#and its not like im used to being productive in other ways bc ive mostly just been unemployed

[echoesofadream]

should I apply to the psychology program. like for shits and giggles

[night-dark-woods]

ID. photo of a whiteboard with bullet points written on it, titled "Stocking Reminders."

Top stock goes in the same 4' section as the stock.

Each SKU's overstock should be all in one spot. (below this point there is a diagram of a shelf with colorcoded boxes, one mixed up and one with the colors together)

Don't overfill hooks/shelves. There should be one straight line of product! If it won't hang nicely that is too much.

End ID.

end of my fucking rope tuesday. this won't stop my coworkers because they can't read but the amount of topstock i found in fucking random aisles today was truly absurd. like we've graduated from putting it in the same aisle 16ft away on the opposite side (annoying but at least line of sight) to putting it in topstock in its unlabeled cardboard shipping box, three aisles away, in a different department.

other highlights of today:

i asked this kid to downstock One Aisle and he spent 3(?) hours standing over there doing, as far as i can tell, nothing. which dgmw i can respect. minimum wage => minimum effort but my man that wasn't even CLOSE to the minimum and you are actively making everyone else's lives more difficult!!!

hardware mgr tried to have someone else (the aforementioned kid who can't even put stock in the right spot!!!) do counts on stock, BEHIND MY BACK, AGAIN. so i started off the day with an argument with him. bc if im not shooting outs regularly enough for you fucking TALK TO ME. and i will tell you what i need, which is you to do your fucking JOB and MANAGE YOUR PEOPLE. and get on their asses to actually maintain their sections!!! i could do the whole fucking store in an hour if literally anyone else did their jobs!!!

got a new rope assortment in from a new vendor, hardware mgr packed up the old stuff for buyback but ALSO managed to pack up a bunch of the NEW stuff with it despite the packaging being a completely different color AND saying the new brand name, so i had to go digging in 15 different taped-shut boxes to find it back.

just some truly atrocious and annoying customers. girl if youre in a hurry that is YOUR problem for not planning. i cant read your mind and i cant give you an answer if you cant explain your problem to me.

got called "ladies" collectively about 8 times today by my coworker who a) does ABA as his other job b) asked me if ozzy was my "real name" and c) said he used to be a liberal but he thinks there are more important things than peoples' identities. we're mostly copacetic now though bc he sees how much work i do and also we've commiserated about the state of the educational system & when he was talking about how "boys and girls learn differently" i very lightly floated the "well, i don't think that's inherent necessarily, you know, like we're raised and taught certain ways to be from SUCH a young age, and kids pick up on stuff pretty fast," and he was like huh ive never thought about that. ill have to think about that. so not unsalvageable! just a particular Kind Of Guy.

they're doing work on the roof and they fucking broke the ancient drainpipe that runs through our upstairs backstock area, so theres like three totes worth of roof-water-soaked merchandise that i have to take out of inventory tomorrow. and everything else in that backstock area has a fine coating of rust flakes from the disintegrating ceiling. and i was paged up there to help sort thru the stock and like. there are THREE PEOPLE here today who actually have a manager title, which I DONT!!! so why cant the three of you take care of it!!! and i KNOW its bc im good at problem-solving and don't really say no and would do it faster than anyone else but god. come on. its putting wet stock in totes.

also in the last 30 min of my shift (in the hardware dept!!! doing inventory counts!!!) my coworker walkied Me, Specifically, even though i knowww they were fully staffed in cashiers and housewares today, to pick up a call from a specific problem customer ABOUT A HOUSEWARES PRODUCT. bro i know FULL WELL you are doing fucking nothing but online shopping on the work computer, you fucking handle it!!! im on a DIFFERENT FLOOR and im busy doing other shit!!!

and its only tuesday!!! yippee!!!

[warriorofthesky]

starting this with the disclaimer that im a newish player (started in march) and am mostly here for the story. and i'm not a destiny doomer and am in fact counting down the days for the showcase, pretty happy with the seasons ive played so far and deeply in love with the game's world and characters. i'm having a lot of fun, i'm usually pretty annoyed at how negative this community is and ignoring destiny players on reddit and twitter was probably the best decision i've made since i downloaded the game.

HOWEVER

(tldr: destiny is a great game but a frankly terrible product. also i will compare it to ffxiv bc it is my frame of reference, sorry in advance).

(also very, veeeeeeeery long. see this as less of a "this is what i think about the state of the game article" post and more of a "i've played this game for 4 months, here is what i think about it" one.)

i dont even know what to think about the state of the game article bc i feel like im here only by happenstance, i dont care about what 95% of the player base does (that being, you know, the looter shooter part of the game) so for me the only bad thing is gambit's funeral

the whole more rewards thing simply doesnt work with me, it does not tickle my brain, im usually excited about stuff i get only bc it was hard and/or fun to get them. you will never catch me dead farming anything. you will, however, catch me dying 123123 times trying to solo spire of the watcher bc im too socially awkward to find a fireteam and overall allergic to using a mic🫠so, you know, i just dont care about 70% of that post. i acknowledge that.

but it DOES feel bad to see them go "oops, we couldnt make a new set of armor this time. btw, we arent making any of them anymore" like bruh, read the room💀is now really the time to not deliver on promises. esp when you go out of your way to shove micro transactions on our faces

it is fortunate that im also mostly immune to microtransactions bc they are all too expensive for me but they are just EVERYWHERE. i come from ffxiv and i dont even remember the store exists while im playing there. sure, ffxiv is subscription based while destiny is free to play but i'm sorry. ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny's free to try ever will (i'd even go ahead and say ffxiv's free trial has more content than destiny ever will since destiny is fond of cannibalizing itself). especially now that they extended it to stormblood/lvl 70. depending on how much you play daily, you can spend months in ffxiv without spending a single cent.

i began playing destiny in march and immediately had to pay for shadowkeep bc what the hell was i even going to play after the first week otherwise? i keep trying to get my brother into destiny, but it is hella expensive, not to say anything of ridiculously confusing story-wise. the other day we had a big oof moment bc im trying to use dungeons to lure him in and didnt realize we had to pay for shattered throne or grasp of avarice. he didnt have the forsaken pack or the anniversary pack. i was out of money, he was only vaguely interested, and we only learned later that prophecy is the one free dungeon in the game. destiny is not free to play as far as real content is involved.

so it feels shitty to have the store shoved in your face SO much ALL the time. you have season passes and then events with their own season passes (so to speak) and then most of the cool stuff is also paid and like, ok, this is already bad, but you gotta remind me of them all the time, game? really?

it creates this massive dissonance between that the game is showing me and what i see from the many devs i follow on twitter. they are passionate people, they love what they do, i 100% believe they are doing great work within the structure they are in. but the game feels like a cash grab. its absolutely bonkers to me that the game goes out of its way to tell you that you can now buy stuff in its store. aren't you proud that now you can spend who knows how many dollars in this product of ours?? arent you??

????? okay?

and it's not just the microtransactions, it's the timegating too. my first weeks of destiny were spent with me having the thought of "god, imagine if it was like this in ffxiv. people would be SO mad squeenix would be apologizing until 2030" every other day. out of cores? too bad, you have a daily limit at rahool. out of prisms? same thing. like sir. i'm a new player. i want to at least have one set of armor masterworked. you are not convincing me to play more, you are convincing me not to give a shit. im broke af in game and out of game now lol congrats to me!

and there is more! want to do this weapon quest thingy for witch queen? too bad, not today. want to not be fool with stasis in pvp or pve? too bad, come back next week for more aspects. this chafes, yall. especially as a new player who barely has any idea of how any of these 1231231 systems work. you are not convincing me to play stasis next week. you are convincing me not to touch stasis for the next 3 months.

i will keep sighing and complaining about ffxiv's weekly capped tomestones but by god i've seen hell and it is not in ffxiv.

this state of the game that is basically telling pvpers and all four of us who enjoy gambit that they can't and won't do more feels like shit even to someone like me who actually likes gambit right now (i couldn't care less about maps lol) and who barely plays any pvp. where is all the money going? why are you shoving eververse on my face all the time then? why are you timegating me to hell in an attempt to get me to play more and spend more? why?

i do not agree with the idea that this money is going to marathon only and that is why there isn't much pvp development to speak of. that would be really stupid because destiny is bungie's main source of income and it will only be okay for them to not give a shit about it anymore when and if marathon becomes a hit and a not a moment before. however, i'm also a league player and even though i play much less now i've kept up with it and it's pretty obvious that after 10 years of being riot's only game league isn't the priority for the company nowadays. valorant is.

poor one out for legends of runeterra while we are here.

this does not mean league is abandoned. it just isn't the focus anymore. it has a consolidated player base. people are used to how it works and how content (champions) is released. there is very little financial incentive to do more than necessary. whatever is going on with bungie is... honestly normal, even if it isn't fine by our definitions. and again, i don't think it's even marathon. i think it's the executives' pockets honestly lol because what does "we don't have the resources" even mean? i know hiring more people and throwing them at the game is not the answer for quick solutions. i'm not a gamedev, but i'm a webdev working in a startup. last year we had a small influx of trainee devs and it was HELL for a few months. i'm a junior myself and i was about lose my mind if i got interrupted one more time to answer a question from the trainees again. new hires mean everyone's work will be slower for some time. but the thing is that it usually goes back to normal. i havent had a trainee interrupt my work in months now. it feels pretty incredible.

so why doesn't bungie hire more people? it will slow things down for months and months but it will pay off eventually, right? except i don't know if that's true. are more pvp maps going to bring in more money? is not shooting gambit dead going to bring in more money? probably not. again, the executives' pockets are the issue here. what i think is happening is that it isn't worth it to hire and train more people to make content for something that doesn't bring in money. and we could argue about how pvp and gambit being healthy is good for the game, how that would bring in more people or make people play and pay more, yadda yadda, but i don't believe the decision makers at bungie believe this and they might have good reasons, so what can be done? nothing, i guess. it's not like i know better than them.

so, on one side, i understand why people might be a bit miffed at the game. it feels like a cash grab. it feels like is trapping you into playing. however, i believe you are still responsible for your actions and perfectly capable of not playing if you are not enjoying it. i wish the destiny subreddit would take a chill pill and touch grass bc those people are not okay right now. but i think it's disingenuous to act as if the game isn't ridiculously greedy. because it is. this game is greedier than league and league is super greedy already (and league actually is free to play, unlike destiny).

raging at the devs will not change this. harassing the devs won't change this. they are not the ones making these decisions, especially the devs you find on social media going about their day and taking care of their lives, which are none of our business.

in the end, you kinda have to make peace with destiny-the-product or you will have a miserable time playing destiny-the-game.

i've made my peace with it. i engage with the content that brings me joy and ignore everything else. and look, the state of the game wasn't all bad. it was actually fine overall. i still find it weird that it doesn't address the real issues people had with the season (deep dives doing triple duty as simple deep dives, exotic quest and catalyst hunting was the big oof of the season for me, honestly. sometimes i just want to do a deep dive and not get roped into whatever else is going on - or the opposite, i guess. i still havent gotten the catalyst) but i gotta believe they will take the feedback when making the next seasons/expansions.

and they are finally getting rid of the ridiculous nonsense that is acquiring stasis. right after i managed to drag all my characters through all of that, sure, but at least now i can finally delete my awoken titan and make an exo one because i won't have to go through it all again. and they teased changes to the seasonal model or at least how seasons work. i'm pretty okay with what we have now, honestly. if anything i just wish the story stuff wasn't so... short. there was also something about making sure new players are caught up and that made me perk up because, please, bungie. i'm trying so hard to get my brother into this game. help me out. please.

and, the most important thing for me, final shape will conclude the saga, no seasons necessary!

just that made the whole state of the game post worth it for me. once again, my condolences to pvp players and i will mourn you, gambit, but i'm here for vibes and the lore and story, and 10 years of league of legends made me immune to shiny things on the store and 2 years of ffxiv made me too lazy to be tempted by timegated stuff. you can not kill my joy in any way that matters @ bungie's executives

the one thing i wish bungie would change (since i believe the game is too deep into microtransactions to ever be free of it) is how they communicate with players. it's not even the frequency (we have twids, as the name says, every week after all) it's just... the tone. i don't want them to give a piece of their mind to the insane people frothing at the mouth on reddit and twitter and youtube, but it's like they are speaking to an imaginary player and the (normal, well-adjusted) players are speaking to an imaginary bungie. we are not in the same wavelength at all. riot and rioters speak more to league players. of all companies out there, out of all communities out there, and riot does it better.

i understand keeping the devs safe, especially after the clusterfuck that happened recently. but it's still weird that bad actors are the deciding factor when engaging with the community. i don't know what the solution is but it does feel pretty bad overall. and its hard to take bungie seriously when most stuff they spit out is riddled with corporate speak. very little of it feels genuine.

again, i love the game. i love the characters. i love the universe and i love how queer friendly it is. ive spent the last weeks soloing dungeons and having an absolute blast, even if spire is kicking my ass really hard right now. getting the new exotic felt magical. and i've spent an ungodly amount of time theorizing about final shape and reading, watching and writing about this game. getting new veil containment stuff every week and theorizing with the community is really fun. i got the first book of the destiny anthology and i love it so much. hell, the game got me to write fanfic and only two pieces of media actually managed that (pretty easy to guess the other one at this point). i love my time here. i'm not leaving unless the story takes a nosedive of epic proportions and no, i don't think lightfall is as bad as people say. in fact, it's the second best expansion and i will fight you on that.

but destiny is not a good product, not by a long shot.

[ifidiedinadream]

What are your favourite things about Aleksi? 👀

uuuuhh dear get ready for an essay

it's most definitely a product of idealization but in my head it makes sense. it's gonna be kinda deep and personal and not just a list of features i deem attractive, more why he's attractive to me specifically. it's gonna be super cringe and maybe i'm simply too desperate and lonely and should download tinder again idk

to me aleksi seems sweet, kind and patient. i'm a pain in the ass to deal with when you get close but i think he'd be able to. i think he's self aware and sensitive, at least to some degree, or else he wouldn't be able to calm people down from anxiety/panic attacks. its extremely attractive to me because emotionally speaking i'm all over the place, whereas aleksi appears to be somewhat stable and emotionally mature. i like that he seems a pretty balanced person in a way, reserved just how i like, but not boring at all - in fact i like that despite all of this, even in his (at least apparent) calmness, he still takes risks (joins a band and we all know the circumstances, isn't afraid to play with his appearance and not fit in a box). i love how passionate ("nerdy") he is, he's witty and smart, yet he doesn't try to be the center of attention. i feel like his charm is very subtle, i didn't even notice him for the first two weeks i was into bc, too blinded by joel's inhumane beauty, but once i noticed him there was never a turning back. he's simply magnetic. ive never seen eyes like his before. his lips look incredible. his jawline is very sexy.

basically i think we'd be a good match. we're both on the introverted, private side - our character somehow matches, i think we're both the responsible, reliable ones, but also i think he'd be that "rock" (stability) i so desperately need in my life (listen, i'm 27, i've done many things in my life, most of them stupid, i have bpd and i'm tired. i really need calmness and serenity and that quiet happiness that only a healthy relationship could offer?? not that i've ever had anything like a healthy relationship idk). and the fact that i see an unknown intensity under that seraphic facade?? it keeps me obsessed because i feel that there's something underneath, yet aleksi never shows that side of himself to us (rightfully so, i appreciate it), so we can only imagine what it's like. i think it's what makes him so alluring to me. i wonder how intense he can be. how deep he can love. he never truly shows himself to us fully and what's more intriguing than that??

so i think it's a matter of contrasts. calm yet intense, self aware yet self conscious (HIS FUCKING POSTURE), handsome yet not loudly so (unlike, say, joel), passionate yet quiet, funny yet introverted, a rockstar yet very low-profile. soft and gentle but who knows what lies beneath??

i like joeleksi so much because i'm totally joel, literally like him only quieter on the outside, and i love writing aleksi being the only one able to make the sky in joel's mind clear up, halt the storm. i feel like he'd do that to me.

aleksi and joel are both my favorite but aleksi is a full blown crush and joel isn't, not really anymore at least. i'm attracted to joel for projection reasons mostly, im very interested in him from a psychological point of view, in him as a person and human being. i would never date him. i think we'd hurt each other a lot and as i said i crave serenity. aleksi on the other hand... in my head he's a perfect match for me. exactly what i want and need in a man and more

[swiftfootedachilles]

I love the Ghost Hunters AU and I really want more of Salem. Especially Salem with the Milkovich siblings.

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 thank you. ive always wanted a black cat named either princess or salem and i thought it would make sense since its a ghost hunter au (even tho i skipped over all the ghost stuff so my post wasnt a million words long) with terry not around i feel like the milkoviches would love playing with animals. Salem is a very adventurous, people-loving cat! you know, the kind of cat people say were a dog in their past life. of course she loves the gallaghers too! even carl makes a point to be nice to her (after, when she was a kitten, ian beat him up for making a joke) but the milkoviches dont really get to show affection ever, so they love getting to play with her and scratch her lil belly and give her treats they stole from the pet store. they all adore her but ofc after ian and mickey get together and he comes over to the gallaghers a shitton, mickey becomes her 2nd dad. he goes to the top of her favorite people list. nobody else plays with her the way he does! hes not afraid to get a little rough, but he knows whats signs to look out for when a cat is not playing/irritated. shes still young and she loves playing!! imagine toddlers who like getting thrown around because its fun, shes like that. she gets kicked out and put in a different room when they fuck, and she uses this time to get in as much trouble as possible, knock shit over, and annoy anyone else in the house. ALSO she LOVES liam!! they literally grow up together and fiona teaches him how to treat animals so by the time hes like 5, she moves from sleeping with ian to sleeping with liam

i imagined ian and mandy meeting at the same time, so when salem is 2 that would be s3 ish. when he first found her, ian had just started his job and scrounged up every penny he could find to take her to a low cost clinic to get spayed and vaxxed. other than being skinny and dehydrated (and ofc separated from her mom as a kitten) she was in surprisingly good shape! now shes so used to being spoiled by everyone! ian LOVES taking care of others and being of service so he really found a home in Salem, treating her like his kid and giving her the best life possible. i definitely think once he gets diagnosed with BD, he pays (with mostly mickeys money lbr) for her to be his emotional support animal and takes her to as many pet friendly places at possible!

like i said she becomes kinda the mascot of the ghost hunting youtube channel they eventually start. its not something they see as a career or anything, they do it as a hobby, but they gain decent attraction and make extra money on the side from ads and a few brand deals. ofc Salem is the reason everyone watches the channel 🙄 she's in pretty much every video, and they chose her as their icon bc 1. black cat spooky duh 2. she brought them together 🥺 3. she really does show up A LOT in videos, especially when they're not urban exploring/hunting and at home recording the historical backgrounds and debriefings for each location. also yes they do urban exploring as well, thats mainly mickey and mickey and whatever milkovich wants to tag along and graffiti an abandoned building. imagine a combination of The Watcher and Dan Bell (omfg now im imagining them doing Another Dirty Room???? 😭 they would be so offended at paying money for rooms worse than their own back in the southside) but with less production value

ok omg i wrote so much im gonna stop now before i go off the rails again. how did i fall in love with this random ass au from a trope generator. reminder that i accidentally deleted the og post so it wont turn up in searches unless youre on my blog or the blog of anyone else who rbed it :)

[yourl0cal1ncorporealb3ing]

TW VENT AT SOME PARTS

(ALSO NONE OF THIS PROOF READ SO IT MAY NOT BE LEGIABLE I just wroet this and i already forgot half the stuff i wrote)

y'know the mix of horrid chronic fatigue and insatiable numbness and the dissociation just makes me feel like I missing out on life, I yearn to go outside, to go play, to have fun, just run around but I cant. I sit in my room on tumblr or youtube wasting the day away wishing I did something more productive. I feel like a husk of person I feel like Im in a movie theater alone watching the most boring movie ive ever seen, I feel lonely while also being too socially drained to watch and respond the the video my friend sent me. Not to mention when my parents used to fight, my moms road rage/anger issues, it caused me to fucking terrifed of conflict so sometimes I minimize my needs when around other people and constantly asking about things and if im doing it right but also worrying if im annoying them with all my questions because my grandma has gotton mad at me for that before i think either that or it was me asking why she loved my cousin more than me because she yelled and fought with my dad because i wouldnt give my cousin my fukcing chicken nuggets my dad bought for me like fuck you i mean im sorry grandma

The anxiety and hyperactivity of my ADHD spikes up at night so either i got to sleep and wake up in 13 hours or I can stay up till 4am, go to sleep and wake 13 hours (Just feeling a lot worse). Im literally shaking as I write this and i can tell if im just so fucking restless even if im fucking tired (its 3:38am) or anxiety or the entire kiwi strawberry monster I just drank Its ok im drinking water a lot of it i just need to get my thoughts out of my head because its like a thousond of the dvd bouncing tv screen in my head rn idk if its getting better idk if im gonna post this too maybe idk any ways im shaking oh btw i might have non-diabetic hypoglycemia and i have to get a bunch shots next week and I really hate the doctors it always makes me really scared and uncomfy n shit and idk why damn im shaking a lot. I almost freaked out bc i cant find my charger and my tablet almost died but i have another one ive been using so i just used that but i want to know where my charger went :(

istg ive been eating fucking pasta for the lat 3 weeks and i hate it i hate it i hate it HATE it every. fucking. meal. I cant. I have comfort foods I like and its mostly carby food like pasta so i eat pasta alot but since our oven stopped workin its all i know i can make that easy and i laike it but i secretly dread it so i have been eating a lot of candy to keep my brain happy but im not i should be happy ive been hanging with my frinds and its summr break but im just numb, i always am, yk the year I just finished? yeah for the majority of the i was fighting autopilot mode and disassociation but i was constantly in it i dont think i cant handle going to high school this year i think i might act pass out from exhaustion I barely survived middle school Im not okay i need something meds? idk I should not be this messed up i mean my family is great (yk...apart from the fighting which isnt that common anymore and moms anger issues) but theu love me so whats the problem? school school why is it so unoccomidating to neurodivergents same with ppl with social anxiety like i have had MULTIPLE bad panic attcks in class cause i had to do smthin in front of the class I fukcing hate the school system fuckfukcufkyoiuu school fuck the emercian school system FUCKYOUUUUUUUUU

Im too conflict avoident I cant

the afternoon feels so tiring in a stuffy way if that maks and sense i need to treat my FUCKING adhd already i can have music playing at all times thats not a good long term strategy to shut up my brain i mean ffuck i have music on rn and you can see my insane ramblings

anyyways I kinda think im a daave fiction kin (like DSAF) but im 90% sure im just and otherlinker and I just want to feel speacial or some shit but whos know i have the worst imposter syndrome known to man (I have almost every symptom of Cfs and my friend has asked if i have it but nahhh i defs dont) but also i had a weird experience once. I was like listen (its getting hard to type with the shakiness :0) ing to 2 dave and henry playlists and i kept listening to the henry one and I was in the car and i was falling and out of sleep when i saw like flash of dave but it didnt look like cannon dave he looked different he was mush more blue and he was leaning against a wall with messy longish hair and he had a hat and scars all over him and he had a purple buttoned shit that was fulled buttoned up and the perspective i saw was like a photo someone had taken and he seemed just chilling perhaps talking to jack? idfk but yeah theres my weird experience like the best way i can explain this feeling towards dave is "Idkk if i was you but probably mightve at some point like most likely at some point"

i hope i sound legiable (if i do post this AND someone actually reads this all) it is 4:08am and I feel too many things once i probably will sleep at 5 or 6 anyways byebye

[crymea-river]

4/26/2024

leap years are for remembering

god sometimes i read the things i used to write on here or even in my old journals and i cringe (for lack of a better word) at how seriously i was taking things. this page is such a time capsule. i love it, im glad ive documented my feelings over the years but it makes me feel… weird. nostalgia is so interesting.

im having a really good and also strange time with (what i assume is) my adult brain. good bc i can trust my judgement better than i have ever been able to; things just make sense in an innate way now, a way that i struggle describe. strange bc i feel like i know myself less than i ever have but also way more than i ever have at the same time ? im the same person i was at 11 and 12 and 13 and 17 and 18 and 22, and its so crazy to me how different all these ages felt but theyre all me. they didnt really go anywhere, theyre all still inside me. i remember being 22 and still feeling relatively connected to my high-school-self but then just 2 years later i felt decades removed from her. and now i feel decades removed from my 22-year-old-self. the way i would reminisce on 2016 in 2020 is how im reminiscing on 2020 now. lol leap years are for remembering, i guess.

ive found myself reverting back to a lot of things i used to do and enjoy in adolescence. lots of silly topical things, like using pantene instead of all these expensive hair products ive tried over the years. i loved the way it made my hair smell back then and it made it so soft and who cares if it coats my hair in silicon or whatever ill just clarify it every few weeks itll be fine. im also finally letting myself enjoy things from back then that i was afraid to fully embrace for fear of being judged. thats a Huge fun part about getting older i’ve noticed, not caring what others think. id have told you back then that i didnt care about that, and on the surface i didnt. but it would get to me to some degree. i think my music taste from back then is a prime example of that (im not gonna elaborate i know what i mean).

i hope im making 11 and 12 and 13 year old me proud. and i want to tell 16 and 17 and 18 AND 19 year old me it gets better, but also to stop taking such trivial things so seriously maybe. life does not revolve around having a boyfriend (or whatever youd call those fuckers from back then). itll happen when its meant to and it will be so worth it. no one knows what they want at those ages. i barely knew what i wanted until it fell into my lap to be honest, and that only happened after i stopped yearning so hard for that shit and began TRULY enjoying my own company (and my friends’ obviously. love them). this is not where i wanted to go with this, i didnt want to talk about men. i think thats what cringes me out so bad about my old posts/entries, theyre allllllll (mostly) about bOyS. which was age appropriate i GUESS but idk it just brought me so much unnecessary stress lol. i learned eventually, and im glad i did so when i did.

all this to say im very happy. and peaceful. and i love the people i have surrounded myself with. i love being in love and i cannot describe in actual english words how thrilled i am that its with will. even 4 years into it.

being 26 is just so strange i think

[ghosty1111]

mental health vent undercut teehee *anime head bonk* ^ڡ^

im so worried that the company i interviewed at isnt gonna get back to me. ive been applying to jobs for almost 3 years now and ive only gotten one other interview before this(that i got rejected from). the interviewer mixed up on telling me what job i was being interviewed for(i applied to 2 at the company) and didnt tell me the real one until the end of the interview. so i fear i messed it up by talking about it in the context of a different job. i emailed them after this about it and its almost been a week(the interviewer said theyd get back to me in a couple days).

the other problem im having is ive been avoiding replying to emails for the """job""" i technically have as an assistant art teacher for bday parties for some art company bc ive been so convinced i wont do well at the job due to my mental health and i shouldnt do it. i have one already booked for the 6th so i have no choice, the emails were for other future work. im embarrassed that i cant just get myself to do something even this small, but also my brain has become All Or Nothing levels of stubborn in regard to work(either i get a fulltime wellpaying job that can allow me to move out or it isnt worth it). even tho this job would be good for SOME money, my brain keeps trying to convince me that im too fatigued and suicidal and its not worth it at this point. that i deserve better.

im tired of being stubborn and having high expectations for life but i cant help it if i want something worthwhile after spending every single day feeling like shit and hating being alive. they all said this feeling would eventually go away if i continued to work on fixing it. but it hasnt. everyone makes fun of this 'negative teenage view' of life, but why would i want to make something that makes me feel worse? its not as easy as just 'changing your views and faking it' trust me ive tried so many times. and i burnout so fast every time. my body isnt meant to live like that and i hate it.

my mom said that i shouldnt get a fulltime job bc what if i cant handle it, and i said that i would rather try an option that would potentially change my life and find out for sure that im not meant for being alive, rather than wasting my energy on something that changes nothing. i hate my suicidal mentality.

[mokutone]

Hi hi! do you happen to have any favourite watercolor artists/ inspirations? specifically ones that rlly influenced your art style? I've tried searching up keywords like "favorite" etc but tumblr search engine is a little iffy, anyways! i adore your art and seeing your process videos make watercolours look like such a fun process and tbh less daunting than what it seems. Your blog is sending me down a rabbit hole of inks and watercolors and aaa its so fun to find gems on this nonfunctional website

OOOOOOH i dont think ive actually been asked this before!!! ty!!!

the truth is when it comes to watercolor im mostly flying by the seat of my pants 😅 but there are definitely watercolor artists that i love even i do not consciously do studies of their work! i should really study more watercolor artists bc its probably foolish to practice a medium while remaining ignorant of the big names within it.

i hope u find these interesting:

This is one of my favorites, it's called The Meeting on the Turret Stairs by 1864 Frederic William Burton. this is WATERCOLOR. good god. help. if you get really in close you can see how he built it up with delicate different colors. Anyway, the solidness of the bodies, the like...the romance in it all, the way the metal reflects the fabric, the detail in the chainmail and the absolute softness in the background...ough. its good. this is a painting which in all ways knows exactly what its about and executes it perfectly

and then there's the watercolor sketches of Hayao Miyazaki obvs skgjhdskgh, i like how loose he is and how clear, and how he isnt scared of the white spaces between where colors meet. i know these arent meant to be final products just like. indications of how the animation should be...but they enchant me so much...i want to be able to do watercolor sketches like that!

Albrecht Dürer does a lot of very detailed illustrations in watercolor, he's a weird guy from the 1500s, look how you can tell how the texture of the hare changes from its back to its underbelly. also, unrelated to his watercolor skills, i just like how he signs his work by putting a d beneath a little A arch. His mastery of textures is delightful and his attention and carefulness with detail is admirable

also i'm gonna mention Akihiro Yamada's watercolor + ink illustrations, specifically for 12 Kingdoms. I haven't spent a lot of my time looking at them but every time i do i find that there's something i want to emulate abt them...something abt the detailed inks and the way he does shadows with watercolor...something abt it rlly speaks to me. i think a lot of my weird shadow experiments are trying to achieve a feeling i get from his work. I think that these are the most like...the most like what I want to do? While also being definitely something other than what I would pursue. Hard to explain. Love to look at them though here's three of them

also

i would absolutely be remiss if i did not mention one of the people who inspired me to get back into watercolor originally, @marina-does-things and here is an excellent example of their work. Here is another (squid game fanart!) They're SO skilled at watercolor and gouache, and especially at conveying light + shadow, highlights and playing with color...when I think of their artwork I think of the light in it the most, u can really tell just by looking at their work that theyre so comfortable with the medium + have put a lot of effort and work into playing with it and gaining skills, theyre also a skilled digital artist too, all around triple-threat. They also do comics and WATERCOLOR comics at that (here is a link to a post of their excellent 80 page watercolor comic piece based on an episode of the podcast WOLF 359) !!! just an extraordinarily cool and talented artist

anyway, i hope this was useful to you!

[leporellian]

this is sort of a silly question but what are some good opera recordings for someone who’s never watched opera before…. im VERY interested in the drama and stories and everything u talk about and have been wanting to watch some lately..

ehehehe (rubbing my hands together)... these will be video productions and not audio bc i find introductions work best with the videos

MY FAVORITE RECORDINGS OF MY BIG 4 FAVORITE OPERAS THAT I WILL NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT:

- don giovanni: salzburg festival 1987 owns so much. it's a very simple production (no 'gimmicks', set in original setting, kinda nothing special costumewise or setwise) but the acting and general flow is really good and gets across Exactly what don giovanni, as a piece of media, is. i think the met 1990 one is also good and is also good at getting across don g. but it's like... too glitzy sometimes and isn't as... idk... accurate. (i have a copy of the 1987 salzburg w/ subtitles so dm me about it, but i know both of these exist online but without subtitles.)

- the rake's progress: glyndebourne 2010 just GETS it. rake's is an opera that needs to be set in its original setting of like, a funhouse mirror version of the 18th century, and the hockney production (which this is) gets it like no other production. also the singers are good and have been nice to me on twitter dot com. there's other rakes that can be found online but they take the opera like... too seriously as an arthouse piece and not a funhouse one. (again i have a copy of this so dm me. it's in english but you probably will need to reference the (also online) libretto bc english opera sounds strange if you aren't used to it)

the marriage of figaro: oooh this one is hard. the other 3 here i can kinda point to like one thing or the other and be like 'thats it thats the one' but there's no production of marriage of figaro that sticks with me as The one. generally as long as it has subtitles and doesn't have the aforementioned arthouse feel youre fine LOL there's like 50 good ones on youtube

rigoletto: i like the 1982 ponnelle movie sue me. tbh this is less bc i particularly have a thing for the ponnelle movie as much as it is... like... sorry but nobody comprehends rigoletto in the same shrimp colors way i do so there's no production i've seen where i stop and go "yes this is IT" (mostly this is because directors do not know that the title character is disabled despite that being like the core of the entire show) but the 1982 movie is good. it is on youtube but i believe it does not have subtitles so you'd have to have a libretto on hand (thankfully that is also online)

other starter operas and their best productions-

the barber of seville: my mutuals would kill me and bury me in a roadside ditch if i didn't say the 2007 met opera one (which i have a link to but i would have to check for subtitles). the royal opera house one from 2009 (iirc? its the one where joyce didonato broke her leg) is also baller too tho but i'd have to search for it bc i haven't ripped my blu-ray of that yet

carmen: shit man the best carmen i've ever seen was a live show so this one is hard for me. the met one from... 2009? is good but now that ive seen a carmen that's like genuinely bone-chilling it's hard to find anything that compares

la boheme and la traviata: i'm putting these together because they're both 'girl gets tuberculosis and mcfucking dies' but in like different ways. and also bc i am not the expert on either of them so i'd have to do research (read: consult my mutuals and discord until someone reaches a conclusion) so put a pin in this one

il trovatore: trovatore is not usually considered a starter opera but its so integral to this blog as the Warrior Cats: The New Prophecy Opera that it needs to be mentioned. again nobody gets trovatore like i and da mutuals do so there's no trovatore that like, Has the emotional impact i think it should have so uh. watch either the met 2013 or 2015 one (which ik i have around somewhere but i'd have to track for subtitles) and then watch the hawkfrost 3rd planet pmv right after so you can Understand the Gravitas etc

others: ask me personally bc i talk about many more operas than just that and they are all insane.

[permian-tropos]

hiii so im still relatively new to the pathologic fandom, i havent finished bachelors route yet but i love him. i still dont understand why he isnt in his own ending, do you mind explaining it for me? like what are the theories. also on that note, what are some of your favorite pathologic essays? on tumblr in written or on youtube anything will do, ive watched the hbomber sulmutal ragnarrox and mangaloregaming ones already. thanksss for your input <333 i really am obsessed!

Hi there anon!!! So cool of you to reach out to me! 

So the explanation about why the Bachelor isn’t in his own ending comes from an online AMA with the writer/head of IPL (who I feel obliged to mention has been recently accused of some awful shit so until that gets properly investigated -- and will it? honestly I don’t know :< -- the fandom is kind of holding its breath on this matter, or at least I am, if you’re new here I am very very sorry to break that news to you). 

What I remember from the screenshot I saw of it was that apparently the Bachelor doesn’t “belong” in this “weird world” he’s helped create, and that it was intentional to not show him among Maria Kaina’s worshippers during the Utopian cutscene. So that’s what I’m working with.  

Daniil is a pretty complicated guy, especially when he’s the player character. I feel like you have some leeway, not just in choosing which ending, but even why he chooses various endings, including his own. He can be skeptical and concerned about a lot of aspects of the Utopians, even while he falls more and more in with them ideologically. Not helped by the fact that the Kains are, to my mind, lovebombing the hell out of him in the end, he’s just... very conflicted I think? There’s a lot of dialogue options he can take that suggest he admires the Polyhedron for what it is currently -- a place for children to explore their dreams together and express the wonder and creativity of their youth. You can have him be concerned at the idea of the Kains kicking out the kids so that they can take the Polyhedron themselves. But he thinks it would be awful to destroy the Polyhedron even if it’s about to be used by some very weird and very Sus people. Because to him it’s irreplaceable. 

So... I think his relationship with the Kains is fraught. He sees the nasty sides of the other two ruling families early on and believes the Kains are the most sensible rulers of the town... but once the Kains know he’s hooked, they reveal their extremely absurd, grandiose, and rather ominous plans for Utopia for him. And he’s kind of in too deep to get out by then? He’s been through so much that I can see how it would be tempting to hope that the Kains are just being melodramatic and that they’re not actually evil... hopefully...? That the world they create will at least be beautiful and interesting. Maybe unique. 

But he isn’t as enthusiastic about actually living in it himself as them. He has more rational reasons for seeing the Town destroyed -- underneath it, in the soil, is a dangerous biohazard. He thinks that preventing people from inhabiting this land is the only way to stop this plague, which is his job. It’s like if he found out they were atop a nuclear waste disposal site -- abandon it and put up a sign saying This Is Not A Place Of Honor.  There’s not just one way to interpret his choice at the end but if you believe dialogue he has about seeing the Polyhedron as a way to preserve childhood innocence... he knows he’s past that point. He’s not innocent, he’s been destroyed by this plague, and whether you imagine him leaving the town in disgrace or even ending his own life, an interpretation where he walks away from the “weird world” is one where he has given up on himself.  He’s one of the few fictional characters out there who pursues a dream of defeating death while never once suggesting that he wants to live forever. I’ve always found that really interesting about him. He may be a very flawed guy, but he isn’t really coveting ultimate power or even ultimate happiness for himself. 

Except the one indulgence I would argue he does allow himself is constantly scamming and lying to accumulate more and more guns (seriously he can do this over and over in his route it’s so funny) and if you want to take that to be a metaphor for being transmasculine bc guns are phallic symbols, be my guest xD /j

------ 

And regarding essays... UmmmMM well there’s a few off my personal collection on youtube that I’ve enjoyed that aren’t the big ones you’ve already mentioned:  The Youtube channel Shmowder Productions has quite a few wonderful video essays on Pathologic.  There’s also @loquaciouslore who has made a lot of awesome videos centered on various characters and mechanics of Patho 2 mostly. This is an analysis specifically of the plague in Pathologic 2, trying to come up with scientific/historical explanations for it (despite it defying explanation). It’s a fun time. Also big mood for Bachelor stans, trying to use science on the magic plague.   I have a soft spot for this video essay on the Bachelor and his Suffering TM because it uses a comment that I made on reddit to talk about something the essayist found personally relatable. This one is I almost feel essential viewing, it’s about the relationship Pathologic 2 has to avant-garde movements in theater.

Hope you like this collection! 

[veldian]

tell us more of ur think tank hcs i personally am at the edge of my seat

HELL YEAH ALRIGHT HERE WE GO. some of these might be against canon in some way but that's your fault for trusting me with this

ALSO, AS USUAL, I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE. THIS GOT VERY LONG. when i think about the tanks i go fuckin wild with it

starting with pride headcanons to get the ball rolling

all the tanks are nonbinary, but additionally, dala is a trans woman and 0 is a trans man

8 hates gender he fucking hates it. every day he wakes up and says "today i will make gender my bitch" and then he does. he says this in the game too you just don't know cuz he only speaks in static (don't factcheck this)

if you ask 8 what pronouns she uses, they will shrug and give you a "i dunno" noise. sometimes it'll make a non-committal hand movement and some unintelligible noises. good luck

god this bitch (borous) is gay! good for him! good for him.

he's also intersex! i don't remember where we got that hc but i like it and im holding onto it

okay but borous calls himself bi because yeah Men, but he also loves dala very much and doesn't want to misgender her. also as previously stated, 8's main goal is to confuse everyone about their gender so the tanks all stick with mspec labels to be on the safe side. you never know what'll happen. gender is a ticking time bomb

bi gang: klein, borous, 0

pan gang: dala, mobius

don't ask her about any of her identities she doesn't know the answer either: 8

have i gone off about polytank dynamics enough? i don't think so

8 and dala started dating first because horny bitches gravitate towards each other. they can also "pass" as a "straight couple" so hopefully no one at work will look at them and call them slurs. hopefully

klein and borous knocked things out of the park for being the first gay scientists ever

8 and dala became polyam icons and pulled 0 in. trans bitches gravitate towards each other

klein and borous did the same with mobius. bitches with facial hair gravitate towards each other

???????

idk and then all six of them started dating somehow. the end

somewhere along the way klein and 8 were like "i like you a little too much" and now they're inseparable

okay anyway. misc hcs

ive mentioned this before but when i pretend everything is in modern times, 0 is a tiktokker and he thrives on the attention and making fun of his coworkers on the internet

"watching steven universe repeatedly when i felt even slightly bad transed my gender" - doctor 8 old world blues

i just remembered i made a carrd for the tanks as if they were kinnies in their early to mid 20s

8 kinned pearl su. borous kinned werewolf cookie. 0 kinned rimmer red dwarf. mobius kinned... morbius forbidden planet. obviously. klein refused to put his kins on it. DID DALA KIN FROM DANGANRONPA

i think at one point we had a half-joking hc where klein gets nauseous if he sees blood

and then that changed to he can't see others blood, only his own

while borous can't see his own blood, but he's fine seeing other ppl's

i know borous said that gabe barked at everyone, but i think gabe trusts the other tanks because he knows borous does

borous set up a kissing booth with gabe. the crowd goes wild

when the tanks get together they usually go to klein's. he's the leader or something. also he has a fucking bar in his house.

he complains about them the whole time but you can really tell he loves having people over. why else would he deck his house out like that? he LOVES hosting stuff. house husband

if you saw my chart where i said klein would rather die than do dishes, i was so wrong. his house is pristine. its easily the cleanest

klein's love language is acts of service. he goes over to his partners' houses when they feel awful and clean stuff up for them when they can't. he also makes them food if they want it. he only complains a little, but you can tell he's mostly teasing

did you know klein has five mugs in his kitchen in-game. he's literally prepared to host his partners at any given moment.

the group have learned that letting 8 come over when their house is a mess is a Huge mistake. it goes from 8 trying to help "tidy up" to "im going to put your books and albums in alphabetical order by artist also your clothes are going to be hue-sorted"

"8 why are there only 8 books on each of my bookshelves"

"it looks better"

"it literally does not"

8 can no longer stomach going into 0's house

on the other hand, 0 hates staying in 8's house. the ticking of all their clocks is sensory hell

on 80 date nights they have to do rock-paper-scissors for which house they go to. or they go out. they love each other but their houses drive the other fucking nuts

oh speaking of their houses. yes dala said she didn't like Literal Teddy Bears but that is null and void considering she has teddies in her house

and she has 5 on her bed. five of them :)

she named all of them after her partners! its mostly cute but there is a slight bit of concern because they know what she does with them <__<

not that 8 has any place to judge. mobius found batteries under its pillow once. all 8 said was "they can vibrate." mobius regrets touching them.

i don't know what to say about dala's mannequins i don't have anything funny im just scared

WHY ARE 0 AND KLEIN THE ONLY ONES WITH BATHROOMS IT DRIVES ME INSANE 0'S BATHTUB ISNT EVEN LAYING DOWN ITS AGAINST THE WALL WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GENERATOR IN HIS BATHROOM DO THE OTHER TANKS JUST SHIT OUTSIDE I'M SEEING RED

mobius and 0 are both into robotics, and they worked together to make muggy, so they've had date nights where they mainly tinker with electronic things.

0 gets very excited when he makes a breakthrough, and seeing that warms mobius's heart. mobius made a habit of kissing 0 on the forehead or squeezing 0 into a hug when they figure things out.

(0 remembers he likes men.) 😳

dala/klein date nights are essentially just them drinking and gossiping chatting

i asked polycule for some more, so here are ones from your local think tank kinnies

borous -

"klein and borous both like classical music in very different ways. klein mostly likes it to feel smart (see: wheatley) but he just started associating it with the others so it felt nicer And borous just likes it bc hes borous"

klein also likes jazz, but so do all the rest of them

8 has a cochlear implant

"dala likes dressing up to look pretty (see: runway) but is personally embarrassed by it (until she gets encouragement) bc she feels like the others dont support that"

"0 loves collecting and reading those stupid magazines with the birthday party products and themes that ud wanna buy from as a kid but are way too expensive"

"mobius has a secret love for puppetry and will try to bring it up sometimes whenever he can. hes made 3 separate sets of the other tanks as puppets and they freak 0 out"

"borous, in an attempt to better his faults, has started learning from dala and 8 on how to take care of plants instead of what he did before. his basement turns into a cool little green house cozy cuddle area"

"to add on: 8 gardens to cope whenever hes alone bc (projects onto ur kin) he mood drops very fast when alone"

"mobius likes dressing in cozy sweaters and fancy stuff"

0 -

"0 doesn't like anal that much" (thanks.)

dala -

"their new rap album called boyz in the tanks" (THANKS.)

and to top things off, :) here are the normal names for them all, created primarily by our borous kinnie

klein - Ernest Klein (nicknamed ernie)

mobius - Wilbert Mobius (nicknamed bert)

borous - James H. Borous (nicknamed jamie)

dala - Dala Theodore (HER NICKNAME IS TEDDY ITS GENIUS)

8 - Emmett Handley (nicknamed 8 + emmy)

0 - Robert O'Barrick (nicknamed 0/O + robbie (HIM SHARING HOUSE'S NAME IS INTENTIONAL. HE'S TRANS HE PICKED HIS NAME WHY DID HE DO THIS))

[vialacteas]

its me... again

im using tumblr in a funny way now like. giving life updates to past self!

therapy is good. i switched mine bc i didnt think we were compatible and i think it was a good choice idk.

like since the last update things have been good for the most part. i did fell into a horrible episode n i was drowning in terror and stress and u know. very Mentally ill(tm) of my part but it was kinda different this time bc i felt like i was being supported somehow and i think it was mostly related to my job - i feel v good again, after i got more confident. i can see i progressed these months and im getting more independent and i feel like im truly part of the team :) capitalism

so now ive restored my usual productivity and it feels good. this year has been life changing so far, despite all the horrible shit going on in my country and everywhere ofc... every time i finish therapy i dont feel relieved but introspective, its uncomfortable having to think and unravel myself especially whn it comes to Feelings or whatever. having to face myself and like realize i gotta work to do if i wnt to get better.... its not easy ! and it jus makes me think how fcking alone...lonely... ppl usually are like. at least i feel this way ? but anyway. i have time now to think about everything, im in a safe space where i cn actually look back n genuinely feel emotions ive been repressing all my life and blah blah blah. he said i gotta be more connected to myself and im trying to do that - trying to enjoy my time by cooking or writing, treating myself once in a while and trying to realize im also human.... i guess there r many things i could do. but yea overall i jst feel like. i should understand im human ? and i dont live to serve others ? yea. i think thts it. i feel good and im gonna get better :)

[sharkmobster]

spider verse coffee shop au??

Anon im sorry i wanted to draw the coffeeshop au but ive been so tired lately so imma just overshare about what goes down bc this au is just (thick tombstone voice) : “everybody’s traumatized bitch lets get you a latte”

 • this au is incredibly villain centric bc uhhhhh all i do is think about villains

 • its also very aaron davis centric bc time to project my anxiety onto a grown ass man babey!!

 • anyway this takes place in a normal world where there’s no superheros or avengers or what have you, everyone’s super average 

• like i said this is more or less aaron centric and focuses on him readjusting to society and making connections with other people, and just healing in general. Aaron’s whole deal is that he was wrongfully arrested for defending himself against an off duty cop who was harassing him and ended up with a 10 year sentence  (but was let off a year earlier for good behaviour). He’s got a lot of guilt bc of this if only for the fact that he feels like he let down his brother and Miles (who was a small lad at the time).

 • Fun Fact! Jefferson was the one that picked up Aaron at the jail when he served out his sentence! The ride back to brooklyn was awkward! but also jefferson loves his brother and even tho they’ve had their falling outs he never once stopped believing that his brother was innocent. Jefferson also made sure to pull some strings and ended up getting an apartment set up for Aaron (even though jefferson and rio were 100% down to open their home to him for as long as it took him to get back onto his feet but of course aaron denied them bc he didnt want to be a burden) Aaron’s grateful but he tends to avoid his own family…a lot….

• it’s ridiculously hard to find a job bc nobody wants to hire an ex convict no matter the circumstances and Aaron’s legitimately about to lose hope when he spots an expensive looking shop nestled in between an old arcade and a knick knack shop

 • ‘Vanessa’s Cafe’ is neatly printed above the door in fancy gold lettering. it’s obvious that the owner has serious cash bc the shop looks too damn good and too well maintained to be a regular mom and pop shop. there’s a help wanted sign hastily scribbled on a piece of notebook paper in the middle of the window which is odd since it off sets the professional vibe of the place. But hey it’s worth a shot so Aaron walks in ready to be denied another job only to find the weirdest looking group of people he’s ever seen.

 • The first guy that catches his attention is the very large albino man who looks way too stressed out and manic to be working in a coffeeshop, but the job must pay well because he’s very well dressed.

 • “Liv, for fuck’s sake! Clean your goddamn station!” he’s whisper shouting? Is that even a thing? oh look at that he’s got a full set of razor sharp teeth. huh. that’s a hell of an aesthetic he’s going for.

 • The lady in question isn’t even giving him the time of day, just enthralled by her phone with a smile that looks too peaceful given what’s happening around her. She’s got wild hair tied up messily in a knitted bandana, weird glasses (custom made??) and when she glances up at aaron, her eyes widen in interest like he’s some anomaly to be cracked open. aaron looks anywhere that isnt the wild eyed lady at the counter.

• Theres another big guy that’s hanging around the back, heavily tattooed and lifting stacks of heavy boxes. Aaron takes notice of his prosthetic hand and the tattoo guy takes notice of Aaron. 

• “Lonnie. Customer.” The Tattoo guy seems nonplussed about Aaron and walks into the back. aaron assumes that he’s offended him by staring at his prosthetic for longer than necessary which yeah….yeah he’s probably not happy about the staring. 

 • lonnie’s got a bad case of resting bitch face so he’s glaring at aaron without actually glaring and he’s just rough around ALL the edges so his tones got that nice bite to it as he shouts from across the counter (which is not something you do to a customer but it’s lonnie…..)  "Hey! Ya looking for a job, skinny jeans?!“

 • Aaron blanches at the idea of working with these people but he is absolutely desperate for a job at this point.

 •"Yeah. I just got out of-”

 •"Great, you’re hired! We’re speed running this whole introduction thing, string bean.“

 •and that’s all i got other than like small details like:

 •Peter B Parker owns a ”“’'cafe”“” across from Vanessa’s and its literally just a burger joint that h a p p e n s to sell coffee and Parker will fight you if you call his place a deli ahdhdj

 •Liv and May are dating (big shock) and peter b has to constantly deal with seeing his competition over at his place all the time and it’s yikes

 • Tombstone and Noir will 100% throw hands on contact. They don’t hate each other tho??? Its weird they just like to fight. gives them a chance to work on their banter i guess. Noir works the coffee machine at Peter’s “'cafe”’ so i guess he’s the “”barista”” of the joint but he drinks the coffee more than the customers do

 • Miles and the rest of the spider kids “”“”“"intern”“”“” at the cafe which basically translates to free labor

 •  spider ham works there but he isnt a pig he’s just john mulaney. i know its weird. nobody actually sees him tho so he’s a complete mystery as to what he looks like so he could be john mulaney you never know. the only person who’s seen him is noir and that’s only bc they’re  a thing???

 •oh speaking of everyone being gay:  everyone’s gay

 • Lonnie and Gargan (tombstone and scorpion) are 100% dating but everyone legitimately thinks that the both of them are straight old men despite the fact that they live together, go to work together, hang out afterwards together, and they’re just always together

 • lonnie’s  daughter (janice)  visits every other week (def the product of a divorce he went through years ago) she’s alright with gargan but she’s very distant towards her dad and def has that teen angst phase that she’s going through

 • (lonnie can and will talk to you for hours about how much he loves and supports his daughter despite the fact that their relationship is very estranged)

 • you can find janice hanging out with the cute blond punk girl at that weird burger/coffee place across the street

 • oh gargan’s big and strong despite the fact that he’s missing three limbs, liv works in robotics on the side and constantly tweaks and repairs his prosthetics when they start acting up which leads to them having this weird friendship where they both borrow each other when they need something and dont really expect anything in return (like gargan’s good for getting her supplies and doing heavy lifting when she needs it and liv’s always down to run check ups on gargan)

 • oh yeah liv used to be a scientist but immediately lost her license and phd when she started going above some board members heads to buy less than legal things through super illegal sources

.• that’s another thing, kingpin tends to just hire ex cons and criminals to work in his cafe just bc he believes that a person willing to work hard to better themselves deserves a chance to re enter society again.

 • like they’ve all done bad things but still ended up with a job at the cafe. aaron fought a cop, liv did some shady deals for an illegal experiment, gargan used to run a drug ring years ago due to personal reasons but once he was free from jail he never dealt with the stuff again, and lonnie killed a dude (allegedly. he never went to jail bc they couldn’t prove anything but hey word spread around quick and everyone knew not to go anywhere near this guy)

 • kingpin is in this au btw he’s just……a very depressed man who’s still grieving over his wife and son dying in a car accident

.• he rarely shows up to run the cafe bc its too much for him being in the place that his wife loved and built up from the ground. he used to be the manager after she died but couldn’t handle it and mostly left lonnie to take care of it

• which holy fuck lonnie is trying his best to keep this cafe alive and well and there’s only two other people working there so like its enough to have him scrambling all over the place trying to find more help (thanks aaron)

 •miles doesn’t know aaron’s working at the cafe across the street and aaron def wants it that way bc even tho he’s out of jail he hasn’t actually……visited miles yet….. it’s the shame that’s keeping aaron from reaching out to him which is….sad bc miles doesn’t care what happened he just wants his uncle back.

 • oh oh one more thing RIPeter used to run the deli across the street but had to leave brooklyn to go volunteer at homeless shelters across the states indefinitely so theres no telling when he’ll be back, so he left the cafe under the guidance of pb parker (peter b parker voice: my cafe now)

 •and uhhh thats all i got, like i said this au is just found family trope + the healing we all want + bad people getting redemption which is all the tropes that i love all compacted together in the most cliche au you can imagine!

[redandfranticfeelings]

an autistic analysis, lyric by lyric, of ‘i love play rehearsal’

ive been hyperfixating over bmc for the last month and i keep thinking about how autistic the main characters are and christine is so very very very autistic coded to me. so i decided im just going to straight up deconstruct the lyrics of her signature song in the context of her being autistic (and also having adhd, but my experience is mostly in autism)

this is very very rambley and based more on personal experience than research, so i doubt itll be interesting to anybody but me, but i just want to talk about christine, the autistic queen

I love play rehearsal Because its the best! Because it is fun. I love play rehearsal and I get depressed as soon as its done.

it goes without saying that chrstine’s special interest is theater right? the way she treats it as the “highlight of [her] life” and then switches into this song after acting completely awkward and disinterested in jeremy outside of the context of him being engaged in her special interest.

But not depressed as in like kill yourself depressed No, im not into self-harm Dude, I swear, here check my arm!

overexplaining in a way that reads very much like speaking before she thinks, even though bringing up self harm in casual conversation with someone you barely talk to is not exactly proper etiquette. i think this is also an adhd trait? going faster than your own brain. that’s basically this whole song.

See, I just use the word to emphasise a point, Show the passion I have got I am passionate a lot. I have mad, gigantic feelings, Red and frantic feelings, About most everything Like gun control, like spring,

a lot of people assume autistic people are typically emotionless but it’s also very easy for us to get caught up in emotional issues especially when it comes to stuff we love, and it catches us off guard. christine being hyperempathetic is implied later in the show when she has that awful survivors’ guilt over making fun of rich and jake, and it also plays into her being so socially conscious as well.

Like if I’m living up to all I’m meant to be.

being an high school junior is really rough bc of all the decisions that have to be made regarding college and your future as an independent adult, and being autistic just makes it worse bc it can easily lead to burnout to deal with so much at once, if you even can comprehend these things much at all (i had no idea what to do, lol). i doubted my ability to grow up and succeed constantly because i had no idea who to talk to and what questions to ask and how to present myself. that’s something that a lot of people worry about, but having social delays makes it way more of a pressing issue than it is for neurotypicals, i feel.

I also have a touch of ADD. Where was I? Oh, right!

self explanatory and very canon. adhd and autism can be diagnosed simultaneously nowadays and the symptoms overlap a lot, btw.

I love play rehearsal, Cause’ you are equiped with direction and text, Life is easy in rehearsal, You follow a script so you know what comes next. Anywho the point that I’m getting to is sometimes life can’t work out in the way It works out in the play

this part screams autistic culture to me. unpredictability is scary because social situations don’t always go smoothly like in fiction! this is why social scripting is a popular therapy tactic for autistic children- you have to manually study social situations like a script. theater is something meant to be memorized and recited until you’re able to process it and manufacture emotion, but honestly for autistic kids, life feels a lot like that sometimes. remember how miserable she got when one of her favorite plays had the script changed without her permission to make a whole new story she doesn’t know? of course that’s just upsetting on its own, but in the context of her knowing theater so well and being fully prepared for one story only to be forced to learn a new one? ouch.

christine is never shown as comfortable outside her element- she hides in a book during “more than survive” and shrinks into nothing at the party. it’s a recurring theme that she has no idea exactly who she is, struggles with her identity outside of theater, and despite not really caring about how people see her, she does care about her own ability. socializing makes her feel awkward, especially when something totally unexpected happens like jake or jeremy asking her out. if she doesn’t have a plan or routine or, well, a script, then she can’t trust herself to go forward.

Like the only time I get to be the center of attention, Is when I’m Juliet or Blanche DuBois

as an autistic theater kid, i just really do relate to being clueless and dumb in real life but being able to totally thrive on the stage, because you can channel the energy that is usually misplaced in real life social interactions, and transfer it through dialogue and song and dance that someone else laid out nicely for you.

and can I mention? That was really one of my best roles, Did you see that?

an epic combination of letting your mind wander easily without caring about making sense to the person you’re speaking to, and taking every opportunity to infodump. in a lot of productions she even mimics her blanche voice just for fun. jeremy tries to respond here but she doesn’t care because she’s in her own brain where everything only really seems to make sense to her.

And no matter how hard I try, It’s impossible to narrow down the many reasons why, I love play rehearsal. I happiness cry whenever it starts!

if she isn’t being hyperbolic then this plays into my ‘so much emotion it’s hard to control’ thing detailed a bit above. either way, big special interest mood.

It’s just so universal Getting to try playing so many parts. Most humans do one thing for all of their lives, The thought of that gives me hives! I’ve got so many interests I wanna pursue,

it’s a lot easier to lose yourself and connect to your special interest than focus on your very complex, very overwhelming real life issues. escaping into fiction and being able to play in a variety of social situations as a totally different person, yay theater!

in general i just like the idea of christine struggling to visualize who she is and thinking about a lot of hypothetical but being unable to choose which one is most desirable or plausible. idk if that’s autistic or just a fun character trait lol. i know jumping from interest to interest is an adhd thing though.

this little passage is good for at least showing that christine distinguishes herself from ‘most humans’ in a way that isn’t so much ‘not like other girls’ but like ‘life is so much more confusing to me than it seems to be to others’ (which the show proposes isn’t exactly true and is the same closed-mindedness that jeremy has, though christine realizes it sooner; however; the sentiment rings true in that christine, as a neurodiverse young woman, has a lot more hoops to jump through than a neurotypical classmate.)

And why am I telling this to you? Guess there’s a part of me that wants to.

jeremy is also very autistic coded in my eyes, but that’s a separate post. i just like them being drawn to each other through that sort of kinship. also if you interpret her as having an unrealized requited crush on him…well, i think for a lot of us, romantic love is easy to confuse with friend love, if even that, because the specifics of emotions are a mess to unravel. (which also explains her confusion on her relationship with jake)

oh and right after this, she starts squawking just because she had the impulse to do so. vocal stimming, much?

Back to play rehearsal, My brain is like ‘bzzz’ My heart is like 'wow’

my brain is always like bzzz honestly lol. this is generally a pretty good way to describe being hyperfocused.

Because we’re here at play rehearsal, and it’s starting, We’re starting, It’s starting, Sooo-ooon.

it’s been confirmed as a deliberate decision that christine’s songs never end on a rhyme, except when she’s squipped and it isn’t ‘really’ her, because she subverts everyone’s expectations, including jeremy’s. i feel that could make for a nice simplified metaphor for autism, right?

[aidenzhous]

in all these moments. (ajay x mc)

pairing: ajay x f!mc (cas rhodes).

word count: 3.4k.

genre: fluff / teeny tiny sprinkle of angst / romance.

summary: five times ajay backs out, and one time he doesn’t.

author’s note: i was rereading hssca bc i have Nothing else 2 do and i was thinking !!! why not !!!!!!! do a 5+1 !!! bc im super weak for those !!! anyways here it is it’s not Totally loyal 2 the chapters bc ~creative license~ but i Do hope u all enjoy it anyways for my first fic here owo !!!! 

tag list: send me an ask or message me if you want to be added !!

i. auditions.

Ajay has always believed freshmen were all the same—too curious, too reckless—just too much everything. The world was their oyster, and they hadn’t learned the difference between questions to ask and questions to rein in.

That was what Ajay believed, until Cas.

She’s all cheerful eyes and open friendliness when she introduces herself, stumbling on her shoelace before righting herself with an embarrassed laugh. She doesn’t even look bothered after he’d brushed her hand aside and easily repeated his speech of ambitious projects and director responsibilities, smiling apologetically as she takes a half-step back.

“My bad,” she says. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Thank you. But you’re still bothering me, Cas.”

He can’t help but notice her eyes carry that wide-eyed freshman wonder, intertwined with something that feels like sunshine and starlight and something he can’t quite name. Freshman optimism, maybe. He glances back to his scripts just as Danielle slides into the conversation like she had been there all along.

“Relax, Ajay.” Danielle barks a laugh. “She’s just trying to introduce herself.”

“Danielle, please.” He runs a hand through his hair and tugs the script closer, mindful of his pen. He levels her with a look, exasperation and exhaustion in one. “I can forgive interruptions from a freshman, but you of all people should know better.”

She shrugs, like he has a point but she stands too much on her own to care. “How about this?” Danielle says. “Cas can help me set up the stage, and you can take a chill pill.”

Ajay rolls his eyes and waves a dismissive hand. “Lovely idea,” he says after a moment.

Danielle turns on her heel and motions for Cas to follow, leading her backstage. Against Ajay’s better judgement, he lets himself get distracted, gives himself an interlude between work to watch as they leave. His eyes linger on Cas’s profile, watches as she says something to Danielle before breaking out into a laugh that he can clearly hear across the room. It sounds like a songbird at dawn.

He shakes his head before picking up his pen, twirling it between his fingers. She’s new, he reasons. She’s an undiscovered piece in the puzzle that Ajay hasn’t quite figured out yet, and he’s only distracted because it’s natural. Logical, even.

He sneaks another glance to the stage.

ii. the party.

This is what he knows: Ajay has always been good at separating his work from his personal life. Theater stays theater—everyone is a co-star first and a friend second, and romance is totally, absolutely out of the question. Success comes when everyone can focus, and butterflies, longing glances and crushes had no place in a production—especially one as important as this.

He’s lining up his next shot at the pool table, eyes focused. Emma and Sydney are hovering on the opposite end, their conversation distant and muted as he tunes it out. He inhales once, ready to secure the point, until—

“Ajay, thank God!”

His hands grip the pool cue tighter by a fraction, the only giveaway that her voice had startled him. It takes all his willpower to look nonchalant, to look like he’s absorbed in a game he knows he’ll score easy wins at, but the difference between being and looking is in the eyes. He waits until Emma and Sydney flit over to Cas, waits until they strike up a conversation of their own before he dares to look in their direction for a brief moment. He spots the faded blue of her jacket and the bright smile he’s gotten accustomed to seeing.

Ajay successfully sinks two solids into a pocket. He straightens up and pretends like he’s seeing Cas for the first time.

“Oh, hey Cas,” he says. She grins at the greeting, throwing a little wave his way.

“Took you long enough to notice I was here! I thought I would’ve had to start the preparations for my eightieth birthday if you didn’t turn around in the next minute.” She points to the pool table. “I didn’t know you were practically a master at pool.”

Ajay shrugs before turning back towards the game. “You only met me this Monday,” he says. “Besides, it’s not like pool is a particularly useful skill.”

“Maybe so,” Cas says, “but it makes for some impromptu bets!.”

Ajay raises an eyebrow at her, feeling the smile before he could stop it. He shakes his head and lets her have a short laugh, before he calls a pocket and easily knocks the 8-ball in.

“I win,” he says. He sees Emma’s shoulders slump in defeat as she sighs.

“Can I play against you?” Cas asks. “I have a good feeling I can snatch that pool-master title from you, easy peasy.”

He sets the pool cue aside, glancing her way. She’s all determined energy, coiled up into a tiny frame. “As much as I’d love to show you up, a bunch of jocks already called the next game.” He turns to her with a grin. “Find me later if you still want to play.”

*

She does find him later, when he’s leaning against the kitchen counter with a pizza in hand and a glass of cola in the other.

“Found you,” she chirps. “I believe you owe me a game of pool.”

“Can I at least finish my pizza first?”

“Nope! You can just eat on the way.”

*

Ajay figures out two things that night.

One: it is possible, even though he’d sworn up and down it wasn’t, that there was someone who was better than him at pool. He doesn’t know how to feel knowing that someone was a sprightly freshman with a knack for pulling out Ajay’s softer side.

Two: Cas’s hands are cold but soft. She also has victory dances, and Ajay thinks the cutest one is the one where she waves her body like she’s a piece of seaweed.

iii. the theater.

A quick glance to the clock tells him it’s nearing two am, and he’s been watching Cas nod off for the past twenty minutes, alternating between tipping over from sleepiness and jolting awake. He feels bad, because neither of them are in the beds they should be and it’s not like the theater comes with backup beds for events like this. A theater wasn’t built for overnight stays.

“Cas,” he murmurs, tapping her shoulder. She makes a little snuffling noise, nose wrinkling as she blinks her eyes open. “You should sleep on the seats instead of here.”

“‘M okay,” she says, shaking her head. “Not sleepy.”

“You’ve been falling asleep for the past twenty minutes.”

Her next words come in a drawl, pulled by a tired lull. “No,” she says. “No sleep. Don’t know sleep.”

Ajay stifles a laugh. He ducks so her arm goes around his shoulder, and gently, he pulls her up. She goes along like a doll, which is to say, she doesn’t go along at all. “C’mon,” he says, though it’s mostly to himself. “The stage isn’t the best place to sleep.”

“Stage is good,” she murmurs, but she stumbles alongside him. “Detective C no lie.”

He doesn’t justify her with a response. She wouldn’t be able to snipe back, anyways, not with how tired she was. Instead, he shakes his head fondly as he lowers her onto one of the seats. She takes to it immediately, curling up on her side. After a moment’s hesitation, Ajay shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over her, patting it down. He hopes it’ll keep some of the chill away.

He takes the floor, sprawling against carpeted hardwood floor. His back immediately twinges in pain, and using his arm as a pillow only increases comfort by a marginal amount. This wasn’t how he imagined spending his Friday night, but a glance to Cas mutes his rationality.

If anything, getting to spend time with Cas made up for all the wrongdoings.

Her hand is hanging over the edge of the chair, fingertips barely touching the floor, and he lets himself reach over, his own fingers falling just short of being able to touch hers. Maybe if they were in a different situation, he could hold her hand the way he wants to.

But he’s a director and she’s a cast member, and Ajay has always been a stickler for his own rules.

He pulls his hand back, drops it onto his stomach and turns so he doesn’t have to look at Cas. She’s always been optimism personified, a burst of sunlight through cloudy skies.

Ajay’s just awful at not chasing the sun.

iv. homecoming dance.

Homecoming was many things. Crowded, for one, with memories from a time he’d rather forget. There’s a reason he had no plans on showing up, but all it takes is Cas and one well placed set of puppy-dog eyes and he crumbles like a demigod beneath the skies.

They’re dancing, slowly and surely. She’s clumsy at first, but she learns rhythm and steps quicker than he had anticipated, stepping where appropriate with only occasional glances to their shoes. Ajay can’t help but think of the what-ifs again.

“What’s that move?” She suddenly asks as the song nears its end. “The one they do at the end of songs.”

Ajay knows exactly what move she’s talking about, and it’s almost too easy to tighten his hold on her. “I got you,” he says as he spins her into a low dip. He smiles at the noise of surprise she makes, feels a little satisfied with himself when her grip tightens around him like she’s scared of falling. Her eyes are wide with alarm, but they carry a little bit of reckless joy too.

“A little warning would’ve been nice,” she says. She’s trying for annoyed, he can tell, but he’s starting to learn it’s never been in her nature to be annoyed at anyone. It only takes a moment before she bursts with a dazzling grin, another that Ajay files away in ‘expressions I’d like to see again’.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Ajay replies as he pulls her up. She does a little twirl under his arm and he lets himself hold her hand for a moment longer. The grooves and planes of her hand feel familiar under his; soft, sure, right. But he pulls away, doesn’t let himself think about that in too much detail because he’s not supposed to and puts a small distance between them that feels like miles. He doesn’t miss the way she deflates a little, doesn’t miss the way disappointment sits on her shoulders.

He figures there’s no way someone like her—all starlight, moonlight, sunlight—would like someone like him.

v. accusations.

Ajay looks over when he hears the soft thud of a lunch tray. Cas is sitting across Rory, her expression upset as she pleads with her to talk. It’s courtesy, he tells himself, when he stands and tugs her sleeve, pulling her to the occupied end of the table. He knows, really, that he has no right to do that, especially after what he had accused Cas of.

“She hasn’t spoken since lunch started,” Ajay explains, and her face falls.

“Is it because of—”

“Of course it is!” Danielle snaps, and Cas jumps in her seat beside Ajay. His eyes immediately fall to his plate, fingers gripping his spoon tightly. He’s done enough damage on his own, and the production was relying on him and he can’t have a repeat— “Just get out of here already, you’ve made things bad enough.”

“Danielle!” Cas’s voice is sharp in reply, but it loses its impact as it breaks.

“What you did wasn’t cool,” Clint says. “Not to any of us.”

“You should find somewhere else to sit, because you’re not welcome here,” Natalie adds.

Ajay winces. He doesn’t have to look up to know what their faces look like; their words hurt alone. Quiet falls on the table and he can feel the weight of Cas’s eyes on him. He keeps his gaze low, pushes around his food until she stands.

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll just go.”

He finally lifts his eyes when the squeak of her sneakers grow fainter, turning to watch as she shoulders open the door towards the courtyard. He’s suddenly lost his appetite, and pushes his tray away from him.

A moment later, Erin and Skye hurry up to the table carrying trays of their own.

“Where’s Cas?” Skye asks, and Ajay points to the courtyard.

“She got kicked off the table,” he replies, and Danielle’s glare switches its focus to him, turning icy. He doesn’t dignify it with a response.

Skye rolls her eyes and marches off towards the courtyard. Erin looks towards the table, eyebrows furrowed before she says, “I’m really disappointed you’d all believe Cas could be capable of something so cruel. She really thought you guys were her friends.” Her words sit uncomfortably on the group as she follows Skye, and Ajay’s eyes follow them, watching as they take a seat at Cas’s table.

He watches as Cas shivers against the wind, and he feels the inexplicable urge to put his jacket over her shoulders, like they were locked in the theater together again.

But they’re not.

They’re on two different sides of a serious argument and Ajay has monumentally screwed up his production and his friendships again. He stands up and clears his tray before disappearing to the theater, where no one else has to follow him except his own ghosts.

vi. cas.

Cas has successfully avoided Ajay for the duration of the cast party. She’s ducked into her kitchen, hid in the bathroom, shoved a handful of fries into her mouth and bolted for the living room as soon as Ajay had spotted her. It’s a never-ending game of hide and seek, and she doesn’t intend to lose.

It’s backed by pride, she knows that, and hurt too.

As the party winds down, she lurks near the front door. Ajay had disappeared at some point, and it’s easy to assume he’s just gone home. It’s a relief, she thinks. The game is over, and she can return to moping by herself. She doesn’t know how much longer she could’ve lasted trying to hide from him.

“Cas?” Ajay’s voice comes from behind her, and she throws her arms up in surprise.

“Woah, did not see you there,” Cas says, turning around to face him. “You’re still here. I thought you went home or—or something. I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Ajay raises an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, someone’s been hiding from me all night.”

“Gosh,” Cas replies, “who could that be?”

She doesn’t want to fall back into a rhythm with him. He makes it too easy. She pulls at a stray thread on her sweater before Ajay sighs.

“Can we talk, actually?”

“We’re talking right now, aren’t we?”

“I mean privately, without anyone else around.” Ajay runs a hand through his hair before he says, “just to my car?”

And Cas, well, she’s never been the greatest at saying no to Ajay.

*

“I wanted to apologize,” Ajay murmurs. They’re leaning against his car, and Cas occupies herself by staring at her shoes. “Back when everyone accused you—I should’ve stayed neutral, or at least been more thorough in making sure the facts checked out. I let you down, and I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what…” Cas pauses. She wants the right words, but she’s never been like Ajay—never has been eloquent or as level-headed as him. “Ajay, I don’t care about the fact-checking, or the staying neutral. I care that you said I could’ve been capable of doing something like that, I care that you said it was ‘logical’ and that it made sense to you. I care that in the heat of the moment, you decided that the cleverness you liked meant that I could’ve done it.” She sucks in a breath, hands rubbing her arms. “I care that my friend turned his back on me, and he did it so easily.”

Ajay doesn’t respond. Cas glances over in his direction to see him with his face buried in his hands.

“Ajay?” She prompts. “You okay?”

“No,” he says. His voice comes out all muffled. “I asked you out here to apologize—I was so confident I had it all right and that I knew what I was apologizing for but I still—” He cuts himself off, hands falling to his sides. “I still messed it up.”

“You can try again, now that you know what I was actually upset about.”

“Would you hear it out?”

Cas gives him a warm smile. “When have I ever said no?”

Ajay takes in a deep breath before he turns to face Cas. His expression is determined and apologetic all at once. “Cas,” he starts, “I’m sorry, genuinely. I hurt you not just as a director, but as a friend. I shouldn’t have been so quick to decide which version of the story I believed, and I should’ve had more faith in you as a person. You were right, after all, and I’m sorry it took me so long to build up the courage to properly apologize to you.”

“I accept your apology,” Cas says. “And I forgive you.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Ajay shakes his head, but the smile on his lips is warm and kind. Cas opens her mouth to say something before a cold gust of wind blows strongly, immediately bringing shivers from the both of them.

“How about we get into my car?” Ajay suggests. “I can turn on the heater.”

“I call shotgun!” Cas calls out, skipping around towards the passenger door.

*

“Sometimes I wonder where we would be if I didn’t audition for the play,” Cas says. She has her hands pressed up against the heater, fingers wiggling against the current of warm air. “Like, would we still be friends? Would we have gone through that huge theaterwide drama? Or would we just have been people with mutual friends?”

“Maybe we could’ve been something else,” Ajay replies. “That particular thought has crossed my mind a few times, even though it shouldn’t have, and I’ve probably rehearsed the next few words a hundred times.”

The words are so telling, and Cas pulls her hands away from the heater as she sits back against the seat. She glances over to him before her head tilts in a play of curiosity. “What words?”

“I don’t want to rush it, Cas,” Ajay says, but his eyes soften around the edges. “I just—don’t quite know how to say it.”

The smile Cas gives him is nothing short of encouraging, tinted with butterflies and longing glances. “Hey, take your time,” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Ajay’s head thumps against the headrest. Cas snickers, before she schools her expression into something gentler. She watches as Ajay takes a deep breath, fingers drumming against the steering wheel before his eyes meet hers.

“I think you’re incredible, Cas,” Ajay says. “You’re incredible on stage, and offstage—every morning, I feel so lucky that I can say you’re important to me. I can’t imagine myself not caring about you.”

He pauses, before he says, “I like you, Cas. I like you a lot. Waiting for the show to end has been…” He trails off, letting the silence speak. “I liked working with you, and with everyone else. But I won’t lie and say that I haven’t been thinking of taking your hand every time an opportunity presented itself and asking if I could—” Ajay ducks his head, adjusting his glasses.

“Yeah?” Cas bites back a smile, eyes earnest as Ajay looks up with a smile of his own.

“Cas, can I kiss you?”

“That would be really nice.”

They share a laugh, a little break in the moment as they lean over the console. Cas zeroes in on the gentle touch of Ajay’s fingers on her hair, the feather-light affection when he tilts her chin up. It’s instinct when her eyes slide shut.

Their lips meet in a chaste, soft kiss—a brief touch that sends her heart racing. She feels her cheeks warm up intensely as Ajay pulls away, touching his forehead to hers.

“That was—wow,” she murmurs, and Ajay laughs, the sound soft as it suspends itself between them. “Your glasses are all fogged up now.”

“Small price to pay,” he replies.

She takes in Ajay, takes in all of him from the way his lips are tilted up in a smile to the expressions he reserves just for her to the way he’s always carried himself like he’s unshakeable. She sees him in all the ways that make her heart flutter, and all the ways he holds her steady.

“I like you a lot too, Ajay.”