four months into getting to know each other, shouto finds him by touya-nii's shrine. his little brother gently sits down beside him and offers a small prayer.

"yumi-nee-san," natsuo wonders if his little brother will ever drop the second honorific, "said you were the closest to him," shouto says quietly.

after all these years and the use of past tense still makes his heart break. 'you are the closest to him' he wants to correct but that wouldn't make sense anymore. touya-nii hasn't been talked about in the present tense since before middle school. does shouto even remember a time before nii-san's dea-, disappearance?

"yeah, i was," he says, eyes never leaving the photo. it's the one nii-san took for sixth-grade picture day. kaa-san had got him all dressed up and he had hated it. somedays he thinks if he looks close enough, he'll see the displeased pout on nii-san face. "why?"

his little brother says nothing for a long time, back ramrod straight. natsuo has no idea what's going on in that head of his. shouto has so few tells that he's practically a blank slate. natsuo hates his father.

then slowly and so quietly, he has to strain his ears to catch it, shouto stammers out, "do-, do you think he would have liked me?"

natsuo's immediate reaction is to say 'yes'. yes, of course, touya-nii would've loved you. yes, of course, touya-nii would've crossed the heavens for you. yes, of course, he would've loved you shouto; you're his precious younger brother.

but he remembers the way nii-san used to spit out shouto's name when he was a kid. the way his brother's mouth wrapped around it, the face he made, like he had just eaten something disgusting. he remembers the way touya-nii had become almost crazed by the end, hellbent on proving himself the rightful heir to their shitty father's legacy. he remembers the way touya-nii had said, "i just need to prove that i'm better than him,"; the 'him' said with such bitterness and contempt.

he knows instantly that touya-nii would not have liked shouto. that this house and his father would have twisted any ounce of love, nii-san would've held towards shouto, into jealousy and hatred.

(this house may have ruined all of them but it only ever broke two of them.)

natsuo can't say any of that to shouto. his kind little brother who forgave him for not being there. his amazing little brother who falls in love with every cat he sees. his wonderful little brother who has a wickedly dry sense of humor. his soft baby brother who loves him and yumi-nee with a passion. his tender-hearted baby brother who still worries if his long-gone older brother would've liked him.

no, natsuo can't tell shouto that nii-san wouldn't have like him. shouto will internalize it like he does with everything else that hurts him. and there is already so much that hurts shouto, he will not add to that list. his baby brother smiles these days, nothing big like his green-haired friend, but quiet, lovely, ones all the same. shouto talks more these days. they have dinner together when natsuo is home. his baby brother laughs now. it's a miracle like nothing else in this world.

shouto is the best thing to come out of their house and natsuo will die before he ever hurts his little brother. so instead, he curls an arm around shouto's shoulders and pulls him into a loose side-hug.

"of course!" he lies cheerfully, ignoring the ache in his chest, "touya-nii would've loved you. you're his — and our —precious little brother after all. there is no universe in which he wouldn't have loved you."

the tips of his baby brother's ears go red and his pleased little answering smile makes the ache of lie go away. natsuo will tell a thousand more lies if it means shouto never stops smiling like that.

cant put my finger on it, but Taylor Swift feels like walking racial microaggression

my research partner and i are huddled in a blanket in paddington waiting for a too-late train i already miss you and you and you

I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron (apart from I skipped some overly long action sequences) and I am not sure so can someone tell me whether or not Tony Stark was the baddy in that film? Because about halfway through I was sure he was but then it was maybe just an evil robot after all and I am confused because either this film was surprisingly subversive or it was about robots hitting each other.

If you are, like me, obsessed with every detail of your writing being intentional and appropriately weighted but sometimes get overwhelmed with the decision fatigue that accompanies a blank page, Wonderbook really fucking slaps. Highly recommend. It walks you through examples of choices made in writing with such clarity and vision that it helped clear up multiple sticking points in my wip I've been worrying over for months. Also it's occasionally really fucking funny.

ok ok ok like i thought “the chosen” would suck cause “blah another series about the life and times of jesus” like we GET it it’s been around for CENTURIES you guys make the same damn movie all the time

but it’s actually legit really good? lots of pretty good representation! not everyone in the movie is white. actual portrayals of jewish culture instead of just ignoring that part. disabled people. matthew being autistic. characters that aren’t just two dimensional. the people in it feel like real people. there’s actual jokes, jesus cracks a few and they’re really funny?? so far nothing hateful, no gay or transgender bashing. it calls out the church for being judgemental and hateful in a way that’s very tasteful

it’s not perfect tho. jesus is…still white for some reason? despite mary not being white? and no one else around him being white? no gay people in it which is kind of a bad and a good thing…but it’s a portrayal of jesus and the people around him as human. as real life people who felt things and made jokes and rolled their eyes and stuff. also the guy they cast as jesus is pretty hot as are all the disciples. which isn’t the point or whatever but i can’t say i’m complaining. it’s free online and i think it’s worth a watch!

Im saying to myself, “it’s ok, it’s not like there’s THAT many fans” when I know dang well there IS that many fans and it WILL crash…😭

yeah... Yeah....

The Star Market

Marie Howe

The people Jesus loved were shopping at the Star Market yesterday. An old lead-colored man standing next to me at the checkout breathed so heavily I had to step back a few steps.

Even after his bags were packed he still stood, breathing hard and hawking into his hand. The feeble, the lame, I could hardly look at them: shuffling through the aisles, they smelled of decay, as if the Star Market

had declared a day off for the able-bodied, and I had wandered in with the rest of them—sour milk, bad meat— looking for cereal and spring water.

Jesus must have been a saint, I said to myself, looking for my lost car in the parking lot later, stumbling among the people who would have been lowered into rooms by ropes, who would have crept

out of caves or crawled from the corners of public baths on their hands and knees begging for mercy.

If I touch only the hem of his garment, one woman thought, could I bear the look on his face when he wheels around?

There's a point at which disliking Rebecca just falls into vastly tired women-hating tropes lacking any nuanced thought and part of this fandom's definitely made it there

oh OH hO spicey ohhh having a spicey little tantrum about the boromir tag don't listen to me at all do NOT listen I mean it I mean it this is so petty

Stampede aka another episode of luffy turning haters into dick riders just with his kind and big heart

gonna ATTEMPT to word this properly please bare with me

obviously slutty bisexuals and pervy lesbians are a bad stereotype. i am very aware of that. i would love some rep that isn’t… those. however, counterpoint: at the end of the day pito and clarence are still sword art online characters. sword art online, the series that brought you heterosexual people and vaguely homosexual people doing uncomfortable things to one another for *checks calendar* 20 slutty, slutty years.

kirito held asuna in place until she stopped struggling for their first kiss. lis is the centre of multiple gags in extra edition where the punchline is just “haha she’s flirting/touching/being horny for a girl” - most infamously, the boob-grab with sugu. strea is the same, so many of the gameverse jokes and events fall back on strea being perverted towards men and women alike. quinella exists, and all the uncomfortable things she did were still bad and manipulative, even if we’re told they “wanted it.” it sucks. it really fucking sucks. but it’s also something that happens and we deal with it.

if these gags were only ever used for wlw characters (or queer characters in general), then i would have a bigger issue with it. but it happens with het characters all the time in the main series, and it happens with het characters in ggo alternative too. i hate that it happens at all, but it’s not specific to queer characters, and those moments aren’t really specific to their sexualities anyway.

like i said, my opinion is that i’d rather have flawed rep than not having any rep at all. a mainstream series like sao having explicitly queer characters was cool, and it made me feel so emotional and feel so seen watching it. even if it wasn’t perfect, it made people feel a little more represented.

everyone who is in the stanley parable fandom should somehow get sucked into the rabbit hole of the story and or characters and or the concept the game presents . not like ohhh i looove the narratorso much heres my design and lore for them for it kind of rabbit hole where you fixate on this character that like. you are making uo backstory for to the point it deviates from canon because youve gone too far from the game details or whatever but but really aanalyze the game the moments the dialogue for just a moment . mmfind the meaning in the words . find somethin g profound in the data the papers the desks the situation as a whole . you cant just . romanticize the characters. without. like. understanding them first . tou cwnt do anything with the characters until you inderstand them at a gut wrenching level . at least brush uo on their wiki once in a while ? play the game ? every now and then ? treat stanley right ? anyway if you like the stanley parable so much why cant you tell me about 432 and their situation . how profoundly sad their existance is and how you trea t them. how about cookie9? why do you hate themm so much. because of a review ? tou antagonize them for what ? the narrators doing ? bexause the narrator what . yeah . tou cant even explain his actions . go go play the game and hav eit rewrite your brain . go down the rabbit hole and bask in the true horror and unrealism of their situation

simon peter is the funniest apostle to work with because in theory he's the most loyal, most by-the-book of the apostles so you'd expect him to be the most logical and collected one but 80% of his concerns (pre crucifixion then everything went downhill and they all died) are that he has a crush on every person he encounters

i hate to be a pretentious and whiny mean gatekeeping bitch but good fucking god why is it that my special interests specifically call together the most annoying fucking groups of people. the 2001 tag is full of ihnmaims and people shipping hal with other ai from other sources and people completely misinterpreting the entire thing. the outlast tag is full of people who want to fuck the most disgusting rotting meat men ever for i dont know what reason. they also feel no apparent shame in thirsting after characters who are straight up nazis. the re4 tag is full of leon x reader and i think some of the most annoying people in the entire world. can i have a fucking break? can people be normal?

every year I look forward to my birthday so much and every year I suffer a tremendous amount on that day for at least an hour straight.