#OH FUCK SORRY I READMORED IT NOW

[bunnysuitconman]

Who is Vanny ?

GREAT QUESTION! Vanny is both super interesting and we have so LITTLE TO WORK WITH

Okay so Vanessa/Vanny is kind of an interesting situation it's highly implied that she's the same tape girl you hear in Help Wanted and she "explains" how you can defeat glitchtrap but instead leads the player astray and glitchtrap supossedly locks you, or perhaps part of your mind behind that door, and gives the player a totem of himself, that little green glitchy springbonnie. supposedly do to with being able to communicate with him? In order to get some secret dialog you needed to wear the bunny mask from dreadbear and also hold the glitchtrap plush. while this came back in security breach it was just kind of touched upon in the princess quest mini game and wasn't really explored. It's the player reliving her actions so, it's curious. So, Vanessa in her previous job, in help wanted, she's doing the game development and testing. One of her co-workers actually met a pretty gnarly fate, driven mad by glitchtraps possibly first attempt at possessing someone. Jeremy, cut off his own face with a paper gillotine and went straight back to playing. Vanessa desribes it as "a halloween mask" and "spilt ink that covered the front of Jeremys tshirt" but he turned to face her before she toddled off to work so he was presumably still alive at that time before he bled out! it's really interesting to me that it might of been Glitchtrap already possessing him, or in an effort to save what was left of himself he killed himself with what was available to him because he knew glitchtraps intentions. When Jeremys duties fell to her she presumably caught on to what Jeremy saw and tried do delete glitchtrap to no avail, presumably It's generally agreed upon somewhere along the way she switched tactics from glitchtrap being attatched to her voice files and trying to sequester them so only beta testers would think to poke around in there, to straight claiming to being able to kill him but leading you to the endings where you merge with him. So she's either thought she could kill him in this act of desperation, tried it and got possessed or Glitchtrap intentionally made her explain something that leads to the players possession!

it's later shown in FNAF AR that Vanessa (now being nicknamed ness) is still working and this might overlap with the events or it's shortly after help wanted, Vanessa, or atleast Glitchtrap controling vanessa is triggering the flagging system because she's searching for disturbing things that could be gently explained away or atleast is by Luis from the IT team. not too too much is happening it's just glitchtrap either in her body or in the system on her account looking up alot of stuff. especially things like, torture! which maybe agony or remnant factors into it? agony is a book only concept that i'm not overtly familliar with. Remnant extraction though is one side, perhaps wanting to know how exactly objects get possessed he's seeking to understand more. who knows!

Somewhere along the way Vanessa gets a position at the security team dispite a lack of experiance, if i remember right internal messages in SB describe her interest in the position as odd. but eventually she's basically one of the few humans on the nightshift, or one of the few humans that works there period, fazcorp having pushed to replace majority of human staff with STAFF bots presumably to cut costs, and possibly even straight murdering a whole portion of the staff! since the staff meeting "party" looks like it's been trashed, in the place where endo's rome around. it Also gives Vanessa a whole lot of free range to do what the hell she likes, including somewhere along the way killing atleast 9 kids! You know we don't actually know much about what she was doing with Glitchtrap? which is one of the major failings of Security breach, Burntrap was just down in the basement, she even had her own set up there with a bed! we're just left to think that she's been wringing out these kids to, feed him maybe? continue his legacy? Vanny is supposedly hacking into these bots and taking control of the pizza plex to, possibly rebuild burntrap? who knows if it's a design feature or not but i do find it an interesting aspect that burntrap might possibly be a bit of a ship of theasus in that he has aspects like nightmare claws that he wouldn't previously have, casing that doesn't belong to him. I'm kind of a fan of the idea he was going to "take over" Glamrock bonnie before things went astray somehow. people love the theroy that bonnie fought back, it's implied that all of the bots were under some kind of programming that brought them down to the basement! they all may have participated in those murders! and, vanny just kind of peters out a little? she appears now and then in the game but she isn't much of an actual threat. Vanessa doesn't do much either, there are nixed onesided conversations that i love, and she has some absolutely unhinged unused animations, she could of been a fantastic stalker character thoughout the game but they couldn't get her working.

it's more than likely that Vanny in SB as it is doesn't have much agency over her actions given what we're shown, while previously she was the reluctant follower who seeminly went along with things convincing herself it'll be "fun" supposedly not yet having killed, she's graduated to full mind domination were she doesn't have much agency over her actions and supposedly it's more william afton in Vanessas body than Vanessa having a secondary persona in Vanny i don't really know how to feel about it honest, i like her being reluctant but still getting dragged further inwards into this horrible plan even though i haven't an idea what glitchtrap wants to do other than be inside of other people. I can deal with a partial posession deal of Glitchtrap borrowing her body i would just like it to be more, developed! There is also this element that i partially like to incorperate that is more tangential but because Vanessa is searching all of these disturbing terms, she gets sent to corperate therapy and i'm still a beliver that it's all Vanessa, i don't know how the idea that it's both vanessa and gregory alternating and gregory is a kid hacker holds up and what is were, there might be book lore there i don't know. But the therapy discs state that Vanessa had participated in a divorce court case where she was coached by her dad to testify against her mother, and this was rather traumatic for her, she's consistantly shown as more, shrinking and soft spoken in these tapes that she wants to be a good girl. "I can't talk about this. He said he would always be watching. He could be here or there or anywhere in between" in cd 11, and the therapist is connecting it to her father when we can glean it's really about glitchtrap, and Vanessa explains that she's "compartmentalized him. He's locked away." like she's trying her best to manage and damp down him for Glitchtrap to only leak out in ways she doesn't understand. She's making her bunny costume in that same tape. I personally like to say that glitchtrap is actively using his own memories of his messy divorce and possible court proceedings and coaching of elizabeth to testify against her own mother. Vanny being this replacement for elizabeth, a favourite child, his daughter, Baby showed this malicious intent, both wanting to murder william for leaving her and also this, strange idolization of her father. Maybe william desires that back? hard to say. i like a father daughter dynamic between them in any case! Anyway, vanessas therapists keep on dying. like she burns though five of them and they keep getting mangled. I'm of the opinion that the tapes that we don't hear vanessas voice may be her possessed. the very last tape may even have her murdering her therapist there and then after she's confronted that the therapist had found out that she lived a relatively normal life and her parents are still together because william doesn't want his programming breaking. All in all, i love vanessa/vanny, she's seriously fantastic but she's also SO underused that the broadness of her character in SB is really unfortunate.

Also it's kind of weird that in the PQ ending or the burntrap ending where she's released from glitchtrap she's kind of, instantly forgiven in the narritive, you did some shit girl go to jail

[coridallasmultipass]

brocal for the ship bingo?

The OTP to end all other OTPs... (Man. This wound up being basically Cori's Masterpost of BroCal. AKA... this got long and has some images, since I realized I can post my own art directly instead of just a text link to it lol.)

Wasn't actually expecting this to wind up with a bingo? But I got basically 2?? (Will explain the lighter heart later.) This is A LONG post, and definitely gonna get SUGGESTIVE, bc man, am I obSESSED with BroCal. I'm just gonna go thru each checked box, since I don't know how else to structure this post lol.

Read More to save ppl's dashboards:

I want them to make out with blood: OKAY. I HAVE A WHOLE THING PLANNED FOR THIS CONCEPT. I AM NOT GOING TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT IT JUST YET BC I ACTUALLY WANNA WRITE IT. I'm obsessed with this one fanart of Bro licking Lil Cal, and it spurred on an idea I outlined and really wanna write: https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/739969858334294016/hiiii-mutual-i-am-secrecy-asking-if-u-have-anymore

((Sorry for the plain text links, Tumblr app is NOT cooperating with me right now to add hyperlinks. I'd post the image directly if that one was mine.))

Basically, I just really need to see Bro and Cal making out with blood in their mouths, and I started a whole convoluted, unrelated outline in order to make that hapen. It'll probably just be a really short thing that ends at the uh climax, since otherwise it's gonna end up sadstuck. And I don't like sadstuck lol.

Undeniably t4t: Bro and Dirk are always trans for me, and Lil Cal's got that uh... what percentage did I calculate it out to be? 13% of Dirk is in Lil Cal [ My shitpost calculations: https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/746702663327072256/i-ran-out-of-tags-rambling-about-this-so-im-just ] so Lil Cal is at least 13% trans because of that much of Dirk being in him, plus however you feel about the other components being trans. LMAO this is ridiculous to type out. Moving on.

EDIT: FUTURE CORI INTERJECTING WITH A:

"Lil Cal Top Surgery Healing Progess: Day 1"

Terrible for each other affectionate/derogatory: I don't even know where the affectionate/derogatory split occurs. I multiship BroCal as both Bro/normal puppet Lil Cal and as Bro/evil juju puppet Lil Cal, and whatever combination in between or outside of that. Terrible in that Bro is so obsessed with Cal that he doesn't have normal relationship/social skills and uses Lil Cal as both a crutch and motivator alternately, in a terrible cycle, or maybe rather... spiral. And also terrible in that Bro is caught in the allure of playing the role of puppeteer while also being a puppet for the darker parts of Lil Cal, whether he actively knows it or not. (Honestly though, I feel like it's dismissive if you try to blame all of Bro's faults on Lil Cal like this tho, which is why I tend towards liking Lil Cal as just a regular puppet a lil bit more. Or at least, a regular mildly supernatural puppet since that can be a little more entertaining if Cal can get into mischief while no one's looking or give off the vibes of his mood more directly, rather than like entirely inanimate or 'just LE, trapped in a puppet body.' Again, I like all of these concepts.) ((I mean that can also be a whole post of its own, like, by the time Bro gets ahold of Lil Cal, are any of the other components still alive in there? Like, are ARquius and Gamzee still in there or did Caliborn kill and consume them entirely? Idk how it works, man. This is why I like Lil Cal as his own person, maybe just influenced by the feelings of the others. LaCroix: CalGamARquius essenced water. Lil Croix.))

They need to get weirder with it: YES YES. 1000% YES. I need entirely shameless Bro doing entirely shamless things to Lil Cal. I want them inseparable and doing unspeakable things to each other. I want Bro taking full advantage of Cal having a puppet body and all the intimacy that comes with making repairs and being elbow-deep in stuffing.

Playing with them like dolls cute/psychological torture: This is the same divide as with the 'terrible for each other' point, so I'm just gonna go with the cute one, since the torture one is self-explanatory. I want them fucking married. Like. Full mushy cute romance type of relationship that Bro has never felt for any of the people in his life (cough aromantic cough). I made this comic not too long ago, and I often fondly look back on it, because I adore the concept of Bro being lovey and romantic and everything out of character around Lil Cal because he feels safe and loved and comfortable around Cal:

[ https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/750602227910131712/brocal-4-lyfe-so-i-had-this-idea-of-dave-being ]

I made a post a long, long time ago (not gonna link that one bc it was personal and I was being very obviously mentally ill ["C'mon, like you're not being obviously mentally ill while typing paragraph upon paragraph about BroCal still in 2024 like 10 years later??" Fair.]) But the gist of it was that, like, having objectophilia or objectum sexuality is like, from an outsider pov, it's a way to express love to yourself. You filter all your self-hate through the object you love, and you get back unconditional love in return.

Lil Cal is never gonna hate Bro, no matter what Bro does. As a regular puppet, Lil Cal doesn't have the capacity for hate. And so that only brings them closer, since Cal is never gonna reject Bro for any reason. (Back to being a crutch. RSD is real, and Dave is probably a big trigger for that since he's not on the same wavelength of weird as Bro [not blaming Dave, obviously, this is a post about BroCal].) Bro can experience receiving positive attention from Lil Cal, without feeling 'fake' or uncool by expressing that same attention or affection directly to his own self. (Things are always done through multiple layers with the Striders, aren't they?) ((And I'm not saying Lil Cal doesn't love Bro, or that their relationship is just pretend - it's real, I'm just like, 'What's going on behind the curtain in the mundane situation?/ How is the relationship appealing?' Lil Cal luvs Bro 5eva 4 lyfe and that's a hard fact. Could cut diamonds with that shit.)) Example: maybe Bro is dealing with a bout of body/gender dysphoria and is trying to take out his frustration with working out, and it's not helping, even if he's powered through a set better than normal. Then, he notices the way Lil Cal is watching him, and he can feel the excitement seeping off Cal. He can sense the echoes of a wolf-whistle ring out through his mind, and it's like. Okay, none of that shit from before matters, he's got all the validation he needs right there in Lil Cal. Maybe flex in Cal's direction, Bro?

Oh, so back to being cute: isn't it wonderful how the template maker phrased it as 'playing dolls'? But yeah, I want all the mush and everything. Bro has a whole wardrobe for Lil Cal for every minor event that occurs in the Strider household. I want them going on genuine dates. Maybe even... holding hands. Bro blushes for the first time since he was 16. He even gets to take Lil Cal with him when he goes out to DJ or put on a show. Not to mention the whole website business. (I've talked about Cal's role in that before, but I'll mention it in a moment...)

They will die in a heart shaped pool of blood: I mean, kinda did happen, even tho Lil Cal didn't perma die right there. I don't think this one needs any explanation, since it basically happens in canon.

'You should see the other guy...': Okay, so. About 11 years ago, I had a really great idea. About how smuppets enter this world. I expanded on it in the following more-recent post (adult only content lol): https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/741683686717669376/back-in-the-day-my-friends-called-me-insane-when-i

To sum it up, whenever Bro makes a new smuppet design, he then gives it a video debut on his website, where uh, Lil Cal births the smuppet like it's a horror movie scene, fake blood and poly-fil gore all over the place as the smuppet crawls out from the viscera. Bro then gets to play aftercare by lovingly and gently cleaning up and restuffing Lil Cal as they get to admire their new creation and rake in the dough lol.

So it's technically not a 'you should see the other guy' kinda situation, but it does involve one of them being... idk what word would describe it. Injured by the other? Usually a character loses a fight and says this to act like they got out of it better than the other guy, but... We could have someone knock on the door during the filming of a scene like that, and Bro has to answer it with fake blood up to his elbows, and be like 'You should see the other guy.' (But obviously, that's a terrible idea and would cause more trouble than it's worth... Maybe worth it for a persistent door to door salesperson, though.)

Though, I guess I should also say, I'm not opposed to Bro beating on Lil Cal in or out of the bedroom. Or in the case of animate Lil Cal, Cal choking out Bro. In or out of the bedroom, lol. Depends on the situation, like I said I will ship this ship any which way. But my preference for animate Lil Cal is to be like a totally normal puppet around Bro (or mushy in-love with Bro) and then evil-murder-puppet towards anyone else in Bro's life, like a... toxic yaoi guard puppet. (New Phrase Achievement Unlocked!) Bro brings home another guy to have sex, who tries to stay the night due to the late hour, but the guy wakes up shortly after to see Lil Cal standing there with a knife in the dark, eyes glowing red. Panic ensues when the guest screams and freaks out, and by the time Bro's got a light on, grabbing his sword, ready for a ninja vs ninja fight (bc an intruder would've had to bypass all the traps), Lil Cal is just innocently splayed across the desk chair, no knife in sight. Relevant post (well, the caption on the post too, saying how Bro can't seem to hold onto any relationships besides Lil Cal):

[ https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/741830516962164736/i-want-you-so-youre-mine-always-selfishly ]

Uh, lol, also Cal choking out Bro in the bedroom, adult only drawing: https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/754328907438800896/i-wouldnt-wanna-be-my-ex-when-he-found-out-who

Thinking about them always and forever: Listen. My Tumblr as proof, I've had BroCal on the brain for at least 11 years at this point. Definitely longer, since I first started reading Homestuck. I fucking love puppets and dolls and plushies and I always have. Man, if I hadn't deleted Tweets (automated app I used to do, and I couldn't choose what to save) from when I was in high school, you could've seen me @ ing my fave band when they were taking lyric suggestions on a fan-inspired album, where I was telling them 'make a song where the theme is puppets' and, while I don't know if they saw that or took the suggestion (they had responded to me before bc they weren't huge yet), there is indeed a song titled "Puppets" on that album, and it was my favourite song on there. Point is, I was fated to ship BroCal before I even knew it existed.

Sicko 2 sicko communication: I mean, does this even need explaining? Bro and Cal aren't just on the same wavelength of freaky, they're the fucking source of the wavelength, and it's causing a feedback loop between them. And it does as feedback does, which is, it amplifies with time. (Going back to the spiral symbolism here, lol.) ((Actually, time can play a symbol here, too, I guess, but idk how to word it, I'm starting to run out of steam.))

Let them have a happy ending: God, I need this so badly. I know Bro's story ends in Homestuck, but like. Pls. Someone needs to officiate their wedding. Currently placing the dreambubble order, but I can't organize a wedding by myself. OH speaking of. In that lil comic I did above, where Bro is accepting Lil Cal's proposal, I had the Natural Born Killers wedding scene in mind. I was gonna draw that as a follow up, but I think I have too many WIPs going. Just two people on the run, saying "I do" in a scenic but completely ordinary roadside location. Idk why, I keep going back to that movie for things related to Bro (I mention it in a very important scene in a longer WIP I've been writing, as something Bro watched and internalized as a kid lol.) It's not the best movie lol. Anyway.

The devotion omg: I feel like I have already gotten my point across about this, but let me reiterate:

[ https://coridallasmultipass.tumblr.com/post/735842968450269184/in-the-name-of-iconic-magical-girl-anime-ill ]

Bro and Lil Cal absolutely beat the shit outta Jack Noir before he gets prototyped. And even then, they fight together till the death, like. C'mon. Nothing more romantic than fighting a losing battle side by side. Also, like, Lil Cal having his own protective chest for safekeeping as seen in the Strider living room? Like, you don't just have a protective case for any old thing, especially something meant to be handled, especially something that is regularly used to smack other things/humans. What I'm saying is, Lil Cal is durable and resilient, and yet, Bro still has a case for transporting Cal safely. Oh, wait, I just thought of something funny, what if Lil Cal goes feral like a cat, and basically the chest is like a cat carrier so Bro can drive without being constricted lmaoooo, I've been typing for hours can you tell?

Kind of homophobic: Listen. I HAD a Cal. Took him to college. Staked my claim on the top bunk bc I am royalty. Proceeded to not have anywhere to set my water cup and had to use a cardboard box as a table up there. Spilled water. Melted Cal's sharpie-drawn face. And then proceeded to cry. I have a WIP of Lil Cal 2, but that requires actually remembering to work on him. I wanna do better by the pattern, too, since I rushed to finish the first. I have all the material! I have the project started! So it's just a matter of reordering my WIP priorities, honestly.

Where is all the fucking content?!: For realzz. I was actually venting about this the other day (didn't end up posting it), but it's like, either there's no BroCal content, or there IS BroCal content, but I can't reblog it for reasons I don't want to get into on this post. I'm dying of thirst in the ocean, basically. Whatever. This just means I need to make more BroCal content myself, which I am more than happy to do. I've just had a rough past few months, so I'm glad I got to type all this post out, and hopefully I can get back to creating soon.

Last one! I hope this one makes up for the absurd length of the post, it's prob my new fave idea I just came up with on the spot.

[TW drink spiking by a stranger mentioned in this.]

Committing atrocities as their silly little activities: I think we all know what this means, but I am going to ignore that elephant with my special x-ray vision. Because this is a BroCal post. I'm digging deep to the meat and bones of this. Honestly, this could go multiple routes, it depends on how you take your Lil Cal.

One could place emphasis on the 'guard' part of the, ahem ahem, toxic yaoi guard puppet. Maybe someone is actually trying to harm Bro, and Bro legit can't do anything for reasons outside of his control - let's say his drink got spiked a while after he invited a stranger home that he thought was chill. As Bro gets shoved down on the futon, his memory of the night is only a few flickers. Familiar orange plush, roiling around above him like a dancing windsock. Flashes of Lil Cal's face all distorted and stretched wide like a funhouse. J-Lo and Ice Cube on the TV. But when Bro is finally able to fully wake up in the morning, everything is as if he just got home alone last night and passed out on the futon. Cal looks totally normal and content tucked under Bro's warm arm. Except when Bro gets up, there is a pair of shoes too big to belong to him at the door. Maybe Bro knows. Maybe instinct tells him to run. Maybe he does, but he's running towards Lil Cal, every time.

[voidfishing]

I am extremely intrigued by your hyperspecific taagnus lore if you feel like expanding 👀

oh absolutely 💚💚 this. turned out to be. insanely long <3

okay so. I think that after they met while joining the IPRE, Magnus became interested in Taako pretty quickly. Taako is handsome and tough and pretty and smart as hell, of course Magnus notices all of that immediately. but I can’t imagine him actively trying to pursue a relationship given the whole, yknow, they’re about to literally leave their planet. he’s got bigger picture things to focus on. but I think they do spend quite a bit of time together. Taako actively seeks him out because, despite how much he pokes fun at him, he does think Magnus is fun and cute and sweet. they get along really well, and I like to think Magnus’ pure optimism and general sweetheart behavior made him the first member of the IPRE to really get to spend quality time with Taako without Lup present.

and then I think. there was definitely some light flirting on Taako’s end that was very casual. not super forward or anything, just little things like slightly-more-affectionate pet names or passive compliments that indicated he was paying close attention. and Magnus picked up on maybe half of it. the rest of the time he was like “man Taako’s such a nice guy. what a good friend.” and meanwhile Taako was pulling his hair out going “how is he not in love with me yet I’m being so alluring”

and this dynamic continued for a little while. they got closer. the stolen century actually began. and I think things stayed that way for a handful of cycles, because I don’t feel like either of them would be super focused on starting a relationship while trying to navigate their new lives. but I do think they got closer and closer as teammates and began to rely on each other more, which neither of them placed any extra emphasis on because they were growing closer with everyone else too.

and then I think their relationship started building again a little less than a decade into the century. they’d gotten used to the pattern and their new life, they had a better grasp on the entire situation. and I think they started to lean on each other more and more. Magnus would come to Taako to vent or theorize or talk about their home, and Taako would pick up on the fact that he was seeking comfort and offer it to him, usually through small gestures like making him something to eat and patting him on the shoulder while they talked. Taako would eventually start doing the same sort of thing, showing up to Magnus’ room just to sit quietly when he was struggling in some way and needed to be near someone else. and Magnus would be so sweet and careful about offering him support without hurting his ego, which Taako definitely appreciated.

so. I think things went on like that for a bit and they just continued to get closer and more reliant on one another. and then one day Magnus is sitting in Taako’s room watching him scribble out plans for dodging the hunger and it suddenly strikes him that he’s in love with him. and he says it. and Taako just stops what he’s doing and looks and him and goes “did we not already know this?” & naturally Magnus is a little surprised that Taako recognized his own feelings before him, but he doesn’t have time to worry about that before Taako kisses him.

and I think they date for a while. they work well together and understand how to support one another. they’re a good team!! and both of them are able to find a certain kind of shelter with each other, feeling safe and loved despite facing the end of the world annually. it’s not always easy, but they make a point to work things out when it gets hard.

I don’t really have a timeline for how long they’re officially dating, but I think by the fiftieth cycle, things have changed a little bit. not in a bad way, there’s just been a shift in their dynamic that has changed the way their relationship looks; they’re no longer calling themselves boyfriends, but they’re still super familiar with and supportive of each other. I don’t think they really label the dynamic but they’ve essentially just naturally shifted into being queer platonic partners. they’re technically exes but no one would guess that from seeing them interact. they love each other so much

and oh boy. after the stolen century, after losing their memories, after being (unbeknownst to them) reunited. I think Taako is a little interested in this handsome human he’s working with. the guy’s a little dense but it’s sort of charming to him! Magnus thinks the elf he’s traveling with is very pretty, but he’s not exactly planning on dating anyone anytime soon. he wants to be good buds! and so over the course of their time with the BOB they get closer and a little more intimate with each other, but never to the point of potentially dating. there’s love there and it feels rather platonic for both of them.

and then they get their memories back. and I think it takes Taako a very long time to talk to Magnus about any of it. which is probably a good thing, it gives them both time to digest everything they've been through, and I think their friendship starts to deepen again once they do talk about their history. the love they had lost is back and only reinforced by the fact that they managed to cultivate such a meaningful relationship even without those memories. they eventually get back to where they were during the stolen century, although that takes a couple of years. their relationship is defined by mutual love and they look out for each other as they navigate living (sort of) normal lives

[krockat]

absolutely gorge.

for a person who's been kind of drifted off from cool movies their whole life and is like, learning how to find things to watch that isn't centered at youths

(two of my most fave shows are steven universe and shera spop (and also russian doll, good omens and the boys but i haven't finished those yet so they don't count),

and has the task of recommending cool-fish whimsical weirdo movies and creations to a newly formed norm critical film group that me and a buncha disabled nerds are watching at our non-work-cause-we-cant-work-cause-we-v-disabled-workplace... :

does anyone have any recommendations on where to find films like this, or films to discuss, in such a group? or recommendations for specific films or media

(especially the watchable kind - one one can put on an old projector that's kinda shitty because we have not gotten the funding from our workplace (that's not actually a workplace, the corpos and govvies just want us to call it that. a lot of us going there call it dagis tho (informal slang for kindergarten)) to really gust this shit up yet)!

we are a bunch of funky polyminority queers and blooming cis+ers who all are into weird shit. but they (and me aswell, to a certain level, its just i know more than many of them on things like these) have not yet unlocked our potential for weird and norm critical/aware fully.

i think if this group goes well, we can motherfucker unlimited a Whole lot of people, honestly.

so yes, i am looking to make these all fuckers bloom out even more.

here are some movies i am going to suggest to our viewing, so you may know what we already got ahead:

- but i'm a cheerleader!

- everything everywhere at the end of time

- John waters movies and medias, esp those with divine (but i have not seen any yet, so if any of you have specific recs i would Love them)

- epsilon (i think?) - this one swedish short film that was a part of the yearly swedish film festival sometime between 2015-2020 that i can Not for the life of me find any even trace of online.

pretty sure it was called epsilon and it was about a brain that was being used in science experiments, that didn't realize it was just a brain, and a psychic one at that -

and the owner of the brain had donated it to science and had written away the right to have the ability to take away consent after they (the swedish scientist institute) had acquired the brain.

so they (the scientists) keep deleting its memory every time it gets 'too feisty' (tries to escape or attack the people abusing it for science).

it had one kind of notable swedish white older woman actor in it, but i can Not find her through imdb searches as i do not remember her or any works she has done. i tried searching through old women actors there but could Not.

- liv strömquist tänker på dig!

i am having hard time finding it online.

there was a recording made by SVT (Sveriges Television) of this Swedish theatre divising production, which is based on Liv Strömquist's feminist tragicomedy comic book also called Liv Strömquist Tänker På Dig! (Liv Strömquist Is Thinking About You!) - and i went to it live aswell Two times - and it was amazing, and i even got a script from (i think it was, retroactively) the director herself as i showed my huge nerdiness about it - and i foolishly never saved my own RIP of the recording of it!!)

- clue (tim curry etc version)

- derry girls (a few eps?)

we have watched, so far:

- dating amber (nice, we watched it in two parts. the first 3 meetings we had to setup the tech thing and the weird room we borrowed from the nearby building, dirty dusty room that was part of some old nearly empty office buildings, that was like a time capsule from the 70s. really funny to explore, super abandoned vibes and like it was left in a hurry with crap thrown places and sensitive documents, and broken and Untaken care of.

an old drink-yoghurt bottle that they stopped making like nearly 10 years ago stood in the projection hall that with old ass dusty ass tech sat. we nerded out REAL HARD y'all. also seems haunted by the past. also one time we heard a weird sound, and one of the friends there gathered it was an elevator alarm, cause she knows the sound as she lived in places with bad elavtors. and i was like. we should probably look to see if anyvody needs our help, but where tf is that elevator even, because it wasn't the regular elevators we use? so we find the elevator (in a room we didn't realize was there because we had explored it before and not seen that whole part.) and we pressed the button to see if it would help. and after a pretty long time (for an elevator, but not too long if it was a broken elevator) the elevator moved to our floor and there was a man there looking really confused. the door was bolted so we would have to unbolt it to open it. He didn't really say anything at first even after I said hey, so I asked 'are you okay? do you need help' and he was like 'no i am not okay, i am stuck in here, but there's people down there who are saying they can help me' so he went down and after he started going I was like. okay we'll press it again and if he's still in there we have unbolted the door so he can get out. but when we pressed it back he was gone.

anyway one of the friends got real scared and spooked out by that whole ordeal and honestly the place to begin with haha. but she was the one who showed up the next time to watch the second part of dating amber, and me (apart from our coach) , cause the other two were sickomoding.)

and are gonna watch:

- rocky horror picture show, next monday!

we are going eat snacks and dress extra camp for it, cause we wanted to also have it more like a viewing of the original cult movie watchings, and like some places still do?

yanno with the singing along and the throwing popcorn and that kinda hullabaloo?

but we just didn't have time to prepare all that for this one (we are all burnt out/are recovering, even our coach/leader is lol). so this is our pre!

oh yea this is a huge long comment where i just kinda had time to write down all this for the first time! longer than i anticipated, but i am gonna let myself be long for this one.

Woman of the Seventies

[digitaldollsworld]

Valentine’s Day makes me want to sit in a closed garage with my car running. I fucking hate this holiday. But I’ve been feeling a lot like that lately. Last year was just a horrible, very hard year and it seems like every single year it gets harder and harder and dude, I just don’t want to do this anymore. I physically cannot do another year of this bullshit.

I thought my life was getting better. For a little while. I moved out of my mom’s place, to Searcy with my ex, a town I had never been in before, to be with her. And obviously that blew up in my face lmao. I was so so miserable there. Crying by myself in “our room” (my room) bc she didn’t want to be anywhere near me [she’s aro. I don’t blame her for that, but without communication on what I perceived myself to be doing wrong, it really fucking sucked]. We broke up the week before my bday—and my family threw me a little party, and I had to paint a smile on my face and at least pretend like every part of me didn’t want to fucking die. 25, woohoo. I literally have nothing to show for it.

I don’t want to rush things. And I don’t want to be in a relationship just for the sake of being in one, to fill some void. But I’m not going to lie and say that I don’t want to be in one. I want to be loved so fucking badly, and I feel like I have so much love in my heart to give to somebody dude. But I feel so fucking damaged by past encounters that, when I like somebody, or have a prospective partner, I either a.) squash out the feelings immediately, or b.) sabotage the whole situation so I won’t get hurt anymore. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don’t even give myself the opportunity to get hurt.

I’m not going to be like [REDACTED] and point the fingers at them and solely them, like they’re (even still, to this day) trying to do to me. I wasn’t emotionally available to them, and that is 100% my fault. And I do that with every single prospective relationship. Maybe it’s just not for me. But (at risk of sounding stupid and cringe), I want my own little Makoto to love, and to spoil them, and give them the world. I do want that for myself. Smh.

And obvi it’s not even just relationship shit that’s bugging me (but ofc seeing the nature of today, that’s what’s on the epicenter of my mind). I just did not imagine my life to be like this. This old, back in my mom’s house, being forced to be a caretaker again, working retail again. Dude it fucking SUCKS SO BAD. I’m just wondering when I’ll get my big break like everybody else seems to get. When it’s going to get better for me. I’ve been waiting for years. And that’s all I can do, is wait. Considering the other option… I’m still holding on to the hope.

[lazydayslivin]

Oh my god I was just scrolling and saw your art and ITS SO BEAUTIFUL 😭😭😭😭MY EYES WERE BLESSED WITH YOUR AMAZING SONIC ART ! LOVE IT SO MUCH ! How do you color your drawings dude?! It reminds me a lot of watercolors,give me relaxing and calm vibes idk why 💙💙💙💙💙✨Hope not bother you really ! Pls keeps doing it🫂

oh this is so sweet, thank you!!!🧡and its no bother at all, i wanted to make a guide anyhow. so sorry for how long this post is, the readmore tab fucks up the formatting :P

watercolor guide

program: CSP brushes: dry ink (lines) & round watercolor + a color mixing brush of your choice (these brushes come with CSP and should be in the "dry" tab for the brush tool)

go ahead and make your sketch!

2. make a coloring layer and go straight to coloring with the watercolor brush!

to shade: recolor over areas you want darker (note that the intensity of the color depends on pen pressure/how hard you press!)

i like to leave white spaces for "highlights"

i also usually keep the color pallete as small as possible (ex: use the red from amy's dress for the blush on her peach fur!)

3. lock opacity on your lineart layer. now use your mixing brush to color the lineart however preferred. i recommend bright saturated colors to make it pop.

i used red for highlights and dabbled in green for some shadows.

4 (optional). these brushes are VERY light, so i like to merge the layers and duplicate it to increase the intensity! you can also just use a grouping layer if you prefer that.

5 (optional). now you WOULD be done, but i like to clip a random FREE stock photo ontop of my art to make it fun. i prefer colorful paint/paper textures.

this is usually clipped to the extra layer i duplicated so the base colors are still strong. you can change the clipped art's blending mode and opacity to whatever you like! (i used vivid light 44%)

6 (optional). if you'd like, you can go back to your mixing brush and use a light neutral color to wash over parts of your piece that are further away from the focus point.

awesomesauce, we're done! good job! ive also included a video of my process:

oki hope this helps. peace

[spirirsstuff]

camp half-blood tumblr dashboard simulator

🌊 seaweed-brain Follow

another day of makig sure the gods pay their child support ^^

14,239 notes

🐎 chironthecentaur Follow

I ran out of Adderall for the campers.

🐎 chironthecentaur Follow

I can not get my hands on any for the next few days. If I do not follow up, assume I am deceased.

122 notes

☠️ ghost-king-official Follow

everyone is gonna die and most of us will just forget nothing in life matters

☀️ allwillynilly Follow

:]

☠️ ghost-king-official Follow

one thing in life matters

4 notes

🦉 wise-girl Follow

Look at these designs I sketched up for Olympus! I'll start building as soon as I can <3

🌊 seaweed-brain Follow

babe ily but what the fuck is that

🦉 wise-girl Follow

Let me label it a little better

🌊 seaweed-brain Follow

that clears it up thaks

#architecture #design #sketch #plans #okay that should be enough tags to not have th readmore #she never looks past that #i cannot understnd a single word of this if someon does @ me

2,265 notes

🔥 vvvaldez-rulez Follow

WHO MOVED MY TOOLBELT

notthatjason-deactivated20180501

I DIDNT TOUCH IT. WHY DID YOU SIDE EYE ME IN THE TAGS

🕊️ piperpiperpiper Follow

I DIDNT TOUCH IT EITHER. WHY DID YOU SIDE EYE ME IN THE TAGS TOO

🔥 vvvaldez-rulez Follow

false alarm guys i put it on the second shelf instead of the first one

26 notes

🍷 thewineman Follow

Diet coke only sustains for so long. Wine is forever. Zeus is a pussy anhldfii ju bccs njsshsnSBMFF F IN CHNCC BBC F J

7,487 notes

⚡️daughterofzeus Follow

luke and i took in a runaway she’s so sweet and scared

luke-me-up-deactivated20090505

I know 🥺 She’s so young and ran away from her family but she’s got a new family now

2 notes

🐐 groover-underwood Follow

CYCLOPES KNOW HOW TO USE TUMBLR??????

#I know I know he’s nice but he still unnerves me I’m sorry

53 notes

🌊 seaweed-brain Follow

smh cant believe people drown just breathe

👁️ tysoncyclops Follow

Hello brother!

🌊 seaweed-brain Follow

hi tyson!

#oh shit out of all the posts why did he find this

70,171 notes

📜 oracle-of-delphi Follow

feeling silly might deliver the next great prophecy idk

📜 oracle-of-delphi Follow

Terrible things are going to happen.

497 notes

[m1d-45]

i need MISERY and SADNESS and ANGST !

reader absolutely sobbing to bird xiao. i mean fucking wailing, man.

our birdie was going about his usual business, peeping around, looking for any possible dangers, maybe bring back a nice acorn. once he’s done, he’ll fly back to us, glad to report — (chirp a few times) — that the area is safe.

but instead of finding you eagerly awaiting him with an outstretched hand, he finds you curled in on yourself, stifling sobs.

he lands on the ground in front of you, worriedly hopping past the squirrels and deer nudging various forest tributes to you. he peeps once, but you don’t respond. he peeps a second time, and this warrants an answer.

you weakly unfurl yourself, willing your head upwards.

xiao now notices the state of your clothes. tattered, dirty, and dampened with what he hopes is just a peculiar blue juice.

he then meets a pair of reddened, glossy eyes. your cheek was scratched, and your now visible hands badly scraped. he chirps in concern, flapping his wings and hopping closer to your face.

that same face scrunches once again, as you curl your head back into your knees. as another sob escapes, you only wordlessly produce a few almonds from your pocket. you only whimpered an apology as a deer laid at your feet.

the almonds were not what he wanted. he did not need an apology for- what? a lack of attention? no, none of that. he only wanted you to be happy. how had he failed you again? he was a disgrace to the adepti, he was surely deserving of avid punishment. perhaps the loss of a finger would serve well. or two, after all, he had been too selfish and ignorant to save you. why was he even aIive? why was he ever even born? such a faiIure should never have been —

his inner monologue was cut off by an offering of a hand instead. you shakily nudged him with your index finger, making him release a squeak.

“hey.. i said i’m fine, right? please eat. you’re always so hungry.”

you sniffled.

“i can find some plants, and-“

but the sobs only continued.

“and fix it..”

your hand went limp as your cries shook your body. you didn’t even bother to weep silently anymore.

the squirrels chittered, the approaching raccoon held a rock in its small hands as an offering. a deer sniffed your head as you curled into fetal position again.

“i didn’t want this- i- i didn’t want to—”

i was just having fun, why did- how did it come this far?-”

a rabbit hopped closer.

“i want to go home. i miss my mom, i miss my dad, i miss their hugs-”

the deer at your feet nudged your leg.

“why can’t i just die aIready?”

xiao squealed, flapping his little wings furiously. he chirped and chirped, trying to bring you back to your senses.

he’d seen this thing time and time again- the form taken by relinquishment. once the thought was spoken, it could only end in misfortune.

he knew this was only a psychological effect, of course. to lose a battle when a small part of you wants to. to become careless and fall asleep on a thinly frozen lake. or, to intentionally cause one’s own end.

but that would not stop him from bringing you charms of good fortune in the following days. talisman to ward off draining spirits, necklaces and bracelets he personally imbued with evil-vanquishing power.

it did not stop him from distancing himself from you, in fear his karmic binds had effected you. that they were having the same effect on you as his siblings- as himself.

he had to protect you.

it was his duty.

-owl anon RAAAHH

i’m sorry this got so long, my thumbs go *taptaptaptap* on my keyboard while i just watch

oh…. you get it.

(under the readmore because my fingers tend to go)

xiao blessing small pebbles with adeptal energy, ignoring how it stings his hands as he wraps it in a leaf. as the one enchanting the stone, he’s granted a small amount of grace, but protection charms always tended to hiss at his karma.

he picks it up with his claws, flapping up and into the skies of liyue. he always brings you small gifts, and he knows you keep them, at least for a little while. he’s not sure if the magic is absorbed into you, if it fades, or if you simply lose them—some small part of him is satisfied at the image of mountain shaper being repelled by a simple stone—but he brings them to you faithfully. you always greet him the same way, and anticipation begins to bubbles under his skin at the thought.

he loves seeing you.

…but not like this.

your tree is more crowded than usual, various small wildlife surrounding you. nothing big, nothing threatening—the deer hesitate at the treeline, huffing and pawing at the ground—but worrying for certain.

he gives his same warning cry he always does, but you don’t step out to greet him. he has to duck beneath the leaves, and he sees you… crying.

he freezes, dropping a few inches in his shock, but quickly recovers.

(he can’t hesitate. he can’t pause. there’s no time for his own problems when you are in pain-)

he lands on your arm, bumping his head to yours and giving you a small chirp.

(please be okay. please be okay. please let the teal grass around you be lighting, or his bird eyes. please.)

another bump. another chirp. he reaches and pulls a leaf from your hair, turning to drop it away, and when he looks back you managed to lift your head.

he can’t stop the way he jumps, flapping to regain his balance at the smear of blue across your face.

“oh… hello there, little friend.”

he can’t even bring himself to be as happy as he normally is at your voice.

you take the wrapped rock from your claws, both you and the leaf unfurling. the blue stone glitters, and you smile slightly. from his new perch on your wrist and your shift in posture, he can’t help but notice more and more tragic details about you.

a slash across your waist, the cloth of your shirt clinging to your skin. the dirt across your skin, the tracks of tears down your cheeks.

“th-“ you cough, and the stone in your hand pulses outside of your view. “thank you, pretty bird.”

some part of him hopes that the stone brings you some joy. that you can absorb some of his magic- hell, he’d enchant it again if he needed to, expending every drop of energy he had of it meant you didn’t have to cry.

but not even the beauty of the earth can mend the tragedy of betrayal.

if anything, you cry more, curling up again in an attempt to hide from the world that wanted you dead. concerned cheeps slip from his beak as easily as the rabbits and birds around you hop closer. none dare to get as close as he, but acorns and river stones and pushed towards you, a ring of offerings surrounding their god.

“sorry,” you stutter, your voice choked, and he wonders why you’re apologizing. “i- i still-“ another sob. xiao feels like crying himself.

(he has no right to be distraught. not when he’s the blade you fear)

“here,” you manage, offering up a shaking handful of crushed almonds. you still have him your food, you still went through the strain and effort of crushing them so he could eat them in this form- even after the adepti had injured you, you still found it in yourself to help him?

(you didn’t know he was an adeptus. he was still lying to you. he hasn’t even taken any serious action, he couldn’t even try and help you when you still helped and cooed over and loved him-)

“do- do you-“ your voice hitched and broke, and he chirped, hopping up your arm. how he wished he could comfort you properly. how he wished he wasn’t a coward, that he could do more. “i know it isn’t enough, i-“ fresh tears welled in your eyes, and he had the feeling the pain ran deeper than your skin. “i’m sorry.”

you were sorry? why? he didn’t need an apology, he- if anything he should apologize. you deserved his offerings and apologies, you deserved his effort- and he couldn’t even give you that. he couldn’t even do what he was meant to, he wasted air with every breath, he spent his time protecting the citizens that hurt you. you shouldn’t be giving you his food, he should be giving you his blade, his armor, his mask, his- his faith.

he didn’t deserve to cry. but when he took a look at his own actions, he couldn’t help but think that he should be the one with blood on his skin, with ragged clothes and heaving breaths.

(he should be dead for what he allowed to happen to you.)

“please eat,” you sobbed, nudging him with the hand holding the almonds. “i can- i’m- you can trust me.”

(you shouldn’t trust him.)

“please…”

he hated seeing you cry. he hated hearing your sobs and knowing he was indirectly part of the cause. he hated that he was too much of a coward to take any serious action, he hated that he still stood besides your enemies, he hated that some of your blood fell on his hands, hated that every ounce of strength he had was one that you didn’t, and it was his fault. at least partially.

(entirely.)

your cries took words, pleads to the wildlife for a world they didn’t know, people and names you begged to carry you from your position.

“i just wanted to have fun.” you should be. you should be dressed in gold with jewelry of silver, you should be smiling and dancing with the ones you had blessed, traveling nations not as a fugitive, but as a god. “i never meant to come here. i never meant to be a problem.”

he hates that he knows you’d be safer in your previous world. he hates it. he hates it. he hates the adepti, he hates the millelith, the knights, the matra, he hates every blade that dared to cross your skin.

(he hates himself. he hates that he’s never done enough. he hates that he’s still so much of a coward he can’t take any action, not even against himself. he should turn his spear on himself, for allowing such heresy.)

you sniffled, harshly wiping at your eyes.

“god, why can’t i just die?”

ice frosted xiao’s veins.

he would understand if you were angry. he would understand if your tears were of frustration, if you beat at the ground instead of your aggressor’s bones, if you wanted to shout and take out your anger on the sky. he’d offer himself for your wrath—at least then he could finally be of service—but for you to wish to offer your life?

for you to be convinced that the death of a god was the only solution for the falsehood of another…

how long had this thought been in your head? how long had you offhandedly thought of letting yourself be captured, be slain, of giving up what you had blessed upon so many? how many times had you debating letting a wound get worse, of allowing infection to rid you of the thorns of this world?

xiao hopped up your arm, cooing sadly and curling into your neck.

he wished he could do more. he wished that he could hold you with human arms, he wished he could give you faith in your own creations, he wished he could whisk you away and take on the world himself, that he could fight on your behalf, that you would remain safe and if anything, he would be the one to die.

“don’t cry,” you said shakily, awkwardly reaching to pet over his wings.

how could he not, when his god had forsaken everything, including themself?

[presidentbungus]

Um, It's Kind of a Lot

demo/scout, demo&eyelander - 30k words

Read on Ao3

Lonely men find each other in a place that collects failures like baseball cards. Things don't take long to get complicated. The 600-year-old haunted sword is NOT happy about it Written with care for the 2024 TF2 Big Bang, with illustrations from toasty and George Henry

in other words: demoscoutheads come get yah mutual pining juice!! ignore the ancient cursed sword she is nice and will cause no problems or angst or anything of the sort

Excerpt under the readmore :)

Boy, Jeremy shoulda picked the pool table. About half the party's grouped around it, shooting shots, yukking it up, and he's over at the side of the room, standing alone with an empty cup in one hand and a bunch of darts in the other, like a dipshit. Staring at a bunch of old guys with huge axe-murderer scars wiggle their asses and speak in faintly European-sounding tongues. Like a dipshit. He’s not even good at darts.

This whole settling-in thing’s been kind of a wet fart, actually. He was hoping this job’d be something better than sitting in a jail cell and looking at contraband porno mags but then he got on the bus over, and the cabin was full of about two toddlers worth of scar tissue and more stupid accents than he’s ever heard come out of an improv class, and the only reason he survived the trip was at least now he knows he’s getting paid something. Every time he’d try and speak up he’d get eight chilling glares and then everybody would get back to beating on each other, and the time he really tried he ended up sprawled across the floor, with the dried blood and the gum wrappers, and with a shiner the size of fucking Alaska.

It’d hurt worse if he hadn’t had at least a dozen on this eye before. Maybe it’s a good thing no one’s come over here to talk to him yet, because he probably looks like a fucking dipshit just standing here, sweating through his pants, black eye, empty cup, darts, no friends, no money, no future.

Feels just like home. God dammit.

Eventually somebody finally taps him on the shoulder, and he spins around and two darts fall out of his hand and he does a slightly embarrassing please-don’t-stab-through-my-big-toe shuffle, and it’s Heav… De… the eyepatch guy. With two cups of shitty beer from the keg on the other side of the room, one in each hand. And he’s smiling, and his teeth are disgusting, and while Jeremy’s staring all wide-eyed (like a dipshit) it takes him a very long time to realize that the eyepatch guy is trying to hand him one of the full cups, and he mostly notices because he eventually gives up and just slots it into his empty one.

Then he cracks another, slightly different smile. “I cannae be that ugly, can I?”

Jesus christ, he sounds like a goddamn leprechaun. Jeremy chokes out a laugh into his newly-refilled beer cup, and unceremoniously dumps the darts onto a weird side table that’s just kind of sitting there in the middle of the room, like most of the furniture in here is kind of doing. “No, I just—sorry, pal. This place is throwing me all off.”

“Mm, sure it is,” with a glint in his eye that seems to instantly settle into the back of his skull. There’s just the faintest trace of a slur in his voice—it would definitely track if he’s already kind of drunk.

Honestly, Jeremy’s not flying the straightest right now either, and he wonders if that’s why eyepatch guy’s staring at his cup of beer—just watching, waving his own around like he’s not gonna drink from it until—oh wait.

“And thanks for the refill, pal.”

“Ah, love to hear it.” He pulls out a third version of the same smirk and Jeremy wonders what his face looks like right now, and decides it’s probably something really stupid. “You looked like a kicked bloody puppy all alone over here. Thought it was the least I could do.”

Jeremy laughs at this. It’s not funny. He figures maybe he should shake a hand or something, whatever people do at this kind of thing, but his palms feel really sweaty and he feels like he’s done enough to ruin this first impression anyway. “I’m, uh. I’m Jeremy.” Wait. “Wait. I don’t think we’re supposed to say our names. Wait, pretend I didn’t say that.”

And he just watches. Beer to his lips. Smirk number four. Jesus christ, just bring out some popcorn at this point.

“Um, I’m Scout, is what I meant to say. And I’m… gonna do that, I guess. Scout, I mean.”

“Name’s Tavish,” he says, and he sure lets that one sit for a while. “But I’m the Demolitions Man. Demoman for short, and some of the lads over there already started callin’ me Demo.”

“So… like, bombs ‘n shit?”

“Aye. Pretty much.”

“Cool.” And then what the fuck else is there to say? “So… what’s up?”

Good one, Jer, top-notch. Hall of fame performance. Jesus christ.

Smirk number five, and it finally tapers out as Demo thinks for a second, and eventually comes up with: “Darts?”

God, he was hoping he wouldn’t ask that. “Hell yeah, brother.”

… Demoman stares at him. He places three darts in his hand… then awkwardly lowers himself to the ground, picks up another couple, and adds those to the stack.

Smooth. Suave. Good thing he doesn’t look like a fucking idiot or anything, because that would be really embarrassing.

They awkwardly stare at each other for a couple more seconds before Demoman says, slowly: “You start?” in a way that definitely says ‘I have no fucking idea how to play darts’, and that’s okay, because this game sucks anyway. Scout nods and mumbles something stupid, and he goes and leans against the back of the couch and squinches one eye shut even though he know that probably makes his aim a lot worse—and he fires three stinkers, right in a row, two of which land in the wall above and below the board, and one perfectly strikes just the rim.

At least Demo follows his lead, and he sucks too. That makes him feel a little better.

On his way back the second time, Scout takes a little longer to pick up his darts and says: “Why’d you come over here?”

“What?”

“Well, you guys seemed like you were having a great time in that little jerkoff circle around the pool table.”

“Someone’s jealous.” Demo waits for a response, and Jeremy doesn’t give him one, because he doesn’t want to. “I like to mingle. Get around, get to know.” He throws a 4 and a 3, and the third dart misses the board and embeds itself in the wall underneath—he’s real bad. “And ye looked so sad moping over here with your empty cup and your… you know.”

He brushes the black eye and instantly regrets it, and Tav… Demoman nods. “I bruise easy,” he mumbles.

No response. What’s this guy’s goddamn deal?

God, Jeremy fucking hates that sense of… what’s the word? Guilt? Feeling bad-ness? Radiating off him. “If you’d given me a couple more minutes, I woulda gotten this party goin’.” God. Dipshit. He misses the bullseye three times, one after the other, gets like a 9 or something, he doesn’t really give a shit. “Brother, I swear to god, I’m all off my game tonight.”

Game as in game, but maybe it’s less embarrassing if he’s talking about darts.

“I believe ye.”

“I dunno. Somethin’ about this place, man. It’s killin’ me.” Pauses to see if he’s gonna get interrupted, and gets nothing, so he goes on. “Like, I kept tryin’ to say hi to some of the loonies during the meet-‘n-greet earlier—couldn’t get out ten words to most of ‘em before they started turning around, like, I’m-gonna-crush-your-face-with-my-bare-hands fuckin’ death stare, like brother, what do you want from me?” Demo’s squinting, his tongue barely poking out over his bottom lip, and Jeremy watches three darts in a row sail directly into the wall. “You suck at this, man.”

“I have one eye,” he says, without missing a beat, and oh yeah, that’s kind of awkward.

“Oh, yeah… your death perception, or somethin’?”

“Close enough.”

“Anyway.” Just go ahead and skate past that one. “So we kinda moved things in here—miserable excuse for a rec room by the way, the one I had when I went to juvie had more to do—and I kind of assumed, like, there’d be some people around the pool table, a couple guys throwin’ darts, and—you know, whatever else… people do.” He dries up the last few drops in his cup and grimaces. “But I forgot,” he says, “that old guys just frickin’—just love pool. And the old guys that don’t, love leaving fun places and going to do something boring in their rooms instead.”

“Why didn’t you just go over?” he interrupts, and frankly Jeremy is shocked he’s still listening at this point, and he can almost feel his voice rattling around in his head, and gee maybe it’s best he doesn’t get another refill.

Pity. That’s the word. It’s pity.

“‘Cause—‘cause I’d already staked my territory, y’know? And I didn’t wanna be this little pussy showin’ up after everybody’s already settled in, just… crawling back.”

“So your solution was to stand sadly in the corner and look—“

“Like a dipshit.” He crosses his arms and leans against the wall, since it looks like they’re not really playing darts anymore. “I know.”

Out comes the ugliest snort Jeremy’s ever heard in his entire life. “Well, I would’ve been nicer, but sure.” Then a few shaky steps forward, then a really, really warm-and-sweaty palm lands on Jeremy’s shoulder, and their fingers brush on the way down. “At least ye got me now.”

He starts to wonder if Demoman’s really doing him that big of a favor, and realizes yes, yes he is. “… Yeah.” Then weakly raising his stack of empty cups: “Cheers, man. To the worst job ever.”

“I dunno if I’d say that.” He pinches his lips together. “To a pretty bad job.”

And they knock their cups together, and Demoman drinks on it. Jeremy pretends to. It sucks.

READ THE REST ON AO3!!!

[storagebay29]

james somerton 'apology' video transcript

Note: for those who do not want to watch it. For those who do, here's a link to a reupload as the original has since been deleted. There are a lot of a pauses and 'um's/'uh's, the latter of which are largely ommitted from the below transcript. Posted under a readmore as it's pretty long.

I'm sorry for taking so long to make this video, or to say anything. I'm in the hospital- I've been in the hospital for a little over a week. I tried- Fuck. I tried to do something really stupid... (pause) I'm only here now because before I did it, I called my dad to talk to him one more time and, he figured out something was wrong, called paramedics or 911 or… and they got here and I woke up in the hospital and, yeah.

…

Anyway, I'm not trying to make this a sob story, I'm just trying to explain why I've been so quiet. I had a friend from back home checking my emails and stuff, and yeah.

…

But anyway… I wanna say that I'm really really sorry, really really sorry... for the stuff in the videos, the not crediting people, and for a lot of videos, you know I, I did the opening titles thing, and I tried to put like ‘this is based on X's- this person's research, or on this person's book,’ but I know now that wasn't enough, that wasn't okay. And then there were a lot of times... that uh...  oh god. There were a lot of times that stuff just got put in and there was no attempt at crediting anybody (pause) and I'm really really sorry.

And I'm not, I'm not sorry that I got caught, I'm sorry for ever doing it, I didn't- I honestly honestly... didn't realise that I was hurting people... And now that I know that I was hurting people… I'm just really sorry.

I lost my best friend because of this. Nick and I have been best friends since 2011 or [20]12? We'd been friends online and then. He lived in Ottawa, I moved to Ottawa so we could be, like, friends in person, and then we moved back to- I moved back to Nova Scotia, and Nick came with me. We eventually moved to the Toronto area where we lived together for 7 years? 8 years? We lived together for a really long time… and… he hasn't spoken to me since this happened.

Sorry, sorry I said I wasn't gonna make this a sob sorry. I should’ve got some Kleenex.

Then again I'm really really really sorry for the things I did in the videos: copying people's work and not crediting them properly or at all. I also wanna apologise for the misinformation and just outright lies that ended up in the videos? I didn't- I honestly say that I never intended for any of that stuff to be in the videos, most cases I didn't write it but I should’ve, you know it was my face on the channel, my name on the channel, I should have been, I should have been more diligent about fact checking and stuff. ‘Cause there was a lot of really stupid shit in there. It would’ve- it's just so easy to check, I just never did, I just took it for granted…

I also, I wanna thank Hbomberguy and his team for setting up the fund to make some money available for the authors that were wronged and the journalists and writers and…

I wanna help somehow, I don't know how, a lot of- I've seen a lot of people online saying how much money I apparently make and they’re way overestimating. Beyond the fact that Nick and I split everything 50/50, they're still way overestimating how much money came in… And the Toronto area is expensive, so there's not really any kind of savings, I'm moving home really soon… ‘Cause without Nick there's nothing for me here, and like I said it's really expensive…

And so I wanna say I wanna thank them for setting up that fund, and I wanna help somehow. The only thing I can think of right now is to make the videos, most of the videos public again and every month I can send the ad revenue from all of the past videos- ‘cause there were plenty that didn't have any, any uncredited stuff in them... But I can make them public again, and then every month I can send the AdSense to- either I can send it to Hbomberguy's team, that they can add to the fund, or I can start a fund myself? And every month I can publicly say how much money was made on the AdSense and show it. And send that to the writers and stuff every month. I don't know... what the system for that would be? But I would be more than happy to do that

You know some of the videos like the ‘Killing Stalking’ video brought in like a pretty decent amount of money every month so that would be helpful I think/to them. I'll also put in either the description or the pinned comment the names of the authors so that anyone watching the video knows where all of the information came from, that it wasn’t me going out doing journalism- I never thought that anyone thought that I was doing journalism and stuff, and I don't think anyone did. For the people who actually were doing it should have been given the credit they deserve, they did the hard work, all I did was edit a video. They did the hard work and they- they deserved the credit

(cut) Sorry about that, phone stopped recording.

But- yes. They deserved- they deserved credit, and… when it was something... when it was something like the, the recent... ‘history of hollywood’ videos, right there in the opening credits, I put the Vito Russo's name, that it was adapted from his book ‘The Celluloid Closet’. Same thing went for the gay panic video and the gay holocaust video, they were- the holocaust video was adapted from two books, and the gay panic video was adapted from a lot of journalism, and I- I put their names right at the beginning of the videos.

But and- I understand that's not how citation works... now. I understand that, I get it. And I wanna do better. And I know a lot of people hate me now, ‘cause I did bad shit. But I wanna try and do better. At some point I’d like to make videos again. I'd like to do videos that are fully sourced, where I will put a link to the script where you can find all the sources so that everyone is properly given the credit that they deserve, any the kind of research that's done, credit for any b roll that's used whether it's stock footage, or movies or TV shows or video games, or anything like that, have it all in there. I would like to become a really really good example of giving proper credit to writers and journalists

And I know a lot of you watching this aren't- aren't really gonna care, you'd rather I just disappear. But I would like to try to do better.

I never ever intended to hurt anybody. I never thought that that's what I was doing. Before I went- before I went to the hospital, I read a lot of stuff from people who were really hurt, not just authors and stuff but people who watched my videos who were hurt by stuff in them. People think that I hate ace people and women and bisexual people and lesbians and that's not true. It's really- it's just- it’s not true. And I’m sorry that stuff made it into videos that just shouldn’t have been there: misinformation and lies... But I promise you I did not write that stuff.

I should have been a lot more exacting when Nick and I would be editing scripts but I promise you that those are not- I don't think those things. I specifically want to apologise to asexual people who feel that I just completed delegitimised you. Nick being ace, I- I know that it's kinda like you know, no two gay people are exactly the same, no two ace people are exactly the same, but I kind of, when it came to that I just kind of ran with Nick's judgement and his observations and stuff like that. And I’m not trying to throw Nick under the bus, which a bunch of people are saying that I was setting him up as doing, which is not true…

This whole thing, Nick and I were 50/50 partners, it wasn't I hired him to have a scapegoat or something like that. I never hired Nick. Nick and I were roommates for years before I started doing Youtube videos and then they started- people started watching them and I asked Nick if he wanted to help me write them and he said yes and we started splitting the- first the AdSense and then the Patreon and then the sponsorships, we just split everything. Nick was never supposed to be a fall guy.

I'm sorry. Maybe I should have waited longer to do this. But yeah, I- the- I did not- I don’t think those things and I don't think Nick does either, I think it was just how fast we were writing stuff, and how fast we were putting videos out, it was just too fast. And we weren’t putting the care into them that needed to be put into them.

I've seen a lot of people on social media and other youtubers even lying about me, but other- other- Hbomberguy was not one of them, I just wanna be clear about that, except I was never setting Nick up to be a fall guy and. It was never a grift or anything like that. I swear it was not. It is not.

In the next couple of days, I'm gonna send out a message to the Telos supporters on Indiegogo and explain the whole situation in more detail to them because we were not super clear about everything that was going on with Telos and so I can- I understand if it seems like we weren't doing anything but we were. We were doing a lot of work on Telos. We just weren’t talking about it is because we- we made that initial first announcement for ‘final girl’ and that fell through and I'll explain that to the message I send out to the supporters which I'm sure will end up on reddit or somewhere… And after that we didn't- we didn't want to talk about it too much until we had something really concrete, and I will explain all of that in that message

Telos was and is not a grift. I was never gonna take the money and run. None of the money that came in for telos was ever going to be paying me or Nick. It was going to be paying queer actors and artists, musicians, things like that. And I know there's been lots of talk about budgets and all this stuff, and people saying that I'm really stupid for thinking a movie could be made for that little money, but there are examples of it being done, and I actually do have a work ethic.

Anyway. but yeah. anyway

I do want to keep making videos and I know a lot of you won't watch them and that's- that's fine. But I really liked making videos…

We ended up making a lot of videos we didn't wanna make because people were asking for them, and so there were a lot of videos that we made that we didn't wanna make, and I think those videos are very clear on which ones those were. One of them never got officially released. It was released to patrons, some patrons have shared it to other people before all the videos went private. A lot of people hate the analysis that Nick and I did on it but. And so maybe it's good that that never got properly released, because… maybe it would have hurt people. And I don't want that.

But I do wanna make videos again sometime. I'd love to do like retrospectives on important gay movies. If you watch the channel ‘Be Kind Rewind’ they're an amazing channel that do a lot of retrospectives on older Hollywood movies and I would love to do that for gay movies. A lot of gay movies, people my age and younger have never heard of, things like ‘Torch Song Trilogy’ and ‘Longtime Companion’, and stuff like that, movies from the seventies and eighties and the nineties, things that were like really influential for gay cinema that no one talks about. And you know, I'd like to talk about not just those movies but how they got made and stuff like that. I would love to do something like that.

I swear on my mother's grave that there will be no copying people, no copying pasting. Every source will be cited in a document and on screen. ‘Cause I usually liked doing the research. I loved doing research - reading the books and articles and stuff like that. I- the part of me that was lazy was the copy and paste part. Instead of just putting it into my words and citing them properly and giving them credit… that's where the laziness came in. That was- I wasn't trying to be malicious. That was just laziness. And I promise for anyone who does watch the videos that I make going forward… I promise that will never happen again. I welcome the highest level of scrutiny on the new videos.

…

As for Patreon, I’m going to reactivate it. Because I saw a lot of people on social media saying that I was probably going to reactivate it right on January 1st so that everyone could get a surprise billing and I could take the money and run. And, no. First of all that was never my plan and I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna reactivate it now so that anyone who wants to leave - which I imagine will be the vast majority - can leave and not have to worry about being billed again in January.

… Yeah. So. In closing. I'm again incredibly sorry... And again I'm not sorry because I was caught, I honestly didn't know how much I was hurting people… and how much harm I was bringing to the community, because that's not ever what I intended. I wanted the channel to be a safe place. I spent so much time deleting comments that were hateful

I recently found out that I wasn't being notified about- that I wasn’t seeing comments that were in replies to other comments so there were plenty of hateful comments in the comment section that were plenty hateful that I wasn’t seeing, and I didn't know that. But I wanted the channel to be a safe place and it ended up not being a safe place.

And for the misinformation, that kind of falls into two categories. 1. I did the wrong research in the historical things and other things they're not what I wrote.

Again, thank you to Hbomberguy and his team for making the fund for the writers. I'd like to try to contribute to that somehow so- if- if it's okay to make the videos public and send all of the- public and send all- it won't be all of videos ‘cause some of them had to be taken down because sponsors wanted them taken down, but I can put the videos back up with the sources properly put in either- for the I guess for the videos that would be going up from zero, I could actually put in sources for the videos, which would be good.

I guess I could- For the other ones that would just be made live again, I could put them in a pinned comment. ‘Cause I think people read pinned comments more than they read the descriptions, cause like the descriptions disappear in a lot of places. Something like that. Something so that I can try and- it won't make up for what I did but just. Something.

So I’m really really really sorry. I hurt a lot of people that I really respect and that really sucks. And.  Nick if you're watching this I know you're probably not but I miss you and…

Yeah I want to do better. I want- I want to do better. I want to prove that I can do better. I don't expect anyone to just give me the benefit of the doubt. But I want to show that I can do better, so I hope you'll let me do that.

Again, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that the things I did- I'm sorry that I disappointed you. I promise going forward I will do better.

Thanks for watching, and...

…

And I’m really sorry.

[jessaerys]

your fav mello/near fics??? thank yeww (also love your drawings!)

oohh this reminds me i should pick up my ff.net archival reclist project up again...

it is of note that it's been a looooong while since i've combed the archives and there's a couple of common tropes i don't usually read due to personal taste, so i'm sure there's a lot of good fic i'm unaware of and/or forgetting about! this has totally renewed my interest in making a comprehensive personal reclist >:) perhaps i'll come back and edit this post every now and then.

i owe comments to nearly everyone mentioned here i am SO sorry. it's a lost skill that i am working on developing again. at the very least i've got everyone in one place so i can go down the list this year. i encourage everyone reading from this reclist to leave a comment too!

i wrote "off the top of my head" but this got VERY long so under the readmore it goes

obligatory classics

• the famous @tierfal 's sidetracked (2010) and full of surprises (2009). rated e and m respectively. these are like the allegorical little black dress in the wardrobe of the platonic ideal of the mellonear oneshot. seem to be pretty well known across the ship fandom • stripped (2009) by blueberryash/@tka-trashfire on tumblr. explicit. i haven't read this in a while but i remember it capturing the delicate gossamer tension of the ship in a way that was sooo bittersweet and nostalgic. • to speak of rules and privilege (2008) also by blueberryash/@tka-trashfire, gen, a manifesto on tenderness, soooooooooo soft, changed the game, near being afraid of thunderstorms was immediately adopted into personal canon. big time influence for the way i write near and mello's pre-canon relationship re: big brother, little brother. • an understanding (2008) by blueberryash/@tka-trashfire, rated T, short and sweet, razor sharp prose, the aesthetics of the little piece live rent free in my head. • dual(2011) by ramasi, @ramasi here i believe. rated m. historians say this might be one of the first examples of mellonear choking kink ever recorded,

•scarification (2012) by gacrux11 on fanfiction.net, rated m, big time dead dove do not eat. sorry this one leans early 2010s era grimdark melodrama but i love it sjkdfkjfd. not enough dead dove fics about the boys if u ask me. • salt in the wound (2007) •tempus fugit (2007), and • white out (2006) by vaudevillain king on fanfiction. net. a beloved rare find. all of them are rather grimdark edgy products of their era, but some of the best the era had to offer. they make me so nostalgic for my teenagehood on fanfiction.net. i get the impression these might've been written even before death note was finished? • birthday smut (2009) by kleine_aster on livejournal. explicit. this one is SO funny to me because it is both really, really good, very in character, but unfortunately it suffers from almost satirical misogyny that afflicted fujoshis back in the day. near literally is like oh that bitch... like. he would not fucking think that but i can edit quickly in my brain as i read. bisexual mello rights! otherwise really sexy imo. i might be writing something that's kind of in conversation with this fic.

RARE finds

(please tell me if you enjoy any of these, i want to feel like an explorer that's brought back treasures from far away lands)

contemporary favorites:

• you've heard about it before and you will hear about it again: the archer ensnared (2023) by jabbernatty, rated e. a jessaerys obligatory syllabus read, the fic that made me go fulltime yaoi disease. i owe so much to jabbernatty they are my white whale my friend my enemy the writer i've psychically imprinted on from the beginning. honestly too scared to even leave a comment given the jessarys archer ensnared lore. may one day may contact and pray i don't come across as insane • postmortem (2023) by the_hemlock true gen, a favorite of ALL time. it's only tangentially mn really, it is 99% about near trying to piece together the mystery of lawlight post-canon, but the characterization and prose are some of if not the best i've ever come across. reads like it could be a piece of canon material. if you only read one fic on this list i'd pick postmortem. • it's friday i'm in love by neallo/@neallo rated m. possibly my all time fave in the neallo cinematic universe. something about the after-hours longing and the standing in the kitchen by the refrigerator lights, as the poets say. i love when stories feel like you're cutting out a window to peer into a larger universe that is just out of reach. perfectly captures what it is like to have a maddening crush • i want to hold you (hostage)(2023) by neallo/@neallo rated e. thee defining fic of this current modern mellonear era. manages to walk the line of kinky/sexy/sweet/fluffy all at once. plot twist of the century in the last chapter. near is properly as bananas insane as mello is in this fic, which is the marker of a good mellonear dynamic. really everything by morgan neallo is a safe bet for a great read • there's nothing i want but you (2023) by neallo/@neallo rated t. wammy's era mellonear obsessiveness that is soooo teenagery and yet a portent of just how codependent they might one day get. cute and ominous. • armageddon/kill game (2024) by bolide/@bolide-archive came out of nowhere a couple of months ago and ascended to the top of the game like a dark horse. rated m, chess au. one of my favorite interior mello narrations and one of the most similar to my own interpretation. such naturally talented prose. i rotate lines from this in my head all the time. still in progress but i have faith that it will be completed :') • how to burn down the sacred loom (2023) by dornishviper/@vriskarlmarx a contemporary CLASSIC. the less you know going in the better. beautiful prose, beautiful structure. they don't make fic like this anymore • the house always wins (2023) by mer_curia/@vivi-scera. screaming with my mouth closed. holds a special place in my heart given that it is my posting that convinced vi to give the ship a try, and i was rewarded with a fic that is so catered to my tastes i honestly had to read it through my fingers. SO good, the manifesto on wammyscest, so rather controversial. heed the warnings. • moonlight (2023) by tsukinousagi/@quicktimeeventfull rated t. an austere, cold little glimpse into a vampire au. it's giving let the right one in. so melancholic. one of the saddest near examinations out there. •proximity tells (2018) by abysmallypresent, rated m. truly lives up to death note's second-by-second minutia while managing to keep up the tension the entire time. great characterization. •silhouettes (2015) by bad blood/eroticcodependence, @wxmmyshouse on tumblr. unrated, post-canon compliant. made me CRY! elegantly short and simple, bittersweet and so so wistful. •arsonist's lullabye (2023) by tzviaariella/@tzviaariella. rated t. this one has a heart-wrenching air of realism to it that exists outside the chaotic universe of death note, one of those examinations of picking up the pieces after the titans have all gone away. very bittersweet.

honorary mentions

• let's die somewhere prettier (2020) by firesafinething also one of my absolute favorites, unfortunately it is discontinued and it is likely it will never be completed. sad! the premise seemed SO promising. in my mind i file it right next to postmortem mentioned above. the exploration of the tragedy of 27 year old near we could have had in a better timeline. one day i will leave a comment so good maybe it will bring back the fic from the land of the dead • august underground by me & @firebuggg rated e, in progress. >:) (shamless self promo)

[strawbubbysugar]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @pillowspace I MADE IT JUST UNDER THE WIRE- ENJOY THIS FRANKENFATE AU BIRTHDAY SNIPPET !!!

(Under readmore!)

“Can I come in yet?” Vale sat against their bedroom door, arms crossed, head back as they stared at the ceiling. It was a particularly sunny, warm day, the sort of day that had fluffy white clouds rolling across the sky, high enough that no shadows were cast. If it were up to them, they would’ve been out in their- .. THE forest, helping Sun look for his crown, as they usually spent their days.

However, today they’d been tasked to stay in their room while their unexpected roommate (well, one of them) worked on something secret. They didn’t have a single clue as to what it could’ve been, though with all the banging sounds and the occasional hushed whisper, they weren’t feeling too optimistic.

“June!” They shouted at the door, shutting their eyes and groaning. “JUNE, I JUST HEARD YOU DROP A FULL BOWL.”

“YOU DIDN’T HEAR ANYTHING, YOU’RE IMAGINING THINGS. YOU’RE LITERALLY CRAZY. YOU’RE ACTING CRAZY.” June shouted back, accompanied by the sound of something heavy being dropped back onto the counter.

Vale heard the hushed whispers of Sun, who had asked if he could help- to which June had delightedly agreed that yes, he could! They could vaguely hear June whispering ‘that’s gaslighting, but I’m doing it as a joke so it’s okay. Yeah don’t worry about it big guy.’

They chuckled and rolled their eyes. June was still getting used to this time period, something that still baffled them to no end. There seemed to be plenty of modern conveniences that were so commonplace, so ingrained in daily life, that June barely had the words to describe them.

A machine that washed and dried your clothing for you was simple enough to understand, but a machine that would let you speak to someone far away, that also showed you images of them, as they spoke, as if they were there? That did about a million other things as well, the least of which involving a light brighter than a candle coming from the front of it? The device had been broken upon June’s arrival, and Vale still wasn’t entirely convinced they weren’t pulling their leg about it.

They’d had enough of simply sitting there staring at the ceiling, zoning out in between clangs and hushed whispers. They began to stand up, though they had unfortunately begun to do so the moment the door was opened, knocking them forward after wobbling on their feet.

“Oh, shit! Dude, fuck, sorry!” June gripped under their arms, helping them to stand up, much to Vale’s chagrin.

They dusted themselves off, the only real injury sustained being to their ego as June had watched them faceplant into their carpet, ass over teakettle. “You’re oddly light on your feet for someone who never does put their laces.”

June snorted, grinning their usual lopsided, cheeky smile. “And you’re oddly easy to push over with a door. Were you just sitting there listening??”

“No, I was sitting there awaiting permission to enter the rest of MY house.” They shot back, though their annoyance was undercut by the clear tone of amusement in their voice. “What were you two doing out there?”

“Jeez dude I woulda left you, like, a book or a flower to look at if I’d known you were just gonna sit there.”

“What did you think I’d do??”

June paused for a moment, frozen as they did what June had once called ‘loading’, while they registered what Vale had asked and formulated a response.

“Uh.” They smiled, though a bit more sheepishly now. “Man, I dunno! I thought you’d knit or something!”

“Knit??”

“Something old-timey, yeah!”

“You don’t have knitting in your time???”

“Wh- yeah, we do, but it’s like.. a grandma hobby. I think it’s coming back into fashion though.”

Vale shook their head, once again rendered speechless by June’s nonsense.

“No, June, I didn’t knit. Can I leave the room?? I’d like some fresh air.”

June quickly blocked their way, arms spread out to the sides. Unfortunately for Vale, they did have the height advantage.

“Wait! Wait wait wait. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Ready to enter my own house??” They scrunched up their nose, eyes squinted in confusion as they placed their hands on their friend’s stomach, pushing them forward.

June didn’t budge, fingers hooked on the doorway to keep steady. “Are you ready for your SURPRISE!” He laughed. “Stop. I’m ticklish.”

Vale could practically hear the sound of Sun registering that information and saving it for later use, even from where he presumably was in the kitchen. Vale cracked a smile and shook their head. “Yes, I’m ready to both see my surprise, and clean up whatever mess you two made.”

“Oh come on, you know Sun was already all over that. I’ve never seen a dude more excited to wash a dish in my life.”

Vale chuckled at the idea. Taking favours from the gods certainly wasn’t something they’d ever do, not in a million years. However, June seemed more than happy to take whatever the god offered. It was more than once Vale had to stop them from agreeing to receive ridiculous, extravagant things in exchange for the two human’s assistance- worried that it would count as them taking the favour as well. However, once Sun had promised to clarify when something was a friendly gesture and when something was a godly boon, June had been allowed to accept as much help as they’d like.

Though Vale still wouldn’t be partaking. Just in case.

June let them through under their arm, grinning with delight and waving their hands in clenched fists at their sides. They’d called it ‘stimming’, once. Vale had tried it and had to admit that it felt nice to get that energy out, but found they preferred to keep their limbs under control. They glanced back to them with furrowed brows, beginning to grow nervous about the supposed surprise. It couldn’t possibly be.. no. It couldn’t. They hadn’t told a soul.

Stepping around the corner, they were greeted by their divine housemate, as he held out his hands in greeting.

“SURPRISE!” He beamed, flourishing his hands as small colourful sparks rained down from his fingers.

In front of him was a cake, lopsided and frosted in a manner that appeared not too dissimilar to the way Vale imagined a raccoon would frost a cake. Dollops of icing littered the edges in what seemed to have started as a pattern, but soon collapsed into complete chaos. The colour was somewhere between grey and blue, a result likely to be due to the berries used that also acted as decoration on the top, dotting their own pieces of frosting. Coming closer, they saw the elegant cursive handwriting, as well as the smeared icing hastily scraped off from previous attempts that had been deemed less than perfect.

Happy Birthday Friend!

Vale blinked several times in surprise, glancing between Sun, who was still beaming, and the cake. “I .. I didn’t tell either of you that it was my birthday, how did you ..”

“I’m the god of day!” Sun piped up. “And it is a birthDAY! Stands to reason that I would know each of them by heart!”

“Oh, I told Sun that if he told me when your birthday was, I’d take his favours and ask him to make dragons real.” June smiled, leaning their hands against the counter. Sun looked to them, eyebrow raised in confusion.

June quickly waved their hands at Vale when they saw the immediate flush of panic on their face, laughing worriedly. “WHOA WHOA IT WAS A GOOF ITS OKAY-“ their hands met Vale’s shoulders, steading them.

“Not funny-“ Vale groaned, head lolling back. “Gods, I felt my heart touch my feet.”

June chuckled, patting their head and mussing up their hair the second they were sure they had a solid footing once again. “Aw cmon, it was a little funny. I asked the baker in town, after he mentioned next week being special last week when we visited.”

“I should really ask him not to give away secrets to strangely dressed newcomers.” Vale muttered, glancing over their two odd companions. They looked over the cake and felt a fondness settle over them like a warm blanket.

These two had really put in far more effort into this cake than necessary. They’d tried so hard on it, and while it wasn’t perfect, it was clearly a labour of love. The sort that sent warm fuzzies to Vale’s cheeks at the thought that their friends would do this for them.

“.. but thank you. Truly. It looks .. delicious.” They smiled warmly at the both of them, though they stumbled over the last word. Delicious wasn’t the first one they’d thought of.

They were surprised once again as they were pulled into a large, warm hug by June, soon followed by a Sun who had spent a good majority of the morning cooling himself down for this. He easily wrapped his arms around the two mortals and gave a gentle squeeze, earning an ‘eep!’ From Vale, and a laugh from June.

Eating the cake would be its own challenge later, but for now, the hug was its own gift, and one welcomed with open arms as Vale melted into their friend’s arms, closing their eyes and basking in the warmth.

[karl-raccoon-in-a-teacup]

gently wiping tears from the other's face + fukufuku

sharing a blanket. snuggled up together. + lemon futon

“Stop it. Can’t you see that staying away from you is torture for me too?” + oscargide

“That was but a moment of weakness. Think nothing of it.” + tachiaku

:)

Why did you do this to me. Oh my god why did you do this to me.

gently wiping tears from the other's face + fukufuku

It's all been too much, lately, too hard with the constant news of misery and despair from the warfront. Fukuzawa has grown numb to it, almost, but he was too isolated. Not like Gen'ichiro. Not like Gen'ichiro who comes to him, the letter of his friend's demise still clutched tightly in his hands, and the mask of strength he's worn for days now starts to wear thin the moment Fukuzawa says his name, approaches him. There are tears spilling down, now, and Fukuzawa's numb heart turns to nothing but aches immediately- brushing the tears from Gen'ichiro's face, leaning his forehead against him. "I'm sorry," he says, for the grief that's not his own but weighs upon his shoulders all the same. Gen'ichiro leans into his touch, breathe shuddering. "It'll keep happening, Fukuzawa. I can't keep recieving news like this." "I know. I know." But he can't stop it, either. So all Fukuzawa can do is hold his friend close to him, and try his best to offer some semblance of comfort.

(The rest will be under a readmore because hm many words!)

sharing a blanket. snuggled up together. + lemon futon

"I'm... surprised you agreed to this, really," Katai mumbles, not really meaning to say it at all. They're both curled up beneath a blanket- or rather, Katai's curled up in Yoshiko and Kajii's taken a blanket flopped over him and Yoshiko, snuggling them both up together while Katai flickers through the TV for something to watch. "Surprised? Why would that be?" Kajii asks, head tilting to the side in that natural, curious way." "You just seem a bit- I don't know, excitable?" Katai says. "For something like... this." "And you seem a bit too much of a homebody to accompany me on my excursions-" Kajii says, reaching out to boop his nose- "but you do that anyways, don't you?" "Well, yes." Katai mutters. "I just... this is fine, right?" Kajii laughs, throwing an arm around Katai even as he squeaks. "It's great! You're here, after all!"

“Stop it. Can’t you see that staying away from you is torture for me too?” + oscargide (Probably an AU/canon divergent since I doubt this happened in canon)

"Stop it." And that makes Andre Gide pause. Because even in all the years he's known Oscar, he's so rarely heard him waver- he knows where each of his hidden knives are, of the poison he has hidden in false teeth and in unseen pockets, of the portrait his very essence is tied to. Yet now, he wavers- now, his hands are trembling, now the careful mask of his face has crumbled. "Can't you see that staying away from you is torture for me, too?" his whispers, hands clenching into fists. "You cannot continue this, Andre- this constant sacrifice. Even for your men." Andre opens his mouth- he pauses, he hovers, he's always been good with words but now each one dies in his throat. How can it not, when the man he cherishes so deeply looks at him with such a broken face?

“That was but a moment of weakness. Think nothing of it.” + tachiaku

Michizo Tachihara has woken up to a lot of things, really. But waking up in the bed of a Port Mafia hospital, and seeing the Akutagawa he does not have the pleasure of working with daily be the one standing by his bedside... "Huh," seems like a pretty good word for it. Akutagawa, of course, glares at him. "You made my sister concerned for you. Try not to do that again." And that's all the Mafia's hellhound says, standing up, and about to leave. "Wait-" Michizo tries to sit up, ignoring the dull pain in his chest- "wait, Akutagawa- if that's all you had to say, why come at all-?" And then his eyes wander to his bedside table, and his eyes widen. "...Did you bring me fucking flowers?" Akutagawa shoots back a hellish glare, Rashomon flaring- Michizo briefly wonders if his hospital stay is going to get even longer, especially once he realizes the usually pale face is slowly turning red. "That was but a moment of weakness," he spits with venom that would kill even an executive dead. "Think nothing of it." And yet, the flowers still stand there, right in his line of vision. And Michizo is... just kinda confused.

[sunnnfish]

Due to the mental anguish I am rambling about tbhk. I WAS going to put this under a readmore but that keeps breaking the post on mobile so. Im sorry. Tons of spoilers for chapter 99. And like the whole series. You know how it is.

I feel like I need to make an itemized list because there’s so fucking much I need to talk about right now

The violence and parallels to tsukasa. I mean who can forget tsukasa prying mitsubas mouth open to feed him number 3s heart. Who knows what tsukasa’s intentions were but they weren’t necessarily bad— as we know now mitsuba needs to eat to survive plus number 3 was like a pretty big power boost that would keep him together for a longer time. So he likely just wanted mitsuba to live comfortably. BUT ALSO there’s the beginning of the chapter where tsukasa tells mitsuba to dig the heart out himself vs kou who gets it for him. Anyways. With kou here it clearly came from a similar place of wanting mitsuba to not disappear. There’s a desperation to it and fear and it’s one I personally actually know quite well. I’ve dealt with friends refusing to eat and take care of themselves and it is a violent frustrating feeling that just ends with crying after the anger fades. There’s a lot of confusion like. Why do you not care about yourself as much as I care about you. Anyways. His actions make a lot of sense to me bc I have felt and done the exact same things.

Me core ^

and THEN there’s mitsubas feelings of wanting to be fucking exorcised and going to the fucking minamoto household to do it there’s so much here hang on. Like. I think he went to the minamoto house for some sliver of hope. If he wanted to for sure disappear he probably could’ve waited it out or something better but he went to the place where, depending on who answered the door, he’d either die or be faced with fucking. Kou minamoto. And the fact the he chose to reveal himself to kou it’s like. Did you really want to disappear. Did you really. And then taking him out on a fucking date basically like. You don’t want to disappear do you. You just don’t want to be. This. He wants to be human. He wants someone who will understand him and. And. Kou so readily accepts and understands him. Even the parts he thinks are ugly or unworthy. Fuck.

AND THEN. Kous feeling of inadequacy and fearing that mitsuba trusts tsukasa more than him and connecting to the vision he saw in the red house. Whether he accepts it or not he wants mitsuba to need him. The red house showed him a mitsuba who told him that he needs kou that he wants kou to be a supernatural with him and he brushes it away knowing mitsuba would never say that to him. He tells himself that mitsuba would never trust him or want him like that but he wants it to be real and he’s still hurt when the real mitsuba won’t open up to him. And it all comes back to his overall self worth issues of wanting to be strong and dependable and worthy.

AND this is all under the context of Teru finally letting kou have some responsibility and telling him to go exorcise the low level spirit that came near their home and AaaaaAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUU. KOU MINAMOTO……..

God its just. Kou minamoto cares about mitsuba so so so much and neither of them completely understand the gravity of it all. Also at this point hes said like 3 times that mitsuba is the root of all his worries. ALSO dont even get me started on the art and expressions this chapter. It’s so gorgeous like as always but. God. Also the keychains. Im gonna[blaring truck horn]

ALSO the way mitsuba says at the end like ‘you’d be lonely without me’ or whatever and kou almost looks shocked for a second like. Oh. And its like he thinks about it more and cries more because yeah, he would be lonely. He’s been lonely. Mitsuba somehow inexplicably became like his closest friend that knows everything about him and god he was lonely when mitsuba disappeared. The first time and the second. And he’s barely had time to process any of it because to everyone else around him mitsuba doesnt really. Matter. And because kou is so kind he is always putting everyone else’s problems in front of his own. The severance happens and it becomes a journey to help nene bring hanako and aoi back—next to no mention mitsuba aside from the leads to the red house, much less trying to find and save him too. The whole time theyre in the boundary to the far shore its all about hanako and nene and number 6. And there’s STILL the conversation about how to become a supernatural that he brought up with nene but noooooo we cant ever know anything about what kou wants. And like. It all comes back around this chapter because he so so selfishly wants mitsuba to live. One of the only things he lets himself want. And it aches. God. I wish i was any good or natural at prose writing because god the things i would write about minamoto kou. AND TO TOP IT OFF HES LIKE FUCKING 14 YEARS OLD…. Okay. Okay im done.

[sunflowersturn]

im most of the way through a 1.5L bottle of wine and forgot i was going to liveblog misfits and magic lmfao

i'm at 1:01:45 and oh my god are the sam/evan ship feelings hitting HARD my guys let's meet behind the readmore

oof okay I'm gonna stop trying so hard to correct my drunk typing mistakes here i'm so sorry for anyone coming at this later on it's my b--anyway

okay so first of all: so happy for some jammer and k moments here because they have sorely been needing it, it made me so happy to see jammer and k both addressing things they've been dealing with alone and providing one another support. conflict is great, but god i love to see them having these moments of uplifting one another and providing that friendship and support, it feels so cathartic to watch that play out on the screen.

then oh mygod ohmygod ohmygod i'm still here in my sam/evan feels like i was a full k/evan supporter before and i will still totally support that now (honestly i would love for the full 4-player polycule but that's dreaming and hoping and i acknowledge that), BUT ALSO

i just--sam and evan are just so fucking wholesome. it's not that same is doing something k couldnt, it's that she's presenting it in a way that evan is able to receive better than he can receive anything k is trying to give him right now. does that make sense?

christ i jUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH I WANT ALL OF THEM TO SMOOCH

[mossy-rainfrog]

Build A Cowboy Round 5!

Hi good evening sorry for vanishing OK SO i mentioned in the tags of my first poll that this cowboy is not just going to be a vaguely historical cowboy, but from a Very specific time frame, because of the fic that his partner Javi exists in. That being said, there is a lot to unpack here with this! The time period exactly is 1841, the setting is Texas (because I am texan and we are predictable) and oh my god this is one of the most insane times for a character to be from texas 😭

Our cowboy will have in fact lived through the Mexican War of Independence (1810-1821), the Texas Revolution (1835-1836), tx's CRINGEFAIL attempt at self governing, rapidly approaching our annexation into the US in 1844-5, and then coming right up on the fuckign CIVIL WAR in 1861. These guys deeply understand the concept of "get me the fuck out of the interesting times, im sick of the interesting times". im so sorry cowboys, you can blame Herman Melville for this.

anyways yall didnt come here for a history lesson but you are in fact going to get one because i am insufferable first and an artist second :) and also as a note, race and backstory are always intertwined things but Especially when it is fuckign 1841 so. yeah exercise caution, there will be discussion of racism, medical close-calls, and anti-indigenous genocide. PLEASE ACTUALLY READ THE BACKGROUNDS BEFORE CHOOSING ONE! you dont have to read the sources. those are just there because i have autism. 👍

DETAILS BELOW THE READMORE BC I GOT WAYYY TOO WORDY⬇️

BACKSTORY A: Black Cowboy fled Texas* to Oklahoma with his family after the revolution, now travels up the trade routes breaking wild horses, passing along abolitionist messages, and assisting refugees. A miracle baby surviving a cleft lip with limited surgery and sustained permanent hearing damage as a result, he took up the trade of horsebreaking with flying colors, keeping right up with his older brothers. A sharp shot, keen eye, and a talented horseman, his best trained horses help him identify sounds that he otherwise can't hear. Loosely familiar with PSL, but primarily used a mix of lip-reading, localized/community generated sign growing up.

* After the US aided Texas in staging a coup against Mexico and declaring independence, an ordinance passed in 1836 that fully banished free Black people from the region unless they had personal pardon from Congress. This ordinance was not passed without pushback, and it changed shape and restriction over the years as people of color such as Joseph Tate, John and Charity Bird, Diana Leonard, Allen Dimery, and more all fought for their right to their own lands and lives. The law eventually settled into what was known as the Ashworth Act in 1840, which allowed free Black people to stay IF they had been residing in the state before 1836. It certainly wasn't the victory many had hoped, and even though many free Black persons in Texas were granted pardon to stay, like the Ashworths who the act was named after, many others were forced to leave after their allotted time was up, and were threatened with the future of slavery should they return. thank you texas history for being a vile piece of shit 👍

BACKSTORY B: Mexican/Tejano Vaquero from West Texas whose family has been ranching and cattle driving for decades. Has no interest in moving post-revolution, fuck you very much. If the borders are going to cross his family without asking*, then there's no need to cross them back. Technically lives with his family, but spends extensive periods of time away from home on cattle drives. Steady-handed, steadfast, quick to keep his herd safe. Miraculously survived a cleft lip as a baby and sustained permanent hearing damage** as a result, but that didn't stop his father from teaching him everything he knew, nor our man from taking to it like a fish to water. Knows more about cattle driving than you will ever forget.

*Some brief notes on the borders shifting and alienating people in their own rightful land.

**There was no official sign language of Mexico until the first Deaf school was established in 1869, but he and his family likely have a community-based one that works for them.

BACKSTORY C: Coahuiltecan (specifically Payaya)* cowboy, farrier, and leatherworker. Picked up the line of work as family was pushed to assimilate, one of the few still claiming Coahuiltecan identity at this time**, and has made a good living for himself and his sisters with it. Like the others, miraculously survived a cleft lip as a child but sustained permanent hearing damage as a result. Knows Plains Indian Sign fluently, and also relies on the direction of his horse for picking up sudden sounds before he can spot them. Tries to keep his work as local as possible to avoid separation from family for long, and whenever that is necessary, makes sure to come back soon.

*Note: Coahuiltecan is a term referring to several northern-Mexican and southern-Texan autonomous groups with distinct cultural differences. However, since Spanish and French colonizers lumped these groups together, an immense amount of distinguishing knowledge has since been lost.

** Also note: the Tāp Pīlam Coahuiltecan Nation is still very much around today (check out their site!) but nearing the mid 19th century, people at least claiming/listing this heritage on legal documents dwindled immensely for a variety of reasons.