Since The Booping Has Returned, Reblog If It's Okay To Spam You With Boops!

Yes it fit me lmao 😂

which ao3 tag are you?

nothing in my mind except neil josten doing those gimmicky interviews

lie detector interview? he lies flawlessly. they ask him what team he’s on to test it and he says the trojans. the needle doesn’t move. no one knows what to do

answering the internet’s most googled question? neil doesn’t give away shit. (“what is neil jostens favorite hobby?” “lying to cops”) every question is answered with some version of your mother or an anecdote about something illegal

hot wings but neil and kevin do it versus each other. it quickly devolves into psychological warfare. neil adds hot sauce to kevin’s wing when he’s not looking

neil takes a buzzfeed which exy player are you the most like and when he gets riko he just walks out

literally any gimmicky pr stunt just dissolves into chaos

Me: *Goes through ao3 tag*

Me: *Reaches the end*

Me: *Goes through ao3 tag with lower standards*

i love it when fandom infantilizes characters to the point of denying them their own agency.

"if people in cang qiong had treated shen jiu differently-" do you have any evidence that they mistreated him? or is it too hard a pill to swallow that shen jiu was the one who decided to close himself off and be an asshole. that cang qiong treated him just fine, that his martial siblings tolerated him to the point that even when he was suspected of murder nothing was done to him?

who forced shen jiu to abuse luo binghe? to abuse other disciples? those were his decisions, that was him acting in a position of power.

the moral of the story is not "shen jiu was misunderstood :(" the moral is: the person who was abused can also become an abuser. the one who suffers violence can be violent towards others. you, despite what you've gone through, have the capacity for kindness and cruelty. so be wise on how you decide to act, because your pain doesn't justify hurting others, and your actions will have consequences.

you have agency, you have whatever amount of power you have over your own life and the things you do have an impact in the lives of those around you and yourself. so maybe try being at the very list neutral to the world and yourself, if you can't be kind.

but no, shen jiu's mentality was "since I suffered, they deserve to suffer too". and by taking that path he perpetuated the cycle of abuse.

bingge is the same, because he could have stopped at taking revenge on shen jiu, but he decided to involve the whole sect and the rest of the world, no matter who was innocent. he was unnecessarily cruel, but so was his master.

both shen jiu and bingge had the capacity for some form of "niceness" (in the way they treated women), so it wasn't as if they'd never known some form of love. at some point in their lives, they stopped being abused children and became abusive adults.

and that's an expression of human behaviour that we have to accept as possible. the svsss narrative invites us to examine ourselves in this light, to witness our capacity for both love and hate, to realize that even in the most adverse of circumstances, there's always a small sliver of agency over how we feel and how we act. that, despite the things that defines us from birth through childhood, our decisions also define what we'll become in the future.

there is something to be said about how the the two major “socially inferior” characters—wei wuxian and jin guangyao—were shown to be extremely skilled at people-reading and cognizant of the social, hm, dynamics throughout the story. not in the same exact way, of course. wei wuxian’s social competence was about knowing how to approach people and endear them to him and knowing what to ask to receive what he wants, usually in terms of information. jin guangyao was amazing at anticipating other people’s needs and what they want to hear and thereby delivering things in a way that would placate them.

i bring this point up because these were two characters granted the least amount of social grace and yet the expectation was that they must maintain the niceties or be deemed singularly arrogant (we see this happen with wei wuxian because he does end up going openly against the sects; where behaviour previously considered unobtrusive is now labelled as attitude problems lol). i mean, while i do commend wei wuxian’s attempt to present his request about the wen remnants to jin guangshan with politeness, it’s also so bafflingly out-of-place in a situation where he’s rightfully calling out the unfair atrocities the wen remnants were being subjected to. jin guangyao’s entire character is built on his specific method of rising through ranks using his honeyed tongue and ability to not let the naysayers get to him. “son of a servant” and “son of a prostitute” are thrown at them and these tags can reduce everything good they have done for the cultivation society in the blink of an eye because they are, infact, considered to be valid criticism of their character. it’s the dichotomy of it where jiang cheng and nie mingjue and jin guangshan can be crude and aggressive and predatory and receive, at most, hushed criticism but have their authority intact, while wei wuxian and jin guangyao’s very standing is threatened by the callback to their social status. how they are forced to be so aware of people and their ways of thinking and make all these interpersonal considerations while the other characters are allowed to be way less self-aware about their behaviours in social settings because their position was never threatened to begin with. how wei wuxian’s “manipulative” abilities and jin guangyao’s “cunning” were products of their treatment by the cultivation world in the first place.

Nathan stands at his left. Mary stands at his right.

Neil doesn’t turn to look at them, but he can feel them there—one carved into his ribs, the other burned into his skin.

He is made of them.

Of his father’s brutality, his mother’s desperation. Of bruises layered over bruises, of fists and sharp words and the lesson that pain was the only thing he could count on.

Nathan’s voice is smooth, proud, as it murmurs in his ear.

"You were built for more than this, Nathaniel."

Mary’s whisper is sharp, urgent, dripping with every frantic mile they ever ran.

"You don’t understand what it means to survive."

Nathan had tried to shape him into something ruthless. Mary had tried to strip him down to something weightless.

And neither of them had ever asked what he wanted to be.

Neil closes his eyes.

Nathan’s presence is heavy, all iron and control and the scent of blood that will never wash away.

Mary’s is lighter, but just as cruel—a ghost that lingers, a reminder that even love can leave bruises.

They will always be here.

Because Neil is made of them.

Of a father who saw him as a tool, and a mother who saw him as a liability.

Of a life spent running, and a body full of evidence that he was never meant to survive this long.

His shoulders ache under the weight of them.

And no matter how far he goes, they will never leave.

sick post i just found online. sorry i couldnt find the source

Fem andreil

Ive got this funky aftg au in my head where Nathan loves Mary and Neil and Mary and Nathan both hatch a mad plan where she takes Neil on the run and he chases after them for nearly a decade in order to protect Neil from the moriyamas of course neither of them tell Neil who thinks genuinely that his father is trying to kill them both which is weird this time because while Neil was being trained in the art of serial killing au!Nathan has never tried to kill him before or let anyone else hurt him. the inner circle are more loyal to the moriyamas so they also think Nathan wants mary and Neil dead. Lola kills Mary in Seattle before she can explain literally anything to Neil so he doesnt find out about any of this until Nathan walks into the basement and kills his inner circle. Nathan and Stuart coordinate with the fbi to take down the moriyamas and take over their territory and Neil is just like ????? WHAT IS GOING ON

Plot armor but it’s Bruce Wayne’s wealth.

Bruce is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce does not want to be one of the richest men in world.

He starts by implementing high starting salaries and full health care coverages for all levels at Wayne Enterprises. This in vastly improves retention and worker productivity, and WE profits soar. He increases PTO, grants generous parental and family leave, funds diversity initiatives, boosts salaries again. WE is ranked “#1 worker-friendly corporation”, and productively and profits soar again.

Ok, so clearly investing his workers isn’t the profit-destroying doomed strategy his peers claim it is. Bruce is going to keep doing it obviously (his next initiative is to ensure all part-time and contractors get the same benefits and pay as full time employees), but he is going to have to find a different way to dump his money.

But you know what else is supposed to be prohibitively expensive? Green and ethical initiatives. Yes, Bruce can do that. He creates and fund a 10 year plan to covert all Wayne facilities to renewable energy. He overhauls all factories to employ the best environmentally friendly practices and technologies. He cuts contracts with all suppliers that engage in unethical employment practices and pays for other to upgrade their equipment and facilities to meet WE’s new environmental and safety requirements. He spares no expense.

Yeah, Wayne Enterprises is so successful that they spin off an entire new business arm focused on helping other companies convert to environmentally friendly and safe practices like they did in an efficient, cost effective, successful way.

Admittedly, investing in his own company was probably never going to be the best way to get rid of his wealth. He slashes his own salary to a pittance (god knows he has more money than he could possibly know what to do with already) and keeps investing the profits back into the workers, and WE keeps responding with nearly terrifying success.

So WE is a no-go, and Bruce now has numerous angry billionaires on his back because they’ve been claiming all these measures he’s implementing are too expensive to justify for decades and they’re finding it a little hard to keep the wool over everyone’s eyes when Idiot Softheart Bruice Wayne has money spilling out his ears. BUT Bruce can invest in Gotham. That’ll go well, right?

Gotham’s infrastructure is the OSHA anti-Christ and even what little is up to code is constantly getting destroyed by Rogue attacks. Surely THAT will be a money sink.

Except the only non-corrupt employer in Gotham city is….Wayne Enterprises. Or contractors or companies or businesses that somehow, in some way or other, feed back to WE. Paying wholesale for improvement to Gotham’s infrastructure somehow increases WE’s profits.

Bruce funds a full system overhaul of Gotham hospital (it’s not his fault the best administrative system software is WE—he looked), he sets up foundations and trusts for shelters, free clinics, schools, meal plans, day care, literally anything he can think of.

Gotham continues to be a shithole. Bruce Wayne continues to be richer than god against his Batman-ingrained will.

Oh, and Bruice Wayne is no longer viewed as solely a spoiled idiot nepo baby. The public responds by investing in WE and anything else he owns, and stop doing this, please.

Bruce sets up a foundation to pay the college tuition of every Gotham citizen who applies. It’s so successful that within 10 years, donations from previous recipients more than cover incoming need, and Bruce can’t even donate to his own charity.

But by this time, Bruce has children. If he can’t get rid of his wealth, he can at least distribute it, right?

Except Dick Grayson absolutely refuses to receive any of his money, won’t touch his trust fund, and in fact has never been so successful and creative with his hacking skills as he is in dumping the money BACK on Bruce. Jason died and won’t legally resurrect to take his trust fund. Tim has his own inherited wealth, refuses to inherit more, and in fact happily joins forces with Dick to hack accounts and return whatever money he tries to give them. Cass has no concept of monetary wealth and gives him panicked, overwhelmed eyes whenever he so much as implies offering more than $100 at once. Damian is showing worrying signs of following in his precious Richard’s footsteps, and Babs barely allows him to fund tech for the Clocktower. At least Steph lets him pay for her tuition and uses his credit card to buy unholy amounts of Batburger. But that is hardly a drop in the ocean of Bruce’s wealth. And she won’t even accept a trust fund of only one million.

Jason wins for best-worst child though because he currently runs a very lucrative crime empire. And although he pours the vast, vast majority of his profits back into Crime Alley, whenever he gets a little too rich for his tastes, he dumps the money on Bruce. At this point, Bruce almost wishes he was being used for money laundering because then he’s at least not have the money.

So children—generous, kindhearted, stubborn till the day they die the little shits, children—are also out.

Bruce was funding the Justice League. But then finances were leaked, and the public had an outcry over one man holding so much sway over the world’s superheroes (nevermind Bruce is one of those superheroes—but the public can’t know that). So Bruce had to do some fancy PR trickery, concede to a policy of not receiving a majority of funds from one individual, and significantly decrease his contributions because no one could match his donations.

At his wits end, Bruce hires a team of accounts to search through every crinkle and crevice of tax law to find what loopholes or shortcuts can be avoided in order to pay his damn taxes to the MAX.

The results are horrifying. According to the strictest definition of the law, the government owes him money.

Bruce burns the report, buries any evidence as deeply as he can, and organizes a foundation to lobby for FAR higher taxation of the upper class.

All this, and Wayne Enterprises is happily chugging along, churning profit, expanding into new markets, growing in the stock market, and trying to force the credit and proportionate compensation on their increasingly horrified CEO.

Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men in the world. Bruce Wayne will never not be one of the richest men in the world.

But by GOD is he trying.