#just to see who he is and how he acts in a non forgotten context
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whoops I think I accidentally sent a question but without the question. anyway I was just trying to ask about the little guys (the forgotten)
Always down to talk about My Boys
My writer’s block has been really bad lately, but recently I’ve been mulling over some ideas again, specifically about Lionel. I feel like I could be doing some more interesting things with him. He’s the point of view character and the narrator but he often feels like a bit of a passive character, like a vessel for other people’s stories. I might lean into that and have him develop enough to start claiming his own agency. And I’ve been thinking about the plot trajectory in general. Im trying not to worry about that and just WRITE but in the words of Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2
#my stuff#writing#the forgotten#Lionel has so much potential#he’s a tricky character#I have a fairly dramatic character arc planned#that does require him being a bit shitty for a good chunk of the book#one thing I think helps is#the Lionel that’s narrating the book is clearly a very different man than the Lionel we follow#it’s clear he’s changed a lot as a person since he was a young man#I think it could be interesting to explore him during the year the band breaks up#and he’s not really speaking to Mickey#just to see who he is and how he acts in a non forgotten context#also I’m just realizing like#he hasn’t really had many meaningful moments with the other characters besides Mickey#like Mickey gets this whole arc with Constance#Roger and Ian get to bond#Mickey and Ian bond#but Lionel sometimes feels a bit like a Mickey Satellite#I mean their codependency is going to be addressed#but it would be nice if he got some one on one time with the other band members#he has some stuff with Ian I’d like to flesh out#idk drop your ideas in the notes
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My personal list of criticisms for the series because if I don't put these somewhere I will actually go crazy in my room within the panopticon. I thankfully saw some other people share their lists and here comes mine.
Here I'm looking back at the episodes with the perspective of the viewer who knows what has and has not been properly used.
I rewatched the whole thing so this is EP1 through EP8.
🔱 Episode 1:
The ADHD & dyslexia rep stops episode one like it was forgotten about. It will become a pattern.
I am very, very bitter about the introduction of the "not everyone who looks like a monster/hero is actually one" through Perseus' story because in the context of Percy's life, he is - at least in PJO - a hero. Don't make the boy doubt himself more.
If they did introduce the "looks are deceptive" idea, I fail to see why this was not alluded to later with Luke.
I feel like neither Nancy nor Mrs. Dodds are really given screen time enough to actually showcase how much of an impact both have on Percy's life.
I still hate everything they did to Gabe's character. RIP Sally's Jackson empowerment story.
Blue food. They never really explain why it's significant.
They had budget to showcase Percy's dreams but instead of obvious enough dreams with animals it's Exposition.
Sally knows too much. They messed up her role as a character by taking away her book archetype. She's going from The Guardian to The Knowledge Keeper to The Victim back and forth.
Percy figures out too much too quickly. It has been discussed back and forth, so just putting it down here.
They mention the Minotaur smelling Percy but they never use it to explain Sally's unnecessary marriage? Potential lost.
Looking back at the Big Bull fight, they really don't let Percy act. The luring trick is his thinking, not Sally's. RIP the horn getting stuck and torn away. I can't exactly believe a young teenager had the power to break off a giant horn, in the rain, in the dark. Bad execution, the tree trick is a way to showcase Percy's wits.
🏺 Episode 2:
I wish they let Percy be dark-haired desperately. Hair color swap is bad design-wise because there's already one recognizable curly-haired blond in the series (Will). It's just a disservice to the actor.
RIP blonde 'Beth. Annabeth being wrongly seen as a "dumb blonde" is half of her character's thing. If they thought it no longer worked for her, they needed to play off another "perceived stupidity" stereotype.
Ugh I wish they let Percy be alarmed around Dionysus because in the book his gambling & "familiarity with alcohol" trigger Percy's PTSD.
Percy's PTSD is not a thing.
So, after the entire season: They had no reason to hide Sally's survival from Percy. Them doing it never got mentioned again. Traumatize the boy some more why don't you.
Luke's speech about the importance of glory doesn't work because his failed quest is never mentioned.
I think Clarisse is a miscast. She's pretty whereas in the books it's sort of the whole thing that she's "big, ugly, and mean-looking". She's one of the examples of deceiving looks as we learn in SoM and later on. Making her pretty just makes her lose purpose.
RIP showing friendly interactions or any true bonding with Luke.
All of that talk about Annabeth's wits and strategies in EP2 only to have it never play a major role in the rest of the season. Told you it's a pattern.
🐍 Episode 3:
Annabeth's story keeps getting decimated. There's so much talk about her closeness to Luke, but there's no showing it.
Ugh, I dislike how they keep making Mrs. Dodds so neutral - enough to just tell Annabeth everything? This is a whole new character.
The Medusa reveal still sucks so much, the tension & suspense are just non-existent.
Upon rewatching, I'd say Medusa overall was a decent monster because she barely did anything but it felt like the entire story was offered up on a silver platter and got resolved too quickly.
"You can't ship the head off" makes no sense, none of Athena's arc makes sense in this show. They established that heroes earn glory through mighty deeds (such as killing monsters) and established that Athena cursed Medusa. Percy is for once right.
Overall, this is the episode where Percy's starting to take up the Exposition Character role and I really don't like that.
🌊 Episode 4:
RIP book Sally Jackson I loved you. Sally's starting to go down the "showing visual frustration towards her neurodivergent child" which is a) utterly out of character b) breaks down her arc even more.
The Furies, the Minotaur, and Medusa are not children of Echidna. The monster's great despite looking extremely boring, but her motivation being personal doesn't work in their specific case; they didn't kill any of her kids.
Small complaint but "a temple is a temple" isn't exactly making much sense. We just established Athena-Poseidon rivalry, we just announced that Athena's place is safe for everyone and protected from Poseidon's earthquakes. The idea to call upon a rival God sounds stupid.
Athena's portrayal is just horrible. She was written badly in the books, like most women, but the show's literally saying: Yeah she would gravely endanger her kid for the "mistake" that wasn't even hers. And... it is never brought up again.
Making Athena such a bad mother while Poseidon goes out of his way to save his child from death seems a bit eh.
I. Am. Tired. Of others. Telling Percy. How and what to feel! Please let the guy discover things on his own.
🏛️ Episode 5:
I will die on the hill of "Annabeth is not supposed to be the one to see the Fates and no, her closeness to Luke does not matter" especially when her and Luke's connection has been buried!
It's Percy's quest, it's his prophecy to handle, it's for him to witness the yarn being cut. It's for him to put things together. I do not get why they keep switching Annabeth and Percy's places in the plot.
So, the fugitive twist is abandoned and never handled again. This is a pattern.
It makes absolutely no sense for Annabeth to be talking back to Ares when she knows who he is and how powerful he is. They keep making her play Percy's part and him - play hers.
I mourn Annabeth's geekiness over architecture. The sole time she seems entranced by something that distracts her is Hephaestus' mechanical wonders which is engineering but not exactly book Annabeth's focus.
I am pretty sure Ares doesn't hate his children in the book, he's just a hard-to-impress dad that lets his children fight their own fights. Making him "hate his kids" added zero weight to his character.
Why is Percy mansplaining mythology to Annabeth.
"Seaweed brain" doesn't work when he just explained a myth to her while she stood there listening as if she has never heard it before.
Ares doesn't really have an impact on the three that he had in the books. This was supposed to be the moment Percy first learns his mom's alive. Since Ares was messed up later on too, I call it lost potential.
🎲 Episode 6:
There's no real reason to suspect Ares or Clarisse in the theft, that scene/realization are lazy cop-outs. They do not begin to suspect Ares unless they literally find the bolt.
Lotus Casino my detested. Worst case of "they already know it" that I've seen in this show. The Casino is meant to be a trap, they are not supposed to know where they are going.
Suspense is nonexistent. They literally figure out the lotus-eaters the moment they step into the place, this is boring!
"Wise Girl" doesn't work when they spent less time letting Annabeth talk the smart talk than Percy.
It has been said a multitude of times but the Casino is boring.
"If you don't know what chances do I have" pretty high ones because they've been writing you off as the wise boy, Percy.
Personal pet peeve: I heavily dislike Hermes' casting.
Hermes' scene is far, far too early in.
Arcades are not too old to put into a 2023 series, VR is lame.
Why is the "is it because of me?" scene so awkward, why are they making Grover feel guilty/implying he's guilty. It was literally not his fault.
Hermes' involvement is so messy, there's absolutely no reason for him to hold them back in any way.
THE SOLSTICE PASSING MAKES NO SENSE, IT DIMINISHES ALL STAKES, AND IT DOESN'T EVEN CHANGE ANYTHING
💀 Episode 7:
It has been discussed deeply but everything about Procrustes' scene was done with utmost laziness and letting him live when he was just proclaimed a murderer makes absolutely zero sense.
RIP Sally Jackson's entire character. Show Sally is not above stressing her 9 year old out, getting visibly annoyed by his "outbursts" (they are really tame), putting the blame on him instead of explaining things to him in a calm manner, and raising her voice at him. Not only is this directly polar to her book self, but it also finalizes the show's destruction of her character.
The Underworld: ugly, incomparable with the book's version, boring. All that CGI and they could only pull up a LOTR movie Isengard.
RIP court of Kings, RIP Fields of Punishment, RIP actual Asphodel Meadows, RIP Elysium. The Underworld is done lazily.
Sally Jackson would never let her child think she's getting rid of him. It baffles me that she's not explaining anything to Percy.
This is not Hades and you cannot at a gunpoint make me accept that this is the terrifying, glorious, intimidating God of the Dead that puts awe into Percy Jackson and terrifies his own child. This goofy mf is not Hades, this is clownery. Another utterly decimated character, entirely off-point.
"These grudges go on forever" is hilarious (/neg) to hear from a God whose children are canonically stated to hold grudges as a fatal flaw. They really can't get the single clearly depicted person right.
Percy single-handedly figuring out it's Kronos with no clues is undoubtedly the worst part of the whole season. Go home kids, there's no tension anymore.
I hate how little Annabeth matters in this show. Her tie to Luke is severed, Percy does her job retelling the myths, she's not obsessive about her interests, and she's not even there with them when the biggest revelations are made. Her sole function is carrying the invisibility cap around (and apparently her friends can't even explain that to Hades). The show has killed Annabeth as a character and it's sad.
⚔️ Episode 8:
Sword lessons are far too late in the season, they would do much more impact building Percy and Luke up if they happened earlier.
I know that in the book Ares' curse is largely forgotten about, but they could have easily included it into the fight.
I feel like Percy has never been explained that monsters don't exactly "die" because not once does he seem surprised that Dodds is back.
Olympus is ugly!
The whole Luke reveal is a mess. Percy jumps to the conclusion far too fast, his sole direct argument it is Luke is the shoes, but he realistically has no other reason to assume Luke's the traitor. He has just given Percy the reason why he kept quiet about Clarisse. Percy and his Super Knowledge I guess.
Luke having a portal-opening tool at hand ruins the whole purpose of Thalia as a character and narrative function.
RIP Annabeth's arc.
Oh, Gabe's story line is horrible. We know they purposefully made him non-abusive (c), meaning turning him into stone doesn't really do anything. Like, you just killed a guy; an annoying but non-threatening guy. Lame.
My overall impression was more negative than positive.
My main complaints regard Richard himself for his shameless misleading promotion and poor writing, the casting directors for missing the "vibe" with too many characters (actors have certain types of charisma and this show is hit or miss with them), the producers for slacking off with prioritizing CGI where it doesn't need to be, and for costume designers. Whoever worked on the Camp sets did a decent job, but the Underworld and Olympus suck so much it's unbelievable.
Doesn't work as an adaptation for me. I wouldn't give it more than 2/10 - only for some set designs.
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Hi and sorry in advance for using this as an excuse to rant a bit about Good omens 2! I feel the same, I binged it with my girlfriend and at the end we just sat in silence for a minute and then went "...what the fuck was that." It was so incredibly poorly written and plotted in many aspects, though I understand that if one doesn't love dissecting stories piece by piece to analyse it from all possible angles it could be hard to understand why some people are saying it's bad. I feel like it's comparable to a house that looks pretty but is build on really shitty foundations and has a lot of structural issues. Most people can't see anything wrong with it and find it good, but the people who know how those things are built can immediately see all the glaring issues under the surface.
In short, in my opinion a lot of this season's short comings hinge on it's complete lack of thematic coherence and structure, completely ignoring or even discarding what was at the heart of the original story. This season was a disjointed jumble of scenes and concepts that only superficially lead to other scenes that within the bigger picture had no weight at all, plot or thematic-wise. Once you start thinking back to some of the plot threads the show established to move the story forward it's almost ridiculous how little they actually meant for the conclusion. And I don't mean stuff that 'might be resolved in the third season'! Creating a miracle to keep Gabriel hidden from everyone? He could've hid in a closet and it would've had the same effect for the plot. Muriel being set to keep an eye on Aziraphale and Crowley? Nothing, no consequences, in fact Aziraphale fucks off on his investigation right after, which, by the way, served no purpose than to give us some exposition that in the end got re-iterated to us during Gabriel's flashbacks. He doesn't actually figure anything out in a way that impacts the story lol. Even the whole "we have to make these two women fall in love so that Heaven believes us!" is kind of just forgotten by the end of the story, and nobody holds them accountable to their claim. The character of Jim is completely non-existent for half of the season and has no emotional arc or impact as a character on Aziraphale and Crowley - he could've been a magical cardboard cutout that spouts funny lines every now and then. There were so many set-ups within this season itself that had completely lackluster or non-existing pay-offs it's actually kind of ridiculous.
So many of the things people list or write about when talking about this season are there in concept, but they're not acted upon in the writing. A prime example of this is the Aziraphale/Crowley and Nina/Maggie parallels that people are pointing out - but within the season's current day scenes there isn't any romantic or emotional development between Aziraphale and Crowley, and the story doesn't center itself around that parallel or development. The only scene I could think of that even remotely does something with that is the Jane Austen dancing scene - except where Nina and Maggie have a conversation about what is going on right in that moment and how they're feeling, Aziraphale and Crowley are as good as emotionally dead and then the scene already ends.
If you start breaking down the plot elements it could've been made so, so SO much more tight-knit and coherent by focusing on what was important - ergo the character's relationships now and the bigger plot beats. As much as I loved the flashbacks in season 1, in this season they merely serve to tell us what we already know about Aziraphale's and Crowley's relationship and to add some superficial and pointless context to the different locations Aziraphale visits.
Another thing I think is a big difference between this season and the original story is that every character, every concept had a Point to it, usually a joke or some sort of funny commentary (whether it was good/actually funny is another thing entirely). That's what made it feel interesting and sharp, whereas the new characters in this season just kind of... are. If you break down the concepts to their bare essence, coffeeshop owner in a toxic relationship and record shop owner who has anxiety are pretty bland as character concepts go. Shax as a character is also just so... pointless lmfao. It's almost badly caricaturing the concept of Gomens demons, which are already caricatures, so the effect is somewhat reminicent of beating a dead horse long after it has died.
Anyway, so sorry to clutter your inbox like this but I just needed to get this off my chest. It's so weird seeing the dissonance between what is textually there in the show and how people are reacting to it!
hi! i hope you don't mind but i'm posting this publicly because tbh you really hit the nail on the head with every single one of these points. the whole season felt like this:
over and over again a potentially interesting plotline would get introduced, and then the writers would kind of just. forget why it was there? best example is, as you say, the nina/maggie thing - originally it began as a cover story to explain away the Forbidden Miracle, but that quickly ceased to be relevant, and the "we need to make them fall in love to get heaven off our backs" became a half-hearted running gag that was returned to every now and again with increasing half-heartedness. no sense of forward planning, no callbacks or consequences, just the constant sense of frantic improvisation without an end in sight.
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Opinion/Rant: To start, I’m bringing up something that occurred back in 2020 but myself and some others didn’t see the actual video until 2021. This post is a bit long but please bear with me. Anyways, I’m bringing this up now because I’ve noticed throughout 2023 and throughout part of 2024, there’s been a big resurgence of Vince content on here (yeah, I already know he’s cute and a talented player, I used to hold space for him on my blog and post about him in the past) but a part of me feels like people have either forgotten about what he did or they just don’t know what occurred so this post serves as an educational post for those who may not know (or a reminder for those who may have forgotten) and is not intended by any means to cause any drama. I also do share some of my opinion on what happened in this post as well.
For those who don’t know or remember, back in 2020, Vince used to do live streams of him playing video games on Twitch during COVID lockdown and during these streams, he would play music while he played games. On one of these game streams (I don’t know which specific one it was from), Vince was singing along to some song and the n-word came out of his mouth (the video of the incident is at the very end of this post). Yeah, I know he listens to a lot of rap and R&B and I’ve seen some people say that he was drunk when it happened and that the song was choppy but that doesn’t excuse him saying it. According to others who watched the stream when it was fully available, Vince allegedly didn’t apologize for using the word and when he was called out for it in the stream chat, he allegedly got a bunch of people to harass the person who called him out.
As someone who’s Black, it hurt me a lot to hear Vince say the n-word, even if it was for a second. For those of y’all who defend him and act like what he did wasn’t wrong or trying to come up with excuses for him, you don’t fully understand how painful and harmful his actions were. Just because I’m Black (I personally choose not to use it) and other Black people say it freely, that does not mean the word is okay for just anyone, regardless of race, to use in any context. Just because Vince didn’t say it to me or anyone directly, that doesn’t mean what he did is acceptable. To me, hearing a non-black person use the N-word any capacity is extremely personal because it’s been used towards me in a negative way by non-black people throughout my life. It also bothered me that Vince allegedly didn’t have the decency to even say “whoops, sorry I said/did that” when he was called out for it on the game stream and allegedly resorted to downplaying the situation and having people harass the person who called him out. I am not trying to play the victim but I am trying to educate y’all on his actions and to also let y’all know why some people don’t like him.
Another thing I’m going to note is that you cannot always automatically assume that someone you don’t know personally has put in the work privately over something they were exposed for publicly if they haven’t shown any public sort of proof of some growth. That means you can’t come to me and say “he may have learned from using that word” when there’s no public evidence anywhere that he has. If you choose to believe he has, then that’s your opinion. To me, Vince could have publicly shown some sort of growth by doing something as small as posting a blackout Tuesday post during the height of Black Lives Matter movement in June 2020 or liking a tweet of support from that time or maybe even participating in some of the Kraken’s Black history related stuff (like how Grubauer and Blackwell talked about Black hockey history with J.T. Brown and Everett Fitzhugh) (I know February is right around the corner with Black History Month and if Vince does something then, maybe my viewpoint on him may shift a bit). Yes, I did see a video of Vince talking about his thoughts on BLM and he did make valid points about how not everyone has to be posting online to protest injustice. However, Vince didn’t clearly say anything that showed he did something about it offline besides using an example of how if a rapper goes to a protest, everyone knows who the rapper is and if he were to go, no one would know who Vince is and also saying “who’s to say I’m not going to protests or donating to certain charities”, without saying he actually did those things. (A good example of a player being called out/exposed for something but fixing what they did is when Quinn Hughes didn’t use Pride tape once but later on, he used the tape and even made inclusive comments during the NHL pride tape controversy last season).
I AM NOT SAYING OR IMPLYING VINCE SHOULD BE CANCELED OR THAT HE IS A RACIST OR A HORRIBLE PERSON BUT HE SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE BY HOCKEY FANS. Holding him accountable means that if you want to, you can still like him for the benefit that he has on your team or recognizing his talent or some of his community work but you can also remember what he did in the back of your mind. (Think about/keep that in mind when you post about him too).
I know that it’s not always easy to hold someone that’s on a team you like or someone you liked beforehand accountable (there are several players on teams that I like who help my team succeed and players that I’ve admired before but I don’t like or agree with certain, questionable things that they’ve done) but if accountability looks like no longer holding space for them on your blog through posts or putting them up on such a high pedestal in your life or to stop thinking they can no wrong, that’s fine too. Holding a player accountable looks different for everyone and there’s no set formula/guidelines for that.
If you still want to support him after seeing this post and watching the video below, then that’s on you. If you choose to not support him anymore or at all, that’s on you. However you choose to feel about it is valid and I respect that (even if I see it differently). I know that he’s never going to address or acknowledge this and I understand that it happened back in 2020 but his silence on the matter nor should the amount of time that has passed shouldn’t stop fans at all from holding him accountable.
(Again, this post is me sharing my opinion on something Vince did, educating those who may not have known about it and also reminding those who may have forgotten this happened. Again, I’m not saying or implying that he is a racist or should be canceled. All I’m trying to say is that he should be/start to be held accountable by hockey fans. We all hold our own bias when it comes to things and I’m not using this post to try to push anyone towards a certain side either. Again, I’m also not saying he’s a horrible person either. Interpret all of this information however you want/choose to.
Also, if you’re even thinking about sending me a hate anon for this, go touch grass or get better hobbies. Better yet, if you send me a hate anon, just know it’ll go into the trash with your garbage words.
Lastly, I am also going to say that I do not tolerate nor support/agree with anyone going after anyone who still chooses to support Vince or chooses not to support him and if you do that to someone, you’re a very scummy person. Also, I am not going to send anyone anything about this either because I got all of my thoughts out here and respect others’ opinions so if you somehow get a hate anon about it, it’s not from me because I dislike the feeling of getting one and wouldn’t want to put someone else through that).
Video Info:
Twitter/X Link to Video
Actual Video from Twitter/X for those who don’t use Twitter/X
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Thinking abt cheongryeo
dod spoilers!
Keep in mind i dont know a lot abt the related industries this is all opinions
Cheongryeo himself is such an interesting character. I find that he is so incredibly well written and thats amazing.
Usuallg people depict a lot of psychos as the innocent ^^ expression guys. And thats fun and all and i very much still enjoy him being depicted that way but i love that he definetely gives of more :) energy to me.
Like hes not mean? Hes actually pretty nice to people around him as far as it seems with how positive his image is that people are comfortable featuring him with puppies. You dont do that with people known to be cruel as far as i know and hes actually overall quite a decent and nice guy. And he has had a long enough career that even after the regression time period he could get ruined.
And his relationship with his members arent hostile either! Theyre have a bit of distance between them but its not because hes particularly mean. His dynamic with them is just more so of a leader and normal members in the sense of the person in charge + everyone else but not to the extent of a boss or superior.
But the thing is that they are also quite intimidated by him. I think part of it at least is unconciously or conciously his single minded drive to be the best idol for the longest time possible. Its not bad... its just unsettling and we as the reader know for a fact why but they dont at first so its like they just see a guy with such a single minded driven focus that has probably made a lot of unreasonable decisions that help them unexpectedly and he doesnt seem to care for much else.
He had no life outside of idol work and not in the same way as moondae who seems to merge idol work with his life. Moondae tends to more have his idol life bleed into his non idol life and that develops into less idol life and more his general life and thats a great comparison i think to cheongryeo who literally only has idol life. It seems explainable to us because we know the context but to them they see a guy not just buried in work but have a complete lack of life outside of it. (And i know context makes a difference because of the impact it has in mostly later chapters but ill get to that later)
And he doesnt even know what to do outside of idol work when he starts to learn to be a person again! I think thats very telling of how he acts. Because he has based every bit of himself on idol work he has nothing left and has no idea where to start. And its probably a bit unsettling to have someone so focused on their career that they have just nothing else. Not in a oh no this was like his like shtick thing way but just completely non existent.
I think that single minded focus is at least unconciously intimidating or unsettling even if they dont notice. Because people are like plants with several branches, grows in unrefined and crossing over each other and changeable with sticks but cheongryeo only has this one branch, his idol life, and its his everything. He doesnt even seem that connected to the metaphorical trunk which would be his pre regression time! He has this one branch with these few sticks because he keeps cutting off everything he deems 'trash' (as like his characteristic). He only stops after his forgotten 101th probably because of his subconscious making him redo a large part if not his whole perspective. And even then its still just a single branch, still just his idol life. He only really gets other branches in his life after all his regressions when he gets kongi. (I could elaborate more but again later)
This leads me into his obsession. Because idol work was literally his entire life and has been his actual lifeline for so long he knows nothing else. So when he finds out the next person (moondae) he obsesses over it. Because in a way he is still obsessing over a perfect idol career even if hes not working on the assumption that he would return too.
As long as someone can go back even if its not him he would always have a chance to perfect his idol career.
Eugh i have so many thoughts that intersect with each other but im hungry so im going to continue another time
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So I was wondering if anyone can explain this to me. I doubt anyone can but it's at least an interesting story I think. (Disclaimer: if you aren't a math person, this might be pretty confusing, but I will try to explain stuff.)
I'm sitting in my 300 level calc 1 class. We're learning about instantaneous velocity and limits and the like, not super hard stuff. This is the fourth class period we've had so it hasn't gotten to the hard stuff yet.
By the way, I go to a tiny private university. I'm one of 5 students in this class. My uni is, um, known for not being great with math-- we literally have two math profs in total. Two. I think we have 3 math majors in total, and all three are in this class. The fourth is math ed. I'm biochem.
Back to what happened today. Our prof, let's call her Dr. H, is explaining limits (for non-math or science ppl, it involved lots of graphs and functions and letters). The freshman math ed major, let's call him J, is very confused and raises his hand. "What does f(x) mean?" he asks.
Dr. H pauses, unsure of how to answer. The other 4 students, including me, try to explain f(x) to J. Dr. H ends up drawing a graph on the whiteboard to explain that f(x) often, at least at the level we're at and with the stuff we're talking about, is the same as y. f(x)=x is the same as y=x. f(x)=3x-1 is the same as y=3x-1.
J seems to be satisfied with this explanation, so Dr. H continues the lecture. A few minutes later, she gives an example problem with both f(x) and g(x). J is now more confused than ever.
"Wait, what's g(x)?" he asks.
"g(x) is the same as y in this situation," Dr. H answers.
"But I thought f(x) was y."
At this point, we're all looking at J in disbelief. For people who don't know, g(x), f(x), h(x), etc. in graphing are all representative of y on a graph, at least typically, and at least in contexts like this.
Dr. H pauses, then says, "I think we need to have a conversation about functions after class."
Now, don't get me wrong. Functions can be hard. If you're not a math person, it's easy to go without knowing what they are. I'm not trying to put anyone down for not knowing what they are. My mom never got past algebra 1 and either never learned them or has completely forgotten about them. But then again, my 16yo brother with severe discalcula (math dyslexia, basically) knows at least about functions and he's barely even done pre-algebra...
But this kid made it into calculus apparently without any knowledge of functions, which (I think???) are usually taught at the algebra 1 level (so about 8th-9th grade, or 13-15yo, at least in the US. It's usually younger in other countries though, at least from what I gather?). It's not something you'd learn at age 14 and never use again until college-- most maths from algebra 1 and up use functions pretty much all the time. But this freshie is, like, 17-18, and a math ed major, who must have either klepped out of lower math courses, or had gotten a high enough score on the ACT/SAT to be able to go directly into calc 1. This guy's smart-- he seems to be really good at math other than functions. I just have absolutely no idea how he made it into calc without knowing about functions. Just... how?????
(In case anyone's wondering, we absolutely did NOT try to make J feel bad. None of us students even said anything about it afterwards at all. We just don't do that. Dr. H was very kind in how she handled the situation, too. Never make a person feel bad for not knowing something. I'm not making fun of him by posting this, either; I'm just very confused lol. I doubt he'll see this, and if he does, I doubt he'll know it's me talking about him. He's a smart guy, and I'm not blaming him for his lack of knowledge on functions. I'm mostly just wondering how his HS teachers neglected to teach him about such a basic and important part of math.)
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I’ve seen your post from October and where you said “by sharing it they condone it” or “someone will commit sexual violence”
and hear me out
It’s true someone might. Not even psychologists and other experts in the human psyche can predict who is and isn’t going to act out on fiction, and why or how. And in fact, if you think fiction condones something, then that says more about you than the fiction itself. It tells me about your upbringing, culture, beliefs and such.
media psychology is a research field I could recommend to you
i wasn’t going to dignify this with a response but i can’t leave this alone because What the hell. im just going to do it in bullet points bc im genuinely baffled at this. tw talking about sexual violence
og post
- did you even read what i said at all?? 😭 and trying to flip what i said onto me, then being condescending about it is RIDICULOUS like actually abnormal.
- where the hell did you pull that second quote from??? i quite literally said the opposite of that in my post, “when someone is desensitized to this kind of violence, they will think it's okay in their real personal lives. maybe not to even do themselves, but have someone do it to them. i've seen countless people believe they're into extreme kinks because of how the internet has desensitized them.”
- the only thing i could remotely link to that second quote is this. which IN THE CONTEXT ALSO COUNTERS YOUR WHOLE POINT. WHICH YOU HAVE CONVENIENTLY FORGOTTEN TO ADD. i say, “even if you don't want to partake in incest or sexual violence someone does. and i can guarantee that they read and enjoy the type of smut that's being written and posted on here” i literally say that not everyone who reads it will commit sexual violence, i say that people who do (not that everyone who consumes media like that will) are likely to consume this content because why wouldn’t they indulge in a gross fantasy they enjoy??????????
- im not going to regurgitate the same points from my original post but yeah. people who post stuff like that condone it to some extent because no one writes non-con stepcest hardcore smut without some kind of enjoyment out of it 😐 Literally just read my post and you’ll see why i say that bc obviously you either skimmed it or deliberately misinterpreted what i said or you actually lack critical thinking skills
- i’ve taken psych classes before and there’s actually many confirmed factors that contribute to the likelihood of someone’s beliefs/pleasures being influenced by writing and media because it either confirms beliefs they already had or introduces them to a new pipeline that preys on a vulnerable part of their personality. smut online hasn’t been explored specifically because its niche and relatively new in comparison to psychology studies as a whole
- then, i feel like i know what you’re getting at by trying to flip this narrative onto me being like “well maybe its a problem with YOU since you can’t separate reality from fiction” literally SHUTT HE HELL UPPPP stop being dense on purpose 😭
- i can separate reality from fiction just fine. fictional murderers? evil villains? fine with me. doesn’t mean everyone who likes them condones murder. the difference is that these people are writing these things as something to TAKE PLEASURE IN. THATS THE MAJOR DIFFERENCE!! dont paint ME to be the weird one for saying that writing men (or anyone) beating the shit out of women for sexual gratification is strange and harmful
- lastly, clearly you missed the entire fucking point of my post because it wasn’t even ABOUT the people who might commit sexual violence irl. that was a minute point in comparison to the larger context which was: the psychological damage it causes to vulnerable people that may think receiving this violence in their personal lives is okay!!!! due to being desensitized to it!!!!!!!
so. yeah. whatever. reread my post extremely slowly or something. im not usually this aggressive and rude but you put words in my mouth that i didn’t say and then had the gall to be condescending with that last line 😐.
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For Erica Reyes Appreciation Week, Day 5: Fix-It Friday | @softranswolves
+ Bonus Not!Fic to go with this. Focus is on Erica and Jackson, but that comes after a bit a lot of context.
What could have happened if Season 2 had gone differently?
The Kanima deal is sorted soon after the attack on the station. Stiles and Derek both listen in on Gerard and Scott and learn of his betrayal; later, in the abandoned train station, the pack by his side, Stiles brainstorms ideas on ideas until he accidentally stumbles on the idea that Gerard just might want Jackson for himself. Which is already true, because Matt has been killed, but Jackson still isn't free.
It's all a gamble of the right plan and the perfect moment, and weeks later there's a Hale Pack that comprises of Alpha Derek Hale, Betas Jackson Whittemore, Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes and Vernon Boyd, with the resident definitely-supernatural non-humans humans Lydia Martin and Stiles Stilinski by their side. (Scott has grievances to pay for, mostly on Stiles' side since Season 2 finale didn't happen, and a little bit on Derek's side because Allison tried to kill him (Stiles might also be angry at Scott for lying to Allison about her mother's death). Peter is simply on the fringes; there's little to no trust to speak of, nobody trusts him, and he can't really blame anyone for it. Derek sort of does, but not really. It's okay though. If living with the guilt of the murder of his niece and to not be there to help his nephew be a Good Alpha (not that he needs it, not with his mostly stable Pack) is his price for his actions, then so be it).
This is where it changes. The dynamics start to shift, and it isn't what anyone expected, honestly.
Derek actually likes all of them, when he thinks about it. Boyd is the silent type, and Derek appreciates that. He speaks, of course, and has opinions, it's just that he is calm in a way others aren't. Isaac is like a pup; feisty and adorable and all Derek wants is to protect him. He's the youngest of them all, but not in age; it's just the way everyone behaves around Isaac that makes it seem so, but not in a childish way, like Isaac acts like a kid. He is actually pretty mature. It's just that Isaac is actually free to be childish, if he wants to. And he wants to. Erica and Lydia are strong girls, and Derek sees his sisters in them, wonders how they would have felt about these two. Jackson is actually so much like him, the version of himself he is now; surviving the world alone because neither of them think that anyone would want to endure the world with them.
And Stiles. Stiles is just Stiles. Derek doesn't even know what he even considers Stiles to be, for him.
So. The Pack settles into a new dynamic. Derek finds a best friend in Boyd, two younger sisters in Lydia and Erica, a younger brother in Jackson, a son in Isaac and a mate best friend in Stiles.
But holy hell is having so many teenagers with authority issues and abandonment issues and PTSD and other several, several issues in the same room fucking hard.
There are days where Derek is sure he'll rip out all of their necks, with his teeth.
It starts with little things. Things he hadn't even considered. Because Derek isn't a teenager, he doesn't go to high school, and he doesn't care about the social circles.
But Lydia, Jackson and Erica do. Stiles and Isaac do too, but they aren't nearly as bad as the first three. Boyd doesn't really care; he's not at the bottom now, and that's good enough.
The first fight happens over Stiles, who has dozed off on the couch, tired from his all-nighters (how many more enemies do they have to fight?) and is gently carried to Derek's bed in the loft while the pack continues watching the movie. Erica starts with, "He's so cute," and Lydia agrees. Then it escalates.
Derek had honestly forgotten about Erica's crush on Stiles. She likes Boyd now, and Derek knows Boyd likes her back.
The fight is petty, and probably happens because Erica and Lydia are on their periods (women sync, when they spend a significant amount of time together. Derek knows from personal experience; Laura and his mom both had synced cycles). Either way, it escalates until Jackson snaps at Erica.
They've been hostile to each other, just a little, yes, but Derek sees hate in their eyes. It's worrying.
Lydia and Boyd defuse the situation before it gets really bad (Derek might have jotted down a few good sarcastic lines for Stiles, who misses all of it), but still, that night leaves an impression on Derek.
It happens again the next time they are all in the same place. Stiles is awake this time, and he puts his foot down and asks exactly what's wrong between Erica and Jackson. Lydia he can understand, she is the Queen Bee while Erica used to be at the bottom; there's bound to be some leftover feelings of hate.
Erica and Jackson both don't answer, just stomp away, and Boyd mentions how freakily similar those two are.
They all pay more attention to Erica and Jackson after that.
Slowly, they piece things together; Erica has a family, two parents who have demanding jobs and who don't really care about where Erica goes or does. On the other hand, Jackson has two parents who keep asking him how he is every chance they get, they worry over him.
Erica wants that. She wants someone to care that much for her. Jackson has it all, but he doesn't want it.
It all comes to a head when one day while fighting (which is basically just snarking at each other with unhidden hostility) Erica lets out Jackson's secret: that he's adopted. Even Lydia didn't know that.
"How do you know." Jackson's voice is deadly calm, a sudden change from his previous tone of voice, and Erica actually gulps in fear.
"My dad, he was the insurance investigator," Erica admits. Nobody speaks as Jackson processes this information, face blank.
"Why would—That doesn't make sense,"
Erica's face clears into a horror sort of understanding. "You don't know," she whispers. "You're adopted, you know that, but you don't know why. You think your real parents never wanted you, they gave you away, and you don't want to see your adoptive parents do the same to you. So you never even gave them the chance to get close,"
Jackson looks furious. "You don't know anything,"
Erica reaches out to touch him, lets her hands linger on his shoulder. Jackson snarls, but doesn't move her hand away. "They didn't give you away, Jackson. They didn't mean to. Hell, your mother's last words were orders to the doctor to make sure you live. They loved you,"
Derek stops everyone when they start moving towards the two. "Don't," he whispers, and Jackson gives them all a look before grabbing Stiles' orange hoodie from the couch where it was draped and leading Erica out of the rebuilt Hale House.
Erica gives a wet laugh as Stiles makes confused noises at the back of his throat.
"For the tears," Erica says, and Jackson shouts, "Shut up!"
When they're gone, everyone is quite for a moment. Then Isaac says:
"They remind me of Camden and I,"
Derek agrees softly, "Laura and I... we used to be like that,"
Fast forward a few months, and Erica and Jackson are still at each other's throats, but now there's no hostility. They're worse than Cora and Derek at the whole being siblings thing (Cora came back on her own; Peter had some free time, and he found her, hiding under a different name, but gosh, she looks so much like Talia, and his and Talia's mother... he would have recognized her anywhere, and he did), which is to say they literally always argue, and their text chains are only insults at one another. But nobody can deny that they'd kill for each other (and they have).
Needless to say, it's an emotional day for everyone. Erica and Jackson spend the day together, just sitting and talking through everything, and everyone else is back home simply reminiscing.
(The orange hoodie isn't used to wipe tears. Jackson actually wears it; the scent of his Alpha and Stiles is mixed in it, and it calms him and Erica, their wolves).
They're Erica and Jackson, a duo that nobody saw coming, least of all Jackson. He never knew he could have a family, one that truly, truly loved him for just being instead of being something. But Erica does that, Lydia does that; his pack does that. And his parents. They might not have the best relationship, but they're getting there.
#erica reyes#jackson whittemore#the hale pack#erica reyes appreciation week#erica reyes appreciation week 2021#derek hale#stiles stilinski#sterek#jydia#lydia martin#vernon boyd#berica#isaac lahey#cora hale#cisaac#peter hale#this is a q
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I’ve been seeing an uptick in “anti-RWDE” posts lately — which is a phenomenon I’d like to comment on at a later date — but for now one of them (quite unintentionally) made me realize something about the finale that I haven’t seen others discuss yet.
So RWBYJNOR saves everyone, right? Let’s just put aside the animation for a moment — which didn’t show any army members making it out — as well as the forgotten side characters — Maria, Pietro, Qrow’s group isn’t forgotten, but still left behind — and take things on good faith here. We’ll read the finale through the thematic intention: RWBYJNOR saved “everyone” in the Kingdom of Atlas in Volume 8, deliberately contrasting them with Ironwood who was willing to sacrifice a chunk of the Kingdom in Volume 7. Forget all the messiness and just accept that regardless of the consequences — like a destroyed Kingdom and a “dead” team — the heroes are heroic because they didn’t give into a “lesser evil” thinking and managed to save everyone.
Now, how was that possible?
Let’s go back to the beginning of the seventh episode of Volume 8, “War.” Salem’s grimm have just burrowed through Atlas’ defenses and taken them out. The shields are gone. She flies Monstra into the fields and releases an army of darkness that immediately heads for the city. What’s the very first thing Ironwood does?
Soldier: Yes, sir?
Ironwood: I am evacuating all citizens to the subway. Prepare Manta Squad Omega, and dispatch to every part of Atlas.
Soldier: But sir-
Ironwood: Now!
He evacuates the people, with “the people” meaning all the Atlesians and however many Mantle folk got to the city prior to Salem’s arrival. When this episode aired I mentioned being confused as to why the soldier was so hesitant. Why wouldn’t you want the people to get to safety when a grimm army is heading their way? Fans against Ironwood took the soldier’s side, claiming that Mountain Glenn proved that any underground evacuation is a death sentence and thus he obviously doesn’t really care about the peoples’ safety. Fans in support of/neutral towards Ironwood pointed out that this is a pretty big leap, no one is coming up with a better idea for what he should do instead, and that within these circumstances it reads like the soldiers is illogically against this idea simply because everyone is against Ironwood now. The show wants characters criticizing his decisions and making him out to look like a crazed dictator... even during moments when it doesn’t make any sense to be upset with him. Shooting the councilman yes, trying to keep the people safe no. Basically, this small exchange was a mess, but the rest of the volume proved that this was a sound call. The subway never collapsed and no grimm ever made it to that enclosed space to pick the civilians off like fish in an underground barrel.
So, why didn’t that happen? Well, one answer is because Oscar and Ozpin destroyed the whale. But how did they have time to do that? Without the people dying while they were being tortured, talking to Hazel, escaping with Emerald, fighting Salem, etc.? A lot happened between Salem starting her attack and Oscar ending it, so why wasn’t 2/3rds of the Kingdom’s population decimated during that time?
Because Ironwood sent his army out to keep the grimm occupied.
Outside of Ironwood’s cartoon villain actions — random murders and bomb threats — which get the most attention due to how deliberately, over-the-top horrific they are, these are the two actions that get the most negative attention from both the story and the fanbase. The soldier seems horrified by the order to evacuate. Marrow is devastated that young adults are fighting in this battle. The fandom is disgusted by both aspects of Ironwood’s character: giving orders that, as general, he expects to be obeyed and having an army that follows those orders. Putting side that cartoon villainy, this is what supposedly makes Ironwood the antagonist here. These are the qualities that have existed since Volume 2, resulting in a “he was always a bad guy” interpretation. These are the qualities that have resulted in anyone who likes his character being labeled as a “bootlicker.” We know these qualities make the fandom hate him because otherwise, more people would be confused as to why a presumably heroic character randomly shot Oscar. Orders, armies, and general military associations are at the heart of Ironwood’s presumed villainy.
So let’s remove them.
Ironwood has no evil army. Ironwood gives no evil orders. Power and control lies solely in the hands of our non-military heroes. Everything is better!
...well, no. Because we saw in Volume 8 precisely the choices our heroes made when the attack started: half of them focused on saving a single individual (Oscar) and the other half kept to the sidelines. At no point did our RWB group act after sending the message and prior to securing the Staff. AKA, during the attack of Salem’s army. We got a very explicit moment in which Ruby looked out the window at the battle going on and turned away from it, continuing to discuss ethics instead of joining the fight. The people of Atlas (which, again, includes many Mantle citizens) had no one but Ironwood and his army because a third of the group was trying to rescue Oscar (they never even had a plan to blow up Monstra — that was also Ironwood), a third of the group was up in Amity, and a third was sitting in the mansion. They did nothing to help the people of Atlas being attacked by grimm.
Thus, if you remove Ironwood’s actions, everything goes to hell. There is no longer an order to evacuate to the subway. Maybe some people go there anyway. Most probably don’t. They run in a panic wherever they can. Hide wherever they can. Go back home for some semblance of safety.
There’s no longer an army. Either it doesn’t exist because we’ve determined it’s simplistically bad despite RWBY’s grimm-specific context, or Ironwood likewise never gives the order to protect Atlas’ border. Salem’s army moves unimpeded through the city, killing countless people as it goes. How do we know? Because they’re civilians who can’t defend themselves and there’s literally no one else to help. Remember: Ironwood is not giving orders, there is no army, RWB is in the mansion, YJOR is in the whale, Penny is out of commission, the Happy Huntresses are in Mantle. Those in Atlas are entirely alone. In time, Oscar destroys the whale, but by then it’s too late. There’s no concrete way to theorize how many have died, but it’s inevitably a lot. Everyone else is scatted across the city, trying to survive.
So this scene
no longer exists.
When the group gets the Staff and creates portals for “everyone” to escape through, Mantle is ready to go. They’ve gotten everyone into the crater and can funnel them straight to Vacuo. Atlas, however, is in chaos. When Jaune enters the subway there’s only a few people there, many of which may be wounded or dying. He’s right back where he started, in Mantle at the beginning of Volume 8: needing to go door-to-door to find where people have hidden themselves, trying to convince them all to follow him (remember Oscar commenting to Ozpin about how difficult that was?). Except now, he and Nora are the only ones trying to get people to safey, the city is filled with far more grimm, a significant amount of time has passed for people to be killed or injured (making evacuating them even harder, both due to injuries and an unwillingness to leave hurt/dead/missing loved ones behind), he’s trying to convince these panicking people to go through magic portals, not just walk to a crater, and he’s aware that there’s a very short time limit for this task.
Jaune returns in a panic of his own, explaining how difficult it will be to get that 2/3rds of the Kingdom to Vacuo. How many are already dead. Barricaded. Missing. Closeup on Ruby looking horrified, but then she rallies. They can do it. Atlas is falling, but residual dust gives them just enough time to find, calm, and evacuate those people. They’re heroes after all. Beating the odds is what they do.
Then Cinder attacks.
Suddenly, the group can’t evacuate people because they’re trying to keep themselves safe from her. Maybe Cinder gets the powers because Jaune was off looking for civilians, leaving Penny without a mercy kill. Maybe Nora dies because she’s still trying to help people on the city that plows into the one below. Regardless of how details might change, they’re not getting a spread out, decimated population through those portals before Cinder changes the wish and makes them disappear.
In this version, the story starts with Ironwood wanting to sacrifice 1/3rd of the population to save 2/3rds and the future of the war. It ends with 2/3rds of the population dying instead.
This is what I mean when I say the majority of the fandom wants to view a very complex situation through a ridiculously simple lens. The fandom wants to denounce every bit of RWBY’s fictionalized military, the context issues of that aside. The story wants to paint RWBYJNOR as the only heroes, in part because they succeeded in saving everyone (“everyone”) in the Kingdom when Ironwood gave up.
But they only managed to save everyone because of Ironwood. Because he kept fighting for his people to the bitter end. This is why, though his horrific actions obviously exist in the story, they make no sense (he’ll threaten to kill his people so he can... save his people?) and mess up what little is working in the finale. The story wants us to celebrate the group for evacuating Mantle and Atlas, but the Atlas evacuation would not have happened if not for Ironwood’s actions — the actions that are ignored in favor of having Winter blame him for everything and then killing him off. The rescue of “everyone” was very much a joint effort. RWBYJNOR’s win is not actually a contrast to Ironwood’s intended sacrifice, for the simple reason that their win depended entirely on Ironwood’s actions.
If we’re going to celebrate the group getting everyone to safety, we should probably also celebrate the guy who got them all to an easy evacuation point and ensured they weren’t eaten before then. Does that mean Ironwood never did anything wrong? Of course not. As established, the story went out of its way to make him into a villain. Rather, it means that other parts of the story failed to maintain that black and white view, complicating the heroism of RWBYJNOR in the process. If we want Ironwood to be incapable of heroic action, always the bad guy, nothing good to say about him whatsoever... then we likewise need to accept that the group is rather unheroic in many regards too. That, on their own, they would have failed to save everyone, just as Ironwood’s plan failed to save everyone at the end of Volume 7. Because they chose their friend over a kingdom. Because they sat around in a mansion. Because by the time they took action again and tried to escape, without Ironwood’s help they would have lost a larger majority than they originally insisted be saved.
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Somebody to love (PART 1/2): Richard Alonso Munoz x fem!reader
Summary: Whilst your neighbour, Richard, is in love with love, you are a little more commitment averse. When he performs a small act of kindness though, your feelings start to unravel, and you wonder if you may have found somebody to love - right next-door all along.
Richard is a sweet, gentle man, and so I hoped to create a sweet, gentle story. I hope you enjoy spending some time in it!
I HAVE POSTED THIS IN TWO PARTS, ONLY BECAUSE OF LENGTH. WHILST YOU COULD PROBABLY(?) READ EITHER PART AS A STANDLONE THEY ARE MEANT TO WORK TOGETHER.
Genre / tropes: pining, friends to lovers (sort of - neighbours to lovers), getting together, domesticity, fluff, smut, nothing bad happens, ends happily, quite a slow burn for a one-shot, I guess?
Author’s note: This is part of my friends to lovers event, prompt requested by @foxilayde who I adore and you should too. Prompt was: he does something utterly mundane which shows how well he knows you, and your feelings hit you. I took some liberties with the prompt, and there is zero pressure to read this - IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A BLURB! :P More of these requests in pinned post!
Warnings/ Ratings:
PART ONE (Mature, 18+ ONLY): swearing; sexual themes (erotic poetry, thirsty internal monologue, sexual tension); food themes inc. mentions/consumption; family mentions - reader has nieces but they need not be biological; brief mentions of the prison system - Richard is a Corrections Officer; exceedingly brief mention of the Holocaust in context of a non-fiction book Richard is reading (I believe this is a canon read but may be wrong); loneliness (theme, not too angsty); self-esteem issues if you squint.
PART TWO: (Explicit, 18+ ONLY): swearing; explicit sex, including - oral m + f receiving; unprotected vaginal sex; creampie; f squirting (first time doing so); well-endowed man, ahem.
Word count: 10k for part 1, 9k for part 2.
You had been thinking about the small gesture all day. You had been distracted all the way through your shift, and then all through dinner with a friend.
Richard -your neighbour to the right- had turned-up at your door that morning, before setting off on his way to work. His visit had been unexpected, and you had opened the door in a fluster, seeing him greet you with a characteristically soft smile - just visible from beneath the thick brush of his bold, impressive moustache.
He had held them out to you - in between his index and middle finger. A small book of postage stamps.
You had simply looked at him in confusion for a moment.
“For your letters,” he had stated, in his soft-spoken voice. “You said last night you didn’t have any stamps, and I found these in my drawer, so...”
It was true. You had said that. Had forgotten you’d said it. Had barely registered running into him, since it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
Your routine overlapped minimally with Richard’s -though more so since his new role in the letter room had him working days exclusively- but sometimes, you would meet serendipitously, as neighbours tend to do. Last night, in the liminal space between your work day ending and your home life beginning, you had stopped to chat with him, and -you remembered now- had made some offhand comment about needing some stamps.
The topic of letters had come up; naturally, given his new position. It caused you to mention having written some letters to your nieces -packaged up with little illustrated portraits you’d gotten commissioned for their new bedrooms. Letters which you hadn’t gotten around to posting.
And so, here Richard was. On your doorstep. With stamps.
It was a little thing. So little, it didn’t even register at the time. In fact, you had bundled him off your porch with a quick, cursory “Thanks, Richard!”, prioritising finishing your morning scramble and making it out of the door on time.
It didn’t register in the moment, no; but you were noticing it now, alright.
“-so, this morning,” you explain to your friend opposite you in the pizza parlour, as she absent-mindedly dips her crusts in some hot sauce, “there he is on my doorstep, and he’d brought me some stamps.”
Your friend, Jaz, dips her chin and slowly raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows, her glossed lips curling in an amused, incredulous smile. “So, let me get this straight. He brought you some... stamps, which he already had, from his house next door,” she recaps, her smile inching wider by the second, “and now you want to fuck him?!”. Her eyebrows knit together in faux concern and she clamps a hand over yours where it rests on the table. “Sweetie, we need to talk. How low is your bar these days? Exactly how dick-starved are you?”
Ordinarily you’d be more than game for the light fun she pokes at you. Would even have a smart riposte ready. This time, though, you simply huff, your jaw twitching in minor irritation at how flippant she is being. So, shaking your head gently, you pull your hand away from hers, folding your jacket around yourself, suddenly feeling exceedingly self-conscious.
“Never mind. I’m obviously not telling it right. And, wait - hold up- who in the hell said I wanted to...” you look around the parlour, voice dropping to an indignant whisper as if anyone around you would hear or care about your hypothetical sexploits “...fuck him?” Your tone is defensive, and you shift to take a masking nibble on your straw, slurping the dregs of your soda and bouncing your leg nervously under the table.
Your friend merely raises an eyebrow, with a healthy -and not entirely unfounded- scepticism, and so, you try to rein your protestations in, lest you get slammed with a “methinks you doth protest too much”.
“Okay, okay,” Jaz concedes, holding up her hands and leaning back in her chair. “All I’m saying is, it seems like you have a hard-on for him all of a sudden. You’ve lived by him for years and you’ve never noticed the guy! It’s just stamps, baby cakes. It’s just your paunchy, kindly neighbour, who gets milkshake stuck in his moustache.”
At least he’s not afraid to make a mess of himself when he’s slurping, you think idly, your eyebrow ticking up - the thought leading you in a very particular direction and sending a sudden scorching heat to your cheeks. Also - paunchy? I like a beautiful soft tummy to rest my head on, thank you very much.
Yeesh. You are not okay. Still, before you go full feral, you shrug your shoulders in partial concession, widening your eyes in innocence. “Uh huh. Sure. Yeah.”
“Seriously?” Jaz continues, shaking her head in good-natured disbelief - blatantly seeing right through you. “Are stamps your love language now, or what the fuck?”
She’s not wrong. It is very… sudden. You’ve never felt that way about Richard before. But is it so preposterous to think you might begin to?
“Jeez! Who said anything about love?!” You swirl your straw in your cup, concentrating on puncturing the remaining bubbles and ignoring your friend’s peals of bemused laughter. “Look, okay? I guess you’re right, Jaz. Maybe I’m just dick-starved,” you suggest, a smile finally claiming your lips. “It has been… a little while. And the last encounter was not very... inspiring.” You wiggle your eyebrows at her and your shared laughter mingles in the space between you. Still, you’re more than a little keen to deflect, and you bounce your foot more furiously under the table in your haste to change the subject. “I just thought it was sweet of him, that’s all, but… forget it, okay? Tell me everything about your hot date with Jackson.”
As soon as the invitation is given, Jaz jumps on it. And, as you listen to her spill the tea on her latest hook-ups with her fancy man, you try really hard to focus - but you can’t help that your thoughts keep wandering time and again to a certain man. A man with the kindest, most soulful cola-coloured eyes. Your neighbour to the right.
You’re unsure why, but you feel a little bent out of shape - a little annoyed, even- that Jaz was so quick to dismiss Richard. Particularly that she had seemed to miss the whole meaning behind his small gesture. He was listening to you. He was thinking about you. And, as you dwell further on it, you realise that maybe -just maybe- you want the kind of guy who brings you stamps, goddammit.
Shit - maybe Jaz wasn’t too far off when she said stamps were your love language after all.
And, true, maybe you hadn’t paid the faintest bit of romantic attention to Richard -for the most part- in the years you’d lived side-by-side with him... but maybe it was time to start. Maybe, in fact, it was well overdue.
***
Granted, it hadn’t struck you right away how sweet Richard’s gesture was, but as soon as it had, you started to notice everything. To remember everything.
You remembered how he pushed a flyer through your door one evening, just in case you might be interested in the latest art exhibit going on at the local rec centre. You recalled how he had duct-taped the handle of your garbage can back together after it spectacularly broke one morning, causing your trash to spill over the sidewalk. It hadn’t seemed like a huge thing at the time, but now, as you imagine him painstakingly unfurling the roll and passing it around and around the broken piece, entirely on his own steam, it takes on a new meaning.
You have begun to notice - really notice- how he always smiles and stops to chat to you, his face lighting up as if he is genuinely pleased to see you. You have begun to notice everything he has done for you, over the years, a deluge of kindness flooding your heart. Details -little things- which seemed insignificant at the time, but which weigh heavier than gold now that you reflect on them.
And, most of all, you have noticed him.
Richard.
You have noticed his positivity. That bounce he gets in his step when he’s enthusiastic about something (which is always). The way his expressive, long-lashed eyes reveal everything he’s feeling whenever he talks or listens - his emotions and his compassionate heart pinned firmly on his sleeve, as prominent as his Corrections Officer badge. You notice how handsome he is; a fact which has inexplicably passed you by for the longest time. Perhaps, because of how understated he is? Not cocky and assured and alpha like the guys you’re usually drawn to.
Tonight, though, most of all, you are noticing that he’s not home, as you sit on your front porch steps, entirely locked out of your own house. You know for a fact that a couple of neighbours have spotted you there - you’ve observed pairs of curtains twitching- and yet no-one has come to your aid so far, mean bastards. You know, in contrast, that Richard would help anyone who needed it, without hesitation. And, it’s fair to say that sitting here, waiting for him to return and help you out, is certainly providing you plenty of opportunity to dwell on thoughts of him. In fact, you can’t wait for him to get home; not only because you wish for relief from the elements, no. But because the thought of seeing him actually excites you. You are looking forward to it.
Finally, thankfully, after the evening chill has long begun to bite at your extremities, you see Richard approaching. He whistles a jaunty tune as he comes up his drive, happy as usual. From his silhouette, you note that he’s dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and his usual ill-fitting jeans, his keys already jangling in his hand, and he stops abruptly when he sees you sat out front as though his feet are glued to the floor.
You can just about make out the smile which tugs at his lips, moments before his words do. He always seems happy to see you, and, on this occasion, you echo that feeling too, more so than ever. “Locked out?” he calls, and at the sound of his voice you stand, hopefully, clasping your purse on your shoulder, your own feet glued to the floor too.
“Yeah,” you call, throwing your voice over to him. “Waiting for the locksmith.”
You grip the strap of your purse a little tighter, as Richard takes a few steps closer, a polite but cautious smile lighting his face. “Want to wait inside?”
“Hell yes,” you gush with a relieved exhale of breath, gratefully trotting around to meet him on his porch where the security light bathes him in a halo of orange. “You’re a babe. Thank you, Richard.” You allow your eyes to gently rove over him as you approach. He’s wearing a turquoise bowling shirt, you realise. A bowling shirt with “Alonso Muñoz” stitched in an adorable flourish of red embroidery above the left shirt pocket. What’s more, he looks cute as all hell in it too. You seem to recall he’s in a casual league with some buddies.
“It’s no trouble,” he says with a warm, disarming smile, deep, pleasing creases radiating from around his eyes – and, even though you aren’t usually one to be lost for words, it is all you can do to smile back at him vacantly, clutching your purse strap tight enough that your knuckles strain.
Richard pauses too, seemingly taking a moment to remember the keys bunched and readied in his hand - as though your presence has pushed all other thoughts out of his head. “You must be cold. Let’s get you warmed up,” he says finally, snapping himself out of his stupor.
Yes please.
And so, with a bashful flutter of his long lashes as you shuffle even closer to him, Richard opens the door and guides you inside, hover-handing his palm at the small of your back.
He smiles widely as he is welcomed by his little fur ball, Lady, the white dog yipping and wagging and jumping up at his shins. Richard stoops to bundle her into his arms, the animal rasping its tongue over his shapely jaw, which he raises as he squirms away from the wet, eager kisses.
“Aw, you’re so precious, Lady,” you baby-talk, reaching out to apply fond scritches to the mop of her head. “I forget how cute you are, little bean!”
Richard chuckles with mirth, seemingly warmed by your sweet interaction with his pupper, and only when Lady gets restless in his arms does he set about plopping her down and refilling her food bowl.
“Please, make yourself at home,” Richard offers, before he briefly excuses himself, dipping away into another room and signalling he’ll be right back.
With Richard gone and Lady chowing down on her dried food, you take the opportunity to glance around the place, surprised by how at home you do feel, already, even though you’ve never set foot in here before. You’ve been in his yard before; for example, when he’s hosted block barbeques, or, when the summer sun has withered from your yard, you’ve sometimes shimmied your deck chair to be side by side with his as you languished together in the remaining patch of sun. But you’ve never been inside his home. Now that you are, you drink in the details of him, eager for any new information you can glean, and scanning over the books and paintings and photographs with particular interest. You smile as your eyes fall upon Lady’s bed, filled with a procession of carefully arranged stuffed animals and chew toys. You are warmed by the painting of a beachy, mountain-edged, palm-fronded sunset, propped against the ‘sill.
You note that his place is homely and well-tended, and you also can’t help but notice that the place signals a rather solitary existence. One plate and one fork drying on the dish rack. A perfectly placed easy chair -for one- in front of the TV, the small couch to its side covered with stacks of books and papers, as if it has been a while since he entertained a guest. In fact, you would take a seat -make yourself at home- but you don’t want to intrude on His Seat, and nor do you wish to disturb his personal papers to clear the couch.
As you ponder this, Richard re-enters, extending a soft, flannel shirt towards you. “Here. In case you’re cold.”
You smile your thanks to him (grinning like a dumbass, actually) and you gratefully slip the garment over your shoulders, feeling instantly warmed. As you wrap it around yourself, you get a waft of fresh-scented detergent. You would never have guessed that you’d be able to recognise any particular Richard-y scent, but as the shirt’s pleasant odour engulfs you, you realise it is infinitely familiar. That it is wildly comforting.
You watch, a brief moment of awkwardness as Richard self-consciously combs his fingers through his thick moustache; sweeps a hand over his already immaculate, plastered-down curls. He looks so... neat. Controlled. Restrained. It crosses your mind that you’d like to mess him up a bit, see him come undone - of course, if he wanted.
Then, noticing your seating predicament, Richard surges over to gather up the strewn piles of mess, shifting them on to the coffee table instead. “Here, take a seat,” he indicates. “Sorry for the mess- I emptied the bureau looking for the stamps. Please. Every time I think to put it back I get distracted.”
His comment is nonchalant, but for the second time since he arrived home, you are at a loss for words, and you can only stare at him as you sink your ass down, gratefully, on to the now emptied couch. He’d gone to that effort for you? And now he’s apologising right to your face for the mess of it?
“That was kind of you, Richard,” you state, finding words again, and he shuffles nervously from shoe to shoe in response. You note that his brown skin grows increasingly flushed, with a deepening undertone of crimson as his eyes skim cautiously over you. “And thank you for letting me hang here. Promise I’ll be out of your hair soon. The locksmith should only be...” You suck in air through your teeth as you un-pocket your cell and glance at the time. “Yikes. Another hour. I’m so sorry to get in the way.”
His moustache twitches with a shy smile, his hand rubbing the back of his neck as he looks at you from beneath his lashes, his eyes all big and pretty. He certainly doesn’t look put-out, at least. “Not at all - it’s… really nice to have you here,” Richard insists, polite and sincere as ever. You are the one to feel bashful now, and you tug his shirt more firmly around your shoulders for comfort, the act serving to further fluster you and entrance him, it seems. He seems frozen to the spot again, and meanwhile, you’re now feeling overly warmed.
He looks a little lost, for a moment, as though it’s been so long since he had a visitor that he doesn’t quite know what to do with you. In the next second though, his practiced hospitality kicks in, his warm and affable nature shining through as he determines a course of action. “Have you eaten? I could fix you some dinner.”
You are hungry, you think, your tongue darting out along your bottom lip at the thought of food. Well, if he’s going to feed you, you’re not letting him do all the work -you decide- so you tentatively rise from your seat, clapping your palms together, signifying action. “Only if I can help you?”
“O- okay. Yeah. Thank you,” he nods; then, he comes to stand with his hands on his hips, thumbs to the front, causing his soft, rounded belly to protrude exaggeratedly from under his shirt. You’re not sure why that sends a very subtle flare of heat down between your legs, but it does all the same.
Meanwhile, oblivious to your thirsty inner monologue, Richard looks at you reservedly, until you smile and cross together to the humble kitchen, where, with another bashful flutter of his lashes he begins grabbing out utensils and ingredients. All the while, he moves seamlessly around you, so careful never to touch or to invade your personal space. The pronounced and careful lack of contact makes you realise, however -as he skims his body so close yet so far from yours in the compact space- that maybe you desperately want him to touch you. That you wouldn’t mind if his hand brushed your back, or lower. That maybe having him envelop his arms around you would feel as warm and comforting as his shirt – or even more so. That even, perhaps, if he pressed you from behind into the counter, his soft stomach leading, followed by his wide hips pinning you in place, his moustache grazing up the column of your neck, that you wouldn’t mind at all. In fact, the thought of his touch, and even the mere potential of it, fills you with an excited buzz deep in your belly. A thrill that you haven’t felt for a long time – at least, not quite like this.
Right now, though, you set these thoughts aside to focus on the task at hand. You move around each other a little awkwardly, but thankfully, the conversation flows far more easily than your bodies. Richard’s shy and gentle, but he’s friendly. Inquisitive and interesting, and he keeps you chatting. And, so, you converse and cook together, until the resulting, homely odours waft into your nose, keeping your mind firmly on your much more literal hunger; at least, for the most part.
When the steaming food is plated up, Richard invites you to take a seat on the couch and you oblige, watching him fondly and with interest as he produces various condiments, a bottle of Mr. Chimi’s Churri sauce taking pride of place on the surface in front of you. You add a healthy dollop.
“Mmm, this is so good, thank you,” you say approvingly when he invites you to dig in, eagerly wolfing down forkfuls.
As soon as Richard has plonked himself down in his chair and balanced his own plate on his lap, he flicks on the TV – likely, more out of habit than anything. A vibrant telenovela sparks to life in the background, a particularly melodramatic scene in full swing. You smile to yourself. You recognise the show - you’ve heard him talk about it too. Even get the impression he watches religiously.
Richard’s eyes fix on the screen for a moment, and he is visibly suckered-in by the unfolding plot, his food disappearing at an impressive rate as he scoops it up to his mouth while he watches. Still, he doesn’t forget you’re there. Quite the contrary.
“It’s so sad,” he explains for your benefit, between his mouthfuls of dinner, his eyes overflowing with warmth as he turns to you. “Carlos and Adela are so in love, but they can’t be together. She’s engaged to Luis. She has to stay with him to save the family home because she already signed some papers.”
You smile, Richard’s heartfelt summary filling you with warmth. He cares about people. It’s what he does. Apparently, he’s even invested in the fictional ones. You try hard to supress your good-natured amusement at quite how invested he is; however, when his gaze meets yours once again, flicking back and forth between you and the screen, he must catch a hint of it in your expression. “Sorry,” he flusters. “I can turn this off, if you like?” he offers gently, eyes apologetic.
“Are you kidding?” you respond, with a warm smile. You’re no stranger to becoming over-invested in fiction, you suppose, and besides - you like the prospect of sharing this with him. “Catch me up some more,” you encourage. “So, we’re rooting for Carlos?”
Richard smiles gratefully, nodding vigorously in response. You like seeing him like this. In his own element, his own environment, doing things he typically enjoys. It’s nice to see him living his best life, thriving on the drama of the trope-laden plot. “I hope Carlos crashes the wedding. Luis doesn’t deserve her.”
“Yikes. You’re brutal, Alonso Muñoz,” you tease, a musical laugh lilting out of you.
You chat back and forth, an amused smile twitching at the corner of your mouth for the duration, and although Richard seems somewhat entranced by the developing storyline, he seems even more invested in you. He makes sure to listen to you, even when you’re sure you must be talking over an important detail. He ensures he fills you in on any prior plot point you may need for context.
And, while his eyes do intermittently flick back toward the screen, your eyes, however, remain firmly fixed on him. On the singular swoop of his meticulously parted, grizzled curls. On his long lashes blinking, his deep eyes shining beneath them, glinting in tandem with the light from the screen. His warm, brown skin and the lines etched in it when he smiles cast with a bluish hue, flickering light and shadow ghosting over the contours of his strong nose and chin and his heavy brow. The soft, inviting rolls of his stomach as he relaxes into his chair, and the way his belly shakes when he laughs. Of course, his glorious moustache, positively flourishing on his upper lip. Last but not least, what most gets you though, are his eyes. Eyes as kind and expressive and open as this sweet man’s heart is.
You laugh alongside him, hoping he is enjoying the company as much as you are. You could get used to this, you think; used to him. Indeed, you have no idea how you have managed to overlook this man, beautiful inside and out, until now. You resolve though, that you won’t make that same mistake again.
Eventually, the credits roll, and you thank Richard once more for the food. He carries your plate over to the sink, insisting -when you offer- that the dishes can languish there for one night. And so, instead of rising, you pat the couch cushion beside you invitingly. His throat bobs around a hard swallow as he stands before you, his feet momentarily glued to the floor; yet again. When Richard finally musters movement and takes a seat next to you, he places himself as far away from you as he possibly can on the small two-seater; out of respect rather than repulsion, you are more than sure. However, the compact space affords him little chance to keep his distance, and his clothed thigh presses warm against your own. He doesn’t make any attempt to move away though, and, equally, nor do you.
“Thank you, Richard,” you say, your voice softer and far more breathy than you intended, now that he is so close to you.
He clears his throat self-consciously, before his eyes crease with a sincere smile. “It’s no trouble. Anytime.” He sounds like he means it too.
You lean back, settling yourself deeper into the worn and slightly lumpy couch cushions. His posture, meanwhile, is still alarmingly stiff beside you, his torso upright and his hands folded formally in his lap. If you had to hazard a guess, you’d say that, perhaps, you made him nervous.
“Richard, I don’t bite,” you soothe. “Sit back. Relax. It’s your home.”
He nods in concession, exhaling his tensely held breath. “Yes, Ma’am,” he sounds obediently. You don’t think you’ve ever had anyone call you Ma’am before; but you note that you don’t entirely mind it, out of Richard’s mouth. You maybe even… like it?
Anyway, outside of your increasingly feral internal monologue, Richard reaches over to flick on the soft, ambient lamp to his side -the room having grown thick with shadows- and then he is sinking back, resting his head against the couch cushions alongside you.
You turn your head and tilt your torso a little towards him. When Richard does the same, it evokes a sense of intimacy that you weren’t all the way prepared for; the rest of the room seems to disappear as you are both held in a close circle of oranged light, the TV nothing but a lulling, background hum now. “I mean it... I... I wanted to thank you properly. For the stamps.”
“It’s no trouble,” he repeats, his voice deep and resonant and close now, catching you off-guard. No trouble? Sure. Despite the fact he’d clearly emptied-out everything in his living room to find them. “Did you send your letters?” he enquires softly, his eyebrows jumping up a little.
You can’t supress the bittersweet smile which inches over your face as you respond. “I did, and I got the cutest video call from my nieces when their mail arrived.” That wouldn’t have happened. Not without him being so thoughtful. You’d have put it off and put it off. The letters would still be sat on your dresser.
Richard’s eyes light, and he looks genuinely pleased for you, his face glowing. “I’m glad.” He smiles, revealing a flash of his cute, ever so slightly imperfect (and therefore entirely perfect) teeth. Finally beginning to relax again, his hands rest flat astride his sturdy thighs and his head lolls towards you. With his next words, his voice becomes even softer. “I can tell you miss them since they moved away. Portland, right? I, uh. I really hoped you would send those letters. I know how much they can mean to people.”
“Portland. Yeah. Wow, you remember that?” You have to admit that you are a little shocked. Richard listened to you. Really listened to you. And, not only that, but he clearly read between the lines, connecting the dots between each one of your ad hoc interactions in a way which you -apparently- had failed to do thus far.
Jaz would scoff at you right now, you know it, if she could see you becoming all shy and flustered for him.
And now you want to fuck him?
But it wasn’t only that he brought you the stamps, okay? It was why he did it. He did it, because he knew what it might mean for you. Because, evidently, not only did he notice that you were sad -about something you barely let yourself acknowledge, by the way- but he also cared enough to try to make you happy instead.
The realisation that he cares is an emotional thing, causing a slight lump to rise in your throat. It should probably make you happy, but in fact, it saddens you. It saddens you because -you realise now- you have taken for granted all this time how easy Richard is to talk to. Have taken for granted the way he has been privy to so many candid details about your life.
Richard has often been the first person you’ve spoken to when you arrived home -sometimes the only person- and you have never hesitated to share your good news and triumphs with him. Nor have you hesitated to vent, sharing the more difficult details of your bad days. You’ve taken for granted just how much of yourself you’ve cumulatively shared with him; in a way you don’t often share with anyone else. Richard has been an important part of your life all these years, without you truly realising it. Perhaps because your interactions with him have tended to exist in such a liminal, peculiar space in your day. Perhaps because you were too close to see the big picture, instead of this collection of valuable, little things.
You hug your arms around yourself. You can merely repeat it again. “Thank you. For real.”
“It’s just a little thing,” he dismisses, modestly, and you are very suddenly tired of him dismissing himself. You want him to know how appreciated he is. Embodying this, your hand darts out to grip his where it rests on his thigh, and Richard looks down at this small spectacle in mild shock; and yet, he doesn’t pull away from your touch.
“It’s not. It’s a lot of things, Richard. I want you to know I appreciate everything you do. It has... It has been a long time since anyone was so sweet to me.”
Feeling self-conscious suddenly, following your outburst of affection, you inch your hand away from his; retreating, and reining yourself back in. For a moment, Richard’s fingers twitch up from his pant leg as though they might chase yours; but then, his hand stills, settled on his thigh just as before.
Then, a crease appears at his brow. “None of your Adonises are sweet to you?”
Your nose crinkles in confusion. “My... Adonises?”
“The... your... gentlemen visitors.”
Your brow creases, as you try to detect whether there is any judgement or malice in his observation, but, knowing him, you are not inclined to think there is. Still, you feel there is more to uncover. He’s noticed your dates coming and going then? He thinks they’re… Adonises? He’s surprised they aren’t sweet to you?
Still, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, perhaps realising how they might be misinterpreted, that crimson undertone to his skin flares again, this time reaching all the way to the tips of his ears. He looks like he wants the couch to swallow him up, and you can’t help but feel for him. “I just meant...”
“-It’s okay,” you say, swooping in to rescue him before he can start helplessly blabbering. He keenly takes the invitation to stop, his mouth suddenly clamping shut, ready to listen. And you? You are ready to talk. The words seem to come so easily around him. “I guess... you’re right. I’ve been on some dates but they...” you sigh, furrowing your brow as you try to find the words. “That’s all fine. Most of the time it’s really fun. Or it was. But... lately...”
“Lately?” Richard encourages, when you don’t go on, his voice barely above a whisper as he hangs on your every word.
“Lately, I think… That maybe it would be nice to have somebody who doesn’t just come and go. To have… somebody to love, I guess?”
“Somebody to love,” Richard ponders, his expression becoming wistful. His head begins moving up and down ever so slowly, gradually building to a more adamant nod. He smiles, but his eyes don’t crease at the corners this time. “That really does sound nice.”
It shocks you, but seeing him even a little sad, like that, has your hands fisting in the material of your skirt, as you resist the urge to reach out for him and offer comfort. You want to cup his face in your hand and kiss him senseless, until his eyes glow once more, imbued with his characteristic positivity. You want to care for him and protect him and make him laugh and spend time with him and…
Fuck.
You want to love him, you realise, and the thought scares you down to your bones. It scares you enough that you sit forwards, breaking this most peculiar tension. Changing the topic. And, abrupt as it may be, at least it works.
“What are you reading?” you ask, shrugging his shirt from your shoulders as a hot, cloying flush creeps along your skin and up your neck, prickly enough that it feels like fingertips. As you imagine Richard’s fingers dancing the same path over your bare shoulder blade, slipping beneath the spaghetti strap of your top, peeling it down, you hurriedly pick up the first book you can put your hands on, turning it in your palms without taking in a word written on it.
Poor Richard. You must be giving the sweet man whiplash.
Still, he leans forward in his seat too, sombrely taking the book from your hands and gazing down at the cover.
“Ah. It’s a bleak topic,” he warns. A deep crease appears in his brow. “It’s Night, by Elie Wiesel – a survivor’s account of his experiences during the Holocaust.”
Your expression turns grave and pinched and you nod, listening carefully as Richard recounts some of the key details. Then, together, you continue to pore through the pile, tackling each book in turn. You listen intently to Richard recount the various synopses, passionate and precise and sensitive in his summaries. It seems he reads a lot of non-fiction. Heavy reading, with many titles about the prison system, and atrocities - often both. But, you understand why it’s important to him. You are grateful to understand how his empathetic nature begets yet more empathy, as he seeks to expand his knowledge of experiences and histories different to his own.
At first sight, you think it’s seemingly at odds that such a positive man seeks out such dark accounts, but it makes sense to you, in a strange way. After all, he wants to understand how things can be better. He believes they can be. You don’t know anything more Richard-y than that.
Reaching for the next title, you find it is a little different to the rest. You are reluctant to segue too abruptly from such heavy topics, keen to give them the merit they deserve, but at the same time you are grateful for a little lightness as you pick-up what appears to be a slightly trashy romance novel. You smile fondly, connecting the dots between this and the telenovela plotlines that seem to grab his attention; the way he seems so in love with love. Again, you consider how the two sides of him -the more serious and seemingly more trivial - may seem at odds, but that actually, they each reveal what is at the core of him. He is interested in people. He’s invested.
“And this book?” you ask tentatively, not even trying to stifle your smile as your eyes wander over the cover, two half-dressed people locked in an erotic, sordid embrace. You are especially keen to hear what he has to say about this one too.
“Well… Like you said. Somebody to love - right? Don’t we all need those kinds of stories?”
Your eyes glow with admiration. Whilst he’s not cocky or overly assured, no, you are coming to admire Richard’s quiet confidence in who he is and what he cares about. His integrity and his lack of embarrassment in the things he chooses to value. His delight and lack of shame in the things that he enjoys. He’s not afraid to be who he is. You think that’s wonderful.
Next, your eyes flick back to the final book on the pile, partly for completeness but also out of curiosity. You feel with each title you pick-up, you are learning something about him; and, frankly, you want to know everything there is to find out. You look at it with a start however, when you realise what the final book in the pile is.
It’s your book. It’s the anthology of poetry you’d self-published around a year ago, and sold at your local readings. You reach for it instantly, almost cradling it in your hands like a precious object. Not because it’s yours - not exactly- but because it’s his. His copy looks eminently different to the spares you still have boxed-up in your house, all fresh and crisp, spines unbroken. This one looks a little worn around the edges - well-thumbed, spine broken-in. Some of the pages are dog-eared, and various makeshift bookmarks are sticking out of it. You’ve never seen one of your publications looking so… beautiful. So treasured.
“You actually read this?” you ask, a little overwhelmed, your heart hammering, and tears spiking in your eyes.
“I read it often. I told you, I really like it!”
You stroke the cover with your palm. “Honestly? I thought you were just being polite.”
When you’d mentioned to him for the first time that you wrote poetry -specifically erotic poetry- and had invited him to the reading, Richard had looked, at first, as though he was ready to die of embarrassment. Regardless, he’d still come along - your only neighbour to have done so. You vaguely remember having spoken to him the day afterward about it, but when you think of the show itself, you can’t picture him there. Now, you desperately wrack your memory of the event, searching for him. Wishing you could recall him showing-up for you in such an important way.
It had been such a blur, though. You’d had a lot of friends there. You’d had a date there, who, at the time, you’d thought was the be all and end all. Now, however, you curse yourself for overlooking Richard. You wish you could go back and root through the crowd for him. You wish you could bring him into the spotlight. Bring him into your arms. And yet, while you ponder all of this, Richard reaches for the book and gently lifts it from your hands, with a gentle hum. It practically falls open on one particular page.
“This one is my favourite,” he admits bashfully. “Salted Peach. I must have it almost memorised by now.” You turn to him, studying his face. His expressive eyes are full of a heat gentler and more nuanced than your words could ever hope to be, you think, as he pores over the page. Over your words.
“No way. Prove it, Alonso Muñoz,” you challenge, exhaling a laugh that is surprised and disbelieving and utterly delighted all at once.
You don’t expect him to take you up on it, but the man sets his face, both more determined and more playful than you think you have seen him so far, as he hands the book back to you. “Okay,” he smiles, softly. “I’ll give it a go.”
You hold your breath as his eyes flutter closed -so that you know he has zero chance of cheating- his long lashes fanning-out beautifully over his cheek. You take the chance to look over his handsome features, while he can’t interrupt your surreptitious study.
Then, he begins. His voice is hushed and unsure, yet the richness of it washes over you, right from the first line.
“Like salt kept on the lips,
To resist is to rust,” he begins, and your breath catches in your chest.
“Let me be an oiled thing under you, all fluid and opening smoothly
With keen, slick hinges.”
First, you are struck that he really does know it. That he really does remember it, almost word perfect. You exhale a breath in disbelief, your chest filling with butterflies.
“A ruined peach
Spilling nectar over your thumb,” he continues, and desire knots deep in your belly.
It’s not that the words are explicit – they aren’t. But something about the way he recites them -recounts your desire- makes them feel positively sinful, his voice quietly confident and subtly erotic as he recites your words. You don’t only hear the words, but you feel them, almost as if his thumb really has punctured you.
You are becoming slick already, feeling like a ruined, grateful fruit. You want to be his fruit, you think. His salted peach.
“You can be my stiffness
My joints
My... (my stone heart? Is that right?)” he interjects.
“It’s perfect,” you encourage, your voice trembling slightly, even as his grows ever more robust, and, as you bolster him, he sits a little taller in his seat, his posture proud and the new confidence reflected in his voice as he proceeds. As he grows, stiffer, taller, you become liquid, and you writhe your heat subtly against your seat. You press your thighs closer together.
Enraptured, you watch his lips and tongue move seamlessly around the words. The micro-expressions on his face, revealing how tenderly he wishes to portray them, every word imbued with care. With expression, and feeling.
“(Got it...) My stone heart
And I, boneless;
Bodiless flesh.”
As he continues, you close your eyes too. You stop checking the words against the book and you let yourself feel them. You let them wash over you. You let his voice wash over you; to sink and curl into the pit of you. You squirm in place, and yet this shifting makes you all too aware of your stillness – this fixed position and distance from him, when surely you should be moving and surging and undulating on him? Surely you should be leaning in and hearing the deep yet gentle timbre of his words waft into the shell of your ear, or fanning over your skin?
Surely, he should be touching you?
Your heart is racing.
“Salt me, then.
Lick your lips and taste me; sweetly.”
You want to taste him. Be tasted.
“Only on your tongue, do I exist.
Only in your hand, do I perish.”
You want to exist and perish on his hand.
“Do not keep me on your lips.
Oil me with your writhing”
You want to be swallowed by him. Oiled by him. Made slick.
“Or else I rust.”
You are rapt. His words -no, your words, spoken by him- melting you.
His voice. So rich, and so sensual, and you could swear, as you listen to him, that your words have never sounded so erotic. That you have never felt them as deeply as you do now, hearing them fall from his tongue and his lips. Hearing them flow from his heart, as he recites them in a way you’ve never heard them; an interpretation entirely unique to him.
In fact, listening to him, like this, lights a flame in the pit of you, a heat suffusing through you, warming everywhere. He warms you, even from this distance, and you can feel how much heat he has to give. And, on boy. You want to lap it up. Every. Last. Drop.
“I... I forgot the next part,” he adds, shyly, his confidence wavering, and you open your eyes, beginning to recite the rest for him.
“Oh, love,
I long to be a fluid thing;
Under you.”
It sounds… true. It feels right. It feels so right to say those words to him. So right that it knocks the air from out of you.
At the sound of your voice, you watch a soft, unfiltered smile appear on Richard’s face, his still-closed eyes creasing deliciously at the corners, his moustache animating with it.
“And yet you resist me; rust me,” you continue, voice full of fissures, and Richard’s eyes slowly peel open, pooling with heat. This time, unlike the other times his eyes have met yours, he holds your gaze - doesn’t drop his eyes from yours in a flurry of bashfulness and fluttered lashes. He holds your gaze and he holds you, in this moment. In this little circle of intimacy, his eyes glowing, all for you. Pooling with that heat, so nuanced and gentle, but every bit as hot as anything you’ve ever touched.
Your voice and your smile and your heart crack wide open as you continue.
“You are salt kept on my lips;”
You complete the last lines at the same time, eyes locked.
“Always tempting.
I seize up.”
Of all the swimming emotions rising at that moment, gratitude balls in your heart most intensely, and yet again, it is all you can do to thrust it towards him, your humble offering.
“Thank you,” you say, for the nth time that evening, a smile of the purest joy still splitting your face. “That was really beautiful.”
It’s hard to comprehend how moved you are by what just happened. You are shocked. Flattered. That someone appreciates your words, that they resonate at all, makes you feel so seen. That the person is Richard is more of a treasure than you can fathom, and it causes a flood of raw, reckless emotion, joyful tears brimming in your eyes.
In return, Richard’s eyes shine as he regards you, with an admiration so deep and yet prominent that you almost shrink back from it. “They’re your words,” he impresses, aiming, as ever, to shrink himself instead.
You shake your head. You won’t have that. “No, Richard - it’s the way you recited them. I swear you should do my next reading for me. You’re so…” You search desperately for the right words, and you can’t find ones any more fitting. “…So fucking beautiful.”
And you call yourself a poet?
Your eyes well up.
You feel entirely caught off guard and just a little silly that you are getting yourself upset in front of him, and yet Richard’s eyes narrow kindly as you try to scrub a stray tear away from your cheek. “Are you alright?” he asks, his voice soothing, and in the next breath he reaches out to touch you, his hand settling over the top of yours. The gesture is a little awkward, unsure, but only until his hand is in place. After that it simply feels... right. Perfect, in fact.
He strokes you, his thumb ghosting slowly, minutely over your pulse point, sending a delicious shiver along your spine. His eyes search yours, and you become thoroughly lost in the intensity of them. Lost in a way that you don’t ever wish to find yourself again. Lost in a way that turns everything on its head - has you finally feeling found.
“I loved hearing you read. It was so wonderful. You should definitely do another event,” Richard gushes. “I’m sure I could listen to you read from this all night.” With that, and the scenario it conjures, perhaps, he looks down at his hand on yours. Maybe growing self-conscious, or worried that he is overstepping; that he has lingered there too long. Suddenly, though, you don’t think any length of time could be too long for him to be touching you.
When your gaze drops to his lips, however, his moustache bristles, and he quickly snatches his hand back to his lap. “Have you written anything lately?” he asks hurriedly, scooping up the book again, his topic change giving off the same energy as yours did previously.
You wonder if he is imagining your fingers trailing over his bare flesh now too. You hope so. Oh how you hope.
At his question, though, you exhale a small laugh, pumping your eyebrows once as your face splits in a smile. You shake your head gently. “I haven’t been... it’s a while since I was, let’s say, properly inspired by an encounter,” you explain, looking down at your hands in your lap, missing his contact already. “I’m just... Hmmph. I don’t know. It’s just... missing something. Guess they don’t make Adonises like they used to,” you add flippantly, poking light fun, partly at yourself.
Contrary to your flippancy, Richard becomes more serious. A gulp trails down his throat, and he seems suddenly frozen in place; seized up. As if he needs you to oil him so that he doesn’t rust. “W-What are you missing?” he asks, his voice lower than you’ve heard it, slightly more grit to it. His chest visibly rising, breaths slightly quickened; just like yours.
You look into his deep, cola-coloured eyes.
You?
What are you missing? You’re not sure, but somehow you feel that whatever it is, Richard could give it to you in moments.
Still, you don’t answer. You can’t. Instead, you ask him a question in return. You ask him a question feeling that, somehow, in a roundabout way, both of your questions may arrive at precisely the same answer.
“Why that poem?” you question, softly, lifting your eyes to him. “Why is that one your favourite?”
“I... I think...” he swallows again, then he whets his plush lips with a flick of his pink tongue. “It’s about longing, isn’t it? About being... lonely? About... wanting... someone in particular.” He fixes his expressive eyes on a point on the table, unable to look at you, it seems, in that moment. Still, his words are telling enough alone, you think, even without you seeing that same sentiment mirrored in his eyes too.
Now, you have another question. “Do you ever... get lonely? Are you? Lonely?”
It’s not even an assumption about him, you vaguely realise. It’s a projection. A projection of how you feel, and how you never realised you felt. It’s a desperate plea for affinity. For that longing to be understood, finally.
You are the one who is rusted. Seized up.
However, as soon as the question is out of your mouth you wish you could retract it. Loneliness is a solitary thing, after all, and you have no business, you suppose, wading into anyone else’s.
“I’m so sorry, please don’t answer that,” you mutter quickly, your fingers darting out to ghost along his forearm in apology, your naturally tactile nature coming through.
He drops his gaze towards your fingers there, watching them skimming his warm skin and the soft, dark hairs on his arms. He doesn’t inch away. Instead, he lifts his eyes to you, and you know the answer before he says it aloud. You know the answer as his emotions are written clearly in his eyes. Worn on his sleeve, like his badge.
The weight of his loneliness crushes you as if it was your own.
“Me too,” you admit, nodding softly, and his mouth curls briefly into a small, sad smile as your fingers continue their slow inch across his skin.
He sits in that sadness for a moment, and then, tentatively, as a thought flashes across his eyes, he brightens, just a little – looking mildly more hopeful. “Well,” he suggests, bravely. “Maybe we can… keep each other company?”
That really does sound nice.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Richard reaches out to fumble away the single tear ever so suddenly coursing down your face, swiping a line on your cheek with the pad of his thumb, and you don’t think you’ve ever felt anything so tender as his touch in that moment. It is yet another little thing; like the graze of a match head along its box. A little act, charged, with all this dangerous potential for a much larger, blazing thing to ignite.
You nod, the corners of your mouth trembling. “I would like that.” You would like that a lot.
Richard searches your eyes, and, ever so slowly - always slowly- as if you don’t wish to scare him away, you dare to hook your arm into his at the elbow, and you lower your head until it is resting on top of his shoulder.
“Is – Is this okay, Richard?” you ask in a small voice, pleading inwardly with the universe that he will say yes. That it is.
“This is... perfect,” he responds, even as he remains stiff against you, and, given his affirmation, you curl and scooch your body, shuffling a little closer to him. Bolstered too, with seeming new-found confidence, Richard raises him arm over you, and he nestles you safely against him where you can better feel his warmth. Where, with your knees drawing up on to his lap and your ear coming to rest on his chest, you can feel and hear the quickened thud of his racing heart as he holds you. His beautiful, kind, open heart.
Your mouth extends in a watery smile as you are held by him. He’s right. It’s a little thing, but it is perfect, isn’t it?
Still, again, although you should feel light, you feel heavy. With emotion. With longing. And so, you reach for another topic change. You reach for lightness. “Has anyone ever told you that you have an incredibly impressive moustache?” you enquire into his shirt, another solitary tear slipping over the bridge of your nose and wetting the flourish of red stitching.
Giving yourself whiplash now, you smile, as Richard’s chest shakes beneath you with gentle, easy laughter.
“Well, not everybody is a fan.”
“Who would actually dare?” you exclaim, as if thoroughly scandalised. “Fuck them, Richard. I like it. I like it a lot.”
His fingers trace shapes on your back. “Thank you.”
You are pleased to feel him gradually relax against you, his form melding with yours, his body becoming less stiff. Less rusted; more of a fluid thing.
“Do you… do you have a little moustache comb?”
Another chuckle. “I do,” he confirms, and you don’t know why on earth that detail settles it, but you think that he must certainly be the most perfect man on earth.
You go silent for a moment, but Richard prompts you gently - “No more questions for me?”- as if he was enjoying your mood-lightening segue. You are more than happy to oblige the sweet man by continuing, and you chew on your lip as you come up with something.
“Are you on Tinder?” A cheeky smile claims your mouth again - you’d kill to see his profile.
You’d think about the fact he’d probably never send unsolicited dick pics, but… then you’d be thinking about dick pics, and that’s one dangerous road towards Feral Town.
While you ponder this, Richard laughs again, but it’s a little self-deprecating this time. “No... I... I was for a while, but I...”
“What?”
He inhales and sighs his whole breath out again - a sad sound. His tone when he speaks is equally morose. “I’m… not sure people are looking for someone like me.”
At that, you abruptly sit up, narrowing your eyes and fixing a determined, earnest stare on him. You reach up, gingerly, moved to cup his cheek with your palm, his groomed sideburn and the plume of his moustache pleasantly rough under your fingers. You make sure he is looking you in the eyes. “Richard,” you contest, with every scrap of sincerity you can muster; and then some. “I think everybody must be looking for somebody like you.”
His eyes are pierced by a peculiar emotion you haven’t seen there yet. At first it looks like pain, but then it levels off until his eyes are shining, with something resembling pride or gratitude. When a smile finally twitches his moustache, your gaze drops to his lips again, and you are no longer surprised by how easy it is to think about kissing him, desire unfurling in your belly at an alarming rate. A palpable, mutual longing eddies in the space between you.
You surprise yourself though, by dipping to press a sweet, chaste kiss into his cheek, rather than sinking towards his lips as you so wish to do. When you perform this gesture, his eyes flutter closed, and he lets out a soft, involuntary hum, the sound gathering in your very bones and setting up camp there. As you dip back from him, the edge of his moustache grazes your cheek, and you have to admit it’s sort of electrifying. You imagine how it would tickle if you were kissed by him. How it would tickle wherever you were kissed.
The lines of poetry, so to speak, are writing themselves in your mind, already. You haven’t felt this inspired in a long time, and yet, on this occasion, you want to wait. You don’t want to rush it - even though you’ve never felt the need to quell your desires on many occasions before. Life is short, after all – too short to waste. However, something tells you that Richard is the type of man you should savour. Something tells you, that you may have found somebody to love, and, you may not love often; but when you do, you love slow.
So, you pull away from Richard, and you note that his eyes have fluttered closed. When he opens them again, you know that this kiss on the cheek was the right thing to do. You see subtle tears shining in his eyes. Again, he looks pained -with first appearances- but these tears, on second examination you think, are joyful. His heart joyful yet heavy, exactly like yours. After all, when you are overwhelmed with joy all at once, with a flood of little, happy things, it can weigh you down, at first, if the measure of joy is not one which you are quite accustomed to. If you are not practised at carrying it.
At that point, contemplating joy, you are ripped cruelly from the moment, as, with the worst and best possible timing, your phone buzzes to life, vibrating against your hip until you reach to fish out the insistent device.
“The locksmith is here, Richard. I have to go.”
“Y- yeah. Okay,” he nods, despite the fact everything about him is conveying the opposite sentiment.
I don’t want to go.
“Thank you so much.”
He nods again, and, wanting to leave him with a parting thought (or, not wanting to leave him at all, but needs must), you have the bright idea to pick up your book from the table, thumbing through it quickly to find the page you want. A poem called The Flood.
“Recommended bedtime reading,” you wink, thrusting the book towards his chest and standing, grabbing your purse and making your way towards the door. “I can give you back your shirt tomorrow, right?” you say cheekily. “Maybe after dinner?”
Richard stands too, following you towards the door like he’s magnetised to you, Lady trotting along too, inquisitively, her little black nose snuffling at the air.
“A-after dinner?” he enquires, confused, as you sweep out in a little bit of a whirlwind.
“Yeah, Richard,” you smile coyly from beneath your lashes, injecting some flirtation into your tone. “I owe you dinner. To make it up to you.”
“You don’t need to make it up to...”
You arch an eyebrow at him, looking at him pointedly and smoothing your hand over his upper arm until he gets the gist. When your meaning dawns on him, he gets that adorable, excited little spring in his step. You revel in his bright toothy smile, striking and pearly from beneath the thick brush of his moustache. “I know a nice little pasta place. And there’s a great documentary playing at the Coolidge if you want to catch it?”
“Sure,” you agree, dipping forward to plant another lingering kiss on his cheek in the doorway, relishing the feel of that moustache all over again. “It’s a date.”
Evidently flustered, and in no bad way, Richard fumbles for words and finds none, omitting a mere collection of stunted syllables and unfinished sounds in response.
You wink at him, and before swooping off, you add one final thing. “Feel free to consider the bedtime reading a preview, okay? If you’d like.”
The corner of his mouth ticks up in disbelief. You get the feeling he already knows exactly what that particular poem is about. “Yes, ma’am.” he nods, looking sweetly and longingly and adoringly after you as you sashay away.
“Goodnight, neighbour to the right.”
“Goodnight, neighbour to the left.”
You allow yourself one last long look at him before you retreat, an unstoppable smile splitting your face, and, seeing him stood in the doorway, smiling after you, only cements everything you have come to learn this evening.
From now on, neither of you will be lonely anymore. There will be no more longing. Instead, there will be a flood, you think.
THE END
PART TWO IS HERE
#Richard Alonso Muñoz#richard alonso munoz x reader#the letter room#oscar isaac#richard alonso muñoz x reader
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Wherever the world takes us Part 1 - A SBI!Reader insert
GN
Pairings: none
Characters included: Philza, Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, Cpt Puffy, Schlatt, Captain Sparklez, (mentioned) Fundy
Warnings: small mention of death
Series: Yes, planned slow updates but this happens in a slight AU world of the official lore of the dsmp and follows along the plot only this time the reader gets included as the middle hybrid child of the SBI
Part 2
Summary:
A small introduction to the SBI family dynamic including the reader! Today is Techno’s big day at the local festival! He get’s to participate in a fighting tournament but until that happens there is still a ton of time to somehow still get into trouble, isn’t there?
Word count: 4380
Shapeshifters aren’t as rare as many people think. In fact many carry that gene but not everyone ends up showing the properties of one.
If you have the active gene you may show first changes during your early childhood which then stretches out until your late teens where the changes will stop resulting in the persons usual animal like form. These changes can range from a whole body covered in fur to having goat like eyes or just horns on their head.
As far as scientists know there isn’t a real reason as to what the final form will be since Shapeshifters who are directly related to one another can have complete and drastically different forms to each other.
Though an old myth has been going around for as long as people know that the form a Shapeshifter takes is a result of their subconscious, something that mirrors their true self. Sadly due to this belief many Non-Shifters hold stereotypes and prejudice towards them.
Philza was a Shapeshifter himself. As a kid two stubs slowly appeared at his back and settled in over the years as beautiful huge black wings that he could use for takeoff and a bit for flying but mostly functioned better for gliding around. He used these wings to later travel around the world, learning everything about it and training himself.
At some point he did settle down again and ended up fathering four children alone of whom two showed Shapeshifter properties as well.
There were the twins Technoblade and Wilbur.
Technoblade showed from an early age on a deeper interest in fighting. Always asking to learn more than the self-defense techniques their father was teaching them, so Philza took the time to teach him everything he knew. Gifting him later on a proper iron sword which Techno then used to train almost daily with. Philza later had to put mending on that sword since it was chipped and scratched in a short time over heavy use.
He is also one of the two children of Philza who ended up being a Shapeshifter. They first noticed when two of his teeth in his lower jaw tended to peek out of his mouth. Over the years these two teeth turned into full blown tusks, flappy pink ears would appear on his head, his hair slowly turned into a soft pink, as well as bristle like fur begun growing on his arms. It were the characteristics of a pig as they soon realized.
Wilbur the younger of the twins by two minutes was more interested in music and books. Philza gifted him a guitar the same time he gave Techno his first sword. From that point on it was a rare thing if you didn’t see Wilbur’s guitar around him. Either on his person or laying close by him. Over time he got really proficient with the instrument and begun writing amazing songs as well as singing them himself.
The middle child Y/N was the more mellow of the whole bunch though this didn’t mean much in the context of the whole family. While they happily took part in whatever trouble their siblings got up to they were at the end the first person that would try to help solve these troubles as well and took care of any wounds. To that end they soon learned how to grow their own herbs to make medicine. This was something Philza taught them. Both would spent a ton of time in the garden, so much so, that the garden was dubbed Y/N’s and Dad’s garden. Techno would sometimes help out as well but that was a more rare occurrence.
Y/N was the second kid with the active Shapeshifter gene. Just like their father, two stubs appeared at their back that too would turn into huge black wings. Y/N still remembered how perplexed but proud Philza was when he understood what was happening. They didn’t know what they expected from their father but this reaction wasn’t it. But they weren’t mad about it.
The youngest of the family was Tommy and he was the number one reason why the kids got into trouble in the first place. He would wake up, make weird plans and rope the others into it as well. Wilbur was the first he would usually try to recruit to which Techno then would reluctantly join knowing that if the two are together they will need help later on. Getting Y/N on board was pretty easy as well. It was either a thing of them knowing they will one hundred percent get hurt so best to join in now or they were feeling particularly chaotic that day and wouldn’t even hesitate to join.
Back when they all lived together in their old cottage home their daily lives would always start in the same way.
Philza would be the first awake. He would wake the children up and continue downstairs to work on breakfast for everyone.
There was no real order to who would be the first downstairs for food but it was always Y/N who would be the last to join the group. Moving in front of their designated chair only to stretch before properly sitting down.
“Ew! Gross! Your wing touched my food!” Wilbur exclaimed angrily, pulling the plate with his food closer to himself and farther away from his sibling.
Y/N rolled their eyes “I’m not poisonous, Wilbur.”
“Still gross.” He muttered more to himself as he reluctantly took a bite from his toast.
Phil eyed the two but looked back down to his food and coffee “Your wings are getting pretty big. I’m sure it won’t take long until you can do more than just gliding about.”
“So, that means you can teach them to fly soon?” Tommy was the one to ask surprisingly. Sure, that was on Y/N’s mind as well so they didn’t mind Tommy saying what they thought but they still felt like it was a bad sign and a call for trouble though they couldn’t think how nor did they care enough to find out.
Philza raised one of his eyebrows, obviously taking note of that fact as well. It was something you learned to look out for once you spend enough time with Tommy.
“I’m not sure how soon but I think so, yeah.”
“Cool.” Was all Tommy remarked. He then proceeded to stare at his food so his family would get their suspicion off of him. Acting as if he didn’t just figuratively plant a huge red flag on the table with the words “I have a plan!”.
Y/N on the other hand couldn’t help to smile. They were excited for the eventual day when Philza could finally teach them how to fly. For the longest time now they have only learned to use their wings to glide and got really good at changing directions while doing so.
Taking care of their wings was already a pain so they wanted to get at least something good out of having them in the first place and being able to properly fly is a huge plus since getting into positions where you could actually glide around was a difficult and a bothersome thing.
Philza sighed choosing to ignore Tommy and instead turned to look at Wilbur and Y/N “What is your plan today? Want to join me and Techno when we go into town for the tournament?”
After a few seconds of confused expressions between the two Wilbur suddenly shouted “Oh! Techno’s tournament! Of course! I wanna see him beat up other people for a change!”
Techno snorted “Really feeling the support here right now, bro.”
“I’m guessing you both are coming too?” Philza was now addressing the other two of his kids.
Both were fast and eager to agree. Wilbur was right. Usually Techno tried sparring with his siblings though using the word sparring was maybe an overstatement. He would mercilessly beat them up and complain they didn’t last long enough.
At rare times where all of them were bored enough they would play a game of >Who can last the longest against Techno<.
Y/N really wasn’t too big a fan of this game since they ended up being the only one who would address the wounds later including their own since they didn’t trust the others to properly apply a band aid.
From this point on the breakfast was more alive than before. Tommy and Wilbur would constantly ask questions to Techno about who he will be fighting or how everything will work. To which he all just gave a very non-committal “I dunno”.
After they all cleaned up the breakfast table, they got ready and grabbed everything they needed.
The town wasn’t super far away but it was a long enough walk that it would be inconvenient to get back for things you might have forgotten.
Techno grabbed his sword while Wilbur made sure to take his beloved guitar with him. Y/N made sure to grab all kinds of medicine and bandages with them. They knew Techno will get treated at the tournament should he get hurt but they felt better if they brought some stuff with them as well. Tommy on the other hand made sure to grab all kinds of things including a few pages of paper, pens, string and more. Philza wanted to just write it down to Tommy probably meeting up with Tubbo in town and doing harmless crafts but the chances were slim.
As they made their way to the tournament and Philza was preaching to them to not cause any trouble since there would be a lot of people there today, Y/N soon noticed how Techno would nervously play around with the hilt of his worn out sword.
They affectionately put their arm around their older brother for a short side hug, including putting their wing around him “You’ll do fine. I know it. Don’t worry too much and just imagine you are beating one of us up.”
Technoblade had to roll his eyes at that “I’ll try to take that advice to heart.”
As they arrived in town the kids looked around in awe. Everywhere were stalls set up selling food or little decorative things or toys. People where weaving in and out between stalls, loudly talking with each other. Laughter and yells filled the air.
In the middle of the town square there was a huge box marked on the ground. This is where the fights would happen. As far as Techno explained the rules were simple. Get your opponent on their back, get them out of the box or beat them unconscious. Tommy was absolutely loving the idea of Techno beating all of his opponents unconscious and said he wouldn’t take any other result as acceptable.
“Alright kiddos. Techno and I have to talk with the organizer. You three can go and have some fun but you have to promise me a few things. Whatever you guys do stay together! Don’t talk to strangers and as soon as the fights start you come over. I will find you then, okay? I will only let you guys go if you agree to this.”
“I can still try to find Tubbo, right?” Tommy asked.
“Of course but only if you all stay together.” He was looking at Wilbur when he said the last part. This meant Wilbur was the boss for today. Well until they met up again with their dad.
Wilbur put his hands on each shoulder of his younger siblings “We will! Don’t worry dad!”
Philza gave them a last nod before walking off. Before Techno followed him he looked at the three “Don’t… cause too much trouble. At least for me so nothing happens to the tournament.” With that Technoblade turned around and followed Philza closely.
“Well, what should we start with?” Y/N asked their brothers.
Tommy threw his arms in the air “Tubbo!”
Wilbur laughed “Alright. We’ll try to find your Tubbo. I’m sure he and his siblings should be around here as well.”
Tubbo was Tommy’s best friend and honestly he hangs around their home so much they almost consider him a family member as well. He had an older sister Puffy and an older brother Schlatt though. They were a curious case. All three of them carried the active Shapeshifter gene and all three begun growing horns, their ears turned into that of goats and they all had the horizontal iris’.
Y/N liked to spend time with Puffy. Just like Y/N Puffy too acted more like a caretaker to her siblings which the two soon bonded over while Schlatt and Wilbur soon hit it off as well. It was actually quite amusing to see them interacting since Wilbur was known for loving art and freedom. Schlatt on the other hand tried to see how he can scam the most people in the most effective manner in the shortest amount of time. Trying to turn in a profit at every turn. You wouldn’t immediately think they would end up being such good friends.
The three were raised by their father as well who everyone just referred to as Captain Sparklez though his real name was Jordan. He coincidentally also helped with setting up this little festival for the town.
Tommy suddenly took a deep breath in as he cupped his hands around his mouth “Tubbo!”
Wilbur furrowed his brows “Tommy, there are a ton of people around here! There is no way he heard you.”
“Tommy! Over here!” a different voice called out, away from all the stalls and people.
Wilbur and Y/N looked surprised while Tommy almost proudly smirked at them. The bond Tommy and Tubbo had was something else.
Together the three ran through the crowd to finally meet up with Tubbo and apparently his siblings. As a greeting Tubbo softly headbutted Tommy while Puffy did the same to Y/N. Schlatt never did this with Wilbur. Said he might have goat like characteristics but he is still more human than goat hence why he didn’t do this whole headbutting thing. It has been a whole ordeal with Wilbur once where he demanded to get a headbutt from Schlatt as well for a greeting. After enough prodding and being a general nuisance Schlatt decided to straight up headbutt him as hard as possible almost knocking him out and gave him a good bruise on his forehead. Wilbur never asked for another headbutt greeting since then.
Y/N gave Puffy an additional hug, making sure to wrap their wings around her as well “I’m glad to see you Puffy!”
“So am I! I heard Techno is taking part in the tournament, isn’t he?”
Schlatt was for some reason cackling at that “Oh I bet he will win, won’t he? This would be the best time for some betting!”
Tommy, Y/N and Wilbur all nodded saying things like “Of course he will win. My brother is the best”
Soon the group begun to fall into their usual banter. Tommy and Tubbo were doing something next to them, only sometimes getting back into the conversation. Schlatt and Wilbur on the other hand were talking about how they could start bets and maybe earn some money because surely Techno will win. Y/N and Puffy listened in only to interject at times to root them back down. Both made sure they wouldn’t end up doing anything too stupid, though they too were in on it and ready to help out.
In the end the whole group was sitting on the ground and writing their plan down on the paper Tommy brought with him as suddenly a loud voice boomed over the crowd announcing that the fighting tournament will soon begin.
Tubbo looked absolutely horrified “No! I didn’t have a chance to check out the candy yet!”
Schaltt sighed and gave Tubbo a reassuring pat on his back “Don’t worry kiddo they will still be here after the tournament.”
With that the group begun walking to the marked place for the fighting. All the while Schlatt was grumbling that this was way too early and he couldn’t act on his betting plans.
“There are a lot of people.” Y/N noted as they came closer to their goal.
Indeed there were a surprising amount of people standing around the place. If it was difficult to get through the crowd before, now it seemed almost impossible. It was almost comical how the crowd seemingly turned into a wall of steel as the announcer begun his speech in order to greet all the people watching.
“Ugh, I can barely see anything.” Wilbur whined as he moved on his toes. Wilbur was the tallest of the group so when he had problems seeing anything Y/N instinctively already gave up. Maybe one day it would be the other way around seeing as they all were still growing but for now this was the reality of the situation.
Tommy was frantically jumping into the air trying to see anything that happened. He didn’t say it but he wanted to make sure to not miss out on any second of Techno’s fights. He was his older brother after all.
“Hey, Schlatt?” Tubbo almost whispered as he tugged at his older brother’s shirt.
Schlatt barely made any proper attempt to look over the crowd probably still busy thinking about his lost business opportunity. He tilted his head down to look at Tubbo “Hm?”
Suddenly Tubbo’s unsure expression turned into a serious one. While Wilbur, Tommy and Y/N were confused about this, Puffy begun to snicker.
“Aw, come on!” Schlatt drawled out but as soon as Tubbo got his pouting face out it was over for him.
He rolled his eyes and knelt down. With the help of Puffy, Tubbo was soon sitting on Schlatt’s shoulders, overlooking the crowd.
For some reason Tommy looked absolutely betrayed “This is unfair!”
“And why is that?” was all that Tubbo asked smugly. He was grabbing onto Schlatt’s horns which lead to him involuntarily yanking around his head whenever Tubbo himself moved around. Annoyed Schlatt gave his younger brother a playful slap on his arm as a sign to knock it off.
Tommy crossed his arms “Hey, Wilby! Wait no, I’m not a child anymore.”
Before Wilbur could even do his obligatory cooing whenever Tommy used his nickname or before Y/N could remind him that he was indeed still a child and younger than Tubbo he turned towards them instead.
“Y/N! You carry me and fly up that is way cooler than sitting on someone’s shoulders like some two year old.”
This took Y/N quite by surprise “What?”
“Dad said you are ready to fly and you spent like most of your free time already gliding or flying about so like basically the same thing right?”
“No! This is completely different! Besides I’m pretty sure my wings right now are barely able to carry my own weight! To that I have no idea how to take off from ground!”
Tommy’s bottom lip begun to quiver. Both Wilbur and Y/N knew it was fake but it was still a weakness for the two.
Y/N tried grabbing Wilbur’s sleeve for support but he was already looking at them with sad eyes himself “I mean Tommy just wants to see his big brother win, which is understandable right? At least worth a try?”
It was Y/N’s time to look betrayed but their expression soon got exchange by that one of defeat “One… One try. If that doesn’t work out I will give up.”
So the group walked back away from the crowd to have more space, Tubbo still happily sitting on Schlatt’s shoulders. He looked annoyed but Puffy knew that he was just as happy as she was that Tubbo had obviously a good time.
Y/N would spent a few minutes just trying to take off the ground on their own saying that they would first need to be a bit in the air before being able to grab Tommy. Wilbur was just watching with an amused smile on his face. Oh he was almost certain how this will end in disaster but he was just too curious to see how exactly.
After multiple running starts Y/N managed to get a few feet off into the air, flying directly towards Tommy so they could pick him up. They more or less bodychecked into their younger brother but still managed to pick him up and for a short moment it looked like the two were indeed a few feet above the height of the crowd.
Tommy was screaming partially out of fear but partially out of excitement. Y/N was so concentrated on flying and holding onto Tommy they didn’t even try to look out for Techno on the ground. They stayed semi stable in the air for good two seconds before both suddenly noticed they were losing altitude rapidly.
Now both were screaming as Y/N desperately tried to glide towards the hay bails that the town put up as decoration but with the added weight of Tommy they still plummeted towards the ground pretty fast.
The next thing Y/N remembers was that they were surrounded by hay and that their whole body was feeling heavy and sore. Tommy was groaning as he tried his best to get out of the hay and off their sibling while Y/N first made sure to calmly fold their wings back against their back as they slowly got out of the hay as well.
Suddenly two strong hands grabbed the still disoriented Y/N and helped them properly back to their feet only to be met by an angry looking Philza.
“What on Ender were you thinking?”
“Oh hey dad!” Y/N croaked out as they avoided any eye contact with him. Instead they were busy plucking hay out of their wings. Due to the fall there was a lot of hay trapped between feathers, there were also a few bent feathers that felt uncomfortable at best.
Tommy was sheepishly standing next to them also avoiding eye contact.
“I told you to get to the tournament and wait for me! I told you guys I would make sure to find you so why did you do whatever the hell you just did?” Philza rambled off.
“Yeah guys why did you two do that?” Wilbur was now approaching his family as well, including their other three friends who followed suit.
Y/N let go of their wing as they turned towards their older brother with an angry frown “You encouraged us! Don’t act like you are the only innocent person here! Aren’t you as our big brother supposed to stop us or something when we are stupid?”
Philza sighed “Okay, we deal with this later but at least tell me why?”
“We wanted to see Techno but we couldn’t get past the crowd!” Tommy answered.
“My fights will only start in like half an hour dude. Didn’t you guys listen to the announcements?”
To their surprise Technoblade appeared from behind Philza. He looked bored but still had a somewhat smug smile on his face. Who wouldn’t feel a tiny big smug when your younger siblings gets into trouble with dad for something that was absolutely their fault and you were luckily this time no part of it.
“You three are in trouble! We will go back so Techno won’t be too late for when it’s his turn but once we are back home it’s three weeks of chores for all of you.”
This earned him a murmur of “Okay, dad.” And “But we didn’t do anything bad!”
After that the day ended up pretty normally. They had their trouble for the day so they continued on with following Philza back to the tournament place. He made sure that all the kids had the best places in front so they could watch as Techno absolutely destroyed the other kids.
Jordan joined them as well. Philza didn’t spend any time waiting on telling him how Y/N and Tommy crashed into one of his decorations. He wasn’t angry but did chew out his own kids a little bit for not even attempting to stop them.
For some reason this was the day Y/N always fondly thought back on. They got into their typical trouble that day but also spend a ton of time with their family and friends back in their hometown. Enjoying seeing Techno beat others up and of course winning the tournament to which then Phil and Jordan bought the kids a ton of candy from the stalls.
Yes, they loved their family so dearly and would do anything for them.
So when a letter arrived from Wilbur that informed them that a few days ago a friend betrayed him which led to him losing his first life of three as well for Tommy, Tubbo and their nephew Fundy it felt like their heart got ripped out of their chest.
Y/N was still living at their old childhood home with Philza but both were only rarely at home. The two traveled around the world independently from each other using the old cottage as a place to rest in between. Wilbur probably addressed the letter knowing that this was the most reliable way to contact his family.
Reaching Technoblade who was training out of country was almost impossible at this point in time.
Y/N got out a piece of paper and wrote a letter for their father.
“Dad, I’m going to visit Wil and Tommy. Love, Y/N”
This was all that needed to be said.
They put the letter including the letter from Wilbur visibly on the table so Philza would see it as soon as he got back home. They did this sometimes in order to talk to Philza as well as the other way around so both were always looking out for messages on the table once they got back home.
Y/N grabbed their old netherite sword they got way back from Techno as a gift and begun thinking about what to take with them for the flight towards L’Manberg. If they fly it would only take a few days to reach the place but they also couldn’t carry a lot of things with them.
“Hell of a reason to visit your family after a long time, huh.”
#dream smp fanfiction#dsmp fanfiction#mcyt fanfiction#dsmp reader insert#mcyt x reader#reader insert#SBI fanfiction#sbi reader insert#technoblade fanfiction#philza fanfiction#wilbur fanfiction#tommyinnit fanfiction#tubbo fanfiction#cpatain sparklez fanfiction#schlatt fanfiction#cpt puffy fanfiction#mcyt x Y/N#dsmp#mcyt#ramza writes#philza#technoblade#tommyinnit#tubbo#cpt sparklez#cpt puffy#jschlatt#sbi#wtwu-fic
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Phoenix Mountain Kiss and Consent/Boundaries in MDZS
The following opinion, expressed in the recent mdzs controversial opinion thread on twitter, is actually one I’ve meant to address for a while:
Even if most of fans loves the 'stolen kiss scene' in the Phoenix Mountain in the novel, that was a sexual harassment.
People in the fandom, especially those who were introduced first to the novel through cql, have a tendency to criticize the Phoenix Mountain kiss scene, saying it was non-consensual. My problem is not that they are wrong. The kiss is (or starts as, at the very least) non-consensual. My problem with this criticism is that people point this out as if it were a mistake. As if mxtx had meant to write a romantic kiss and had instead fumbled it all up and made it not consensual by virtue of not being woke, not being a good enough writer, or being too influenced by bl tropes. And that readers are too unsuspecting or not educated enough to realize the wrong mxtx committed.
Here’s my hot take: The kiss is non-consensual because it was written to be non-consensual. mxtx is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The reason why we, as readers, can infer that, is because the non-consensual aspects of the kiss are important to the events of the plot, some of themes explored in the book, lwj and wwx’s relationship after wwx’s return, and lwj’s character arc. mxtx uses this moment and its aftermaths, amongst others, to make a point about consent and communication in relationships--one of the central themes of the novel. Shocking, I know. Arguing that consent and communication are a main theme in mdsz: now that's a controversial opinion.
Now, I won’t argue mxtx always manages to develop this theme with utmost finesse. You can critique and disagree with her treatment of the theme throughout the novel (taking into consideration, as well, how it’s not just explored through lwj and wwx’s relationship). That being said, isolating events in the novel like the Phoenix kiss scene to mark them as Good or Bad without considering the context in which they happen and are explored within the novel is just bad literary analysis :/.
Let’s first consider this simple statement: the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not accidental--mxtx knew it was non-consensual when she wrote it, and she wasn’t trying to hide that fact.
By the time we reach the Phoenix Mountain competition, lwj has accepted his feelings for wwx, and that these feelings will not be returned. After all, in the xuanwu cave, wwx took great pains to ‘reassure’ him that he is super-straight-and-totally-would-never-flirt-with-him. Yet, wwx continues to ‘flirt’ with him--tossing a flower at him just before the competition--which we can gather is a source of, um, great torment for him.
We are not privy to lwj’s thought process leading to the stolen kiss. What we know for certain, however, is how he reacts to and perceives his own actions after the fact. Through wwx’s unreliable narration, we can still understand that lwj immediately regrets his actions and feels uncontrollable anger towards himself and his lack of self-restraint. While wwx has more complicated and contradictory feelings bout the kiss, lwj clearly sees his actions as wrong and disrespectful. He is scared of what he has been capable of doing unto another person--pushing wwx away the moment he sees him after the kiss.
The person spun around. It was Lan Wangji after all. However, right now, his eyes were bloodshot, his expression almost frightening. Wei Wuxian was startled, “Wow, so scary.”
Lan Wangji’s voice was harsh, “Go!”
Wei Wuxian, “I just came here and you want me to go. Do you really hate me that much?”
Lan Wangji, “Stay away from me!” [chapter 69]
As readers, we are told that the Phoenix Mountain kiss, nor its implications, is not something to consider lightly. The fact that lwj’s reaction after the kiss is written in, and that it is so intense for someone usually so reserved, or the fact that we learn that more than a decade later he is still ashamed of himself and describe himself as having done something wrong (or, very wrong 很不对 ), all prove that the non-consensual aspect of the kiss is not an accident and is not downplayed as something to expect from someone in love with another person.
蓝忘机闷声道：“我，那时，自知不对。很不对。” [chapter 111]
I can already hear some people ask: even if it was not an accident, why chose to include a non-consensual kiss between the two romantic leads? if not because it is a bl trope/weird kink, why did mxtx chose to put this in her novel? what do we gain by including dubious consent or non-consensual interactions in our fiction?
The long-short answer is: because the act of crossing boundaries is a very productive story-telling device for any piece of media focusing on any type of interpersonal relationships. Crossing boundaries--willfully or unintentionally--is a source of conflict, internal and/or relational, which can drive the plot forward, shape character development and relationships, as well as be useful for certain thematic discussions.
Current discourses regarding consent in English-speaking, mostly-western spheres of the web tend to be very polarized, painting people who cross boundaries as bad. The solution presented (i.e. how to not be a bad person) tends to be an invitation for everyone, within any relationship, to constantly negotiate consent verbally and honestly: to constantly disclose boundaries, to constantly ask for permission, etc. While I do not dismiss the value of these suggestions, it is an ideal representative of certain socio-temporally specific cultural expectations of what communication is, how communication should happen, and how relationships should be like, etc.. Human relationships are messy, people are flawed and hurt each other, and we have complex internal lives (for instance, someone might not realize their wants or limits until they are faced with them). Instead of having media show us only a specific type of idealized relationships where boundaries are never crossed, ever, they allow us to explore the implications of boundaries within interpersonal relationships. Or, sometimes, media and fiction just aim to represent or are influenced by this very real part of human relationships, and use it as a way to create conflict within the narrative and relationships (sometimes in a interesting manner, sometimes in a very gross manner).
In mdsz, the Phoenix mountain non-consensual kiss is a two-fold source of conflict: internal (lwj) and relational. While wwx remains unaware until he and lwj are together of the identity of the person who kissed him, the implications of the kiss ends up shaping their relationship both before and after wwx’s rebirth.
A source of (unknown) conflict between lwj and wwx after he is summoned back from the dead is the fact that lwj believes wwx is aware of his feelings. But this conflict is further compounded by the fact that lwj has once forced his feelings unto wwx, and is utterly afraid that he would dare to ever do it again. That is why, every time wwx initiates physical contact, or flirts very deliberately with lwj, lwj never goes further than what wwx has initiated. Sometimes, he even de-escalates their proximity or level of intimacy (usually by asking wwx to “ 别乱动” or, famously during Drunk#2, by literally knocking himself out) --out of fear that he, again, would lack self-control and do something wrong to the man he loved. He never presumes he has the permission to push their relationship further than what wwx is offering. Without that added source of conflict, would it have been reasonable to expect lwj and wwx to have realized their mutual feelings earlier, even with the issue of lwj not being aware wwx does not know of his feelings?
“In the beginning, the reason for behaving in such a manner was to let Lan Wangji be disgusted with him and kick him out of the Cloud Recesses, and they would never have to meet again, going their separate ways. Lan Wangji couldn’t possibly tell what his real intentions were. Yet, [..] even when faced with Wei Wuxian’s various actions, tricks, and pranks, Lan Wangji never once lost his temper, reciprocating with restraint and courtesy.” [chapter 99]
That is all true, of course, until Drunk 3. Here again, the ghost of the stolen kiss plays a part in accentuating the conflict. Without it, would lwj have jumped to conclusions as quickly? And, plot-wise, the shared perception of wwx and lwj that they have taken advantage of the other is a source of conflict that does multiple things--it gives wwx an incentive to go look at the temple at night to distract himself from his guilt and sadness, instead of going the next day with lwj (at which point jgy would have had perhaps already left) and it keeps wwx in the dark about lwj’s feelings until lxc reveals to him the events of the past he has forgotten. Here again, issues of consent are clearly taken into consideration as a source of conflict, shaping both characters’ motivations and the events of the plot.
Finally, the theme of consent/boundaries is an important aspect of lwj’s internal struggle, particularly in relation to his father’s choices. The kiss is part of his journey.
It is not coincidental that the Lan motto is “Be Honorable”/”Self-restraint,” and that lwj is presented as the model Lan disciple. This element is part of the context that gives narrative and thematic meaning to the non-consensual kiss. When lwj forces a kiss on a blindfolded wwx, lwj goes against the values he holds dear and the teachings that were imparted unto him--prime internal conflict.
But what is also interesting, to me in any case, is how consent is the thing that ultimately differentiates lwj’s choices from his father’s.
How willing was Lan-furen to be saved by Qingheng-jun? to be taken to live in seclusion in the Cloud Recesses? to be married to him? to have children with him? The novel never tells us clearly. However, the novel gives us an idea of how lqr, lxc and lwj perceive their parents’ relationship. For lwj, we are given an insight into his perception indirectly during the following conversation between him and lxc.
[Lan Xichen] spoke, “Wangji, is there something on your mind? Why have you been so tense?”
Of course, in most people’s eyes, the ‘tenseness’ probably looked no different than Lan Wangji’s other expressions.
Lan Wangji’s brows sunk low as he shook his head. A few moments later, he replied in a low voice, “Brother, I want to take someone back to the Cloud Recesses.”
Lan Xichen was surprised. “Take someone back to the Cloud Recesses?”
Lan Wangji nodded, his expression pensive. After a pause, he continued, “Take them back… and hide them somewhere.”
Lan Xichen’s eyes immediately widened.
[…]
“Hide them somewhere?”
Lan Wangji frowned softly. “But they are not willing.” [chapter 72]
Indirectly, we come to understand that lwj draws parallels with his father situation: they both want to protect someone by taking them to the Cloud Recesses, but these persons are unwilling. The unsaid question here is, would I choose to do as our father did?
The non-consensual kiss is part of lwj’s journey, through which he comes to understand that, despite his strict upbringing and disciplined lifestyle that was supposed to keep him from becoming like his father, he is capable of being his father (or at least who he thinks his father is). He learns that he can understand what sort of passionate feelings could bring someone to do something that goes against not only the wishes of his clan members, but the very wishes of the person they love, for the sake of keeping them safe or for the sake of having them by their sides. And at the end of that internal journey, lwj chooses not be like his father--to put wwx’s decisions and wants and needs first. After buyetian, lwj offers his protection and confesses his feelings--and wwx rejects him. lwj respects wwx’s choice, while still going against his clan to protect him. He brings wwx back to Mass Grave Hill knowing full well that wwx would not survive long the wrath of the four great sects seeking revenge against him, and goes home to receive his punishment.
Overall, what I tried to say in many many words, is that the Phoenix Mountain kiss is not non-consensual by accident. It is not because mxtx is an awful person or is not educated enough, or because she thinks dubious consent is romantic. The fact that it is non-consensual is addressed within the narrative, fuels internal and external conflicts, and is as well woven into the plot structure and the themes of the novel. The kiss is not an outlier element, added to titillate a readership--it exists as an integral part of the novel.
I’m not saying it’s not okay to decide that you do not want to engage with any content that includes non-consensual interactions or dubious consent because that triggers or irks you regardless of the way it is handled. It is totally valid to not personally enjoy or have criticisms about choices mxtx made in exploring these themes, in presenting the internal and relational conflicts around consent/boundaries, or even in the way she decided to write the scenes that figure dubious consent. However, it is not really helpful to divorce an event from its context within a piece of media in order to brand it as either Problematic or Unproblematic, Good or Bad.
Note: Much more could be said about the theme of consent/boundaries in mdzs; this is not exhaustive in the least.
Note2: Much more could be said, in relation to the question and theme of consent, about: the cultural limitations of Westerners to engage fully with a text written for a chinese audience; the limits of fan translators to fully understand the nuances and themes of a novel and to communicate them in a different language; about the place dubious consent and non-consensual interactions has had in the romance/erotica genre for a long time, and no, not only because Misogyny or Homophobia.
#re: controversial mdzs opinion twitter thread#mdzs#mdzs meta#excuse my english lmao#wangxian#this is 2k i'm sorry
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so a while back I was talking about extensive blacklists and somebody messaged to see if I wanted screenshots of a very impressive blacklist from an old Discord server they were in. of course, I did. here are the aforementioned screenshots as promised -- naturally the person wishes to remain anonymous, but here’s what they said:
hello, t'was i who was your Long Blacklist anon. here's what i have, or at least what i have scraped from the sides of my massive screenshots folder
to note: in the first image, in the section "TSS specific", the Remus mentioned is one of the characters in the show that the server is about, whether he's secondary or main is up for debate. like. a WHOLE CHARACTER
some of these are understandable honestly, i don't mind a lot of this, but i had forgotten "y'all" was on here and. i'm sure that was probably said about 500 times in there because. how do you. IT'S Y'ALL
I gotta admit that I was not expecting this to be so wild. I had no idea an entire regional accent would be on here; nor could I have anticipated the fact that the whole of Ohio State University would be a banned topic, but there you go.
full transcription under the cut, for which you owe me, because this is long.
USER SPECIFIC
Recording <@!412026064970186753>’s voice without permission
Pet names directed at @‘beat drop’ A Jumbo Jellyfish
Referring to @rrationality in the feminine, “kiddo” directed at by anyone but Patton
“Tinker bell” or the phrase “I just want you to succeed” directed at @Groundhog badger
Deleting messages from @JEYKSHK without informing first
“Kitten” directed at @jelly
“Know-it-all” directed at @The Rat God Summons Thee, asking to roleplay, people fighting in earshot, interacting while under the influence of any substances
Patronising and/or directing “cute” nicknames (smol, baby, dear, etc.) at @arson, overly aggressive conpliments (heart spamming, etc.)
“Princess”/“Champ”/“Sweetheart”/“Buddy” directed at @Silverquill (She/Her)
“Sweetie”/“honey”/“babe” and other pet names directed at @let airam see fuck without permission
“Hun”/“love” directed at @Ren
“you’re acting like ___” and “very nice” directed at @probably activism, venting privately without warning/asking
“Dumb”/“stupid”/“idiot”, etc. directed at @blurryeyesinbewilderment
“Selfish”/“worthless” directed at @Safira
Calling attention to/making fun of the typos of @one of the best ppl here tbh
Referring to @It ya boy idk in the feminine, mocking
Referring to @I’m gonna shine like the sun as a hypochondriac
Referring to @Currently Committing Tax Fraud as argumentative
TSS SPECIFIC [translator’s note: this is an abbreviation for The S*nders Sides-- the fandom the server is about. I censor this because I do not care for him and do not wish to type his accursed name.]
Any discussion (including mentions), images, gifs and links involving Remus, and ships where he is included
The phrase “have you ever thought about killing your brother?” [translator’s note: this entire phrase was blacked out behind censor bars.]
Unsympathetic portrayals of the Sides (being villainous, abusive, (passive) aggressive, restrictive, etc.)
Ships involving the Sides and Sleep
Romantic Prinxiety
Intruality
Romantic logicality
Snitties (tumblr post)
CenThomas (tumblr post)
TOPICS
Tangerines
Depersonalisation and depersonification
Divorce
Being controlled/your actions not being your own (including mind control)
Bullying (in a non-joking context)
Burning buildings and house fires
Belittling serious issues
Zombies
Existential issues (such as questioning reality)
Claustrophobic (small) spaces
Being patronised
Puppets
Bad parental relationships
Narcissistic people
Ohio State University
Annesia/mind-wiping
Bernie Sanders (US Politician)
Hell (discussion of)
Anesthesia
Fasting (for religious reasons or otherwise)
Unhappy endings
Power outages
Directing “stupid” at another person
Southern or Texan accents
Cringe culture
Spiders
Heights
The concept of pure nothingness
POC being stereotypes as promiscuous
Conflating age regression with age play [translator’s note: ‘age play’ was blacked out behind censor bars.]
Condiments (ketchup, mustard, etc.)
Malevolent of morbid supernatural entities
Food dicourse
Roanoke (the historical colony)
Self-depreciation
Heated discussions
Major character death
Hanahaki disease
Ants (the insect)
Eye lip eye (sequence of emojis)
Realistic-looking teeth on non-human things
Teeth in any place but a mouth
Human trafficking
Worms
OTHER MEDIA
The son “Sing me to sleep” by Alan Walker
Creepypasta (all forms)
The song “Hide and seek” by SeeU
Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (webseries)
The song “Last christmas” by Wham!
Heathers (movie and musical)
The song “Empty” by boyinaband
The song “You should see me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish
The Momo challenge
Stephen King’s It (book and movies)
The song “Bury a friend” by Billie Eilish
Undertale and Delta Rune (video games)
The song “Wish you were gay” by Billie Eilish
The song “Ocean eyes” by Billie Eilish
Sora from Kingdom Hearts (video games)
Scooby Doo on Zombie Island (movie)
Onward (movie)
WORDS/NAMES/PHRASES
The word “senpai”
The name “Cryptid”
“I see the light”/“I’m going into the light”/“Light at the end of the tunnel”
“A beautiful mind”
“Babe” in a romantic context
“Baby” and “sweetiepie” as pet names
The name “Tristan”
The name “Ana”
The name “Jamie”
The name “William/Will”
“Make yourself useful”
“Y’all”
“Agere” (as a shortform of age regression)
SOUNDS AND VISUALS
Fife music (fife and drum corps)
Loud noises
Spiders and insects
Trypophobic images
“Distant shore” and “It’s all over isn’t it” from Steven Universe
Homestuck (all forms)
Crying while laughing
High saturation/bright images/eyes strain
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Hello! I have finally finished the first chapter of my first Jori fanfic. I’m still trying to get a feel for the character interactions but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it! I’m gonna start posting to ao3 once i get that account set up (and figure out a title lol) but I might as well post the first chapter here! Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!
Jade knew her girlfriend was hiding something.
Tori was not a hard person to read. Hell, the girl practically wore her heart on her sleeve. It was so easy to guess what she was feeling at all times that Tori had all but given up trying to conceal her emotions.
So, when Jade noticed that Tori was a bit more high-strung and stressed than usual, it wasn’t hard for her to conclude that there was something on her mind.
It also helped that Tori was an awful liar.
“What’s up with you?” Jade asked casually during lunch one afternoon.
“Nothing!” the singer squeaked suspiciously. She cleared her throat and attempted to regain composure. “Nothing is up. Everything is great!”
Jade frowned slightly, not at all convinced, but decided just to drop it for the time being as the rest of their friend group arrived at the table.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Sikowitz made them all tapdance while performing a scene to “demonstrate how important it is to stay in character no matter what the character may be doing” or whatever and then spent the rest of the class monologuing about how a squirrel got trapped in his bathroom.
Jade sighed a breath of relief as the final bell rang and cut Sikowitz off just as he was about to go into detail about the standoff he had with the rodent. The only one seemingly more anxious to get out of the classroom than Jade was her girlfriend, who was out the door before the bell even finished ringing. Their friends glanced at each other in confusion.
“Maybe she really hates squirrels?” Robbie suggested. The others considered it for a moment before shrugging and forgetting about it a second later, exiting the classroom.
Jade strode over to Tori, who was frantically throwing books into her backpack from her locker. Jade leaned back against the locker next to Tori’s while folding her arms across her chest.
“You’re in a hurry,” the goth commented while watching the girl struggle to cram a science textbook into her bag.
“Jade!” Tori jumped slightly, seemingly startled by Jade’s presence.
“That’s me,” she responded dryly. “Did you forget about our date after school today?”
The singer’s eyes widened in realization and her hand flew to her forehead as she let out a groan
“Jade, oh my god, I am so sorry! I completely forgot!” she confessed, clearly feeling guilty she had forgotten they’d planned to have sushi after school ended.
“It’s alright,” Jade replied coolly, quirking the corner of her mouth up slightly to convey to Tori she wasn’t upset with her. “What’s got you in such a rush anyway?”
Tori paused for a moment, staring down at her converse.
“Oh, umm… I promised my mom I would help her with… something,” she mumbled.
“Something…?” Jade probed, hoping to get a little more context on what had her girlfriend so worked up. Tori, however, would not offer her any.
“It’s not important. I swear I’ll make it up to you,” Tori slung her bag over her shoulder before stepping towards Jade and planting a short but sweet kiss to her lips. She then turned and began walking towards the exit.
“You better! I can’t have people think I got stood up!” Jade called out after her, earning a hearty laugh from her girlfriend as she left the building.
The goth rolled her eyes, amused by Tori’s refusal to admit what it was she was helping her mother with. It must be super embarrassing or something.
Jade was halfway through entering her locker combination when she remembered something that gave her pause.
Tori’s parents were out of town for the week. Trina had a showcase and they needed an excuse not to show up. Why would she need to help her mom with something if-?
Jade’s phone lit up with a message from Tori directed towards the group chat, asking if anyone could lend her $100 bucks. The goth furrowed her brows. Tori rarely asked for money, and never more than $10 dollars at a time.
Tori Vega, what the hell are you up to?
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All Jade could think about for the rest of the day was how strange her girlfriend was acting. She wasn’t responding to her text messages and apparently none of their friends had heard from her either. It wasn’t like Tori at all, and Jade’s curiosity was slowly turning into concern.
She knew it was silly to be worried. Tori was a big girl, after all. Still, why would she need $100 bucks on such short notice? And what was with her skittish and secretive attitude?
Maybe she was in trouble with someone. Maybe she needed to pay them money in order to keep them at bay.
The thought was so absurd that Jade almost burst out laughing as soon as it entered her mind. This is Tori she was talking about. Miss “I have never stayed out past curfew” Vega. Not exactly the type to get tangled up in criminal activity.
Still, Jade couldn’t help but feel uneasy about Tori’s radio silence. It wouldn’t hurt to pay her a visit, right?
15 minutes later she was climbing through her girlfriend’s bedroom window, which Tori for some reason always kept unlocked. Tori wasn’t there, but her backpack was on her bed and her phone was on her desk. Jade let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding as she sank down onto the bed. Not 10 seconds later she heard the sound of footsteps and the bedroom door creaked open. In walked Tori who jumped five feet in the air and shrieked upon seeing someone in her room.
“Jade?” Tori yelped. “What are you doing here?”
“You weren’t answering my texts,” the goth deadpanned.
“So you broke into my house?”
“I didn’t break in. Your window was unlocked,”
“That’s still breaking in!”
“Is it really, though?”
“Yes!”
Jade was about to argue further when she noticed Tori was holding a grocery bag, and its contents looked quite heavy based on how far the bottom was sagging.
“Whatcha got there?” She asked, gesturing towards the bag. Tori glanced at it quickly before fixing her gaze back on Jade.
“Just some stuff for a science project,” she stated, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Tori,” Jade huffed. “We are in the same science class. We’re lab partners. We don’t have a science project.”
Tori stammered helplessly, trying and failing to come up with some explanation for what was in the bag. Jade groaned in annoyance, fed up with whatever game her girlfriend was playing.
“I don’t understand why you won’t just tell me what’s going on! You know it doesn’t matter what it is since my opinion of you can’t get any low-” Jade was interrupted by a strange noise coming from somewhere in the room. She immediately turned to locate the source of the sound.
Tori could only watch helplessly as the goth scoured every inch of her room before finally tearing open the doors to her closet. A tiny fuzzy creature emerged from the darkness. And then another. And then another. They kept emerging from the closet until there were seven tiny kittens of various colors and patterns wandering around the room.
Jade slowly looked back up at her girlfriend, confusion written all over her face.
“How-how did those get in there?” Tori stammered, trying her very best to feign ignorance as all the kittens ran towards her meowing hungrily.
Unfortunately her “very best” still wasn’t very good.
“Tori, why were there cats in your closet?” Jade asked, still absolutely bewildered by the scene that was unfolding.
The singer realized there was no way she could talk her way out of this one, and just gave her girlfriend a guilty look before opening her mouth.
“Remember last week when there was that sudden downpour in downtown Los Angeles?” Jade nodded. “Well, I was walking home from Nozu’s when I heard strange noises coming from an alleyway. I went to check to see what it was and-”
“Wait, you heard strange noises coming from an alleyway in downtown Los Angeles at night and you went to go check it out?” Jade asked incredulously. Jesus, Jade doesn’t know how her girlfriend has managed to survive for this long considering her self-preservation instincts were non-existent. Tori just rolled her eyes in response.”
“As I was saying, I went to go check out what the strange noises were and… well,” she turned to look at the kittens scampering around her bedroom.
Jade brought her hand up to her face to pinch the bridge of her nose.
“So let me get this straight, you wandered into a back alley while it was raining and found kittens and decided the best thing to do would be to take them home?” Jade was still bewildered by her girlfriend.
“Well when you put it that way it sounds like a stupid idea,” Tori blushed while avoiding eye contact. Jade sighed but took a step closer to her.
“I mean, I always assumed you would be one of those lesbians who would have like ten cats but I thought that would start after you moved out of your parents’ house,” she smirked.
“Hey!” Tori let out a mock-offended gasp while swatting Jade’s arm playfully. “I mean, I probably will have to move out once they come home and discover I’ve been hiding kittens in my room despite my father being deathly allergic to them.”
Why was Jade attracted to such a moron?
“Can’t you just give them to a shelter or something?” she asked gently. Tori shook her head softly.
“I thought about it but the pounds are apparently really full this time of year so there’s a significant possibility that they'll get…” Tori paused, unable to even finish the thought. “It’s just… they’ve been through so much in the short few weeks they’ve been alive and I can’t just abandon them now!”
Stupid Tori and her stupid heart of gold. The goth groaned and tilted her head back.
“Ugh, fine. I’ll help you with you’re dumb kitten problem,” Jade’s heart fluttered a little as she watched Tori’s face lit up like a christmas tree.
“Really?” She gleamed. “How?”
“Well, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would be interested in adopting tiny kittens. Especially if you go into detail about their tragic backstory and stuff. People are suckers for that kind of stuff,” Jade stated. “You could like, advertise them on The Slap and try to get them adopted before your parents come back.”
Tori chewed at her bottom lip, contemplating Jade’s suggestion.
“That’s… not a bad idea. People advertise things on The Slap all the time,” she hesitated for a moment and her face fell. “Ugh, wait. Trina follows me. If she finds out I’m hiding kittens in my closet she’ll rat me out for sure.”
Jade closed her eyes and sighed deeply. God, she can’t believe she was about to say this.
“I guess… I could… post about the kittens on my page, or whatever,” she grimaced. Tori’s grin got so wide Jade was concerned her face was about to split in half.
“You would do that for me?” she exclaimed. “But, your reputatio-”
“My reputation died as soon as I changed my status to ‘in a relationship with Tori Vega’,” Jade snorted. “Kittens would be nowhere near as embarrassing as you.”
Tori was beaming at her girlfriend despite the insult, chuckling lightly as she wrapped her arms around Jade’s neck and peppering her face with soft kisses before finally connecting their lips. The goth let out a content sigh in the back of her throat and attempted to deepen the kiss while pushing Tori backwards to the bed. However, Tori hummed and broke the kiss leaving Jade more than a little confused.
“Sorry, I-” the singer stammered. “I would feel weird making out in front of…”
Jade quirked her eyebrows up in amusement.
“In front of… the cats?” she asked, barely suppressing a laugh. Tori nodded, cheeks red with embarrassment. Jade just chuckled and rested her forehead against her girlfriend’s.
“Jesus Christ, Tori.”
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Ahistorical, Absurd, and Unsustainable (Introduction and Part One)
An Examination of the Mass Arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front
INTRODUCTION
The title states my premise here: the breezy way My Hero Academia presents and resolves the mass arrest of the Paranormal Liberation Front is ludicrous. If taken as presented and allowed to stand without being further addressed, it serves as a breaking point from which the series will be incredibly hard-pressed to recover. Why, you ask?
From a logistical standpoint, it strains credulity. From an ethical standpoint, it suggests deeply troubling problems with the state of Hero Society. From a thematic standpoint, it unravels whole portions of the narrative’s spine. I’ll be looking at each of these facets in turn to discuss the questions they raise which My Hero Academia has not yet seen fit to answer. Many in fandom don’t seem to be thinking about it too hard, so I’d like to lay out—in exhaustive detail—all the reasons I find this plot element so wildly out of touch with causal reality.
Please note that while they are discussed when relevant, this essay is not principally about the named characters in the League of Villains or the erstwhile high command of the Metahuman Liberation Army. The sorts of consequences Shigaraki Tomura or Re-Destro would and should be facing in a courtroom are orders of magnitude beyond what Random Liberation Warrior X would be, but it’s the mass numbers of Random Liberation Warrior Xs that this essay is most concerned with, as they are the ones most in danger of being swept under a rug and forgotten by the series in its current state.
Further, be advised that this essay in its full form is both very long (about 21K words excluding Sources and Further Reading) and will contain extensive discussion of real-life Japan—comparisons to historical events, minutiae of its legal and carceral systems, and general cultural views on criminality. This will include references to imprisonment, government oppression, and incidents of terrorism both real and in the context of My Hero Academia.
Being as it is about quite a recent event in the series, it will also contain heavy spoilers all the way up through the most recent chapter as of this writing, Chapter 310. It likewise contains spoilers for the spin-off series My Hero Academia: Vigilantes up through Chapter 95.
The essay will be posted in parts on tumblr and in full on AO3. For the tumblr posting, I will provide links to other tumblr posts as I reference them; however, as I would like this to actually show up in the tags, outside links containing my sources and further reading will be provided in a separate post following the conclusion of the essay.
Lastly, I spent an entire month writing this as a fan who is sympathetic to the villains in general and the MLA in particular. If your response to the very concept of this essay is anything to the tune of, “Who cares what happens to a bunch of disgusting quirk eugenicists?” know that you and I have radically different views on the MLA, and the role of the justice system in general. You are, of course, welcome to read the essay anyway, but, having said my piece about the MLA and their relationship with quirk supremacy elsewhere, I will not be engaging with arguments or gotchas on that subject here.
PART ONE: The Facts at Hand
Before we get too deep into things, let’s lay out the basic facts: how many people are actually involved in the arrest, as well as some comparisons to real-life events to contextualize that number and provide some referents for the issues the arrest raises.
Re-Destro gives the numbers of the Metahuman Liberation Army as 116,516. A lot of people go on to die in Deika, though we’re never given a solid count. The biggest batch we see killed in a single go are the press of sixty or so people Shigaraki decays, then the sixteen-ish Toga drops, though some of those might possibly have had quirks that allowed them to survive. Any number of people certainly died as well simply in the moments we didn’t see, and who even knows how many were caught in the radius of Shigaraki’s last attack.
Further, there may well have been a measure of organization bleed when the MLA became the PLF (though I imagine trying to leave was a very dangerous proposition, giving an additional reason to stick it out on top of the general cult-like mindset the MLA displays); likewise, I find it hard to believe that there wouldn’t have been some deaths at the Gunga Villa, be it from Gigantomachia’s departure, Geten cutting loose, or combatants—be they hero or comrade—overcompensating somewhat in the middle of a chaotic melee.
I suspect it’s overestimating the depletion, but for the purposes of simplicity, let us call it 115,000 remaining members at the time of the raid.[1]
We are told that, in all, 16,929 people were captured at the villa—just about 17,000. 132 escaped in the confusion; this is a fairly negligible number, save for the fact that it includes high-ranking advisors, but not Machia and those of the Front that were with him.
We are further told, and I quote, “Their bases scattered around the country were hit too, and the sympathizers rounded up.” Horikoshi did not provide any solid numbers for this,[2] but if we’re to assume that it is just the rest of the group (more on the logistics of that bit of spycraft later), “the sympathizers” would be 98,000 additional people.
However, 98,000 may be a significant underestimation. It’s based, after all, on a number Re-Destro cites to describe “warriors lying in wait, ready to rise to action.” This begs the question: is Re-Destro quoting the entire membership of the group, or only those who actually are ready to take action? In other words, does his number account for non-combatants? Is he counting young children? I tend to assume the MLA doesn't have a retirement age as such,[3] but if they do, does his number account for the elderly?
How many more people might be “sympathizers” to the PLF insomuch as they are e.g. the six-month-old infant daughter of an MLA couple? What about the ninety-year-old man in the retirement home whose only real act of war these days is tying up the phone line at City Hall to complain about repressive quirk use laws? How about the fired-up fifteen-year-old that was going to get their official code name next month, just in time to join the first wave of attacks? If he’s being literal in his usage of “warrior,” the actual count of the MLA could easily be twice as high as the number he actually gives.
But okay, maybe Re-Destro’s number does include absolutely everyone. Maybe he’s just being rhetorical—maybe, in his mind, even the six-month-old is waiting to rise to action; she’s just going to have to wait a bit longer than the rest, is all. For simplicity’s sake, let’s stick with the numbers we have: a low-end of 17,000, a high-end of 115,000, captured not merely in a single day, but allegedly in the span of a few hours.
I’m sure I don’t need to stress that that is a lot of people. But how many people is it, practically speaking? Is there a precedent? Anything we can look to for guidance on how this kind of thing would go in real life?
Comparative Analogues
The PLF is tricky to categorize for the purposes of real-life comparison, especially compared to how they’re treated in-universe. In some lights, they resemble a protest movement; in others, a terrorist group. Just looking at the way the government reacts to them—and certainly in terms of their combat capabilities—they might as well be an all-out insurrectionist uprising! Below, I’ll examine a handful of historical incidents that cover that spectrum; they will continue to provide useful reference points throughout the rest of this essay.
The March 15 Incident
In the first half of the 20th century, Japan saw a huge uptick in socialist and communist activity, much to the general dismay of the ruling powers. In response, they passed a series of laws commonly referred to as the Peace Preservation Laws, designed to better enable authorities to suppress political dissent and freedom of speech, particularly that of leftists and labor movements.
The Japanese Communist Party was founded in 1922, but outlawed in 1925. This merely drove members underground, however, from which position they pointed supporters towards the numerous other parties with more legally tolerated leftist policies that had cropped up in the wake of the JCP’s dissolution. Following the February 1928 General Election (the first in Japan held with universal male suffrage), those parties supported by the JCP saw enormous gains in representation in Japan’s National Diet. Alarmed, the Prime Minister declared the mass arrest of known communists and suspected communist sympathizers. Accordingly, on March 15, 1,600 people were arrested throughout Japan.
Over the course of twenty years, some 70,000 people would be arrested under the auspices of the Peace Preservation Laws, the majority of them in 1925 through 1936. The laws would eventually be repealed by American occupation forces after WWII, and the JCP allowed to operate openly once again.
The Rice Riots
In 1918, an inflation spiral had driven the price of rice out of control, exacerbating economic insecurity and hardship. Farmers were being paid a pittance of the market value of their crop by rice buyers and government agents, while urban consumers were being charged an exorbitant price for the staple food, as well as a great many other consumer goods, and their own rents. In response, a series of riots ripped across Japan in late July through September. Beginning with peaceful protesting in a small fishing town in Toyama Prefecture, the unrest escalated to involve riots, strikes, looting, even bombing in demonstrations that reached major cities like Tokyo and Osaka. The scope was and remains unprecedented in modern Japanese history, seeing some 25,000 people arrested.
The Sarin Gas Attacks
If you’ve heard of any of them, it’s probably this one. On March 20, 1995, members of the cult Aum Shinrikyo released sarin gas on five different Tokyo Metro trains in the middle of morning rush hour. Thirteen people were killed and over 5500 injured, about a fifth of them moderately to severely so. If not for small errors in the production of the gas and the rudimentary distribution method thereof, loss of life might easily have been catastrophically higher.
Aum Shinrikyo was a doomsday cult, but the motives for that particular attack were much baser than bringing about the Apocalypse: at the time, the organization was under police investigation for its involvement in the kidnapping of a public official. Its leader, Asahara Shoukou, hoped that the attack would divert police’s attention from a planned raid.
It did not do so; police executed raids on numerous of the cult’s compounds, arresting many of its senior members both immediately and over the course of the following months as the investigation unfolded. In all, over 200 members were arrested of an organization that counted its membership prior to the attack as numbering 11,000 people in Japan.[4]
The February 26 Incident
There have been a significant number of uprisings and violent protests in Japan’s modern history; when looking for a representative example, I focused my attention on the military coups of the 1930s and 40s, largely because they took place in what was closest to the modern Japanese legal context.[5] Of that subset, I chose the February 26 Incident for the severity of the government response. The others disintegrated before they could be properly carried out or were met with sympathy for the dissidents despite the obvious illegality of their actions. The February 26 Incident, however, was when they finally became too troublesome to dismiss, and the Emperor himself ran out of patience.
In this period, the Japanese military had become drastically factionalized into two main groups—an ultra-nationalist group, largely powered by a group of young officers, which supported the Emperor and wanted to purge Japan of Western influences, and a more moderate group mainly defined by their opposition to the above faction.[6] Occurring in 1936, the February 26 Incident involved the young officers, believing that they had tacit approval from higher-ranked officers of their own faction, launching assassination attempts against the nationalists’ most prominent enemies in the government (six assorted Ministers and former Ministers in the Emperor’s Privy Council and the Diet) and a bid to seize control of the administrative center of the capital and the Imperial Palace, after which they planned to demand the dismissal of more officers and the selection of a new Cabinet.
The seven ringleaders had convinced eighteen other officers to lend their forces to the attempted coup, a total of around 1,500 men, calling themselves the Righteous Army. Several of their assassination attempts failed, however, and while they succeeded at taking the Prime Minister’s residence and the Ministry of War, they did not manage to secure the Palace. The outraged Cabinet demanded the Emperor take a hard line with the rebels, and by the 29th, the Righteous Army was surrounded by 20,000 government troops and 22 tanks. In this hopeless situation, the officers dismissed their troops; two committed suicide (a third attempted it unsuccessfully) and the remainder were arrested by military police.
International Examples
For obvious reasons, I prefer to limit my examples to events that happened in Japan. However, I will also be briefly referring to a few international incidents of mass arrest, taking place in India, the U.S., and Egypt, respectively.
In the following parts, I'll use these facts and comparative analogues to take a closer look at what readers were told became of the Paranormal Liberation Front.
Part Two
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Footnotes (Part One)—
[1] Over three months’ time, they likely gained some new blood also, simply in the course of their usual recruitment tactics. You don’t get an underground organization that size by sitting back and waiting for people to come to you, after all. I don’t know a practical way to calculate that, though, so just bear it in mind for when I talk about new members later.
[2] Possibly because he was aware that 17,000 people captured in one fell swoop was difficult enough to swallow without adding on more than five times that number.
[3] We do, after all, see some very aged people fighting in the streets of Deika.
[4] They were considerably more international than you may have heard. They had 50,000 members at the time, some 30,000 of them based in Russia.
[5] The Meiji Constitution was ratified in 1889; universal suffrage (for men) was granted in 1925. The modern constitution was enacted in 1947.
[6] More moderate, mind, in the context of the Imperial Japanese military. Neither of these factions had any time whatsoever for leftist movements, hence all those suppressive crackdowns.
#bnha analysis#bnha meta#paranormal liberation front#meta liberation army#boku no hero academia#my hero academia#bnha#bnha spoilers#my writing#plf arrests#stillness has salt
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𝚁𝙴𝙽𝚃-𝙰-𝙱𝙾𝚈𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳 | meian shugo
𝚆𝚎𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚁𝙴𝙽𝚃-𝙰-𝙱𝙾𝚈𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳! 𝙴𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑... 𝙼𝙴𝙸𝙰𝙽 𝚂𝙷𝚄𝙶𝙾
Meian settled into a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that he rented from some fancy schmancy place. His date would be waiting for him not too far from that point. From her profile photos, she was cute. Small from what it seemed, but when you’re 6’5” most people were small. The profile was very obviously not written by herself seeing as most the answers included “my friend likes…”
He pulled up the map and sent an ETA through the app. He rolled the window down, letting an arm fold out while his hand remained on the wheel. Driving was his serenity and it was a damn shame he couldn’t drive as often as he wanted to. He was a humble man, not one to brag about his garage of cars. Not one to talk about how he liked to fix’em up.
It took all of 15 minutes to reach the meet up point. He saw you, but your head was down in your phone, hand along your neck and fingers tapping at the skin. He was supposed to be your boyfriend for the day. He had a date or two already to which he was tipped generously for his time. It was a natural thing for him. He was a relationship type of guy. He was always more on the natural air of things, confidence coming with age. With a face like his and a career like his, it could only grow with each person who approached him.
But for some reason, seeing you look so nervous while waiting for him made him want to not lay it on so heavy. Others he laid it thick with the ‘doll face,’ ‘pup’, ‘sugar’. (One date he didn’t even need to leave his room. It was a zoom call where he had his camera off. She had told him ‘I want you to piss my parents off.’ )
You looked up to see your date for the evening, Meian Shugo. He was in a black Jeep, high off the ground. His smile was broad, confident, gleaming. All the confidence you had built up from Shoyo had suddenly vanished. You thought you’d do so well this time but the butterflies swarmed in your stomach so violently you feared their wings would cut through your stomach.
There was a moment of silence, both of you staring at each other until he barked a laugh and hopped out of the car. Oh lord he was huge. Massive. You resisted every fiber of your being that wanted to ask him about the weather.
Meian placed a hand gently between your shoulder blades, guiding you to the opened passenger side door, “I don’t bite… much.” With a wink, he closed your door and sat on his own side.
“I-is this your car?” Your stammering was adorable.
“Nah,” he waved a large hand, “Rented it. I do own one like it back home.” He gestured a thumb behind him, pointing to a figurative ‘home.’ You nodded once and fluttered fingers to your cheeks, covering the blush when you felt his eyes on you.
He blinked at your non-winter-weather outfit; light wash and high waisted denim shorts with a thick belt. They looked big, but he figured that was the style now’a days. You had on some cream colored spaghetti strap tank top that cropped just above the belt. And a dusty pink cardigan made of…
“Ey, hon, what’s this fabric? Mind if I-?” He pinched a little between his fingers, rubbing the material. It was soft. Really soft. Nothing like he’s seen before.
“Polyester? I think??” You pulled it off and looked at the tag, “Yep! It’s not mine though. It’s my friend’s. They likes to dress me up.”
“Aren’t ya cold?”
“A little, but we’re in a car so it’s no big deal.”
His arm hung out the window, pulling back in to shift gears here and there. You stared out to the horizon, stiff as a board. You weren’t the easiest to talk to at first, often muttering single worded responses.
You couldn’t help it. He was handsome as hell. Shoyo had a boyish charm to him, especially with how energetic he was, but Meian. He was a man. A sharp edge to him that definitely couldn’t be read as anything other than comfortable masculinity.
Snapping out of your daze, you perked. You were going across a bridge. A beautiful one at that. You could see the sun just above the ocean. Probably an hour or two before sunset. Both of your hands gripped the car window, “Meian,” you called with a slight pitch in your voice, “this is gorgeous!” You beamed at him a tad over-excitedly.
His lazy smile broadened, “Figured you’d like it.” It did say in your profile that it was one of your favorite spots to be at.
Within another set of minutes, awkward silence melted into comfort. The car stopped in an empty parking lot. It wasn’t like there were many people at the beach around 4 PM on a winter weekday. Your eyes were glued on the man as you watched his hand shift the gear to park and suddenly you remembered his proposition.
You were learning how to drive a stick shift.
“Alright pup, gonna teach ya a new trick,” He reached underneath the seat, craning it back as far as it could go. Not like it was far considering how long those legs were. Nervously you unbuckled, leaning on the console to peer at the petals.
Your heart stopped and your lips pursed slightly. Meian took one look at your expression and bit back his laugh. You looked up to him with a crease in your brow, “Why are there three petals?”
Soon enough, you were in the driver’s seat and he was in the passenger side. You searched for the lever to pull the seat up and blushed when Meian reached under to show you. At this point, it wasn’t even that he was uncomfortable to be with. It was quite the opposite. He was relaxed and maybe a little teasing. If people were colors, he’d be a serene seafoam. No, what made you nervous was how attractive you found him and how he so perfectly acted out the role of boyfriend.
“Let’s start in first, ‘kay?”
You nodded, swallowing down your anxiety. Push out of your comfort zone. More like shove you out the comfort window.
“Remember which one’s the break?” Meian peered to your legs, foot hesitantly over what you thought was the break, “Good! Now what?”
“Emergency break?” Now it was your hand’s turn to hover.
“Atta girl!” He was impressed at your memory. Most people would’ve forgotten that step if they only drove automatic. When his eyes met yours he could swear to god he saw the sparks light up in them. So you’re a praise learner, huh?
You glanced down, moving your left foot to the clutch and pressed it down. While still on break, your hand slid onto the gear shift. You waited. Picking up on the subtle clue, the captain nodded, “Yep, go to first.” His right hand hooked to the handle by the window casually.
You shifted into first. Feeling his eyes on you, you wanted to show him that you remembered his mini lesson and peered at the dash to the RPM, watching it move up before slowly letting go of the clutch. Just like that, the car began rolling.
Meian’s palm smacked the roof of the car as he hollered, lop-sided lips tugging up. You bounced excitedly, eyes switching between the gear shift, the petals, and the RPM.
You switched gears successfully not once, but twice. Each time, Meian showered you in praise. Your heart fluttered and it made you want to do more. When you turned the wheel, he encouraged you to go to the road. Anxiety crept up in you and you felt your palms sweat on the leather. He leaned the seat back, “Nothin’ta worry about. You’re a natural. Just keep doin’ what you’re doin’ and you’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Your voice wavered with giddiness and uncertainty. Should he really be trusting your novice driving skills like this? You seriously questioned his judgment calls.
He peered at you from the corner of his eye, taking in the laser focus you had on the road. Hell, you even stopped gnawing your lip like it was the last food to grace the earth. He crossed his arms and tilted his head back, deciding to close his eyes, “Sure as I can be, pup. Gotta question for ya.” You hummed, leaning forward slightly to view the empty road better. He continued, “How’d ya get so good at multitasking?”
You took a moment to answer, making sure to shift appropriately as you picked up speed, “I do a lot of art – pottery and all. Professionally.” You really couldn’t multitask as well as he thought you could, but you wanted to impress him, “It’s kind of like a pottery wheel with petal and speed and hand things. That’s the closest I can get, though. There isn’t a lot of multitasking in the other art things I do, really. Not like this.”
The Jackal’s captain fully looked at you in that moment, a small ‘huh’ leaving his lips. He took in the bit of clay that lodged itself under your bitten nails and the small stripe of white paint on your thighs from propping up a canvas before the edges dried. Meian never dated an artist before, but he wanted to now.
Comfort came after driving a few circles. Eventually you found yourself on a strip of road that extended far out. Meian remained laid back, eyes closed. He never fell asleep and instead listened to you sing along to songs that played on the radio (which was turned on after the third circle seeing as you were deemed ‘good ’nuff’ for the minor distraction).
You occasionally chit chatted about this and that. You learned that he was an athlete – like your last date. He learned that you’re supporting yourself alone. Your parents didn’t exactly vibe with you being an artist and skipping university all together. You didn’t tell him you had a date with Shoyo, though. Just like he didn’t tell you that he was part of a professional team with Shoyo.
He felt comfortable. You felt comfortable. That’s when three things happened.
1. You passed a 15 mph speed limit sign.
2. You saw that you were going 65 mph.
3. You felt Meian rest a warm palm on your thigh.
Now, in quite literally any other context, that would be a pleasant boyfriend-like thing to do. He was simply acting his part’. Surely, he did the same thing with other clients. However. That combined with the other two made your heart, lungs, and soul try to jump out of your corporeal form and into the next dimension.
First gear. First gear! First gear!
Whipping it into first, the car decided you were the bourgeoisie and it was the working class. It straight revolted, a loud clattering was accompanied by you scrambling around in a panic. Meian sprang up, but his torso was snapped back by the seatbelt’s safety. He unbuckled (like a moron) and kicked your foot out of the way from its spot to press and pull both available breaks.
You sat in silence, hands over your mouth and eyes wide. A choir of ‘oh shit’ sang in your mind, commemorating your funeral with their harmony.
It took some shuffling, but Meian went back to driver’s side. You stood next to the car by the shoulder of the road. A burning smell tickled your nose. Your date came out, hands on his hips and lips pursed to the side. Coming to you, he sighed, “Transmission or clutch went awol. Damn thing won’t start back up. Nothin’s leakin’.”
You sucked your lips in and resisted the urge to scream. Throwing up was one thing. Breaking a rental car was an entirely different one. You bowed, “Meian, I am so so sorry. I should’ve been paying attention and I-I-“
“Woah, woah, girlie, calm yourself. Don’t need’ta do any of this shit,” He bent at the waist, peering at your squinting eyes. His hand rested at the curve of your shoulder into your neck, thumb stroking calmly at the spots you had tapped at before he picked you up. The effort brought near immediate relief, but anxiety made you wonder if he was masking his anger for the sake of his job. When he smiled, you knew it was genuine, “I’m damn near 30. This isn’t even the most expensive car I’ve had this happen to. Don’t worry about a thing, pups. ‘Sides, I shoulda been watching you closer. Blame the teacher, not the student.”
The words were like warm lavender winds brushing away your damp and dead leaves. You offered to pay for the expenses, not daring to mention how it would clear out your savings. Meian waved a hand, “Nah. I got it. I make more than enough to cover this plus some.”
“Then why are you a rental boy-“
“-Help me push it, will ya?” He interrupted, not wanting to admit that it was because of a bet with his troublesome teammate.
You tried to put the car into neutral as per his instructions the best you could, jogging to the back to join him in pushing. You had to admit, the view of his arms working and him pushing a vehicle was a sight to behold.
All the two of you did was push it to the side of the road, so no cars could hit it. You leaned on the rail protecting traffic from tipping off into the waters below while Meian called the company to explain what happened.
When he hung up, he went to put the phone in his pocket, but the sight of you stopped him. You sat on the rail, facing the ocean at sunset. The cardigan you wore slid just below your shoulders and the cool breeze tousled locks so gracefully. A ghosting feeling went through his fingers as they yearned to be the wind. He snapped a photo in landscape mode.
You turned, brushing hair back around your ear and smiled to him. He snapped another photo and you gestured to him to the spot next to you. He did, leaning his forearms on the cold metal, “Hope ya don’t mind.”
“That you took photos? I mean… I thought it was against the rules. Just ahh…. Hm. Send them to me through the app? Can you do that?”
“Think so, yeah. You looked good. Cold, but good,” The words were said as the photos were sent. You saved them with a bashful thanks.
“Since the date’s almost up, my friend’s coming to get me. Will you be okay?” You glanced down to him, leaning forward as you added pressure to the bar at your toes, keeping you from falling.
“I’ll be just fine. Gotta wait for a tow,” He paused and moved to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you to lean into him, “Makin’ me anxious leanin’ like that.” His husky laugh was whisked with ocean breeze. You followed, reveling in the warmth. He liked that you were comfortable enough to accept the gesture. It’s what boyfriends did, right? Even if they weren’t real. Even if reality settled wrong in his stomach.
“The ocean’s so pretty,” You’ve always admired how the waves soaked up the sun’s colors. Oil paintings you’ve made throughout your life a testament to that love.
Meian glanced at you, then the horizon, “Yeah, but I’ve seen better.”
“If I rent you again, take me to ‘better’,” You giggled, missing the look in his eyes and the meaning of his words. Your phone rang, “Oh! That’s my friend, they’re here now - across the street!” Head tilted back, you looked up to him, “Thank you for teaching me how to drive and I really am sorry about the car. I wish I knew how to help.”
“Not a problem, pups. Rate me good. That’s help enough.”
His arms felt empty when you left them.
He checked his phone and saw that once the time struck, the contact was erased automatically. Meian sighed, scrolling through the next few clients he had lined up - his last few dates, he decided. With good tips, he still had a good shot at the win, anyway.
“How’d this one go hot stuff? No throwing up?” There was nonchalant concern in the question.
You sat back heavily, “No throwing up. I learned how to drive stick shift, though. Then broke the car..”
“You didn’t have to pay for that, right? Those cars are outrageously expensive, ‘specially from those rental places.”
“No, he said he made enough to cover it, weirdly enough.”
“Huh. Well that’s nice of him.,” You friend commented, “Wonder what he does.”
“Me too,” You thought about Shoyo and the up-scale restaurants he took you to, “Me too.”
“Wait, didn’t he offer you a jacket? That was the whole purpose of the shorts! What a dick!”
Tag List: @flattykawadoorusmilkbread
#meian shugo#meian x you#meian x reader#msby meian#hq#hq!!#haikyuu#haikyuu!!#haikyuu x you#haikyuu x reader#hq x you#hq x reader#🍯.vday2021#🍯.hq#🦕.meian#🦕.fic#i've never driven stick before so thanks youtube
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