#bc my family is a whole bunch of lunatics!

[teardropsonsmyguitar]

my grandpa: you know, you could’ve gotten 100+ dollars for your trip, but you are only getting 60 because you’ve been going to starbucks too much

me: hshsjsjsj

[cookinguptales]

SO THOSE ARE MY TAGS.

I've seen this post go around several times now and have watched with wide-eyed amazement as the notes just piled higher and higher so like?? Might as well actually talk about this in the notes??

To start with...

there's not a word yet (for old friends who've just met) The Muppet Show | Bunsen/Beaker | 12k | PG

Beaker's sure there's some kind of heartwarming moral in all this, but all he wants to do is get through this safe, sane, and intact. The Muppets may have other plans.

It's been almost 10 years and I still love this fic. I loved writing it, I love having people read it, I love what came out of it.

Anyway.

I won't go into detail rn, but I first starting writing Bunsen/Beaker when I was 24 and I was going through a pretty rough period in my life that involved a lot of physical and emotional pain. I wasn't getting around much due to a fairly persistent injury and I ended up being in an unexpected country over Christmas, so I decided to drown my sorrows in the Yuletide fic exchange. I offered up The Muppets because they've always been a comfort canon for me, and the person I got as a recip asked for "anything".

So... I ended up writing this 12k word Bunsen/Beaker fic that was all about finding your place in the world and meeting someone with the exact flavor of crazy that complemented yours. Meeting a whole found family of lunatics that understood you in a way no one else ever had. It was all about burnout and rekindling your love for your passions, and I guess in that respect it was a very personal fic. But I had a ball writing it, the recip loved it, and it ended up doing very well that Yuletide. (People... will put up with some very weird fic at Yuletide. I had to create the B/B tag on AO3 for it.)

I got some followers after reveals, but things were relatively quiet for a little while. I was thoroughly enjoying the Muppets web shorts that Disney was posting at the time and talking about them online with my friends, but the fandom was still practically nonexistent. Then Flowers on the Wall was put on YT and I was like ???? wait is my ship about to be canon???? and a bunch of other people were like WAIT, IT'S OUR SHIP, TOO????

So the fandom really kicked off around then, though I think it had been lying dormant in our hearts up until that point. We talked about all the B/B subtext in older media (and there is a lot), we talked about the queerness of Beaker's original performer, Richard Hunt, and the way that the Muppets had always made us feel seen when we were young and queer and alone.

And then the new ABC series came out and the pairing went canon and things got A Little Crazy for a while, lmao.

I ended up writing more ficlets for people who wanted to read them (though nothing as involved as there's not a word yet) and had a lot of time playing with the rest of fandom! I ended up drifting out of the fandom, partially bc I was writing other things and partially for... I guess some reasons that don't have to be aired publicly. I had some uncomfortable experiences.

All in all, though, it's a period in my fandom life that I look back on very fondly. I had a good time! I enjoyed myself! I wrote some good fic! (Not... all of which I've actually put on AO3, oops.) And I actually spent a fair amount of time interacting with Muppets creators on social media, which was fun, too.

So uhhh I know that it sounds weird if you weren't there, but it was a very natural and fun part of my life and I'm really happy it happened!

(Also last year I got to see some of the original Bunsen and Beaker puppets in San Francisco and I cried. lmao. I went to take a selfie and a nice young man was like, "Do you want me to take a pic?" and I said yes, then took a picture of him in return. And he shyly told me that he was a scientist IRL and he loved those two Muppets and I didn't tell him why they were important to me, too, but we had a nice little bonding moment over how much those puppets mean to so many of us for such intensely personal reasons. Love that for us.)

ok sure fine

[nathank77]

3/24/24

3:53 p.m

Elise continues to confuse me for multiple reasons. I don't check her fb often but she Took a bunch of things down. She took down the family photo. I mean and like 50k things. Either way just coincidence.

Maybe she's here and she's like Nathan's a fucking psychotic lunatic I got to remove shit. Maybe she took down the family reunion one specifically bc she wanted to make sure I knew I'd never be apart of her family or even know her. I could have been apart of the family platonically... I would like to be one of those family friends your girls called Uncle or just nathan but someone that they love so much they remember me for their whole lives. Not everything has to be romantic. When I was a kid. My mother had a few family friends who we got really close to and I called them aunt and uncle... but yea idk I'm overanalyzing. She didn't take it down cause of what I wrote. She didn't even see what I wrote. And she thinks I'm a scary psychotic lunatic. If she saw it maybe she wanted to confirm she did. Unfortunately for me to my brain it means there is no way you're going to be apart of the family. I meant platonically, there isn't apart of my brain that thinks she will ever be my gf and or wife. There is just this I wish part.

I wish more than anything that I can be that family friend, and matter to her and her girls and her husband and the rest of the family. I want to actually be apart of her family platonically. Since I know I'll never be with her romantically. I'm okay with that, her happiness means more to me

[juanabaloo]

First Killl! Here's my live (ish) blog of E07 "First Goodbye."

the english captions on this are so bad. Netflix do better.

Ben and Cal and a bunch of students are questioned by the cops. This is so so bad. No! Don't talk to cops. And if you ever do, never talk to them alone. At least Cal says: "where I come from police can't question a minor without an adult present." and then she leaves, not asking for permission. Cops want you to think you have to stay, even when you are not detained. Fuck cops. ACAB.

they got the whitest looking Latino guy to be the "spanish speaking character with 20 seconds of screen time." *eyeroll*

Both J and C end up surprising their parents by bringing the other to their home in this episode. Both parents are NOT into it, but eventually come around to not actively killing the girlfriend. I like that the show makes it clear the parents have zero issue with their queerness. (Cal explains her family is fine with it, and Juliette's sister was good with it.) The problem is the whole vampire - hunter thing.

Yay! Cal's parents are very supportive re the bad watcher guy that Juliette ended up killing. And then both of Cal's parents are in super protective mode when the terrible Guild people show up. The Guild is like the Watcher's Council (from BTVS) but more diverse, more competent, and not British. Fuck 'em. Funny that the one Guild woman is possibly an ex of Jack's.

It feels very real that Juliette makes this off-hand joke about Cal being a monster in the car to a cop and that spirals into the mob looking for Cal. Even the cop snidely remarks on Juliette's privilege in making the joke. The monster checkpoints only seem to work for vampires since they use silver. (see police aren't good for anything!)

Oliver makes another appearance. I def don't trust him. Apparently Sebastian is a ghoul, whatever that means. He's now stronger? They fight but Oliver leaves in the end.

The MAAM group, led by Bunny, is still dismissed by the show. Desperate Housewives, Lululemon lunatics. LOL that Bunny, the only southern accented character, is listening to Shania Twain's "Man I Feel Like a Woman." Shania has a fake country accent and this song was a big country crossover hit. It's a catchy tune with a laughable "we're rebelling against restrictions" vibe. Huh.

Uh. Theo! Here's a gif from earlier where he lies to protect Cal. He feels alone about his mom-trauma-flashbacks so he isolates himself. Nooooo. I love love love the scene where Talia agrees to "leave him alone" (meaning stop trying to talk about it) but then gives him a huge hug, which he gladly accepts. But..... the episode ends and after Apollo accidentally stabs him it seems like maybe he's dead? Or very badly injured??

Apollo and Elinor, who met before, end up making out in the bar bathroom. This clearly ends badly with the stabbing, and she mind melds both Apollo and Theo so they forget what happened. She doesn't seem sad or concerned at all. I DO buy A and E as a potential couple. A and E fit together, the way they act and their personality, and I feel like they are well matched looks-wise. Note E admits "I always fall for the stupid ones" meaning she was falling for A. But getting him to stab his brother is not a good move for any sort of budding relationship or even hookup.

After Ben explains the mob is looking for Cal, Margot tries to kick Cal out. Cal correctly explains why that's a bad idea. That's twice now Cal outsmarts the supposed older wiser adult. (First with the cops and now with Margot.) Go Cal!!

LOL at Margot with the "mismatched furniture" line.

And then J feels scared about the intent of the hunter family, which hmmmm. I guess their actions the night of her Debutante Ball are just now hitting her? Anyway, I can forgive it bc of the great moment with J and C.

awwwww. OK, last episode tomorrow. Lots of stuff for them to wrap up. I assume they'll leave some stuff dangling and hope for a S2.

[shittybyrons]

about to do some big brain shit. gonna paraphrase what i've said on discord and maybe add some more around it, but hear me out. this has lots of anecdotal shit and references to ableism and xenophobia after the readmore. this is super meta and probably i’m grasping straws but i am a lunatic and i like to ramble.

i’m trying to organize this but it’s A Struggle

monsterous text below the cut.

To make sense of all this, I have to talk about a conversation I had with my uncle, who used to play (recreational) hockey in Alberta, and later Texas.

For background, my uncle is potentially mentally ill (anxiety runs in my family) and almost definitely has ADHD. He’s also from Romania and he never got a US citizenship. His name is not English. His biggest crime? He’s small for a hockey player, only 5′10″.

By the time he got to Texas, he was a pretty good player, and the opposite team knew that. He was targeted for his name, his height, his parents, his accent, anything they could, and ended up having to stop playing hockey by the time he got to college for his own safety.

When I first cut my hair short, he told me, “If you’re going to be anywhere, you have to pick one, or they will tear you apart.” I didn’t understand at the time, I just cut my hair short, but now I do.

You can deviate from the norm in one way.

You have to pick one.

One is a bummer, two is an inconvenience, three is just inconsiderate.

In year three, Jack went to Bitty when he was having a panic attack right? So they've established trust for Jack's anxiety. But there's nothing that shows Jack trusts Bitty with other issues.

Check Please is from Bitty’s perspective, so what if he never quite knew the extent of the issues Jack ran into during year 4. This is no one’s fault.

This is purely anecdotal but sometimes with mental illness it consumes your life so much everything has to do with the illness, and if something does not fit the illness, it simply doesn't exist. I know my parents do this, and I know others who pretend like that's the case.

My friend has anxiety, and when he got Super Sick he was not comfortable telling ANYONE he was feeling sick at all. Bc he was anxious, that was "what was wrong with him" so obviously there could be nothing else wrong. He already picked one. He told no one he was feeling sick, and no one knew until he passed out on the stairs on the way to class.

Turns out his immune system was going Nuclear and it destroyed his pancreas and he has to be on insulin for the rest of his life. He was 12.

He’s been bullied ever since.

He didn’t pick one.

You have to pick one.

Why did this happen? He was already anxious, anything more would just be asking for attention. This is partially his anxiety talking, but I doubt this was all in his head.

We’re always told to pick one anyways.

You have to pick one.

Back to Jack, maybe he felt like he was making shit up about being targeted and talking about it would just be him being an attention-seeker. Oh boo hoo Jack Zimmermann has another issue, what is it this time?

Jack fucked up. He picked two. He already had the mental illness thing going, he didn’t need to pick up another quirk. He’s basically asking for it.

Jack never tells Bitty what he’s dealing with bc he already “picked” one issue for Bitty to have to “deal with” so the fact he is hit over and over and over and over and the refs do nothing and his team is powerless and for once his brain is not the villain his issues are outside but what if he is making things up and just being dramatic? Jack never brings them up, because he already “picked” one issue for Bitty to “deal with” and his anxiety won’t let him talk about anything else.

This is not Bitty’s fault, it’s conditioning. The people around Jack have probably voiced their displeasure saying stuff like “oh what is he saying now?” and “oh there’s always something with her.”, stuff that was never directed at Jack, but was still internalized.

I know I’ve heard it, and I know others have heard it too. We’ve all internalized it to some degree.

You have to pick one.

Now that he’s an adult, Jack’s anxiety has probably told him that he gets to pick one thing to have wrong, and any other problem is his fault. So of course, he tries to work with them on his own, because Bitty has so many things he needs to worry about, his boyfriend being upset because he got hit too many times is so meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

There’s an anxiety me and some of my friends get about “bothering” stressed out people. We’ll hide things because we do not want them to worry about us, because they have so many other things to worry about.

When me and my childhood best friend were 9, I was dealing with a bunch of shit because of my undiagnosed ADHD. Because of that, my best friend didn’t ever tell me he had anxiety. The only reason I figured out was because I found him in the middle of a panic attack in a hall no one uses. When I asked him why he never told me, he said “You have so many things to worry about, this is just an extra thing that you don’t need.”

Also he already picked one.

You have to pick one.

He had the whole “parents live in different states” thing going so why would he also have the anxiety issues? That’s just too much.

I still haven’t told my parents eating meat makes me super sick, because they have so much to worry about, trying to feed me vegetarian is just some extra thing.

Anyways, I already picked one.

I already have the ADHD, why would I also have the visceral reaction to meat? That’s just too much.

Again. 

You have to pick one.

To bring this back to OMGCP, Kent Parson has a good reason to not come out. He already had picked one, he’s small. So if he was gay (bc no other mlm sexualities exist) on top of that? He’s just asking for trouble.

Jack’s running into issues in the NHL because he didn’t remember the most important rule of being in sports.

You have to pick one.