at the last stop. He thought he was going to get yelled at once again. He thought she would be there to smack him upside the head again. He braced himself as the doors opened, exhaling deeply as he walked out of the sliding doors.

"Ugh, I need some energy," you mumbled behind him, yawning.

No one was there.

The bright streetlamps only illuminated the concrete.

"Hey, Yoongi."

He turned his head to see you tilting yours.

"You coming?"

You bounced on your heels. He remembered your usual routine.

"Wanna race?" you asked with a big grin.

Morning. Night. Morning. Night.

Empty station at the last stop. No one but you and him getting off.

Morning. Night.

"Hey, Yoongi."

Morning.

"You coming?"

Night.

“Wanna race?”

Repeat.

The cassette tape replayed over and over, flipped around in the stereo, day in, day out, stuck on replay, a weird reality that wasn't his until it became his, seeing your face when he woke up, watching you cook breakfast in the morning, chastising inanimate objects when you thought he wasn't looking.

Your lips asking him once again.

"You coming?"

Then you and him, breaking out into a run, racing to your apartment.

At first, Yoongi didn't smile.

Then one day, he did.

And he kept smiling, smiling as he ran breathlessly with you.

"What are you doing?"

You froze.

Literally one second before you heard those words, you had been wiggling your arms like an octopus in front on your full-length mirror, flapping the long sleeves of your over-sized blue sweatshirt, your billowy knee-length gray shorts following suit. You reached up to your Bluetooth headphones to take them off.

And realized, with heated cheeks, that the music was not coming from your headphones, but the Bluetooth speakers on your desk, blaring the odd twangs of guitar and quirky drum beats, paired with whiny, almost nonsensical lyrics.

You turned around.

Yoongi stood at the entrance of your bedroom door, staring. He was wearing a black t-shirt. Black sweatpants that were slightly too short, exposing his pale ankles.

The song went into the guitar solo.

He blinked at you.

"Uh... dancing?"

Blink.

Normally after work, Yoongi would either be asleep or watching television in your living room. You told him cable came with the apartment and you never watched TV, so he should at least watch some in your stead. You usually went to your room. The first couple nights, you only danced in your chair. Then you got up and danced next to your desk, and then you were back to your wacky mirror dancing, thinking that if it was though headphones, then Yoongi wouldn't notice.

But, of course, you had disturbed him with your music blasting through the speakers, which had never been disconnected all this time because, well, how were you supposed to know? They must have connected because your over-ear headphones died.

"That was dancing?" Yoongi echoed.

Your eyes shifted. "Er... it's stress relieving?"

Yoongi stared at you.

Blink.

The song changed. One of your favorites.

Your shoulders began to bounce. Your head tapped to the beat. Then your heel.

Blink.

"Are you possessed?" Yoongi asked with a deadpan look.

The tune was getting to the good bit with the xylophone. Fuck it. He had already seen you octopus it up. You began to bob your head from side to side, breaking out to a big grin, shooting him some finger guns before going back to your full-body jiggle and arm flapping, singing along on the top of your lungs, prancing around your room, Yoongi staring at you the entire time in mild shock. He probably thought you were psychotic, but who cared, because you were clapping along to the snare drum, skipping in circles, pointing at him at certain parts in the lyrics and playing air guitar.

His normally downcast cat-like eyes were huge.

You grabbed his hands at the guitar solo and he yelped, his arms rippling as you swung them around, you stumbling through the lyrics, singing the absurd words, and Yoongi gawking wide-eyed.

The song went to the final chorus and you wiggled like a fucking squid.

Only to see Yoongi burst out laughing and wiggle his arms with you, tiny wiggles compared to your full-blown tentacle swings, but it made you laugh too, because it was all stupid and ridiculous and very embarrassing.

With a start, you realized you had seen Yoongi laugh.

And he looked so wonderful laughing, perfect teeth and pink gums, huge smile and scrunched-up face, black hair falling back from the strength of his chuckling, revealing his lovely fair-skinned features and those cat-like eyes sparkling.

Sparkling with brightness.

The song ended and you were panting breathlessly.

Yoongi raised his eyebrows in disbelief, half-smirk on his lips.

"Your music taste is nuts."

You smiled as the next song started.

"Nah, this is just my nighttime dance party music. It's supposed to be crazy."

You flapped your sleeves to the beat of the drum. Grinned at him.

"Because every night should be a dance party."

And you started dancing again, Yoongi watching you and laughing, even joining in sometimes.

From then on, every night was a dance party. At one point, Yoongi started to bring you songs and weird beats he discovered for you to dance to. He even said a few times, "Hey, I made this. Can you make a dance from it?"

You'd dance to anything.

You weren't great at it.

But it was always hilarious.

And it was always worth it, watching Yoongi laugh all night.

Pause.

Fast forward.

Wait. Are you sure?

You can always rewind.

You don't have to press play.

Pause.

Play.

“Do you like rap?”

You were sitting next to Min Yoongi on the night train. There were still people around, not yet the last stop. He was clutching his phone, face mask on his chin. He looked a little nervous.

“Yeah, of course. I like all music,” you said cheerfully. “Something you want me to dance to?”

Yoongi chuckled a little, giving you that little half-smirk. “No.” He took a deep breath. “I’m a… music producer. And I… I make music. And I wondered if you wanted to listen to a little bit my mixtape.”

“I do.”

Yoongi looked taken aback. You grinned.

“I definitely want to listen to it.”

You connected your earbuds to his phone and listened carefully. His words, his beat, his rhythm. Yoongi sat beside you, wrapped in his black parka, looking nervous as he chewed on his lip, but you didn’t notice, bobbing your head to certain bits, mouthing the chorus, raising your eyebrows as he altered the framework of a traditional song. He had only five tracks on the playlist, but you listened to them all, holding his phone. When the playlist ended, you clicked back to your favorite parts and replayed them, over and over, listening to his strong, raspy voice.

Yoongi sounded confident when he was rapping.

Like he was meant to do it, perfectly expressing himself with his simple words and elegant phrasing, his anger, his sorrow, his hopes. You could tell there was an underlying theme, an uncertainty about the future. As if he was taking steps to an invisible, unlit path, and he wasn’t sure whether to run forward without a guiding light or go back to all he knew.

You handed him back his phone with a smile. You understood him a little better now.

“Well?” he asked, still biting his lip.

“I really like it,” you said. “Especially your vocals. It’s different from other voices I’ve heard.”

“… It’s not that–”

“And I like your lyrics. They’re simple, but they pack a punch and make you think.” You smiled widely. “I like music that makes me want to listen to it over and over again. That’s how your rap makes me feel.”

Yoongi looked stunned.

You pointed to his phone. “You could release it just like this, if you wanted.” You tilted your head. “Hm, maybe a few more songs though. It seems like you’re trying to tell a story.”

He blinked rapidly, putting his phone in his pocket. “Y-Yeah… I’m working on a few more that I want to add.”

You nodded. “That’d be awesome.”

The train screeched to a halt. There was no one in the car. That was your cue. You stood, stretching first and then shouldering your backpack. Yoongi stood as well, pensive and silent. The train doors slid open. He walked out first and you followed. Streetlights harsh and bright on the concrete. Yoongi did his usual routine of looking to the edge of the train station.

Both of you froze.

“Get the fuck over here, Yoongi.”

You recognized her. She might be wearing a different dress and a different coat, but it was the same woman all right, with the same harsh scowl.

“I knew you wouldn’t be a man and face the music. Instead, you went off prancing with some whore.”

“She’s not a whore,” Yoongi muttered, pulling up his face mask.

You didn’t say anything. There was a sudden pressure on your chest, an overwhelming, tense heaviness, because you knew what was coming.

“Are you telling me that you’re not going to come home to the woman you supposedly love, the one you were supposedly going to marry and give a comfortable life to?” the woman accused. “Are you telling me that you can’t take responsibility for your actions? That you’re not a man, but a child?”

Yoongi took a step towards her.

The weight in your chest felt like a ton of bricks crushing you.

Another step.

“Yoongi.”

He turned his head, dark brown eyes flickering to you.

You smiled.

Smiled even though the moment was killing you.

“I… I have to finish this,” he mumbled, the sparkle in his eyes dulling with every passing second.

You kept the bright smile on your face.

Like a cheerful-sounding song with sad lyrics.

“Okay.”

Pause.

You wanted to rewind. You wanted to rewind so bad, even if it was only to ten minutes before this painful moment. With a shaking hand, you pressed play.

“My door is always open for you, Yoongi.”

He made eye contact with you. He nodded.

“Goodbye.”

You turned and ran.

Ran and ran, hoping he was running after you, but you knew he wasn’t, you knew he was walking towards that toxic woman and you could do nothing about it, you couldn’t care, you just had to keep running, running and running until you hit your front door, fumbling with your keys and running inside, slamming the door closed.

You froze.

You wanted to scream.

Instead, you ran to your room and threw up a specific playlist, a playlist full of cheerful-sounding songs with agonizing lyrics, hopeful beats tainted by upsetting words, and danced the night away, danced and danced. Not wanting to think about the blankets on the couch, the suitcase you had dragged out to let Yoongi borrow and put his clothes in, not wanting to think about his toothbrush on your bathroom sink, not wanting to think about all those nights dancing stupidly in this bedroom with him, and focusing only on dancing alone, singing the night away, on and on and on until you couldn’t stand anymore, couldn’t sing anymore, and you just fell on your bed and passed out, completely drained.

Physically.

Emotionally.

Empty.

masterpost

#yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #yoongi fanfic #bts fanfic #bts series #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi x you

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galemalio · 4 years

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3 Examples of Racial Bias in Animation Storytelling

It’s not hard to grasp that a white person, while not explicitly or consciously racist in the sense we might usually imagine, is still inherently racially biased because they benefit from and grow up used to white supremacy.” - Scottishwobbly, Tumblr

This is nothing new. This is something POC (People of Color) have been talking about in separate fandoms. Nevertheless, it needs to be acknowledged by those unaware.

This article is not made to say that some of the animations that I will use as examples are bad. But in the hopes that we, as consumers and creators, will do better in the future in handling characters that are POC.

Most often, racial bias in storytelling is when the narrative treats white or light skin toned characters better than darker skin toned characters. The darker skin toned characters are often POC-coded or actual POC.

White creators often do not notice their racial bias in their storytelling as they benefit from and grow up with white privileges and white supremacy. This can also apply to light-skinned POC who have light skin priviliges.

Some of us don’t often see it but real people who relate to the characters of color do. Especially when it reflects from their experiences with racial bias, microaggressions, colorism and flat out racism.

So when they speak up, it’s important to listen to them to unlearn the racial bias we may have in ourselves.

I will be emphasizing “the narrative” for I am criticizing how the story treats its dark-skinned characters and not because I am criticizing the characters themselves.

This article is critiqued by @visibilityofcolor as a sensitivity reader once and then additions were made before publishing. If you’re looking for a Black sensitivity reader, you can contact her.

This article is a 14-minute read at average speed so buckle up. Unless you want to skip to your show mentioned below. External Tumblr Resources will be put in the reblog.

Here are three examples that I was made aware of.

Example #1: The Narrative Treats the Light-Skinned Character at the Expense of the Dark-Skinned Character

Steven Universe was one of the animations that pushed lgbt+ representation in cartoon media. However, there are narratives here and there that showed racial bias.

SU creator Rebecca Sugar was raised with "Jewish sensibilities" and both siblings observe the lighting of Hanukkah candles with their parents through Skype.[1] Rebecca Sugar also talked about being non-binary.[2]

But as a white person, she (and the rest of the SU crew) is not aware of the inherently biased values from growing up and benefiting from white privilege.

One example is the human zoo. There are people that have spoken up about this such as @jellyfax of Tumblr who pointed out that the Crewniverse mishandled a loaded topic and reinforced a white colonist propaganda where the captive humans of mostly black/brown people are naive, docile and childlike in order to subjugate the people that they colonized. .

What I’m here is how a character of color from the main cast is more obligated to the lighter-skinned character.

In the episode, Friend Ship, one fan had spoken out about how Garnet, who had been validly angry at Pearl, was compelled by a dangerous situation to forgive Pearl. Garnet is a Black-coded character. While Pearl is a light-skinned character.

Garnet was mad at Pearl for tricking her into always fusing with her. Then they were trapped in a chamber that was going to crush them. In this situation, they have to fuse in order to save themselves but Garnet refuses to because she was still angry at her.

In the end, they were forced to talk it out, for Garnet to understand Pearl’s reason for wanting to fuse with her and everything worked out well.

The narrative focused so much on Pearl’s self-worth issues at the expense of Garnet’s right to be angry.

Yes, it showed that Pearl is trying her best to make up for it but Garnet should have been allowed to work at her own anger at her own pace instead of being obligated to consider Pearl’s feelings over her own.

I wouldn’t have noticed it until someone had mentioned it. Because it was never my experience.

But it’s there, continuing the message that it’s okay to put the emotional labor on Black people and disregard their own feelings for the sake of the non-Black people who have hurt them -particularly light-skinned women.

White Fragility and Being Silenced White Woman Tears

Again, racial bias in animation storytelling is often not intentional because white creators do not experience it due to white privilege.

Without meaning to, that scene alone shows Garnet as the Angry Black woman trope that is ungrateful and rude to Pearl who then ends up in tears. Without meaning to, Pearl with her light skin, became the tearful white girl trope that had to be sympathized over.

The Angry Black Woman trope is a combination of the worst negative stereotypes of a Black woman: overly aggressive, domineering, emasculating, loud, disagreeable and uppity.[13]

The Tearful white girl trope comes from the combination of the stereotypes of white women being morally upstanding and delicate and therefore should be protected.[13]

Which, unfortunately, many white women have taken advantage of.

These two tropes are harmful to WOC (Women of Color) because they experience the "weary weaponizing of white women's tears". This tactic employed by many white women incites sympathy and avoids accountability for their actions, turning the tables to their accuser and forcing their accuser to understand them instead.

(Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay)

In "Weapon of lass destruction: The tears of a white woman", Author Shay described that white tears turns a white woman into the priority of whatever space she's in. "It doesn't matter if you're right, once her tears are activated, you cease to exist." [11]

White woman tears have gotten Black people beaten and lynched such as Emmett Till. Carolyn Bryant who had accused 14 year old Emmett Till of sexually harassing her in 1955, admitted she lied about those claims years later in 2007.[15]

In Awesomely Luvvie's "About the Weary Weaponizing of White Women Tears", she states that the innocent white woman is a caricature many subconsciously embrace because it hides them from consequences. [10]

In The Guardian’s article, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour", Ruby Hamad shares her experience:

"Often, when I have attempted to speak to or confront a white woman about something she has said or done that has impacted me adversely, I am met with tearful denials and indignant accusations that I am hurting her. My confidence diminished and second-guessing myself, I either flare up in frustration at not being heard (which only seems to prove her point) or I back down immediately, apologising and consoling the very person causing me harm."[4]

This is not to say that all crying white women are insincere. But as activist Rachel Cargle said:

“I refuse to listen to white women cry about something. When women have come up to me crying, I say, ‘Let me know when you feel a little better, then maybe we can talk.’”[3]

One of the most quoted words in “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.” is this:

“It is white people’s responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.”[3]

When white women cry in defense, instead of taking accountability, People of Color are then gaslighted into thinking they’re the bad guy. This is emotional abuse and a manipulation tactic.

People of Color shouldn’t have to bend backwards to accommodate discomfited white or light-skinned people who have hurt them.

How She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (SPOP) Did It Right

Despite SPOP having good lgbtq+ representations, there are other biases in the show. Such as Mara, a WOC whose only purpose was to sacrifice herself for the white protagonist. There was also the insensitive joke in their stream regarding Bow’s sibling that perpetuated an Anti-Black stereotype which Noelle Stevenson has apologized for.[14]

But the scene I have encountered where the Black character was validly angry and his feelings were treated well by the narrative, came from SPOP.

Bow, a black character, was validly angry at Glimmer, a lighter skinned character. Glimmer made a lot of bad decisions, one of them was using Adora and their friends as bait, without their knowledge, to lure out and capture Catra.

Glimmer tearfully apologized in Season 5, Episode 4. Adora readily forgave her. But Bow didn't.

They faced dangers along the way but the story didn't put them in a dangerous situation where Bow has to forgive Glimmer in order to get out of it.

This was Glimmer's words of apology:

"Look, I know you're still mad at me. Maybe you'll be mad at me for a really long time. I deserved it. And maybe... maybe we'll never be friends like we used to be. But I'm not going to stop trying to make it better. I made a mistake with the heart of Etheria. I should've listened to you and I'm sorry. You get to be mad. For as long as you need to be. But I'm not going anywhere. And when you're ready, I'll be here."

In short, Bow was allowed to take the time to be mad and not just get over it for someone else’s sake. The story validates his feelings and he was allowed to take his own pace. That is emotional respect the story gave to him.

Example #2: The Narrative Gives Better Endings or Portrayals to Colonizers than Their Victims

Avatar: The Last Airbender has handled dark themes well such as genocide, war, PTSD, disability and redemption with great worldbuilding.

However, I never noticed the racial bias in ATLA until people spoke up of the double standards in ATLA’s treatment of light-skinned colonizers compared to their dark-skinned victims-turned-villains.

The characters in question -Iroh, Azula, Jet and Hama- are all flawed and well-rounded in a believable way. But how the narrative treats them is unequal.

General Iroh is an ex-colonizer who gets to redeem himself and not answer for his past war crimes, living a peaceful life as a tea shop owner. The only reason Iroh changed was when he was personally affected by the negativity of their military subjugation -his son’s death. It wasn’t the harm of the Fire nation ravaging Earth kingdom villages or cities and affecting millions of people that opened his eyes.

Azula, the tyrannical daughter, had closure of her mother's rejection when she was a child and was able to escape imprisonment.

Jet and Hama, victims of colonization who have done bad things, did not get similar conclusions to their stories OR compensation for what they have gone through from the Fire Nation's colonization.

Jet was given a second chance but was arrested for trying to expose Zuko and Iroh being firebenders -firebenders who were their enemies for conquering their villages. Then he died from the injuries of the person who had brainwashed and mind-controlled him.

Hama was imprisoned for life.

Compared to the sins of the light-skinned colonizers, the narrative didn’t give Jet and Hama the development where they could heal from their trauma, receive compensation for what happened to them and really have a chance in life.

The dark-skinned victims of colonization just became a lesson to the viewers how they shouldn’t hold grudges for being colonized. The end. They have received consequences for their actions but there is no continuation to their stories after that.

It almost seems like the narrative is saying that because they have harmed colonizers who have no part in their trauma (and in Jet’s case, some Earth kingdom villagers), they are therefore unworthy to be given an actual chance in life.

While Azula and Iroh, who have actively participated in conquering, colonizing and attacking the Earth Kingdom itself, were.

Someone once said that if indigenous people have control over Hama’s story, it would have been done differently. But the ATLA crew are white, non-indigenous people who prioritized redeeming colonizers instead.

The narrative has also affected how the ATLA fandom thinks. If most fans are asked who they would want to be redeemed, the popular option would be Azula over Jet or Hama.

Once again, I don’t think the ATLA crew noticed it due to their racial bias. But still, the harm is done and the racially biased message is continued:

The colonizers and their descendants don’t have to make amends for the colonizers’ crimes. Or if they do, only lightly since it’s in the past (no matter how recent that past is).

The colonized who rebel will tend to hurt innocent people and then get a grisly end for getting in way over their heads.

I would venture as far as to say that the narrative may have the added subconscious desire to quiet their white anxiety on the vengeance of the colonized. As I have learned when writing about Vodou stereotypes and how they have stemmed from the history of white anxiety of Black vengeance, of Black fetishization and of dissolution of the white race through intermarriages.

In @visibilityofcolor’s blog, someone asked:

“So I saw some of the really heated debates on here and on twitter about how if Iroh and Azula can be portrayed sympathetically despite their actions then characters like Jet and Hama should've been given a chance too. Do you think that the writers understood the implications of only redeeming characters from the colonizer/fascist nation but not giving the characters who suffered because of their fascism a second chance too?”

To which VisibilityOfColor replied:

“No, because at the end of the day, the writers are white. When it comes to stuff like this, it’s no surprise when we see white writers redeem problematic characters before they actually redeem victims of those racist problematic characters. For instance, Dave Filioni, who worked on both avatar and star wars rebels, did the same thing when redeeming agent kallus who was an soldiers in the imperial army and took credit for a genocide. where as victims of the empire were still painted in negative lights. i really don’t think they understand.

They have this ‘be the better person’ view on things, which is what a lot of white people tend to emulate when it comes to people of color standing up to their oppressors. and unfortunately, these are ideas passed on to children, esp minorities. that they should forgive people and communities who hurt them and ‘be the better person’. this is why white ppl don’t need to write narratives for people of color.”

Example #3: The Narrative Favors the Light Skinned Character Than Dark Skinned Character in Similar Situations

I would like to reiterate that racial bias in storytelling is often not intentional. I am not saying the creators and the people who support them are bad people. No.

However, I encourage that once a racial bias is made known in our work, it is our responsibility to change them to stop the perpetuation of its harmful message.

Hazbin Hotel is a popular cartoon with whimsical designs and its concept opens the conversation about redemption. The creator, Vivziepop may not have noticed the racial bias in her cartoon as a white Latina [5] that grew up with and benefits from white privileges, along with the Hazbin crew.

In the Youtbe video, "Hazbin Hotel - How Art took over Writing", Staxlotl states:

“I understand that there was a lot of time and effort put into this pilot, almost three years worth of effort. But I think most of that time was spent into the art and visuals when it should’ve gone into polishing the writing in the characters.”[6]

Once again, I’m not here to critique the characters but how the narrative treats its dark-skinned characters.

The story treats Charlie, the white-skinned, “Disney-esque” protagonist princess differently from how it treats Vaggie, the dark-skinned, more outspoken and protective Latina girlfriend of Charlie who supports the princess’ cause.

In its pilot episode, both girls experience humiliation. While Charlie is portrayed by the story as someone the viewers have to feel sorry for...

...Vaggie is portrayed in her humiliation as the butt of the joke for the viewers.

While they both didn’t like what Angel Dust did, Charlie was sympathized over in the narrative as a moment...

...while Vaggie’s angry but valid callouts were dismissed and ignored as part of the comedy.

While Charlie was someone that needs to be protected in the narrative...

...Vaggie is left to fend for herself.

Again, I don’t think the creators noticed the racial bias of their cartoon. However, this racial bias is reflected in the harmful perceptions that dark-skinned women, particularly Black women and Black girls, are more mature, tougher and need less protection at a young age.[7]

This adultification bias perceives them as challenging authority when they express strong or contrary views and are then given harsher discipline than white girls who misbehave.[8] And this continues when they grow up.

In a 2017 study, Black women and girls aged 12-60 years old confirmed they are treated harsher by their white peers and are accused of being aggressive when they would defend themselves or explain their point of view to authority figures.[8]

This bias also coincides with the Spicy Latina trope of a brown-skinned, hot-blooded, quick-tempered and passionate woman.

Everyday Feminism described this trope as "Although objects of desire for many, the spicy Latina may have too much personality to handle. So much so that she is often viewed as domineering or emasculating." [16]

Sounds familiar? (Look at Angry Black Woman trope above.)

Why is it that a light-skinned character, Charlie, is allowed to be vulnerable and be sympathized while the dark-skinned Latina character, Vaggie, is mocked, dismissed and expected to tough it out?

Severina Ware had to remind the world in her article that relates to the bias against dark skinned characters:

“Black women are not offered the protection and gentleness of our white counterparts. We are not given permission to be soft and delicate. We are required to exhibit strength and fortitude not only because our lives depend on it, but because so many others depend on us. Black women should not be charged with the responsibility of saving everyone when nobody is here to save us.”[12]

As @cullenvhenan of Tumblr has said in her post:

“if you're a white creator and your brown/black characters are always sassy, reckless, aggressive or cold and your white characters are always soft, demure, shy and introverted you should think about maybe why you did that”

(Image above from Iowa Law Reviews’ “Aggressive Encounters & White Fragility: Deconstructing the Trope of the Angry Black Woman”)

Detecting Your Own Racial Bias

It would be hard. No matter how much you edit and create, you may miss it because it was never your experience.

So how do we prevent our racial bias from creeping into our creations?

Listen to POC and their feedback.

As @charishjb from Instagram has shared, here is one of the things that we can do (tumblr link here) [9]:

Consider POC voices. Listen to their experiences. Hire sensitivity POC readers. Put multiple POC voices in positions of leadership in creative projects.

Then we can stop the racial bias that perpetuates again and again in the media. I hope for that future.

#racial bias #racism #colorism #animation #steven universe #su #pearl #garnet #atla #azula #general iroh #jet #hama #hazbin hotel #hazbin vaggie #lynching mention #lynching tw #writeblr #artblr

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haikyuuwaifu · 4 years

Text

MASTER LIST

This is a collective Masterlist of ALL my CURRENT Works:

*👻🎃HALLOWEEN SPECIAL MINI-SMAU*

BARISTA BEAUTY: KATSUKI X READER

How do two strangers who seemingly spend ZERO time together end up with their true Happily Ever After? Through anonymous texting or nosy best friends that don’t know how to mind their own business?

STRANGER DANGER: BOKUTO X READER

Join Bokuto as he tries harder NOT to fall in love with the mysterious Y/N forgetting about the competition entirely. And join Y/N as she finds herself falling for the most genuine idiot she’s ever met.

SMAU: BNHA & HAIKYUU

BNHA

Dynamite:

At 23 with a solo career going nowhere, Katsuki’s management group Endeavor wants to put together a rival idol group known as Ground Zero consisting of his old groupmates minus the two traitors and a few new additions in the forms of Hitoshi Shinsou, Keigo Takami, and Toya Todoroki (A.k.a Dabi). Their manager Shigaraki thinks this combination of men has what it takes to be better than DK, but Shinsou knows they won’t be able to do it without Y/N.

Y/N is one of the most sought after designers in the business. Pushing her love of music aside she pushed her creativity into a different wheelhouse. With lots of begging and pleading from childhood friends Hitoshi and Jirou, Y/N is hired on to help “re-brand” Ground Zero.

Does Ground Zero stand a chance against the formidable and VERY popular DK? Or will someone come along to show Katsuki a whole new sound?

Will Y/N forever hate idols and pop beats, or will one angry gremlin show here that there’s more to him than the Idol stereotype?

GIRLS NEED LOVE: BAKUGO X DABI X SHINSOU X READER

At the age of 18, Y/N L/N followed her boyfriend out of their small town of Shirakawa, only to find herself ditched and abandoned in the streets of Mustafu. Broke and Alone, she managed to find a place that would take her in. 3 years later found Y/N, L/N working as the best dancer in the Diamond Client Agency; an elite corporation of clubs strictly for the Hero Elite. Her evening activities consisted of dancing and stripping for heroes and the rich elite. Her day hours consisted of her working on her writing. She wrote articles for the local papers. She had always wanted to write her own stories; since her dream of being a hero was never allowed to come to fruition.

By day, they were Pro Heros: Ground Zero, Mind Jack, and Touya. They had spent the last 5 years in a relationship with the woman they thought they’d spend forever with. Too bad she was only with them to boost up her own ranking. Following the heartbreak the three of them decided they didn’t need anything serious. They didn’t plan for anything serious when they saw her dancing, at a Diamond event. They didn’t plan for anything serious when the event was attacked. But love happens unexpectedly doesn’t it? Especially when love comes in the form of a woman fully encased in Magma.

ROCKABYE: BAKUGO X READER X SHINSOU

How does a single mom who has worked for everything, handle becoming the center of attention for two stubborn business men who only want to give her the world? How do two business men with checkered pasts handle a woman who has a history of her own?

This is Rockabye <3

TRIP: HAWKS X READER X BAKUGO X SHOTO X SHINSOU POLY

Keigo Takami is the owner and operator of Commission Tattoos, one of the hottest shops in the city. Out of nowhere a new shop has opened conveniently enough across the street and he and his boys can’t seem to stand the competition.

Y/N Midoriya ,Tattooist from the small city of Mustafu, has moved her entire life to Tokyo with her friends. Opening Midi’s Tattoos & Piercings seems like a good first step in a big flourishing city like Tokyo. Throw in the sexy competition across the way and you’ve got yourself a party!

Follow Y/N as she tries to navigate her way through big city life, boujie Tokyo city girls, and four men who don’t know how to handle a woman like her. Follow the employees of Midi’s and Commission as they try to maneuver sad single life, chaotic lesbianism, and their bosses aggressively hate flirting all under the sprawling Tokyo skylights.

WHAT YOU KNOW BOUT LOVE BAKUGO X READER X SHOTO POLY

Y/N L/N has been Katsuki’s best friend their entire lives. Izuku Midoriya found the nerve to confess to her in high school, and Katsuki stepped aside just so his best girl could be happy. Moving to the US for a one in a million opportunity; Y/N’s relationship flourished as Katsuki’s career blew up.

Years later finds Y/N dumping her trash ex Deku, and Katsuki moving the Agency he created back to Japan, so he and Shoto can finally get the fucking girl. Too bad Y/N is clueless, and outside forces are doing all they can to keep them apart ;)

HAIKYUU

BAD BLOOD: READER X POLY RELATIONSHIP

Y/N, L/N had big dreams of being a content creator. Alongside her boyfriend they made their own channels and started thriving. Success breeds jealous and due to devastating betrayal Y/N shut down her channel, packed up her bags, and left Japan.

Now, 4 years later at the annoying insistence of her best friend, her cousin, and his annoying boyfriend; Y/N is moving back to Japan and into the ‘Kozume Hype House’. Living under the same roof as her besties boyfriend, her old childhood friend, a dumbass named Lev; and four of the hottest streamers in Japan is going to be a wild ride for Y/N.

Mix in Y/N’s ex, 4 men falling for her, and her no dating rule; and you’re in for a world of sweet chaotic drama.

BROKE ME FIRST: TSUKISHIMA X READER X IWAZUMI

You have known Tsukishima Kei your entire life. You went to the same schools all your life. Graduating middle school gave you the break you needed until you saw a familiar head of blonde hair on your first day at Kurasuno. You’ve spent every school year hating the others existence. What happens when you’re partnered together and have no choice but to cooperate for the sake of your graduation?

BOYS WITH LUV: F READER X ???

Y/N L/N is an athletic trainer recently moved back to Japan after spending 6 years in the U.S. As much as she loves her friends; what she can’t handle is their constant need to “find her a man”. Join Y/N as she navigates her way through dealing with ex-boyfriends, old crushes, and new found love interests; all while trying to navigate her life in Japan and finishing her athletic trainer qualifications.

Who’s ready for this fucking circus?

DADDY ISSUES: IWAZUMI X READER

Hajime Iwaizumi: Male Escort hired by skinny twig models for arm candy and a good fucking. This man can have any woman he wants, but he has specific rules for the women who hire him. No kissing on the lips. No catching Feelings. And No spending the night.

Y/N L/N: A model considered “Plus Size” because she doesn’t fit the alleged mold of Size 6 and below. A woman who is confident in herself and her body. She is a woman who proves every day that she doesn’t need a man by her side to get that money.

After Y/N is involved in a scandal surrounding her former FWB Tsukishima Kei, Iwaizumi Hajime begins to take notice of all things surrounding and pertaining to HER. Her work ethic, her confidence, her ability to push the haters off with a smile on her pretty face and a flutter of her eye lashes. She’s everything he’s ever wanted in a woman…

But can he show her that he’s everything she needs in a man? How can he prove he’s the man for her when she knows what he’s done to plenty of models who didn’t fit HER MOLD?

Guess you’ll just have to stick around and find out huh?;)

FEEL MY LOVE: KUROO X READER

Kuroo Tetsuro had never been very outgoing. He was shy and awkward for most of his life. The only time he seemed to be pulled out of his shell was when he was on the Volleyball Court. High School Volleyball had been the highlight of his life. Until he met Akane. Akane was everything to him. Pretty, Smart, Popular…He couldn’t believe a guy like him could land a girl like her…Until she humiliated him in front of every person in the school.

From that moment forward Kuroo kept to himself, sticking only to his closest friends. Head ducked down, he graduated high school and upon entering Tokyo University, he was determined to make things different…Until he was faced with his high school tormentors…he resigned to the fact that college would be just like high school…and then he met you.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S: SUNA X READER

Suna Rintaro was traded from the EJP Raijin, to the MSBY Black Jackals thanks to an incident involving [redacted]. He was pretty sure he was done with any dating after the shit he went through before. Atsumu and Bokuto had other plans, and decided that the perfect woman for him was only a few blocks away.

Y/N Kageyama has spent her entire life surrounded by volleyball. Her best friend growing up was Ushijima Wakatoshi; Her little Brother is Kageyama Tobio; and the idiots she babysits include the Seijoh three + Iwaizumi. It’s no wonder she’s interested in Volleyball Players…too bad Ushijima always manages to step in and send the wrong message huh?

GIRLS LIKE YOU: READER X OSAMU X KIYOOMI X BOKUTO X OIKAWA POLY

Y/N L/N: 24 year old single mother to twin four year old girls Mochi and Matcha. Advertisement Executive by day and super mama by night; Y/N has been raising her babies with the help of her friends alone for the last four years. As soon as she thinks she has things handled, she’s thrown for a loop when her twins attempt to play match maker four times over with the help of their uncles and aunties; unable to say no to their precious babies.

Follow the three L/N women as one mama learns that she doesn’t need to do it alone; and two girls learn what it really means to have a father...four fathers ;)

MISS INDEPENDENT: KENMA X OSAMU X SUNA X READER

3 of Tokyo elites most notorious playboys find themselves tiring of the same routine day in and day out. Each with their own stories of heartbreak. How does one step out of what they’ve been doing for what feels like forever? One woman, tired of celebrating milestones, and vacationing alone; ready to take that step again....

When you throw in a meddling best friend, an idiot twin, and a clusterfuck of idiot children; it can only result in one thing...complete and utter chaos, but will Y/N and the 3 playboys finally find happiness in that chaos?

Depends on if all the meddling is helpful or not ;) Stick around and find out yeah?

SMILE: OSAMU X READER

Y/N and Kuroo were together for three blissful years.The day of graduation she finds herself in tears as she listens to Kuroo tell her that the last three years were a waste of time. With a wave of his hand he walked away and out of her life. Moving to Miyagi she found a group of friends to support her and pick up the pieces. 3 years later Y/N finds herself at Tokyo University. As a new woman with a new attitude; will she run into Kuroo and the chaos he brings with him? Or will someone else come along and show her what love truly feels like?

WRITTEN WORKS:

BEFORE YOU GO

BROKEN PROMISE

DANCE WITH ME

FEEL SOMETHING

SELFISH

IT’S YOU

SAD SUNDAYS:

#haikyuu masterlist #bnha masterlist #smau masterlist #haikyuu smau masterlist #bnha smau masterlist

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whitetrashjj · 3 years

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most people that don’t like kie don’t like her because she

1. gets mad at JJ when he calls her out for being rich

2. prioritizes john b constantly because whatever feelings she has towards him gave her tunnel vision

3. tried to guilt-trip pope into missing his scholarship interview despite the fact that, like he said, she wasn’t there for any of them when big john went missing

4. talks about the gold, pope’s scholarship, and things that happen to the boys because of them living in the cut as if it’s okay to just toss them aside when it’s only okay to do that for her- seeing as she doesn’t need the money, and she doesn’t need a scholarship. the only thing that makes her a pogue is that she decided to hang out with them, which is fine but she can’t act like she goes through what people on the cut do seeing as she doesn’t actually live there or go to their school. these things are only expendable for her.

5. she tried to fight pope on the boat because he rightfully called her out on her “moral high ground bullshit”

6. she gives off performative activist. she’ll talk about saving the turtles but when jj is clearly hysterical or something with his buying a hot tub using his share, she says he could have “literally given it to any charity” as if he isn’t quite literally the charity… even without seeing the bruises it’s clear that jj is in an unstable environment with someone who doesn’t care about him and can’t support him financially.

7.she doesn’t sympathize with jj until after the jj/pope/kie hot tub group hug when she sees his bruises. she just ignores whatever he says when he mentions her financial privilege and insults him in a non-friendly way. (he insults her too obviously, but since the show never goes in depth to discuss kie’s struggles as a biracial girl or pope’s struggles as a black boy, it’s not something that jj can randomly sympathize with, seeing as it’s never brought to light. if it was brought up and jj were to react like she’s being annoying for pointing it out or pointing it out to spite him, i would have major problems with jj because acknowledging whatever privilege you have is important, especially when you’re with people that don’t have that privilege/when you’re someone whose character is supposed to be the activist type. and i’m not equating racial privilege to financial privilege, i’m just mentioning it because classism is pretty much the basis of the entire show and its plot.)

anyway… this is the reason i’ve seen most jjpopes dislike kie. mentioning the “kiara sucks” anon as if that is a blanket statement of all jjpopes is strange. we aren’t some raging misogynists out to get her, but you saying that pope is a very flawed character with no examples to back it up but also getting irritated when someone says kiara sucks with no examples to back it up is ridiculous. these are examples. since this is in response to your response to that ask, i’ll also add that while your experiences as a queer person are valid, they aren’t universal (“Any queer person knows that you can’t be as forthcoming and open about our affections as straight people are.”)

i get where you’re coming from with saying a regular character might not be outward about his feelings, but jj is not a regular character. jj is a nothing-to-lose kind of character, so your reasoning for why those many displays of affection throughout the show weren’t intended to be romantic just doesn’t really add up? of course he values pope’s friendship and wouldn’t want to risk it, but it’s also evident that he’s a very good liar and could easily say he was joking or wasn’t trying to seem like any of his actions were romantic, something you can also probably understand/have experienced as a queer person. your very statement that jj is someone who flirts with anyone is counterproductive to the statement that that means he doesn’t have feelings for pope. he flirts with every girl, but he can only form a lasting bond while also doing things you’d normally do with a crush, with pope. a lot of jjpopes including myself think he’s gay, and comphet/trying to prove to yourself that you’re straight by engaging in meaningless hookups (like jj) is reason for that headcanon. i get what you’re saying for other characters, but there’s no indication of jj not having that same nothing-to-lose attitude when it comes to people he has romantic feelings for, so there would be no reason for the pull-back or hesitation that you mentioned. and since he knows pope and his connection (whether it be platonic or romantic to both of them) is so strong, he probably assumes nothing could break that bond/dynamic either way.

also no one called you anti-black or implied that you were for saying pope is a flawed character, but it would be surprising to see one that isn’t rooted in that because all of them in the past have been- this fandom is wildly colorist and homophobic (another reason representation like jjpope is so important) and it’s extremely hard to find someone that doesn’t like pope without an explanation for their dislike that isn’t rooted in racism. that’s just common sense, though.

You know, I've been looking at this ask for a long time just wondering if it's worth my time to address all of this - like I didn't realise one could send asks this big. But I'm bored and got a beer in me so fuck it let's go.

So first let's talk about the reasons you hate Kie. I'm gonna admit that I to think she is flawed, like every other obx character, she is also a victim to bad writing and under developed. But also I just do not understand how people can hate her or insists that she is a bad person, don't get me wrong sometimes you just don't vibe with a character and there is nothing wrong with that but hating them and tearing them down is a very different thing.

Now I've said this before but let me reiterate. Not liking a character or ship or preferring one over the other does not automatically make you racist, misogynistic or homophobic. But I do think it is important to take a step back and assess our motivation and perhaps internalised biases. Sometimes you will find that you reasoning is without much substance and realise that you have some things to work on, sometimes even though mentally you don't have the conscious block there is something internalised about that - I know I have been subject to that. This doesn't make you a bad person, and you don't have to force yourself to like it or anything, but just be aware and sometimes it's okay to just remove yourself for the conversation because the people who do like it aren't supporting something that is morally corrupt and it doesn't have to be the subject of discourse. People can like different stuff.

So:

1. Did you mean pulls faces when JJ calls her rich? Cause that's what she does, gets a little annoyed, pulls a face but doesn't say anything because she know he's got a point. I'm very confused about you definition of angry and perhaps be careful about perpetuating the 'angry black woman' stereotype.

Also, I think it's important to note that clearly the kooks vs pogues divide has pretty much abolished the middle class, and you are either lower class or 'rich'. The Carrera's very clearly still struggle with money and are not on the same level of kooks as the Cameron's. So yeah, I think she's justified to roll her eyes at JJ saying she's rich as fuck and doesn't need money.

2. Prioritizes John B because his dad's gone missing, he's been abandoned by his guardian, is being threatened with being taken away from his home and everything he knows and is in general spiralling? Yeah. What a fucking monster. Also, I find it hard to find a justification for Kie having canon romantic feelings from John B that isn't just born from heteronormativity - her caring about him and then getting kissed by him does not equal a love match.

3. It wasn't about missing the interview - which wasn't until the next fucking day - it was about not giving up looking for their friend who was in a really bad way. Like - you cannot say that getting a scholarship when you are 16 is more important that John B's actual life being at stake ?

The fact that she wasn't there when John B went missing wasn't relevant? Like I've talked about why I hate Pope in this scene. But like, Pope is saying 'um you can't call me out on being a bad friend now cause you were a bad friend then'. That's the point, Kie caring so much about John B is rooted in guilt cause she wasn't there, and now she's trying to be there and support him, to prove that she's a better friend now. That's she's different, because she is.

4. I would love some specific examples of her brushing this stuff off like it means nothing. Other than the boat scene which once again, justified. And once again, Kie isn't destitute at all and no she doesn't fully understand the struggles of the boys or the cut but her family is not rolling in it and spending weekends on Yachts. Like this point is such a bloody reach.

5. I don't love that she got physical with him either. But she didn't do that because she got called out. She got upset because Pope was the one person she confided in about that happened during her kook year, about how bad it was, about the fact that she was suicidal and Sarah saved her and that's why she was so drawn to that, not because she wanted to be a kook, and Pope just throws that back in her face because he's jealous that Kie cares more about John B's problems than his.

6. Well this is just a misrepresentation of what happened. She said give it to any charity because in that moment it seemed like without a reason JJ just blew that money on stupid shit. Pope thought the same thing that's why he yells at him for not using it for restitution. In that moment he just seems like he is being drunk and irresponsible, because they didn't think he would go back to Luke, Pope literally says that he wouldn't. And then note how when they see the bruises they know what happened and the tone instantly changes cause they realise what happened. And that he did try to do the right thing and got flogged because of it. And she is right in there to comfort him and reassure him. So like... yeah.

7. Please give me example for this. I don't see Kie insulting him that isn't a justified call out or playful banter that is returned and part of their push and shove dynamic. You know... just being friends.

The only times we see Kie react to JJ's home life she is concerned and sympathetic. She's the only one who's worried about JJ going home when he storms off and is instantly there to comfort him when she knows he's had interaction with Luke. I really don't know where you are getting this from.

I don't use it as a blanket statement, I know not to group shippers in as one, I know there are jiara shippers that I do not see eye to eye with for a second. The reason I bring up the 'kiara sucks' thing is because of the context it was used. We weren't talking about Kie, it wasn't relevant, it had no reason to be there or anything to back it up. It was random bitching and as you say fandom is a very racist place so yeah, it seemed like racism to me. Like you realise you are calling me ridiculous for being annoyed that someone just came to me and said Kie sucks without reason, and then this ask goes onto be annoyed that I have some issues with Pope and that more than likely racist for thinking it because you've elected to ignore my massive post outlining my stance on this.

My experiences as a queer person are not universal, no. But I do know they are very common. I'm so thankful that there are people out there who don't experience this and I hope that in the future it will be the norm. But realistically, with what we know about JJ, I think it is more than likely that would be his experience.

Look if you headcanon him as gay say the things with girls is comphet, then that's your view and I won't fight you on it. But remember that that is a headcanon. And what I have been talking about is were they intentionally setting up jjpope and are those actions indicative of romantic attraction, which if they we're they would have made a point to frame it as comp het, which they didn't, they might in the future but for now - they aren't. In terms of being a good liar, I just- like gay panic is a very strong thing. There young girls who tell everyone they don't like hugs because they actually really liked the hugs and feel like people will know that they are gay if they hug their friend, a hug. I can't see 'I'm a good liar' being enough to overcome those sorts of feelings.

The thing is while JJ has a nothing to lose attitude when it comes to his life and future the same doesn't apply to his relationships, because the Pogues are his thing to lose, his only family, the one good thing. I can't see him just saying fuck it I could risk losing Pope. So I can't agree with you there.

First of all, I was called anti-black for not liking Pope, despite the fact that I don't hate him, and just had valid reasons for thinking he is flawed, not the devil incarnate. Two, I am well aware that this fandom is racist, like all fucking fandoms, and have talked about it. And I think that fact that I don't hate Pope and laid out very clearly the reasons I don't think he's some perfect angel that does no wrong kinda shows that I'm not just random bitching because he's black. Also - I'm a fucking Kie stan. I have to deal with people hating on Kie for the same reasons they love Sarah - it's very obvious to see people motivations there.

And you are right. An interracial mlm ship would be great representation. So would an interracial ship between the hot guy that everyone loves with the black girl - because doesn't he always end up with the white self insert? But reminder that ships don't automatically have superiority because they have 'better' representation and certainly does not represent a shipper 'wokeness'. Personally I think a platonic relationship between two men that are as close and physically affectionate as JJ and Pope - especially when one is so traditionally masculine as JJ, especially if one or both of them could be queer - would be great representation for young boys struggling with toxic masculinity.

So yeah, I think your reasons for hating Kie don't have much basis in canon. I do not give if you like her or not but.. hating her and trying to prove that people shouldn't like her, that she's not good enough for JJ and coming into my ask and putting her down for no reason, still does not sit right with me.

#obx #obx bs #kiara carrera #JJ and pope #lara answers

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bunny-wk-fanfic · 3 years

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This Is Brought To You By

The door opened to a rustic cabin, the natural wood glowing amber thanks to a roaring fire. Worn dark leather seating seemed hazy thanks to said fire light, each piled with plush pillows and draped with cozy throws or blankets. A low table had been laid out with candles, a bottle of wine was being kept chilled in a classy and slightly modern ice bucket with two glasses just off to the side. The only splash of color amongst the glow of the fire, the natural wood and stone textures were a small handful of red roses, loose petals just lightly scattered about. With the help of the slow jazz playing softly in the background, it made for a very romantic atmosphere.

"Well, hello there." the male voice was a slightly low purring drawl, drawing attention to the male figure sprawled across an almost stereotypical bear rug. "Deadpool here. Hopefully, while reading this, you're hearing the voice of a certain sexy male Canadian. I'm sure you know the one. And I don't mean the short, hairy one with anger issues and kitty claws and a fondness for cigars. Unless of course said angry man is being represented by a beautiful, beautiful wild Australian man. Because if then, well, lather me in hot sauce and spank my Chimichanga. But I'm getting off track here."

Fingers drummed against a knee, drawing the attention to the missing and familiar red and black outfit, and more importantly, to the lack of proper attire.

"Yes, my current outfit has to do with the reason we are here today. It's come to my attention, that it's been some time since we last met, or that our beloved writer has written anything involving our favorite woman. And more importantly, our favorite woman when involved with me." a single white rose was plucked from behind, waved about as if a magic wand, and dragged across a scarcely clad male thigh that was pocked with fresh wounds that were instantly scaring. "As such, I decided to… encourage our beloved writer into bringing us all together once again."

With a dramatic wave of limbs, he moved from reclining on his side, that screamed 'Paint my like your French women', to leaning back on his elbows. The pale pink satin nighty, the atmosphere, and the pose would have been more than alluring were the one in said pose a woman. With the male, the nighty was rather comically stretched across his frame, though covering everything important, the sheer robe with fluffy cuffs only adding to the oddity of the entire situation. It clashed with the fact that he still wore his iconic red and black full head cowl.

"Now, our lovely writer might say otherwise about my encouragement, calling it nagging, whining or say I simply began to annoy her until she finally relented. Ignore those words and continue to read mine with the amazing drawl of a voice provided by the Canadian sex symbol; my pal, my bosom buddy, Ryan Reynolds." the white rose bobbed to the beat of the low music, tapping against a hip every so often.

"Now, back unto the reason why we're here. Honestly? I was lonely and wanted some cuddles with my lovely, lovely Kagome." noticing that it was just the male lounging in the open living space, he was quick to wave a hand. "Don't worry, don't worry! My girl is currently enjoying a much-needed hot bubble bath. One, I wish I was taking part of, but felt this little conversation was, at the time, more prudent. How could I feel that? Simple. I had the desire that everyone read this in Reynolds voice, nothing more and nothing less. Though if we are asking for more, and I know what you all want, I on the other hand, wouldn't mind lathering my girl in rich and real Canadian maple syrup and eating my midnight pancake snacks off of her, but maybe later. So while Kagome is taking this time to prepare for a very adventurous night right here on this vegan friendly-faux-bear fur rug, I'll fill that time with hanging out with you lovely little readers. Because without you, though more so my unannounced arrival and delayed departure, we wouldn't be here right now."

Happy humming could now be heard from behind a closed door just off to the side, the male giving a little jiggle in his spot in excitement. The rose momentarily used to fan himself, though just how useful it was as such, needed to be questioned at a later time.

"Now I'm sure there are a few things you all wish to talk about; my last movie with the fridge trope, which I myself can only say thanks to the writers for that one. Thanks guys, I've always wanted more trauma and torture to sprinkled in my life." a finger was wagged, tongue tisking against his teeth, though the sound was slightly muffled due to his mask.

"Or when my next film will come out, and if so, will it be part of the Marvel Universe. This is where you show your true love and devotion. I ask you, lovely readers, to go out and use the internet, haul out the trolls if need be, and ask, beg, and cry for me to be part of Marvel. Not that I want to, not really, it's just principle. What with their large budgets, CGI teams, writers, directors and a full cast. Honestly, a whole school of mutants gone save for three at a single extended time? For what purpose, 'cause I doubt they all went on some sort of field trip or vacation, but what do I know, I failed out of 5th grade. But, not really." his head tipped to the side, possibly staring in the direction of where the bathroom was, it was hard to tell with his face actually covered to know for sure.

"I mean, who wants to be part of that depressing team? All that self-sacrificing for the greater good?" he gave a few bobs of the rose in his hand as his head tipped back, almost as if in contemplation. "Though let's be honest, we all know I would survive an alien with a California Raisin on steroids for a chin, snapping their fingers. And then I'd introduce said alien to my Desert Eagles Mark XIX while recruiting Ant-Man to tickle where the sun never shines before becoming… Anti-Ant-Man? I honestly don't know what to call him in his Ultraman form, wait, does that make him a magical-boy or a science-boy? Right, Ant-Man shrinking to tickle where sun don't shine for hurting my favorite Web-Head super bro." the rose now tapped where his mouth was, though again, it was hidden by his mask. "And it would be super hot to watch Kagome kick his ass. I wonder what she would wear… Something skin tight? Revealing? Her old school uniform?"

A door opening, even though quiet, drowned out his muttering, the candles flickered as steam billowed out of the bathroom before quickly dissipating the further it billowed into the open space. "Are you talking to White and Yellow again?" a female figure left the dark bathroom, her form covered with a short semi sheer dark pink bathrobe of her own. Her hands were raised just enough to free her hair from beneath the robe, though she paused when she really took a look at the sprawled out male. "...I thought that was supposed to be a gift for me?"

Snickering, he trailed the rose down from his mouth, his neck, down his chest stopping just above his stomach. "Don't you think I look sexy in this?" it was always so amusing to tease and rile her when he wore risqué outfits, namely hers.

Finishing in freeing her hair, she eyed his form. Yes, his skin was pocked and disfigured from him constantly getting open sores and his abilities nearly immediately healing them. But beyond that, his form was all carved muscle, no doubt from years of being a mercenary. While yes, he was larger with the shoulders strong, he had a slight swimmer's build. It didn't lack-

"Ah, sorry for the intermission. Our writer took a few days to… deal with life I guess. How boring." shoulders shrugged, waving off the confused expression from his fairer companion. "Of course, it would happen when describing my awesome and amazingly sexy self." an actual pout could be seen through his mask.

"I will admit, you are sexy." the purring drawl from Kagome drew his attention again, her words and tone revealing she either decided she was going to ignore him going off tangent or just that she was used to it at this point, body freezing when her hands began with removing the sash that kept her own coverings secure. "I'm just not sure that shade of pink is quite your color. Maybe you should stick to your usual colors?"

The moment, the robe dropped and pooled around her feet, revealed a feminine figure dripping in curves with subtle musculature that showed she kept up with her own training, he froze. She wore a set of red and black satin and lace that covered pale skin. It covered a little more than what most would normally deem sexy lingerie, with slightly wider straps, but they accentuated her curves, drawing attention to them. And the thin ribbons that accompanied and mimicked, as well as help the lace that helped cover stiffening peeks, made her look more like a present just waiting to be unwrapped.

"Well, what do you think of my gift to you?" legs crossed slightly as hands once again rose to lift her hair to both reveal her neck and shoulders as well as lift her chest, she stood posed before him, basking in the golden glow of the fireplace behind him.

The white rose that had been resting near his hip instantly perked up, a white petal flying off at the somewhat harsh and sudden movement. Despite it being a mask, the white 'eyes' widened as the mask shifted to show that his jaw dropped.

"I'll take your silence as a, 'I likey'?" she giggled as she dropped her hands, they followed the curves of her body, no doubt drawing his gaze from behind the mask to follow with. Slowly, with a slight predator grace, she lowered to her knees and began to crawl up his form, leaving a trail of kisses behind her that glittered from both the fire light as well as her own abilities to help heal him.

Tossing the rose without a care, he reached forward to trace her curves for himself, not stopping as her own hands reached forward to lift and remove his mask. Lips curved up when she reached forward to kiss him. It was sweet, a simple press of her lips against his own. His smile grew when he quickly ended the sweetness by reaching for that delightful curve of her ass that shook playfully in his grasp.

The gasp that was let out was easily and eagerly swallowed, tongue dipping between lush lips to tangle with her own. With where his grip was, he pulled her closer to settle in his lap. Trailing lips away from her own to nip down her jaw and neck, he smirked against her warm skin.

Pausing, brown eyes narrowed as he turned away from the purring woman in his lap. "Oi, what are you still doing here? This ain't no peep-show! Go away. Read a book, play a game, watch a movie. I hear that new one about a guy named Guy wanting to be free or something, is worth the watch. And if my pal Ryan is in it, ya know it's good. Now," a hand reluctantly left the span of leg it had been caressing with a waving motion. "Shoo."

Turning away, leaving behind the couple and the sounds of giggles and kissing echoed loudly over the crackles and pops from the fireplace. A quick squeal that turned into laughter that was followed by a masculine whine at the sound of fabric tearing just set the pace of what was to come. And who was in charge of this nights shenanigans. A door closing muffled the sounds as the cool evening draped across the forest, leaving only the crickets in the distance and even further off cries of wolves the only sounds to echo.

Message delivered, though the exacts of what the message actually was seemed to have been lost. But it had been shared, and that seemed to be all that had been important. It did leave questions of what the future held, and if there would be any further important messages that would need to be shared. Who knows. Guess the game of 'wait and see' was going to have to be played.

AN: Don't ask. Please don't. I will say this, I was at work when I literally/figuratively heard Deadpool/Ryan Reynold's voice pop out from no where and bug me until I started writing this down. And when I lost the flow for a few days, it came back until I managed to finish it. So now I'm posting it here and cleaning my hands of it. I hope you can find some enjoyment in, I know I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet.

As always; read, enjoy, and please review! - BunnyWK

#fanfiction #crossover #Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairytale #Deadpool #Wade Wilson #Kagome Higurashi #anime #marvel #comics #movies

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hadarlaskey · 3 years

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Hedwig and the Angry Inch remains a testament to self-acceptance

There was a period in my life not so long ago where I watched John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch once a day. The grasp the film had on me felt exactly like a teenage obsession – the kind where you can rattle off the middle names, birthdays and pets of all the members of your favourite band on request, often when not actually asked to divulge said information at all.

At 24, I was past the point of caring about anything as much as I used to care about My Chemical Romance, but following a series of unfortunate mental health events, I was suckered into watching Hedwig’s rock performances over and over and over. My mantra became this: If Hedwig can get through a botched gender affirmation surgery, a stolen discography, repeated heartbreak since her childhood and being misunderstood by the masses, surely I can get through the lowest months of my life.

Four years later, I still hold a candle for Ms Hedwig Robinson. Being a genderqueer East German singer in a failing rock ’n’ roll band, her story may not seem outwardly relatable. But it has made everyone I’ve shown the film to feel seen. This is not your typical rise-and-fall narrative arc but rather a rise, fall, rise, fall, fall and rise again that is much more representative of real life. Especially for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider.

Miriam Shor, who played Yitzhak, Hedwig’s assistant, backing singer and husband in both Mitchell’s film and the original stage production, agrees that Hedwig is a story for anyone who has ever felt othered. “It’s the struggle that this person is going through to figure out who they are in this broken world. When they’ve been so hurt and so misused. It’s about answering the question: How can you come to a place where you love yourself?”

The musical, Shor adds, came to life through workshops, “sitting in some abandoned office where Stephen Trask [Hedwig composer and on-screen band member Skszp] was just sitting on the floor with his guitar, making up harmonies and the songs while Mitchell [writer, director and Hedwig herself] finished the story.” Hedwig and the Angry Inch eventually opened 0ff-Broadway in 1998, which led to the film’s production and subsequent release on 12 September, 2001.

This date, notable for its proximity to 9/11, to some extent helped to cement Hedwig and the Angry Inch as a cult movie. Shor suggests that part of the reason the film has such a loyal fanbase is because “everyone loves an underdog”. This certainly rings true when you consider the film’s poor box office return, which Mitchell attributed partly to its inauspicious release date.

Of course, the titular character is not the sole underdog in this story. With the exception of Luther – whose backstory as a queer Black American lieutenant in Berlin is not explored – everyone in the film has their own issues. Yitzhak is struggling with his desire to be a drag queen while married to Hedwig, who is obsessed with her ex. Hedwig Schmidt, who gave Hedwig her name, is a single mother living under communist rule in East Berlin. Even Tommy Gnosis, the de facto villain from a strict Christian family, is wrestling with his sexual identity when we are first introduced to him.

The complex identities represented throughout the film solidify its core message: Accepting yourself is a long, stressful and often harrowing journey, particularly when your gender or sexuality have a history of being marginalised in mainstream society. What makes this film special to me, a plus size queer woman who has struggled with body image, depression and anxiety repeatedly over the years, is that Hedwig and her peers’ stories are not trying to brush away our struggles with the stereotypical “it gets better” message that is frequently touted to the LGBTQ+ community.

Instead, the acknowledgement that often life gets shit, then better, then shit again, is a much more realistic representation of the ebbs and flows of living in a marginalised body.

The post Hedwig and the Angry Inch remains a testament to self-acceptance appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/articles/hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-self-acceptance/

#movie

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mst3kproject · 4 years

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The Face of Marble

This movie has a zombie dog. It’s also got John Carradine from The Unearthly and Robert Shayne from Teenage Caveman, and was directed by William Beaudine, who brought us Design for Dreaming. But honestly, who cares about that when there’s a zombie dog?

On a storm-wracked cliff somewhere live mad scientists Dr. Randolph and Dr. Cochrane, who are trying to raise the dead but aren’t very good at it. Their first experimental subject, a drowned sailor, promptly dies all over again when lightning strikes the Frankenstein equipment. This was probably a lucky escape, because subject two, Mrs. Randolph’s dog Brutus, comes back to life as a bulletproof zombie with a thirst for blood and the ability to walk through walls! They get back to work on improving their technique, and when Mrs. Randolph herself later dies in a tragic matchmaking accident, the two scientists figure she may as well be subject three. It kinda works, and kinda doesn’t… but not in the way anyone expected, especially me.

I guess I have to explain ‘tragic matchmaking accident’. Elaine Randolph’s ethnic stereotype maid, Maria, wants out of this place and has decided that the best way to bring it about is to have her mistress and Dr. Cochrane fall in love and run off together, taking her with them. A combination of voodoo and persuasion seems to be on the verge of bringing this about when Dr. Cochrane’s pre-existing fiancée Linda shows up to surprise him on his birthday. Maria therefore sets out to murder Linda by releasing toxic smoke into her bedroom, but doesn’t know that Linda and Elaine have switched rooms because Linda freaked out when the ghostly Brutus wandered through hers in the middle of the night. It was much shorter to just say ‘tragic matchmaking accident’.

That probably gave you a pretty good idea of just what a dumb and contrived movie this is. The print is also pretty terrible, old and scratchy and with poor sound – and yet it’s actually kind of fun to watch. The Face of Marble is a bit slower than it should be despite being only an hour and a quarter long, and the ending unfortunately makes no sense, but the plot twists managed to surprise me a couple of times. Nobody here is a great actor but nobody’s really terrible, either. You can tell who’s who and what’s going on. For something I would watch, it’s a decent film

What I really liked about it, though, was the treatment of the characters. For all I’ve called them mad scientists, Randolph and Cochrane don’t really fall into that ‘type’. They’re not trying to create an indestructible army or Show Those Fools or anything, they want to save lives: Randolph talks about people who’ve drowned or asphyxiated, people for whom rescue came just a few minutes too late. Nor do they display the mad scientist’s typical lack of conscience. Randolph gets so caught up in his work that he euthanizes Brutus the dog, but he’s absolutely sure his process will bring the animal back as good as new. When this doesn’t work, he feels terrible about it and hides it from Elaine, partly so she won’t be angry but partly because he’s deeply ashamed of himself.

The incident also destroys his confidence in the project. When Elaine dies, it’s Cochrane who talks him into trying to resurrect her, since he has been working on the formula and he now believes it will work. Randolph almost refuses, saying he’d rather see Elaine actually dead than become some monster like the dog, and Cochrane has to do quite a bit of convincing. What we see in these two men is a folie à deux – each would be quite reasonable on his own, but when they can play off and encourage each other they end up doing unbelievably awful things. That’s kind of neat, and makes it more believable that they would try the experiment on Elaine even after their previous failures.

The two men’s relationships with the women in their lives also have some complexity. The backstory tells us that Randolph saved Elaine’s life by removing a brain tumor, and subsequently fell in love with and married her. Despite this, he doesn’t seem to spend much time with her, and she appears to be downright intimidated by him. Elaine is shown to prefer confiding in Cochrane rather than confronting Randolph about her fears, despite the fact that Cochrane’s reaction is invariably condescending. On the other hand, Cochrane is very tender with his own fiancée, Linda, and actually listens to her when she tells him she doesn’t like Randolph and thinks they both need to get away from this place!

Elaine and Linda are set up, both by the writers and by Maria the sorceress, as romantic rivals for Cochrane. You’d think this would lead to a lot of petty hostility between them, but the movie avoids that, too. They are fairly cool towards each other at first meeting, but quickly make peace after Linda’s sighting of the zombie dog. By the time they’re about to part they’re still not best friends, but they clearly don’t dislike each other. Linda has figured out that Elaine has a crush on Cochrane but as long as Cochrane isn’t going to act on it she won’t let it worry her. She could have been a villain in this story, as could Randolph and Cochrane themselves, but the writers avoid taking the easy way out.

Instead, the villain of this story is Maria. The situation would never have arisen if she hadn’t attempted to murder Linda, and later we see her use both the police and the zombies trying to get herself out of the mess she’s gotten into. Unfortunately, this is where the movie starts to fall apart.

A few days after the undead Brutus leaves the lab by leaping right through the wall, a detective shows up at the house to ask Dr. Randolph about a series of attacks on local livestock. Randolph identifies the culprit as an animal suffering from ‘hemomania’, or a need to drink blood. When Elaine comes back from the dead, then, we expect her to do so as a vampire. Everything we’ve seen so far seems to be leading up to that idea. When she comes to and appears to be tired, but all right, we assume the condition will set in eventually.

It never does. Instead, Maria is suddenly able to control the undead Elaine and Brutus! Dr. Randolph soon figures out that it was Maria who killed Elaine, and in his anger and grief he considers stabbing her to death until Cochrane talks him out of it. In order to save herself, Maria has Elaine stab Randolph, then go back to bed and forget it happened.

Where did that come from? We have never seen the slightest indication that Maria can do this. Whenever she has been working magic, such as leaving effigies under people’s pillows or preparing potions, we’ve never seen any evidence that she actually has supernatural powers. The love charms were suggestion and the poison was simple chemistry! The film-makers had ample opportunity to set something up here, by having her take control of the zombiefied Brutus through similar actual magic, but they didn’t do that. We just see Maria sitting in front of a fire waving her arms… then Brutus comes into Elaine’s room, Elaine rises in a trance, and Maria just hands her a knife and orders her to stab away, as if she has the woman under hypnosis. Did I miss something?

At the end, the cops get the real story from another servant (I’m tempted to insert a quip about how you can tell it’s fiction because the police listen to a black man, but we’re way beyond that being funny) and show up to arrest Maria, but she’s already committed suicide, and footprints in the sand show that Elaine and Brutus have just wandered off into the ocean. Okay. Does that mean anything? Are they gonna drown or just wander around on the bottom and fight sharks like in Zombie 2? Did Maria make her do it or not? Is Elaine even aware that there’s anything wrong with her? Earlier she didn’t seem to be, and nobody told her what happened… she seems to think she was merely ‘taken ill’.

The feeling I get from all this is that the writers didn’t know what to do with Zombie-Elaine. They were too chicken to have her go around tearing throats out because then she wouldn’t be attractive anymore. They can’t kill her because they’ve already established that the zombies are bulletproof and they can’t think of any other way to do it. So they just have her leave, mysteriously and unsatisfyingly, and completely squander several opportunities they’ve set up for themselves.

Elaine wondering what’s wrong with her, unable to help herself even as she’s horrified by her own actions, would easily have been the scariest thing in the movie. Randolph and Cochrane realizing that what came back isn’t quite Elaine, and having to deal with what they’ve done, would have been the most heart-wrenching. They could even have had the two of them, formerly unbelievers, go to Maria for magical help – only to have Maria refuse to do anything because she, as previously established in dialogue, really does love her mistress. The ending could have been really cool, but they just ran out of ideas.

I did enjoy about the first two thirds of The Face of Marble. By the time Elaine finally dies I was getting a little impatient to see some actual zombies, but the film then went in a totally different direction, in a bad way. The ending doesn’t feel like a plot twist, because a plot twist should be something that makes sense of things we’ve already seen. It’s doubly disappointing, because the attention paid to the characters and their motivations and relationships really made it look like writers knew what they were doing.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the face of marble #poor john carradine #40s #everybody do the zombie stomp

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the-everqueen · 4 years

Text

why i disliked “the traitor baru cormorant”

so...recently i read Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. i bought it thinking, Cool, an insightful fantasy series for me to get into while i wait to hear whether i passed my qualifying exams! i have some time before the semester starts!

and then i absolutely hated it and spent every minute cataloguing what i thought Dickinson got wrong.

...uh, if you want to get the tl;dr of the liveblog i gave the gf, here’s the top three reasons i disliked this book:

1) not a fan of the “strong female character” trope

yes, Baru doesn’t sling around a sword or shoot arrows better than Anyone In The Whole World. but Dickinson IMMEDIATELY tells us (not shows, tells) that she’s good at math, she’s clever at picking apart strategic scenarios, she’s a savant. (tbh, i don’t love how he shows this, either, with the standard child-prodigy-who-catches-the-attention-of-a-powerful-adult trope.) in Dickinson’s crafted world, her math skills aren’t entirely unusual: women (for...some reason?) are stereotyped as being good at calculations, despite also being aligned with hysteria and too many emotions. this bothers me more than it’s probably supposed to, because the sexism in this novel doesn’t really seem to follow an internal logic. i guess it’s so we can have a woman as the protagonist? also...hoo boy...her “savant” characterization bothers me because...she’s heavily coded as South East Asian (...maaaybe Philippines or Native Hawaii, but as i’ll get to later, Dickinson doesn’t make a huge distinction). uh...model minority stereotypes anyone? yes, within the text, plenty of people associated with the Empire comment that it’s impressive someone of her background got into a position of power so young. at the same time, i’m sure that sounds familiar to so many Asian-identified people! the constant tightrope of being expected to perform to a certain (white, Western) standard while also being Othered. mostly this bothers me because Baru is also characterized as...a sellout for the Empire. sure, her stated goal is to undo the Empire from within, but [MAJOR SPOILERS] in the end it appears that her actual goal was to attain enough power that the Empire would let her be a benevolent dictator over her home island? and it’s only after a major PERSONAL betrayal that she revises this plan? [END SPOILERS] Baru also assimilates without much pain or sacrifice. she hardly ever thinks about her parents or her childhood home. she willingly strips herself of cultural signifiers and adapts to Empire norms (apart from being a closeted lesbian, which...yeah, i’ll get to that, too). and it’s not that Dickinson doesn’t TRY to make her a nuanced character, but...to me, it feels so painfully obvious that this is not his experience. it feels almost...voyeuristic.

...much like his descriptions of wlw desire!

2) we get it, you read Foucault

the categories of sexual deviance are based entirely on a Western Victorian-era medical discourse around non-heterosexual forms of desire, but Dickinson ignores the network of sociocultural, religious, and historical contexts that contributed to that specific kind of discourse. he uses the terms “tribadism” and “sodomy” but those ideas CANNOT EXIST outside a Euro-American Christian context. yes, a huge part of the 19th century involved the pathologization of sexual and romantic desire (or lack thereof). but that in turn goes back to a history of medicine that relied on the “scientific method” as a means of studying and dissecting the human body--and that method in itself is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Theorist Sylvia Wynter (whomst everyone should read, imho) discusses how the Enlightenment attempted to make the Human (represented by a cisgender, heteronormative, white man) an agent of the State economy. every categorization of so-called deviance goes back to white supremacist attempts to define themselves as ‘human’ against a nonwhite, non-Christian Other. and IN TURN that was ultimately founded on anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism. at this point it’s a meme in academic circles to mention Foucault, because so many scholars don’t go any further in engaging with his ideas or acknowledge their limits. but SERIOUSLY. Dickinson crafts the Masquerade as this psuedo-scientific empire that’s furthering erasure of native cultures, but...where did these ideas come from? who created them? what was the justification that gave them power? [MINOR SPOILER] blaming the Empire’s ideology on a handful of people behind the Mask who crafted this entire system makes me...uncomfortable, to say the least. part of what gives imperialism its power is that a lot of ordinary people buy in to its ideas, because it aligns with dominant belief systems or gives them some sense of advantage.

also speaking of cultural erasure...

3) culture is more than set dressing

again, to reiterate: Baru does NOT think back to her childhood home for longer than a couple passing sentences at various points in the narrative. but even though the early chapters literally take place on her home island, i don’t get a sense of...lived experience. this is true of ALL of the fantasy analogues Dickinson has created in his Empire. i felt uncomfortably aware of the real world counterparts that Dickinson was drawing inspiration from. at the same time...there are basically no details to really breathe life into these various fantasy cultures. i HATE the trope of “fantasy Asia” or “fantasy Africa” or “fantasy Middle East” that’s rampant among white male sff writers. Dickinson does not get points from me for basically just expanding that to “fantasy South East Asia,” “fantasy Mongolia,” “fantasy South America,” and... “fantasy Africa,” plus some European cultures crammed in there. he’s VERY OBVIOUSLY drawing on those languages for names, but otherwise there’s no real sense of their religious practices, the nuances of their cultures, the differences between those cultures (besides physiological, which...oh god). part of that is probably supposed to be justified by “well, the Empire just erased it!!!” but that’s not an excuse imho.

also...in making the Empire the ultimate signifier of the evils of imperialism...Dickinson kind of leans into the “noble savage” stereotype. Baru’s home island is portrayed as this idyllic environment where no one is shamed for who they love and gender doesn’t determine destiny and there are no major conflicts. (there is a minor nod to some infighting, but this is mostly a “weakness” that the Masquerade uses as an excuse to obliterate a whole tribe.) Dickinson justifies young Baru’s immediate assimilation as her attempt to figure out the Masquerade’s power from within, but given that the Masquerade presumably killed one of her dads and her mom maybe advocates a guerilla resistance...it’s weird that Baru basically abandons her family without a second thought. yeah, i get that she’s a kid when the Masquerade takes over the island, but...that’s still a hugely traumatic experience! the layers of trauma and conditioning and violence that go into this level of colonization are almost entirely externalized.

(later it’s implied that Baru might qualify as a psychopath, and tbh that feels like an excuse for why we haven’t gotten any sense of her inner world, not to mention kind of offensive.)

this isn’t exhaustive but...

it’s not that i don’t think white people shouldn’t ever address POC experiences in their books. just...if your entire trilogy is going to revolve around IMPERIALISM IS BAD, ACTUALLY, maybe you should contribute to the discourse that Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors have already done. reading this book made me so, so angry. i did not feel represented! i felt like i was being talked down to, both on a critical theory level AND on a craft level. there are SO MANY books by actual BIPOC and minority authors that have done this better. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and her current Cities series. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House remains one of the more powerful novels i’ve read on how The System Is Out To Destroy You, That Is The Point. (Bardugo is non-practicing Spanish and Moroccan Jewish on one side of her family, and her character Alex is mixed and comes from a Jewish background!)

...

there’s not really a point to this. i get a lot of people have raved about this book. good for them. if that’s you, no judgment. i’m not trying to argue IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU ARE PROBLEMATIC. i’m just kind of enraged that a white dude wrote about a Brown lesbian under a colonial empire and that THIS Brown lesbian under a colonial empire couldn’t even get behind the representation. also kind of annoyed that it’s the Empire of Masks and Dickinson either hasn’t read Fanon or didn’t see fit to slip in a Fanon reference, which like. missed opportunity.

#meta #book review #maybe y'all can get enjoyment from my rage #also i don't want to publish this on like. goodreads.#i'm not out to destroy Seth Dickinson personally #i know this was a highly reviewed book #i just...hated it #and i figured putting the rage on my blog is less harmful #than leaving a one star review #while also maybe giving someone the insight #for why they might not want to read this #the traitor baru cormorant #the masked empire

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lesbian-deadpool · 5 years

Text

Horses?

(Platonic) Loki Laufeyson x Reader

Words: 2,367

Warnings: Swearing, horse jokes, knives, playful threatening. I think that's it.

Request: For someone who wished to remain anonymous, for donating to the Australian bushfires.

Summary: The Trickster God got tricked. Now you gotta help him.

A/N: Bold and italics = Letter. It’s a lot less angsty that what I think you wanted... but I really hope you like it nonetheless.

(Not my GIF)

***

It was a knock at the door that originally woke you, making you jump up, and stalk to the door with your pistol raised.

You peered through the peephole and spotted nothing. You had heard a knock, you were sure of it. It couldn’t have been a dream.

“Great,” you said to yourself, beginning to unlock the door. As it was the only thing you could do, with being on the run and all. “Now I’m acting like the white person in a horror movie. See, Y/N, this is how people die.”

Yanking the door open, with your gun raised, you checked either side of the hallway of your apartment. Nothing. Surveying the floor. Nothing. Even going as far to check the ceiling. Still nothing.

You shook your head, with furrowed eyebrows, before pulling yourself back into your apartment and relocking the door.

“Must have been some kids messing around-” you mumbled to yourself... then, “-Oh my fucking, God!”

“Hell, Y/N.” Loki stood before you, in a black suit, and holding a cane in front of him. “How are you? It’s been some time.”

“I think you just made me piss myself.”

Loki gave you a mischievous smile at that.

“Oh, how I would have loved to see that.”

“Is that another one of your kinks, you greasy bastard?” you asked, eyes hard as you walked past him.

“Okay, so you’re still mad.”

“I’m still mad?!” you roared, “Of course I’m still fucking mad! You set me up for something I didn’t fucking do! Got me fired from S.H.I.E.L.D., and I’ve been on the run for the last six years!” Gripping his collar in your hands, you yanked him towards your face, to seave, “Now tell me, would you still be angry?”

It was a few moments before he spoke again.

And when he did. This was his “answer”.

“You can be quite frightening you know that?”

You pushed him away with a sigh.

“What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

You watched him for a few seconds.

He wasn’t being serious, was he?

He couldn’t be.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me, right now.”

As it would turn out, he was not.

***

“You’re obsessed with this glowy-ass-cube. And yet you lost it?”

“I didn’t... necessarily, ‘lose it’-”

“Oh, so what? It got stolen from you?” you laughed, “That’s so much worse! Aren’t you supposed to be the ‘Trickster God’? And yet someone stole from you!”

Loki glared at you as you continued to laugh until you were wheezing.

He waited until you had calmed down, and were wiping away your tears.

“You done?”

“For now.” You shrugged. “So. What did happen to the glorified building block?”

“It’s ‘The Tesseract’,” Loki clarified harshly, “And-” His sentence was finished off in a mumble.

“What?”

“A... cat... ate. It...” Loki struggled to say as if it was the hardest thing to do.

“A cat ate it?” you asked trying not to laugh again, “You sure it wasn’t a horse?”

“What?! Why would it be a horse?”

“Oh. No reason...” You took a second to make sure you were walking the right way along the busy New York sidewalk, before quickly turning your attention back to Loki. "Anyway. Cat's don't eat things like that."

"Well, this one did!"

Your jaw dropped when you saw the slight fear behind the demigod's eyes, all because of a little cat.

“Are you really scared of a tiny, baby puddy tat?” you asked with a pout.

“Things came out of its mouth.”

“Things?”

“Like tentacles.”

“... have... have you been watching a little too much henti?”

“What’s that?” Loki asked.

“Nothing,” you replied hastily. “Not that you probably wouldn't like it,” you muttered to yourself.

***

How you got onto the subject of your ex-partners. You didn’t know. But, here you were!

Loki looked off into the distance as he spoke, “Ah, I remember my first girlfriend-”

“Are you seriously beginning to monologue, right now? Didn’t think you were that much of a stereotypical villain.”

“-She was beautiful.”

“Horse. It was a horse, wasn't it?”

“She wasn’t a horse!” Loki yelled.

“... she was a horse,” you muttered in reply, nodding your head as Loki roared in frustration.

“Shh!” You placed a finger against your mouth. “It’s hunting kitty season. Remember?”

Loki grumbled at you in response. You had to say. Loki in full camo paint and laying upon the dirt ground, amongst the trees, was pretty funny. You never imagined Loki to be the type of person, to get down and dirty. But hey, when he has someone like you to push him to do it... he has no choice.

He wanted you to help.

And "help" is what he was getting.

You weren’t gonna do all the work.

Loki groaned. “What’s taking so long?! When will this cat get a fucking move on?!”

“Do you mean you what this cat to “giddy-up”?”

“I will kill you.”

Before you could utter your reply, with your mouth still open and your eyebrows scrunched, you listened to the whirring noise that was undoubtedly the sound of a remote-controlled, toy vehicle.

And you were right.

A green and orange monster truck was barreling its way towards you.

It made a sudden stop in-between yours and Loki's faces.

"See, this is your fault," Loki accused.

"Your fault."

You reached out and grabbed the letter, that Loki apparently didn't notice.

"Dear, Idiots-"

"Hey!”

“It’s not me, it’s the letter!” you yelled back. “Now, let me read it.” You cleared your throat, ruffling the paper in your hands.

“Dear, Idiots,” You raised a finger at Loki, indicating him not to interrupt you again. “You really think we don't know you're out there? ...”

“I thought you were supposed to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent?!”

“Yeah, I was!”

“You have two options. One. You can wait out there and my friend will come out to get you. Or Two. You can knock on the door, yourselves. You have five minutes.”

You hummed at the letter. “Welp! Let’s go knock on the door!”

“We’re not knocking on the door.”

“Listen, they already know we’re out here. So why prolong the inevitable?”

“You realise I have magic?” Loki asked, “Whoever comes out, I will be able to fight them.”

“And yet, you needed my help...” You let out a sigh. “Hey, you see that black car over there?” You pointed to the sleek black SUV. “That’s Nick Fury’s car.”

“What?! And you didn't think to tell me that?! Do you have any loyalty?!”

“Loyalty to you?! You really think we are friends? That I’m on your side?”

Loki said nothing, just processing your words. Before huffing and replying with, “We’re not knocking on the door.”

You only smiled at him.

***

“Ah, Y/L/N. Glad you made the right decision,” Fury greeted, opening the door, “And Loki. Sad to see you again.”

“Likewise.”

“God guys,” you began with a smile, making Fury’s eye narrow at you, knowing you well enough to know what you were about to do, “The sexual tension between you two is insane, I for one, am surprised that you haven pounced on each other yet.”

Fury rolled his eye at you and Loki opened his mouth to yell his reply, before a woman covered in what seemed to some sort of grease or oil, walked into view, and began talking.

“So... why were you spying on my house?”

“That!” Loki startled you, pointing at the ginger cat upon the stairs.

“Goose?”

“Oh, is that its name?!”

“Okay, why have you got a problem with my cat?” A blonde woman, also covered in grease, slid up behind you both.

“It stole from me.”

“The Tesseract,” You clarified, “Loki says it ate it with tentacles, apparently. I just think he was high.”

Scratching the purring gingers head, the blonde woman said, “Oh, so that’s where she got it from? You two.”

“Nope. Not me. Just him- Wait...” You paused. “Are you seriously not gonna deny the whole tentacle thing?”

“Why would we?” The first woman shrugged.

“Because-!... cat’s don’t do that!”

“She’s not actually a cat.”

“What?!”

“She’s an alien.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Loki spoke.

“What?!” you yelled, “That does not make sense!”

Fury chuckled at your reaction, “There is so much you’ve missed.” He then turned to Loki. “You’re not getting the Tessaract back, by the way.”

“I need to sit down,” you whimpered before Loki could reply, “Alien cats? Would you believe it?” you continued to ask yourself, as you walked further into the house.

***

So, cats are aliens. Or aliens can look like cats rather. The Avengers broke up- But you knew that already. You had been severely out of the loop for the last six years, but not that out of the loop. Loki had faked his death. Of course, he did. The Avengers fought against some purple alien titan, in a country called Wakanda, and won. Without you. Not even an invite. How nice. They still didn't trust you... lovely.

The Avengers were pardoned from the government and left to live their lives.

And S.H.I.E.L.D. was thriving better than ever, especially now that H.Y.D.R.A. had been wiped out from the cooperation.

You were currently sat outside, with the “cat” named Goose, upon your lap, as you stroked through its fur. As you watched the slowly setting sun, over the treetops of Louisiana. It was a peaceful place, you had to admit that. Beautiful too. It made you wonder why you didn’t hide out here, while you were on the run.

“She likes you.”

You turned to peer over your shoulder, seeing Fury standing there with his arms crossed, also looking at the sunset.

“I guess you could call me the Flerken whisperer.” You smiled.

Fury had a smile on his own face before it fell, and he looked towards his feet. You were surprised. You had never seen Fury when he wasn’t sure of himself.

“I... I’m sorry.”

Okay. Now you were surprised and confused.

“I didn’t trust you when Loki framed you, and I should have. We all should have. And I’m sorry about that.”

“You can’t. You can’t just do that,” you told him, “You can’t just apologize, and expect me to be fine with that. I was a fugitive for six years. I lost all of my friends... I lost everything, Nick.”

“I know,” he nodded, “And I know I, and everyone else, has a lot of ass-kissing to do. But... I hope that this can be a good start.”

Fury moved to hand you something, which you cautiously took from his hand.

Your lips curved at the S.H.I.E.L.D. badge in your hand.

“You just have a surplus of these things on you at all times?”

He chuckled. “No. That one's mine... I just wanted to make a grand gesture. You’ll get yours when you come to headquarters... that is if you chose to accept your position again.”

“Has anyone ever told you, you’re like a father sometimes?”

“More than I’d like to admit.”

You chuckled at his words. “I want a promotion.”

“With the correct training, it’s yours.” Fury smiled down at you. “Will all your years away, you must need a lot of work to whip you back in shape.”

“Insulting.”

A booming laugh sounded from Fury, as he turned to walk back inside.

“See, you later. Agent.”

You jumped up before he could leave. “Wait.” He turned to face you, cocking an eyebrow in silent question. “I actually have something I won't propose to you.”

***

Not too long later, you were joined outside by Loki.

No longer confined to the rocking chair by your new-found friend, and instead choosing to hold onto the railing surrounding the porch, still gazing at the colourful sky.

“So...” he started, “Nicolas told me you recommended me for a position in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Well, actually, I recommended you for a position on the Avengers,” you corrected, “But I guess Fury wanted you to work your way through S.H.I.E.L.D. first- The rookie stuff, at least. I can’t say that he trust’s you.”

“I wouldn’t see why he would.”

“And you have to do it, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”

“Then I suppose I have no other choice.”

“Damn straight.”

“... thank you,” Loki uttered sincerely.

“Hey, what are friend’s for?” You sighed, looking at the remnants of the sunset, with your hand still holding onto a smiling Loki’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “So... what do you think about seeing Thor again? Say yay or nay,” you finished off, saying ‘nay’ like a horse.

You burst out laughing when Loki magically pulled a knife out of thin air, pointing it at you.

Yep. It seems like your life was finally turning around, for the better.

(Bonus Scene)

Four months later and thriving in your new life, back at S.H.I.E.L.D.. Well, technically the Avengers.

Yes, that's right. The Avengers.

That was Fury’s way of ‘a promotion’.

And you couldn’t be happier.

Especially as you laughed at the sight in front of you.

“Common, Loki! But your back into it! Clip-clop!” You clapped your hands, with the ‘clip-clop’, laughing brightly as you watched Loki ran an intense obstacle course, currently heaving a weighted dummy, as he sprinted across the field and towards the next task.

“How’s he doing?” Thor asked, sliding up beside you.

“He’s doing good. Luckily Fury appointed me, to whip him into shape.”

Thor hummed. gesturing to the course, he asked, “What’s next, after this?”

“Natasha agreed to spar with him.” Looking over you asked, “You gonna come watch his ass get kicked?”

“I wound not miss that for the world.”

You turned back to see Loki going too slow for your liking.

“Common! Faster! Don’t make me get out the whip!”

Loki stopped in the middle of crossing a balancing beam, staring deeply into your eyes, from across the field. And pulling four-

Count them.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

-Throwing knives from nowhere. Playfully threatening you, as you knew he would never try to actually hurt you. Thor laughing loudly beside you, as he did.

“How does it feel like being our honorary sibling?”

“I gotta say... feels pretty good.”

#original work #original fanfiction #fics for australia #please donate #australia bushfires #help australia #loki laufeyson x reader #loki laufeyson imagine #loki laufeyson #loki x reader #loki imagine #loki #marvel #MCU #tasty tasty tessaract

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wavbleu · 4 years

Text

So stereotypical- jacob elordi

No warnings or tags

____________________________________

I jumped into a high toe touch waving my green and yellow pom-poms in the air, yelling at the top of my lungs "Go leopards go!" , they were a few points away from winning the game.

The crowd grew in volume as the team worked there way to the touchdown line.

The stadium went silent and the tension was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, everyone was on the edge of there seats, watching the one football player, #25 make his way to the touchdown line, i began to bite my fingernails. We needed to win this game.

Thats when he scored the touchdown, the leopard allies went wild, people were ringing bells and the football players were doing chest bumps. Another L for the Lions.

I clapped my pom-poms and did a back flip, cheering with joy.

After a few minutes of celebration people began to leave, that was my cue.

"Come on girls, back to the locker rooms." I said to my fellow cheermates, the all followed me in a single filed order, back to the locker rooms to change.

(tiny time skip)

It was pretty dark, 11:00 pm to be exact, It was an away game and when you have busy parents they will never be able to show, so i have to drive myself. I always had a strange feeling in my guts when it came to walking in dark parking lots but like hey woman things.

I opened my car door and threw my cheer bag in the passenger seat, thats when i heard a voice call for me, i turned around and saw Jacob, the head of the football team, "#25" he was sitting in the back of his truck, drinking a beer.

Jacobs P.O.V

_________________________________

"Hey." I called out to the pretty girl, she turned her head and looked at me, her eyes widened and her expression grew confused. "Yea I'm talking to you." I would give her a light smirk assuring her that im not some crazy person.

"Hi Jacob." She would come up to me giving me a light smile, "Want a beer? I know your tired" I offered her a beer, "Oh no , I dont drink beer." She waved her hand at it in disapproval.

"I have White Claw if that suits your interest, Princess." A cute, angry face grew, "Im not a princess." I nodded sarcastically and laughed.

She took a seat next to me, snatching the White claw from my hand, I chuckled. "Nice game today." She nudged my elbow "Thanks" i say. The silence was killing me softly.

She then popped open the drink, it let out a loud "szzz" until some of it spilled on her sweatpants and shirt. "Shit." She mumbled frustrated.

We both went to grab the towel, making our hands meet, "Sorry." I apologize, beginning to blush, her hand felt like silk and was small and cute, i could fiddle with her fingers all day. She started to wipe off her hands and her pants and shirt, drying it of the liquids.

"I dont think i really remember your name." I question her, "Was it Y/n" i say with a questionable tone in my voice, she then nodded and gave me a smirk.

"Oh yea! Your in my chemistry class! i copy off your work all the time." I giggle, "Well i suck in that class so good luck." She stated with a small chuckle.

"But you always get good grades in that class, i dont understand." I commented, "I have my ways." she went to sip her drink.

My mind began to ponder, what the fuck does she do to maintain a 95+ thats when it hit, "Oh my god do you suck the teachers dick?" I scrunched my nose in disgust, our chemistry teacher was old and grainy, his dick must be old and shriveled up to. "NO, My parents are very good with there words.." She claimed.

I didn't buy it, not for a second. "You liar you deep throat his dick every day just to keep a good grade." I snapped at her, " And so what if i fucking did, its working aye!" She argued back.

feisty, i like her.

"I already told you my parents are lawyers and lawyers have a great way with there words." she recited, "Okay." I chuckled, finishing off my beer.

The silence grew again.

I glanced at her and examined her body a bit she was shivering and her cheeks were red, the wind blew cold air right at her and her tiny body couldn't take it .

"Here" I turned behind me and grabbed the large blue fleece blanket, wrapping it around her. "Aren't you cold?" She says in a worried tone, i looked her deep into her big eyes, they were full of worry and care.

"Ill be fine." continuing to take another sip of my second beer I was actually really cold but i didn't want to invade her personal space or force myself onto her, The last thing i wanted was for her to become uncomfortable around me.

"You should go easy on those." she said taking the bottle from me. "You need to stay sober and drive."

I loved how she tried to make it seem like she didn't care but she actually cares, a-lot, she reminds me of.. me.

I tried to hide my shivers but that failed tremendously, "Dude just take the blanket with me." She said opening her arms.

I scooted into her arms and she attempted to put the blanket over me, i was twice her size , it was cute watching her throw the blanket over my shoulder repeatedly.

"How about we lay down instead." I said with a light chuckle, "Please." she insisted.

We laid on the back of the truck looking at the beautiful stars in the sky, it was like those teenage indie movies but better acting.

"Even though we just had our proper introduction, i really like you, i can kinda see myself through you." I said in a sincere and empathetic tone.

She turned to me and looked at me with those beautiful eyes, i stared right back at her, "You make me feel safe." her glance went down to my lips then back at my eyes.

The moonlight hit her skin, making it glitter and glow, her lips were pink and plump and kissable, her hair was as soft as silk. Her eyes were dark and full of mystery.

I couldn't resist not kissing her, it was a small smooch before i pulled back. Hoping she would consent to it.

She swiftly leaned in for a longer, more intense and passionate kiss, who knew i would kiss a girl i barely knew for atleast an hour, but at the same time it felt like we have been talking for years before.

I began to tower myself over her, the pace of the kiss quickening, i lightly grabbed her neck and began to kiss around her ears, she let out a light, and sexy moan.

"Do you want me to slow down?" i say with heavy breaths following, "No." she says , attaching her rosy and sweet lips back onto mines.

I lowered my grip down to her full, breasts.

"Please~" she softly begged with a neck roll, the need was filling her up fastly, to keep up I took off the great sweatshirt she had on, revealing her perfect boobs, covered with a dark green laced bra.

We were really about to have sex in a empty parking lot in the back of a black truck, with no regards.

I went behind her and detached the bra with 1 hand, letting it come lose, I connected my mouth to one of her boobs, she let out a whimper as i plastered bright red hickeys all around it.

"Are you a virgin?" I ask, unbuckling my pants. She nods her head no, i give her a mischievous smirk before i tower myself over her again.

I smoothly slid down her pants, following her panties, she gave my sexy and hungry stare which made me even harder.

I threw the blanket over us for some.. privacy, then i slid into her, she let out a gasp at my size. I felt her hands dig into my back as she moaned into my ear, every stroke i gave her.

I began picking up speed, I grabbed her neck with a tight grip and whispered dirty things into her ear, "You feel that baby?" I say sitting up, holding her legs open, i could feel her wanting to close them from embarrassment of how much she enjoyed it, but i held them wide open. She whimpered as she felt like she had no control.

I pressed onto her pelvis area, i could almost feel my dick inside of her.

While she was in a vulnerable position i took the chance to start rubbing her sensitive clit with my thumb, Her breath hitched at the pain so pleasurable.

I pulled out then flipped her around in a swift motion, she let out a squeal from being so startled.

I slapped her bare ass, it jiggled and left a bright red hand print on it in response. I slowly re-entered myself back into her tight insides. I put my hands on her waist to arch her back, giving me a deeper thrust right onto her g-spot, the sound of her cheeks clapping and her screams filled the air.

"Fuck me!~" She would yell in a deeper more erotic tone, I could tell and feel that she was close to cumming. Her insides tightened, perfectly hugging itself around my cock.

"Im gonna-" She said before abruptly stopping herself from throwing her ass back onto me, her legs began shaking and her whole body was trembling "Fuuc-" She said with a gasp, i smirked mischievously as i watched her turn into a slutty mess.

I slowed down for a bit to make sure she didn't get over-stimulated, allowing herself to calm down so we could continue.

I lifted her by her throat, sliding my two long fingers down her throat making her gag, "Suck." i would forcefully demand, she obeyed.

I started to pick up speed once again, i was getting closer to my breaking point. She could tell because she began tightening herself onto me, I couldn't take it any more, I put her back on all fours then grabbed onto her waist again, beginning to pound her into oblivion.

"Fuck!" I would grunt as she squirted all over me, My thrusts became unbelievably sloppy, "Cum in me~" She would politely ask.

After a few more deep and rough pounds i unleashed all of my creamy cum into her, I could barely breathe from the pain of that, but it felt so amazing.

I pulled out of her the juices dripped all over the back of the truck. Tired, I hunched over her, laying my head on her back, trying to catch a breather from what we just did.

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