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lizard-on-a-window-pane · 1 year

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Could you a James Potter x reader fluff thank you so much

hope you like it!

pairing: James Potter x reader

tags: fluff, first date

word count: 2.3k

The Best Worst First Date

“Do you want to go out? Maybe tomorrow?” There. He said it. He couldn’t believe he said it. It had been weighing on him so heavily for so long; there’s no way he had actually asked. He probably just imagined it like he had a million times already.

“Sure!” you respond.

Okay, way too easy, definitely imagined it.

“Is there anything in particular you were thinking? I know Remus has been talking about that new restaurant.”

Dinner! Great, he could take you to dinner.

“Although, I know Sirius wasn’t super excited by the menu, so we should probably choose something everyone wants.”

Wait, what?

“Sirius?”

“Yeah. What? Is he busy tomorrow or something? Just us and Rem and Lily then?”

Oh, god. No wonder. How could he possibly clarify without loads of awkwardness? Maybe he should just forget it, go out with all his friends like every other weekend, you included. Or… or… “No, Sirius isn’t busy.” “Oh.” “As far as I know, anyway. I dunno, maybe he is.” Fuck, not relevant, not relevant.

“Ok?” “But, uh, I actually meant maybe, you know, not just us and Rem and Lily, but just… just us.” A beat. “If you fancy it!” God, too loud, shit. Had he ever had any game? or does he just lose it any time you’re around?

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

“Sure,” softer this time. Unsure? But you smile your adorable smile, the subtle one where your lips go more sideways than up and your eyes sparkle a little, though he almost misses that as you look down.

“Yeah?” hopeful, bright. “Yeah,” certain, warm.

“Brilliant.”

You’re not sure what to wear. James didn’t tell you what you were doing on your date. It is a date, right? That word never came up, now that you think about it (although, let’s be honest, it’s all you’ve been thinking about since yesterday; you’ve run it over and over in your mind about a million and a half times). But he wanted it to just be you and him. Sounds like a date. Right?

You try on all your favorite clothes, even a few you think might surprise you. Nothing feels quite right, but you opt for staying yourself, just yourself a little done up.

You’re considering changing or putting on more make up or perhaps spontaneously combusting when James knocks.

You run over, take a deep breath, and open the door to the most handsome man you’ve ever met. “Ready?” he asks. “You look lovely. You always do though.” It’s cheesy, but coming from him, and with that melting sincerity, it makes you feel warm and loved.

“Thanks, Jamie. You look lovely too.”

He blushes and smiles, adjusts his glasses, and leads you out.

He had it all planned. An early dinner first, a walk in your favourite park next, then seeing that new film you’d talked about excitedly last week. A bit typical, but hey, hopefully classic is classic for a reason.

He’d spent hours debating the right restaurant to take you to. He opted for somewhere that advertised itself as an intimate space with a home-cooked menu. Sounded wholesome. And romantic, hopefully.

You walk in to the restaurant, and his stomach drops. It’s not “intimate.” It’s tiny. And not in an exclusive way, or a cute way, or just a tiny way. It’s tiny in a dingy way, and he cringes as you struggle to get across the small space when the appearance of a waiter — a common occurrence at a restaurant, you’d think — fills the cramped space between tables too much for you to be able to get past without some awkward squeezing.

He’s grateful when you finally sit down… until your chair creaks and leaves you sitting lopsided. It gets a bit - just a bit - less mortifying when you laugh, seemingly actually amused at the situation. James chuckles with you.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, love. Um, excuse me? Can we get a different chair here please?” “Thanks,” you laugh.

You get a new chair, with plenty more awkward squeezing due to size constraints, but all seems to be going smoothly after that. You chat, you laugh, you order.

Just as James is settling in, thinking maybe this place isn’t so bad, though, the food arrives. And he wants to go bury himself in a pile of blankets at home and never face the outside world - let alone you — again.

It looks terrible. Terrible is a compliment actually. It looks downright inedible. “Home-made”? More like rubbish-rummaged.

“Uh…” you hold up a bit of it with your fork but plop it right back down. You laugh again, but this time James doesn’t join you. “Would you think I’m a terrible person if I don’t eat any of this and they have to take it back as is?” you ask, half joking. “No, no. I mean, it’s not great, but god, what’s the alternative?” He sticks his fork in his food, and the texture reminds him of 80’s horror movie special effects.

“I dunno? Food poisoning?” you respond conspiratorially. He can’t help but chuckle with you.

You fill up a bit on the stale bread, make a lame excuse about being in a rush, pay and start to leave. “I was thinking we could for a walk now? If you fancy it. That park you always talk about isn’t far from here, right?” That was a main consideration in choosing this crap restaurant, and he hopes it makes it worth it.

“Right! Sounds great,” you smile at him.

You squeeze past another unlucky couple heading into the restaurant and head out… into a cold drizzly evening. God, this had to be a cruel joke from the universe. It had been sunny just this afternoon.

James looks over at you and catches you tugging your jumper sleeves down and bundling into it as best as possible. He thinks of proposing a different plan, but he can’t for the life of him think of something else to do from how nervous he is. What do people do?? The movie isn’t for a while. You don’t say anything either, though, so he just smiles and turns toward the park. He takes a chance and puts his arm around you — a new thing for the two of you — and rubs your shoulders to warm you up. It definitely helps warm you up, for more reasons than mere body heat. You lean into him, and he can’t help but think that maybe this isn’t so bad. As he does, an icy gust of wind freezes his face and hands.

You trudge through to the park, getting only a bit damp but very cold. The park looks absolutely lovely in the wintry weather, but you’re more than a bit uncomfortable from the cold. You try to make conversation, especially because James looks stunned into silence, and you can tell he feels responsible for bad weather of all things. You can’t get more than a couple words out, though, from how hard your teeth start chattering.

It’s cartoonish, and it makes you laugh. James looks down at you as if you’ve gone mad, but at the sight of your laughing face, his stressed demeanor melts into deep laughter.

You’re still on the edge of the park, and at another gust of wind, you take his hand and pull him over to the small lane alongside it.

There’s a little shop there, and you pop in to see if there is a nice scarf, hat, mittens, anything really that might help. Others may have had the same idea, though, because there is only one scarf left, and it’s pretty horrendous. The patterns don’t match, and it looks more like a costume piece than anything else. But it also feels very warm…

James catches you eyeing it, and resting his hand on your lower back, asks, “You like it? I can get it for you if you want. It’s the least I can do,” he half laugh half grumbles.

“After what? You’ve not done anything wrong,” you say gently. “Well, I dunno. It was my brilliant idea to go walking in this welcoming weather,” he responds sardonically. You don’t know how to comfort him, so you just bump him with your shoulder playfully, shaking your head at him that it was no big deal. The scarf is horrible, but you are cold, so you pick it up. He takes it to the counter and buys it for you.

When he comes back over, your cheeks warm up dramatically, not from the warm shop, but from his wrapping it around your neck gently and carefully, his face scrunched up in an adorable and adoring concentration.

“Thanks,” you whisper. He just smiles.

You kill time looking around from establishment to establishment, and when the movie is near enough, James tells you you should head to the next part of the night. You follow him excitedly. As you near the cinema, your anticipation builds, expecting what the next activity is. You remember talking animatedly about this new film, and wrap your arm around James in a loving half hug, overcome with affection at how he always pays attention to and remembers what you say to him.

He reciprocates, squeezing tight and kissing the top of your head as you walk on. You’re surprised at how natural this all feels, all these new gestures between the two of you that just feel so right, exciting and comforting at once.

Lost in your thoughts, you’re confused and worried when James goes stiff beside you, stopping dead in his tracks. Looking up at him, you see his face paling, his eyes wide as he looks ahead. You follow his gaze to see the big “sold out” sign splattered on top of the new movie title. “Fuck,” you hear beside you. “Fucking hell,” a bit louder. He turns toward you, stress all over his lovely features. “I’m so sorry, love. I didn’t think to get tickets ahead of time. I’m such an idiot; I can’t believe I didn’t think of it; of course there was a good chance it would sell out; and if I’d brought you earlier instead of just killing time,” spills out of his mouth at top speed. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright, really, it’s fine,” you try to stop him. You rub his shoulder comfortingly.

He tilts his head back and groans.

“I can’t believe how royally I’ve fucked this up. I finally work up the courage, and then this is what I deliver? God, I wouldn’t blame you for regretting this.”

“I don’t regret this,” you say very seriously. His eyes meet yours and linger there. “You don’t?” he asks hopefully.

“Not even a tiny bit. Of course I don’t. It didn’t matter what we did, James; of course it didn’t. The worst restaurant, the ugliest scarf, no movie - none of this matters one bit as long as we get to experience it together,” you utter warmly, chuckling at your luck. “Shit, the scarf is ugly?” he asks aghast. “I was thinking it was about the only thing that had gone right tonight!”

You’re laughing hard at his horrified expression, and you have to wipe a tear from your eye as you tell him you love it.

“You just said it was horrible,” he challenges, but he’s failing to hold back his smile. “It is. Horrendous, really. But I love it. Because you gave it to me. And I’m going to treasure it always as a reminder of our first date.”

He playfully tugs on it, now fully smiling down on you. “Yeah? You want to remember this? Inedible food, freezing weather, not seeing the movie?” “Yup. Every second of it. I want to remember inedible food and the hilarious face you made when you stuck your fork in it, freezing weather and how much warmer I felt with your arm around me, not seeing the movie and having our first kiss outside the cinema instead…” Your voice is soft by the end, your nerves overpowering your hopes.

His face grows serious, and he takes a step closer to you. His hand comes up to caress your cheek gently, and you lean into it. “That doesn’t sound too bad,” he whispers, smiling softly, his face nearer yours than it has ever been.

You bite your lower lip in anticipation, and his eyes shoot down to it. You both inch closer, and your foreheads meet, and he bumps his nose with yours. It makes you smile, and a moment later, you are smiling into his kiss.

His lips are cold and a bit chapped from the cold, but they feel perfect against yours. His other hand comes up to the other side of your face, and he cups it gently as his mouth explores yours slowly. You tilt your head one way, then the other, following his movements. He sucks on your lip, and you chuckle in response, moving your hands from his shoulders to around his neck, holding him closer.

He pulls back a bit, gazing into your eyes, smiling, but as he goes to keep kissing you, your stomach grumbles loudly.

“Oh, god,” you say, embarrassed, hiding your face in his chest.

You’re worried his stress at the planning fiasco is going to return, but you feel him laughing against you, and the warmth of it fills you with a happy ease you know you’ll keep craving.

“What do you say we get some take-away then watch a movie at mine? Won’t be as glamorous, but I can promise plenty of blankets and shared body warmth,” he says, still caressing your cheek.

You lean forward, kissing him gently but lingeringly.

“Sounds absolutely perfect.”

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bonvoyagenoona · 2 years

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About Me 13 | BTS, Taking a Break, and Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

Special thank yous to the following!

@yuugehn! I so appreciated our discussion about so much of this! I originally was going to tag every line from our conversations lol, but for anyone reading this, please know that so much of this post, especially regarding observations about the Festa dinner, come from yuugehn’s gorgeous brain and heart!

@The Hornies! Over the 2 years we’ve gotten to know each other, we’ve talked about the themes discussed here. Thanks for being down to discuss these sorts of things with me and being so generous with your friendship.

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while. It’s going to be a loooooong post. It has been in my drafts for months because I wanted to talk about BTS’s career trajectory and how it plays off of their identities as individuals, as well as a group, in Erik Erikson’s life stages. It’s also about observations I made about my own fan experience, especially related to their concerts in Las Vegas. I wasn’t sure when my thoughts would come together.

To borrow Jungkook’s words from the Festa dinner, “Today’s the day.”

It all clicked this week due in part to the people mentioned up top, as well as other dear friends, old and new. And this has actually become a very, very personal post.

Whenever I’m having big emotions, my overeducated ass likes to lean on psychology frameworks. I try not to over-intellectualize in a way that diminishes my feelings, but I do find that applying such frameworks helps me gain perspective about those feelings. It even helps me validate my feelings. When I can see how my feelings fit into some kind of core psychological principle, I start to sense that I’m not alone. I find comfort in the fact that people have felt what I’m feeling under similar circumstances, and enough of those people have felt those feelings that someone made a damn framework.

So if you’re still sorting through your feelings about the break, and you love psychology as much as I do, let’s peep into Erikson’s brain microscope for a little while to gain some of that perspective. And then, if you’re interested, I’ll share some personal thoughts about it all, ones that are challenging and a bit scary to share, but ultimately have led me to feel a new, refreshing, optimism about life!

OK, let’s start with the psych stuff!! 🤩

Erik Erikson was a developmental psychologist who drew upon Freud’s psychodynamic work to identify key stages to human life. He’s actually the first person to come up with the term identity crisis, and he labels each stage based on a certain crisis, or conflict, that people grapple with during that age. It’s this investigation that makes Erikson’s classic model of eight stages so relevant to what BTS and ARMY might be experiencing right now.

source: medium

I won’t go through all of the stages in depth, but here are some key things to know:

Though ages are roughly associated with each stage, you don’t necessarily have to go through these stages linearly or according to that timing

Stages can overlap

It is possible to “fail” a stage

If you “fail” a stage, you can still move on/through the other stages, which means you can also revisit stages as you grow

Here’s a quick infographic that summarizes the eight classic stages. We’ll be zooming into Adolescence, Young Adulthood, and Middle Adulthood, and how they’re all currently overlapping for the members of BTS!

Adolescence: Identity vs. Role Confusion (ages 12 to 18)

During this stage, our life events help us determine our identities. We do this by comparing and contrasting old experiences that we had when we were younger (i.e., what our loved ones taught us, showed us, instilled in us) with new experiences that we start to learn about at these ages (e.g., as we make deeper friendships outside of the home, and as we see more of the world). If we are successful, we come away with a strong sense of self; we know who we are, what we like, what we believe, etc. If we are unsuccessful, we come away from this stage perhaps thinking that we know these things, only to find out later that we go through an identity crisis, during which we are left questioning who we are.

Interesting things to note about this particular stage are that 1) Erikson believed that this stage can take a much longer time, especially in technologically advanced societies, because it takes us longer to adapt skills to navigate such a world, and 2) Erikson believed this stage is prolonged for people who are labeled geniuses in society.

If we take that to be true, it’s easy to see how the members went so long without a break, and thus now need that break to check back in with themselves. The ages seem to line up here. They started in their mid to late teens / early 20s; so much of their adolescence was defined for them, and it’s coming to a head now. They’ve been operating in one mode for so long, and they’ve led rigid lifestyles that have predefined so much of their identities — I mean, from the start, they were labeled as vocal line, rap line, dance line, etc., and it makes sense that they’re now questioning these things in order to expand and grow.

When people grapple with the central conflict of this life stage, there is a need for exploration, which is what the members hope to do now. They all need a way to test their identities to see what holds, and what doesn’t. What sticks. What they can add. What they can redefine. The members of BTS need this time for experimentation so as not to fall into identity crisis territory.

One comforting thing to see, though, is how the members are also leaning on the group identities that have crystallized to help them through that experimentation! Hobi plays an integral role here! Hobi’s role as the internal-facing leader helped him (and, thus, all of them) broach the topic of needing a break. Hobi was the first to question the group dynamic, with that story of him threatening to leave the group in the early days. He is also critical of the members when it comes to needing to slow down.

source: bffjeongguk

Compare that with the way Namjoon expressed the weight that he carried on his shoulders as the external-facing leader. His role has been focused on keeping them together as a unit; Namjoon is the peacemaker, the diplomat.

Hobi, though, shepherds the groups’ individuality. He is critical of them as individuals in order to help them each succeed on their own terms. And it makes sense that he’s the first to showcase his solo work, thus leading the way. The others have looked to Hobi in this way, too, like how Jimin has shown Hobi all of his solo work before the others. Namjoon said that he kept putting off the much-needed break; it’s almost as if Namjoon needed Hobi to tell him it was time, and as a result, they all are looking to Hobi to help them start their new chapters. A necessary changing of the guard of leadership in a way, perhaps, to help the group evolve.

Early Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation (ages 20-44)

During this stage, our life events help us determine our connections to others. It may seem like BTS have the intimacy thing down-pat, given their close bond. But, importantly, being too enmeshed with others can also lead to disconnection. Being in the group too long could lead to isolation from others in their lives, depriving them of any growth they may have made in forming their own identities. This is not a completely foreign concept to BTS, as people, as well as artists.

Think about Trivia: Seesaw. Yoongi’s message in that song is about the inability to leave a toxic relationship that has struck only the illusion of balance, and the protagonist in the song ultimately decides to get off and move on with their lives. Though the dynamics within BTS aren’t fraught with toxicity, the same challenge is still there; the members felt like they weren’t being genuine, and it’s time to do something about it.

A key marker of success in this stage is whether people can make certain sacrifices in order to preserve that intimacy. Arguably, the members of BTS need to make a certain kind of sacrifice of time and space in order to preserve the family that they’ve built together. Take that with the lesson from Trivia: Seesaw, and it’s easy to see why they’re so eager to try new things and spend time with other people.

But you’re also seeing them do that in a way that is familiar to them. They’re making their own music, but they’re sharing that music with each other before they release it into the world. Apparently, Taehyung is even doing an In the Soop spin-off. It’s a way to put that intimacy to the test in order to come out of this stage successfully. It’s clear that they trust that their unconditional love for each other will remain intact, and that’s a really comforting thing to see, as well as a healthy way to model growth.

source: bollywoodlife

Middle Adulthood: Generativity vs. Stagnation (45-64)

It makes sense that as we start to move into the “old man” stage that Min “I Speak 3 Languages, Play A Million Instruments, and Do Pilates Now” Y🍑🍑ngi’s schedule comes into play! It’s amazing! And, interestingly enough, it’s a nice example of how one may address the core conflict in this stage!

During this stage, our life events help us identify our impact on others and the world. When we are successful, we feel proud and accomplished. When we are unsuccessful, we feel dissatisfied and stale. Much of what comes up in this stage is discussed in a familial setting, and it just so happens to work well here, as BTS even shared that they feel more like family.

Now, we’ve established that stages can overlap, that they’re not necessarily linear, and that geniuses often spend much longer in the Identity vs. Role Confusion stage. Given the universal scope of their influence and achievement, and understanding their words in that context, I don’t think it would be outlandish to assume that there is a bit of an acceleration to the Generativity vs. Stagnation stage. And they each give examples of how they are experiencing this conflict through the central tasks associated with this stage.

One particular central task of this stage is to create a home. Because their house contract (lease?) is up, they’ve settled into their own places, separate from each other. Seems like they’ve got this one set, but it’s worth it to celebrate that they each get to incorporate their own voices in the way that they decorate and set up their new places, with as many mattresses aas Jungkook wants to have and saw in half lol.

When it comes to the other tasks, let’s break it down by member.

Namjoon. One task of this stage is relinquishing past roles. Here we go with Namjoon… Oooof, I feel for Namjoon. I wish I could tell him that I’ve been there, very recently. I’ve shared before that Namjoon is extremely focused on legacy. So it makes sense that he’s hitting on two central tasks: relinquishing a central role in the lives of grown children, and being proud of one’s accomplishments. If he is the external leader of BTS, then the rest of the group can be perceived as his “children”, or “followers”, to a certain extent.

It’s clear that relinquishing this role is particularly tough for him, given what he shared, and how emotional he was when he shared it. Similarly, Namjoon seems to be battling stagnation pretty hard when it comes to his identity as a leader and creator. He voiced feeling lost, as any leader without anyone to lead would feel, and this has crossed over into his difficulty writing new music. I think that’s why he’s so interested in art — he’s lost his own voice, and he’s looking to other artists in other media to help him express himself. I’m thinking about how he felt after seeing that Rothko piece. He’s wanting to feel again, and he mentioned needing new life experiences, new stimuli, to have something to say.

And he’s scared about what happens if he doesn’t get that. He’s scared about what will happen, and whether he will disappoint people, on top of already feeling he’s disappointed ARMY and his fellow members. He has a hard time feeling pride in his accomplishments because he was feeling so disingenuous when working toward them. It makes sense that he would want to revisit that now and get back to a place of generativity, to impact the world in a way that is positive and healthy. To do that, he recognizes that he needs new experiences, and that is a commendable thing to state while being in the position he’s in now.

Jin. Some crises in this stage include adjusting to the physical changes of older age, a sense of regret for unfulfilled goals, a desire to spend time alone, and a desire to feel young again. Jin’s physicality certainly seems to be relevant here; he was recently injured, and we’re all thinking about his age and perhaps his oncoming military duties, which will have an impact on what comes next. He talked during the dinner about how he doesn’t necessarily regret not acting, but that means that he had to think about it, process that he hadn’t become an actor like he thought he would or might like to be, though he certainly still has time to do so. That’s also a part of life — realizing that you do have more time than you think you do in many ways, something that I’m also learning. The desire to spend time alone and to feel young again seems to surface when Jin was talking about shutting himself away and playing games for days straight, bur Erikson also points out that people often come back from these behaviors feeling unfulfilled. So though I don’t know if Jin is necessarily experiencing a quarter/mid-life crisis (I mean, how much do we really know about what they’re experiencing), these kinds of behaviors are often seen in this stage.

Yoongi. This stage also brings about homemaking, reexamining our behaviors, using leisure time creatively, and passing on our lessons to those younger than us, whether through family or instruction. So it makes sense that Yoongi seems to be thriving in this space of generativity. He’s making his house into a home, picking up healthy life behaviors, feeling inspired to use his leisure time creatively, and passing on wisdom and information to the next generation (young songwriters). In fact, let’s compare and contrast the “young songwriters” thing; Yoongi found joy in being able to share advice with them (generativity), whereas Namjoon felt slighted that no one was coming to him (stagnation). It’s almost as if Namjoon’s role as a leader forced his own adolescence / identity development to be that much more stunted — or maybe also his own genius getting in the way! Meaningful work is also a huge part of the generativity vs. stagnation stage — people who find meaning in their work find it through contact with others, opportunities for growth and maturity in their craft, and a level of independence as they explore. Yoongi is getting exactly this, which maybe explains why he was so happy during the dinner, save for having empathy for the other members when they were expressing their fears. All of this helps to explain Yoongi’s glow-up. And it seems consequential that this is the “old man” stage lol.

Hobi. I talked about Hobi up at the top, so this section will be short. Hobi is leading the charge when it comes to helping growing and grown children to be responsible adults. Again, Hobi is the first to debut his solo work, and he’s performing at Hobipalooza — I mean, Lollapalooza, lol. But he also needed to help the others to see that they are ready to do it, too.

Jimin. Obviously, interpersonal relationships are key in this stage; those that are solid hopefully continue to grow, and those that aren’t start to fall away. During this stage, love matures past more shallow definitions, or purely sexual definitions. ARMY talks about Jimin being pure love, and that’s something that I thought about a lot when writing him in Bear with Me (i.e., a discussion about whether there is such a difference between platonic vs. romantic or other types of love). He’s done so much to stay true to himself and express that love in a way that is visible. He hugs, he smiles, he asks people to tell him that they love him, but he doesn’t just want it for surface reasons. He really means it, and he needs people to mean it when they say it back. I think this also makes him vulnerable to enmeshment, where he starts to lose himself in that love. And that’s why I think the solo chapter seems to be hard for him to stomach:

Taehyung. When it comes to Taehyung and Jungkook, I see a mix of all of this as they play out in identity, which is something I think Taehyung is experimenting with, and maturity, which is something Jungkook is developing.

I think I have less to say about Taehyung because he’s so open about his experimentation, and that’s really all there is to it. He’s experimenting with change, trying on new identities, new hobbies, new friends. Though he is an introvert, he seems to be the most outwardly social with other idols and celebrities, and his feeds are all about him trying on new clothes and looks, or having new experiences out in the world. Seeking out this type of change is typical at this stage of life as well, and with Taehyung’s openness to experimentation, it’s cool to see this particular habit surface at a time when he has unlimited resources and opportunities.

Jungkook. Interestingly, or maybe even unsurprisingly (he is the golden maknae, after all), Jungkook is the one who is developing a certain level of maturity. He seems to be stepping into a balance of all things, just like how the guys say that Jungkook is a mix of all of his hyungs — especially all the best parts of them. Namjoon pointed out that he rambled on and on about what he was feeling, and Jungkook was so concise and well-spoken, but Jungkook also benefitted from the hyungs sharing their thoughts first as he essentially summarized them. With their wisdom, he is taking on all of the tasks mentioned, and he’s figuring out his own take on them. And that’s why he seems like he’s so mature.

Like Namjoon and Hobi, he’s in one way relinquishing control and being forced to trust what the future will bring, while also developing his own abilities as a leader / caretaker — like adopting Bam! He’s creating his own space, his own home, his own sound, the way that he wants, and I think that his confidence is shored up by Yoongi’s, as he so determinedly said that he will release his music after Yoongi does. They’ve talked about his capacity to love being bigger than they initially realized, but compared to Jimin, he seems to have a layer of separation; Jungkook’s not afraid to emote, but he still seems more confident in making his own choices. And like Taehyung, he’s experimenting with his identity. But, in comparison to Jin, he’s also lucky to be going through these changes at a time where his physical state can weather them, so it’ll be interesting to see how that may change as he gets older and faces these questions about identity again. Along with Yoongi, he seems so ready to take on this next chapter.

Final Thoughts on the Break, and More on BTS and Psychology (aka Cheryl Actually Gets Personal for Once)

It’s so interesting to see how I think it’s super interesting that I planned my BTS Case Conceptualization project and only wrote Namjoon so far. He’s the external leader, and the one who is so focused on keeping them together. I think it’ll be interesting to write the rest of the members’ case conceptualizations now, knowing that their solo work is right around the corner. Might bring some new light to what I have in store for those pieces, kind of like another experimentation period.

Speaking of experimentation, and feelings��

Some of you may have noticed that I am experimenting with tons of little projects, as well as the structure and content of my fics. Also, so many of you have shared how you’ve been feeling with me, and you’ve asked me how I’ve felt about all of this news, too. Even with all this psychology talk, I’m the kind of person who feels things first, doesn’t really know what to do with those feelings, and only understands them muuuuuuch later.

When I got to see BTS in Las Vegas, I felt odd. I didn’t quite know what it was. I felt frozen, in a way. So I kind of had to let it thaw before I could express it. I think I’m starting to understand what I was feeling. Even before then, I had been telling Roomie / @mochilatae that the guys felt so far away. (Here, I have to say, dear Roomie, thank you for the amazing chat. You know. Even without me having to use the words, because they would fail.) And I still felt that in Las Vegas, when I was literally watching them in concert, and arguably within the closest physical proximity that I will ever be to them. It came to a head that night, I think. I was feeling what Namjoon talked about, this sense of exhaustion, or maybe even disingenuousness. The fabulous Shenee from GAF, as well as other ARMY, have been talking about this shift, and I could see what they were talking about, though I hadn’t associated it with my own feelings. Now, my freeze is making sense.

See, when it comes to other people’s feelings, I tend to be a sponge; I take on what others are experiencing, and I have a hard time separating what I’m truly feeling from what I feel others are feeling. It’s why I didn’t become a therapist. I love psychology, but my love lies in the theory of it. The meaning-seeking, but not necessarily the application. When it comes to the practical matter of helping others, I just couldn’t serve as a container for other people’s emotions. I was taking my work home with me, and I couldn’t do the job. I couldn’t keep my own boundaries well enough to provide that for others. I still can’t. That’s why I’m very, very selective with who I share my real feelings with. And I’m glad that I recognized that before I decided to really pursue my clinical license, because I would have burned out fast.

Because of that, and because of other personal experiences, I definitely have a hard time being vulnerable, especially when I have failed to maintain boundaries, and when people have continuously overstepped the boundaries that I have tried to keep in place.

If you’ve read my fics, you know I have no issues being completely vulnerable in my writing. I love getting to talk about all of these feelings and life themes with you! I love the asks, the posts, the discussions, so please keep them coming!

But I do recognize that when it comes to the fics, I’m using my characters to speak for me. In fact, if you search my “about me” content here, you’ll find that I really have no truly personal posts here. This is arguably the first real “about me” type of post. I like sharing my thoughts, but I still need to find a good balance when it comes to sharing my emotions or the meanings behind them. It’s why I love to write; I really love using characters to play out the scenarios I’ve experienced for me to understand what the truth is beneath them. It helps.

So, take everything that has been going on regarding the break, Namjoon’s fear of sharing that he was exhausted or not living up to people’s standards, the group’s fear of losing ARMY as they take this time to start their next chapter, all the things that the guys have shared, and add this dream that I had last night.

I don’t really do deep dream analysis from a psychodynamic perspective; I am firmly a CBT gal through and through, and after studying memory from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, I follow the perspectives in the field that view dreaming as an information encoding process. Most of the time, I consider my dreams to be like little movies, or episodes of a show. But, like with movies or episodes, I do think dreams can mean things, especially if we feel compelled to assign them meaning.

In my dream last night, I was sleeping, and I woke up in my house (but it wasn’t my actual house) and found all this furniture that I had ordered scattered about the room. Chairs, mattresses, tables, knickknacks. I wasn’t expecting any of it to be there. I got out of bed and found the guys in the living room, where there was even more new furniture laying about, and chatted with them, at some point asking, “Hey, so, when did all of this get delivered and assembled?”

And the guys, except Jungkook (he was around 19-20 yo in the dream), all voiced at the same time that Jungkook was the one who unpacked and assembled everything (lol very Run BTS interior decorating episode). When I looked at him in surprise and gratitude, he just kinda sweetly smiled and shrugged. And I woke up feeling so comforted and taken care of, absolutely amazed that Jungkook would go to the trouble of doing that for me.

Where did this dream come from? Well, cognitive neuroscience me pointed out that I just wrote Blackout because I needed some kind of comfort but wasn’t exactly sure why (and what timing lol). I watched Just One Day and For You before I slept last night. I have been thinking about getting new furniture and reorganizing my room. And I had been thinking about Festa and Jungkook’s 7 mattresses! 🤣

But I also know that I’ve been examining my own need for depth in my personal connections. I have lived my life in a way that has kept me from being truly vulnerable with others, for an amalgam of reasons. Part protection. Part fear. It has served me very well. But it also keeps me from experiencing a certain closeness with people. This is me in Erikson’s Intimacy vs. Isolation stage. While I still think I need to enforce certain boundaries, I think I’m hungry to let a select few in. It’s just a matter of finding the right people to let in, and, happily, I think I’m starting to find them, thanks in part to BTS and ARMY. I need to do more soul-searching, to continue figuring out my own feelings, figure out my voice, figure out what makes me happy. To not be a sponge, and to be my own container. To try new things without being so invested in them that I lose myself in the process.

I’ve so appreciated seeing the discussion around the break. (And if you’re interested in more BTS / psychology takes, here’s the series I’m working on right now!) But I hope this long-ass post, all of this together — Erikson’s life stages, BTS’s examples, and my own personal observations — helps express why I happen to think this break is a good thing. A natural thing. And a necessary thing.

BTS’s break just so happens to coincide with me needing a break from my old patterns as well. So, I’m excited to see what is in store for them next, but more importantly, I’m thrilled to see what this prompts for ARMY — how we continue to grow as people, and how BTS has impacted us / will continue to impact us along the way. 💜

Sources used in this article:

Early and middle adulthood (Boundless Psychology)

Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (VeryWellMind)

Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (Wikipedia overview)

Orenstein, G. A. & Lewis, L. (2021). Eriksons stages of psychosocial development. StatPearls.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #bts psychology #about me #how i write #personal #bts festa #bts festa 2022 #erikson #erik erikson #thanks for reading!#let me know what you think!

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plum-pitt · 3 months

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not to be that mf on main but like,,,,,

fuck multifandom one shot books, and honestly one shot books in general to some extent.

In this post I pulled out of my ass out of sheer frustration while looking for a fic to read, i will messily lay out my grievances, then make suggestions of what authors could potentially do differently to avoid these issues.

Section 1: Me Angy

First off- the tag and fandom lists on these things are ALWAYS 50 miles long and take up like half the damn page on Ao3, and istg a good amount of the time they’ve got like a single 1000 word chapter and haven’t even been updated in like 2 years

They absolutely destroy filters for things like tags and word count.

like if i’m looking for a longfic to binge read, i don’t need these books of one shots, when i’d maybe be interested in 10% of what’s in it, clogging up my search results.

plus if you’ve got even just one single oneshot in there with an icky tag i’ve filtered out, then i’m never gonna see any of it even if i might’ve actually liked what the rest had to offer!!

The fandoms are also like a whole other beast. God forbid you’re looking for an actual crossover fic between two franchises because sorry bout ur luck there kid, you’re gonna be spending a stupid amount of time weeding out random fandom after random fandom in the filters section just to get rid of these oneshot books and find what you’re actually looking for.

Section 2: Suggestions

If you’re an author just trying to keep your page organized by keeping all your oneshots together somehow, then put them in a series! That way they can all be tagged individually and more people who’d want to read them will be able to find them, and they don’t jack up the filtering system!

Kinda sorta relevant to the conversation too; if you’re making a fic for a franchise with a bunch of different iterations, and you’re don’t necessarily have a specific version in mind when writing it, or perhaps are making an original iteration all your own, then for the love of all that is good, do not put every iteration in the fandom tags.

For example, if i’m looking for say, fanfic of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and you’re writing a Zelda fanfic set in your own version of the Zelda universe. If you tag literally every single game in the franchise that has a fandom tag to its name, then your fic will come up even if it’s not at all what i’m looking for.

Most multi-iteration fandoms of that nature have an overarching tag that looks something like:

*insert random franchise*- and related fandoms

It’s there for a reason! If you’re not sure what version you’re writing for, or you’re making one up, then just use that! It can still be found by anyone scrolling through fics on that general tag, and doesn’t get in the way of readers on the hunt for something more specific.

In Conclusion:

i ain’t trynna be a dick, but some of yall don’t know how to tag and it’s working to both your, and the readers detriment. Thats ok tho! it’s not like there’s a rule book out there that lays out exactly what to do, and thanks to that everyone has subtle differences in how they decide to label their work. i’m just pointing out some minor inconveniences i’ve gone thru as a reader and some possible solutions for authors that could circumvent them.

this is in no way a personal attack on anybody, not sure why anyone would think that it’s literally fanfic tags, but just trynna cover all my bases here. Ok bye

#also irrelevant to the premise of the post #but still a tag tip #if you have ocs in your fic #JUST TAG Original Character(s)#if you wanna specify more characteristics in other tags that’s fine #but ALWAYS keep the plain Original Character(s) tag in there as well #same goes for y/n and reader insert stuff #fanfiction #fanfic #transformative works #Ao3 #ao3 fanfic #ao3 author #goddam this is a mess💀#thoughts from the pit

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writefightandflightclub · 3 years

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Disarming (Santi x fem!reader)

Summary: you and Santi - good friends- are Best Man and Maid of Honour at Frankie’s wedding, and guess what? There’s only one bed!

What is this? This is 5/10 one-shots/blurbs for my “friends to lovers” event. The prompt is “We can share a room, right? It’s only for a weekend”, requested by @woakiees. Another double trope extravaganza! Hadley, I’m so pleased you suggested Santi for this one, as he immediately came to mind when I was writing this prompt :D Thank you so much for requesting! <3

If you’d like to read/keep track of the other fics, I’m keeping an up-to-date friends to lovers list in my pinned post.

Author’s note: Apparently I get carried away EVERY time I write Santi. WHY AM I LIKE THIS?! :-/

Word count: 7.5k. I’M SO SORRY. PLEASE FORGIVE ME.

Rating: 18+ ONLY (minors out, please, do not read or interact)

Warnings: it gets angsty in the middle. Reader has nightmare- comfort offered. Mentions of reader being “hurt” in the past but vague and unspecified. They have a fight. One or two alcohol mentions- no actual consumption. Food mention. Swearing. Steam leading into smut but not explicit- mentions of masturbation, erections, making-out, one brief allusion to choking kink. Let me know if I missed anything.

Tagging: @isvvc-pvscvl @casifer-is-king (loads of the tags aren’t working :-/)

GIF: @nathan-bateman

From the first moment you met Santi, you had simply fallen into step with him. It was effortless, and so, as soon as you found yourself by his side, you stayed there. What’s more, that’s exactly where he wanted you to be.

Despite the man’s hard, no-nonsense edge -which you also appreciated- he was warm and charming. It was easy to connect with him, in a way it hadn’t often been for you. For him too - or so the boys told you - the way you surpassed his defences was a rare thing. It shouldn’t have worked, perhaps. Usually, he was slow to trust and you were quick to love, but on this occasion none of that seemed to apply, the two of you tumbling squarely into a fast-friendship; one deeper and more intense, perhaps, than its duration might suggest. Still, despite the boys’ inferences that you would quickly become an item, and Santi’s continual attempts to blur the lines between this and… something more, “friends” is what you have remained.

You had felt it immediately with him. Something different. You simply... flowed. You fit. It was immediately evident, even on that first night, in the way you orbited around one another, setting up an impromptu beer pong of all things. You moved together with a fluidity and a precision that seems almost tactical- as though you too had run countless manoeuvres in the field with him. You could read him and understand him as though you had drilled his habits and patterns and idiosyncrasies over and over; learning him. However, he was never that much effort - the two of you came naturally to each other, little learning required. You knew each other with your gut.

At that fateful party, when you each escaped to the back porch steps for some air at a serendipitous moment, the conversation had immediately flowed, and not only as a result of his natural, disarming charm. The silence even came easily rightaway – a comfortable thing, the space between you stuffed with contentment, rather than the feeling of a gaping vacuum, needlessly filled. It turned out his best friend was dating yours (the pair to be wed this very weekend) but that almost seemed like the cherry on top, rather than the thing bringing you to each other.

Safe to say, what was true then is true now. You get on so well. You find him fun and easy and generous and you love the man dearly.

…Most of the time.

Those other times, though? Santiago “Pope” Garcia can be a pain in your ass. But that’s another reason you love him, you guess. Keeps things interesting.

“Please don’t kill me,” Santi says sheepishly, and it’s obvious to you he’s laying on the charm - actively trying to be as disarming as possible as he saunters over from the reception desk. For a moment, despite all his training, he looks as though he believes you could pull it off, too.

Your annoyance is already prepped; locked and loaded, as he pads squarely towards the banquette where you are sat - amidst a sea of luggage. You’ve been observing his attempts to charm the desk clerk with interest (his efforts, you surmise, at least partially effectual), and judging from the slight level of desperation in his efforts, you can already tell he fucked up somehow.

“What did you do?” you say impatiently, even as a smile twitches at the corner of your lips.

“I booked all the rooms we needed, for all of the wedding guests, right? 13 rooms here, and all 10 at the hotel across town. 4 more in guesthouses,” he recaps. “Got Frankie and Mila a great deal too, remember?”

You remember. And yet, you fold your arms across your chest, looking up at him incredulously. Okay then. Rolling with your attitude, the man takes a different tack. He sits next to you. Smiles. Leans in. Pats your thigh. He’s trying to disarm you too, you realise. It’s going to take more than that - you’re not some flimsy desk clerk who will form a puddle and bat your eyes at the first sign of his charm.

“Well, funny story. I may have forgotten to book our rooms,” he blurts.

Oh? Oh, great. Yeah. This is a grand fuck-up. The whole damn town is booked-out. It’s a small town. No longer amused, your nostrils flare in annoyance as you tug in a slow breath, schooling your tone just a little before you speak. “You what?” Okay, you didn’t manage to school it all that much.

“Look, I already sort of fixed it,” he smooths. That explains the flirting with the clerk. Although, you think, glancing back at her. She’s pretty. That partially explains the flirting with the clerk, then, you mentally correct. “There’s just one, teeny-tiny issue.”

You raise your eyebrows and widen your eyes. Well?

“We’re gonna have to share a room.”

You blink at him a few times, in surprise. Well, it’s not ideal. For a number of reasons. But you can think of worse things, truth be told. And he’s not wrong. It is a solution. Still, on his reveal, a succession of emotions and micro-assessments are bounced back and forth between your eyes and his, until you land on resigned annoyance, exhaling a long sigh. That is, until Frankie appears in the lobby, swanning in like he’s walking on air. He probably is, given that he’s getting married this weekend. His face splits with a smile so wide you reckon it should be painful to maintain, and you stand to greet him as he heads over.

You’re glad he’s happy. It means that you and Santi, as Maid of Honour and Best man, respectively, are doing a fantastic job of deflecting all of the stress away from the happy couple. Indeed, that assessment certainly feels true – you do feel stressed. Still, the two of you immediately paint your faces with masking smiles; though, in fairness, it’s hard not to smile while looking at Frankie – his obvious joy is infectious.

Frankie wraps you both in a hug, then rubs his palms together like an excited kid. “I don’t have much time. Just gonna say a quick hello to my parents. Apparently, my mom’s already started crying? Can you two sort some extra tissues for the ceremony or something? Oh, and is everything okay with the rooms?”

“With this guy? Are you kidding?”, you say before you think, throwing your thumb towards Santi. Immediately, his eyes submit a powerful plea to you to keep schtum- it is written all over his face that he doesn’t want to let Frankie down. Not even in the smallest of ways.

Frankie would find his little error funny, probably. But he can find it funny after the ceremony. “Everything is A-OK! This guy? He has every single detail taken care of.”

Frankie grins, his eyes narrowing proudly at Santi as he slaps him on the back, laying profuse thanks on the two of you; then, he floats away again, as if on a cloud. Santi’s brown eyes are big with gratitude when you look at him again, and you can’t help but weaken. You’ll admit, it’s really not that bad of a fuck-up. Besides, you’re tired. Between the drive out here, the wedding rehearsal, and a never-ending list of errands, the day has been long. You just want to get to the room, and maybe even clock a snooze before the rehearsal dinner tonight.

“Fine,” you agree, albeit through gritted teeth. “We can share a damn room.”

Santi looks visibly relieved, and squeezes your shoulder in thanks. You’d even been nice enough not to bite his head off. “Yeah. We can share a room, right? It’s only for a weekend.” Suddenly, he doesn’t sound quite as certain.

“Sure. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?” you smile nervously.

He returns your smile and swivels, heading back towards the desk.

“Oh, wait!” you call after him. “Is it a double or a twin?” you ask in horror. Sharing a room is one thing, but sharing a bed?

He turns, looking over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter!”, he winks. “Whatever it is, we’re gonna have to take it.”

Oh. Oh dear.

You’re inclined to agree -you don’t have many options- but when you catch yourself stealing a glance at the man’s shapely butt as he walks back to the desk, you begin to chew your bottom-lip nervously.

Right. Ha.

What could possibly go wrong?

**********************

It turns out, sharing a room with Santi is resoundingly not bad at all. In fact, at first, it’s as easy as everything else is with him - even between your hurried preparations for the evening, unpacking, shuttling items to the relevant members of the wedding party, and calling down to reception several times to check the logistics for the rehearsal dinner. Even getting dressed, you find an easy flow as you each flit in and out of the bathroom, dancing around each other with ease and only a hint of friendly bickering.

Santi’s respectful too- always knocking and announcing himself before entering a space, and averting his gaze when he needs to, given that you’re rushing around and undressing. You even manage to ignore the fact there’s only one bed for the longest time, parking that specific panic for later. Even then, he has already made reception send up extra pillows and blankets, forming a barricade in the middle of the bed so you two can comfortably separate.

Thankfully, you are so busy that the idea of sharing a bed with Santi doesn’t even cross your mind until you’re finally ready, dressed in your finery. When you step out of the bathroom, Santi -sat on the edge of said bed- stands up, thrusting his hands into his suit trousers as he takes the sight of you in, pulling the material taut -in a rather pleasing way- across his hips and thighs. He ends up slightly slack-jawed for a moment as his eyes trail over you, brewing with a gentle, self-conscious heat. “Fuck,” he says softly, his voice gruff. “You look…” a little gulp trails down his throat as you give him a little twirl. “…hot”, he says, his eyebrow ticking up on the last beat.

“Wait until you see my bridesmaid dress,” you smile, and he returns it easily, those gorgeous creases appearing around his eyes.

Unconsciously, you lick your lips. You can’t help but wonder, vaguely, what it would be like to push him down on to the mattress. Maybe straddle him. Fuck, you should have known this would be a bad idea. A heat rising in your face at that thought of that, you distract yourself by lifting his suit jacket from the back of the chair, holding it out for him as he slips it on to his shoulders, and feeling the luxurious texture of it beneath your fingers.

It’s a grey suit, tailored, and it hugs him in all the right places. The cool colour is perfect against his warm-toned brown skin, and brings out the salt in his salt-and-pepper curls, and in the rough rasp of grey flecked through his stubble.

You try desperately not to notice how good he looks, but this may be your greatest challenge yet.

“Come on,” you encourage, nodding towards the door. “We better head down.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, half-heartedly. The way his eyes are subtly roving over you, though, he looks like he has something entirely different in mind for dinner.

“You’re probably going to spend all night being chased by the single bridesmaids,” you add casually as you collect your purse, and apply a final dab of lipstick in front of the mirror. You’ve already clocked a few members of the wedding party eyeing him up, and you don’t exactly blame them for being thirsty. Besides, Santi is a huge flirt; so perhaps he’ll be the one doing the chasing. You wouldn’t be surprised if he ended the night with his tongue thrust deep in someone’s throat, which -you assume- is typical Santi fashion.

“Isn’t it traditional, anyway,” he smirks cheekily, applying a splash of cologne, “for the Best Man to hook-up with one of the bridesmaids?”

Lord, does he have to smell so… edible.

“Got news for you, man. You fucked up. You can’t exactly bring a girl back to your room now, can you?!” you tease, nodding back towards your shared bed, a wall of pillows already arranged down the middle. You mean it to come out in good-humour, but you can’t scrub the hint of jealousy from your tone entirely.

You feel so silly for being jealous of whomever he may hook-up with. After all, Santi is always the one testing the boundaries of friendship with you. It’s not like he’s ever made a secret of the fact he’s attracted to you- and you are the one here will a firm line in the sand. A line you simply won’t cross with him. Can’t cross. You want to - of course you do, but after being hurt in the past, you have simply built-up far too many defences; or, more accurately, just the right amount of defences, you think, to protect you. So, no matter how disarming the man is, you simply have to keep your guard up; because if he breached your walls, you know everything else would come tumbling so easily down.

You had fallen so easily into friendship with him, and you are certain that you would fall just as recklessly in love with him.

You’re not ready for that.

You can’t take being hurt again. Besides; Santi? He’s an incredible friend. He’s tenaciously loyal and dedicated to his squad. But when it comes to love, and sex, you doubt whether serious is even his thing - and you’re too afraid to ask.

“You ready to do this?” he asks, with a wink.

“Yep,” you nod. “Let’s roll,” and with that, you turn, heading for the hallway.

“Princesa- that dress really highlights your ass,” he praises as he tags along behind you.

“Thank you, it’s true,” you smile devilishly, already beginning to let your guard down, just a little. He’s simply so disarming. “Speaking of, Garcia – did you get your trousers a size too small on purpose?”

“Oh, you noticed?” he retorts, smugly, guiding you through the door with a hand on the small of your back.

Okay. Sometimes you flirt back. After all – look at him.

Especially in that damn suit.

***********************************

The rehearsal dinner goes swell. Frankie and Mila are a picture-perfect, loved-up couple, and they grin their way through the evening as if they slept with coat hangers in their mouths. The speeches are well-received, including Will’s, thus setting a high bar for you and Santi tomorrow. (You may be biased, but Santi’s is ten times funnier, and it’s going to kill, in your opinion.) There are no dramas through the evening- logistical or familial, and thanks to you and Santi overseeing everything with a military precision, it looks as though -so far- it is shaping up to be the perfect wedding weekend.

Finally, once your duties are over for the night, you are able to let your hair down a little, so to speak, and enjoy the food and company on offer. Still, with a big day ahead tomorrow, things wind down relatively early, and -having lost track of Santi at some point- you find yourself back at the shared room a little while before him. You usually burn out more quickly than he does in social situations, but even taking that into consideration, you begin to fret about where he has gotten to. With the way he was flirting his way through the party, though, it doesn’t take a genius to guess what (or who) might be keeping him up.

You try to sleep but you can’t, your mind going to the worst places, so, by the time Santi does return -softly cracking the door, and padding in with his shoes in his hands so as not to wake you- you have stewed in your own thoughts long enough to have become a little cranky. A little… green-eyed.

“Hey,” he greets in surprise when he enters, immediately noticing the soft lamp glow, and seeing you still sitting up in the bed, mindlessly watching the flicker of the tv on mute.

“Hey,” you return, your voice noticeably strained. “Have a fun time?” You find yourself wishing you weren’t sharing a room, then you wouldn’t have to know what he got up to.

“Yeah,” he replies softly, slipping off his jacket and laying it over the back of a chair. “Did you? How come you’re still up? Thought for sure you’d be wiped out by now.”

So, he did think of you, then?

“Couldn’t sleep,” you reply neutrally, fixing your eyes dead ahead as he begins to slip out of his trousers and shirt too, until he’s dressed in only his tight black boxers. Next, he takes off his watch and sets it at the bedside, and you notice that he smells of perfume. A cloying, floral scent that makes you feel a little sick.

“Just gonna have a quick shower and then I’ll slip in with you, okay?” he says, his voice slow and deep and muted, matching the soft light.

You still don’t look at him. You can’t.

“Do what you want. You usually do,” you bite, the words tasting bitter as soon as they have left your lips, and tears of regret pooling as your anger dissolves.

You don’t blame him if he was with someone – you really don’t. You’re simply angry at yourself; because you wish you could be that person, and you can’t for the life of you seem to find a way.

“Okay. What was that for?” he bristles, reacting defensively, turning towards you. And perhaps it’s because it’s late and he’s tired, or because certain demons feel safer coming out under the cover of darkness, but he doesn’t stop there. Especially when all he gets from you is a stony, pointed silence. “You know what? Actually, no. You don’t get to do this”, he hisses, and it is the first time you’ve ever heard him direct any genuine anger at you.

It doesn’t half sting.

“Do what?” you ask, but you already know the answer.

“You don’t get to be mad when I give my attention to someone who actually wants it,” his voice is hushed, but his words rattle through you as if he had yelled them. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. Guess what, I’m not yours.”

“That’s not fair”, you snap back, and then things are quickly escalating.

“Isn’t it?” he asks, rasping a hand over his stubble in distress. “I mean, come on. Shit. You know that I want more but I…” he exhales a disgruntled laugh. “You shoot me down, which is your prerogative, honestly, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t knock me back all the time and then be pissed off when I look elsewhere.”

You meet his face, the planes of it shadowed and angled harshly with anger, suddenly so unfamiliar to you, and it causes your eyes to bloom with tears. You two look the opposite of Frankie and Mila; of a picture-perfect couple. But you’re not even a couple at all, are you?

You see him try. To blunt the emotion which is bubbling up. To soften. But he has uncorked something he now can’t put back in. “Fuck, I just wish that….” he pinches his lips together and shakes his head, planting his hands on his hips and looking at the floor. “If you don’t want me, just put me out of my fucking misery. Just say it. Just fucking tell me.”

Your heart shatters into a thousand pieces at the thought you make him miserable. At the way his voice breaks. At the way he thinks you don’t want him. Maybe you were wrong, thinking that you could be friends at all. Thinking that could be enough for him.

Your lower lip trembles, and your fingers clutch the edge of the blanket. “I… I can’t tell you that. I can’t tell you that I don’t want you, Santi.”

You can’t because it isn’t true. It could not be further from the truth, in fact.

He puffs out air, an exasperated sound, his hand raising up to tangle in his grizzled curls. Raising his voice a little more. “Let me guess. You can’t tell me the other thing either?”

“I.. I..” You try, but no words will come. You simply shake your head, swallowing a sob, your eyes almost brimming over.

He nods. He nods, his mouth slanted down. “Great. Got it,” he huffs.

You hate this. You hate how much you’re hurting him.

“Santi,” you breathe weakly, but it is too weak to blunt the force of his emotion. To halt his trajectory, and so, resigned, he turns towards the bathroom, grabbing-up a fresh white towel from the counter. Before he closes the door, he turns to you once more, now speaking softly, his eyes as sad as yours. “You know,” he says, his index finger sawing back-and-forth over the stubble at his chin. “For the record, I wasn’t with anyone else. I can’t even fucking think about anyone else but you. I was late back to the room because I couldn’t face it.” His voice becomes small and pained. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to just curl up next to you and act like I don’t care.” His eyebrow ticks up, and he adds, with a final flourish. “Guess I should have taken a lesson from you.”

Oh, how it stings, pain flowering in your chest like a bruise, but you hold yourself together until he’s out of sight. Then, when he’s gone, you immediately cave in on yourself, falling on to your side and screwing your eyes shut, clamping your hand over your mouth so that he can’t hear you crying as wet tears spill onto your pillow.

When he comes back into the room, after a long shower, you simply screw your eyes shut and pretend to be asleep. You hear him sigh heavily, and mumble something to himself under his breath, before dragging a few pillows and a spare blanket down on to the floor.

A few more silent tears roll over the bridge of your nose.

You guess you wouldn’t be sharing a bed with him after all.

***********************

You wake panicked in the night, sitting bolt upright in the bed. A cold wash of sweat over your skin chills you, even though you feel like you’re burning-up.

Immediately, you reach for him, for Santi, calling his name even as your fear strangles the sound in your throat. Your heart is thudding, and your breaths are sawing in and out of you, but your grasping hands find nothing to your side but pillows and blanket.

Unfortunately, you are used to this occurrence, and you quickly realise it was “only” a nightmare. Still, the feelings and images it conjured linger in your body, and around you in the shifting, seemingly fluid shadows of the room.

With a release of tension, you whimper, leaning forward and cradling your head in your trembling hands, and you try to ground yourself. To steady your breath and your heartbeat, like you’ve practiced. As you do so, the shadows to your left shift and change, and, even in the pitch-black you can feel him, a safe and warm presence, instantly travelling to your side, his weight dipping the mattress. His soothing, sandy voice filtering through the shadows and cutting back the tendrils of your nightmare like a Disney prince hacking through cursed vines.

You vaguely remember that he’s mad at you - but you can’t help it. Can’t help asking. “Hold me?” you plead, desperately afraid that he won’t.

Still, without questions or hesitation, you feel the wall of remaining pillows coming down, the defences around you quite literally being dismantled – a figurative wall between you shifting away along with it. He shushes you, and you focus on his voice, until he is close enough that the scent of him wraps around you, before his arms follow closely after.

You reach for him in return. You reach for him in every way possible.

“It’s just a nightmare,” he soothes. “I’m here, baby. I’ve got you,” and there is pain in his voice on your behalf, as if he tries to bear the burden of it for you.

“Closer,” you plead, and before you know it, he is shifting you on to your side, slotting his sturdy yet soft body around you, not caring that you feel clammy and hot against his bare skin. He simply loops his arms and draws your back, closer to his chest, becoming your big spoon.

He calms you, hands enveloping yours and bundling them against your chest, his nose nuzzling into your hair, and his deep steady breaths slowing your breathing as you let his calm and his rhythms overcome you. He holds you, until the feelings pass, not caring how long it takes – and with any anger from before apparently forgotten.

This pain is all too familiar to him, you know. It something that Santi understands. It is your own and it is not the same as his, true, but you know it is familiar enough that he will feel the ache of it echoing in his own chest. You know that he is accustomed enough to bearing his own pain, that when yours is too heavy to carry, he will help you hold it for a while. And so, he holds you, while you are a tender thing, bruised and afraid, and he keeps you safe; with all your walls down, all of your defences collapsed, he becomes your fortress.

You never thought that letting yourself be so vulnerable could allow you to feel quite as safe as this.

As you lie together, Santi continues to usher soft reassurances into your ear, his words like charms and incantations to ward off the ghosts which haunt you. And, after a series of slow, stretched moments, you become more settled, and Santi feels you relax against him.

After a few moments more, he eventually whispers a small question into your hair. In the dark, the question feels safe to come out, perhaps.

“Do you always call for me when you…?” he trails off, thinking better of it. “I’m sorry- forget it, you don’t have to answer that.”

You don’t. You know you don’t. You don’t even truthfully know the answer. It’s likely that you do call for him, though how would you know, when you’re usually alone? But, there is something else you can tell him, while it is safe to come out in the dark. Something you want to tell him, before you build your walls all the way back up.

“Santi,” you begin, timidly, and his fingers skim softly up and down your arms, encouraging you to go on. “I-I’ve been hurt before. And, I want to be with you. I want to let you in but… I’m. I’m not ready. I’m trying so hard but I… I can’t.”

There is a long beat, and you realise he has held in a breath only when he releases it all at once, fanning hot across the back of your neck.

You are afraid. Afraid of what he might say, in response – what he might feel, but you think, maybe, it might be something like relief? And, Santi squeezes you, just a little tighter. A little closer. “Don’t worry about that now, okay?” he soothes, his voice feather soft. “Just… know one thing, okay, Princesa? Whenever you are ready? I’m waiting.”

This time your heart fills with a different emotion, all the spaces in it flooded with contentment, Santi’s words followed by a perfect, happy silence.

A soft smile blooms on your face.

It was not a confession of waiting impatiently, you understand, but an invitation to take your time to arrive at him. He’s not trying to bring down your defences at all, is he? He’s waiting for you to open the door, and invite him in. He’s waiting until you are ready. He simply needed to know that you are on your way, even if your footsteps are getting you there slowly.

For now, though, the thought of it is too much. More than you’re ready for.

So, you simply let him hold you.

To disarm you further.

To walk yourself a little closer toward where you want to be. With him; by his side.

****************************************

In the morning, you wake up tangled around each other, Santi’s arm wrapped securely around your back and your head settled on his chest. He is still snoring lightly – cutely - when you awake, and so, as the night prior comes flooding back to you, you hastily try to extricate yourself from him; even if his bare skin feels so good against yours that you never want to move. You’re apparently not so subtle- or he’s a helluva light-sleeper – as, just when you pull away, Santi wakes up, quickly rushing to prove his innocence.

“You had a nightmare,” he croaks, still trying to peel his eyes open. “You asked me to- “.

“-I know. I remember,” you reassure, sitting up in bed, the blankets tugged to your chest. Santi shuffles, opting to assume the same position on his own side, mirroring you, rubbing his eyes.

You’re still not sure whether to apologise to him or thank him. Or maybe even to wait for an apology from him? Christ. Maybe all of those things or none of them, who even knows? You mentally spin a wheel and land on a casual “Uh. Thank you, for…. You know.”

“Anytime,” he says, turning his head to the side and looking at you earnestly. As if your bickering -your jealousy and his outburst- is all but forgotten. What’s more, you know that he means it.

Admiringly, your eyes wander over him, enjoying a side of him you’ve never quite seen before. Apparently, he’s even more handsome in the morning, with an even thicker, darkened brush of stubble, his grizzled curls dishevelled, and his swooping eyelids still heavy from sleep. Combined, it gives him a sultry, bedroom look. Feeling an involuntary rush of heat in the pit of you, your gaze drops to his corded neck, where, given the special occasion, he has substituted his dog tags for a silver chain, drawing your gaze down over his smooth, brown chest.

Your skin now cooling in the conditioned air of the room, you long for his body heat again, recalling how it felt to be held by him and wishing you had lingered a little longer while you could. Even with your interrupted sleep last night, you have somehow woken feeling refreshed, as though you had slept unreasonably deeply in his arms, reaching a whole new level of contentment - as though you just fit together, perhaps. As though it comes naturally for you to be held by him, and for him to hold you.

There is a silence and it isn’t awkward exactly; more… pregnant, with possibilities. Possibilities you see brewing with a gentle heat in his eyes. So, tearing yourself abruptly away from that line of thought, you lift your phone up from the nightstand, and note that there isn’t long before your alarms sound anyway.

Operation Wedding Day is go.

That should be enough of a distraction for you, shouldn’t it?

“You ready for this, Best Man?” you ask him, with a gentle quirk of your lips.

“Sure. Are you ready, Maid of Honour?”

Ready. Are you ready?

Thoughts of last night swirl in your head.

Well – as Santi flashes you a tentative, disarming smile, with hooded eyes, you certainly feel like you’re getting there. Like soon you could be ready.

“Sure. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Atta girl,” he encourages, folding his arms behind his head as you jump out of bed.

You suddenly don’t care that you’re in nothing but your underwear, as you stretch out your body and track towards the bathroom. “I’ll shower first?”

“We’re sharing a bed,” he teases. “Sure you don’t want to share a shower too?”

You scoff, flashing a mischievous smile right back at him. You’ve always had a soft spot for his flirting, but you feel like -after all that transpired last night- you truly see if for what it is now. You realise why it has never felt like he’s pressuring you - not once. He’s simply reminding you, that as soon as you call for him, he’ll be there. That he’s waiting, when you’re ready.

Reminding you, that as soon as your walls drop, he’ll be your fortress.

“I don’t think you’re gonna get quite that lucky this morning, Garcia.”

You do linger in the doorway, just a little longer than necessary though, so that he can get a better look at you. He’d never look without permission – he proved that yesterday, when you were in various states of disarray- but this time, sensing your invitation, his eyes graze over you slowly, keenly. So, when he strategically moves his hands from behind his head to hide the tenting covers, you don’t mind at all.

You smile devilishly as you slip into the bathroom, closing the door behind you. You’re not sure if he will… take care of himself out in the room – how could you know? But, feeling inspired, you certainly do so in the shower, and it’s a pretty great wake-up call before you face the wedding day.

Maybe sharing a room isn’t so bad. Maybe you could even get used to it.

*********************************************

Frankie and Mila get hitched without a hitch.

Santi goes to the ends of the earth to make sure that Frankie has the best day possible- and at some points, he goes even further than that. His speech was moving and flawless, and pretty fucking funny; even if you are a little (or a lot) biased. Not a dry eye in the house, just as you predicted.

The man adores Frankie with his whole heart, and you could barely hold back the glow of admiration as you listened to him, feeling like it might burst from your chest like a beam of gold sunlight. You felt it especially strongly every time his eyes met yours during the course of the speech, and you couldn’t help but smile yourself stupid each time he did so. And, of course, you were overjoyed to see your best friend have the day of her dreams, with the man of her dreams. If you do say so yourself, you think your speech was pretty killer too.

Suffice to say, you ate until your belly was full, loved until your heart hurt, laughed until your sides ached, and danced until your feet ached.

Tonight, unlike last night, you and Santi retire to your shared room at the same time, your arm linked into his, and your shoes carried in your hand to spare your sore feet – there’s a reason you never normally wear shoes like this. Without your heels though, you keep tripping over the hem of your dress almost every few paces, causing you to giggle and Santi to steady you with a warm, rich chuckle, sometimes throwing you an extra hand to assist you.

You look over at him, furtively, as he recounts some of the more choice moments from the day, immensely enjoying the simple pleasure of hearing him talk and smile and laugh. Seeing him happy. Of course, enjoying how he looks too, you have to admit - even more handsome than he did yesterday (somehow) in midnight blue dress pants, and a white, crisp shirt, now tieless. He’s only grown sexier as the evening drew on too, now with a wide open-collar and rolled up sleeves to accommodate all of the dancing; or, at least, as much dancing as his knees could handle, until he’d simply opted to sit to the side and watch you boogie, his eyes apparently transfixed on you and only you - the advances of the other bridesmaids be damned.

There is something that hits different about the way he looked at you today. His admiration shining deeper than usual. Less like a casual lust, and more like something… serious. You’re not sure why you doubted it before, exactly. Why you have been so inordinately afraid that he might hurt you. You broadly figured him for a smash and dash type of man, which is fine, but you have every reason to believe that he wants more with you.

After all, Santi can be deeply and tenaciously loyal. He has dedicated himself to things deeply and unwaveringly several times over in his life. To his country, to his missions, to his morals, to his squad. And there’s something about the way he looked at you today, you think, that suggests he might dedicate himself to you with the same tenacity. Something far deeper than appreciating how you look in this bridesmaid dress (and oh boy do you look hot). It’s more like the way he looks at Frankie. A little different to that, obviously. But you’re realising he looks at you like he’d never let you down. Not even in the smallest of ways. Like he’d rather go to the ends of the earth -or beyond- than do that.

At least… you think so.

You are sure about one thing though. The way he looks at you? It’s thoroughly disarming.

And so, you arrive at your shared room, utterly wiped out from the day (and night), yet still somehow buzzing with an energy. A gentle suffusing heat under your skin as you watch Santi walk inside and kick off his shoes at the end of the bed, before turning back towards you.

You have entered a few paces behind him, after nearly tripping on your gown all over again by the door, but now, you are quite steady on your feet - aside from that slight, nervous tremble in your quaking legs as he looks at you like that. As Santi looks you up and down, eyes skimming over the contours of your dress and hence everywhere it hugs your figure. Evidently, he likes what he sees.

“Wow,” he breathes, his brown eyes shining as if he’s looking at you for the first time that day, even if his gaze has barely left you all night. “I know it’s the bride’s day, but you look fuckin’ smokin’, sweetie.”

“You think so?” you ask humbly, suddenly feeling unreasonably shy. Flustered even.

“Yeah. I think so,” he nods, positively certain. “Shit, you’re so beautiful.”

You look at him. You look at him in a way which suggests an answer in your eyes instead of a question. A clear intention in your body, instead of uncertainty. But he doesn’t push you. He doesn’t assume. He doesn’t make a move. Instead, his mouth tugs up into a lopsided smile, offering you a lazy flash of teeth, and he shoves his thumbs into his belt loops.

“Well, we’re officially off the clock now, so I’m calling it. Well done, Maid of Honour. Think we nailed it? Made a pretty damn good team?”

A smile lights your face. You did. You flowed. You fit. It was easy.

Fuck. It feels so easy. Why had you ever thought this would be hard?

You nibble on your lip, eyeing him with intention, and a hard swallow trails down his throat in response.

“Off the clock, hmm?” you say breathily. “No more titles or duties? Huh. That’s a real shame.”

“How so?” he asks, his eyes devouring you alive, but his body fixed resolutely in place. Transfixed to the spot.

“Because it’s traditional for the Best Man to get with one of the bridesmaids, isn’t it?”

A slow, disbelieving smile inches over his face, and he looks at his feet, a little bashful. “Gross tradition. Kinda sexist,” he says, and your gaze fixates on his full, curving lips. On his hands, poised and broad at his belt.

“So, you don’t want to make out then?” you ask in your most sultry voice, mere breath.

The man huffs out a quick, broken exhale. “Fuck me. You know I do, sweetie. But only if you’re ready.”

Ready. Are you ready?

“Santiago,” you say, with conviction, your eyes dancing between his. “I’m ready.”

Santi searches your face one last time, just to be certain. He’s sure, of course – has been for a long time, but he needs to know that you truly want this. That you want this now. So, he looks at you, and he finds nothing but permission. Even so, after so long, he still can’t quite believe it. He would go to the ends of the earth to keep you safe – or beyond – and, so dammit, he will ask you again.

“C-can I..” he begins, and his voice already sounds choked; hollowed out with need. “Fuck, Princesa, can I kiss you?”

Too long. Too long without moving. Without touching. Too long.

If you were suddenly ready, his kiss becomes even more suddenly overdue.

“You’d better,” you encourage, feeling like vapour. “Unless you want me to do it first.”

With permission granted, you expect him to be on you, with a surge. All at once. But Santi has been patiently waiting for you long enough. He can wait just a little longer, and, when he subtly tips his chin up, ever so slightly, and when he near growls “come here then, honey,” somehow, it is perfect. Somehow, it is a thousand times hotter that he makes you come to him.

You lift the hem of your dress, and you pad delicately towards him, feeling like you are wading through molten honey to get to him, the air thick and sweet.

“That’s it. Come here, baby,” he encourages, with a curl of his index finger beckoning you to him, his voice curling in the pit of you, making you feel weak in the best way possible. Making you feel spent before he’s even done so much as brush you with his hand or his lips.

You close the remaining distance with your steps, the anticipation too much, and your legs feeling so weak from the reckless lust and the light, liquid softness in his eyes. By this point, you are begging for his arms to reach out and clasp you- to hold you up; make you secure and safe in him. You are begging for his lips to sink down on to yours. But he makes you wait, through a few more slow, stretched moments. Makes you inch your mouth closer and closer until your lips are almost skimming his. He makes you wait until you are moaning his name into the air before he has even touched you.

“Santi.”

And, if there’s one thing you know for sure, it’s that when you call for him, he is always there to take care of you.

You know he will take care of you.

With that, his name a plea, he swoops his broad, large hand up until he is holding you, his fingers closing around your jaw and your throat, trailing down your neck. His touch is painfully gentle, but in a way that makes you want him to squeeze, a little harder. In a way that makes you push yourself ever so subtly into his hand. A way that draws a silken moan from deep in your chest, and Santi is moved to dip the pad of his thumb into your mouth, where it meets your wet and willing warmth. When your tongue skims him, humming as you taste his saltiness, that seems to be the final straw, a wrecked groan sounding from his throat, and finally he surges on to your lips, leading with his tongue, thrusting into your open mouth and drinking down every sound and moan he can draw from you, his stubble rough against you. You don’t care if he leaves you raw.

It’s tender, and it’s gentle, but Santi knows all about control, and you can tell he’s holding back. His hands are lethal, and he knows just how to kill you softly; but, you are certain, that if you want more of his power, he’ll give it to you. That he’ll take care of you however you like.

So, he kisses you more deeply, harder, and you go near limp against him until one of his arms wraps at the back of your head and one at the small of your back, making you feel a feeble thing, waning in his arms as his large hands support you. Except; you’re not feeble though. You’re not by a long shot, and you know exactly what you want.

“Santi,” you suspire, letting him walk you back against the wall, pressing his bulging arousal into you as more wrangled sounds and little grunts slip from his parted lips.

“Yeah, baby?” he asks, already sounding wrecked for you.

“There’s only one shower. Wanna share?!”

Even as he releases an endlessly eager, disbelieving breath, his eyes keenly search your face, checking you are ready. He watches, enraptured, as your lips curl into a deliciously sinful smile.

“You know. We don’t have to rush this,” he insists, even as he shivers with need, closing his eyes and biting his lip when you angle your hips to brush the tenting bulge at his crotch, ever so fleetingly, his hips bucking into you immediately in pursuit of more pressure.

“I know,” you say coolly, your body an undercurrent of frenzy, but your mind calm and sure. You push him back, with your palms to his chest, making room for you to about-turn into the bathroom, shimmying off your dress as you go and letting it waft to the floor like a sigh. Looking at him over your shoulder, with lust-blown eyes, you leave Santi stood there, entirely dumbfounded, as you reveal all of yourself to him.

You retreat, but once the water is running you call out to him, wondering where he has got to. “Take a hint, Garcia. If you’re ready? I’m waiting.”

And, he doesn’t waste another second before joining you.

THE END

(BONUS: Outfit inspo, if you wanna imagine him in the suits a lil better 😉)

#santiago garcia x reader #santiago pope garcia x reader #triple frontier #oscar isaac

446 notes · View notes

shelobussy · 3 years

Note

I know you talk abou st*cky in the interracial ships stuff, but can we talk about st*ny? Iron husbands is literally right there, but I also always sees Rhodey as Tonys moral support only. And ik Tony is very shippable with most characters, but the fact his ship is Rhodey is one of the lowest ships in ao3 (ironstrange, winteriron and god forbid stark*r all had more fics in ao3).. It's pretty telling this side also has racism problems...

I'll go ahead and answer this here, but letting y'all know that I do have a marvel sideblog if you want to hit me up there (@themarvelarchives).

Hey, I'm going to ramble for a good minute.

So after I posted my very incoherent, controversial take on St*cky vs SamBucky, there were a ton of ppl who came onto anon saying that St*cky shippers were racist. I think I only answered a few, but y'all were pretty insistent on it. I personally have not observed that St*cky shippers are so I'm not calling anyone out on that side of the fandom for that.

I also did not call out anyone on this side of the fandom bc that's not what my meta was about. I think I mentioned maybe once or twice in the whole post that there was underlying racist in the fandom, but since you asked, we can talk about it here.

Covert Bigotry In Fandom Spaces.

To understand what's going on in the MCU, we have to first look at what I call "woke-queer" fandom.

So "Woke-Queer" Spaces is the phenomenon where certain fandom members like to call ppl out on their bigotry, while covertly harboring their own queerphobia/racism/etc. An example of this that we're all familiar with is TERFS and how they like to claim that they are progressive and woke, while also claiming that trans women are fake and trans men are sexist.

How this translates to fandom, however, is the hypocrisy that is cancellation and callout culture.

For example, Supernatural in particular is a fandom that likes to call out the writers on their homophobia and racism, and yet, somehow, the fandom is chalk full of homophobia and racism. If you want to read more about this, here is a truly excellent article from the perspective of a queer woman of color.

Moving on, I've also talked in a previous meta post, on the internalized acephobia that exploded in 2019 after Good Omens was released. Rather than reiterate everything I said in that post, I'll just leave it at this: the controversy in the Good Omens fandom can be summed up by the fact that queer audiences are claiming that Ineffable Husbands is the wrong kind of queer. The hypocrisy oozes off the screen, doesn't it?

A final way this viably translates to fandom, is in how the Doctor Who fandom evolved over time.

So Steven Moffat takes over as head writer and showrunner in 2010. It's a new series, a new Doctor, a new Tardis, and new branding. He steps up the action, changes the color grating, and raises the stakes. Women are sexier, the Doctor is smarter (and more of an asshole, but that's another meta post), and every companion comes with their own impossible mystery that makes them Special™.

Series 5-10 got tons of woke points for having lesbian characters, an episode where the Doctor is homoerotic with James Corden, and an underlying trans narrative with the Master's reincarnation. What a lot of people forget, however, is that his series was incredibly sexiest, incredibly lesbian/biphobic, and basically turned the Doctor into everyone's fantasy sex-object.

This, unfortunately, brought out the worst of the fandom. There was RTD Era vs Moffat Era wars exploding in certain corners, TenxRose shippers vs ElevenxRiver shippers.

What does this have to do with covert racism in fandom cultures though?

Hnnngng ok, so back in RTD era's we get Martha Jones, the Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show. Except for the fact, of course, that she is written to be in love with the doctor. She's a brilliant character--smart, sassy, flawed, funny, flirtatious--and her entire plotline is reduced down to a school-girl crush on a white man.

She doesn't do well with fans, they scrap her after one season.

We move on to Donna Noble (The Other Actual Best Companion On The Entire Show) and RTD's era ends with them scraping her too and regenerating David Tennant's Doctor.

It will be five more series (not seasons, SERIES) until Doctor Who will have another black companion--who gets extra points for being gay--only to fall victim to "bury your gays" at the end of the season (but not really bc no one stays dead on Doctor Who).

The fandom's reception of Martha Jones was historically bad. The comparisons to her predecessor, Rose Tyler, were rampant and everyone was finding a reason to hate her.

The fandom's reception to Bill Potts was also historically bad, as everyone was screaming that she was being written for more "woke points" and that they wanted Clara back.

Fandom has a historically bad reputation of being problematic and, I would argue, the majority of it has to do with these toxic undertones of bigotry that slip under the radar. "Woke-queer" spaces, as I call them, are these instances above where spaces that claim to be inclusive of gender/orientation/race are covertly bigoted.

Marvel and Cancelling

Now is an excellent time to talk about the MCU.

Anthony Mackie (Sam Wilson) has recently come under a lot of criticism from fandom members for shutting down shipper speculation.

"The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. [...] something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves."

I can't find the rest of the quote, but Mackie goes on further to say that it was important to him to portray "a sensitive, masculine figure" without insinuating that there was romance involved.

Woke culture lost it's shit. Everyone was suddenly claiming that Mackie was calling them exploitative for shipping a gay ship as a queer audience, which could not have been further from the case.

Mackie actually makes some very excellent points in that sensitivity is not gay/queer. Woke culture loves to rag on Toxic Masculinity, but the minute someone plays a character who is loving and sensitive with no queer narrative in mind, they are immediately canceled.

What Am I On About

Okay, let's actually address what your ask was about, Nonnie. You pointed out--rather truthfully--that it is unfair to call-out racism on one side of the fandom, while ignoring it on the other side.

Well, I've gone back through my St*cky vs. SamBucky analysis (which is incoherent at best, I apologize for that) and I see maybe once instance where I called out fandom members for being racist. Here's what I had to say about racism:

"[...] Iron Husbands is a rarepair, probably because it’s an interracial ship."

"[there is] nothing wrong with shipping two white men, but it does become a problem when you ignore/bash POC/interracial ships to the determinant of your own white ship."

And then there was the post you brought up where I addressed interracial ships in the fandom. That one is probably more relevant to this topic, to be honest, as I actually addressed fandom racism there. I assume that your reason for bringing up Stony is because it's a ship that is more relevant to my side of the fandom, HOWEVER, the reason I highlighted Stucky instead was because I was comparing the fact that they've both been around the same amount of time and are relationships that feature the protagonist and their best friend.

You brought up St*ny in the ask, however, so I'm going to talk about St*ny for a minute.

As someone who never has nor will ship St*ny, it never even occurred to me that some of the problem behind the Iron Husbands tag being so small is because everyone ships the white, boring ship. You brought up a very valid point, but because I was never in that part of the fandom, I can't really speak to any possible underlying racism there, besides what I've already said above.

I would be interested in hearing a St*ony shipper or ex-St*ony shippers thought on this, but sadly I don't know any. If you have any more thoughts regarding this, Nonnie, pls drop back into my inbox.

You do make some excellent points in this ask though, and I would like to talk about racism on my side of the fandom.

So back to Mackie and his Twitter cancellation. Notice that Disney made him address the rumors and not his co-star, Sebastian Stan. Anthony Mackie is put on blast and made to answer fan demands and receives backlash, while Sebastian Stan gets to fly under the rader. This is not, by the way, a criticism of Stan, but instead of the blatant racism Disney has been displaying over the past few years.

How this ties in with the rest of my post has to do with my "woke-queer" spaces bit. The outcry across the MCU fandom over Mackie was swift and unforgiving. He was cancelled on charges of homophobia and bigotry--all the while these same fans turn a blind eye to any queer interpretation of other interracial ships and discourse in their own fandom.

The racism that I'm speaking about, of course, is an almost passive racism. Of course if you don't ship a specific ship for reasons other than their race, it's perfectly fine. It's okay not to ship Iron Husbands or SamBucky or any other interracial fandom ships. However, the distinct lack of shippers in the fandom IS telling because there are people who would ship that exact ship if not for the fact that one of men is black.

I don't have much more to say about this except to thank you for bringing it up and for listening to my long rambling post.

(Feel free to bug me about Tony Stark, MCU ships, MCU Meta and anything you want to talk me about on this blog and @themarvelarchives.)

#this got long sorry #iron husbands #sambucky #james rhodes #tony stark #sam wilson #anthony mackie #doctor who #moffat critical #my meta #ash does meta #ash does fandom #marvel #mcu #fandom critical #fandom criticism #long post

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amitlee · 3 years

Note

Could you do 12 with lee Eret!? It’s fine if not I just haven’t seen a lot with Eret!

So crazy story, I had started writing down my ideas for thoes promts and I had lee Eret down for this one, so I am stoked to do this!

12. “Why are you wearing a crop top?”

Summary: There is one person Eret goes to when he is in a certain mood, maybe a tag team wouldn’t be so bad.

Lee!Eret Ler!BBH

———————————————————————

The sun rose, bringing another morning across the Dream SMP. It was a beautifully average day, the cows were mooing, bees were buzzing, and children were screaming. Eret awoke in his castle, he decided that he would go out on the server today. He dressed in his normal pants and royal mantle but exchanged his shirt for a nice crop top. Eret was not known for having lee moods, he was highly revered as King and was seen as neutral if not leaning Ler.

For this very reason, when he had lee moods there was one person he would go to, BadBoyHalo. Bad was trustworthy, kind, and could be absolutely ruthless.

So here he was, taking a nice stroll to the Badlands in search of his friend. As he was walking he mind wondered what the next half an hour or so of his life entailed; did he want a soft or rough wrecking? Did he want to be wrecked at all? He sighed, he had always been rather indecisive.

“Eret, hey!”

Eret was pulled from his thoughts as he heard the voice of the very man he was looking for.

“Bad, it’s good to see you! How have you been?” Keeping it casual, maybe he’ll just take the hint.

“Not to shabby, and you? I like the shirt by the way, is it just for fun or does it mean something?” The question was innocent and paired with an interested smile.

“I’ve been- uh- good. The shirt! Yeah, I like it too! It could be taken in many ways, I just- I just like it kinda.” The regal fumbled over his words and began to figit as his felt his face flush.

The interested smile changed to a look of concern and amusement, “Kinda? Is everything alright?” Bad asked, he put a hand on the smaller man’s shoulder.

Screw Bad and always being so nice. Eret knew there was no way to dampen his blush by now. “Y-yeah Bad I’m finE-“ he squeaked in suprise at the contact. “Ya know... there is this thing we do sometimes and I might be in a certain mood for it maybe.”

“Ohhh, you silly muffin! Is that why you got all flustered-awww! Go ahead and ask for me please.” He could be ruthless. Bad knew how much teasing affected Eret and he intended to start early!

“Bad- I- can we- you... Bad this is so mean.”

“Mean?! This is adorable!! You are adorable! You know what, screw it.” Bad threw Eret over his shoulder and began to walk back to his and Skeppy’s house. (Just a reminder, Bad is canonically 9 foot something so this is physically possible and not too awkward. Ok sorry! Amity out✌️)

Eret yelped at being tossed like a sack of potatoes, he didn’t really mind though. Bad always walked with a pep in his step, so he was jolted around a little, only adding to the playful and giggly atmosphere.

“We’re going to have so much fun, do you have anything particular in mind? I know you couldn’t ask for it, cutie, but can you push me in the right direction?” They approached his house fairly quickly because of Bad’s long ass legs and Eret could feel butterflies erupt in his stomach, he was already feeling giddy.

“Uhum I just want to be wrecked please...” His voice trailed off towards the end of the sentence and went completely limp in Bad’s arms.

“Aww, you really are adorable. Don’t worry little lee, we’re here!” Bad gently dropped Eret on the bed and took a second to appreciate him. From his pink cheeks and and crop top to things you couldn’t physically see, Bad was truely honored that he held Eret’s trust.

Bad sat on Eret’s thighs and put the man’s hands above his head, “these-“ he gestured to his hands, “-stay right here, ok?” He let his own hands rest on Eret’s sides.

Eret flinched as his arms were guided above him, giggles filled his chest, barley being held in. “Yep!” He cleared his throat, “Yep! That’s goo-great with me.”

And so it began. Bad let his fingers spider from Eret’s lower sides to his upper ribs, throwing random pokes in occasionally. He watched as Eret fell into titters. Gradually he upped the pace until Eret graduated from titters to light laughter.

“Not many people know this Eret but I actually am quite the musician. Now, I wouldn’t call myself a Wilbur, but I’ve always been rather good at the piano. Do you know what is similar to a piano?” Bad watched fondly as the King registered his question and spoke through his giggles.

“Whahahat is lihike a piahaha- a piano?” Eret couldn’t meet his friend’s gaze, but he genuinely pondered the question. He didn’t see how music was relevant to this situation, but Bad never ceased to make fun little conections.

BadBoyHalo giggled and replied “Ribs!” He skittered his fingers under the crop top to vibrate his fingers into Eret’s ribs, making him throw his head back and struggle to hold up his arms. “The bones are like the keys and you make the music! There are many different ways to tickle tickle tickle ribs as well, so they can make many different noises.”

Eret snorted amidst his laughter when Bad dug between his ribs, keeping it light but still firm. When Bad lighted to scratching both sides of the ribs instead, he was rewarded with high pitch giggles and much more squirming.

“Hmm... Do you think raspberries would work well, Piano?”

Eret closed his eyes and shook his head, “Nohoho! You dohohon’t play piahahanos like thahat Bad! Whahat kind of muhuhusician are yohuhu?” He couldn’t help but be a little cheeky.

Bad gasped and stilled his fingers. “Now that, mister, was just uncalled for. I invite you into my home and give you the tickles you desire and this is the thanks I get? I don’t think so.” Bad resumed the action of his hands at Eret’s ribs and took a deep breath before blowing a raspberry on Eret’s belly.

“W-What... Bahahad wait! WahahaIIIT NOHOHO!” Eret all but dissolved into the mattress as two spots were targeted at once. His laughter peaking for a moment before calming slightly. He was about to speak again when Bad drew in another breath and blew another raspberry, this time shaking his head into the smaller man’s stomach. Eret cut himself off with a squeal and dropped his arms down to push at Bad’s shoulders.

Bad raised his head and slowed his hands until his pointer fingers were tracing shapes onto the skin. “Eret. Thoes aren’t your arms not being where they’re supposed to be, right?”

Eret drew in a breath to respond, “I-“

“Because if they are... well, I’m sure you know what happens when people break the rules.” Bad willed his voice to drop and held eye contact with Eret.

“Whahat happens?” Eret asked through giggles.

Bad leaned in to whisper in his lee’s ear, “They. Get. Punished.” He emphasized his words with pokes to Eret’s stomach, he gathered Eret’s hands in one of his own and pinned them back to the bed. When he finished he leaned back to his original position and blew series of small, well calculated raspberries on Eret’s stomach and ribs, leaving his free hand to scritch and spider the other’s armpits.

Eret borderline screamed as his squirming began anew. His armpits had always been a weak spot, abb bed combined with raspberries on two spots! It was very tickly. He let laughter overtake him as he basked in the sensation for a few moments.

“Bad? Eret? What’s going on?” Skeppy had gotten back to his and Bad’s shared home to the sound of screeches and immediately rushed towards the source.

Eret’s blush darkened significantly, especially when Bad didn’t lower the intensity of his tickles.

“Oh, hi Skep! Sorry, I had a situation to deal with. Well Eret, don’t be rude, say hello to Skeppy.” He blew another raspberry, “Or better yet, why don’t you tell him what’s going on, if you’re comfortable. Answer him this, why are you wearing a crop top?” Bad looked over Eret for signs he was uncomfortable. All he found was a flustered, giggly, content person. So he continued.

Skeppy leaned closer, “Is he? Awww!”

Bad giggled again and released Eret’s hands to be able to squeeze and pinch his thighs while keeping his other hand teasing the man’s upper ribs, now attacking two of Eret’s most ticklish spots. “At least say hello~”

“WAHAHA- I WANTED TIHIHICKLES! BAHAHAD PLEHEHEHEASE!” Eret squeezed his eyes shut again, he knew he was reaching his limit even though he was enjoying every second of it.

Bad slowed his hands so he was rubbing away the ghost tingles. “And there we go, I never would have guessed!” He teased.

Skeppy got onto the bed with his two close friends and properly greeted the guest “Hello Eret! Good to see you again!” They both smiled and exchanged small talk for a while until Bad sat up.

“Ok everyone, cuddle-pile! Get in here you two, this is triple the aftercare for the brave one who took all those tickles like an absolute champ!”

And so everyone cuddled close, regained strength, and promptly took a nap.

———————————————————————

Whew! That took a while on my end, sorry about that by the way. I have another fic on the way! I’m still in a big dumb mood so it will probably take me a day or two!

As always, thank you so much for the ask and for reading my things! I love you all and have a great day💕❤️

#tickle fic #mcyt tickle fic #mcyt tickle #lee!Eret #Ler!bbh #Ler!badboyhalo #tickleask #tickleprompt #dsmp tickle fic

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ankewehner · 3 years

Text

Livetweet of accidentally getting into fairyland...

Best twitter thread ever?

https://twitter.com/NeolithicSheep/status/1330548523721515013 Shepherd: Oh hey Ursula, do you have the number for those people who take out invasive plants still?

Ursula: Probably somewhere, yeah. They said they didn’t usually work on such small properties, though, and I don’t know if I’ve got an infestation worth their time.

Shepherd: Ok but what if I say "kudzu" to you, can we throw enough money at them to make it worth their time.

Ursula: If you say “kudzu” to me, I will panic, scream, and come running to Dogskull with a flamethrower.

Shepherd: Ok well I suggest driving but maybe pack up the flamethrower. Ursula: OH MY GOD YOU FOUND KUDZU OH GOD WHERE IS IT ARE YOU SURE IT ISN’T JUST WILD GRAPE

Shepherd: YES I KNOW WHAT WILD GRAPE LOOKS LIKE THANK YOU anyway I was walking Beamer this morning after the deer ate breakfast and the white deer was walking down toward the back of the property, you know that low tucked away part? And I thought, well, we'll just trail after her at a polite distance and if I'm lucky I'll find some of her fur caught on a bush! Wouldn't that be great! So we kept going past the big ass fucking oak trees that make, like, that weird arch? And there's kudzu.

Ursula: What big oak trees?! There’s no big oak trees back there! It’s all pine!

Shepherd: Yeah you know, the two really big motherfuckers that look like English oak. They're like, way the fuck back there.

Ursula: There are no English oak on Dogskull. Are you sure you weren’t trespassing on the Freemason’s property?

Shepherd: No they're closer to the front I think? Who's next door to them? Also I thought Dog Skull was 7 acres? Because I should be off it and hitting the road by now.

Ursula: Next door to them is the people with the trailer on its side. Do you see any trailers lying on their sides?

Shepherd: A lot of oak trees, a little bit of kudzu, zero trailers in any orientation. Some birds and squirrels. Oh hey Beamer found a nice pond.

Ursula: Okay, this is important. Do the oak trees still have leaves on them?

Shepherd: Yeah but so does the one up front. Oh wait. These are, uh, still green. Like summer green.

Ursula: Right. Okay. This could be a problem. Give me a couple minutes, we have to take trash to the dump and then I’ll look some stuff up. Meanwhile, DON’T EAT ANYTHING.

Shepherd: You mean in case it's poisonous, right? Like THEORETICALLY if I didn't see this tweet until just now and HYPOTHETICALLY I found an apple tree and ate an apple, that would be fine?

Ursula: ...that would not be fine.

Shepherd: Beamer didn't want any, which was weird I thought.

Ursula: INDUCE VOMITING! INDUCE VOMITING!

Shepherd: He didn't eat anything! I'm not going to gag my dog for not eating an apple!

Ursula: Not the dog! Induce vomiting in yourself! Every chunk of that apple needs to come out before you digest it!

Shepherd: FINE. I have puked it up. It was a really good apple, too.

Ursula: Oh thank god. Whew. Okay. The alternative was that you were gonna need a cold iron enema and I wasn’t sure how to do that on short notice.

Shepherd: Oh hey fun fact, "cold iron" is just, like, iron. It's not a special kind or anything!

Ursula: Do you have any on you right now? Beamer’s collar or tags or anything?

Shepherd: Collar hardware is all aluminum these days, otherwise it rusts. Let me pat down my pockets. Syringe of dewormer? Is that helpful?

Shepherd: Anyway I don't want to alarm you but uh. I can't find the trail I followed? So you and Kevin will need to go over tonight and give the boys [i.e. oxen] a hay bale and the goats and sheep two.

Ursula: No! I am scared of cows! We have to get you out of there! Look, I have a bunch of Llewelyn books from my teenage pagan days. I’m sure Scott Cunningham or Silver Ravenwolf covered this somewhere.

Shepherd: Scott Cunningham seems like a really drastic measure just because you're afraid of some cows. But sooner or later I'm going to run out of cigarettes so sure, why not. Oh!! The boys' bow pins are in my pocket, I was going to sand them today and oil them! They're very definitely iron!

Ursula: That’s good! That’s very good! If anyone tries to talk to you, keep hold of those! Now let’s see...do you consider yourself a “solitary practitioner?”

Shepherd: Ursula I'm an ornamental hermit, you don't get much more solitary. Also so far the only person who tried to talk to me was a frog.

Ursula: ...what did the frog say?

Shepherd: "SMOKING KILLS." I tossed it back in the pond.

Ursula: *rubs forehead*

Shepherd: Fucking frogs are all alike, I'm telling you.

Ursula: I really wish these authors had spent less time on “why Wicca isn’t Satanism” and more time on “what to do when you’ve strayed into the fae realms.” I mean, I understand it was the political climate of the time...

Shepherd: I feel like nobody really covers that last one anymore. You have 4 hours until the cows want dinner.

Ursula: Silver Ravenwolf suggests making your magical working space more inviting with stencils? These books spend a surprising amount of time on interior decorating as a vital part of ritual magick. I never noticed that when I was fifteen.

Shepherd: Yeah me neither honestly. It's remarkably unhelpful when you're stuck in faerie and your collie is getting bored. Shepherd: So you want me to... Build a magical working space and stencil it?

Ursula: I can’t actually see how that would help matters. Maybe I should check the Foxfire books instead.

Shepherd: I... Don't remember them having anything relevant, but I might be wrong?

Ursula: They have everything. Ooh, this one is about how to scald the bristles off a hog!

Shepherd: A) I already know how to do that and B) I do not have a hog, sufficient firewood, or a hog scrubbing brush here. FOCUS, URSULA. FOCUS.

Ursula: Sorry, the ADHD meds haven’t kicked in yet today...uh...let’s see...avoid whippoorwills, if you see any?

Shepherd: I do that already, otherwise they steal your toenails.

Ursula: If you harvest apples, leave one on the tree or it attracts the Devil.

Shepherd: You told me not to eat the apples! Am I allowed to eat the apples now??

Ursula: No! These are hypothetical apples! NO EATING! I tried to look up deer in the Foxfire books and there’s a story about somebody’s grandpa wrestling a buck in a mill dam and drowning it, but I don’t see the relevance here. I mean, Grandpa does sound like a badass, though.

Shepherd: I feel like I shouldn't wrestle deer here. What if I try telling Beamer to find his sheep?

Ursula: Well, research has hit a small snag. I tried googling for the foxfire books and kudzu, in case there was something about fae kudzu portals, right? But it turns out your Twitter is the third hit. Shep, we may BE the experts.

Shepherd: Uh oh. OK. In that case, you and Kevin go over to Dog Skull. Hitch up Cole and Cannon and take them back to the oak trees. Put a logging chain around one and yell real loud "LET SHEPHERD OUT OR WE START PULLING"

Ursula: Oh hell no! I read tree law Reddit! I know how this ends! Do you want us to get sued by Freemasons?!

Shepherd: I DON'T THINK THE FREEMASONS ARE THE PROBLEM HERE, URSULA

Ursula: I DON’T TRUST THEM WITH THEIR LITTLE LEVELS AND SHEEPSKINS AND WEIRDLY OCULAR PYRAMIDS Also if you see a pyramid with an eye on it, don’t eat it’s either.

Ursula: Okay. Never mind the Freemasons. I wrote a book about this once, I think. White animals, scary fae, random magic deer. It was set in Finland, so you may need to fashion some umlauts, though.

Shepherd: I've got my chore knife, I can carve so many umlauts. Do I just put them in trees until I get back?

Ursula: First of all, are you wearing pants?

Shepherd: YES I'M WEARING PANTS YOU WEIRDO

Ursula: t’s a legitimate question! I mean, I’m not wearing pants.

Now Shep, this is very important. You have to take off your pants.

Also your shoes, your hoodie, and probably Beamer’s collar.

Shepherd: Ursula. Why are we getting naked.

Ursula: To break the misdirection spell! Put your clothes on backwards!

And possibly inside out? Shit, there’s a bunch of different sources. I don’t know if they have to be inside out, but definitely backwards.

Uh...let’s see...hmm, backwards definitely. Inside out might be for leshy. Leshies? Leshys? What’s the plural form, do you think?

If you happen to see any giggling green hairy dudes, ask them what the plural form of their name is. That’s gonna bug me.

Shepherd: Beamer's collar doesn't have a backwards! I'll turn it inside out. And my clothes backwards and inside out, got it.

Shepherd: There's just, like, frogs. And squirrels. I can hear music though! There might be a dance party, I could go ask about green hairy dudes?

Ursula: STAY AWAY FROM THE MUSIC unless it’s the Freemasons I guess

Shepherd: No it's more folk music. The Freemasons play, like, Michael Jackson.

ANYWAY clothes are backwards and inside out. Beamer's collar is backwards and just to be thorough I tied the rope end of his leash to his collar instead of using the clip, so his leash is backwards too. He's pulling me away from the pond!

Ursula: Tell him to go find his sheep!

Shepherd: I have so instructed him! Hopefully there's not, like, the faerie equivalent of really good sheep here. Hey do you want me to grab you an apple

Ursula: No, they don’t come true from seed, but if you can cut me a decent slightly whippy twig with a few leaves, I might be able to root that sucker.

Shepherd: ...you want me to pause a collie on a mission while I test the whippiness of twigs??

I HEAR MOOING. I SEE PINE TREES.

Ursula: GO TOWARD THE MOOING

Shepherd: THERE'S THE OLD RUSTED OUT METAL THING! I'm back! On uh the opposite side of the property from the one I left from.

Also there's a goddamned chorus frog calling.

Ursula: Yeah, they do that.

Ursula: THANK GOD THE KUDZU IS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PORTAL

...oh, and you’re back, that’s good too. Very pleased.

Shepherd: Anyway you don't have to feed the boys. Unless you want to?

Ursula: There is no situation where I will WANT to feed your giant-ass death bovines.

Also, what have we learned about following the white doe into the woods?

Shepherd: She knows where the really good apples are?

Also my boys are tiny!!

Ursula: ...I’m gonna go take a nap.

#Ursula Vernon #NeolithicSheep #Faerie

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eidetictelekinetic · 3 years

Text

Fic Interview Meme

Thanks for the tag, @rubickk7 !

How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 115 fics.

What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

1,553,954

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3:

The Magicians (TV) (28)

A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin (21)

Inception (2010) (20)

Suits (US TV) (17)

Game of Thrones (TV) (12)

Black Sails (7)

Supernatural (6)

The Avengers (Marvel Movies) (5)

A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms (5)

The Tudors (TV) (3)

The Hobbit - All Media Types (2)

X-Men (Movieverse) (2)

Marvel Cinematic Universe (2)

The Hobbit (Jackson Movies) (2)

Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies) (2)

X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies) (2)

American Gods - Neil Gaiman (1)

Conviction (TV 2006) (1)

16th Century CE RPF (1)

Star Wars Legends - All Media Types (1)

Star Wars - All Media Types (1)

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (1)

Whitechapel (TV) (1)

Chronicles of Narnia (Movies) (1)

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (1)

Here’s the list from my fanfiction.net days (some overlap here):

Song of the Lioness

Star Wars

Stargate: SG-1

Harry Potter

In The Forests of the Night

X-Men: The Movie

Circle of Magic

Doctor Who

House, M.D.

Wicked

Law and Order: SVU

Torchwood

Charmed

Primeval

NCIS

Tudors

Inception

Supernatural

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Lady of Rivers and Storms [ASOIAF]: When Lysa miscarries Petyr's child before anyone learns of her pregnancy, her father negotiates a different marriage for her instead. Married to the second Baratheon son, will the future be any easier for either of them?

In the Middle (Before I Knew I Had Begun) [Suits]: It's an accident, when Mike touches Lyla. But everything follows from there. (Or maybe everything follows from the moment Rhi saw the golden tiger and all she could think was how beautiful she was.)

Skyfall Is Where We Start [ASOIAF]: 'At least Stannis won't laugh at Renly if the boy tries to follow him around when he's a bit older and takes a tumble on the flagstones. It's not much, not much at all, but perhaps it's enough to be going on with.'

Robert never loved his brothers, but this is not a story about Robert. This is about Stannis, and Renly, and glimpses of how they might have been different, had they let themselves love each other as brothers usually do.

Breakin’ Out the Institution [Suits]: “OK, so, before we start, a few things you should know about me. My name’s Mike Ross, not Rick Sorkin. I am a lawyer, I just didn’t go to Harvard. But you should hear me out anyway.”

Where Mike is actually a lawyer, a Brooklyn ADA looking for a change of pace, and gatecrashes Harvey's interviews entirely on purpose.

Lay Me Down (Pockets Full of Stones) [The Magicians]: The world spins, and Quentin doesn’t even feel his knees buckle, or how his head hits the wall on the way down. All he knows is the fall into the quiet dark.

In which Quentin survives the events of 4.13 by taking such bad care of himself he never actually makes it to the Mirror Realm. Also in which everyone loses him for a day, and Eliot is Not Happy about this.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yeah; I like getting responses to my comments so I do my best to reply to comments I get.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I had to go back to fanfiction.net for this because I never crossposted these to AO3, but Kiss My Eyes for The Tudors. It was Anne of Cleves/Cromwell, which was tragic mostly because it was historically compliant so a deathfic. Honorable mention, same fandom, was And In That Hour, Charles Brandon/Margaret Tudor and Charles Brandon/Henry VIII, unrequited love for the latter.

Fun fact about the latter, it was the first m/m fic I ever wrote; the deal was I’d write a slash fic if one of my forum friends did a femslash one.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Ha. Hahahahahaha. So, back when I was 17-18 I was working on a verse titled A Moment To Be Real, and it was a crossover verse that, taking all the relevant fics into account, included Charmed, Primeval, the Whoniverse, and NCIS in major capacities. In more minor capacities, the plans for the verse also included Fringe, Supernatural, Stargate SG1/Atlantis, and Warehouse 13. Oh, and there were two main timelines and two minor ones the stories spent time in. Heh. Yeah, that was a thing, yes it was way too big a project and I didn’t finish it, but I truly think that working to juggle all that was very helpful to my later work.

I don’t write a lot of major crossovers anymore, but I tend to just... live in the idea that certain canons can feasibly coexist so when I can do little crossover cameos I like to do them. One recent exception is return to the sunlit lands, which is a Magicians/Narnia crossover.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not recently; a long time ago back on ff.net, I left a comment that was misunderstood as hate (I said something was bad, meaning the characters’ situation, but the author thought I meant her writing) and the author of that fic responded in kind. Once I clarified, they were nicer in a subsequent review. I’ve been very lucky in that regard; I’ve had friends who have had to deal with a lot of drama in that sense.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I didn’t for a long time, but recently I’ve begun to! So far, it’s been m/m and f/f, though there was an intentionally-vague m/m/f scene and I’m... currently avoiding writing a more detailed one because I’m nervous as hell about it, lol.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, actually! Two of my older ASOIAF fics, All the Traveled Roads and I Will Not Fall, I Will Not Break have translations, which is just really neat to me.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

About ten years ago I was working on a joint project about modern day Tudors; never did get posted, alas. I’m not sure I’d be very well suited to co-writing a single story; co-writing a verse where different authors do different stories might work, though.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

God, I have no idea, but I still and always have strong feelings about Sam/Jack from Stargate SG1, so let’s go with that for longevity?

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A Moment To Be Real, actually; it’s not so much that I want to finish it as that I know I won’t and I regret it. I have another verse that I probably won’t finish but one of these days I’ll at least post an outline of where I saw it going so that there will be some degree of closure. Pretty much every other fic has at least a faint chance I might go back to it, or I genuinely don’t want to.

What are your writing strengths?

Worldbuilding and handling the moving pieces of a canon divergent AU. I’ve also been told I’m pretty good with ensembles.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes, which is unfortunate when I find myself definitely needing to write a battle, and I suspect is part of my smut hang-ups too.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I have done it occasionally, but honestly I feel it’s usually easier to italicize English dialogue and put the other language in the narration - I think it’s probably easier to read, too.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Stargate SG1

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I couldn’t possibly pick one, really.

Tagging @theemightypen @cosmonauthill @jayneladybright @ofthedirewolves @portraitofemmy @nellie-elizabeth @mihrsuri

#kate writes fic #this took a while!

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

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please keep talking abt wrestling. i've kinda fallen into this hole recently and, since you're cool af, I would love to know whatever you have to say about it

Well I mostly watch AEW although I was very into Progress before the pandemic (which is a London-based indie promotion that's also basically the feed source for NXT UK) but idk whether or in what state Progress will come back not just bc of the pandemic but bc this year's wrestling abuse scandals involved a lot of their management and core roster so they've had to really reshuffle.

anyway that's an unnecessarily grim diversion let's talk AEW (I'm a few episodes behind bc I watch on Zoom with my pals and it's easy to fall behind while trying to line up our schedules, we're gonna watch Winter Is Coming tonight)

This blog's opinions are:

Women's wrestling is severely underrated and that's the fault of the promotion not the fans, AEW has a phenomenally talented women's roster with a big fan following but consistently gives them no air time, very little space to develop plots, one match per episode that the commentators half-ignore, and only ever one plot at a time. I love Hikaru Shida, Nyla Rose and Britt Baker as characters but there's a huge women's roster of compelling characters who only ever show up on Dark or for a single bout not tied into any particular plot on Dynamite and it's very wearing. When they launched AEW they made a big deal about equal pay for the men and women's rosters and paying the same regardless of gender and fan status, purely based on card position, but that means absolutely nothing if there's only ever one women's match and it's always at the same mid-card position. Sorry to open on a negative but it makes me so mad that WWE, the company which is notoriously misogynistic and whose director had to be shown Asian schoolgirl porn to accept that the audience would find Japanese wrestlers "sexy enough" to put in the ring, is somehow a better venue for women's wrestling than AEW. like fuckkkkkkkkk just treat the women's roster like you would the men's!!!!

on which note, AEW Heels, the Paid Fanclub For Women Who Like Wrestling, is the most half-assed attempt to court the female wrestling audience I've ever seen (and I watched WWE's Revolution pay-per-view where the line was 'isn't it nice that the men have allowed women to have their own PPV thanks to all the men who made this possible'). like ok I COULD give you money to Be A Female Fan OR, wild concept, you could do more than one women's match per episode on your flagship show and not relegate the women's tag title to YouTube

Relatedly, There's Too Much Wrestling. As you can probably tell from the fact I'm 4 episodes behind on Dynamite, I struggle enough to fit 2 hours of wrestling into my week, but AEW also expected me to keep up with Dark, BTE, and sometimes other side projects? and now also Impact and NWA and sometimes NJPW. and then if I want to recognise big names they're bringing in I would also have had to watch WWE which like. there's even more WWE than AEW. idk I'm a completionist and it's simply not possible to watch All The Relevant Wrestling bc that would be like. 20 hours a week and I have a job and a life and stuff. like I watch AEW Dynamite and BTE and that does me.

this is all very negative but I love wrestling! I got into it a couple of years ago and it's absolutely incredible to me I love the artistry I love the athleticism I love the creativity and the fun people have with their characters. and the reason I gave up on WWE as soon as AEW started up is that it feels so much like the wrestlers are given space to play and to find the stories they want to tell.

MJF is a DELIGHT he's like one of my favourite heels he's so loathsome and so much fun! and there's like a really good consistent emotional core to his overall storyline of desperate insecurity I'm so into it and I'm so hype about when inevitably Wardlow's gonna turn on him. I love the resonance of his relationship with Cody vs his relationship with Wardlow and also the extremely strong gay unrequited love vibes that keep popping up here.

Hikaru Shida is AMAZING I love her. did u know she makes her own ring gear and learnt to speak English pretty much from scratch when she joined AEW a year ago and is now cutting full promos in English? also her facial acting? 😘👌👌👌👌

Sonny Kiss is phenomenal I hope they're on Dynamite more bc not only is she a phenomenal character in their own right but when she started tagging with Joey Janela their in-ring chemistry actually made me LIKE Janela for the first time. also it warms my heart that JR, despite being kind of an old fogey, is regularly correcting other commentators on their pronoun use and vocally acknowledging that Sonny is nonbinary.

honestly JR does just warm my heart in general like he visibly struggled early on with getting out of the 2000s mindset on Female Wrestlers Are Sexy Divas and he accidentally misgendered Nyla Rose one time but he's been really open to criticism and often gone to bat for the trans and queer members of the roster. he seems like a nice guy and I'm glad he's here, which I didn't think I'd be saying a year ago yk?

I know I already said this but Chris Jericho is a phenomenon. he just makes everything FUCKING FUN every story he tells is wild and hilarious. The Inner Circle gives me life (on this blog we stan Ortiz) and his beef with Orange Cassidy was pure gold.

Also Matt Hardy is here!!!! I love Matt Hardy, I think his Ultimate Deletion match with Bray Wyatt was what made me realise how fun wrestling can be and he always brings the creativity. He's been through a lot of shit in his life, I'm really happy that he's able to work with a promotion that gives him room to be as hogwild as he wants because Matt Hardy's great strength is being absolutely off-the-chain weird. I love him.

Speaking of Matt Hardy and the Inner Circle have you seen the Stadium Stampede from this summer? honestly worth buying the whole PPV just for that it's wild choice after wild choice for 45 minutes it might be the best wrestling match ever. idk if I like it better when Matt Jackson Northern Lights suplexes Sammy Guevara the entire length of a football field, when Matt Hardy chases Sammy with a golf cart, the whole bit where Adam Page just goes off and gets drunk in a bar and has a brawl with Jake Hager, the bit where Proud & Powerful try to drown Matt Hardy but every time he goes underwater he comes up in a different costume and persona - holy shit it's just amazing it's everything I love about wrestling

Moving away from AEW, the best wrestling storyline I've ever seen is Progress' story with Cara Noir and Ilya Dragonov. They're both phenomenal wrestlers but also the raw power and emotional weight of the story? it's simple but it's heartachingly beautiful I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the second of 3 matches in the story and I was nearly in tears it's so theatrical and balletic???? Check it out if you can it's in Progress' video archives (those are all pay-to-watch though. I think they're also on Amazon Prime for American viewers?)

Cara Noir is probably my favourite wrestler, although Nyla Rose, Charlotte Flair, Chris Jericho, Luchasaurus and Adam Page are all up there. He's just the most phenomenal physical performer and he really gets how much theatre is in wrestling, his facial acting is impeccable and he's not afraid to take hard bumps and really sell. also he just seems like a very sound person out of character (touch wood), he's very principled and takes his work and the wellbeing of his colleagues really seriously which is what you want in a wrestler

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psycho-slytherin · 4 years

Text

Bonus chapter: Truth or Dare

Thanks to @minprismpowermakeup for the idea~ <3

Context: This takes place around Strangers ch. 33, after y/n and Yoongi have begun filming Moon Over the Sea. This content is not relevant to the main Strangers plot.

WC: 1.8k love it when a bonus chapter is longer than some actual content

|mlist|

A/N: Namjoon really wrecked me during the awards stages ok I’m not projecting I’m just projecting

“Okay, y/n, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” you yawn, making yourself comfortable. You’re sleepy, it’s past two in the morning, and you don’t wanna get up.

“Anyone got a good one for the token ARMY?” Hoseok asks, looking around at the other members sprawled on various pieces of furniture and carpet. You stick your tongue out at Hoseok on hearing your title.

“Do you have a crush on anyone?” Seokjin asks from below you, tipping a mostly-empty beer bottle at you.

“I already answered that, and no.” You swat the eldest member, who’s laying on the couch with his head in your lap. “Bitch, I just ended a relationship and webcomics continue to convince me that men are trash. Besides, I barely get to sleep– when am I gonna have time to catch feelings?”

“Blehhh, boring.”

“I can drink if y’all can’t think of anything,” you say, already reaching for the bottle to refill your wine glass. Hey, you were feeling classy tonight.

“No, wait, wait, I have one!” Jungkook leans forward eagerly. “Have you ever written... fanfiction?”

Ah, shit.

You press your lips together to keep a straight face. Lately it seems you’ve been using more of your acting skills when you spend time with the boys than you do for school and work combined. “Have I ever, at any point, written fanfiction for any fandom? Yes.”

“Was it…” Jungkook leans even closer, his long hair almost hitting you in the face. “BTS fanfiction?”

You smile, choosing your words carefully. “Unfortunately, Kookie dearest, I already answered my truth.”

“She’s avoiding the question!” Jungkook hollers, far too loudly for the time of night. “You guys know what that means~”

It’s as though all signs of sleepiness have vanished– every member sits up, and with Jin’s weight off, you realize your legs have fallen asleep.

“C’mon, guys…” you’re met with seven pairs of eager eyes, focusing on your favorite. “Et tu, Yoongs?”

A corner of Yoongi’s mouth turns upward in that oh-so-familiar smirk. “What can I say– I’ve got a cat’s curiosity.”

“Don’t let Holly hear that,” you reply, tossing a pillow at him. He snatches it out of the air without moving from his curled-up position in his favorite armchair. You’re reminded again of how he’s so adorable when he looks that small.

“So?” Jimin asks eagerly. “Have you ever written fanfiction about us?”

You could lie. God knows it would be easy. But the far more fun option wouldn’t be lying… it would simply be not telling the truth.

“I would love to answer that, but unfortunately it’s not my turn anymore,” you reply airily, delighting in the boys’ groans. “So, Joon, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Namjoon replies, his eyes confident. He really could bring anyone to their knees with just a glance. As your first bias, Namjoon has always had a special effect on you.

“I dare you to let Kookie and Tae tickle you.”

“Wait, what?”

You check your watch. “For, say, one minute.”

Namjoon backs away nervously from the predatory advance of the maknaes, all signs of bravado gone. “C’mon… ah, y/n, this is too cruel…”

“Who was it that dared me to drink a shot of soy sauce?” You ask smugly. “And who dared me to catcall Jin?” Your plan is to distract the boys, and luckily you have plenty of material to work with. Namjoon especially always seems perfectly sadistic when assigning dares.

“As if you weren’t thinking that stuff anyways,” Seokjin says dismissively.

You roll your eyes, focusing on the leader’s imminent torture. “One minute, starting… now!”

At your signal, Taehyung and Jungkook leap like feral dogs upon Namjoon, who falls to the floor with a thump, laughing uncontrollably: “Ah! Guys! S-sto-ah!”

You sit back in satisfaction as the clock winds down, figuring you’ve suitably distracted your friends from their original prey.

Your hopes are dashed soon enough. Namjoon gets back up, fire in his eyes. “Y/n.”

Dammit. “Yes, Namjoon?”

“Truth or dare?”

Well, what does he think? “Dare.” Obviously. You’d die before letting them read the stories that you, in your lust-addled fangirl’s mind, wrote so long ago.

“I dare you to give Yoongi hyung a hickey.”

Wait, what? “Yo, Joon, that’s not cool–” Yoongi is quick to complain, but Namjoon silences him with a raised hand. Meanwhile you’re frozen to your seat, feeling as though all your blood has simultaneously rushed into your face and fled your body entirely. Sure, you guys have toed the line of what’s proper during these late-night games, and as the only woman you’ve tended to get the brunt of it, but to give Yoongi a hickey? To press your lips, your tongue, your teeth to his smooth skin?

Now that you think about it, you’re pretty sure you’ve written that into a fanfic at some point anyways.

“Dude. No.” You say, at last finding your voice. “C’mon, that’s ridiculous.” You spare a glance at Yoongi, who you can tell is trying to keep a straight face. Still his clenched jaw and rapid blinking give away his anxiety, and– no. You couldn’t do something like that to Yoongi, who so clearly would hate it.

Namjoon raises a brow, his expression void of mercy. “You could always choose truth.”

You laugh nervously. You didn’t anticipate this, and now… “Can I take a drink instead?”

The leader shakes his head. When he speaks, it’s as though his voice is made of steel. When did he become so intense? “Nope. Truth or dare. Pick one.”

You inhale deeply. Dammit, Yoongs, you owe me one. “Truth.”

Immediately all tension melts from Namjoon’s gaze, and he breaks into the dorky grin you’re so familiar with. “Yes! Quick, guys, before she changes her mind!”

Your eyes widen. “No, wait–”

Hoseok pounces. “Have you ever written BTS fanfiction, and if so, what was it about?”

Fucking hell. You’ll get Joon back for this.

“Uh…” Should you lie? Every instinct is telling you to steer the boys as far from the truth as possible. Still, you’re buzzed, and it’s late, and–

“Yes. I have.”

Jungkook bursts out laughing, his nose scrunched as he slaps the couch. “I knew it!” The others celebrate in similar fashions:

“Ten bucks says it’s a ship fic!”

“Reader insert, it has to be.”

“Have you guys even heard Emo Y/n? I bet it’s super sad.”

You snatch Jungkook’s drink out of his hand and take a swig. You’re starting to realize you’re gonna need something stronger than wine if you want to survive the night. “How do you guys even know those terms? Who’s been corrupting you with Tumblish?”

“Twitter,” Taehyung replies, shuffling over and draping himself over the back of the couch, his head resting on your shoulder. “ARMYs kept tagging us, they thought we never saw.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Yoongi staring at the ground, smiling softly, his fingers laced together. Huh.

In the meantime, the remaining members have continued with their buzzword arguments. You begin petting Tae’s soft hair absentmindedly while waiting for the others to calm down and hopefully forget this entire conversation by morning.

“It’s probably crack.”

“No, fluff!”

“Angst, I told you!”

Jimin suddenly pipes up, his voice sleepy and soft. “What if it’s… smut?”

A hush falls over the room, and your breath catches in your throat. You don’t remember writing anything explicit, most romance scenes were mainly innocent, full of vague implications of other goings-on…

Wait. Your eyes widen. You did write that one scene, on a dare from Lisa… fuck. You rack your brain– what was it? You wrote it almost four years ago, you can hardly remember. It was about Namjoon, right? He was your bias around that time.

“Y/n, would you ever write smut?”

“Ha, maybe if someone paid me!”

“Ooh! Is that a promise?”

It was all a joke, but you did end up posting it on your Tumblr at some point or another, classifying it as dumb and crackheaded. Regardless, that means it’s online. And that means…

They could find it.

“Y/n-ie?” Taehyung waves a hand in front of your eyes and you jump, nearly colliding with him. “You zoned out for a bit~”

“S-Sorry.” You notice the boys are all still looking at you. “What?”

“Your truth. What was your fanfiction about?”

You sieze on the vague question. “Well, funny you should ask, I think I wrote one about Hobi here going to space, which was–”

“The hell? Did I die?” Hoseok whines. “Y/n, you traitor–”

“Wait, so you’ve written more than one?” Yoongi interrupts.

“I mean…” that’s safe to say, right? “Yes.”

Namjoon taps your shoulder. “Have you ever written smut?”

Jeez, what was with his confidence tonight? “I–”

“If you tell us the truth, we’ll make Joon hyung rap Expensive Girl,” Hoseok sings, swinging a shoe in his hand. Wait, is that your-

“Huh? Hold up, hold up, that wasn’t part of the deal!” Namjoon’s facade quickly fades in liu of genuine terror.

Yoongi slowly rises for the first time that night, his grin nothing short of malicious. “You wanna play sadistic games? If Y/n completes her truth, you have to do that dare.”

“Y/n, I changed my mind, don’t tell us,” Namjoon begs, turning to you.

Oh. Oh, the power coursing through your veins. Either way, you win. You could keep your dark secret, or torture Namjoon just a little bit more. What a glorious choice to have.

“You know what?” You drain your wine glass, the alcohol lending you courage. Namjoon wanted to make you give Yoongi a hickey, he deserves this. And you were younger, a simple fangirl– besides, it’s not like they’re going to ask you to read it. “Yes. I did write a smut fic once. And you know what, Joon? It was about you.”

You giggle and sit back as the members do the “OHHHHH!” thing that boys never seem to grow out of.

Instead of going red like you expected he would, a shit-eating grin spreads across Namjoon’s face. He seems more… well, pleased than anything.

“What was it about?” he asks.

“Joon,” Yoongi warns, his voice a note deeper than usual. You shoot Yoongi a grateful smile– how does he know you so well? As for the fic, you genuinely don’t remember, but knowing it was smut, and knowing it was about Namjoon…

“I dunno, dude, probably some daddy kink shit.”

Namjoon cocks his head. “Daddy… kink?”

You jaw drops, and in your bordering-on-drunk state, you can’t help but blurt out: “You don’t know what a daddy kink is? I thought you had one!”

The leader scratches his head. “What?”

You can’t help but laugh, the drinks finally hitting you hard. “Oh my god. C’mon, gather round, my students.” You reach out, clasping Jimin’s and Jin’s shoulders. “let’s teach you guys about fanfiction.”

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gojira007 · 4 years

Text

Movie Meme

Took me a bit of time, but I was tagged by @bunnikkila to list my nine favorite movies, and since I can’t help but be ridiculously verbose about that very topic, you can see them all under the cut 8D

As for who I tag? Well, as always with the caveat that you are free to ignore if you don’t wanna, I’ll go with: @elistodragonwings @kaikaku @donnys-boy @robotnik-mun @sally-mun @fini-mun @werewolf-t33th @cviperfan and @wildwoodmage

and don’t worry, if you DO go for it, you don’t have to get as Extra as I did about it XD

9.)

Look, the meme is about Favorite Movies, not necessarily the BEST Movies, OK? And for the most part this list consists of films where that division is less meaningful in terms of how I evaluate the other movies on here. But in this specific case, “Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie”, which is ultimately not all that different from the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ TV show it spun off from and thus not particularly impressive as a work of Cinema Qua Cinema, makes the cut primarily because it’s a movie I know so well and have enjoyed so often that I can practically recite the whole thing to you by rote; I quote it all the time in my day-to-day life, I think about it often when I need a little smile, and it’s also become my favorite tool for introducing newcomers to MST3K as a whole since it was designed with a slightly broader audience in mind than the more willfully-eclectic series. And given how much I love MST3K As A Whole, that’s an especially strong factor in its favor.

8.)

Looky looky, @bunnikkila, we (unsurprisingly) have a pick in common! I’m sure this is the one and only time THAT’S going to happen on this list. 8D

Y’know, nearly thirty years (and one fairly useless remake >_>) later, I think the thing that impresses me about “The Lion King” is just how much it is still able to grab me emotionally. Some of that is unquestionably tied up with how strongly I associate this movie with my family, all of whom it became very special to as a Shared Experience. But I also don’t know of a lot of people who haven’t had that same emotional experience with it, and that to me suggests there’s more going on here than just Nostalgia. The mixture of Shakesperean plotting with Disney’s signature strength of Character, for one thing, granting the movie’s story an Epic Scope that never forgets the emotional inner lives of its cast. The music for another, not only its instantly-iconic song-book but also its memorable score, armed with both Big Bombast and Gentle Sentiment. And the unforgettably gorgeous animation, rendering every last element of its world with believable naturalism and strongly-defined personality. All of it, together, makes for what I still personally consider the Crowning Achievement of the Disney Renaissance.

7.)

I think, if I had to name the thing I find most lacking in far too many modern Action Movies, it’s Clarity. They all tend to lard their plots up with a bunch of unnecessary contrivances and complications in hopes of making themselves appear more clever than they actually are, and all it usually does is just dilute the impact of the whole thing. “Mad Max: Fury Road”, by contrast, is all about Clarity. I could sum up literally its entire plot in a paragraph if I wanted, because it is basically One Big Chase Scene from start to finish, never really deviating from that structure for more than a few minutes at a time. And that, combined with its exceptionally well-crafted Action Sequences, means that the full weight of its visceral power hits you full force every time. But don’t be fooled; that simplicity is not to be mistaken for shallowness. Indeed, precisely by getting out of its own way, knowing exactly what it wants to do and why, “Fury Road” also delivers a story that is, in spite of what you might guess, genuinely subtle and smart. Every character is immediately unforgettable and compelling because their role in the story is so well-considered and their personalities all so stark. The world it crafts feels at once fascinatingly surreal and yet All Too Real at the same time because even its most Fantastic elements are ultimately just grotesque reflections of things the audience knows only too well. And most of all, it tells a story with real, meaningful Themes that are deeply woven into each of its individual elements, such that the whole thing is deeply satisfying emotionally, but also piercingly Relevant in all the best, most affecting ways.

6.)

Oh look, another pick I have in common with @bunnikkila! This must be the last one, right?

But yeah, this is just a legitimately great movie, at every level, in every way. Stylistically, it is one of the most radically inventive things to have ever been made in the world of Western Animated Movies, gleefully mixing together a vast array of Aesthetics and Techniques that are at once viscerally distinct and yet coherently connected, all rendered with a fantastic eye toward the world of Comic Book Visual Language that keeps finding new and extremely fun ways to play with that instantly-recognizable iconography. For that alone, I would call it one of the greatest triumphs of 21st century animation. But then, on top of that, the story it tells is one that is simultaneously Arch and self-aware, delivering some of the most fantastically hilarious punch-lines imaginable more than a few of which are at the expense of the very franchise it is working within...but also entirely earnest, sincere, and emotionally affecting. It is, at once, a movie that manages to be about The Idea Of Spider-Man in its totality while also being about just one kid coming to grips with who he is, what he can do, and what his life can be. I don’t know that I can remember the last time a movie so immediately and unmistakably marked itself as an Enduring Masterpiece, but “Into the Spider-Verse” absolutely pulled it off.

5.)

Ordinarily, I would cheat and give this slot to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy in its totality. But somehow, the fact that this is about “FAVORITE” movies instead of just what we think the BEST one is compels me to narrow it down to just one. And if I had to pick just one, it would be the first of the three, “Fellowship of the Ring”. It’s not necessarily anything that the other two movies get wrong, either. All three of the LotR movies possess many of its keenest strengths, after all. For a starter, there’s the keen understanding of how best to adapt the source material without being enslaved to it; capturing many of its most iconic moments while cleverly tweaking elements to make them more cinematic, knowing what scenes to focus on for the sake of more clearly focusing the emotional through-lines of the story, and knowing what scenes, no matter how good on the page, ultimately don’t fit to the shape the adaptation has taken. There’s also its pitch-perfect casting, each and every actor doing a fantastic job of embodying the characters so well that even as your personal vision of them from the books may differ radically from what is on-screen, they nonetheless end up feeling Right for the part and a strong, compelling presence. And there’s the deft visual hand of director Peter Jackson, who knows exactly how to craft a Middle Earth that feels at once lived-in and real but also Fantastic and magical. “Fellowship”, for me at least, thus wins out mostly because it has the good luck of being adapted from the strongest of the three books, the point at which the narrative is at its most unified and thus has the strongest overall momentum. But also because so few movies have so swept me away with the sense of stepping into a world I have always dreamed of in my mind’s eye, and that’s the sort of thing that can only happen at the beginning of a journey.

4.)

Now here’s a movie that is literally sown in to my very being. It’s the last movie my mother saw in theaters before becoming a Mom. I grew up watching the “Real Ghostbusters” cartoon all the time and playing with the attendant toys; I had a “Ghostbusters” Birthday Party when I was, like, four years old. It has been my annual Halloween Tradition to get myself a big Cheese Pizza and watch this movie for about as long as I’ve had disposable income to myself. There is, quite literally, no point in my life where I don’t remember “Ghostbusters” being a fixture in it. And as a nice bonus? It is, legitimately, a Genuinely Great Movie. I realize that isn’t quite as universally agreed upon these days as it was even a few years ago (thanks, Literally The Worst Kind Of Virulently Misogynist Assholes lD; ), but I still feel pretty confident in saying this one really is That Good. I still find basically every one of its jokes hilarious; even now I could quote just about any one of them and get a laugh. I still find its central premise, What If Exorcism Was A Blue-Collar Business, a brilliant, almost subversively clever one that takes The Supernatural out of the realm of The Unknowable and into a world where even you, an ordinary person off the street, can in fact fight back against it. I still think it’s one of the all-time great examples of how to balance Tone in this sort of High Concept Genre Bender, by allowing The Story to be played relatively straight while allowing the comedy to flow naturally from the characters’ reactions to that story, allowing its Ghostly aspects to land as Genuinely Scary (or at least Worth Taking Seriously) without getting too Stern and Serious about it. And I still listen to that unforgettable Title Song all the time! So yeah, even if I could be more objective about it, “Ghostbusters” would almost certainly make this cut.

3.)

And so we come to the third and last pick I have in common with @bunnikkila, not coincidentally a movie that played a key role in solidifying our friendship, as bonding over our shared love of it was a big part of how we got to know each other on deviantART waaaay back in the day <3

By 2008, I really didn’t think it was possible for a movie or comic or TV show to really become “part” of me anymore, the way things like Sonic the Hedgehog or Marvel Super Heroes or Some Other Movie Character Who Might Be At The Top Of This List had. And then “WALL-E” came along and proved that to be completely, utterly wrong. I didn’t just love this movie, I was inspired by it, to a degree of strength and consistency that I’m still not entirely sure has yet been matched. And to be sure, some of that is undoubtedly because the movie had already basically won the war before I’d even bought my ticket; Adorable Robots In Love is something like My Platonic Storytelling Ideal, after all. But even setting that aside, “WALL-E” is a movie where even now I can’t help but be keenly aware, and gently awed, at the beauty of its craft; indeed, watching this movie in a theater did a lot to make me better understand why movies work on us the way they do, because I left that theater chewing so much on every last one of its elements. Its gorgeous animation, the way it conveys Character through Actions more so than language, the dream-like quality of its musical score (even as i type this i get teary thinking about certain motifs), the clear and meaningful way it builds its theme and story together so harmoniously, and the particular perspective it takes on our relationships with each other, with our environments, and with our own technology...all of it speaks to me deeply and profoundly, and it’s no coincidence that I have seen this movie more times in theaters than any other on this list (twelve times, for the record, and I still remember each and every time XD).

2.)

This one needs no personal qualifications, to my mind. Yes, I have some degree of nostalgic attachment to it for having seen it relatively young with my brothers and being deeply moved by it then, but it’s not at all like the kind of Nostalgia I have for “The Lion King”. “Princess Mononoke” is just flat-out, full-stop a complete Masterpiece, not just my personal pick for one of the single-best animated films ever made, but one of the best films period. It’s almost difficult for me to put into words how great this movie is, certainly in a way that hasn’t been repeated to death by thousands of other smarter people, because no one of its elements quite answers the question of why it is so great, to my mind. Yes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous with a design sensibility that brings Ancient Mythology to life so vividly that its influence can still be felt today (The Forest Spirit alone has been homaged all over the place). And yes, the music is hauntingly beautiful, at once capturing the gentle rhythm of nature but also the elegiac tone of Life Moving On. And yes, the story is an incredible mixture of the Broad Mythic Strokes of an Ancient Legend grounded in all too human Emotions and Ideas about the balance of nature, the full meaning and cost of Warfare, and perhaps most important of all, about how we determine Right and Wrong when everyone involved in a conflict is fighting simply for the right to survive. But all of those things add up together to something even greater than a simple sum, because each one isn’t just good in its own right but because each element so perfectly reinforces the other. And even having said all that? I really could just carry on singing this movie’s praises. Just...an absolute masterpiece, top to bottom.

1.)

I don’t imagine any of you are terribly surprised at this, right? I almost feel like it’d be redundant to explain my love for this movie, given how self-obvious I imagine it is to basically everyone who knows me Literally At All. But heck, I’ve rambled on this long, why not go all the way? Because the thing of it is, “Gojira” (to be clear, the original Japanese movie from 1954 rather than its American edit, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” from 1956) doesn’t just top the list by being a Great Movie. Though to be clear, it really is. Flawless? No; there’s a reliance on puppetry that even for the time can be a bit chintzier than the movie can really afford, in particular. But brilliant, even so, a heart-wrenching example of Science Fiction Storytelling As Allegory, one that, in a rarity not just for its own genre but indeed for many movies in general, very meaningfully lingers on its deepest, darkest implications. Many a film critic has pointed it out, and it remains true: the stark black-and-white photography heightens the sense of Implacable Horror at the core of the story, and the way the central Melodrama, a tragic love triangle that carries with it many aspects of Class Conflict and Personal Desire VS. The Collective Good, ties back into the main story is truly beautiful in its elegance and emotional impact. Still, for me personally, it tops the list, now and always, because it is a movie that affirmed something for me, that the character I had fallen in love with as a child convincing his family to watch a monster movie with him on television to prove his seven-year-old bravery, really was as genuinely as powerful and meaningful a figure as I had always imagined him to be.

#movies #meme #gojira007

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adhdtoomanycommas · 4 years

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Emotional Abuse and ADHD

Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff. TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).

I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am. The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD.

I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons). On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out.

It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.

At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship. My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me. I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD.

Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something, “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment. If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was. If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text. Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough.

As an aside, he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.

Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later.

Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily. I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry. Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying. This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera. And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.

Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment.

A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory. I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory. Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).

Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order. Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing. I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me. Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.

I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before. But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics, I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation. Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too. And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well.

I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people. If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al. Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.

Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).

That’s all for now.

#adhd #actuallyadhd #rsd problems #emotional abuse #tw emotional abuse #tw emotional manipulation #gaslighting #tw gaslighting

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 5 years

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Persona 5 Problems: “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t make sense

Might be a pt 1. But before I get into it, what I mean here is “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t makes sense in the context of the characters interactions that we see nor the rules or the world we see in Persona 5.”

I probably could title this as “Atlus doesn’t know how to utilize it’s Metaverse and everything around it is shit pt 1: In relation to Goro” but that’d be too long, and it gives you more insight on what’s in store. 8U

Also this isn’t to rag on Goro, but the failure of the writing with P5. I mean I hate Goro, partially for his writing partially for how I think he’s a jerk and not in a fun way (cause I do like characters who are jerks but he just doesn’t jive with me)....this for full transparency (esp if you are new). 8U That being said I wont’ tag it as Goro cause I’m not a jerk, I’ll tag it as anti I guess but...........yeah in retrospect after typing this I do kinda take a dump on his writing so anti tag it is. 0u0

Now why arm I talking about this? Well a new chapter of P5MM came up and.....well this picture appeared:

Now I love Saito, the manga is pretty good, so this is nothing against Saito. My issue is.....I guess the over victimization of Goro esp when it 1) makes no sense and 2) is contradictory.

Now do I think an antagonist that is a victim doesn’t make sense? No. What doesn’t make sense is that P5 doesn’t bother to develop it. P5 throws out the bare minimum of hints all while making NO SENSE how that could work. So fans have to fill in the blanks, and that’s either making him more sympathetic or like me who’s either deciding to start master blasting holes everywhere or is ready to throw this suit case out all together.

I know a lot of fans, and adaptations (such as this) kinda lean towards making Goro more sympathetic. I DON’T BLAME THEM. Like I said, there’s a lot of holes to fill in. And one of them is his relationship with Shido, something VERY crucial to the plot and is.....glossed over with like a few min worth of dialogue.

Anyway what am I getting at? The issue that annoys me a lot, and that was shown in this picture that hair-triggered me into wanting to write this, was the fact “Goro is being controlled by Shido/Goro has no power and Shido has his claws into him/Goro can’t escape Shido.” As seen in the pictured above, you see Goro has hands to his throat and Shido has an overwhelming presence. Goro is trapped by Shido. And a lot of people will agree with this. It’s understandable because the game half assidly will say things like “you know what happens to people who defy me!” and basically threatening Goro’s life. EXCEPT IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!

“Woah that’s a little extreme what do you mean?” I mean it, Goro is not being controlled by Shido. It’s annoying P5 even INSINUATES that possibility in its writing! It makes no sense for Goro to be the powerless one here, not with the game we were given. And it’s amazing this wasn’t caught in the writers room. This is how that scene should’ve gone down given what we know:

Shido: You know what happens to people who oppose me! Goro: Yeah motherfucker, you send me! What do you want me do? Kill myself? What are you a 14 year old troll on the internet? Do you want me to kill you for threatening me-you scrotum looking asshole?

Just freaking think about it, Shido or his confidants want a breakdown? Send Goro. They want a shutdown or to possibly kill someone? Send Goro. What the fudge is Shido doing threatening the guy who does his dirty work? Is he gonna kill him himself? No. Shido is a gd moron.

“But what about the cleaner guy?” Great question! And here’s my answer! What about him? No seriously what could anyone but the PT or a god do to Goro? Nothing.

“But how is that nothing?!” Easy, Goro can take him out, breakdown or shutdown, before he could hurt Goro. If Shido sic’d anyone on Goro, Goro could easily take down Shido, the cleaner, and anyone related to either who know they should take Goro down. All thanks to the Metaverse. And because of that “Goro is trapped by Shido because he’s threatening Goro with death” is such a BS excuse by the game.

“But what about Shido’s knowledge of the Metaverse? Didn’t he say he could utilize it?” Yeah what about it? The game doesn’t showcase HIM using the Metaverse. He always sends Goro. Which is REALLY FREAKING WEIRD considering he still acts this way, knowing full well Goro is missing. Like how are you going to do it Shido???? 1) you need an app first and foremost, 2) you’ll need a Persona or else you’ll get rekt’d! YOUR LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE! And him knowing about how the Meteverse works is just bs plot device so that we can shoo away how he could believe Goro in the first place let’s be honest.

The only people who use the Metaverse that we don’t know how they got there was the SWAT team that busted the MC, and while not explained it’s possible Goro had something to do with it (either giving someone his phone, since multiple people can go in with just one phone). That’s the only thing that makes sense, since only app users (aka PT+Goro) can got to that world. Tho the cut content seem to indicate even the police don’t know:

And it seems that you only get the app if you have a Persona (minus Goro, MC, and Futaba), cause that’s what Yadly wants:

(btw Ryu’s first pic is pre awakening and the 2nd is post awakening, Futaba’s the only one to get her’s before her Persona with the exception of Goro/MC, but Yadly must’ve thought she was useful or some shit judging by his dialogue early on in the game XP)

But yeah, bringing this up because it’s relevant to know who can and who can’t use the Metaverse. Goro CAN. Shido/Shido’s confidants CANNOT. Goro has the advantage. Shido does not. Goro holds all the cards. Shido’s a gd moron.

As for how Goro could end Shido and his Confidants. If for some reason Goro doesn’t know some of Shido’s confidants JUST BY WORKING WITH THEM, then he can find out through Shido’s Palace. Shido’s Palace literally contains every single one of his CoOps in Cognition form. Which means he probably knows their name, and all Goro really needs is a name cause that’s the hard part. Once he interrogates all the Cognitions and Shadow Shido, he takes Shadow Shido out, go after the real CoOps’ shadow, interrogates them (plus cognitions if they have a palace), and work his way down the latter until know one is after him. He can also squat in the Metaverse if for some reason the heat is really on him, and what’s the worse that could happen? They get pulled in with him? Well that’s bad....FOR THEM! Cause Goro has more powers there, his Persona, he’s stronger and more durable. There’s really no losing here.

So again, one last time. “SHIDO’S THREATS ON GORO’S LIFE MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE GORO HAS THE POWER TO END SHIDO NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”

“Well what about his strangle on giving Goro affection?” Ok, ngl....been awhile....but I legit have NO RECOLLECTION of Goro or Shido showing any possible fatherly affection. I feel like I’ve seen more of the fans make this argument then the game. If the game did then it was just....such a throwaway line, and it’s a classic “P5 tell don’t show” move. Coupled with how contradictory the writing is with the way the story is built (like show literally above in how Goro’s life should not be threatened like AT ALL). P5 goes out of its way to show how much Goro HATES Shido and HE CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HIM GO DOWN! That doesn’t seem like someone hesitating cause he wants a hug from daddy. The only reason he waits so long was because he wanted him to be prime minister (or just close to election) and then bring him down from the highest pedestal. THAT’S IT. He has so much more backing that then “I really wanted a daddy figure that gave me pats on the head and told me I was a good boy.” If P5 WAS going for that then they did an even piss poor job than with the issue above.

And listen, I’m NOT saying that’s not something that couldn’t have happened, I’m saying the writing makes it not really support it or have it make sense. (edit: after typing this I vaguely recalled Shido saying that all Shido had to do was tell Goro he was a good boy and he thought he had him wrapped around his finger-of course this could’ve just been a tumblr post I read that’s how much I remember Shido praising Goro XP, and lkfsd;lakvl;vs this is soooooo batshit all over the place, are you controlling him with fear of death or love???? cause neither are working here bro. Btw at the bottom I go into a route in which this COULD work, but it means dropping the whole fear of death bs argument I made at the very beginning, and even then it’s not Shido actually controlling Goro, it’s him thinking he does.)

And if anyone says “What about destroying his career and social-hood by revealing Goro is a bastard?” And give Goro the platform, the audiences’ full attention for him to be like “YEAH AND GUESS WHO MY DAD IS?! :D” Like, considering Shido figured out Goro was his son, it’d be even more stupid of him to think he could do that when it’d be social suicide for him. As for Goro? That was his plan all along, nothing to lose! Maybe it’s not as high of a fall that he wanted, but he’s still bringing him down!

Now despite this rant, I’m NOT saying Goro isn’t a victim. As a bastard/foster child in Japan, he is a victim for their horrible treatment towards that group. That can’t be argued and in all honesty if it was just that I’d be happy. What I don’t think he is a victim of is Shido, at least beyond the parental abandonment (he is a victim for his dad being horrible and not marrying his mother and stuff like that OBVIOUSLY), by Shido I mean the Conspiracy related stuff. Making it out so that Shido controlled Goro the whole time, that Goro had no agency, that Goro couldn’t oppose him. That’s what I hate. I hate how people make him such a woobie victim when....he very well probably wasn’t. When he made Goro kill, it’d make more sense for Goro to be scared of losing his connection to Shido (aka not being able to monitor him and continue his plan) than be scared Shido might kill him (I mean he had freaking superpowers what the fudge?). But if people looked at it like that then Goro would be more in the wrong no? Choosing to value his goals of revenge over other’s? Maybe he didn’t want to kill but he still CHOSE because his own goals meant more than someone else’s life. But noooooo that would hurt him being a victim right? We need to make it all Shido’s fault! Goro did nothing wrong! Right? So we made it seem like Shido could threaten Goro’s life, make it a kill or be killed situation, even when it made no sense.

I think Goro could been good, could’ve been complex. A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, and going to any lengths, even if it broke his own moral code, because he was that dedicated to bringing down someone? That’s interesting, it’s simple. But “ A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, forced to go to any lengths because he ended up in a trap by said father he wants to take down, even if it MIGHT (cause Atlus be chickens and “ambiguous”) be against his own moral code but like he’s being forced by his dad so is it really his fault? That? Fudge that. That’s needlessly confusing, it’s bending itself all out of shape to try to purify this character....and I hate it.

There’s also the weird contradiction on Shido’s end where it’s like “He’s super paranoid that he kills people, and he doesn’t trust Goro since he plans to kill him, but he trusts him enough for certain things that he doesn’t need to double check on himself even if it poses a threat to him like I dunno checking IF THE GD MC BODY IS DEAD?! >:(”

I dunno, I just think Goro having the strongest conviction to take down Shido (even killing because he wants to take him down so badly for what he did), with Shido not knowing Goro is his son and actually trusting him (with maybe gaining suspicions later towards the end for plot drama) because he’s so confident he groomed Goro into being his perfect little follower, is just so much more interesting? Goro is still a victim, but he’s not the perfect or “bending the character out of shape” to be perfect victim. He was hurt horribly and chose to deal with it in an....unhealthy way. It also makes the two seem reasonable, Shido thinks he’s in control because he took this starry eyed follower under his wing not because he’s threatening him with violence. Even tho we know Shido isn’t in control, Goro just likes to think he’s in control.

;tldr: I hate how people (and even Atlus/the game) try to twist Goro into being this perfect victim, all while saying “well he does do bad things but it’s because of Shido!” instead of letting Goro be accountable and have it make logical sense in the game (because the game is a hot garbage mess).

So yeah this concludes a 5 am rant I started yesterday. 8U

#persona 5 #p5 #anti-goro akechi #anti goro akechi #anti goro #anti-goro #this doesn't even cover the possibility that goro's real personality might be 100% shit bag and might be fine with killing #queue #q #random hyper focusing at 5 am woot 8U #persona problems #persona 5 problems #again this is more an issue with the illogical and inconsistent writing in P5

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ironwoman359 · 6 years

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Heyo is like to preface this message by saying I’m bi, and love my ace and aro sibs so much. I’m also really interested in how people see the LGBTQ+ community and I wanted to ask as respectfully as I could what your opinion is as a heteroromantic asexual person. Do you see yourself as LGBTQ+? Feel free to completely ignore this message or delete it if you wanna :) I just recently found out what your full orientation was (split model and such) and was real curious! Okay bye lovely!! ♥️♥️♥️

Firstly, I want to thank you for being so kind and respectful in your question! I really appreciate that. Secondly, this is really long and rambly, and gets really personal for me, so I’m gonna stick it under a cut so I don’t take up all y’alls entire dash. If you want to hear my thoughts about this, feel free to read of course! I by no means am hiding here, but just remember that this is all my own experiences I’m talking about here, and by no means is meant to represent all ace people, especially not all ace-het people. Everyone is unique and has their own story and own feelings about their orientation, so take my thoughts for what they’re worth, but remember that they aren’t the only thoughts out there.

So! without further ado, here we go. (also, apologies to the blogs I tagged, don’t feel obligated to read this, I was just using you as examples. Love you, ‘kay bye)

Do I, as a split model asexual-heteromantic (cis) woman see myself as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?

I really wish that I could answer that with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but unfortunately I can’t do that. My orientation confuses the heck outta me, and I’ve found that there aren’t that many simple answers when it comes to it. So hopefully I can break this down in a way that makes sense.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I’m not LGBT+, so I’m going to start with those. One, I was raised, and still am, a Christian. Now, let me explain. I am not saying that Christians aren’t or can’t be LGBT+. Nothing could be further from the truth. But I bring it up because it is relevant to my own journey with my orientation. Christians are taught that sex is to be shared and enjoyed with your spouse after marriage, and only with your spouse after marriage. That is a belief that I still hold for myself today. But what this meant for little 12 year old Taylor going through puberty was that sex was just on that list of things to not do, you know? Don’t drink underage, don’t do drugs or smoke, don’t have sex before marriage, don’t be a bully, etc. For me, I couldn’t see the point of doing any of those things; drugs and cigarettes are terrible for your body, drinking before it’s legal is pretty foolish on a lot of levels, bullying is so mean, I had no urge to do any of those things, so it didn’t come as a surprise to me that I had no urge to have sex either. It didn’t even occur to me that for some people around my age and older, that temptation to have sex was really really strong.

This leads directly into another reason that I don’t feel LGBT+ sometimes: as a heteromantic, I never went through the confusion of wondering why I didn’t like boys yet. I did like boys, I developed major crushes on several at my school. Ok, like, four. In all of middle school and high school, I had maybe four attractions that I would say were strong enough to be called crushes. That’s because I don’t really feel physical attraction (though I didn’t realize this back then). I can recognize and appreciate aesthetic attraction, but it doesn’t really do anything for me. I fall in love with people, not bodies or faces, and I went to a small high school where most of the guys were losers, so my pickings were slim. But I did like those few guys, and I wanted those guys to like me, I constantly wondered if any guy liked me in “that way,” even ones I wasn’t interested in, just seeking that validation. Most didn’t, or if they did, they didn’t say. One guy, who was actually my biggest crush, did admit his own crush on me and we went on one date, but it didn’t go further than that (thank god, turns out he would’ve been a terrible person to date. My current bff is one of his [many] exes, and I learned from her that I dodged a bullet by not going out with him more, but anyway). I never had more than that one date in all my life before I started dating my current bf (more on him later), and I couldn’t see the point in having sex with someone you weren’t dating/in love with, so I always just assumed the reason I had never been tempted to try sex outside of marriage was because I had never dated anyone. I didn’t realize that for most people a sex drive was….you know, a drive.

Ok though, so why am I telling you all this, and why does it make me see myself as not a part of the LGBT+ community sometimes? Well, I feel like I haven’t gone through a lot of the struggles that a lot of people in that community are going/have gone through. Questioning what was wrong with me, why I didn’t like members of the opposite gender, thinking I was broken, I didn’t go through any of that. And since I’m heteromantic, it sometimes feels hypocritical to claim myself a member of the LGBT+ community. I feel like I have no common ground with them. What place do I have, sticking my nose into this community when I don’t share their struggles?

HOWEVER

I don’t actually agree with that line of thinking when it comes to most other people. I absolutely think that asexuality is valid and needs to be recognized as a valid part of the LGBT+ community, because at its core, the LGBT+ community is a group of people who come together around one shared thing: we are not what our society has deemed to be “normal” or “default”: Heterosexual/heteromantic/cisgendered. And I recognize those thoughts I have about my own worth as a member of the LGBT+ community, it’s what people who don’t believe that aces are real or belong in this community say to discourage our presence. And that is so, so damaging. Just because I didn’t experience some of those struggles in my younger years doesn’t mean that other cishet-aces didn’t, in fact, I bet a lot did. I was a sheltered kid in a lot of ways (not by my parents mind you, I actually sheltered myself unintentionally) and that ended up saving me a lot of confusion and heartache, but I know that my experiences don’t speak for all cishet-aces’ experiences.

Also, just because I didn’t experience the confusion and feelings of brokenness in middle and high school doesn’t mean I didn’t experience them. I did, as an adult. (this is the part where I start talking about my love life, sorry in advance)

When I was a freshman in college, I had this guy friend. I had a massive crush on him, he was super nice and funny and we liked a lot of the same things and we could talk for hours about anything and-Well, I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, if our lives were a fanfic, it’d be tagged as slow burn Taylor x Steven, and every chapter the readers would be tearing their hair out, screaming at the page for them to JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY, GOD. (That’s what our friends certainly were thinking. They shipped us hardcore) But, he’s a dork, and I’m a dork, and we were both too afraid to act on our feelings and ruin our friendship. After a year of being friends though, he finally asked me out at the start of our sophomore year, and we began dating (our third anniversary is this september).

Physically, we took things slow, this being my first ever relationship, only his second, and us both wanting to save sex for marriage, the physical part of the relationship developed much more slowly than the emotional one. I don’t remember how long we were dating before he asked if he could kiss me…I may have actually told him I loved him before we got to that point, I don’t remember. But after we’d been dating for awhile, I started to become aware of something. Couples, even couples not having sex, were typically more physical than this, right? Kisses weren’t just for hellos and goodbyes, didn’t people just kiss for the heck of it? Wasn’t more physical affection something you were supposed to want?

At first, I shrugged it off as physical touch being my lowest love language. And I told him this, when I realized that, because I knew it was higher for him. I believe my exact words were something along the lines of “I’m not a very physical person, it’s all up here for me” *gestured to my brain* I knew that I was attracted to personality more than looks, and I knew I enjoyed quality time and other displays of love to physical affection. I didn’t know the word asexual yet.

As we dated more and it became more likely that marriage was in our future though, my thoughts started to drift towards that possibility. The thought of sharing my life with him excited me, as did the possibility of raising a family with him. Of course, in order to make a family (in the traditional way)…you have to have sex. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not imagine myself in any sexual situation at all. The thought made me uncomfortable, which at first I brushed off as repression/ignorance, since there had been little to no sex ed in my high school (it had boiled down to “here’s how you don’t get pregnant or catch an std: use condoms, make sure you and your partner are tested, be on the pill, or you know, just don’t have sex. Seemed ok to me. But orientations, the act itself, any of that stuff? Completely ignored.) But as time went on and on, I started to panic. I couldn’t picture myself in any sort of sexual situation, hell, I couldn’t even understand what some people found so enjoyable about kissing. I’m almost 22, and still have never “been to first base.” What could possibly be enjoyable about sticking your tongue in someone else’s mouth? That’s…that’s just weird. Surely you see how weird it is? (probably not, if you aren’t ace, and that’s ok. I’m aware that I’m the weird one in that line of thinking)

By summer break 2017, I was thoroughly freaked out. I wanted to be married, but I had come to the realization that I didn’t want sex. And I knew that he would, I mean, how could he not? People wanted sex, right? So what was wrong with me? By this point, I think I had seen the word asexual on the internet before, but I didn’t know much about it, all I knew was that it was part of the LGBT+ community. And while I sympathized with their struggles, I didn’t know a whole lot about all the individual orientations specifically, cause hey, I was straight! I was in love with a man, and I knew I wasn’t attracted to girls, so I wasn’t bi. Boom, not LGBT+. But somehow or another, I started pinning a lot of sjw and human rights related things on pinterest (tumblr screenshots mostly, actually. I had a tumblr then, but like never used it) and by doing that, more of it started showing up in that feed. With the sjw stuff came a lot of posts about the LGBT+ community in general, and one day I came across an Ace Positivity post. Reading it felt…oddly familiar, and I googled asexuality to learn more.

Oh.

Well, that makes a lot of sense.

It wasn’t until later that month that I finally got up the courage to officially attach the label to myself. When I finally did, it felt strange and foreign to say.

“I am asexual.”

I didn’t even really know what that meant for me, but I knew it was true. A month later I told my boyfriend about it when I saw him at a family get together. He is the only living soul in my real life that I have told. Everyone else thinks I’m straight. And I (usually) don’t feel the need to correct them. Because I still feel straight sometimes, especially in the eyes of the world. As far as I’m concerned, my sex life isn’t anybody’s business besides mine and my partner’s, so why should I announce to the world that there’s something more complicated going on beneath the surface of what they see?

It wasn’t til I started to be more active on tumblr that I really started to feel comfortable in my own orientation. I started getting involved in fandoms and I met other people who, wonder of wonders, had similar thoughts, feelings, and experiences that I did about sex. From @the-asexual-reaper and @pleaseletthisjimbetaken to @randomslasher, @logically-asexual, @what-even-is-thiss, and several others, I began to realize that being ace wasn’t strange or weird, it was normal, it was even something to celebrate. It hasn’t even been a full year of me knowing what asexuality is and I’ve learned so much about asexuality and myself in that time, it’s honestly kind of mind boggling. Recently, I even did something that may seem small, but actually was kinda important to me: I was taking an online survey about campus demographics or something, and I came to a question asking about sexual orientation. It listed several, and then had an “other” box where you could type one in if yours wasn’t represented. I almost clicked “straight” without thinking, but then I saw the “other” box…and I clicked it. I typed “asexual” into the blank space, and submitted the survey. Even though the survey was anonymous, it felt like a big deal. That was the first time I admitted to anybody outside the realm of tumblr or my romantic relationship that I was anything other than straight. It was weird, but…kind of nice.

So, I’ve rambled for a long time, and it’s taken me way longer than it should have realistically to write this, but this is what I’m getting at. There are times when I feel funny about calling myself LGBT+, but the reasons that I give for myself to feel that way are honestly frighteningly similar if not identical to what people who want to erase my identity completely say. And hell, even if you don’t think I’m LGBT+, don’t you dare take the asexual community away from me. Without it, I would still be terrified to even voice my fears about sex to my boyfriend, and the growing likelihood/closeness of my wedding night would cause me even more anxiety. And even on days when I feel like I haven’t “earned the right” to be counted among the LGBT+ community, this is what I believe. I believe that all asexual people should be included and represented in the LGBT+ community, because it is important that our orientations be seen.

All asexual people should be represented, from split model aces to aro aces to trans aces to demi aces, to gray aces, to every other kind of ace, because if we are not, then the cycle of believing that you’re broken or wrong or inadequate or out of place will continue for young aces who weren’t as luckily oblivious as I was. All asexual people need to be represented in the LGBT+ community, so we can support our bi and pan siblings who face similar erasure, all ace people need to be represented so that we can find each other and share our stories, and make our voices heard.

We’re here, we’re real, and we’re not going away.

All asexual people need to be represented, so that every person who’s questioning knows that it’s ok to click the “other” box.

#asks and answers #asexuality #ace things #ace discourse #i'm really hesitant to tag this as ace discourse #cause i know there's a lot of negativity in that tag #but i think this is important #so i'm gonna do it #long post #sorry it's three am and that got really personal really quickly #if you took the time to read all of it #i thank you #<3

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