#But if you think I wouldn't keep you all on a pretty little spreadsheet and cherish the interactions you'd be incorrect

[hermitscratch]

In light of the others and their amazing and true complements about your works i feel i must add to them

Dude i love your characterization its so refreshing and sweet your smalletho and rendoc ones especially own my soul its so good!

I can't even explain the giddy feelings i have when reading them ! Dude just ren and doc just not even releasing! Ugh my heart !!

100/10 cant wait for more !

Refreshing!! Oh wow, I appreciate that a lot 💜 There's a certain mindset I try to have when I publish these that amounts to, "even if it isn't good, at least it isn't boring", but to hear the characterizations described like that really feels like an accomplishment c':

Some of those drabbles I'm pretty proud of, and the RenDoc one is one of them!! I really enjoy their dynamic and I love imagining how they mesh in more domestic circumstances. There's two more RenDoc prompt asks in my drafts (I think?) so you'll see them again soon enough!

Where are you all coming from. You're going to need emoji signoffs before long.

[snowthedemonfox]

Okay so we're at it again with me posting another theory, this one I haven't seen anyone else point out yet so I might as well post about it. This might be a bit long, so prepare to do some reading

TL;DR: CAINE'S OFFICE IN EP 4 IS CONNECTED TO THE OFFICE AREA WE SEE IN THE PILOT

I'll explain under the cut because THIS WILL TAKE A BIT:

ONE: Even if Caine was playing the part of upper management this episode, I don't think he made this office area just for the sake of the adventure.

There's heaps of books in the background, ranging from info about Gloinks, a Murder Drones parody, a reference to the Pilot, and a book that's called "MatPat Theory". You can see a small version of the Tent next to his monitor, along with various drawings on his desk and on the pinboard in the background.

I think this is Caine's ACTUAL office, where he goes to work on any upcoming adventures he's making for the cast. I've said in a previous post that after this episode I believe all future (or at least most) adventures will be based on suggestions from the suggestions box. (To make a long story short, Ragatha seems to like baseball, and the season 1 trailer showed us a WIP version of a baseball stadium. Would not surprise me if she's the one who suggested that.)

Yes, we see Caine throw away the box after deciding on the Spudsy's adventure, but Caine logic is Caine logic and it wouldn't surprise me if he just /tp'd that box to this out of bounds office area for him to look through later. His main priority is making sure that EVERYONE likes his adventures, and it makes sense that he would take advantage of the suggestions box (after being reminded it exists), especially after his therapy session with Zooble in episode 3.

He's in his office because he's decided to scrap his current list of adventures and instead make adventures based on what the humans seem to want. It'd also make sense that this is the one adventure where he actually decides to use his 'all seeing eyes' to watch the cast throughout the day. He's seeing if they do better on a suggested adventure compared to an adventure HE came up with. That's why he's got all the photos of them throughout the day, and is keeping track of their scores on his computer (An AI having his own computer? A computer within a computer?). And based on the scores he gave them, he doesn't seem to notice that nobody really had the best time on a 'realistic' adventure.

It's hard to make out since the screen is blurry, but I'm pretty sure the spreadsheet has the character's names on it (Kinger, Zooble, Jax, Ragatha, & Pomni) along with their scores in the second column. Hard to read what the last one says though. Maybe it's just for additional notes? Gangle most likely isn't listed yet because Caine's talking to her in this scene. He'll write down her score once she leaves.

(Side note, but Caine probably repurposed his horror adventure for Kinger to have fun with while everyone else was at Spudsy's, which would be why his A+ score doesn't count towards the whole 'checking if the humans prefer suggestted ideas more' thing. Kinger didn't do the horror adventure Caine had planned.)

TWO: If every map has a 'backrooms-like' out of bounds area, wouldn't it make sense for this office area to be the out of bounds area for the Tent?

If you compare the office area to episode 2's out of bounds area, they look pretty similar, like a giant maze. We saw that episode 2's out of bounds area still had little areas of importance, like storing the character models, so why wouldn't the office area also have these small rooms? We have the notable computer we see at the end of the pilot, and now Caine's office.

If this area is still connected to the Tent, then it'd make sense for Gangle to know how to leave. Caine probably has a door he spawned in for them to leave through, similar to the Exit door from the Pilot. If I had to guess, it's probably connected to either one of the various doors on the side of the Tent (where we see Pomni checking looking for him in the Pilot), or to one of the bigger hallway doors we see on every floor (which I talk a bit more about in this theory).

Speaking of that Exit door, though- We know Caine never actually finished making that exit. If he had no idea what to put on the other side, wouldn't he just put a placeholder there instead? Like, I don't know, maybe lead it to the out of bounds area directly connected to the Tent? Where his office is? So he can still keep an eye on it?

It's probably why his wackywatch never picked up on the fact Pomni was there until she ended up in the Void. If Gangle can walk freely through the office area to get back to the Tent, then Caine probably has no reason to be alerted if someone's there.

It's not like they're not supposed to be there EVER, and if they got lost, he could find them anyway! (Referring to Kinger's line in ep 2 when talking to Ragatha about Pomni being lost) Someone just tells him that there's a person missing, he tracks them down, and brings them out of the office area.

THREE: If you compare the two locations, a lot of things seem to match.

The lights on the ceiling look near identical, the only difference being that the Pilot's version has some kind of filter... air conditioner thing? I don't know what those are called but if this is a general employee area, it'd make sense to have that there.

There's the same cabinets and even the exact same plant model. The office area in the Pilot already had a lot of re-used models, so if Caine's office is directly connected to it, it'd make sense if it also had these re-used models.

The only thing that doesn't match exactly are the computers.

The monitor Caine uses has little buttons on the bottom of it, while the Pilot computer doesn't. But you could argue that's because the computer seen in the pilot is much older. So if it's been there for a while (Since I can only assume this entire office area is based on the office the actual computer hosting the game's server is in), then you could argue that whatever office this was, just, never upgraded this computer specifically. All the other computers look much newer and more clean, but it's hard to tell if they also have those buttons on the monitors.

If it weren't for the fact we see the C&A logo in Spudsy's as well I'd argue that's also a thing the Pilot and episode 4 have in common, but since we DO see the logo in Spudsy's, I can't really make that argument.

But it's still worth pointing out that Caine uses a computer with the C&A branding on it, and the Pilot's office area has a giant C&A logo on one of the walls. Again, not the strongest piece of evidence here, but I think it's still a good idea to mention it.

Still have no idea on why Caine started glitching out at the end of the episode, though. Hope he's okay.

[thepixelelf]

do u know nct?? if so, jung jaehyun and cupid au?!!! if not then au where wonwoo is a regular dude and also the subject of a Prophecy against his best wishes? idk i hope these are fun!!!

I genuinely don't think I could characterize jung jaehyun if I tried... but I can do reluctant Normal Guy wonwoo!! I hope you like it :]

[mr chosen one] It's been three weeks and six days since Wonwoo met the most annoying person in the world. Three weeks and six days since Wonwoo's been able to relax. Three weeks and six days of your constant pestering.

You call yourself the oracle. Whatever the hell that means.

All Wonwoo knows is that you showed up at his workplace out of nowhere as the "social media manager". Why would a company that sells Tupperware need a social media manager? Wonwoo still doesn't know. He's pretty sure you just wormed your way in to complete your life's mission-- annoying the shit out of him.

The first day, you'd leaned into his cubicle and whispered, "Hey. You're Jeon Wonwoo, right?"

And when he hesitantly nodded, wondering how the hell you already knew his name since he was one hundred percent sure he'd have nothing to do with the company's social media, you beamed.

Smiled so bright he thought he might go blind, and said, "I knew I'd find you."

Ever since that first day, you've been telling him over and over again how he's supposed to save the world.

Step number 1: find the king -- whoever that is -- in the heart of the fire.

You haven't told him who the hell "the king" is because apparently, you don't even know. And the whole "heart of the fire" thing is fuzzy to you as well, even though you're the one who said that out loud in the first place.

Step number 2: behead the king.

Yeah. Sure.

"And where am I supposed to get the sword for that?" he asked you nonchalantly a week into your nonsense, his eyes not leaving the spreadsheet he was working on. "Amazon?"

You just shrugged. "You can get anything on Amazon."

Step number 3: bear the crown under the weight of stars.

Whatever that means.

"You can't just say no," you asserted two weeks in. "This is your fate."

"I'm good, thanks." Wonwoo poured himself a mediocre black coffee in the break room, where he'd gone in the hopes of avoiding you. He didn't offer you any.

You crossed your arms. "The world is at stake."

"If the whole world is about to explode, I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong guy."

Almost four weeks of this weirdness, and maybe Wonwoo should've gone to HR by now, but it sounds a little trivial, even to him.

Hey, HR, my coworker keeps telling me I'm part of a world-saving prophecy and is convinced I need to go on a journey. I want either for them to be fired, or a couple weeks off so I can go save the world. Thanks.

Yeah, no. Instead, Wonwoo just braces himself for another day of your pestering.

...Which doesn't happen.

At the halfway point of the first peaceful lunch break Wonwoo's had in weeks, he realizes he hasn't even caught a glimpse of you all morning. He revels in that feeling for a bit, almost embarrassingly gleeful to sit in silence and eat his cup-a-noodles.

Then the afternoon goes by, and you've still yet to meet your annoyance quota for the day.

Wonwoo is happy. Yes. This is good news.

You've finally gotten over your delusions, and he won't have to deal with you anymore.

He's poking his head in Seungkwan's cubicle before he realizes he's doing it.

"Oh, them?" Seungkwan says when Wonwoo asks about you. "They left. They told big boss man we had no reason to employ a social media manager in the first place and got themselves transferred to a sister company."

Wonwoo blinks. "What?"

"Shouldn't you already know? You guys were hanging out like every day."

After that, Wonwoo walks back to his desk in silence. Awkward silence.

Why doesn't he like the silence?

When he sits down, there's a yellow sticky note on his keyboard, which he swears wasn't there when he left.

He wouldn't recognize your handwriting, but he knows it has to be yours.

Fine. I'll behead the king myself.

Wonwoo pinches the note between his fingers, and he remembers the conversation he had with you just the day before.

"It sounds dangerous," he said, focusing on the photocopier in front of him.

"Oh, it will be." You were leaned against the doorjamb. Always close by. "You'll be dodging death at every curve in the road."

"Delightful. I think I'll sit this one out."

The note gets crumpled in Wonwoo's fist. He grabs his coat and takes swift steps toward the elevators.

"Where are you going?" Seungkwan calls out when he sees Wonwoo practically run past his cubicle.

Wonwoo presses the down button before he rethinks and moves to the doors to the stairwell. He yells back, "I have no idea!"

He really doesn't.

But you said all that stuff about fate-- if it's really meant to be him that saves the world...

His footsteps, in whichever direction, will take him to you. Through fate or whatever.

At least, he really, really hopes so.

[farity]

Obsession, part 14

"What is happening?"

Helaena watched Aemond grab his guns with one hand while texting with the other.

"Bolton went to her office. She was picking up her stuff."

Aegon walked behind his brother, a sniper rifle strapped to his back. "Looks like I might get to use this baby today."

"I'm getting mom," Helaena said, putting down her yogurt and racing up the stairs.

* * * * *

"I fucking knew it. I knew I should have gone with her. I should have fucking-"

"Stop it!" Aegon snapped. "You can't be with her 24/7, plus she wouldn't put up with it."

Aemond turned to his brother, eye sharp with fury. "You're an expert on my wife now?"

"Fuck off, twat."

"Tell me, what's she doing right now, is she terrified for her life and wondering if she can trust me when I say I can keep her safe?"

Aegon groaned. "You're insufferable. You can't control the world, Aemond!"

Aemond muttered something under his breath that sounded to Aegon like I fucking should, but stayed silent as he drove to his wife's former place of work.

Beside him, Aegon tried his best to appear confident, but he knew that if anything happened to his sister-in-law, Aemond might not recover. He might not survive it with his sanity intact.

Whatever's left of his fucking sanity, fucking control freak.

And Helaena. She would go back to being a timid little shit who spent hours on her spreadsheets and lists and drawing bugs or whatever shit she did instead of starting to blossom as she had lately.

He stopped himself from thinking about how he would react if anything happened to Aemond's wife. As much as he loved Helaena, he didn't understand half the shit that came out of her mouth, but his sister-in-law, he'd had a couple of good conversations with her. She saw through his bullshit and was still nice to him. Probably how Aemond had fallen for her. Because fallen for her, he had. Fucking moron probably didn't even realize it.

It is I who studies history and philosophy, he mimicked Aemond in his mind. Yeah yeah so fucking smart, can't even tell when he's in love. Fucking twat.

If he got his hands on that fucking Bolton bastard, he'd gladly hold him down while Aemond flayed him alive.

* * * * *

"Aemond Targaryen. It's been a while. I'm here with your charming wife."

"I want to speak with her," Aemond said, parked outside the office building.

Ramsay laughed. "Oh no, you don't get to call the shots, boy-o, let me tell you what's going to happen."

"Don't do it, Aemond!"

Aemond's heart nearly stopped when he heard a gun go off after his wife's scream, but then he heard her cry out, "stop shooting her, she's already dead!"

"Next one goes in your gut, pretty girl," Ramsay said. "You are very pretty," he said.

When there was a sound of disgust from his wife, Aemond had to smile. She wasn't cowering. She wasn't pleading for her life. She might be terrified, he admitted, but she hadn't frozen in fear.

"You're going to annul this marriage and marry one of the Baratheon girls."

Aemond laughed out loud, rage going all the way to his fingertips.

"And I'm going to take your wife with me to make sure you do what I say. Because if you don't, she and I are going to have some fun."

He listened helplessly as there was a small struggle, then he heard her screaming again. "Don't you fucking agree, Aemond!"

"I'm coming out with her now. We're going to get in my car and you're not going to try anything or she gets a new hole in her head."

Aemond had parked in direct view of the main doors, but a couple of rows away, by one of the many trees in the parking lot. He had enough cover and the perfect angle, but when he saw the door open he still felt his heart sink.

Bolton had one arm wrapped around her, crouching a little so his head was next to hers, and as Aemond checked his watch, he saw the numbers slowly crawling up.

Good.

He was using her as a human shield, hiding himself against her as much as possible, and he heard Aegon's softly whispered, "fuck".

He crouched down, taking in as many details as he could. Bolton had his gun against her temple. She had a red mark on her cheek, but otherwise seemed unharmed. She wasn't making it easy, dragging her bare feet and throwing her weight around.

That's my girl, he thought to himself. She had to know that Bolton wanted her alive and healthy if he was going to use her as a bargaining chip.

But then Bolton slapped her, and Aemond felt his vision go red with rage.

"Steady," Aegon whispered in his ear.

Fuck steady, Aemond thought, and ran towards his wife.

* * * * *

You saw him then, coming out from behind a tree, and your heart sank. Ramsay Bolton straightened up and began to turn, to aim his gun at Aemond, and you shoved against him with all your might, your feet stinging from the gravel as you pushed. The bullet went high and then you were falling, Bolton's weight bringing you down, your sight blurry as you hit the ground.

There were two more shots, Bolton twitching with each one as you began to crawl away. There was something on your face and when you wiped a hand across your eyes, it came out covered in red.

You felt strong hands lift you off the ground and turn you around, and then you were staring at Aemond, who was turning your head this and that way, squeezing gently down your arms, then sides and hips to ascertain that you were okay.

A car pulled up and you tensed, your fingers digging into Aemond's sweater.

"It's Helaena," he sighed. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you? I know he hit you."

"I'm fine," you managed, before Helaena crashed into you and wrapped you up in a massive hug.

"Hel, what have I said about following me?"

Helaena didn't respond, simply kept her arms around you and you felt tears begin to gather in your eyes.

"You're going to step on him," Aemond warned, and Helaena turned around, looked down at Ramsay Bolton, and kicked him twice. "Clean up," he said, tapping his earpiece. "Let's go home. Where's Aegon?"

"I got the kill shot, baby!"

You turned to see Aegon strutting over, silver hair sparkling in the sunlight.

"I got the kill shot," Aemond corrected.

Three men, including the two that Aemond had sent with you, came around. "We got all of his men, boss," one of them said before Aemond nodded and placed an arm around you to guide you to his car. "We'll clean up. Cops won't be here for another ten."

You stumbled, the pain in your feet sharper now that the danger was over, and when you turned one over to look, there were little cuts and scrapes all over the sole.

"Come on," Aemond said, lifting you in his arms.

"I can walk, Aemond!" you protested.

He ignored you and kept walking to his car. "I know, I've seen you do it."

* * * * *

He'd called ahead to the housekeeper to have the fireplace on and some hot tea. She'd started to shiver on the drive home and gone very silent, and when he tried to remember back to a time when violence and guns had frightened him, he realized he couldn't.

Carrying her into their home, he noticed her hands and feet felt like ice, and took her all the way to their bathroom, took her into the shower himself, let the hot water warm her.

If anything, she started shaking harder, and he ended up sitting on the shower floor with her, letting the heat of the water slowly seep in. He began taking off her clothes and she let him, raising her arms when he took off her sweater. There was blood on most of her clothes, on her skin, and he held her close while he soaped up the washcloth and scrubbed the red spots on her hands and face. He was careful when he went over the two marks Ramsay Bolton had left on her cheeks, felt his face alight with anger when he saw the scratch near her eye, probably from the ring Bolton liked to wear. The ring he had reportedly taken from his father after murdering him.

He slipped off the leggings and underwear, slowly took off her bra, and held her with the water beating down on the back of her neck. She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face into his skin.

"I'm sorry," he said, over and over. How many times had he said it. How many more times would he have to say it.

"I was so scared," she finally said.

He brushed her hair off her face, "I know, I'm-"

"When I saw you burst out from behind that tree I thought he was going to shoot you."

He blinked. "You were scared for me?"

She nodded. "Yeah, and then he started to aim and I had to stop him bec-"

He pulled her against him, his mouth crushing hers, the thought that she could have possibly been frightened on his behalf one he had never considered.

There was a gentle cough at the door frame. "The tea is ready, sir."

* * * * *

"Thank you for everything," Aemond said, his gaze still on his wife.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

He looked up at the older lady and shook his head. "No, thank you, we've got it."

"We are all very glad you are safe, ma'am," she added before leaving.

"Thank you," his wife called out. "Aemond, I can barely move."

He brought the cup to her lips. "You don't need to move, you just need to let me take care of you." She sipped at the sweet, floral scented tea, closing her eyes at the delicate taste.

He'd wrapped her up in a fluffy towel, then in his own heavy robe, since hers was lighter and shorter. While she sipped at her tea and protested that she could do things by herself, he tended to her feet. There were a few scratches and a couple of cuts, but nothing worse, and he thanked every single of the Seven for the fact that she was almost unscathed.

"Do you want to go to the main house for dinner? I know everyone wants to see that you're ok, but if you would rather stay here, I will let them know." The fireplace had warmed her up, the bloom coming back to her cheeks.

She held the tea cup in her hands for a moment. "I think I'd rather go see everyone, if that's okay." When he nodded, she pulled him down to her and placed the cup aside. "Thank you for taking care of me."

He couldn't look at her just then, knowing that he was taking care of her only because she'd been in danger because of him, because of House and family bullshit. He nodded again and made to pull away but she held on.

"Aemond."

"Hmm."

She shrugged off the robe and he couldn't help but look. The towel had become loose around her and as she moved, it fell to her waist. "I want you to make me forget."

He didn't move, eye on her breasts.

"Please."

He looked up then, reached up to cup her face, tamping down on the anger that resurfaced when he saw the marks Bolton had left on her. She didn't need his anger right now. He kissed her jaw, her cheek, brushed his lips gently over the bruises and drew her down to the nest of blankets he'd placed her on.

When she sighed, he kissed her neck, the hollow beneath her throat, back up to her shoulder. "You're so beautiful," he whispered against her skin. "So precious to me."

When he closed his lips around one nipple she arched against him, her fingertips going up and down his arms as he settled his weight between her thighs. He let go of her breast, going back up to kiss her lips. "So brave. So very, very brave."

He shoved down the sweatpants he'd put on after their shower, kicked them off and reached down to guide himself. When he started entering her, she sighed, and he kissed her again. "I would burn down the world for you," he murmured, and filled her completely.

He pulled back slowly, drawing a soft moan from her, and pushed back, feeling the feather light fluttering of her around him. She wrapped her legs around him, her mouth reaching up to his, and he let her take him, let her tongue push in and explore, let her hands tighten on his hair as her hips rocked.

She let her head fall back when she came, the heat of her pulling him along as he let her take him into the darkness.

* * * * *

"He killed her so easily," you said, "she was nothing, just something he used to get to me."

"Did she have family?" Aemond asked.

"An ex-husband she was still in love with. We should let him know."

He nodded, holding you closer. "We will let him know." He kissed your temple, nuzzled your cheek. "How are you, really?" he finally asked.

"How did the guard know the cops were still minutes away?"

Aemond took a deep breath, and looked at you.

"Do you own the local police?"

He smirked. "I wouldn't say we own it."

"Aemond."

"We have a lot of influence over major institutions throughout Westeros."

You rolled your eyes at him. "You own the local police."

"I didn't say that."

"Look, I just need to know. If I'd met Ramsay Bolton out and about somewhere I would have had no idea who he was. I can't live like that, not knowing who is after us."

Aemond nodded. "Fine. We should all talk about what's going on, anyway. I'm sure Helaena has made a spreadsheet about it."

"Come on," you said, standing up from the sofa. "Let's go to dinner."

* * * * *

He watched her while she slept. She was curled up on her side, facing him, her breathing steady.

She was alive, and she was whole and healthy.

He kept reminding himself of that, while the guilt of being the source of the danger she'd been in to begin with wouldn't let him sleep. The knowledge that she'd chosen him, again and again, despite knowing what he was, what his family was, overwhelmed him.

When she'd mentioned having self-defense classes he'd instinctively balked at the idea, but she hadn't backed down and he figured he could get her the best instructors, instead of having her go to some random idiot who could get her injured.

She sighed in her sleep and reached out for him. He felt her small hand on his arm, placed his hand on top of hers. He wasn't worthy of her. Wasn't worthy of her love, that was certain. He didn't know why she wanted him, why she loved him, but it sure as hell wasn't working out in her favor. She'd lost everything she owned, she'd been attacked by a psychopath, she'd become a public figure, which she'd never sought before.

When he looked back at her, he realized she was looking at him. "I can hear the self-hatred from here," she said, and then rose on her elbow. "Come here."

He laid down next to her, and she pulled him over so that his head rested on her shoulder.

I should be comforting her, he thought, but as she stroked his hair, he closed his eye and let her soothe him. He felt the first tendrils of sleep drift over him and for once, didn't fight against it.

* * * * *

TAG LISTS

All my fics

@arryn-nyx   @ girlwith-thepearlearring   @greenowlfactif  @hydrationqueensworld    @megzdoodle   @melsunshine  @queenofshinigamis     @throughgoeshamilton   @travelingmypassion    @watercolorskyy

Aemond fics only

@hb8301   @kaemond-zafiro    @arcielee   @castellomargot   @m-indkiller   @urmomsgirlfriend1 @lunamoonbby   @aemonds-fire   @tsujifreya   @coffeeobsessedtrencher  @n4tforlife  @kazuyatokue

TAG LIST FOR THIS FIC

@dc-marvel-girl96 @ammo23 @shelbyteller @toodlesxcuddles

@moonlightfoxx @dahlias-and-marigolds

@zenka69 @julczimozart @wolflinkpaws @shygardengalaxy @wintrr13 @thatsgayyouknow @wackyharpy @jennifer0305 @dancingqueen0 @gemini-mama

Thank you for reading, for your likes and reblogs, they all mean so much to me!!!

My Ko-fi

[mysticsparklewings]

OhuHueVember Prompt List

Finally, I can share the surprise I’ve been working on! 😆 (Though admittedly later in the day than I really wanted...)

After years of wanting to try out Huevmber, I finally thought of a way to make it work for me, all because I spend far too much time thinking about markers. 🤪 And I did my best to make it easy for others to join in, if you want to!

I tried to get all the essential information on the images themselves but y’all know me by now—If you need more information, I’ve got a MUCH longer write-up hiding behind the "Keep Reading" button + a Spreadsheet, if you need it, too! ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

----------

Before I get into my usual long-winded description (and trust, it will be long), if you want to actually follow this prompt list—Or the Weekly version—here's what you need to know (some of which is already stated in the image, but I want to keep things as clear and easy to understand as possible!):

Here's the "Official" Spreadsheet that has all of the color codes, Honolulu color names, and some additional information like recommended Light/Dark blend pairings for each color typed out, both in case the image format doesn't work for you and also because some things like the Light/Dark blends just wouldn't all fit in one image. [A sample photo of the Light/Dark blend pairings will also be available soon, and I'll add a link here when they are, but I unfortunately ran out of time to have them ready to post alongside the list

As the upper right corner says: This challenge is not officially affiliated or sponsored by Ohuhu, I just like the markers and have had them on the brain a lot lately!

This is open to all mediums! While this challenge was inspired by working with Ohuhu markers traditionally, as the image says: If you don't have these specific markers or colors, use what you do have! This includes doing the challenge digitally if digital tools are what you have, or whatever other medium you're comfortable with and have access to: Original Art, Coloring Pages, Card Crafting, etc. The point is to play with color and have fun, so as long as you're doing that, pretty much anything goes!

Likewise, as the image says: The idea is to focus on 1 Color ("Hue") Everyday in November, but you can use as many colors as you want each day as long as the "Color of the Day" is the main focus/main visible color.

I've provided a Weekly version of the list in case the full 30 is too much, but you can pick-and-choose words from the full list however you'd like if you're not crazy about the colors I picked for the Weekly version, or if you want to shorten the challenge in a different way. - Do note though that the 5 colors I chose for the Weekly version were selected to specifically work well as a 5-color "mixing" palette to make those 5 colors stretch farther as a limited palette, if you're up for a little extra challenge. Based on this video by Peter Donahue.

Tagging me is appreciated, but not required! However, do note that I will Like & Share posts that I can easily identify as being related to the challenge on platforms where I'm able to do those things. If you want me to see and share what you made, Tagging me makes it easier!

Remember that my views on these Month-Long Daily Challenges is that it's about the challenge of completing a certain amount of creative pieces in the time given...And that's pretty much it, so as long as you're doing that and having fun, I'm really not bothered about how you choose to follow the list! My Inktober motto has always been "work smarter, not harder," and this is no different!

I think that's all the stuff you need to know to participate, but if you're curious in hearing more about my thoughts/process in putting this challenge together, read on!

----------

Would you Sparklers believe that I was so excited about sharing this that I had trouble staying asleep until time to get up this morning? 😆 It's true!

Either way, some of you are probably wondering just as much as I am what exactly has gotten into me lately: First I make my own prompt list for October—something I can't say I ever previously thought I'd do—and now here I am just having finished that list with yet another daily, month-long challenge...And I made this list, too! 😱

Some of you may have noticed that as we went through Obscutober this year, there were various points where I hinted at working on something marker-related and/or something for November. If you haven't figured it out already, this is what that was about! 🤭

And you'd think I would have learned my lesson about taking on one Daily Challenge after another back in 2021...

I'm sorry, Sparklers, I just had the mid-typing realization that the last time I took on a daily challenge in November was also immediately after the last time I did Obscutober instead of Inktober and my brain froze for a second. How did I not notice that before??

What was I saying? Oh.

At that time, I took on @ProjectEducate's 30 Days of Art Challenge, but I also attempted to dial things way back for myself by using it as an excuse to playing more Animal Crossing: New Horizons rather that making full-blown artwork everyday..And while that did help, it still turned out to be my challenging than I expected. 😅

That's one of the primary [ha] reasons I've never participated in the "traditional" Huevember challenge for November, even though I found it very appealing when I discovered it existed. I know myself, and just the same as I typically don't have the stamina to do Inktober in a "normal" way, I know I definitely don't have the stamina to do Huevember in a "normal" way immediately following Inktober (even if I do account for the fact that I do Inktober in weird ways).

Making my own list makes that no different, but then...What are we doing here? 🤔

Well, all of this really stems from the fact that—as I believe I've mentioned somewhere before, maybe multiple places—I've been spending quite a lot of time over on Reddit discussing and answering questions about Ohuhu Markers. As it stands, Ohuhu themselves doesn't provide a ton of resources for the markers, so it largely falls back on the user community to fill in the gaps, and it happens that I know, keep track of, or otherwise have close-at-hand a lot of "gap" information specifically for the purposes of keeping my Ohuhu Swatch Chart up to date.

I also do just really like the markers, so as much of a chore as it can be to keep track of all the information at times, I really don't mind getting the opportunity to just nerd out about them a few times a week.

The thing is, as is not too difficult to notice if you look at my art posting history, I haven't actually had a whole lot of time or allowed myself as much opportunity as I'd like to make actual art with my Ohuhu markers.

So back in September while I was trying to figure out what in the world to do for Inktober this year and one of my friends offhandedly suggested a "Swatch Challenge" for Inktober, in a matter of minutes my brain connected dots from "Swatches" to > "Colors" to > "Huevember" to > "Ohuhu" to > "OhuHUE"!! "Huevember but with Ohuhu markers, specifically!!" 💡

While obviously not really at all helpful for figuring out Inktober, that did sound like a great way to take advantage of how much the markers have been on my mind lately and participate in the Ohuhu community some more beyond being, essentially, a sentient FAQ page. 😆

So, as crazy of a move as it felt—and still does—What time I wasn't planning for and then working on Obscutober during September and October (and wasn't spent either dealing with IRL things or giving myself some much-needed break time in between), I spent trying to pull things together to make this challenge possible.

Those things included (not really in a particular order as a lot of these things I went back-and-forth with at various stages):

Picking the 30 colors that would be featured. The more natural choice probably would have been to "match" Ohuhu colors to the existing Huevember colors, but after thinking it over, I decided it would be better to try and keep things more accessible, if I could. Not everyone will have the big 320 set of Ohuhu Honolulu colors to choose from, but I know a lot of people will probably have at least the "standard" 48 colors that the Honolulu line started with—Either because like me, that's the set they started with, or because those 48 colors are all included in quite a few other "standard" sets.

For what it's worth, I did consider starting with the 24-count Honolulu set colors to try and make the colors even more accessible, but that set has NO orange in it for some reason and I wanted this challenge to be as colorful as possible, so I didn't really want to include black or grey if I could help it.

In the other direction; I very nearly included R13 from the 72 set to try and flesh out the purple sleections more, but I noticed that while I was putting the suggested blends together, the light/dark blends that make the most sense with R13 made the trio-blend look nearly identical to the trio blend for PB2. So in the end, I decided to just shift the Dark blend on PB2 to a slightly more purple-y blue and leave R13 out after all.

In exchange, P3 got added to the list...which made things a little harder in figuring out the trio blends for P4, but my only other option for purple in the 48 set was R11, and in my blend testing it proved even trickier to deal with. 🙃

Picking said Light/Dark blend for each color. This most involved a lot of swatching and test blends, which was easily the longest and most laborious part of the process.

And as stated at the top of the description, I fully intended to have a sample photo to show you those blends in action—I have swatch cards all labelled and everything!—but I simply ran out of time to have that ready to post alongside the list today. 😅

I'm still going to do the samples, it'll just be either later today or tomorrow before they're ready. Either way, I'll post a link here when they are!

I'll spare you the nitty-gritty on the process of picking out said blends, but suffice to say there was a LOT of back-and-forth that took up 5 pieces of cardstock—some of them front and back—because I wanted blends that stayed "true" to the hue of each color, and still actually showed variation in the lightness or darkness of the color, but also were relatively "easy" blends that didn't take too much work to look smooth. At least on the type of paper I like to use (60-80 lb. cardstock or 80-100+ lb. mixed media paper). I did learn from another test that these blends do still mostly work on plain printer paper, for example, but it's not quite the same, so your mileage will vary a little bit on how easy the blends really are. Why did I find this step even necessary to bother with, for as much trouble as it was? Call it a symptom of the wider Ohuhu and alcohol-marker using community. People are always wondering what/how to blend clothes together well, and between that and trying to provide what accessibility to the challenge I can, offering pre-selected blends seemed like a good idea. [And, if I'm being totally honest, I didn't realize exactly how much work figuring the blends out would be and thought getting the chance to just play with color blends sounded fun when I made the decision to do it. 😅]

To that end, I also of course Determined reasonable Hex Code "matches" for each color. Again, this was largely an accessibility thing trying to account for people that either don't have the specific colors/markers listed and want to attempt to match the colors in some way, and to provide an option for any digital artists just in case any see the list and want to give it a try, especially since digital brushes that mimic alcohol marker behavior have become more popular in recent years.

As noted in the Spreadsheet, I both looked at multiple swatches of the actual real marker colors and was using some of those digital "alcohol marker" brushes to text how the selected digital color would behave. I'm quite sure some of my final choices aren't completely perfect picks, especially if you're working in a different program than I was (Procreate), but I at least stand by them as "reasonably close" options.

And just in case anyone passed by this post and is wondering, because I know I've seen people ask for it—I would in fact like to one day provide "reasonably close' Hex code matches for all of the Ohuhu Honolulu markers, but that is definitely a far-off project you should not expect from me any time soon after seeing just how challenging it was to do for these 30 alone. 🫠

Worth an additional here that I actually originally wanted to include hex matches for the Light and Dark blends to make "Light" and "Dark" versions of the prompt list itself for people who do have access to the 320 range and maybe wanted to play with color in different ways than the "base" tones, but again: Figuring out the hex matches for these 30 was trouble enough and I could tell I really, really was not going to have time to do that and the other prep work I still had left to do at that point.

Speaking of, I had to Determine Oahu matches or "close enough" alternatives for each color. Yet again the magic word is accessibility, and I've also noticed that the Oahu (no brush tip) markers just sorted get left out when it comes to Community Ohuhu Resources. Since we now have a Spreadsheet reportedly from Ohuhu themselves listing which Oahu and Honolulu colors match, it was important to me to include them, even if it was a little more work.

For all of the colors that had 1:1 matches, it really wasn't too bad. What through me for a loop was the few colors that didn't have 1:1 matches, so I had to go track down some swatch examples and make an educated guess which other Oahu colors would be closest. So there's your acknowledgement right now, just like the image says, I know at least a few of the Oahu colors aren't exact matches. Both because exact matches don't exist, but also the "closest" matches I did pick may not be fully accurate either since I don't own the Oahus and had to pick based on swatches over the internet. I'm sorry, this is the best I could do!

And of course, what I consider a key component of making Month-Long challenges accessible: I had to Put together a Weekly version!

As noted at the beginning and in the description for the Weekly version: I chose for the Weekly version were selected to specifically work well as a 5-color "mixing" palette to make those 5 colors stretch farther as a limited palette, if you're up for a little extra challenge. Based on this video by Peter Donahue. I had actually previously picked out 5 colors from the 320 Honolulu range after seeing Pete's video purely for fun. Alcohol markers notoriously aren't usually good for "mixing" to get new colors the way you would paints or pencils, but I was intrigued by his limited palette since he was working with oil paints, which kind of notoriously don't mix as vibrantly as other media. For the record, my original 320 set picks for the 5 colors are:

Y080

B070

PB2

RV080

YR3

Two of which were already in my selection of 30 for this challenge, and B070 was naturally super close to PB7. Initially, RP1 was a closer match to RV080, but in testing I found that R10 mixed better for this selection.

So really the only color I had to make a big compromise on was Y080. There's really nothing else quite like in the entire Honolulu range, but in my testing GY6 worked better than I expected as a substitute, considering the limited options I had to choose from here. And then I just lucked out that November technically takes up 5 weeks on the calendar, I just had to figure out the "spacing" so each color would get a reasonable number of days to work with, the same way that I adjusted the days for the Weekly version of Obscutober. [And frankly, that was easier to do here since November has 30 days and 30 divides evenly by 5.]

I did briefly re-visit the idea of sticking just to colors from the 24 Honolulu set so the Weekly version could be as accessible as possible, but long story short the longer I look at the color selections for that set, the weirder the stranger they seem, so I ultimately I couldn't help myself and just went with the colors I thought would be more versatile even if they're not likely to be as accessible.

I mean, after all, I was going to have a disclaimer that you can use whatever you want even if you don't have these specific colors anyway, so hopefully it won't be too big of a deal that I opted for the palette that I personally saw more use in. Oh, and for what it's worth: I did consider making a "Lite"/every-other-day version of this list like I did last month, but after seeing the "Lite" version was not a popular choice last month and acknowledging I already had my work cut out for me, I decided it didn't really seem worth the extra effort when I fully believe everyone is capable of skipping days on their own as they see fit.

And then, of course, another step that ended up being trickier than I expected: I had to figure out how to compile all of this information, or at least most of it, in a single image. (Well, okay, two images including the Weekly version, but you get the idea.)

Again, I'll spare you the nitty-gritty, but I will say that while I did clearly figure something out, I nearly completed another version in a more typical list format before deciding I didn't like how little you could actually see the colors themselves in it. I don't know about you Sparklers, but "Huevember" makes me think colorful, so that's how I wanted the list/post image to be.

In the midst of trying to figure out a better way to do the list for maximum information + maximum color + maximum clarity, I paused to work on the wrap-up template for this year's Obscutober (which yes, is still a thing I'm going to do, probably tomorrow), and it was from doing the calendar format for that from which sprang the idea to try a calendar format for this! 😃

If you look at one of my usual Inktober wrap-ups, you'll notice it's still not 1:1 because I had a lot more text information that needed to be here, but y'know I think it was a pretty great solution, all things considered. 😊

Though, for the record, the Weekly version was originally going to have the bars for each "week" in proper calendar format too—spread over the actual calendar days each one would take up—but that was scrapped because the longer I looked, the more confusing that layout looked for the actual information. So I sacrificed the cheekiness in the name of making it clear and easy to get the information you need from that version.

You might have guesses that even though I was working on this in the background for nearly two months that I still maybe bit off more than I could chew by the fact this is going up both on November 1st instead of a couple of days in advance (like I was very fortunately able to manage with Obscutober) and it's also going up in the very-late "afternoon" instead of more like around lunchtime. 😅

I really, really did my best to have everything ready before now, but the last couple of weeks of October proved much busier than I expected. I probably should've seen that coming because that always seems to happen when I'm working on a time-sensitive project that's big and important to me, but I can't see the future and I can't just never work on another big, important project again because I'm afraid that'll happen, so... 🤷‍♀️

I just have to accept this is the way things turned out and try not to be too hard on myself about it. It was a lot of work and still deserve credit for that, at least!

Speaking of: Some of you might be wondering about that long-ago mentioned point: "I know myself, and just the same as I typically don't have the stamina to do Inktober in a "normal" way, I know I definitely don't have the stamina to do Huevember in a "normal" way immediately following Inktober..." That is still true, and I do not plan to approach my challenge here in a "normal" way either, for that reason.

But, much like my logic of "well, I made the list, I should use it," for Obscutober, after all the work I put into this, I am still going to use the list/participate, and not just the Weekly version either. [Though I fully admit just doing the Weekly version would probably be the smarter thing to do for me...]

I'll try and keep this brief since the description is certainly enough of a book already and the sooner I can wrap this up and get it posted so other people can actually participate if they want to, the better, but:

I've been wanting to get back into just coloring in Adult Coloring books (or single pages made for that audience) occasionally, as I've unintentionally moved away from that hobby for a few years when I used to do it all the time. When I first started, the hobby was still pretty new and niche, and sharing finished pages felt "wrong" to try and mix in with my regular art posts, but things have noticeably changed since then.

And in particular, using Ohuhu markers in adult coloring books has actually become pretty common.

So that's the first part of what I'm going to do to try and scale this challenge back so I can still particpate be hopefully not overwhelm myself: After some consideration of options, I've printed out some of Johanna Basford's similar illustrations on small, 2.5" x 3.5" cuts of my favorite mixed media paper—Artist Trading Card size!—and those are what I'm going to color for the month.

The second part of how I'm going to scale back is that, while I am going to actually color something every day for the challenge, I'm only going to post my finished results once a week. Because I found/remembered during Obscutober that since I both like to type out these long descriptions (even when it's not really necessary) and cross-post to about a dozen places, the actual posting-everyday-process is what really wears me out and gets me down, often far more than making the art itself typically does. 🫠

I admittedly had much grander plans and was hoping to still post every day in some way when I first set out to make this challenge, but I think if you've read the description this far, you'll understand why I had to change course for my own sake. 😅

Speaking of...Let me think for a moment if this might be it, if I've explained everything I wanted to both about the challenge itself and my approach to it...

I think so, but there was a lot to cover so hopefully if I did leave anything out, it wasn't that important and I can either edit this description or just touch on it at some later point during the month.

Either way, I hope if anyone does want to participate—as I am boldly assuming at least a few people will—I hope you're not too upset and/or can forgive me for not being able to post this sooner so you could get started sooner. As discussed, I did my best and I feel any frustration or disappointment you may have with the posting time of the list, 100%. But I am unfortunately only one human that can only do so much in a day's time that does not have the budget to hire an assistant to help me do stuff like this at this point in my life. 🙃

Oh! For the record, I don't plan to make this a yearly thing, which is why I've not put a year on the image or in the title. Mainly because having to pick all-new colors would really mess with the various points of accessibility I've tried so hard to keep, so if this does turn out to be a thing people want to do again, my plan would honestly be to just use the same list in perpetuity, and maybe just add onto it with some of the things and ideas I didn't have time to flesh out the way I wanted this year. However, that said, I'm not fully opposed to revisiting the idea of wholly new color assortments in the future if this version proves successful enough. What exactly that "enough" is I won't know until I see it, but I did just want to lay all my cards on the table for people who might be curious about long-terms plans here. Now, if you all will excuse me, I best go ahead and get this cross-posted while there is still some sun in the sky and, as mentioned, after that I still have a few other things on my plate that need my attention for the day—including my own participation in the challenge!

So, whether you choose to participate or not: Here's to starting the month off strong and having fun! 🥂 And good luck to us all!

----------

List Design  © me, MysticSparklewings

This Challenge is not officially affiliated with or sponsored by Ohuhu

----------

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[irisbleufic]

how do you keep track of everything going on in caldera? it's so sprawling, i love that about it. is it a google doc system or tabbed spreadsheet? /me unashamedly seeking writing advice bc i want to write a series someday soon, teach me your ways

I wouldn't call it a complicated system, anon! I use Google Docs to track everything as well as draft chapters of stories as I go. It's maybe helpful if I show you a screenshot; it's representative of the number of active docs I have for the series at any given time.

Caldera #15 Draft is the newest piece I'm writing, pretty straightforward. If it ends up breaking into multiple chapters, each chapter gets a separate file, and the file names become something like Caldera #15.1 Draft, Caldera #15.2 Draft, and so forth.

Caldera Series Notes is where I keep track of the broader upcoming structure, how many shorter stories before I hit the next long one, etc. If I have any brief thoughts about pacing and specific future events/scenes, I tend to dump these here in a bulleted list.

Caldera Item/Property Inventories is the fun one, and it's literally just lists of items I can't afford to lose track of as the characters accrue more. Armand's rings, the newly begun list of other jewelry items, the places they've lived for a while and new acquisitions, etc.

Caldera #21 (very end of final chapter of series, projected, may change) is a rare occurrence, because I was able to look ahead and write what I hope will be the very last pages of the very last story in the series. It's a target I can hit even if I end up with more intermediary stories to get there than I think; for instance, Caldera #21 could become Caldera #30 and those pages I've written would still be the end of it all. I'm absurdly happy with how this scene currently looks, and that excitement accounts for a little bit of why I've been working so quickly. The drive to bridge things toward a conclusion I'm satisfied with is strong, even if it'll take 30 stories instead of 21. I'm hoping for 21, but I've had a series in the past hit 30. I obviously can't rule out that kind of sprawl here, as unpredicted elements creep in.

Thanks for asking this question. I enjoy talking about process.

[tommybowefuneralattendee]

362, spommy :]

number 362 on the spreadsheet is from this list of prompts the prompt you generated in specific is: hesitantly tugging the other's fabric of their shirt or sleeve, testing the waters

linked on ao3 || read under the cut || 4.4k, rated T

The first time Spencer feels a pull at the bottom of his shirt from a person who is not less than ten years old, he's at work. It's not a big deal. He's in the middle of something, sure, but it doesn't feel insistent. Whoever it is waits for the minute that he's directing stuff for Games, silent until Spencer turns around to see them. And it's Tommy. So it's not like he was ever going to be mad anyway. He raises his eyebrows, looking up at the other man's face with a smile. Tommy's fingers pinch at the hem of the front of his shirt now. He's so fucking cute.

"Hey," Tommy says, just looking at Spencer for a moment without speaking. They've agreed not to do the whole public display of affection at work thing (and in general), out of respect for everyone else but also just because they haven't been together that long. That was one of the surprises of the beginning of their relationship, honestly. He's always been somewhat affectionate in his relationships, sure, and he had thought that he had been clingy in previous relationships. He can't keep his fucking hands off of Tommy, though, and it doesn't seem like vice versa is happening either. Like somewhat in a sexual way, but also in the fact that Spencer wants to be touching him all the time, and he wants to look at him all the time, and he has never thought of himself as a guy in one of those annoying couples, openly besotted with one another, but well. Then he met Tommy.

"Hi," he replies, that saccharine honeymoon phase sweetness wrapping even around that single word. Tommy pulls him a little closer, fingers twisting in the bottom of Spencer's shirt. It's fucking cute, so he's not even irritated by it. He just fucking likes the guy so much. They've been officially dating a month or so, and he can't decide whether they should be over this part yet, but he doesn't know how to love Tommy at a lower volume and he's not super into the idea of teaching himself how.

"You look good today," Tommy says. Spencer snorts, rolling his eyes and looking away from his boyfriend.

"Did you just interrupt your whole day to come tell me I look pretty?"

"Hey now, I said you look good, no one ever said pretty," Tommy protests, wrinkling his nose.

"So you don't think I'm pretty?" Spencer asks, outright grinning now with it being so easy to wind Tommy up. Tommy breathes out through his nose and obviously tries not to rise to Spencer's bait, but after a moment of inaction scrunches his nose and physically shakes off the sensation of attempting to limit his ire.

"That is also not what I said! I do think you're pretty, I just didn't know if that was, like, an okay compliment for you, some guys are uncomfortable with it," he says, his tone embarrassed and waspish as he peters off there. Spencer can't fucking help but look at Tommy like he hung the moon in the sky. He rocks on his feet into the other man's orbit.

"You can call me whatever you want," Spencer says, not without a note of challenge. Tommy raises an eyebrow, returning the challenge.

"Anything?"

"Within reason," he says, trying to stick a caveat of sorts on it, but he's hardpressed to think of a single thing he wouldn't at least consider with Tommy. It's Tommy. If he's into something a little weirder than handcuffs and shit, then, like, whatever, right? It's Tommy. Several images pass through his mind at once of doing things he's never done in his life with Tommy, images he does not allow himself to linger upon at all because they are at work, dude, keep it together. Tommy's looking down at him with a smile and narrowed eyes, like Spencer is something he's trying to figure out.

"You would totally, like, actually let me call you Daddy if I wanted to. Dude, you like me so much it makes you look stupid," Tommy observes, because there really is no other word for it. It's true, Spencer does. Still, he scoffs.

"How dare you? My stupidity makes me look stupid, so jot that down," he says, snorting at his own joke as Tommy swats at him.

"Shut up, you're not stupid, stupid," Tommy sputters, one of his hands lifted like he's going to push Spencer back, but he just lays his palm flat on Spencer's chest instead. Spencer puts his own hand over it, fondness thick in his throat as he laces their fingers one over another.

"You say such sweet things to me, baby," he says, maybe a little quieter than an appropriate speaking volume but a little louder than a whisper, surely. The desire to pull Tommy down to kiss him is so strong it aches, clawing through him like hunger pangs. Tommy is looking at him like he can't help but agree.

"This is not work appropriate, Spencer Agnew," he says, lips pursed. They're shiny. Spencer flicks his gaze back up to make eye contact.

"You're the one who came over here to tell me I look pretty, dude," he replies, the desire to kiss Tommy not getting any smaller, and the gap between them not getting any larger. Knuckles are knocked against the door frame twice and they both look over, seeing a sheepish Shayne shrugging his shoulders.

"Hey guys, sorry, but Lisa said she needed Tommy, and Spence, you're about five minutes late for a meeting," he reminds them both, smiling apologetically before he taps the door frame again and moves on with his day. They separate from one another reluctantly, Spencer squeezing Tommy's fingers between his own before heading down to his meeting. It could have been an email. He doesn't see Tommy again til the end of the workday; Tommy walks him to his car, opens his stupid fucking door for him, stands with Spencer's car door open and leans against it while they finish their conversation, the whole nine. He kisses Spencer and asks him to come over, in the parking lot where anybody could see them. Spencer makes the drive to Tommy's apartment with the memory of that kiss burning within him.

They have a really nice night together. Tommy makes him promise to text him when he gets home. Something hot and bright takes up residence in his rib cage.

He's editing when he feels it this next time, and the fact that it's a recurrence rather than the first time does make it less surprising to find that it's Tommy pinching the fabric of the shoulder of Spencer's shirt between two fingers. He finds a stopping place pretty quickly and then spins his chair around to face Tommy, who is much closer than Spencer thought he was. Like, logically, it makes sense that Tommy was right behind him before he turned the chair but now Spencer's boyfriend is looming over him and wow, that's hot actually. He's a short king but he's never really dated someone taller than him before; most of his exes are cis women around average height. Tommy is like half a foot taller than him. Sitting down, Spencer has to tilt his head back to look at him, hooking his fingers in Tommy's belt loops.

"What's up?" he asks with a grin, helplessly happy to see Tommy as always. Tommy's expression goes soft just for looking at him and it sends warmth through Spencer.

"I had a question," Tommy says, though instead of asking anything, he just continues to look at Spencer. Spencer grins.

"Forgot your question, huh, Squidward?"

"Despite it happening every time, I still get surprised that you're always cuter than the last time I saw you." Spencer groans.

"Baby, you are down so bad for me. Listen to yourself," he says, leaning his head against Tommy's stomach. Tommy cards his fingers through his hair and Spencer fights the urge to go pliant against him and just let Tommy hold him up. There's a worried quality to the gentleness of his hands, like he's handling Spencer with care. It's equal parts nice and disorienting. He doesn't know that anyone has ever looked after him like Tommy does. Tommy tilts Spencer's head back into his hands, his thumbs behind Spencer's ears as he adjusts Spencer to look at him. Spencer just lets himself be moved. What is he if not supplicant beneath Tommy's hands?

"You okay?" Tommy asks, head tilted. Spencer gives a short laugh and nods as well as he can, looking down and away from making eye contact with Tommy. So maybe he hasn't been sleeping well lately, and maybe he hasn't slept well since the last night he and Tommy slept in the same bed, but even if those things were true, they would be Spencer's problems and not Tommy's problems. It's Spencer's own fault he barely takes care of himself. He's overcaffeinated and overworked and he knows that, it's just that knowing that doesn't mean there's less work to do and it doesn't mean he has more time to sleep. Giving a small concerned noise, Tommy runs his fingers through Spencer's hair, which is not a fair thing to do when Spencer is trying to compose himself.

"I'm fine, Tommy," he says, knowing as soon as it drops out of his mouth that he said that a little too flatly for Tommy to go with it. True to form, Tommy frowns.

"Hey, I wanna help. We've talked about this, bub," Tommy says, and they have, and Spencer sighs. It was one of their first... it wasn't a fight, really. They haven't been together that long, they haven't gotten into any real fights yet. There is, however, a pretty open policy to their relationship where if something is bothering them, they bring it up. He had actually been the one to bring it up, thinking about Tommy's disposition to hold a grudge, the way he minimizes his own annoyance til it explodes. Tommy had agreed to tell him if he was ever bothered, but not without some conditions of his own. Tommy will ask for help as long as Spencer will too. So yeah, Spencer sighs.

"Come over tonight?" he asks, leaning back into Tommy's hands. Tommy raises his eyebrows.

"Come over like have dinner together or come over like-"

"Come over like spend the night, Tommy. Come over like sleep in my bed," Spencer clarifies, low and honest. Nodding, Tommy starts to lean down, aborting the motion after thinking it through, probably. They're at work. Even a quick kiss is too much PDA for work, right? They're in public. It doesn't mean that Tommy pulling away without kissing him doesn't sting a little. They agreed on little to no PDA.

He still can't control the way his face falls. He's not a miracle worker.

"I should get back... I'll come find you if I remember my question?" Tommy asks, posing it as a question as if Spencer would ever not want Tommy around. Be so fucking for real. Spencer gives him a smile and a nod and Tommy squeezes his shoulder. It's not the kind of goodbye that Spencer would like them to have with one another. He doesn't even know what he would rather them do, but this thing where they're not acting any different than when they were just friends is throwing him off. And like, they agreed to no PDA and he's aware of that, and he's cool with that! He'd never want Tommy to do something he's not comfortable with. Maybe it would be nice, though. Who knows?

It isn't just happening at work now. At the grocery store, when they're cooking dinner together, if he wants to hold Spencer's hand while they're walking. Tommy'll just tug on Spencer's sleeve or the bottom of his shirt or the lapel of his jacket or his belt loops, using anything really to get a grip on Spencer to get his attention. A lot of the time, Tommy looks at him apologetically after he does it, like he hadn't meant to do it and thinks Spencer is annoyed with him for it. But like, Spencer couldn't be further from annoyed if he tried. It's fucking cute, you know?

And like of course it's cute. It's Tommy. Be realistic.

When they end up having to talk about it, Spencer is glad that they're at home. Tommy's place, anyway. Home is relative these days. They're standing in the kitchen debating what they're going to eat, and Spencer was looking through the cabinet when there's a pull at the back of his shift. Used to it by now, Spencer smiles and turns, Tommy's hand moving to the front hem. For some reason, he's not expecting Tommy to look embarrassed, retracting his hand.

"Sorry-" Tommy starts, but Spencer takes his wrist in hand, pulling it back to rest at the hem of his shirt. Tommy doesn't return to the action at first, so Spencer makes it more obvious, holding the fabric out for Tommy to grab. He does so reluctantly.

"I don't mind," Spencer assures, smile soft as he looks up at Tommy. Tommy looks down at him, obviously skeptical, expression still tinged with that thick embarrassment Spencer would do anything to assuage.

"You don't mind that I tug on your shirt like a little kid," Tommy says, deadpan and flat. Spencer shrugs.

"I mean, yeah," he says. It's that simple for him. He doesn't mind. Why would he mind? It's cute. It's sweet. It's Tommy. Why the fuck would he mind?

"I know it's annoying, Spence, you don't have to pretend it isn't," Tommy continues, cynical smile splitting his mouth. Spencer grabs Tommy's hand back from where it's holding onto his shirt, lacing their fingers and pulling Tommy over to the couch. Some conversations are better had sitting down and holding onto one another, and so they will. He sits down and pulls Tommy to stand in front of him, leading him to sit forward in Spencer's lap and pulling him closer then into a hug. Tommy breathes out a relaxing breath through his nose slowly, tucking it into the rolled collar of Spencer's hoodie. Hands spread across Tommy's back to hold him close, Spencer takes it upon himself to clarify something.

"I like it," he says, to which Tommy immediately rears back to squint at him.

"You what." It doesn't even sound like a question, still Spencer smiles and answers, holding his hand to Tommy's cheek.

"I like when you pull on my shirt, or my sleeve, or my belt loops, or whatever. It's cute and it-" he pauses, unsure if the other part is something you tell other people or just an inside his head thought. He doesn't always know how to tell those apart. Tommy hooks his fingers where he had tucked his nose before.

"And it what, Spence?" he asks, quiet and gentle, and Spencer could swear he was the one doing the reassuring here. Sometimes it feels like they pass the idea of being the composed one back and forth, bloodhounds for one another's soft spots. Spencer clears his throat, looking down and to the left.

"It makes me feel like you need me. That part's kinda nice," he admits, clearing his throat again like that'll get rid of the ball of anxiety that he just can't swallow. A confused noise follows that, and when Spencer looks at him, Tommy only looks more puzzled than he did before.

"I do need you," Tommy says, dropping this as if it's obvious and the idea of someone not coming to the same conclusion had never even occurred to Tommy. Spencer raises a skeptical eyebrow, cognizant of the fact that they haven't been together very long, and Tommy could bounce back from breaking up with him pretty quickly if they did it now. Sometimes, it feels like he's always going to be waiting for that other shoe to drop. "Baby, you're my friend. Like even if I wasn't totally crazy about you, which, for the record, I am, we've been friends a good little while here. We've spoken almost every day for several years. I love you." There's a lump in Spencer's throat and Tommy's holding his face like he's something precious and Spencer doesn't know what to do with all of this sincerity.

"We were talking about you," he protests weakly, his expression souring. Tommy leans down and kisses him gently, backing off after just a moment of contact. Spencer strains up to follow him, but Tommy stays out of his reach. Fucking tall boyfriend. Asshole.

"I want to talk about you, now," Tommy says, using his hand on Spencer's jaw to tilt his head up a little more, making it nearly impossible to do anything besides make eye contact with him. He has pretty eyes. That's not really what they're talking about, though.

"I like when you grab onto me because it makes me feel like... it makes me feel like you want me around more than you care about looking normal and social niceties and being in public. It makes me feel like you don't mind what other people think if it means we're touching. It's really dumb, and romanticized, and I know I'm being like. Weird about it. So like, it's an in-my-head thing. I just don't want you to think that I'm annoyed with you for holding onto me, or pulling me places or whatever. I think it's neat. I don't know," he rambles, just closing his eyes halfway through because he doesn't know if he can bear how Tommy has to be looking at him right now. He knows he's weird in relationships sometimes. He likes the idea of someone (of Tommy) liking him to the point of caring more about having him close than about whatever societal rules they're supposed to be observing. They agreed upon little to no PDA. It's completely cool with him, but. The pulling is nice.

"Baby," Tommy whispers, brushing a kiss along Spencer's cheek as he tries to wrap himself entirely around Spencer through determination alone, his knees closing around Spencer's hips like somebody is gonna try and lift him off his boyfriend's lap or some shit. Spencer rubs his hand up Tommy's back again, not saying a goddamn word. "I want you like. All the time, dude. I like holding your hand and kissing you in public and being the sappy couple with you. I just didn't want to push it because we decided no PDA from go. Why did we decide on no PDA if we're both cool with PDA?" he asks, sounding more like he's musing aloud than actually posing the question. Still, Spencer answers. Such is his nature.

"I thought you wouldn't want to. Like, as a. Okay, logically, I know that we are together at least partially because you're attracted to me, but it's hard to remember sometimes that this incredibly hot guy is actually cool with the idea of people knowing we're in a relationship," he says, saying way too much and immediately pressing his face back into Tommy's shoulder and wishing he could, like, disappear or something. He's aware of the fact that his self esteem these days probably falls beneath double digits on the assessment they make you take at doctor's appointments when they know you're mentally ill. Like, he's aware. It's just that it's easier not to talk about it, to make it small and ignore it, self aggrandize til everyone thinks he believes his own myth too, and it's some fucking bullshit. Having low self esteem is some bullshit.

"The way that you think I would not sit on your lap in front of everyone we know is extraordinarily funny to me seeing as I do not know if I could project a more down bad for you vibe if I fucking tried, dude," Tommy says, smooth sarcasm running through his voice even as he makes Spencer blush a lurid red. He strokes his thumb over Spencer's cheekbone. Looking at him makes Spencer's heart ache, fondness almost as thick as nausea in his throat. Like love is something that he has to cough up, wisteria spreading itself through the branches of his bronchial tubes. He doesn't know what to do with all of that feeling.

"I really fucking like you, Tommy," he whispers, leaning into Tommy's hand. Tommy leans in and presses another kiss to his lips.

"Well, that's great, because I really fucking like you too, Spencer. I really fucking like you," Tommy repeats, kissing him again, longer this time and so sweet. Spencer lowers one of his hands and grabs Tommy's ass just because he can. Tommy breaks the kiss, snorting and pushing his face down against Spencer's collarbone.

"It's a nice ass," Spencer says, shrugging the shoulder that Tommy is leaning on. Experiencing the honk of Tommy's laugh this close would probably be startling if Spencer wasn't always looking to make it happen, always ready for it because it's what he wants to be happening. He likes making Tommy laugh like that, striking him with amusement he wasn't expecting to the level that he's not prepared for it, that he loses all sense of volume control. More in the positive, Tommy presses a kiss to his cheek, the laughter something Spencer can now feel as well, and he's in love with Tommy, fuck, he's in love with him. He won't tell him now. But fuck, it's true.

He isn't sure if when Tommy said he loved him, if he- it's really early for them to be saying I love you, right? Like, they've been friends for years, sure, but there's a pace that is supposed to apply here and it sure as fuck is not applying. But Tommy meant that he loves Spencer like he's always loved Spencer, like they've been friends since they started working together kind of love for Spencer. They're still working on the in love thing. There's no fucking way Tommy is in as deep as he is on this. He's this deep in because it's Tommy. Wait a fucking second.

"I think I just realized that you actually like me. Like right now. Like with you in my lap? Yeah. Like I think my brain has only been processing the part where I'm in love with you, and like the other side of that equation just never hit me before right now. Holy shit. You like me. Like genuinely," Spencer rambles, unable to stop the pace of his speech just given the absolute revelation of this, and how fucking dumb it is that this feels like a revelation. Tommy is looking down at him with open confusion. Well, he can dig that. He is aware that the way his brain works isn't always, like. Good. For him or for others. Realization crosses Tommy's face and he tenses, blinking and looking away from Spencer's face before he speaks.

"I don't make you feel like I love you?" he says, soft and a little sad. Fuck. He reaches up and cups Tommy's face in his palm, running his thumb over Tommy's cheekbone. He waits to speak til Tommy's looking at him, big brown eyes finally meeting his own.

"You make me feel so fucking special, dude. You make feel taken care of, and cared about, and enjoyed, and appreciated, and worthy in a way I didn't even know I was fucking missing. It just didn't click for me that like- that's. That's you loving me. That is me being loved by you," he says, trailing off with the last bit, heart pounding in his ears. Holy shit. That's how Tommy has looked at him this entire time, isn't it? He feels like he's been ignoring an entire aspect of their relationship, the obvious conclusion blocked by stupid ass low self esteem. Tommy leans down and kisses him softly, gentle and tender and all of that bullshit that makes Spencer feel so fucking loved under his hands. He loves him. Holy shit. How is anyone normal about being in love? This is crazy. What the fuck.

"I love you. Dumbass," Tommy murmurs against his jaw, leaning down on Spencer's shoulder. Spencer wraps his arms around him.

"I love you too," he says, the feeling of this interaction, this reassurance, this love a warm weight in his stomach, heat rising through his chest.

"You need to tell me if you feel like that," Tommy reminds him, bussing a kiss across his cheek. Spencer makes a vaguely agreeing noise.

"You need to tell me if you feel like that, too. I don't want you to ever feel like I'm annoyed by you being you. I'm not. I like when you pull me places and I like that you flirt with me badly when you're drunk and I like when you talk through movies and I like when you tell me about Drag Race I've never seen and I like everything else you've ever apologized to me just for doing. That's kinda, like, part of loving you, dude. I love you. Cute little habits and all," he rambles into Tommy's shoulder, unable to make himself pull back and look up at Tommy to say any of this. He doesn't like talking feelings shit. It's awkward and vulnerable and it makes him feel a little nauseous, but again. This is Tommy. If Tommy needs to know how absolute insane about him Spencer is, then well, he's gonna have to put his big boy pants on and tell him. Fuck.

"You really love me, huh?" Tommy says softly, like he's having the same revelation Spencer had a few minutes ago. Spencer chuckles roughly, leaning up to fumble through kissing Tommy gently, tears in his eyes.

"I think we need to start believing each other more, baby," he whispers, pulling a laugh from Tommy as well. His heart aches in his chest. Tommy kisses him, gentle and steady, before pushing himself up out of Spencer's lap, standing to his full height. He extends a hand to Spencer once he's firmly on his feet. Spencer raises an eyebrow.

"I'm thinking we lay down in bed and look through delivery apps for a little while?" Tommy proposes. Spencer lets himself be pulled up, lets himself be lead, lets himself be loved.

They end up ordering Chinese.

[literaticat]

As an agent, how do you recommend authors handle review spaces? Most writers are also readers, but I understand it's probably looked down upon to go around giving 2-3 star reviews to who are essentially your colleagues. I enjoy having the data to look back on of my reads, but as I plan to be published in the future, I'm wondering if I need to make this private and find a private system.

A bit more broadly than your ask: In my personal opinion, writers may be readers, but reviewing spaces such as GoodReads, etc, are not for them. I would strongly suggest that for mental health purposes, authors not only NOT EVER go on GoodReads, but also block it from their computer like it is a naughty website. NSFW BABE. Don't look up your own reviews, don't look up your friend's reviews, for the LOVE OF GOD don't RESPOND to any reviews of your books or your friend's books you happen to see, and unless you have something glowing to say about a book that will uplift the author, for Pete's sake keep it to yourself. If you have potentially snarky things to say about a book or author, journal about it. Text it to the group chat. But don't post it.

As for your more specific ask: I totally understand wanting to keep book-reading data -- I do! I use the Reading List app, which is private. StoryGraph I just got but it feels like a nice interface, I'll be playing around with it, and I'd happily add books I'm reading, my TBR, etc -- but I would either keep my account private to whatever extent is possible, or I just wouldn't rate the books on that. Other people use cool personal spreadsheets, or cool notebooks. This is MY data -- I'm not keeping it to impress or inform anyone else, so why would it need to be public?

When I find books that I particularly adore, I'm delighted to post about them on socials, but I don't need or want to talk smack about books publicly, that would be totally inappropriate coming from me, and since I know and work with SO MANY editors, other agents, authors, etc -- There's pretty much NO WAY I could get away with that without inadvertently insulting somebody. And while you may be "aspiring" now -- the longer you stay in publishing spaces, the more people YOU will know and meet, too.

TRUE STORY from just this week: I was at a Little Free Library and found an old Sweet Valley High book - BEWARE THE WOLFMAN, #106. It has a hilarious jacket and cover copy, I had no idea that the Wakefield twins went through a paranormal "American Werewolf In London" era, I was obviously obsessed and posted about it on Facebook, with a pic of the front and back of the jacket. Now, this is a book that is WELL out of print, it was published when I was in high school thirty years ago, it was a friends only post and I'm not friends with the author, like, literally who would I be insulting if I made fun of this book? Oh -- well potentially my friend Dan, who chimed in immediately to say that he in fact wrote the funny jacket copy. My friend Elise, who is an agent now, but was Dan's boss in 1994 and in charge of these books. OH ALSO, I am friends with the publisher. Ahahahah OK! Yay! Luckily it truly is a bonkers book and they know that so it was all in good fun and haha teehee, but like -- it could have been WAY worse!

ANYwhoo, you asked what I think, that's what I think. This is just how I approach it. "As an agent" I would never tell my authors what they can or can't do with their lives - but this is MY philosophy: we're all here to SELL books, not bash them, so if you don't have anything nice to say, keep it to yourself, because believe me when I say, it's extremely upsetting for all parties when you give a book a shitty review and then are seated next to the author at a publisher dinner later. TRUST ME, I KNOW.

[oldsargasso]

"Dean smiling is like a little gift because he does smile but sometimes it's so sweet and pretty it can't be anyting other than a present just for Winner." AGH???? MY HEART???? PLZ… DEAN'S SMILE IS A GIFT OH MY GOD.

ONLY SO TONY COULD EXPENSE IT DKFGSDFGDFG I'M SHRIEKING. Kenta the tax write-off 😭 (In another universe, Tony is that boss who pays his employees with UAC gift cards.) And yeah I think Kenta has a very skewed understanding of money! He doesn't know what a living wage is or how much groceries cost. He could make do in a 4sqm or less apartment but wouldn't blink at paying 5x the average market price for it because he just. Doesn’t know any better, and his negotiating tactics have always been “throw money at it” or “knife time.”

I do think there may have been limits from Tony in terms of what Kenta was allowed to spend on himself—for instance, the blazers he wears are of varying quality, the one he wears to the auction, in front of clients, is the nicest, but one of them looks closer to off-the-rack quality, and he only has like. Three shirts, whereas Tony basically has a different custom three-piece suit in every episode. But like Kenta does not look at the price of food when he's ordering at a restaurant (god forbid he make Tony look poor in front of a client) and barely even glances at the check when he's signing it, much to Kim and Dean's horror. He very quickly learns to ask the question "Is that expensive?" when they're out together, until he gets the hang of it.

Yes, let him work with his hands!! BUT GOD THE TINY HANDS HE USED TO HOLD I'M HURTING!!

Yeah sorry I deal with the bookkeeping at work so I am. Not going to be the person to dissuade you from this line of thought! THERE ARE SO MANY QUESTIONS! What happens to everything after Tony dies! How much of it was even on the books! Do you think he ever put things in Kenta’s name without his knowledge, just to keep any consequences away from himself.

But oh gosh Kenta absolutely DOES try to figure out their favorite baked goods without asking (he probably spent so much energy trying to navigate Tony's moods based on nonverbal cues, and it takes him a long time to just be able to ask what people want without feeling like he’s navigating a minefield ☹️)

YES I DO THINK THEY MAKE HIM A BIRTHDAY CAKE??? They ask Pete for his bday, which there's a good chance that Kenta grew up not knowing his bday and Pete had to make one up for him and do his best to gift him something with limited resources. But he wasn't given kitchen access, so this would be Kenta's first birthday cake 😭 (Kenta’s first bday post-Tony passes by unnoticed because Pete has his hands full and it doesn’t occur to anyone that Kenta would simply Never Mention his bday, until one day someone is asking about horoscopes or smth)

As violent as Kim can be when he wants to, it's his tenderness that's truly powerful 🥺 Kenta DOES DESERVE SOFT LITTLE KISSES WHEN HE'S BEING TIED DOWN!!!

Great minds 🤝 Winner thinks his own dirty talk is GREAT and he has the evidence of Dean always getting turned on by it to back himself up LOL. (In all seriousness, I would GLADLY spreadsheet their kinks jkgsdfgdfg)

Kenta 🥺 He'll see it eventually!! Maybe once that happens they can finally (MAYBE) convince him to wear like. Cute lacy briefs or smth. (the bra that deep in my heart I wish to see him wear would take a lot more convincing on their part but by god do those tits deserve to be showcased and worshipped)

Not gonna pretend that I'm NOT physically affected by Kenta's lethal brutality god WHATEVER WHATEVER MOVING ON Winner being soft and caring is gonna be the death of me. The character development… my heart 🥺 From angry, half-satisfying parking lot blowjobs, to Winner looking after Kenta, taking care of him, and Kenta letting him do it. I’M UNWELL.

Kim is the only one with his shit together, of COURSE he is better at laundry. (Also I need him pressing at least one of them crotch first up against the shaking washing machine. for my sanity)

also screaming screaming screaming GOD KIM IS SO… COMPELLING he could probably read the dictionary and make it sound like a command. Goodness. He’s so!!!

[for my future reference this is polycule thread 2]

not Tony with the gift cards 💀 he so would.

I love the idea of Kenta learning the actual value of things. actually I wonder…obviously WE think Winner has a rich family. and Kim is making money from racing. but he stays living in the little serviced apartment - was that confirmed that he got that as part of Red Racing deal or did we just assume that. and we see him driving a nice car. hold on I gotta go rewatch that scene and check. okay so its…a white car. they don't show a badge or anything, there's like a split second of the steering wheel and I THINK it's a toyota (which would make sense since sponsor) ANYWAY. Kim is making decent money I think.

BUT Dean is not? he's not doing the higher level racing (assume prize money jumps considerably given Babe's financial status) and we see him working in a kitchen when he's exiled. that scene lives in my head constantly for so many reasons. anyway all that to say I think Kim would probably also not think too much about spending money on a nice restaurant (he's drinking at the fancy bar spying on Tony and pays for Babe's drink) but Dean for sure would be like. doing the calculation those of us without money constantly do - "this dinner could pay for three days rent" or whatever. and I think that, once he shares that, it would really help Kenta conceptualise how it works. but maybe more like "this knife is worth the same as the jeans Kim picked out for me last week". but it would be hard if like Winner just never cares about what things costs, and Dean really cares - even though the others are like "WE ARE PAYING" - and Kim spend a lot on what he cares about and hardly anything on things he doesn't. also if he did work at Way's car emporium like I think you suggested (until the sales trauma kicks in) Kenta would be like "cars cost this much! :)" and the others have to be like. "well…yes. but also mostly no."

but yes let's talk about Kenta's wardrobe. personal unshakeable headcanon is Kim (and Dean) taking him shopping and being like "you can wear whatever you want!" and Kenta's just happy with his usual all black mostly-comfortable clothes. but sometimes he's just hanging around the house and ~accidentally puts on someone else's jacket. maybe it's colourful, maybe it's not, but it smells like them and it's warm and cosy. it only works with the oversized jackets obviously. but eventually all their wardrobes meld a little bit. semi-related but Kim for sure approves certain people's date night outfits before they're allowed out.

lmao we are KINDRED SPIRITS. give us a special episode where it's just Tony succession planning. I think he kept Babe in the will. but omg yessss Tony dies and a year later a lawyer turns up to Kenta like "and here is your share of Tony's estate. and here is the trial date, you should get a lawyer" wait Kenta definitely goes to prison for killing Tony right? [I typed a whole bunch of stuff but I've taken it out, it's depressing in a real life kinda way and that's not what we're here for] anyway Kenta gets off with a slap on the wrist: time already served plus extenuating circumstances plus Winner's family paid for a vicious lawyer.

it's definitely Sonic and North asking about birthdates so they can do compatibility charts. SHUT UPPPP Pete giving Kenta a birthdy and a little celebration as best he can. do you think he gave Kenta his own birthday so they could share.

don't get me started on a kink spreadsheet!! I used to use one to track all my wips lol I love a spreadsheet.

god yesss give Kenta a pretty bra for his glorious tits it's what he deserves. I think they go shopping and they walk past a lingerie store and Kenta slows for like half a step to look a bit longer and Kim clocks it immediately. it's just the two of them which is lucky because Winner would make a joke about it (and even though it was just for fun Kenta would still feel too shamed) and Dean sometimes jumps he gun between the initial formation of an idea and the full execution of that idea. but Kim is patient. maybe he's like "oh, let's go in here" and lets Kenta hover around while Kim buys something pretty for himself. then it's like. Kim isn't a worse person for wearing it and being enjoyed in it. Kenta wouldn't be either…

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw, Parental abuse, threats of murder, threatened violence against women, sexism, A boy being told to toughen up deal, being called names

Looking for support and validation (💛📼 sorry for the emojis i want to be able to find this post once it gets answered, don't know if this counts as symbols and is against the rules, im so sorry)

My dad (45) talks about how to could kill me at any moment anytime i (15M) am annoying to him. He's been doing it since i was a child, getting in my face and screaming about how he would brutally kill me if he could. Now that i'm a little older i try to make jokes like "you wouldn't i'm just so cool and awesome, i can't be killed" but he goes on about how "i could. i could. i can. i will kill you."

I feel like this is pennies compared to other people and their parents but i can't take it anymore. I'm tired of threats and hands on me and him getting in my face and the yelling and blowing up over little things like my nails or clothes or whatever. There's a stigma for boys and abuse, and it feels really isolating... I've heard all the "toughen up" and "man up" and "be stronger" and "you're being weak" and i'm really lonely

I know so many more women are victimized and oppressed and scrutinized and abused and hurt than men and i really don't want to take away from that, but i don't know what to do. I'm so tired and stressed and scared and lonely. Like i'm the only boy out here who is being yelled at and crying about it, i can't help but feel like im being weak for crying. He keeps talking about how men are so much better than women and can take them down and hurt them and i hate it.

he wont let me have a heater in my room, winter is coming soon and my room has shitty ventilation and insulation because i'm above the garage. He said no to the heater because my room is messy (bits of laundry and wrappers here and there, i think it's pretty clean and stuff) and therefore i'm a disgusting pig and going to burn the house down and should have thought about that before i asked. I'm so cold, my body is freezing, i can feel the coldness of my hands as i type this. Every winter is colder and colder these days. I'm thinking if buying a heater secretly tho! maybe i'll feel a little less sad if i can sleep warm and cozy...

thanks for reading, sorry this went into a tangent, i tried to tw everything at the top but i don't know if i did it all right, i'm sorry. Thank you again, thank you so much. I feel a little better now that i typed all this out. I should go to bed now, nightnight, have a good day, thank you.

Hi anon,

It sounds like you've experienced these threats so many times that you've become desensitized to them and have normalized them to the extent that you feel this experience is equivalent to "pennies" compared to others. But threats on your life should be taken seriously, regardless of who says it, how many times it's been said, or even your gender identity. You're right that the culture around boys and men is to be "tough" but that shouldn't mean tolerating abuse. You're not decentering misogynistic abuse by highlighting toxic masculinity. Your dad sounds like an incel.

Hearing about the heater situation is even more concerning because it's starting to sound like neglect as well as child endangerment. I recommend that you reach out to a crisis resource such as 741741 or 988. You can also take a look at this spreadsheet with other crisis resources, as some of those include crisis resources specifically for men or minors. If anyone has any additional suggestions or comments, please feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[officialgrapply]

Covid AEW - All Out 2020

2020 was a fucked up year.

My relationship with wrestling went from being a robotic little obsessive spreadsheet updater at the start of the year; trying to keep track of every match I'd watched, to feeling completely done with this shit by the end of the year. Pandemic wrestling was kinda funny and intriguing until it began to sicken me to my core. WWE's thunderdome gave me chills (derogatory, sorry FadeAwayMedia) and I can't even communicate why. My favourite promotion of 2017-19; GCW was still running events with fans even though they were getting aggressively shitter with every show that they put on. Do you fucking people ever think about anything else? We all need a break from this. We all need to alter our outlook. I did not wanna hear a single update, slice of discourse, recommendable match I would've previously loved. Nothing. FUCK OFF. I was, surely not coincidentally, going through some substantial personality changes - an ego death is how I'd actually describe it without elaborating too much. I tend to obsess over my different hobbies in phases anyway, and I felt that was me done with wrestling.

Very little between mid-2020 to mid-2023 was able to penetrate my deliberately grapply-proofed barrier I'd surrounded myself with, except for many of the gawp-worthy dramas of All Elite Wrestling.

When AEW formed, I was naturally intrigued by it - a viable and rich #2 US promotion...after all these years. It's weird that a billionaire likes this stuff. Imagine having over one billion dollars and being like "oh fuck yeah, dude... Jimmy FUCKING Havoc!!", then proceeding to sing the words to 'I Hope You Suffer' by AFI (TONY KHAN 100% DID THIS!!).

Anyway, despite my intrigue, I was not particularly impressed. To say I was jaded by The Elite's antics in 2018 is putting it lightly. My tastes have slightly changed since then, so I wouldn't rule out being more open to their wrestling if I ever revisited it, but I'm pretty sure I'd still think their web show's humour sucks, and I'm very sure that I think calling yourself the "best bout machine" is proper lame. So even though I had intrigue for this new AEW project, there was no optimism, because why are these fucking chucklefucks at the forefront of it?!? Why is the guy who's the director of football at Fulham FC signing Kip Sabian? I was really confused by the whole thing, and in that initial 12 months that I followed their development as it happened, I liked very little. There was Darby Allin, a psychopath I was plenty familiar with from skimming EVOLVE (the true tell-tale sign of the mentally unwell footage trawler of 2016-18). Weirdly, there was also Cody Rhodes, who hadn't remotely impressed me as a freelancer, but was connecting well after that pretty astounding match with his legendary brother, bleeding plenty, taking a chairshot to the head and momentarily making Shawn Spears look vaguely interesting in the process. Not much else connected on a major level; some fondness for guys like Mox, PAC, and it was novel to see Jack Evans on an actual television show, but it was still safe to say it just wasn't for me.

So there was very little I felt I'd miss in that promotion by cold-turkeying the wrestling. Then I heard CM Punk signed. In 2021, I wasn't ready to return to a hobby that had jaded me in such an unprecedented and bitter way, but that was pretty fucking interesting. I wasn't even a HUGE fan, but his jaded bitterness in the mid-2010s towards the business put mine to shame! The fuck's he gonna do? He felt so done with it all - I had a recurring joke tweet for two or three years in that 2017-19 period on Royal Rumble days where I would post "What If Cm Ponk Come Back" - the joke is that he wouldn't LOL! I recall being a bit more willing to watch little clips online and such at that point. I even checked out the PPV with Punk/Darby, and the following episode of television on one of the watchwrestling sites. The habit didn't stick again at that point, but I felt relatively happy to see it at the time. Then I would go back prioritising other things, and this whole supposed glory era unfolded while I was pretty much oblivious to it. Then Punk ate a muffin really angrily in public, and then him and his old mate Ace Steel smacked those cunts about. Oh fuck yeah man...pro fuckin' wrestling!! Don't get me wrong; I still didn't really wanna WATCH any, but I watched the fuck out of that press conference and listened to like half a dozen podcasts about it on YouTube.

There isn't really an interesting story to me getting back into wrestling in mid 2023. I just realised I could get it on the apps on my smart TV in my room, a habit formed again and eventually became a love again. WWE was kinda interesting me for a bit, until I saw how they blew off their Bloodline soap operas with egregious walking-pace matches, so I wasn't tuning into that for long. Too fucking earnest, no reward. It was that messy bitch AEW that drew me in for longer - still a lot that had me shaking my head in disapproval, but a MUCH richer roster than the 2019/20 days, and there's something I find really intriguing about the unmistakable sense of weary trauma they still had then and still have to this day. Then they announced a new TV show, and on it will be the return of... CM Punk :oD (that was Tony's face), and the reaction to this announcement was a 50/50 mix of visceral boos and cheers I can't really compare to anything else - it wasn't Cena-esque, you know what the game is when you go to see Big Match John - these cunts were MAD at each other!! I don't exactly have a pretentious sense of humour, so all the dumb tribalism stuff really amuses me, and I had been unaware of just how much it had all ballooned post All Out '22. It's so sick that there's a twitter troll called TAPPED IN: GANGSTABOB who calls Tony Khan a fucking clown in the replies to all his tweets. If you hate tribalist fans, you fundamentally don't understand pro-wrestling and I suggest you start again from the beginning.

So yeah, AEW ey? Even though I'm back to skipping more and more of it, and I do have earnest ideas as to how it could be legitimately good in the long-term, cos it SHOULD be good - just look at that fucking roster. But realistically, I write this after an episode of Collision in which Chris Daniels murked Hangman Page, there was a Cope-Jericho tag match, and Mox is doing bondage to the Rock N Roll Express for some reason; it's a fucking mess, it'll stay a mess, and maybe that's what's most appropriate after all. Coming to terms with this has made me want to revisit the period that will probably forever be spoken about with misty eyes as its peak. Punk is there and he's everyone's mate. He wants to help this promising future generation. The crowds are packed out every week and fucking loud for everything. Guys you never thought would be facing each other stand in the ring and receive "holy shit" chant for 45 minutes prior to locking up. Coup signing after coup signing arrives. All that momentum that's so tantalizing to AEW fans today. My hunch is that there was actually a similar ratio of good/bad stuff then as there is now - I feel like I know Tony's mind too fucking well at this point; he drops potentially intriguing stories at the drop of a hat and persists with ones that need to be put out of their misery. He loves switching wrestler's face/heel allegiance without actually booking an angle to accompany it. He can't book a big man to save his life. He doesn't know how to structure a match between a main eventer and a lower-midcarder or even curtain jerker. I don't buy that these problems that were present in 2019 and are still present to this day were suddenly absent in 2021. But what's the worth of a hunch if I don't experience it for myself?

So I thought, maybe I'll watch All Out 2021 again, and go from there. But you fucking know what? How am I supposed to measure any potential upturn in quality if I don't check out some of the stuff I missed before he came in? Just the very thought of half-arsing a project like this deeply hurt whichever strain of neurodivergence I happen to live with. I would rather not finish this project (likely), than begin at the wrong starting point.

So that's enough intro, let's get on with this shit.

The last pandemic AEW show I watched was Double Or Nothing 2020. Here's what I remember about it: MJF & Jungle Boy did some shitty sequences, I really enjoyed Moxley v Brodie, the main event was some goofy ass cinema/Hardyverse stuff that has a 9.20 on cagematch for some reason. Damn, das inmates were coping.

I don't particularly wanna rewatch that show so my entry point will be whichever episodes of TV have an interesting (positively or negatively) match between then and the next PPV; All Out. I forgot how few PPVs they did back then, so there was a lot of episodes to dig through the cards of, but I found surprisingly little of interest. The current calendar definitely works better for them since they excel far more at PPV than they do television, even if they lose a little IRT anticipation for the big shows.

AEW Dynamite #40 - Fyter Fest Night 2 (08/07/2020)

So there's a definite adjustment to watching covid wrestling again. While WWE ended up traumatizing me with their thunderdome bullshit, AEW settled on a fairly good solution at Daily's Place with the wrestler crowd. It's about as good as it can be. The best thing I can say about it is that I was able to forget about it most of the time and focus on the wrestling. Honestly, I've probably seen episodes of Collision/Rampage with only a marginally improved atmosphere over these shows.

AEW World Tag Team Championships Adam Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs. Private Party (w/ Matt Hardy)

Since the start of AEW, few have switched my opinion on them as dramatically as Adam Page. I've grown to respect him for what he can bring in his in-ring peaks, and how fun he's made the Hangman character in the last couple of years. This reminded me of why I wasn't arsed about him for so long, though. He did still have some highs prior to AEW, but too much of the time, he just felt like "their mate". I don't get why Matt Hardy was with Private Party. It could be as simple as: Matt Hardy comes up with a lot of ideas, and Tony says yes to a lot of ideas. Missable match. Load of jumping about and that.

Lance Archer (w/ Jake Roberts) vs. Joey Janela (w/ Sonny Kiss)

Seeing Janela in this company is even more fucked up now than it was then. And it was pretty fucking weird back then. People I know who have kept watching GCW have seemingly all grown to hate Joey. I don't really care, since I haven't seen him in so long and he wasn't addicted to 40-minute matches at this time. He was a true doofus, but one that could bump well and that usually gets a pass from me. This match works in the sense that Archer can just throw Joey around but is extremely peculiar in every other way. The pairing of Janela & Kiss is not something I was aware of, and I doubt I'll ever comprehend it. Also, I'm not dissing Jake Roberts as a manager, since I am pretty much always happy to see him given these strange roles, but he is particularly awkward as fuck here. The way he's moving around the ring here, he looks like such a doddery old cunt. It's hard to believe this is him after a glow-up.

Darby Allin does a Coffin Drop from legitimately like 100 feet in the air into some foam.

God, he's so fucking sick. I promise not to be a hand-wringing wanker when you inevitably die for my entertainment.

FTR & The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Bros & Butcher y Blade

Functions as a "there's dissention between FTR & the Bucks" match, but failed to capture my heart.

Big Swole is informed that she is banned from the arena, at the request of Dr. Britt Baker

Seriously, though. This might be my first time seeing Big Swole do anything, and jesus christ she is a bad talker. Astonishingly so.

Nyla Rose vs. Kenzie Paige & KiLynn King

Squashy. The jobbers did a pretty good job of looking scared. "KiLynn" is some brutal fucking NXT sounding name.

Colt Cabana, Brodie Lee & Stu Grayson (w/ jabronis) vs. SCU

Colt Cabana has a weird bruise, but he trusts Brodie Lee, who's really mysterious. That's the crux of this one. It's really regrettable that Brodie was so fuckin' good, left WWE for some long overdue focus, but this storyline stuff just did not hit at all. I guess they were going for him having a similar cult leader-esque aura to him as Bray, but where it falls dramatically wide of the mark is these ultimate jabronis he surrounded himself with. The Dark Order were a joke before he got there, and unsurprisingly he wasn't the magical fix to that. I also really don't like Brodie's AEW gear. Maybe I got too used to the dirty vest n jeans, but this black doesn't suit him at all. SCU certainly existed. Can't be arsed with that at all.

Chris Jericho (w/ Ortiz y Santana) vs. Orange Cassidy

This was actually the match that made me decide to download the episode, because I was interested in the Orange aspect of it specifically. Back then, or very shortly before this point, he was seen almost exclusively as a gimmicky comedy wrestler, albeit one with numerous spectacularly athletic tricks up his sleeve, now hardly anyone sees him as that, but I never really saw the gradual process of that. The match is pretty nice. They've done a really good job with Orange to turn him into a guy who can go toe-to-toe with anybody and not look out of place. I'm sure he has more eye-popping 'breakout' matches than this one, but this is a nice and simple elevation in defeat. I'll get further into this feud on later episodes, but for now, not bad at all.

episode verdict

Strong enough main, but this seems like not a generally good product at all.

AEW Dynamite #41 - Fight For The Fallen (15/07/2020)

AEW TNT Championship Cody (w/ Arn) (c) vs. Sonny Kiss

Oh, that's a charming booking. I wasn't able to form an in-depth opinion on Sonny Kiss' wrestling in their time in AEW. But cool, I guess. Good on 'em. (I RETRACT THIS STATEMENT IF SONNY WAS ONE OF THE CANCELLINGS I MISSED!! DOWN WITH CANCELLED PEOPLE!!). Jim Ross has clearly been guided to use male and female pronouns for Sonny within the same sentence. It's about as natural to him as feeding a cheeseburger to an otter, but it's cute I suppose. I start to imagine what a fun five minute match this could be - enough time to give Sonny some shine while respecting the differing hierarchy of the wrestlers involved. "He doesn't know how to structure a match between a main eventer and a lower-midcarder or even curtain jerker." - me, about nine paragraphs ago. AH FUCK!!! TONY!!!!!!! The novelty of this oddball pairing wears off quick, when it's clear that the formula is just a 50/50 workratey match. The match is ten minutes but feels much longer, in no small part due to the sheer amount of gratuitous nearfalls they put in. I'M NOT BITING!! I DON'T THINK SONNY IS GOING TO WIN!!! HE IS NOT "ELEVATED" IN MY MIND BY HAVING AN EVEN MATCH!! My eyes begin to form an eggy glaze. I'm no longer analysing a match. I'm just looking at moving objects. There are lights. There are colours. But there are no twistys.

FTR vs. Lucha Bros

Right, great fucking start. Cheers for that. Maybe FTR vs. Lucha Bros will give me more joy? Sure, kinda. Okay, so I got the idea to write this blog post a week or so after watching this episode so bear with me skimping on the info here. I wish Penta was just a scuzzy fuck who bonked people with a rail spike, and I never liked Fenix. They have had matches I've enjoyed as a team, but never that enthusiastically. They actually don't have good chemistry at all, I feel. They do a double team move in this involving a wheelbarrow-type set-up that looked really shitty. I think it was kind of a botch, but the set-up looked overly convoluted anyway. FTR were FTR - totally fine, not one of those matches that they'll really sink their teeth into to try and give you a modern classic, but fine. Dax has a fine stubble on his face instead of the dumb 'stache and he looks way better. The finish is cool; Dax swiftly whips off the mask of Fenix who is cradled into a pin as he tries to protect his identity. Something is occurring with The Butcher & The Blade, and the keys to a truck. Right, okay. The Elite come down and Kenny wants to give FTR a beer, but FTR pour their beers on Kenny. I find that to be rude.

Hi, guys!

One of my weirdest and sometimes regrettable quirks as a wrestling fan is who I'll be an apologist for sometimes. I can watch Chris Jericho from the peak of his acclaim and be like "ah shut up, motherfucker.". But for some reason, Jericho's frankly disdainful and understandably criticized gimmick change of 2024 kinda hit for me for a little bit at least. That, and I liked all the FTW title matches with Hook & Shibata. They were pretty much WWF hardcore title matches with a few other goofy elements that mostly worked for me, and I found them really over-hated. I totally get what people find egregious about the guy, don't get me wrong. I saw his fucking band performing at All In and just scoffed while filming it for twitter bants, but my spouse could scarcely stand to look at him. This saggy fuck who thinks he's a rock star and is addicted to relevancy is the perfect subject for the most ridiculous mockumentary in history. But it still kinda bothered me that it felt like a rite of passage to shit on Jericho that year, so I stood firm. Until I didn't. I think my timeline is correct when I say that after the Hook stuff was wrapped up, he started a mini-feud with Orange Cassidy that called back to what he was doing on this episode. It was shit. I'd like to think that all those "the list" segments I liked in 2016/17 weren't as shit as this, but this had me wondering. Certainly, the tone of his promos where he tries to sound funny and overreacts a lot is seriously tired by this point. At this time, he's "the demo-god". I'm probably good on tongue-in-cheek Jericho for the rest of my life now. I felt like with the Learning Tree, it was like "at least he knows people think he's been shit and is reacting very directly to the critiques", but 2020 Jericho insists he is AEW's fucking moneyyy heel and also insists on being the beloved comedy relief. He's got to be the funniest guy in the room - people laugh at this man's pocket antics? I'll show them what comedy is. They really did a complete rewind of this in 2024. Orange got juice on da jacket - Jericho and his cronies aren't happy! Ortiz is slipping and sliding around in the juice for ages. The covid crowd give this slapstick the airy reception it deserves. This could've been wrapped up in 30 seconds. Shit fucking segment.

The Elite vs. Jurassic Express

I promise I will never write that much about Chris Jericho again in my life. Just had a lot to get off my chest. Anyway, this is the match I selected this episode for. Basically, purely because Marko Stunt's in it. Marko's someone I don't think I've seen since the pre-pandemic days. I've always been fond of the guys who are willing to just be fucking hurled about like there's no tomorrow, and Marko was no exception. I haven't got a shitload to say about this match, because it was just a fun spotfest. Pure chewing gum for the eyes. No point writing out any moves, but there was one high-spot in particular that made me go

The Nightmare Sisters (w/ Dustin Rhodes) v Kenzie Paige & MJ Jenkins

OK. I'm not advanced enough to form an opinion on this yet. This is like expert level Tony-ism that my intermediate brain can not comprehend at this time.

In my TEW save, I made a new company, gifted them one billion dollars and brought almost every recognisable free agent available. Right now, in my circa 2001 save, I've set Bobby Heenan to manage Tank Abbott. So I can't judge too harshly on my similarly moneyed brethren Tony Khan deciding to give Vickie Guerrero a shot in 2020, and in a totally inscrutable pairing, at that. When Nyla came out in preparation to introduce Vickie as her surprise new manager, they played a fragment of what I later realised was Vickie's theme. I thought it sounded unusual. I'm sure she will become a manager for the ages in All Elite Wrestling. Nyla seems weirdly underutilized in today's division. While she never seemed like she'd be as good as say, Awesome Kong, she was totally decent and nobody else is bringing a real power game to the women's division right now.

AEW World Championship Jon Moxley (c) v Brian Cage (w/ Taz)

Speaking of TEW, hey Taz...

I do actually like this role for Taz, though. It's probably not worth the absence of his jovial and loveable commentary, but he taps back into that mean role really well I feel. Brian Cage is definitely a guy who is usually pretty fun, but definitely not as sick as he should be. It's been difficult to come to terms with, but you could probably make a similar argument about Moxley too. With 2025 brain, it's difficult to process that this would've been a kinda big deal at the time, but yeah I guess it was. Cage feels like a *prospect* rather than, y'know, whatever he is doing now, probably in ROH. Obviously, the fact he was fresh to the company helps, but I feel a lot of it is Taz. It's a good combo.

I'd say I had moderate expectations for this match. My expectations were about right. You can tell Mox is already Barnett-pilled by this point since a huge portion of his offense is grapple-fucky arm work. It's a fine enough way to take down the guy who looks like a monster. A lot of the time, when bookers try to "keep talent strong" by having them not tap to the winning submission it falls totally flat, but I would say Taz throwing in the towel here on Cage's behalf made sense and had the desired effect. Mox wasn't necessarily an ideal opponent for Cage to shine against, since I guess he's too much of an important asset to AEW for him to be chucked around by him a whole lot. I would book this as a plunder match or just run Cage vs. Marko Stunt for like ten consecutive weeks. Strange booking decision for this match to get announced, then Taz gifts Cage the FTW title the week prior. Perhaps just settling him into a run with that thing in some hopefully chaotic matches would've been the preferable move.

episode verdict

Still generally not good, but definitely an improvement over the prior week. You get a snippet of what it feels like the original vision for AEW was during The Elite vs. Jurassic Express - bringing some distinctly un-WWE like matches onto mainstream television. It's fun and it works. It honestly feels like that is just gone now. Elsewhere, the scatterbrain ideas like Vickie managing Nyla and Taz managing Brian Cage have mixed results, but I find them quite charming.

AEW Dynamite #42 (16/07/2020)

AEW TNT Championship; No DQ Cody (w/ Arn) (c) vs. Eddie Kingston

Okay, now we're fuckin' talking. Eddie instantly gets me out of that probably-watching-too-much-wrestling-in-a-short-space-of-time malaise with a really eyebrow raising promo. Loved Eddie putting Cody's 'hard work' firmly into context. Such an instant hook, that can connect whether you were familiar with Eddie or not. Loved him threatening the shit out of Arn Anderson. Beautiful set-up to a terrific match. I love Eddie's selling where he's like UHU-U-U-U-U-U. Hard to type it out - you know what I mean. I feel like I've only heard it from him and in matches from like 1973. Cody taking the bomb into the tacks is very dope. Eddie felt instantly 'up there' despite defeat. This was a totally triumphant debut.

MJF (w/ Wardlow) vs. Griff Garrison

Good times don't last. Death to "mic guys". I love a great promo, but in every way an Eddie Kingston manages to captivate and create anticipation for his matches, MJF is so fucking overbearing and put me in arm-folding mode before they even begin. A lot of Jericho about him, actually, where he wants to be the epic heel and the comic relief at the same time. This is one of those matches where he barely puts "da stick" down. He keeps grabbing it to show how dominant he is. He is unbeaten but lost a tag match at some point. Griff Garrison points this out (majorly butchering the line in the process) so MJF murks him whilst also explaining to us over the sound system that he is murking him. Griff's one bit of offense is a relatively effective roll-up nearfall, I guess. Match sucks though. I've only ever previously seen Griff in that random ass match he had with Copeland. What the fuck is his deal?

Falls Count Anywhere The Young Bucks vs. The Butcher y The Blade

This is really fun. They do the reverse of what you'd expect in a falls count anywhere match, starting out in the backstage kitchen area and working their way out to the ring. Lots of creative fun with their surroundings, very satisfying. My favourite bit is when The Blade channels his namesake RIC Blade and misjudges the direction of his dive for a table spot, clipping his face on the edge of it on the way down. Lovely. Bonus factoid: this was the last match I ever watched in 2024.

Lance Archer murks a bunch of job boys backstage, lifting one guy up so his head bursts through the ceiling.

This was awesome. What a pity they can't present him like this consistently.

Ivelisse vs. Diamante

I don't know much about either woman. It seemed like a match that could've had potential if AEW could book any women's stuff well under the title matches. I intended to analyse further but then I got a really bad toothache, so I didn't.

Adam Page vs. "Five"

SHIT!! The guy literally has a number as a name - that means he is objectively unimportant IN KAYFABE. SQUASH HIM!!! NO OFFENSE FOR YOU JOB BOY!!!! Fucking hell man. They really want me to know that "Five" can execute many athletic manoeuvres (ones 90% of the roster also can do). There's honestly not much in wrestling that pisses me off more than this kind of match that goes so long despite the wrestlers being SO far away from each other in the pecking order, because it's just time wasting and intelligence insulting in equal measures. It honestly doesn't get much worse imo.

Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus (w/ Marko Stunt) vs. Chris Jericho & Jake Hager (w/ Ortiz & Santana)

Very much stretched out artificially to TV main event length. Way too long for the amount of payoff you get from it, but there is some weirdly fun physicality between 'Saurus and Hager, in which both end up with minor amounts of blood on their faces. Weird psychology with repeated identical Marko interferences. Marko's clearly the most interesting member of the team, so I like him getting involved, but it felt pretty lazy to do it unprompted multiple times, especially when Jericho also had his cronies out there who could have justified his involvement and made it look less heelish.

episode verdict

Some real high highs, but for the cherry-pickers out there; just stop watching after Lance Archer kills everyone.

AEW Dynamite #43 (29/07/2020)

Jurassic Express & Best Friends vs. The Inner Circle

I had no memory of Orange Cassidy's theme at this time that made him sound like he wrestled exclusively on WWF Jakked. Tony dipping into his pocket for the copyrighted music can't come soon enough. Some really classic surly JR commentary in this one: He barks out "He is NOT in the match!" after a Marko Stunt cameo. He then uses the same tone when he answers his own question going "Was there a memo about this being a ten-man TORNADO tag?! I don't think so!!". I largely find post-WWE JR tough to listen to when he's earnestly pretending to care about things, but when the mask slips - that's the good shit. This match isn't devoid of charm, but it's nothing special. A bit structurally odd for it to go pretty balls out pretty quickly, before settling into a very average pace. Luchasaurus really struggles keeping his mask intact throughout. Very much an anti-crescendo for it to just end with Matt Hardy's music hitting and him pushing Guevara off the top rope. Matt appears from the crowd, seemingly. It's kind of funny to think of that sort of interference as normally this exhilarating thing, since the fans will see the wrestler before the cameras do and will yell out about this, but here he's just brushing past colleagues who are presumably just like "Oh, hi Matt."

AEW TNT Championship Cody (w/ Arn) (c) vs. Warhorse

Whilst they must always be rationed with extreme caution in order to combat burnout and/or just becoming a bit of a negative prick, I'm still not above a bit of a hate-watch. I was instantly sceptical in 2019/20 about wrestlers who I would know about more for being funny-tweet-men than I did anything they ever did in the ring. I'd say there were three main ones at that time; RJ City, who I have still never seen in a match, but has since won me over with his Hey EW YouTube series - he's really found a good role in AEW for himself. Secondly, we had Danhausen, who has absolutely not won me over, but is for some reason contracted and a top 5 merch seller? - I guess he just legitimately works for people who like the exact opposite of what I like, and the saving grace is the fact that Tony seemingly wants to use him as little as possible. Then there was Warhorse. At the time I found him profoundly annoying and particularly resented him doing like serious post-Speaking Out type tweets in his meme caps. I guess he was afforded a chance on the same stage as the other two and could still be contracted if it had paid off. But it didn't! And I am not above the schadenfreude of that sort of situation from time to time. Y'know - I don't actually wish him any ills in life, but I just don't wanna turn on the telly and have to explain him to whoever else is in the room with me. I guess whatever it was he was doing with the all caps and the "rules ass" has run its course, because now he seems to be dressing like Marty Scurll? Anyway, Warhorse's thing outside of twitter was I guess being a sort of shrunken down Ultimate Warrior who likes thrash metal? It's really hard to place, actually, because he seems conscious of the fact that he's about 5'4". Like I don't think he's SHYING AWAY from that ("he weighs 4,000lbs of raw, heavy metal"). But it doesn't really come off as tongue-in-cheek either. Like, he's not Gillberg, because I think you're supposed to feel that he's badass AND really funny. I would say it fundamentally does not work when you take him outside of the realm of the clapping seal indies and twitter.

So he comes out, anyway, and he has synchronised fiery pyro that will never be needed again. He headbangs near Griff Garrison & Pillman Jr. in the crowd as Taz says "this young man, in my professional view, is in way over his head right now.". Aww. Justin Roberts goes Justin Roberts mode for his ring introduction, and Taz immediately says "li'l heavy...". Taz really does feel like he's just shitting on this guy in a way that feels beyond being a colour commentator, especially since Cody is a babyface anyway.

I'd heard this match had happened and was assured that Warhorse "bombed", but I didn't know if it was shtick heavy or what. It's a serious match, and one that feels like an earnest attempt from Cody to make Warhorse look like a good and interesting wrestler. Warhorse does his heavy metal taunts after big moves, but that's about as far as the shtick goes. I would have to assume there would be a lot more shtick in his indie matches, though I have nothing to really compare it to, since I maybe saw this guy once under the name "Jake Parnell" before the gimmick, and I don't retain much memory of that either. Warhorse looks like a sound enough wrestler in some aspects, with definite holes in his game. It's not an offensive match, but his wrestling is not enough on its own, and the gimmick stuff does not help him out, because it's just this distraction that doesn't connect on this stage. I ended up feeling a bit sorry for him, really, because he's not an Eddie Kingston who can stroll onto Dynamite and immediately fit in. You can tell undeniably from the tone of JR and particularly Taz on commentary, that this is very much a try-out match, and he's a guy whose try-out match should be taking place on Dark instead of here. Like, you know that bit in Beyond The Mat where Mike Modest, an indie star by 1998 standards, is having a try-out match on Heat? (in a dark match, no less) Well, what about if he had to open Raw in a competitive match against a star the size of Mick Foley or Triple H instead? That's more or less what Warhorse has been tasked with here. When JR says "if Warhorse is ever going to be great, then now is the time to be great", but since that has not occurred instantaneously, I'm left thinking "what does he possibly have the capacity to do at this stage to drastically change the tide and make a mainstream audience 'get it'?". It's a massive ask.

Warhorse ends up tapping to a figure-four. For a match that I'd isolated as a bit of a potential hate-watch, my overriding thought upon watching it is kinda just "why did they do that to him?". On paper it's a great opportunity that he 100% had to take, but it's probably safe to say now that it was too big a task for him, and I mainly blame the people who should've known that.

After the match, The Dark Order come out and attack both guys. Matt Cardona runs in for the save. I practically dislocate both of my shoulders shrugging at this development.

Inner Circle promo even though we already saw them five minutes ago

Chris Jericho's jacket, guys. It's a big deal. He's gonna rehash Mitch the Potted Plant in a minute. Sammy Guevara has such a fucking shit face. It's really crazy when comedy is attempted in this setting, and seemingly Tony hasn't paid the wrestler crowd enough to laugh out loud at it.

FTR in a boardroom with Arn going over some legal mumbo-jumbo.

Wasn't really sure what was going on here, mainly confused by the connection to Arn. Adam Page comes in and pours everyone whiskeys, but his is the biggest! So Dax is in between "my moustache is my personality" phases, but Page is right in the middle of his "whiskey is my personality" phase. Interesting.

AEW World Tag Team Championships Adam Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs. Evil Uno & Stu Grayson

Grayson & Uno are definitely showing out here, and they have some stuff, but it feels so long. Nothing inherently bad or egregious really, it's just more trying to make Dark Order work at the expense of making the actually viable stars look dominant. I guess you can make the argument that Page/Omega are like a team of singles stars whereas Uno & Grayson the more cohesive unit, and maybe that's the story they're actively telling here, but I can't ignore how overlong it felt as a whole.

Diamante vs. Hikaru Shida

This gets a wee video package to set it up as a proving ground match for Diamante. It was a total nothing sandwich. I really dislike Shida's wrestling, and Diamante didn't remotely impress me here either.

MJF segment

He takes ages to come out, during a commentary-free section too - just absolute dead air. His tron says "we deserve better", and watching this shit episode of Dynamite made me agree with this statement. MJF is parodying a political campaign to call out Jon Moxley. It's far from his worst material, but it's MJF, so it's still heavy-handed, overdone and filled with countless eyeroll worthy 'zingers'.

Tornado Tag Brian Cage & Ricky Starks vs. Darby Allin & Jon Moxley

Really loving Taz as a manager here. He gets really overexcited while describing how jacked Cage is, and it's super endearing - "HE'S GOT BICEPS!!!! ...AND THEY'RE SO BIG! THEY'RE LIKE SLEDGEHAMMERS!!". He also loves saying "shit", which is badass.

I miss Jon Moxley's hair. Yeah, he was losing it, so fucking what? Why is it the case that everybody who's experiencing any hair loss is deemed by the consensus to have to get rid of every last bit of it? Some people pull off hair loss better than others, as well as pulling off the receding look better than they do Bald. Down with "just let it go brah" culture. Mox was someone who was able to pull off only having a bit of hair well. It never felt 'tragic' or 'desperate' and he should start growing it again immediately.

Anyway, this match is cool and I really needed it after how this episode has gone. It's four guys I like plenty and both teams seem to have good chemistry together. I don't know whether my copy of this show was from a Fite stream or what, it continues showing the wrestling at full screen size while the commentary stop speaking. It's a very odd viewing in this environment because spot calling all of a sudden becomes 100x more obvious to me, somebody who's usually oblivious to most spot calling. And then there's the fact that Brian Cage does a sick strength spot where he catches Darby's 'rana attempt no-handed while holding Mox, before slamming them both down, but the wrestler crowd in the airy environment can't make the noise that it deserved.

The finish here is Darby winning with a stomp assisted by his tacks covered skateboard, and it looks brutal. Great Tony Khan autism moment post-match as Tony Schiavone exclusively reveals that next week, Moxley will defend the title against the #5 contender Darby Allin. Yes, the number five contender. I have no strong feelings on the ranking system but that's a fucking wacky sentence to hear.

episode verdict

Mostly shite! Let's move on.

AEW Dynamite #44 (05/08/2020)

The Elite & FTR vs. The Dark Order

Excess is an element in wrestling that can often work for me. So just having 12 bodies out there doing stuff certainly made it more watchable, despite not being anything special and me really not giving a shit about the storyline. There's a presumably worked injury to Dax, which leads to Cash and Hangman going back with him, leading to a 6 on 3 for a while. Hangman eventually comes back with a nice hot tag, but with the numbers advantage still on the side of Dark Order, Brodie gets the win with a nice discus lariat. The Dark Order's still lacking in terms of people I can take seriously being in it, but it's getting easier to tolerate them in matches, at least.

Best Friends vs. Ortiz & Santana

Very, very, very okay.

MJF segment where he abuses the campaign employees he has for some reason.

More heavy handed material from the most badass but also epic and funny heel out there. I'm gonna start +10ing these segments from now on, probably.

Matt Hardy & Sammy Guevara brawl

Matt Hardy cuts a promo about how he wants to give back in AEW and show the many personas of Matt Hardy. It's weird, as it usually is to see Matt past a certain point, when he has that sort of half asleep look going on. Then the brawl ensues and it is pretty okay. There's a sense of recklessness to it that I like. Matt appears to get hardway'd by either the ring-post or a flying chair, and then Sammy does a good stage dive onto him through a table. This bodes well for the PPV match..!

Santana & Ortiz smash Sue's van

Tony Schiavone's concerned commentary for this sounds as if it was done for an advert. The match didn't feel as though it had the bad blood to justify this. The Best Friends' later retort is done semi-ironically, with a nice fire in their delivery but also lines like "you will personally apologize to my Mom, over speaker phone!". Fair enough.

Cody & Matt Cardona vs. Alex Reynolds & John Silver

I have no real opinion on the post-WWE career of Matt Cardona because I've seen very little of it. It's concerning, though, that the best way Jim Ross can think of to put him over is to be like 'oh man, this guy collects so many action figures'.

I quite like John Silver, to an extent, but seeing Cody doing FIP stuff against him looks SO FUCKING STUPID. This is yet another example of Cody/Dark Order stuff that fundamentally misunderstands/outright ignores wrestling hierarchy to an egregious degree. And then Cardona's hot tag is not remotely worth the wait. Sucks.

Sammy Guevara comes back out, for some fucking reason, with cue cards

I think it's a trope they've returned to less as their roster has grown, but I don't like the thing AEW does sometimes where somebody has a match or segment, and the assumption is that their contribution to this episode is finished, but then they come back out 15 minutes later to do something else.

Sammy Guevara is a generally bad wrestler who is not without his positive points. We saw some of those in the earlier brawl but this fucking dreck accentuates everything wrong with him. I assume the cue cards shtick came about because he sucks on the mic, which is true, but this is not a remotely good fix. He has a message for Orange Cassidy that plays during picture-in-picture, and my eyes kept being drawn to the adverts for solace.

Jericho/Orange debate, moderated by..... Eric Bischoff

I was not expecting fucking Bischoff to turn up in this project. He apparently has his 83 Weeks podcast, but presumably hasn't joined the anti-AEW grift train yet.

It's not the worst material ever, really. The kind of transitional stuff that Orange needed to get to where he is now. Putting across that Orange can talk, but only when he wants to. This does make the segment Jericho heavy, but there's much worse segments out there.

Reba vs. Big Swole

What??

Reba is apparently Britt Baker's lackey, and Britt surprised her by handpicking her to face Swole when she wasn't ready to do so. Looking at cagematch, I may have seen Reba in 2015 TNA, but since then she's forgotten what to do in a wrestling ring. This is a short and unremarkable thing. Inoffensive. Tony may have released Big Swole because her wrestling wasn't good enough, but from this small glimpse; at least it's better than her promo stuff.

PREACH!!!

AEW World Championship Jon Moxley (c) vs. Darby Allin

Certainly the most engaging thing on the show since Eddie Kingston turned up. Darby, who came to the rescue of Mox during a beatdown by Starks & Cage a few weeks ago, immediately showing disrespect by wearing the cut-out of Mox's face. Mox here and in a prior promo, faultless at conveying the fondness he has for Darby while not shying away from the fact he's gonna beat the fuck out of him.

I would put their 2024 contest marginally above this, where Moxley is full-blown heel, able to meaner, and most crucially of all; there's no MJF run-in. But this is still a magnificent match. Darby can have a lot of people's best ever match in his sleep seemingly, but this is just a case of incredible pro-wrestling chemistry. It's just fucked up that this is the BUILD to an MJF main event, but oh well.

episode verdict

Pretty unremarkable stuff until a main that makes it all worthwhile.

AEW Dynamite #48 (02/09/2020)

Right, let's skip over to the go-home show now. Weirdly, a lot of the most intriguing stuff between DoN and All Out came from that consecutive block in July, so I guess this is worth checking to fully let the PPV take shape.

Best Friends vs. Ortiz & Santana

The Young Bucks & Jurassic Express vs. Private Party & SCU

I don't think I ever explicitly thought this at the time, but I really just want Jungle Jack to get the fuck out of the way in this team. I think he's a very average wrestler, which is now close to being a complimentary statement given how he's viewed by many today. 'Saurus & Stunt would be such a better team, since they feel the need to have all these Stunt interferences anyway.

Chris Jericho (w/ Jake Hager) vs. Joey Janela

Serena Deeb vs. Thunder Rosa

Jon Moxley vs. Mark Sterling

episode verdict

AEW ALL OUT (05/09/2020)

THE BUY-IN:

Joey Janela (w/ Sonny Kiss) vs. Serpentico (w/ Luther)

Private Party vs. Alex Reynolds & John Silver

MAIN SHOW:

PPV time. This is a particularly interesting one because I know it was by far their most critically panned PPV up to that point, and seemingly their joint least beloved ever along with Worlds End 2023. A banter show, essentially. That is usually good news for me.

Tooth And Nail Match Dr. Britt Baker DMD (w/ Reba) vs. Big Swole

The Young Bucks vs. Jurassic Express (w/ Marko Stunt)

21 Man Casino Battle Royal

Broken Rules Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara

Although I rarely agree with the consensus there, it's a habit of mine that I'll usually have a gander at the average ratings for matches on cagematch before I'll watch them. It probably tampers expectations slightly and is a bad habit, but whatever. You can essentially null and void the rating with this one though, since I know that this is the match where Matt Hardy splats his head on concrete before stumbling about like a pisshead and the match not getting immediately called off for some reason. I am not the type of wrestling fan to watch something retrospectively, knowing exactly what occurs, and then get angry about it. There's too fucking much of that in wrestling criticism. I will instead reserve my anger for what deserves it the most - Sammy Guevara's face, and just analyse the rest of the match on its own merits.

AEW Women's World Championship Hikaru Shida (c) vs. Thunder Rosa

The Dark Order vs. Matt Cardona, Scorpio Sky & The Natural Nightmares

AEW World Tag Team Championships Adam Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs. FTR

Mimosa Mayhem Match Orange Cassidy vs. Chris Jericho

AEW World Championship Jon Moxley (c) vs. MJF

PPV verdict:

twisty matches (recommendable; caps = especially recommended):

Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy, 08/07

The Elite vs. Jurassic Express, 15/07

CODY VS. EDDIE KINGSTON, 22/07

The Young Bucks vs. The Butcher/The Blade, 22/07

Darby Allin/Jon Moxley vs. Brian Cage/Ricky Starks, 29/07

JON MOXLEY VS. DARBY ALLIN, 05/08

matches that can suk my nob:

Colt Cabana/Brodie Lee/Stu Grayson vs. SCU, 08/07

Cody vs. Sonny Kiss, 15/07

MJF vs. Griff Garrison, 22/07

Adam Page vs. Five, 22/07

Cody vs. Warhorse, 29/07

Diamante vs. Hikaru Shida, 29/07

Cody/Matt Cardona vs. Alex Reynolds/John Silver, 05/08

top ten wrestlers from what I watched:

Brian Cage

The Butcher & The Blade

Cody

Darby Allin

Eddie Kingston

Jon Moxley

Lance Archer

Marko Stunt

Orange Cassidy

The Young Bucks

Verdict on this project so far:

[stevishabitat]

***

People were definitely getting weird in the notes so I'm going to make my own post.

I vividly remember a period in 2007-2008 when I was deep into hand pies. Basically any type of food that involved savory fillings inside pastry. So like, calzones, pasties, samosas, pierogis, dumplings, gyoza, turnovers, forfar bridie, knishes, stromboli, strudels, arepas, pupusas, Jamaican patties, empanadas, even hot pockets & pizza rolls, lol.

I spent days researching the history of these things in different cultures. I wrote dozens of blog posts. I went to the library. I went to international grocery stores to get different types of pastries. I watched hours of videos online. I cooked. So much. I made the worst pastries known to mankind.

My spouse got tired of it. My family didn't want to hear about it anymore. My coworkers stopped asking about what I'd brought for lunch because I would give them the whole history of the thing I'd made. During work, I was drafting blog posts and writing research plans and ideas on post-it notes so I wouldn't forget before I got home.

It was.... One of the most bonkers hyper fixations I have ever experienced. And to this day, those brain connections are still there and I have randomly infodumped on people when the topic comes up even obliquely. My kiddo, born years later, knows about it. My family is like "don't get them started" if the subject comes up.

It was just as strong as many of my fandom interests.

One of the things I look forward to every year is a particular festival where there's a pasty truck so I can get my annual authentic Cornish pasty. I can tell you where in two Missouri cities to find Jamaican patties, pierogis and other hand pie variations. Whenever I travel, I keep my eyes open for the opportunity to try different kinds.

I don't consider it like an ongoing special interest, per se. But it does kind of lie dormant and then pop up and it's like getting to hang out with an old friend I haven't seen in awhile. Similar to my childhood horse interest, it can flare to life at times and be like visiting a beloved old home. Feels like a comforting blanket.

Do NT people misuse and misunderstand the terms hyperfixation and special interest? Oh absolutely.

But I wouldn't discount the squash interest just because it's... squash.

Just recently I did a deep dive on squashes/gourds/melons/cucumbers (Cucurbitaceae family) what they're called in different languages, how various cultures group them (fruits, vegetables, other?). Growing habits and agricultural history, which ones can be hybridized, nutritional values, etc.

It was a short little thing, but by the end of the car trip my family was pretty tired of the conversation. And I was buzzing, lol. During work that day, I definitely plotted out where I could grow various varieties in my garden and put some seeds on a wishlist. Made a spreadsheet. Got out my Sioux Chef cookbook to see what was on there about squash and Three Sisters planting. Y'all... I don't even like squash, and I have a mild allergy to melons! There is zero practical reason for me to care At All about growing squash.

I don't think NT people really understand that the topic isn't important and even the external signs that other people see isn't important. Those of us who experience hyperfixations and special interests know the internal signs and what it feels like to be In That Thing for however long it lasts. It's about what it does to our brain and body. It's a physical experience.

And you never know and can't predict what topic might trigger it. Dear lord I once gave an impassoned lecture to a guy who was helping a neighbor move about rain gardens and restorative agriculture/permaculture and native gardening. I was so glad the neighbor was moving out because I'd never have to see the guy again. He'd just happened to ask an innocent question in the midst of a hyperfixation and the infodump was.... extreme. I realized later that the guy had tried to extricate himself several times and I'd botched it badly.

Idk where I'm going with this other than to say have mercy on the ND folks in the world and our "weird" interests. We don't mean to be weird or bore you to death. But the brain buzz we get from things sometimes overrides everything we've ever learned about appropriate social behavior and conversation. And sometimes we're really tired because we stayed up all night feeding a hyperfixation and now we're cranky.

[pynkhues]

Questions for the Shipping Headcanons meme, please! (brio)

SFW 2, 4, 13

NSFW 3, 12, 13

2. Who’s the messiest? The cleanest?

They're both pretty clean really, but Rio's definitely in for a rude awakening when he discovers that living with five kids makes keeping the house tidy a lot harder than one, haha. He has to get used to the way Emma and Jane's (and y'know, Beth's) long hair ends up everywhere and the way Kenny will tidy up his hockey gear but not the slush he brings in with it, and Danny's always leaving markers out, and shit, it's even just general living stuff, right?

Because laundry and dinner dishes and whatever is a whole new ballgame when your household's gone from two to seven. Beth though, she takes it in her stride - after all, she's only technically adding a person ("Half a person," she allows with a wry grin, and at Rio's arched eyebrow, she pecks him on the lips. "You do more around the house than Dean ever did.") - but for Rio, it takes a bit of getting used to, haha.

4. Living space has a leak! Who fixes it?

I actually think they're both pretty handy, out of necessity more than anything else. Rio had to be the man Nick wouldn't be at home with Rosa, and Beth only ever had herself, and it means they both have a strong handle on how to do basic maintenance. The fact of this though makes them absolute stubborn nightmares, because you know they both think their way to do it is the better way, and they end up bickering so much the job takes twice as long.

13. Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up?

Neither of them are good sleepers.

It's the work, the stress, the kids, the lives they've lived, together and apart. The constant encroaching threat of the industry they've chosen to exist in, and they both try to help each other sleep, although they'd never actually say it. Try to drag the other back from the edge when they see them start to fray. When Beth starts late night baking as she works through a cashflow issue at the club in her head, or Rio when he spends too long in their home office, cleaning his gun or looking at spreadsheets that don't quite break even.

Try to pull each other to bed with sex or booze or both, or, later in their relationship, with neither. With instead the promise of a body against their back and the familiarity of the sheets they share. With the thought that this is what the stress is for. This business they've built together, yes, but more than that, this home.

3 Any kinks they clash on?

Okay, I actually do have a pretty specific headcanon on this, haha, and it's to do with exhibitionism. I think Beth would be really into the threat of getting caught, but hate the actuality of it (there's a reason she made sure to lock that bathroom door that first time, y'know?), whereas I think Rio would be a little more performative. I think he'd like people seeing because they're both hot and good at it, and he has a possessive streak a mile wide, but for every part of him that would keep going if they were caught is a part of Beth that would never let it happen. She'd pull the plug immediately, and while he might push sometimes, he always follows her lead.

12. How are their afterglows?

Answered here!

13. Who’s loud? Who’s quiet? Does one try to make the other louder/quieter? How?

I don't think either of them are especially loud or especially quiet, but I do think they love pulling sounds out of each other. There's something about the rawness of naked sound, of moans or pants or breaths that someone just gave you, indeliberate and earned, that gets them both off. As much as it drives them both mental, they love that the other has never given anything freely, and that includes everything that happens between them in their intimate moments. It keeps it fresh, keeps it special, keeps it there, bright and sparking, just between the two of them.

Ask me for my shipping headcanons!

[kelyon]

In your Golden Cuffs fic, Belle accepts Rumple's darkness and the things he has to do to keep them safe. I won't talk about TDM since it's still in progress, (tho Belle has accepted darkness there, too). What do you think of the canon Rumbelle, where Belle won't accept any of the darkness and only wants Rumple as good as a 'hero'?

Short answer: If I was satisfied with canon, I wouldn't be writing fanfic.

I'm gonna start the long answer with the disclaimer that there are long sections of OUAT that I still haven't seen, and I don't really want to. These gaps seem to coincide with periods of Rumbelle angst. I haven't watched the beginning of Season 4 or any of Season 6 (and yet for some reason I watched all of Season 5. Why?) So I never felt like the times when Rumple and Belle were being cruel to each other were "real."

However, I recall a meta from the now-deleted blog Screwball Ninja that explained the Season 4 situation as thus: Belle didn't want Rumple to murder people or lie to her. He did both. She got mad and told him to get out using the only power she had in that relationship (the dagger). Given those facts, I don't think Belle was unreasonable.

The morality of this show is nuts. The black-and-white morality we post modern views disdain is literally built into the magic system. Dark magic cannot be used for good. Light magic cannot be used for evil. If good people try to use dark magic for a good reason, they are corrupted (see DO Emma or Snow's "blackened" heart). But if good people do crimes for a good reason without using magic, that's fine. (This is why nobody cares about heroes killing henchmen.)

Over the years of this fandom, I've seen different interpretations of Belle's resistance to Dark Magic. For example, in A Bed Of Thorns, Belle had the idea that if all magic comes at a price, Rumple should use as little as possible for the sake of his own well being, regardless of morality. (God, I almost want to make a spreadsheet of all the variables and I just might do it sometime.)

For now, I'll stay within the boundaries of my own work. The end of Golden Cuffs cheats because Rumple is capable of having love and power at the same time. And Belle is okay with him having magic (even dark magic) because she trusts him. He doesn't lie to her and he doesn't murder people. That's all she wants.

Pretty fucking low bar if canon Season 4 Rumple can't even manage that.

[angelsswirl]

Petrichor

Nine

Notes: I highly recommend you listen to What If by SafetySuit either before reading or while reading because it fits this chapter so perfectly it took me half an hour to choose which lyrics to use.

"If it makes you sad at me, then it's all my fault and let me fix it please."

"You know your problems won't go away if you hide from them, right?" Lisa asked without looking up from her magazine.

"You know Tiger Beat is a child's magazine, right?" You asked without looking up from your spot on the floor.

Lisa closed the magazine loudly. She huffed and crossed her arms, "As soon as this baby gets out of me, I'm kicking your ass."

"Then who's going to feed Jennie while you're in the hospital recovering from your injuries?"

"I can feed myself, thank you very much."

"I'm not sure you know your left from your right sometimes."

"You're mean when you're scared and upset." Jennie's nose scrunched up. She is not afraid to admit her feelings were a bit hurt. She knew her left from her right, but she was definitely lying about being able to feed herself. She can't cook to save her life.

"I'm not scared or upset."

"You're a pathological liar, too."

"Ladies, ladies you're all pretty! Now, will you shut your traps. My blood pressure is spiking because all of your damn yapping."

"Sorry, mom." Everyone apologized. Even Kameron, who hadn't even been in the original conversation.

All five of you were packed into the medium sized hospital room, save for George whom had to return to work that day.

You sat the closest to your mother, Jennie and Lisa sharing the small cushioned bench built under the window. Kameron sat in an extra plastic chair directly under the suspended 19 inch television, his laptop on his lap currently being used to hack into the hospital's wifi.

"Y/N, apologize for calling Jennie stupid." Maria admonished as she fiddled with the television remote. The buttons were huge, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that the hospital seemed to have only two working channels. Fox News and...oh, the other one just lost signal. Just Fox News.

Maria opted for turning off the television.

"I rather not." You answered plainly. Your knees were tucked under your chin and you still stared at that spot on the linoleum floor.

Maria swatted your thigh.

"Y/N Ariel Y/LN."

You just grumbled.

"Your middle name is 'Ariel'? Like the mermaid?" Jennie started to laugh loudly. She immediately stopped upon the shoe hitting her square in the gut.

"No. Not like the mermaid, Knothead." You gestured for Jennie to give back your shoe. Jennie did so with a scowl.

"Why is she being so mean?" Lisa pouted.

Maria huffed, "Her heat's about to start. So, she's grumpy. Also, she got herself into a unforgiving situation and it's all starting to unravel in front of her." Maria looked as though she had even more explanation to give but thought better of it.

You eyed your mother suspiciously, "How'd you know all that?"

"Mother's intuition."

Lisa's eyes squinted in determination, "Time for 'Operation: Just Pick One! Damn!'."

Everyone nodded along in agreement except for you.

"I've got the Pros and Cons T-Table pulled up!" Kameron gestured to his laptop. Lisa gave him a thumbs up.

You stared at your omega brother, "What do you know about any of this?"

"Oh, Lali and I talk once a week about you because you don't tell us anything. We were going to stage an intervention within the coming week if all of this hadn't happened." He said as though it was obvious.

You just rolled your eyes. Your brother knowing your business was the least of your problems at this point.

"Okay, but if we're going to have this conversation, Jennie has to leave."

"What? Why?"

"Because you're an alpha and you wouldn't get it."

"Try me."

"...Fine."

Lisa clapped excitedly, "Yay! It's finally happening. Kam, make sure you share the spreadsheet with your mom and I." She pulled her MacBook air out of large handbag and then delicately placed Maria's laptop on her overbed table.

Kameron nodded just as excitedly. Maria also nodded appreciatively as the group got their data together.

You wondered when your life got this out of hand.

At least Jennie looked just as lost as you.

"Um, babe? Is all of this necessary? I think you're scaring-"

"Shhhhhh, honey," Lisa blindly pressed a few fingers against Jennie's lips, "I know exactly what I'm doing."

"...ok..." Jennie looked to you with a mildly frightened look on her face. She shook her head slowly as if to say 'I tried. I am so sorry for what you're about to go through."

"Okay. First question! Who have you thought of more recently?" Kameron asked as he typed furiously on his HP.

"I'm not sure what any of this is going to help."

"Answer the question!" Kameron urged.

"God! I'm thinking about them both constantly, but I guess, Rosé because I spoke to her last."

Kameron nodded resolutely and continued to type.

"Next question, if they were both drowning, and you could only save one, who would you save?" Lisa asked, her eyes narrowing intensely at her best friend.

"Jennie, do you feel like this is a trap? Because I feel like this is a trap!" You inquired. You scooted your chair further away from everybody.

Jennie slowly pulled her arm from behind her wife, she then scooted away from her and to the opposite end of the bench, "Yes. This feels exactly like a trap."

"Okay, you don't have to answer that one." Maria glared at Lisa who just shrugged.

"How about this one? Who do you miss the most?"

You threw your hands in the air in exasperation, "Lali asked me that months ago! Don't you think if it was that simple I wouldn't be in this situation right now?! I miss both of them because they won't fucking talk to me! And I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to talk to me either." You sat back into your chair with a watery sigh.

"Can I give it a try?" Jennie raised her hand sheepishly, "Without all the spreadsheets and interrogations." She directed the second part at three specific people.

The three specific people all reluctantly closed their laptops.

"Everyone else is, so why not?"

"Well, first. I think you need to lay off yourself a bit. Yeah, you put yourself and them into a sucky situation, so what? Get over that. There's no going back to change anything, so why wallow in it? Relax and forgive yourself." Jennie spoke softly, her forearms resting against her thighs as she leaned forward.

Your shoulders sagged just enough to let Jennie know she was getting through to you.

"I'm sure you know what traits you value in a partner, and I'm not going to ask you what those traits are because I'm sure Lisa would start to log your answers again. Besides, it's none of our business." Lisa glared at Jennie.

"You just have to apply those traits. Organize your morals which you have clearly been fast and loose with lately. Ask yourself questions like 'Are you really ready to be a family woman? A mother?' And 'Are you okay with your mate having her work really high on her priorities list?' Think about what you want. Think about what you need. Think about who would be the best alpha for you. And then when you have all those answers to all those questions and you're all thinked out. Stop thinking and just go talk to her." Jennie smiled softly as you nodded slowly.

Lisa stared at her wife, her mouth wide opened, "I have absolutely no idea why, but that was the sexiest thing you have ever done." Jennie blushed heavily.

"Yeah, Jen. When did you get to be so smart?" You teased.

"I have a B.S. in Biochemistry from NYU." Jennie deadpanned.

"Yeah but you're a lounge singer. It's not like you're doing anything with it."

"Alright, you got me there."

"Knock, knock. Hello, Mrs. Y/LN. Your discharge papers are ready." The doctor explained as she stood at the door, not wanting to intrude.

"Oh thank God! I was going to jump out the window if it had been another hour."

"Mom!"

"What? You would've too. Now shut up and help me into my clothes."

You did as told.

~•~

Once you were sure your mother was settled at her home with your father. You went back to yours.

You sat heavily on your couch.

Jennie said to think. So, that's what you were going to do.

In the back of your mind, you knew who it was supposed to be the minute Jennie finished talking.

Sometimes, you just need to be told to get over yourself and put things into perspective.

But you chugged on anyway.

If only to double, triple check.

Some thoughts involve Jennie's suggested quandaries and others you came up with all by yourself.

It's about 5 minutes in that you're already noticing a very clear pattern. The same name keeps coming up. Amid 'Yes' and 'Nos' and 'We're just going to have to work on thats'.

It hit you so harshly you're not even sure why this was a struggle to begin with. The revelation just about sucks all the nagging anxiety and subsequent energy out of your brain. This must have been the "thinked out" part Jennie was talking about.

That meant the next step was to stop thinking.

It's easier said than done, but you managed.

The last step.

Just go talk to her.

You nodded with finality.

You were going to do just that, but first you needed to fix something.

~•~

"I'm sorry." You said. You may be done feeling sorry for yourself, but that didn't mean you couldn't feel sorry for others.

"For what?"

"It-I can't keep doing this to you. It's not fair."

"I-I understand, I guess."

"I shouldn't have led you on. Made you think-"

"It's okay, Y/N. It really is. But I'm going to need some time before we can get back to normal if I can ever do that, with you again."

"I get it. I'll see you...later?"

You don't get an answer. Just a pained look and then a sort of wobbly shrug.

You have a feeling that's all you'll get from her for a while. And surprisingly, you're a little more okay with that then you thought you would be.

~•~

Notes: One more chapter left...