#and thank you for giving me an excuse to go on a tangent about them

[howlerbat]

I’m glad that you enjoyed my tags! I very much enjoyed yours as well. As far as the Breaking Point goes, I acknowledge what you’re saying about 3x05 and I agree with it, but also (from my recollection anyway, it’s been a while since I rewatched) 3x05 was more of Billy attempting to make a (for lack of a better term) professional connection with Flint. Going like “hey, can we talk strategy? because I’m not sure about this…” and obviously there’s not NOTHING personal in that request or in Flint shutting it down, and I think that was also a very pivotal moment, but Billy tried the professional connection thing again with Flint in 4x01, so he hadn’t completely lost hope in that department yet. What makes me view 3x03 as The Moment is that it was the last time that Billy tried to connect with Flint in a very personal and vulnerable way - attempting to check in on him emotionally - and to have THAT shut down, I think, destroyed the potential for true reconciliation irreparably.

Haven’t really looked at it that way but you’re right, after 3x03 Billy very much tries to maintain a professional distance through all their interactions (even if he does it through gritted teeth). I singled out 3x05 to myself as more of a ‘last opportunity for Flint to get Billy on his side’ because he starts promoting Silver pretty quickly after this. And even though Billy still wants to use Flint’s talents and reputation to their advantage and goes along with him, he starts to separate himself from his Goal aka the Fall of the British Empire. So if 3x03 is him giving up on understanding Flint as a person, 3x05 is him doubting him as a leader because there’s a fundamental difference in how they see this War (for Billy it ends with liberating Nassau, for Flint it STARTS with liberating Nassau).

It’s hard to point to a single moment as the breaking point of this relationship because it’s THEM and because it was never really that good to begin with. It was less of a break and more of a gradual tear of a rope that was sprung up too tight. Chances are Flint could still reach an agreement with him even in s4 but that would require him to be very… un-Flint.

[justmeinadaze]

Inescapable: Letters (Steddie X You)

A/N: I give you treat my dear friends. A glimpse into inmate Steddie. I'm going to write a full story but for some reason the idea of them writing back and forth burned into my brain. Think of this as a prequel so to speak.

Enjoy!

Warnings: Older (Early 30s) Prisoner Steddie & Young (Early 20s) Fem college student Y/N, Everything is in letter format. Mentions of smut, some dirty talk, angst (because I'm me), both men were convicted even though they are innocent, near the end we get some glimpses of toxic behavior, Jealous Steddie <3, cliffhanger esc ending.

Word Count: 2918

"You can build a prison of stone and steel, but you merely present the prisoner with a challenge. Any truly determined man will find a way out but love, love is the perfect prison. Inescapable."-- Wilson Fisk (Daredevil)

July 1996

Mr. Munson and Mr. Harrington, 

I know you don’t know me but my name is Y/N Y/L/N and I’m a student here at Hawkins University. I’m supposed to be doing a project for my criminal justice class and with your permission I’d like to do it on you. 

I’m working towards getting my law degree and so many kids in my class are doing theirs on people like Bundy or Gacy. How does that help teach them? I’ve done research on your case and I feel like you both are innocent. Add in the fact that the judge wanted to make “an example” out of you two… it’s ridiculous. 

Neither of you had a prior history of violence and Mr. Harrington, your parents are prominent members of Hawkins! UGH! I just don’t get it. 

Sorry. I went off on a bit of a tangent there… I just hate how you both were treated. 

If you don’t want me to utilize your case for my class I’ll completely understand. If you don’t respond I’ll take that as a no as well. 

Thank you,

--Y/N.

################

July 1996,

Sweetheart,

You have no idea how good it made us feel to have someone reach out to us, let alone agree that we are innocent. Society forgot about us a while ago but thankfully Steve and I have each other. 

And now you we hope : ). 

We have no problem with you doing your project on our case. What do you need from us? Details I imagine but what else? Are we allowed to know more about you? We know your name is Y/N, you’re a law student, and judging by the intoxicating scent that wafted when we opened your letter you smell really fucking good. 

Please feel free to be open with us.  We’re nice guys we swear.

-Eddie

Y/N,

I hope Eddie didn’t come off too strong with his letter. I told him we need to be respectful but like he said people kind of forgot about us. It’s nice to feel appreciated. 

We have no problem with you using us on your project and you don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. I understand that talking to someone in our circumstances can be a bit scary especially for a young lady like you. 

Are you only going to be speaking with us or do you need to talk to our families to? My parents gave up on me after I was found guilty so they probably won’t be much help. Eddie’s uncle Wayne Munson is a nice guy. You can tell him we sent you and he’ll answer your questions. We also have some friends people who were around the time we were arrested who can help to. 

We look forward to hearing from you, 

-Steve

P.S. You can call us Steve and Eddie. We already feel old enough : )

####################

July 1996

Eddie & Steve, 

Thank you so much! You have no idea how important this is to me. I don’t just want to do this for my class but I’d like to use this case for my graduation project as well. But we don’t have to think about that now. I barely like to think that far ahead so I use the excuse of that is two years away. 

Eddie didn’t come on too strong : ).

I AM a law student and a sophomore at Hawkins U. I’ll be 21 in a few months so I can finally move up to being a bartender at the restaurant I work at. College is expensive but soon it will be worth it. I’m attaching a picture with the letter just so you have an image of who you’re talking to. 

Growing up I heard all about you two. Hawkins High used to have your Hellfire Club, Eddie, but they disbanded it a couple of years before I graduated. The parents said they didn’t think it was right for their kids to belong to a club created by someone such as yourself. Since Dustin Henderson wasn’t there to advocate for you guys anymore…

I don’t have to reach out or talk to anyone you don’t want me to. I know most of the people involved in your case aren’t even in Hawkins anymore. 

I’m so sorry. It must be hard having everyone you know disappear. 

My parents aren’t exactly fans of my chosen profession. My mom hates lawyers since her divorce lawyer wasn’t able to get her more alimony from my father and my dad is cop so enough said hahaha!

I’ve been with my boyfriend for a few months. He’s a film major and keeps begging me to allow him to do an interview with you two. I keep telling him no. You’re people not circus animals. 

Let’s start with you two telling me whatever makes you comfortable in regard to your case!

-Y/N

####################

December 1996,

Sweetheart,

Merry Christmas! 

Did Wayne give you the presents we bought you? My uncle said it’s important for college girls especially soon to be lawyers to have tape recorders. I’d love to hear if you liked it and if you can use it in your classes. 

It’s been a couple of days since you called. I hope everything is alright. We miss the sound of your voice…

Y/N, I know I can come off a bit forward but I hope I didn’t scare you away by talking to you the way I did during our last conversation. I can’t help it, you know? You’re just so gorgeous and you’ve been so good to us that my brain promptly goes into flirtation mode. 

Anyway, yeah, I want to hear how your Christmas went and if Derek’s family was good to you.

-Eddie

Honey, 

Merry Christmas! 

Ed forgot to mention that we did get your gifts and are incredibly thankful for the books. Since I was arrested I’ve opened my mind when it comes to reading and Munson’s fantasy books at least take me away mentally to a different world. 

He’s right by the way… you are incredibly beautiful. 

Would you be open to seeing us in person? 

Just a nice friendly visit where we can talk about your project and get to know you more. 

If not we completely understand.

-Steve

##########################

February 1997

Eddie & Steve, 

I’m sorry I haven’t come by or answered the phone. After our last visit, I just…

I love Derek but I care about you both so much. When you kissed me We have to keep this professional. Not just because of my boyfriend but because I’m studying to be a lawyer. How would it look if I fell in love started a relationship with inmates I’m working with?

Please understand.

-Y/N

#######################

February 1997

Sweetheart,

We understand but you have to also understand that we’ve never met anyone like you. You’re so kind and beautiful. You listen to what we have to say and actually care about us. I can still feel your lips against mine and nothing in my life has ever tasted as sweet. 

Can you still feel me, princess?

For the first time in almost 11 years, I actually have some hope. 

Does he make you feel like we do, honey? Your heavy breath against my mouth when I kissed you tells me no. I know we’re trapped here for the next 14 years but, baby, we can still take care of you. We just have to be a bit imaginative with certain things but….

No one has to know, baby, not even Derek. 

-Steve & Eddie

#######################

February 1997

Baby, 

Fuck, sweetheart, you have no idea how hearing you touch yourself over the phone got us going. If we could have private phones we would have stroked our cocks for you so you could hear how much you turn us on.

I can still hear your heavy pants in my ear while you fucked your fingers. 

I’m playing with myself right now at the thought of how tight that young little pussy is. Fuck… picturing those sexy hips slam against me as you ride my dick. Do you like it rough or nice and slow? Delicate, just like you, pretty girl. 

Shit. I just came so hard. 

Would you let Steve and I fill you up? Make you really ours?

I wish we could fall asleep with you between us. I’d give anything to hold you in my arms and play with your hair. 

Can’t wait to see you again, princess. 

-Eddie.

############################

April 1997

Honey, 

How did your test go for your class? I’m sorry we weren’t more helpful but I’m glad you brought your stuff to show us what you’ve been working on. It makes us so happy to see you working so hard and achieving your dreams. You deserve all the good things in this world. 

I’ve been thinking about you since we last saw you. Aren’t you glad now you wore that sexy skirt?

God, I can still smell you on my fingers. I loved feeling you cling to my arm as I thrust them into your tight little cunt. We have to work on silencing those moans a bit more : ).

I keep having dreams about your pretty mouth wrapped around my cock just looking up at me with those big, beautiful eyes while I fuck your throat. 

Do you think about us? Tell us all your fantasies, baby. 

We love you. 

-Steve

#######################

April 1997

Eddie & Steve, 

You are such bad boys, you know that? I like it though…

Sometimes when I’m writing to you, Derek will walk by and I feel naughty but giddy. I’m doing something I definitely shouldn’t be doing. When we have sex, I don’t see him anymore. 

I just see you two. 

I wish I could take care of you the way you do me. I want to feel you both inside of me, stretching me open. I want to choke on Steve’s cock and ride Eddie till I can’t walk. I want to feel you both cum inside me and make me yours. 

I love you to…so much… 

I hate to ask this after everything but Derek would like to film you guys for his project. I’ll be there to so you won’t be alone with him and I can use the footage when I start working on my graduation project later down the line. 

After everything, if you don’t want to I completely understand. 

I’ll call you both tomorrow. 

-Y/N

##########################

May 1997

Please, 

I’m so sorry! The prison said you aren’t allow visits for the next month after what happened and you aren’t taking my calls. 

I didn’t know those were the questions he was going to ask you, I swear. 

After the stupid bullshit he pulled, I broke up with him and kicked him out of our apartment. 

I know you both are innocent and I don’t feel the same way he does. 

I love you so much. 

-Y/N

################

May 1997,

Don’t break up with him. He’s right. We’re fucking criminals and—

Y/N,

Eddie is still upset but we do believe that you didn’t know he was going to blind side us. We just needed some time to compose ourselves. The questions Derek asked about those kids, Nancy, and then seeing him kissing you when we walked in just fucking… It was too much. 

Add in the fact that he made some points, you know?

By the time, we get out of here we’ll be in our late 40’s essentially starting over. It’s going to be so hard for us to get a job and other things like a house or a car. People will always look down on us for something we didn’t do but they believe we did. 

You’re going to be this badass attorney with men your age groveling at your high heeled feet to give you the world. 

We’re scared about dragging you down with us. You deserve the world, baby girl.

Just give us a bit more time, ok? During this time, I want you to think about if being with us is the life you really want. Really think about it, Y/N. 

We love you to… no matter what.

--Steve & Eddie

###########################

August 1997

Eddie & Steve, 

I’m sitting in my first class this semester and I am already exhausted. I started my new job at The Hideout and I left at like 3am. I got some good tips though so that will help with tuition. I can also send you guys anything if you need something. 

I heard your appeal was denied again. 

I’m so sorry.

With cases like yours, it’s so hard to get those pushed through and approved. 

I’m thinking about you two every minute. When I crashed, I kept wishing I had your arms around me. 

I’ll call you tonight before my shift. 

I love you!

-Y/N

########################

August 1997, 

Baby, 

Yeah, we’re kind of over it now. After so many denials, you just kind of give up trying. It was like that with my dad and his case. Then again he was just a repeat offender and I’m a murderer so.

You didn’t tell us you were working at The Hideout. I used to play my guitar there with my band when I thought I would be a rockstar. I’m not gonna be anything now.

I’m sorry, sweetheart. I guess we’re just a bit low right now. 

I wish we could be there with you to. I want to fall asleep to your voice talking to me about everything. I could listen to you talk for hours, babe. 

Don’t overwork yourself. 

Love you,

--Eddie 

Honey, 

You never have to worry about sending us anything in here. We make enough money and then Wayne gives Eddie some to get by. 

My mom was there at our appeal. It was nice seeing her face again after all this time even though she didn’t talk to me or stick around to meet with me at the prison. 

I imagine my father didn’t know she was there. 

I agree with Munson, don’t over work yourself. 

We miss you. 

--Steve

######################

October 1997,

Y/N, 

We didn’t mean to scare you, baby, when you came to visit. We just… you were supposed to come visit us last week and you didn’t. You don’t answer when we call. 

We get worried. 

Please, sweetheart, answer the phone so we can talk. 

We love you, pretty girl. 

--Eddie

#######################

October 1997,

FUCK YOU! 

You don’t get to treat me the way you did when I took time out of my day to come to see you! Steve, you have no right shouting at me and degrading me in front of all your cell block friends. Eddie, you don’t get to grab my wrist and command that I “Lower my voice” when you both are sitting there talking down to me. 

The three of us know you weren’t worried about me but fucking jealous I’ve been brushing you off for someone else! 

I have shown you both nothing but respect and opened my heart to you from day one!

I’m sorry your both in the situation you are in. I genuinely am but I have given you no reason to think I’d ever hurt you by fucking cheating on you. 

I wouldn’t put my career and heart on the line like I have just to fucking throw it away that way. 

--Y/N

######################

October 1997

Little girl, 

I know you get off on being a bad girl but we swear to God, Y/N. You don’t get to talk to us the way you did during our visit. We understand that you have a busy life but that doesn’t give you the right to not show up or not answer the phone when you say you will. 

We may be convicts but we still have feelings. 

Telling us to “fuck off” or saying that bratty shit you said like “I’m sorry I’m busy” is not ok. 

Respect is earned. 

Let’s also not forget, Y/N, that you cheated on your boyfriend with us. It’s not farfetched for us to think you may spread your legs for more tips at the bar you work at. 

Don’t play this game with us, princess. You won’t win. 

Eddie & Steve

#########################

October 1997

Edward Munson & Steven Harrington, 

I always win and I have more self-respect than you both seem to think I do. 

We’re done. 

--Y/N

#########################

October 1997

Ed and Stev, 

I hate you sooooooo much. I fell in love wit you and did things with u I’ve never done with ANYONE! Except fucking obviously : ). I never did get to feel those “big cocks” streting tearing me open. Why is that? Oh yeah…because youre in jail!

I was willing to wait bcause I loved you. I didn’t care if you’d be 40 someting when you got out. You will NEVER find someone like me again. 

I’ll move on though. Always do.

Hey check out this cute boy I met. I took a picture of him sucking my neck. I’m not drunk enough to send a video but you can use your imagination. 

You’re good at that especially when u r imagining me cheating on you with men like him. 

Assholes…

--Y/N

######################

October 30th, 1997

Trick or treat, little girl.

See you tonight. 

--Steve & Eddie

##########

Donate to me

@nailbatanddungeon @dashingdeb16 @hardladyheart @thwippyparker @micheledawn1975 @utterlyinsanity

[m1ssunderstanding]

I'm halfway through Midas Man and I have to say one of my favorite things so far is the way they have shown George Martin's affinity for Paul - the way he zeros in on Paul's voice while listening to the band's recording calling it 'quite sweet' (while having no comment for the others specifically) and of course the scene in the studio, where he has critiques for everyone except Paul, I found it quite funny!

Aahhh I know!!!

The bond between George Martin and Paul is genuinely so important to Paul's development as a person and an artist, and therefore to the development of popular music as a whole. Paul desperately needed an authority figure to see him as talented, intelligent, and important. (John saw those things in him thank goodness, and that is infinitely valuable as well, but it's different coming from a central daddy figure) It seems to me, for all Jim's enthusiasm for Paul's musical pursuits as something fun that would get him into parties and make the family some money, he didn't seem to see Paul himself as particularly gifted. Then, Brian in the beginning seemed to favor John, seeing and marketing John as the intelligent, literary, witty, smart Beatle, and showing through his investments of time and money into John that he thought he was more special than the others. (Not that I'm not happy for John to have that love, he desperately needed it too) But I mean George Martin is in almost all of my Paul documents. He had a very big impact.

So it was vital that Paul had someone in his corner who could see his gifts, both as a musician/vocalist and as a creative force through writing and producing, who showed Paul he could trust him and opened so many possibilities to him. George Martin not only heard the strings on Yesterday, but knew how to coax Paul out of his box enough to really try them and valued Paul's composition abilities enough to teach him how to write for strings. And that was just their first major collaboration.

Throughout at least two decades of work, George Martin gave Paul the opportunities and the expertise and the safety to push the boundaries of how much artistic freedom a working class boy could exercise and what he could expand popular music to be.

Sorry to go off on a soapy tangent there but this is such an underrated relationship in this fandom and I'm just really glad you gave me the excuse to talk about it!

But yes. I was soooo happy to see him getting to be George's instant special baby. You're completely right. In the movie, he's basically like "why would I give these guys a chance? This isn't what I even do. Well, one of them has a very sweet voice. Okay I'll give them a shot." And then in the studio he's very obviously got a favorite on day one. I'm About to make another irresponsible statement here but isn't it true that George Martin at one point very early on suggested to Brian that they make Paul the frontman?

Anyway! Thank you very very much for thinking of me and sending this in!

[ddollfface]

is it possible for you to expand on the alphabet ‘H’ for yandere!athlete? I’m just curious to see the full extent of his punishment when he ‘snaps’. You don’t have to. This is my first ask so I’m just curious

— 🐏 anon

𝐀 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝

𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗦𝗶𝗰𝗸!𝗔𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘅 𝗳𝗲𝗺!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

"I'm not feeling myself today, so it's alright if I feel you instead?"

Trigger Warnings; bad writing, lovesick behavior, manipulation, toxic relationship, love bombing, reader is called 'girlfriend', fake emotional cheating (it'll make more sense later), um I think that's it, pretty tame ngl, honestly it's shorter than my usual posts sorry(( If I missed anything, then please let me know ♡ You are now 🐏!Nonny! Congratulations, you now have your own tag! I hope this is up to your standards... I kind of went on a tiny, just a tiny tangent, but what's new lol

Okay, ngl, I've been waiting for someone to ask about this, so thank you 🐏!Nonny for asking)))

Now, to the question. I would like to preface that it would be very, very, very difficult to make LoveSick!Athlete 'snap', seeing as he's a very patient person, especially with those he's close to. Growing up, he had to be patient and easygoing. He was the oldest of his siblings, so he had to be responsible; had to step up as a father figure for his younger siblings, as he never had a real dad.

He's very soft with you, always speaking kindly, and never letting his anger or annoyance get a hold of him. He wants to be the best for you, truly, but there are just some things that make people... y'know snap. Even for people like LoveSick!Athlete, who has the patience of a saint.

So, now that we know this, we have to think of a scenario of when and why you'd ever push LoveSick!Athlete over the edge; what would've you said to make him that angry?

It'd probably be something along the lines of questioning either his loyalty to you, or the caliber of his love for you, and how much he provides for you. You'd have to take away his purpose and smush it; dragging it through the mud, and spit on it. Now, that would get him going. There's one thing that LoveSick!Athlete hates, and that's someone who's ungrateful.

He's done so, so, so much for you, can't you see?

It would've started from an argument, likely you bringing up how he seems too receptive to other girls on campus, too willing with their antics. And that just didn't sit right with you. You didn't like your boyfriend, in this scenario, hanging around with girls, who you thought to be very, very, very pretty.

Of course, LoveSick!Athlete thought this to be insane, something he hadn't even thought about. Ever since the two of you started dating, he hasn't even looked at a girl, let alone thought about sleeping with one. How could you even say that?

In this scenario, I can see LoveSick!Athlete being petty and becoming flirtatious with other girls just to show you that his behavior before was nothing. If you thought that was flirtatious, then wait until you see him now. Instead of pushing the girls to the side, excusing himself before they could corner him, now he's looking the girls up and down, giving them a little smirk, leading them on. He might even set a hand on their lower back, leading them through the party, maybe even kiss her on the cheek, if you've been rather ungrateful.

Now, LoveSick!Athlete isn't enjoying this, after all, you're his one and only, but you have to learn your lesson. You have to understand that he's been so kind to you, so appreciative of your relationship. Don't you understand? He doesn't like doing this; it's a punishment.

You, seeing all of this, would obviously be distraught. You'd feel so, so, so betrayed. Where had your sweet, loving boyfriend gone? Why was he replaced by some sleazy womanizer? You'd be both sad and pissed the fuck off. You wanted him to tone it down, not multiply it by one hundred!

No matter what, even if you're angry as hell, you'll end up in LoveSick!Athlete's arms, hugging him tightly. He'll find a way to sweet talk you back to him, telling you that you're his only one, that he's just showing you that it wasn't that bad. He'll explain his public image to you; he's gotta stay on top of it, surely you understand, babe? I have no interest in those girls. They're just thinking with what's between their legs. You have to trust me.

Now, that's if you question his loyalty to you, but if you question how much he loves you (which is kinda of related to loyalty, but just ignore that), then you'll face a different type of manipulation. Mans got a whole tool belt on him (I've been waiting to say that lol).

Questioning how much he values you, your affections, your words, and your presence, will lead to love bombing. And for those who don't know what love bombing is, it's a manipulation tactic where the manipulator will use excessive affection to make their victim depend on them for love, believing that they'll only be valued by the manipulator.

LoveSick!Athlete is very familiar with this form of love since he grew up with a mama who has bipolar disorder-

(To be clear, I don't mean to say that everyone with bipolar disorder is a mass manipulator or anything. In certain people, especially mamas who are juggling an abusive marriage, two children, and postpartum all at once, it can be a lot and lead to bad behaviors. Just wanted to say that as someone who deals with a mama with bipolar disorder)

-Now, as a young adult, he's grown the habit of absentmindedly using manipulation tactics to get what he wants. It'll all start with a small argument, you'll question his lover for you, if he even cares for you. After all, he seems to be more attentive over his image than you, his girlfriend!

And all LoveSick!Athlete will do is smile at you, saying that he understands your concerns and that he'll do better. Obviously, this will confuse the hell out of you. Who responds to an argument like that? Certainly, no man you've ever dated!

Even if he doesn't realize it, he'll begin to show excessive amounts of affection after the argument. He'll constantly be giving you hugs, clinging onto you like a leach, and spamming you with messages/calls. You'll grow accustomed to the overbearing affections, allowing it to become a part of your daily life, but the moment you're used to it, he'll rip it away.

Suddenly, it's as if you don't even exist, like you're just another girl to him. Of course, he'll acknowledge you as his girlfriend, but he's no longer touching you. He's not hugging you, having an arm wrapped around you waist, nor is he holding your hand in public. It's as if he's embarrassed about your relationship. You'll begin to think that LoveSick!Athlete is cheating on you (he's not).

And this sudden behavior change is so delayed that you won't even relate it to your argument, thinking that it was a whole separate issue. And LoveSick!Athlete won't realize it either; it's just subconcious decision he made without knowing.

At some point, you'll come crawling back to him, desperately wanting the affection you used to be overwhelmed by. Of course, LoveSick!Athlete will be overjoyed, welcoming your upfront behavior with open arms. To you, this is like whiplash. Just a few days ago, he was off-putting, giving you the cold shoulder, and now he's leaning on you as if he can't stand himself, what the hell is going on?

And that's when you realize that you're not dating the most... stable individual...

Not to mention what he let his teammates do to you... but that's for another ask, yeah?

[lotties-ashwagandha]

BEING STUCK IN A SNOWSTORM WITH THE YELLOWJACKETS (headcanons)

bc currently my town is being decimated by a winter storm and it gave me inspiration . also we aren’t talking about how half of yellowjackets is set in the snow it’s when they’re teens smh this is adult timeline

SHAUNA

gets grumpy bc one of you is going to have to shovel the driveway and it’ll probably end up being her

apart from that she loves the snow

she’ll take a bunch of pictures of it to post on facebook in an unhinged uncaptioned photo dump

she’ll make the two of you an unhealthy amount of coffee or hot chocolate or tea whatever you’re feeling , you’ll develop an addiction to it with the amount she’s giving you . but “you have to stay warm” in her opinion , and also it makes her feel all aesthetic pinterest girl

she’s one of those people that has a collection of heavy knitted blankets that are worth like $500 each and she puts them to use ‼️‼️‼️ you’ll be BURIED in comfort she will make sure of that . no one gets cold in this house

also when it starts to really hardcore snow she’ll just go outside and stand there and watch. you know that tiktok of the woman making fun of american southerners who get a tornado warning and go stand out to see the tornado? that’s shauna with the blizzard

LOTTIE

you have to literally beg her not to go fucking “give the wilderness blood” bc girl sees one snowflake and is like omg il veut du sang

that being said lottie matthews is at heart a rich girl with 10,000 pinterest followers and when it snows , sunshine honey wellness center becomes a place of AESTHETICS

im talking the two of you will be laying in bed with heavy blankets and a record will be playing and lottie will have 3 or 4 candles lit

the two of you reading classic novels in bed <3

she sees heavy winters as very spiritual. a time to recharge and reset and be calm. she’ll coerce you into doing a couple of guided meditations with her that are themed on spiritual guidance and recharge

when you lose power tho she has a complete meltdown. not that she uses electronics much but when she realizes the stove doesn’t work and that the blender for her smoothies won’t work things go downhill so fast. you have to hook up the generator just so she can make a smoothie for her anxiety that came because she couldn’t make smoothies. girl is a mess

TAISSA

you’ll be taking care of her all week because she gets sick every winter without fail

doesn’t matter if she got a flu shot, covid shot, you name it . first snowflake comes down and she’s off to the doctor

but it gives you an excuse to sort of hold her hostage at home and cuddle with her and watch movies you’ve been meaning to watch together but haven’t since she’s been busy with the campaign

she actually gets kind of excited in the snow storm if the power goes out because it feels like camping. she will get frustrated with no TV tho , but if sammy’s there with the two of you she’ll go all non deadbeat dad for once and the two of you will make a blanket fort with him and all the other shit kids like to do

will try to order you guys a pizza and then get confused when the pizza place doesn’t answer. you have to remind her there’s no power before she goes on a tangent about stores having weird hours and how everyone’s so lazy

VAN

will NOT go out to shovel snow. you’re going to be doing that thanks she’ll be re sorting her movie collection to find some good blizzard themed movies for the two of you to watch

she’ll also go all autistic about the history of snowstorms and you’ll come back in from shoveling and get a lecture about some random snowstorm in some country you’ve never heard of from fucking 500 BC.

her house has a shitty heating system so you spend most of the time under blankets together but that’s not such a bad thing <3

she makes you watch her favorite winter movies, and if the power goes out and you can’t then the two of you will spend the night playing drinking games or playing cards or something like that

she won’t outright tell you to wear her jackets but she loves when you get cold and grab one of her sweatshirts/jackets to wear. she also does that 2000s movie boyfriend thing where you get cold and she’s like oh here take my jacket and while it’s so cliche it’s cute when she does it

NATALIE

tbh girl probably learned abt the snow storm bc she woke up covered in snow somewhere and was like oh it’s snowing huh

but anyway

she’d probably spend the duration of the snowstorm at your place because can you imagine staying out a blizzard in a motel??? no thanks

she’ll raid your booze and you’ll get drunk together by the fire. she might have some weed on her too if you’re lucky

you’ll listen to music together, she has better taste but she will still listen to your music, you take turns playing each other different songs you think remind you of each other

she WILL throw balls of ice at any kids that walk by. you will be having a lot of angry parents at your door the next day.

MISTY

is lowkey a prepper so she doesn’t care that much if there’s a snow storm. if the power goes out she can think of 50 different ways to get it back on

she loves to watch it snow out the window and show caligula

she’s definitely the one you want to spend a blizzard with

she absolutely will not let you leave the house until you’re wearing 20 layers of clothes

she’ll try to write poetry about the snow storm but it just sounds like a daunting ancient prophecy. when she shows you tho you obviously say it’s amazing and you love it because she worked so hard on it

[nnnyxie]

I‘m bAaAaAck

One other thing I’m an absolute sucker for is comfort🫶🏻 So imagine jealous!izu x reader

jealous!Itzu would probably just become quiet and insecure and withdraw himself from reader if it‘s extremely bad…in the begingen he‘d step closer…hold reader just a little bit tighter

Poor boy gets so nervous he just starts spewing random facts about reader to prove he knows reader better, like

„Did you know when you smile you have a dimple on your right but not on your left cheek?? And your nose crinkles right there *he taps readers face* and and your eyes squint and your cheeks go all rosy and-„

poor baby is just a stammering mess :(

reassure and love him :c

#𖢥 izuku anon

JEALOUS IZU!!!!!!!!!!

thank you izuku anon omg

i feel like izuku isn’t the type to get jealous easily, yk??

not unless he feels ‘threatened’

he’s not the type to like,,, ‘puff out his chest’ and ‘mean mug’ the person but— he is the type to hold some part of you. maybe your hip?? or put an arm around your shoulder??

though— there are times where he gets a bit insecure,,, so he just leaves.

he only stops when you say his name and ask where he’s going. he mumbles an ‘i don’t feel good’ and you cut the conversation with the person.

“you didn’t have to do that. you can go keep talking to them.” “no, you said you didn’t feel good so we’re going home.”

he sighed, now he felt guilty. he let his jealousy get in the way of your conversation.

when you reach home, he airs it all out. he tells you that he felt jealous, and that he feels guilty for making you leave when you were having fun. he told you how he felt like he was being a bad boyfriend for acting and feeling like that.

you tell him you were glad he told you the truth instead of keeping that lie and that you’re happy he’s able to communicate this all to you!! (we are all abt communication here folks!!)

“jealousy is a natural emotion and it’s something everyone experiences. i’m glad you told me. do you want to assess the situation?” he gives a nod. “okay, could you tell me why you felt jealous?” “i guess i just thought that they were… you know… more interesting and… i dunno, better? than me… and i got insecure about it…” you gave an understanding nod, “it’s okay that you felt that way izuku, your feelings are valid. but, please, never think that for one second, there’s someone better or more interesting than you.”

you laughed a little, “after all, you had to eat hair to get to where you’re at. i believe that’s the most interesting thing i’ve heard in my life.”

the talk went on for a bit, you discussed the times you had gotten jealous as well, and discussed any insecurities you both felt.

it was a very relieving and reassuring conversation, on both ends.

but yk he’s still gonna feel jealous from time to time.

again, it’s a natural emotion! even animals get jealous!!! especially house pets, they’re very territorial.

with that reassuring talk, he’s doesn’t really withdraw anymore. instead, he makes direct eye contact with the person. not necessarily trying to intimidate them but,,, more so to show he’s very aware of the conversation and what the person is trying to get at.

the only times he’ll ever get like,,, overly(???) jealous is when the person brings up old stuff about you that doesn’t really… align(??) with you anymore. to him, it feels like they’re tryna one up him. ykwim???

so then he’ll go on a cute tangent about how you don’t really like that kind of stuff anymore or you aren’t like that anymore. he’ll go on a rant about your new favorite things/activities and how you are now.

he’ll wave his hands around to emphasize his points, and when he’s trying to remember a thing you told him about a show/book/movie— he’ll begin to mumble into his hand. it’s very sweet but, you’ll have to stop him because, the person just ends up excusing themself— they were kinda off-put by him.

but, it’s okay!! that’s just another reason to love him!!

IZUKU <3

[androdragynous]

tell me something about your art. fucking love the recent sharp angles.

thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble I love you. kiss

this is going to be a long post but I think it's important so I'm leaving it as a normal post and not a read more

I wrote more words and changed my mind because I got distracted a bunch of times by talking to myself. Enjoy

my own works in general have always been like. The Way By Which I Interact With The World which I think is a pretty common artist experience. my fan art tended to focus on my own characters in those settings rather than on the existing characters because of that, to my younger self's chagrin at times (the desire to Appeal To Fandom was much stronger in my younger years, which I think is also pretty typical). so there was always that lens of, like, these characters aren't me, but they could have been, in some way, or at least when viewed at certain angles. first guy is dealing with the same shit, second guy is doing some gender stuff baby me won't unpack for another five years, you get the idea.

and then the whole disability thing ramped up a few notches and everything went to shit, which is to say, for a really long time there I couldn't so much as look at art without pain, let alone long enough to create it. I did not have the tools to accomodate that disability or the finances to get them, and so for a really long time I was basically cut off from... what honestly felt like my ability to connect with people.

this sucked very badly in many ways. it's still not back to where it was before things got worse, but I'm happy with where it's been recently. I don't know how much of that is connected to getting a blood transfusion and the affiliated correction to my quantity of blood. I don't know how much of it is just pure desperation to reconnect with a world that I feel estranged from. We will come back to this point because I have a different tangent first:

I really don't like vent art. I don't like making it, I don't like posting it, and I don't like seeing it. I understand why people make it - I understand why I do - but there's a very harsh rawness to it that feels inappropriate as a viewer. It's voyeuristic; it's a look into something incredibly deeply personal hurt and an equally deep and genuine desire to have that hurt seen, validified, comforted.

I do not think vent art is bad to create or share, to be clear. The fact it makes me uncomfortable does not illegitimize it. Could honestly strengthen its reason for existing, to be quite honest.

The line blurs with disability, though, and this is where we come back to the original tangent, because to talk about disability that cannot be cured will innately be seen as venting. It's basically inevitable, in my experience. You're supposed to want to get better. You're supposed to hate existing like this. So if you mention it, to people who haven't either been in the same boat or who haven't taken the time to work through their own baggage about it, it's innately a vent. It's innately a hurt that you're burdening them with, a hurt that you want recognized and helped. My family members have been particularly bad about this viewpoint, but so have friends and medical professionals. So have strangers. I find it akin to arguments against gay public displays of affection; two men holding hands is sexual, using a mobility aid is pitiable. You get me? There's that innate sense that you, as the person watching a disabled person be disabled, should be feeling something about it, and if it's not inspiration porn, obviously you're meant to be sad. If it wasn't clear, this is the description of a train of thought that I believe is entirely incorrect.

Anyways. So disability art ends up grouped as vent art if you talk about it sucking at all, even if the suck is about the barriers presented by society and not the disability itself. I can, of course, only speak for my own experience, which is what this post is about, so my situation is very much barriers-focused.

People really, really aren't good at dealing with the discomfort part, what I detailed as the emotions I feel around vent art. People don't know what to do when you don't want help, or their help doesn't help (for whatever reason), or basically in any situation where you can't actually fix things, which is a lot of Being Disabled. It's hard to sit with that discomfort, especially when it's about a person's vulnerability. People want to help others, generally, in my experience, and it's difficult to not be able to when it's someone you care about.

Which all ties back into the voyeurism; to be visibly disabled is to be a spectacle. This has also been pretty inevitable, in my experience. Being in a wheelchair draws attention. Using a cane draws attention. Wearing an eye patch draws attention. So on and so forth. Sometimes this is great - people will offer their chairs to me sometimes if I'm using my cane, for example, which I appreciate - and sometimes it is less great.

This ties in, for me, with the part people REALLY don't like talking about, which is sex and sexuality. How do you date when you can't go out to many places? How do you get to know someone when you live with others and can't invite them over? How do you look sexy when you feel and kind of look like a corpse? These are all questions I'd love to know the answers to, because I'm shit out of luck on figuring it out so far, and that's not even touching on the actual sex, because I don't want to get this post filtered if I can help it. There's a balance, right, of being visible on purpose by flirting, dressing up, going out, making an impact, that is both directly overlapping with and directly opposed to the inevitable visibility of visible disability. They juxtapose magnificently, in a kind of sun and moon during an eclipse sort of way, you get me? You have to lean into it. You have to make yourself comfortable in that visibility because it's inevitable, and you are going to inevitably be viewed as a spectacle because you've leaned into it, and you're never going to be viewed as sexual because nobody will ever distinguish that there are two kinds of visibility being done, here.

And THAT I think is where my art is at right now, trying to convey that overlap. I do not think I have been subtle about it - it's loud colors, sharp lines, layers of vandalism over the original draft, a kind of intentional obscuration that implies many others were drawn to leave their mark there. You know? But because of What It Is, I do think it causes discomfort in the overlap. It's supposed to. It's inevitable that it would. I think being disabled is overtly sexual in the way being gay is overtly sexual in the way being trans is overtly sexual, in that none of them are but none of them aren't, either, in the right contexts or the wrong ones. People are going to see you exist and come to their own conclusions about how wrong you must feel in existing, and they will be made uncomfortable by that perception, and they will want to fix you. You have to accept that or you have to be uncomfortable right back. There's not really a third option that keeps you alive. This is all connected to the art, because the art is also inherently sexual, for approximately the same reasons.

So the tldr is "op is it weird if I think this is hot" is both the intended response and yes, it is weird, and you have to sit with the fact that both of those are true and you have to be normal about it for the rest of your life forever, and also you should take that knowledge and get weirder about it. It's a complex system. I also may have described none of it. Good luck.

[fictionyoubelieve]

This is a VERY long text post.

thanks @squareallworthy for giving me the excuse to make a House of Leaves post!! I'm going to try to make this accessible to everyone, so:

If you haven't read HoL, feel free to bail if this goes too deep or stops making sense. Personally, I don't think you need to worry about spoilers because it's not that kind of book (it usually spoils itself anyway), but if you'd rather go in knowing nothing, slam that J key now.

If you have read HoL, feel free to skip ahead to the theories. You're presumably good at tuning out extraneous information by now. :)

What is House of Leaves?

House of Leaves is a novel by Mark Z. Danielewski (MZD), published in 2000. It's an example of postmodern literature, which according to Wikipedia is:

a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues.

...all of which is House of Leaves to a T. Rather than capturing a single narrative, the book's text layers multiple stories, which refer to both each other and to external (e.g. mythical) stories, and which often reference the fact that they are stories in a book.

You can find it archived here, though unfortunately that scan/OCR seems to mangle the text in ways that will be hard to distinguish from everything else it's got going on.

Overall, I think the book is really cool and interesting, but maybe not worth sinking a ton of time and effort into. It's not a fun or easy read. Definitely worth checking out, but don't be afraid to skim or abandon it if it's not your thing.

The layers of HoL

The innermost layer is The Navidson Record (TNR), which is ostensibly a documentary but effectively a found-footage horror film. It's a series of films about the Navidson family--an unmarried couple with two young children--moving into a house in Virginia, and discovering that something is very strange about it. First subtly and then dramatically, the interior of the house grows and changes, in defiance of physical laws. One closet in particular becomes an eerie and seemingly infinite labyrinth, which they explore at their peril. (Don't worry--the overall novel is creepy and sometimes upsetting, but not outright scary. I'm a weenie about horror and had no trouble.)

The next layer is a pseudo-academic text about TNR by a blind man named Zampanò. He recounts the events of TNR, but also meanders on long tangents about other stories or academic works.

The third layer is the primary one we experience as the book House of Leaves. A character calling himself Johnny Truant discovered the disorganized and incomplete manuscript in Zampanò's apartment after that man's death, and he has assembled and edited it into this book, as well as added an introduction and lengthy footnotes relating stories from his own life. Johnny often contradicts himself, freely admits to making things up or changing the previous layers to suit his whims, and appears to mentally deteriorate over the course of the novel. He also says he can't find any evidence that TNR actually exists.

There's a thin layer added by "the Editors," who supposedly received the text from Johnny, and published it while in contact with him. They add some appendices and minor notes throughout, mainly to provide English translations for certain excerpts or to state that something the text refers to is missing. They include a purported still frame from TNR in the appendices, with no comment from Johnny.

All of the above, of course, was actually written by MZD, the real-life author of HoL. He self-published the earliest version of HoL to the internet, before publishing the full version as a physical book. He also produced some teleplays related to the work, and a collection of letters from Johnny's mother. The letters were originally published separately, but now most of them are included as an appendix to HoL. MZD's sister, the singer-songwriter Poe, also released the album Haunted around the same time as HoL, and it serves as a companion or counterpart to the novel.

The final layer is us, the readers. We interact with the text and also with each other, like I'm doing with this post. MZD's website still hosts forum threads from the time the book came out, where readers deciphered and theorized about it together. This is an important and intentional aspect of the work, as I'll explain in more detail later (see "The Meta").

Sub-stories

There are a few smaller anecdotes within the text which almost serve as their own layers, but don't fit neatly into the hierarchy above:

The Chiclitz play The Minotaur, on p110-111

The story of The Atrocity, on p297-300

The story of the changeling/cyanotic child, on p518-521 and referenced obliquely on p48-49

Themes and motifs

A non-exhaustive and highly subjective list, ordered very roughly from the most to least prominent:

The Greek myth of the Minotaur and the labyrinth

House

Madness, memory, and meaning

The sea and the sky

Darkness, absence, emptiness

Yggdrasil, the world tree; trees, leaves, and paper; the Cumaean Sibyl

Fidelity (in multiple senses of the word)

Colors, especially red/blue or red/blue/green/yellow

Death and rebirth, procreation, the womb

The biblical myth of Abraham and his sons

The biblical myth of Jonah and the Whale

The eye, cameras

Head injuries, holes in the head

Families, especially parents and twins/pairs of siblings

Note that there are connections and overlap between these themes. I'm going to argue that the first few in particular are strongly intertwined.

The Meta

Most of the fan theories I've seen are focused on the usual concerns: "what do you think really happened in the story? what does this mean for the characters?" That's reasonable, but since HoL is extremely aware of itself and its readers, I think it's also worth asking what the text expects from us or what it's trying to communicate directly, if anything. IMO those questions are easier to answer than nailing down the events of the story, and that's on purpose.

While rightfully regarded as a challenging and puzzling book, HoL actually is pretty blatant about helping us "solve" most of it. Heck, it color-codes its major motifs. There were many instances where I was like "oh, this reminds me of that other part from a ways back" and then the footnote would tell me to refer back to that part I was remembering. When there's an encoded message, like the Morse code or first-letter sections, Johnny typically makes a comment providing the key to decoding it--and in some cases also tells us the "hidden message," like in his conversation with the band near the end of the book.

The book straight-up tells you how to read it. On p115, just before it starts getting really wild with the typesetting in a section structured like a maze, Zampanò's text gives this advice for navigating mazes:

In order to escape then, we have to remember we cannot ponder all paths but must decode only those necessary to get out. We must be quick and anything but exhaustive.

The next footnote (139) also warns: "[in a maze,] the faster you go, the worse you are entangled" and "If one reads too quickly or too slowly, one understands nothing."

And of course, the book provides an extensive (albeit somewhat playful) index, so that if you have a theory about a certain word or concept, you can easily go back and look up examples. I believe the page numbers also match up across editions, so that different readers can more easily confer with one another.

All of this strongly suggests that MZD very much wants us to view the text as a puzzle to decode with other readers. He makes sure we know there are patterns and hidden messages to be found.

The madness of analysis

Like I mentioned above, Johnny's mental state deteriorates over the course of the book. A lot of his story also has to do with his late mother, who was committed to a psychiatric institution when he was young, and who shows similar quirks and inconsistencies in her letters to Johnny. The reader is quickly clued in that Johnny is an unreliable narrator, and by the end of the book it's nearly impossible to untangle what "really happened" in Johnny's narrative because there are so many revisions and contradictions.

Zampanò's writing may seem like a sharp contrast to Johnny's, since it is stuffy and academic rather than casual and coarse. But the two strongly parallel each other, as do the two characters. They both ramble and are prone to lengthy tangents based on tenuous connections; Zampanò seems to make things up and messily add and redact just as Johnny does with his stories. Both seem haunted by and obsessed with the manuscript in similar ways.

Other HoL readers have called it a satire of academic texts, but I'd go a step farther and say it's drawing a parallel between (perhaps overzealous) academic analysis and psychosis: seeing patterns or connections where there are none, jumping to wildly different and sometimes bizarre conclusions from the same experience, getting lost in theories with little connection to reality, communicating in ways that are hard for others to understand.

It even encourages its readers to engage in the same behavior, by hinting at many different patterns and connections yet making them inconsistent, uncertain, and contradictory. It goads you into trying to analyze it, but you'll just end up like Charlie in the Pepe Silvia meme:

Derrida's Deconstruction

Wait, so does that mean it's futile to try to analyze House of Leaves? Well, sort of, and the book tells us this! Remember that part (see "The Meta") that was giving us advice on how to navigate a maze, i.e. the book? On that same page, p115, it also says:

Unfortunately, the anfractuosity of some labyrinths may actually prohibit a permanent solution. More confounding still, its complexity may exceed the imagination of even the designer. Therefore anyone lost within must recognize that no one, not even a god or an Other, comprehends the entire maze and so therefore can never offer a definitive answer. [In the Navidson house,] any way out remains singular and applicable only to those on that path at that particular time. All solutions then are necessarily personal.

This sounds a lot like Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism, which isn't a coincidence given that Derrida was just quoted on p112. From the Wikipedia page on Deconstruction:

Derrida's deconstruction strategy is also used by postmodernists to locate meaning in a text rather than discover meaning due to the position that it has multiple readings.

It's probably also relevant that most of the book is about Johnny interpreting a text after the literal death of the author.

Footnote 140, which comes after "even the designer" in the above excerpt, includes this, in red and crossed out:

Or in other words: shy from the sky. No answer lies there. It cannot care, especially for what it no longer knows. Treat that place as a thing unto itself, independent of all else, and confront it on those terms. You alone must find the way. No one else can help you. Every way is different. And if you do lose yourself at least take solace in the absolute certainty that you will perish.

This ties the more general advice on interpreting texts back to the specific narratives in HoL. Before we dig into that more in the next section, note that Derrida was also a fan of putting things "under erasure" by crossing them out. Hmm...

Madness and the Minotaur

In multiple ways, the Minotaur is associated with absence. Most obviously, text mentioning it by name usually only appears in red and crossed out--Johnny says these are sections he recovered after Zampanò tried to erase them. The Minotaur also seems to be absent within TNR; the labyrinth of the House suggests its presence through growls and slash marks, but a beast never actually appears, and instead, things within the labyrinth seem to gradually fade out of existence. In myth, of course, the Minotaur was removed from society by hiding it in the labyrinth, and was eventually slain by Theseus, obliterating it forever.

On p335 we get footnote 295, again in red and crossed out:

At the heart of the labyrinth waits the Mi[ ]taur and like the Minotaur of myth its name is [ ] Chiclitz treated the maze as trope for psychic concealment, its excavation resulting in (tragic[ ] reconciliation. But if in Chiclitz's eye the Minotaur was a son imprisoned by a father's shame, is there then to Navidson's eye an equivalent misprision of the [ ] in the depths of that place? And for that matter does there exist a chance to reconcile the not known with the desire for its antithesis?

(The footnote continues, making the shape of a sword with large gaps in the blade.) Empty brackets in this section supposedly denote burnt holes in the manuscript, but since they are consistently used to make puns, it's clear that at least one of the authors is being intentional. We could read the gaps here as literal: the name of the Minotaur is [nothing], the labyrinth conceals the treacherous [nothing] in its depths.

The chapter that footnote appears in (Chapter 13), which is titled The Minotaur, begins with a quote that is translated as so (p313):

a slow shadow spreads across the prairie, but still, the act of naming it, of guessing what is its nature and its circumstances creates a fiction, not a living creature, not one of those who wander on the earth.

In this poem, El otro tigre, Borges compares a tiger in a poem, made of words and symbols, to "the other tiger" of flesh and blood, out in the wild. No matter how he tries to capture it with writing, the real tiger will always elude him.

So the Minotaur is connected to absence, nothingness, emptiness, and so on. This chapter draws additional associations with death and madness, which of course are also forms of loss or absence--both of self, and of meaning.

Is Johnny the Minotaur?

Johnny is strongly associated with the Minotaur, but his exact relationship with it is more complex than simply "Johnny is the Minotaur" or "the Minotaur represents Johnny". He is stalked by the creature in various forms, and he has nightmares or delusions in which he is the Minotaur. Raymond, the abusive foster dad, calls Johnny "beast". I think it's most accurate to say he is scared of the Minotaur and scared of being or becoming it, especially if we're interpreting it as nothingness or madness. And we know how his story ends.

There's another association I make with Johnny which isn't as explicit and doesn't seem to have been discussed as much, and that is to Icarus. There are hints of this early on--his father is a pilot, he's strongly associated with the sea and drowning, his fantasy when he meets Thumper sounds like flying--but it's brought home in the story about getting the scars on his arms, on page 505, and all the allusions and imagery. He burns and then drowns.

Zampanò, likewise, is like Daedalus. He built the labyrinth that is the manuscript, and which traps both Johnny and himself. There are some suggestions in the text that he and Johnny are like figurative (or in some theories, literal) father and son. But Daedalus, unlike Perilaus, was able to free himself from his own invention, and it seems like this wasn't true for Zampanò.

(This may be too much of a pet theory; I'm not sure it's as well-supported as the other parts of this post. But there's something there, I'm pretty sure.)

House

A house is a structure that defines empty space and imbues it with meaning by separating it from the greater nothingness. The novel is likewise a structure that gives form to a particular nothingness (fiction) by defining it and separating it from the greater nothingness (everything else that has not happened).

As readers, we follow a narrative "thread" through the text, but encounter only the Minotaur (nothingness) within. Just as the Minotaur in Chiclitz's play was portrayed sympathetically, the absence does not need to be bad or monstrous--it's just nothing. As we see in the key shape of footnote 123 (p110-111), the Minotaur is the key, but there is no Minotaur. There is no key. The key is crossed out (both the text comprising it, and the key itself, by being split across two pages). Perhaps we "slay" this Minotaur by imposing our own meaning? Would that be noble or tragic?

The house itself is what matters, but the house is blue, and blue means open to interpretation--what a blue screen meant in the 90s, before digital film became the norm. Everyone projects their own thoughts and fears onto the house, and it reflects those back at them. It's meaning and memory; you get out of it exactly what you bring. Blue is shifting and unfathomable like the sea. You could lose yourself in its depths.

Though "out of the blue" specifically seems more like a deus ex machina, because I'm pretty sure the blue of the sky is associated with God, eyes/cameras/observers, and us (MZD and the readers), though I don't have examples prepared to back that up. "Shy from the sky" (see "Derrida's Deconstruction") could then be taken as "don't look to the author for answers".

But if there is any meaning to be found, it also can't be found looking only within the text and the world it defines, without considering those final layers. The stories all intertwine and even loop back on themselves, as when Navidson and Johnny both encounter their own book. Using the HoL to light your way through HoL will lead nowhere. You'll need help from the outside.

So?

Okay, okay, okay. So what?

"SO?" asks the text (p103), and maybe you do, too. Sew buttons, says the Morse code of footnote 119 on the same page. Dismissing the question? Or suggesting you work hard to secure your buttons with a whole spool of thread, as Johnny does near the end (p514) to avoid losing them to the labyrinth?

Shortly after, on p516, Johnny writes this:

Wasn’t darkness nothingness? Wasn’t that Navidson's discovery? Wasn’t it Zampanò's? Or have I misconstrued it all? Missed the obvious, something still undiscovered waiting there deep within me, outside of me, powerful and extremely patient, unafraid to remain, even though it is and always has been free.

This (and some of his other writing late in the story) reads to me like possibly an acknowledgement or dim awareness of reality outside the book, but I'm not sure. I'm just going to point to it, and also the part a little further down the page, where he describes a sunset as "Reds finally marrying blues."

How do we reconcile red and blue? Is it about reconciling ourselves to the lack of true meaning, as in Nihilism? Or choosing to focus only on the "real", refusing to lose ourselves in the endless cycle of interpretation?

I don't know. There's probably more that can be built on this foundation, but this is as far as I've gotten. If you actually got through all that, wow, thanks for reading, and by all means let me know your own thoughts.

[autismvault]

hii!!

could you write something with gwen, courtney or heather (i cant PICK 😵) with a short and shy reader 🤭

i love your writing so far hehe!!

thanks a bunch 🫶

Gwen, Courtney, and Heather with a Shy Reader

YES ABSOLUTELY! i was jumping around in excitement when i got this request. i love the three of them a ton. thank you so much! :)

Gwen

⁃ she’s naturally drawn to people more on the shy side so you two are around each other more often than not.

⁃ despite that, gwen is a very private person. after spending time with each other you realize that you don’t know too much about her aside from superficial things she’ll tell everyone.

⁃ it takes a bit for her to open up to you, but when she does it’s totally worth it! gwen is a huge netf and is extremely passionate about the things she enjoys.

⁃ while a lot of her interests are more on the niche and obscure side, you learn that gwen secretly loves a lot of things that completely contradict her tough exterior.

⁃ “you have to promise not to tell a single soul, can you do that for me?” gwen holds out her pinky towards you, looking more vulnerable than you’ve ever seen her before.

⁃ “i have a secret collection of barbies. i’ve been collecting them since i was a kid.” she looks into your eyes as if she’d just admitted to a murder.

⁃ giggling, you give her shoulder a light punch. “just wait until i tell heather.”

⁃ gwen gives you a relieved look, followed with an eye roll as she goes into detail about her huge variety of interests which range from horror movies to kids cartoons.

⁃ writes about you in her diary. there are pages and pages just about you. she’d never tell you though.

⁃ loves to match outfits. she has a huge collection of platforms that she’ll share with you as well.

⁃ gwen isn’t the most affectionate person, but she loves holding your hand! she’d be perfectly content sitting in silence, holding your hand.

Courtney

⁃ arguably one of the hardest people to get to know. courtney hasn’t had many friends in the past so it takes her a while to even admit she wants to be seen with someone else, especially romantically.

⁃ little by little, you get to know each other. courtney is the queen of going on long tangents about whatever’s on her mind, which is something you would never have expected.

⁃ when you start dating, she goes out of her way to prove herself to you. despite all of your protests, courtney wants to show you that she’s worthy of you. even though she’ll deny it, she needs a bit of reassurance that she is enough for you.

⁃ very physical with you. courtney isn’t the best with words so she’d prefer to hold onto you whenever she gets the chance.

⁃ loves sharing her clothes with you. the both of you pretty much share a wardrobe when you’re officially dating. to your surprise, most of her clothes are pink and purple.

⁃ always encouraging you to do whatever you set your mind to. especially if you tend to be more passive, courtney will always help you achieve your goals if you let her.

⁃ practices makeup on you if you’re comfortable with it! she never cared too much about cosmetics because she’s always been extremely focused on academics.

⁃ if you know how to do makeup, even better! she’ll ask you to do hers all the time.

⁃ loves planning dates. she’d prefer fancy restaurants but if that isn’t your thing, she loves picnics as well.

⁃ will 100% order your food for you if that makes you nervous.

⁃ “Excuse me! They asked for no pickles.” (get it…)

⁃ sends your food back if it’s not steaming when it comes out of the kitchen.

Heather

⁃ socially inept to an extent. much like courtney, heather has never had a true friend before so making strong connections with anyone can be very hard for her.

⁃ at first, she doesn’t really notice you. heather has a habit of only interacting with people she doesn’t like just to rile them up.

⁃ it isn’t until you find her alone for the first time. she’s writing in a journal with a purple pen that has a cat on the end of it.

⁃ “I like your pen.”

⁃ there’s a long pause of silence before she gives you a quick “Thanks” and goes back to writing.

⁃ just as you start to walk away, heather starts talking again, making you jump a little bit.

⁃ “i don’t know how gwen does this,” she lets out an almost exaggerated sigh. “who just writes about their life for fun? i don’t think there’s anything appealing in writing about your feelings. i thought i might give it a try but this is seriously driving me crazy.”

⁃ glancing down at the paper, she’s written sentences that are completely unreadable. when heather realizes she told you too much, she reluctantly pats the spot on the ground next to her.

⁃ isnt the best communicator at first. heather has never had her feelings genuinely validated by anyone in the past, so it’s really hard for her to talk about how she feels.

⁃ as time goes on, she gets way more comfortable with you. she never expected it, but she feels comfortable telling you about almost everything she’s ever thought of. she’ll tell you about some girls at school she used to hate, she’ll rant about her family, and tell you every bit of gossip she knows.

⁃ heather loves to do hair. whether it be dying, braiding, styling, installing wigs, you name it. she’s even knowledgeable about natural styles, but she’s always open to learn more if you’re willing to teach her!

⁃ secretly a huge dork. she loves old romcom movies and goes on huge tangents on who she thinks the better love interests are.

⁃ is sooo loyal. even if you’re in the wrong she will take your side (within reason) because she knows how it feels to have everyone against you.

i may or may not have gotten a little carried away writing this… i’m wayy better at writing for characters that i really really like. i hope you dont mind i left out being short, i didnt even realize until i was finished!

[fluffypotatey]

hey u know how mk only calls wukong by his title and never his name? and how wukong rarely if ever calls mk "mk," instead usually opting for "kid" or "bud?" and how both of those things are kind of representative of their relationship and how both of them care about each other a lot but they aren't honest with each other or with themselves about the other and how neither of them really wants to confront the fact that the other is a person with flaws and struggles? haha yeah <- normal <- lying about being normal

be glad i have been released from class now :) [narrator: she would later find herself late to her 2nd class while writing this]

so happy you have given me this excuse to talk about— i mean, yes! it is super normal to be thinking about this all the time and be comsumed by it and let me explain why:

i will start by going off on a tangent about names and labels and their narratove importance in stories because i love them and have a problem. (idk the word count here. viewer discretion is advized. i just wrote. it is long. beware)

In the Case of Names: a Sunburst Duo Essay

by Yours Truly <3

In the Case of Names in LMK: a Summary (please for the love of pete be a summary)

Ok, so, let me give y'all a quick overview (i failed. this is you're only warning. i failed, and this became a monster of an essay. run while you still have the chan—) of names in the literary sense. When studying novels and books and shit in your literature classes, you will notice that your professor might discuss the importance or ill-importance of characters' names in the story. For example: in the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, the protagonist's name is fucking Guy Montage to illustrate how he's just some fucking guy, a John Doe, a man stuck and complicit in the dystopian world.

You get me? No? Sorry, you want more examples? Fine then :3 let me introduce you to a story called Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is an allegorical novel that criticized the utilitarian movement going on in dear old Great Britain in the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution. Some fun characters were Johannes Bounderby and Thomas Gradgrind. Tell me, what images did you imagine when I gave you those names? Did you think of a bouncing ball for Bounderby? Were you imagining something square or maybe a mechanical grinder for Mr. Gradgrind?

Remarkable isn't it. The way choosing a name has on a reader/audience's perception of the character. Names are not just placeholders for a character. Names are the identity of that character. Names can establish their starting arc or their ending. Names can be visual in the sense that they invoke a strong idea of what a character might resemble or what themes they will present the audience with. Removing a character's name also removes their identity.

Remember that.

Anyway, I have talked enough about names in the general literary sense. Let us move on to LMK.

Given that this show is based off of Journey to the West (JTTW), many of the names of the antagonist are already provided, and their English translation is pretty literal (Demon Bull King, Lady Bone Demon, Red Son) with some exceptions (Jing & Yin, the Gold and Silver Demons), but their names all provide a description of what they are and how they should be viewed. Spider Queen is a spider demon and views herself as queen. Pretty solid characterization there. Lady Bone Demon, she's a bone demon and has enough rank to be considered a lady (or that could just be to ID that she is a woman but eh). Princess Iron Fan: she's a celestial princess and wields an iron fan. Got it? Good. These examples are simply here to show that a majority of the JTTW antagonists are still fulfilling their roles as antagonistic characters. What I mean is this: since "A Hero is Born," MK has been fighting against the Monkey King's old enemies from the JTTW book. It's like the moment MK inserted himself into the role of successor, the antagonist themselves were inserted to redo their old role of fighting the "Monkey King." It's almost as if nothing has changed beside the fact that their new op enemy is a "human" wielding the legendary staff.

[hmmmm, wait i actually never put this into words until now and it's fitting very well with the whole "MK's fight against Fate/the Narrative" but we'll just put a pin in that.]

However, when it comes to MK's friends (Pigsy, Tang, Sandy, Mei), they all share different names from their reincarnated/ancestral counterparts (Zhu Bajie, Tang Sangzang (they just give Tripitaka a last name lol), Sha Wujing, and Ao Lie). Their identity is separate, distinctive from who they are meant to reflect to the audience. (But look at how Tang still shares the same 1st name to the blessed monk, see how he's the one whose powers are the most similar, see how he being pulled into the direction of emulating the monk, see how much Tang fights it, see—)

Fascinating huh? But let us move on before I forget myself.

In the Case of MK's Names: a Paragraph (DO NOT, i repeat, DO NOT GO OFF THE RAILS)

So, in the English version, there is a running gag about how MK's "real" name is long and complicated, and we don't actually know it. All we know is that MK switched it long before the pilot. And even before MK has that talk with Master Subodhi in s4ep7 (or 6? 8?), I would chuckle at how on the nose his name was. MK the Monkie Kid... how silly of the show writers....ahaha, what a funny little decision to make :)

Do we know why MK changed his name? Other than his original one being long, no. Do we know why MK specifically? We don't know. Maybe, in his fanboy brain for all things Monkey King, MK thought it would be cool to have a name that identified close to his idol. A name that identified with someone he wished to emulate and be as powerful as and felt so connected to. But what do I know? I am a mere local gal who feeds off of metas and theories and all things relating to my beloved sunburst duo.

Then, we have MK's many titles: Monkie Kid (IDs him as the new generations Monkey), Successor (IDs him as the one who will succeed Sun Wukong in both the title of Monkey King and power), Noodle Boy (pronounced "New-dle Boi and IDs as the boy who works in his surrogate/adopted dad's noodle shop), Delivery Boy (his actual job for the noodle shop), and last but not least, Harbinger of Chaos.

What makes a harbinger? What is chaos? What are their intentions? Are they good? Bad? Neutral?

So, I've already defined harbinger before and many others have as well, but to sum up: a harbinger is a being/person/thing that announced the coming of something be it good or bad but most of the time the focus is bad. A "Harbinger of Chaos" then, would be the one to announce the coming of Chaos™️ and the disruption of world order. Is this a bad thing? Well, the show presents it at the moment as so, but that doesn't mean it will be. Honestly, the show has shown order and fixed structures more in a bad light and promotes free will and choosing a destiny that fits you as the good thing 👀 (another thing to pin in the MK might to go war with Fate)

But now I have established MK's names and must shut up and move on before I no longer can.

In the Case of Sun Wukong's Names: some Paragraphs (STAY ON TARGET PLEASE)

I will admit that my knowledge of names in China is very low, and by low, I mean I know nothing (most of what I do know comes from asking friends and informational sites). So, let me begin this segment with an excerpt of Sun Wukong gaining his name from the book itself :) and break it down with my interpretation and how that is applied to LMK.

When the Patriarch heard this, he was secretly pleased, and said, “Well, evidently you have been created by Heaven and Earth. Get up and show me how you walk.” Snapping erect, the Monkey King scurried around a couple of times. The Patriarch laughed and said, “Though your features are not the most attractive, you do resemble a pignolia-eating monkey (husun). This gives me the idea of taking a surname for you from your appearance. I intended to call you by the name Hu. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what’s left is a compound made up of the two characters, gu and yue. Gu means aged and yue means female, but an aged female cannot reproduce. Therefore, it is better to give you the surname of Sun. If I drop the animal radical from this word, what we have left is the compound of zi and xi. Zi means a boy and xi means a baby, and that name exactly accords with the fundamental Doctrine of the Baby Boy. So your surname will be ‘Sun.’” When the Monkey King heard this, he was filled with delight. “Splendid! Splendid!” he cried, kowtowing, “At last I know my surname. May the master be even more gracious! Since I have received the surname, let me be given also a personal name..." ..."You will hence be given the religious name ‘Wake-to-the-Void’ (wukong). All right?” “Splendid! Splendid!” said the Monkey King, laughing. “Henceforth I shall be called Sun Wukong.”

What a fucking cutie <3

So, what can we gather from this excerpt? Sun Wukong just gained his official name. No longer is he a monkey with descriptive titles, no longer is he a monkey without a surname to be referred to as and respected for. He now has both a surname and a personal name. And while I don't fully understand everything Master Subodi listed when naming Sun Wukong, it is important to note the importance of it and how happy Wukong is to receiving it.

Before this, the book would simply refer to Wukong as Shihou (stone monkey) or the Handsome Monkey King. Both of these are descriptive titles that just inform you what Wukong is rather than who, just like with the other demons met in JTTW. But now, we get to know him as Sun Wukong, someone more than his titles and such. There's even an explanation in the preface how Wukong's own personal name has significant meaning or relation to Buddhism, but I won't get too much into that since my knowledge is of that is 0 and I want to try and stick to LMK.

Now then, let us examine Wukong's name in the LMK sense. Literally everyone in the show call him either Monkey King or "simian" (and if he really pissed them off, Sun Wukong). The only people to refer to Wukong by his personal name is Nezha, Macaque, and Peng. It is literally just these three. And while we could argue all say it like "Wukong (derogatory)," I believe Peng's the only one who means it. Meaning, I think Macaque says Wukong because he was the closest friend of SWK, thus that's the only name Macaque would ever call him (sure, he said Monkey King and shit in s1 but that was when he was duping MK soooooooo). Nezha calls him Wukong because after the whole Havoc in Heaven and journey stuff, he is the new oldest member to befriend Wukong and not be enemies with him (yes, he will get annoyed and aggravated by him, and he will not always believe Wukong's intentions are great, but he still cares and is his 2nd closests living friend).

Peng, on the other hand, does not give a shit. I fully believe that guy never cared for Wukong. They only joined the brotherhood because of Azure (they even offered for Azure to be the brotherhood's leader). I do not think Peng cares for formalities when it comes to people they dislike. We could argue that maybe Peng cared for Wukong in the beginning, but I do, honestly, not believe it. The only reason Peng even felt betrayed was because it messed up Azure's plan. Not because the two were sworn brothers.

But yeah, very few characters actually call Sun Wukong by his name, and when they do, it establishes not just how close they are/were, but also how long they've known each other. It's the same thing with how Wukong refers to others. He barely calls Pigsy, Tang, and Sandy by their names. He will give people nicknames and shit just to place a safe distance from them because of his own very unhealthy attachment issues.

In the Case of MK and SWK's Names for Each Other: the Actual Sunburst Duo Essay (you are free now.....)

Speaking of attachment issues, let's talk about the Sunburst Duo and how much these two need to sit down and talk.

So, we have discussed how names are integral to identifying a character's purpose, thematic journey, description. We have discussed how a person's title can clue in on certain characterization, present or future, and how they demonstrate the way others view them. Now let us apply this to our beloved sunburst duo.

As mentioned in your ask, @gumy-shark, both MK and Sun Wukong barely call each other by name (MK never has as far as I am aware, and SWK has done so only a few). It's "Monkey King" from MK and "kid," "bud," "buddy" from SWK. Rarely do the two ever think to say each other's name.

In the beginning, I originally thought MK only calls Wukong "Monkey King" as a way to be respectful, and with Wukong, I assumed he called MK "kid" simply because MK was very young to him. However, as we get into s3, and especially s4, MK and Wukong have grown a lot closer. Neither of them see each other as just a mentor or student but as friends. And yet, they cannot seem to stop calling each other by their title or nickname.

Thus, the distance is still there. S3 ends with Wukong promising to do better as a mentor and be more honest with MK, and we do seem him attempt this. He gives out more praises, he's more open about his feelings and then gets sucked into the memory scroll. But here's the kicker: the two are doing a reverse in their dynamic.

When it starts out, it is Monkey King who establishes the line between the two. He will simply be MK's mentor and teach him all the kid has to know in order to succeed him. MK is ecstatic to even be near SWK. This is his idol, the guy he's had a special interest in for years probably. He now gets to train under the Monkey King. He wants to do good. He wants to kickass. He wants to be just like him.

But as the story goes on, we see SWK open up to MK more and care for him deeply and want to protect him, and we see MK uncover the skeletons in SWK's closet and feel so alone and learn that the power he used to wish for is not what he expected. And in the aftermath of s3, it is now SWK who is opening up and trying to help kindle and safely guide their friendship in a healthier path(ish). It is SWK who is placing his own protege on a pedestal because "loook at him! isn't he so great and powerful! he will help this world a lot more than i did". It is SWK who is disregarding th original rules he placed. But now ,it is MK who is keeping the distance more than SWK. It is MK is trying to force some kind of distance. He feels like he shouldn't burden SWK with his doubts and worries. He is terrified of his own powers and their capabilities and worries his actions will make the same mistake as his mentor.

With s3 and s4, SWK has called MK by name quite a few times. Especially in s4. It's not a lot, but it's definitely more than before. And yet, MK cannot call Wukong by name. Personally, I think he might still feel like he's under Wukong's shadow. As his successor, there is a legacy that he will carry when Wukong actually retires and gives his title to MK (which is what I assume Wukong will do??? It is still unclear what exactly MK's succeeding SWK of). And that legacy is quite the burden. I would not be surprised that MK is unable to place himself as being worthy of taking Wukong's place just yet (if ever).

This guy was his idol for a long time. And with that, you tend to place a high pedestal for those people. MK has given Wukong such a high pedestal, and Wukong is very aware of it. It's why the guy even keeps his distance in the first place, and why he's scared to disappoint him. But, MK has learned so much, has been told of the tales and pain his mentor inflicted on others in the past (a past SWK greatly regrets), and yet cannot find it in himself to lower that pedestal or even allow himself to think about it. Because if he does, then he will have to acknowledge his own pain and his own disappointment in someone he not only admires but has come to love like family. And it is very hard to reckon with the hurt and pain caused by someone you consider family.

So yeah, they are silly monkeys who cannot communicate to save their life and need to just sit down and talk or else this will continue to boil and explode and we'll have a SWK and MK showdown (fuck yeah! i will be crying so hard).

[end of essay]

[nemmet]

What are some of your favorite Fred and Daphne moments? Romantic or platonic

AAAH thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble about them!! always so so appreciated. and for specifying romantic or platonic too!! while a lot of their significant moments together from the 90s onwards have been somewhat romantically charged, i love them even when they're just a goofy pair of friends with no immediate romantic implications.

because (mini fraphne history side tangent), they weren't always intended as love interests! the "fred chooses to search for clues with daphne because he fancies her" reading of the original show technically isn't true — they were just paired off because the writers found them boring and wanted an excuse to get them out of the picture for a few scenes. which makes the fact that they've since grown to become an iconic duo in their own right all the more inspiring!

so without further ado, here are some of my favourite moments of theirs!! 💙💜

(begins under the cut!)

the best birthday present ever — zombie island

if i could count their general existence in this movie as a single moment i would. i am so weak to the fact that even after the gang splits ways, fred and daphne stick together, and fred plays such a crucial supporting role in daphne's dreams/career/life. and their relationship hasn't descended into being just boring coworkers — daphne has been so busy with work that she forgot her own birthday, but fred is sure to make it special by doing no less than getting the whole gang back together. the way he teases her before revealing them, too!!! and the hug she gives him when he explains. i get such cosy, "known each other since forever" vibes from them in this movie, like they're just so comfortable and silly with each other and (sobs into my hands)

my hero — scooby doo and krypto too

the way this movie has already given us so many fraphne moments for the books. the Literal Kiss aside, this scene just made me smile from ear to ear. i'm not always so hot on the jealousy subplots these two often get, but i appreciated how this film had a more light-hearted take on it, and how fred was simply confused rather than upset. additionally, his attempts to impress daph are just so funny and sweet, you get the sense that he's just hamming it up to make her laugh and doesn't care if that's all he ends up doing. of course then he gets so into it that he doesn't register the monster right behind him, and jumps into daphne's arms just like the rest of the gang always do with him. the way he clings to her!! and how she says "oh come on". they are disasters and they need each other in this essay i will.

you're never going to lose me, fred — mystery incorporated

following their relationship in this show sure is a journey... and not always the best one. while i understand that they're teenagers going through a lot, it's sad to so often see their inherent chemistry as a duo lost in miscommunication and arguments. which makes the moments where they connect and come out stronger as a couple all the more rewarding!! this is hands down my favourite scene of theirs — while the conflict that leads up to it is uncomfortable (fred tightly scheduling their activities together), i like how daphne addresses it quickly rather than keeping her feelings hidden and simply expecting fred to pick up on them. by now she understands that fred needs direct communication (autism!!!), and that's ok!! meanwhile, fred has grown too; he actively opens up to daphne about his fears of losing his loved ones, something i don't think he could or would have done at the start of the show. he's come to understand his own emotions and the importance of expressing them. both of them learn from each other, and are able to move forward because of that. it's a wonderful little moment that really showcases the best of them!!

i love you — stage fright

THE fraphne scene. god. where do i begin. the fact that daphne wrote lyrics about her feelings for fred to the music he composed, and was terrified of ever showing them to him. but then she decides to break the condition she established to velma (only confessing to him after the contest), throws caution to the wind, and just,,,,, confesses her love to him live on stage in front of thousands of people!!!! and how fred looks so happy and content playing along to these lyrics that i'm sure he knows are about him, and when it comes to daphne singing "i love you", he says i love you back with ZERO HESITATION!!! like he was waiting to say it too!! because they're mutually pining dumbasses who will cry if they make eye contact in a remotely romantic context!!! god!!!!!!! also the nose boop before daph goes in for the kiss. adorable.

the engine / the driver — curse of the 13th ghost

this scene is another that has a lot to say about their relationship in a general sense, and it's so special to me!! i'm not crazy about this movie as a whole, but i love the running theme of fred and daphne's differing leadership qualities, and how they balance each other out. fred just wants to keep things the same as they've always been (autism!!!), but that often leads him to coming off as controlling or dismissive when he's in Planning Mode. he doesn't mean it, because he genuinely believes the best in the gang and their individual skills, so it's no wonder that he grows insecure when his place is questioned. but by the end of the film he accepts that daphne is the engine, the glue that fundamentally holds the gang together and keeps them running as a unit — they would be nowhere without her constant energy and willingness to take action. however, daphne reassures him that he'll always have his place as the driver, the man with the plan, the one to put things in motion and support everyone with all his heart along the way. and the tender way they look at each other to cap it all off!!!!!!!

knight in shining armour — sword and the scoob

i saved the (probably) best for last. less serious analysis here and more just me gushing because i spin this moment around my microwave brain on a daily basis. continuing the theme of "fred embraces his role as team cheerleader", he's not even upset when daphne has to fight in his place — he planned this and is wholeheartedly supporting her, to the point where it makes her flustered (she’s HIS knight in shining armour)!! and him giving her his ascot as a good luck charm!!!! nem found dead on the floor. not to mention "sir daphne/sir fred" and how they continue to call each other that. i swoon every time. they are so romantic in their own very silly and very teenager-y way and i love moments where they're just so unapologetic about that!!

i really hope you enjoyed and that this was what you were looking for!! fellow fred & daph fans, please feel free to comment and/or reblog with some of your own favourite moments!! i always love to see them. :D

[twst-drabbles]

Sebek 4

Summary: Sebek was in the throes of a passionate speech filled with praise towards Malleus when he suddenly gained his full form. Safe to say, it was an entertaining day for you.

While you well and truly love Sebek, his ability to get into loud tangents at the first crack of dawn had you closing your window more often than not. Why he felt the need to expound upon facts you already know, and dress them up as feats that no other person or creature can replicate was beyond you.

That being said, as annoyed as you were with your pulsing head, you couldn’t help but laugh a bit when Sebek went into another loud tangent, but this time about you.

“Limitations of the human body aside, the heroic deeds of our precious Caretaker do nothing to hold back the glory of which they shine in my eyes!” Sebek yelled, though it was a bit muffled. For someone so tiny, you’re still in awe at the fact he can store so much air. How does he do that? No wonder he can hold his breath underwater for so long.

Another long speech incoming. All because Malleus hushed him about you being a little more tired than usual.

For all that Sebek says, you know very well that they’re all excuses to just spend time with you without actually admitting as such. Honest as he is, blunt as he may be, being mushy is something that does not come naturally to him, so he has to go about it via rambling conversations.

That being said, today was very much a different day.

The only signal that you got that something joyous has happened was the unusually loud laughter of Malleus just outside your window. It wasn’t mocking at all, in fact it sounded proud.

Despite the way your head was, you pushed yourself up and walked to the window.

“Alright,” you sighed out as you opened the window, “what went wro—huh.”

You were met with the bare back of Sebek, large and fat crocodile tail thumping against the ground as he hid in a nearby bush, unable and unwilling to face you. He had his arms wrapped around himself, with his tiny little clothing unfortunately ripped right next to him.

“Cast away that shame, Sebek,” Malleus said, arms crossed and wings shivering with the weight of his pride, “this is a happy occasion. You finally have achieved the form you so wanted.”

Sebek, for once, didn’t say a thing. The tips of his ears were flushed furiously red.

“…I’ll get you some clothing, Sebek,” you said, “I have plenty for your magnificent form.”

Sebek sat up straighter before whipping around, shame forgotten for just a moment.

“Thank you, Caretaker! Your praise gives me joy like no other!”

Oh boy, he’s louder now. This is…going to be something else, that’s for sure.

[jessaerys]

five hyperspecific near headcanons?

(THIS IS SO LONG SORRY. YOU KNOW WHAT I AM!!!!)

gonna take headcanons here to mean “stuff that is entirely not canon” so these are (varying levels of unfounded) personal canonverse facts i’ve come up with as i write him: 

i.

has special interest in space / cosmology / astrophysics / astrobiology / space exploration etc etc etc. (extremely self indulgent of me but i love to have fun) it used to be very all-consuming when he was little and not afraid to want things. 

it was eventually demoted to the backseat as his focus shifted towards his studies so by the time we meet him in canon it has been fully repressed into something he considers childish (though i’d like to think he found an excuse [perhaps through a case] to keep correspondence going with the brightest minds at the SETI institute and they have ocassional videocalls where he pokes holes in their theories on the origins of life he insists it is simply mantaining connections that may one day prove relevant. it is a productive use of my time agent gevanni do not question my methodology) 

when i think of near i think of saint-exupéry’s the little prince and his watercolor illustrations of a little boy on a little round planet -- actually, a lil exerpt:

near is very little-prince coded in his curiosity and love for humanity and golden heartedness and deep mysterious melancholy – he is sad and he doesn’t know he is sad!! to be a cosmonaut is to be an observer, unmoored from the world, not quite of this earth. which actually leads me to,

ii.

he is from nowhere/belongs to no-one/ has no past and no land to return to.

he was in a couple different orphanages since he was a newborn and any paperwork he could’ve had got lost in the shuffle: it was roger who named him nate river just to have something on the records; his oldest memories are from wammy’s, the first person he ever loved was L, there’s never been anything else for him.

i know “has no racial identity” seems like a cop-out but i actually find it interesting to set him up so that he is unlinked from such a basic experience of community in modern society. because of his albinism there isn’t even a melanin scale to point him in the right direction; his looks are very racially ambiguous (ie. 3a/3b curls, very slight/partial double eyelids, etc), his parents untraceable. if he ever took a dna test it would confirm a thoroughly mixed background of many different ethnicities due to european immigration – but he has never taken a dna test because it would mean he cares which means he would have to think about what other people have and he doesn’t which would mean mourning a loss. and there is no use having feelings about that which he cannot change; no use looking back. mello looks back, and look where that's landed him--

(tangent: in contrast mello’s troubled background in the wartorn balkans until he was relatively older (5-6) and his reconnection with his birthplace in croatia after he left wammy’s is a crucial and defining pillar of his identity (personal canonverse courtesy of local mello phd haver @firebuggg) so this is yet another contrast between them. but we do not have time to get into that)

(tangent number 2:

L to mello in private: why does it matter? the war is behind you. looking back slows you down

L to near also in private: how can a detective know anything if he doesn’t first know himself?

near and mello ages 5 and 7, in their minds: i am the only one who understands L)

actually near's john silver slay is thee most important characterization touchstone for me tbh whenever people give him a backstory it just weirds me the fuck out

what do you mean he remembers his mother that would mean being An Individual and Not A Child Soldier !!!! he is wammy's perfect little grooming blank slate thank you very much

iii.

as a baby he was SO cute SO round SO feral. beautiful glowing cherubic marmalade-eyed biting screaming wildchild. wary as a cat with a talent for finding hiding spots inside the walls and so very autistic. an enfant terrible!! this is possibly why he moved through so many foster homes before wammys. 

for a couple of years until age, like, 5, the only people he felt comfortable enough around to speak to in coherent words were L and later mello* 

his method of communication with the rest of the teachers / caregivers / other children was opening his mouth and unleashing the most terrible banshee shriek a 3-4-5 year old could unleash upon god's green earth

through the rest of their childhood known annoyingest older brother on earth mihael "mello" kheel was ocassionally able to figure out how to unlock a Near Nuclear Meltdown, though it was a very rare occurrence as soon enough near graduated to going stiff and heavy on the floor wherever they tried to make him do something he did not want to do. and good luck getting him to move without lifting him corpse deadweight style. garden. hallway. classroom floor. middle of the stairs. he is and has always been a willful little thing !!!!!!!!!

i'm protected under the awning of this readmore so this is My City Now here are some exerpts courtesy of @firebuggg and yours truly

(sequential)

(not sequential)

*(unfortunately, this meant he was accidentally straight up accidentally twilightzoning mello for at least two years after being introduced to each other because what mello kept hearing was [functionally mute kid who usurped your number one spot, exclusively when nobody is around to hear it]: No One Will Ever Believe You) 

iv.

this one’s kind of stupid but i think it’d be funny if wammy’s DOES adopt kids out occasionally possibly from the bottom half of the L successor ranking in order to keep the facade of being an orphanage and not an unethical human child experiment (perhaps to wealthy people who want to skip the bureaucracy of going through the proper channels. you know how it is) (it also makes such a good boogeyman: if you don't get in the bath roger will give you out for adoption !!!!!!)

anyway once feral baby near escaped containment when there were prospective parents over browsing the (available) children and a couple was completely charmed with him and they, as is the fashion of wealthy people to do whatever the fuck they want, took him out for a lovely walk/car ride/park visit/ice-cream sundae, all sunny and warm and sitting on the young woman’s lap, getting loved on, hearing, “would you like to come live with us little one?” 

when they bring near back they are informed that unfortunately near is very much NOT up for adoption (someone definitely gets fired over that one) (dfsddfsdjfdfj)

this gets LEGENDARILY joked about by mello and matt and their popular kids entourage until they leave wammys. this definitely did not give near any complexes whatsoever

anyway once when the three of them are adults it comes up when they’re in the middle of joking around and it triggers yet another round of relentless Unadoptable Near teasing until matt and mello drive the joke right into the ground where it wheezes a last breath into an increasingly awkward silence as they Realize,

v.

ok lighting round:

had L survived as near grew into his teens they WOULD have had an EXTREMELY contentious mother-daughter relationship

much like mello he too has a deep well of unaddressed (repressed) rage within him (like sam winchester. sorry for bringing supernatural into this)

people often write that near only eats bland/white(?) foods but i think being vegan suits him also it's funny as hell. not out of any ideological motivation he was just an extremely picky eater and also do you think that frail body could handle meat. if he could get away with it all he would it is raw fruits and vegetables (chopped into small cubes)(note: this is not bland, just insane)(it’s the scampering rabbit in him) 

extremely at risk of developing a smoking habit. that boy can fit so much tension in his little body do you think his developing teenage brain would not immediately latch onto the treacherous instant clarity and peace of nicotine

5. did i mention repression. did i mention the absolute terror that seizes him at the thought of experiencing desire/hunger/longing/want. if you made it this far have a reward:

[all-pacas]

ykw the most frustrating part of that is. that's not even how halsin IS. as someone who enjoys him, even if i agree that he probably didn't need to be elevated to companion - he in no way indicates he'd be paternalistic about sex! at every point he just. rolls with it. he's not gonna be explaining consent or stuff unless asked specifically, he's gonna assume his partner knows what they want and trust that they will tell him to stop or change something etc. 1/

And you could argue that could make an INTERESTING dynamic with someone who’s still working through finding what they actually do like, and I mean in the ‘causing interesting issues’ way, if you wanted to go there, but having him just be a dildo attached to a self-help podcast isn’t that. And like it's p clear that he's CHILL about sex, not a walking sex textbook. 2/ He brings up a poly relationship and if you mention you have a partner he’s just like yeah duh I wouldn’t do this without their permission? and YOU get to say if you’re willing to ask them about it, he doesn’t tell you to or not. Doesn’t give you a primer on poly and how to approach it or anything. 3/ not to mention he has his own Extremely Fucked Up backstory about sex that he has obviously a) come to terms with and b) reacted very differently to astarion, but he’s maybe the most likely to understand the need for sexual agency without explaining it in therapy speak. he's got wisdom as his highest stat for a reason 4/ hell, if you go in with him to the drow twins with gale he doesn't even get all uwu consent about gale nervous bamfing out he's just like ‘oh damn, was hoping you'd show us what that wizard mouth do. Anyway watch me fuck your girlfriend and join in if you like :D’. anyway sorry for this essay but damn it annoys me seeing people flatten what could be interesting into 'uwu sad prettyboy gets railed by buff carebear speaking like a tumblr post' /end

railed by buff carebear speaking like a tumblr post YES THAT EXACTLY THANK YOU

i had a tangent in the post i deleted for being too tangental, but since you're allowing me the excuse: i COULD see astarion/halsin in a - they're both lowkey horny. they hook up. like play with the dynamics, you know? they hook up and it's only later halsin finds out about astarion's Trauma (because while he's generally open that cazador was a Bad Time, he doesn't actually go around advertising the specifics). let HALSIN freak out. he remembers his own backstory here, he starts worrying he Took Advantage, he gets all the tumblr takes about it. let astarion - very reluctantly, you know he doesn't wanna play therapist - be the one to lay down the rules. declare his boundaries and horniness.

like there probably IS something you could do with that premise. as little as astarion is inclined to carry anyone's emotional baggage, he does repeatedly, with durge, state he wants to be an equal partner, to protect and not be protected. i can actually easily see him warming to the role of "being needed" - when has anyone ever relied on him? expected anything from him besides a warm body? mind you, he'd probably be terrible at it, but i can see that appealing to him.

hell, you can EVEN make a case that halsin hasn't accepted his backstory as well as astarion. he kind of laughs it off. oh, yeah, it happened, it's over! astarion is actually pretty self aware that he's fucked up and disassociates and forces himself through sex. you could actually have a lot of fun with that in a fanfic. have astarion go "oh, no, you're probably a bit fucked up about that, aren't you?" and halsin be like lol no i'm fine. let astarion be the weird paternalistic one for once, i'm saying. as a Treat.

anyway tl;dr i agree with you. i wrote my little rant about astarion because i feel like i Get the character better, but honestly the dynamic is a huge disservice to halsin, too. what if he doesn't want to be a therapist??? what if he's not into it??? what if he just wanted a hook up with the local pretty boy, huh????

[beaker1636]

Love At First Meeting Part 1 - Ricky

AN: So I was asked for a fic where Ricky meets the reader and they have an instant connection, and they know they have met their person by @raydenrrobertson . I loved the idea and this is kind of where my mind went, like usual I made reader into a teacher because that is what I relate to... and I got off on a tangent about some of my favorite books. Anway, I got really into this idea and it sort of turned into a 2 part fic. I think its adorable and hope ya'll enjoy!

Part 2 will be about the concert and them admitting their feelings to each other!

Tag List: @tearfallpixie @darkhallcorner @lacktoesandtoddlerants

“Okay y/n, all you need to do is pick up the new Steven King book, get your online order for your class and leave.  Do not wander around or you are going to buy too many books,” you give yourself a mental pep talk as you step into Barnes and Noble, fully aware that you will more than likely not listen to yourself.  Honestly you could spend thousands here and not bat an eye if you had the funds to do so.  

Trying to keep yourself on course and not spend more money than you have you head straight towards the new releases, hoping to get a copy of the book that you came in for.  You can’t help but smile when you notice there was one last copy, reaching for it you accidentally bumped into someone else who was doing the same.  

“I am so sorry, here you can take the book.” You say instantly, embarrassed that you just bumped into someone's hand like that.  You don’t look up in an effort to hide your flushed face, not wanting your embarrassment to be obvious.

“It’s fine, I can order the ebook instead.  Here, you take it,” you aren’t sure why but you didn’t expect a man's voice.  

You glance up just in time to see him quickly throw it in your basket, thrown off when you accidentally make eye contact with the most beutiful blue eyes you have ever seen.  You force yourself to glance away, you don’t want to because they were drawing you in but you make yourself, it is just too awkward to sit and stare in a stranger's eyes.

“Well, thank you,” you respond softly, starting to walk off to another shelf to avoid any more of this awkward encounter with this stranger you somehow feel very drawn to.  The feeling confuses you, you’ve never felt this instant connection with someone that you don’t even know.

Unknown to you he is thinking the same thing about you and is currently debating if he should approach you again, and ultimately decides that he should and follows you to a new shelf.

“Hey sorry to bother you again, but you clearly have great tastes in books, do you have any recommendations?” he asks you, a hopeful smile on his face. “Shit, I should probably tell you my name.  I’m Rick.”

“I’m y/n, and sure! Are you looking for only horror or?  Just need to know where I should guide you,” you ask, now even more embarrassed by the fact that you are so excited that this handsome stranger is still talking to you… and he cares about your opinions?

“Pretty much anything honestly, I leave for a work trip soon and I always like to take some with me,” he responds.  And he is being truthful, honestly at this point you could probably hand him a little kids book and he would buy it just because it is giving him a chance to talk to you. 

And you are just as happy to have an  excuse to talk to him, even more so when it is about your first love, books.

“Absolutely, follow me!”

He can’t help but smile at you after you turn around with a huge smile on your face.  The pure joy written across your face has a warmth flooding over him that he can’t fully explain, but he loves that feeling.  He gladly follows you to another shelf.

“So this is my favorite fiction novel, The Storyteller.  Basically it is about this reclusive Jewish woman who works nights at a bakery and there is a new regular old man who comes around at night and they start to talk a little.  He eventually confesses to her that he was a  Nazi and he starts to tell her stories.  I can’t tell you much more without ruining it but it is amazing,” you say.  

Not thinking you grab his hand to go drag him to another shelf, you realize quickly that you grabbed his hand once the goosebumps start to spread along your skin.  You are completely taken off guard, why are you so comfortable with this man when you have never met? Why didn’t he stop you or pull away?  Shaking off the thoughts you stop in at another shelf.  

“This series is about demons, each book focuses on another one in the same family as they discover their own unique power that they have. There is some minor smut in it, so if you aren’t chill with that we can move on.  And right next to it is a really good vampire series.”

He can’t help the laugh that escapes as you continue to drag him around the store, showing him books in almost every genre.  You really are into almost everything, and he didn’t expect that.

“Is there anything that you don’t like?” He finally teases you, a smile still present on his face when he realizes he made you blush.

“Shit sorry, I’m rambling on aren’t I?  And yeah, westerns, I can’t bring myself to like westerns,” you say in a joking tone, giving a quick apology again.

“Don’t be, it's really cute seeing you get so excited about them…” he trails off for a second before looking at your basket. “What’s the Ashfall book in your basket about? I noticed you quickly threw it in while we were walking around.”

“Oh, a lot of my students are reading it and love it so I want to read it so I know what they are all into.  Basically a kid from Iowa is home alone when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, so it follows him as he travels to find his parents through all the ash and stuff.” You hand him the book so he can look at the back of it quick.

You take a moment to really look at him while he reads it, admiring his tattoos on his throat that you are able to see despite the leather jacket his has on.  You also can’t help but notice the way his black hair makes the paleness of his face pop, completely different than your type but you find him very attractive.

He glances up and catches you staring at him, raising an eyebrow at you.  Blushing you look down, you can’t believe you let him catch you clearly checking him out.

He takes a second to clear his throat before speaking up. “Sounds interesting, so you said your students, you are a teacher I am guessing?”

“Yeah, freshman English and creative writing, I also oversee the school newspaper and yearbook,” you answer truthfully. “They are all such great kids, I couldn’t ask for a better group than what I have right now.”

“I can tell you really love what you do, hey to thank you for your time, can I buy you a coffee from the little cafe area?” He is hoping that you will say yes, really wanting to get to know you better.

“Umm…” you glance down at your watch to see the time. “Shit, I would love to but I have to get going soon.  I am meeting my friend at a restaurant in 15 minutes. I’m sorry,” you say softly, a little upset that you have to say no.

“I get it, can we at least maybe exchange numbers? I’ll buy the digital version of that book so we can read and talk about it together.  I’d say in person but I leave for work in two days for a couple months.”

You smile at the shy expression that is currently crossing his face, he clearly is feeling a bit out of his element as well.  But you are glad that he seems to be even slightly interested in you like you are with him.

“Normally I would say no to  a stranger, so please do not make me regret this,” you joke as you pull your phone out of you pocket and hand it to him.

He hands his phone to you as well, both of you quickly typing in your numbers before you swap them back and both of you make your way up front to finish checking out, you letting the cashier know that you have an online order to pick up as well. 

She hands you a rather large box and finishes checking you out, thanking her before turning to grab your box and leave.

“Wait, let me help you with the box,” Rick offers from the checkout next to you.  Before you can protest he is already taking the box away from you.

You mumble a meek thank you, leading him to your car and opening the back door for him to put the box in for you before closing it and turning to face him.

“I’ll text you once I start the book,” he tells you with a smile, before slowly backing away from your car, hesitating because he doesn’t want to let you leave without talking to him.

“Sounds great, I look forward to it,” you respond playfully before getting into your car so that you can meet your friend… who you are now officially late for meeting.

6ish Weeks Later, May 12th

You let out a soft sign as you walk into your apartment, kicking your shoes off by your front door before setting the box you have full of book reports down on your table, thank god it is Friday!

You can’t help but think about Ricky, wondering if he is currently getting ready for a show, maybe meeting some fans.  You and him have talked a lot since meeting at the bookstore, and you have accepted that you have fallen for him.  You would love nothing more than to be with him once he gets home from tour, but have accepted that you are friends and that you can live with that.

You're watching your favorite show when your phone goes off with a message, smiling when you see Rick’s name show up on your screen.

You quickly check the message, seeing that he asked if you wanted to facetime as they have the night off and he wants to talk to you.  

“Yeah, can you give me a few minutes to change? I have just gotten home,” you send back, happy that he wants to talk to you.

You quickly get a response back telling you that you can make the call when you are ready, no rush.  You quickly set your phone own and run to your room to change out of your school clothing and into a band shirt that he sent you a couple weeks ago and a pair of shorts before you settle on your couch, making your facetime request.

Rick accepts your call right away and greets you with a kind smile. “Well, don’t you look nice in a motionless shirt,” he jokes. “You look exhausted though.”

“Joys of the end of the school year, I have almost 100 book reports to grade this weekend alone. I can’t wait for the 26th,” you say with a slight groan before you smile at him.  “I’m glad we have some time to talk tonight.”

All of the sudden you see Vinny walk up behind Rick before he stops, backs up and looks at you with a wave. “Hi, y/n, nice to finally meet yo - Ow, dude what the fuck?” Vinny asks with a groan, rubbing his arm where Rick smacked him. “What, I am assuming this is her.”

“This is why I usually call you from my bunk, my whole band is full of nosy assholes, sorry.” Rick says, a slight blush on his cheeks as he looks back at the camera to see you.

You can’t help but giggle at the scene in front of you. “Hi Vin, nice to formally see you.  And thank you for letting me know that Rick apparently talks about me,” you tease with a wink towards the boys.

“Okay, she has a sense of humor.  I officially like her,” Vin says, earning himself a glare from rick. “What?”

“Thanks?” you question, your mood is already better from watching the banter between the two of them.

Vinny walks off laughing and you can hear some of the others laughing as well before Chris asks Rick what he would want brought back for dinner, then it gets quiet on the bus.

“Don’t let me keep you from eating Rick, we can talk another time,” you say softly, feeling guilty that you are keeping him from grabbing some dinner with his friends.

“I wanted to talk to you, I already planned that Chris would just bring me food back to the bus after they all ate.  I can tell that you had a rough day, so talk to me.  What’s going on?” You can see him smile at you through the camera, instantly melting away some of your problems with that simple act.

“You are so sweet Rick, really,” you say before venting about your day for about 15 minutes, Rick listening and giving you little comments to make sure that you know he is listening to you.

“I can see why you are so tired after a day like that, at least it is almost summer break for you.  Is there anything that I am able to help you with?” he asks you gently.

“Venting actually helped a lot.  Honestly us talking always makes my day, you are the first official friend I have made since I made the move to PA other than the friend I moved with,” you say, smiling at the man sweetly.

“You never told me where you moved from… or why you and Marisa came out here?” He asks, curious. He could listen to you talk about yourself and get to know more about you all day.

“Iowa. Marisa followed her fiance out here when we graduated college, and because I am not close with my family she convinced me to come out here with her,”  you answer.

“When we finish this tour I will have to introduce you to some people so you have more friends out here,” he says, another warm smile gracing his face.

Before you know it the two of you have been talking for almost an hour and the boys are all climbing back on the bus, interrupting your call.

“I should let you go so that you can eat, thank you for the call,” you say, hoping that he can’t tell that you are sad to be ending the call.

“Wait! Ask her about the show before you forget!” you hear Chris yell from somewhere else on the bus.

“Oh yeah, our last tour stop is a hometown show on the 26th.  Do you want to come? You could watch from the side stage, meet some of our friends and the guys,” Rick rubs the back of his neck, visibly nervous about what your answer might be.

“Yeah, send me the information and I will be there,” you smile at him, happy that he asked you.

“Awesome, I will see you then.  Go relax, maybe take a nice hot bath, you earned it with the day you have had.  I will talk to you soon,” Rick says, his entire face bright and happy after hearing you say that you would go.

“Bye,” you say softly. “Bye guys!” you yell out extra loud so they can hear you.  You giggle when you hear several voices say goodbye as well before you sign out.

You decide to order take out and after it arrives you decide to take Rick’s advice.  Slipping into a hot bact while you relax, smiling when Rick sends you a text wishing you a goodnight.

You sigh before sending your best friend a quick message asking an important conversation. “Is it weird to be falling in love with someone I have only met in person once?”

[duchess-kyuupid]

Doors or Wheels? [TWST]

It's time for the TWST gang to answer one of life's most weirdest questions. Are there more doors or wheels in the world?

[Not even a fic, just some crack on how everyone would react if you asked them this question]

Riddle: "What a silly question. Of course there's more wheels. "

Trey: "Uhm... Wheels, probably? When you add in gears, it makes sense."

Cater: "Oh? Hmm... I think it's gotta be doors, right? Hold on, let me go ask my Magicam followers!"

Deuce + Ace: Do NOT get them started on this again. They were already arguing about this last week and they STILL haven't gotten over it.

Leona: "Did you really wake me up to ask that? Well, herbivore, why don't you go find out for yourself with that smart brain of yours? Go count them."

Jack: "Doors, probably? Like kitchen cabinet doors. And there's a lot of doors around campus too."

Ruggie: "If you give me 500,000 Thaumarks, I'll go find out for you."

Azul: "Neither doors nor wheels are used very often in the sea, and yet you expect me to know which are more common on land? ... You can leave the VIP room now." The next day he walks up to you in full confidence and says, "Doors."

Floyd: "Don't know. Don't care. Not in the mood. Now go away, shrimpy, before I squeeze you to death."

Jade: "Oh, please excuse his rudeness. Azul just rejected his idea to refurnish the Lounge with string lights. In any case, I believe the answer would be wheels."

Kalim: "Doors! No- wait, wheels! Oh, but what about- AH! I can't pick! There's so many of both! How can there be so many??"

Jamil: "Have you been drinking?"

Vil: "What sort of absolutely nonsensical question is that? Don't tell me you've been spending too much time around those Heartslabyul troublemakers, have you? You're better than that, little potato."

Epel: "Erhm... Why are you even asking that?"

Rook: He doesn't even answer the question. He instead goes into a long tangent about the beauty of figuring out the answer. He ends up writing an award-winning poem titled, 'The Real Wheel Before the Door' in which he lists every single item that contains either a wheel or a door in perfect rhyme (with some French mixed in).

Idia: "I don't know, ask Ortho. Now go away, I'm trying to grind for this limited-time gacha..."

Ortho: "Processing request... Counting all available doors and wheels within 300 meters.... Processing complete. There are approximately 3,247 of wheels and 2,489 doors on campus. With that in mind, I have computed that there are approximately 46.2% more wheels than doors in the world."

Malleus: "Child of man, are you asking me to go count them for you?" He thinks for a moment before nodding with a smile, "This must be one of those 'friend' activities that Lilia told me about. Of course I'll go count them. Hopefully I'll be back with an answer that will satisfy you, my dear friend." And he disappears. You feel bad that you asked him.

Lilia: "Oya? You wanna bet some money on it?" He says as if he hasn't already counted them before... Don't ask me why he did it, because I don't know either.

Silver: "There is an equal number of both. Probably."

Sebek: "WHAT AN OBNOXIOUS AND UTTERLY RIDICULOUS QUESTION. OBVIOUSLY, DOORS."

Grim: "I'd rather there be more tuna than either one."

Crowley: "My! You clearly have a bit too much time on your hands to be asking me such a strange question! Could you spare some of that precious time to do this thing for me- I mean us! For the benefit of the whole school, no- the WORLD! Thank you in advance, Prefect, I knew you were just as generous as I."