#I'll come back to this with commentary!!!!!

[arsenalgbt]

Part 2/2: sorry this is so long.

Kieran thought about standing him up, he’d not meant to say yes to Leo. KT didn’t want to get distracted from trying to get his degree, he needed it to make his dad proud. His dad who’d given up so much to raise him and get him there. Hector told Kieran that he doesn’t have to date the guy, but that he defiantly needed an orgasm or three to centre himself again. Kieran went on the date and him and Leo kept talking and talking until they got kicked out of the restaurant. They walked back to Leo’s place in comfortable silence and Leo kissed Kieran goodnight before going inside. Kieran liked that Leo was taking things slow, Leo couldn’t figure out what he was doing. He wanted to fuck Kieran, not share some virginal kiss with him. This continued for weeks, Leo kissing Kieran goodnight and then leaving and when Kieran asked if they were a proper couple, Leo said they were. Leo hadn’t told anyone about Kieran, but he supposed he should now that he apparently had a boyfriend. Kieran had told Hector nearly every single detail, Kieran didn’t know how to do relationships and defiantly didn’t know how to do them with rich lads like Leo who decided to invite KT to a party to meet Ben and Dec. Neither of them expected KT to be introduced as Leo’s boyfriend and Dec made some comment about how KT should enjoy him while he can which led to KT learning that Leo’s parents would likely already have someone set up for him to marry. Kieran leaves, annoyed at Leo for leading him on, annoyed at himself for thinking he belonged with these lads who view marriage as a business transaction, annoyed at himself for thinking Leo would stay. KT’s own mother didn’t want to stay with him, why would Leo whose clearly better then him?

Leo hears what Dec said and runs after KT, they end up having a conversation that feels more like an argument than either are willing to admit,  and Leo learns that KT is terrified of being left so he promises not to leave him. KT tells him not to make promises he can’t keep, and Leo kisses him in response. Leo doesn’t know what he’s doing, his parents would not approve but Leo wants KT, he wants to be with KT and he wants to see what life is like when he’s allowed make choices for himself. Leo promises not to leave and KT promises to do the same (even when he gets upset and scared, he has to talk to Leo and not run from parties because Dec’s an idiot). That’s the first night they have sex and for the next three years, KT and Leo are love’s young dream. Leo has met Kieran’s dad and his friends from back home (a majority of whom Ben does sleep with)  and Kieran is basically living with the three of them (and being tutored by both Leo and Dec because uni is hard but he’s almost there!) but he’s not told his parents yet. Leo is scared of what will happen if he's forced to choose between his parents and KT. Leo doesn’t know what life is like without his parents but he certainly doesn’t want to live a life without Kieran. Leo is two and a half months pregnant when they all return for their final semester of college in mid-January (Kieran had looked really good on Halloween) and he knows Kieran is freaking out about it. They’d taken the test together in Kieran’s dad’s house on Christmas Eve together, they tried to do all the big moments together. Kieran is terrified that Leo will leave, that his parents will make him come home and Kieran will never see the love of his life or their baby again. Kieran thinks he’ll fuck up their kid. Leo plans on staying and when Kieran finally breaks down in Leo’s arms, Leo suggests they elope. Kieran stops crying straight away   because there is no way he heard that right. Leo says they might as well make their promise to stay legally binding and that he loves Kieran enough to view the marriage as more than something that has to be done. Leo knows it’ll make Kieran happy and knows his parents will get on board with KT and the baby if there’s a ring already on his finger (Leo’s parents value tradition  but he knows he can convince them to let go eventually if they see he’s happy). That weekend they pack Dec, Ben and Hector into a car without telling them what’s happening or why they’re in suits and they go get married. When Ben jokingly asks if the reason for the elopement is because Leo’s knocked up, Kieran and Leo don’t deny or confirm and simply say it was one of many reasons.

The first few months of marriage are hard. They’re living with Dec and Ben and Kieran is working and studying and feeling awful for not paying rent now that he’s actually living there. Leo says he doesn’t have to pay and they argue when Leo asks why KT never tried to pay when he was basically there all the time. Leo is a high maintenance pregnant person because he’s stressed out about college and having a baby and telling his parents and he fights with Kieran about all of this. They can’t agree on where they’ll live after they finish (London? Scotland? Belgium?) Kieran says they need a flat that he can pay for half of because he’s not going to be a trophy husband, Leo thinks this is ridiculous. Leo accuses KT of sleeping with Hector when he thinks the pair are hiding something (Kieran was trying to plan a baby moon and had asked Hector for help), the surprise is soured by Leo’s accusation and the fight that follows. Leo eventually tells his parents about the baby and his husband and they react by saying they are disappointed with him, Leo lashes out at Kieran as a result. They make it hard for each other to stay but they stay. They love each other and they promised they’d stay. Things eventually start getting easier. Birthing classes ease Leo’s stress, Kieran finds ways to contribute to the house that make things better (how Leo never knew Kieran was good at fixing things before marrying him is still a mystery). They graduate with no idea of what’s next and Leo is just so thankful he didn’t go into labour at the ceremony. He almost passes out when his parents come up to him, he’d invited them to the ceremony but didn’t think they’d show up. They ask to meet Kieran and Leo just nods wordlessly and brings them to where his husband and father in law are taking photos with each other. Kieran says it’s nice to meet them in person which confuses Leo until his mother mentions Kieran had called and essentially gave them shit for abandoning their son just because he chose to be happy and loved. Kieran wasn’t going to let Leo be abandoned like he had.

Leo’s father tells Leo he wants him to take over the London branch as soon as he’s back from maternity leave. Leo says he needs  to talk to his husband about it first to which KT responds by almost passing out because is Leo insane? Obviously he should take the job! They leave their parents and go for a walk around campus in the same comfortable silence they experienced on their first date until they are away from the crowds. Leo asks Kieran what he should do and Kieran tells him he should stay, that London is their home and that he wants it to remain that way for awhile. Kieran wants to find a job, wants to find a flat that he can pay half for, wants to raise his baby in London among the family they’ve created with Ben and Dec. He wants their in-laws to be in different countries and for Hector to fly in and out of their child’s life when he visits London from Spain with way too many gifts. Leo wants the life Kieran is proposing and they make it happen. Kieran declines the offer to work for Leo’s parents (and Dec’s parents when Dec makes them offer) because he wants to make it on his own merit, wants to succeed beside his husband not because of him. They’ll figure everything out and eventually they do  through the ups and the downs. They find a flat, Kieran gets a job, they figure out parenthood with their first child and they disagree and fight and make up and laugh and help one another. They stay. They always stay.

I need approximately 48 hours to respond in an orderly manner..................... trust I will be back when I'm more coherent ASHHDFASDFHJJHAHBHVBDFGVKHGDHGJ

[aquickstart]

ok sure i'll talk about farleigh start. i'll talk about his tragedy of never being enough as it were and then having to deal with fucking oliver. sure. disclaimer: it's about class (and race) and the horrible reality of the rich. the horrible reality of living as farleigh.

another disclaimer: i'm white! and poc definitely pick up on everything i'm talking about here as it is, and better. i was and am specifically interested in farleigh vs. oliver but it's impossible to examine without considering race. definitely let me know if anything abt this sucks!

farleigh and oliver are similar. it's annoying because every intruder that is not himself is annoying, partly because felix's attention swaying from farleigh is dangerous; there is always a threat of being discarded, even if no precedent existed. the potential is terrifying.

but you'd think he's seen this before, every summer (if venetia is telling the truth) or at least often enough to learn to recognize it fast, so he should know this will pass. part of it is i think still the deep anxiety, and i think he hated every boy that was there before, and it is sort of routine.

but definitely a huge factor in farleigh's annoyance is the fact that he's a biracial (black for cattons, that's all they see) man in a white rich household. he's alert and exhausted all the time. of course he's angry at oliver, regardless of whether he's the first to crash at saltburn for the summer or the fifty-first.

but the important thing is this.

farleigh is very jealous of and angry and pissed at oliver because farleigh sees all the similarities between them. outsider, in financial trouble, whatever it is, in need of cattons; and yet oliver is preferred. and farleigh seems to be the only one to really consider it. felix does not pick up on the hint when farleigh brings up the birthday party vs. his mother. felix's clumsy "different or... anything like that" is as much about race as it is about class, of course. the "we've done all that we can" bit is felix absolving himself of guilt because surely they had, surely the mysterious collective cattons that he's not really part of had tried all they could do. to him, farleigh is different from oliver, because farleigh has been helped. felix is rich and white and twofold uncomfortable with farleigh, even if he's nice about it, even if he genuinely enjoys his company; he doesn't look too close at farleigh because he feels too guilty to come too close. and farleigh can't do anything about it. he can't nice himself into it. the fucking tragedy of him is that he's never enough in the world of the ultra-rich white, even if (especially because!) he's born into it.

farleigh is very pissed at oliver because farleigh also sees all the differences between them. you know who can be nice poor white enough to fit in? fucking oliver. felix says "just be yourself, they'll love you" when oliver first moves in. farleigh was also probably told the same thing, and felix also probably believed that farleigh could just be himself, but even if the cattons were magically not racist at all (impossible), it wouldn't make a difference to farleigh. he would still self-censor, keep in check, be in dangerous waters (because racism is not just about the individual, but about the system). we see that he'd won himself leeway by years of trial and error by the way he speaks to the family, but it's still within the boundaries of acceptable, built by the cattons. he's part of them because they allow it, and farleigh is very, very aware.

the annoying thing is oliver can be himself. like, truly, genuinely, he can just be. and farleigh can't help but envy that.

as a side note, oliver is obviously jealous of farleigh in the beginning as well, because regardless of the reality of farleigh's situation, he was born into it, and hence, at least in oliver's mind, has his position solidified. oliver's whole thing is unquenchable thirst and hunger for whatever and everything the cattons have (including themselves!). he wishes to have been a catton from birth. to oliver, at first, there's nothing farleigh can really do to lose it. and until he figures out the cattons completely, he can't help but envy that.

but i think farleigh senses something different about oliver early on. at least on the level of the text, we have "you're almost passing [for] a real, human boy", which is so important because farleigh is the first to point out oliver's weirdness. the next to do so is venetia in the bath scene calling him a freak, but it's too late. farleigh is too early.

and i like to think he clocks oliver too early because he sees the jagged edges that he recognizes in himself. i think that one other thing that farleigh envies is oliver's freedom to let go. freedom to let go is very similar to freedom to be, but not quite the same.

to be is about perception: farleigh knows he cannot fall out of line, but would like to, and oliver does not have to worry about it at all (i mean, he does, because oliver also performs for felix, but farleigh doesn't know that).

to let go is about the self: farleigh is too scared to even want what oliver eventually does, to even consider the possibility. oliver can let himself want. oliver can let himself act. oliver just can do things and want things. i'm not sure farleigh can.

and so in this scene, when oliver's wants and actions have landed him nowhere with farleigh, felix, venetia, the cattons, of course farleigh gloats. he can let himself do that, because if the cattons are slowly discarding him, farleigh can allow himself this one small victory. he's relieved because despite the dangerous similarities, oliver is, thankfully, not really the same as farleigh, right?

but like. this movie is a love letter to all things gothic. oliver is a white man. he prevails. the brief performance that oliver put on did eventually end up more effective than farleigh's lifetime of constraint. my heart fucking breaks for him to be honest.

the issue that remains is the fact of farleigh's survival. i like to think that oliver came to respect him. oliver is smart, but farleigh is clever. he picks up on everything oliver does (to refer back to the karaoke scene, farleigh immediately retaliates in the cleverest way, in the moment), and he's the only one to do so consistently (venetia, again, for example, comes close, but too late; oliver doesn't like that, there's nothing to work with). hence, stay with me for a little longer, the paradox: farleigh survives because he was never enough for the cattons, but he is very worthy of oliver's attention. in his own freaky way, oliver wants him. look at that.

so. farleigh. farleigh might come back. he always comes back. and i think oliver wants to try harder next time.

[ariadne-mouse]

I feel fandom would get along a lot better if there was mutual understanding that liking a character, agreeing with a character, and thinking the character is well constructed/executed are all separate (if often overlapping) positions, each with their separate tastes and subjectivities. Also: character portrayals are intended to make the audience feel things; this is separate from (if often overlapping with) analyzing/appreciating their actions and role in the story.

[stuckinapril]

i love anthologies. anthologies are so sexy

[kenzan-kiwami]

everybody claims to be a kashiwagi enjoyer but the only time anyone ever talks about him is to say he's the hottest piece of meat in the series

[vmures]

second verse, much like the first

I was tagged by the ever fabulous @oldefashioned with the request to do my url in beloved movies this time.

So here we go:

Victor/Victoria

Mulan

Undercover Blues

RED

Ever After

Spirited Away

This one was challenging. Both because I'm still waking up and so struggled to think of movies starting with various letters and because there are a lot of great movies out there that could have fit and I had to choose which one to use.

If you'd like to play along, please do so and tag me with your response! It's fun to see what movies people pick.

[infernal-feminae]

*adds Lilith to the muse roster*

[firestorm09890]

so sad when someone is a very funny person but has terrible opinions on your favorite media and/or characters. get well soon 😔

[svtskneecaps]

literally it's 3am where i live and i'm on mobile but FUCK IT i haven't posted any actual writing in like a YEAR on this blog whose description include the words "I WRITE" and i can't tell if i'm even going anywhere with this so fuck it under the cut is the prospective absolute mess of the first chapter of the flipo family time loop fic. (for clarity, flipo family as in slime, mariana, and juanaflippa) this covers loop 0, aka the relevant parts of canon. words: 1630

parts of it i popped off with and other parts i hate; up to you to identify them. also the italics and other formatting got erased when i copy pasted and i'm re-adding all of it by hand so if i missed a spot, no i didn't. if i missed an accent on a letter in spanish that was a typo, if i missed a ¡ or ¿ that may have been on purpose.

oh and for obvious reasons, content warning for mentions and mild descriptions of child death and child murder. no blood, and most of it is a three word mention; i'd say the brief paragraph beginning "Tilín didn't scream" is most of the reason this warning exists.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

He’d been hoping for a bright, sunny day to start their vacation, but was sorely disappointed. The portal had apparently taken them pretty far, since they’d gone from noon to night time. Talk about jetlag. They hadn’t even been on a plane.

“What happened to the other guys?” he wondered aloud as he stepped onto the platform.

“Yeah no clue,” Phil said, scanning the empty station. “Thought they’d meet us here.”

“Guys!” one of the Spanish speakers--Vegetta, he’d said, when they’d all met up at the first station--called, from a lectern at the wall. “There is a book!”

They crowded around as he read the instructions aloud--something about pressure plates, Slime wasn’t paying that close of attention. He was a little more preoccupied with making sure it only felt like his brain was dripping out of his ears. That would be kind of embarrassing.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t enjoying the constant onslaught of people talking over each other using words he may or may not understand. In fact, it was the opposite; he was frankly thriving in the absolute chaos that kicked back up around him as a timer appeared in the wrist communicators they’d been provided along with their tickets.

“Como se dice ‘we are going to die now’?” He giggled, chasing Phil and Fit to one end of the station.

“¡Vamos a morir!” shouted Spiderman, echoed seconds later by the black bear in the collared shirt.

Giddy over the high of attempting to use his high school foreign language for the first time maybe ever, Slime absolutely didn’t contribute much to solving the puzzle, and before long the sound of the timer ticking down was accompanied by a loud buzzing alarm.

“It’s been an honor!” he shrieked at the top of his lungs. “It’s been an honor!”

The bear ran past them again, shouting, “I’m going to die!” in English this time.

“Adiós amigos!” Slime yelled.

The countdown ended.

And then his communicator buzzed, and there was a video playing on the screen, showing a cartoonish yellow duck in front of a blurry beach stock photo. He skimmed it absently--some generic welcoming message and another side quest for them--distracted by Maximus audibly losing his shit laughing across the station.

“Come on, I’m trying to take a vacation, I gotta work now?” Fit complained. “This is ridiculous.”

Slime wanted to jump on that bit, but the message cut off with coordinates marred by static and the noise of the emergency weather alert system and he lost his train of thought completely.

“I got the English book!” Spreen called, holding it with two fingers like it had personally offended him.

“English leader,” Vegetta said, seeming to find that amusing.

“English leader.” Spreen laughed and flicked the book away. Slime stepped back but somehow it still nailed him in the chest.

“Guess I’m reading then,” he said cheerfully.

“In Spanish?” Maximus said.

“Um.”

Vegetta called something, backing across the plaza with the book open in his hands. Phil backed up to the wall.

“Here,” Phil instructed, “we’ll read it here.”

“Okay okay.” He flicked it open. “So we have to get water wheel planks--”

Their peace lasted a grand total of thirty seconds as voices suddenly began shouting, overlapping in chaotic chorus.

“What is that?” Fit demanded.

“Is that coming from the other side?” Phil stared up at the top of the wall.

“This is the thinnest thick wall I’ve ever seen,” Slime said, giddy laughter bubbling out of him again. “Is this thing made out of pencil shavings? If I sneeze on it, is there gonna be a hole?”

“Nevermind, we’ll read it over here.” Phil dragged them away again, but the Spanish speakers were dispersing into the trees.

“Forget the book,” Fit said, “follow them!”

(In the end it was explosives that took the wall down, which in hindsight was a precursor to how a not insignificant portion of time on the island was spent. The first day, however, it was just funny, much like everything else.)

(That was to say, the first first day.)

The communicator had indicated that today there was something special planned, so he made an extra effort to wake up.

“Morning Jaiden!” he called to his upstairs neighbor.

“Hi Charlie!” He could hear her farming through the wall. “Glad you woke up on time!”

“Well you know, you know, El Backflipo couldn’t miss it,” he joked, sifting through his backpack. “Got any spare food? I’ll trade you uno backflipo.”

“I have so much toast, come here and get some, free of charge.”

With a quick backflip and some toast to start the day, he popped open the map.

“There’s a lot of people down the wall,” he noted, their green dots so clustered they formed one. “Wanna check it out?”

“Yeah sure.” Jaiden tossed some seeds into a chest. “Do you know what this event’s gonna be?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted cheerfully.

She laughed. “Yeah, me neither. I guess there’s an egg involved, but that’s all I know.”

He dug around in his backpack for a paraglider, nodding along. “Yeah, yeah, un huevo, I get you.” Shuffling the landmine from Vegetta to one side, he yanked out his glider and threw himself out her window. “Let’s go!”

(nothing like getting struck by lightning to wake a guy up in the morning)

Slime fiddled with the communicator as he waited for the line of people to get through the ticket machine; he already had his own, a nice B for Backflipo. The new live translations still boggled his mind. He had to fight the urge to chant weird shit under his breath, just to see what the bubbles would say.

He paid a little extra attention when Mariana walked up to the machine. That guy seemed cool. They’d done that pequeño dormir together on day one, and he had a good sense of humor. Egg parenting would probably be funny.

He was thrilled to see the B for Backflipo on the ticket Mariana stepped away with, even if Mariana was decidedly less so. This was gonna be good.

(it was, and it wasn’t)

So, Mariana wasn’t exactly the coparent of dreams. Then again, Slime was pretty sure Mariana could say the same about him. In fact he was pretty sure Mariana had said the same, but in Spanish, when he wasn’t checking the translation.

It was great. They thought they’d killed a child immediately and then decided to fake their own child’s death to get away with it, and then confessed their sins to a bilingual angel and built a farm and then he buried himself beneath an improvised cross and went into a coma until his sins were forgiven, or something, except his sins weren’t forgiven in time to save his own child’s life.

And then Juanaflippa was dead. Dead at Mariana’s hand.

His bitch wife killed their daughter.

(Everything went faster, after that.)

Slime wanted to kill him.

Slime wanted to kill him for killing their fucking daughter, but of course, Mariana couldn’t even be bothered to be around to take care of her alive, never mind to pay for his crimes when she died by his hand!

(in a better world, his rage started and ended there. in a better world, the anger fizzled out with the lack of a target.

this was not that world)

There couldn’t be an Egg Event with no eggs.

If he killed them all, it would bring her back.

(in a worse world, he succeeded. in a worse world, the Egg Event ended there.

this was not that world)

They held a trial.

If he won, it would bring her back.

(in another world, he didn’t convince them. in another world, they left his daughter in Hell.

this was not that world)

Tilín was still before she hit the ground.

Tilín didn’t scream. Maybe they didn’t have time. It happened so fast. He was sure it happened fast. Almost too fast. But everything went so fast, now, even though Flippa was back. Yet, time slowed down for this, like a rubberneck driving past a highway accident, watching him desperately trying to shock their heart back into motion.

“YOU KILL MY BEST FRIENDS,” Flippa wrote. He begged her to understand. She wrote, “i can’t believe it.”

She wrote, “I HATE YOU.”

(in a better world, the error would have been caught in April instead of July.

this was not that world)

His daughter fell to his bitch wife’s sword. The same way. The next day.

They’d only just gotten her back. And Mariana killed her again.

He only left eggxile for the funeral. She wouldn’t stay dead, but he had to be there.

Time went even faster after that. He was Gegg, or maybe Gegg was him, or maybe Gegg was Gegg, or maybe. . . ?

He went back to eggxile.

He wasn’t leaving without them. Tilín. Juanaflippa. He would do whatever was necessary. He would pray to any higher power. Lil J still owed him a goddamn favor, but the guy wouldn’t pick up his calls. Maybe if he put more shit in the shrine; angels liked shiny shit, didn’t they? He went back to the mine, where the gasses swirled in his head. He built the shrine. He mined. He built the shrine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

He went back to the mine.

“This is where I sit, this is where my bitch wife sits, and this is where my daughter sits, if I had one!”

He’d said that before. No he hadn’t. Yes he had.

No, he just needed to clear his head.

Charlie Slimecicle went back to the mine.

Charlie Slimecicle stepped off the train.

[dwtdog]

Hi I'm one of the Aimsey anons from like 10 hours ago but I had class and got super distracted

I wanted to make it so clear, how that commentary channel was going about it was super wrong and I would never condone that kind of behavior

As much as I think how aimsey handles situations should be talked about and discussed, it shouldn't attack anything about them as a person, but instead break down the issues in their *actions*

As I said, I do have an issue with aimsey and how they handle themselves online and that's especially a problem when they have a decently sized platform and I think it does need to be called out. But absolutely not in the way that channel was going about it

Sorry I've been thinking of this all day and wanted to clear the air 😅

oh dw you're good!! it's definitely a weird little situation going on with ai/msey rn, i just wanted to put a more definitive timeline out so people could better form opinions bc i figured it was a lot of just guessing based on limited information :o

[socialjusticefail]

Here is the link to this post on Bluesky:

This person is the first I saw to point out that leftist antisemitism exists on Bluesky.

[atlasreign]

also i would like to thank rhys strongfork for being the character that first made me realise i was not cis in 2016, for being the character that made me realise i was also trans in 2023 and for being the sole influence for me to go ahead with everything in 2024. thanks, king. here's your crown. 👑

[memorys-skyscraper]

man. ive got a real hankering to replay persona 5 but i also dont really wanna subject myself to........ All That, yknow

[allthegothihopgirls]

it's really amusing to me when i amass followers from short-term interests i have, and inevitably have to subject them to what this blog is at its core. a batshit obsessive twdu fanpage

[warlordfelwinter]

i love fiver's suspicious little glare hearing the word "crystarium" for the first time. considering he just got kidnapped via migraine in the bowels of the crystal tower and this guy said something about a gleaming tower, he's just like "this better not fucking be what i think it is"

[sisterjaniswilde]

in terms of maslow's hierachy of needs, beyond safety (and even that is still dodgey at times because of my living situation), I have unmet needs all over the goddamn map, and yet my brain insists on reaching for the tippy top of the pyramid and trying to achieve transcendence with an urgency that is sometimes so physically painful I can't eat or sleep or stop crying.

and not to be delusional or whatever but it feels like someone showed me the future at some point and like an impatient child I want it right now but I've also totally forgotten the specifics, so I just have these vague notions of things that I think will make me happy but I don't really fucking know. what if I do all the work and I get there, I get what I want and it's all still. this? ugh!!!