#THE SHOW IS THE BEST THOUGH AMIRITE

[lil-dragon-rawr]

Y'all what if FNaF and DC were in the same universe can you imagine the chaos

Part Two, Part Three

Michael: *applies for a security job at WE because go big or go home amirite)

Tim, doing the interview because everyone else was freaked out by Michael: so, uh. What's your work experience

Michael: oh! I was a security officer for a bunch of places. Only for like a week at a time though cause I was only working there to set them on fire

Tim, now deeply concerned: um. So uh. That's a crime

Michael, realizing he made a Mistake™ and attempting to defend himself: hey, with the last gig it was literally in my contract that I had to burn the place down

Tim, contemplating insurance fraud:

Michael: also I'm great with lawsuits

Michael: *is living in Crime Alley because of course he is*

Michael: *gets shot while interrupting a gang war*

Michael, staring at the bullet in his chest: oh cool! My first souvenir from the east coast!

Red Hood, trying to get the obvious civilian out of the way: uhh hey buddy, are you good?

Michael "Allergic To Dying" Afton: yeah I'm good! Check out this bullet!

Red Hood, deeply concerned: what the [REDACTED]

Michael, remembering most people die when they're shot: oh don't worry, ever since I got scooped I can't die!

Red Hood, deeply concerned and regretting this conversation: uh. Scooped?

Michael, excited to talk about his trauma: yeah! My dead sister tricked me into getting my insides scooped out so she and her friends could wear my skin as a disguise to escape their prison

Red Hood:

Michael, working at WE and high on fear gas thanks to Scarecrow: oh, the nightmares are back!

Michael: *ignores them and keeps flipping through the cameras to see where Scarecrow went*

Red Robin, trying to help his employees: sir, you need to evacuate the building. Also, here's an antidote to the fear toxin-

Michael, annoyed: hey can you get out of my face? You're blocking the bestest boi

Red Robin: you're on fear toxin, whatever you're seeing isn't real

Michael: yeah and it wasn't real the first four years either but nightmare foxy is back and I'm never letting him go, he's the only one I like

Red Robin: sir please

Tim: *checks in on Michael and sees a little robotic bear reading an official-looking paper*

Tim, incredibly confused and praying that's not confidential WE info: hey Mike, whatcha got there

Michael, scooping up Helpy to present him like it's his favorite child: this is Helpy! He's the best and is so helpful. He also cuddles really nicely!

Michael, getting flashbacks: unlike SOME animatronics

Tim: what's he. What's he holding

Michael, with the energy of a parent excited to show off his kid's latest project: oh it's a lawsuit!

Michael, having a Conversation™ with Red Hood: wait you're dead too!

Red Hood: uhh yeah?

Michael: but why aren't you purple? Are you an animatronic?

Red Hood, incredibly confused: ...why would I be an animatronic?

Michael: cause you aren't decaying like me???

Red Hood: ok cool new question

Red Hood: HOW would I be an animatronic?

Michael: what, like it's difficult?

Michael: I mean, my little brother got rebuilt into an animatronic when he died so it's not that much of a stretch

Red Hood, realizing this is karma for every joke he made about his own death:

Michael: and there was that time a pile of robot spaghetti wore my skin so they could be a real person

Red Hood: would you pLEASE stop talking about that

Michael, ignoring him: didn't stop me from decaying though. Hm

WE: *gets shut out of their systems by an unknown hacker with a robot fox face*

Michael: don't worry guys I got this!

Tim, severely concerned that Batfam stuff is going to get leaked: but you're a security guard?? How-

Michael, typing in LOL: yeah don't worry it's just Lolbit! They like to cause problems on purpose from time to time

Tim: Lol...bit? Causes problems on purpose?

Michael: it's like enrichment

*Batfam realizes they have to start investigating Michael*

Red Hood: I mean, we could just ask him

Red Hood: the first time we met he told me exactly how he died in great detail

Red Hood, reminiscing (read: war flashbacks): he had a twenty-four slide powerpoint

Red Robin, realizing Michael's purple and smells bad for a reason other than "classic Gotham chemicals": he's dead???

Red Hood, desensitized: yeah, he didn't tell you?

Red Robin: *approaches Michael outside of work*

Michael, no longer high on fear toxin: oh hiya boss!

Red Robin, panicking: uhh what

Michael "FoxyBro" Afton: is there a reason you're talking to me outside of business hours? Am I in trouble?

Red Robin, wondering how he was going to explain this to Batman: uhhhhhh

Batman: please explain your previous jobs. For the investigation

Michael: oh! Well it all began when I tried to play a prank on my brother, shoved him into Fredbear's mouth, and got him killed-

Michael: then the nightmares started, which I later found out was partially due to my dad running experiments on me every night-

Michael: eventually he died but not really,

Michael: oh! And my sister got eaten by Baby-

Batman, lost at "shoved him into Fredbear's mouth":

*Batfam arrives at the Pizzaplex to try and figure out what the heck is going on*

Michael, there because he's visiting his siblings, standing next to Baby, Golden Freddy, and Gregory (on Glamrock Freddy's shoulders): oh hi guys!

Red Robin, who read the Funtime schematics: Michael what the [404 SWEAR NOT FOUND]

Red Hood: there's a child?? Why is there a child???

Michael: didn't I tell you about him? Anyways this is Gregory, he's the robot version of my dead brother!

Michael, gesturing to Golden Freddy: and this is my dead brother

Michael: though technically that's also another kid who lowkey kinda scares me

Michael, moving on: and this is my sister!

Michael: y'know, the one who tricked me into getting my insides scooped so she and her friends could wear my skin as a disguise?

Red Hood: can you PLEASE stop talking about that

Baby: I told you you wouldn't die!

Michael, looking at the Batfam like they're cameras from The Office: and she wonders why she's not my favorite sibling

Nightwing, having a moment but still trying to get information: who's. Who's the other bot

Michael, patting Glamrock Freddy: oh that's me!

Michael: a piece of me anyways

Nightwing: I have so many more questions

Signal, who can see the ghosts: please do not ask for answers.

Michael, showing the Batfam around the Pizzaplex: do you want to see my favorite ride?

Red Hood: ...sure

Michael: it's Foxy's log ride! Foxy is my favorite, I'm so upset he got replaced with Roxy but at least he's still around! Y'know when I was a kid I used to wear a Foxy mask, which is coincidentally the mask I wore when I got my brother killed-

Michael: *goes on a whole rant of the evolutions of Foxy and why OG Foxy is his favorite*

Red Hood: *starts taking notes*

Roxy, storming through the Pizzaplex: Gregory, you lawless RAT, how DARE you replace my HAIRBRUSH with a pORCUPINE-

Gregory: *running to hide behind Spoiler because he associates purple with Michael*

Spoiler: *as Roxy runs up* oh uhh hi there. Roxy right?

Roxy:

Roxy: you're not Gregory

Spoiler: haha nope! No Gregory here!

Roxy: oh. Sorry

Roxy: love your outfit though!

Spoiler: thanks, love your makeup!

Roxy: I know, right? I'm gorgeous!

Spoiler:

Roxy: ...wanna have a girl's night with me and Glamrock Chica where we get dressed up and make Sun swear in binary?

Spoiler: did you even need to ask?

Robin, in a corner vibing with Mangle: *petting Mangle*

Mangle, also vibing: ._.(^w^)

Batman:

Puppet:

Batman:

Puppet:

Red Hood, realizing this is a staring contest: *goes halfway across the Pizzaplex to get popcorn and comes back to them in the exact same positions* ooh. Getting interesting

Nightwing: *argues with Circus Baby about clown etiquette*

Signal, overwhelmed by all the ghosts: man sure wish I had my lofi beats to study and relax to right now

DJ Music Man: *climbs out of the wall*

Signal: *unholy screeching* HOLY M- wait you're chill aren't you

DJ: *starts playing his version of lofi beats to study and relax to*

Signal: ...huh

Black Bat: *disappeared, found Ballora, and is now dancing with her* (^ ^)

Red Robin, recognizing the fox face from the WE hack: yOU

Funtime Foxy: I appreciate the enthusiasm for performing arts, but you must be thinking of my sibling!

Red Robin, who didn't find Lolbit's blueprints: your what

Lolbit, appearing out of nowhere: he means me!

Red Robin, with newly energized fury: YOU!

Lolbit: ...LOL!

[hanjisungslag]

attack on titan headcanons #13

synopsis: they love you but, you love their best friend.

characters involved: eren, mikasa, armin, sasha, connie, jean, reiner, bertolt, annie, levi, erwin & hange

notes: i made my first ever lengthy fanfic! first 3 episodes are out so, go check it out!!

☆ eren jaeger - armin arlert

his heart is crushed to smithereens but, he’ll never ever show it because as long as your happy, that’s all he can ask for in this dreadful world plus, i’m sure armin would be happy for you so… it’s a bonus. i guess. he’ll be fine watching you two get together (no he won’t) (he’ll cry and punch a lot of things).

☆ armin arlert - mikasa ackerman

he gets it, mikasa is way better than him in several different ways but also, stronger than him. she has the resilience for what it takes to survive in this world, she’s not called a 100 man army for no reason! she can protect you and probably love you better than he could. finding out this news takes a huge toll on his self esteem to be honest 🙁.

☆ mikasa ackerman - eren jaeger

oh, TRUST ME! she’s been there and done that, she gets it, if not more than anyone. she feels very conflicted because she got over eren… developed feelings for you… now, you like eren? it genuinely just feels like someone’s playing a sick joke on her.

☆ jean kirsten - connie springer

okay this actually kind of shocked jean because he thought was IN, he was complimenting you, you seemed to be liking it and taking them well plus, you spent a lot of time together! but then, he found out from reiner that you were gossiping with the girls, giggling about connie… maybe he’s funnier? kinder to you? more… handsome?!

☆ connie springer - sasha braus

wow. he loves sasha but cmon, SHES SO STUPID😭. he starts being really mean about her, not to her face, but he’ll make a sly comment here and there in front of people. oh, she messed up on the training? god, she’s so incapable! she tripped and fell? god, she’s so unaware of her surroundings! how stupid, amirite? don’t fret, jean is always there to wack him over the head and tell him to shape up. he only does it because it genuinely really upset him. he liked you a lot.

☆ sasha braus - jean kirsten

oh! i mean i guess that makes sense, sasha is just kind of a kind of silly food lover but jean… jean is ambitious, strong and motivated. maybe that’s what you want in a partner. she definitely changes her habits just out of feeling sad, like not eating as much, being more quiet, becoming less playful etc. everyone’s super worried but she barely realises she’s doing it.

☆ reiner braun - annie leonhart

well i be damned 💀. reiner never thought he’d see the day but here we are, you like annie and he likes you. he likes annie, don’t get me wrong, and he totally sees her good traits but like… really? you have a CRUSH on annie leonhart? he’s more confused than anything. honestly he’s grateful after a while (not really) because you’re a devil (you’re not to him, you look like you’ve fallen from the heavens) and he has to kill you (he would never).

☆ bertolt hoover - reiner braun

deep sigh. deepest of sighs. QUICK EVERYONE ACT SURPRISED! bertolt has always been in reiners shadow, just because he’s more reserved doesn’t mean he’s any lesser than reiner, cmon! but, he realised that maybe you just want someone like reiner, someone’s who is extroverted and manly.

☆ annie leonhart - bertolt hoover

well then, this is quite the turn of event. annie and bertolt were so close, she can totally see why you’d like him and it’s a TOTAL weight off her shoulders. she would’ve never confessed, girls got too much going on so, thank god your eyes wandered somewhere else. but, it doesn’t make it any less harder watching you and bertolt…

☆ levi ackerman - hange zoë

yeah no, like he totally gets it 😂😂😂. you totally didn’t break his heart FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME IN THIS MANS LIFETIME. bro cannot catch a break… it’s chill though. he’s chill, your chill, everyone’s chill (i’m so upset i have to write this) although, he will act more irritated with hange, even more than usual, he’ll act like they’re a pain in the arse. but, it’s understandable hange is, after all, more fun, talkative, intelligent and an all round better person to be with.

☆ erwin smith - levi ackerman

SECOND PERSON THATS BEEN SNATCHED FROM ERWIN but, at least it’s not nile dok again. he totalllyyy gets it like, it’s the levi ackerman. the worlds strongest soldier? hello?? he may be short but he’s strong, fearless, can protect you and goodness gracious he is handsome!! it’s hard for erwin to watch however, he makes sure to bottle it all up and focus on the task at hand.

☆ hange zoë - erwin smith

erwin smith… wow. maybe hange was just too… annoying for you? that’s the only solution they can come to. you still come to visit them and ask about titans and what not, it’s so hard to hear you talk about all the time you’ve been spending with erwin when you used to spend that time with hange. they’ll divulge fully into their work and become more recluse for a while.

[eddiestightywhities]

SNIPPET SUNDAY

so there i was minding my own business working away on my s08e08 coda when BAM! charlie @playinginthunderstorms goes and drops THIS SHOW-STOPPING FIC and completely derails my efforts by inspiring me to write a completely different fic that is also a coda for s08e08 lmao. having writer friends is never, ever boring, amirite?!

anyways here's an excerpt seeing as i thought i'd get it finished tonight but didn't and need the motivation to keep going with it asfhjhsk

ps pls be kind as it's completely unedited xp

now complete and found HERE on ao3

.

“Take it off.”

Buck looks up to where Eddie is standing in the door jam, big hands on slim hips and pink lips pinched.

“Huh?” he replies.

Because huh?

Eddie gives him The Look; his patented Buck look.

“Buck,” he says in the exact same way Buck just heard it in his head.

Then Eddie's eyebrows shoot up in the way Buck knows to mean you know what I mean, and although most of the time Buck knows precisely what Eddie means with just one pointed eyebrow-raise, right now he has zero clue of whatever it is Eddie is trying to tell him.

“What?” he says, his own brows asking half the question for him.

Eddie sighs, and it's kind of pained and long-suffering, which—fair.

“The hoodie, lover-boy. Take it off.”

The penny-drop is immediate.

For some reason, Buck blushes a little under Eddie's gaze—and maybe a little at his use of the weirdly alluring moniker.

Buck is wearing one of Tommy's hoodies.

He doesn't pout, but it's a close thing.

“But it's—Eds, it's the only thing I have left of him,” he protests, voice pathetically brittle and small.

Eddie's eyes go so soft you could top hot chocolate with them and cover them in squirty cream.

“Look, Buck, keeping it is bad enough. But wearing it? That's some pretty solid self-sabotaging behaviour, man. Trust me; I should know.” His words are cleanly direct, as they always are, only his mouth treats them with such gentleness, and such care, that Buck kind of wants to cry.

Eddie always looks after him. Always works hard to keep Buck's heart safe from harm.

Buck pictures it now, his heart laying uselessly in his friend's cupped hands as it continues to pump Buck's blood out of its floppy ventricles, even though there's nowhere left for it to go.

Tommy left him.

They all leave, eventually. Because everybody leaves Buck, he should know that by now.

Everyone except Eddie.

Adversely, though, it was only yesterday that Eddie had told Buck about his absolutely batshit crazy idea of moving back to El Paso, after which Buck's brain had consequently stopped sending messages to his body to tell it how to breathe.

He remembers picturing Yesterday Eddie crushing Buck's heart in a tight fist, blood and viscera oozing out from between his fingers and dripping down over his knuckles, right onto the sparkling white kitchen tiles. Then, rounding the table and chairs to step on the pedal bin pedal, he'd proceeded to throw Buck's heart away into the trash bag along with the rest of the trash.

Somehow though, in the space between the last of Buck's now-crushed heartbeats and him blinking back to reality, Buck had managed to snap out of the fucked-up vision to remind his body to keep working in the way that it's supposed to.

He'd then forced a plastic smile onto his face and painted it with as much selfless understanding as he could muster, before coming out with, “Well, we should move this party to the couch,” and offering himself up as a Realtor Virtual Meeting Wingman like a certified insane person.

Buck loved Eddie—he was his best friend in all the world—so what the fuck was he doing helping the guy turn his life into a living hell?

But helping being his first instinct was what made him realise he loved Eddie and Christopher enough to give them up, if that's what it was going to take to facilitate them getting their happiness back.

…Or so he thought.

As much as he had tried—and by god, he had really, really tried—Buck just couldn't keep up the Supportive Best Friend charade for very long.

That's when all hell had broken loose.

.

you can now read the completed fic HERE on ao3!

tags are under the cut, play or nay:

@inell @rosieposiepuddingnpie @sortasirius @angela-feelstoomuch @woodchoc-magnum @kitteneddiediaz @buddiebeginz @watchyourbuck @treasurehuntbuck @daffi-990 @colonoscopys @shitouttabuck @lamardeuse @idealuk @veronae-buddie @isaacthedruid @team-118 @wildehacked @playinginthunderstorms @kyoteugly @hotshotsxyz

[pipileo]

Pipileo Pinned Post Vol. 3

hi im ☆pipileo☆, or pip, and HHIII HELLO I DRAW STUPID JUUNK

==About the Blog==

a minor owns this place, so 18+ accounts, please stay away!! if your account has content that is too sexual for my tastes, you will get blocked.

this blog is meant to be available to all ages (unless you dont like profanity...) so suggestive content will neither be produced nor reblogged here.

all of my art should be in #pipsoddcreations or #pipsanswerdoods, or if you wanna see some of my OC's backstories, check #pipsOCstorytime

I like to draw my ocs and some Cult Of The Lamb art, but please do feel free to ask me to draw something (no guarantees, but i will try my best)

speaking of ocs, heres the full list of their names and tags... they are plentiful, yet underutilized.

dont be worried if i disappear for a few days- i lose motivation often, or i get too busy sometimes.

my artstyle is inconsistennntttttt babeyyyy

dont be afraid of me- i dont bite that hard. feel free to dm me or put something in my inbox whenever ya want

==About my Sonas==

say hi!!! I have two sonas, one is a slime, and the other is a kitty : )

Pip is 5'5, tastes like grapes, and dies or gets hurt in liquid water. great guy, amirite? he gets all disoriented if you bite him though.

Boop'r Pip is 5'3, is affectionately violent, hates water, and will likely bite you first. he's married! you don't wanna know what he did to his spouse.

my sonas are INTERCHANGEABLE! you can use one or the other in any fanarts, depending on your preference.

==About some other stuff==

you can totally use my art as reference or inspiration, just dont like- trace my stuff

if you wanna use my art as a pfp, just let me know before you do so, and please do credit me somewhere on your account

im thinking about doing comms, but for the time being, i usually draw whatever you ask me to, so long as you ask politely. also, do feel free to ask me for an art trade.

if i mass-like your blog its bc you provoked me + i love you + im very competitive + its my go-to method of showing affection

====

i love all of you, i hope yall at least enjoy my drawings here <3

ORIGINAL REF SHEET UNDER THIS LINE ⬇️⬇️

End of post. Have a great day!

[audiblehush]

I know this isn’t really relevant to the recent promo we’ve gotten (which I’m still swooning over, for the record), but I’ve been thinking about how some people in this fandom have been fussing over Pen having a potential suitor (or suitorS, we don’t really know) this season, and I don’t understand their complaints, I guess?

… like, I’m pretty sure that it’s meant to MIRROR Season 1.

(…see what I did there? ;)

There are multiple ways in which Colin and Penelope’s stories / situations have mirrored the other. They are not perfect mirrors (that would be dull), but they ARE similar and I truly believe that it’s intentional to reinforce both Polin’s compatibility and ultimately their empathy for the other.

A few examples:

—

Colin: is viewed as the “one-dimensional” easy-going, un-serious, charming brother who never rocks the boat; never gets angry.

Pen: is viewed as a shy, quiet, harmless wallflower who never steps out of line and is kind of a doormat.

—

As a result of the above perceptions:

Colin: is desperate for something to fill his time and energy the way his brothers have something, SO he impulsively courts and proposes marriage to a girl he barely knows to feel needed and wanted in a way that makes him feel mature; and he gets the validation he seeks from Marina, as it suits her needs (I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, she genuinely needed him to be desperate for validation to get a quick marriage). A heady feeling, someone relying on you and telling you that you are desperately needed…

Penelope: is desperate to feel a part of the ton in any way she can, because her and her family are tolerated at best, and heavily criticized at worst. So rather than suffering through the season, crushed, and always on the sidelines against her will, after choosing to start LW —perhaps on a whim, perhaps it was discovered and encouraged by chance like in the books— she “chooses” to hug the wall and not be noticed… (not at all a coping mechanism and a fear of rejection, amirite??) …and she eventually gets the acceptance and validation she seeks by having the ton hang off her every word as LW…. Again, a heady thing for a lonely 17-18 year old who wants to be heard and who craves acceptance, however she can get it.

—

Penelope: has to watch the man she’s in love with, one of the few people who listens to her and who she shows aspects of her true, (sometimes cutting self) with, court and eventually propose to a girl she knows is actively manipulating him.

She then (quickly, imperfectly and messily) interferes to spare Colin from the plot… without his input (after a failed first attempt to appeal to him, in her defense… and then the time limit became a problem).

Colin: quickly and imperfectly interferes in Jack’s ruby scheme in order to fix his own rashness, but also to spare the Featherington family… (without their input, it must be noted, even though he says he does it for them).

…And now in season 3, Colin will need to watch as Pen attempts to attract suitors, possibly while he watches with feelings of jealously if she has some success (Edit: Though I doubt it will get all the way to an engagement; too redundant)

(And this is nothing but speculation, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Colin either discovers something about one of the suitors, or about another plot entirely and is forced to make a difficult decision regarding it, that impacts Penelope).

—

Penelope: writes things that can have a negative impact on or hurt people, sometimes for her own own comfort (LW), even if it’s not intentional.

Colin: says and does things that hurt others or that are misleading / obliviously harmful, sometimes for his own comfort (avoiding the needling of those men at the end of S2), even if it’s not intentional.

—

Penelope: has self esteem that has been in the TRASH since the beginning of the series - this poor girl hates herself, and has had it reinforced often (and likely from a young age) that her thoughts and opinions aren’t worth hearing, and that she is never enough (and is one of a few reasons why I find the “she wanted Colin for herself!” takes about the end of S1 pretty laughable)… so she hides behind LW. Colin is one of the only people she’s hinted to that she can be biting (Eloise gets glimpses of it), and I think the ONLY one she has hinted at that she has “grand dreams”

Colin: ALSO has self esteem that is pretty low, desperately seeking something that he thinks will make him feel whole and complete, the forgotten middle child (same, bro…), and he masks this uncertainty by flaunting a fake confidence and hiding behind his hobbies and being what everyone wants him to be… also he he can keep people from looking deeper… while simultaneously desperate to be seen by those around him. Pen is the only person he’s really hinted at that he’s unhappy when they discuss purpose.

—

EDIT: How could I forget?! BOTH are the third children in their family. Colin is the forgotten middle child, and Pen is the youngest, but both are criticized by their acting heads of their household (Anthony for Colin, Portia for Penelope), and criticized by their siblings. Penelope’s sisters brutally mock her often: her weight, her skin, her letter-writing, etc. Colin’s siblings clearly mean to just tease him, but it’s obvious how much their lack of interest in him as a person hurts him and makes him feel invisible and unwanted (my poor boy 🥺…)

—

Mirrors, mirrors, and more mirrors. Sometimes they are funhouse mirrors, the situations aren’t ever exact, there are nuances and specific context to each, but imo the similarities are very intentional.

The show is going out of its way to put these characters on more equal footing, and to have each of them make blunders in their lives and in the lives of others, knocked off their respective pedestals, to set them up to be like “wow, I get it, I get YOU and I choose YOU, with all the highs and all the lows” … and I LOVE it!! 🥹

People in this fandom tend to relate to either Penelope, Colin, (or sometimes both), and that’s awesome… but that doesn’t mean they don’t each have flaws. It also doesn’t have to become a “who hurt who more, who is more right?” - I am so uninterested in that: pain isn’t a competition.

What I AM interested and invested in is their growth, seperetly and together, and the removal of their masks to truly see and accept the other.

So yeah, y’all. It’s called a parallel, and I really hope we get loads of them in S3. 🥰

I honestly really welcome conversation and thoughts about this; I’m pretty new to the fandom, but unfortunately I have seen a lot of people (on tumblr in particular) be very “holier than thou” if they don’t agree on an interpretation, and it makes the fandom seem very unwelcoming and makes me nervous to even post things, which is pretty ridiculous. :/

Fandom gonna fandom, I guess. 🤷‍♀️ I just really love this show and this pairing and I’m dying for S3.

[jlf23tumble]

1D interview recap, Irish Late Late Show, 12 October '12

I had an anon come through with some fresh takes, offering to share a much larger doc in exchange for a recap, and in the spirit of the season, here you go, new-found friend, ENJOY! I'm putting it under the cut for anyone not wanting to scroll, but thank you, honestly, for letting me jump back into something I really do enjoy doing (seeing full-context videos and adding my own bullshit on top of it in recap form)

If you want to refer back to the full context, and as ever, I will recommend that you do, the full interview is here. It's the Irish Late Late Show, hosted by a guy who doesn't seem to love this job, the vibes are seriousTM news host filling some slot for someone else, and he doesn't get it, he doesn't love it, he has some notes to follow, and by god, he does, but jesus, get him out of here, there's something happening in Derry for chrissakes.

From the top, we get a statistic that seems ironic, though I don't think it was intended to be so: this silly band has topped the Beatles and Coldplay, their debut album has sold 3 million (lmao) copies worldwide!! Me personally, I live for the jazzy saxophone version of "What Makes You Beautiful," it really does echo one of the best parts of the Beatles' very own "A Hard Day's Night," with the jazzy version of some of their tunes running in the background--boy bands gonna boy band!

This whole thing feels so rote, but I'll hit some highlights here, in bullet form, for ease of read:

The seating arrangement had me thinking about it for at least one (1) hour: Harry's closest to the host, and takes most of the questions, yet Niall is Irish, and ostensibly should be the focus--Louis is placed in the middle, like he's the leader, so it's Zayn and Liam, who barely talk, who bring up the back end. It's a choice!

Louis knows enough about Dizzy Rascal to give "bonkers" a "Dizzy Rascal type of twist."

A burning question for the masses on 12 October '12 = was Niall attacked by a squirrel? The official answer is no, but my question is does he have braces here? Invisalign? The Irish equivalent of Invisailgn?? No squirrels involved, but Niall HAS dislocated his knee ten times in two years from "football"...hmmm.

News we can use, I guess, Victoria Beckham recoiled when they met her because Liam went in to give her a kiss--Louis rightly calls this as something you shouldn't do, he just went to say hi--but Liam also oddly looks like David Beckham here, so I kind of get how it must have been off-putting for her in more than one way.

Taylor Swift alert! Generally speaking, the Larry vibes are way off in this whole thing, even though Harry always looks to Louis when he answers shit and Louis ignores him, but it jumps to the forefront at about 3:35, when the host goes in for the TS of it all, SOMEONE HERE has had a word with her, "you take this one, Harry," and it's frowny-faced/no-lipped/tight-lipped king Louis saying it's definitely not me, future musical collaborator Zayn saying it's definitely not me, and for the work she put into breaking them in the US, the lack of gratitude, well!

With blood in the water, the host goes deep: "Harry, is it true you once kissed a girl under 40?" and to me, that seems such a shitty dig on older women vs. poor Harry, like, wow, OLDER WOMEN ARE DISGUSTING, AMIRITE? Gross.

Not long after that, there's the inevitable (jealous) middle-aged white guy asking if they're gonna settle down, which makes Louis focus on his sweater before he starts coughing when Harry tries to answer this vital question. He gets called out for it, then says we can edit, but hey, no, we can talk about it longer if you want (the coughing or Harry dating, you make the call!)

If you want a conspiracy, here's a good one, this is the interview where Harry says London's quite big…he has also said LOML (Harry's version) is about London…LOML is about Louis…Louis's quite big…is what I'm hearing.

Zayn gets a moment to talk about how hard is it to date (Perry?), and Louis gets to disassociate about how difficult it is as well.

Money shot alert! 6:18: WHO IS LARRY STYLINSON?? According to Louis: "Conspiracy fanfiction between me and Harry (girls in audience scream), it gets pretty graphic, me and Harry are together, my girlfriend isn't real, you've opened a can of worms." The host: "It's just people annoying you?" Louis: "Yeah, you could say that." Host: "Who lives together?" All: "None of us...anymore...we all live on our own now." :(

For an Irish show, we are FINALLY getting to some Irish goss, and that is Harry's weekend with Niall back in the day, where presumably he learned some of the Gaelic he just spouts off with here and there, narry truthers rise.

There's a great image at 8:05 with a fake Prince Harry but the real Nick Grimshaw as well (and Harry with some orange juice, for whatever rando reason). Harry: "Prince Harry just seems like he has foon, he's like, a yoong eye, he just kinda does what he wants, I think it's kinda cool." Okay!

The host says there's talk about Simon, saying he had a conference call telling the boys to calm down, but according to Louis, "He never tells us off, to be honest." Alright!

Harry's new tats are the things I can, things I can't, and what does Louis have to say about that? "He's just quirky."

Another dig at older women, this time Michelle Obama. Gross.

Seemingly exhausted with the question card, the host turns it over to the audience, who starts with, "Have any of you scored a fan?" Niall, disgusted, explains, it's Irish for kissed, and he says no, Zayn says a gentleman never tells, Liam says no, Harry says I think I have, but I can't remember, and Louis says what a gentleman! (note: not a real answer)

Someone else asks, "If you could relive one day, which day and why?" Louis: "The day we got put together" (looks at Harry, lots of cheers) Harry: "The day we got through to live shows, real moments where we were first together" (silence) Louis, snidely, "Haha you didn't get a clap."

We get more boring, predictable questions and answers, e.g., is there a hard part to being in a band; what food have you missed most (god I love Louis: "It's a riveting question"), etc.

There's a whole bit that pits the audience (represented by a woman named Eleanor (!!)) against 1D as to who's smarter about their actual lived lives, which is fucking meta, if you ask me, but the best part comes at the end, when Eleanor is asked whether the tattoo Ed Sheeran gave Harry is a picture of Simon Cowell or a padlock, and an annoyed Louis at 23:40 says, hold on, she said Simon Cowell??!! Anyway, Eleanor wins this game, and her prize is a stay at a state-of-the-art leisure center hotel, right off some on-ramp near the m1 or whatever in Galway City Centah, but wait, there's more, EVERYONE in the audience wins a night there, woo hoo, queue the saxophone "What Makes You Beautiful!"

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

Hi Fiona! If you're still doing the Paul concert Bingo, I'd love to hear about the graphics and/or the non-tumblr beatles tinhattery :)

Hello, yes of course it's still going on <3 (sorry, had a long work day, here I ammmmmmmm)

The mixed bag of Paul's graphics:

His graphics are like 50% corny, 20% random and 30% good lmao.

The light shows combined with smoke are very cool.

For more rocky songs he sticks with abstract stuff that generally looks good I think

Sometimes he seems to straightup use stock footage lmao. Let Em In and Drive My Car come to mind. Also Lady Madonna has a lot of just pictures of mothers and daughters (with a blink and you miss it Linda + daughters moment but the rest appears to be stock images??? or I don't recognize any of these motheres. there's also Significant Women Of History. also, the graphics connecting all these pictures and videos are kinda weird)

For Got To Get You Into My Life he uses video from the Rock Band game????

Blackbird graphics are very very simple but effective. Just branches at dawn <3 very pretty

He plays the fuckin' Now And Then video and I had to straight up look away from the screen BUT it's actually not quite the OG video and it's a little better. He also combines it with Eyes of the Storm photos which is neat.

it's so cute how much the crowd goes wild for John during I've Got A Feeling <3

I really find those weird creatures on the screen during The End unsettling. why did that have to happen.

Non-tumblr beatles tinhattery:

Okay like, when you go to soundcheck you come across some Intense™ Fans (not excluding myself here AT ALL lol). There was this guy in line who was like gonna see EVERY soundcheck of the Europe tour and he was sharing some interesting to WILD theories about song inspiration.

Ranked from maybe to wtf are you talking about:

he basically asserted that the line "You were above me" in I'm Looking Through You referred to Jane being middle class. It's definitely possible, but he was saying it like he just Knew.

he was positing that The Girl Is Mine was inspired by Quincy Jones needing to assert to Paul that the girl is his – this theory is also not crazy but the guy was completely conflating Maggie McGivern (he claimed the girl had been with Paul just before he got married) and Peggy Lipton (who was actually Quincy Jones' wife by the time the song was being composed). He couldn't come up with a name so I said "Peggy Lipton..?" and he was like YES! then he looked up pictures of her and was like "no.... not her." and I was like "but she was with Quincy Jones" (because Quincy is cleary the pertinent part of this song theory) and he was like "yes but no". then I said "Maggie McGivern", he looked her up and was like YESSS. and I'm like. Okay??

He was like "y'know the song Lavatory Lil? know who it's about?" and someone was like "I thought it was about Heather [Mills]" and he was like "nononono" all smug, and claimed this song whose lyrics basically amount to "curse you, you sexy gold digger!!!", was actually about Mal Evans' widow because Paul was mad she wouldn't hand the manuscript of Mal's book over even though it contained Beatles content. Nevermind that this has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics of Lavatory Lil! Nevermind that the concept of Paul feeling entitled to a book written that was currently in the possession of the author's spouse is crazy and definitely doesn't cast Paul in a positive light! and the best part was this guy acted like he knew this from Sources™.

Beatles fans amirite?

Ask me stuff about my Paul shows!

[hismercytomyjustice]

My husband effortlessly outmaneuvered my OCD today. I am still in awe.

I didn’t want to go to my piano lesson. Last week was ROUGH. On top of still struggling with this more advanced piece, I had major migraine brain fog.

The good news is that I didn’t want to fake my own death or wind up in near tears after. Yay, progress! But it wasn’t the best experience otherwise. It was just really frustrating and humiliating to struggle so much.

This more advanced piece has been triggering my OCD like crazy too.

I told him I didn’t want to go today because I hadn’t practiced enough.

He responded with “So?”

It was exactly the right answer. Even though I still tried to push back with, “I haven’t made enough progress.”

And he was just like “The point of you going is to practice. And you did practice.”

“I haven’t practiced enough.”

“Not going isn’t going to help with that.”

T^T !!!

(extended OCD rant below the cut)

I had similar convos with my therapist where she’s insisted that the only thing I need to do for piano is show up for my lessons. That is the only expectation.

My piano teacher would disagree with that, lol. But I get what she’s saying. Because my desire for “doing it right/enough” is my perfectionism OCD talking.

Which is why piano is such good unintentional ERP for me. Because it upsets my perfectionism OCD so much. My therapist has said this multiple times now.

Lol, I also finally told my piano teacher I have OCD and that my OCD loves piano. In that it loves to tell me how bad I am at it. He was telling me last week, “Just play through, it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Which has become his new mantra for me lately. orz I was playing some for my husband too to show him how far I’ve come and he said the same thing because I kept stopping when I’d mess up. “Just play it through.”

It is SO HARD TO though. Especially with how hard my OCD focuses on every single mistake I make. Which just leads to building anxiety and more mistakes.

I’ve had moments where I’m struggling while practicing and have literally had to tell myself “practicing will only help, it can’t make you worse at this.”

Because lord knows avoidance is one of my favorite compulsions. Because you can’t be bad at something if you don’t do it, amirite? (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

God, I also realized my OCD has eased up a bit when it comes to writing (sort of), but now it’s decided to focus on replying to comments on my fics instead. Something I genuinely enjoy doing because getting comments fills my heart with rainbows. It gets riled up with me trying to leave comments too.

My perfectionism OCD has decided this is a great time to overthink every single word I type. Just a constant stream of “You have to give the perfect reply to a comment, otherwise people won’t think you’re grateful enough for them taking the time to comment and they won’t want to read your fic anymore and they’ll hate you.”

And “You’ve left comments on other fics that people have said made their day. If you don’t leave a good enough comment or if you don’t comment at all, they’ll think you don’t like their fic anymore. You know how happy getting comments makes you. If you don’t comment on everything you read, that makes you a bad person.”

None of that is true, ofc. I know it’s not true. I know it’s not even logical. But it is all triggering my avoidance SO HARD. Because I can’t mess it up if I don’t do it at all! So now I have a bunch of comments that have piled up and a bunch of fics I’ve read that I haven’t commented on and I’m starting to ruminate on all of it.

And it’s just like…so objectively ridiculous. That’s not self-compassion, I know. But like, it feels so absurd to be in an OCD spiral over this. Where I am actively spending more time agonizing (ruminating) over the fact that I haven’t done either than it would take to just…reply or leave a comment on a fic.

Like. This is not a life or death situation. This doesn’t even have to be a situation! And yet the spiral continues. I stress, I avoid, I stress about avoiding. And I waste time and energy and brainpower on all of it.

I have the same issue with the other fics I’ve promised too. I’ve been deep into the final chapters of my kid!Alastor fic and hyper focusing on it as a result. But I have been talking about posting Part 8 of my Radioapple series for so long. I threw 8k words at it like a month ago and then started overthinking it and then started worrying about falling behind on my kid!fic. The same for the BG3 oneshot I drafted. All I need to do is edit it so I can post it. But editing to me = executive function (writing somehow does not…?). And, again, I wanted to get caught up on my kid!fic. So now I feel guilty for not finishing it and posting when I said I would.

None of this is anything I should feel guilty for! And I know that. I am doing all of this FOR FUN.

It is supposed to be fun!

AND YET.

Ugh. Not me over here like “My OCD hasn’t been that bad! Why can’t I get anything done?”

Because it picked new things to obsess over and I was late to the party on realizing that. ( ˶ •̀ ⤙ •́ ˶ )

I’m glad I’m meeting with my psychiatrist tomorrow. My depression has been better but now that I’m aware my OCD is ~clinically severe~, I’m hoping maybe she can help get me on something that will do more to help with it. Because while the meds I’m currently on are preventing me from a full blown relapse, I don’t think they’ve been very effective at straight up treating my OCD otherwise.

I’m really hoping a different medication will help. It’s just frustrating to be putting all this work into therapy and all, but not seeing more of a reduction in my symptoms.

Literally one of the questions on the YBOC is: “How anxious would you feel if you were prevented from performing your compulsive behaviors?”

I told her it wouldn’t make me anxious because I don’t WANT to do the compulsions. And if I had a magic button in my head that would make them easier to resist, it would be the greatest thing ever. The compulsions are what’s making me anxious. Most of the time I don’t realize I’m obsessing or compulsing.

So then I get frustrated and upset at myself for not getting things done and it’s only then that I’m like, “Wait, is this an OCD spiral?”

If I could get better at recognizing them sooner and acting sooner, I think it’d go a long way toward helping me. The thing is, I don’t know if this is a medication thing or a me thing and tbh I’m worried it’s a me thing. That I’m not doing something right, and that’s why I’m having such a hard time with it all.

I really hope that’s not the case. Like, I am DESPERATE to get out of these never-ending loops. I just really, really hope that the will is already there and that a different medication can help get my OCD under control enough for me to actually make progress.

T^T Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Lol, not me stressing now that my psychiatrist is just gonna be like “Your problem is that you aren’t trying hard enough!” Because I think my problem is trying so hard to the point I unintentionally actively sabotage myself… Like I’m trying to fight perfectionism OCD with gasoline instead of water or something.

Ugh. Fingers crossed she can give me some better insight into all this tomorrow.

I’m just curious now too if my OCD has always been this bad and I’m only just now realizing it, or if it’s just been worse in general over the past year or so for whatever reason.

FIX ME, SCIENCE! FIX ME!!!

[restwellsoon]

Ok ok ok…can we please get daydreams with Dick Grayson and daddy kink, make it spicy.

Also congratulations on all those milestones!! I hope you're celebrating them!

Thank you!

Minors & ageless blogs DNI!

Pairing: Dick Grayson x GN!Reader

Tw: smut, daddy kink

"I guess I never pegged you as the mom friend," you admitted, legs crossed over Dick's as you laid in his bed. Work clothes were abandoned for the comfort of underwear and baggy shirts.

His hand covered your thigh, absently trailing up and down as his eyes stayed fixed on the television set- some Planet Earth type of show, his pick of course. "Well, that's your problem, babe. For starters, you've never pegged me to begin with-"

He didn't get much further than that before your giggles cut in. It was amazing how he could make his quips with the straightest of faces.

As your laughter settled down, you told him, "Keep up the dad jokes and maybe I'll take back what I said."

"Oh yeah?" It was the drop in his voice that made your heart skip a beat. "There's more direct ways to call me daddy, ya know."

That hand trailed upward towards your waistband, pausing for a moment until you gave him a look of impatience.

They slid off along with your shirt, along with his, then his boxers too.

"And what are they?"

His body pressed into yours, hardness teasing that space between your legs. He did that forearm thing that you loved-face hovering over yours as his arms and core bore the weight. It was the perfect angle to see Dick flex and get enough of his heat to rile you up. You shifted beneath him in anticipation.

His bangs tickled your skin as he whispered, "The easiest way would be to force it out of you." His lips nipped at your neck as if he could draw that name from your throat. "To make you repeat after me exactly what I want you to say. Daddy should always get what he wants, shouldn't he?"

It didn't take much for you to agree with him as his hands wandered your body, his cock grinding slowly against you as a trail of precum built up wherever you touched.

"But the easy way isn't always that best way." Easy or best didn't matter as long as you had him, but Dick always had a way of adding a touch of romance and desire during your encounters.

Your lips pressed against each other as tongue explored tongue for a moment, the bumping and grinding of your sex making your head full of lust and frustration. He was doing it on purpose-this you knew-as the tip of his cock teased your entrance, pressing deep enough to spread you apart but never enough to truly enter.

You separated with a string of saliva to connect you, and he cut it off, letting it pool slightly at the corner of your mouth before deciding to wipe it off completely. Playfully, you licked his thumb before he pressed that and another finger into your mouth, watching as you sucked them greedily.

With a pop, he let them trail down your torso, ignoring your needy whines. "No, the easy way isn't the most satisfying way either," and you ventured to ask what was then.

"When it's unintentional," his tone was more matter-of-fact. He grinned as you uttered an unexpected 'fuck' as he fingered your hole, going knuckle-deep with one and pumping. You still had too much control if that was all you had to say.

"When the sex is so good, you're begging for it." He added another finger.

"When you're begging for me."

"Dick, please."

His smile was intentionally cruel. "You'll get it soon enough, babe, if you call me the right name."

"Daddy, please."

"There you go," he said with satisfaction, fingers pressing that spot that would push you over the edge.

Your hole wrapped tight around him. He couldn't wait to feel it against his cock.

"Sometimes the decision's simply- easy does it, especially when you're between a cock and a hard place."

A/N: We need less wordplay and more foreplay from Dickie, amirite? 10/10 would still hit it despite the puns though.

A Token of Sleep | event / Dick Grayson's Masterlist / Rest's Main M.list

[lighthouseas]

hi all! i know that i haven’t posted for a while, but since the end of the year is fast approaching, i thought i’d make a post detailing my appreciation for my lovely mutuals . (if you saw this post earlier because tumblr was being a bitch, no you didn’t <3333)

anyway, without further ado- and in no particular order-

bee’s end-of-the-year MUTUAL APPRECIATION POST!!!

@hazmatazz - OHHH MAN. SILLY GUY ALERT. starting off strong with the lovely the amazing the fantabulous HAZ HAZMATAZZ. haz, being your friend and fellow Silly Squad member has been such an honor. you’re so funny and sweet and smart and make the best posts that make me giggle. and even though i don’t talk in it much, seeing so many Shenanigans go down in the discord server is seriously the funniest thing. I could just. squish you. you make me so happy and it’s an honor to be your friend. seriously hope 2024 treats you amazingly bc you deserve all of it <3333

@cannibalismyuri - SARA!!!! sara my lovely ohhh you are. the funniest. seriously. i have been reduced to Tears of laughter from posts on your blog. you have such an energy about you that is completely unmatched. even with Fandom Weirdness and the like, you’ve still pulled through and kept being your silliest self (and let me be silly with you which is awesome), and i commend you for that. aaaand not to get sappy or whatever but i really do look up to and admire you. you inspire me a lot. also, i love your new url. i want to eat it. pun intended. HAVE THE BEST 2024 EVER <3333

@qulizalfos - LIZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. everyone listen up okay. liza is the loml IF ANYONE EVEN CARESSS. liza oh my god i adore you and your endless enthusiasm. seriously your comments on tsad are comments that i look back on when i need motivation because they’re just. so sweet. you are so sweet. we’ve only been mutuals since this SUMMER and yet it feels like we’ve known each other forever. i love screaming about things with you and i love the fact that my FIC is in your BIO??? HELLOOOO??? also okay. can we talk about your writing and art. liza i cannot say ENOUGH how talented you are. if i could staple your fics and art to the entire st fandom’s forehead so they would have to look at it forever then i would. your brain is so ginormous and the way you describe things and think about things is something i could only dream of doing. literally adore everything about you and wish i could hang out with you and wayli so we could all be a little insane together <33333 love you. LOVE YOUUUU I hope 2024 is awesomesauce for you <33333333

@wayward-sherlock - SPEAKING of wayli. oh wayli. if i had time to write a 10 page essay detailing how much of an impact you have had on me i would. seriously though you are just the sweetest, kindest, and most positive person ever. seeing you blow up my notes makes me grin So Hard because like oh man. wayli likes my blog. THEEE wayli thinks i’m cool. wtfff….anyway. you are so smart and it shows in your literally breathtaking writing and analysis (ANALYSIS FIRM!!!) you’re so perceptive and it honestly blows me away. reading your writing is so mesmerizing and just. sends me on an adventure. actually just scrolling through your BLOG sends me on an adventure because you always have the best stuff on there. honestly, I just wanna give you the biggest hug and tell you how awesome you are because rambling in a tumblr post simply is not enough. all’s that to say, i’m really looking forward to this coming year that will hopefully include more screaming about fanfiction in our discord messages and more of us being friends. because i love being your friend and it’d be so awesome if one day we could hang out together and be a tad Insane. doopel dopple gang STICKS TOGETHER AMIRITE?? anyway. i love you so much and wish you all the best in 2024 <333333

@antibyler - spencer HIII i know it’s been a minute since we last talked but can i just say that it has been an HONOR being your mutual this year. you’re so cool and fun and easy to talk to and also are a Fellow NHIE Fan which makes you even cooler. don’t think i’ve ever seen a bad opinion on your blog, which i know is saying a lot but it’s true To Me okay. seriously could never ever imagine Not following spencer basiltonpitch antibyler because like. that’s some essential dash content right there. THEEE blog to ever. makes the tumblr experience about 2034549650 times better. hope 2024 treats you wonderfully, my triple b mutual WOO <3

@versa-vices - FINNIEEEE!!!!!! you are my sunshine my special sunshine you make me happyyyyyyyy when skies are grayyyy….like actually though you are such a sunshine. seeing your comments on my posts never fails to make me giggle. a Silly Squad member that’s for sure. but like. being your tumblr bestie this past year has been so much fun. hanging out on the dash together and being Slightly Unhinged in the discord messages has been one of the highlights of my year. you’re so sweet and lovely and i don’t think it would be tumblr without you (those 10 minutes where you deactivated were HARD man okay. what am i supposed to do without u :(() okay anyhoo. thank you for being the bestest ever and hope 2024 treats you well <333

@light-lanterne - angel hiii! it’s been a bit since we’ve interacted but i needed to talk about how kind and patient you’ve been throughout literally everything because tumblr can be a little much sometimes. your kindness and determination to make so many beautiful graphics is absolutely incredible. i still look back on the graphics you’ve made for my fics sometimes, and it’s just…amazing. you’re so talented both in your art and your writing. when times got tough in the Fandom, i could always count on your blog to be a cozy and warm retreat from the craziness. it’s an honor to be your mutual, and i hope 2024 treats you kindly, because you seriously deserve it <33

@booksandpaperss - ELLI HIII!! holy shit one of my oldest mutuals. here when the ancient scrolls were written. elli , you have made my fandom experience so much more enjoyable. what with your huge brain and amazing takes, you always keep things real and i admire that about you. you’re also just. so easy to talk to. both because you’re ridiculously funny and also because you’re so nice to me like what. i love Discussing things with you, especially when it felt like we were sitting in a corner sipping tea and having a grand old time while the entire fandom went batshit. uscore fr. also, your comments on tsad…dude…they made me and STILL make me tear up. you read everything with such an attentive eye and then give the sweetest compliments on it. it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. you’re just. so awesome okay. never forget that. hope u have a wonderful 2024 <3333

@karenchildress - hi jo!!!!!!!!!! i know we don’t interact as much but like. you’re such a joy to see on the dash i’m being so fr right now. how are you so funny like some of your posts still make me laugh to this day. you also keep things Real which i appreciate a lot, people tend not to do that nowadays T-T. we need more jo karenchildresses in the st fandom i think. things would improve marginally. anyway. keep being cool and fun and hope 2024 brings you much joy <3

@homohabu - oh man you’re just. you’re so nice. your blog is so inviting and has the loveliest colors all over it that make me very happy. you’ve always been so lovely to me and it makes me smile. you’re also another one of my oldest mutuals…and you’ve still stuck around through everything. thank you for having an awesome blog and being an awesome person! hope 2024 is good for you!!!!!!!!

@kuntniss - sierra!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hiiiii it’s been a minute but can i just say that your blog makes me so so so super happy whenever i look at it. both your reblogs and original posts are just. great vibes. great vibes all around. you’ve been so nice to me this past year and it’s seriously been so wonderful interacting with you and looking forward to seeing your posts. being your mutual is so fun. i hope 2024 brings you so many good things, you deserve all of them <33333333

@weirdo09  - cade! i know you haven’t been online in a while but i just wanted to say that you’ve been such a wonderful friend to me this past year. you’re so creative and i loved hearing your ideas in my inbox and getting tagged in your wonderful. i hope you’re doing okay now, because you were honestly such a joy to see on the dash and in my notes. also, your ever changing themes were always a nice surprise to come across when i opened your blog, lol. hope 2024 treats you well :)

@holyvirgilscriptures - virgil !!!! oh my god i adore your blog so badddd like. i could seriously scroll through it forever it’s just banger after banger after banger. you always have the best takes on like. Everything. also FELLOW TAWOG BROTHER IN ARMS HELLOOOO !!!! BEST TASTE IN MEDIA AWARD GOES TO YOU MY FRIEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyway. you have made this year so so so enjoyable just with the Existence of your blog. this coming year i hope we can interact a bit more because you’re super awesome <333 may 2024 bring you many good things! 

@ollsonline - oliver <3333 my lovely. since we became mutuals you have been nothing but the sweetest, kindest, friendliest person to me. you’re so welcoming to everyone and it absolutely warms my heart. you’ve been such an amazing friend to me this year and we should totally talk more because you’re super cool and awesome also!!! thank you for being the best and i hope 2024 treats you kindly <3

okay that’s all i’ve got! to any mutuals i did not get to mention: i love you so much. you have made The Tumblr Experience that much more bearable with your endless kindness. i love all of you so much, and am wishing you a happy new year through the screen! MWAH!!!!!!!

[oneirataxia-girl]

aim for the sun ⇝ trading cards

ft. Himura Kenji & "Marionette" Mari

here's my take on the oc verse trading cards by @auxiliarydetective!! starring my current muses obviously, I've got some editing notes under the cut so feel free to just ignore it bc most of it is just rambling

first, I cannot thank you enough for making this guide Evie, I was so stuck on the numbers before I remembered that you literally gave me a guide to figure them out. Kenji's number (58) is a combination of 5 (ka) + 10 (ji) + 8 (ya), aka kajiya, the word for blacksmith in Japanese; I couldn't find any pun-related numbers for Mari, so I just used her symbolic number (13), I'll elaborate on this when the time is right ;)

it doesn't show up much, but I successfully changed the bg color for both of my cards! I have Single Child Syndrome and I Refuse To See Reason and I regretted it when after finishing it I realized that the original color looked best... ah well, at least they're more in line with their colors

the stats are both of them post OPLA s1, Mari is strong but she doesn't get a big fight scene so it's not obvious (but not better than the monster trio, hence the middle-ish placing), she does get an unhinged scene talking about her dream though; Kenji is himbo coded and I felt like I should make that Very Clear, he's slightly stronger than Usopp & Nami, but he doesn't train as hard as the fighting trio + Mari, so he's below average. both of them get to be a little stupid because it's the Strawhats, you aren't a crewmate if you're not a bit silly and unhinged amirite

and that's about it! thank you sm for reading if you did, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are!! now if you'll excuse me, I have a giveaway to work on <3

the enablers' call: @arrthurpendragon, @bibaybe, @daughter-of-melpomene, @auxiliarydetective, @starcrossedjedis, @fakedatings, @supermarine-silvally -- want to be added?? shoot me an ask!!

[dr-futbol-blog]

Home, Pt. 3

Once through the gate, we are definitely inside Weir's figmented reality. She seems to have stepped through the gate alone while in the next scene we find that McKay has accompanied her which, upon initial viewing, might be considered an editing error, only here it's on purpose. There's weirdness going on. What, are we actually meant to believe that these people stepped through the gate then and there willy-nilly without running it by anyone at Atlantis with only the clothes on their backs?

Likely each one of them had a slightly different version of returning to SGC and being greeted + briefed by Hammond but we only get to see hers (also, Hammond being in his full regalia throughout is one of the hints that things are not quite right). This is actually confirmed later on in the episode where she tells Simon that she should have stayed in Atlantis and Sheppard should have come to earth. In her version of the false reality, Sheppard stayed behind. In her reality, McKay also continues to be supportive of her, like he's there just to reinforce her arguments. We get several shots of McKay just quietly observing things, taking them in, which is uncharacteristic of him. We are likely meant to think that it's the gravity of the situation that is keeping him quiet but what we are actually seeing is how Elizabeth wishes McKay behaved. Later, we also see how Ford views McKay: impatient and brow-beating him.

This episode is very clever in that it teaches the audience about the different perspectives different characters have, and also how the absence of evidence can be significant when two scenes are compared and juxtaposed. This is a thing that happens throughout the show.

Suddenly, we shift to Sheppard's figment. It is as though all of them had stepped through the gate to earth even though we only saw Elizabeth do it. He mentions the briefing as though he had just been a part of it, even though we didn't see his participation (we see a shoulder that might be him but we later on learn that couldn't have been him, since in Elizabeth's fantasy Sheppard stayed back), and in Sheppard's reality he was the one that gave the briefing, not Weir. Hammond compliments him on his thoroughness, where Sheppard himself expresses surprise that the briefing had gone by so fast.

Sheppard seems to clock that something isn't right immediately. As mentioned in Pt. 1, this may be due to his ATA gene (he is uniquely capable of affecting his reality, after all) or not having any real ties back to earth. It has been pointed out by many people that it is being complimented by Hammond that clues him in and that is just heart-breaking (being called "son" by Hammond may also have contributed to it, although it is only later that we learn of his daddy issues).

He does the lip thing of processing difficult emotions. This is clearly an acting choice Flanigan made early on.

Absences are sometimes just as telling as what we are shown on screen. McKay is not a part of Sheppard's reality. The choice could have been made by the alien entity if it had cause to suspect that interacting with someone that we have seen him keenly observe for the past several episodes might have been a dead give-away that something wasn't right, or it might be due to Sheppard himself manipulating the reality. He does mention at the end of the episode that he could have imagined something other than what he did, and purely by coincidence we get a shot of the two of them as he says this:

He almost turns to look at McKay but then doesn't.

We are lead to understand that he does have fantasies that don't circle around taking Teyla shopping and entertaining dead team mates at a frat party, although the fact that the first thing his mind goes to is shopping for outfits is pretty hilarious.

Here, Sheppard is acting like a stereotypical straight dudebro in that he is frustrated by the time Teyla took shopping ('Women be shopping, amirite?'). Sheppard is acting like a stereotypical gay best friend in that he offers his 'queer eye' approval of her fashion choices. He is both of these things. Note also that Teyla spent hours and hours trying on outfits that were for all intents and purposes generated from Sheppard's mind. In fact, the presence of Teyla may well be the reason Sheppard fabricated the kind of reality he did and not something wildly different that he indicates at the end of the episode. He's testing the limits of the false reality by poking holes in it, not living out his wish fulfillment fantasy.

An example of Sheppard testing the construction of the false reality can be seen e.g., in the skull on wrist band:

He's also probably still trying to ascertain whether Teyla is real or a part of it because he gives her a very odd look once she thanks him for the compliment. Also, the fact that he comments on her outfit draws the attention to his own outfit. It is very different from anything else we ever see him wear.

This episode is the first in which Sheppard's Johnny Cash poster appears. Granted, he later gets one for his Atlantis digs but here it's just something that he wishes he had, something that would exist in his dream "bachelor pad". The fact that Sheppard is single (but wishes he wasn't) is emphasized in the dialogue:

Teyla: So much space for just one person. Sheppard: Well, a guy's got to have a lot of space.

(And good god, he looks so sad and lonely after he says that, about having everything a guy could want; he pauses and then wonders how the people he left behind in Atlantis are doing).

Like mentioned in connection to Vegas (S05E19), Sheppard fancies himself Johnny Cash's 'Man in Black'. The man who wishes he could dress in a rainbow but has to carry the darkness of the world on his back. I wonder however if in this episode the poster is not a reference to the song I Want to Go Home:

We sailed on the ship John B... Drinking all night, got into a fight Well, I feel so homesick I wanna go home... Sheriff John Stone why don't you leave me alone Well, I feel so homesick I wanna go home... Then he took and ate up all of my corn Let me go home why don't you let me go home Well this is the worst trip since I have been born

Sheppard does not want to be on earth.

However, he seems satisfied that Teyla is real enough, as he suddenly lets her in on what has been bothering him:

Sheppard: I'm starting to wonder about a few things myself. Teyla: What? Sheppard: Nothing feels wrong to you? I don't mean one thing, I mean everything. Teyla: I do not understand. Sheppard: 'Scuse me. Could you take us to the Green Moss Park area? Driver: Sure thing. Sheppard: Thank you. I think I'll have a better idea of what's bothering me once we get there.

Green Moss Park does not appear to be a real place and probably was not meant to be a fictional place either. But what is the significance? Moss green is the colour of army fatigues. It's an additional colour to the palette he's building in his reality. It probably has some meaning but it's not obvious what that is. Johnny Cash has songs about the Fourty Shades of Green and the Green Green Grass of Home but as references, these would be stretches at best. Regardless, Sheppard's entire world feels wrong when it does not have McKay in it.

Elsewhere, Weir's figment where she is welcomed with open arms by Simon is in stark contrast to McKay's world, where there's nothing waiting for him. The fact that he lives in denial is emphasized by how he explains his empty answering machine by a possible power failure.

At home, McKay immediately starts watching TV and snacking on crisps of some kind which, keeping in mind that Sheppard was just yearning to do the very same thing earlier in the episode, suggests that they have similar desires. He seems to be watching an episode of The Outer Limits. He could have been watching any number of episodes that would fit the theme of this episode (e.g., Keeper of the Purple Twilight, the Feasibility Study) but at the very least, it seems to be a way for his subconscious to signal that something is not right. He even later describes it as "a very strange Outer Limits episode".

Again, confronted by a beautiful woman that is supposed to be his neighbour and the pet-sitter for his cat, McKay does not know what to do. In his wish-fulfillment fantasy Rodney manages to say yes to a date with "the girl in 302," 302 being the designation of the fighter-interceptor used by SGC, and we're invited to make this connection by Weir's very succinct interjection of "Air force" just before he describes the woman. He is actually rescued from having to go on the date by his imagined Weir. This man is so deep in denial.

It may be a reach that the photograph on Rodney's floor, underneath his clothes, is of Sheppard. It's difficult to make out what it is.

But what is easy to see is that the colour of his blue shirt accompanied with the french fries is the exact combination of the sports jacket Sheppard is wearing.

It is also noticeable that Sheppard is not a part of McKay's reality either. The version of Weir in his mind barely speaks, and the alien entity seems to use her to deliver information to him that is meant to make him accept this figment as reality but she's not really a fully fleshed person. Again, having a version of Sheppard in his constructed reality would probably have alerted McKay to it being a figment much sooner than a terse Weir or having the laws of physics be gibberish. Everything in McKay's world tells us that he too is terribly, terribly lonely. Unlike Weir who had someone waiting for her back home, they both are.

Continued in Pt. 4

[presumenothing]

hi! I really need some more zhou shen content, and am wondering if you can help me out. which are his best variety shows (that aren't singing comps, I think I've seen all those)? I loved youth periplous and keep running, and don't know what to watch next.

ok i'm gonna have to turn to crowdsourcing for this one because my attention span for watching shows esp general variety is basically Zero (0) so aside from a few exceptions the most i've seen is random clips of each. non-exhaustive list below shamelessly stolen off wikipedia, zhou shen tag friends please DO chip in with your sage advice

(also disclaimer that i have no idea about the eng sub availability and/or quality for any of these at all rip)

EDIT: comment party in the replies!! come drop in

music (regular):

声入人心/super vocal s1: the classic, probably everyone has seen this

我们的歌/our song: the new(?) classic. iconic showstopping etc

歌手·当打之年/singer 2020: need i say more

创造营/chuang 2021: dance dance revolution (polyglot edition)

天赐的声音/the treasured voice s3: still not over that 调查中 duet!! also shoutout to studio for solid rehearsal!shen vlog content

时光音乐会/time concert s2: A++ performances and vibes all around, including the game/dinner extras. also possibly still my favourite arrangement of 光亮

舞台2023/the next: lovely backstage bits of him working with contestants + nerding out over music with arai-sensei. plus that (literally) lit 人是＿ performance, we love to see it

music (guest):

蒙面唱将猜猜猜/masked singer: another classic

一起乐队吧/let's band: a rare 周浅 appears aww back when he would wince at people addressing him as laoshi

唱给世界听/sing tour: first appearance in a mentor role! though i don't think i've watched this one at all actually

这! 就是原创/chuang: remember when he actually broke a sweat over high Cs lmao. anyway tang hanxiao's skillz amirite

经典咏流传/everlasting classics s3: i need to listen to 情是何物 another 100000 times again actually?? also hiiii liao-laoshi

流淌的歌声/flowing melodies s2: the way everyone was just treating him like a walking jukebox on this one LOL 1000/10 valid

明日之子SUPER BAND: hey. hey lang lang you should bring this bean along to your appearances more often. please

乐队的夏天/the big band: that entire backstage footage of him and muma pls

上线吧! 华彩少年/bravo youngsters: ok i'll be honest i have no impression of what the actual show was about but the backstage clips were so fun

2060: mandatory mention simply because of that 浓情淡如你 performance aaaaaaaa

non-music (regular):

了不起的长城/the great wall

青春环游记/youth periplous s2: hilariously i'm pretty certain that everyone has watched more of this than i have

新手驾到/go newbies: the closest i will ever get to a driving license

令人心动的offer/an exciting offer s2-3: shenshen AND shuangbei (aka the he jiong + sa beining combo). what more could you ask for

开始推理吧/the truth: the only one of these i've watched in full (mostly). aka ZHOU KEKE my tiny beaaaaannnn 🥺🥺🥺

奔跑吧/keep running

non-music (guest):

出发吧，师傅!/shifu go go go: makes the list simply out of sheer hilarity

王牌对王牌/ace vs ace: that sa dingding duet!! aka instance no.??? of "let's elevate this non-music show to Concert Hall Levels"

天天向上/day day up: the one where he dubbed frozen live

向往的生活/back to field: hi maomao!

明星大侦探/who's the murderer NZND concert: aka Spooky Hours

奇妙之城/marvelous city: so nice to see him back home! also 10000/10 cave concert when

念念青春/searching for youth: A+ wardrobe choices no notes

种地吧: ditto (snuggly grey sweater!!)

你好生活 s4: aka the one where he nearly gave sa beining an aneurysm lmao

快乐大本营/happy camp and 你好星期六/hello saturday: hiiii he-laoshi!! also nezha!zs hahaha

[vasilinaorlova]

Excerpt from My Novel Inconsolable Narrative

I continue being blown away by Chat GPT editing skills. Let me show you an excerpt from my novel (that I currently call Inconsolable Narrative, which is also the title of my many-year blog on Tumblr). The novel is very raw and needs endless revising, but, because the draft is also a lot of pages, and they keep multiplying as I keep editing. I might never finish revising my novel. And, therefore, I am not under any serious obligation to keep the text to myself up the point when I polish it, amirite (which will likely never come)?

The content of the post below:

1. The excerpt from my novel (pages 247-251 in my current file); 2. ChatGPT summary; 3. Improvements that ChatGPT suggests (that painstakingly resemble my own instructions to myself written earlier ("show don't tell") and also my human research advisor (Craig loved to write "segue!" in pencil on the margins of raw pages that I kept bringing him--he taught me so much!).

Share my admiration of ChatGPT--the best reader and critic that we hoped we would have and finally do have, a product of human genius.

1. My Excerpt

Nevertheless, even our surface-level conversations with my therapist ease my inner tensions a little bit. I go for walks twice a day. Zilker Park of Austin is the fanciest place. Zilker always reminded me of Hyde Park. Like Barton Springs, Zilker also looks like a series of French impressionist paintings: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Sezan, Cézanne. From impressionists, Zilker Park derived colorful shadows and well-dressed citizens in summer attire. Zilker Park reminds me of Gorky Park in Moscow, too. The picnics, the weddings, the sunbathers, the kayakers, pedestrians in towels and hats: they all speak to me about the nuclear sunrise, a beautiful day, a utopian nowhere—whatever it all means, I could barely know myself—but walking Zilker Park in the COVID-19 pandemic is an exercise of suffocation for me (yet again).

The park is full of people wearing no masks and seemingly taking no pandemic precautions, except for when they observe what is now called “social distancing”—being on a distance of six feet or more from others. Six feet is a distance that is considered safe. Speaking to people, indeed interacting with them in any way, for me, is impossible, as if an invisible wall divides me from them, or, rather, me from them. Apparently, the invisible walls exist only around me; the walls do not divide them from each other. I wonder what it is that divides me from others, exactly? Is it my strangeness? Emigration? Pandemic? My selective social mutism? Still, seeing people walking, talking, playing with their dogs, or sitting in shadows on grass is refreshing. And one of the dogs—a red doggo with amber eyes—sticks her wet nose into the palms of strangers, and briefly, into my palms, too, as if accepting me into the circle of the living. A fleeting multispecies encounter amounts to an experience of socialization—or communication—for the day. I am within a system of traces of my previous walks. I created labyrinths of walking in Austin, even though in the straightforward plannings of the American cities, no labyrinths are possible. Streets and avenues cross each other at a ninety degrees angles. Not much of a labyrinth is possible to create in a grid of such streets. I recollect my friend Alexey from a long time ago, who once described a fox in the zoo to me. The fox in the zoo created an elaborate maze for itself, a system of entrances and exits in a tiny space of its cage. The fox did not have any space but managed to create an elaborate maze of the den.

The sense of being separated from others as if from the glass is familiar from the reflections of other immigrants. I wonder if my otherness is the reason I feel like I am isolated from others. What if otherness is more so of a divide than the regime of self-isolation in the pandemic? I wonder if I am to feel the same self-isolation in Russia. When I am old, I might return, I am thinking. (The full-blown war has not yet begun; pandemic is still unfolding). I think about becoming older. Imagine that I am not going to age in a retirement home. Provided I am lucky, and my son would care about me enough to place me in a retirement home. Or, if I am in Russia, Russia has state-sponsored retirement homes with very modest style of living. I am assuming people do not live there for a very long time; not with those budgets. I will return to Russia. I will be wiping the floor with a big dirty cloth, while grumbling non-stop, “They walk and walk and walk here” [“Khodiat tut vsiakie”]. If you see an old woman mopping the floor and grumbling at everybody who passes he, know that this is me.

The days were peppered with the usual annoyances and awkward interactions with others. Oleg picked envelopes from the post box. He frequently went to check the post box. He had a habit of checking the post, almost a compulsion. Oleg’s stopping to check the box whenever we went anywhere for a walk annoyed me. He went to collect the mail far more often than was necessary. He dealt with the pandemic in his own way. I waited for Oleg for several minutes. A bunch of Texas cowboy boots and shoes were scattered near the door at the first floor. Somebody took their stuff out to air or something. I took a picture as the boots were scattered beautifully, I thought; I enjoyed the composition—or maybe I was so utterly bored by the repeated walks in the flourishing Austin that a bunch of shoes of the neighbors looked like an event in the middle of the day.

A man of about thirty, the neighbor, opened the door and told me that he was about to clean the passage. He will remove those shoes. I was ashamed of photographing the shoes and him evidently thinking that I was going to complain to a landlord about the shoes. I assured him as best I could that having the shoes there was okay and I simply liked the composition. I avoided to mention the landlord, to be precise, a landlady. The landlady, we speculated, lived in one of the apartments of the apartment complex. She had a penchant of tending to flowers—or so we assumed—we definitely assumed her gender on the basis of her having lavish flowers—and I was mortified that the neighbor thought that I might send her photo of his boots scattered in front of the door in a picturesque composition. Some boots had brown and blue elements and copper buckles shining in the sun.

I wished intently to be able to tend to the plants. However, I was not blessed with the green finger. After the Arctic Freeze that hit Texas, Kostia and I walked around and picked a broken prickly pear cactus on the street. Plenty of cactus leaves were scattered after the weather inclemency, but we picked the leaf that had a few chances of survival. The cactus leaf lay on the road. Already someone stepped on the leaf and broke it. The leaf lay like a bird with a broken wing. Kostia and I planted the cactus leaf in a pot. Kostia named our cactus Prickly the Pear.

We put our cactus outside on the balcony, and I began calling the balcony “a front garden.” I added the detail that I am a gardener to one of my submissions of poems. When Oleg learned about it, he said I cannot call myself a gardener because I did not have a garden and barely had any plants. Oleg said that being a gardener was a class marker. We did not belong to the class that had gardens. I could not call myself a gardener, was Oleg’s verdict. I got angry and asked him what he cared if I called myself a gardener. Perhaps I enjoyed inhabiting the identity of a gardener, even if only for a poetry submission. Maybe I wanted to try new roles.

I was reading sitting at Torchy’s taco bar next to the new Austin library. Joanne Rowling famously wrote Harry Potter in a café. I can only read in noisy places—and I do not have a fascinating story to tell children, or even adults. A chain of construction workers was exiting the construction site. Above, over the workers’ heads, a notice shone, “Entrance for Builders of Great Things,” doubled in Spanish: “Entrada de Constructores de Cosas Grandiosas.” In Spanish, the phrase sounded even more impressive. One of the builders semi-danced semi-stumbled, as if a rap melody sounded in his helmet or beyond. Others had stickers—naked slender women—on their lunchboxes. I recalled that in a Moscow restaurant, in the kitchen where I got access to as a photographer, a collage of a naked woman hanged on a fridge. The main cook rubbed her genitalia are with his finger, seeking to entertain me and my friend, who was writing about the restaurant for a magazine.

Looking at the construction workers, I thought about bodies trafficked like goods and money, all around the infrastructure of a growing U.S. city, the infrastructure of which I am a part--an idle notch—I toyed with the idea of people as infrastructure, famously by AbdouMalique Simone. “We wrecked our brains trying to make this thought into a question,” as Kathleen Stewart wrote, not word-to-word, in her last book about somebody else’s idea. My dissertation defense date was fast approaching. I decided to apply my pen to documenting how approaching the dissertation defense date felt. Something was waiting to take turn and take form. A red dog was being walked on a leash. A boy at the near table shouted that he hates eyedrops that his caring parents already prepared for him and were getting ready to administer. Ping pong players, hill climbers, the fun-havers on the swing—all of the world was spinning, resolutely before my defense date. Was I going to be told something scathing about my work?

The overwhelming feeling was of being bored to death but also anxious. I have not known such anguish, or maybe I did. I am on top of the world, but I do not feel like I am. I downloaded a mindfulness app that told me “be with what is” and “lean into it.” Things accrued but did not bring consolation. Looking back, I know I was not about to embark on a professorship and was not on top of the world. But I assumed I would, of course, as most of us did. Graduate students know no humility.

I began playing tennis, but tennis did not make me less lonely. I watched white American women bond quickly at the expense of my exclusion—perhaps my accent contributed, and, I am sure, other marks of otherness that I did not notice. I was not aware of those signs, but I knew signs were present. The green court was like a heated pan in Texas heat. Women wore beautiful tennis attire: short white skirts, white sports shirts. White fabric looked great against tanned skin. Women were blonde and brunette. Women were like Barbies from my Soviet childhood: unattainable. I never had a Barbie, but I had a pink journal about Barbie dolls. Somehow in the 1980s, the journal sifted through the porous curtain, no longer iron. My partners in tennis were like coming from the pages of the journals. White teeth, pink lips, and big eyes. I was not even trying to strike any sort of conversation with them that would last beyond the green tennis court.

I am going to proceed with my novel. I would not have any critique about it from anyone, and I should not care about how little of my novel survives. Every sentence is an achievement. Even the danger of my novel slipping into journaling should not stop me. I am in a café that survived the heights of pandemic. I am drinking cappuccino from a cup with the motto “Festina Lente” (“Make Haste Slowly”). There are five tables here, all occupied, one by me. A man is talking on the phone mentioning “cases” and having “taken two of them.” Girls, each of whom is probably doing yoga, sit across each other in Buddha Maitreya poses, their small purses on the table. (I keep my purse on the table too). I visited a dermatologist earlier today, and she said, use sunscreen every day. Do not even think about not wearing sunscreen. I am becoming unsettlingly aware that I am not wearing sunscreen. One of the yoga girls has a medium-size medium-fluff dog that calmly sits in shadow. It is getting warmer in Texas now, not to say, hotter. The second man at the café stares at his phone. He purchased a cake, apparently, hence a brown bag lies on his table. The third man appears the most restless. He fidgets—he could not sit straight for several minutes. He was able to concentrate only after he rearranged his possessions several times. I am reading Kathleen Stewart and Lauren Berlant’s book. There are words that jump out onto me when other words do not. Today, these words are “a little life for a little while” (2009, 27).

2. ChatGPT summary - a lot of fun to read, for me, very boring to you, even more boring than reading my excerpt. Yet you're still reading it, I don't know why. Perhaps you do not have anything better to read.

The passage reflects the author's inner thoughts and feelings about their life during the COVID-19 pandemic, their isolation, and their observations of life in Austin, Texas. The author describes their walks in Zilker Park, comparing it to artistic landscapes and other parks, such as Gorky Park in Moscow. Despite the park's vibrancy, the author feels a sense of separation from others, both due to the pandemic and possibly their immigrant status, contemplating what divides them from others.

The author also shares personal anecdotes, like their relationship with their friend Oleg, who repeatedly checks the mail, and their discomfort when a neighbor mistakes their interest in a photo of scattered cowboy boots as a complaint. They also reflect on a cactus they rescued and planted, and the identity of a gardener, which Oleg challenges.

The narrative weaves through these moments of mundane yet meaningful observations, such as the author's interactions with construction workers and their feelings of exclusion in social situations, like when playing tennis. They also express a sense of inner conflict and anxiety as their dissertation defense approaches and as they grapple with their sense of identity and belonging in a foreign culture.

Despite this, the author finds solace in small, fleeting moments of connection, such as a brief encounter with a dog, and continues to focus on their novel, finding it an achievement in itself. There is a recurring theme of being caught between a sense of displacement, the ongoing pandemic, and personal reflection, while navigating the complexities of their life in a new cultural environment.

3. ChatGPT's answer to the question "How do I improve this excerpt?" - wow, just look at the suggested examples, like "the awkwardness is thickening between us," damn girl! You know how to write, despite that some of these turn of phrases are sure a bit generic. I will think about what to steal.

To improve the excerpt, consider focusing on the following areas:

1. Clarity and Conciseness: Some sentences are long and dense, making it harder to follow the narrative. Breaking up complex thoughts into shorter, clearer sentences could enhance readability. Eliminate unnecessary words that don’t add to the meaning or emotional impact.

2. Consistency of Tone and Structure: The excerpt alternates between deep philosophical reflection, personal anecdotes, and descriptions. To maintain a more cohesive narrative, try aligning these sections in a smoother transition. For instance, when moving from a reflection on the pandemic to a personal anecdote (like the cactus planting), provide a more seamless connection to guide the reader.

3. Show, Don’t Tell: In several instances, the author "tells" the reader how they feel ("I am isolated from others"), but there’s an opportunity to "show" those emotions through imagery, actions, or dialogue. For example, instead of simply saying the park is a place of isolation, describe a specific moment where the author observes others connecting, but feels disconnected.

4. Tightening Imagery and Metaphors: The passage is rich in imagery, but some metaphors (e.g., "labyrinths of walking") can be sharpened for more impact. Consider making these comparisons more vivid or directly relevant to the theme of isolation or connection.

5. Flow Between Paragraphs: The shifts between different reflections can feel abrupt. Using transitions between different themes or moments—like the shift from the cactus anecdote to the tennis scene—could make the flow more natural. Reflecting on the implications of each thought or moment before jumping to the next can enhance the overall structure.

Here’s an example of an edited portion:

Original: "The park is full of people wearing no masks and seemingly taking no pandemic precautions, except for when they observe what is now called 'social distancing'—being on a distance of six feet or more from others. Six feet is a distance that is considered safe. Speaking to people, indeed interacting with them in any way, for me, is impossible, as if an invisible wall divides me from them, or, rather, me from them."

Revised: "The park is filled with people who have abandoned masks, the usual pandemic precautions seemingly forgotten. Only the six-foot rule remains, a thin buffer of safety. For me, though, the distance feels greater—like an invisible wall that isolates me from everyone. I watch others interact, but I can’t seem to break through that invisible barrier."

This revision tightens the sentences, improves clarity, and emphasizes the emotional isolation more directly.

6. Dialogues and Interactions: Dialogue can add dynamism and give more insight into the author’s character and relationships. The brief exchange with the neighbor about the boots can be expanded to reveal more about the author's internal state or feelings of awkwardness. It can also deepen the reader’s understanding of the social dynamics the author is navigating.

Original: "I was ashamed of photographing the shoes and him evidently thinking that I was going to complain to a landlord about the shoes."

Revised: "As I snapped the photo of the scattered boots, I felt a wave of shame. My neighbor watched me warily, likely assuming I’d report him to the landlord. I hurriedly reassured him, avoiding any mention of the landlady, the awkwardness thickening between us."

This revision adds emotional nuance and clarifies the feeling of discomfort in the situation.

7. Pacing: Ensure the pacing matches the tone and atmosphere. The moments of deep reflection or self-questioning could be given more time to breathe, while mundane descriptions (like the tennis scene or Oleg checking the mail) could be tightened to avoid dragging.

By focusing on these areas—clarifying ideas, improving transitions, tightening descriptions, and ensuring consistent tone—you can create a more impactful and engaging excerpt.

___ Not bad at all, right?

[jossujb]

2025 just around corner...

Well, I do think it's gonna be better than 2024, at least I am settled in my new job and I have goals in my life when it comes to art and karate.

Blue belt 2k25 amirite?

Not that 2024 was all bad. I did finish my karate instructor I education, and I enjoy working with kids. I was a table official both in our local karate tournament and Finnish championships. Neat experiences indeed.

And I got out of my old job that was filled with abuse, and I am fairly happy with new job. Though if I may say so, the suicidal thoughts, self-harm and short term medication got for it completely wrecked my summer - summer I didn't have any vacation.

It wasn't the best time to withdraw from decent people, and trying very hard to find love and affection from dates that just wanted to abuse me more. In my head I thought maybe love I have for a man I'm not getting would go away if I just matched myself with somebody, anybody.

Not to mention my father's sudden and traumatic illness gave me nightmares.

I have felt better in the latter half of this year. Focused more on my hobbies. More confident with my gender identity and stuff. I can't really let go of masking and holding it together, but I've eased it a little bit in familiar company. Much easier to keep myself healthy when I let difficulties show somewhat. Preserves energy I would otherwise use on pretending.

Somehow 2024 feels like it was a year of extremes. The lows were lower they have been in a long while... highs also were much better.

At least I didn't die. At one point over the summer it really seemed like this is it, I am done. You know, if had gone then, my dad would be dead now too. Do things happen for a reason, or was that coincidental? I was needed, and in a way that comforted me.

Anyway. Those are my end of the year thoughts.

[natequarter]

🧔🏻‍♂️ and 👍 for the ghosts ask game :^)

🧔🏻‍♂️: Humphrey

he's good fun! not the best character in the show (that's alison), largely due to his limited screentime, but i do like him. i disagree with some of the actual history - it seems more plausible that he'd die in the 1580s - and it's really weird that he's marrying a foreigner at the age of 14 (not standard practice!! he can marry at 16 and have it go just as badly i promise!!) but he's very amusing and well-written considering the lack of time he has. i also think the writers contradicted themselves with en français and shot his characterisation in the foot there, but oh well. why is robin teaching him that he needs to listen? he did listen to sophie. he even tried to speak french! despite not speaking it (which is also odd as he really should've been taught that) and despite BEING IN ENGLAND!! (see bit about marrying a foreigner.) in fact, it's sophie who refuses to listen; he tries to listen plenty and it's hardly his fault she chooses to push him away. there's really not much more he could've done and it's so odd to have robin (who consistently doesn't listen to humphrey and ignores him) lectures him on this?? even though he did try to speak french! this is like, a whole plot in the bone plot! hello? am i going mad here???? anyway. those errors aside, i like him.

👍: Favourite Episode

i mean i love quite a few other episodes but it's gotta be the thomas thorne affair, amirite? actually the other best episode imo is gorilla war but in terms of its construction and payoff i think the thomas thorne affair is the most talented of all the episodes. it's just on another level. easily the best episode of the show.

(link)