#+single word. ever

[msue0027]

let's talk about Charles i-want-to-snog-a-man-on-a-killing-spree Xavier

[tiredtriedfailures]

Drake L continues

sorry its so long, endless L, final notes:

[lumiilys]

Hey guys. Hey. Can we all just look at this photo again and remember that it exists? I think we deserve to remember that this photo exists!

[everwalldigan]

I love me some delicious miscommunications so:

Bruce and Jason standing off (again) after a mission actually gone right and Bruce is looking constipated trying to articulate how proud he is while Jason’s just pissed as fuck that he accidentally followed the bats’ rules and

Jason, fuming, thinking to himself: Bruce must be behind this, he MANIPULATED me into playing by the rules the asshole I didn’t even get to shoot ANYBODY today im never teaming up with them again my reputation is ruined people are gonna think I’ve gone SOFT

Bruce, going through five stages of grief just trying to find a way to say that he’s proud of Jason without him getting decked in the face and Jason running away: today showed me that you will always be your father’s son (he means himself)

Jason, thoughts immediately going to Willis because Bruce would obviously never address him as his son: actually fuck you, fuck you never speak to me again I can’t believe I was stupid enough to agree to this what the hell is wrong with you

So, on one hand. now you have Bruce face palming because he’s sure he articulated himself in a way that couldn’t be misinterpreted so Jason obviously wants nothing to do with him and oh great they’re back to not speaking terms but hey at least Jason didn’t shoot at him so he obviously understood what he meant, right?? Right????

Meanwhile on the other hand Jason is capital H Hurt and so so angry about it because what the actual fuck. He’s TRYING to reform but obviously nothing will ever be enough for golden standards Bruce so he should just go back to at least beating criminals within an inch of their lives because he wasn’t going to prove Bruce right no matter how much he wants to take those pieces of shit off the streets permanently.

And of course, because both of them would rather shoot themselves in the foot than, I don’t know, talk, it results in a huge falling out and Jason’s “shoot at the Bats on sight” rule is back, until one day just happens to trap Bruce and Jason together in a warehouse rigged to explode. They accidentally went after the same gang and got themselves captured instead in the confusion. So Jason’s watching Bruce frantically trying to dismantle the bomb while sitting back casually taunting him like

Jason: you know damn well your cape’s gonna protect you from most of the explosion and the whole building is deserted by now, why are you trying so hard? The only one who’ll bite the dust is Willis’ son, fitting ending isn’t it? Always his son until the very end, you said it yourself!

And holy mothers of all fuckups Batman, there hasn’t been miscommunication this bad since the aftermath of the Tower of Babel

Bruce, turning around with the dismantled bomb in his hand, actively inventing new stages of grief: I was referring to myself actually.

[flowercrowngods]

felt like letting mike and steve work through some shit again

cw: descriptions and imagery of them being lost and self-sacrificing, left alone with trauma they have no means to work through, could read as suicidal tendencies or intrusive thoughts

🤍 also on ao3

“What do you want?” Mike asks when Steve sits down beside him, gravel crunching, their feet dangling over the dark and endless abyss that is the quarry at night.

Steve doesn’t answer right away, doesn’t really know what to say now that he’s here, now that he found him. He looks so small, now more than ever, and it reminds Steve so painfully that he’s still just a child. He was always just a child, and children shouldn’t—

It feels like they got their rights at a childhood revoked years ago, and then they were just… supposed to be okay with it. It was expected, it was implied when nobody came to talk to them after.

When all they got was one NDA after another. When none of the professionally trained adults took one look at the children that they were, and asked, Are you okay? What do you need to be okay? I will talk to you once a week and make sure you learn how to be okay again.

Steve feels like a big brother to most of the kids now, sure, but he’s not their shrink, and he sucks when it comes to actually talking about shit. He can be there to drive them anywhere, can provide an evening of distractions and as much of a sanctuary as a house as haunted as his can be.

With everything else, though, he’s helplessly lost. So he says nothing, weighs his words to make sure they come out right — especially for Mike, who’s always just waiting for him to say something wrong and throw it back in his face with the sunny disposition of a feral, rabid cat.

“Hey,” Mike says then, irritated again; but his voice is hoarse, too. Tired. No heat behind it after that stupid fight with Dustin and Lucas earlier tonight that made him snap and leave Steve’s house in a frenzy. “I said, What do you want?”

Steve shrugs, looking ahead into the darkness that feels endless and alluring and deeply terrifying.

I miss my friend! My best friend, Mike!

“Making sure you’re okay.”

You’ve changed, you know that? You’re not the guy who would jump off a cliff for me anymore, I don’t think I even know you anymore!

Dustin’s voice echoes in Steve’s mind as it undoubtedly does in Mike’s, too, and he can only imagine how much that hurts, especially if he’s shivering like that even though the night is warm for early September.

“I’m okay,” Mike says, sounding endlessly annoyed about the fact. Steve almost huffs out a humourless laugh. Yeah, right.

“Sure you are,” Steve says, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over Mike’s shoulders without a comment, half-expecting him to just throw it into the darkness below. But Mike doesn’t move, is eerily still beside him, pretending not to notice that Steve’s watching him.

“But you know it’s, like,” he starts again and trails off, looking for the right words because this is unfamiliar terrain and the ground beneath his feet is quite literally nonexistent. “It’s fine if you’re not, right? It’s actually really fucking normal to be more than a little fucked up after everything, all that crazy shit. Or just… in general.”

You were twelve, he wants to say. You were twelve and you jumped off from here. You were twelve and you were going to die. And not because of those monsters, not yet. Just because… you were twelve.

Mike doesn’t say anything, but the gravel crunches once more as he reaches for a handful of stones to throw them into the darkness one by one, the void beneath them so enormous that they don’t even hear the noise of impact.

You jumped.

The longer Mike remains silent, the more Steve wants to scream, wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, wants to make him see and understand that Steve knows about the scars a decision like that leaves, especially when you live to deal with the consequences.

He gets seizures to deal with the consequences. His ear is fucky, his eye is twitchy, his head is aching constantly, he gets migraines that knock him out for a day or two, all because he wanted to protect his friends. All because he did protect his friends. It worked. They’re safe.

But they’re also unaware of… of everything. Of the horrible stillness as clarity dawns and all signs point to the one way that always seems to work. The one easy way out, and still the hardest of them all when the plan goes wrong and he makes it out alive. When It’s gotta be me is the only thing to say, but later turns into an angry It never should have been me because the world looks different when it’s smeared with your blood.

And it’s always the lost boys who make decisions like that. Steve wonders, some nights in cold sweat, what happens if he makes these decisions without immediate danger. What happens if he just… decides to jump. Decides to run. To give the world more of his blood. Without saving anyone.

It’s not like he wants to — but he’s terrified that it’s just who he is. Who he’s turned into, terrified that his friends will forever expect him to.

And he’s even more terrified knowing that Mike jumped before he learned about monsters. Before he learned about fighting and surviving.

You were a kid, he wants to say again, but his throat is closing up on him.

“I don’t think that’s okay actually,” Mike says after a while, tearing Steve away from his fears. They’re still both looking ahead rather than at each other, but it’s fine. They’re still here. “Like, people say it is, but it feels so empty when they do, you know? Like, sure, yeah, I’m not fucking okay, but what the hell do we do about that now? Oh, right, I know! Let’s throw it in my face that I’m not good enough for you anymore now that there’s no monsters to kill anymore. Now that I’m just Mike, who’s not even enough to be that anymore, sure. Right. Yeah. Let’s pretend it’s all fine, Steve, let’s pretend it’s okay to hurt all the fucking time!”

Mike is shaking now, violent tremors running through his body, and Steve’s first instinct is to reach out and pull him close, to keep him from that edge and take him to his car; turn on the heating and talk there. But Mike seems to need the darkness, seems to need to be faced with endless depth to give voice to his thoughts.

“What Dustin said was messed up. He shouldn’t have said that.”

Mike shrugs, throwing more pebbles into the darkness, though his motions have lost their vigour. “He’s right, though.”

Steve sighs, though not unkindly. “No, he’s not. Hey, listen to me.” He waits until Mike turns to meet his eyes, and he leans forward. “It’s not okay. It’s not right what he said. You don’t deserve to have that shit thrown in your face just because Dustin is a tactless little douche bag.”

Taking a bullet for someone is not the baseline for friendship, he wants to say, and it occurs to him once again how fucked up their perception and idea of friendship must be, now that they’ve all bonded over the most horrific shit and actual grief they never learned how to work through.

It’s not even Dustin’s fault, not really. They’re all just collateral damage to something Bigger, and all they have is each other, leaving them in a vicious cycle that is so, so fucked up.

“Why’d you jump?” he asks eventually, quiet in case the darkness tries to listen in. “Back then, why did you jump?” And do you wish El had let you? Do you sometimes wish that? When your room is quiet and it’s only you living with all those silent, terrible decisions?

Mike shrugs again, but there’s not much fight left in him, Steve can see that, can feel it in the air between them.

“Will was gone,” he says like it explains everything— and it sort of does. Steve has seen the way these boys look at each other when the other’s not looking, he has seen the hurt and the anger and the gentleness stored there, the words unspoken and the fear that, despite interdimensional monsters, kinda goes unmatched.

Because they have each other. They only have each other. And if someone’s suddenly different than what they thought they knew, if someone’s suddenly different, then… Everything might just fall apart.

And Steve wants to grab him again; wants to pull him close and say, I’m the same. We have the same scars. We have the same!

Slowly, carefully, he does lean over now, weaving an arm around Mike’s shoulders and pulling him into his side.

“I get that.”

Mike swallows heavily and exhales shakily. “I don’t think you do.”

“No. I think I really, really do. But it’s okay, Mike. You won’t be alone with this, okay. I’m on your side, you little shit.”

A pause, a beat, a moment’s respite. Then, “Why?”

“Because,” his heart is racing, his mouth trembling around forming the words for the first time, but he knows it’s the right thing to do. Knows it’s important.

Knows it might just save a life.

“Because I fell harder for Eddie Munson than I ever thought possible, and once i found out what was happening, I kind of wanted to jump off a cliff, too. But I didn’t, because I had someone with the same fears as me, and instead of stupid shit we just… Cried together sometimes. Screamed into our pillows. Laughed with and at each other, calling ourselves hopeless, and— I don’t know. It’s really fucking scary, and that doesn’t go away just because you have someone to talk to. But it‘s… better. It’s so much better.”

He huffs, swallowing around the lump in his throat, smiling into the darkness.

“So I’ve got you, okay? Whatever it is, whatever makes you feel like it’s not fucking okay, I’ve got you. You come to me, yeah? Lucas does, Dustin does, even Max does. This is your official, standing invitation and whatever, okay, dickhead?”

Mike shoves at him lightly, still not parting from the rather awkward side-hug they’ve got going on, and Steve is glad for it.

“Okay, okay, geez,” the little shithead says, rolling his eyes which Steve can see even in the dark, and it feels like the edge has moved away from them, like they have solid ground beneath their feet again.

Steve doesn’t say anything more after that, just waiting for Mike to stir to lead him back to the car, load in his bike and take him wherever he feels like spending the night.

But Mike doesn’t move for another long while, and it makes Steve feel like something big has just happened between them. Like they finally have found the common ground that Steve’s been suspecting they had for months now, even years.

Eventually, as they make their way to the car and Mike goes to grab his bike, he speaks up again, but more subdued now.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Does… Does Eddie know?”

“About what?” My tendencies to take a leap off the edge?

“You. Being…”

“Oh!” A smile as he unlocks his car and opens the back door to squeeze Mike’s old bike in there with minimal smears of dirt. “I’d hope so, we’ve been dating for months.”

“You’re dating?! You? Eddie’s dating you?”

“Yeah, listen, do you want me to just leave you here or would you rather be thrown out in the middle of nowhere?”

Mike grumbles something unintelligible as he climbs into the front seat, waiting for Steve to start the engine before he speaks up again.

“It’s just, you’re so… How did you even do that?”

Steve laughs at that, disbelieving and all, because, “Trust me, I have no idea. Must have been the ol’ Harrington charm and all that.”

Mike rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in front of his chest, sinking lower in the seats to pout. “You’re so lame.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over how much I have a boyfriend and you don’t.”

If his heart skips a beat because it still feels like a forbidden truth saying the word out loud despite the playful banter, then he’s ignoring that in favour of revving the engine.

“Asshole.”

“Dickhead.”

“Grow up,” Mike says, but Steve can see the smile he’s not even trying to hide, and he mirrors it with his own as he turns on the radio catching the final tunes of Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark.

They’re not okay, none of them. But the car is warm, the cliff’s edge is behind them, and they’re not listening to the same ten songs anymore.

They’re getting better, step by tiny step.

[overtake]

9 or 77 for the prompts?

9: a broken cocktail glass

I really have no words to explain what it is that I did here. Just .... prepare for an onslaught of terrible photoshop.

JUNE 1, 2023

Transcript of the important pieces of That Video™️:

[Cutting out all the basic introduction of how an escape room works, but please note that Max is staring the escape room guy down as if he'll disappear if he looks away for a single second.]

DANIEL: You’re allowed as many hints as you’d like, but when you take a photo at the end, we will publicly shame you by writing how many you used on the whiteboard. MAX: Do you come in if we need hints? DANIEL: Normally we tell you over a loudspeaker, but ours is actually broken, so yeah. Just press that button and I’ll come in. MAX: I think we’ll need a lot of hints. LIAM: I think we’re a decently smart group. We can do it without hints.

[Max turned around and kind of glared at Liam??]

MAX: No, I think we’ll need a lot of hints.

[He stared at Daniel VERY intensely. Better men have crumbled beneath that stare. Daniel just laughed and bent over a little and clapped his hands together all giddy? Max met his match fr.]

____

[Literally TWO MINUTES into the escape room, Checo found a key that obviously unlocked a chest. Max took the key from him, claimed the key didn’t fit - the camera zoom shows he didn’t even try btw - and put the key in his pocket.]

MAX: I think we need to call Daniel in for help.

[He hit the button before anyone could disagree.]

DANIEL: What’s the problem? MAX: We can’t open the chest.

[Daniel looked REALLY amused. He pointed at Max’s skinny jeans.]

DANIEL: Did you try the key? MAX: What key?

[He covered the pocket of his pants, but not before the camera clearly showed the outline of a key in those skin-tight jeans he always wears. His beloved skinny jeans …. they betrayed him …]

DANIEL: The key in your pocket. MAX: It didn’t work. DANIEL: It usually works better when you actually put the key in the hole. MAX: Put it in the hole. I’ll try that, thank you.

[Daniel rolled his eyes when he left the room, but NOT in a ‘harangued underpaid employee being sexually harassed at work’ way. He was very clearly trying not to smile.]

____

[It’s five minutes into this escape room. May I remind you that they have a full hour to complete this thing? Max looked at a broken cocktail glass, which is clearly intentionally broken. It’s only in two pieces. It’s glued down. The edges are completely dull. He still hit the button].

YUKI: Oh my god, Max. MAX: That could be dangerous!

[Daniel entered the room and walked straight over to Max.]

DANIEL: Yes, Max? MAX: There’s broken glass. DANIEL: It’s decor and entirely made of plastic. MAX: I had to be sure. Safety first.

[Daniel started to walk back out of the room.]

DANIEL: I’m counting this in your hint count, by the way. YUKI: Fuck you, Max.

[The swear words are obviously all censored, but we can all tell what the word is when they’re swearing at Max, which happens quite a lot in this video. Max just shrugged at him. Unbothered king.]

____

[I cannot make this up - he calls Daniel in one minute later.]

CHECO: There’s numbers circled on this poster. LIAM: There’s five numbers and this lock over here needs five. We just have to figure out the order. YUKI: Max, don’t hit the fucking button.

[Max has already hit the fucking button.]

MAX: What order do these go in?

[Daniel rubbed a hand over his beard while he searched for a way to explain to Max that he can’t just give him the answers.]

DANIEL: Do those numbers maybe relate to something else in the room? For example, those books over there? MAX: I don’t know. We could go look together. LIAM: Sorry, do you two just want the room to yourselves? MAX: Yes.

[Daniel just laughed again. He is absolutely immune to Max’s intense flirtatious weirdness. It’s incredible to watch.]

DANIEL: How about you all take a look and see how you go?

[If you’re wondering, the others do figure it out after eight minutes. You put the books in alphabetical order, and the colour of their cover relates to the colour of the number. This was something actually worthy of a hint, but Yuki physically guarded the button so Max couldn’t hit it].

____

[Twenty minutes in. Max is trying and failing to figure out a riddle.]

MAX: I think this must only make sense if you speak English. This game isn’t designed for us. LIAM: Do you want me to look?

[Liam didn’t even finish his sentence before Max hit the button, by the way.]

DANIEL: Having some riddle trouble? MAX: Your game is biased.

[Max started wagging his finger, and Yuki looked like he was contemplating snapping it off. Checo was staring blankly at the corner and seemed to be wishing he were anywhere else.]

DANIEL: Mate, I’m pretty sure you speak better English than me. YUKI: We don’t want the hint. MAX: We want the hint. DANIEL: How about I whisper a hint to Max, and he only gives it to you guys if the rest of you can’t figure it out?

[Max looks absolutely delighted with this turn of events. Daniel cups his hands around his mouth and whispers it into Max’s ear.]

MAX: Sorry, say that again?

[He got away with that two more times, by the way. I actually can’t believe Red Bull left this footage in. Max looked smug as hell.]

____

[After four minutes of the group trying and failing to figure out the riddle, they finally give up and ask Max for the hint. I don’t know why they wasted their time. Max hit that fucking button.]

MAX: I forgot the hint. Sorry. DANIEL: I mean, you only heard it three times. How could you remember?

____

[When Max hits the button again, 27 minutes in, there are audible sighs from even the cameramen in the room.]

DANIEL: Max, would you just like to sit in the observation room with me give out hints? YUKI: Please! LIAM: Yes, he would.

[There are no words in any language to succinctly or accurately describe the pleased expression on Max’s face. The best comparison I have is a cat rolling in a field of catnip.]

NOTE: There’s no footage of what went down in the room. Red Bull included a little pop-up explaining that the cameraman couldn’t fit in the room with them. I think that room could have been the size of the entire paddock and Max would’ve found an excuse to have just himself and Daniel in there.

[The others ask for a hint at the 48 minute mark. Suddenly, magically, the loudspeaker works. No one has to enter. It’s just Max’s bossy voice telling them what to do, in detail, to solve the room, and Daniel giggling and protesting in the background, saying he can’t tell them that. It sounds like there’s a scuffle for the mic after Max drops approximately six instructions, and then it cuts off.]

____

[During the photo of everyone holding the sign at the end, Daniel tries to write a 9 in the “clues used” section. Max keeps erasing it and writing 0 with his own marker, produced from seemingly nowhere. Eventually, everyone takes a photo without the sign and they let Max and Daniel continue their little play fight in the corner.]

____

[Post-escape interviews. They all seem to be in a van on the way back from this adventure. Max is giddy and giggling.]

MAX: That was a lot of fun. I think it went well. I was very good at giving clues. I think I found my job for after retirement. YUKI: It was good when Max left. LIAM: To be fair, mate, we would have lost if Max didn’t give us all the answers at the end. YUKI: I was figuring it out!

[The camera captures Checo for only a second. He’s staring longingly out the window... probably contemplating jumping out of the moving vehicle.]

TLDR: Max is definitely fucking this escape room guy and if Red Bull never does a repeat of this video, I’m joining Max’s agenda against marketing activities.

AUG 5, 2024

[sammygender]

i’ve never been as angry on behalf of a character as i am for sam winchester

[iero]

HEARTBREAK FEELS SO GOOD by Fall Out Boy | directed by Whitey McConnaughy

[bigmfrat]

how funny would it be if The Emperor made up the whole Stelmane thing just to scare you because you called him a freak and her stroke had nothing to do with him, it was just a regular mundane stroke. This is my truth.

[mania-sama]

i do not want jeremy knox to get red-carded in defense of jean. i don't really want any of the trojans to get red-carded at all, but least of all jeremy. i believe it goes against everything we understand jeremy's character to be. i believe it is important to show that there can be anger without violence. that there can be retribution without pain. jean does not need another aggressor on his behalf; he has himself, he has neil, and he has everyone he has ever put his faith in.

jeremy prides himself on his level-headedness and ability to reel back his violence. it's obvious that he has worked on this. he has not always been this way, yet this is how he is now, and this is how he is going to stay. it would be nice to see him angry for jean, but we've already seen that. it would be better to see him seething, fists tight, yet never throwing that punch. never letting his emotions get ahead of him. because that is who he is, and that is the exact kind of character nora set out to write.

anger can exist without violence. i think, if it were younger nora writing this, she would write the red-card without a second thought. but she is not so young anymore. this entire series is a love letter to the mistakes and errors she made in handling her characters in the original series. jeremy is not going to get red-carded because he is never going to throw that punch. jean might. jean would. because jean is still learning how to break away from the violence he's lived in for his entire life. but jeremy is right there, showing him that change is possible, that not getting violent is not a hit to your pride if you don't perceive it that way.

[oceans-beloved]

Meme dump yayyy🥳✨️

(off to make more now muhahaha >:3)

[wejustvibing]

[spaceratprodigy]

Ooh palettes 🥰 Jasper and Faith in either Malabar squirrel or cherry pie?

@darkfire1177 — [ palette prompts ]

✨ The Unplanned Variables ✨

[fyodior]

writing will have you googling things like "is 'the' a word"

[your-subby-creature]

Having "BOY" carved into your back by someone who just beat the shit out of you is basically DIY gender affirming surgery

[ceniwen]

cyno knowing kaveh longer and not being defensive around him (while haitham is still in the awkward stage)