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red-riding-wood · 2 months

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PSA - Community Predator

Over a series of months, myself and other Tumblr users -- fic writers, gif makers, fans of created content -- have been victimised by @mrkdvidal1989, who has extensively lied about who he is, preyed on multiple women and denied involvement -- therefore ruining friendships, reputations and feelings, and promised me life-saving medical treatment that he never followed through on.

More information including mine and their stories under the cut.

The reason I am going public with this is twofold:

A) To protect others from being hurt. He is known to reach out to many tumblr users, especially young women in the Cillian Murphy fandom -- but he may have a wider reach beyond this circle. B) Since his "disappearance" three weeks ago and the unravelling of his lies, this man has ruined my life and the only hope I had of obtaining treatment for a condition that has been plaguing me for four years.

Killian Vidal is the name he has chosen to give us, and has claimed to be both a officer commander and general in the mobility troop in the SAS (the general rank does not even exist), has beaten cancer a while ago (but said to another mutual that his "time was running out" and he is currently struggling with it), and a plethora of other life experiences and general knowledge about him that varies in consistency when talking to different people and is questionable in its validity. He has also shared pictures of "himself" that when reverse image searched, belong to different people.

I got to know Kill when he reblogged one of my fanfics (as the story seems to start with a lot of his victims) and he reached out via DMs. We quickly became close friends who called nearly every day on Discord and when I told him about my health issues, he immediately offered to pay for my medical treatment wherever I could find willing doctors.

I was hesitant to believe this at first since all of this seemed too good to be true (and was). He claimed to be very wealthy, enough to afford private jets like it was nothing and to rent me an apartment in the UK in the same building as him. Over time, I grew to trust him because he felt like such a genuine person and friend, which was made all the more believable by the fact that he has such a huge following on Tumblr and was, at the time, part of a vast social network of fans and friends (one of which he even claimed to know IRL -- who will remain anonymous unless they decide to speak out). I decided to ignore the little red flags because I was so desperate to receive this treatment that for me would be life-saving.

For four years, I have been plagued by an array of (mostly) undiagnosed digestive issues that have made my life almost unbearable and have on numerous occasions nearly killed me due to malnutrition. I've spent months in hospital, endured years of malpractice and misdiagnoses, undergone heart surgery, and have tried absolutely everything I can to get better. In the winter of 2023, I was told by my doctor that I was refused in the TPN program (a treatment that may have slowed or stopped my weight loss) and that with or without it, I was looking at mortality. Refusing to stop fighting but having exhausted the public health care system in Canada, I went into 2024 not really having much hope of anything anymore.

So, when Kill came along, that changed. He promised -- and I mean, from the bottom of his heart, promised -- that he would help me get treatment, that he would get me out of my abusive home and fly me to the UK, that he would be there for me as my friend, etc. I was beyond grateful, and as my trust with him built, so did my hope.

The travel plans kept getting put off; originally, he would fly me out as soon as the apartment became available, which was the 11th of Feb, 2024. He kept finding excuses to not book the jet. Finally, it seemed as if around the 15th/16th I would be flying. My health had been declining rapidly and the situation was becoming all the more urgent, and he said he was in contact with a pilot and would send the ticket soon and call me.

That was the last I heard from him. The 16th.

Initially thinking he had ended his life (he had discussed thoughts of suicide with me prior to this), I was beside myself with worry not only thinking one of my closest friends was gone but also that my chance at life was. I reached out to his other friends, and I made several calls to the UK authorities and emergency services and ended up requesting a welfare check be made to see if he was even alive.

They reported that no one under the name Killian Vidal was in the records of the building name he gave me -- the same building that I was meant to live in within that week.

After reaching out to my now beloved friend @kittenonpluto (A.K.A., Cas) on Tumblr, I learned that Kill was in fact alive, and had told her that he was in hospital for digestive issues in Indianopolis, United States (though again, no record of his name in their medical system). He still wouldn't talk to me, but told her to tell me that he would reach out when he was out of hospital.

Cas and I compared information he'd told us (her story will be attached to this post) and looked into the mystery more. He constantly dodged confrontation and questions about the fake photos and information he'd sent her, and seemed to use his completely fabricated hospitalisation as an excuse to not fulfil his promises to myself and her, as well as a means to garner sympathy.

It was quite obvious that he didn't know how the American medical system worked, and he even incorporated elements of my actual story and used them in his. When asked about his treatments, he responded with medically false information. He reported digestive issues, reflux, and having both an NG tube and TPN -- both of which I have experience with -- and let me say, I am beyond disgusted and infuriated that my real life trauma was used as a ploy in all this.

How do we know for a fact this is false? I checked the police case for his welfare check again, and they said that they confirmed him being in the UK at the same time he had told Cas he was in hospital in the States.

After a final confrontation from both Cas and myself (and a desperate final plea for the medical aid he promised me), he was never heard from again from either of us or our friend circles.

I'm now having to pick up the pieces he's left me in and to be honest, I have little to no idea of what the hell to do or how to save myself. The fact that he strung me along for a month and built up my hope that I was going to live only to abandon me without even a word is deplorable to me.

And mine isn't the only story. I've heard from four women on Tumblr (who, again, will remain anonymous unless they choose to speak out) who he has been romantic or sexually involved with (and lied about his involvement, made them out to seem insane or toxic, created rifts in our friendships, toyed with their emotions, and made false promises to of relationships, marriage, and finances).

And that's not including the ex-wife who came back to Tumblr to claim that her and Kill had never met nor married. She was promptly silenced by a "lawyer threat" that we have strong reason to believe was a bluff.

At the end of the day, there are so many lies, half-truths, inconsistencies, etc. this man has wrapped himself in and we don't know for the life of us what his motives are, but from the information that we do know is false, he isn't genuine. He toys with people. He hurts them. Myself and the others that have been affected by this want that to stop.

And at any point, he has the ability to make a new account, and take on a new persona, pretend to be someone else. Tumblr is a wonderful place and I have met so many cool people on here, but please be careful about who you interact with and what you share, because aside from making this post, it is beyond my power to stop him from doing what he does. But after what he did to me, I could not remain silent.

Other Stories

If you have an experience or story with Killian that you would like heard, please reblog it on this thread or make a post. With your consent, I can include a link to it below.

kittenonpluto's story

aurorag98's story

everyoneisawhore's story

your-nanas-house's story

hllywdwhre's story

Final Note

Lastly, if you have read this far, thank you.

If you want to reach out to me about this issue -- whether it's to anonymously share your experience, ask questions, ask for evidence (of which I can back up these statements with), or anything at all --, please do not hesitate to do so. <3

For those who may be worried about the potential legality of this post, everything that I have stated as fact is fact and it is not my intention to slander or spread false information.

#PSA #predator warning #my story with Killian #Cillian Murphy #Peaky Blinders #mrkdvidal1989

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matan4il · 5 months

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Have you noticed how almost everything that the anti-Israel crowd accuses people who simply recognize Israel's right to exist of, is (in additional to usually being false) stuff they're guilty of themselves?

"You support ethnic cleansing!"

What do you think it means, when you chant the English translation of "From water to water, Palestine will be Arab"?

"You support an ethno-state!"

Do you call for the destruction of every single nation state, such as Germany, Japan, France, and so on? No? Then so do you. Have you called for the establishment of a Palestinian state? Then, so do you. Between Hamas ruling Gaza and being genocidal when it comes to Jews, and Mahmoud Abbas (president of the Palestinian Authority) stating no Israelis will be allowed in the State of Palestine (and by "Israelis" we all know he doesn't mean the Arab citizens of Israel, he's talking about Jews) that's going to be an ethno-state, too. Oh, you meant a "pure" ethno-state. Those don't exist in today's reality, and Israel, with 27% of its citizens being non-Jews, is no exception.

"Oct 7 didn't happen in a vacuum, you're ignoring the context of the past 75 years!"

You are ignoring big chunks of anti-Jewish violence during these 75 years, you're ignoring the expulsion of almost 900,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, you're ignoring the anti-Jewish violence and persecution that preceded the establishment of the Land of Israel, and you're ignoring all 3,500 years (at least) of Jewish existence in and connection to our ancestral homeland, Israel.

"You support collective punishment!"

The same way you do, when you chant, "When people are occupied, resistance is justified"? Because that's what it means, that for the sin of Israel supposedly being a colonial state (a false claim, since Jews are native to Israel), you're justifying raping 13 year old girls, shooting them in the head, murdering Holocaust survivors, burning babies alive... what's that if not supporting collective punishment? (that's before we get into the fact that Israel not surrendering in a war started by Hamas is NOT collective punishment, or else we would have to define the allies not surrendering to the Nazis in WWII as collective punishment of the Germans)

"You suppor apartheid!"

All Israeli citizens have the same civil rights. Apartheid in South Africa was a system where citizens of the country had their rights limited based on skin color/ancestry. The issue in South Africa wasn't that racism existed (IDK a single country where racism doesn't), it's that it was codified into law, and used against the rights of that country's own citizens. Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs have the same rights. Non-Israeli Palestinians not having the same rights as Israelis, including as Israeli Arabs, is the same as French Canadians not having the same rights in the US as French Americans. It is NOT proof the US is applying a system of apartheid unto French people. And if it were, then I have news for you, every country applies different rights to citizens vs not citizens, so every country would be an apartheid state by this criterion. Which would make the word meaningless, and it would diminish the suffering of non-whites under South Africa's apartheid (as some young black South Africans who have actually been to Israel now point out). Meanwhile, I'll point back up to where Mahmoud Abbas said no Israelis (i.e Jews) will be allowed in Palestine, and that under the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian can be jailed or executed for selling land to Jews, which means the PA demolishes the right to property (of Jews to own it, and of the PA's Palestinian citizens to sell it as they see fit) based solely on the ancestry of the buyer... And you support the PA, right?

"You deny the Nakba!"

I had never encountered any Israeli denying that roughly 850,000 Arabs fled Israel due to the War of Independence. Pointing out that the Arabs are the ones who started that war isn't the same as denying it happened. Meanwhile, the people who make this accusation, largely deny the expulsion of the Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, deny the suffering, discrimination, expulsions and massacres Jews had endured for centuries under Arab and Muslim regimes, and deny the atrocities of Oct 7.

"You support colonialism!"

Say the people who deny the native rights of the Jews, who act as if these rights are limited by time (as if such a limitation benefits anyone other than actual colonizers), who ignore the fact that Palestinians wouldn't exist here without Arab colonialism, or who wish to confer a native status unto them by virtue of... being settler colonialists for a "long time" (to be clear, the way the UN's definition of a Palestinian refugee works, it only requires a person to have been an Arab* settler colonialist in Israel during the 2 years prior to the founding of the Israeli state, to be recognized as a Palestinian. To become a US citizen, in addition to other requirements, you have to live in the US for at least 5 years, 3 if married to an American citizen. That means in June of 1946, it was easier to become a Palestinian "native" in the eyes of the UN, than an American citizen). Don't get me wrong, Palestinians have a right to live in the place where they were born. I can both recognize that they're here due to Arab colonialism, AND be okay with them living here. Just like I can recognize that no Americans today deserve to be displaced, even though the majority of them are there thanks to colonialism. And I don't have to pretend like Americans of European descent have suddenly become native (something that if I did, would probably hurt actual Native Americans), in order to recognize their right to live where they were born. It's just ironic that if we took the logic of the anti-Israel crowd when it comes to native Jews, and applied it to all native peoples, this would harm the natives, erase their rights, recognize their colonizers as natives, and generally help colonialism.

There's probably more, but I think this is demonstrative enough.

* Technically, the UN didn't specify ancestry. As an idea, you could be Arab, Jewish, a Polish Catholic priest living in a convent in the Land of Israel from Jun '46 to May '48, and you'd be recognized as a Palestinian by the UN, but in reality this definition ended up favoring all non-Jewish colonizers of the land. In 1952, Israel said, "It's okay, we'll take care of the Jewish refugees displaced by the War of Independence. No need for the UN to do so. This is what we set up a Jewish state for." This is in addition to Israel taking care of the Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries, and Jewish Holocaust survivors. And for Israel's show of responsibility, the now-Israeli Jewish refugees have been punished. They don't get recognized as existing, as having been displaced by, and having suffered due to the war the Arabs started in the Land of Israel against its Jewish communities. "Palestinian" refers to non-Jews only from the second The British Mandate in Palestine's Jews became Israeli Jews, but that doesn't stop the anti-Israel crowd from falsely claiming there are Palestinian Jews today... even though since May of 1948, there aren't, and before that, those Palestinian Jews were British subjects, not the citizens of an Arab independent state called Palestine (something that has never historically existed). Thanks to the exclusion in practice of Jews from the definition of Palestinian refugee, the UN agency for taking care of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA became a tool of spreading anti-Jewish hate.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #israelunderattack #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #resources

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thefandomdirtymind · 7 months

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Hello! I saw your post you're open for a request and I was wondering if I could I have OPLA Sanji?

About Sanji fall in love towards reader but reader was hesitate and unsure if Sanji is being sincere it's like she's having trust issues since Sanji is considered a ladies' man or flirty and was afraid he'll broke her heart?

A/N IMPORTANT: Hey, thank you for your request Anon ! I had to confess that it was kind of a hard one for me because well...trust issu hit close from home and I just start to write that angst even if it was not my specialty, but I really like the result and I hope you will too !

Trust Issues

OPLA - Vinsmoke Sanji

Sanji / OPLA Masterlist and Coming Soon

* English is not my first language, I tried really hard to correct myself but, I hope you will excuse me if some mistakes are still there.

—

Love wasn’t your cup of tea. Sure, the idea of a partner supporting and adoring you like you deserve was cute. But, in your opinion, you have already done enough. After all, your last relationship has resulted as becoming a pirate and being abandoned by your lover to save his ass. And, If the humiliation hadn’t been enough, not long after your escape for the marines, you had seen him parading with his new lady wrapped around his arm. Like if you hadn’t existed at all.

So, nobody could blame you if you had some trust issues and an aversion for ladie’s man.

It’s why you knew the minute you saw his smile what Vinsmoke Sanji was : A pretty flirt.

If it was only you, you had refused his presence on the ship, but, like Luffy had said, the Going Merry needed a cook and the man was a hell of a fighter. As the morning came, you couldn’t also deny the fact that he looked incredibly good in his suit, his bag on his shoulder, ready to come aboard. Smiling at the instant he spotted you.

“ Hello Madam, I'm glad we met again. Can I say that you seem even more beautiful in this sunlight” He offered, from the dock, as you were sitting on the main deck rail adjusting a rope.

“ You may, but it doesn't mean I will accept the compliment. Luffy is on the upper deck if you search him” You coldly replied, trying to shut down your traitor heart. You will not fall for another pretty face, never.

“ I didn’t expect much Madam, thank you for the information “ Sanji replied, his mood in nothing affected by your coldness. Sure, he had hoped for a warmer welcome, but after serving you the night before and found himself unable to turn his gaze away from your beauty. He was satisfied with just being part of the same crew as you, the rest would come later he had assumed.

It took, in fact, way longer than he first thought. For the entire few weeks he had been on board, you hadn’t looked or talked to him except to thank him for the food or urgent matters.

Many times, the crew had tried to talk to you, asking you to be more nice with Sanji. But, even if you could feel his charm often softened your shield, your stubbornness was even stronger.

It wasn’t easy for Sanji either. He knew you clearly disliked him without knowing why. When, on his part, the more he was admiring you, watching you laugh with the others, hearing your brilliant plan, watching you gracefully climb the cordage and being as stubborn as him. Make him love you even more. Everyday, he was trying to charm you, offering you compliments, taking an interest in what you were doing or simply making you the best food he could. But, nothing worked, you answered him quickly and as coldly as always.

It'll take another two months and a storm before Sanji has enough.

The rain was falling for hours,helped by a wind so strong that you had to close one of the sails to avoid drifting away. Each two hours or so, the members of the crew were making a rotation, trying as much as possible to not fatigue themself too much and end up falling into the water.

You were the only one still standing, drenched by the cold rain, your muscles sore by the force necessary to keep the helm stable. Multiple times Nami and Usopp had tried to push you to take a rest or at least eat something warm, but each time you refused resolutely, you would pass that storm and rest after.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Sanji was finishing his soup, preparing three bowls for the crew member who will come downstairs to take their rest. As he prepared himself for going upstairs, doing his part, the blond chef saw Nami and Usopp going down the stairs, alone. You aren’t with them, again.

“ Where Y/N ” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“ She refuses to budge of the helm. we tried to talk to her but it’s like talking to a rock” Nami replied, wrapping herself in a big towel.

“ I’ll come back, I will bring her here “ Sanji only replied, his happy mood now sour. It wasn’t rare in the time who’s he was running the restaurant with Zeff that he lost his temper. He had lost it already a time or two during battle, but against another member of the crew,it was a first.

Making his way to the helm, he looked at you, already knowing it will not be easy. But, to be sure you’re in security, he was ready to fight you if he had to.

“ Y/N, your time has long passed, I will replace you. I prepared a dry towel and warm soup in the kitchen. Go take some rest “ He first tried.

“ I’m not tired or hungry “ You simply replied with your gaze focused on the horizon.

“ Then I’m afraid I have to excuse myself Darling “ Profiting from an adjustment of your position, he then proceeds to lift you on his shoulder, easily dodging all your attacks, as he was getting you down in the ship to dry both of you.

“ How dare you ! “ You scream, shaking of rage and cold. As he sits you on one of the kitchen stools and throws a dry towel at you. “ I was perfectly fine !”

“ You were on a trip to catch death ! “Sanji replied sharply, his gaze dark and his wet form in a stiff posture with anger “ I don’t know what I exactly did to make you dislike me like that, but I can care for you if you do some stupid things like that ! “

“ Then just don’t care about me and go flirt somewhere else !!” You angrily answered.

Taken aback, Sanji tilted his head, frowning his eyebrow, clearly confused.

“ Wait…what…You dislike me…because I flirted with you ?“ He slowly asked, trying to understand your point.

“ I just don’t understand why you haven't given up yet ! I had already done with the damn flirty kind, go charm your other ladies and leave me alone ! “

" My other…” Sanji starts disbelief. “ I don’t give up because I care for you…stubborn woman! " Sanji tried to say. Never had he thought that it was his manner that you hated so much. " But if my affection isn't required, fine, eat and rest, that's all I ask " He sighs ,disappearing upstairs.

A long and heavy silence fell in the kitchen after he left, leaving you with a curiously heavy heart and some concerned gaze of Nami and Usopp eating their soup. After a while, you sigh, defeated and take yourself a bowl. As always, the dish was perfectly balanced and delicious.

" You know y/n...I know your story, I understand, I do. But…Sanji didn't flirt with any woman aside from you for months…I think he genuinely likes you, " Nami softly spoke. "Of course I'm not you and you have all the right to act like you do, but it’s not Sanji's fault. He’s not him… and I think the day he will stop caring for you, you will realize it’s will be maybe too late”.

“ Maybe “ You admit, finishing your food before leave it into the sink and heading to the door” I will sleep a little, wake me up when it will be our turn again please “

But she never woke you up and when you opened your eyes, the sun was shining again on another day.

Sanji wasn’t the kind of man who'd give up easily, neither on his dream nor on the people he loved. But, even with his flirty tendency, respecting women and their wishes was a priority. It’s why, even if it cost him and that your word had wounded him, on that sunny day, he started to restrict at the minimum his attention to you.

And you noticed it immediately. His gaze on you, usually full of affection, was now more distant, he didn’t ask you if you had slept well, nor if you would like something in particular for breakfast, he simply put an omelet in front of you, smiled politely and returned to his occupation. Yes, for Sanji it was odd, but, as a ladie’s man you give him a week before going back to his old habit.

Luckily for you, life decided to give both of you a hand.

Your estimation could never be more wrong. After two weeks of polite but cold Sanji, you were almost wishing you never had that fight. Your traitor heart was missed his radiant smile toward you, his compliments for every little detail of your person or the way he tried to know every one of your favorite things. But you had broken it and you were now unsure how to repair it. Excuse could probably do the charm, but your stubbornness was always blocking you, estimating that protecting your heart wasn't shameful.

The Going Merry was anchored alongside an island, doing his needed resupply. As the last barrel had been brought on board, you followed the idea of Zoro and decided to join your companions for a drink at the little bar on the beach.

But, as you put your foot in the small place, you froze, your mind resuming to a static white noise. Your ex, already another lady at his arm, was installed with his crew at the largest table of the little tavern.

“ Hey Y/N come here, that table is free ! “ Luffy exclaimed, not noticing your stiffness.

“ Y/N is that you ! Damn girl, I haven't seen you since you were surrounded by Marines ! I own you for this one, how did you escape ?! “ The despicable man shouted, clearly more happy to see you, than you were to see him. “ Darla, that girl was... my most loyal crew member. “He explained to the girl at his side “Look at you, have you always been that pretty ? “

The compliment was the last straw that snapped you out of your shock. How could he talk to you so casually after all you had endured because of him. Doesn’t he have an ounce of regret or shame ?!

“ I escaped on my own after you had cowardly abandoned me ! “ You replied, as Sanji placed himself behind you, placing a hand on your shoulder in support.

“ Y/N, that man clearly doesn’t deserve your time, come, the drink will arrive soon” He tried, giving a hard look at the pathetique Captain who was now coming a you, his hand scratching his hair, gauging if Sanji was a menace for his future plan with you or not.

“ Not deserving of his time, I had already two years of her time mate, go sip your beer and let us discuss. Y/N and I have many things to talk about. I haven’t abandoned her, I knew she could escape, she’s a smart cat. Aren't you Sweet pea”

“ I have nothing to say to you, thank you Sanji but I’m not in the mood. Being in the same room as him would suck all the joy I have. I will be on the ship. “ You simply replied, making your exit before tears ran down your cheeks.

Sat on the upper deck, watching the night sky, the fresh wind drying your last tears, you saw Sanji came back onboard. Without a word, he simply sat beside you and offered you the bottle he was keeping in his hand.

“ Zoro sent his regards and I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry. I had tried to respect your wish, but I couldn’t stop myself tonight. I can’t not care for you and that man was...he shouldn’t ever treat a lady as you like that. Maybe now he had learn “

“ Sanji, what did you do? “ You asked, strangely touched that he had actually take your defense even after you had left.

“ I kicked his pathetic and disgraceful ass. I couldn’t tolerate the way he was looking at you, talking to you...But I understand now how my behavior led you to dislike me when I arrived, But I assure you that…”

“ I know, “ You said your heart, still fragile, beating faster.” You aren’t him and I should have waited to know you. I was scared, I didn’t want to like you because I was afraid to repeat the same story. But even if I tried, I realize when you had stop to caring for me that I miss it, I missed you…a lot“

Suddenly unusually shy, his cheeks a slightly shade of faded pink in the dark, Sanji avoided your gaze, a joyful smile spreading on his lips.

“ I suggest that we start over. We can't forget all those months but we can restart our relationship.I can’t wait to truly know you Y/N” He tell, finally planting in gaze in yours, that lost spackles in his eyes, the one you though forever vanish, back even brighter that ever.

“ I can’t wait too, Sanji “ You softly smile.

___

Your first kiss with Sanji happened a little shorter than a month later. At exactly the same spot.

Since that night, you have made a habit of watching the sky together, sharing stories, passions and thoughts. Even if the blond cook, not without surprise, seems to find the constellation less appealing than your sweet view at his side. But, you slowly adapted yourself to his flirting and even often replied, to his joy.

It was in one of those moments, as you turned your head to point to him a group of stars that Sanji captured your lips, answering your heart's deepest desire from months and even probably since the tall man had put a foot on the deck.

Somewhere on the lower level of the ship, you hear the playful screams and wolf whistles of your friends. But, as he captured your lips for another kiss you couldn't care less. You had an amazing group of friends, the sea was peaceful and with the help of Sanji, your heart finally started to heal.

#opla!sanji x reader #sanji x reader #one piece netflix #opla #opla sanji #vinesmoke sanji x reader #one piece #one piece sanji #opla vinesmoke sanji x reader #sanji x y/n #Request #Sanji Request

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uravitypng · 8 months

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denki has been in love with jirou since he's met her. at least that's what he thinks but he's harbouring a secret and he's refusing to acknowledge it, pretending that it doesn't exist.

that secret is you. you as a person aren't a secret, in fact you're a hero just like jirou and denki and went to school together. you're denki's friend, his best friend. you're close with jirou too and with the rest of your old classmates but with denki- nothing can replace him to you.

you remember the time you find out jirou and denki started dating, denki dropped everything and went out to find you because he had to let you know, you tell each other everything and it meant so much to him. well you thought you told each other everything...

denki and jirou's relationship was not going so well, communication issues and insecurities flooded the relationship. they have known each other for years now but jirou still worries that she isn't enough for him and denki doesn't communicate how he's feeling to her. he's worried that if he's serious about how he's feeling then she won't want to be with him anymore. he's able to do that with you though knowing he can be be honest and candid and doesn't have to make a joke every 5 seconds. jirou worries that denki will find someone 'prettier.' she worries he is in love with you, she expresses that sometimes, especially the days after nights out when she thinks you two spend to much time together, he always assures her that he only see's you platonically. you're his best friend, nothing more.

they're spending the night together as the both have the night off and decide to spend quality time together but denki wishes he was somewhere else. you told him you were planning on going to bed as soon as you're home from patrols but he received an instagram notification that you posted, a photo of you with mina and a very miserable looking bakugou. he doesn't know why you would lie to him but it bugs him. if jirou caught him looking at his phone on their date night she would be furious, especially if it was a photo of you but he couldn't help it. he sent a message to you asking you if your plans changed tonight. you reply almost instantly responding that mina dragged you out of bed and that it would be better if he was there. he wishes he was there too.

he drinks more and more that night and so does jirou, getting drunk of expensive bottles of red wine. at some point they make their way into their bedroom, fiddling with each others clothes to try and take them off as quick as possible. denki nearly tripped while rushing and taking off his jeans. they didn't really speak, they both just wanted, to feel skin contact.

it was clumsy and messy and they fall on the bed with a entanglement of limbs. denki places heated kisses down jirou's neck while she pulls his hair, grounding herself, in the process making him groan. they are both drunk, so incredibly drunk, so drunk that now denki's completely naked he's struggling to accurately thrust into her, and keeps missing. he's getting more frustrated as she's getting more whiny, finally he successfully pushes into her, hard and fast with no rhythm, just chasing that peak.

what denki's brain fails to realise at that moment is who is under him. he gets more rough and groans again, closing his eyes. that's when jirou hears it. her boyfriend. her boyfriend saying your name. she convinces herself that she must have misheard it, there's no way he'd think of someone else in bed, especially his best friend. denki's grabbing hold of the pillows as hard as he can, trying to stabilise himself and keep him upright. she's getting so close to coming.

"i love you. i love you. fuck, i love you so much." jirou takes a deep breath as she comes to the conclusion it was just her mind playing tricks on her. "holy fuck i love you-" she freezes. he said your name. this time there's no denying it, he's meant to be in love with her, they're meant to be in love with each other, they've met each other's parents, they live together! was this time all a lie? she eventually pushes denki off of her after she was able to move again and left the room.

when denki woke up in the morning jirou was packing her things and telling him that she's breaking up with him. she didn't tell him why and he couldn't remember. he kept asking why but she just left without answering him.

later on that day you messaged denki what happened with jirou because now she's acting like she hates you and you have no idea why. he doesn't know why either.

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foolsocracy · 10 months

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With all the age discourse around Spider-Man Noir right now, I thought I’d compile parts of the comic that imply his age. I want to state that this pulling from his 2009-2010 comic run before the time skip, specifically the first volume. The spiderverse movie has taken a lot of liberties with the characters, so it is very possible that what Peters age is in 1933 in the comics is NOT what his age is in 1933 in the movies.

Peter’s age is not directly stated in his 1st comic run (I can’t speak for the 2020 ones because it has been a while since I read them, plus there’s like a 10 year jump). It IS however heavily implied that he is young. So much so that you can’t seem to go more than a page without someone referencing it.

Like, these all happen in the same scene. The writers beat you over the head with it.

In this issue alone Peter is called both “son” and “sonny” once, “boy” twice, and “kid” 8 times. Outside nouns, he is also referred to as young, and when Urich brings him to The Black Cat, Felicia calls it “babysitting.” Urich also asks Peter if he is “allowed out after midnight” but after some research I can’t seem to find any evidence of NYC having juvenile curfews at this point in time, though they did exist in lots of towns in the late 1800s and early 1900s because of child labor laws. I think this instance is just Pete just being young and an adult being concerned about his well-being.

It is also mentioned in this volume, and again in Eyes Without a Face (vol 2), that Peter wants to go to college in the future and is currently studying & saving up money to do so. This alone doesn’t necessarily mean he’s under 18 as there isn’t a max age to apply for college, plus Peter comes from a poor family during the Great Depression. It wouldn’t surprise me if he started college later than usual because of that (lack of funds & catching up due to not being in school/working).

There is other evidence that does imply he is under 18 though— he’s too young to drink alcohol!

Spider-Man Noir Vol 1 issue 1 starts in January 1933 before jumping back three weeks to December 1932 where Ben Urich meets Peter Parker

It is during December 1932 that he meets Felicia Hardy who owns the speakeasy The Black Cat. Prohibition is still in place and won’t be overwritten until a year later in December 1933. It is important to note that before Prohibition was instated, the drinking age in New York was 18 years old. That law is what the characters reference when they discuss drinking age. And most importantly, Peter doesn’t deny the fact that he’s too young to drink. He just snarks back in true Parker fashion

This is the most concrete evidence there is towards Peter being under 18 in the noirverse. It can even be argued that Peter is under 17 with how easily Felicia picks up on the fact that he’s underage (and that she does so from a distance might I add, as seen in the ‘babysitting’ panel).

There is also a panel where JJJ refers to Peter as an “orphan.” By definition, an orphan is a kid under 18. This is JJJ, so this can be taken with a grain of salt as he loves good ol hard-hitting words. When people speak they don’t always use words by their exact definitions; sometimes if you’re young and your parents are dead, JJJ is going to label you an orphan even if ur a legal adult lol. But if you take this at face value it’s definitely another indicator that Peter is under 18.

TLDR; Spider-Man Noir from his 2009-2010 comic run is most likely under 18, and can be argued to be 15-16+. If not that, then is definitely college aged or younger.

#Hoping praying the format is ok #Tumblr mobile is the death of me #Spider-Man noir #spiderman noir #spider noir #spiderverse #peter benjamin parker #hes just a little guy #ben urich #jj jameson #felicia hardy #Ok gn everyone #Snork memenemememee #If I wake up and the format is ass I’ll repost lol

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toastyrobos · 1 month

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**Oh what a simple dress can do***

Tech X Female reader

Word count: 4.4 K

((After seeing you in that stunning dress, Tech admits that he can't deny his feelings anymore nor stay away from you. He wants you and makes his Intentions known))

⚠️Warnings: NSFW, smut, fem receiving, fingering, P in V, sweet talking⚠️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The mission on Canto Bight ended up being a bit more then you originally bargained for. Especially the multiple men that had taken it upon themselves to flirt with you, like it was their right to. Even after you repeatedly told them a firm no. Thankfully a blaster pointed at them fixed the issue pretty quick.

Everything went about as smooth as most missions with clone force 99 usually did. In that it didn't. Fortunately you got what you came for. Meaning you could finally lose the way too reveling dress. Looking at yourself in the mirror one last you couldn't help but admire it. You had forgotten that you even had this one. Not sure where or when you bought or acquired it, but it was beautiful, Stunningly so.

Weirdly enough you had to admit, a deep scarlet red seemed to be your color.

Standing just outside your door, finger hovering over the open and close button, Tech was thinking the exact same thing.

The rich scarlet color was most certainly indeed your color. Your ideal shade in fact. Maker how it brought out the electric blues in your eyes. The way it clung to your figure, hugging every curve of your frame so perfectly.

The very second you stepped into the cockpit his heart nearly jumped out of his chest. His throat immediately drying up.

All coherent thoughts from his mind disappearing the moment he saw you. It was as if time stood still. Everything ceased to exist but you. All he could see or think about in that very instant was you. You had robbed him of all meaning, leaving him completely breathless.

Keeping a calm and clear head, especially during a mission was a factor of his programming. He was modified specifically to be an individual of logic and facts. Data being his constant companion. Yet, when it came to you everything he knew seemed to dissipate. As if it no longer existed the very minute he laid eyes upon you.

It was no secret to him that he had been harboring these...types of feelings towards you for quite some time. Being a man of science he tried to rationalize it. Find a more accurate solution to why he was experiencing such powerful, dominating emotions.

The only conclusion he could decipher was that he had true passionate feelings for you, and that he needed to tell you. The desire to so was very overwhelming. So much so that the second he saw you in that dress, Kriff, he wanted to devour you. Not just connect his lips to yours, but much more.

His imagination ran wild. Wilder than it should've gone. He had not realized that it could even reach such a point.

It both unnerved and excited him.

Never had he experienced such impulsive thoughts like that before. Especially not about you. Yes he wanted to feel your lips against his. But this?

He had been researching it for quite some time. About how one went about initiating such an action. But now he wanted to touch you in ways that went beyond simple affection.

He was somewhat familiar with intimate escapades and how such actions were preformed. Not only had his brothers disclosed details of their said 'adventures', but numerous late night research sessions had also yielded successful results.

Now the only quarrel was telling you. He had no desire to force himself upon you. He was not that kind of man at all. And frankly he despised any man or individual who was.

If you rejected him then so be it. He would continue your friendship as if nothing had changed and cage his feelings away for no one to see again.

But if you did feel the same way, he was not confident he'd be able to leave without putting his new found knowledge to the use.

Knocking at your door startled you. Having no idea who would be outside your room at this hour you pressed the bottom to find out.

"Tech?" Surprised to find him standing outside your room of all places. It wasn't unusual for him to frequent the cockpit at night, but here?

That was a first.

Again you addressed him. "What are doing here?"

Already aware of his eyes on you the minute the sheet of metal was gone between you two. It wasn't the first time his gaze had followed you around. This evening especially.

Somewhere deep inside you, you had hoped there was a certain reason behind it, an explanation for why they would linger. However you wouldn't get your hopes up. Not today. Not again.

"I do not mean to disturb you, but may I come in?" He requested. "It is most urgent".

Whatever it was seemed important. Taking this dress off would have to wait. "Yes of course".

You ushered him in, moving yourself out of the way to allow him room to enter. Then shut the door behind him. You'd be lying if a small part of you didn't hope that Tech's sudden visit would be to tell you that he cared for you.

Tucked away deep inside, you too had harbored romantic feelings for him. From the first mission you were assigned to clone force 99, you felt pulled to him. Something about his aura and person drew you in. From that point on every opportunity you got to spend alone with him was invigorating.

Right now in this moment, the two of you alone in your room, was no exception. The way he was looking at you, staring at you, the way his gaze glided across your skin. Maker. It was anything but rational.

To be honest you liked it. Anytime a more impulsive Tech made an appearance, even for the briefest of moments, it excited you. Made your insides tingle.

As luck would have it , a more impulsive Tech was here. And he was ready to play. If given the opportunity. But first he needed to lay everything out in the open. Make his true intentions known, and await for your answer.

But yet again that dress stopped him in his tracks. The power it had over him and his...urges. Desires. Even without it you were a stunning individual. Mind, body and soul. But in it...may the force help him. You were a goddess, and he was bewitched entirely.

Taking a deep breath Tech began, "I do not wish to make you uncomfortable (Y/N). That is never my intention".

You nodded, "I know and you never do, Tech".

Air filled his lungs as he felt his own body heating up from just being in the same room as you, in that dress.

His desires were curling and twisting into every crevice of his body. Such unusual emotions for him to even entertain. Nonetheless have. He wanted to kiss you. Touch you. Show to you all that he'd learned. Give you a passionate escape. All of it. He wanted all of it.

But most of all.

He wanted you.

Maker he wanted you so badly. It was like he was being burned alive from the inside out every second that passed without telling you. He had never experienced such a desperate, demanding feeling before. Some how it did not feel foreign, strangely enough.

In fact he found it to be rather enjoyable. The way you made him feel.

It was now or never.

"I must confess to you that I have come here with an ulterior motive. That is I do not wish to alarm you.."

You could feel the heat radiating off of his body as he moved, step by step closer to you. Closing the distance between your bodies inch by inch. You stood your ground. Not afraid of what was happening.

Until your bare back was pressed up against the edge of your desk. His frame hovering over you, you were starting to realize the gravity of the situation.

"There is an undeniably strong romantic attraction that I feel for you (Y/N)".

His voice was barley a whisper. But it held power. And it had you. Goosebumps spread across your skin, lips parted, your breath caught in your throat. You opened your mouth to speak, but found only silence greeted you.

"It has been excruciatingly difficult to keep my distance from you for the sake of our missions for the Galactic Army of the Republic and your responsibilities as a Senator. However after this very evening....". He stared deep into your eyes. "Seeing you in this breathtaking ensemble, I could deny my feelings towards you no longer".

You remind in shock. You had hoped, even if it was fleeting, but you never had thought he actually would care for you. And so strongly.

He took another breath. "Nor can I deny that I want you (Y/N). In ways that I know I should not want you for it is against everything that I was programmed to be and my duties as a solider". He exclaimed. "As well as your duties as a Senator. I do not mean to overstep my boundaries". Seeing as you had not yet responded, he back pedaled slightly.

"I know this must be overwhelming, the amount of data I have unexpectedly sprung on you at this late hour, but I—I do not mean to unease you nor did I intend to upset you. I do not mean to pressure you into accepting my advances, if they are not reciprocated or if in fact they are unwarranted".

The air surrounding you both was becoming alive. Pulsating. Electrically charged by his forward advances.

You swallowed. "My only intention at this very moment is to disclose to you how you make me feel. Anything beyond that—it is your decision if you wish for me to continue. If you do not I will respect your answer and will simply return our relationship to what it was before this...conversation".

Again your repeated silence concerned him. Had he crossed a line that he could never mend? Had his speech patterns and wording been all wrong?

He wondered, maybe he should have kept this sort of inconvenience to himself, if this was your desired reaction.

"It would seem that I have made things uncomfortable for you. Very well, I will leave you". He started to back away from your close proximity. "I am truly sorry to have incon—"

"Don't go". Before he could move any further from you, you reached out to grip his hand. Stopping him in place. "Please". You spoke.

You couldn't deny that his words had caught you off guard, but oh how they affected you. Your body felt like it was prickling with heat, the skin beneath your, suddenly all too revealing, dress in particular.

Nothing physically had happened, and yet you sensed your body being awakened by his advances. A large degree of it caused by his carefully crafted words. It was undeniable now.

He wanted you.

He really wanted you.

To be with you. To kiss you. To hold you. To...touch you in those ways. It didn't scare you. No. In fact, in some strange way you felt braver. Under his gaze you didn't back away. Instead you embraced it.

You cared for Tech deeply, as deeply as you were now sure he cared for you. There was no reason to be afraid. Not with Tech. No reason to shy away from him now.

Tech would never intentionally hurt you. He had made that clear in the ways he would protect you. Not just on missions you accompanied them, but in his words, in the way he spoke to and about you.

Thus you trusted him fully. Beyond a shred of any doubt.

Tech returned to his previous position, his chest plate nearly touching your tantalizingly exposed skin.

"Are you certain?" He questioned you, so sure you'd come to your senses at once and immediately reject him. You however did not. Instead to his surprise you nodded. Yes you were sure, you wanted this, wanted him.

Maybe it was rash to jump straight into this, but maker the sensations pooling in your lower stomach spoke otherwise. You were now eager for him to reach out and touch you. The anticipation for him to do so building with each passing minute.

"Yes, Tech". You confidently stated. "I want this". He took one last step towards you. "I want you". This time your voice was barely above a whisper. To anyone it sounded like you were scared. To Tech, however it was an open and vulnerable invitation.

The peaks of your breast brushed up against his chest. By the maker. He welded his eyes to not glance down.

He scanned your features for any signs that you had changed your mind. That you no longer wished to engage in such fantasies, but he found none. Nothing that would signal to him a change in your choice, now made.

Unequivocally as he was that he wanted you, you in return had expressed that you wanted him, in that way. Meaning that he could ravish you in the ways both you and he wanted.

You saw the flicker of something hungry flash behind his goggles, making you sit up straighter and grip the edge of the desk firmer.

Wasting not a moment more, Tech latched his hands onto each side of your waist with vigor and hauled you up onto the surface of your desk. Even more heated desires began to seep its way into your skin, pooling especially between your legs.

Maker you wanted more of this feeling, this sensation. You met his burning gaze, and he was absolutely going indulge you, both of you. It would be his greatest pleasure to do so.

Opening your mouth to speak, you found yourself being cut off by the warmth of Tech's lips crashing upon yours.

Upon instinct you wrapped your arms around his neck, gripping at the small tuffs of hair that resided just under his goggles strap.

Heavens, he tasted so sweet. Like freshly squeezed nectar. And cinnamon. You could detect hints of it throughout and was it delicious. But there was also a bitterness flavor. Perhaps the remnants from his coffee consumption. Though you paid it no mind. As delicious as you found him, he equally found kissing you intoxicating.

It was so invigorating with the force that he kissed you. How his lips molded with yours. Like they somehow fit together.

And the way you tasted. He alone was captivated by your flavor. How his neurons lite up like the thousands of lights on Coruscant, stimulated beyond comparison.

Tech trailed one hand down side of your leg and under the dress that sent him into a frenzy. Reaching his intended target, he hooked his gloveless finger around the edge of your panties.

Oh stars above.

But that was not where he intended to stop. Oh no. He had other plans in mind at current. Catching on to his true task your eyes widened before your mouth pulled from his, head immediately falling back.

A cry fell from your lips as two of his fingers attacked your clit. Twirling and twisting around at your entrance, teasing your folds with every touch. Every flicker they inflicted upon your very soul, emitted such sounds from you.

You gasped out his name, your body writhing and shaking the instant he dipped his fingers inside of you. Oh by the force. The way he worked you as soon as he made contact with your walls, touching and feeling every surface he could glide them across. Naturally you bucked against them.

"Tech.." you moaned.

He smirked at the response he alone could elicit from you. "You look absolutely enticing right now, my dear". He purred, joining another finger in his pursuit.

You bit down on your lip, shivers running down your back while your entire body was burning, a raging inferno quickly consuming you, caused by his own hands.

True to his words he knew exactly how to delight you. Take you to new highs and make all coherent thoughts vanish, sending vibration after vibration reverberating throughout your being.

You were positively certain he could bring you to your knees with a simple touch. At this very moment you felt it.

"Oh gods..". You tried to bring a hand up to muffle your cries, but Tech reached for it instead, shaking his head.

"I'm afraid not my dear". He whispered in your ear. "I want to hear you cry out my name. And my name alone". His low, but deep toned demand made a wave of pleasure wash over your trembling body.

You continued to ride his fingers as they took you higher and higher to places you had not thought possible. Euphoric sensations building within you, exploding into every nerve with each pass of his fingers.

He watched as his sudden movements shook your legs, your body trembling simply from his slender fingers alone. If this messily action alone could stir such a reaction from you...stars above what would other ones elicit from you?

He wanted to test out that hypothesis. Exponentially so.

For now, he could sense your sweet release was near its end. Your walls swelling and convulsing around his slender digits, the tremors he felt. It was building.

Wanting to help you along, he quickened his motions and maker the noises it pulled from you. He could feel his own member pulsing, clearly being affected by them too.

Pleasure and ecstasy twisted low in your stomach, reaching its boiling point. Tech doing all he could to push you over the edge with each strike. Fingers still deep inside forced a high pitch moan to escape your lungs.

"That's it". He cooed.

Like a tidal wave, your release hit. Pleasure swarming every inch of you. Stars closing in on your vision while he took one last swipe of your insides, hot and sweet liquid coating his fingers.

Not being able to hold yourself up, you collapsed into him. Your head coming to rest in the crock of his neck. Small tremors of pleasure rocketed inside you still. Your legs feeling the full extent of what had just happened. Your mind slowly catching up to what had just occurred between you and the team's technology support member.

And he was not yet finished with you. You became aware of it when he hiked up your dress to around your waist, exposing your throbbing core for his eyes alone to see. A light shade of pink painted your cheeks. As you were witnessed to what he was doing next, however, they deepened to a shade of red. You swallowed the nerves building inside as you stared at him.

"I-I—maker Tech that..". You needed a moment to catch your breath, your body still feeling the effects of being pushed over the edge.

He nodded in agreement. "I-I concur". You breathed. "Your...exquisite". He placed a piece of your hair behind your ear, while admiring how beautifully a mess you looked from his delightful actions.

"Thank you". You replied with a chuckle, bracing against his body. You could feel his hands grip your hips with a purpose. You knew what was coming next. What he wanted to explore in.

"You wish to continue?"

Tech sighed, a bit abrasive. "You are correct. This evening has become a desirable one that I do not wish to leave without fully satisfying you-"

A light laugh left your mouth. "Tech, you have more then satisfied me tonight". You took in another inhale followed by an exhale.

"But I'll be honest, I won't say no to another...theory that you want to test out". You bit down on your bottom lip. Tech watched this and acted.

Once again you found his lips on yours. You smiled against his mouth as his fumbled with his tool belt. You knew what was coming. It was the next inevitable step, after what just transpired between you two, you were certainly ready for it.

Lining himself up, he slid in slowly, inch by inch. From the sheer size of him you parted your lips, gasping into Tech's mouth. The feel of his member inside you, filling you up made your vision grow fuzzy. Your body was already on the brink of exhaustion from his earlier escapades.

Now however, your body was coming alive, even more so then before. The exploration this time around by him was extraordinarily.

"Your perfection (Y/N)" He gasped into your ear as he glided back inside you. It was strange to blush at such a thing, when considering he was deep inside you at this very moment.

You quaked with every thrust he pushed into you, sending ripples of shook waves throughout your body. You didn't know how long you would last with his powerful movements. And this wasn't even him going all the way.

He was restless in his pursuit to take you. To have you crying out his name and his name alone. The allure of your delectable noises made him quake as he pumped deeper and deeper into you, hitting your sweet spot by how wild the sounds you were making.

Your moans of pure bliss and pleasure were beginning to tip him past his own point of release.

To Tech, he loved how vocal you were to his advances. It was a sound that was like music to his ears. And re-enforced that his research had greatly been worthwhile. For both of you.

The friction between your legs from his insatiable hunger lite your body aflame. Heated the blood in your veins. As it did to him. You craved to have your release. Just as he did mere minutes ago.

"I want to claim you as mine". He panted in your ear. "If you will allow me.."

It was a request. One that you always had a choice when it came to Tech. He never forced anything upon you. Even things you secretly wanted.

And this...you wanted, it was no secret, at least not anymore. You could feel yourself slipping more and more, giving into his ferocious control, losing yourself in him, and you liked it.

"Yes". You panted. "Yes Tech. Make me yours".

That was all the confirmation he needed. Your second release of the night nearing and his own bubbling to the surface, he pounded into you, keeping a steady rhythm.

Your walls convulsed against his member, making his own muscles quake with each thrust he pushed into you. The bucking of your hips into him sent the both of you into a frenzy.

In which caused his motions to pick up in pace. Waves of euphoric bliss and ecstasy washed over your being, making you savor each touch of him, every thrust he gifted you with.

"Oh god...". You braced your back, arching it against the wall. "Tech...please". You begged him.

He licked his lips. "Your appearance is truly ravishing at this moment".

"Ahh.."

"You taste divine". The deep low rumble in which he spoke made your body tremble.

Cracks in the facade were starting to become more frequent and you could feel yourself losing control. Inch by inch, the glass was becoming more and more unstable. And with one last powerful thrust everything shattered.

A second tidal wave of hot molten liquid poured out of you. Your legs shook at how powerful this release had been. Stars scattered across your visions as your body collapsed once again into Tech's.

Within seconds of yours, you felt Tech's coat the inside of your walls. Something about being his entirety gave you butterflies. Beats of sweat trailing down both of your foreheads as you, again, rested your head in the crock of his neck.

Like you, Tech was left panting. His own release overwhelming his senses. Not that he gave it much attention. He had been stimulated to such a desirable evening that would no doubt occupy every facet of his brilliant mind for the next several rotations.

Perhaps even longer, given how much he thought about you when nothing of the physical nature had occurred.

Now that it had, it suddenly dawned on him that he would not be able to go a substantial amount of time without...taking you in similar ways that he had tonight.

You took up residency in his mind before this delightful entanglement, but now he hypothesized that you and your scent would linger on him. Haunt his entire being.

Tech was not an obsessive individual, or so he had previously concluded. Now...now he couldn't draw that same conclusion. Especially with you in his embrace, clinging to him, your body molded to his.

"I've come to the conclusion that I will not be to stay away from you...from this..for a substantial amount of time". Tech informed you, placing a gentle kiss to your shoulder blade.

You shook your head, fully understanding his words. "Then don't". You breathed.

You met his eyes. "I-I told you Tech, I wanted this. Wanted you. And I meant it".

Reaching forward, holding your gaze and tilting your chin up, he smiled. "Then I am to assume I am allowed to seek you out, so long as both of us are not otherwise engaged?"

"Yes". You answered without hesitation, smiling. "Yes you are".

#bad batch #star wars the bad batch #the bad batch #tech bad batch #the bad batch tech #tech x reader #tbb tech #tech x fem!reader #bad batch one shot #bad batch tech #i love tech so much #megabeewrites

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crooked-wasteland · 5 months

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The Anti-Bojack: Anti-Intellectualism and the Death of Substance

In the blog essay “Staging Philosophy: the relationship between philosophy and drama”, Kristen Gjesdal opines on the home of philosophy. Many today would consider philosophy a relic of a bygone era with names such as Keikegaard, Voltaire, and Neitzsche. Many don’t know, however, of the close relationship philosophy has always held with the arts. Gjesdal mentions Ibsen in the article, discussing how many playwrights of the time were avid students of philosophy and how many philosophers regarded the arts highly. Nietzsche spoke of social leaders, specifically the religious leaders of his day in Beyond Good and Evil when he wrote, “Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning man.” Frankly denouncing the power and influence held by the religious men which he felt was more appropriately left in the hands of artists. In fact, Nietzche considered art the definition of culture and hence why he says that artists are the ones who should be responsible for shaping society and defining what it means to be “man”. As such, the expressions of art, poetry to cinema, is a definition of man and inherently a philosophy.

Bojack Horseman is an openly philosophical series that plays with existentialist schools of thought. Having liked several tweets endorsing the comparison of her work to that of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Vivienne Medrano demands her work be valued the same way. From being favorably compared to Bojack Horseman to being praised as the “Anti-Bojack”. Which begs to question, what does that even mean? First let’s discuss the Philosophy behind Bojack Horseman, then compare the tweets Medrano liked and her series to that of Bojack directly, and then study the overlapping themes and why Medrano’s style of writing makes her storytelling a mockery to the art.

Existentialism in particular has been the darling of the theater for about the last 150 years, though generally ridiculed by “proper” society. For a philosopher to be labeled a nihilist or existentialist was often a denouncement of their school of thought, often for their general rejection of fundamental social structures like ethics. In 1942, writer Albert Camus published his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, rebranding traditional existentialist concepts as Absurd philosophy.

Camus begins his work poised with the question of suicide and whether life is worth living at all. He argues that life is inherently meaningless, an idea originating with Kierkegaard, but while the latter sided with finding purpose in constitutions like religion, Camus argues that religion itself is a philosophical suicide. In the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy by Charles Guignon, he writes of the criticisms levied against existential and absurdist philosophies in a society awash in moralist anti-intellectualism. He opens this section by saying, “Existentialism has been criticized from a number of different angles. One line of criticism holds that the emphasis on individual freedom and the rejection of absolutes in existentialism tends to undermine ethics; by suggesting that everyday life is ‘absurd’ and by denying the existence of fixed, binding principles for evaluating our actions, existentialists promote an ‘anything-goes’ view of freedom that exacerbates the nihilism already present in contemporary life.” Which comes from this negative misreading of nihilism.

In their video Nihilism: Are We Missing the Point, youtuber Michael Burns of Wisecrack tells an anecdote of his time in grad school where he paraphrases his professor as saying, “This idea of the constant misreadings of Nietzsche’s writings on Nihilism leads to, his words, angry seventeen-year-old atheists.” Which tends to be the issue when discussing concepts such as nihilism, existentialism and absurdist philosophy. Nietzsche, the credited father of the school of thought, is often taken out of context or his views distorted by society’s sensibilities. For one, the quote given earlier extends further into a condemnation of religion by saying, “Such men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.” Which many an angry seventeen-year-old and moralist has seen as an endorsement of the might-is-right philosophy that nihilism is credited with.

To a lesser extent, Camus writes in The Myth, “I must say what counts is not the best living, but the most living”. It feels like it should be rather straightforward then, the concept of the thought. More equals better, and Camus practically says as much when he later writes “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?” However, if one follows the first quote to its natural conclusion, he continues, “The most living; in the broadest sense, that rule means nothing. It calls for definition.” His wording may come off confusing as the essay is translated and the theories involved are dense, but Camus clarifies that “most” could mean the sheer number of experiences or the depth of the experience. He is not saying one or the other is the correct answer, but that both are equally valid ways to live one’s life. The focus, then, is not on directing anyone how they should live, but in the manner they should do so. He says, “It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable … Suppose that living in this way were not honorable, then true propriety would command me to be dishonorable.”

Camus, and even Nietzsche, argue that truth is the only ultimate value. It throws back the moralist dilemma by arguing that living to a code of ethics or values when one is not truly that sort of person is to live reprehensibly. Better is it to live authentically “without appeal” as Camus says, than it is to live the lie of following the rules.

Thomas Polzler from the University of Graz in Austria wrote a 2014 article titled “Absurdism as Self-Help: Resolving an Essential Inconsistency with Camus’s Early Philosophy”. Personally, I fundamentally and adamantly disagree with his assessment that there is any sort of inconsistency in Camus’s writings. Camus’s books of The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall are not inherently inconsistent, but depict his philosophy in layers.

Like water painting, Camus starts with a thin veneer of color, a loose and almost detached protagonist in Meursault from The Stranger. He is a man aware of the absurd as an individual, the story maintaining the focus of a man living aware his life means nothing and thus seems to have an almost neurodivergent disinterested in the world beyond himself. What he feels in the moment is all that matters, so when he commits murder out of feeling uncomfortable from the heat of the sun and the painful blinding of the light, he is then juxtaposed with the ethical society he exists simultaneously within and outside of. Meursault is held up as a sociopath for not wishing to see his mother’s body the night before her funeral and smoking by her coffin. Because he does not cry at her passing, he is deemed a danger to society. Because he goes on a date to a comedy picture the day after, he is denounced as a menace. None of which has anything to do with the man he killed. The trial highlights the absurdity of ethical society and how the moralists demand the appearance of values over actually having them.

In fact, the trial of Meursault closely resembles that of Bojack and Sarah Lynn. The end of season 3, Bojack and Sarah Lynn go on a cross-country drug-fuelled bender to apologize to people Bojack has hurt in the past, stopping at the Griffith Observatory where Bojack has a profound revelation. He talks about living in the moment and how neither the past or future really matters at all. What you did and your legacy don’t matter if you cannot exist now. It is this moment that he realizes Sarah Lynn is not responding. It isn't until season 6 that it is shown that Bojack waited before calling the police and thus played a hand in Sarah Lynn's death. He is taken to civil court by Sarah Lynn's mother and step-father and made to pay them a fine for his involvement. However, is it really justice when Sarah Lynn's mother exploited her in the business and never once supported Sarah Lynn for what she wanted and what her dreams were, or even just who she was? Can one argue that it is justice when Sarah Lynn was sexually abused by her step-father throughout her childhood? Yes, Bojack does have responsibility in Sarah Lynn's death, but so do her parents. The absurdity of it all being that in no way could there ever be justice for Sarah Lynn.

Brief mental health sidebar. While I have to expressly disagree with Polzler’s reasoning, I do agree with his conclusion. Philosophy and especially Absurd existentialism are powerful tools in the journey to self improvement. It is both the line from Bojack where Diane says "That's the thing. I don't think I believe in 'deep down'. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do." And Dr. Wong in Rick and Morty when she says, “You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it is because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control … You are the master of your universe.”

It may be shocking to know that Medrano was not a fan of Dr. Wong, considering the scene all about telling and not showing Rick’s problems. However, this is after two and a half seasons of witnessing Rick’s shortcomings and Dr. Wong is not telling Rick’s problems, but rather identifying the solution. In both the words of Diane and Dr. Wong, who we are, comes down to the choices we make. There is no moral argument being made with either of these comments. Bojack asked Diane to tell him that he’s actually a good person deep down. That he means to be good, that despite his actions he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and that his bad behavior is the fault of his emotionally unavailable and narcissistic parents. So really, he isn’t a bad person. Whereas Dr. Wong calls out Rick’s behavior as a choice because Rick knows he is making these choices.

The difference between Rick and Bojack is the level of personal awareness and responsibility. Rick knows he has the power to change, but simultaneously so miserable but is so afraid of change that he turns himself into a literal pickle and risks his own death over confronting his own choice to stay the way he is. It is easier for him to justify his lack of trying by simply claiming this is just what it means to be as smart as he is. Whereas Bojack feels helpless. Bojack was not set up for success as a child, his success was never validated by his mother and thus he never valued himself, and every time he tries to change he has no internal fortitude to keep from backsliding at the first sign of defeat. Rick knows everything that is making him miserable is himself. Bojack externalizes his misery and thus also externalizes the solution to his problems, which is why he lets himself return to square one whenever things don’t go his way.

Absurdism is the recognition that life is meaningless and thus we have two choices: Live or die. But these concepts are not so straightforward when discussed. To live, in Camus’s philosophy, is to live authentically to oneself. That may sound like Rick’s situation of accepting things as they are, but that is only true in the case of the individual genuinely wanting to be that way. Authenticity is a dichotomy consisting of both how we behave and how we feel. In the case of Rick he lies, cheats, manipulates, and behaves cruelly towards his family. However, it is implied and later revealed that Rick genuinely cares about his family, but is too afraid of experiencing loss to really let them in. So he’s abusive and insulting, keeping his family at an emotional distance that keeps them around, but never too close, making Rick miserable. He really wants his family, so his feelings are at odds with his behavior. So in reality, him claiming “this is just how things are/who I am” is just as weak an excuse and removes agency over oneself as Bojack saying “It’s because my mother was never there for me.”

The actions both Rick and Bojack partake in are what Camus would call a philosophical suicide. Concisely put, to commit a philosophical suicide is to remove one’s sense of agency in their own life. How can one claim to be living when they have no effect on anything including themselves? You would exist in a void no different than a dreamless sleep. Your actions are meaningless, your thoughts are meaningless, your feelings are meaningless because you are a passenger to the act of living. Everything else has power, everyone else can influence you, so you may as well be nothing. Camus includes religion in this section of his philosophy, as living for something other than yourself is the same as not living at all. And this encompasses Ethics.

There is a massive difference between being kind because you are supposed to, and being kind because you want to. This delves further into living inauthentically and how that mere act alone results in misery. Even if one is to behave in a way deemed “right” without making the choice, they will inevitably become resentful. There is no such thing as faking it until you make it. One has to actively choose and change themselves on a fundamental level to find happiness, and that takes work. Just as Dr. Wong says, “It’s just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well some people would rather die.”

Which gets to the main point.

Medrano’s liking of a series of tweets calling Blitzo the Anti-Bojack has both infuriated and confused me. I suppose that I should be embarrassed at the latter since it's obvious both Vivienne and her fans lack basic media literacy. It’s actually rather spectacular just how badly they misrepresent the situation of the characters in the narrative. I can only break this down comment by comment.

For one, Bojack’s entire character is that he doesn’t intentionally hurt others. He has his reasons that fundamentally comes from a weak sense of self associated with a child who never had the emotional support he needed growing up. Those aren’t excuses, those are the reasons. Bojack has an unhealed inner child who wants to be a good guy, but he is so caught up in his self-loathing and resentment that he doesn’t do anything about that inner child. Instead he indulges these immature emotions through self medicating with drugs and alcohol, lashing out, promiscuity, and careless spending. These are the symptoms of the problem, the problem does lie in past trauma. The issue is Bojack doesn’t see the solution as himself, but someone or something else. In my post comparing Bojack and Todd’s relationship to Blitz and Moxxie, I pointed out how Bojack and Blitz treat their “closest friends” exactly the same by verbally abusing them and tearing down their abilities. While not always consciously intentional for Bojack, it is to keep Todd feeling codependent on Bojack and thus never leaving him which is abusive and manipulative. For Blitz, the narrative says it's because he is aware of his behaviour and is intentionally pushing Moxxie to be better, which is abusive and manipulative.

My point herein being that these are the same people. There is no Anti-Bojack happening here. If anything, Blitz is more malicious in his abuse seeing as he appears actively aware and intentional in how he mistreats Moxxie. Bojack is abusive towards Todd, but in a way that is a reflection of Bojack. And the series acknowledges how Bojack's inability to be alone actively harms his other relationships. Not just Todd.

In one way, however, Blitz absolutely is the Anti-Bojack. Blitz externalizes the source of his behavior to a character failing on Moxxie's part. And the series reaffirms and justifies Blitz's abuse as okay.

The other misconception of this post is thinking that an explanation is an excuse. Creative Screenwriting did an interview in 2019 with Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s process and philosophy of writing Bojack Horseman, quoting him for the title of the article, “Characters should be understandable in their vulnerabilities.” What Medrano’s fans fail to do, fundamentally, is understand. Their opinions and twitter orations are so barren of understanding that one must ask if they simply choose to ignore what does not serve their narrative or if they really are just incapable of comprehension.

They see Blitz’s mother’s death as a reason for his attitude more than his behavior. His behavior then necessitates that it needs to be excusable. As such, Blitz cannot actually make mistakes. Things happen by chance rather than a deliberate choice on any of the characters’ behalf. The fire in Oops wasn’t a mistake made by Blitz, if it is anyone’s mistake, it is the no-named imp who lit the candle before getting to the room. Blitz didn’t intend to bump the other performer, he just happened to turn at that moment. His mistake, then, is one that only makes sense on a metanarrative aspect. His mistake was deciding not to confess his feelings to Fizz. Which… no. As novel as the concept of the butterfly effect was in 2015, the fundamental nature of something inconsequential being attributed to a disaster negates blame. No one is going to blame the butterfly for a hurricane. Similarly, Blitz’s decision to not confess has nothing to do with the fire, in fact the fire itself is not even his accident. His contribution begins and ends with accidentally bumping the other imp; a situation that would have been entirely harmless if not for another character’s unrelated decision made off-screen.

Additionally, Blitz is a heinously insufferable individual who has been nothing but insulting and abusive to his “friend” throughout the series. He sexually abuses Moxxie in Harvest Moon by touching his penis against his will. He threatens to rape Moxxie and Millie in Murder Family. Blitz humiliates Moxxie through emasculation by masculinizing Millie over Moxxie, mocking Moxxie’s anatomy through his weight and genital size, and degrading Moxxie’s hobbies and abilities. Often without any prompting whatsoever and for Blitz’s own personal enjoyment. Blitz simply is a malicious individual, and at one point the series seemed to know that. The issue isn’t that Blitz is an awful person, it’s the lack of acknowledging that fact. The fans and Medrano conveniently ignore who this character is and what he has done to justify him instead of seeking to understand him. This is a running theme throughout the show.

I also briefly compared the scene in Oops to Herb and Bojack in this post, but I didn’t focus so much on the characters and more the metanarrative reason why Bojack worked and Helluva Boss didn’t.

Here, let’s look at why Bojack went to see Herb: Because Herb told him to. Unlike the scenario between Fizz and Blitz where they didn’t see each other for fifteen years and then conveniently run into each other and just so happen to be spotted by Crimson and Striker who, for some reason, know all about Fizz and Ozzie being a thing and they just keep Blitz around because … he’s the main character. Sure, one could argue both Crimson and Striker have a personal thing against Blitz, makes you wonder why they didn’t, you know, do anything to him? No torture or revenge of any kind, he’s just there now. Conveniently tied up and kept with Fizz instead of literally anything else they could have done with him. There is no internal logic to the characters as to why things turn out this way. As seen in the Mammon episode, it's a metanarrative compulsion to make sure Blitz is in every episode regardless of whether it makes sense or goes anywhere, or not.

Another sidebar, but the fact that so much of the series is not able to be explained within the narrative and requires an understanding of how Medrano and her team formulate a script is a huge issue. It removes the ability to properly dissect the characters as individual people and necessitates a reading of them that is how Medrano wants the audience to think about them. When it comes to the character dissections, it is effectively impossible to have a complete or coherent reading in regards to the literary philosophy of the Death of the Author. You have no story or character if you remove Medrano. The world as a whole completely falls apart unless you inject it with her metacommentary and narrative intention like one would preserve a corpse through glycerin. There is absolutely no substance here. And the longer she goes on, trying to compile the whole show into a coherent narrative of its own is like building a skeleton with a human ribcage, an ostrich spine, an elephant skull and the lower half of a barbie doll.

Bojack calls Herb after finding out he is dying from cancer, Herb tells Bojack to come visit him. He refuses to talk to Bojack any other way, and Bojack is compelled to go by his guilt, not ego. Herb calling him to his house obliterates Bojack’s ego, this is Herb’s home and he is the one being summoned. This is where Herb has the most power compared to, say, over the phone. This is not only a move of superiority on Herb’s part, but an act of submission on Bojack’s. Herb forces Bojack to come to him. Once again, this is what power dynamics look like. But, despite the resentment and awkward bitterness, he does want to see Bojack.

I don’t know how many times I can articulate this. Herb is the one in control and he is the one who wants to see Bojack and he is the one calling the shots. Not at all comparable to Fizz being kidnapped, forced to interact with Blitz and then wholly reliant on him due to the narrative in order to facilitate this forced reconciliation. Herb and Bojack are people with complex feelings and agendas. Blitz and Fizz are two dolls being smashed together and held in place by the will of a childish god.

Second, the reason Bojack calls Herb is because he feels guilty, not for abandoning Herb but because he betrayed Herb. He told Herb he would stand with him and walk off the show if they tried to fire his friend, but according to Bojack, he was a coward and didn’t keep his word. He feels guilt for that, he regrets it. But when he apologizes to Herb for it, Herb corrects him. It isn’t because Bojack didn’t keep his word, like the horse man thought, it was because he thought the betrayal was more important than their friendship.

He’s a coward, but not for staying on Horsing Around. He’s a coward because he didn’t believe in their friendship. They were together for years and Herb thought that meant something, but Bojack avoiding Herb and never reaching out to him showed how little their friendship meant to him. And it wasn’t because Bojack didn’t care, Herb knows that. And that fact is necessary to understanding the sequence. Bojack didn’t value the friendship because he thought he was valueless. He avoided Herb because he thought Herb would never forgive him, because that is how little Bojack thinks of himself. Him calling Herb is the active display of him still not forgiving himself, so he needs Herb to do it for him. And Herb knows all of this.

“You know what your problem is? You wanna think of yourself as the good guy. Well, I know you better than anyone else and I can tell you that you're not. In fact, you'd probably sleep a lot better at night if you just admitted to yourself that you're a selfish goddamn coward, who takes whatever he wants, and doesn't give a shit about who he hurts. That's you. That's BoJack Horseman."

Bojack has no value in himself, leaving him extremely fragile. So he took what he wanted, he took their relationship and defined it for both of them. He ran away, protecting himself while determining that this is what Herb would want, and left Herb alone and powerless even in his closest friendship. Which is why Herb demands Bojack come to see him, it’s Herb reclaiming his power in the relationship. And all of this only has any meaning if you clearly define the fact that Bojack apologized for the wrong thing.

There’s an alternate universe where Bojack doesn’t go back and apologize at all, and he and Herb rebuild their friendship anew in Herb’s last days and they simply, quietly agree to start over. Because that’s not off the table. Herb still values the telescope. He still values their friendship. Bojack, once again, takes it away. And Herb, a dying man, fights viciously to keep hold of it. Him not forgiving Bojack is not wanting his friend back, if anything, it’s because he desperately wants Bojack back that he won’t forgive him.

The telescope isn’t just a metaphor when it breaks. It's the symbol of their friendship the entire time, and the physical actions taking place over it are a screenshot of what happened. Bojack took their friendship and left with it. But it meant something to Herb, and you would only know that by how he fights over it now. And when it breaks it shows that, because of Bojack and his cowardly need to run away from his problems, their relationship is now, finally, beyond repair. Not because Herb didn’t forgive him. It wasn’t over when Herb didn’t forgive him. Bojack ended it, not Herb.

But just like Bojack, Medrano and her fans believe that forgiveness is the end all of the story. It’s why so many people were not invested in Fizzarolli and Blitz makeup. Because Fizz just forgiving Blitz makes everything they went through meaningless. It strips the characters and what they went through of depth and nuance in a single moment. It also validates Bojack's general mindset in the belief that one moment can fix a systemic problem. In this case, Medrano isn't the Anti-Bojack, she just is Bojack.

The issue between Herb and Bojack wasn’t the job, or even the time. It was Bojack. And it is the failure of Bojack identifying the part of himself that resulted in this outcome, and not making the choice to do anything different that results in the end of everything. Maybe Herb would never have forgiven the Bojack who left him. But that’s why Bojack needed to be a different Bojack. And he wasn’t.

Wrapping this back around to the start of the essay and how Absurdist philosophy plays into Bojack intrinsically, Herb says exactly that truth to Bojack. That if Bojack was only honest to himself and lived authentically, maybe he would be able to sleep at night. Because being good is less important than being real.

This reminds me of Jean Baptiste Clamence from Camus’s The Fall. A Frenchman in the seedy center of Amsterdam, a city encircled by canals like the rings of hell. He spends his nights in the bar just outside of the red light district, drunk off his ass, it is uncertain if he is actually telling his story to anyone at all. Over the course of four nights, he tells his story of his fall from grace. His self exile to Hell after being unable to cope with his guilt. He tells so many stories of himself, egotistically claiming he has the lost panel of the Ghent Alterpiece in his apartment, the piece titled The Just Judges.

Even his name is a plea for repentance. John. Baptist. Clemency. He claims to sleep with Judges looming over him. Words endlessly flow from him and he confesses his sins.

It’s when he fesses to witnessing the suicide of a young woman in Paris that he explains why he ran away to Netherlands. He says how she called for help after jumping into the water, but he quickly fled the scene, hearing the splashing below become eerily silent. One could argue that he couldn’t do anything. In the Paris winter, the freezing water of the canal could kill them both, let alone the dangers of trying to save someone who is drowning. The main concern being the victim drowning their savior in a frenzied panic of keeping themselves above the water. It could be said that he did the only thing he could. However, he knows she was aware he was there, so she called out to him specifically when she came to her senses. No one witnessed the incident or knew he was there but her, and no one could fault him for doing nothing.

But he feels the guilt in himself, and thus runs away.

Jean-Baptiste, Bojack and even Diane all have the same mentality. They fetishize their misery and trauma, making themselves important through the loops of suffering they inflict on themselves. Thinking that because the events happened to them, it must mean they are somehow special. That their damage meant something out of all the other people on this planet who suffer. That because they felt alone and responsible, they are a mythical chosen one selected from the masses to do something. They find value in the negative self-image they have, their pain being their purpose.

Because if it didn’t matter, why did it happen to them?

This is where I normally would keep just ripping apart the arguments, but frankly, there isn’t one anymore. For one, the original poster just blatantly lacks any fundamental understanding of Bojack as a series since the entire premise of the show is every season Bojack tries to change.

On a narrative basis, the lack of intentionality on Blitz’s part absolves him from needing forgiveness. Fizzarolli forgiving him holds no weight because Blitz didn’t intentionally set the fire, he didn’t see Fizz in the explosion when he ran away, he didn’t not try to see Fizz in the hospital and then Medrano puts the cherry on top about how Fizz’s life is actually better because of everything that happened. It’s equal parts boring and vile. The conflict is artificial, the resolution is repulsive and contrived. There is no depth to these characters and Medrano actively removes depth, either because she herself lacks the ability to comprehend it or because she knows her fans are incapable of doing so.

Also, let's just not comment on how this line explicitly overshadows Fizz's trauma. Everyone knows you don't end an apology with "but". That negates the whole apology. This is literally "I'm sorry you got hurt and I can never make that up to you, BUT my mom's dead so you don't even know what it's like being me and feeling responsible for that."

While the writers of Bojack sought to make their characters understandable and thus empathetic, they at no point excused or retconned the behavior. The writers on Bojack didn’t do anything to justify their characters, they were not at all focused on controlling how the audience felt about the characters. They were showing that the characters were well rounded, had reasons, why they had those reasons, what core memories made them who they are today. And the audience had the choice in how they responded to the characters. Medrano needs her audience to feel the same way about her characters as she does in order for the story to work, because she has never put forth the effort of actually telling this story.

One does not need the interviews with Bob-Waksberg to understand his cast and their story. Everything a viewer needs to know can be found in the show proper. There are not huge points of context happening just over there, off screen, between episodes and relegated to background details. Everything relevant to these characters and their stories is in the show. That has not and at this point never will be the case for Helluva Boss. So in many ways, yes. Helluva Boss is the anti-Bojack.

That's not a good thing.

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 3 months

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WIBTA if I were to report my ex friend's antisemitism to their university?

So I 20nb have been friends with most my current friend group since we were 11. Two years ago I stopped being friends with a guy in my friend group due to toxic behavior on his part (not antisemitic yet, just giving background info) He would constantly say things like "don't make fun of neurodivergent people's special interests and hyperfixations as they can't help it" and then would go and make fun of my special interests (note: said ex friend has ADHD). Over our friendship he had a lot of double standards like that and one day I had enough. The first time I brought it up he dismissed it as someone else in the friend group did the behaviors I'm accusing him of. I kinda dropped it as I didn't want to deal with that level of denial and thought that if I waited a few days he would have had some time to reflect. So I brought it up again and he continued to blame it being one of our other friends doing it and that I was simply "misremembering". I gave specific examples and rough time frames yet he continued to deny it. All I wanted was a simple "I'm sorry and I will work on that" yet he refused to do that. So I ended our friendship.

Since then we have been on rocky terms. We are still in the same friend group since the issue was between me and him, I didn't want to involve my friends and make people pick sides. He was moving away soon at the time of the end of our friendship so it wasn't like I was going to see him when the friend group all hung our together.

Since we are still in the same friend group, he is in the discord server our friend group has which is just like a massive group chat with things categorized into topics.

Recently there is the current conflict going on in Israel and Palenstine. I am Jewish and vented to the vent section of that discord server about how I have seen people I know irl post online antisemitic things. I am very much against Israels actions and made sure to include that in my vent so no one coukd twist my words. I didn't initially say exactly what I was seeing as I was still processing the fact that I was going to have to cut some people off.

He then replied to my vent saying that he has never seen anything antisemitic online and that if he has, he has seen Jewish people saying that it isnt. I replied that his reply to my vent was weird and that i was talking about people saying that all jews should die. I felt hurt as yet again he was being hypocritical towards me as he has said before that you should say that (what he said) when people complain about seeing hateful things towards a group (eg racism, homophobia, etc).

He then responded that I was only calling him antisemitic because he was arab. The thing is, I never called him antisemitic and I myself am also arab. (Yes I know, most people have never met an arab jew but we do exist).

I pointed out that I never called him antisemitic and I am also arab which he seems to have forgotten. I said that his response was still weird considering what he has said in the past about people who say what he said. I then invited him to dm me privately to discuss things further if he wants to as it's not fair to do this in front of all of our friends.

He did not respond and ended up blocking me on discord.

This irked me quite a bit but in the end I decided that him blocking me was for the better if he stands by his original response. I was talking to my partner about it who is not Jewish and he said that my ex friend's response was definitely weird and the fact that he was so quick to defend himself about being called an antisemite without even being called it was indicative that he probably is. I decided to look at my ex friends tumblr to see if there was anything to suggest that and there was. I saw a few posts which he has recently reblogged which used anti Semitic dog whistles like the echo, example: (((insert text you which doesnt say jew but you are implying jewish people are))).

I was quite appalled to see that and am debating if I should send it to his university. The university he attends has spoken out about antisemitism before and has kicked out people in the past for using racist dog whistles due to a potential danger to POC students so it is likely that he would get kicked out for using antisemitic dog whistles.

In my mind, he fucked around and therefore should find out aka face natural consequences for his actions.

WIBTA if I contacted his University about his antisemitism?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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actual-changeling · 4 months

Text

Welcome back to a meta post that was not supposed to exist, but I fucking love answering questions, so here we are.

i got an ask (the answer contains a tl;dr) about why I think Crowley has unstable relationship patterns, and the following will be a detailed look at why this is the case, how Aziraphale plays into it, and what it ultimately means for the two of them.

This won't be as unhinged as my usual analyses, so consider this a special edition of Alex's unhinged meta corner - now hinged.

As always, please remember that this is my personal interpretation—not a generalization—and that genuine questions are welcome, either here on the post or in my inbox!

Everything I will say is based on research I have done, books & studies, and many, many conversations with my therapist (and at points my psychiatrist too); just so you know I'm not making shit up as I go.

Now, in the context of trauma-related/based disorders, what exactly does it mean to have unstable relationship patterns, and how does it apply to Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship?

Canonically, heaven does not care about what Aziraphale is doing and they are not keeping an eye on him. We know this both from references in the script and their dialogue and what we see throughout the show as a whole. That "fear" of being found out should he openly commit to Crowley is, for the most part, self-fabricated.

Yes, hell would potentially punish him (that potentially is another long post), but that is not something Aziraphale gets to take and use against Crowley, and the fact that does it anyway to 'prove' that he is not behaving incorrectly is a big issue.

What that leaves them with is a very common and well-known relationship pattern that requires a lot of self-awareness, control, and work to break it.

Aziraphale and Crowley get closer, spend more time together, their relationship grows and the intimacy increases, resulting in their behaviour changing to reflect that. They go on more romantic-coded dates (e.g. 1827, whatever the fuck 1941 was), eat together more frequently, drink together and feel comfortable enough to get drunk drunk while in each other's company—which always carries the inherent risk of doing something 'forbidden' while their impulse control is lowered.

I think the second episode of season one is actually a great example for all of this. When they drive to Tadfield, there's a mutually respectful conversation, they tease each other, they bicker like an old married couple, and don't fall into blaming the other for the situation they're in. At the manor, they are openly flirting from the start, laughing about the paintball guns and blowing kisses to miracle away stains, and the wall slam scene honestly speaks for itself.

I wrote a detailed analysis of it right here, which contains the conclusion that the entire interaction was intentional and orchestrated by the two of them.

They are doing great, they're comfortable, intimate—both physically and emotionally—and their sides are already on their asses about the apocalypse, so why not commit to the relationship?

Because Aziraphale gets scared, scared of intimacy, scared of what it would mean for his life, scared of what it would force him to confront (his faith, mostly, which is another gigantic topic), scared of the changes it would bring to their relationship, scared of breaking out of the pattern they have been moving in since the very beginning.

So he pushes, hard. He insults and denies and hurts Crowley to get as far away from all of that as possible. Push & pull, no matter when, no matter why, it's always the same.

At this point you might be thinking Alex, this is all on Aziraphale, how is this also Crowley's unstable relationship pattern? The answer to that question can be roughly summarized in one sentence:

He does not punish or discourage Aziraphale's behaviour.

There are NEVER lasting—if any—negative consequences for Aziraphale when he forces them into the push/pull dynamic, when he insults him, denies their relationship, calls him evil, you name it. No matter what Aziraphale does, Crowley always forgives and forgets and comes back to him, essentially resetting their loop. That way there cannot be any progress because they're not moving a single inch in either direction that isn't carefully organized and controlled by Aziraphale.

Why does Crowley not confront him? Because he is scared too.

Now, THIS is the part where I explain why I said Crowley has unstable relationship patterns. It is important to understand that Aziraphale's kind of instability is only one possible manifestation, and that they are—broadly speaking—on opposite ends of the spectrum, which not only makes them incredibly compatible, but also makes them worse.

Crowley is terrified of losing Aziraphale permanently and being on his own. God rejected him, heaven rejected him, hell rejected him—his life as been one traumatic incident after the other with a strong focus on abandonment and neglect, especially from people he cared about.

He says himself that Aziraphale is his only friend, he doesn't have anyone or anything else. The bookshop is Aziraphale's anchor, but Crowley has nothing except the Bentley and whatever Aziraphale allows him to partake in. Hell can take his job, his flat, punish and torture him as they please, and make his life, well, hell.

With the Bentley only appearing in the early 20th century, for 99% of his life he had nothing except for Aziraphale, his best friend, the person he loves.

So what does he do? He clings, he circles him and tries to push his orbit just a tiny bit closer whenever there's a gap he can use, trying to solidify their relationship. Terrified of being abandoned again, he swallows and ignores everything and anything negative.

The final fifteen are the FIRST TIME that Aziraphale asked him for something and he said no without changing his mind later—and it was literally the worst case scenario, the one boundary he has that he is not willing to cross for him, literally the barest minimum.

Every other time he relented, gave in, apologized for something that wasn't his fault, have Aziraphale everything he wanted from Hamlet over shooting a gun at his face to giving him the Bentley. Crowley's primary objective is to do whatever it takes to avoid being abandoned, so whenever Aziraphale DOES push back and abandons him/says that he will, he panics. He panics even more when there is an outside source threatening Aziraphale's presence in his life.

Look at how frantic he is when he finds Aziraphale after the bandstand, trying to say whatever it takes to get him to come with him. He does the apology dance, gives in when it comes to Gabriel, and never reacts to Aziraphale in a way that would prompt him to re-think the choices he is making, let alone stop doing the push/pull.

His identity revolves around Aziraphale, his only relationship is with Aziraphale, he allows him to shape him to his liking as far as he can take and then some, he needs him to be happy, to enjoy himself, to live a life worth living—and Aziraphale needs him to be and do all of those things so he can keep up his behaviour.

They are dangerously co-dependent and just spiral deeper and deeper until they hit rock bottom and are forced to separate.

Look, I have BPD on top of everything else, I have been in a relationship with this exact pattern in Crowley's role, and it is fucking horrible. Absolutely unbearable. My ex-partner was like Aziraphale, pulling and pushing and pulling and pushing but on a daily basis, every few hours. No amount of talking or begging could get them to not behave in a way that would hurt me, and I was so emotionally tied to them and terrified of being alone that just like Crowley, I relented every. single. time. A year and a half and they never, not ONCE, apologized for anything. Ever. Not for hurting me, not for being an asshole, nothing.

The only way I got out was with a lot of therapy, support, and so much emotional work I was having several panic attacks a day because I was so fucking exhausted. Crowley and Aziraphale separating was the best thing that ever happened to their relationship.

Now, Aziraphale is facing negative consequences for his behaviour and is forced to examine himself and deal with all those fears causing him to behave the way he does. Crowley on the other hand is now forced to learn how to exist without Aziraphale to orbit around—he needs to develop an identity that exists outside of Aziraphale, so he can have boundaries and stick to them.

#alex talks good omens #good omens #crowley #good omens meta #the final fifteen #aziraphale #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable husbands #ineffable wives #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorce #alex's unhinged meta corner

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etoilesbienne · 28 days

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I try to be a fair person I try to be understanding. but I am sick and tired of having to read about the many sins of Léa for being a whistleblower. People are straight up putting words in her mouth for things she did not say.

Frankly I'm a little appalled that the MCYT community can have a huge moment about the heavy amount of misogyny present in the space and come away with the take she didn't actually experience hate from the fan community. No the other admins didn't not experience hate, but she didn't say that. She said she received hate for being the first person to come out. Or how she was discredited repeatedly and the "Jay" document was used to shame her pointedly and make her out to be unreliable and "a hater." Gee whiz I wonder where I've heard "she's just hysterical and took things too seriously and is a vindictive person out to get others projects to fail." That sure sounds familiar. Especially in CC spaces pertaining to women. Why would she be exempt from misogyny at the hands of the fandom?

Though the way people behave about former admins expressing frustration at the lack of internal translation is making me crazy. There is nothing wrong with Quackity speaking his native language in a stream for announcement. None of these admins ever said he was at fault for speaking Spanish, they were criticizing the lack of internal communication outside of the streams, and the fact the studios had no official translators on payroll to help with communication issues between languages. They aren't asking for him to speak English, tbf most of these admins don't even have English as a first language, why would they want a stream in a different language they aren't fluent in? I don't think Léa was expecting Quackity to suddenly start speaking French. They're asking for translations in the languages they do speak so they can understand these important announcements about their jobs, because they were not receiving the information about these announcements any other way. To be honest it still boggles my mind, even after all of this, that QStudios never even had official translators to relay messages between Quackity to other streamers and admins. Regardless, I feel like people are interpreting this pretty fair criticism of the complete lack of translation to non-English languages impeding the already barely existent communication to be as bad faith as possible from every side. On one hand you have people choosing to believe that is what the admins are saying and agreeing with it and then being racist toward Quackity over it, on the other hand you have people choosing to believe the admins are being racist toward Quackity and sending them hate over it. I'd be insane to deny racism toward Quackity wasn't also happening though.

I don't know what else to say than people who have been working insane hours for months on end to be exploited, and they're upset. This is a server a lot of people cared about as fans, of course the first person to come out and reveal the terrible conditions is going to receive the most amount of hate over this specific instance. It's not an unfounded claim. Have you seen the shit people say about Léa on twitter? It also doesn't mean the other admins didn't receive hate in their own regard, it's just the first person to come out is usually the biggest punching bag for it. Misogyny didn't magically dissipate from the fandom with the removal of a few problem CC. My god hear yourselves and the way you talk about a woman coming out as receiving workplace abuse.

#discourse #neg #qadmin situation #fandom neg #crit #fandom crit #qsmp crit #qsmp neg #im just very irritated. its like any consideration of misogyny goes out the window #as soon as its over someone whos deemed uncredible or bad

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cam3lliaw · 15 days

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Tell me

• Megumi Fushiguro x gn!reader

• wc ~1k words

• a bit of angst but mainly fluff

• warnings: mentions of wounds(not detailed), mentions of wincing, lying, slight trust issues mentioned, i think that's all

A/N : not really proofread, but i had fun writing this after my hiatus :))

An angry knock could’ve been heard from all across the dark hallway.

Megumi didn’t need to get up from the laying position he was in, on the bed, to know that the person on the other side of his door was no one other than you, his partner, and it was even easier for him to guess, from the way you were knocking, that you were not happy at all.

“Megumi, open the door.” your voice could be heard from the hallway.

Megumi. Not ‘Gumi, not darling, not babe, not love, not other pet name or silly nickname you could ever come up with, because if there is someone in this world that could invent the cheesiest appellatives to ever exist, it was you. Ever since you two started dating, there were very few instances in which you called the boy by his given name, two to be more exact, when you were teasing him and when you were upset at him and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that unfortunately for him, right now it’s not the first one.

He tried to get up as quietly as possible without wincing from the wound that he got, not even half a day ago, while he was on a mission with Yuji. The boy walked to the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower.

“In the shower.” he announced standing close to the door hoping that you’ll hear and leave him alone for a little while more.

“Yeah, yeah sure and I am the heir of the Gojo clan.” you said in a monotone tone before continuing: “I know you are not in fact in the shower, unfortunately for you, I wasn’t born yesterday Megumi, I heard you shuffling in the room a second ago, not to mention that if you were, in fact, showering you wouldn’t have heard me so clearly as you seem to have heard. Don’t lie to me and come open the door.”

He hesitated mentally face palming himself. Megumi doesn’t even know why he bothered lying, you paid an incredible amount of attention when you actually wanted to. And yet he didn’t move from his spot on the bathroom floor.

A minute passed, then two and if he didn’t know any better he’d say you got the hint and left. But he does know better, he knows you better-

“Please.” your voice was quiet but he heard it all too clearly. And hesitation or whatever held him back be damned, because Megumi knew. He was well aware that if you said please he’d do anything you asked him to without hesitating one bit.

He turned off the water and got out of the bathroom. A part of him was still hesitant as he walked to the door but he knew he can’t avoid you any longer at this point.

Megumi opened the door and you entered, arms crossed looking him up and down.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” you asked looking straight at your lover.

“I don’t.” he said a bit hesitant.

If there was something Megumi didn’t like to do, it was to lie to you. He knew you didn’t like being lied to either, but he believes that this time it’s for the greater good, which would include you not finding out about his recent wound. But he has this glooming feeling in the pit of his stomach that you somehow already found out.

You breathed a sigh.

“Okay. I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear that, so I am going to ask you again, okay? Megumi” you took a step forward towards your boyfriend. “do you have something you want to tell me?”

You knew. You definitely knew. There was no way you didn’t know at this point. But still, he had to try denying it once more.

“I don’t have anything that I want to tell you.” he said, avoiding your gaze, a thing that he kept doing unintentionally since you got into the room.

He was a bad liar. At least, that was the case when it came to you. That’s something the both of you could agree on.

“Why do I have to find out from Yuji that you got hurt?” you decided to say it already to his face since he clearly showed no signs of telling you himself.

“…listen [name]-“ he started but you interrupted him.

“No! I don’t want to listen, I gave you the change to talk, not once but twice mind you, and you said that you didn’t have anything that you wanted to tell me so I’ll do the talking.” you took a deep breath and continued “you know I don’t like to be lied to Megumi, you know it and yet you still go and do it. I don’t understand it, you always want to know when I get hurt on missions, why shouldn’t I know when you’re the one who gets hurt? I thought you said you trusted me. Did that not include telling me if you get hurt? Did I ever make you feel like you can’t be vulnerable around me?”

“[name] you know that’s not the case-”

“Then why? Why do you hide stuff like that from me? And if you start saying some shit like “you didn’t want to worry me” I’m leaving this room right now because we both know I will worry about you no matter what you say to me-”

Megumi took a step forward and closed the distance between the two of you by gently grabbing your face and kissing you. The kiss wasn’t long by any means, but it felt more sincere than any words Megumi could say at the moment.

There was a short silence afterwards as you two stared into each other’s eyes. You knew he was sorry. That’s one of the things you prided yourself with, reading Megumi better than anyone else ever did and yet, you couldn’t help but want more. You didn’t want to be able to read him as much as you wanted him to tell you all of those things himself, to talk to you.

“I am sorry.” he apologized looking into your eyes.

“I know that.”

“You’re right, I should tell you this stuff. I promise I’ll never hide this kind of things from you ever again.” he added as his hand went to caress your cheek.

“I’m glad you finally agree with me.” you smiled as you leaned into his hand.

Megumi took your hand and gently pulled you to his bed. You two cuddled and ended up falling asleep in each other’s arms.

A/N : i hope you liked it :))

#jjk megumi #megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro #jujutsu megumi #jujutsu kaisen megumi #megumi fluff #megumi fushiguro x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk #jjk fluff #jjk angst #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen x you

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juniperpyre · 4 months

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i think my key issue with the sanitization of death eater characters is that it feels like people do not see their stories as tragic or empathize with the characters until we have a hc that's like "actually they were morally good the whole time!"

regulus black and severus snape are tragic characters and child soldiers no matter what side they were "really" on. even barty crouch jr, who may not have been groomed into being a death eater, is tragic when you spend a second to consider his relationship with his father. there are plenty of death eaters who we know are taking after their fathers in joining the cult. lucius malfoy, who was a prefect when the marauders enter hogwarts, most likely spread the death eater ideology, since the ideology is just a more extreme version/logical endpoint of what already existed in the wizarding world.

to me, these ideas are not headcanons, because they are heavily implied by the text. when jkr mentions malfoy in the deathly hallows that is not for no reason.

mallfoy's acceptance of snape and position of power are both highlighted in this sentence. we can infer that snape felt a sense of community for the first time in Slytherin. with malfoy as a prefect we can infer that the culture of Slytherin house lifted up bigots and those with an important family name.

this is a culture that breeds more bigotry. we know that Dumbledore did not step in to stop this cultural development in the 90s, after already seeing what it could do!!! so we can infer that he did not in the 70s. so a bunch of children were left alone in an echo chamber of hate. of course some of them became fanatics!!!

this doesn't mean they shouldn't be held accountable. but we cannot expect children to overcome cultural and political hegemony all alone. like.... that's just not how the world works. and it's tragic that children are fodder for fascist's wars, especially when the fact that the children were abused or neglected makes them more vulnerable to be fodder.

regulus and severus weren't treated as people, their humanity was denied by the fascist they served, bc that's how fascism works. exploring their characters as they are in canon, with full humanity, without needing to change their stories to see that humanity, is much more interesting to me. it is much more in the spirit of redemption and restoration.

#regulus black #severus snape #marauders #text #m #analysis #hp meta #death eaters #i will say like one is not obligated to use fandom and fic to do deep cultural analysis and that is not the point of this post #the point is i've always loved sirius black and related to him #and i love lily evans and relate to her #and they loved these people too

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vampiretendencies · 1 year

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im starting to scar, im going through phases !

summary; he does everything he can to push you away, leading to his downfall. warning; angst, sadness, there’s no happy ending, mentions of events in seasons 3, chateau still exists, mention of throwing up, proorfread but may find mistakes. pairing; jj maybank x fem!reader. authors note; decided to take another approach because not everything always ends with hugs and kisses. wishing you all the best. hope the ending doesn’t seem rushed, requests are open. creds to gif owner. this is based on phases by chase atlantic, and lyrics of the song will be used. there’s a spotify link below, if you’d like to listen and read. lyrics are in bold italics.

It's been 24 hours

I'm getting impatient

I'm sorry you're scared

The feeling is shared

I'm sorry I'm dangerous

Ever felt that feeling when an impending doom is bound to strike?

Like when you know the earths about to cave in, and all you can do is let its currents drag you under.

The calm before the storm, maybe.

And JJ can feel it creeping in.

The sensation that he knows he won’t make it past a certain life span with his lifestyle, and he’d be damn if he’d drag you down with him.

Hell, he wasn’t sure if he’d make it past twenty five, at this rate. Between reckless trips to South America, and nearly dying in Barbados multiple times.

You were his last remnant of hope in life, and now he can’t even hold onto that anymore.

The filaments of love that intercepted his veins at just the sight of you, he couldn’t bare it.

He couldn’t bare so much love.

Or at least, he refuses to allow himself to.

The instance now is being in bed but miles away. And he’d been doing this for around two weeks now— throwing away the most valuable year of his life for a notion, or just the thought that you’d be better off. That you’d be better off without his baggage, his issues, without him.

He’s facing the wall, his boxer-clad frame away from you. Whilst his knees curl into his stomach, because he can’t see your face and he definitely can’t look you in the eye. He fears the longer that he lets you ponder his heart, and graze him gently that he’ll back out. Due to the fact that he’s been toying at the idea for two weeks. You stomach it, thinking maybe he’s had a bad day— still, you trace your fingers tips on the freshly tanned skin of his back hoping maybe it would comfort him. Or lull him into explaining his shift in attitude.

But he’s been like this long enough now, what if he’s going through a funk, you thought. But in reality it was you praying to yourself about what you kept denying.

He wouldn’t, would he?

He lets you touch him, he lets it linger like a cut to flesh, searing, burning, stinging at the same time. Recognizing the familiar pattern, curving and then going straight down to form the shape of microscopic hearts. He wants to stay in this moment, freeze time, so that the possibility of you despising him forever wasn’t something he’d have to deal with. So, he melts into the comforting touch, reminiscing on the times that it brought him infamous joy and not gracious amounts of sorrow.

He knows he can’t keep you.

He knows that you can’t continue to stick around.

In his own fucked up opinion anyway.

“What’s the matter J?” His insides clinch at the nickname, one only you typically called him. It was reserved for you in fact. And you weren’t a plain idiot, after a little over a year together, knowing when somethings off with your partner tends to become prominent.

But this … this was true anguish.

Mental anguish, if you will.

Grieving and missing you, when you’re a fingertips touch away. The great fall of JJ Maybank and Y/n was to ensue, and he was preparing himself for it. Realizing no amount of preparing could heal the hole that losing you will cause.

“M’okay bab-“ the pet name on the tip of his tongue comes to a hault, as if he were about to insult you by saying it. Something that he says out of habit and instinct that he couldn’t shake. God, he just wanted to call you baby in constant rotation. It was routine, but it couldn’t be any longer.

He has to follow through on every step of this path to breaking up with you, and if icing you out is what he has to do then he will. He solely wanted to sulk in his last few pleasing memories he’ll ever have with you. Beginning to break his ways in this relationship with you piece by piece. Hoping it would make the leaving part all the more ‘easier’.

Whilst you were oblivious, he was dying inside.

“M’okay,” he repeated, and stuck with it.

What the fuck was that? You thought.

Your facial features scrunched up in disgust at the dry response, the boy that was involved and cared what you had to say even about the stupidest things, usually; has a tone of no interest. He couldn’t see you, hence his back being turned away from you, but he felt the reaction through your stopped movements on the subtle skin of his back.

A grave dispense of heartache is upon them.

You say we should talk, it's falling apart

I hate when you say this

I feel like a child

I know it's denial

I'm going through phases

As anyone’s mind would wander in this situation, you felt unwelcome. Unwelcome in JJ’s room at the chateau. Unwelcome near JJ. The entirety of your presence seemed as if it wasn’t needed here.

“Something has to be JJ.”

Has to be.

It rung in his hears, and struck a sutured nerve or two. Because he didn’t want you to know something was wrong, or to even be let in that realm of his thoughts. You also have this agitation towards JJ right now as he’s treating you as if you don’t exist.

When at one point you were the only one in a room full of people.

You pull him back by his shoulder, forcing this fulfillment of eye contact. A weeping tear glazing over his eyes, a sob he’s been holding in the short hour you’d been over. He can’t keep it together but, he’s trying for the life of him. Even if you hadn’t seen the isolation of a salty tear forming, you sense the numbness in his features. Caught so off gaurd, mouth parted and all he can do is stare up at you with no emotion.

The boy you love was eons away.

Meanwhile that boy is compelling himself to not love you anymore.

And no, he didn’t want to see you go. You were his lifeline—on this constant high that he couldn’t come down from. You kept him high in the ways weed didn’t.

Knowing that he’ll be at this record breaking low when you’re gone makes him want to spiral. But, he’s not what’s preeminent for you, he’s not what’s best— anymore antics with the Pogues and he’ll ruin you. He’s baffled it’s even lasted this long.

“Why’s something have to be wrong?”

You’re propped up on your knees to the mattress, his blonde tresses are sprawled out against the pillow just as beguiling as he’s always been. Yet, not the same.

“I don’t know you just haven’t … you haven’t-“

“I haven’t what?” He bites back, sheer irritation. Adding to fuel of the irate frustration that’s being built upon brick my brick. One push and it’s all coming down. Though he needed his last few weeks with you to be pure elation, he can’t help but detach himself already. Protecting you, all whilst protecting his own sauntering feelings.

“You haven’t touched me in weeks JJ … everytime we kiss it feels like you don’t mean it. I can’t be the only one putting in effort here.”

You were right, going from his hands all over you anytime, anyplace so, a love language of utmost physical touch— to absolutely zilch. Not even a hug or a hand hold. Essentially stuck to you like a sticker, that sticker has fallen off, been stepped on, ripped, and trampled in rain.

JJ wanted to slam his head against the wall until it was fucking blue. He had to act like he wasn’t phased, a douchebag or an asshole. Quietly hoping it would make the letting go less intense. Lovelorn, at most.

He’s wrong. So utterly wrong.

What is he doing? — in a larger sense.

“Anything else you wanna’ complain about?”

End it now or hold off longer? JJ battled with himself again.

Get lost in love or escape it? If you love her let her go. You know this won’t be good for her. You’re such a fuck up. And again.

Your eyebrows knit together, you hadn’t known what you were saying could be taken out of context into a complaint. You’d let him be out of tune for long enough, you bit your tongue long enough, it was long enough. A stranger could tell something was desperately wrong.

You just wanted him to fix it.

You just wanted JJ.

“I wasn’t complaining J,” You pleaded almost, a quiver could be sensed in your voice. “I-I feel like you’re disgusted with me … like are you even attracted to me anymore?”

His irritation grows as that could never be a possibility. His undying attraction towards you has multiplied since kindergarten. You were the first one to notice him that school year— his dad gave him a pack of crackers for lunch, not caring about the child’s well being. And you, shared a PB&J with him, it’s been his favorite since that day.

And so have you.

You knew that, often taking advantage of it by getting your way with him, whenever need be.

If only you knew what he’s struggling to get off of his chest now. He can’t even believe there’s a version of his world without you in it.

“Please shutup.”

Is all he can suffice, as it’s minimal and not giving away too much. But it still pings at the strings of your heart all the same. Glaring, he presses a hand to his forehead, thumb and index finger colliding with his temples— to infer that you were giving him a headache on the verge of a migraine.

Tears are now pricking at the crevices of your eyes.

Why is he talking to me like that? You thought.

The hairs on the back of your neck stood tall, your body intensely drenched in the heat of JJ’s lackluster coated tongue.

Passionless so it seems.

You fought the tears wearily, even still they streamed and he held his hands over his eye’s because he can’t stand to see it. He can’t stand to see himself being the cause of those sopping tears— though he would be eventually anyway.

Just not now, he doesn’t know if he can do this. His insides are physically wearing away at the sound. He can’t comfort you as he would, due to it wringing the both of you by the neck when it comes to the end. For him it would reel him back in, and make him stay repeatedly. And you, it’s going to be all the more difficult to let go.

You known each other since before you knew how to spell, how do you let go of that?

“… t-then are you fucking around with someone? You’re cheating on me aren’t you?!”

He was astonished such a sin would leave your mouth. You thought it was in his nature to have such relations with another— he’s let your imagination run widely enough.

And he thinks he’s going to throw up— legitimately puke all over his bed, full on having to push you out of the way.

He’d overcome so much to get you, winning you a little over 365 long days ago.

All for what?

For nothing?

To just have you sit here and think the worst of him?

“If you aren’t going to shut the fuck up, you can go.”

Feel like I'm going insane, I'm going through phases

Pharmacy's rotting my brain, I'm going through phases

Heaven is calling my name, I'm going through phases

Oh, oh, yeah

I'm going through phases

He vowed he’d never do this to you, there for each other whilst having no one. Any of this, really, but being spiteful on top of it is making your hands clammy and your mouth dry, Now, he opens his eyes and removes his hands, sat upward as he gestures toward the door. Jaw clenched with a heaving chest, it was a damn insult to call him a cheater. It was agonizing. He’d never made you leave, even in the smallest of arguments he wants to make up seconds after. Cracking jokes about ‘how hot you looked while mad at him.’

After he’s done with you, you’re going to wish he’d cheated.

It’s menacing and erie, the repulsive silence that surrounds the two of you. He’s just fiddling with the rings amongst his fingers. Abruptly brought out of his trance once you leap off of the bed. Yanking his Bait Shop Tee past your shoulders, you throw it at him. It catches wind with hair, plopping him directly in the face, falling into his lap.

He deserves it.

He stood by not looking whilst you changed like he perpetually tended to do. You could’ve been the sun, the way fuming exhaust radiated off of your body. Slipping your head into your sweatshirt, whilst rummaging through his floor for your shorts— doing so quickly, if you were to look back on it you’d recall every moment of this painstakingly long conversation.

He cups his face into his own hands at the ‘last’ thing you’d say to him. Watching you rush past his door.

“If I wanted to be in a relationship by myself, I would’ve just stayed single.”

Collapsing into your side of the bed beside him, he takes in your remaining scent. So sensual, he wouldn’t get that satisfying scent again. Grasping the open flesh of his chest in misery. He’s torturing himself.

You’d eat those words.

Swim in the dark

The water is changing

Floating away, the fear in my brain

The feeling is fading

Kie frantically called you in urgency, days later. There was a plan to unfold, one that would be the cause of you resenting the Pogues for years to come. They were closer with JJ, you didn’t have as much freewill as the four of them did, or so much as you didn’t have the guts to leave your parents wondering where you are for days on end. You didn’t fit, the outcast of the group. The Pogues accepted you as you were but there was a tendency, that they too would agree, to gravitate towards JJ.

Even when the two of you were pining and it was all 'no Pogue on Pogue macking," blah blah blah, they never intervened.

You were JJ’s girl.

They knew it before you did.

Alike, with how they knew the outcome of the blood curdling screams to follow.

The elongated porch of the Chateau is fully occupied like how it normally would be, but there is no JJ.

Unbeknownst to you, he's on the other side of the front door. The same front door that's attached to the porch, and tended to be used for eavesdropping. JJ’s back is against it, clothing hanging off of his feeble frame. He didn't have an appetite, didn't have the motivation to shower, or even comb a hand through his hair.

What use to have meaning, is now meaningless without you.

This is what JJ intended, to have the Pogues did his dirty work. And after seeing JJ's current condition they obliged without much convincing. He didn't mind his friends getting caught in the crossfire, because as long as they were involved you'd detest them too. Meaning, there'd be no trace of you here.

He didn't have the fucking guts to break it to you himself; always caving and falling back under your spell.

Having the Pogues do it is more reasonable for the both of you, or at least he thought. You loathing all of them wouldn't make you come around and that was a sacrifice JJ had to make, for he feared if he saw you again, he'd become a ghost. Already a shell of the person he use to be.

Utter captivation and enrapture would be no more. He'd abhor himself if he let you witness another bloddy nose, another 'help me I'm in trouble text message', another close loss of life.

He beckoned he was much too treacherous and threatening to your purely refined soul.

There's life before you, during you, and now he has to attempt an after.

Here goes nothing.

You say it's not me

I hate when you say this

I'm falling apart

I'm starting to scar

I'm going through phases, yeah

Sheer exhaustion nearly causes you to miss a step, hand gliding with the screen door of the Chateau. You hadn't slept a wink, yearning for a sign that JJ still was still lathered in infatuation along with you, but there hadn't been. Two and two were coming together, and you weren't heedless no, just in open denial. In fact, you were willing to forgive the events of days ago to relive any sentiment with your boyfriend.

But that wasn't going to happen.

Not in this eternity, but he hopes to see you in the next.

With each inch you take towards the couches atop the porch that Kie, John B, and Pope were sat on, the atmosphere was muggy and rancid of thick air, fitting. The floral printed couch was where JJ hesitantly kissed you for the first time, slow and everlasting. Maybe if you touched your lips one more time, you'd be able to feel the linger of it again.

Kie is pacing with a box in her hands now upon seeing you closer in vison and throats are clearing as you stop in your tracks to end your approach on them. The box is lidded and closed, so the contents were unknown. Her lips curve into a sympathetic smile.

Fuck, you knew the end.

They were told to make it short and sweet, and at the sound of Kie's voice conversing with yours JJ perks up like a little dog that’s awaiting a treat. Except this was no treat.

Far from it.

"What's the emergency you called about?" You question, noting nothing of an emergency. Pope and John B are peering down at the cracked wooden boards below, allowing Kie to soften the blow. "And where's JJ-"

"He told me to give this to you Y/n."

You take the cardboard box that's planted into your hands, lifting its taped down lid your heart might as well have fell to your feet. Grabbing onto something, legs about to give out from beneath you. JJ's palm is flat against the bordered door, skin anticipating to be one with yours again.

Inside the box were shattered pieces of you and JJ combined. Your relationship shriveled into something so little, so insignificant. His film from the specific camera he purchased for photos of you and him aside from his other one. Claiming he wanted to savor every second he spent with you, but now as he can't digest the hard-to-swallow pill. He thinks you would be better off with them. A pink bear, that was dressed in overalls, JJ named it 'pinky', from another various date that the two of you went on to Build a Bear. Neither of you had been as children, healing apart of the untouched inner child in one another. There was the t-shirt you'd given him last year for his birthday, that read I heart my girlfriend, with an image of you in the middle of the heart. You could've went on and on about how each individual item in that box made you feel, but its not the items.

Its why are they in this Goddamn box?

"He doesn't want to be with you anymore."

Kies plummeting, echoing, and spit-firing words are the last thing you hear before the box clashes with the creaking floor of the porch. And you just knew JJ wasn't going to be one to miss out on this 'show' that he created.

Hiding behind a door and sending you off to venture a life without him, was a fucking slap to the face. A punch even, maybe even a headlock.

Who does he think he is to leave you so empty?

To leave you to peace together this mess of used-love?

You're pushing past them in absolute mortifying embarrassment. The infuriation towards them hasn't kicked in yet, but you were sure it would when you'd be left alone and inside you room pondering how you lost everything in a moments glance.

To have the Pogues break up with you for him, was a new rock bottom even for JJ.

Your fist collides with the broad door frequently, ear clasping against it to be met with nothing. JJ's face is buried in his knees whilst he sobbed with aching coughs in between, unable to catch his breath. Matching your cries that are too spilling out. So vulnerable on his own and for his person, or the one that was his person.

The end of all either of you have known.

"You're a fucking coward JJ!"

It seeps off of your tongue and causes a collision like dynamite, the daggers of the Pogues eyes are digging into your back. You continue to drag forward on the door, fist likely drawing blood from how hard its hitting.

"I wish I never even met you, d'you know much better off I'd be?!"

And you wouldn't be, neither of you would be the same. Sharing a love story others dream about when they sleep, and sharing an ultimate ending that most would dread. He whimpers as this is this the exact reaction, he'd been positive about, despite which way he approached it.

'Please don't forget how much I love you baby.'

He speaks to himself, as if you were here. Etching a baby in for the hell of it, the final hoorah.

You've resulted to kicking door, animosity, exasperation, and displeasure roped into one. John B is pulling you away, as he doesn't want the door to come off its hinges. Even still you shove John B away from you, running from the life you once knew.

"Can't believe I let myself love someone like you!"

Someone like you.

What's the point of love if it's not real?

Hanging onto me and in your feels

I can't even tell if it's the same to me

I'm falling apart, I know it's denial

I'm going through phases

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chuluoyi · 1 month

Text

tw vent — a personal life problem. i just have to leave it here bc i’ve been crying for two days. it’s long… so feel free to scroll past it :’)

i’m… about to break up with my bf of 2 years

he’s a really kind person. and i don’t exaggerate it. he always makes sure to show me that he loves me through little actions like forehead kisses whenever we meet up, getting me a customized keychain with my name on it, getting me meaningful gifts and flowers on important dates unprompted… and every simple and little gift he gave me i have stored inside a box and there are so many i’m bawling whenever i look at them bc i’m so touched that a man who loves me really exists :’) he’s my prayers coming true. i used to pray for a boy who will accept me as i am and he comes at the perfect time near the end of my college year when i thought everything in this world was jaded

not only that he also spoils me, goes along with anything i say… he is serious regarding our relationship, introduces me to his parents and siblings. i thought i no longer have any worries about the future. and i can say i’m 90% content with my life now— a great job, a nice boyfriend, financially independent… my life is too good sometimes it feels scary

but there’s no such thing as a perfect life and i’ve dreaded it quite some time… because i know that both of us have been avoiding a certain issue just so we don’t burst our happy bubble… and now that issue has come to bite us

we’ve been in a LDR for two years and i’m honestly okay with it, but whenever questions about the future comes up—like “where should we live in the future?” i always clamp up bc for certain i want to live in my hometown, where my job, parents and social life are. but the thing is… he has his own thing in his city, where his parents reside and he’s the first son so he’ll inherit the family business there

i eventually voiced my worries about this to him, and do you know what his first reaction was? i was so sure he’d immediately get worked up and convince me to leave my job

but no. it never happened

he was so shaken. and yet… he never denied me. he said he’d talk to his parents about it… he said he’d be fine with this arrangement even if he has to be the one going back and forth. he said anything that would make me happy… he’d do it

and i believe him. until the end, i believe him. because he really means it even until the end

i’ve predicted it already. no way are his parents going to agree with this. i know bc just put yourself in their position—your bright first son has everything in order, set to inherit the family business, but he’s going to live a hard life of LDR only for some girl… that’s simply unacceptable

now you might wonder why i’m so dead set with living in my hometown. in chinese culture, when a girl marries, she usually lets go of everything and goes with the husband. but i really, really love my job here. i love the work i’ve been doing, community and friends i’ve made here, the salary and whatnot. not everyone gets a chance to work in my company bc it’s considered prestigious. working here gives me a purpose— i feel enabled here and i can be a part of something greater. i’ve won awards and i’m considered for a promotion too in just 2 years in this company, so it’s really hard for me to let go of it when i know i can be more than just a housewife. and so, whenever i imagine that i have to leave this company one day… i’m crushed

and not only that, my parents only have me. i’m an only child, and my father’s health condition isn’t the best either. i can only shudder whenever i think of them being alone if left them here

sometimes i think i’m too selfish for wanting this. for wanting to keep my job. for wanting to be with my parents. for keeping my social life. my bf is the one sacrificing energy and money twice a month to meet me in my city, and even then i still want to ask for more

but… i really can’t lie to myself and say it’s fine when it’s not. and what makes me cry even harder is the fact that when he finally tells me what his parents’ opinions are… he cries too and said all of these:

“i want us to be together. i feel so, so lucky to have met you. there are some days in which i thought that if you weren’t there… then it’d be much harder.”

“i’m always so happy seeing you all happy and energetic, doing things you love. i don’t want to take that from you.”

“if i make you go with me, i’m afraid that one day… you’ll regret leaving. i’m afraid you’ll be unhappy and tell me ‘if i’ve known this earlier… i wouldn’t have left at all.’”

it’s the depth in which he thought of all of these. i cried on the spot in front of him because… what have i done? what should i do? i love him, i really do but in the end, i can’t let go of everything for him either

and the cherry on top? he doesn’t even want to instigate the break up. he said everything is in my hands now. he wants nothing more than keeping our relationship, but he doesn’t have the heart to make me unhappy. even until the end, he says whatever my decision is… he’ll accept it even if it hurts

i’ve been crying since yesterday. it’s so hard to let him go when memories of the past two years pop up one by one. he’ll pick me up, hug me on hard days, tell me that i’ll do just well, adore me and make me feel confident in myself… he’s been a really great emotional support for me and i’m so, so grateful to have met him too

now we’re still in a limbo. i’m too shaken so i obviously am not able to tell him what my answer is. we agreed to think of this further and talk about our decision in 2 weeks, when he’ll come to meet me again

i don’t know what my answer is even until now. i know the best course is probably breaking up bc we can’t agree on this particular point… but it’s not easy, not when we still love each other this much

. . .

for any of you who have taken the time to read this until the end… thank you :’) this blog is the safest corner i have and i really don’t want to bring any sort of negativity here… but this time i’m just too sad with everything and i think i need a space to confide in💔

#tw vent #so sorry i’ll answer asks later!! :’))#thank you all for dropping by🫶🏻✨#—chu’s ramblings 🗯️

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