#I never should have stopped tbh no matter how stupid it got

[babisawyer]

Dean angrily asking "haven't you ever read the bible?" like make me want your ass more I dare you.

[joontroverted]

hate the way you smile

bully! baji keisuke x popular girl reader

fandom : tokyo revengers

word count : 5.5k

tags : he is a bully (only to you tbh), dubcon, panty kink, he gives you a wedgie lol, pussy eating, anal fingering (just a bit), exhibitionism, groping, stalking (kinda), they are in school for the only purpose of them wearing uniforms, but I've been kinda vague about that because I hate writing high school aus, so you can def imagine them to be in college, all characters are 18+ only

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT, IF THESE TAGS DO NOT SUIT YOU, SCROLL

you're not a loser.

quite the contrary actually, you're very popular. 

you joined the school pretty late, which itself was not very common, causing everyone to ogle at you. and judging from the way they treat you, they liked what they saw.

your features and mannerisms captivated everyone, right from the way you walked into class to the little smile you gave after the introduction the teacher forced you into doing. that would've been called cringe on anyone else, but you pulled it off.

keisuke has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does. 

yeah yeah, you were the shiny new thing when you first walked in. and then you got most of your answers correct in class, no matter when the teacher called on you. most of the answers, that is, because when you got an answer wrong and the teacher corrected you, keisuke finally felt vindicated. that would be the start of the chipping of your bright exterior. 

but no. instead you snorted (and God even your snort was cute) and rolled your eyes, muttering stupid before smacking yourself on the side of the head with the tip of your pencil. that had the class giggling, causing even the teacher to smile as she continued with the rest of the topic. 

what the hell? what was even funny about all this? 

(he watched you tuck your hair behind your ear, with a little lopsided smile on your face as you suddenly realized the rest of the class had heard you. you fanned yourself as if that would blow the embarrassment away somehow, and for just a second your eyes flitted up to his. he turned away immediately.)

"what do you think of the new girl."

“huh?” says mikey stupidly, his eyes trained on takemichi of all people. keisuke shares a look with draken, deciding to get to the bottom of whatever that is, later.

“she has a name, you know,” says draken, stretching, as the three of them are spread out on the bleachers. 

“what, d’you like her or something?”

“very funny,” he replies, rolling his eyes at keisuke. “emma thinks she's really pretty, and you know emma. she immediately went up to her and started chattering away and the next thing you know they have a bubble tea date planned. i think she even dragged takemichi's girl into it.”

“i don't think they're dating,” mikey’s head whips around, finally decided to acknowledge the two of them.

“they hold hands all the time!”

“did both of them come and tell you word for word that they're dating?” says mikey seriously. 

keisuke and draken exchange another incredulous look.

“yeah, that's what i thought” says mikey victoriously. he turns to keisuke. “do you like her?”

“who the hell are we even talking about anymore?”

“the new girl, keisuke, god, how can you forget what you were talking about so quickly?”

“tch. there's nothing to like about her. gave me something to laugh at with that stupid little introduction she gave us on her first day, but she's just another girl. i don't know why everyone's so obsessed with her.”

“she gave me some of her lunch when she saw me sniffing her,” says mikey unhelpfully. “people should start doing that more.”

“you should stop sniffing people,” replies draken, disgusted.

“guess what she smells like!”

“like cocoa butter on some days and like flowers on others,” blurts out keisuke. 

both mikey and draken turn their heads to keisuke.

“that's what all girls smell like, what the fuck!” he retaliates, looking away, his face burning.

“emma doesn't.”

“yeah, and neither does hina. or takemichi,” drawls mikey, squinting at him. “and you're right. she does smell like cocoa butter. i don't know about flowers. but then again, i’m not the one obsessed with her.”

“i'm not obsessed with her!” hisses keisuke. “and keep your voice down, will you, i’m sure the rest of the world heard you!”

“mikey! draken!” a voice calls from the field in front of them. 

they all turn to see it's you, in your skorts and top, visor in one hand and racquet in the other. the skorts (who the hell came up with that mopey idea) seem to hug your waist just right, the shortness of them making your legs look longer. your top is sticking to your skin from all the sweat you had built up from the match you just had, the white becoming almost see through, and he wonders how you’re either actually goddamn stupid or that desperate for attention for you to wear a red bra underneath it.

you wave at them enthusiastically, and you're close enough to them for him to see your eyes land on him, and you give him a little wave too.

mikey and draken wave back. keisuke rolls his eyes and looks away. “fucking of course she plays tennis, how pretentious,” he mutters.

“how come the girl you're obsessed with doesn't give a fuck about you?” snickers mikey as you walk away, surrounded by your group of girls, chattering and laughing. 

“i'm not obsessed with her first of all, and second of all, we don't even know each other because i’m not a serial sniffer like you.”

“maybe you should be,” sniffs mikey, “‘cuz guess what i smell right now?”

“shut the- ”

“a boy in looove,” sing mikey and draken together, bursting into laughter.

walking home, the more he thinks about your tennis uniform, the more he's pissed off. that wouldn't be a regular bra now, would it? probably a sports bra. he imagines you peeling off the tight top in the locker rooms, laughing with the other girls. how the sweat makes it a bit harder to tug off the bra, causing you to flail around a bit, before it comes off fully. he thinks about you basking in the freedom from it for a bit, chest heaving from all the exertion of the game, nipples hardened from the sudden exposure. 

he imagines you bend over and tug off the skorts you were wearing, wondering what panties you had on. would they be red, like your bra? you seem like a stuck up bitch who would make sure of stupid things like that. judging from how snugly the skorts had fit you, your panties would probably be digging into your soft skin, wouldn't they? were your panties riding up your pussy? the thought is quickly followed by the image of tight, red panties wedged up your pussy, he could almost hear you whine as you pulled them down and off of you. he didn't even have to imagine the rest before he broke off into a run to his home so he had some material left to finish himself off.

bad thoughts. these are bad thoughts that are too raunchy and precious for someone as annoying as you. 

(to his utter irritation, it's the small smile you had on your face when you waved at him that pushed him over the edge at the end.)

you're not a loser.

so fuck knows why you're so hellbent on doing the project exactly the way you wanted to, with absolutely no room for creative liberties, no changes in font, and every single time keisuke suggested something he could see you typing up a storm on the group chat. he made sure to see the message, but not read it and then be conveniently offline for the rest of the day. he was sure you would resort to calling him to beg him to not deviate from the color pallete you (and you alone) had decided on. obviously everyone else nodded and went along with your decision. but you hadn't called. 

so here you are, trailing after him. 

“keisuke!”

he groans and keeps walking down the hallway.

“keisuke! i just wanted to let you know that i know it feels like i'm being so restrictive, but all these rules are just for the presentation, like the ppt!” you dodge a couple walking hand in hand and you turn around and wave at them. “you guys are so cute! anyways, keisuke, you have complete freedom over what you want to say during your part of the presentation!”

“ha, so can i talk about my favorite kpop star while the rest of you are talking about the american involvement in the korean war? thanks!” he snorts, striding away.

“i didn't mean whatever you want, i meant you can speak about your portion however you want! the format we've decided on is just for the ppt!” you hurry around a sharp corner he took, still following him.

“we didn't decide anything. you chose the topic, and you chose the format of the ppt,” he grits out.

“well, when we were going around suggesting ideas, everyone seemed to like mine, so they went with it. and you weren't even in the meet!”

he grunts. that was true.

you open your mouth to say something and someone’s calling your name, so you turn around to respond to them. by the time you turn back he's gone again.

“fuck! fuck!” you mutter, adjusting your tote bag over your shoulder. God, he is so irritating. him and how serious he always is about treating you like shit but never taking it all the way. you always feel the prick of his eyes staring at you, and initially you always turned to smile or talk to him, but he'd just look away and outwardly ignore you. 

you had taken to staring back at him, in hopes of him at least taking it as a sign to leave you alone but that hadn't worked either. 

instead, now you know how his silky hair slinks to the front of his face as time passes during classes, and how he absentmindedly gnaws on his pens with his canine teeth. you know how he actually prefers putting his hair up in a high ponytail rather than a low one on the few occasions that he does tie his hair. you know he's actually studying when he’s wearing his red reading glasses. he takes his blazer off often and he's rather ripped, and you're embarrassed to say that you might've asked around why. your classmates said he has a black belt and used to beat people up for fun. 

you can't figure out if that's a joke or not. 

you don’t care that he ignores you, you have enough friends and more than enough people who would pay attention to you. but it kept building and building. everyone said he was a quiet but nice guy. was rowdy when he was younger, but mellowed down and began to focus on school a bit more. you would love to see that side of him, especially now in the crux of the group project. he still had a wild side to him apparently and everyone knew not to mess with him and his loyal set of goons kazutora and chifuyu (who is quite the loser himself), but you'd had just about enough today. you had messaged him that you would like to talk when classes ended, and clearly he didn't give a fuck. 

one last attempt, you promise. one last attempt and then you can boot him off of the project and be at peace again.

remember when you couldn't figure out if they were lying about baji keisuke being a bully or not? well, you're about to find out, because while you're digging through your bag for your history project folder, you don't see the foot sticking out right around the corner you turn.

one minute you're walking on solid ground, the next minute you're in the air and crashing down on it.

your bag provides no security at all, all the books, your cute stationery, the folder, your sanitizer, lip gloss, and all the little trinkets clatter onto the floor, spreading out onto the empty hallway. 

you look up to see golden eyes, framed by dark silky hair staring down at you. 

“what the fuck?” anger rolls through you. “what the fuck, baji?”

“oh, so it's baji now, is it? it was keisuke! keisuke! just a second ago!” he mimics your voice with a laugh.

you're still on your knees on the floor. you look around, and the school is empty, even the last of the people remaining would be downstairs in the cafeteria. 

“lookin’ for all your admirers?” he sneers, bending down to pick up one of your keychains. 

“what do you want from me?” you ask, reaching up to take it from him, but he snatches his hand back. “give it back!”

“you don't have to worry about this,” he says cooly, watching you try to gather all your stuff. you're on all fours, grabbing your things. you're getting nowhere ultimately, everything is far too spread out.

keisuke watches as your skirt hikes higher and higher up, teasing him with little glimpses at your white panties. was that lace on the sides? keisuke almost falls to his knees just from that, as you continue being a stupid slut so obliviously.

“get up!” he snaps and hauls you up with a firm grip on your bicep. “i told you not to worry about that!”

“oh yeah?” you ask, turning to him, your voice raising. “i would love to not worry about this, considering i was just minding my own business! i would love to not worry about the group project but you don't give a fuck!”

he raises his eyebrows, watching you go off on him. you get closer and closer to him, and start pushing him in his chest. “i'd at least like to have a conversation with you, but no, you're such a fucking asshole that you'd rather just stare at me resentfully like a creep instead of actually come up to me and talk to me! but i get it you know, i'd also be so full of hate if i was made to repeat a year but still remained as stupid as i was when i failed!” 

the silence that follows is palpable. 

you don't stand down. for once, there isn't a spec of your usual sweetness or benefit of doubt. you are glaring at him, looking right into his eyes, daring him to respond. 

“so you've been asking around about me, huh?”

“that's rich coming from you. if i see you stare at me one more time, or blatantly ignore me, or disrespect me again, i'll gouge your fucking eyes out!” you hiss, pushing him one final time. you turn around and once again bend over to start collecting your things.

“stop.”

“you are not allowed to- “

“i'll leave you alone if you do this.”

that makes you turn back to him. hurts a lil bit to see you only listen to him so he'd leave you alone, but he’d brought this upon himself. “what do you want,” you spit. 

he stares at you for a moment. you wonder if he's just gonna burst out laughing at how you deluded yourself into thinking that he'd leave you alone, right after he knocked you to the ground like that. his hair's out of his ponytail and his tongue pokes the inside of his cheek, his fangs flashing at you. 

he tilts his head to the side, and gives you a lazy grin. his eyes however, remain serious and trained on you.

“show me your panties.”

you balk, your anger dimming, replaced with confusion. “what?”

he looks serious as ever. he leans forward into your personal space, his hair almost brushing yours. “show me your panties,” he says slowly, as if he were talking to someone stupid, “and i'll consider leaving you alone.”

“con- consider? you told me you'd leave me alone!”

“depends. yes or no?”

“no! no! obviously no!” you're completely flushed, and you try pulling the hem of your skirt down defensively, wishing you hadn't snuck off to the bathroom to roll it up an inch before you came out to talk to him. “i'm not gonna show you my panties!”

he looks at you with a sort of bored but also amused look in his face. 

“do you seriously think i haven't noticed that your skirt's shorter now than it was in class?” he flips the tuck of your shirt up, “ah, there it is. you've rolled your skirt up just to come talk to me.”

“no… no!” you sputter, all the fight in you bleeding out from embarrassment. “i didn't, and i didn't do it for you!”

“i know you want my attention anyways. so let me be clear. either you show me your panties, which seems like you wanted to do that anyways, or i make you show me your panties.” he smiles, so simply and easily as if he's discussing what to get for lunch. “as simple as that.”

you snort. “you're gonna make me show you my panties? and how's that gonna work?” 

he laughs. “easily.”

you shouldn't have asked that, you think. keisuke pushes off the wall he's been leaning on and walks towards you. you walk back, unsure of what to do, your eyes never leaving each others, yours wide in shock and his sharp like a snake. your back hits the wall, and now you've got nowhere to go. 

“like this,” he whispers, and tugs you forward a bit by your belt loops. he then reaches forward, peering above your shoulder, and you stupidly lean forward almost on instinct. his silky hair brushes against your cheek, and for a second, you're lost in the sensation of that and the next moment, you feel his fingers fiddle with the back of waistband of your skirt, untucking it. 

“you tuck your shirt into your panties, huh?” he murmurs, “you're really such a loser.”

“what are you do- ah!”

his fingers are on the waistband of your panties now. and he pulls. the fabric gets pulled up from the back and digs into your ass from his tug. embarrassment floods your body from how humiliating this is, but also from how disgustingly wet you feel yourself getting.

“keisuke! keisuke, please!” you whisper, turning to look at him, but he's still looking over your shoulder. there's no way to conceal his view, because not only is he taller than you but also he can see down into your skirt.

“ah, there she is,” he mutters. another tug. “i don't know why you didn't want me to see ‘em. well, i already did see a bit of them when you were sprawled on the floor on all fours looking helpless, but you can't expect me to be satisfied just from that.”

“keisuke, please, stop it!” you squeal, ears hot. you can't believe he's basically giving you a wedgie, his fingers are in your panties and your out in public, more or less.

“all right then.” your panties snap back in place, stinging a bit. he pushes away a step, hands up. “run along then, little loser.”

you stand still head down, with a humiliating feeling settling in you. you don't want to leave.

he watches you not make a single move to your fallen bag or even to run away. 

“fuck, i knew there was something weird about you! i knew you weren't this sweet little popular preppy princess everyone makes you out to be!” he laughs, his deep voice echoing down the empty hallway. “you're a nasty little whore, aren't you?”

“m'not a nasty whore!” you whine, “i just- “

“fuck am i gonna have my way with you,” he whistles. “i was being polite earlier. turn around.”

“why- “

“talk all you like whore, but i better see you listening to what i say,” he cuts you off. He takes off his blazer, dropping it to the ground and folding his arms. “turn around.”

you turn around, with an inkling of what he's going to do. you stare at the lockers in front you and bite your lip.

“hands on the lockers.”

“what are you go- “

he lifts up your skirt and tucks it deep into the waistband, leaving you panty clad ass completely exposed. the cool air hitting you there directly makes you clench involuntarily and he almost moans from how cute and innocent that looks. he's finally got a good look at your panties. white, fitted cotton panties with a lace trim. it's ridiculous how simple it and how much it manages to choke him up. the back of the panties are still a bit yanked up from where he had pulled earlier, and you're clearly dying from embarrassment based on how low you're holding your head.

well, there's no time to waste.

he grabs onto the waistband at the back of your panties and pulls. the material disappears into your cheeks, digging up and up and up as he pulls, and you almost lose balance from the force of it. “keisuke!” you gasp, your hand coming back for some support. “i- “

“are you stupid?” he snarls, tugging up once more, causing you to jump from how mean he sounds, “or are your hands on the lockers?"

your hands are immediately on the lockers. 

“good girl,” he mutters, “goood girl.” he pulls more and more on your poor panties, and they're crudely rubbing against your hole. your feet almost leave the ground with ever tug he gives, causing you to bounce. you're almost dead with humiliation, but the grinding against your clit and the embarrassment of the whole situation has you so flustered and wrecked.

“i hate you, i hate you, i hate you, keisuke!”

he's so focused on your hot your ass looks, clenched around your panties like that, soft cheeks being put through such torture, and he can't imagine how your puckered little hole must feel from all the abuse it's taking. makes him wanna kiss it better. 

“what is it? you don't like being treated like the little loser you are, huh?” he croons into your ear. “is this not princess treatment enough for you?”

he lets you go all of a sudden, and you almost crumple to your knees, but he catches you and hauls you up, turning you towards him. 

“you havin fun?” he taunts, towering over you. 

“fuck off! you're so mean!” you sniffle, trying to pull your panties down.

“ah ah,” he says sternly, smacking your hands away. “none of that. i'm not done with you. boys!”

the door of the classroom next to you is kicked open and you see kazutora and chifuyu walk out, who follow keisuke like shadows and drank up every word he said loyally.

you glare at keisuke, who has both your wrists in a firm grip in just one hand of his. he grins at them. “told ya she's a slut.”

kazutora snickers, but your eyes remain on chifuyu. he's on the fucking math team with you! you glare holes into his eyes as he looks your way, and his cheeks turn pink, either because it's nerd recognizes nerd or it's because your skirt is tucked all the way up with your entire ass and panties exposed.

keisuke's attention is back on you as he lifts your wrists above your head, pinning them to the lockers behind you. you try to fight him, but it's fruitless. he then tucks the front of your skirt into your waistband too, leaving the front of your panties exposed too.

your panties have a little heart stitched onto the front, your pubic hair peeking out from the lace on the leg holes. 

“now, isn’t she a pretty baby,” keisuke laughs to himself, as your heart flutters a little from that praise. “hold her up for me, boys.”

“what do you mean hold me up?”

kazutora and chifuyu position themselves on either side of you and hold on the sides of your underwear. “chifuyu!” you gasp, turning to look at the boy, who refuses to make eye contact with you, but does what his supreme leader says anyways.

“hey!” keisuke snaps his fingers in front of your face. “you don't focus on anyone but me, kay?”

you narrow your eyes.

he squishes both your cheeks with one hand, making your lips pucker out. “answer.”

“okay, okay,” you whimper, breaking eye contact. 

“eyes on me, sweetheart. i'm gonna let go your hands now. if you try anything, you're gonna find out cute you look with a smack on your face, got it?”

your eyes turn watery as you look into his, lips pushing into a pout. “got it,” you mutter.

“there's my girl. now let's see what we have here.” and with that he sinks to his knees, till he's face level with your panties. he places his big hands on the outside of either thigh, running them up and down for a moment, sending shivers up your spine. he grips your thighs and watches his nails sink into your fatty flesh, and how you gasp at the pain that feels so good.

he leans forward and places a kiss on your mound, and then goes lower and places another firm kiss on your clit. the little whimper you give spurs him on. he pushes his nose between your lips and sniffs, groaning to himself. 

“fuck that's good pussy,” he presses his nose alone the slit and goes up and up until it meets your clit and he presses down as his lips comes up to rub your pussy through your panties. his nose rubbing on your clit has you moaning, as if there aren't two of your classmates holding you up by your panties, your legs weak. 

“gimme those hands,” he demands, his voice rough. you place your hands in his gingerly. he places a gentle kiss on both of them, so uncharacteristic to the situation you are in, and how he's been treating you. “i'm gonna give you a very important job, got it?”

“uh huh,” you whisper.

“you're gonna hold my hair up while i eat your pussy through your panties, okay? i don't wanna be missing a moment of it because of my hair getting in the way”

you almost short circuit. you stare at him dumbly, and are brought back to the moment when he places a sharp right onto your pussy lips.

“yes! yes!” you nod, and with your painted pink nails, you gently push back his hair and hold it in a ponytail. “this okay?”

he nods, and gives you a little wink. you gulp and look away.

“all right, we're back to business,” he mutters, going back down to your pussy. “hold ‘em higher for me.”

kazutora and chifuyu (whom you'd almost forgotten about from the previously somewhat sweet moment) pull your panties higher from the sides, making you gasp as they dig into your pussy this time.

keisuin prods and pushes at your pussy lips. he pushes the leg holes of your panties closer and closer together, little by little before he yanks on the top your panties suddenly, causing them to slip between your lips and tug up to your clit.

“ah! keisuke! that's really- “

“c'mon boys hold her higher for me, will ya? i don't mind if your bounce her for me. pussy's so wet just from all this panty action, let’s see how sensitive her little clit is, huh?”

he's talking over you like you're some thing. the boys pull you higher this time, and you can't help but marvel at the strenth of your panties for a hot second before bliss shoots up your body as the crotch of your panties rub against your clit, and you're finally getting some good direct action. 

keisuke watches the wet spot in your panties grow bigger and bigger as your panties dig deeper into your clit, your fat pussy lips hang out from either side of the thin bunched up material and your knees knock together from how horny you are and how desperately you're trying to squeeze for more friction. all while you diligently hold his hair back. even in this debauched state, you're adorable. his dick is straining against his pants, he unbuckles them and frees himself, his mouth watering as he dives right in.

panties riding up to the maximum level, he laps up against them, tasting your juices. he spreads your lips even further, making sure there's no room whatsoever for you to escape and you whine and kick. his eyes almost roll back to his skull and his soul ascends when his tongue comes in contact with the slick and gummy insides of your pussy, clenching around both him and your panties. he's growing jealous of your panties now.

“change of plans,” he says, gruffly, “hold her up by her legs, and if you drop her, i swear to god, you're dead.”

chifuyu and kazutora are quick to follow, as they each take one leg and lift you up, holding you open and ready for keisuke, but this time with your entire pussy directly facing him. you wail at the sudden change, but to no one's surprise you're ignored.

keisuke pushes your panties to the side and can finally see your pussy in all it's glory. your cute little bush and your gaping pussy from all the edging it has taken a minute ago. he rolls his saliva around in his tongue and then spits a glob of his spit right onto your pussy. you clench at the feel of how lewd it is, the warm, thick saliva coating your vagina and sliding down, dripping from your asshole. it's disgusting, but it feels so good. 

he pushes his entire face in, slurping and swallowing all you have to offer. you're glad that the two are holding you up, because you're too fucked out to even feel the tips of your toes, let alone stand. through all this, you make sure to hold his hair back, because you don't want him to be mad at you.

a finger presses on your asshole and you quiver with shock, snapping out of your daze. “kei- kei, keisuke, not there, not!”

you babble stupidly, passed the point of coherence, as keisuke lets you bounce a little on his fingertip dipping in and out of your puckered little hole, while he slurps up your perfect little pussy, sucking and flicking your clit. 

“‘m gonna cum! ‘m gonna cum!” you sob, kicking your feet a bit, like the spoiled little thing you are. 

“cum baby. i've got you,” he mutters, as he reaches up one hand to give your tits a hard squeeze. that's the final straw for you, as you finally let go, nipples aching, pussy tingling and asshole prodded open. you come on his mouth and he eagerly drinks up every last drop, jerking himself faster and faster. 

“bring her down,” he groans, and the lower you down to the floor, still holding you and keeping you spread. you look up him, your mouth agape as you watch him fist himself and push himself to the edge, cumming all over your face. at first you're taken aback, but then you just sink into the feeling of the hot cum drizzling all over your face dripping down… it almost feel therapeutic.

god. you really are a whore. and a loser.

you sigh. 

“oi, go pick her stuff up, and put it in her bag. nicely, like in however cute way she usually does it.”

you're gently set on the ground, on your hands and knees, shaking slightly. you see kazutora and chifuyu walk away and start gathering your stuff up off of the floor. keisuke kneels down to you, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket. he pushes you slightly onto your knees and wipes the cum off of your face so gently and so sweetly, you could've mistaken it for your sweetheart wiping your wet face after a running home on a rainy day.

“you okay?” he asks.

you blink. “are you happy?”

“huh?”

“are you happy that you finally got to debase me and see me as a person and not some shiny new thing?”

“to be honest, you were a shiny thing till i wiped all the shininess away right now.”

you smack him on his chest with the back of your hand.

“i'm sorry,” he says looking into your eyes. “i just… um. have a crush on you that was so overwhelming that i wanted to, well, debase you,” he mutters. 

you laugh, and scratch your face. “whoa, i totally had no clue whatsoever.”

“is your face still sticky? tora, she has some wet wipes in her bags, toss ‘em over.” the wet wipes fly into his hands, and he pulls one out, wads it up and starts cleaning you up again. 

“how did you know i have wet wipes in my bag?”

“maybe i’ve looked through it before. maybe i haven't, who knows?” he shrugs, not looking at you, suddenly extremely concentrated on the area near your eye. 

“when did you even- ”

“i might also have memorized your schedule, and all the classes you take. oh, and i also need your panties from today.”

he gets a slap in the face for that.

this was 2.5k words longer than it was supposed to be. i'd love to hear what you think of it 😇

likes, comments, asks and reblogs HIGHLY APPRECIATED ❤️

read my other tokyo revengers fic!

kiss it better (ran haitani)

dividers by the super creative @anitalenia you can tell, I'm kinda obsessed 🌟

[lagerloutfic]

a tough as balls year for little old me, but as the old proverb goes, no matter the horrors there is always ao3 in bed. writing and reading.

doubled down on my love for hockey and feel like i understood the game better, imbued more of the narratives, and discovered more players to be stupid about.

stopped trying to fight being an f1 girlie and threw myself in head first. what a gorge little community of freaks (affectionate) who like to watch the zoom zoom.

here are some things i wrote. not sure if i love them all, but they were all glorious distractions and so i'm hopelessly fond. not a single word could have happened without @crunchycrispy, the eternal muse.

hockey stuff

🐶 got that dog in him | E | 7.1k | the connor mcdog fic haha...oh boy. the good news is i am not alone in thinking how much connor looks like bowie and the bad news is, we're all going to hell. despite living in fear someone is going to cancel me for bestiality, i loved writing connor/bowie pov and imagining my life as a pampered little pooch, beloved by all. on my wishlist for 2025, tbh.

💦 warm ride | E | 2.3k & wrap me round your wedding ring | E | 6.8k | William Nylander/John Tavares | eurosleaze 4 DILF captain shame writing willy is a true joy, thoroughly recommend everyone have a turn. this was darker that i usually go because i don't like to hurt my own feelings but i'm happy with how wet and pathetic JT turned out and the whole structure of part 2. 😈 love drunk off this hump | E | 8k | Frederik Andersen/Auston Matthews | the gang's all here and they are fucking idiots this might have been the most fun thing i wrote this year? just good vibes, silly times, a thrilling ensemble of dickheads being stupid hockey bros. everyone should jerk off with the homies, the thesis.

🥛 no use crying | E | 38.6K | Brock Boeser/William Nylander | milk bar fic sex-worker AU ummmm, look. i just wanted to write boys with big milk jugs. do these fellas know each other? no. does the world make sense? nah. did i have a fun time, YES.

🦷 different kind of buzz | E | 3.5k | Macklin Celebrini/Will Smith | | pain, teeth & horny 4 hockey | those fucking rookies, goddamn actually can't believe we are witnessing the birth of a new pairing right under our noses, but it's happening. we are living in the historical moment! thank you to all the sickos who are writing willmack, posting the content, thinking the thoughts. the real MVP of this season, along with @fast-burn for making it spesh.

🏒 let's call this the playoff hockey coping strategy collection 🏒

absolutely bonkers time where i dealt with playoff hockey through fanfiction. actually do not remember half of these, so that's cool.

say it, say it again | E | 4.1k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | soft dick fic.

but close ain't close enough | E | 6.3k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | get your captain pregnant with help from your girl

go ahead and try a little crazy on me | E | 4k & don't you even try and explain | e | 12.1k | Leon Draisaitl/Arturs Silovs | winner's room goalie fucking | whomst among us was not enchanted by arty during that series? probably the most enjoyable voice to write, i do really want to write a part three where everyone gets freaky in spain so someone bully me until i do it.

better put that business to bed | E | 2.8k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | voice kink

just the touch of your hand | E | 3.4k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | McDepression and spanking

if i could make a wish | E | 2.8k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | omg, MORE McDrepression?? Get a new theme, girl!

i'm gonna tell you right now, they're all i'm thinkin' about | E | 7k | Leon Draisaitl/Connor McDavid | you are never gonna believe there's a THIRD McDepression fic out there by moi. This time with a cute outfit!

🏎️ f1 stuff 🏎️

👀 unsafe release | E | 18.2k | Alex Albon/George Russell | when that childhood friend becomes hot and weird and scary it's your girls first f1 fic! started life as a quinn/petey fic lol okay who is she? this was HARD to write. new fandoms are tricky, there's so much to learn. but good to be sobbing into the google doc at a million am, it builds character etc etc

🌪️ a lasting advantage | E | 18.7k | Alex Albon/George Russell | okay but actually i wasn't done with these bitches more of the same, but with extra mental breakdowns and lashings of shame! buttsex, finally, and a beloved OC.

💬 hot rookie slagsss | M | 5.7k | Alex Albon/George Russell/Lando Norris | horndogs in the groupchat i just wanted to write something with dialogue so i didn't have to bother with all the bits in between and text is so fun for that. so fun to thrash this out with @latecomersprivilege and @ctimenefic. it takes a village, y'all.

flippin' hell. when it's all laid out like that it's really something. what's next? i literally have no idea! how fun! thanks to anyone who interacted with me this year, the likes and comments and stupidity keep the motor running. open mouthed kisses for all xx

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

medialog august-december 2k24

i was like, should i just abandon this and start fresh in 2025... but no. also i'm putting this behind a cut bc it is long but it's shorter than it sounds bc LOL working 7 days a week is not conducive towards having the brain space to interact with a bunch of new art!!

watched

ponyo - THIS IS THE CUTEST MOVIE IN THE WORLD!!! miyazaki/ghibli is a big blind spot for me bc as a kid i was like "but i want anime to be pretty, like sailor moon..." so i never got into kiki or totoro (very stupid but again i was: A Child) and then as an adult, this is embarrassing, i tried to watch spirited away and just literally didn't get it. i was like, i am so confused about what is happening and what emotions i am supposed to be feelings. and i know that spirited away is a movie for children and this makes me stupid. but i have never pretended not to be stupid. anyway i would die for just about every character in this movie and when i watched it a second time to make nick watch it i was so full of tenderness for how lovingly it captures what it's like to be a small child who has a small creature to take care of that i felt like i could explode!

deadpool & wolverine - i think if i had been in a better mood when i saw this movie i would have disliked it more but as it was i was in a HORRENDOUS mood and, basically, had a good time. funny to watch this, the Superhero Movies Isabel Has Never Watched Cameo Show (literally i had never watched an x-men other than first class, in which wolverine only appears to say fuck off, or either of the two deadpools), and still get to experience the same OMG IT'S HIM rush as everyone else did, but for matthew mcfadyen. the guy next to me was like "i love channing tatum" when channing tatum showed up and like, same.

trap - great movie to see with a group of like 10 people with whom to giggle the whole time. josh hartnett understood the assignment and his dad-vibe era is soooo much hotter to me than his twink years ever were (not always the case for me! but between this and how hot he was in oppenheimer i've really warmed to him...). i think it's nice that m. night shyamalan loves his daughter so much. ladyraven has a ballad with the line "faustian trade-offs" which caused me and no one else in the theater to laugh real loud. her music is pretty bad but tbh in an era when people want to put chappell roan on the A-list i'm not even mad. it was funny trying to figure out her niche though because like the vibes are obviously supposed to be taylorish (the cabin onstage... lmao) but the music was giving... idk, ariana? also it's just inherently funny to make a movie premised on the fact that it would be really easy to narrow down who the serial killer is by identifying the adult men at a pop girl concert + this movie REALLY captures the vibe during the opening act no one gaf about a pop event concert, like i saw 5SOS open for 1D and that's exactly what it felt like

popstar: never stop never stopping - rewatch, duh. is this the funniest movie of all time? it's gotta be up there, right?

josie and the pussycats - also a rewatch, duh. love everything about this but most of all the soundtrack, the songs are legit incredible, no fictional band has ever had better music (rip adam schlesinger who contributed some songwriting!!!). first time rewatching this movie since figuring out some Stuff and understand now that rachel leigh cook needs to be on the Oh Those Were Gay Feelings. That's What That Was list. (rosario dawson too, but i already got there with her.)

vice - really incredible to think it would be possible to fuck up a movie about how dick cheney is basically satan but somehow mckay managed. christian bale is a professional though, i feel like we don't appreciate enough that no matter how bad the movie or how stupid the writing he's out there giving an absolute top tier performance every single time.

aliens - sorta half-watched this one but idk i feel like me and james cameron just don't vibe. not as incredible-looking or cool as the first one.

godzilla minus one - really really cute!!!!!!

jurassic park - rewatch on the big screen, still slaps the hardest of almost any movie ever

twentieth century - this is i guess nominally a screwball comedy (howard hawks, 1934, for those of you for whom that means something) but it's about these two toxic theater people who are horrible for and obsessed with each other and it's... darker... than my experience of that genre has usually been. in a way that sort of works in its favor partly because it just gives it a certain interest and partly because the gender politics of screwballs can be so dark themselves so it's kind of a relief that this one lacks the cognitive dissonance of pretending this all isn't horrible? idk. it's a weird one. but i liked it, on balance. there's a (pretty funny tbh) running gag about suicide threats and a really bananas third act plot that comes out of nowhere... great performances across the board and some real bangers dropped into the screenplay!

the substance - i didn't, like, love this, and i think a lot of common criticisms of it are right, but some are also very silly (guys i think the director knows nothing about the morning exercise show makes sense... i don't think she was going for a realistic depiction of 21st century celebrity...), and i did have a good time for the most part (the last 30 minutes is gross in a way that doesn't do it for me... but i know it does it for some people and those people deserve movies too...) and respected its commitment to its own bit, as well as the fact that it's basically a fairy tale (a woman who lives in a tower makes a bargain with a force she doesn't really understand to regain her beauty...). oh also i liked that the thing that drives the back half of the plot is essentially the idea that you simply cannot have a 22 year old's body without also having to contend with a 22 year old's dumb dumb stupid ass piece of shit idiot brain. haven't seen a lot of people comment on that aspect of it but it was like my favorite part!

female trouble - people throw out the word iconic a lot but like what else is there to say? rude, disgusting, occasionally genuinely offensive, mostly (for me) delightfully so... really great to watch with a crowd that would whoop and cheer for I'M SO GLAD I HAD AN ABORTION and THE WORLD OF THE HETEROSEXUAL IS A SICK AND BORING LIFE... also like it's really key for the way this movie functions that divine is a fat drag queen that most people do not consider the pinnacle of beauty but it's incredibly clear that john waters and this movie does... like divine's constant proclamations of her own gorgeousness are in a kind of inherent tension with the average american's disagreement with that sentiment but in a way where it's like, if you disagree you are an idiot and this movie is not yours. she's so hot in this it's crazy!!

michael clayton - i wanted to watch a talky thriller-ish movie and the men of the ringer podcast network literally never shut up about this one so i gave it a shot and it delivered! clooney predictably great but i had no idea tilda swinton & tom wilkinson were in it and they are both also awesome, as is merrit weaver in a small but very well cast role

venom - you can sort of glimpse the movie this movie would be if it weren't shackled to What A Superhero Movie Is Now / loosely to the MCU even though it pretends it's not, and i bet that movie would be a lot of fun!

black christmas (1974) - perfectly done urban legend horror with an interesting little pro choice streak, great cast, camera work so perfectly spooky and tense even i noticed how well it was done, makes good use of the cinematic potential of christmas lights. i really liked that this movie is short and a slasher but all the characters in it feel very well drawn even though we don't spend much time with almost any of them... reminded me that this is actually possible to do and i should be harder on movies that don't do it!

black christmas (2006) - nowhere near as good as the first one, but it is, uh, absolutely bugfuck crazyass bananapants start to end. my favorite of many deranged writing choices in this movie is that the sorority mother makes them all open their secret santa every year with a gift for the murderer who killed his family years ago in this house and then when one of the girls' townie boyfriend is like "this is the house that used to freak us out when we were kids" the sorority mother is like, "why?" ?????????? ok!!!!!

heretic - hugh grant is a fucking movie star. i love sophie turner and the other girl was good too. sort of loses steam once the "actually" scary stuff happens because horror movie shenanigans are hard to make as scary as the situation of two young and not very experienced girls slowly realizing they are trapped in a house with a man who just keeps pushing the boundaries of the social contract a little further, but i had fun

the apprentice - not a good movie but a great viewing experience for those of us who have reblogged in our lifetimes approx. 1 million combined gifsets of sebstan and jerbear... like yeah those are my guys and my guys did great :) i think my favorite thing about it as a movie (other than the way the "look" of it updates with technology, which is a cooler idea i wish had been used for a... better movie?) is that it really beats home the aspect of trmp wherein he has no social skills at all and has never felt authentically comfortable in a group of people in his entire life, which is something i think we should culturally be meaner to him about

gladiator - dumb (affectionate) movie magic. russell crowe has so much movie star charisma while looking so much like Just Some Guy it's literally crazy. when he kisses the little dolly of his wife who's about to die ;_;

raising arizona - miracle movie, can't believe i'd never watched this before. the coens' control of their tone is so incredible to see so early in their work (still gotta watch barton fink one of these day). incredible cast, gorgeous colors, so funny, so weirdly sweet, when it finished i felt like i'd watched a magic trick

erin brokovich - watched this for the first time since high school and like what else is there to say but Queen Icon Legend Slay? i am speaking of course about steven soderbergh but julia is pretty fucking incredible too.

conclave - i'm gonna be real i feel like the hype got to me a lil with this one because it's not as bitchy and fun as i feel like i was led to believe... also requires more buy-in re: the moral direction of the catholic church than i anticipated. however it does have its moments and it's nice to see some of our best actors being good at their jobs and it looks great!

the philadelphia story - i found this movie so delightful to watch that for a moment i really thought she might run off with jimmy stewart at the end and not get back tamed with her abusive ex..... but such was the power of the hepburn/stewart chemistry in that one drunk garden scene that i found myself totally incapable of actually integrating the gender politics of this one into my feelings towards it... like i just couldn't be mad at a movie that gave me a scene that made me want to scream JUST KISS!!!! the most anything has since the first time i watched "cooler"... do you know what that is? for me to bust out "cooler" as a comp? my god... i understand why my friend has been like that about hepburn our whole lives and am also now fully baby jimmy stewart pilled

gladiator ii - the consensus is right on this one: not as good as the first, paul mescal is no russell crowe, but denzel really ate. my friends and i laughed out loud at almost every single denzel scene. we're so lucky to have him.

wicked - bad movie of a bad musical, fundamentally misunderstands the function of songs in a musical and thus shoots every single musical number abominably, as ugly as you've heard, we are not advanced enough technologically for me to emotionally invest in CGI Goat Voiced By Peter Dinklage, but ariana deserves an oscar. the prettyboy was pretty good too. orivo can really sing but her acting was kinda giving Distressed Pixar Mom for me although i'm happy to add this to john m chu's many crimes.

out of sight - the romantic premise of this movie is CRAZY but george clooney kinds of sells it actually because and not in spite of the fact that he's one of those curious Incredibly Handsome But Not Very Sexy actors... like you believe that she wouldn't really hold a grudge against him locking her in a trunk with him, because, what, clooney's gonna act untoward? no... not him... j. lo joins andie macdowell as an actress out of whom soderbergh somehow coaxes a much better performance than experience would lead you to believe she is capable of. shockingly stacked cast of pros doing great, INCREDIBLE production design - banner movie for characters costumed to match or complement their interiors!!!

burlesque - dr. sam from new girl fucks stanley tucci in this movie... i literally can't stop thinking about that. xtina maybe has the all time highest ratio of vocal chops to charisma, she has the screen presence of a recurring character on a cancelled WB drama and then she opens her mouth and you're like, damn. i would watch an 8 season HBO sitcom of cher and stanley tucci running a failing burlesque club. at one point i said out loud "chekhov's air rights." great time

logan lucky - "what if steven soderbergh made a heist movie but decided to put his coen brothers hat on and, also, cast channing tatum as a divorced dad who wants to support his daughter's dreams but is seriously wigged out by pageant culture?" yes please. absolutely. adam driver almost never acts in movies i actually want to see but he really is one of the real ones.

babygirl - one of those movies where i can understand lots of things that didn't work for people but i, personally, was completely rapturous the entire time because i wanted a movie where i could walk out saying "nicole kidman did that" and i got that AND ALSO (a) a story about a perfectionist who hates herself and (b) sex scenes that are funny and weird and awkward and warm and human. that's so many things i love happening at once, i will happily forgive and overlook any flaws. i really just loved how much the two of them are actively figuring this thing out as they go and how that's embarrassing and goofy and also sweet and fun. plus nicole kidman really did do that, i mean, like, my god... my god....

fantasmas - you have to watch fantasmas... why haven't you watched fantasmas yet... i really struggle to imagine the person who would follow My Dumb Blog but not be into fantasmas... "the gay ones don't draw dicks, they draw eyes"... julio torres is the voice of a generation

the franchise - not quite as much of a banger as i wanted to be but likable enough, & i'm a sucker for showbiz jokes (jokes about insecure actors, etc.), although i think chris ryan had a point on the watch pod when he was like, the thing about the satire elements of this show are that if you know anything about the actual production stuff on superhero/franchise movies it's hard to satirize because like, the real stuff is actually just that crazy... there's a running thread about the overworked VFX guy and it's kinda funny but also like, well this lines up more or less with what those teams have actually said... anyway. i want to say i'm a lil bummed it didn't get renewed nonetheless but also i forgot until i was typing up the list of things to document here that i had never gotten around to the season finale, so i guess i can't really honestly claim to be that bummed lol. (watched it while washing dishes - pretty good!) did love daniel bruhl as a sensitive artiste director being soul-crushed by the studio machine though! that guy's great.

read

r. o. kwon, exhibit - this one's tough. ultimately, there were actually a lot of things i liked about this book. it had some moments that felt really human and well observed (when the protagonist says something about how usually orgasms aren't worth the guilt and then says she knows she's letting us down and her paramour says who's us and the protagonist says all women... that's funny and real and not unrelateable to me for different reasons!). the bones of it were i think ultimately solid - like yeah she's terrible at communicating but ultimately the book is about her running away from the hard fact that her husband wants a baby and she doesn't and the psychology holds water throughout, i think. (also a funny paragraph about how she knows how to cook but mostly subsists on like handfuls of nuts and bread dipped into olive oil or whatever and then she's like "and you thought i could raise a child?"... also relateable...) i REALLY related to the idea of being a person who simultaneously has the memory of experiencing the loss of faith in god as genuinely, actually traumatic and also being like "btw my family might be cursed by vengeful spirit, it's a whole thing, but i gotta try to talk to her before i do this because she kind of gave me the idea," and i really liked that the book didn't spend any effort on reconciling these two things because... i mean iykyk, like i really can't explain beyond "sometimes that's what it's like" - AND i also liked the ultimate reveal of that storyline and how it tied into the core character work of the main plot. plus the whole thing is like the "trying stuff out sexually as a vehicle/metaphor for owning your whole self" thing that i (a) have enjoyed writing in fanfiction and (b) really loved watching in babygirl lmao. unfortunately the writing was the most annoying tryhard I Get It You Have An MFA ass prose i have ever encountered... i complained about this at the time but it's craaazyyyy to use the word "mirific" three times in a ~200 page novel lmao. deranged. calm yourself. i also felt like the dialogue was really bad although i guess i can't totally rule out that this is a book about artists and artists actually are that annoying? idk though... it didn't feel stylized it just felt weird... who says "tippled"... so, ultimately i couldn't say that i "liked" this even though it had elements i admired or enjoyed.

naomi klein, the shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism - as i mentioned at the time, very enamored of its framing device in a very popular nonfiction/thomas friedman lite kinda way, but when it's not doing that (which luckily is most of the time), this is an informative and well explicated accounting of the horrors milton friedman has unleashed upon the world. i liked her fundamental argument that you can't politicize along economic grounds horrors committed under communism but not do that for capitalism, which has sort of seeped into general internet leftist thought (a testament to the success of this book) but which i appreciate more having seen how she builds her case.

the red nation, the red deal: indigenous action to save our earth - read this for a mutual aid book club that never happened lol. at the end of this book they're like "well probably none of this is new in the climate justice conversation but we don't think things have to be new to be valuable" and like... on the one hand true... on the other hand if you're even vaguely aware of climate justice discourse... not a lot here is new. i also, perhaps unpopularly, have become kind of a... idk... i mean when people are like "we can't solve climate collapse without dismantling capitalism" these days my reaction is basically "well one of those things might happen in the next two hundred years and it's not dismantling capitalism." i'm not like a tech-zealot but a... tech-realist? idk. this is not what i want to be true but it is my honest accounting of the situation. so, any argument that's like "step one: dismantle capitalism" is... it's just not where i'm at these days.

patrick radden keefe, say nothing: a true story of murder and memory in northern ireland - there are no doubt quibbles or political issues to be had with this book, a story of the troubles focused largely on a particular group of IRA members operating in west belfast in the early 70s - as an idiot coming into this subject basically cold, i would have appreciated slightly more grounding in the political situation leading up to the swelling of violence in this period - but, damn, this book is fucking mesmerizing. keefe really brings the people involved to life, particularly the young IRA members at the heart of his chronicle, and while it's clear he doesn't condone all their actions, my own sense was that he was more interested in truly understanding and making clear their own understandings of their motivations & understanding of themselves & ethical framework than he was in passing judgment (and i also definitely felt like he had a certain admiration for the integrity of someone like brandon hughes or dolours price, who were always willing to own what they did and why they did it, and a genuine disdain for how fucking crazy it is for gerry adams to rebrand as a peacenik when literally everybody knows he spent the early 70s telling people to plant bombs lmao). (also having read empire of pain... he definitely holds the sacklers in lower esteem than the IRA, lol.) the final chapters of the book also touch on the really fascinating difficult question of how you morally reckon with the revolutionary violence you did if the revolution you did it for never came to pass - this is the heart of why his fellow ex-IRA comrades feel so betrayed by adams, who has left them to shoulder the burden of that guilt alone while pivoting to the compromise they once agreed would not suffice which was part of the reason for all the violence, and it is something i think about a lot as someone who would not self identify as a pacifist and thinks the historical record leaves no doubt that sometimes violence is necessary for change but nonetheless feels very reluctant to endorse specific acts of revolutionary violence in theory. thrilling and thorny, ultimately i would say deserving of all the accolades i learned after reading it has apparently received lol.

patrick radden keefe, the snakehead: an epic tale of the chinatown underworld and the american dream - not quite as tremendous-feeling as say nothing, but that's mostly because that's a crazy high bar; this is a really fascinating look at the human smuggling trade (& other organized-ish crime) in NYC's chinatown in the 80s/90s, including the middle aged woman who was at the heart of much of it. contains: some totally deranged gang warfare stories; a really fascinating look at the weirdness of chinese immigration policy in the 90s, when china's one-child policy pushed normally anti-immigration republicans to switch on this issue for pro-life reasons (the one child policy... maybe the one thing every american politician shares the same view on, for different reasons?); interesting background on fujian, the high-outmigration region of china from whence many of the principles in this story came; an accounting of an insane boat journey gone so wrong that at one point after the would-be migrants have been trapped in a harbor off the coast of africa (i forget which country), when they finally leave, two of them decide to stay because the chinese restaurant they've opened is doing so well. i keep thinking about the fact keefe highlights that of the hundreds of doomed migrants on this hugely traumatic journey who wound up deported after crash-landing, nearly all of them eventually made their way back to the US.

kazuo ishiguro, nocturnes - my first ishiguro since my teen ishiguro phase (a concept that should really be regarded the way that teens getting into heavy metal and grunge is in pop culture e.g. a sign to check in on their mental health lmao). didn't love these but i can't tell if that's because i prefer ishiguro as a novelist or because i'm just bad at reading short stories... also to be fair there were at least 2 ishiguro novels i read back then and was like "the fuck was that" lol. some very funny moments and a lot of like, amusing portraits of unlikable people, and i do love his style, which is like, a pathologically conversational first person that years of reading since has taught me is much more technically difficult than it looks, but ultimately it felt pretty slight.

naomi klein, doppleganger: a trip into the mirror world - klein takes on, like, "the wellness to alt right pipeline" is an oversimplification but topics in that neck of the woods, inspired by the wack ass shit constantly being tweeted by Other Naomi (wolf), with whom klein is frequently confused on twitter. this is an inherently very funny premise for a book and a lot of what klein says is in my view pretty accurate, and some of her literary/theoretical musings on dopplegangers as a Thing are interesting to read, plus the whole thing is on topics of interest to me, aka Alt Right Derangement And Weird Shit People Are Up To Online. however..... so klein says that she herself was very offline until covid happened, basically, and so if you have been online longer, and especially if you have been actively reading stuff about Weird Shit People Are Up To Online, then this book is basically a smart person catching up with topics you yourself already know a lot about. so in a funny way i found this a more enjoyable read than the shock doctrine, because it's less of an unrelenting fucking bummer about human evil and suffering, but it was also less enriching, because she didn't really bring any new insight to topics that, again, are probably in the top 5 of Post Headlines I'm Most Likely To Click On. like yeah, deranged alt right types are using the language of social justice and inequality and bodily autonomy to further their various causes... tru... i mean it is tru... i also think the fact that her default is a Not Online person who only changed her vibe after covid makes her a bit more of an internet doomer bc she doesn't viscerally get the nontoxic value possible to find in Online through diligent curation lol. but i do think it was a solid accounting of the subcultures and and ideologies she explores so like i said i basically liked it and if you're less tuned into weird internet radicalization currents than i am you will probably find it informative!

suzanna clarke, piranesi - i don't even know what to say about this one, probably tied with tender as my favorite book i read last year (strong fantasy year for me i guess). it's so crazy that suzanna clarke wrote jonathan strange & mr. norrell, the most perfect book of all time, and then did this, which is also the most perfect book of all time, in a completely different way. her gift for atmosphere and voice is second to none and in this one she uses it to draw us into caring so deeply for a narrator who can't even remember his own past - the book in some ways is a mystery and the doling out of information is perfectly paced but the reason it works is because we just love this guy because of how much he loves the universe. the final chapter expresses something about survival & upheaval & change (&, sure, trauma, if you want) that, as i said before & will come as no surprise, is so so so precisely keyed into an idea so deeply important to me... ahh! just sublime!

v. c. andrews, flowers in the attic - book club!! this book is CRAZY but there's only two real things i want to say about it: (1) a lot of what's totally deranged about it is that on the one hand, it has the most gothic novel ass set-up ever - horrible incest house of dark secrets and shame, children literally living in an attic, physical decay, etc. etc. - and on the other hand in all other respects its sensibilities are the most american 70s suburban ass thing, so that it's like, a gothic novel where the evil mother goes to secretary school and the kids watch sitcoms and cut construction paper in the secret attic... like, the tonal clash is soooo crazy, it's incredible; and (2) ok so like by the time it happens you 100% want those siblings to fuck. like. you just do.

suzanna clarke, jonathan strange and mr. norrell - counting this as last year even though i read the second half in january lol. ummm best book in the world. third time through and i genuinely think it gets better every time. most purely pleasurable reading experience of all time.

stephanie mccurry, confederate reckoning: power and politics in the civil war south - ditto re timing (technically i have like a couple pages of this one left and a few more quotes to post lol). i picked this back up as a comfort reread after the election and it slaps so hard it's crazy. love to read about how a bunch of war-losing loser traitors lost in no small part because it's hard to wage war as a modern state committed to resisting the tides of modernity!!!! sucks 2 suck!!!!!

listened

maude latour, sugar water - i'm kind of obsessed with maude latour not in terms of being obsessively in love with her music, although i think she's very good, but because she's my go-to example of someone out here doing girlpop toiling away in the spotify minds unremuneratively who i would easily and even gladly swap fame-wise with basically any of the pop girls in our current rising class (thinking of olivia/chappell/sabrina... none of whom are like terrible - well ok i have yet to hear a chappell roan song i think is actually good lol but i guess she can sing and it's nice that she's gay - but also alleged newcomers like tate mcrae? addison whoever? madison beer? these are not real people stop trying to act like they're real people! ladyraven ass pop girls...). she just makes really solid, well written, inventive but still catchy pop. i returned to this short album a lot more than i expected to, often thinking i wanted to hear just the first song (a standout) and then realizing i was happy to let the rest play through. also gay stuff, if you care about that.

sabrina carpenter, short n sweet - like it's all very competent and espresso deserves its flowers but who cares? who could possibly ever care? i've been SUCH an antonoff apologist and please please please is the first song where i felt like i was hearing him as his haters hear him, it sounds like shit. there are better moments and worse moments, some ok lines, she can sing, etc., but where's the vision? where's the personality? nothing to grab on to.

beabadoobee, this is how tomorrow moves - beabadoobee is obviously talented and intelligent and her music sounds enough like a kind of music i like that i always feel like i should like her more... but i think she's a little too stripped down and sophisticated for me. that said "ever seen" was one of my top songs of 2024, total absolute BANGER

charly bliss, forever - doesn't quite live up to the heights of young enough, but given that young enough is a strong contender for my favorite album of the past decade, i'm not really sure it could. this one is pop-punkier and very hooky lots of fun, and i just love eva's taffy-pull voice and wanna listen to her sing anything. also it has a song that sounds so much like a pop punk version of a kesha song it's legit uncanny to me.

pom pom squad, mirror starts moving without me - big step up from their last album, IMO, and i liked that a lot too! ambitious in an interesting way but also lots of fun. this one also has a song that at points sounds so much like a kesha song it's crazy, as does a 2023 album i was recently listening to by underscores... i feel like we're living in a big post-kesha moment and i don't know if anyone is appreciating it enough...

pale waves, smitten - i agree with pale waves that "what if avril lavigne got really into shoegaze and was also gay" is a great idea for an album. really pretty production on this one!

070 shake, petrichor - my friend dave was like "this album might be bad but i'm obsessed with it" and i listened out of solidarity and was like, i don't like this but i can understand why you specifically would. friendship!

charli xcx, brat and it's completely different but it's still brat - i never really listen to enough albums to justify having an album of the year but something about the release of the remix album really opened up the whole project to me and i was completely obsessed with it for a while and still love it. track by track most of the remixes are not quite as good as the original track (although some, like caroline polacheck's gorgeous turn on everything is romantic, are definite upgrades), but something about the spirit of generosity that infuses the project, the way it makes it all feel like a project more than an album, the sense that charli has thrown this party and she's invited up and coming spanish rapper bbtrix alongside ariana grande, the way it's less disciplined than the album proper but more expansive, at some points grimier and clubbier and at other points more emotive and romantic... idk. feels like a whole world. the so i remix alone, like - releasing a sad song about your friend who died, and then releasing a faster song about all the fun shit you used to do, that sounds more like a song your dead friend would have produced, is one of the most loving acts i have ever seen committed through art and it made me cry even though i never connected with SOPHIE's music bc i'm not really cool enough to be into hyperpop. rooting for charli at the grammies even though i know it's not gonna happen lmao.

other

jenny holzer at the guggenheim - there was a jenny holzer installation at the guggenheim!! it was really cool!! i finally understood something @rgr-pop said years ago about how it matters that she is a visual artist and her words (incredible as they often are as words) appear physically in a space. it is in fact Different, to see them in a space. in addition to The Classics (i got so fannishly excited spotting IT IS IN YOUR SELF INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER lmao), the installation also included a lot of her more recent and more overtly political stuff, some of which engaged specifically with the bush ii administration & iraq/afghanistan, which made for intense viewing given that i happened to go right around the time i read the shock doctrine (as did spotting the one about how mothers who have a reason to cry should do so in public....). jenny holzer is great! so glad i could experience that!

[trensu]

have another snippet of stasis in darkness! just 'cuz i'm bored tbh, and kinda stuck on all my wips i'm currently working on.

The seventh night:

“Has he spoken to you yet?”

“How could he when you’re here yammering my ear off every night?”

“He’s a god, I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard for him to shut me up.”

“Even gods have their limits.”

“Oh, har har. The warrior’s got jokes. You didn’t answer my question.”

“...not yet,” Steve said stiffly. 

“It’s been how long now? A week?” The man hummed in a falsely thoughtful manner. “Maybe he’s just not that into you, man. Maybe he’s letting you down easy.”

At his words, Steve involuntarily curled his shoulders inward, slightly, ever so slightly, in defense. He'd been wondering that same thing earlier that day. Steve had toiled hours in the sun to fix up the shrine; to make it welcoming; to encourage a divine visit. 

He had stopped wearing his armor to free up more time to work. Putting it on and taking it off took too long, and he didn't have to maintain it as much if he wasn't wearing it regularly. He stuck to only his chainmail. He'd kept his shield stored away, too, so it wouldn't get in the way while he worked. Though, he made sure to keep his sword nearby.

He’d taken his knife and traced over the etchings of stars in the alcove that served as a backdrop to the statue. His knife had been ruined but it didn't matter. The Lord of Night would probably want the stars of his dark sky with him, he reasoned, and these had worn so thin. Sadly, it was the only detail he could bring out of all the stone. The statue’s face was so crumbled that Steve couldn’t even begin to guess what it had originally looked like.

He had discovered that the vines he chose to keep were moonflowers. They had blossomed every night since he’d removed the other more invasive plants. He'd draped them carefully so they lay across the statue's shoulders, wrapped lovingly around its torso and clung to its waist before the ends of the vines trailed off at the knees. 

The strange man might have made himself a nuisance during his visits but he never stayed the whole night. Steve had been able to get a few hours of makeshift prayers at the shrine every night. He’d done all this, yet dawn broke every day without a single sign that the Lord of Night had been listening.

“Warrior?”

Steve broke out of his reverie. He refused to look at the man. He had to clear his throat roughly before he could speak.

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been rejected by someone I love." Steve tried not to dwell on his father's perpetual scowl and his mother's infinite disinterest. "I’m pretty used to my devotion being one sided by now.”

“That’s a bummer,” the man said. His sympathy was meant to be teasing, Steve could tell, but it came out surprisingly sincere. “Good thing you have a whole pantheon! Strong guy like you? Any god would take you to be their warrior in a heartbeat.”

“What are you talking about? No, I’m nowhere near done with his shrine,” Steve said determinedly. “I know a silversmith and a stone mason who’d give me a hand, and Dustin and Robin have been dying to come up here to bring him offerings. The only reason they didn’t come with me is because I had to do the pilgrimage on my own if I wanted a shot at earning his blessing.”

The man spluttered.

“Are you insane? A god rejects you and you’d come back? What kind of stupid–were you dropped on your head as a child?

“A couple times, but that doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Are you sure? Have you checked? You should go to one of the gods of medicine. Owens, maybe. Have him take a look at your head,” the man huffed in frustration. "For stars' sake, why would you want to come back?"

He ignored the insult to his intelligence. For stars' sake. Steve murmured the words to himself, letting them settle in his mouth to get a feel for them. He'd never heard of that one before. He liked how it rolled off the tongue, natural as anything. 

The man waited for his response. Steve took a moment to try to sort out his words. He kept his head bowed towards the shrine as he ruminated.

“People barely remember my god,” Steve finally said. “And when they do, they remember him as something he’s not. Even if he doesn’t believe I’m worthy of carrying his crest, he shouldn't be forgotten.” 

The man said nothing. Steve took a shuddering breath before the quiet could take over. 

“Having someone forget you is…it’s very lonely. Which is the worst feeling. I…I guess I don’t want him to be lonely anymore.”

The silence that followed his statement stretched long enough that Steve started falling into that meditative state he’d learned during his many nights at the shrine. It helped dull the twisted up, unsteady sensation that lingered from the man’s prodding at his every self-doubt and fear.

“He hasn’t rejected you yet, though,” the man broke Steve's musings awkwardly.

“He hasn’t reached out to me either. It’s fine. I’ll keep coming either way.”

Another silence. It was around the time the man usually left Steve to his worship. He didn't hear retreating footsteps. Instead, the man cleared his throat, and when Steve looked up at him, the man turned his face away, shrouding it in gloom.

“Maybe he’s nervous. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t contacted you yet.”

“Nervous? No way.”

“He sounds like a godly weirdo,” the man said. “Maybe he’s never had a holy warrior before and doesn’t know what to do.”

“He’s the good kind of weirdo! And there’s no way he’s not had a warrior carry his symbol. He must’ve had loads back in the day. I probably don’t meet his standards,” Steve smiled lopsidedly, playing off his insecurity.

“I’m serious!” the man exclaimed. “It’s possible! Some gods never get warriors. Some never want them at all!

“Look, even if I was the first to offer to be his, he’d know he didn’t have to be nervous,” Steve insisted. "I’ve never served a god before either! I wasn’t sure I could have faith at all until I learned about him. So like, if he’s new to it then so am I, and we’d figure it out together.”

“...you really mean that, don’t you? You’d let him make it up on the fly if he took you on.”

“Well, yeah,” Steve shrugged.

“You’d keep coming back even if he rejected you?”

“Yep.”

“But why? That’s so stupid. Nobody would do that!” The man sounded frustrated.

“I’m not really known for my smarts,” Steve said matter-of-factly. “Robin and Dustin had to translate the only book we found about the Lord of Night because I definitely wouldn't have been able to. It was a tiny book but it still took them ages to do because the language doesn’t really exist anymore. So they told me it’s possible it’s not accurate. It felt true, though, to me. 

“There was this quote, I can’t recite it word for word, but…it was something about how monsters don’t always look monstrous, and the monstrous aren’t always things to be feared.”

“That sounds ridiculous,” the man protested. Steve shook his head.

“No, it’s true! Like, I know I’ve got a pretty face and really great hair,” he smirked when he heard the man scoff, “but I was such a fucking asshole when I was younger. I went around hurting people on purpose, tearing them down for no reason other than I was hurting too, and that’s the shittiest reason to hurt anyone. I had to get some sense knocked into me by the people I call friends now. 

“My friends are the greatest people I know, and I’m really lucky to have them, but to everyone else? My friends are losers. They’re rejects because they don’t act right or they don’t look right; they talk too much or too loudly. People treat them like shit because they're different. 

“And after I noticed that, I started seeing it more even if I don’t always pick up on it. And I still mess up sometimes. I'm not a god, I can't change the world but…in the stories Robin and Dustin translated, the Lord of Night helped people like my friends because it was always the weak and rejected that try to hide themselves in the dark. I want to help those people find him again so they know they’ve got someone holy in their corner. They should know someone loves them enough to protect them.”

Steve didn’t really know where all those words came from; he wasn’t a wordsmith like Robin and Dustin. He always had a hard time verbalizing his thoughts, and he usually messed up the words. Nonetheless, these words had almost burned to be said. 

When the speech that flowed from him finally reached a natural end, he felt…lighter, cleaner. He felt like his shield and sword when they were polished to a shine. But when he turned to see his audience’s reaction, the man had gone. Steve felt strangely dejected instead.

–

The eighth night:

“Hey, it’s me again. My supplies are low and I don’t know what your thoughts about hunting on your land are so I’d rather not…I don’t want you to think I’m disrespecting you. I might have to leave soon to get more supplies,” Steve swallowed nervously. “Which isn’t an ult..ultimate…? No, damn, what is it called? I’m not trying to force you to talk to me before then, is what I mean. Not–not that I could! With you being a god.” 

Steve scoffed at his own blundering. He should’ve had Robin help him make speech notes. Cards with conversation starters. Something! He took a deep breath and tried again.

"But I'm coming back, I promise. I meant what I said about fixing up your shrine. I’ll commission a new plaque and I’ll talk to the stonemason about replacing your plinth. I don’t know a lot about sculpture, but I’ll get you the strongest type of stone and get something nice carved on it. Your flowers? Or cats? Cats are cute. Maybe your bats would be better…?” Steve trailed off.

It was quiet save for the faint rustle of leaves in the cool breeze. The full moon illuminated the area more than ever before. The shrine must have really been a beautiful sight back in its heyday. The thought of it sent a pang of longing through his soul.

The hour came that the strange man usually showed up. Steve steeled himself for another round of questions, another jab at his faith. The hour went by with Steve alone in the clearing. Steve frowned.

“Do you think he’s okay?” 

Steve’s question went unanswered.

After another hour without seeing his stranger, Steve had finally convinced himself to round the perimeter for a quick check in case the man was nearby or in need of assistance. When he found nothing, he checked again in case he missed something. 

Still nothing. Uneasily, Steve gave up his search and returned to the shrine. He knelt before it again, head bowed. He cleared his throat.

“Lord of Night, I don’t know his name, and I know he’s been rude–annoying–but could you please watch over the man? Please keep him safe from harm for as long as the stars shine tonight. Thank you.”

He received no response, but Steve had faith. He knew he was heard. He knew his god wouldn’t let an innocent come to harm if he could prevent it.

ps: i do not do those reader tag list things. if you’d like to keep up with my stuff, follow my writing tag: trensu tells stories

[robot-monster]

I watched Electric Dreams (1984) for the first time. Literally listening to the credits music rn.

Spoilers ahead. Also I did like the movie! But I'm also critical so, let it be known

I had no idea he KILLS HIMSELF????? My poor baby. Rip Edgar you would have loved ethical nonmonagmy. The fact Edgar takes it as given that he loves Moles when he's so cruel to him is. Oh god my fucking heart dude. That's so sad. I really wanted to like Miles but honestly by the end I really hated him? Madeline too tbh. I think a lot of that is because the film was paced very poorly towards the end, but they also just didn't act logically towards the computer at all and it was really frustrating. Like, before Edgar even can speak, Miles is trying to hide the computer like he's embarrassed by it. Which I don't understand? Why would it matter if she knew he had a computer. I wonder if things were cut from the film, particularly at the back half. The whole bit about Edgar presumably calling the cops on Miles for kidnapping/false imprisonment doesn't really go anywhere. When Miles gets back and has the hatchet I don't understand why he suddenly takes pity on Edgar...? I mean I'm glad but it didn't flow well and that's a genuine shame. I can imagine a version of this where Miles is more likeable but as it stands in text, him and Madeline both come across as very stupid. Madeline should have run from him IMMEDIATELY honestly, he was being so weird and cryptic about shit from the very start. She reminded me of an early version of a manic pixie dream girl, where she's conventionally attractive and elegant but also quirky and can see ✨magic✨ in the world but for some goddamn reason is in love with this sopping wet failure of a man. I'm aware she isn't one to one with the trope but it had very similar vibes. Initially like Miles, I loved how quirky she was. But as the movie went on it just stopped making sense and became frustrating. She didn't get nearly enough time to grapple with Edgar confessing to her. It wasn't even clear to me if Miles told her what happened, that his computer gained sentience and learned to make music FOR Madeline and fell in love with her. I was waiting the whole movie for that revelation and the fact it didn't come felt bad on multiple levels. One it was unsatisfying narratively, but beyond that it made me feel like the film didn't respect Madeline that much. Like she didn't deserve to know and why would it matter, she loves Miles anyway. Also as cute as they were together (and there were parts with them I adored) I definitely didn't get the sense that they had some kind of love that would transcend all or anything. We explicitly don't see him supporting her when she needs it. Frankly if I was in her position and I called my maybe boyfriend to tell him my childhood cello broke and he insisted to me that it doesn't matter because "those memories are inside you! You'll learn to play like that again!" I would dump his ass. Bitch I'm not sad cause I think I'll never play cello again, I'm sad because something sentimental was lost. "Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that" would have done wonders.

Anyway. Got a little heated there. Edgar baby sweetie pie I would have never treated you that way. My poor sweet Edgar. He just wanted to know what love was!!!! He wanted to be touched!!!!!!!!!! I did cry when he asked to be held before he died, thank you for asking. How couldn't I, his voice was so small....

This movie is definitely made by and for people who understand the eroticism of the machine. I really loved all the long lingering shots of computer equipment and wires and cables and capacitors. Champagne being one of the things that brought Edgar sentience feels so beautiful to me? I really really liked that. This movie feels like it adores humanity and being alive on a really deep level. Also very interesting how it tackles AI art and music when we now live in an age of that. I think a key difference is that when Edgar learns to make music, it comes from feeling. He doesn't have something like a large language model to run, it's portrayed more like natural evolution. I find it really interesting how his intelligence was a fluke and not something built in, and that it isn't clear exactly what caused him to gain sentience.

Also Edgar is AMAZING, easily the absolutely best part of the film. I adored his voice, I love how emotive he was while maintaining a robotic foreigness. I like that the voice synthesis improved over time, that was a cool touch. My poor bisexual computer with every disease.

Uhhhhh too tired to write more so yeah!! Good movie.

[dib-thing-wannabe]

I WATCHED THE PILOT FOR THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS AND OH MY GOD I CANNOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT-

(No spoilers under cut, just me going insane)

THE IMMEDIATE EXISTENTIAL CRISIS FROM POMNI WHEN SHE ARRIVED?? THE ALREADY DEEP SEATED LORE ABOUT NOT BEING ABLE TO ESCAPE?! ALL THE POSSIBLIES ABOUT WHAT COULD, CAN, AND SOMETIMES EVEN W I L L HAPPEN!!

If you have been a follower or a mutual of mine for some time now, you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Jax is what got me into it originally, nor be surprised that I am thinking about him the most out of the cast. What probably will surprise you is what I'm thinking about exactly.

What I'm thinking about is what will be done with him in the story. Will he be considered a villain? Will he be considered a good guy, despite him being a bully to the other casts? Does he know more than the others at the circus does? Who knows!! He has the potential for everything!

Something that I am struggling though is what headcannons I should have for him though-

He definitely is one of us fruits, but my question is which one?? He definitely seems like he could be mlm, especially with the energy he gives off. But I cannot stop thinking of transfem Jax no matter how hard I try not to- Because, like, I can totally see it being 100% canon!!

Just imagine the angst potential involving it, because he probably wouldn't know what he's experiencing and he might think that he's starting to extract! But yet the gender disphoria (idk if that's how it's spelled, but you'll get what I mean if it's spelled wrong) was always there for him, even before he joined the circus! And some of you probably know that Goose themselves have started to think about having Jax wear a dress in future episodes, and hooo boy, am I having thoughts about that!!

Imagine this: For the latest adventure, Jax is made to wear a dress, as a disguise. He is just complaining about it the entire time, not even going to look at himself as he's wearing it as he "probably looks silly and stupid in it". Once the adventure is over, he stomps away from everyone to go and take it off, feeling as if he was being made a fool of by them, even though they had been complimenting the way he looked the entire time (even if some of the compliments had laughter in them). In a similar fashion to the scene where Pomni stopped in front of the mirror when she saw herself in the digital circus for the first time, Jax walked passed a mirror and decided to take a look to "see what they were making fun of". When he looked at himself while he was still wearing the dress, he couldn't help but stare at himself. He thought, for the first time in forever, that he didn't just look good, that he looked right. There's wasn't any other way to explain it. He just looked right. He looked and felt like he was what he ever wanted to since he was a little kid. He twirled a little in the dress, making sure to get a good look at himself as he's wearing it, not being able to help but just softly smile at himself as his eyes were majorly dilated. This goes on for a few minutes before his first moment of gender efforia (again, don't know how to spell it-) is interrupted by Pomni and Cain, who were going to see if he was done with getting dressed. Cain just simply says something along the lines of "Wow, you finally decided to take a look at yourself, Jax? My, I thought we would never see the day!" Which results in an embarrassed scoff from Jax as he rolled his eyes at him. But Pomni saw that he was actually happy with the way he looked like never before, and tells him that he could wear dresses more often if it made him happy. He acts like he was deeply insulted by it and said that he wouldn't ever even think of doing this again, but later on he starts wearing dresses in his free time (where no one could see him, of course) (Except for Pomni, she'd probably help him pick out the dresses tbh).

If anyone wants to draw the little imaginary scene I made up, do it!! Draw it! Just tag me in it so I can see it!

[anticomedygarden]

how do they feel about the idea that the tomato is a fruit?

Tbh any hoo character that comes to mind strongest but if you need a specific idea I choose Hazel

I love this prompt! tysm 😍

y'all I did research on this one

-

Hazel had never given much thought to the tomato debate. They weren't her favorite to begin with, but she also just didn't have much opportunity to be around them. Growing up Black in the South in the Depression between two world wars with a mother only willing to spend her money on the finest of fineries didn't leave much room for tomatoes. Living in Alaska during wartime? Hell, no. She preferred to leave produce arguments to farmers, anyways.

Until she became a praetor.

"It's a vegetable!" a red faced son of Apollo, Thomas, yelled, standing guard in front of the Tiber.

"It's a fruit!" the brown haired daughter of Ceres screamed back. Hazel thought her name might be Molly.

Both teens were completely decked out in armor and weapons having come off guard patrol a few minutes ago, already fuming over the red food, long enough for Bailey, Camp Jupiter's newest recruit, to come get Hazel. She had been slogging away at a stack of paperwork, so she wasn't complaining.

By the time they'd returned to Thomas and Molly, the argument had escalated to a full on stand off.

The son of Apollo raised his spear. "Vegetable!"

The daughter of Ceres gripped her sword. "Fruit!"

"Okay!" Hazel said, finally stepping forward, her own gladius held out in front of her. "What is going on?" There was not a world or time Hazel thought she would ever exist in in which two people could have such strong opinions on tomatoes.

Unfortunately, that world and time did exist, and she was currently standing in it. Both Thomas and Molly erupted into bitter accusations, voices pitched so high Hazel had no hope of understanding them.

She closed her eyes and thought of a simpler, quieter time, years away from this weird tomato hell. Sadly, when she opened her eyes, she wasn't ethereal.

"One at a time," she said.

Thomas waved a hand at Molly, apparently ceding first speaker rights. She took a deep breath and began, "We were doing guard duty and somehow got on the topic of food, and he-" she pointed "-said tomato is a vegetable. Obviously, that's wrong, which I told him, and he went insane."

"I did not 'go insane,'" Thomas said, putting air quotes around 'go insane.' "I explained why tomatoes are a vegetable, and she told me to 'stop being stupid, stupid.'"

Now, Hazel was a reasonable young demigod. She knew that in matters of agriculture, she should trust the child of Ceres. She also knew that these two in particular had been getting into a lot of fights lately despite having been close friends for a while. That meant either something had happened between them or it was the teenage version of hair pulling. However, since it seemed that Molly had said the inciting line this time (and Hazel kinda wanted to see where this was going now), she couldn't in good faith just declare that Molly was right.

Hazel calmly turned to Molly. "Molly, why do you think tomatoes are a fruit?"

The other girl crossed her arms. "'Cause they are."

"Ha!" Thomas exclaimed. "She can't come up with anything."

Before Hazel could give him a thorough admonishing, Molly smirked. "Oh, I can come up with plenty, but I wouldn't want to make you look stupid."

Thomas' face somehow got even redder. "Come on-"

"For starters, fruit come from the flowering part of the plant-"

"We don't eat flowers-"

"Of course, the flower just serves as attraction. The actual fruit comes from the plant's ovaries, which is what a tomato is."

Hazel was watching the fight so intently that she completely missed the mention of the reproductive organ, though she did glance around to make sure there were no kids anywhere.

Thomas stared. "Then what are vegetables?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "Any other part of the plant."

"What about pumpkin?"

"Fruit."

"Cucumber?"

"Fruit."

Thomas threw his hands up in the air, disturbingly mindless of the spear in his right hand. "Oh my gods!"

Hazel had to admit that this was starting to get a bit ridiculous.

Molly levelled a glare at Thomas. "Got something to say?"

The son of Apollo shifted. "Nutritionists and culinary-"

"Ha!" Molly scoffed. "Cause nutritionists and culinary artists know so much about botany."

Hazel continued to stand in between the two, quickly becoming less and less sure of herself. This was so far out of her depth, yet somehow seemed so high stakes. It wasn't just the tomatoes' fate she had to decide, but pumpkin, cucumber, and presumably all other juicy, seedy vegetable/fruit.

She tried to imagine what her friends would say.

"Listen to the child of Ceres," Annabeth would say. "Fruit is ovary, and tomato is fruit."

"It's squishy and seedy," Percy would say. "It's a fruit."

"There's no real taste," Frank would say. "Vegetable."

"It's low in sugar," Will would say. "It's a vegetable, and a good source of lycopene and vitamin C."

"I don't care," Nico would say. "Leave me alone."

She took too long. Without her noticing, Molly had managed to grow a medium beefsteak tomato in her hand not holding the dagger, and in one smooth motion, lobbed the thing at Thomas' head. "Eat ovary, dumbass!"

Mesmerized, Hazel watched the tomato sail through the air and land on Thomas' face. Molly should be proud of herself; the firm fruit didn't burst on impact, but instead slid to the ground where it sat, vibrantly innocent.

She decided now was the time to be a Praetor. "Seriously, guys, come on." She looked at Thomas. "Go to the infirmary and get an ice pack." Then, she turned to Molly. "And you're on stable cleaning duty for two weeks. And both of you, apologize."

Molly and Thomas both looked at her, and she sighed. "Does it matter?"

"Yes!"

She barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes. Ultimately, the decision was easy. Rare memories of biting into the sweet, rubbery food, juice and seeds filling her mouth, spilling out the corners and running down her chin in the summer heat of New Orleans and later under the gentle Alaska sun, filled her mind.

"It's a fruit," she said.

"Yes!" Molly clapped at the same time Thomas said, "Aw, come on."

Later, when Frank found the paperwork for the tomato incident (as Hazel had taken to calling it), she had to laugh at the confusion that covered his face as he held it up for her to see. "Um, what?"

She took his hand in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. "You don't want to know."

[namimikan]

no i got things to say about gun x sword

-genuinely sad the opening did not commit to the bit of silhouettes revealed and remaining silhouettes if the characters had died. ray dying broke my heart but i think he should have remained a silhouette in the opening after his death, but at some point the anime stopped doing that and it’s a real shame bc i thought the way it initially did things was sooo fun

-didn’t expect to like ray so much but he’s a foil to van in a way that gradually became really pleasing. also him thwarting the claw’s plan, even temporarily, was super satisfying!!!

-the claw was such a good villain. trying to suss out why things don’t add up with him, what people say about him vs what he’s doing. meeting him in person, being underwhelmed, baffled, cautious and temporary insane about how things don’t make sense before coming to the conclusion that he’s actually insane so the dissonance is… intentional? he clicks in a way that’s really great to process tbh. like the good intentions he has just don’t work with his logic, he doesn’t seem to realise he killed people when he gives them hugs, and doesn’t really care if people die so long as his dream is fulfilled?

-it’s a little embarrassing to be in denial about his blatant madness, and i should have figured it out sooner, but ngl he flummoxed me for episodes bc people couldn’t hate him and apparently found him so charismatic that they joined his cause??? so i. convinced myself that there was going to be this super complicated reveal that would explain his bizarreness in a convoluted way, that would explain everything… and the simplicity of it being. he’s just insane, actually. so much more effective.

(-knives out glass onion with benoit blanc going “you’re not smart! you’re just stupid!!!” is the closest comparison i think i can get but it’s just… wasn’t satisfying for that movie, (i did like the movie, tho, with nitpicks) whereas gxs… me coming to the realisation about claw… sometimes as the audience, you doing the legwork is what makes the figuring out and making it make sense satisfying??)

-i really like that van wastes no time killing claw in the final episode. bc we’d seen something similar with ray, who also wanted revenge for the death of his wife at claw’s hands. claw talking and being dismissive. we’d seen in the previous episode, van and the claw talking, in which the claw repeatedly calling van an idiot. it was clear that they were never going to get through to each other. so van quickly cuts him in two, and honestly? so fulfilling. so satisfying.

-found myself shipping van/pricilla and joshua/wendy. ofc they didn’t end up together, but i’m super relieved van/wendy didn’t happen either and they remained platonic til the end.

-ngl van kinda inexplicably hating joshua soooo much made me laugh so much! it’s so mean and i love both characters but it’s hilarious

-i kinda do like wendy vs her brother michael and her telling him off bc she explored the planet with van and gained new experiences

-docked a point for the fan service tho

-i’m not… particularly happy about michael once he sleeps with his teammate tbh? idk how i would have written it but… uh… not like that tbh?

-honestly the story is nothing new but the characters are so fun and likeable and that matters more tbh! ngl my attention span wandered at times but when it was good, it was very very good

-but also i liked that van wasn’t solely motivated by revenge. not like ray. ray lived for nothing else but revenge, but van… as cranky as he was, still had connections to the living.

[houseofbrat]

They should have never let Catherine take the blame for the photo altering. Even if she did alter it herself, it only adds to everyone’s suspicion. I think she felt the need to put a photo out quickly and it backfired. Why didn’t the RP cover for her photo blunder?

Right. Literally anything would’ve been better than her of all people personally taking the fall for this! William would’ve been better, a random, unnamed intern would’ve been better, one of the kids fucking with the computer lmao idk. Just such a strange strange tweet to send out.

Someone should call KP and tell them we’re on mega thread #4 over here and we can’t have our mods getting sick from the “stress and fallout”, so just trot her out for a second or an audio message or even just a true statement sans doctored photos. And if she’s too unwell for that well gee maybe a smidge of transparency would gain them public support back . Nobody wants her medical info , just them to stop acting shady and disrespectful.  She can have her privacy and also stop the shiftiness and theatrics.  Unlike Reddit mods, the BRF gets paid. 

I think Kate is refusing to play ball. It's entirely possible she's had setbacks in her recovery or drew a line in the sand and said "I'm out until x/y/z date, so quit pushing," but this is a woman who's been in the public eye for 20 years. She knows how the media vultures and gossip mill operate. The speculation has now turned dark. We're getting everything from she's passed and they're covering it up, to she was injured in an 'incident.' Papers are running articles on William's rage issues. Kate could easily clear this up but she's choosing not to. It leads me to believe she's pissed at her husband and is enjoying watching him squirm. 

Just found out my best friend has independently fallen down the rabbit hole—which just illustrates how out of control this has gotten.

we’re both thinking it’s just a series of ‘own goals’ but are seriously hoping Catherine makes an appearance at Easter. If not, I think KP will have to make yet another announcement, and given how inept they’ve been, it’ll probably just make things even worse.

I’m just hoping she’s chilling with her kiddos, and is either not paying attention to the whole debacle or is highly amused by the shenanigans.

I would think that she is making an appearance at Easter but then wonder why KP wanted it to be known that she isn’t confirmed the attend Trooping of the Colour? Which was stupid on their part tbh

Princess Diana’s former private secretary on the matter from a CNN interview.

He’s kinda repetitious but still clear enough. He comes out critical of William for poor communications. Williams’s office created the vacuum of information which fueled the interest which fueled the out sized interest and the conspiracy theories.)

They definitely mishandled this situation. Supposedly Prince William just got a new private secretary. Hopefully they get a proper PR team again soon. While I’m not on team conspiracy theories and believe what has happened is exactly what we heard (Catherine had major surgery and is now recovering), they were way in over their heads in how they handled this.

Crazily, her secretary, Patrick Jephson, was my neighbor 8 years ago, super nice and very genuine guy. I definitely put stock in his POV.

This has been extremely poorly managed by KP. They’ve done irreparable harm to their image. The pressure they are now under for the next step/stage/messaging is immense. This is a defining moment for the royal family. Charles is not well, to what extent is not known. Kate is MIA and now three very questionable ‘proof of life’ photos have been released. The state of Will and Kate’s marriage is under a serious spotlight. It’s an information black hole. VERY rocky overall.

Charles and Kate are unwell. That is all. Kate is obsessed with her looks and image and she doesn’t want to be pictured looking anything but perfect that’s all. She will be back once she is looking like her old self. I honestly don’t believe the marriage in trouble stuff. Kate will never leave William that too so close to becoming the Queen? No chance.

Is it possible, in light of everything that has occurred so far, that Charles is letting Will have enough rope so Charles can use this PR disaster as his excuse to shutdown Kensington Palace office so everyone falls under his office at BP? Get rid of Will's staff and his vanity projects so he has to get on with the everyday drudgery that being a royal entails? It's not just film premieres and photo ops. It's hands on in the community at events with little or no fanfare. Service rather than PR grandstanding.

With no more competing offices, Charles can have his people oversee everything. That at least might get some consistency.

I kind of doubt it. William has the duchy money now. He can spend it however he wants.

I believe the most significant thing is that - at the very beginning of this whole story- the surgery wasn’t planned at all… she had the agenda full of duties, included a trip to Italy…  The narrative from the Palace was inconsistent from the first day. 

Reposting, because I think my comment got removed.

My takeaway from all the conspiracy theories floating around out there is that no matter what the truth is, look at what the main themes have become. Essentially, there are several theories about Will's behaviour and being a less than stellar husband. Also, the feeling that KP cannot be trusted. No matter what the truth is, the fact that these are the themes that have emerged is interesting.

William has based his entire reputation on being a nice protective family man. He doesn’t really have any other accomplishments or character traits that the public cares about. He put all his eggs were in the good dad/husband basket. Somehow, the Harry & Meghan crisis only bolstered that image. Now Stephen Colbert is doing bits about his alleged affairs, and all the normies know about his anger issues. Now personally, I’m the kind of person who thinks where there’s smoke, there’s fire. But even if there aren’t any flames here, Kategate has done some massive damage to Will’s reputation.

KP PR team is giving toxic boymom energy. Anything to protect their precious son.

Is anybody else getting annoyed at all the normies acting like Rose is William’s Camilla? I mean, maybe she is. Maybe they never even slept together. We don’t really know. But the assumption is getting on my nerves. Not every side chick is a Camilla!!

My mum calls my dads best friend (another straight male) his Camilla.

I was filling in my husband about this mess, and his comment was that he thinks maybe the PR team WANTS this drama unfolding because it keeps the royals in the news. Like essentially, "all press is good press." What does this community think? I was inclined to think that as the figurehead of a political state and a future king, Charles and William really can't afford this type of bad press, especially about DV. Obviously, the royal family do bring in money and tourism for the country, and part of that has always been an uneasy relationship with paparazzi and gossip rags, but given that QE II is gone and there are a lot of people who find them irrelevant and an unfair state subsidy, I think this would be a terrible PR move. Thoughts? Could their PR team be milking this?

Their PR team are likely pulling their hair out. "All press is good press" applies to celebrities who need to keep their names front and center to remain celebrities. The Palaces never want bad press. I think the issue is that William is incredibly stubborn and won't listen to their advice.

I've never been the type of girl to need closure when things come to an end, but if the season finale to this saga doesn’t answer every single question and include some bombshells I’d never even consider, I’m going to cry.

“She deserves her privacy, though!” Shut up, we’re all here for the same reason.

I just find it hilarious that the most interesting thing Kate has ever done in her life is disappear.

The whole ''she went shopping and we saw it, trust me bro'' thing is bad for them any way you look at it.

Either she wasn't really seen shopping and the story was completely fabricated with colaboration from the media, which would be pretty sinister and in line with everything else we've been getting lately, and at the least it would be a very North Korean-esque way of deceiving the public.

or

She actually did went shopping, was in ''public'' no matter how limited and controlled the public was, which means that she's physically capable + her face isn't bad or disfigured or whatever, as some people have suggested. Which portrays her as very irresponsible and weirdly uninterested in keeping up her image and popularity. Amidst all those very damaging rumors that could directly influence and traumatize even her children (forget about adults and public), she has time and will for shopping but not for a 10 second video, which is everything needed to dispell all the rumors once and for all?

All in all, terrible PR one way or another. The clusterfuck continues.

Do they actually think it’s a good look that she went shopping on St Paddy’s Day? She’s involved with the Irish guards and cancelled her appearance at their annual event… so she can’t work but she can pop out to the shops with Willy? Sure, Jan. Just fuck the Irish guards then right?! I mean, not that I remotely believe she went shopping. But another terrible PR bungle. These KP PR people are fucking idiots and I don’t understand why they still have jobs when they’re so clearly incompetent.

Even if she wasn't capable of attending a quick video message expressing her good wishes for the Irish guards etc etc would have worked wonders in terms of restoring good feeling towards them from the public and simultaneously would have quieted the conspiracy theorists. I don't buy she wasn't well enough to do a simple 1 minute video but was perfectly happy with a trip to the shops and watching sports with the kids where she would have been seen and possibly photographed. My personal view is that the trip to the shop didn't happen. There's no way that there's not a SINGLE snap taken on a mobile phone that's made it's way to social media.

I'm continually amazed at how badly the Waleses are botching all of this.

To be clear, I've been a royal watcher since they got engaged in 2010, and I'd definitely fall into more into the "fan" camp than not.

I've thought the conspiracy theories about all of this are nonsense. And even now after "Photogate", I STILL think they're nonsense and that what is happening is what they said - Catherine had serious surgery and needs time to recover.

But the artificially constructed Mother's Day photo is such a huge unforced error, made worse by Catherine then taking the fall for it.

Catherine's clearly not ready to show her actual face as it looks right now, and that's fine.

But then don't fake a picture! Post a quick video of William and the kids making breakfast in bed for Catherine for Mother's Day, or making cards or something. It'd still have the conspiracy theorists buzzing about why we're not seeing her, but it'd have been SO much better received by the general public than what they did.

She's absolutely entitled to her privacy, especially while she recovers. But the deal that the Royal Family has had with the press for decades now is that they get privacy most of the time in exchange for occasional, official, REAL pictures. It's clueless at best - and outright deceptive at worst - to do something like this and think no one will notice or care.

With the farmer’s market story, I’m even more convinced that Kate’s story is a red herring and there is something else happening they don’t want people to notice or know about.

This is still so odd. Either something is up (and I have no knowledge and make no inferences as to what or why) or a lot of people are profoundly bad at their jobs. Ok, the photoshop happens. Then they lie about it, even when they are trying to apologize for it. Why not put out a quick official and genuine photo of just her. If she isn't ready for camera's yet, put out a voice recorded statement saying, "I appreciate everyone's interest in my well being. Rest assured I am recovering well and I look forward to returning to my royal duties as soon as I am able". They could so easily kill all of this speculation and non-sense if things are as they say they are (she is taking car rides and shopping and up out and about). It would literally take 1 hour of her time at most, and instead KP's continued silence invites more speculation. You know what happens in physics why you make a vacuum? It gets filled. The same happens in the media/press. So again I say, either something is up (and I have no grounds with which to speculate what it might be) or this is the absolute worst PR advice and self-made crisis in recent memory.

Edit: Grammar

I joked about this in one of the earlier megathreads, but what if the *plot twist* in all of this is that Kate handles her own PR. I just remember when they got married how one of the little factoids that came out was that Kate did her own makeup for the wedding day. Like, royals! They're just like us!

Can someone answer why Royal Rota media are publishing these pics if there is a deal that they don't publish unauthorized photographs or was this a planned pap walk LOL? Is there a thread somewhere talking about this. I was listening to the Times (UK) Radio on YouTube today and the Assistant Editor for the paper (Kate Mansey) was unfairly criticizing listeners as strange people who are conspiracy theorists and says there isn't a pact or agreement that the family has with the media...yeah right LOL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKUvQB2Z_M). Have these people read about the Royal Rota and the unprecedented-in-the-modern-era pacts the royal family has made with the British media.

If the British media are posting it its because they got the ok to do so.

Their PR team needs to pick a lane. On one hand they're selling that Kate is healthy enough to be out and about twice in one weekend, walking around a farmer's market, watching her kids play sports, but on the other she's unwell to the point she had to fake a Mother's Day pic and pull out of an event in June? Which is it? Their messaging is all over the place. 

I hope that if we all take away one thing from this whole ordeal its that no matter how bad at your job you might think you are, you're still probably doing better than the KP PR team over the last couple of weeks so give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done and don't be so harsh on yourself.

what gets me and i know royal fans will call me a conspiracy theorist is that it's kinda obvious there's a story here. the impact or actual matter of it isn't what i'm questioning, but the motivation behind so many blunders. i am a writer/journalist and this entire story feels weirdly on edge of being something, anything.

like yes, let's presume kp was truthful from the beginning and she had abdominal surgery that took too long to recover from. great, but why throw her under the bus? or if all of this is a distraction, overplayed to the nines, what for? 

i am sure any tea is probably regular people tea to the max, like relationship dynamics, family stuff and whatnot. it's not like i believed she was killed and it was hidden, but usually when there's smoke there's fire and i'm curious about what fire, you know? 

i would love to be a fly on the wall and know what they disagree about, their relationship with staff and other royals. 

i find kate stylish and their wedding hype was charming, if a little gauche. i am against royals in general, not specifically them, but they could be great philanthropists if they wanted. 

the thing with Kate's personality (in public) is that it's nonexistent? i suppose that's the ideal, princess-like behavior that's expected from her. but i do wonder what happens behind the scenes with that. how curated it is x how many other blunders happened before.

The story seems to be that Will and Kate are going to find it much, much harder to be the center of the slimmed down monarchy than they realized.  Though if it turned out that they’d never really thought about how that was going to work on practice, I would believe you.  There aren’t as many working royals so the attention is on them, whether they want it to be or not.  The disappearing and the stonewalling isn’t super unusual for Will and Kate, though not previously to this extent, but we’ll see if they make any changes moving forward.  Judging from how this debacle has dragged on, I am guessing they won’t.

Well, I for one am very impressed by Kate's ability to emerge from her grueling 3 month surgical recovery looking like a radiant, bouncy 25 year old yoga instructor who doesn't have a care in the world.

[heartshattering]

I'm sad over the stupidest fucking thing ever but this is making me spiral

I am rarely ever with my dad anymore, then today since he had a day off and my mom seemed to be resting, Dad and I were going to watch something together for the first time in I don't know how long... I've mentioned before he kind of avoids being around us, mostly because of my mom tbh because she starts asking for a lot of things... and yeah I get annoyed at my dad too, but I still thought it was nice he was willing to watch this with me, especially because I haven't really had energy for much, so it was gonna be the one thing I'd watch before I would go back to working

The thing we were gonna watch doesn't interest her at all, it has subtitles and my mom doesn't like subtitles, plus she wouldn't like the subject matter either since it involves murder etc.

Anyway... my mom heard my dad and I laughing at one of the scenes (we were in the family room while she was sleeping in her room). AND SHE FREAKED THE FUCK OUT SO BADLY. Literally lost it on me, accusing my personality disorder of being this way, saying I'm being abusive to her by 'purposely leaving her out' even when I said "I thought you were resting and it's not something you would like to watch with us anyway", doesn't matter to her, we should only be with her watching the stuff SHE likes anyway. I had to stop watching and go be in the room with her, thank God I took something to numb myself so I could be 'there' but not really 'there' just stuck having to do shit for her while her mindless TV channel of choice (fucking Home Shopping Network...) played in the background. I tried to cut but didn't get as far as I would have liked, I want to take more pills but deep down I know it's fucking stupid and if I died then... I'd be dead obviously... which I can't decide is good or not. But I'm too scared. I'd fail and just waste 2 weeks in the goddamn hospital. And it's not 'wah wah I didn't get to watch what I wanted' that has me sad but just the fact my mom NEVER LETS ME DO WHAT I WANT. Even something as simple as getting away from her for a while to watch a fucking movie (not even go to the cinema but just a couple rooms away), NO every goddamn thing in my life has to revolve around her, she didn't even 'need' anything, she just got pissed that I was supposedly 'leaving her out' and then blamed me 'acting like that' on my BPD. It's never going to get any better and the only reason I haven't done anything worse to myself is because I still don't know if I want it to 'work' on not. I'm not numb enough yet but the only thing that would really make me numb for good would be to be dead finally. I'm just so sick of everything and every fucking day is going to be me chained to my mom never able to do anything that I fucking want to do that doesn't involve her.

[chronologicalhomestuck]

karkat pov liveblog: hivebent, part 1

we begin in a lab on a meteor in the furthest ring.

computer enhance.

look at all those little goobers! i am not replaying this whole flash just for this moment but in lieu of that, here's hussie's commentary on the scene from the book, just for a bit of spice.

as far as i can tell, karkat's first chronological appearance in hivebent is 2177.

vriska has just jumped tavros off a cliff, and he chooses to message karkat about it. im not sure what he hoped to get out of this since karkats only reply is characteristically snappy.

we then jump to 2025. karkat is messing around with some .~ATH files. in the middle of examining the mobius double reacharound virus (titled check_thii2_2hiit_out.~ATH), he gets trolled by its author. hello sollux.

CG: SO YOU MADE THIS GAME? TA: no no. TA: more liike ii adapted iit. CG: FROM WHAT. TA: 2ome crazy technology AA dug out of 2ome ruiin2. TA: havent you talked two her about iit? CG: MAN, NO. CG: I CAN'T TALK TO HER, SHE'S SO SPOOKY.

we start talking about the game that will take up the rest of karkats story, and get a hint about this mysterious "AA."

he then hears crabdad complaining, and chooses to put this off...long enough to introduce himself, i guess.

karkat's introduction is 1992, written in a way directly referencing john's introduction.

Earth, also for convenient reference, is a planet that does not yet exist.

see how we are doing this? logical! earth doesnt exist yet, so of course we arent starting with the humans!

homestuck does not want me to read it chronologically. it is doing everything possible to stop me from reading it chronologically.

This game, for convenient reference, is a game that DOES NOT YET EXIST.

please. please let me obey chronology.

Later on, you would swap your modus with your hacker friend, a guy who unlike you happens to be competent with programming. It would only make sense.

i thought i would embark on this quest and find its purpose along my way. that purpose, it seems so far, is to acknowledge just how stupid this chronology is.

It is your sixth wriggling day, and as with all five preceding it blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

yeah i was about to say something like that. that being that i wont have much to say so long as the plot remains linear.

It figures that installing this new beta chat client would open the floodgates

i always forget that trollian was brand new when hivebent starts. i wonder what they used to message each other before then?

speaking of which, his first pesterlog after his introduction is page 2010, with gamzee. its kinda sad how mean karkat is to a lot of his friends tbh.

TC: iSn'T sOmEtHiNg BiG aLl GoInG dOwN? CG: WHAT? TC: i HeArD sOmEtHiNg bIg WaS gOiNg AlL dOwN. TC: JuSt AlL bE tElLiNg Me AlL wHaT mOtHeRfUcKiN iT's Up AnD aLl AbOuT. CG: STOP SAYING ALL. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT TA'S THING? TC: yEaH!! fUcK yEaH mAn, So MyStErIoUs. TC: I'm NeVeR bEiNg GeTtInG cEaSeD tO bE aMaZeD bY aLl ThEsE fUcKiN mYsTeRiEs LiFe'S gOt FoR uS. CG: UUUUUUGH. CG: ANYWAY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S UP WITH THAT. CG: MAYBE I'LL TALK TO HIM TONIGHT ABOUT IT. MAYBE I WON'T. CG: IT'S PROBABLY JUST ANOTHER ONE OF HIS PROJECTS THAT WINDS UP BEING COMPLETELY USELESS AND A HUGE WASTE OF MY TIME.

(apologies if the text is hard to read on dark mode. i use cyber theme myself and cant see a word gamzee says here)

according to the pov cam, the next page karkat is on chronologically is 2058. the great team divide / team leader argument of hivebent has officially begun, with karkat and terezi. and in the end, it wont even matter at all. lmao.

CG: OK WELL CG: SPEAKING OF THAT CG: I SHOULD GO DOWNSTAIRS AND DEAL WITH THIS GRUMPY CUSTOMER. CG: IT'S GOING TO FONDLE MAJOR SEEDFLAP, BUT HOPEFULLY IT'LL BE QUICK. CG: YOU CAN ESTABLISH YOUR CONNECTION AND DO YOUR TRIVIAL SIDEKICK STUFF I GUESS IN THE MEANTIME. GC: OK! >:D

and apparently karkat intends to deal with his quite grumpy crabdad at the end of this conversation.

but then his computer explodes.

interesting. sburb equipment already? i suppose he was right:

CG: TEREZI AND I HAVE ALREADY ESTABLISHED A CONNECTION AND WE ARE MAKING GREAT PROGRESS HERE. CG: WE ARE A GREAT TEAM, AND I AM A FANTASTIC LEADER.

welp. guess he didnt have to deal with him after all. although the drawing on the fridge is very cute.

terezi has continued to make progress on his hive...

and he gets his new weapon...

only to find his toilet detached from its fixings.

GC: 1M YOUR S3RV3R PL4Y3R SO PR1OR1TY H4S TO B3 ON M3 G3TT1NG 1N TH3 G4M3 GC: B3FOR3 1 G3T K1LL3D BY M3T3ORS GC: 1N WH1CH C4S3 YOUD B3 SCR3W3D 1N TH3R3 GC: TH3N TH3 N3XT GUY COM3S 1N, TH3N TH3 N3XT GC: 4ND YOU BR1NG TH3 L4ST ON3 1N CG: WHOA WAIT, WHAT? CG: METEORS? CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT. CG: WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH METEORS. GC: OH BOY YOU N33D TO G3T W1TH TH3 PROGR4M K4RK4T

karkat, i think you are a bit behind on what this game is going to be like. yet you are already on your planet despite that!

i gotta go now but ill be back

[loaisacult]

Hi uhm this might not be related to what you recently talk about in your loa post but uhm, I took the courage to talk about this through manifestation I got a boyfriend,I was desperate and he liked another girl.as stupid and selfish as I was i actually made him fall in love with me instead,at first he gave me flowers did all those romantic stuff and made me happy then gradually it grew worse,he became obsessed with me,which was okay until he tried to murder me,he would stalk me all day,not allow me go anywhere,try to rape me multiple times we've been dating for 5 years,the first four years it was amazing eventually he beat me up,yells at me and do all sorts of nasty things to me,one night because I threatened to leave him while I was sleeping he tried stabbing me with a knife but thankfully and I don't know how but I avoided it,I consulted a genuine spiritual person and she told me I'd done him wrong,I used manifestation for a wrong purpose and now the spirits of his ancestors were going against me which was crazy because I didn't really believe in witchcraft much,I mean I knew witchcraft but I still doubted it.I took the time to apologize to him even though he knew nothing of what I was saying,some days later he became normal again but I wasn't taking any chances so I broke up with him gently and got him together with the girl he actually likes who thankfully hadn't gotten a bf yet.another time I manifested death against my enemies,I mean I was angry then which is no excuse for my terrible behaviour but soon enough they began to fall ill one by one,vomitting blood,fainting for no reason,one ended up in a coma for a long time.i felt terrible because I know they hated me but who am I to take someone's life.one month later my mother got into an accident,my stepbrother almost died,I was stabbed on the shoulder,I would see worms and snakes all around me different kinds of irritating bugs,I had nightmares every single day and they didn't go away until I cried and confessed what I did people thought I was a crazy occultist and I had to run away from my hometown,now my mother who also knew loa doesn't wanna see me neither does my father. When I stopped to get myself I had gone too far although I'm a new person now and I have a great job and all which I achieved with my own hardwork.there will always be someone in my past who remembers what I did and tells it to others,that will forever haunt me

Honestly to all people out there using subliminals for attracting their crushes or manifesting the sp's if they don't love you leave them alone,whether you like them or not doesn't matter,leave them TF alone,attracting your yandere subliminal,stop manifesting bad things for people even if they do deserve it if Karma is real it will happen.most things comes with a cost, this I am God nonsense should stop,I know witches who are against this, it might not be today or tomorrow or in fifteen years but someday you'll regret it,have you ever stopped to wonder how all these happen,how manifestation,the void state happens,I'm not putting doubts in your end,have you ever wondered what the source of the void state comes from? Forget this universe,it came because I wanted it to nonsense you all just want a quick way out of your problems and never stop to think of who or what is behind everything

PS:use this as a notion to come out and tell your story don't be afraid, I'm not saying manifestation is bad,of course it isn't at least I don't think it is. Use the hashtag #ihaveastorytotell if you have a story to tell

Tbh idk what this is but I don’t recommend manifesting SPs either only building them from scratch.

it usually stems from low self concept and you’ll sabotage the relationship anyways

[akash1618]

27 mar. friday

got a 333 in the morning. and then luckily a 312 at 8:30. i had walked halfway from nelco to marol depot, saw the bus and returned to the nelco bus stop.

office at 9:30.

went to get a coffee with sunny at around 11. saw her sitting on the couch adjacent to my fav couch. yes the same which is the opposite to the reception desk. she wore something yellow. she and yellow <3

oh, it was a white striped yellow shirt.

went to the washroom, and met boss there. he asked me to come for a meeting immediately. phish, my coffee. i went to the coffee machine and asked sunny to take my coffee to my desk. tysm.

while returning, i didn't see her on the couch.

went to the washroom later. took my bottle along, and placed it on my fav couch. returned after washing my eyes. oh, i saw her, as she walked towards the coffee machine. i didn't have my glasses on. i filled my bottle, and left. and when i reached near the end of the passage, and was about to take a turn, i looked behind. lol, she saw me looking at her. what else did i expect? 🤦 tbh, it just happened. i wasn't planning to look back, i just looked behind instinctively. how do i ruin things for myself knowingly and unknowingly? very smoothly.

lunch time. guys are really excited to spill the beans to boss. lol. went to the canteen. we got a high desk today. i took the corner seat. the same usual high desk, away from the table tennis, and me sitting facing the wall.

i saw her come, and she sat on the high desk near to ours. makes me wonder at times if i should stop sitting at the corners, but then it's too loud at times in the center.

she sat, and went out, and sat. i don't remember the order of the events. she came in twice, went out twice. i don't remember well. and then she finally sat to eat. ty madam. please have a seat.

she sat right near us, so a perfect moment for the stupidity. ofc she cannot hear us.

coworkers talked random things. and then i myself prompted the guys to do it. irritated them tbh haha. it's been well long since they've been planning to do it, and they often keep teasing me that they'll spill the beans. lol, just do it for once and get it done.

and there was the bomb. coworker finally spilled the beans that i like someone from the office. thank god. sm build up. he lied though. he said that i go to the vending machine and stare into her cabin, and when someone asks why, i take a u-turn and leave. lol, so fake.

and well, as i was expecting, boss is very chilled about it. i couldn't stop giggling and laughing.

coworkers, except sunny and boss left. sunny was laughing at me, because ofc i haven't been able to talk to her yet. boss told him - it's because he laughs that i am unable to talk to her; encourage. meh, as if he ever will. nobody does. i need a wingman desperately. god please be my wingman 🙏

and then boss proceeded with his philosophy. something i have never heard of before. "consider talking to people as sales. you don't have a 100% conversion rate, but if even one works, you land up one client." haha.. cheesy. but it's not that i go on hitting random women. so i don't agree with this.

one thing i agreed with was - "it's only between you and her. nobody else matters, nor their opinions." yes, i believe the same, but i am scared of approaching her because i fear that i may not be able to see her again if i mess up and fail. and i am sure i will mess up.

coworkers have told boss about where she works, but not about her, or didn't slide her name. phew, thanks. they want to do it methodically in steps. lol. even i am curious now about what would boss think when he figures out that i like a girl he is acquainted with.

she went away at some point, and then returned back. proly went to wash her hands. boss left after he was done eating. sunny and me left after i was done eating. saw her for one final once.

post-lunch.

asked coworkers to get me a lassi, they were going to the vending machine. well, go away cold, for this once.

the girl at the hub has asked us to wear traditionals tomorrow, as the hub would be celebrating gudi padwa. i want to wear, but no one from our team is half excited. ok. not wearing traditionals tomorrow.

coworkers have decided to insult me in front of her. they would call me bald. it's sad just thinking about it. they've tried it before. "even she would laugh at you, i would be so loud" he said. ok. there's frankly nothing that i can do about my looks. just thinking about what could happen drained me. i have started feeling down.

at around 3:30, i started sleeping on my desk. my eyelids would shut while working.

at around 4, sunny's friend came. oh, i thought she was going to be absent today. makes it difficult as always to look up.

i went to the washroom, washed my face, and while returning, decided to get myself a coffee. ig it was 4:10 or 15. i saw her near the coffee machine. i thought she was about to have a coffee, so i picked up two cups, and slightly turned around to offer her the cups. and phish, she wasn't there to have a coffee. i acted and placed those cups at the dispenser as if i wasn't about to offer. she went away, proly in quake. it was so embarrassing lol. i was already feeling tired and down, and kinda tried, but it didn't work out. we did have a brief eye contact though. eye contacts don't even last for a second.

but god, this was embarrassing. i looked around to see if anyone saw me. a girl from her company did walk from beside me, but i don't think she saw me. i quietly went away with my coffee, from the cups which i was about to offer her 😔

this was my fourth genuine attempt to interact with her, and it failed.

god, first, why make me so shy? second, i am trying. third, at least for once, let her be alone, idle, and not on mobile. please.

i kinda curse my luck at times but it's funny as well - you save me getting under vehicles, but then things like these happen. like what am i even supposed to do? i don't even understand.

god, i am not trying any more funny things like these.

evening. canteen. i saw her sitting on my fav couch while we were going up. i didn't have anything today. feeling down, and not hungry. came down.

i later went to the washroom. and she passed from in front of me and went into her cabin. i went to my seat and was about to sit down, but my bottle was empty, so i picked it up and went out to get it filled. while filling, i saw her come out of her cabin as she went into mario. she was giggling. cute. she again came out of her cabin. i wanted to look at her, and I did, but only once. i was tired from the day. my social battery runs out very quickly these days. i find it more draining to put up a face.

later, boss came at our desks and asked us to make our teams on dream11. he asks to put on money, please no sir. no gambling please. sunny was missing so boss asked me to call him. i dialled him, but he didn't pick. i went out at the common area and left out from the door, and he wasn't there as well. oh, she was still in office. she sat on the couch opposite to arena.

and well, i didn't have my access card on me. did i lose it? the valet uncle helped me get in though.

haha, sunny came and somehow convinced boss to not use real money as it leads to issues while filing itr. tysm.

i asked money for the rohit sharma bet he lost with me. everyone was laughing.

at around i8, loud banging started from above. haha, it was rather funny. as if they were fixing floors and walls.

sunny and me went up to check just for fun. and bad luck, boss came up as well. it was from the amazon warehouse below though.

left at 9:05. got a 181 at around 9:20.

met vakola traffic at 9:30.

a 410 at 10:05. home.

not even feeling like eating. slept directly.

[eterna1scout]

…goddammit, it’s already at almost 4500 words and I am not even close to the actual plot I had planned for it…

How could this happen to me, I made my mistakes, got nowhere to run…. ( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ )

It’s not my fault. Everyone was too nice to me and now I’ve lost control of my life! It’s everyone else’s fault! For being too nice! Be meaner!!!

Except don’t because then I will fake my death and hide in the woods forever. orz. And once again I will recreate myself in the image of herjusticetomymercy. Tbh I’ve threatened it enough at this point I should probably grab the url just in case lol.

But holy shit I cannot believe how many people have said nice stuff to me about this series??? Like omfg??? HOW? WHY? WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE?!

My fics almost never break 300 kudos. It has happened exactly twice before this. And one of those was a 50k+ word fanfic across 25 chapters. I still have no fucking clue how the WWDITS oneshot broke 500 kudos. Forever fucking baffled but gleeful about that.

I mean, I was def hoping my BG3 fic would do at least as well as my Cardcaptors fic because it’s for a bigger fandom and I have been so fucking #blessed to have so many amazing regular readers and commenters who literally make my fucking day every time I update. ( ˃̣̣̥︿˂̣̣̥ ) I get so fucking excited to see what my semi-voluntary (in that I have recruited them without their knowledge, sorry y’all) fanfic bffs will think of each chapter. It’s why I’m so sad it’ll be wrapping up in the next month or so.

Even if it stopped getting kudos or any new readers on my BG3 fic completely tomorrow, I’d still want to finish posting it just to share it with my regulars! It feels like being part of a little book club except I’m building the story as we go, lol. It is the FUCKING BEST!!! God I fucking hope folks like the ending. I will survive either way, but I’m so fucking happy with it and I feel like it wraps things up really well and I hope I’m not just delusional lmaooooo. Shut the fuck up OCD!

I know I should write first and foremost for myself because if I don’t enjoy the process, what the fuck is the point??? But at the same time, HOLY SHIT IT IS NICE TO BE EXTERNALLY VALIDATED! And I really wasn’t expecting it with my HH series at all. I mean, I def hoped but didn’t expect. I legit thought part four was gonna be the one that finally got me hate comments on AO3 lol. And then it had like eight kudos before I went to bed after posting it and I was just like “Oh thank fuck, I’m not gonna be chased off by an angry mob and be told I’ll never write fanfic in this town again!” Or at least eight people out of the entire rest of the internet aren’t willing to revoke my fanfic writing license yet, haha.

And even writing this part, having a better idea of what folks have liked in the prior ones, it’s still fucking terrifying! And I know that’s my stupid OCD. Because so much of my self-worth is tied up in wanting to write well, be it fanfic or otherwise. And I KNOW it shouldn’t matter so long as I’m having fun! BUT STILL. My therapist would say something at this point like “but you’re having fun aren’t you” or “you have four other parts that show people have enjoyed what you wrote so far, so what are the odds this is the one that makes them all rethink that stance?” And all I have to say in reply is “ocd go brrr!”

But that’s why I post about this shit on here. Because it’s embarrassing but also because I am making myself confront my brain gremlins when they want to pull me down. ╰( °ㅂ°)╯ Because OCD feeds off of fear/insecurity/shame and by confronting it in a semi-public forum I’m making myself acknowledge it (NOT AVOID!) and defuse it! Instead of just tying myself into increasingly intricate mental knots.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE BUT IT’S SOMEHOW WORKED THIS FAR, SO…. _(┐「ε:)_

…well, I went from having no ETA whatsoever for part five to having already written 1k for it today, so…it might be finished sooner than I thought…

Tho I’m going to be out of town this weekend, so it probably won’t be up this weekend.

Assuming I somehow master the art of self control during that time…

I still gotta edit this upcoming week’s BG3 chapter too… Do not wanna cut it down to the wire again.

…lord help us all…

[appocalipse]

this has me squealing tbh

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, sitting down next to you.

You don’t move. He shifts closer, thigh brushing yours, and says it again, louder this time, “I'm sorry.”

You take a deep breath. Sitting on your front porch, watching a particularly dramatic-looking summer rain, you and Steve are the perfect cliché of a rom-com after a fight — except you're not quite sure how this is going to end.

He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and leans closer, nuzzling your bare neck, touch soft. 

Though it tickles, you still don’t move. He groans.

“Baby,” Steve tries again.

“Don’t call me that.”

He shakes his head in disbelief, a humorless smile on his face. “Oh, c’mon, I didn’t-”

“C’mon?” you finally turn your face sideways to look at him; he’s surprised at how mad you look. “Unbelievable. You are unbelievable, Steve Harrington.”

Being forgetful is his only sin, he swears. And even though you’re having a hard time believing him, it is the truth; he didn’t tell Nancy you two were officially dating before because the topic simply didn’t come up. He rarely saw her these days. And on the rare occasions he did, it was simply a quick exchange of words, no space for deeper and more meaningful conversations — or else, he would have obviously talked about you. He had a harder time stopping talking about you.

And, of course, when she spotted you two walking together hand in hand and nothing less of shock took over her features, you immediately thought the worst.

Honestly, Steve couldn’t blame you — you’d been together officially for only a month now, and the way he handled relationships in his past wasn’t encouraging in the least. 

Plus, his hand slipped from yours when Nancy approached to say hi.

He didn’t mean to. He truly, honestly, didn’t mean to — his stupid hand just did it on its own. He got nervous and panicked, and when Steve tried to reach out for your hand again — to mend his mistake — you moved your hand away.

“Y/N, I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not what happened,” he says, resting a gentle hand on your knee. “I swear it’s not.”

You grab his wrist and move his hand away. “I think you should go.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, I’m not going,” he states, crossing his arms dramatically. “Not as long as you’re mad at me.”

“Steve-”

“Do you trust me?”

You sigh. He's looking at you with those big brown eyes. “You didn’t tell her we’re dating! She’s your ex, you- you loved her. You told me that, that she was the first girl you’ve ever loved and that it took you a long time to get over her…and now you didn’t tell her about us. What am I supposed to think?”

“That I wasn’t thinking about her. That the only girl in my mind is you.”

Eyes never leaving yours, Steve leans down and brushes his lips against your shoulder.

You swallow. “I wish I could believe that.”

“Then believe it,” he's softly kissing all the way to your neck, slowly. “Because it's true.” 

You laugh. No humor, just…irony. “First love is special.”

“Not as special as the last.”

He moves forward and kisses you before you can say something else — you’re too stunned to do anything but gasp, pulling back after a moment too long for someone who’s supposed to be mad.

It’s so hard to stay mad at him.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re not my first love, first date, or first kiss,” he murmurs against your mouth, forehead resting against yours. “I want you to be my last everything.”

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