#your declaration of war was to the wrong person
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That last reblog has me now contemplating.
What if to mess with his shiny new little brother, but like....gently....when they first started hanging out Dick told Jason a couple of slight falsehoods as umm. A training exercise. That’s it. It was about helping Jason get up to speed with his information gathering skills and also his bullshit detection. So in the interest of being helpful and A Good Big Brother, Obviously....Dick sowed a few.....less-than-entirely-factual details about the more fantastical elements of their lives. The stuff that isn’t common or public knowledge to most of the DC Earth. And then he just.....waited to see how long it took Jason to realize Dick had fed him a handful of straight up lies when briefing him about All Things Superhero.
Look, it was for Science. That’s Dick’s story and he’s sticking to it.
Thus, for the first couple months of their new sibling relationship, Dick had Jason convinced that Atlanteans were actually aliens who landed here thousands of years ago, speedsters can run so fast they can travel back in time, and Superman once accidentally let out a burp so forceful it created a shockwave that shattered every glass in a quarter mile radius so whenever he starts to look....gassy....your best course of action is to hit the deck. Don’t even hesitate for a second, just dive to the ground and grab some floor until he’s got it back under control. And oh yeah, Diana has her Lasso of Truth, but Donna’s version of truth-related powers is that she can sense when people are up to no good....only, the way this manifests for her is she suddenly registers a distinct bad smell in her vicinity, alerting her that bullshit is afoot.
“You’re kidding,” Jason said flatly. “You expect me to believe that Donna can literally smell bullshit?”
Dick just raised an eyebrow. “Like that’s somehow less plausible than Gar being able to change into any kind of animal but only in shades of green? And oh yeah, speaking of green, Green Lanterns can do just about anything with their rings....except protect themselves from yellow paint? I don’t make the rules, Jace. The truth is sometimes superpowers aren’t super-glamorous and not everything related to magic or gods or other planets is as....sophisticated...as we presume. I mean, its not like these things exist just to match up to our expectations for them. Why should alien civilizations or the rules of magic be influenced by whether or not our society would find something weird or ridiculous?”
Jason chewed his lower lip contemplatively. He lacked an official bullshit detecting power himself, but he did have good instincts. Unfortunately for him, his shiny new big brother gave good Lying-to-your-face Face.
“Plus, if you really think about it, it does make a kind of sense,” Dick continued to explain helpfully. But only according to certain specific interpretations of ‘helpfully’ that actually mean ‘like a liar.’ “Our brains are constantly translating all kinds of input and stimuli into shapes or patterns we can actually process in a way that means something to us. So we can make use of that information. This is just the same thing. Donna’s power takes however many variables are involved in registering something as false or something she needs to be wary of...and just condenses it into a simple ‘red alert’ indicator that takes all that abstract, ephemeral data and makes it something actionable. Something she can actually do something with. Her power - or how her brain perceives it - just didn’t actually consult her or give her a choice of notification settings, because why would it?”
“I guess that makes sense,” Jason begrudgingly agreed, with a frown that suggested this particular ‘truth’ Offended his sensibilities.
“I mean, you can ask Donna to explain it herself if you want,” Dick said with a shrug. “Just a heads-up though....she’s not really a fan of how that power works either. Its not exactly a superpower anyone wants to be known for, and she’s heard allllll the jokes about it by now. Roy, Wally and I were perhaps....not the most sensitive when we were younger and she was honing that particular skillset? Though in our defense, I maintain that most of our jokes were hilarious. But anyway, just saying. If you wanna bring it up with her directly, go right ahead! Its definitely one of her favorite topics and Amazons are for sure known for how well they handle being self-conscious.”
And that’s the story of the three months Jason spent convinced that Atlanteans were from another planet, confusing the hell out of Garth with his occasional references to ‘your homeworld’ and his numerous questions about all the Atlantean Green Lanterns that he for some reason seemed convinced the Green Lantern Corps must obviously have a long history of.
And its also why Jason spent those same three months getting wide-eyed and nervous any time he noticed Donna’s nose so much as twitch when he was around. Which it did a lot more often than usual, thanks to how often Dick got horseradish to go with whatever he was having for lunch, knowing full well that Donna can not stand the smell of horseradish. (Dick’s actually not a fan either, and he hates how it tastes, but he’s not afraid to Suffer for the sake of Shenanigans. Its a fundamental part of the Robin experience and persona, after all.)
But it was the Donna thing that gave Dick away, ultimately. No matter how hard he tried to keep a lid on how entertaining he now found the sight of Donna’s occasional nose twitch...even a Batkid poker face can’t keep an empath and telepath from finding this a mystery worth untangling after the tenth time it happens.
(Not that Lilith or Raven are gonna apologize for prying any time soon. They had an obligation as his friends and teammates to investigate when he’s acting bizarre, y’see. What if its because he was brainwashed again? “We’re intrusive because we love,” Lilith insists with zero shame. Raven clarifies: “I was intrusive because she was already doing it so there seemed no point not to.” Lilith points out that this could also be construed as a sign of strong leadership potential. Dick glowers. Lilith waves a hand dismissively. “We can circle back to that later. That’s fine.”)
Anyway, the truth came out at last, Jason cites this as the Moral Justification for every single time and way he was a pain in the ass to Dick in the years to come, and Donna - who was Not Amused - gave a pointed sniff and called bullshit when Dick tried to claim this was an important Bonding Opportunity for he and Jason, wherein they became brothers ‘for real’ instead of just via Bruce. “There are intricate sibling rituals to be observed,” Dick insisted. “I did my research! We had so much time to make up for, I had to speedrun through my shenanigans to get us all caught up! Would I have done all this if I didn’t care?”
Every Titan in the room, familiar with the lengths he’d gone to when messing with Rogues and randos as Robin and thus distinctly unimpressed: Yes. Absolutely. One hundred percent.
Dick foraged on heroically. “Regardless! That’s not the case here, as all of this was clearly done in the name of brotherhood and bonding! We’ll laugh about this someday, you’ll see!”
Ten years later, after Jason’s returned as the Red Hood and reintegrated with the Batfamily to varying degrees, enough so that he accompanies Dick and the rest of the OG Titans on a mission where they’re ambushed, captured and trapped in a supervillain dungeon they’re now trying to escape...
Dick: Definitely kicking myself for not seeing that ambush coming. Where’s a bullshit-sniffing power when you really need it, huh?
Jason: Still not laughing yet.
Dick: Oh come on!
As far as the rest goes, Jason does get a kick out of the speedsters discovering that actually, they can run fast enough to travel through time. He’s like, despite your best efforts you accidentally got one right. And Dick’s all ‘was it an accident or did I actually know or have strong suspicions all along’....but Jason shuts that down. “Nope. Not giving you this one. Try it with someone else.”
However, that still left one last card in play, long after everyone - even Dick and Jason themselves - had all but forgotten about it.
See, every Batkid knows that the best lies contain elements of truth. And that’s why Dick only peppered in his fake trivia very, very sparingly amidst a massive info-dump of actually accurate and useful info he gave Jason about all that stuff, way back when.
So despite the handful of things Dick had told him that Jason eventually discovered to be untrue...the vast majority of it did check out.
Which means even once he did catch on to Dick’s game....that didn’t change his acceptance of the stuff that had turned out to be true or verified by others. But in the end, there was only one little fib that slipped under the radar. Because the scenario it was based on just never happened to come up until long after Jason had returned....and thus Jason never had reason to put much thought into actually questioning whether or not it was true. Not until long after he’d stopped scrutinizing stuff Dick had told him, in search of possible ‘traps.’
And THAT is the story of how Jason - on one of the rare occasions that he joined the Titans and Justice League for an all-hands-on-deck kinda teamup - just happened to be in the right wrong place at the right wrong time to notice Superman suddenly start to look queasy after trying some alien cuisine....
And without a second thought, Jason just instinctively dove for the floor. With this followed by Clark letting out an extremely normal-sounding burp and a sheepish apology.
Everyone else, staring at the infamous Red Hood ducking for cover because Clark had a moment of indigestion: umm. wut
Dick, staring wide-eyed at his brother and trying not to laugh: Oh shit. I totally forgot all about that.
Jason, almost conversationally, while climbing to his feet and stalking ominously towards his big bro: Hey can you believe that after all the shit we’ve been through and all the times we’ve fought over like...actual life and death stuff, THIS is the thing I’m actually gonna kill you for?
Dick, backing away, hands raised placatingly: Hey, c’mon now, Jace, we called a truce about all this ages ago, remember? It was a much younger, dumber me who did all that in the first place, y’know? You’re better than this!
Jason: I’m really not.
Dick: Well then can I just take this opportunity to mention again how sorry I am for any creative embellishments I might have once come up with, in the mistaken belief that I was honoring important traditions of brotherhood, and....
Jason: Hey, where’s Donna? Can anyone see if her nose is twitching?
Donna and the rest of the Titans, blatantly amused and offering no explanation to the very confused Justice League: Oh, bullshit absolutely detected. In the interests of Truth and Justice, you should totally proceed.
Dick, jabbing his finger at his teammates before dashing for the door: Betrayal! J’accuse!
Donna, shrugging: Sorry, Rob. Justice demands impartiality. Our hands are tied.
Jason, running out the door and down the hallway in pursuit of his fleeing brother: Yeah you better run! I’ve waited ten fucking years to get back at you for this shit. Where you going anyway, bro? I thought you wanted to laugh about this someday!
Dick (offscreen): I regret nothing! It was all worth it! You should have seen your face!
Jason (offscreen): You couldn’t even see my face, idiot! I’m wearing my fucking helmet!
Dick (offscreen): Semantics! If something’s funny enough, you can sense what someone’s face probably looks like! If you know, you know!
Jason (offscreen): Oh yeah, go ahead and make up some more shit, Grayson, that’s definitely the right way to go here!
Batman, looking to the Titans and waving his hand at...whatever all that is offscreen: Explain.
Roy: Hey don’t look at us. You’re the one who made them brothers. This is on you.
Batman: What does that even mean.
Lilith: If you know, you know. Dick’s right about that much at least.
The Titans all nod like an actual, self-evident truth was just expressed. Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose, and starts muttering under his breath.
“You need to encourage Dick to seek out and make like-minded friends, Alfred said. It’ll be good for him, he said. Its what he needs and definitely not the point everything starts to go downhill.”
Lilith picks it up loud and clear, because of course she does, and incidentally, the smug, obnoxious know-it-all teenage psychic who started hanging out with Dick when they were teenagers has absolutely nothing to do with Bruce’s profound dislike of telepaths, nooooo, that would be ridiculous and irrational, to bear a grudge against everyone with a particular skillset because one of your son’s childhood friends was a royal pain in the -
Lilith: Oh, that’s adorable. He thinks we’re the reason Dick’s so profoundly weird and inexplicable.
The Titans, in unison: LOL.
Roy: The self-deluding, it is strong in that family.
Bruce is suddenly extra glad he’s wearing a cowl that hides what is definitely not a pout but might be mistaken for one by the uninformed thus its better to just dodge that issue entirely. He crosses his arms and stares down the collection of his eldest son’s friends, whom he has been unfairly plagued by since most of them were pre-pubescent little demons. Literally no one has suffered like he has.
“I don’t like you,” he informs them officiously. Not sulkily. Officiously.
Several of them snort. There’s a couple giggles. An eye roll from Roy. An aborted response hastily turns into Wally coughing into his hand. Blatant dismissal from Victor, his attention clearly on whatever he’s browsing online. Three varying shades of raised eyebrows: unflappable bemusement from the sorceress, patronizing amusement from the psychic, naked incredulity from Donna. Garth gazing off into an empty corner which he has on very good authority is basically the Atlantean version of the middle finger.
“Yeah, no shit,” Roy drawls, apparently on behalf of the whole group.
Ugh, they’re just. The worst. Why couldn’t Clark have had a kid Dick’s age so he never had to go looking elsewhere for socialization? That’s it. Clearly this was all Clark’s fault. He can’t believe he never realized that before.
Dammit Clark.
#this started out as Dick and Jason shenanigans and then somehow morphed into Bruce really doesn't like his kid's friends#because I firmly believe the Bruce vs the Titans antipathy is one hundred percent a two way street#and not so deep down Bruce (super rationally) blames them for some of the distance between he and Dick over the years#the world's greatest detective is like 'well Dick and I (mostly) got along just fine until THEY came along and then all of a sudden it was#oh sorry Bruce I cant hang out cuz I gotta go play with all my friends who hate you because they're horrible little goblin children#and look I've connected the dots' because correlation is definitely causation#cut to Bruce grumpily slouched in the Watchtower's monitor room watching the Titans mop up the Fearsome Five#to loud public acclaim#Clark hovers nearby. both figuratively and literally. he is Concerned#'Bruce you do know that resenting Dick's friends and holding a grudge against a bunch of fifteen year olds because#your kid doesn't always want to hang out with you anymore is Not the solution to repairing your relationship with Dick that you're looking#for right? please tell me that you know that'#Bruce. testily. 'yes Clark I know that'#Clark: okay. good. I was just worried because it. umm. doesn't always LOOK like you know that#Bruce: well I do and you can stop bringing it up. friends dont rub their friend's irrationality in their faces#Clark: see I dont think I know that rule#Clark: Im pulling from the book that says friends dont let their friends declare a feud against teenagers they've decided#are their personal mortal nemesis in some not-super-healthy war for their son's time and attention#Bruce: well your book sounds stupid and wrong and you should throw it away and get a better book like mine#Clark. Sighing because apparently today is a day where Bruce has decided to just Be Like This and resigning himself to letting it go#for now and trying again to get through to him in a week or two instead#'Sure B. Ill get right on that.'
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#man usamericans just cant help themselves in thinking theyre exceptional even if they're leftist#'biden is the most pro-gay‚ pro-LGBT political leader ON EARTH rn. and my one point of comparison is the Labour Party on Terf Island'#'and the republicans are the Most Aggresive Anti-LGBT party in the entire 'Western World' too'#look man this isn't star wars. im not even necessarily saying you're Wrong. but if you're gonna go there. sources please#and if you haven't actually checked the political situation in all ~200 countries on earth. maybe just don't make a hyperbolic claim#like that?#tbc: idk how well biden personally ranks. and idk how well rutte does either for that matter#it just seems like a very weird thing to throw out there with the only two counterexamples being the UK and Russia.#did you know there are in fact more countries than your mommy and your nemesis#and that it's enough to ask people to vote for the democrats if only to prevent another republican from taking power in the usa#even if it weren't the final battle between Good and Evil#.... and anOTHER THING#if the labour party -a party which is not currently in power in the uk - counts as comparison. that means youre not only comparing#to ruling parties. you're comparing to any reasonably prominent political parties anywhere#and declaring them all less pro-lgbt+ than mr joseph biden. ok. sure jan
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Matthew Patel
Romantic Headcanons – Yandere
WARNING: violence, death, implied stalking, mentions of religious concepts, toxic mindset.
From the moment you invite Matthew into your life, he will carry that memory to his deathbed. The bond you forged that day is unbreakable and immortal for him: he will go blind to all other reasons for living, consumed with rage at your absence, and ecstatic at any sign of your favour.
Talk of other suitors sends Matthew into a frenzy from which he will not emerge until this obstacle to his happiness is laid low. Dispute over the value of certain traits leaves Matthew resentful—of himself for not being better, of the other person for possessing what he lacks, and of the universe for cursing him with such horrid luck.
When such a person speaks your name, Matthew is driven by his own insecurities to loathe them. The sound of their voice becomes like a cheese grater to his ears, a reminder of how close he is to losing his world for the second time, and from thence into a sound he will fight to the death to silence.
The look of this person, particularly when they light up at the mere mention of you and receive such a look in kind, is a ghastly thing. Matthew's takeaway is one of doubt and bad memories, of all the similarities to Ramona's waning interest that he had been too immature and inattentive to rectify. He vows not to make the same mistake twice.
Seemingly overnight, Matthew transforms from a brooding presence lurking in your shadow to a wellspring of offers to solve even the smallest of issues. He makes a habit of dropping to one knee and delivering a Pagliacci-esque soliloquy about how deep his affection runs, professing that you've become his whole world and that to lose you would leave him with nothing.
Despite your promise not to "betray" him, as Matthew so graciously puts it, he fears it would be a mistake to let his guard down. He believes you were sincere at the time, but Ramona's flippant attitude has left him anxious that you may change your tune and turn your back on him for no apparent reason.
For years, Matthew sought answers as to why she hurt him: on bad days, he blames her for playing with his emotions; on worse days, he blames himself for not trying hard enough to become someone she wanted. Now that he has another shot at human connection, this earth will burn before it slips away from him.
Matthew's actions arise from a peculiar sense of justice: he views himself as retribution sent down upon all those who have wronged you. By daring to replace him, their way of looking after you is inherently and unforgivably flawed. Someone who could, in reality, be quite decent will devolve in his mind into a parasite who takes advantage of you.
Whether they are cruel or kind-hearted, what obsesses Matthew and keeps him stewing for potentially years is the notion that they've robbed him of his one chance at happiness. So long as they keep you company, he sees his future darkening.
What should be a private affair, Matthew turns into a spectacle: he takes to the stage in his most flamboyant attire and declares war, goading his enemy to meet their doom at his hand. Everything, from the venue to the battle itself, is a power play, a performance art in which he displays his prowess for all to admire and envy.
Once he has struck the first blow, there is no version of events where Matthew shows mercy or admits defeat. The harder they fight, the prouder he is to butcher them. Their death will be a triumph, a testament to the fact that he is strong enough to win this war. Anyone who rolls over in the face of his challenge must not be truly committed to you and therefore deserves to feel his wrath for stringing you along.
Coming to over the shiny remains of his enemy, Matthew forgets his rage and revells in the thought of having the sole being who brings him happiness. Ready to pick up where he left off and confident he's earned that right, Matthew throws himself at you and proclaims how thrilled he is to be together again.
Matthew struggles to move beyond the past and to envision a future where he is alone. Having spent much of his life pursuing others, Matthew has no concept of living for himself. He stakes his survival on the volume of applause at the end of every performance, and in the home environment, his tendency to cling to petty recognition has taken root in all interactions.
This emotional hunger reveals itself in the unnecessary extremes to which Matthew proves his devotion, convinced that the obsequious nature of his company and continual sacrifices gives them meaning. He jumps at every opportunity to be near you, no exceptions, afraid that missing even one will be termed neglect and spell the ruin of his life with you.
At his best, Matthew is an unrelenting thespian who serenades you with ballads and calligraphic poetry. But at his worst, he is an unstable and violent creature full of pent-up rage, who conspires with Daemonettes to bind your soul to his, making it virtually impossible to give him up for another.
Do anything you want with my work, but never make me boring!
#Matthew Patel#Scott Pilgrim#Scott Pilgrim vs the World#Scott Pilgrim Takes Off#Imagines#Reader Insert#Yandere#X Reader#Yandere x Reader#Yandere Imagines#Yandere x You#Yandere Headcanons#Gender Neutral Reader#Scott Pilgrim x Reader#Matthew Patel x Reader#Yandere Scott Pilgrim#Yandere Matthew Patel#Yandere Writing#Fanfiction
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Can you write Mikey with a reader who enjoys taking care of him and being affectionate but they aren't dating, so he assumes it's just her personality.
He does love her but finds out she only does that with him because she loves him too. Which leads to a returned confession while he takes her home on his bike.
With a smutty detour or five😅💖
Kiss It Better
THIS HAS BEEN IN MY INBOX FOR SO LONG IM SO SORRY. This gave me SO MUCH UNNECESSARY TROUBLE OML.
MDNI
Cw: SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL FEW CHAPTERS, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH (not detailed), Smut, AFAB Reader, Oral Sex (AFAB Receiving), Surprisingly very tame smut ngl. I MIGHT write a side drabble that's dirtier smut.
Manjiro Sano saw himself as a monster. He had lost so much within the span of a few years and was still only a kid. Through his family and friends' murders, he had to quell his depression every day in order to be the leader he desperately wanted to be. Like his brother had once been. To his surprise, you stayed with him through it all, holding him as tight as you had when you were little. You were his only source of comfort.
It started as you going to the same elementary school. One day, Mikey had invited you over to his house for a playdate, allowing you to meet his other friends and his siblings. The two of you grew older and Manjiro had created his own gang - inspired by his big brother - and you were the boys' personal nurse. You would patch up Mikey and his friends with a smile on your face, softly kissing the leader's bandaged cuts like a mother would.
Even as everything fell apart for Manjiro, you opted to stay by his side. While he never argued, he had a gut feeling that him being this close to you wouldn't end well. He had become an infamous gang leader, even after he had disbanded Toman for the sake of his friends. He would always be the "Invincible Mikey" and other gangs hated him for it.
He should have trusted his gut and cut you off. One day, after the creation of the Kanto Manji gang, Manjiro had learned that you had been murdered. A note addressed to him was found by your body, not stating who had ended your life at such a young age but declaring war on Mikey.
Losing you was the final straw. After your death, Manjiro felt nothing. His dark impulses could no longer be suppressed. The only thing on his mind was to kill anyone that dared to look at him the wrong way.
During the battle against Takemichi and the original Toman, Maniro Sano's life finally got better. After coming to his senses - after stabbing Takemichi - he and the time leaper traveled into the past, farther than even Takemichi had been able to go. The two were little kids again and, this time, Mikey swore to help Takemichi save everyone, especially you.
Meeting you again, seeing your bright smile again, was all Mikey had wished for since your death. His heart fluttered when you walked up to him in class and introduced yourself. He couldn't stop himself from immediately pulling you into a tight hug, which he later apologized for after pulling away. The two of you grew up just like in the other timeline, you being Toman's personal nurse, except this time, everyone survived.
The date that you died in the other reality had been engraved into Manjiro's brain. Now that everyone was alive and happy, he thought it would be a day like any other. To his surprise, that was the very day you confessed your feelings.
Mikey's heart dropped. Did you have feelings for him in the other timeline? Would you have confessed then had you not been killed?
You sat anxiously next to him, his dark eyes wide and beginning to shine with tears. Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around you, as tight as his hug was when you'd first met.
His voice was shaky as he finally replied, "I love you." You smiled and returned his embrace, burying your nose in his shoulder.
From that day on, Mikey's friends knew you as his partner. They could all tell he was over the moon to be with you, Takemichi had even cried and hugged his best friend.
Eventually, it was 2018, the year Takemichi was originally from. He and Manjiro had finally gotten an ending where everyone was alive and happy. Mikey swore he had never cried as much as he did at Takemichi's wedding. His existence had done something good for once. The entire day, he kept stealing glances of you, admiring how pretty you were all dressed up and smiling at how surreal it felt to officially be yours.
It's been a long time coming.
After arriving home from the wedding, Manjiro stopped you before you could walk further into the house, spinning you around to kiss you.
"I love you." He muttered, locking the door behind him.
You smiled, "I love you too."
He returned your grin and placed his hands on your waist, resting his forehead on yours, "You're so pretty."
Mikey suddenly picked you up and carried you off to the bedroom. After gently laying you down, he kissed you again, deeper than the first. His affections moved across your face, down your neck, and had eventually reached your chest. He nuzzled into your collar as he unzipped you from your outfit.
Once you were left in your underwear, his hands moved down to ghost up your legs. You spread your legs as Mikey gently pushed you further into the mattress before he nipped at your chest. One of his hands snaked up to paw at your breast as his kisses got lower.
His finger hooked into your underwear and shifted it aside, allowing him to place a soft kiss to your clit. His dark eyes were locked on your face as his tongue teased you. Your fingers laced themselves in his dark hair, making him groan into you when you would lightly pull.
One of your legs moved on its own, draping itself over Manjiro's shoulder. He briefly parted from your skin to kiss your thigh.
"You're so pretty, baby." He purred, his hand replacing his spot in between your legs, thumb catching your clit. He smirked as you moaned lowly. "Love you so much."
He moved up to kiss you, the thumb that was just on your clit now gently rubbing your cheek. You could feel the bulge in his pants as he pressed his body into yours. His nose lightly touched yours as he chuckled.
"My pretty baby."
Your arms wrapped around him as one of his hands went to pull down his pants, enough space to take out his cock. He teased your core with the tip, grinning at the mewl you let out, before slowly sliding into you. Manjiro knew he wasn't the biggest, but he knew he could easily touch every one of your most sensitive spots.
Your legs wrapped around his waist as he thrusted into you, holding you close with one arm, his other gripping the sheets beside your head. His pace was slow but fast enough to not be teasing.
Manjiro kissed the side of your head, "Love you so fucking much. 'M so glad you're mine." He let go of your body to travel his hand down to your clit, rubbing the nub faster than he had been thrusting.
His hand quickly brought you to your orgasm. Your hips rolled into his as he coaxed you through your high. You whined as it faded and Mikey kissed your cheek.
"So good for me, baby. You did so good. I'm so close." He whispered, his pace quickening slightly. Eventually, his hips thrusted deeper than they had, his hot cum flowing into you as Manjiro groaned into your shoulder.
Both of you stilled, waiting for your heartbeats to calm down. Mikey’s hand caressed your hip as he smiled down at you. Your own hands were in his hair while you returned his grin.
He finally got a happy ending.
#tokyo revengers#tokyo rev#tokrev#tokyo rev smut#tokrev smut#tokyo revengers smut#sano manjiro one shot#manjirou x reader#sano mikey manjiro#manjiro smut#sano manjiro smut#tokyo revengers sano manjiro#sano manjiro x reader#manjiro sano#tokrev mikey#mikey sano#mikey tokyo revengers#mikey x reader
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I'm sorry I'm slowing down. I've been missing meals over these attacks. I had a full day where I wasn't able to eat. It's really hard to take care of myself right now.
I saw an Israeli soldier proudly declaring that he means to commit genocide. On camera saying we'll turn Gaza to dust. I heard people celebrating the idea of Gaza becoming a children's cemetery. A father of one of the hostages taken by Hamas protested, not to end the war, but to get the hostages back first. He got attacked in the street by a person who told him he deserves to be lynched. That's how the people who aren't media trained are talking right now.
I said we went too far and shouldn't be killing so many civilians and I got called a kapo. I told someone I was scared because I never imagined this escalating so quickly and so many people in Gaza are dying. She scoffed at me and asked me if I'm this bothered by our own dead too. Any expression of sympathy towards the people of Gaza is automatically translated to mean I don't care about Israeli civilians. Even while I am one.
I guess one of my goals was to help people feel more comfortable speaking up about this. If you've been following me, you most likely care about Jewish people and antisemitism. I've been talking about antisemitism for a very long time. I want more people who care about both Jews and Palestinians to be outspoken.
The whole conversation is poisoned because Israeli propaganda conflates criticism with antisemitism, and because there are the people who choose a side based on hatred of either Jews or Muslims. So you'll see very hateful people on your side regardless of which side you're on. You can't always use that as a guide for if you're right or wrong.
If you're accused of being antisemitic for criticizing Israeli violence, don't automatically try to defend yourself. You don't want to feed into that aspect of Israeli propaganda. If you want to make sure you're being diligent about avoiding antisemitic narratives, you can avoid statements that imply conspiracy headed by Jews, avoid dehumanizing Israelis, avoid minimizing the holocaust and other violence we experience in diaspora, and watch the ways pro-Palestine Jews talk about this. You don't need to invent the wheel.
So be careful about your word choices and your sources, but Palestinians are dying. This isn't the time to be silent because someone is weaponizing your desire to avoid causing harm.
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🤺back🤺🤺🤺back i say🤺🤺 it’s my turn to request something for hana’s event🤺
may i please request a scenario with baji + flower shop in which he goes to buy his mom flowers as an apology but doesn’t know what to get, so he just picks out random flowers that actually mean everything except “i’m sorry” so you help him out?
by the way, you don’t have to write this part, but i just thought it would be cute if he develops a crush on you and you see him at a different flower shop buying a small bouquet and you think he’s betraying you, but later he shows up at your shop, awkward and stiff, with that same bouquet to ask you out because his mom said that’s the proper way to do it. just wanted to share that little add-on with you!!
— baji keisuke // flower shop // love at first sight
☆ ˎˊ˗ heyyy ... arba idk if ur still active IM SRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG i disappeared D: we miss u come back ... also this idea was sooo cuteeee arghjhghjghjhg i actually went soo overboard w this but it was too good!!
☆ ˎˊ˗ fem!reader implied
☆ ˎˊ˗ wc ; 2.2k+
masterlist || 2k masterlist
you’d had your eye on him since he’d walked into the store.
it wasn’t for any particular reason aside from the fact that he seemed to be feeling wholly out of place, which made you giggle a bit as he shuffled around, muttering and grumbling to himself as he awkwardly looked at different bouquet arrangements.
he definitely didn’t seem like the type to be buying flowers either; his long dark hair and overall brusque demeanor didn’t exactly give you the impression that he was someone who would go around buying flowers, (and was that him that pulled up on a literal motorcycle?! he seemed like he was around your age!!).
under normal circumstances you would have gone up to assist, but you decided to sit back and see how this boy was going to play this one out, (he was really cute, but if a cute boy like him was in a flower shop, he was undoubtedly buying flowers for his girlfriend). it was quite the entertaining spectacle to see him walking around, his eyebrows pinched together as he tried to find something that he found suitable. at one point, he even seemed to phone someone for help, though he hung up rather quickly after yelling that he definitely was not buying flowers!!
after minutes and minutes of walking around, he finally picked up two bouquets of flowers; geraniums and tansies. you had to restrain your laughter as he walked up to the register, damn near shaking to keep yourself from bursting out into giggles.
“d-did you find everything, pff--ahem! did you find everything alright today?” you had let your giggles slip through on accident, and even though you tried to cover it up with a cough, you could tell that it failed immensely from the ticked off look on the boy’s face.
“you’ve got a lot of nerve to be laughin’ at me-” he started, the deep tone of his voice taking you off guard.
“n-no! i’m not really laughing at you per se…well, kind of.” you tried to explain. “see, okay, do you know what flower language is?” the boy quirked an eyebrow at this, giving you the sort of look that says go on. “well, it gives flowers different meanings, y’know? so unless you’re trying to pick a fight, i really wouldn’t suggest using these flowers.”
“...what do they mean?”
“geraniums and tansy flowers together…you would be calling the person stupid and then be declaring war on them.” the boy’s amber eyes widened, his lips pressing together in a thin line as his brows furrowed together once more. “if you’d like, i can suggest flowers with a more…caring meaning for your girlfriend.” the boy’s eyebrows shot up at your words, making you wonder if you’d said something wrong.
“girlfriend? these’re for my mom.”
“oh! sorry, i just assumed-ah, never mind. now, let me see…” you stood up from your seat, gathering the flowers in front of you in your arms and coming out from behind the counter. after you put the flowers back, you looked around for a moment, a few ideas floating through your mind.
“hmm, why are you getting her flowers?”
“...’cause…” he mumbled a bit, making you lean in a bit.
“what was that?”
“‘c-cause! i made her cry…” despite the fact that his voice had raised a little bit, all you could sense from him was embarrassment and shame, especially from the look on his face, (he almost looked like a kicked puppy). the sight made you smile softly; it wasn’t often that you got genuine customers like this, so you were going to make it your mission to help him.
“alright, give me one moment…” your eyes flicked throughout the store, taking a few moments to weigh different options before making a decision. you ended up grabbing three bouquets; white tulips, daffodils, and some small filler greenery with bits of baby’s breath.
you walked back behind the counter, setting the bouquets down in front of you. the black-haird boy had followed you aimlessly around the store, eventually ending up back in front of the register. there was a kind of quiet curiosity in his eyes as he watched your practiced movements, (truthfully, you weren’t used to someone watching you do bouquet arrangements with such an intent stare).
“i’m doing this for you right now because i want to help you, but for future reference, you usually have to call ahead a day or two for this.” a smile played on your lips as you unwrapped the flowers in front of you, glancing up a bit to look at the boy.
it was only for a moment, but his amber gaze staring right at you caught you off guard, making your heart skip a beat. you immediately looked back down, busying your hands and trimming the leaves off of the flowers. the rest of your work was done in silence; trimming the end of the flower stems, arranging them in a way that looks pleasing, opening some of the flowers to match the rest. it was relaxing work, so much so that you almost forgot about the boy in front of you.
almost.
the whole time you were working you could feel his gaze on you, looking up a few times just to look back down immediately. you felt a little bit anxious throughout the process, hoping that he would deem your work acceptable enough for his mom, (your anxiousness was also from the fact that a very cute boy was watching you, but that was aside from the point).
you finished the final step, delicately wrapping the flowers in a thick brown paper and securing them in place with the tie of a thick ribbon.
“there, all set! what do you think?” you asked cheerily, admiring the flowers you had put together. in your mind, you thought it looked pretty good, but it wasn’t your opinion that mattered here.
“yeah…they look good.”
“yay! i’m glad you like them!” you handed the bouquet over to him, a rush of happiness flooding through you at his approving words. “i hope you’ll come again!”
“wait, how much was this?” he started to pat around his pockets for his wallet, but you shook your head.
“don’t worry about it, it’s on me! just make sure to come back if you need more flowers, though i hope it’ll be for a better reason!”
“i will…” he stared at you for a moment, a questioning look in his eyes. “hey, if you keep looking at me like that i’m going to take it back, so go apologize to your mom!” you ushered, waving bye to him.
“thanks.” if you weren’t looking closely, you probably would have missed the small smile on his face before he left.
˗ˏˋ ☆ ˎˊ˗
“isn’t that…” you squinted a bit, walking a few steps closer to get a better view. sure enough, there he was! the same black-haired amber eyed boy who you had helped last week, in another flower shop!!
“oh my god, that total traitor!!” you huffed. “i told him to come back if he needed more flowers…” you watched as he got handed a bouquet of flowers, shaking your head in disdain. when you saw him head for the exit, you immediately panicked, scrambling away from the scene and jogging the whole way back to your shop.
despite the fact that you had only seen him once, you still felt a bit of disappointment at the fact that he had gone to another flower shop, even when he’d said he would come back. maybe you scared him off?
i didn’t even say anything weird though…
your thoughts kept you quite occupied while you were preparing the shop for open, though they were a bit burdensome when you happened to prick yourself on some roses, too distracted to be paying attention to the thorns properly.
after some of the bouquet orders for the day, you flipped the sign on the door to ‘open’. you were about to go back to sulking behind the counter, but a glimpse of black hair outside caught your eye.
looking closer, you realized that it was the same boy! he was seated on his motorcycle, chatting his a blonde haired boy who you assumed was his friend.
maybe he had realized that the flowers from your shop were better!
however, your gaze narrowed when you realized that he was holding the same bouquet you had seen him with earlier, making your mood sour immediately.
was he coming here to rub it in your face or something?!
while you were busy glaring, you started to notice that his blonde haired friend was gesturing and pointing wildly towards your shop, seeming to be shouting at the black haired boy about something. while you were still a little bit sour, you began to be intrigued by what was going on, contemplating going out there to see what all the commotion was about.
the thought immediately perished as you made eye contact with the blonde, who could clearly see you staring at them through the windows of your shop. the two of you stared at each for a moment before you darted away from the glass, rushing back to behind the counter as you prayed that he didn’t actually see you, (he definitely did).
“well, whatever! i helped him out and he went to another flower shop--so what!!” you muttered to yourself, throwing your hands up. “that’s the last time i ever do a nice thing for someone!!” you grumbled, preparing the flowers for the rest of the bouquet orders you had to do.
it was a practiced routine at this point, so you were able to arrange the flowers properly without putting much thought into it, using it as busywork to take your mind off of things. you weren’t sure why you were so upset about the fact that this boy went to another flower shop, but it certainly wouldn’t help you to let it get in the way of things.
hearing the bell to the door chime, you chirped out a ‘welcome in!’ as you continued trimming and arranging flowers, being careful this time to mind the thorns so that you didn’t get pricked a second time.
“uh, hey.” the deep tone of voice immediately made you look up, feeling as if you would have snapped your neck if you looked up any faster. you shook off your nervousness, (and excitement) going back to what you were doing as you tried to look casual.
“well, you’re back. whatever you want isn’t going to be on me this time because you betrayed me.” you said cooly, a bit of a frown on your lips.
“betrayed--what? uh, anyways, i just wanted to give you these…” he cleared his throat, holding out a bouquet to you. when you finally looked up and took a good look, you noticed that the tips of his ears were red, (should you be having hope right now…? no, stop it! get a hold of yourself!). “and, uh, i got them with that flower language thing…”
“what…?” you leaned forward across the counter, inspecting the flowers in the bouquet a bit closer. “calla lilies and white camellia’s…” looking up at the boy’s embarrassed and somewhat flustered expression, you paired it with the meaning of the flowers, and…
ah…
immediately, you felt your heartbeat speed up and felt the apples of your cheeks heating up, leaning back and looking away. you fiddled with your fingers for a moment as you tried to think of something--anything, really--to say.
“i…uh…how, um, how did you come up with this…?”
“my mom said it was a good idea…” he shifted a bit, his arm still holding out the bouquet of flowers. “if you don’t want them, i can jus’ take them back-”
“no!” you grabbed the bouquet from him, smiling a bit too much, (you couldn’t help yourself though). “you’re giving them to me, so they’re mine now, right? you can’t take back a gift! and-and just hold on for a second!” you left without another moment to spare, running into the back and scrambling for a piece of paper. you picked up a nearby pen, quickly jotting down your name and number and then running back out, a big smile across your face.
“here!” the boy in front of you grabbed the slip of paper, his amber eyes examining it before he smirked a bit, showing off the sharp bits of his canines.
“(y/n), is that right?”
“yes! what’s your name?”
“baji. baji keisuke.”
˗ˏˋ ☆ ˎˊ˗
bonus:
“baji-san! how did it go!?”
“i need a yakisoba right now, chifuyu…” baji grumbled, sitting on his bike and leaning back.
“did you get rejected?!” chifuyu asked, a look of grave anticipation on his face.
“no!! she thought i betrayed her flower shop because i went to another flower shop! your idea was shit!” chifuyu’s face went pale at that, his mouth hanging wide open.
“i didn’t think about that…”
“yeah, this is the last time i take advice from whatever weird manga shit you got this from.”
“...”
“...”
“i mean, she said yes, right? a win is a win!”
“...shaddup.”
(chifuyu proceeded to pay for the yakisoba outings for the next six months.)
geraniums: folly, stupidity | tansy: hostile thoughts, declaring war | white tulips: apology, i'm sorry | daffodils: appreciation, happiness | calla lily: beauty | white camellia: you're adorable
#東京リベンジャーズ#東京リベンジャーズ x reader#˗ˏˋ𖤐 tokyo revengers ˎˊ˗#˗ˏˋ𖤐 hana’s 2k event! ˎˊ˗#tokyo revengers#tokyo revengers x reader#tok rev#tok rev x reader#tr#tr x reader#baji#keisuke#baji keisuke#keisuke baji#baji x reader#baji keisuke x reader#keisuke baji x reader#x reader#reader#reader insert#anime#manga#anime x reader#manga x reader#scenario#fluff#baji keisuke x reader fluff#baji x reader fluff#tokyo revengers x reader fluff
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On the "Choose a Side" Discourse
With HBO leaning veryyyy heavily into "pick a side" for their promos, the "no team" people are crawling out of the woodwork. I want to preface this post by saying that I'm not saying people shouldn't have favorite characters who aren't mine, nor that people should just be totally invested in fandom discourse.
I already made a post about the issues with the arguments of the "no team" people, so I'll just summarize my thoughts from that real quick. A majority of their arguments and metas are thinly veiled anti Rhaenyra thoughts. That's still true of this new wave of this group.
Now, one thing I will agree with them on is: GRRM did not write this story to be one of choose a side. However, that is not because the Blacks and the Greens are equally bad or the Targaryens are all evil. No, it's because the Greens were always in the wrong and GRRM makes this abundantly clear to us in F&B.
Let's look at some facts from the Dance. While male primogeniture is tradition, it's not the law; the king's word is law, something ASOIAF has established time and again. The Greens took the throne through underhanded ways. They left Viserys' body to rot for days while they prepared for Aegon's coronation to prevent Rhaenyra from learning and coming to KL. They forced the smallfolk to attend and most didn't cheer for Aegon, with some even calling for Rhaenyra while most were confused and angry.
Aemond drew first blood by killing the unarmed thirteen year old envoy, Lucerys Velaryon. A majority of the realm declared for Rhaenyra; 53 houses supported her, while only 28 supported Aegon. The Greens committed the greatest atrocities of the Dance: Aemond burning the Riverlands and Daeron massacring Tumbleton. They also committed the greater number of atrocities.
The Greens also lost the war. The Blacks weren't just fighting for Rhaenyra, they fought for her heirs as well. This is why they swore to her and Jacaerys; later for Aegon III after the deaths of his older brothers. The Black forces continued to fight after Rhaenyra's murder and took KL. Aegon was murdered by his own men when the Blacks were marching on KL; in other words, the Greens knew they were beat, so they killed Aegon in an attempt to save themselves. Since Aegon left no heirs aside from Jaehaera, Aegon III was crowned and married to Jaehaera. The Blacks won the war.
Aegon the Usurper's bloodline is destroyed with the deaths of Jaehaera and Gaemon Palehair. This is the final affirmation of the Greens being in the wrong. GRRM's books punish usurpers by wiping out their bloodlines; Maegor and Robert Baratheon being the most obvious examples. Aegon and all the Greens have no descendants, their bloodline is dead.
Rhaenyra's bloodline, on the other hand, continues all the way through to the main series. Daenerys Targaryen, the most powerful character in the series, is her descendant, as is Jon Snow (unconfirmed as of now in the books) who is another of the key five. Rhaenyra may have died, but her faction won the war and her bloodline will save the world through her two greatest descendants (alongside the rest of the key five).
The Dance of the Dragons is, ultimately, a story of the damage the patriarchy does and how misogyny is destructive to the world. The Dance caused the death of the dragons and a great loss of power for women in the realm. Queen consorts after Rhaenyra had markedly less power and there was a drop in female leaders of the great houses. The loss of the dragons caused the weakening of magic in the world as a whole.
The Dance isn't about who your favorite war criminal is, nor is it about the evil of the Targaryens. It's about misogyny; something HOTD seems to have forgotten. Even before they started pushing TB vs TG so hard, they still missed the point.
It doesn't matter that Rhaenyra isn't a perfect, or even a good, person. It doesn't matter that Rhaenyra is non-conforming, plays the political game, and exploits her father's favor. Rhaenyra could have been as pious and well-behaved as Naerys and the Greens still would have usurped her. Rhaenyra could have had children with Laenor, and still the Greens would have usurped her. HOTD tries to paint the usurpation as partially being on Rhaenyra and her choices, but nothing Rhaenyra could have done would have been good enough.
The Blacks are the protagonists of the Dance. Are they perfect? No. Are they heroes? No. GRRM loves his gray characters, the Blacks are no exception. If you people want a story with black and white morality and perfect protagonists, go read another book. Just because people aren't perfect and don't operate exclusively in what's right according to our modern standards doesn't mean they aren't the protagonists.
In conclusion: there isn't a TB vs TG discourse in the Dance because the Greens are the antagonists and completely in the wrong. The point of the Dance is that the misogyny of the Greens damaged the realm. Rhaenyra is the rightful queen, there is no actual argument for Aegon or any of his allies.
Rhaenyra is the rightful queen to Westeros, go cry to George if you don't like it.
#rhaenyra targaryen#queen rhaenyra#asoiaf#house of the dragon#team black#anti team green#anti team green stans#anti aegon ii targaryen#the blacks#dance of the dragons#hotd s2#anti hotd
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Remember when Kacchan complained about Izuku obviously skulking around with All Might and how they need to be less conspicuous about their connection with each other? When you think about it, no one cared that much what the heck Izuku was up to… except for Kacchan himself. And in hindsight, that interaction is just so freaking cute. Just because this guy is always hyper aware of Izuku and the people surrounding him and absolutely concerned with his business, he thinks others will be too.
Take Season 2 for example at the sport festival… How did he even come to eavesdrop on Todoroki in the first place? By following and being invested in what Izuku was doing with him because Kacchan got so jealous about Todoroki declaring war on his shitnerd 😩 he couldn’t stand the idea of them going off alone somewhere together.
Stop the cap. You were there because you followed Izuku, Katsuki.
Kacchan’s always overly concerned about Izuku and on top of that, he was jealous of Shouto taking his rival nerd from him. So when he got curious seeing them go off somewhere alone, he followed them and eavesdropped.
And another time he eavesdropped on Izuku in Heroes Rising.
He’s so focused on whatever Izuku’s doing or saying, he tunnel visions like hell. Here he forgot about his icey and it melted off the stick.
Not only does he always give Izuku his undivided attention, he definitely wants it returned.
Izuku’s always looked at his back, right? Whether that was walking behind him in the woods, or being seated behind him in class... I think at some point Katsuki came to crave his gaze on him and secretly loved his praise too and that feeling was exposed in the joint training arc with his “Keep your eyes on me, Deku” 😂
Oh Katsuki don’t lie ❤️
You knew he’d be watching you like this with his big and shiny doe eyes didn’t you ;)
Turns out you’re allowed to be obsessed with Kacchan, Izuku. He was just being a hypocritical tsundere whenever he said stuff like this:
Remember when there were a bunch of Kacchan apologists that victim blamed Izuku for sticking around when he was told to leave him alone? What if I told you Katsuki never truly wanted Izuku to leave? Because if he did leave, then who would Kacchan stalk? 😂
Honestly!!! Kacchan’s Izuku complex and how he projected it onto him like Deku is the only one who’s obsessed, is one of my biggest sources of amusement with this ship. Heh. 🤭 They are true equal partners in a lot of ways…
Between all the “Did I do better than Deku?”,
the eavesdropping
and every single time Katsuki targeted him, if you’re able to describe all of this as nothing other than PURE UNADULTERATED OBSESSION...?
DING DING DING. You’re damn right it is!
Then you flip the hate around because it turns out he was wrong to hate that person in the first place after all, and what does Katsuki’s obsession start to look like? Maybe a little something like this.
They’re obsessed with each other and always have been and this is perfectly fine. It used to be very antagonistic attention on Katsuki’s end but his attention has since become all soft and gentle because now..? Now he’s just in love. ❤️
And that’s the tea~ ☕️
#Kacchan calling Deku stalker is literal pot meet kettle#kacchans obsession is so obvious 😩#he's adorable#like in hindsight of everything he ever said lmfaooo#bakudeku#also...#bkdk canon#op#bnha meta#Kacchan loves deku#kacchan was the one interested in izuku deep in his heart from the start lmfao#though izuku never denied himself the self satisfaction of his admiration of kacchan#kacchan slowly coming to terms with being JUST AS OBSESSED with izuku is such a blessing#I excavated this post from deep within the drafts xD#its always bothered me when people downplayed the fact THEY ARE BOTH OBSESSED WITH EACH OTHER and that is OKAY#bc it is okay#its okay if its kacchan <3#thank you guys for supporting Kacchan’s obsession along with me#1k#everyone knows he’s such a huge simp… I love that for him#must read meta
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You know, the more I think about it, the funnier I find the concept of Monkey D. Luffy /& Boa Hancock (especially paired with Aro-Ace spectrum Luffy and Aro-Ace spectrum Hancock) just for what it must look like from an outsider's POV.
For the record, personally, my favorite Luffy ship is Zoro/Luffy - also with Aro-Ace spectrum Luffy, that's basically non-negotiable for me, I don't care whether he's sex-favorable or sex-repulsed, but he's definitely ace. It is so funny to me to think about Luffy's incredible pull with aro-ace spectrum folks. People who once thought "sucks for you fuckers obsessed with sex and/or romance, I'm built different" (Roronoa Zoro, Koby, Trafalgar Law, Boa Hancock, Bartolomeo, etc.) find themselves fascinated by this little rubber man, who regularly declares war on the government and can swallow a roast chicken whole. Some of them are happier about this than others. Some of them WISH they just wanted to fuck or marry him, that would make more sense than this shit.
But, okay, back to Luffy and Hancock (as a friendship or queerplatonic situationship, whatever, doesn't matter). Like, let's pretend this is some kind of Modern College AU (Luffy is probably not IN college, tbh, he's just there to hang out with his friends and for any food anyone makes the mistake of leaving out). You are on your way to class and you see this woman walking down the street and she is - hands down - the Most Beautiful Woman In The World.
Super tall, with incredibly long, muscular legs in shockingly high red heels, a short skirt, artful cleavage, a waterfall of sleek black hair, beautiful face, striking makeup, gorgeous jewelry. Looks too old to be an undergrad student. She looks like if a martial artist became a supermodel. Walks like that too. The phrase "please step on me" comes to mind, but not to the lips, because that's sexual harassment, and also this woman looks like she could stab you through the heart with a kick and her shoe heel, killing you instantly.
She sees someone and her entire face lights up. She runs forward (how is she running in those shoes) squealing in excitement and embraces this guy you didn't even notice before, shouting about how much she missed him, and kisses him on the lips. He is... uh... three-quarters of her height at the tallest. A real Mr. Short King.
Wow, he has a babyface. And a scar on his cheek and on his chest, which you can see because he's wearing an open button-up, in eye-searing rainbow colors and decorated with monkeys, and jorts with fur at the cuffs. And mismatched flip-flops on the wrong feet. And a straw hat on a string around his neck. It looks like he hasn't brushed his hair today. It is impossible to judge his looks because his outfit is too distracting. Now the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is blushing bright pink as she clasps one of his hands in both of hers. Mr. Short King is using his other hand to pick his nose as she talks.
They walk hand in hand together over to where an incredibly expensive-looking bright red car is parked. Mr. Short King opens the driver's door for the Most Beautiful Woman and she apparently nearly swoons at this chivalry. She climbs into the driver's seat and he gets into the passenger's side (Luffy cannot legally drive and also cannot actually drive). They drive off together. What the fuck kind of Roger-and-Jessica-Rabbit-ass Sugar Mama relationship did you just witness?
Boa Hancock keeps a photograph of Luffy as her phone background and also on her desk at work. Everyone is always like, "Is that your... son?" And Hancock is like, "No, that's my number one choice of future fiancé! Isn't he sooooo handsome?" And people can only be like, "...Okay, but why are there police lights in the background? And something is on fire? It kind of looks like he's in the process of being arrested..." And Hancock responds dreamily, "They didn't catch him! He climbed into my exercise duffel bag and I carried him out."
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In defense of bureaucratic competence
Sure, sometimes it really does make sense to do your own research. There's times when you really do need to take personal responsibility for the way things are going. But there's limits. We live in a highly technical world, in which hundreds of esoteric, potentially lethal factors impinge on your life every day.
You can't "do your own research" to figure out whether all that stuff is safe and sound. Sure, you might be able to figure out whether a contractor's assurances about a new steel joist for your ceiling are credible, but after you do that, are you also going to independently audit the software in your car's antilock brakes?
How about the nutritional claims on your food and the sanitary conditions in the industrial kitchen it came out of? If those turn out to be inadequate, are you going to be able to validate the medical advice you get in the ER when you show up at 3AM with cholera? While you're trying to figure out the #HIPAAWaiver they stuck in your hand on the way in?
40 years ago, Ronald Reagan declared war on "the administrative state," and "government bureaucrats" have been the favored bogeyman of the American right ever since. Even if Steve Bannon hasn't managed to get you to froth about the "Deep State," there's a good chance that you've griped about red tape from time to time.
Not without reason, mind you. The fact that the government can make good rules doesn't mean it will. When we redid our kitchen this year, the city inspector added a bunch of arbitrary electrical outlets to the contractor's plans in places where neither we, nor any future owner, will every need them.
But the answer to bad regulation isn't no regulation. During the same kitchen reno, our contractor discovered that at some earlier time, someone had installed our kitchen windows without the accompanying vapor-barriers. In the decades since, the entire structure of our kitchen walls had rotted out. Not only was the entire front of our house one good earthquake away from collapsing – there were two half rotted verticals supporting the whole thing – but replacing the rotted walls added more than $10k to the project.
In other words, the problem isn't too much regulation, it's the wrong regulation. I want our city inspectors to make sure that contractors install vapor barriers, but to not demand superfluous electrical outlets.
Which raises the question: where do regulations come from? How do we get them right?
Regulation is, first and foremost, a truth-seeking exercise. There will never be one obvious answer to any sufficiently technical question. "Should this window have a vapor barrier?" is actually a complex question, needing to account for different window designs, different kinds of barriers, etc.
To make a regulation, regulators ask experts to weigh in. At the federal level, expert agencies like the DoT or the FCC or HHS will hold a "Notice of Inquiry," which is a way to say, "Hey, should we do something about this? If so, what should we do?"
Anyone can weigh in on these: independent technical experts, academics, large companies, lobbyists, industry associations, members of the public, hobbyist groups, and swivel-eyed loons. This produces a record from which the regulator crafts a draft regulation, which is published in something called a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking."
The NPRM process looks a lot like the NOI process: the regulator publishes the rule, the public weighs in for a couple of rounds of comments, and the regulator then makes the rule (this is the federal process; state regulation and local ordinances vary, but they follow a similar template of collecting info, making a proposal, collecting feedback and finalizing the proposal).
These truth-seeking exercises need good input. Even very competent regulators won't know everything, and even the strongest theoretical foundation needs some evidence from the field. It's one thing to say, "Here's how your antilock braking software should work," but you also need to hear from mechanics who service cars, manufacturers, infosec specialists and drivers.
These people will disagree with each other, for good reasons and for bad ones. Some will be sincere but wrong. Some will want to make sure that their products or services are required – or that their competitors' products and services are prohibited.
It's the regulator's job to sort through these claims. But they don't have to go it alone: in an ideal world, the wrong people will be corrected by other parties in the docket, who will back up their claims with evidence.
So when the FCC proposes a Net Neutrality rule, the monopoly telcos and cable operators will pile in and insist that this is technically impossible, that there is no way to operate a functional ISP if the network management can't discriminate against traffic that is less profitable to the carrier. Now, this unity of perspective might reflect a bedrock truth ("Net Neutrality can't work") or a monopolists' convenient lie ("Net Neutrality is less profitable for us").
In a competitive market, there'd be lots of counterclaims with evidence from rivals: "Of course Net Neutrality is feasible, and here are our server logs to prove it!" But in a monopolized markets, those counterclaims come from micro-scale ISPs, or academics, or activists, or subscribers. These counterclaims are easy to dismiss ("what do you know about supporting 100 million users?"). That's doubly true when the regulator is motivated to give the monopolists what they want – either because they are hoping for a job in the industry after they quit government service, or because they came out of industry and plan to go back to it.
To make things worse, when an industry is heavily concentrated, it's easy for members of the ruling cartel – and their backers in government – to claim that the only people who truly understand the industry are its top insiders. Seen in that light, putting an industry veteran in charge of the industry's regulator isn't corrupt – it's sensible.
All of this leads to regulatory capture – when a regulator starts defending an industry from the public interest, instead of defending the public from the industry. The term "regulatory capture" has a checkered history. It comes out of a bizarre, far-right Chicago School ideology called "Public Choice Theory," whose goal is to eliminate regulation, not fix it.
In Public Choice Theory, the biggest companies in an industry have the strongest interest in capturing the regulator, and they will work harder – and have more resources – than anyone else, be they members of the public, workers, or smaller rivals. This inevitably leads to capture, where the state becomes an arm of the dominant companies, wielded by them to prevent competition:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/
This is regulatory nihilism. It supposes that the only reason you weren't killed by your dinner, or your antilock brakes, or your collapsing roof, is that you just got lucky – and not because we have actual, good, sound regulations that use evidence to protect us from the endless lethal risks we face. These nihilists suppose that making good regulation is either a myth – like ancient Egyptian sorcery – or a lost art – like the secret to embalming Pharaohs.
But it's clearly possible to make good regulations – especially if you don't allow companies to form monopolies or cartels. What's more, failing to make public regulations isn't the same as getting rid of regulation. In the absence of public regulation, we get private regulation, run by companies themselves.
Think of Amazon. For decades, the DoJ and FTC sat idly by while Amazon assembled and fortified its monopoly. Today, Amazon is the de facto e-commerce regulator. The company charges its independent sellers 45-51% in junk fees to sell on the platform, including $31b/year in "advertising" to determine who gets top billing in your searches. Vendors raise their Amazon prices in order to stay profitable in the face of these massive fees, and if they don't raise their prices at every other store and site, Amazon downranks them to oblivion, putting them out of business.
This is the crux of the FTC's case against Amazon: that they are picking winners and setting prices across the entire economy, including at every other retailer:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos
The same is true for Google/Facebook, who decide which news and views you encounter; for Apple/Google, who decide which apps you can use, and so on. The choice is never "government regulation" or "no regulation" – it's always "government regulation" or "corporate regulation." You either live by rules made in public by democratically accountable bureaucrats, or rules made in private by shareholder-accountable executives.
You just can't solve this by "voting with your wallet." Think about the problem of robocalls. Nobody likes these spam calls, and worse, they're a vector for all kinds of fraud. Robocalls are mostly a problem with federation. The phone system is a network-of-networks, and your carrier is interconnected with carriers all over the world, sometimes through intermediaries that make it hard to know which network a call originates on.
Some of these carriers are spam-friendly. They make money by selling access to spammers and scammers. Others don't like spam, but they have lax or inadequate security measures to prevent robocalls. Others will simply be targets of opportunity: so large and well-resourced that they are irresistible to bad actors, who continuously probe their defenses and exploit overlooked flaws, which are quickly patched.
To stem the robocall tide, your phone company will have to block calls from bad actors, put sloppy or lazy carriers on notice to shape up or face blocks, and also tell the difference between good companies and bad ones.
There's no way you can figure this out on your own. How can you know whether your carrier is doing a good job at this? And even if your carrier wants to do this, only the largest, most powerful companies can manage it. Rogue carriers won't give a damn if some tiny micro-phone-company threatens them with a block if they don't shape up.
This is something that a large, powerful government agency is best suited to addressing. And thankfully, we have such an agency. Two years ago, the FCC demanded that phone companies submit plans for "robocall mitigation." Now, it's taking action:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/telcos-filed-blank-robocall-plans-with-fcc-and-got-away-with-it-for-2-years/
Specifically, the FCC has identified carriers – in the US and abroad – with deficient plans. Some of these plans are very deficient. National Cloud Communications of Texas sent the FCC a Windows Printer Test Page. Evernex (Pakistan) sent the FCC its "taxpayer profile inquiry" from a Pakistani state website. Viettel (Vietnam) sent in a slide presentation entitled "Making Smart Cities Vision a Reality." Canada's Humbolt VoIP sent an "indiscernible object." DomainerSuite submitted a blank sheet of paper scrawled with the word "NOTHING."
The FCC has now notified these carriers – and others with less egregious but still deficient submissions – that they have 14 days to fix this or they'll be cut off from the US telephone network.
This is a problem you don't fix with your wallet, but with your ballot. Effective, public-interest-motivated FCC regulators are a political choice. Trump appointed the cartoonishly evil Ajit Pai to run the FCC, and he oversaw a program of neglect and malice. Pai – a former Verizon lawyer – dismantled Net Neutrality after receiving millions of obviously fraudulent comments from stolen identities, lying about it, and then obstructing the NY Attorney General's investigation into the matter:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/31/and-drown-it/#starve-the-beast
The Biden administration has a much better FCC – though not as good as it could be, thanks to Biden hanging Gigi Sohn out to dry in the face of a homophobic smear campaign that ultimately led one of the best qualified nominees for FCC commissioner to walk away from the process:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/15/useful-idiotsuseful-idiots/#unrequited-love
Notwithstanding the tragic loss of Sohn's leadership in this vital agency, Biden's FCC – and its action on robocalls – illustrates the value of elections won with ballots, not wallets.
Self-regulation without state regulation inevitably devolves into farce. We're a quarter of a century into the commercial internet and the US still doesn't have a modern federal privacy law. The closest we've come is a disclosure rule, where companies can make up any policy they want, provided they describe it to you.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to cheat on this regulation. It's so simple, even a Meta lawyer can figure it out – which is why the Meta Quest VR headset has a privacy policy isn't merely awful, but long.
It will take you five hours to read the whole document and discover how badly you're being screwed. Go ahead, "do your own research":
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/annual-creep-o-meter/
The answer to bad regulation is good regulation, and the answer to incompetent regulators is competent ones. As Michael Lewis's Fifth Risk (published after Trump filled the administrative agencies with bootlickers, sociopaths and crooks) documented, these jobs demand competence:
https://memex.craphound.com/2018/11/27/the-fifth-risk-michael-lewis-explains-how-the-deep-state-is-just-nerds-versus-grifters/
For example, Lewis describes how a Washington State nuclear waste facility created as part of the Manhattan Project endangers the Columbia River, the source of 8 million Americans' drinking water. The nuclear waste cleanup is projected to take 100 years and cost 100 billion dollars. With stakes that high, we need competent bureaucrats overseeing the job.
The hacky conservative jokes comparing every government agency to the DMV are not descriptive so much as prescriptive. By slashing funding, imposing miserable working conditions, and demonizing the people who show up for work anyway, neoliberals have chased away many good people, and hamstrung those who stayed.
One of the most inspiring parts of the Biden administration is the large number of extremely competent, extremely principled agency personnel he appointed, and the speed and competence they've brought to their roles, to the great benefit of the American public:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
But leaders can only do so much – they also need staff. 40 years of attacks on US state capacity has left the administrative state in tatters, stretched paper-thin. In an excellent article, Noah Smith describes how a starveling American bureaucracy costs the American public a fortune:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-bureaucracy
Even stripped of people and expertise, the US government still needs to get stuff done, so it outsources to nonprofits and consultancies. These are the source of much of the expense and delay in public projects. Take NYC's Second Avenue subway, a notoriously overbudget and late subway extension – "the most expensive mile of subway ever built." Consultants amounted to 20% of its costs, double what France or Italy would have spent. The MTA used to employ 1,600 project managers. Now it has 124 of them, overseeing $20b worth of projects. They hand that money to consultants, and even if they have the expertise to oversee the consultants' spending, they are stretched too thin to do a good job of it:
https://slate.com/business/2023/02/subway-costs-us-europe-public-transit-funds.html
When a public agency lacks competence, it ends up costing the public more. States with highly expert Departments of Transport order better projects, which need fewer changes, which adds up to massive costs savings and superior roads:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4522676
Other gaps in US regulation are plugged by nonprofits and citizen groups. Environmental rules like NEPA rely on the public to identify and object to environmental risks in public projects, from solar plants to new apartment complexes. NEPA and its state equivalents empower private actors to sue developers to block projects, even if they satisfy all environmental regulations, leading to years of expensive delay.
The answer to this isn't to dismantle environmental regulations – it's to create a robust expert bureaucracy that can enforce them instead of relying on NIMBYs. This is called "ministerial approval" – when skilled government workers oversee environmental compliance. Predictably, NIMBYs hate ministerial approval.
Which is not to say that there aren't problems with trusting public enforcers to ensure that big companies are following the law. Regulatory capture is real, and the more concentrated an industry is, the greater the risk of capture. We are living in a moment of shocking market concentration, thanks to 40 years of under-regulation:
https://www.openmarketsinstitute.org/learn/monopoly-by-the-numbers
Remember that five-hour privacy policy for a Meta VR headset? One answer to these eye-glazing garbage novellas presented as "privacy policies" is to simply ban certain privacy-invading activities. That way, you can skip the policy, knowing that clicking "I agree" won't expose you to undue risk.
This is the approach that Bennett Cyphers and I argue for in our EFF white-paper, "Privacy Without Monopoly":
https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy
After all, even the companies that claim to be good for privacy aren't actually very good for privacy. Apple blocked Facebook from spying on iPhone owners, then sneakily turned on their own mass surveillance system, and lied about it:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar
But as the European experiment with the GDPR has shown, public administrators can't be trusted to have the final word on privacy, because of regulatory capture. Big Tech companies like Google, Apple and Facebook pretend to be headquartered in corporate crime havens like Ireland and Luxembourg, where the regulators decline to enforce the law:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town
It's only because of the GPDR has a private right of action – the right of individuals to sue to enforce their rights – that we're finally seeing the beginning of the end of commercial surveillance in Europe:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/americans-deserve-more-current-american-data-privacy-protection-act
It's true that NIMBYs can abuse private rights of action, bringing bad faith cases to slow or halt good projects. But just as the answer to bad regulations is good ones, so too is the answer to bad private rights of action good ones. SLAPP laws have shown us how to balance vexatious litigation with the public interest:
https://www.rcfp.org/resources/anti-slapp-laws/
We must get over our reflexive cynicism towards public administration. In my book The Internet Con, I lay out a set of public policy proposals for dismantling Big Tech and putting users back in charge of their digital lives:
https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
The most common objection I've heard since publishing the book is, "Sure, Big Tech has enshittified everything great about the internet, but how can we trust the government to fix it?"
We've been conditioned to think that lawmakers are too old, too calcified and too corrupt, to grasp the technical nuances required to regulate the internet. But just because Congress isn't made up of computer scientists, it doesn't mean that they can't pass good laws relating to computers. Congress isn't full of microbiologists, but we still manage to have safe drinking water (most of the time).
You can't just "do the research" or "vote with your wallet" to fix the internet. Bad laws – like the DMCA, which bans most kinds of reverse engineering – can land you in prison just for reconfiguring your own devices to serve you, rather than the shareholders of the companies that made them. You can't fix that yourself – you need a responsive, good, expert, capable government to fix it.
We can have that kind of government. It'll take some doing, because these questions are intrinsically hard to get right even without monopolies trying to capture their regulators. Even a president as flawed as Biden can be pushed into nominating good administrative personnel and taking decisive, progressive action:
https://doctorow.medium.com/joe-biden-is-headed-to-a-uaw-picket-line-in-detroit-f80bd0b372ab?sk=f3abdfd3f26d2f615ad9d2f1839bcc07
Biden may not be doing enough to suit your taste. I'm certainly furious with aspects of his presidency. The point isn't to lionize Biden – it's to point out that even very flawed leaders can be pushed into producing benefit for the American people. Think of how much more we can get if we don't give up on politics but instead demand even better leaders.
My next novel is The Lost Cause, coming out on November 14. It's about a generation of people who've grown up under good government – a historically unprecedented presidency that has passed the laws and made the policies we'll need to save our species and planet from the climate emergency:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause
The action opens after the pendulum has swung back, with a new far-right presidency and an insurgency led by white nationalist militias and their offshore backers – seagoing anarcho-capitalist billionaires.
In the book, these forces figure out how to turn good regulations against the people they were meant to help. They file hundreds of simultaneous environmental challenges to refugee housing projects across the country, blocking the infill building that is providing homes for the people whose homes have been burned up in wildfires, washed away in floods, or rendered uninhabitable by drought.
I don't want to spoil the book here, but it shows how the protagonists pursue a multipronged defense, mixing direct action, civil disobedience, mass protest, court challenges and political pressure to fight back. What they don't do is give up on state capacity. When the state is corrupted by wreckers, they claw back control, rather than giving up on the idea of a competent and benevolent public system.
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis
#pluralistic#nerd harder#private right of action#privacy#robocalls#fcc#administrative competence#noah smith#spam#regulatory capture#public choice theory#nimbyism#the lost cause#the internet con#evidence based policy#small government#transit#praxis#antitrust#trustbusting#monopoly
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on earth and valhalla
Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader
Summary: With the revelation of carrying a baby, Natasha finally realises what was true love than what she once had.
Warning: (18+), AU Vikings, fluff, mention of war, angst, pregnancy, smut, fingering | 2k words
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The trust of another, an outsider or a familiar friend, someone loved or hated severely, the kind that led your body to lay with a woman on a bed ensured for another. That person, unworthy and worthless, while your heart swells for her, the trust bestowed on you, the overwhelming journey of you and her. And where a bed housed two hearts with the utmost significance. Your heart pulses reassuringly with hers, resonating a sound that ensured of love. Even if a brutal war was predicted. Soon, they had asserted, and your heart fusses at the agony of something deathly, till peace reclaimed over your heart.
Natasha was there. Her hand grasped your own, swiftly leading you away from the rowdy crowd to where none would dare disturb their Queen. A petite house, constructed for a small family, not promised for someone of her power. But she doesn’t bother for such comforts, only enough to know it was a secreted space. It wasn’t her home or yours. This was, after all, a place for rest before continuing the significant journey.
“We can’t fight if the odds aren’t in our favour,” you expressed, burden carried your tone into the icy night. Natasha held your hand delicately in hers and it mends the ache in your chest, warming the cold that dared intrude.
She hummed, and slender fingers absently trace the scar that begin from your shoulder to where your elbow curved. Not a word was spoken in response to your whirling thoughts. Her head remained rested on your chest, wisps of auburn hair sprang from her extensive braid, and your own fingers combs through those strands. Natasha had always preferred this position with an established understanding that she preferred your body adjacent with her. It granted her the prospect of listening to your beating heart or the pulse in your wrist when your hand rested on her head, to feel the soft intake of breaths, to feel bodies together for her to know that you were real, and you were there.
However, it wasn’t her tendency to remain silence for a long period of time. Natasha always spoke of something, even during horrendous hours of war, her lips would curl of a sweet smile and her eyes would declare of love, only for you. Words that warmth your cheeks would be spoken as secrets known to you and her, bashful as you fail to remember the sheer respect that awakened from your stern appearance.
The absent of that, made the night lonesome. It felt terribly wrong.
Natasha’s eyes were tired and glistering as she contemplates an answer. “I am with a child,” she confessed unexpectedly, appearing afraid as those words left from the safekeeping of her heart. Her hand rested thoughtfully above her stomach, as if, consciously feeling the child roaming unknowingly in her body.
A mother she was to be, meant, or entirely confused at the sudden knowledge.
Her husband had left months prior, amid winter and the fall of a neighbouring village. The pursuit of greed, blinded his sense in rage, seeming bloody and careless, thus, abandoning his wife to her lonesome. Others had spoken tales of his wits, that he had found another woman, supple and young, that he had slept with her and found her carrying his child. It was easier for him to leave Natasha, his wedded wife, as his desire for a child was fulfilled by another woman. Further on his cruel purpose, his new wife was birthed into a wealthy family and a daughter to heroic legends. He was offered more power and golden possessions. It was all the eternal luxury that aided his greed.
You hadn’t seen him, but if the Gods allowed, he would kneel for wounding her in such insolent ways.
Somehow, you encountered her instead. A frail woman she seemed at first, chaotically applying pressure to the wound on her palm, and she was crying dejectedly. If you hadn’t seen her palm, you would have assumed a dagger was lodged through her chest. Help was offered first, ruthless as you spoke to an outsider, unfamiliar of her face and origins, but you grasp her hand in yours, and felt the warmth that spread vehemently. It was quiet as your eyes gaze into hers, resting on emerald spheres that appeared blue at times, and grey. However, at that hour, her eyes were solemn and brimming with tears.
You hadn’t known of her as you treated her wound tenderly. Then she asked, “Do you not know who I am?” and was instantly followed by your answer, “You must be important. See, you are not crying anymore.”
Natasha had stared at you, astonished by your bluntness, and how easily you had diminished her famed introduction. It was later that your appearance as a new shieldmaiden and offering your allegiance to the Queen, did you realise who she was.
A legendary shield-maiden spoken for across chilling seas and countries. Natasha Romanova, the last of the Romanova. Loved and feared, a name that roused them from their seats and knees burrowed into the dirt. They worshiped her for the sheer bravery, a warrior that even enemies feared at the name, and rather surrender when proved that victory would remain hers. Despite of her husband’s disloyalty and abandoning their realm, and the hundreds of deaths ensued after an unexpected invasion which was evoked by his departure, Natasha continued fighting fervently. Sweat and blood of her own and her people, a spirt so unmatched and proven victorious as she carried them.
And there were times they had lost and faced devastation, but she stayed persisted for everyone’s safety with a brazen passion.
It happened hastily. A promised position by the Queen, and you were to fight with her, by her, for her.
Then, the horrid flash of war that occurred weeks after. Her silvery sword dribbles with blood of the enemies, she slashed through bodies and heads falling hastily on the ground. Death reeks an awful stench in the air. Your chest heaved at every strike, body far and unable to reach her. You feared for her too, as the enemy circles around her and she only smirked in response, such arrogance roused when facing possible death. You cared for her more, and not enough for those stood behind you or front, but for her, the quick shield-maiden, who’s reckless bravery or foolishness had left her to fend for herself.
And yet, she emerged bloody and yelling at their victory.
Cheers gushed through the masses while the enemies laid dead, drenched in blood, and some barely breathing. She spoke of their victory, unaffected by the blood that dribbles from her forehead, and her people listened, immensely treasuring her every word. The defeat of their enemy, soon to follow was the feast for triumph.
That, the untroubled expression on her face, as if, she hasn’t brushed the blades of death, and risked her life that was scarred, because she was Queen, and leader of this Kingdom. It wasn’t desirable as the reasons fell. Natasha should had known better, to fight was inevitable, but to ensure her safety was there.
It was your responsibility to protect her as any other would act for their Queen. The same reasoning that sufficient you into grabbing her hand, dragging the beloved Queen away from her praising people for your own interest. You heard the splutter of confusion from her mouth, aided by harsh alcohol, and still in trance for winning another battle.
In the state of silence, away from disruptive people, anger transpired in your wide eyes while hers bloom in worry, grey beneath the pale moon, and alike the erratic sea you once sailed. You hadn’t thought, as you pushed her against the wooden partition, she gasped at the sudden force and the breath of air was swallowed by your mouth pressed over hers. A kiss fuelled with retaliation, raging with anger and bleeding in fatigue.
Natasha pushed your chest first, cursing your name for acting in such ways, and she kissed you this time. The rush clash of mouth, of teeth, the feel of another tongue in your mouth, so wet and muddled. Kisses pulses of desired touch, and soon, love materialised at every smooth touch, bites, and moans.
The night beamed with the moon, beneath there where two bodies bonded in secrecy. A declaration of love evoked by touch, by sound you swore to remember forevermore, and by her.
“The greatest love,” Natasha had confessed, still huffing at the seconds before of relentless love. “My only one,” you whispered after, kissing her wholly and tasting the mix of you and her.
Then, this, the hour where silence weakens the happiness that stirred by her side.
“Look at me,” you plead first, before grasping her jaw to force her into facing you. “Natasha,” your voice softens at the sight of her trembling lips and glossy eyes, appearing as though the sea had spew in thunderous waves, surrounding green in grey, and woeful as she stared gloomily at you.
Her hand rest over yours. “I am with a child,” she whispered, raising herself to stare down at you. “There is a child and…” her eyes shut closed, a single tear trickles down her cheek, soon, a trail of water traced her cheeks with more tears.
Your thumb made the attempt of wiping her tears, unsuccessfully at that as it persists flowing dreadfully. “Don’t cry,” you murmured, slowly shifting her position to lay on the bed and cautiously climbing over her, straddling her waist as you continued, “I can’t see you sad.”
Natasha released a shuddered breath. “This child— this child would not have a father,” she expressed the most agitating thought. “What must I do?”
The sheer act of worry, emotions spiralling in her expression and body, would be perceived as weakness by the rest and something she avoided expressing. Natasha was the Queen, and the last remaining one of her royal lineages. You had only perceive a glimpse of her mournful state when her husband had left, where you found her weeping at the wound on her hand.
Your hand attentively trails a path from the curves of her jaw, to where both hands join to caress the tense muscles of her arms, faded scars tattered her skin and you kiss each one, tales of bravery and those of foolishness. The tip of your fingers traces those scars, leading to where her heart thumps distressingly in her chest, and your hands curls around her breast. Tender thumb pressed her nipples, feeling them rise proudly from the cold and your touch.
If Natasha wanted to say something, she doesn’t, but a wispy sigh left her parted mouth instead.
Your hands continue their voyage, drifting to where you felt warmth resurfacing from her bottom half. One hand grasps her curve of her waist, the other tracing a prominent scar at her lower abdomen. She had received that scar at the treatment of surviving the massacre of her family. Slowly, your hand positions over her cunt. You felt the warmth that emits when your thumb teased her buddle of nerves, fingers carefully prying her folds apart to grant access to the opening of her hole and your index finger prod teasingly, prolonging the whines in her throat.
Tears slithers down her cheeks, gracing full lips with a slight sheen, and compelled your mouth to hers, pressing tenderly on those lips that tasted salty and sweet. Natasha doesn’t hesitate to return her love, damp face pressed to yours, then she released a mellow gasp when your index finger slides into her hole. You kissed her intensely and suck her bottom lip, a simple act of aiding the cold of your finger into the warmth of her cunt.
You gave her a moment to savour your affectionate strokes, in and out, the tender brush of her clit, and the soft sounds that leaves her mouth. Ten second passed, another…
“Look at me,” you spoke, voice stern and clear. “Natasha,” you tried, abandoning her pleasure completely which stirred a hopeless whine from her mouth.
It takes her by surprise, a mix of a loud moan and a gasp, when your hand slapped over her cunt. A warning of some sort, her gaze finally meeting yours. A Queen obeying to her common people, a sight so delirious, that you had to kiss her mouth again, and watch her bleary eyes as you continued.
“I am to fuck you— like this is my child,” you declared, swiftly pushing two fingers into her warmth, and you found that spot which forced fervent pleas to fall from her sweet mouth.
Natasha was speechless at your sudden revelation, one that spoke from your heart, and acted upon with your touch on her body. Her hands expose her want further as she grasps your sturdy arms, nails pressing crescent dents on your skin. Hips bucks subconsciously into your ministration, wetness coats her thighs, the sound of slippering thrust, and the gasps from two.
Longing blossoms by how skilfully hands stimulated the other, bodies mending beautifully, and her legs locked habitual around your body. Sharp gasps were promised when your fingers grazed the spot that made her clenched around those skilful fingers while you, around nothing. Feverish lust slicks uncomfortably between your thighs, but your lust filled eyes was glued on her, those breasts you adored were bouncing at the friction of bodies, so breathless for you, her eyes misty with pleasure, and to witness her unravel was enough.
It was, and will always be something that he would never understand.
“He would never love you like this,” the sound slips into her ears, your mouth wide as you try formulating words than blows of moans. “Only I will love you, on earth and Valhalla. Understand?”
The melodious sounds of her moans expressed her nearing orgasm and her struggles of holding you closer than falling limp. While your free hand glides upwards and downward, aiding her release with your fingers working blissfully inside her. It takes another intense thrust of your fingers and thumb circling her clit that her legs shake. But you continued, thrusting into her to prolong her pleasure, to make her moan and whine, for her strength to unravel at the harsh grip of her hands over your arms.
It takes a moment, the sound of fire flickering, ember reflecting on your face and hers, and a dull throbbing, that you slowly hindered. Fingers sheens with her arousal, the savoury juice of her pleasure that you greedily pushed your fingers into your mouth and cleaning the last remaining taste of her.
“You are,” Natasha murmured, her hands softly caressing your arms as blurry eyes watch your body lowering to her wanting lips you delayed to kiss. “You are my child’s father,” she spoke, yielding a loud moan after at the feeling of your mouth pressing a kiss on her sensitive clit, and your tongue gliding through her folds just seconds after.
The promise presented in touch so tender and rough, the gasps that fell from her beautiful mouth and yours driven by her. An immediate reassurance that your declaration was honest at your display of affection, a warmth none had faced, and the exemption for her to remain so rigid for her people. It was just two people there, you and her, and another that waited patiently for when the precise time arrives.
A future was seen, perceived, and declared at each stroke. It would remain for you as for her, to care, to love, to remain by her side forevermore.
#natasha romanoff x reader#natasha romanoff x you#natasha romanoff imagine#natasha romanoff x reader smut
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What do you think about multiple yanderes (like, an entire casts worth) after the same person? Word vomit ahead. Written with TWST and Obey Me in mind.
As chaotic as the idea seems, eventually they'd learn to work together towards this common goal of theirs. The beginning is sure to be the worst, but also the most crucial. If you play your cards right, perhaps you can walk away the victor?
Imagine: the strong, the powerful, the influential, all wrapped around your finger, all sitting by your feet. With that kind of power backing you, there's no telling what you could be capable of. There would be nothing you couldn't do. Nowhere you cannot go.
This power, however, is an unstable one, it is a fight against the tide, where one wrong move could have you swallowing seawater. Your suitors are as insatiable as they are numerous, and jealousy is an inevitably. If a fight were to break out, you'd plummet to the very bottom of the food chain. No longer the crown, you would instead be nothing but a spoil of war.
Not that harmony is any less dangerous, mind you. Borrowed strength can become shackles in the blink of an eye. With no power of your own, using others is all you can do to survive. You can only hope, then, that your only salvation will not become your downfall.
This balancing act, this tightrope on which you walk is so very lonely. But, with enough perseverance, perhaps you can carve out a place for yourself.
It is unfortunate, then, that any place from which you carve, will never be anything but a hollow hideaway.
Anon, you have a very lovely way of weaving words together. This was a joy to read (and to think about)! I'm sorry I couldn't reply immediately :( I've discussed a OM! brothers sharing a darling (w/ mention of the others) here, but if you want a TWST version let me know!
You'd think, with the avatars being brothers, that they could work together if the situation called for it.
It only takes about a week of trying to get used to your new arrangement for you to realize just how wrong you were. Even among themselves, you realize, the brothers have their own alliances of sorts. While it's understandable that the twins want to spend time with you and each other, you're still caught off guard by some of the others. It's easy enough to figure out some of their dynamics; Satan and Belphie squeeze closer to you when Lucifer tries to approach, Levi and Mammon, despite their constant arguments, whisk you away from the others to play video games, Asmo is constantly by your side when Lucifer is, clearly fascinated by something you're not aware of.
They don't show the same cooperation when they're all together, and it takes a toll on you. it gets exhausting to be the constant center, to know that everything you did could be taken in different ways. Asmo scowls when you reassure Mammon that he'll always be first in your heart, Lucifer's silent rage rolls off him in waves when you laugh at Satan's plan, Levi refuses to hear out your reasons when you're a few minutes late after being held back by another demon—it feels like you have to constantly think about the possible repercussions of every small action, or suffer the punishment.
At first thought, involving the others, like Solomon or Lord Diavolo, doesn't feel like a good idea. More suitors means more internal competition and more complications for you. But ultimately, it helps out your predicament. There's no denying that all of them are selfish, even Simeon, but they're more level-headed than the brothers at least, and can recognize that this shared arrangement is their best attempt at having you. And nobody would dare refute Barbatos whenever he declares that you've been summoned to spend the weekend at the castle instead; Lord Diavolo, Barbatos, Solomon and SImeon make for far better company than the brothers together.
Trying to manipulate anyone, whether it be to take some semblance of control back or find a way to get out of a situation you don't like, will likely be fruitless. In fact, it comes across as so pathetic and desperate that your lovers will be amused—a far better reaction than the anger that will boil over should they ever feel insulted that you thought you could control them—at the thought of a regular human trying to exploit them, and maybe even play along. Lord Diavolo, in particular, always receives your pitiful attempts with a laugh—though he does remind you that he much prefers if you say what you want from him outright. Mammon and Levi are easier to take advantage of as long as you say the right words in the right way, but if any of the demons are in a bad mood, your efforts will be received with thinly veiled rage and sharp words.
It might occur to you that coaxing just one person to your side, to suffer at the side of one, would be a much better fate than your current one; Solomon, Simeon, or Lord Diavolo being your most likely targets. Even if the brothers wanted to defy them, it would be complicated when considering their powers and status. You can try, acting coy and sweet with Solomon, who finds your coquettish smiles and teasing remarks endearing, and confiding in him your fears about the brothers and their tempers, or you could play into Lord Diavolo's fondness for you, with lingering gazes and disheartened expressions when he had to leave, turning him away with a dejected glance and words about how the brothers wanted you to spend the night at HoL instead, knowing how little opportunities he had to be with you. Simeon, too, was weak to your fond treatment, indulging in the warm smiles and heartfelt conversations you offer and your honeyed voice when you call out his name, consoling you after you get caught up in yet another argument between the brothers. Despite all your efforts, the result is unfavorable. You still have to cozy up to the dangerous figures keeping you here, still have to hide your plot from the brothers, which is hard when Lucifer always seems to know just where you were all day.
Any solace you find in the quiet moments—in Belphie's arms during a nap, in Satan's lap as he reads, lying against Levi and watching the brightly colored screen, resting your head on Lucifer's shoulder, letting Asmo paint your nails, sitting on the cold kitchen floor while Beel rummages through for a late night snack, and holding Mammon close to you, missing the days when it was only you and him together—is fleeting and harder to come by now that they've decided they all want a piece of you.
all works © wishluc. do not copy, steal or repost my works on other platforms. (including translations)
#[there is a distinct lack of Barbatos content here]#[because...I do not know what to make of him :(]#[this was so fun!]#yandere obey me shall we date#yandere obey me x reader#yandere obey me#obey me x reader#obey me shall we date#yandere x reader#yandere obey me swd#yandere satan x reader#yandere leviathan x reader#yandere lucifer x reader#yandere mammon x reader#yandere asmodeus x reader#yandere beelzebub x reader#yandere belphegor x reader#yandere solomon x reader#yandere simeon x reader#yandere diavolo x reader#cw yandere#concept. 🌀#anon mail. 🌀#mail. 🌀#obey me. 🌀#satan. 🌀#solomon. 🌀#lucifer. 🌀#diavolo. 🌀#belphegor. 🌀
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Yan Michelangelo hc
OK so-
I literally had a thought abt this and it was so jarring and crazy I had to write abt it. Keep in mind that writing is NOT my strong suit so bare with me okay. Also for the record I don’t condone any of this stuff Irl okay, there’s a diff between fantasy and reality.
TW: dark, possessive themes, gore, blood, cannibalism, mentions of worship, nonconsensual touching (not sexual), kidnapping, delulu Mikey <3
When you guys first meet, after the initial freak out you might have, he gets attached quick
It’s love at first sight <3
Could you blame him tho? He’s socially outcasted from society ofc not-
Anything you want? You got it! He will do anything to get that thing you barely mentioned wanting, no matter what
He would definitely try budding in every time your with anybody but him
Skateboarding with Leo? He happens to walk in with a skateboard. Having a tea party with Raph? You guys look like your running out of tea, but don’t fear! Your new butler is here!
Point is, he’s fine with sharing your time because like all good things, it’s even better when shared! He just has to be there too…you don’t mind right?
Won’t mind if you get a partner…
Just don’t expect to hear from them if they have the AUDACITY to make you so much as frown-
He doesn’t need to be your center of attention 24/7, he’s a secure turtle after all. He just wants to be near you, to keep you happy and safe!
Even if you can’t tell he’s there-
He is a VERY Delusional Yandere, you can be doing the most devious, horrendous war crimes and he’ll still think your a saint, everyone else is in the wrong for being in your way
Anyone who talks bad abt you, well… you can’t waste perfectly tenderized meat can you!
Real talk for a sec, I see a lot of people hc Mikey to be a heavy worshipper but I don’t think he’d think your a GOD, going down on his knees for you, but I think he’d see you as a angel and treat you as such
How? Lots and LOTS of cuddles (even if you don’t want to), positive affirmations, and overall codling
Cutie pie, angel, sweet potato, expect lots of cheesy nicknames
Now onto the juicy stuff-
Cooking, in his opinion, is a form of ART! Something to express himself with while also sharing that experience with his loved ones
Putting so much blood sweat and tears into perfecting his craft, creating a delectable meal for all
So imagine his (not so) sudden shock when he starts fantasizing abt you…eating him…literally…
HEAR ME OUT OKAY PLEASE-
In that one meat sweats ep, he was SO DOWN TO BE EATEN, because he sees Rupert in a higher light, he’s his idol!
He put his own blood sweat and tears for you, your his everything! This is his declaration of love for you and you alone, the one dish he won’t give to anybody else
At first he felt an immense satisfaction when you chowed down on the dishes he made specially for you, the sight made his chest swell!
But soon that feeling faded, something inside him started wanting more, until it eventually became Mikey’s every waking thought, pounding against his ribs until it’s satisfied again
So he did what any rational person would do! Invite you down for a taste test! Hah you thought I would say kidnapping didn’t you?
…
Well your right, he may or may not have laced those pastries you were taste testing
“Think of it as a forever slumber party! I knew you’d be just as excited as me, can’t hold in those happy tear too huh? :’)”
He really believes you want to stay as much as he wants you to stay, doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll always be his saint, wanting to stay by his side <3
You have a specially made “room” hidden in his room, that you stay in
Has all the necessities and everything, thanks dee
He often comes by to chat, make arts and crafts, and cuddle you, he’s barely out of his room even his brothers start to worry
Can’t have his brothers believe your…”funny” jokes now huh? They’d ruin the fun!
Starts to ever so slowly try to get you to agree with his… idea
Slowly starts incorporating more meat into the meals he makes you, mentioning how turtle is a delicacy in some places- you get the idea
But in Mikey fashion, he doesn’t like to wait to get what he wants
He suddenly starts asking you strange questions from, “did you know that cute hamsters cannibalize each other? CRAZY right!?” To “have you ever wanted to know what turtle taste like..?”
Eventually his patience thins and nervously asks the big question, but you’d understand right? Ofc you would! He shouldn’t be so nervous around you!
Ofc after hearing his request you start to understandably freak out, will he want to take a bite out of you too? Is this it? You don’t want to die like this!
Don’t worry! he could never ruin perfection, your a work of art!
(He’ll be happy breaking your skin with his teeth and lapping up the blood tho)
Surprisingly, he won’t FORCE you to do it, but be prepared for his mighty persistence and requests
He’s pretty much trying to hype you up
If you cave he is OVER THE MOON
He is inside you.. LITERALLY (idk how else to phrase it don’t be weird pls-)
Constant praise and affection is what you earn while you contemplate what you had just done
If you don’t cave, he’ll start to get a bit aggressive with his hype, and starts slowly giving you less and less food you until you do it-
Before he kidnapped you he was a bit clingy, but AFTER? Attached to your hip 24/7 baby
5/10 experience, you will be scarred for life leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth. But other than that expect lots and lots of cuddles and delicious not human food!
Sorry if it’s a bit all over the place, pls lmk if I made a spelling/grammar mistake. Writing this was actually very fun, I might do more in the future until I draw again. Maybe I’ll do both!Okay thx for reading tho bye :>
-f1oricide <3
#rottmnt#rottmnt x reader#fanfic#yandere rottmnt#yandere#yandere mikey#yandere Michelangelo#yandere rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#x reader#yandere x reader#crazy shit
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Congrats on 450 followers, you wonderful human! You deserve 'em all!
For the roulette, I was wondering if I could request prompts 5 and 43 for Crosshair and a female reader, pretty please? 👉🏻👈🏻 I'd love to see how you write it!
Hello love, @moonstrider9904 thank you so much for the congratulations. And I took your prompts and ran with it. I hope you like it.
Enjoy.
Love oo.
Time With You
Warnings: Unrequited love, annoyance, arguing, angst, declaration of love, feelings of not worthy, pushing away (emotionally), tears, emotional hurt. I think that's it, if I miss any please let me know.
Main Master List | Star Wars Fic Roulette
Crosshair let out a huff as you took a seat beside him, while he polished his rifle. It was something you noticed he did often, either when he was stressed, bored, or just needed to maintain his weapon. Either way, it was never out of his hand for long.
He did his best to ignore you, but you were making that impossible as you sat there with your elbows on your knees, your chin resting in your hands as you looked at him with the most lovestruck eyes he’d ever seen.
It took all of his willpower, not to smack you in the face with his pillow.
“Why are you here?” He finally asked as he was simply getting more annoyed with your staring.
“Oh c’mon, like I need an excuse to spend time with you.”
He put away his cleaning cloth and his rifle, as he stood, “Don’t you think you’re being a bit forward.”
“I’m not doing anything, I’m just sitting here and admiring you” you offered smiling.
Crosshair let out a sigh of annoyance, “It’s never going to happen.” He had enough of the love sick puppy look, and enough of the long looks from across the room. He found you attractive, that wasn’t the issue, the issue was him. He wasn’t any good, and he wasn’t worth your attention. Even his brothers wondered why you ever bothered to shower him with attention.
“What’s never gonna happen?” You feigned ignorance. You didn’t want to hear what he had to say. You wanted to hold on to the hope that you had, you didn’t want to hear him say that it wasn’t going to happen.
“You know what, don’t play dumb.”
You pursed your lips as you looked away, “Is it so wrong that I could possibly want more from you?”
“Yes.” It was the only answer he was going to give you, you needed to move on. You deserved so much more than him. He had a prickly personality, he was cocky, and grouchy, as Wrecker called him. Tech had mentioned he had a severe personality, and in hindsight, seeing the way you doted on him, made him want to hide from your attention.
You stood from your spot fighting back the tears, “What is so wrong about me liking you?”
He looked away, really he didn’t have an answer for you, but he just knew it was wrong, “You won’t be happy.”
“And you think you know what would make me happy?” A tear slid down your cheek, as your hope was being dashed to pieces right before your eyes.
“I know, I wouldn’t make you happy.”
“You won’t know until you try. I’m willing to try. I love you.”
As those words slid out of your mouth, he felt his heart being squeezed by them. How could you be so carefree? How could you just trust him so willingly? Could he make you happy? If it was with you, it might be possible.
He shook his head. No. He needed to end this, you needed to move on and to find someone who was worthy of your pure heart, your love, someone who’d protect you from themselves. Someone who’d know your true value. Someone who would value you and understand how truly precious you were. Someone other than him.
“But I don’t love you. I find you annoying. Do you honestly think I enjoy being stared at like I’m some prized possession? Every time I see your face, it makes me want to scream at you, so you’d finally get it through your head that I’m not interested!”
He clenched his fists, trying to fight back his own tears. He didn’t want to send you away. But you were like a priceless jewel, and if there’s one thing his brothers reminded him, he didn’t know how to appreciate the finer things in life. No, this was the right thing. It would hurt for a while to see you in the arms of another, to see you look at them with those beautiful eyes, to see you smile that brilliant smile that made his knees weak directed at someone else. But he was doing this to save you, to save the heartache and pain that would only come in being with him.
The tears streamed down your face, as your heart was being rendered in two. How could he say that? Were you really that annoying? Had you been making a fool of yourself?
Why couldn’t he be nicer about it? Why couldn’t he just try? Why did it have to be your heart that got trampled on?
“You insufferable…” words slipped your mind, as you tried to find the best insult, “piece of...rotten lemon pie!” You didn’t miss the look of confusion on Crosshair’s face as he repeated the insult over again. “You can’t even try? Am I such a horrible person? What did I do that was so wrong?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, moving to grab his rifle, “I don’t have time for this.” He shifted towards the door, but you wouldn’t let him go until he actually answered your question.
“No, answer me. What did I do that was so wrong?”
His eyes narrowed, as his anger towards himself was being directed towards you, “Move or I’ll move you.”
“Cross… please…”
“This.” He motioned between you, “This, what you’re doing right now is the problem. Learn to take no for an answer.” He brushed past you and exited his quarters, heading towards the gun range. He was thankful that at least most of the clones on Kamino would be at a training facility, so they wouldn’t have seen the tears forming in his eyes as he walked further away from you.
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Goyim non Muslim/Arab/Palestinians who are trying to help with the situation have to understand this:
Reading one book. Reading 3 news articles. Reading even three scholarly articles. Watching the news every day. Even doing ALL OF THESE THINGS EVERY DAY since 10/7—this is nothing more than a drop in the bucket of the work you need to be doing to contribute to conversations about this conflict, let alone leading any kind of charge.
I have been intimately aware of the conflict and it’s intricacies since I was seven years old. I have been learning and unlearning things my whole life. I am Jewish and pro-Palestine and have spent my adult life learning about Palestinian needs as well as combatting pervasive propaganda from extremists on BOTH SIDES meant to confuse newcomers to the situation like most of you are.
It is, honestly, entitlement that makes you think you can’t waltz into a complex situation involving a 2,000+ year old conflict, multiple identities of non-western origin, multiple cycles of extremism and expulsion and ethnic cleansing and wars from all sides—and take the lead on any of this. You can’t. You don’t know enough. You don’t even know enough to know what you don’t know or how to tell if what you know is wrong.
That doesn’t mean you aren’t necessary for helping to solve this conflict. It means a lot of people are being more vocal than they have any right to be about a situation they know almost nothing about. And they’re doing it so they can feel morally righteous and on the right side and like they’re helping.
But if you actually want to help rather than just looking or feeling like you’re helping, then you need to listen to affected groups when they are speaking. You need to not declare either side right or wrong. You need to learn the difference between terrorism and activism. You need to understand the impact of your words on Muslim, Palestinian, Arab, Jewish, Israeli, and even south Asian communities who are constantly roped into the conflict by racists who just hate all brown people.
You need to learn about the foundations and warning signs of antisemitism. You need to learn about the same about Islamophobia. You need to be open to being wrong. A LOT. Because you will be. Because this conflict is complicated and even those of us who have been in it forever learn things and have to revise our opinions and stances. You need to not assume you are correct about anything and you should have reliable sources for anything you add to this conversation.
You outnumber ALL OF US. You outnumber everyone who is actually affected by the conflict by A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT. And your job should be to focus your efforts on FINDING A PATH TO PEACE. Move the conversation away from the personally fulfilling but globally damaging good guys v bad guys narrative. Move it towards a mutually beneficial peace agreement that keeps both Jews and Palestinians safe and protected and equal in their shared homeland.
This is not a Western European-American Christo-centric conflict. Stop applying your principles to it. Start considering that marching, calling senators, and calling for more or less bombs to happen to the “right” people isn’t helping. It’s not helping. You’re not helping.
What will help is listening to people who are actively working to achieve peace. Listening to concerns about ongoing attacks against Israeli civilians during ceasefire. Listening to ongoing segregation of Palestinians and depravation of essential resources from Palestinian Territories. Learn about the official political history of the international community with Israel and Palestine and what the motivations of EACH NON-I/P COUNTRY might have been over the course of Palestine’s 2000yo history. Learn how that might still influence modern western nations today. Learn about Jewish diaspora. Read about counterterrorism and propose or spread awareness of methods and means that can both protect Israeli and Palestinian civilians and defang or eliminate antisemitic or Islamophobic extremists and terrorists. Look for organizations devoted to SHARED PROSPERITY FOR PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS.
Furthermore, anyone who tells you that the conflict is simple or repeating a phrase over and over is simple or tells you there is an obvious good answer is at best uninformed but is most likely operating in bad faith. Their “simple” answer isn’t something every world leader ever has magically overlooked. It is one of the routine, recurring “solutions” that depend upon the disenfranchisement, death, or displacement of an affected population that they deem unworthy of consideration.
Israelis aren’t going anywhere. Palestinians aren’t going anywhere. Both populations deserve safety. Both populations’ religions and cultures deserve equality and, yes, explicit constitutional guarantees that they will have their religious and cultural practices respected and protected from violence or suppression. That may not fit with your modern secular ideas that having any guarantees for any religion in a constitution is inherently evil.
But we are dealing with two groups who have been brutalized to near extinction on the grounds of their religion and culture for millennia so consider that asking for guaranteed safety in writing is a pretty reasonable thing to want for everyone, actually.
#I/p#i/p conflict#peace#activism#jewish muslim solidarity#western activists have main character syndrome#stop it#antisemitism#islamophobia#I dare a goy to reblog this challenge#critical reading#cite your sources#history#israel#Palestine#jumblr#Zionism#anti zionisim#racism#bigotry#ethnic cleansing#ID yourself as a goy if you rn and are goy#cuz I feel completely abandoned tbh
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Why is it always “Rhaenyra should’ve been a better friend to Alicent” and not the other way around? Have people forgotten how friendships work? It’s a two way street and it was Alicent who betrayed Rhaneyra not the other way around.
Everyone seems to conveniently forget that Rhaenyra was confiding in Alicent about her concerns regarding the council plotting to remarry Viserys so soon after her mother’s death so there’ll be a male heir and what does Alicent do? She dismisses Rhaenyra’s concerns, tells her it’s not for them to worry about and “what if your father were to marry?” (which is rich of her to say considering her own father hasn’t and doesn’t remarry). Alicent doesn’t say these things out of naivety or ‘girlish’ innocence, she says them because she knows she’s apart of the plot to get Viserys to remarry - she IS the plot.
God. I’m so sick of people acting as if she was an innocent bystander. She had HALF A YEAR to tell Rhaenyra about her talks with Viserys. Viserys doesn’t raise the question of whether Alicent tells Rhaenyra until half a year into it. She had ample opportunity to say something and she chose not to because she knew what she was doing and the way her and her father were going about it was cunning and conniving and wrong.
And then people are mad at Rhaenyra for not being more understanding of Alicent and the position Alicent was put in when it’s revealed that she’s to marry Viserys - Rhaneyra put two and two together and realised Alicent was scheming just as much as the council was. But yeah, she totally should’ve welcomed Alicent with open arms.
It’s not out of the ordinary for a child to be mistrusting of a step-parent in today’s world - IN REALITY - so, I’m not sure why people act as if it’s so weird or out of the ordinary or like Rhaenyra is overreacting about being mistrusting of Alicent after she becomes her step mother ESPECIALLY given everything above.
But yeah blah blah Alicent the eternal victim, nothing is ever her fault, she can never ever bear responsibility for her actions because she’s ALWAYS the victim first blah blah 🙄
I wrote this a moment ago, but I deleted the post because some anonymous person was making a mess again. Alicent, in Rhaenyra's eyes, lied to her and betrayed her. Alicent, as a young woman of marriageable age (not a child, as some say, because it was not the 21st century), secretly met in the evenings with a single man whom everyone knew was looking for a wife. She went to his chambers alone. She had dinner with him. She gave him gifts. To ANYONE looking at it from the side, it would look like Alicent WANTED to be queen. What do you think the servants who took two meals to the king's chambers and saw Alicent there thought? "Oh, what a poor girl, I feel sorry for her" or rather "she seduces the king"? Because that's what it looked like. And this is the version Rhaenyra knows, because for several months Alicent didn't say "my father forced me, I didn't want it." After half a year, Viserys asked if Alicent wasn't telling Rhaenyra about it, and he didn't forbid her from talking about it. After half a year.
Why did Alicent expect Rhaenyra to confide in her about bed matters when Alicent hadn't told her for half a year that she was meeting her father in the evenings? Especially since she knew Otto wanted to destroy her and Alicent was secretly trying to become queen (according to what Rhaenyra knows). And seriously, what girl would want to continue to be happily friends with a girl who has sex with her father? Honestly. Rhaenyra stopped trying for this friendship, but that's not surprising.
Because Rhaenyra doesn't know about the "Otto forced me" version. But she still managed to show some sympathy towards Alicent - when she accidentally offended her with a comment about being locked in a tower, she apologized. During the last dinner, she said that she appreciated Alicent for taking care of her father.
And Alicent? She declared open war on Rhaenyra at her wedding, and then spent a dozen years trying to ruin her life.
#house of the dragon#team black#anti team green#pro team black#rhaenyra targaryen#anti alicent hightower#anti team green stans
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