#its implied they're both just stupid | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

specialagentartemis · 11 months

Text

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

#history #history and the world #misinformation

14K notes · View notes

scoobydoodean · 28 days

Note

would love to hear more about the “chuck was the one who brainwashed cas and kelly actually” theory, thank you :)

Okay so I'm going to sound like I'm not addressing your question at all at first but just bear with me.

One of the primary reasons that the baby brainwashing incident fascinates me is that Cas's actions are a betrayal of his and Dean's bond on a foundational level. I'm not talking about The Colt or the mixtape (though they're related).

Dean and Cas's relationship as handler and charge was shed and a real, genuine bond bloomed in 4.22, after this exchange:

DEAN Destiny? Don't give me that "holy" crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families -- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn? CASTIEL What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam. DEAN You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise.

These are the words that convince Cas to rebel. These are the words that dissolve Cas's doubts in doubt, and convince him to follow his convictions instead of act on blind faith. Shortly after this conversation, Cas flies Dean to Chuck, who tells them what they're up to isn't supposed to happen. This becomes a theme of Dean and Cas's relationship.

Together, Dean and Cas do things that aren't supposed to happen—that aren't part of God's plan. They do something Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.18. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.22. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 5.22.

Dean and Cas's relationship, at its very core, is built upon the rejection of two things: 1) Destiny and 2) Paradise—and by the end of "The Future", Cas explicitly (in the production draft) embraces destiny and paradise... and that screams Chuck.

This is what Cas says to Kelly right after the devil baby brainwashing at the very end of "The Future". The "Paradise" part doesn't make it to the final cut—just the "future" part... but the Paradise part is implied by the "future" part anyway.

What else happens in "The Future"? Kelly says the line.

It's not supposed to happen this way.

She says the line that Chuck said every time Dean and Cas defied the writing during the first apocalypse by doing something Chuck couldn't or didn't anticipate. Kelly says this after Sam and Dean catch up to Castiel—after Sam and Dean convince Cas to just talk through all of this with them and not jump to the nuclear option of murdering Kelly—to consider an alternative plan where Kelly and Jack's lives are both preserved because Jack is born a regular baby. The moment Cas begins to agree to talk, Kelly says "It's not supposed to happen this way."

Now let's talk about Kelly. Her behavior this entire episode is insane. She begins the episode despairing because giving birth to Jack will kill her. She then tries to kill herself, but Jack won't let her die—and this throws Kelly into a sort of religious fervor—convincing her that Jack is actually good and could revolutionize the world. Her belief in this is so powerful that when Sam and Dean arrive, she immediately rejects the plan they've come up with that will spare her and Jack's lives:

Sam: No, Kelly, if you go with Cass, you die. Your baby dies. Kelly: I go with you, you take away the thing that makes him special.

She sounds nuts. Like. Imagine saying you'd rather you and your baby DIE than have a "normal" baby. Your baby HAS to be a special baby or you'd rather be dead? Uh... ew—and to a point that screams supernatural brainwashing.

Of course—Kelly's actions aren't quite as irrational as they seem because right before Sam and Dean arrived, Kelly was shown something by "Jack". She got Cas to lay his palm on her belly, and "Jack" showed her a vision of the future. After she takes off with Cas in the impala, she says,

When you put your hand on my stomach, I heard him. He spoke to me. He told me that even if it seems scary, if I just went to the gate, if I just followed your plan, that you would make sure he was born.

So even as she's driving herself straight into Cas's plan to kill her and her baby, Kelly believes everything will be fine—because "Jack" showed her the future... and the thing is? She's... not wrong. "Jack" did show her the future. "Jack" showed her a tiny moment that actually does happen at the end of the episode—Cas standing between her and Dagon and saying "You stay away from her".

Why do I keep putting "Jack" in quotes here? Because Jack never displays the ability to see the future after his birth, and yet "Jack" did have this power from the womb... only? Yeah... I'm not so sure. I'm wondering if it was someone else—someone who showed Kelly what they had already written.

I'll also note in 13.01, that Jack doesn't seem to remember... any of this happening—at least not in the same way. In fact, he recalls very little leading up to his birth. The way he describes it, his sole knowledge of the world prior to his birth came from Kelly speaking to him while he was in the womb... but also... not? Because he says he was Kelly?

SAM: How do you speak English? JACK: My mother taught me. SAM: So you talked to her. JACK: I was her. JACK: My mother, she said Castiel, he would keep me safe. She said the world was a dangerous place. That's -- that's why I couldn't be a baby or a child. I... That's why I had to grow up fast. That's why I chose him to be my father. Where is he?

It's all pretty confusing, but something blinks at me here: Jack says Kelly told him Castiel would keep him safe and indicates that he chose Castiel as his father based on Kelly's assessment. However, Kelly told us Jack showed her the future which told her that Castiel would keep Jack safe back in 12.19. These are two contradictory stories. What if a third party sowed both?

Two other little bits:

First:

Kelly: Maybe – maybe everything that I've been through, everything that I still have to go through, is happening for a reason. Maybe it's part of some plan. Castiel: No, it isn't. I used to believe in a plan. I used to believe that I had some mission. But I have been through enough now to know that everyone is just winging it.

Castiel does a 180 on this by the end of the episode and it screams Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck.

Second:

If you go to the 12.19 production draft (graciously provided to the fandom through @/spnscripthunt) on page 45, you'll see something that never made it to screen—Cas's vision of paradise.

Only—these visions don't seem to come to fruition unlike Kelly's vision of Cas protecting her. The bits with Dean and Castiel's wings don't feel like the future anyway—they... just feel like what Cas wants most desperately at that time—to be a protector and provider who can handle everything on his own—who needs a "win". This is another theme of the episode. Cas stole The Colt in a misguided attempt to protect his family from having to be directly involved in the ruthless murder Cas had determined would be necessary. He didn't believe there was any other choice, and he wanted to spare Sam and Dean the pain of being involved in the dirty work.

Sam: Then – Then why didn't you call us? Cas, we could've helped you. Castiel: I know. I wanted to keep you out of this. I-I was trying to keep you safe. Dean: You're not our babysitter, Cas, okay? That is not your job. And when in our whole lives have we ever been safe?

This probably stings for Cas because he knows they aren't, and he wants them to be—he wants his family to be safe... all without having to discard his conscience by killing Kelly. He wants her to be safe too! The stuff he sees gives him what he wants--Sam and Dean and Kelly happy and safe—Dean thanking him—Cas once more a fully powered angel who doesn't need anybody's help.

But all of this stuff he sees? It's a lie. It's a lie because it never happens, but it's also a lie because destiny is always a lie. Paradise is always a lie. God's plan is just a way to keep them all in line... and Cas is trying to secure paradise for someone who said they'd take the pain and the guilt over someone else's vision of their paradise.

#mail #no one can control you but you #12.19 #13.01 #jack #kelly #and cas is my best friend #spn and causality #chuck #cas and power #castiels motivations

172 notes · View notes

txttletale · 4 months

Note

https://twitter.com/ZakugaMignon/status/1739703106466627976?t=6BRheBvMK4MlCt5gXaj4ig&s=19

this is a comically misleading graph lol (copy-pasted it below)

like you look at this and obviously think 'wow training an AI model is so much more carbon-intensive than planes or cars' -- but if you look at the actual units being chosen, they're fucking stupid. like, why is the air travel one the only one measured per passenger? the AI model will presumably be used by more than one person. fuck, even the average car will often be transporting more than one person! why is the car the only one that has its lifetime use and manufacturing cost combined when the AI model only has its manufacturing cost and the plane only has the cost of a single flight divided per passenger?

these are absolutely fucking nonsensical things to compare, and obviously chosen in ways that make AI look disproportionately bad (and air travel look disproportionately good, for some reason?). i'm not even touching the profoundly Fucked political implications of measuring the CEO emissions of 'a human life'

but let's, just for funsies, assume that these are reasonable points of comparison -- in 2021, 9 million cars were made in the USA. for the environmental impact of training AI to be even equal to the effects that those cars will have over their lifetimes (which this graph obviously seeks to imply), there would have to be over a million AI models trained in that time. which--hey, hang on a minute, that reminds me, what the fuck is 'training an AI model'! AI models come in all kinds of sizes -- i don't think the machine learning model that the spiderverse animators used to put the outlines on miles' face cost as much to train as, say, DALL-E 3! there is no indicator that this is an 'average' AI model, or whether this is on the low or high end of the scale.

so having just had that above question, i went to look at the original study and lol, lmao even:

the 626,000 lbs figure is actually just the cost of that one specific model, and of course the most expensive in the study. there's no convincing evidence that this is a reasonable benchmark for most AI training -- for all this study's extremely limited set of examples tells us, this could be an enormous outlier in either direction!

so yeah, this is officially Bad Data Visualization, & if you originally saw this and thought "oh, it looks like AI art really has a huge environmental impact!" then, like, you're not stupid -- the person making this chart obviously wanted you to think that -- but i recommend taking some time when you look at a chart like this to ask questions like 'how was this data obtained?' and 'are these things it makes sense to compare on the same scale?', because there's a lot of misleading charts out there, both purposefully and through sheer incompetence.

#ask #ai art

370 notes · View notes

clemissleepy · 15 days

Text

Autumn Sadness

seungmin's rival for the title of 'jeongin's best friend' collapses in his doorway.

wc : 1.7k

tw // implied sh , implied ed , fluff , angst , seungmin and reader are both very sensory-sensitive , seungmin is kinda rude at first , enemies to lovers but it doesn't actually go anywhere, this is just a lil drabble

seungmin hated that stupid face that was always glowing on jeongin's phone when he thought he wasn't looking. it enraged him to hear her obnoxious laugh through the walls and the way jeongin nearly completely ignored seungmin's existence.

when she came around to their shared apartment, it was like seungmin was a blanket. just used to everyone's benefit while he laid there and gained nothing. he didn't get to pick the show they watched, or the food they ordered, or what games they played. he just had to sit there and watch his best friend treat her like a princess.

the leaves were warm oranges and yellows. the sky was nearly gray and dead, wind chilly enough to dust pink on ones cheeks and nose, but not enough to numb their joints. seungmin had his headphones in, reading on his balcony bundled up in blankets and sweaters. he hummed to himself as he flipped through the familiar pages of his favorite book.

out of the corner of his eye, he could see something rushing. he could faintly hear the leaves crushing beneath someone's panicked steps and the creaking of the apartment's lobby door being opened. he caught a glimpse of the striped scarf the person worse and was now annoyingly aware of her presence.

just minutes later, he could hear keys shuffling around in the halls and the locks of his door clicking. the metal door slowly slammed shut and he rolled his eyes while closing his book to investigate. he unwrapped himself, throwing his blanket and story onto his plush comforter, and trotted out to the living space.

there she was, panting, in complete disarray. her scarf was tangled in her unusually disheveled hair. her eyes were uncomfortably pink and the way she darted around looking for something was getting on seungmin's nerves.

"jeongin's not here," he glares, hoping she'll take his hint to leave. but she just stares at him, eyes glossy as fat tears roll down her cheeks. a sob racks her body and she collapses onto her knees in the foyer.

"oh... um... okay," seungmin mutters while she wraps her arms around her and shivers. "what the fuck is wrong with you?"

she does not reply. rather, she curls over herself and chokes on her spit, groaning out and watching her tears puddle on the chill tile beneath her. her hands shake and run through her hair, tugging at it by the roots.

"okay, enough of that," seungmin comments, standing just in front of her and pulling her hands away from herself. 'they're soft,' he thinks. he notices how the white nail polish she always had on was chipped away, her usually clean and well kept nails were bitten far too short and the skin was picked at and fresh.

"what's wrong with you?" he continues to pry, looking down at her judgmentally. her head stays low as she pants and mumbles, rocking back and forth just enough for seungmin to notice. he supposes he needs to try a new approach.

he slowly kneels down, groaning at the ache in his back as he does. he reaches eye level with her and is very slow and gentle as he lifts her chin up to look at him. his eyes soften at the way her eyes just slightly turn inwards, making her look like a lost puppy. however, there is an obvious lack of color in her appearance, more like a homeless abandoned dog than one simply away from its home.

"i know i'm no jeongin and i know we're not friends by any means, but..." seungmin rests his hand onto her shoulder and slowly starts to untangle her from her scarf and jackets. "i'm here for you, if you need someone to talk to."

she chokes out her sickening laugh. "you just asked what the fuck is wrong with me!" she giggles while the tears drench her chin and neck. seungmin rests her scarf and jacket on the floor, now taking a close look at the way she's cradled into herself.

there was gauze wrapped tightly around her arms, suffocating her hands and turning them purple.

"you're cutting off blood," he states while starting to unwrap the bandages. he does not fail to notice the blood seeping through them, but he does not care. he is gentle and reassuring as he rewraps the gauze. "did you make a tourniquet anywhere else?"

she stares blankly for a moment, dissociating in front of the man she claimed did not have a soul. she catches his eyes and is lost in the way they are not as dead as she always perceived. they are small, half closed, but they are alive.

she points at her leg. beneath her jeans there is a lump where the gauze is and she hisses at the tension in her muscles.

"take your pants off."

"what?!" she yells, immediately regretting it from the scratch of her throat.

"well, unless you're gonna fix it yourself," seungmin rolls his eyes and stands up, offering one of his hands to her. she scrutinizes every inch of his face in an attempt to read his expressions just as she does jeongin. but she cannot see what lies behind his eyes or his foul mouth. she can only see the faint light of hope in the pit of darkness she's found herself in.

she adjusts the gauze on her thigh in the bathroom and seungmin insists she changes into some of jeongin's comfy clothes. specifically, his dinosaur pajamas. she is buried in the soft material, but comfortable nonetheless as seungmin leads her to the familiar couch and rests his own weighted blanket on top of her.

"beef or chicken?" he asks while tucking the edges of the blankets into her sides and ensuring she is mostly confined into a small roll of blankets and sadness.

"beef... for what?"

"ramen. you lost weight," he pads away into the kitchen and starts to boil water up in a pot. "i'm guessing you've been bottling everything up because jeongin has been having the time of his life with his girlfriend, yes?"

seungmin noticed the lack of his rival's voice through the walls the past few weeks. he was now hearing a much more trained voice coming from his speakers. it almost irked seungmin how jeongin seemed to shuffle away into a new world without his two best friends.

"how-,"

"i know everything. i know your coworkers have been talking shit about you behind your back and blaming you for things you didn't do. you're on your last warning before you get fired. i know your sister just started her tour in america so you're alone at home. i know your cat was diagnosed with cancer and you had to put her down last week. on top of that, you have exams next week, you can't get a hang of your calculus, and you're worried you'll never succeed, find love, or even make it out of college alive."

seungmin does not notice that he rambles. he knows there's an obvious annoyance in his tone, but he choosss not to acknowledge how odd it is that he knows so much about her.

the water is boiling, but the room is quiet. seungmin knows she can hear the buzzing of the lights, and the fridge, and the stove. so, out of the kindness of his heart, he turns the lights off and grabs an old pair of fluffy earmuffs from the foyer that he stuffs onto her head. 'her hair is so soft,' he thinks.

"well, you know my whole life story... you'd already know everything even if i wanted to tell you what's wrong," she grumbles.

"you talk pretty loud," seungmin shrugs and pours the noodles into the boiling water. "but i don't know why today was your breaking point. jeongin's at a photoshoot, not like it's a date that he abandoned you for."

"someone leaked my face and information. they got pictures of jeongin and i at a cafe and now... he's under fire for dating rumors and my sister is getting hate because of me and i'm so- they know where i live! i had to come here, i have to apologize to jeongin and ask if i can hide here."

"of course you can hide here, dumbass," seungmin chuckles. "and you should be more worried about your safety than jeongin or your sister's public appearance. they leaked your address?"

she nods silently and more tears stream down her cheeks. he finishes the ramen, letting it simmer in the pot with the seasoning. he then finds himself tensely beside her, hands anxious and trained to his sides while she starts to bresthe heavily again.

"you like pressure, right? lay down," seungmin commands, pushing her and watching her fall clumsily onto her side from being rolled inside blankets. she gasps and her eyes bug out, but she watches how seungmin crawls on top of her like a dog that doesn't know his own size and rests his dead weight onto her. she feels like she's floating on a cloud while simultaneously being grounded by the most wonderful weight imaginable.

it does not take either of them long to fall into an autumn nap, snores and drool falling from both their lips. seungmin shuffles in his sleep while she mumbles and hiccups quietly. the rain outside patters against the window rhythmically and their legs intertwine slowly as they adjust for comfort.

jeongin enters the apartment with grocery bags and his keys twirling on his finger. "seung-," he nearly yells, but he sees his roommates feet dangling off the arm of their couch. he notices the discarded jackets and scarf and feminine boots in the entryway, and deduces that his other best friend is here.

he does not, however, expect to see the both of them in a little cuddle pile. the ramen is still full on the stove at a simmer, the lights dim and the tv stuck on the netflix 'who's watching?' screen.

jeongin kneels down and whispers into seungmin's ear, "i knew you liked her."

"shut up, sushi roll needs peace and quiet," the older whines with a lisp and drag to his words. his hand lifts to the her cheeks and cups them oh so gently.

"she's sad... 'm gonna make her happy again."

thank you for reading! <3 ~clem

#skz #fanfic #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #writing #stray kids #seungmin #kim seungmin #skz seungmin #skz fluff #skz angst #stray kids fanfic #stray kids fluff #skz fanfic #clem writes

130 notes · View notes

deargodhelpmeaaa · 2 months

Text

Deltarune (lightner) ships analyzed for how likely they are to be canon. (ship whatever u want this is just what I think, feel free to comment an argument for your ship, too, I'm happy to hear you out) spoilers if u missed playing this game for the SEVERAL YEARS ITS BEEN OUT

Krusie

I think they're just friends tbh. Susie doesn't show any signs of romantic interest in Kris at all, but Kris MIGHT like her romantically. Ralsei mentions feeling warm when he thinks about the way they care about her and her tea heals Kris the most out of all of them and how much it heals is based on how much the characters like each other (Susie's tea heals 400 of Noelle's health points) and when asked who they'll take to the festival, Kris is implied to sound confused when you make them say they want to go with Ralsei or Noelle.

youtube

Susie and Ralsei's dialogue when Kris drinks Susie's tea is a little sus, too.

But again, there's no specific interactions that REALLY indicate that they really do like each other like that. Susie isn't really shown to like Kris as more than a friend, and Kris likes her, but a lot of this stuff sounds like they just like her as a really close friend...

They really do strike me as best friends. They're excited to go to the dark world together in chapter 2, and Susie is excited to go there again at the end of chapter 1. How they want to keep it a secret because it's their thing... I think that trying to say it's a romance is just reading into it a bit too much. Susie's probably going to end up with Noelle and not Kris.

Also I think it's super interesting that Kris and Noelle both like Susie a lot as people who lack control over their own lives- Noelle being super submissive and Kris literally being possessed.

Suselle

The ferris wheel scene they have together, it's implied that they did stuff together in Snowgrave. Susie blushes when Noelle gives her the chalk and they have a lot of cute, awkward interactions. Susie does seem to like Noelle back but doesn't know it yet, and it is clear to me that they're going to get into a relationship.

Kralsei

A bit weird.... Ralsei looks like Kris's brother and kind of forces himself onto them a bit since we know they don't really like him as much as we do and he's appealing to the player who's controlling Kris and not necessarily Kris themself. He still blushes around them, and if you choose to hug him on the boat and fight Spamton, he forcefully hugs Kris to distract everyone from what's going on. Not as wholesome as it initially looks, is it? If it becomes canon it will be against Kris's consent.

Kriselle

Honestly? It's possible. Snowgrave is forced and fucked up but I think even in the normal route there might be tiny hints that Noelle likes Kris a little bit.

(WHY SHE DO THAT) I might be reading into it too much, though.

Ralsusie

Not really canon, either. Again, she doesn't show any romantic interest in him, he doesn't in her. There's not a lot of grounds to stand on to say it will be canon. It seems like Ralsei is too interested in Kris (or more accurately: the player) and Noelle is too interested in Susie, who is unaware that she likes her back. I think it's a cute pairing but I really do just see them as friends and nothing else.

Krerdly

I already did a post on this but I've updated my reasoning since. I will reitorate some of my previous evidence nonetheless. JUST BECAUSE I CAN!!!

Berdly lowers the fee on the library book for seemingly no reason in chapter 1, is shown to care about Kris and views them as a friend but is only pushing them away to maintain his status as the "smart kid." They play games together and it's clear that Kris likes Berdly, too, and one of my favorite instances of this is the narration when you stare at his stupid statue for too long (skip to the 3 minute mark on the video)

youtube

He's the only character to open the present you give them and has the most heartfelt reaction to it.

youtube

He loses interest in Susie at the end of chapter 2.

And indicates that he's not repulsed by the idea of being with Kris, only turning them down because he thinks he likes Susie and that Susie likes him back, and so therefore he tries to pursue her.

and is put under the impression that they like him when they show concern for him. It is possible that they do like him romantically. It is possible that he likes THEM romantically and is just too out of touch with his own feelings to recognize it. He's really nice to them a lot more than he needs to be even when he's trying to be condescending. Obviously he values them as a friend even if initially trying to deny it.

His character development isn't completed at the end of chapter 2 and it seems clear to me that he's going to be coming back somehow. He's only just a little less hesitant to study with Kris and Susie at the end of Chapter 2. He still has that weird relationship with romance since he thinks nobody can love him without some ulterior motive, like romance. He thinks romance is super important, this massive form of intimacy and he wants it desperately, and that will hopefully be explored further and developed more.

Chapter 2 is all about him and Noelle and he gets a lot of his own individual development that is pretty separate from Noelle's and not even aided by hers, which is different from Lancer (who he's oft compared to) whose development is connected directly to Susie's. There's no reason to just throw Berdly's ass away right after chapter 2 (unless you literally forced Noelle to do that to him lmao) I think he's gonna do more in the story somehow, in some way. He's gonna develop more, and I think we're going to see more of his relationship with romance. We might get to meet his family and see more of that. Like.... he's just too good of a character to throw away IMO. Not to mention how a lot of the computer world's denizens resemble him in some way, the butlers being literally birds, Queen's mech sharing some visual simularities to him,

Spamton being an almost direct parallel to his character.... lots of things about that seem pretty sus and make me think he might be important in some way just because of that.

We also have the route where he breaks his arm which will take his development in another direction as well.

Toby Fox mentioned that the game is taking so long because he and the team need to do all these new mechanics, the branching paths, and it's very complex.

So.

Basically.

What I think is going to happen.

Is that Krerdly could happen in one or more routes where Berdly is still alive. So it hurts even more that he's dead in snowgrave. Whoops. Killed our characters' future boyfriend. My bad! Lmao! And yeah I think it's Kris who will be interested and not necessarily the player because that's less weird and cuter to me hehe haha hahaha.

Listen.

I might be reading too much into it because I really like Berdly and relate to him like crazy. (big shocker: the crazy tumblr girl that writes long rambly analysis about videogames and youtube and shit and constantly draws Berdly and is obsessed with him relates to Berdly)

Oh yea one unrelated theory I think that he might be the only light world character you can force Noelle to kill. It'd be kind of dumb to repeat the snowgrave route like that IMO and make it more impactful that way but maybe I just want my boy to be special IDK.

Noelle x Berdly

Sunken ship. They don't like eachother romantically at all. Berdly thinks she likes him but doesn't like her back, and Noelle doesn't like Berdly romantically at all, and even may hold some mild, repressed contempt towards him, but she still cares about him. It's made clear as day in the game that they are just friends and not interested in making their friendship anything else, unless Noelle asked out Berdly, the pinnacle of masculinity himself, (which he'd agree to since he would worry about what would happen otherwise) but heh. Yea.... like that's going to happen...

Susie x Berdly

Susie doesn't like him romantically, he loses interest in her at the end of chapter 2.

Ralsei x Berdly

They never interact and we don't know if they will interact.

Noelle x Ralsei They never really interact yet either. Later on I can see them interacting more since Toby described Noelle as "one of the main characters" but it's not going to be romantic. I think that's obvious.

We don't know the other characters well enough to say anything about them. That being said...

Dessriel

Toby Fox commented that someone was making something really similar to Deltarune and it's speculated it was in reference to omori.

We only have one comment about Dess using Asriel's jacket to back this up, as well as the fact that Dess and Asriel are friends so Kris and Noelle were friends, and everything seems to have fallen apart after Dess's disappearance. I think about Hero and Mari here, and wonder if that's what he meant in this tweet. It's possible that Dess and Asriel liked eachother romantically or were dating (I don't think we've gotten any specifics on the nature of their relationship). We don't know yet, though but it's a theory. A GAME THEORY THANKS FOR READING!!!!

To reitorate before I go: Remember even though I said your ship is unlikely to become canon I'm not dissing it and you're not a bad person for liking it at all, like what you like, ship what you want (but know where to draw the line of course, be normal, JESUS). So yeah no shade on anyone this is just what I think, aight?

#Youtube #deltarune #susie deltarune #kris dreemur #ralsei #noelle holiday #suselle #krerdly #deltarune berdly #berdly #kriselle #not tagging the other ships in case i piss someone off #i know how shipping culture is

97 notes · View notes

sporesgalaxy · 7 months

Note

PLS.. share thoughts on zoro n sanji relationship........ i dont ship them but they are so. SOOOOO.

THEY MAKE ME CRAZZYYYYY. and honestly the way their dynamic make me insane doesnt even HAVE to be read as romantic. But i feel so much crazier when i see them shipped and its not even capitalizing on all the shit theyve got going on.

So anyways here's my Zoro and Sanji retrospective I spent several hours on I guess. As if it's my fault.

▪︎

When Zoro and Sanji meet, Sanji has given up on his dream to see the All-Blue in favor of supporting Zeff.

Zoro is still throwing himself at his dream to be the greatest swordsman with all his might, and nearly dies to Mihawk for it.

Initially, from Sanji's outside perspective, it seems like a waste of precious life.

Zoro promising never to disappoint Luffy when he's on death's door clearly makes Sanji reconsider, though.

•••

The next time Sanji and Zoro really interact after Zoro's defeat is when they go after Nami at Arlong Park.

And the first thing Sanji learns about Zoro is.......that he's willing to hit girls!

To Sanji, Zoro seems like he's willing to turn on someone-- and worse, willing to hurt a girl-- just because he's angry for an apparent betrayal that no one has any concrete proof of yet. What a jerk! Surely that earned him the dig Sanji makes about his loss to Mihawk.

Unbeknownst to Sanji, however, Zoro has already bet his life on Nami's friendship being genuine by almost drowning himself.

Zoro doesn't want to bother explaining this to some stupid new guy who's willing to side with a stranger purely on the basis of her gender. Clearly, Sanji doesn't understand ANYTHING about this crew, and should just stay out of things.

And so their initial mutual dislike is born!!!

They tend to bicker a lot after this, but I think the next time Sanji brings up Mihawk is in Alabasta.

Once again, Sanji is hitting below the belt because he's convinced Zoro's done something nigh-unforgivable: doubting Luffy. It's a reminder that their rivalry at this point is still built on genuinely misjudging each others' character.

Now at this point I've run out of my 100 daily shounen jump chapters so I can't find for you the PRECISE moment thet are mutually like "yeah ok fine you're a DECENT guy I GUESS" in Alabasta but I think it's the clock tower maybe? The point is that the whole crew has to work together VERY HARD to defeat Crocodile and it shows Sanji and Zoro that they can count on each other to support the crew, at least.

Their improved relationship is apparent in one of my fave downtime scenes so far: Sky Island jungle dinner :)

I...don't think we've seen Sanji ask for help cooking before this point?? Much less from Zoro. So I fucking love that. And Zoro goes along with it, even though he complains!!!!! It shows perfectly how they now trust each other to help take care of the crew.

Another one if my fave examples of them counting on each other in a kind of funny way is when they're fighting Zombie Oars.

Zoro pushes Sanji's buttons on purpose to get him to go along with it, and it works. But it also shows that Zoro was counting on him to give him a boost! The middle panel could even imply Zoro jumped before Sanji agreed to anything, which really proves how much they're willing to couny on each other now.

Which of course brings us to the conclusion of Thriller Bark and a WILD curveball in their relationship: thes self-sacrificial x2 combo.

What Sanji does here floored me. At this point not only does he trust Zoro as a part of the crew, but he considers Zoro a more irreplacable member of the crew than himself.

And Zoro refuses to let him.

Now, we know from his initial fight with Mihawk that Zoro being willing to kill himself doesn't mean he considers his life unimportant. Zoro and Luffy are both unafraid of death, because they have to be willing to die to even have a ghost of a chance of achieving their dreams.

That's why Zoro chooses to take on Luffy's pain and why he is able to survive it.

Zoro's sacrifice obviously means a lot to Sanji. When Zoro refuses to acknowledge his sacrifice, Sanji goes along with that and covers for him.

And of course he understands. The pain Sanji mentions here that Zoro is trying to spare Luffy from is the exact same pain that lead Sanji to give up on his dream of finding the All-Blue in favor of trying to repay his life debt to Zeff. Sanji wouldn't wish the guilt he feels for Zeff's leg on anybody.

Sanji shows a lot of concern for Zoro after this point up until the time skip!! He calls Zoro a hero to Brook, and tries to help Zoro deal with his excess injuries without drawing attention to them. Zoro is of course surly about it, because he's frustrated by his own limits. He got a taste of what Luffy goes through and it just made him more desperate to become strong enough to lighten Luffy's load.

I find their sort-of reset after the timeskip hilarious.

Sanji was already feeling deeply insecure when he got sent to the island of question your gender and sexuality-- things Sanji clearly considers very important to his identity. Since he can't bear to question himself, he relies on reacting combatively to things that challenge his masculinity. Kicking them, mostly. I'm sure he picked that up from Zeff.

Meanwhile, Zoro is THE most traditionally Masculine member of the crew besides Sanji by a long shot (Franky is in 3rd place as a self-professed freak with blue hair and pronouns who refuses to wear pants). Zoro is buffer than Sanji. And seemingly more stoic than Sanji. And Zoro has cool scars and uses three swords and his muscles are bigger and half the time he's not even wearing a shirt.

This masculinity contest between them was present before the timeskip too, but it's really the only good explanation for the extremeness of Sanji's sour attitude the moment he lays eyes on post-timeskip Zoro and remarks, aloud, "He's back. Like I really care..." after how much appreciation Sanji showed for Zoro's sacrifice before the timeskip.

Sanji WOULD be annoyed at his crewmate's seemingly effortless, unshakeable masculinity after two years of doggedly avoiding non-consensual crossdressing and constantly fighting for his life to outrun gay thoughts.

Zoro's side of things so far post-timeskip seems a bit less wound-up than Sanji. Zoro never takes an insult sitting down, and also just enjoys making snide remarks, so if Sanji's going to argue with him there's no reason for Zoro not to argue back.

This is why I am a gay Zoro truther, even if that gayness has nothing to do with anyone on the crew. Because its fucking hilarious if Sanji is one-sidedly trying to out-hetero-masculinity a literal gay man.

#1pc discussion #1pc #asks #zosan #1pc lb #zs

196 notes · View notes

oops-all-concrete · 4 months

Text

I'm doing another BG3 companions headcanons dump, since I enjoyed the last one a lot! So please enjoy;

BG3 COMPANIONS REACT TO; TAV IS SCARED!

(For further context, companions reacting to Tav having to be around something they don't like, eg; water, small spaces, fire, undead etc, or they're just jumpy in general. Also, romance is not established, but implied!)

Wall of fluff below, enjoy

Lae'zel -

It depends on the fear. If it's something like a cave that's barely holding up or the group is sneaking past a hoard, she'll agree the situation is critical, but encourage focus. "I'd also like for this to be over. But it won't be if we hesitate and dally" but if it's something like heights or rivers, she doesn't understand...but she will become a githyanki barrier between Tav and whatever is causing them stress.

Shadowheart -

She's pretty understanding of most fears. She freezes at the mere howl of a distant wolf, so if Tav flinches at the crackle of fire or the smell of blood, so be it. She keeps an eye out and tries to find work arounds if the group is about to enter somewhere Tav is going to hate. If it's unavoidable, she's as gentle as possible. "We've got this. It'll be over before you know it, I promise you. Then we'll never have to do this again."

Wyll -

He'll make it as tolerable as possible, but will encourage Tav to face their fears head on. "I'm not scared. I have no reason to be and neither do you, because I won't let anything happen to you" he'll promise. Won't push, won't complain. Just keeps Tav in arms reach and stays calm. He's proudly Tavs dedicated rock. And sheild. And blade. He sasses anybody has anything to say about it.

Karlach -

"Don't worry. Mama K is the best teifling sheild around, from here to Avernus! Stick close" She smiles, confident as ever. Even if she is scared too, she'll pretty much forget about that while Tav is scared. Tav is her main priority, and she let's them know proudly. Anyone else says anything? She's reaching for the greataxe.

Gale -

Doesn't want you to be embarrassed, so he tells you about a silly fear he has. Has a knack for rambling Tav into distraction, so he takes advantage as best he can of their attention. Of course in a moment of panic he'll drop the 'I did something stupid' fake laughter and immediately stop everything. "We can go, right now. I'm sure we can find another way to do this, we always do. I don't care if it takes longer, it's got to be better than watching you shake like that"

Astarion -

He pretends not to notice. Not because he doesn't care, but comfort has never been his strong suit. He worries he's going to make it all worse if he addresses Tav about it. Instead he occupies himself with laughing about whatever situation they're in. If he knows anything, its how to be disarming, and laughter works like a charm...but if it doesn't and nobody else steps in to comfort Tav, he'll do it- granted the words are coming out before he can think too hard; "Look at me. You have survived a goblin camp of cultists, an entire githyanki creche- we met after crashing from a nautaloid ship with illithid worms in our heads. This is nothing. You're stronger than this."

Bonus! (the elders)

Halsin -

He can tell they're nervous before Tav can. He checks in regularly and asks repeatedly if there's anything else he can do to make it all easier. Once it gets to be too much, he calls it for Tav. "I understand if you'd rather myself and a few others handle this. While I'm proud of you for staying, I can promise you no disappointment if you wish to leave. Your wellbeing isn't worth sacrificing for this"

Jaheira -

Similar to Halsin, she's very quick to pick up on when something upsets Tav even if they don't say anything. She subtly keeps an ear out for how well they're holding up, and will make excuses for Tav to take breaks and get further away from the thing they're scared of. "Apologies, but this old druid needs to rest her old lady hips. Tav, it would be safer if we both went to that safe spot there, come on." Jaheira won't bring it up, but its easy to figure out what she's doing.

Minsc -

He doesn't notice for a while, even if its obvious, but once it occurs to him, he draws an obnoxious amount of attention to it. Granted he's also asking people to get between you and the source of discomfort and will tell anyone who so much as sighs to politely shut the fuck up. If he thinks it will help, he will put Boo on Tavs shoulder. "Boo is a war criminal! Everything fears Boo. He'll protect you from all the nasties, won't you Boo?"

Hope you enjoyed! Let me know if you guys have any prompt ideas, I'd LOVE to write more ^^

115 notes · View notes

weirdly-specific-but-ok · 1 month

Text

they're/their, you're/your and it's/its

Idk suddenly remembered that a lot of you maggots aren't native English speakers and even native speakers sometimes struggle with this so I thought I'd try and help:

They're and their are both extremely common words, pronounced the same way, spelt differently, and with different meanings. Same with you're and your, and with it's and its.

Fun fact, pairs or groups like that are called homophones. Why? Because they hate gay people (I'm kidding, that's homophobes, with a b).

Okay, so THEY'RE is just a contraction (short form) of they are. When a letter (or more) is removed from a word, an apostrophe (the ' symbol) takes its place.

So they are becomes they're.

Which is how you can differentiate it from THEIR, which is a separate word, without any contraction, that's a possessive pronoun (transphobes everywhere faint at the mention of pronouns).

Possessive pronouns = words that indicate something belongs to something else, to put it as simply as I can.

Do not picture 2010 Wattpad bad boy kind of possessiveness. Don't do it.

The same thing happens with you are, it becomes YOU'RE. Which is why it's different from YOUR, which is a possessive pronoun again.

Similarly, it is becomes IT'S by removing the i of the is. Different from ITS, which is a possessive pronoun.

If you have difficulty choosing which one to use, the simple way would be to expand the contraction to see if the sentence still makes sense.

For example, They're going to yeet that out of the window. Is they're the correct word? They are going to yeet that out of the window. Yes, it makes sense.

What about, They're relatives are coming home tonight?

Expand the contraction. They are relatives are coming home tonight. It doesn't make sense, does it? You're trying to say the relatives belong to whoever the mysterious 'they' is.

The belonging implies a possessive pronoun, so the actual correct sentence would be: Their relatives are coming home tonight.

It's Wednesday (It is Wednesday), but The Tumblr sexyman ran into its hole (not it is hole, but its hole, as in the hole belongs to it).

You're reading this post (you are reading this post), but Your sanity is being ruined by this hellsite (not you are sanity, but your sanity, as in the sanity belongs to you).

(not for long, though, no one retains their sanity on this stupid site)

ANYWAY I hope I helped a bit with my weird ramble and if you're struggling with English, don't worry, homie, native English speakers around the world literally have fucking international competitions where the only challenge is to spell words.

(They're called Spelling Bees, look them up.)

(Everyone is struggling with English.)

(English is to languages what Tumblr is to social media.)

#good omens mascot #weirdly specific but ok #asmi #maggots #english language #english #grammar #i hope it helps #at the very least #i'm sure it can't confuse you further #...or can it #oops

37 notes · View notes

hyuuukais · 5 months

Text

.・゜-: ✧ :- FICTIONAL REALITY .・゜-: ✧ :-

pairing • bang chan x fem reader

synopsis • fiction or reality? y/n preferred the former, escaping into another world, escaping her problems. so what happens when reality takes that away from her; wiping her own story-in-progress off both her laptop and beloved usb? and what happens when she opens the door in the middle of a crisis to none other then the love interest of her novel... and he's holding her usb?

warnings • general, implied abuse going on, things get a lil suggestive

MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

CHAPTER ELEVEN • THE CALM (3k)

"You're not supposed to be in here."

Whispers grow louder and louder until they're right outside the door. Staring at the closed door, you clutch the hem of your shirt anxiously. There's no other exit, that is besides waking up.

Fear settles in your stomach. You don't know how to wake up.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Panic rises higher, your body tingling and breathing constricted. You never should have attempted this- you should have gone back to Jeongin. No, you couldn't do that to him again.

You look back at your own body lying in the high-tech chair across from Yeonjun. What would happen if you ripped the cords out of your neck? The tube out of your forearm? Would all of this end? Or would that further doom everyone? Too many questions, not enough answers. You can't risk it.

Pounding on the door gains your attention, and you sink down to your knees in the water. The water, which has risen in the past few minutes, now covers up to your mid-thigh like this. It takes everything in you to push yourself back up, swallowing the anxiety that weighs down each step to your body. Just like the others, your skin is cold to the touch, but your breathing matches your own.

"Wake up." Did you really think that was going to work? "Wake up, please."

Pleading quietly, shaking your own shoulders lightly with the little bit of energy you have left. This place is consuming you, bringing you into its darkness bit by bit; you've made a grave mistake coming here.

All you can think of as you beg is Minho. Minho, sitting beside your body no doubt worrying as you lie there motionless, too still. Minho, who, despite everything, you love just as much as you did before leaving. There's no reason for you not to, but you've tried to forget everything and everyone from that life including him. Minho, who hasn't dared to leave your side unless you've asked him to, who hasn't questioned your sanity or judged you, who's made you breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day since he arrived.

Minho, who's about to lose you forever.

The door bursts open with a gust of air, but the voices are gone, leaving you alone sobbing over yourself. Clutching onto her shoulders, you put your head down against hers and let the chair bear your weight. You can hear footsteps behind you in the still-rising water, stopping right by your side, but you don't bother looking up. It's taking everything in you to hold yourself up, just enough of you still there to fight the dark.

A hand rests on your shoulder and you flinch. "You'll save him. You'll figure it out, I believe in you."

Something ignites in you at their words and their touch, allowing you to push away from your body and turn back to the door. Nobody is there, just you making your way back to where you came from. The door is shut again, but there's a new light streaming through the cracks, warm like daylight.

Your hand finds the knob, pushing out into the open.

Minho sits silently, waiting for you to return. It's been nearly seven hours since you left and your body hasn't even twitched. He's seen you sleeping before. Watched the slow rise and fall of your chest, heard your cute, soft snores and sleep-talking. You always move, stealing blankets and pillows and anything you could get ahold of, so seeing you so... unlifelike, is unnerving, to say the least.

Around the eleventh hour, you sit straight up gasping and grabbing the collar of your shirt. Feelings of shock are quickly pushed away, Minho kneeling by your side to rub your back as you cough and cough and cough. He takes off your headphones, placing them on the table with one hand, the other still on your back.

At this point you're trying to claw your shirt off, so he helps you out of it the best he can. You don't seem to even notice him yet, eyes squeezed shut, bringing your knees up to your chest with a sob. It hurts, seeing you like this and knowing there isn't much he can do besides be there.

Once you've calmed down, you speak, voice rough. "I thought I was stuck in there. Min, it's got us all hooked up to these weird chairs unconscious, but I don't know if there's a safe way to unhook someone without damage. I don't even know if that would help or if it would make things worse. Hell, I don't even know if it was real." As you explain everything you saw, you realize something. "...but I didn't see you there."

"What?" His face pales.

"I didn't see you." You look at him, searching his eyes for something, anything, that could explain why. Of course, you didn't want to assume he had to do with what's been going on, but he's the only one you didn't see, the only one who hasn't had any dreams or visions, the only one seemingly unaffected by whatever is haunting you.

"No." Minho shakes his head, a look of betrayal on his face. "You don't think this is all me, do you?" It's like he's read your thoughts, standing up and walking a few steps away. With his back still turned, you see his hand fly up to his face. "Y/n, why would you think that? I- I could never hurt you! Could never dream of hurting you, and you-"

His voice is cut off by a harsh knocking on the door. You move to answer the door, but Minho gestures for you to stay sitting. He opens the door, slightly hesitantly.

"Is Y/n here?" Jeongin's voice travels down the hall, slightly out of breath.

"Right here!" You quickly move to the entry, pulling your discarded shirt back on and sliding beside Minho in the doorway. "What's up J- oh my god, are you okay?"

There's a bruise forming on his left cheek, deepest nearing the high point of his cheekbone. Your hands come up to his face, tilting it gently to examine the damage.

"I'm-" He winces when you accidentally graze the edge, whispering a quick apology. "I'm fine. Are you okay?" You give him a confused look. "I felt a sort of... shift. Everything was telling me to get here ASAP. What did you do?"

He gives you a look that makes you shrink back into Minho, who wraps an arm around your shoulders protectively.

"I went back."

"You what? On your own?" Jeongin looks at you with disbelief. "Do you realize how dangerous that is?" His voice raises with every word, hands on his head, raking through his hair. "Seriously! Tell me everything and don't you dare leave a single detail out. God, you could have died!"

Jeongin paces back and forth on your porch, trying to calm himself down. He doesn't notice the way you grip the neckline of your shirt, the way your breathing has picked up, the way you've backed up into Minho, body begging you to run up the stairs and hide. All because he raised his voice.

But Minho notices, of course, Minho notices. And he holds you tighter, brushes his fingers through your hair the way he knows used to calm you down, hoping it still does. When you slowly loosen your grip on your shirt, he knows it's working.

"You're okay," he whispers, nudging his nose by your ear. "You're okay," he repeats, head turning back to a still-pacing Jeongin. "Are you gonna come in or what?"

His words bring the younger boy back to Earth, walking inside when you shift out of the way, out of Minho's touch, and back into the living room. It's the first time Jeongin has ever been to your house; you don't even know how he knew your address. The boy looks up and around, eyes falling onto the old photo of you and Minho resting on your coffee table. He opens his mouth as if to ask about it, but decides it's best not to, not right now with more pressing matters.

"I wanted to see if I could find it," you say, avoiding eye contact, but feeling Jeongins stare piercing you. "Maybe then I could figure out how to stop it without seeing Yeonjun, but if anything, it only solidified the fact that's the only way."

"Well that's not happening," Minho says, the same time Jeongin says, "You don't even know what it is."

You look up at Minho, frowning. "You don't get to decide that."

What he does apparently get to decide is a topic change. "Jeongin, how did you get here?"

"Oh, I asked Chan to bring me since I knew he'd been here before." His face flushes. "And because I had no one else to ask."

"Not your grandmother?" You ignore the fact Chan may be waiting for him outside, swallowing the rush of feelings.

"No." Jeongin shakes his head hard, face turning redder when he realizes the quickness in which he answered. "You know she doesn't approve of my... my gift. If you can even call it that."

He looks down, shrinking into himself automatically. Everything in you wants to hug him, comfort him, but you don't know how. Whatever he's going through at home, he doesn't deserve it. Maybe one day, when all of this is over, the two of you can run away from this town that you're now realizing has never been, and will never be, home. For you and for him.

"Is Chan outside?" Of course that's what Minho is focusing on.

"Yeah," Jeongin says, fiddling with his fingers. "He should be in his car down the road a bit."

"Stay here, I'm gonna go talk to him-"

"Um, no?" You cut him off. "You're gonna scare him off."

"You have so much faith in me." Sarcasm drips off his tongue, a small smirk playing at his lips. "Relax, I was just going to invite him in. Seems this conversation may be a little longer than expected."

You're about to agree, however since Minho's arrival, you haven't really gotten the chance to talk to Chan completely alone, other than the one time in his apartment.

"I'll get him." You leave before he can protest.

"Knock, knock!" You announce yourself with a knock to the passenger side window, causing Chan to jump in his seat.

He rolls down the window. "Now, why should I let you in after that? Giving a dying man a heart attack?"

Words meant to be taken as a joke make your heart sink. Because he's right- he's dying. Noticing your expression, he leans over to unlock you door.

"Hey, I'm sorry." You hesitate, but sit down. "I was joking, but, ah, bad joke. Noted."

You shake your head. "No, I'm sorry. This is all so fucked up Chan and I still don't have more than just theories. We have, what?" Pulling up your phone calendar, you quickly check the date. "A month and a half to figure this out? And if we don't, you're just gone? Like you never existed?"

Chan inhales sharply, eyes detaching from yours and onto the road ahead.

Sunlight streams through the cracks of the surrounding forest, sun rising slowly. It reminds you of the warmth of waking up in his apartment, in his arms; not only warm because of the sun.

"You forget, I never existed in the first place." His words are strained. "This is just the universe correcting itself."

"No," you say, a little too quickly, a little too loudly. "Sorry, but no. You're here for a reason, Chan, and I'm not letting you go that easy."

"What, you care for me already?" You blush.

"Considering up until now you were the main love interest of a book I've been writing on and off for the last few years? Yeah, I care about you." You huff, slouching in your seat just a bit. "You were meant to depict everything I value in a person, in a lover. I knew you more intimately than my own boyfriend. My own fiancé. You made me feel safe and loved, even if it all was of my own creation. You were my happy space."

"I could still be your happy space," he blurts.

When you look up, he's looking away, avoiding your eyes. Telling you he didn't mean to say that, at least, not out loud. He watches as leaves fall off trees, willing you not to acknowledge what he said.

"You could be," you confess.

Have you known real him for very long? No, not at all. But now you have the chance to know him, to accept love you deserve, even if you don't think you do. The chance to put your past to rest.

So you lean in, cupping his cheek, turning him to face you. Chan's eyes look into yours, a comforting dark brown, nothing but love in his gaze. And you realize, probably before he does, he loves you. But that's the way you wrote him. You wrote him to love you.

This is all wrong.

You pull away.

"Y/n?" Chan catches your hand before it can hit your lap. "What- did I do something wrong?"

"I did." You can't look him in the eye. There seems to be a lot of that today, being unable to look others in the eye. "The only reason you feel like this way is because I made you like this."

"Oh, please," he says, softly. "Tell me the way I feel."

"You love me! You love me, but have no say in the matter." Now you do look at him, searching for agreement. When he says nothing, you continue. "You were created because I needed an escape from real life where I couldn't find that love I wanted so desperately. Because I was scared. Now, here you are, and you love me. But everything feels wrong. You didn't get to choose this."

"Then let me choose now," he says, hand locking your fingers together. "I choose you. Okay?"

Chan leans in, brushing your nose with his. You want to reach out and touch him more, trace his features with your fingers and memorize the details. He's a piece of artwork, and you're his artist.

"Okay."

"Can I kiss you now?"

"Please."

And kiss you, he does. Romantic, soft, lips hovering before enveloping your own. The hand not holding yours finds your waist, rubbing up and down soothingly. Kissing Chan is a breath of fresh air; you've been drowning without it. All his feelings push into you, leaving you breathless when he licks your bottom lip. Immediately, you open your mouth; you'd be a fool not to.

Chan leans over to you more, hand wandering upwards, his other unlocking from yours and joining in. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you pull him in closer as he deepens the kiss. Hands find the small of your back, making a move to bring you onto Chan's lap, but in the process of doing so, your head hits the roof of his car, hard.

"Fuck!" You rub the top of you head, collapsing into Chan instead of what was supposed to be gracefully sitting in his lap.

"Y/n! Are you alright?" He's fast to bring you up, examining your head and checking for any bumps.

"I'm fine," you can't stop laughing. "Just... embarrassed."

Between yours and Chan's laughter, you just barely hear your phone ringing in time to answer before it stops.

"Hello?" You're taking deep breaths, climbling backward into your seat again.

"What's taking so long?" It's Minho. Oh, right, there was a reason to be out here other than make out with Chan.

"It's Min," you whisper, covering the speaker. "I forgot I was just supposed to invite you inside."

"Do... do I want to know?" You hear Minho say.

"It's nothing. We're on our way back now." You hang up with a quick goodbye. "You can park in my driveway, you know? You didn't have to go so far."

"I'm not that far."

"Yes, you are," you laugh again. "I had to walk, like, ten minutes to get here. I was starting to think Jeongin tricked me or something."

Chan's face pales at the mention of Jeongin.

"What?" You turn in your seat to face him better, tone serious as he rubs his neck nervously. "What is it? Jeongin?"

"Yeah, he..." Chan's eyebrows furrow. "Something's wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"I don't know." Chan sighs through his nose, frustrated. "At home, but also he doesn't sleep or eat or anything."

"What do you mean?"

Has Jeongin been with Chan longer than you knew? The bruise on his cheek, Chan wouldn't... would he?

"He was telling me all this on the way here and last night-" Chan looks at you, new confusion on your face. "Right, I guess you wouldn't know. Jeongin, he came back to my apartment last night completely out of breath. At the time he just said he needed a place to stay for the night, so I let him. He didn't say much at the time, but he kept wincing when he breathed, and I'm sure you've seen the bruise."

You say nothing, your silence speaking for you.

"On the way here, he opened up more to me." Chan looks away briefly. "I won't go into the details; that's not my place. But I will say that maybe it's best he stays with one of us for a little while longer. Of course I'd be happy to let him stay with me-"

"No, let him stay here," you say, holding up a hand. "I have tons of space. He can crash in a spare room."

"Okay." Chan nods, looking back up at you.

"So can you, you know, if you want."

When did you get so bold?

"Of course," Chan says, surprised. "Yeah, yes, sure."

The sun is on his face now, making his eyes brighter and skin glow. You want to kiss him again.

"We should be heading back," he whispers, eyes flicking down to your lips, just for a moment.

"I guess we should be," you reply, another phone call from Minho coming in, no doubt asking where you were again.

●

notes • all i will say is 👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁👁

taglist • @yongbbokkie @chaeryred @tenebrisirae @toplinelix @chansdoll @amaranth-writing @3rachachoo @linosjureumi @thebrownemo @tfshouldidohere @channie-143 @frogieeheart @kangaracharacha @skzswife

TAGLIST CLOSED ^^^blue means i can't tag you

#.・゜-: ✧ :- FICTIONAL REALITY .・゜-: ✧ :-#bang chan x reader #bang chan x fem reader #bang chan fic #stray kids fanfic #skz #stray kids #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #bang chan au #bang chan series

44 notes · View notes

zouofzouey · 8 months

Text

The Ugly Laugh (Or lack thereof) JJK x Fem!Reader

Is anyone self-conscious of their laugh?

I'm writing this for a friend whose boyfriend told them to cover their mouth when they smile and laugh. I told him to throw the whole boyfriend out. We'll see if that happens. Luv u, Rae.

Featuring; Yuji

(I couldn't think of any fun names to call him today)

Also... it's been a while since I've posted... my bad. Uh, please take this stupid fluff as an apology.

---

Yuji Itadori

Ah yes, a calm Saturday morning

You, Yuji, and a movie fit for the trash bin

It was a horrible horror movie you found at a 90% markdown at some random Walmart just down the street from your apartment.

Yuji was sitting next to you, one arm slung across your shoulder with his other cradling the bowl of popcorn you had made only 30 minutes ago.

"This is the stupidest movie we've seen in a while..."

"It is pretty lame." Yuji laughed at the scene where the girl was being "brutally" murdered, "The fake blood is looking extra fake, huh?"

You smiled, "How can it look extra fake? That implies that there's a certain level of fake that it's going beyond."

"Huh?"

"Never mind, silly."

You took a bite of popcorn and almost choked when there was some sort of egregious CGI monster on the screen.

You started to laugh so hard that you were choking for air. Your hand covered your face while doing so.

"Don't do that! You'll only choke harder!"

Yuji put the bowl to the side and held both of your shoulders.

"If you actually choke on popcorn I don't know how to the the heim... heilm... THE NOT CHOKY MANEUVER!"

That only made you laugh harder.

When the laughter died down you wiped a tear from your eye and stared at him with a glum expression.

"Sorry, Yuji, I know my laugh is kinda ugly... I didn't mean to make you sit through that for-" You looked at the clock, "-3 minutes... my bad."

He stared at you for a moment, his face void of expression.

"Uh... Yuji?"

All of a sudden, he grabbed the sides of your face and got a determined look in his eyes.

"Who told you your laugh was ugly?"

"H-huh?"

"Who told you? Was it an ex-boyfriend? An old friend? A-"

"Yuji, chill! No one has ever said that to me... I just... don't like the sound of my laugh..."

He stared for another moment, much longer than the last

His thumbs reached to the sides of your mouth, squishing your face until the corners of your mouth were a bit higher.

"See? Your smile's pretty! And you laugh like an angel!"

"A biblically accurate angel or...?"

He froze with a shocked look on his features. He started to wave his hands around widely.

"That's not what I meant! Your laugh is nice! And cute! As cute as a donkey!"

When he realized what he had said, he shouted, "DONKEYS ARE CUTE! They're loyal like you are! And... and..."

Yuji sighed and pressed his face into your shoulder, "I... I'm sorry... I'm not good at this."

You couldn't hold it any longer, you laughed.

He jolted up when your shoulders started to shake.

"I-i'm- sorry... for laughing but..." Between fits of laughter, you took hold of his hand. "But you're so funny sometimes."

Time stilled, with you tracing imaginary lines into his palm, "That's what I like about you... you always make me smile... and you don't judge that smile..."

"You're great..." Your voice drifted off like your thoughts.

You glance up at his beaming face. Yuji gave a big grin and laughed, "You're greater."

A faint grin slipped its way onto your mouth, "You're the greatest."

"You're the greatester."

"That's not a word, Yuji."

"Well, I'll make it a word!"

"And what authority do you have on making words?"

"I dunno."

Sigh...

---

#jjk #jjk x reader #yuji x reader #itadori x reader #ugly laugh #jjk ugly laugh #fanfiction #jjk fanfiction #jjk x female reader #yuji x female reader #yuji x reader ugly laugh #itadori x reader ugly laugh #jjk x reader ugly laugh #anime #anime fanfiction

75 notes · View notes

yugotrash · 3 days

Text

i don't think homosexuality is a disability in the way we traditionally think about it, but it is an immutable and innate trait that results in a kind of social disability, in that there is no society in which it doesn't result in some kind of social exclusion, discrimination or punishment. it's not an illness in that it doesn't really impact functioning on the physiological or psychological level on its own, but the what does make life harder is the experience of said social disapproval. and declaring it a choice renders all these problems the fault of the homosexuals themselves, because they could have just made a different choice - and society would be right to condemn them for it.

what could possibly motivate such a choice that, if it doesn't come with so much disapproval that it's outright punished, then certainly forces someone into a very strictly defined social niche (all the "third genders" of the cultural relativist camp)?

you cannot answer this question without either implying that homosexuals are deliberately making their own lives harder/limited for a fetish or passing fancy, so they're either stupid or irrational, or perhaps that homosexuality itself is a deliberate, politically informed decision to challenge social norms. In both cases the prejudices of the traditionalists are confirmed - the homosexuals really are "a phase", intentional degenerates or a political movement that may recruit from any demographic and that aims to radically transform society while ostensibly claiming "minority" status. except then all of this is given a positive spin in the queer narrative: it's good that these people have opted to be degenerates, because degeneracy is good, either because any marginal position is always good, or because all moral norms as such are bad and need to be done away with.

Now, this is obviously not something that you will ever get the majority of any population to agree with, but the fact that probably 90-95% of the general population is heterosexual, much like the fact that homosexuality is innate and immutable, isn't something these people are really worried about. The fact that they know these opinions are condemned to be marginal is what's so appealing about them. They wanna see how far this can be pushed, and feel righteous indignation when someone pushes back. They want to publicly bemoan oppression and revel in it. And they're counting on the fact that what few homosexuals can openly declare themselves as such can either be recruited for their agenda or effectively silenced either through apathy or by force of legal/cultural institutions whose favour the kweers enjoy or control.

#imma keep it real with you aint nobody reading all that shit #yet i wroted it

20 notes · View notes

aokoaoi · 1 year

Text

▎chapter three : raccoon police department.

▎content warning : gore, blood, violence, character death, resident evil 2 spoilers.

▎character pairing : leon kennedy x fem!reader.

▎taglist : @phoenix666stuff .

"ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS;"

The sudden announcement from the radio catches everyone in the cars attention. Claire, who was at first slumped against the door beside her, the side of her forehead digging into the glass uncomfortably, was now wide awake– paying attention to whatever the man was announcing.

With one hand, you held up your fingers to the radio, turning on the volume as you reached the city.

"Due to the citywide outbreak, you are advised to take shelter at the Raccoon City police station. Free food and medical supplies will be provided to everyone in need."

"God, this is unreal.." Claire mutters.

You bit your lip in worry as your eyes casted around the city's situation, feeling yourself warm up uncomfortably. If this outbreak was city wide, that means your family was no where near safe. Just the idea of your parents hurt or harmed made your grip on the steering wheel tighten. Had they perhaps turned into those.. things..?

"You two are headed to the station right?" You turned your head around to look at them, watching as they nodded as an answer. "The stations not much farther, I'll drop you both there."

Both looked confused as to what you were implying, "You're not coming with us?" Leon questioned, making you indistinctivly losen your grip on the wheel.

"I'm heading home, I need to know if they're safe." It was recklessly dangerous and stupid, but they're your family.

Knowing who 'they' is, Leon shakes his head. "It's too dangerous, come with us instead." He protests, shoving another plan right in your head instead. You shook your head immediately as soon as his words came out of the dirty blonds mouth, exhaling heavily.

The two newly acquaintances of yours only watched you from the back, noticing how you've tensed up and how you're mannerisms looked like you were beginning to get frustrated.

The car comes to a stop when you've reached a barricaded road, with cars lined up unorderly on the other side. You cursed under your breath, finding this whole thing severely frustrating. Your house was far from where you are, if you're walking there you might as well just kill yourself right now.

"Fucking hell. Looks like we're walking.." the two heard your exhausted sigh, watching as you rubbed your face with the palm of your hand.

"More like running." You turned to where the two were looking at, noticing two undead feasting on another human. You pursed your lips, brows furrowing in annoyance. You hear shuffling behind you, and you see the two pulling out their guns.

"Good call." Leon curtly nods before a yell comes out of his mouth as an undead bangs on his door, followed by Claire who gets the same fate. You watched as your car gets surrounded by undead, ignoring the rotting cannibal banging its head on your window while you tried to steady your breathing.

Claire yells out your name, "You gotta back up!" She orders you, nervously scooting away from the door next to her as she was now in between the passenger and drivers seat. You did as what you were told, revving the engine and trying to back up. The whole this was hopeless as those things were in all areas outside your car, soon if you don't thing fast they'll be inside.

"What the—!?" Claire yells, looking behind her when she noticed the lights flashing. You turned to look behind as well, noticing the large truck you passed by from earlier. And it was now heading towards you.

"Fuck! Get out!" You hissed out, unlocking the doors and shouldering your door to get it open. The undead were jamming their weights and strength on all your doors, leaving you and the other two stuck inside. The truck was getting closer and closer, and in the midst of your panicking Leon yells out a loud 'hold on.'

You did as what he told, bracing yourself the impact heading. The truck suddenly swerved in another direction, but it still crashed into the side of your car. You yelled a groan at the impact, your car getting flung forward at the impact. You crashed in another car, providing another impact that send you back to your cushioned seat, knocking the air out of your lungs.

Kicking your door open, you threw yourself out of the car, clothed knees scraping on the rough road. You stabilized yourself up, coughing roughly as you held your stomach. You notice Leon not so far from you, and upon seeing you he looks at the gas truck in front of you.

"Shit, get down!" He yells, running towards you and shielding you from the explosion the gas tank causes as soon as Leon reaches you. A pained yell escapes you when your back collides on the car behind you, grunting when you fall right on top of Leon who rescued you from getting barbecued.

Leon loses his hold on you, his arm falling to the side as you tried to regain your focus after your life flashed right before your eyes and blacking out for half a second.

"You alright there?" He pats your lower back, as if trying to snap you awake.

"Fuck no, I felt like that explosion took five years from my life." You groaned, putting your hands on his covered chest and pushing yourself up. You looked around slightly before holding your hand out for him, watching as he accepted your gesture.

"Claire?!" You called out, uncaring that the undead are slowly starting to get back on their feet, groggily walking towards you and Leon.

"Yeah?!" You heard her respond, followed by three shots ringing in the air. "You alright?!"

"I'm alright, how about you?!" She yelled out, almost sounding out if breath. You were about to call put to her again until the man behind you take a hold of your wrist, aiming his gun at the undead surrounding you.

"We can't stay here, it's not safe!" He yells at you, but also at Claire as if trying to inform her something.

"Go on ahead! I'll meet you at the station!" She responds, and Leon looks back at you, curtly nodding his head. You bit your lip, "But what—" he grips on your wrist tighter, looking into your eyes.

"She'll be fine on her own, she can handle herself." He mutters. You looked hesitant, but looking around you there was no need to be wasting anymore time. You nodded, easing up to him as Leon lead you to where his destination is.

You tugged on his arm when he goes another way, catching his attention, you dragged eachother to an alleyway, an easy way to the station that wasn't on the road. Stopping in your tracks when you come across an undead, it was still rising up from the ground, and Leon brutally kicked it back on the floor, giving you time to run from it.

Going up a set of stairs, the sight of the station makes him exhale a breath he didn't know he was holding. "There it is, the station." He mutters. You looked around you, noticing the amount of undead all over the gate.

"There's so much of it." A frown overtakes you, your voice low that even you barely hear yourself.

"Let's make a run for it, okay? I'll cover." Leon perked up, catching your attention while grasping your hand. You nod nonetheless despite wanting to break down right then and there, pushing back the bile rising up your throat.

Leading the way, he runs to a clear pathway, shooting behind you when an undead gets way too close for comfort. You flinch when blood gets on your exposed skin, not finding the strength to look back at the dead bodies left behind.

Leon notices your quietness, feeling guilty but in your mind right now your batting the heads of zombies while your brother is pitching. Everytime you hit the head, you'd be cussing out as if singing a song.

You both finally reached the large gates, with Leon letting you go in first as he trailed behind. He shuts the door, locking it. He turns to you, looking at you worriedly. "You alright? You're awfully pale."

The question caught you off guard, your little gorey fantasy world shutting off as soon as his voice reached your ears. You nodded, "Yep, just reeling in everything." You mustered up a small smile that wrote 'wtf' all over it.

Leon decided not to poke more into your situation nonetheless, he bobs his head to the stations wooden door, as if waiting for your signal. You turned on your heel, removing your eyes from the sight of zombies in front of you and took steady steps towards the door. Leon trails right behind you.

Cold hands rested on the large wooden doors, pushing it open. The station looked exactly like the museum you loved to visit once a year when you were still a little girl. Same interior structure, but now a difference purpose.

The lights were awfully dim, and while you were looking around Leon had already found some important stuff.. like ammos.

You snapped your attention back, now walking towards the wooden counter. You stepped to the monitor that was flashing a bright red on the screen. Leon is now beside you, looking down at the screen as you pressed on a key. The CCTV control service pops up on the screen and you bent slightly down to focus on the screen better.

"There has to be someone here." Leon mutters. On cam4, revealed a man being trailed by another undead, he was a police officer, of course judging by his uniform.

"God, that's not good." You hissed worridly, your face scrunching when he misses his shots at the zombie.

"David! Marvin! You there?" His voice was rushed and uneven from how his breathing was unsteady. He looked into the camera, showing something you couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. "I found a way out, It's in here!"

You stood back up as he was cornered by the undead, not wanting to look at the scene unfold anymore. "Send reinforcement, east hallway!"

"We have to help him." You perked up, catching Leon's attention after looking at the cameras. He nods curtly, "I'll find him, but you stay here and check anything that seems valuable." You furrowed your brows at his words, unhappy.

"Like hell I will—"

"Listen—"

"No, you listen, Kennedy. I am coming with you and I don't give a single shit if you say it's dangerous." You glared at him, watching as he only rose a brow. "Jesus Christ, alright." He huffs, lifting his hand up in surrender as if there was a fight in the first place.

You smiled, pleased by the outcome.

"Let's go."

"Heugh—! hah.."

You watched from behind as the blond in front of you push back a toppled over cabinet, the action making the metal storage clank down in the floor.

Your whistle catches his attention, making him turn to look at you.

"What?"

He felt himself burn up at your little smug smile, and you just brushed off his confused question. You both resumed walking, the heel of your shoe softly padding against the tiled floor as you trailed behind Leon, holding the flashlight he found in the gas stations convenience store.

Both of you come across a bloodied corner after turning from where you came from, and your senses heightened at the sight. Your ears rang as you heard a man yell from another direction, and you immediately sprang into action without a single thought.

"Open this God damn door!" You heard the man from the camera yell, banging on the steel door I'm the process. Panicked, bent down and held on the steel doors handle, using your strength to pry the door open. The door seemed as if it was jammed as it didn't want to open up more farther, so when the man's hand came into view you had no choice but to pull him in.

"I've got you! Just crawl—" You bit your lip, hard, desperately trying to get the man on your side. You could see Leon try to get the door to open again, only for him to pause when the man whose hand you're holding let's out a gurgled scream as blood seeped through his uniform.

You could feel your heart thumping on your chest, the sight making your skin crawl. "Fuck— shit, hold on!" You sniffled, pulling him in again as he only cried out. The scream was agonizing, and it didn't help how you could hear his flesh being feasted on from the other side.

Falling back on the ground roughly, the man was now pulled on your side of the door, only to be revealed that his lower body is missing. His organs were out in the open, his blood rushing out and pooling around his body, soaking the back of his uniform.

Your breath hitched at his state, your hand coming up to hold your incoming scream.

"..Jesus Christ." Leon mutters, looking down at the body as the man loses his consciousness. Leon then changes his gaze to the steel door, the sound of your sniffles being silenced by the zombie on the other side of the door. He sighs before picking up the notebook of the officer, opening it.

Leon turns to you after inspecting the notebook, his lips pursing as a loud exhale escapes his nose at your state. He crouched down at your slumped form, squatting in front of you as you're back was rested on the bloody wall.

You trying to muffle your sniffles was absolutely destroying, just listening to you right now made Leon's heart burn. But you've gotta continue moving.

"Come on, we've got to keep going." He pats your shoulder gently, listening as your sniffles slowly start calming down. Your head was hidden in your arms, disliking the idea of the man in front of you seeing your tears, yet hear you are breaking down after a man gets torn in half.

Another zombie from the door you went from started banging on the wooden door, catching your attention. Your head snapped to look at the sound, and as soon as the zombie breaks into the room you stood back up to your feet.

Leon stands up, shielding you from the undead that just broke in. The undead staggers unsteadily before lunging itself at Leon. The dirty blond man grunts, holding back the zombie with his hand around it, choking it. He pushes himself and the zombie back to the wooden door, only to throw himself to the side when the zombie tried to bite his hand.

The zombie staggered back from Leon's throw, growling and gurgling blood admist the silence. It's white glare on Leon shifted back to you, and you could hear it's flesh mushing together when it twists its body to your direction.

Before the rotting cannibal could throw itself at you, your hand instinctively grabbed the nearest thing you could use to defend yourself on the desk beside you. Which was a desk lamp. It's light shuts off as soon as it gets plugged off from your sudden force.

When the zombie runs towards you, at a safe space, you brutally swung the lamp at its head. A chunk of rotting flesh of the zombies head gets chucked off from the pressure of your hit.

The zombie hits the side of the desk, and before it could even fix its balance Leon had already shot at its head, blowing it up. Blood gushed on the desk, and without wasting anymore time Leon grabs your hand, snapping you out of your somewhat shocked-state.

You both stepped out of the room, and you could see another zombie banging on the window of the hallway. It breaks in, and Leon cussed out loudly at it, but instead of defending both of you he holds on your hand tighter. "Let's just run for it!"

Letting him drag you through the hallways, your footsteps were loud and echoing through the halls. Your head is dizzy and you don't bother to watch where you're headed, as if you've completely trusted your life on the hands of the man in front of you.

He comes to a stop, putting a hand on your shoulder and you've realized the familiar place. You crouch down and laid your body straight on the bloody floor as Leon tried to make the gap on the gate slightly wider, but not wide enough for a zombie to crawl in easily.

"Hurry." You could hear him mutter. You've now crossed the main hall, and you see Leon getting down, crawling on the space of the door. A zombie suddenly let's itself known, reaching for Leon's leg before you could even realize.

"Damn it!" He curses, looking back at the zombie behind him. He could feel your hand on his arm, pulling him from the zombie despite his heaviness.

Then suddenly you notice a pair of black shoes and the same colored uniform pants those zombified officers were wearing. "Careful—" You started, reaching out your hand to the man as soon as you made sure Leon was safe from the bloody hands grabbing at him.

"I got it." He gruffly speaks up, pressing his foot down on the steel door, crushing it's body from the pressure. You looked down at the crushed zombie before looking up at the man, exhaling lightly.

His hand was pressed up on the bloody wound on his stomach, his breath heavy with his chest heaving up and down. His back pressed up on the steel door, slightly sliding down, "You're safe, for now." He grunts, face scrunching up painfully.

"Thank you." You perked up, your face showing nothing but genuine gratefulness.

"Marvin Branagh." He introduced himself, which followed by Leon doing the same. You stated your first name to the new acquaintance, his uniform reminding you of a particular death.

"..–there was another officer, and i couldn't save him– he–" You felt a hand on your shoulder, the same hand who held yours earlier. You trailed off your sentence, the officers death flashing and replaying in your head.

"I'm sure you did what you could, little one." Marvin takes a step towards you, bobbing his head in acknowledgement, his words providing some kind of comfort and reassurance.

"He died... for what?" Your voice was small, weak and fragile. With the bile rising up your throat, you found yourself having trouble trying to breathe again. God, you hated feeling like this, just breaking down in front of people. You disliked feeling weak. You disliked being seen vulnerable.

But you couldn't help it anymore. That one particular death would haunt you, especially because it was your fault. You could've saved him if you pulled him through faster. If you got there in time. If you weren't so weak.

Leon pulls out a specific notebook after those words escaped your mouth, flipping through the pages to find the little map that officer drew. He shuffles beside you, catching your attention.

"Died for this."

136 notes · View notes

poisonheadcrabsalesman · 27 days

Note

Tell me something Miller gave up

Do you ever think about media and stories reflecting the anxieties of the cultures that create them? Or how sci-fi sometimes predicts or inspires technology? Do you ever think about Halo and Aliens and Starship Troopers and disaster movies and real life and

I poured my brain out onto a page stream of consciousness style so it's a mess, but a fun, terrifying one I hope

There's a lot of buzzwords people throw around. People saying one thing but meaning seven different things. The difference between sacrificing and giving up. Victory at any cost, pyrrhic, hollow. A play for time.

Sacrificing something is good and noble and for the greater need of the many. Giving up is cowardly and shameful. These words are black and white, most of the time. Other words like risk, are more complicated. A risk can pay off or it can put everyone in danger. A risk can be a sacrifice or it can be worse than giving up.

Miller's from a generation that doesn't know what it's like to live without war. To live without the threat of surveillance, both foreign and domestic, enemies listening in or sacrificing privacy for the greater good. Some planets get labelled with the words too, once they're glassed. As a kid, Jared thought it was strange to think anyone gave up their planet, their home, or that somehow the planet gave up. It was the bad guys.

The bad guys are scary and if they find you they will kill you. They destroy your homes and your way of life. They might eat you! They speak a different language and have technology that can kill you before you can blink. That's why you need to be careful and a good citizen. The UNSC is doing its best to keep the colonies safe, but if they would just listen then the bad guys wouldn't get them. That's why you can help be a good citizen and fight the bad guys. All you have to do is sign up when you're 16! You can be a marine or a pilot or drive a tank or maybe even meet one of them. The UNSC needs you, but also it is doing great on its own! The war effort requires everyone! But do not panic, panicking is weak and cowardly and helps the bad guys.

The bad guys are unstoppable, but also weak and stupid. They can't stop the UNSC's greatest weapon.

The Master Chief is a hero and he stops the bad guys. There are other Spartans too and they always win. They never give up. They never die.

Miller enlists. He works hard. He's an asset, not a drain. He won't give up.

The war ends. The news around Master Chief quiets. Miller becomes a Spartan IV. There's always still more work to be done. There are different bad guys now. Some of them look like him.

Miller learns that not every alien is a bad guy. There are asylum seekers on multiple worlds, even Earth. Refugee is another word for asylum seeker.

Miller's in an early enough class of IVs to become a mission handler. He works intelligence and planning. He keeps his head down and ears open. He learns more than he wanted. Sacrificing children. Giving up homes? Childhoods? Giving up requires a choice in the matter. He thinks about it. Sacrificing also implies a choice.

IVs have a choice. He was an adult when he signed on. To be a Spartan. He was still under 18 when he joined the UNSC but that's okay. He knows other Spartans who are in the same boat. Other IVs are older. They have even more skin in the game, they've been fighting the bad guys longer.

The bad guys have changed but that's okay because while they're strong they're weaker than Spartans and Spartans never die. Except Miller has lost Spartans. He's seen whole Fireteams wiped out in an instant. He's heard people dying on worlds a million miles from home for no clear reason.

The bad guys are there because the good guys- the UNSC - are there. Spartans are the UNSC's gun they point at the bad guys. Some of the bad guys are humans again. Some of the aliens are good guys. Why is there still a war? Why do they need Spartans for this? Manufactured conflict.

Sacrifice or giving up? Wasted or Spent?

#asks #zitasaurusrex #my writing #Halo #Spartan Miller #this gets tags bc i think people should look at it

25 notes · View notes

txttletale · 7 months

Note

youve mentioned offhand ur issues with thirsty sword lesbians, have u talked at length abt this somewhere before and if not do u want to? i want to hear ur thoughts hehe

now before i get into this i want to clarify: i like thirsty sword lesbians, overall! i think it takes some of the best stuff from monster hearts and refines it -- i think it does great and exciting things with pbta playbooks -- i think anyone making a pbta game should check it out because it's full of valuable ideas -- and i've had a lot of fun playing it!

however, i think it's just as flawed as it is brilliant. there's a few different flaws but the biggest one for me is a catastrophic clash between two things the game is trying to be. one on hand, it wants to be a catradora rpg. there's no shame in that, i love games that wear their influences on their sleeves--TSL¹ wants to be a game about kissing your rival after you've both been disarmed, about having a fraught and complicated relationship with your girl best friend who abandoned you to serve the dark lord, about having homoerotic sword duels where your blades lock and you stare into each other's eyes for just one second too long before one of you kicks the other in the chest. i think that's an admirable goal for an RPG and one that TSL hits a lot of the notes of--the fact that the move to "Figure Someone Out" has special questions you can only ask someone when you're duelling them is incredible design. the Strings system, adapted from Monsterhearts, the ability to fluster your enemies when you use the Entice move, the constant focus on what characters desire and how their actions conflict with those desires--so much of the game is working towards that!

unfortunately, the game also wants to be about queer resistance to homophobia and capitalist/imperialist hegemony. this is clear in its sample settings, with their eyerollingly on-the-nose conflicts like defending 'queertopia' and fighting the evil sorceress 'repressia'. but much more importantly, it's clear in the game. several of the playbooks are defined by their relationship to sexual hegemony--the beast is about someone who is othered and monsterised for expressing their existence and the seeker is about someone sheltered and prejudiced moving past that and discovering themselvs and others. like, it's not subtle--

and to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that, either. just as i like a lot of TSL's swashbuckling girl-romancing flirting-at-swordpoint mechanics, i really appreciated how (although the game's outlook on what these forces are is predicably liberal and its tonal approach to these things is one that i personally find teeth-grindingly insufferable) these things are actually integrated into its mechanics. playbooks like the beast and the seeker (and the rest!) imply something about the world the game is set in and its sexual politics. this game is meaningfully queer in the way something like dream askew is, in that its mechanics ask you to actually explore your character's queerness specifically. this is good, and it's something that elevates it above about 90% of ttrpg stuff that sells itself as queer.

so if both these things are good, what's the problem? well, it's that they're two great (or at least--interesting) tastes that go fucking horribly together. the fundamental problem that i have with TSL and one that i think takes a lot of work to get around in your own campaigns is that it simultaneously wants you to be fighting (on the individual level) a lot of antiheroic ultimately sympathetic hot girls you can flirt with and kiss--a lot of 'i can fix her's or 'she can make me worse's--and on the broader narrative wants you to be fighting institutional queerphobia (and often, although this is nowhere near as actually supported by mechanics, a more generalized 'imperialism' or 'capitalism' or 'bigotry'). so you end up fighting 'those stupid sexy homophobes'--people who are according to the text (not just 'lore', but the rules text, the mechanics you're playing with!) simultaneously the violent enforcers of cisheteropatriarchy and a bunch of fuckable lesbians with sympathetic backstories.

& i just think those things are fundamentally at odds. the result is a game that if you try and play it at face value works at cross purposes with itself, attempting to do two perfectly valid things without considering what happens when the streams cross.

it also has a few other flaws--like many other PBTA games, its balance falls apart if you play any long campaign (my group and i had to figure out special alternative level-up rewards!) but it comes with no inbuilt way to neatly conclude a campaign or character. its tone is something that, as i often mention, i absolutely cannot fucking stand--it has a certain sense of humour that feels profoundly dated to me and was never my cup of tea when it was in vogue. this is something i try not to hold against the game bc it is very much a personal taste-level 'cringe' reaction but the game lays it on pretty fucking thick.

more to its detriment, it is profoundly, gratingly liberal in the exact way people who deploy that tone usually are. its understanding of anything outside queerphobia specifically is just a purely aesthetic & thoughtless 'imperialism is bad!'. it manages a more nuanced understanding of homophobia, but it only manages it on the individual level--for a game about queerness and about fighting systems of cisheteronormativity, it has no systemic or material understanding of these systems and no interest in establishing one.

and finally--and this is just one paragraph but it's so fucking awful i feel the need to complain about it here because i think about it often as an example of something i never want to write:

this sucks! real bad! so deeply fucking silly to reassure people in your game that you called Thirsty Sword Lesbians that it's okay if you want to be cishet. like, it would be one thing to make a game where you can neatly extract the lesbianism and have the same game, a surface-level aesthetically queer game with no actual interest in queerness except as a marketing term. it would fucking suck but this paragraph would at least describe such a game. but TSL isn't that!!! . 'thirsty sword cishets' would be a very different and much worse game! awful and self-defeating paragraph. deeply silly concern to address and give airtime to. i didn't buy a game called 'thirsty sword lesbians' to be told 'its okay to be heterosexual i pwommy'

so yea just to reiterate: i like the game overall, i think there's a lot of good valuable stuff in there designwise despite all this. but i'm very ambivalent about it--ironically, i feel a love-hate relationship with this game about love-hate relationships. i admire it and yet i despise it! i long to put it at the tip of my sword and slowly tilt its cover up so that the pages look up at me coquettishly but with burning anger in their page numbers. if this book was a person id hatefuck it, is the joke, thats the joke im making, here, in this post. thanks

¹ i call it TSL whenever i can because the name 'Thirsty Sword Lesbians' makes me cringe out of my fucking skin. genuinely horrible name. i'm sure it's funny the first time you hear it, i got a mild chuckle the first time i heard it to, but it's such an obnoxious thing ot have to say repeatedly when seriously discussing it. should have stayed a placeholder name amiguitas

#ask #ttrpg

219 notes · View notes