#I’m rambling even more now

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

Concentrating is so frustrating because the noise around me is either too much or not enough

[naturecalls111]

[flowercrowngods]

Steve startles awake, disoriented and filled with a slight bout of panic — as always when he takes a nap that turns into five hours of deep sleep and catapults him right into the next dimension for a while there.

Heart racing, he blinks his dark bedroom into existence, and it takes him a while to realise where he is and what woke him up.

And then the landline phone on his nightstand rings again, and he exhales deeply before reaching for it with clumsy, sluggish movements.

“‘Ello?”

“Steve,” comes Eddie’s sing-song voice from the other end, washing over Steve in a soothing way that leaves him falling back into the pillows. He clutches the phone to his ear as he closes his eyes, the smile already forming at how happy Eddie sounds. He rarely sings Steve’s name like that. He should do it more often.

“Hi there.” His voice sounds like shit. Like he just took a — Jesus Christ, has it really been four hours? Well. He sounds exactly like someone who took a four-hour nap after a shit day at work would sound like.

There’s fumbling on the other end, but it stops suddenly. “Did I wake you? Shit man, I thought it was past nap time.”

“I don’t have nap time,” Steve grumbles, actually pouting at Eddie’s words and realising only a second too late how ridiculous he sounds.

“Sure, man, whatever you say. We all know you’re actually just a life-sized toddler.”

Steve sputters, sitting up against his headboard as he gradually wakes up. “Hey! Also, I don’t think you actually understand what life-sized means.”

“Yes, I do.”

Steve shakes his head at this ridiculous, ridiculous man. “What exactly do you think a non-life-sized toddler looks like, Eduardissimo?”

“Like Dustin.”

The answer is so quick and deadpan, Steve cannot contain the laugh that bursts out of him, waking him up quicker and gentler than anything else in the world could have, and he revels in the sound of Eddie joining him. He must look so smug right now, and so damn proud of himself. Steve wants to see him. Wants to kiss that smile right from his lips and replace it with something a lot more genuine.

“You’re an asshole,” he says instead, pulling his blanket further around him as he lifts his knees to sit more comfortably.

Eddie hums, still teasing somehow with just that noise, and Steve just can’t stop smiling. “You like me so much, Harrington.”

“Hmm,” he mirrors Eddie’s hum, but even he can hear the smile on his face. “Jury’s still out on that one, actually.”

“Any tendencies yet on the verdict?”

“Nope, they can’t decide.”

Eddie snorts at that, and Steve has no idea how that can sound so sweet. But it does. He buries his smile in his knees for a bit, the blanket hot around his burning cheeks. He’s hopeless.

“Well, let me know as soon as they do, yeah?”

“Will do,” he laughs, ruining all his attempts to sound solemn. “So what’s up? Why’d you call?”

“Oh!” And suddenly it’s like a switch has been flipped and Eddie doesn’t sound teasing and smug anymore, but instead just fucking giddy! “I have a bed now!”

Steve smiles at it. At that voice, that tone, that infectious emotion. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!” More fumbling on the other end, and Steve can only imagine that Eddie is rolling around in his newly acquired bed.

Who’s the life-sized toddler now, hm?

“No more sleeping on the floor for this Munson boy, nuh-uh, my good sir! We are in possession of a bed now. A wooden bed, no fancy headboard or anything, just…”

“Just a bed,” Steve says, feeling like he’s about to burst into a million little particles of fondness and affection and the never-ending need to kiss Eddie. To hold him. To touch him in any way he can. “That’s great, Edsie.”

“It is, Stevesie.”

“Man, I hate you so much,” Steve squints at the ceiling and laughs, actually kicking his feet, the minute breeze providing a little relief for the heat in his face.

And Eddie has no business to sound so smug when he says, “Yeah, you do.”

A pause then, and it feels loaded even through the phone. Steve clutches it closer to his face, hoping stupidly that Eddie can feel it.

“You should come hate me in my new bed.”

Steve’s breath hitches, and his brain shuts off for a hot second there. Before he can overthink this, he decides to just… play along. And listen to what his heart has been telling him for months now.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, breathless still, but his whole body tingles with just these two words. With the possibility they bring. The offer that they are. The question. The everything that’s stored in them.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, and he sounds just as breathless. “I mean, if— If you want to?”

“I do.” Steve swallows. “Right, uh— Right now?”

“Whenever.” And it sounds more like an As soon as possible.

“Okay,” Steve breathes, scrambling out of bed as quickly as possible, pulling off his shirt with the phone still pressed to his ear, letting out an embarrassing noise as it gets tangled in a mess of cord and fabric. He scrambles to free it, almost dropping it in the process. “I’ll be there in thirty.”

“To come look at my new bed?”

“Sure.”

On the other end, Eddie laughs again, but he still sounds just as breathless as Steve does. Just as excited. As fragile. Just as many fucking things.

“Alright,” Eddie murmurs, though Steve can still hear the smile. “I’ll see you then.”

And then he hangs up before either of them can get lost in their own heads about this sudden certainty of change. Steve is grateful for the steady noise of the dial tone reminding him that this is happening. But that nothing has to happen.

It’s a nice bed, he finds hours later, fingers combing through Eddie’s hair who’s cuddling him half asleep. It’s the best fucking bed he’s ever seen, if only because it led to this.

🤍 permanent tag list gang: @skiddit @inklessletter @aringofsalt @hellion-child @stobin-cryptid @hotluncheddie @gutterflower77 @auroraplume @steddieonbigboy @n0-1-important @stevesjockstrap @brainvines @puppy-steve @izzy2210 @itsall-taken @mangoinacan13 @madigoround @pukner @i-amthepizzaman @swimmingbirdrunningrock @hammity-hammer @stevesbipanic @bitchysunflower @estrellami-1 (lmk if you want on or off)

[ninadove]

I don’t think we talk enough about how Felix, not-so-deep down, is a fucking ray of sunshine

Yes, he’s introduced as this impeccably dressed, practically silent child prodigy who stands up straight and folds his hands behind his back; but in the very same episode we see him come alive, taunt his enemies, and move as if he was born to take names and kick ass!

Yes, he’s been tortured and nearly destroyed by a father who deemed him monstrous; but through it all he remained (became?) his mum’s little magician!

Yes, he has a sharp tongue; but he uses humour and more precisely the mocking of his abusers to cope with what would otherwise destroy him!

Yes, he learnt to lie through his teeth; but he is never happier than when he is centre stage, waving a fan around and belting out Disney villain tunes, basking in his own dramatics!

Yes, he collapsed on a rooftop sobbing after his plans for freedom and safety crumbled; but he picked himself up in the same damned episode, single-handedly broke Kagami out of her spiral of despair in the very next one, and fights on “because we’re hoping for a happy ending”!

And most importantly:

It’s not even that he wants to hide how much of a bundle of hope and joy he truly is: he’s been forced to hide this softer side and was bursting at the seams for an opportunity to be this radiant little bird once more (or, perhaps more accurately, for the first time). His name literally means happiness!!! He fills me with so much serotonin!!! LOOK AT MY CHILD!!!!! 💜🦚

[jobikinn]

rare art post!!!

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.

Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.

Long-winded interpretation under the cut!

Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.

You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)

The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.

Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.

And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.

For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.

“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!

Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.

To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.

And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.

Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.

[kiwisandpearls]

feels a little depressing how unwelcoming the selfshipping community has become to proshippers and profic people. Like, i don’t even wanna go into the selfship tag anymore because I know a good chunk of the selfship posts are gonna have a dni at the bottom insulting me and wishing death or harm on me in someway just because I’m profiction. And don’t get me wrong, I know the proselfship and proship selfship tags exist but still, it just kinda sucks the fun out of selfshipping for me.

[pisces-swirlix]

Okay DBD fandom. Bear with me, this is stupid as hell, but I’m laughing uncontrollably on the floor of my room and I have to share.

For context, there was this show I used to watch: Galavant. It only ran for like two seasons back in 2015, but it was awesome. It was like this fantasy/comedy/musical type thing. I was recently reminded of its existence when I randomly heard one of the songs.

It was a song that they did in the show sang by this evil witch. When the main character meets her, you find out she owns this tavern, and it’s full of all these muscly dudes, so you’re like “oh he’s about to get the shit beaten out of him.” Long story short, no. The witch owns a gay bar, and instead of beating him up, they proceed to do a musical number titled “Off with His Shirt.”

I don’t even know if I have to elaborate more on this, but I’m cracking up at Charles and Edwin meeting Desire and it being exactly like this.

[rainbowpufflez]

Arceus watching in distress as another version of Sycamore decides to take the, “be in a toxic relationship with Lysandre for a bit” option instead of the, “ability to mega evolve/be good at poke-battling” option

[sadcoms]

it’s so telling that i haven’t felt this angry since the 50th special lol. it’s wild to me that chibnall is the showrunner that gets accused of being self important the most when power of the doctor is the closest modern who has gotten to a good anniversary special. both moffat and rtd are clearly only interested in their own legacies and entwining them with the existing canon (like clara going into the doctor’s timestream) while the much hated timeless child was actually building on things that were in the second and seventh doctor’s eras. people described power of the doctor as “celebrating every era except chibnall’s own” like people wouldn’t have torn him to shreds for doing that, but i was so touched by the appearance of former companions and doctors even though i never personally watched them. the tales of the TARDIS was basically rehashing that exact idea too, though far less touchingly. the only reason i wish the power of the doctor had celebrated chibnall’s era more is that clearly no one else is going to.

[painfullyprickedandticked]

alright, so this is more so loosely related to these two posts i’ve made that are similar in subject. i really don’t know how i keep making these, but goddamn it, it’s happening yet again. my love for stolitz and fizz/ozzie aside, the whole “sticking to the same species” trend that’s always had this weird undercurrent here is... it’s just genuinely bizarre to me? and some people just don’t really take notice of it? maybe i’m slightly looking too deep into it, but… like…

when it’s just blitzø/fizz, i can understand its appeal. it isn’t really my main ship, i like it more so for the fact it was a teenage crush blitzø had on fizz, and the pain that it went unsaid. could it have been possible fizz felt the same? maybe? we’ll never know because that’s in the past now, and that’s fine. it doesn’t have to be some big thing where they slowly get back together. they’re moving on with their lives and reconnected as friends, and they have their own current love interests. but the “oh, it’s healthier” or "THE CHEMISTRY IS STRONGER" thing. that’s when it goes from some innocent “what if” to… obnoxious, almost. irksome.

blitzø’s childhood sucked, and when moving on from the past, one must make peace with it and accept that they can’t have any of what they wanted now. that includes, well, the obvious! like, explore and move onto new things. and i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again: stolitz is about overcoming the toxicity through slow burn. both have to sift through their flaws as individuals before endering a healthy relationship together. that includes prejudices, which… is why the same species thing is just so WEIRD. why should blitzø be solely with an imp or hellborn of a similar caste? why can’t he go for something grander? because it’s “above him”? what happened to bridging gaps and overcoming class differences?? fizz and ozzie didn’t give a shit about any of that!

but sure, let’s pair him with… uhhhh… the imp hybrid that’s a supremacist, and sees literally almost every other imp as inferior to him and just has a lot of weird internalized hatred that he’s never gonna cope with (striker is definitely a hyrbid and is upset he looks more imp than whatever other demon he is partially mixed with; my bets are he’s part shark bc his eyes have spirals like crimson's gay bodyguard) and told blitz, “you’re the least suckish imp” like! such a healthier option amirite. as if being both equally oppressed means they must be together / healthier, like… i can’t. i mean, at least with fizz, that’s his childhood friend and didn’t pull the shit striker did-- and i like striker but let’s not kid ourselves, guys… i can admit when i’m hypocritical, but the delusions i’ve seen. damn.

regarding blitzø and fizz, it’s just kind of going back to square one. starting over in a lukewarm manner.

then there’s what I call a definite example of this bizarre trend: Vassago and Stolas. So I’ve mentioned it before my own gripes with the rebound idea and the "Oh this is a alternative that's healthier" which is a certified way to not get me on a side of a new ship. I never really dug deep into the same species angle outside of how it would derail Stolas' character development. So here's where I dig into it as a treat thanks to a certain person who’s basically backed up the previous posts I made in spite of the bullshit that's going on.

in spite of the whole, you know, “overcome prejudice” arc... people push for stolas to be with another bird demon so badly. it’s never really diving into repercussions, what their personalities are like together, how do they rub off on each other-- how they develop together or individually as a result-- but it’s more so a surface level, “they look nice together.” and don’t give me “vassago’s a nice guy!” because then why the hell wouldn’t there be more stolas x ozzie since ozzie’s a little more cordial to stolas than most are, i’d presume? (a stretch but bare with me) cool, parrot dude is nice-- what else is there.

oh yes-- aesthetically, color blending wise, it looks good. where’s the spices? you can’t cook a meal without key ingredients. a relationship doesn’t work because they’re a similar species and one of them could be nice to the other. or even that they just know each other. relationships don’t begin with just that. and then there’s the “they have the same lifespan argument” except not really because vassago is 50, stolas is 36, so no it’s not even a same lifespan. and even then, people ship immortals with mortals all the time?? why are some of you being so weird about this one time there’s a certain type of immortal/mortal ship???

if this doesn’t apply, then let it fly. but there is definitely some that apply to this and i feel it’s such an odd trend. stop trying to make them all stick to their own species.

[thewingedwolf]

luther: the golden child

diego: the mastermind

allison: the peace keeper

klaus: the clown / mascot

five: the rebel / truth teller

ben: the lost child

viktor: the scapegoat

is this something i think this is something

[blade-that-was-broken]

@endlesspaint

[acadieum]

omg y’all… I just figured out how to crochet… and I feel so powerful rn..

albeit I’m doing a very simple beginners project that’s accompanied with a pattern and guide but I haven’t felt this excited abt a new hobby in a while and I’m like :3333

[godblooded]

just an fyi, and it feels like it needs to be said here: your blog is your own space and you should be able to say whatever the fuck you want. if you’re sad? vent. get sad. maybe put it under a cut, definitely tag it, but get sad. if you feel like you need someone to talk to? drop a freaking message about how you’re feeling like you could use a buddy, or anything randomly engaging. if you’re having a hard time, you should feel safe and okay to talk about it in your own space. we’re writers and we’re people and while there’s a lot to be said for how engagement outside of oneself is necessary in rp (and really really needs to improve), i think there’s a lot that must be said about people reaching out to others. it’s become so solitary here — the whole ‘reblog from source’ thing when it comes to shit like about and musings is absurd. the whole refusing to like things is ridiculous. yes, curate your space, that’s important, but curating your space into a studio apartment only you live in doesn’t make this a community anymore, it makes it a studio apartment you live in.

just be yourself here. do whatever you want. but i’m always saying: remember you’re not alone, and don’t let yourself feel that way.

[erythriina]

sort of but not technically for @terrortracks - here is an untitled ‘survives the expedition’ solving playlist for you all <3 (more commentary in the tags lol)

listen on 8tracks here

1. All These Things That I’ve Done - The Killers

over and in, last call for sin / when everyone’s lost, the battle is won

2. The Only Thing - Sufjan Stevens

faith in reason, i wasted my life playing dumb / signs and wonders, sea lion caves in the dark / blind faith, god's grace, nothing else left to impart

3. Wasteland, Baby! - Hozier

when the stench of the sea and the absence of green / are the death of all things that are seen and unseen / not an end, but the start of all things that are left to do

4. Blue Ridge Mountains - Fleet Foxes

terrible am I, child, even if you don't mind / in the quivering forest where the shivering dog rests…

5. We Both Go Down Together - The Decemberists

i laid you down on the grass of a clearing / you wept, but your soul was willing

6. Olympians - Andrew Bird

you start spitting out anathemas…

7. Love Love Love - The Mountain Goats

love, love is going to lead you by the hand / into a white and soundless place

8. King and Lionheart - Of Monsters and Men

in the winter night sky, ships are sailing … past the wondering eyes of the ones that were left behind / though far away / we're still the same / howling ghosts, they reappear in mountains that are stacked with fear / but you're a king and i’m a lionheart