#but it's so fun to watch because everyone else on the show sucks way worse than they do. Except for Mercedes she was genuinely good

[aingeal98]

Season 6 Brittana when Santana is able to understand Brittany more than anyone else in the world has ever been capable of (which she always has but it's at it's peak in s6) and when Brittany cheerfully insults someone leaving them confused if she's serious or stupid, Santana has that big love struck grin on her face because she's finally in on the joke. They're older and wiser and still just as smitten.

[khristie16]

Blindfolded Desires

about: Charles can't resist you any longer, and your party takes an unexpected turn into a dark closet warnings: cnc, fingering, humiliation, tie up Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

“WHAT??!!” You watched your best friend with a mix of confusion and embarrassment. You never thought those feelings could coexist, but they did. After yesterday's fiasco, you bid farewell to Nicole and headed back to your dorm. Your plan? Forget about everything, bury your nose in books, and let your problems sort themselves out.

“I’m sorry YN. He really had his eyes open. And you looked so… eager. It was weird to look at that.”

Frustrated, you sat on the couch in your shared room, holding your head in your hands. This situation was worse than you could have imagined. Your arch-nemesis had left you feeling eager for him while he remained unbothered.

“It was a setup. He did it to make fun of me again!” You reclined on the couch, gazing up at the ceiling, searching for solace.

Realizing it was nearly time for your first class, you hastily reached for your phone. “I'm so sorry, YN. I'll never ask you to come to another one of these ridiculous parties with me,” Nicole said.

You exhaled, torn between frustration and laughter, feeling like a complete mess. “Yeah, I'm never going near him again.” However, it seemed your worst enemy had different plans.

As you walked down the corridor, your gaze fixed on the ground as you passed strangers, someone unexpectedly grabbed your attention.

“Hey,” a guy said in a high-pitched voice, nearly causing you to back away. You tried to place his face as he stood there smiling at you. He seemed familiar.

“I’m Stephan. I was at the party yesterday.” Perplexed, you kept your cool and replied with chilly reserve,

“Oh, hi.” You expected the worst, but his next words caught you off guard.

“I'm sorry for yesterday. My cousin can be a pain in the ass sometimes.” Scrutinising the differences between them, you scrunched your eyebrows. They didn't look alike.

Seemingly attuned to your thoughts, he smiled and said, “Yeah, I know.”

Your tension eased a bit, and you sighed quietly. “Yeah, sorry, but I have a class in a minute, so I've got to go.”

You tried to sound apologetic and gave him a simple smile. You appeared reserved, not unfriendly. “Yeah, sorry. I could catch up with you later, if you don't mind,” he said shyly. You just smiled and waved before continuing on your way.

As you turned the corner, you overheard a deep, slightly angry voice that you didn't want to hear. You hadn't encountered him at school until now, but things were different. He either had a strange interest in you or wanted to make fun of you again, and you weren't sure which was worse.

“Getting your claws into another virgin?” You abruptly confronted him, staring into his eyes. “One more word, Leclerc, and I'll teach you not to mess with me.”

He laughed, his dimples deepening. “Yeah, you're going to teach me how to fuck?” “Maybe,” you retorted, “because those bimbos you have can't tell you that you pretty much suck at it.”

His expression darkened, and he contemplated grabbing you by the neck, but instead, he stood taller and spoke from above.

“Careful, jolie. You should watch your mouth.” Your gaze flared with anger as both of you breathed heavily. A sudden clap of thunder broke the tension between you and Charles as you walked away, leaving your scent behind, something he longed to bathe in.

A few days passed, and you were preparing for another party, a Halloween one. You didn't want to dress provocatively, so you considered going as the Grinch. However, your best friend Nicole disapproved, saying, “You cannot be serious.” Rolling your eyes, you explained that you had no interest in showing off your body just because everyone else did. Nicole understood but suggested you choose a different character or actor to dress up as.

The next evening, you walked beside Nicole and her boyfriend, all dressed up as you reached the main entrance of a big hall where the music resonated through the walls. At that moment, you were second-guessing your decision to attend the party.

“Oh, come on, YN, you'll have fun,” Nicole assured you. She was right; you just didn't know it yet.

“Pulp Fiction?” You turned to see Stephen, and you smiled and nodded as you observed his Dracula costume.

“You know, I almost thought I wouldn't see you tonight.” You chuckled in response and began to pour yourself a drink. Stephen promptly took your cup, saying he would do it. You appreciated the gesture and decided to strike up a conversation.

“Do you like Halloween?” you asked. “Not necessarily, but Charles wants me to socialize.”

As you talked, you felt someone's touch on your shoulder. “Nice outfit,” Charles said. You eyed him with arrogance, and he asked if you thought he was a CEO. "007," he clarified. You nodded, unimpressed, and turned away to go to the restroom.

“Wait,” he said, his hand on your bare arm, making you feel a burning sensation. “Dance with me.” You burst into laughter, “Go bully someone else.”

A few hours passed, and the alcohol had definitely taken its toll. The room spun as you danced on the parquet floor with strangers, having lost sight of Nicole in the crowded venue. Numerous hands grasped at your waist, shifting around depending on opportunity. You were lost in the music, feeling it pulse through your entire body.

Suddenly, the music came to an abrupt stop, and you snapped back to sobriety in an instant. You quickly pulled away from the hands that had been holding you and made your way toward the exit. But as you approached it, something or someone grabbed you, and darkness enveloped your vision. And a hot body against you.

Your wrists were swiftly bound, and the sensation of a cold wall against your cheek intensified as the mysterious person spun you around. He held you firmly by your hair, and the pulsating music from outside surged back to full volume. His fingers trailed down your spine, gripping your buttocks with a determined force that caused a slight discomfort.

With a calculated move, he used his foot to part your legs and he went lower with his fingers to your core. He acted without hesitation, as if he were determined not to waste a single moment with you. He massaged your bud and you responded in arching your back toward his tight hot body. His skillful touch conveyed an intimate bliss of your desires, making you unable to contain your moans. He leaned in closer to capture every sound from your mouth and increased the pace of his movements. You were soaking wet it was all over his hand and getting down your thighs. The combination of alcohol and overwhelming sensations left you unable to think rationally. When he began to caress your breasts, you lost all control and climaxed, releasing your pleasure over his hand. All you could hear from him was a loud groan. As he helped you remove the belt from your wrists, he spoke to you,

“Desperate for my fingers as well, huh?” In that moment, you felt as if you could vanish into the ground, fully realizing the intensity of the situation.

[physalian]

What No One Tells You About Writing #5

Part 4

Part 3

Part 2

Shorter list this time, but longer points. I expect this one to be more divisive, but it is what it is, and this is what ‘no one tells you’ about writing, after all. This one’s all about feedback and how to take it, and give it.

1. Not everyone will like your book, no matter how good it is

I’ve said this before, granted, but sometimes you can have very arbitrary reasons for not liking an otherwise great story. For example: I refuse to watch Hamilton. Why? Because everyone I knew and their dog was trying to cram it down my throat when it came out and I still don’t really like musicals, and didn’t appreciate the bombardment of insisting I’ll like it simply because everyone else does. I’m sure it’s great! I’m just not watching it until I want to watch it.

It can be other reasons, too. I won’t read fanfic that’s written in first person, doesn’t matter how good it is. Someone might not watch a TV show because the primary cast is white or not-white. Someone might not watch a movie because an actor they despise is in it, even if the role is fantastic. Someone might not watch or read a story that’s too heavy on the romance, or not enough, or too explicit. I went looking for beta readers and came across one who wouldn’t touch a book where the romance came secondary in a sci-fi or fantasy novel. Kept on scrolling.

Someone can just think your side character is unfunny and doesn’t hear the same music as everyone else. Someone can just not like your writing style with either too much or not enough fluff, or too much personality in the main narrator. Or they have triggers that prevent them from enjoying it the way you intend.

How someone expresses that refusal is not your job to manage. You cannot force someone to like your work and pushing too hard will just make it worse. Some people just won’t like it, end of story.

2. Criticism takes a very long time to take well

Some people are just naturally better at taking constructive criticism, some have a thick skin, some just have a natural confidence that beats back whatever jabs the average reader or professional editor can give. If you’re like me, you might’ve physically struggled at first to actually read the feedback and insisted that your beta readers color-coded the positive from the negative.

It can be a very steep climb up the mountain until you reach a point where you know you’re good enough, and fully appreciate that it is actually “constructive” and anything that isn’t, isn’t worth your time.

The biggest hurdle I had to climb was this: A criticism of my work is not a criticism of me as a person.

Yes, my characters are built with pieces of my personality and worldview and dreams and ideals, but the people giving you feedback should be people who either already know you as a person and are just trying to help, or are people you pay to be unbiased and only focus on what’s on the page.

Some decisions, like a concerning moral of your story, is inadvertently a criticism of your own beliefs—like when I left feedback that anxiety can’t just be loved away and believing so is a flawed philosophy. I did that with intent to help, not because I thought the writer incompetent or that they wrote it in bad faith.

I’m sure it wasn’t a fun experience reading what I had to say, either. It’s not fun when I get told a character I love and lost sleep over getting right isn’t getting the same reception with my betas. But they’re all doing it (or at least they all should be doing it) from a place of just wanting to help, not to insult your writing ability. Even if your writing objectively sucks, you’re still doing a lot more just by putting words on paper than so many people who can’t bring themselves to even try.

As with all mediums subjects to critique, one need not be an author to still give valuable feedback. I’m not a screenwriter, but from an audience’s standpoint, I can tell you what I think works. Non-authors giving you pointers on the writing process? You can probably ignore that. Non-authors giving you pointers on how your character lands? Then, yeah, they might have an opinion worth considering.

3. Parsing out the “constructive” from the criticism isn’t easy

This goes for people giving it as well. Saying things like “this book sucks” is an obviously useless one. Saying “I didn’t like this story because it was confusing and uncompelling” is better. “I think this story was confusing and uncompelling because of X, and I have some suggestions here that I think can make it better.”

Now we’re talking.

Everyone’s writing style is different. Some writers like a lot of fluff and poetic prose to immerse you in the details and the setting, well beyond what you need to understand the scene or the plot. Their goal is to make this world come alive and help you picture the scene exactly the way they see it in their minds.

There’s writers who are very light on the sensory fluff and poetry, trying to give you the impression of what the scene should look and feel like and letting you fill in the missing pieces with your own vision.

Or there’s stories that take a long time to get anywhere, spending many pages on the small otherwise insignificant slice-of-life details as opposed to laser-precision on the plot, and those who trim off all the fat for a fast-paced rollercoaster.

None of these are inherently bad or wrong, but audiences do have their preferences.

The keyword in “constructive criticism” is “construct”. As in, your advice is useless if you can’t explain why you think an element needs work. “It’s just bad” isn’t helpful to anyone.

When trying to decide if feedback has merit, try to look at whatever the critic gives you and explain what they said to yourself in your own words. If you think changing the piece in question will enhance your story or better convey what you’re trying to say, it’s probably solid advice.

Sometimes you just have to throw the whole character out, or the whole scene, whole plot line and side quest. Figuring out what you can salvage just takes time, and practice.

4. Just when you think you’re done, there’s more

There’s a quote out there that may or may not belong to Da Vinci that goes “art is never finished, only abandoned.” Even when you think your book is as good as it can be, you can still sleep on it and second-guess yourself and wonder if something about it could have been done better or differently.

There is such a thing as too much editing.

But it also takes a long time to get there. Only 10-15% of writing is actually penning the story. The rest is editing, agonizing over editing, re-editing, and staring at the same few lines of dialogue that just aren't working to the point that you dream about your characters.

It can get demoralizing fast when you think you’ve fixed a scene, get the stamp of approval from one reader, only for the next one to come back with valid feedback neither of you considered before. So you fix it again. And then there’s another problem you didn’t consider. And then you’re juggling all these scene bits and moments you thought were perfect, only for it to keep collapsing.

It will get there. You will have a manuscript you’re proud of, even if it’s not the one you thought you were going to write. My newest book isn’t what I set out to write, but if I stuck to that original idea, I never would have let it become the work that it is.

5. “[Writing advice] is more like guidelines than actual rules.”

Personally, I think there’s very few universal, blanket pieces of writing advice that fit every book, no exceptions, no conditions, no questions asked. Aside from: Don’t sacrifice a clear story for what you think is cool, but horribly confusing.

For example, I’m American, but I like watching foreign films from time to time. The pacing and story structure of European films can break so many American rules it’s astonishing. Pacing? What pacing? It’s ~fancy~. It wants to hang on a shot of a random wall for fifteen seconds with no music and no point because it’s ~artsy~. Or there is no actual plot, or arc, it’s just following these characters around for 90 minutes while they do a thing. The entire movie is basically filler. Or the ending is deeply unsatisfying because the hoity-toity filmmaker believes in suffering for art or… something.

That doesn’t fly with mainstream American audiences. We live, breathe, and die on the Hero’s Journey and expect a three-act-structure with few novel exceptions.

That does not mean your totally unique or subversive plot structure is wrong. So much writing advice I’ve found is solid advice, sure, but it doesn’t often help me with the story I’m writing. I don’t write romance like the typical romance you’d expect (especially when it comes to monster allegories). There’s some character archetypes I just can’t write and refuse to include–like the sad, abusive, angsty, 8-pack abs love interest, or the comedic relief.

Beyond making sure your audience can actually understand what you’re trying to say, both because you want your message to be received, and you don’t want your readers to quit reading, there is an audience for everything, and exceptions to nearly every rule, even when it comes to writing foundations like grammar and syntax.

You don’t even have to put dialogue in quotes. (Be advised, though, that the more ~unique~ your story is, the more likely you are to only find success in a niche audience).

Lots of writing advice is useful. Lots of it is contradictory. Lots of it is outdated because audience expectations are changing constantly. There is a balance between what you *should* do as said by other writers, and what you think is right for your story, regardless of what anyone else says.

Just don’t make it confusing.

—

I just dropped my cover art and summary for my debut novel. Go check it out and let me know what you think!

[spaceagebachelormann]

HIHSISHSISJSBSNHIHEYHEY

may i please request ocean, misha, and jane/penny with an s/o that’s very short, like 5’0 and everyone assumes they’re rlly nice and they are… when they wanna be. just a very overall fiesty person in a tiny body :)

ocean, mischa and jane/penny with a short s/o!

✧ warnings: none

✧ additional info: erm this has been rotting in my inbox for months mb pookie 🙏 these might be shit but i’m on a rtc kick rn so trust in me!! also i kinda struggled with the angry but short part 😔 also ocean is kinda ooc

✧ m.list — nav.

ೃ༄ ocean o’connell rosenberg

ugh this is so real i’m 5’1 😒

ocean herself is also very short,, like 5’3-5’5

so she prob finds ur height rlly endearing cause she’s used to people being taller than her

would 100% baby u

probably says some shit like “awww ur so cute!” if u get annoyed cause she’s a little shit oblivious

would like seeing in like slightly bigger clothes cause a) she likes knowing ur comfy, even if she SUCKS at showing it, and b) she thinks it makes u look saur cute

and also she makes it abundantly clear she is the only mf who gets to bring up ur height and she’ll be passive aggressive to anyone else who does

and she’s the type to scold u if u get pissed at someone for making fun of ur height but she also doesn’t stop u

she’s secretly so proud but scolds u anyway

the scolding is worse if u swore at the person

ೃ༄ mischa bachinski

this BITCH is so mean to u abt ur height (lovingly ofc!)

purposely puts things on higher shelves so u have to ask him for help (he gets offended if u ask literally anyone else GOD FORBID ocean)

he def argues with u if u get annoyed but in like a teasing way

he thinks it’s endearing

gives u his clothes alot (obviously cause he likes seeing them on u)

so goddamn protective omg.

has encouraged you to yell at ppl for making fun of u

“HIT THEM!! HIT THEM!!” — mischa <3

fake cries and hugs u on the first day of december because santa needs his elves back

also says “don’t fall in a hole” when ur literally just walking

ೃ༄ penny lamb/jane doe

pennys like a mix of ocean and mischa

lovingly bullies u but also thinks ur so so cute

would love watching u yell at people and obviously encourages u

even joins if she feels like it

LOVES picking you up for no reason

jane though also thinks ur height is super cute but doesn’t know how to express it

she’s like immediately intrigued by u cause ur noticeably shorter than everyone else

she randomly comes up behind u and puts her arms around ur shoulders or js on ur arms or something

don’t get mad at her she gets confused cause she doesn’t know what she’s doing wrong :(

[musclesandhammering]

Unpopular Phase 4 & 5 Opinions

Quantumania is the worst Phase 4/5 movie. And it wasn’t even because “kang got beat by ants.” (I liked kang in this movie). It’s just that the Spy Kids aesthetic & bad acting & overall weird vibes just weren’t for me.

Love and Thunder is no worse than Ragnarok. I would argue that it’s better in a lot of ways, actually. I really liked it.

Taika Waititi ruined thor with bad humour all the way back in Ragnarok tbh, but y’all weren’t complaining about it then 😒.

BuckySarah is better than sambucky every day of the week.

The Marvels was a good ass movie & they’re one of my favorite teams in the mcu. I’ll never forgive cbm sites & online dudebros for killing the hype from the moment the film was announced.

I adore America Chavez & Kamala Kahn and I want to see them in everything. They must be protected at all costs.

Multiverse of Madness had shitty characterisation & basically just copy-pasted the ‘grief made me go off the deep end & hurt people, then I realised and stopped myself’ storyline from Wandavision… but Wanda was extremely selfish & apathetic to other people’s suffering from the time she was introduced in the mcu. MoM didn’t make her like that.

Wanda should’ve been looking for Vision (her actual real life boyfriend whom she spent years with irl) in MoM instead of the kids that weren’t even real that she spent like a week using as characters in her sitcom.

Making everyone forget Peter Parker wasn’t profound or poetic in any way- it was just frustrating and needlessly cruel.

I’m begging marvel to understand that heroes don’t have to be in constant suffering to be heroic & villains don’t have to sacrifice themselves to achieve redemption. Let characters heal and atone, you absolute weirdos.

What If…? is the most boring show ever. I’d rather watch Secret Invasion or She-Hulk.

Season 2 of Loki is, in a cinematic & artistic sense, the best marvel project period.

Loki season 1 was meh- more of a fun au than anything because his characterisation kinda sucked. Season 2 fixed it, though, and made it way easier for me to incorporate this version of Loki back into the larger mcu.

Having Steve stay in the past with Peggy was stupid af.

I don’t hate Peggy (or Captain Carter), though. I actually think she’s pretty cool.

I don’t really love Steve. He’s arrogant & they never really let him have flaws & something about him being a perfect metaphor for the American military industrial complex (and marvel painting that as a good thing) doesn’t sit right with me.

The Illuminati got done dirty and the only reason they went down so fast was because Wanda had all that plot armor.

I thought the retcon of having Wanda be “destined” to become the Scarlet Witch since birth was an annoying cop-out. Her powers originating from being experimented on with an infinity stone was way more interesting.

Loki & Wanda have almost the exact same powers.

Nebula deserved a bigger rule in killing Thanos & everything else moving forward.

I love Kathryn Newton but her acting as Cassie Lang was the worst acting I’ve ever seen in the mcu, like it was outrageously bad.

I’m glad Sam is the new Captain America and not Bucky.

The fact that Bucky probably isn’t gonna be one of Thee lead characters in the upcoming avengers movies feels sick and twisted.

Secret Invasion was actually passable until the G’iah scene at the end. That ruined it. And Nick Fury deserved way better for his solo series.

Kang is so much more interesting than Doctor Doom. I really hope they just recast him.

Carol Danvers does NOT deserve the hate she gets.

I actually disliked Carol until The Marvels. That movie made me a stan.

The way people treat Monica as Wanda’s little inferior pet creation or smth & then brag about it is uhh very sus.

I don’t like sylvie (bc she’s an amalgamation of 3 different comic characters- which killed any hopes of them appearing individually in the mcu, the creators used her existence to butcher Loki’s genderfluid rep, & she was written poorly) & I HATE sylki (bc it’s weird & unnecessary).

Marvel isn’t dead. I actually love where they’re taking things. But that’s just me.

[twsted-kinks]

[!!INCOMPLETE!!] Janitor!MC at NRC (a smut series)

Part 4: Floyd, Jade, and Azul

>Minors and ageless blogs DNI<

This series is discontinued but found this in my drafts and people wanna see it so here.

Series Content: Noncon/dubcon, forced stripping, unsafe sex, public sex, coercion, somnophilia, forced to wear skimpy clothing, bondage and other BDSM things, forced eye contact, biting/hickies, blood, weird dick shapes, watersports, forced prostitution, gangbang, spanking, forced exhibition, breaking in to steal your stuff and fuck you, noncon voyeurism, choking, blood, small and large object insertion, (may add more)

Series Masterlist

Floyd and Jade

Floyd and Jade are assholes. They do not care about your feelings and just want to laugh at you. Early on in your 'employment' the tweels would touch you. Jade would be a bit discreet and simply caress you under your skirt and caging you between him and a wall so he can touch your chest. Floyd was less discreet just pulling up your skirt and pulling down the hem of your top and touching you freely. Together they were even worse, cornering you and touching you. They both also love to degrade you, calling you a "slut," "cum dump," "whore," etc. They quickly grew bolder with you.

In the present day, you're just a fleshlight to them, a pretty little toy to use and abuse. Jade will make you bend over in the middle of the hallway (either threatening you with a smile or simply forcing you physically), showing every passerby with their phone out your asshole and cunt/dick. He spreads your cheeks and laughs at how your asshole twitches in front of him. He will put random objects in your asshole, pens, pencils, etc. And make you thank him for it by sucking his dick. He'll write degrading things on your body with arrows pointing to your mouth and hole(s) while he paints them with his cum. Jade spanks your ass and cunt/dick until you're crying. Jade also loves to choke you and watching you struggle to breathe. Some days though, Jade will just bend you over, spit on your asshole, and just shove his cock in you. No prep. He just fucks you deep and hard as you cry from the pain. Makes you stroke your cock/rub your click as he fucks your ass so he can feel you cum on his cock. By the time he's done with you, you're limp in his arms. After he fills you with his cum, he just drops you to the ground. What others do with you is none of his business.

Floyd is both less and more cruel in ways. He doesn't really try to humiliate you, but he doesn't give a fuck who's around. If you enter a classroom during a class and Floyd is there. He will just pull you over to his desk and just throw you over the table to either fuck your face or your hole(s). He also bites you a lot. Your shoulders are always scared and bloodied because of him. One of his favorite ways of using you is after basketball club. He'll drag you in the locker room and tie you to a bench with whatever fabric he can find, putting your body in painful positions, and just fucks you. He'll cum a couple of times, get bored, and then everyone else has free access to you. Floyd also doesn't prep you. He just lines up his cock and fucks any free hole you got.

Together though. The twins are hell. Jade likes to shoce things up your ass and Floyd likes to push your body so things never end well. So far things they've shoved up your ass includw a broom handle, plastic and metal water bottles, a lot of markers, shampoo bottles, a fist, baseballs and tennis balls, a baseball bat, a 2 liter bottle, etc. They always make you hold your asshole open once you finally push out whatever object they put in you so they can jerk off, point their cocks at you hole, and cum in your ass. They don't really care about recording you, but usually they gather an audience of either a couple people or an entire crowd as they destroy your asshole. When they get bored, they just leave you, and the audience steps in to have their fun.

One day, Jade and Floyd bring you to the Monstro Lounge and you're stripped of your clothing, forced to drink a potion that lets you breathe underwater,, and thrown into the aquarium. The tweels join you soon after and you see their mer forms for the first time. They toy with you, chasing you around the pool and biting different parts of your body. They take turns squeezing you and running their long tongues along your body. A large suction cup dildo is stuck to the glass.

You're asshole was guided to the dildo while patrons watch with phones recording and cocks out. With your legs spread, the tweels shove you onto the dildo, pushing you down further and further until your ass is flush against the glass. You try to squirm away, but the tweels hold your arms and legs in place. Your mouth opens in a silent moan as the noticeable bulge in your stomach begins to move. The dildo inside of you begins to move. It's slow at first, but quickly speeds up and fucks your ass. This and the fact one of the tweels is playing with your cock/clit while the other plays with your chest leads to you cumming quickly.

... (People are free to add to this if they want. If you want to know the general plan I had: Jade and Floyd take turns using MC in front of the audience until closing time. After, Azul brings MC into his office and fucks them over his desk. He actually takes care if MC, making them cum, then offers clothes to them and lets them head back to their residence. You DO NOT have to follow this if you wanna add.)

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for trying to make everyone’s lives easier? 🚗

Cast of characters: Me (32F), my mom (68F), my brother Robbie (37M), my daughter (2F), my friend Bea (31F). Sorry it’s long, this one has lore.

Me and my friend Bea were going to a party about an hour away from my house. Bea is on my way so I picked her up. I thought my husband would come too so I arranged for my daughter to stay at Mom’s overnight; he backed out but I still dropped my daughter at Mom’s on the way so he could have a night to himself. Bea needed to give her parents something and they live 5 minutes from my parents, so I dropped her off, then brought my daughter to Mom’s, then picked Bea up and went to the party.

The party was fun, we played some games, had a good time, then around 10:30 Bea and I left. I started thinking about how I would have to wake up early to go get my daughter the next morning, and my Mom’s house is between the party and Bea’s house, so I called Mom and said I would pick her up on my way back. But when I was driving, I kept thinking about how if she got woken up my daughter probably would cry all the way home and then not sleep well and then tomorrow would suck, and maybe my husband would come get her so I wouldn’t have to. So when I pulled up to Mom’s I called my husband to see if he would, and he agreed, so I decided not to take her home.

Since I was already at my Mom’s I went inside to let her know my daughter would stay. Unfortunately Mom had decided to wake my daughter up to go home and she was crying and Mom was really annoyed that I wouldn’t be taking her home after all and it was all just a lot so I stayed for a while to get her back to sleep. After about 10 minutes, Mom got a call from Bea, who was in the car, asking her to have me come back out.

Brief background: Robbie has schizophrenia, and when he’s getting bad he tends to fixate on people. Usually it’s family, but sometimes it’s also Bea, because he’s had a crush on her since she and I were friends in high school, and a few years ago he found out where she lived and started showing up and banging on her door. He wouldn’t remember being told to leave for more than an hour. Eventually we had to call the cops to tell him they would arrest him for trespassing if he didn’t stay away. He’s only been violent a few times, I don’t think Bea’s in real danger from him, but the paranoia makes him think Bea’s in danger from someone else and the way he talks we were concerned he was going to like break into her house to protect her. The whole thing just really freaked her out, she had no idea about the crush before he started showing up at her house and she usually goes out of her way to avoid him, she won’t come to my daughter’s birthday parties or anything.

So anyway I guess Robbie was going around and looking in the car windows. Bea said she locked the doors but couldn’t figure out how to turn off the lights in the dash (it’s electric and her car is old) but she ducked her head and doesn’t know if he recognized her. She was shaky but not crying or anything and I couldn’t find my phone (that's why she called Mom) so I showed her the door lock button and went back inside to look for it.

Mom had been annoyed with me before but she was really mad when I came back in. She kept saying how she hadn’t been able to sleep in days because of Robbie and I was just making everything worse and why I came back when Bea was with me when I knew Robbie was having a bad time. Basically she was blaming me for everything and it was giving me anxiety so it took me a while to realize my phone was in my pocket. But I figured it out and went back outside. Bea was in the footwell with her jacket over her head. She said Robbie had tried the doors and banged on the windows, but everything was locked and eventually he went back inside.

Anyway Mom has been mad at me ever since. I told her that she should have said if she was really too tired to watch my daughter, and she said some really hurtful things like how she’s never known anyone to need a break from their baby as much as I do. I don’t think she’s being fair because she always talks about how much she loves to see her, and it takes a village. Anyway if she hadn’t woken my daughter up the whole Robbie thing wouldn’t have happened because I wouldn’t have been inside so long.

So, tumblr: AITA?

(FWIW Bea isn’t mad or anything, she knows I can’t control what Robbie does.)

What are these acronyms?

[pucktoxicity]

Hi, I really like your blog! I was wondering if you've met any wags and if so have they been kind? (i've read awful things about a lot of wags in tumblr and i refuse to believe everyone sucks)

hi! thank you, i’m so glad you like it here! this is gonna be long, i’m sorry, but here it is!

i’ve met a lot of WAGs. for me, the general conclusion i’ve drawn is that it’s the younger WAGs (in their early 20’s aka my age group) that are… not too nice. 😬🫢 they’re young, that frontal lobe isn’t fully developed, and instead of being humble and just appreciating their boyfriend or their boyfriend’s fan that knows hey, that’s my fav’s girlfriend!, they come across incredibly entitled, and even worse, they’re pretty condescending. there’s a sense of superiority that they have over everyone else at a game in younger WAGs, even though they’re normal as fuck. they’re not celebrities, they’re not important (sorry, but it’s the truth), and most, if not the majority of fans in attendance and staff at the game have no idea who the fuck they are. it can be pretty off-putting and honestly, laughable, to be that way, because fans all talk. everyone will find out that someone’s girlfriend was making fun of fans in the arena quickly, if that makes sense.

ironically (and i said this a while ago), the girls hooking up with a player that aren’t even actually dating them but show up to games, are the worst of the worst. i’ve had several, and i mean too many than i care to admit, abhorrent encounters with that group in the devils’ tunnel, where they’re loudly making fun of fans and girls who are at games with signs. they’ll loudly say it’s embarrassing to be standing in the tunnel with fans (and say fans with blatant disgust).

older WAGs, in their late 20s or in their 30s, and the WAGs with children, are always nice. they’re all incredibly sweet women, very respectful of fans of every age, and they appreciate when people compliment them or say hello. they know their living the fucking dream life, and they appreciate it all, appreciate the people who show up to the arena multiple times a week to watch their partners play, they’re just on a different level compared to younger WAGs who don’t understand any of that yet. 😁

[mdhwrites]

Do you agree with the idea that Luz is a people pleaser? Or is it just something the fandom made up to make her seem more likable/relateble/interesting with no real basis in canon?

GOD NO! But that's not necessarily a bad thing as the protagonist archtype she's hailing from normally isn't. The problem comes from the fact that she is so ANTI people pleasing that it clashes with her backstory, rare moments in the show and she also just NEVER LEARNS ANYTHING.

This is also a problem for Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja. Him and his best friend make a declaration at the start of the year to be popular. They don't care if they're liked or disliked, the goal is for EVERYONE to know their name. This fuels a bunch of teenage shenanigans that are meant to impress people or make them look cool by the definitions they have in their brains rather than what reality is.

Cookie from Ned's Declassified did stuff like this a lot, Danny and Tucker from Danny Phantom are also prime examples of it. It is just a teenage protagonist archtype for them to be trying to live out a fantasy of being special when the reality is that they're just nice nerds who should be happy being who they are. This is Luz. Period.

And there's two sides of this archtype. The first is the FIRST THING WE KNOW ABOUT HER. They will do things to stand out from a crowd because they think it's cool regardless of if it's right. We are literally shown FOUR instances of this back to back from her book report to the montage of her fuck ups. Each time, she is actively looking at what others are doing and going "Nah. Hold my beer and watch this." I mean... She brought fucking SPIDERS to school and looked at best confused as to why everyone ran off screaming and that's not talking about the play she RUINED.

This is then reinforced in Episode 2 when she tells King and Eda to go suck eggs because she is totes a chosen one. She does save them at the end which brings the other half of this archtype when it comes to their fuck ups. When they fuck up, they fix it, commonly so as to not get people killed but also to make sure that either people in general or those closest to them don't HATE THEM. Now, that might sound like a people pleaser... But it's not. It's seeking forgiveness, not permission. I mean in S1 alone you have her explicitly ignoring Willow's wishes in both Understanding Willow and Wing it Like Witches so that she can have her fun before then someone gets hurt or upset and fixing it in someway.

As a note: The moment you realize that SO MUCH of Luz's character is motivated by tropes she likes or be special, a lot of actions she takes take on way worse connotations. A perfect example of this is when she declares in Lost in Language that she'll be friends with Amity come hell or high water... A minute later she's fucking around with Amity's siblings who Amity has shown clear disdain for. Or you can go with Adventure in the Elements where despite her trying to get along with Amity and impress her, she STEALS FROM HER so that she can get the instant gratification of casting magic. And this sort of recontextualization is ALL over the first season especially of Luz just doing bat shit crazy things because it lets her be cool and she never really learns to stop, even PROUDLY stating in Reaching Out that she'll always choose the option that leads to the most chaos. The most adventure, the most tropes. A season and a half in and instead of growing at all, she is still defiantly against reality.

This is also all inherently AGAINST being a people pleaser. A people pleaser wants everyone to LIKE them. Sprig spends half an episode being a people pleaser like this, even if I don't think it's quite who he is. What Luz is after is just to make sure people don't hate her. At best, she doesn't want people to actively dislike her but she mostly cares about if you remember her name. If she left an impression bigger than anyone else.

But I don't blame the fandom for making her a people pleaser. All of what I've said is based on her actions. By her words, she's meant to be someone who has had to hold back who she is. Who has hid from the world so as to be liked by society. Being a people pleaser IS a part of that archtype and that's where we get "Oh no teenagers" and "I'm gonna get made fun of again" and... That's about it. It's actually why those lines annoy me so much because they happen over a season into the show and she has NEVER held back on who she is for even half a second during that ENTIRE TIME. Even Adventure in Elements isn't about pleasing others, it's about not being embarrassed. Being brought low.

But those are literally the ONLY moments in the entire series where she gives a fuck. The Collector and Belos angst? It's not about how no one will like her anymore, it's that they'll hate her because it needs to be that drastic for her to care. It also makes her less of the paragon hero that she sees herself as. And that's laughable because she only has like TWO moments in the entire series where she actively seeks out a way to help someone without them asking. The cure for Eda's curse at the end of S1, where she's trying not to have Eda die in return for watching over her which is just kind of basic kindness and going after King's stuffed rabbit in Titan Where Art Thou. At that point though, the show claims they're siblings so it's just being kind to your family... You know, right before she effectively tells Eda to go rot because she won't let her go fight Belos.

All the while, she is learning NOTHING. The teenage dumbass archtype is GREAT as a main character because it allows so much room for growth. It's part of why Anne is such a good protagonist because while she embraces the lazy side of it more than trying to appear special, she is still a teenage dumbass. As such, S1 spends time teaching her morals and making her grow up so she can be better.

Luz never grows up. Then again, she'd either have to actually face consequences for her actions or care more deeply about others for that to happen. That isn't going to happen though, not when she, and everyone around her, are solely focused on letting her live the isekai fantasy that she's always wanted.

=========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Ranks: Miraculous Ladybug Classmates

Thats Right! I am going to be ranking Marinette and Adrien's classmates from my Least Favorite to My favorite.

Rules:

I will be judging based on Bustier's Class. So No Zoe, Kagami, or Marc. Even if they hang out.

Marinette and Adrien will be Excluded from this list (Think of them as Honorary 1 and 2 if included)

I will be using all of the episodes that have come out as reference. And there will be potential spoilers up to Episode 20 of season 5.

This isnt about which classmates are the best or worst. Its about My personal like or dislike of a classmate.

Including Marinette and Adrien there are 15 students. So this will be out of 13.

____________________________________________________________

13th. Sabrina Raincomprix

(She doesnt deserve a gif.)

Yea... after the recent episodes I really cant bring any sort of desire to like you. Oh sure Chloé is cruel and Lila is a manipulator... Sabrina is just a spineless worm that lets others get hurt or even ASSISTS in it. There is a corrupt cop joke here but its too easy. Also even with that she has no personality outside of Chloé Lackey. Chloé wouldnt be able to pull off most of her evil schemes without someone doing the dirty work and sorry Sabrina, thats you.

12th. Chloé Bourgeois

A moment of silence for the wasted Character potential... Okay. So yea Chloé sucks. Granted the season 4 and 5 have gone so over the top with showing that season 2 and 3 were not actually important that it causes massive whiplash. I cant find myself hating her like I can with sabrina. I just pity this character. And that is even AFTER I saw what happened in Derision, though at this point I have no interest in seeing a redemption. The writers could have made her heel turn back to evil more believable IF they did it gradually with more effort. But its clear that there was no effort to do so.

11th. Lê Chiến Kim

This man went from top 4 on my list to BARELY missing the top 10. Just goes to show how much one episode can change one's view on a character. In some ways I actually would say I like him less than Chloé now... but Kim at least did apologize and did say he would make an effort to be better. But MAN, when I found out what he did I was watching Chat noir BEAT HIS ASS ON LOOP. You know I was about to give that boy THESE HANDS for that s***. Derision really shifted everyone's view on this once lovable himbo, now he is a dumbass.

10.Rose Lavillant

I just dont like her design that much. Her personality is the stereotypical bubbly girl. And while she does get some exploration on why that is... its never touched on again. Also I am a touch salty about Migration. Juleka was expecting to hear a confession but WE ALL GOT BAITED AND SWITCHED. Guess the show cant have any girl confessing to another girl unless that girl being confessed to is Marinette.

9. and 8. Ivan Bruel and Mylène Haprèle

So to me these two are basically interchangable in terms of ranking. Ivan is the gentle giant that is misunderstood. Mylene is the soft scarred cat that wants the world to be a better place. If I had to pick, i would say I prefer Myléne more, but thats because she gets more character development.

7. Lila Rossi

So Lila always struck me as a character with huge potential. The problem is the writers have no idea how to write a cruel, calculating and manipulative character without dumbing down everyone else to make her seem smart. Now in season 5 I have found myself starting to like her more. Is it because the writing got better? F*** no, its just been more fun with her in it. She is just clearly having more fun with it, and just seeing how the ridiculous plans somehow work almost makes it funny. Also its clear she is being set up as the next big bad, so I cant wait to see how convoluted the show makes her to make her WORSE than Gabriel. So unlike Chloé whose cartoonish evilness feels like a waste, with Lila it feels more fun to watch.

6. Max Kante

He built Markov. Plus after Gamer he has been a pretty solid character. I also do enjoy his support of his Idiot Friend Kim. Even if Kim doesnt deserve it. Also, he has the best transformation sequence. Boy goes WAY too hard for it. I also just think he is a charming character.

5. Nathanael Kurtzberg

Tomato son. While it took me some time to forgive him for Reverser. He is basically a shipper with Marc and its a fun time. I enjoy their plans and adorable antics. But part of me still misses season 1 Nathanael, wonder if he still had a crush on Marinette. Not much else to add, just that he is fun to have on screen and his english dub voice is still dope.

4. Juleka Couffaine

She has my favorite design of the Classmates. She does develop more as the show goes on, I would say she has the most consistant development of the classmates outside of the top 3 contenders. Juleka is now the lead of Kitty Section, and has some incredible Lyrics within her. She wants to stand out and wants to stop being a wall flower. I can respect her guts and attempts at growing and improving.

3. and 2. Alya Cesaire and Nino Lahiffe

The respective best friends of Adrien and Marinette. They are likely the most known about classmates of the Miracuclass. Well Alya is. Nino sadly doesnt get as much delved into. That being said, both are supportive friends and go to great lengths to help them. Nino is surprisingly the more chaotic of the two resulting in him thinking Chat noir was stealing his girl OR forming a resistance against Monarch. Alya learning her best friend's identity and being her emotional rock. Now I thought I would put Alya higher than Nino, but Nino's charm and antics make it hard to dismiss and so I have them both as a tie. Though they also had some moments (Thanks to bad writing) that make me cringe a bit.

1. Alix Kubdel

The most consistently written character in the entire class. The Time travel hero, a character that in my opinion is slept on a lot more than she should be. While I am not crazy about time travel, I do enjoy Alix as a character. She is fun loving and ready to call people out on their BS, also she gets some great lines. She also shows how much of a supportive friend she is to nathanael, Marinette, Ladybug and Chat noir. Its sad she had to go into the time stream to hide from monarch, but it is still a fun way to send a character off for a time

[humorisstoredinthetits]

The Heathers+Veronica go to the Mall

I have returned because I actually had an idea for once

I also got too busy watching another show about a group of 4 color-coded girls who are all (probably) gay, guess correctly and you get a cookie

Its no secret that they like to shop

Between Chandler's massive ego forcing her to have the newest fashion trends to ensure she looks better than everyone else and Duke and Veronica's gremlin hordes of collectibles, they do alot of shopping

At least once a week they end up at the local mall and don't leave until they come out with just tons of unnecessary bullshit

Do they have a problem? Probably.

Is it a massive drain on their finances? Lol not even close, they have just obscene amounts of money, between their three incomes and the fortunes left behind from the Heather's parents they can afford to buy whatever the hell they please

Even with the amounts they donate to various charities, they still just have so much of it

This ends up with them buying just the dumbest things

By 'them' I mean Duke

Like once she rented one of those bouncy castles from a party company bc Duke always wanted once but her parents sucked and wouldn't get it so she said fuck it and rented one

Mac and Veronica quickly joined her on it and they all started fooling around in there (not in the nsfw way, ik some of you dirty people were thinking that)

Chandler was just like 'whatever' until she realized that it was crushing some of her flowers

The stakes planted in the ground to keep the castle in place were not meant to withstand the forces of 3 childish adults bouncing around in there so they came out and the forces of them jumping moved the castle onto her flowers

Chandler got pissed, grabbed a knife, and stabbed the castle, deflating it

Everyone was pissed at her for ruining their fun and she had to pay the company for the damages

But back to what this was actually about

The Sherwood Mall really isn't anything that spectacular, but there really isn't much to do in Sherwood so they'll take what they can get

They'll usually drive in Duke's Jeep, as its the only thing that will be able to hold all of their crap

Once they get to the mall they split into two groups

Duke and Mac go off on their own while Chandler goes with Veronica

This is because they usually look for clothes first, and if Chandler doesn't supervise her Veronica will get non-Chandler approved outfits and she will not stand for that

And she still can't accessorize for shit

Chandler will go into a store, grab so many different clothes and spend literal hours trying them on while asking Veronica her opinions

Veronica still sucks with fashion, even after all these years with her fashionista gfs, so she's clueless when Chandler asks her for her opinion

"Which Skirt do you think looks better on me"

"This is a trick question, they're the same fucking skirt"

" No, this one is black and this on is very very dark gray, God Veronica how can you not see the difference, it's clear as night and day!"

"Whatever you say Princess"

What's even worse is when Chandler is done and starts picking out shit for Veronica

She feels like a doll while Chandler argues with herself over very minute differences in clothes

Sometimes she will take pity on her and let her pick out a few outfits that she doesn't approve of, which usually ends up with Veronica at Hot Topic getting band t-shirts and ripped jeans while Chandler tries not to gag at how unfashionable it all is

Veronica used to get severely annoyed by this, especially when she first joined the Heathers, but she then realized that she does it from a place of love, she just wants her gfs to look good

Chandler is just very very very bad at expressing her feelings in ways that don't make her look like a controlling bitch

Plus she also appreciates it deep down, she knows that she would not be able to pick them out herself

Hell if it wasn't for Chandler she would probably still be wearing that stupid scarf she used to wear with literally everything no matter how badly it clashed

Duke and Mac, on the other hand, are having a good time

Chandler trusts them enough to know what looks good on them so they are allowed to go out on their own

They take things a whole lot slower, taking their time browsing and seeing what looks cute

And don't get them wrong, they love Chandler, but she can be a bitch sometimes when it comes to these kinda things so they're glad that Veronica is the one who has to deal with that

Once they finish buying things they bring them to the Jeep before heading back inside for lunch

Being a small mall, the options aren't great but they make do with what they have

Chandler doesn't like most of the options, being mostly unhealthy fast food, so she usually goes to Subway

She gets the Roasted Chicken 6in with a tea and Miss Vicke's Salt and Vinegar Chips

Yes, Chandler is one of those horrid people who likes Salt and Vinegar Chips

The employees there put extra toppings on her sandwich because she comes there so consistently

Duke goes to the Panda Express (Ik I'm saying the Asian gets Asian food and all that but I have like no ideas for Duke)

She gets the Orange Chicken Bowl with Fried Rice and a Diet Coke

Mac goes to McDonalds

She collects the Happy Meal toys so she'll get 3 4piece McNugget Happy Meals

She doesn't like the apple slices so Chandler will usually eat them

The employees know to give her 3 different toys bc one time they didn't and Mac was disappointed so Chandler went over there and demanded they exchange them out for different ones

Veronica goes to the local Pizza shop

Its called Smokey's and its one of those restaurants where if you eat the big slice in a certain amount of time they'll put your picture on the wall and give you free pizza

Well the first time they came to the mall Veronica decided to try it for the hell of it

She devoured it in half the time of the previous record holder

The Heathers were watching and were horrified at how she just inhaled it like she was a black hole

Now every time she goes she gets the big slice and just for the hell of it tries to beat her best record

Her current record is 2min 12sec

After they finish eating they'll get ice cream because they are responsible adults who only eat healthy things to ensure they are in the best health

Mac gets Vanilla bc she's basic af

Chandler gets Strawberry

Duke gets Chocolate Chip

Veronica gets Pistachio

The Heathers are once again disgusted by their gf's food taste bc who tf likes pistachio?

After finishing their ice cream they go shopping for other things

This time they don't split up and go around in a group

They often go to Earthbound Trading Co.

Mac likes the incense so she'll stop by and see if theres any new scents or just to replenish her stock

She also likes the animal diagram wall art they have

One time Veronica found these rainbow butterfly wings there and as soon as she saw them Chandler said "Veronica Sawyer I swear to God if you buy those I am going to kill you"

She wore them to pride that year

Chandler refused to acknowledge her the whole time

At BoxLunch Mac and Duke will go through the pin stand and show each other what stupid ones they have and laugh at them while Veronica looks at the anime figures

Duke will buy the enamel pins for her office at work bc they're more fun that the boring regular ones

They go to Gamestop and Veronica tells herself that she isn't going to buy any more Pokemon Cards, its just like gambling, she isn't guaranteed to get anything good, she should just order what she wants off of Ebay

She comes out the store with bags full of packs and no regrets

Of course they go to the Candy Store, they get so much candy that the owner insists on giving them discounts

Duke buys all of those weird sodas like atomic waste or whatever

**Line break bc Tumblr is Dumblr**

She never likes any of them and never takes more than a few sips from each before spitting it out

One of the few good things their mall does have is a Lego Store

Mac once made custom minifigures of the four of them

Chandler acted like she thought it was stupid but she actually thinks its really cute and keeps hers on her desk in her office

Chandler has to drag the three of them out of there sometimes becuase they cannot make up their minds on what sets to get

They have a Build-a-Bear too, Mac usually looks to see if they have any of the Pokemon ones in there and gets them if they do

Its also where Chandler and Mac had their first 'date'

They call it a date but they were 7 and it was Mac's Birthday Party and Chandler gave her bear to Mac who was upset that she couldn't get two

Mac still has those bears to this day

They go to Spencer's and head straight for the back after checking out the pride stuff in the front and seeing if any of it is good

They don't buy anything most of the time they just go back there and laugh at all of the stupid shit they have there

One time they found a skirt that was red with a heart that said 'bitch' on it and they made Chandler get it

Duke also got a lava lamp

I just think she would really like lava lamps

Finally they stop in Sephora bc of course they do they're the Heathers

They go there last bc they spend forever looking at makeup and nail polish and shit

On their way out Mac coerces them into riding on the carousel bc they are definitely mature adults

Mac rides the Unicorn bc of course

Duke rides the Tiger

Chandler rides the horse

Veronica rides the ostrich

She just thinks its funny that there are all these majestic creatures and then there's this giant bird

After that the leave and everyone is exauhsted, especially Chandler bc she just had to babysit her 3 gfs for the past several hours even through they are grown adults and should be able to handle themselves

Unfortunately for her, none of them are mature adults, not even her

[blackjackkent]

Moving past the weird terrifying door, we fought some more of Ethel's playthings controlled by weird masks. (We had the option to loot and, presumably, wear these, but that seems like a terrible idea.)

One of them, somewhat depressingly, was carrying this:

Yeah, I don't think that worked out very well. :(

This was followed by a fun little obstacle course around a bunch of noxious gasses which cost everyone a bunch of HP, but finally we've made it to the "Ancient Abode" - and look who it is!

Whoohoo, we found her, and she's not dead! (Yet, anyway.)

Ethel, needless to say, is NOT happy we're here.

"you come to my home, interfere in my business, and now have the gall to face me in the heart of my lair? You petulant bollocks. I'll rip your spine out your arsehole! I'll use your blood to spice my stew! I'll keep you alive until I've sucked the marrow from your bones! And then I'll bring you back and do it all over again!"

Hector, show us how you feel about this.

Damn right.

This turned out to be a bit of an annoying battle. Ethel had the ability to disguise and duplicate herself and used it several times, and there was an additional threat for a while of Mayrina's cage burning and getting dropped into a pit. But we whittled her down.

She tried to make a deal with the group (specifically Karlach, who happened to get the conversation for some reason), offering an ability score increase in return for letting her go with Mayrina and her unborn child.

Obviously Karlach (and everyone else) was not letting that happen, so we finished her off.

Mayrina...surprisingly, does not seem particularly grateful for this effort on her behalf.

"You bastard! You ruined it - you ruined everything!"

Hector, covered in blood, soot, acid burns, and a general air of exhaustion, just stares at her and slow blinks for a few moments. "This is an interesting way of thanking me," he finally says.

"You want thanks?" Mayrina screeches. "A slap is all you deserve! Ethel was going to bring my husband back. Back from the dead! And now I'll never see him again - because of you."

Ah.

Hector frowns. "Hags don't work for free. What did you promise her?"

"This." Mayrina looks down at her swollen belly. She's very far along; her back is hunched with the weight of it. There's a sort of mad desperation in her eyes. "Just a bit longer and my child would have been born. And all this - all this would have been over."

Hector swallows. Selune's grace...what a terrible bargain. He has certainly had no shortage of naive mistakes himself, out here in the world away from the monastery, but even he can see that this could not possibly have ended well. "With hags, nothing is ever over," he says bluntly.

"This was the best chance I had, for me *and* my baby," Mayrina insists. "Auntie Ethel promised to give this child a good life - teach them magic, even! More than I could have done."

Hector feels a surge of compassion for the young woman. Clearly she felt trapped in her existing situation - husband dead, left to raise a child alone in what must have been less than affluent circumstances. The hag's promises must have sounded quite enticing. But there was also no doubt they were false. "Is that what Ethel told you?"

Mayrina just stares at him for a long moment. "She said I'd make a bad mother. I-- I think she was right." She turns away, beginning to stalk deeper into the cave. "Now I'll have to drag Connor's coffin all the way home. It's the only way this child will ever meet their father. I hope you're happy."

----

Hector watches her walk away and sags wearily, running a hand down his face. "Did I do the wrong thing?" he asks, not really expecting an answer.

"You 'n I both know that hag would have done terrors 'n worse to her," Karlach grunts matter-of-factly. "Better this way." A pause. "You're all right, Soldier. We had to stop her. Wouldn't be you - wouldn't be us - if we left her to that fate."

Hector takes this in for a long moment, then forces himself to straighten up, squaring his shoulders. "Yes. Yes, you're right, of course. Of course."

"Besides," Gale adds darkly, "she's not that creature's only victim. There are a lot of souls that will be able to move on to some more verdant pasture because she's dead. And I think we can all agree that's a worthwhile outcome."

[bitch-butter]

but also havve you Seen this is us, because that film felt like notes from ross' therapist turned into a script i was like 👀👀👀👀 sir we really gonna put our mommy issues out there? for everyone????? to see????? Alright. ok sir. alright.

anyway. i also would like. to know your insight. about the Back Packing Trip. because. well. i am. Curious.

i Have seen About Us and it was a sad bad film that made me feel sad and bad for ross as a person, and i thought it couldn't get any worse for him but then i remembered he made A Violent Man, and i was like that's the actual worse thing but Then i remembered it was originally called Ire so not only is he Bad but he's also Stupid.

let's talk about the backpacking trip

first of all, the whole thing is really giving the one scene of call me by your name i can recall where they're like romping in front of a waterfall, and i feel like this trip Also had like a soft malevolent energy from the beginning. 

(also not to be this way but like who backpacks, let alone as a pair? that's like, a front for something else lol. i knew like Peers who Had Money who backpacked together after high school and college but i Earnestly can't imagine what one Does backpacking across Europe together besides finger each other.)

like, it's very sad to imagine in hindsight because Young Ross probably thought this was the beginning of his new life and he was going to take his HBO money and his hot psycho and retire the both of them to Miami Beach or wherever gay people went in the late 90s to Settle Down. it Truly was probably like signed, sealed, delivered at the beginning of that trip, and the waves of young love carried them off on their journey like seraphims or whatever the fuck.

and on a level I'm sure eion Liked him, bc even though I think he should be thrown down a well i just can't Conceptualize him fucking ross, staying homies with him, agreeing to go on a homosexual backpacking trip together, and still seeming to be somehwhat cool with him if he Didn't. the dif is just that i think eion legit was fucking around and refusing to find out, like clearly he had a lot going on at that time and ross was probably just his friend who he fucked on occasion and that was it. it's not technically his fault that ross thought that eventually he'd stop fucking other people and only fuck him, it's trap we've all fallen into on the long road to self actualization. when people tell you who they are, believe them (i learned that watching Vanderpump Rules).

so in my onion this all comes to a head at the end of the trip, after they've been having this like fun sexy time for like a month and a half, when they hit up The Club in Prague and eion is Enjoying himself and ross demonstrably is Not. by now eion is like ok we've had fun c'est la vie and ross is Deeply betrayed by the fact that the love of his young life is making out with other people in The Club and is not being apologetic in the fucking slightest about it. but, again, you knew who this bitch was when you met him. 

and he subsequently has to place a drunken collect call to the area beneath an isolated demilitarized zone, which is where matt settle lives, sounding like - as @airsigns knows - the lyle menendez 911 call where he's screaming crying blowing his nose into the receiver begging for help getting flown out.

suffice it to say, eion stays on his european vaca prob getting fucked and sucked all day and ross has to flee (not unlike Taylor Swift on that boat in the blue dress). and deeply darkly he does think eion might come after him, and guess what? he didn't!

and like their whole relationship ever since has been fraught with the insane tension of eion thinking he did nothing wrong and they were just friends who had An Experience together, and ross who still looks at him like an incubus who ruined his life but who he can never be free of, not only because Band of Brothers became an iconic show and this fandom exists to praise them, but because as hard as he tries young love and first heartbreak doesn't ever Really go away.

[cherrygorilla]

Happy Birthday, Danelle! 🎂

Sadly, thanks to my life being consumed by my degree, I didn't manage to get anything substantial finished writing-wise in time for your big day. However, I didn't want to let it go to waste without doing anything, especially after you'd been lovely enough to put that video together for me at Christmas. But since I'm not nearly as talented as you when it comes to doing that sort of thing, I resorted to what I do best: rambling about our characters, and the apparently endless list of ideas I have for them. Well, not quite endless, but 16 pages of a Google Doc is still pretty insane...

So yeah, this is basically just a total brain-dump of any story concepts, headcanons, random song-inspos, and TikTok references I've got stored up that would likely never have seen the light of day otherwise. They're way too much fun to just keep to myself though, so hopefully they can bring you a little joy today! And even if you think they all suck, at least you can enjoy the fact that your characters are living in my head rent-free pretty much 24/7. 

And so, without further ado, enjoy your window into the chaotic, fangirl mess that is my brain…

Story concepts:

First, of all we have: ✨story concepts✨ - aka, actual, substantial ideas of mine that have potential, but likely no means of ever getting written thanks to everything else I have on my plate atm. The first two are big ones, which earned themselves their own moodboards, but the rest are just ideas that are too big to just be considered headcanons lol.

Idea 1: Bridgerton AU

Okay, I've definitely mentioned this one before, and this one at least has some potential of maybe getting written one day, but I would LOVE to do a Bridgerton AU focusing on a Miles & Carrie Enemies-to-Lovers style story. It has been like a year since I watched anything Bridgerton related though, so if the technicalities of this are a little sketchy then that's why lol.

The outline I have is basically: Mrs Murphy works as part of Butchy and Mick's staff, with her sons also taking on roles around the house. Butchy's parents had taken pity on Mrs Murphy when she came asking for a live-in work position since she had three young boys to take care of and the eldest was close in age to their own son. So basically, Butchy and Lela grow up treating Miles, Royce and Bentley like their own siblings, despite the fact that technically they work for them. The Season prior would have been when Butchy fell in love with and married Mick, so this would start with them beginning their new life as a couple, still with the Murphys working for them, and with Lela getting ready for her first Season. She'd be super nervous about it though because she's heard rumours that the prestigious Cole family are going to be entering their precious twins into the Season for the first time this year, and she knows that if that's the case then she's got no chance of getting any attention. Her family try their best to reassure her, but when it comes time for each eligible young lady to be presented to the queen, sure enough, the Coles present their daughter, Caroline, and she totally steals the show. This immediately gives everyone a vendetta against Carrie for crushing Lela's confidence, but at a ball later that evening, when Carrie is once again taking all the attention of any potential suitors, she runs into Miles and in a matter of minutes proves that she's just as much of a spoiled brat as he suspected her to be, if not worse, thus souring his opinion of her even further. They end up arguing out in the garden, since Carrie had gone out to get some air and Miles couldn't bear to be surrounded by the stuffiness of the party, they get caught in the rain, and after Carrie denies Miles' help to get her back inside (because even when he hates her guts, he still has to go and be a nice guy lol), she ends up slipping on a wet paving stone and completely ruining her dress. Their argument gets even worse and before long, Carrie's older brother (literally only a character for this story, so irrelevant otherwise that he doesn't even have a name lmao, I just couldn't have Tanner doing this because he needs to be elsewhere) demands that Miles and his family leave before they cause any further trouble as Carrie has to go and clean herself up, which she is especially not happy about since it cuts into her time of pursuing potential suitors. Butchy tries to help and defend Miles, which he does without question, but ultimately decides that it would be best if they left anyway, much to Lela's dismay since she'd finally been getting some attention from Carrie's brother, Tanner.

Miles' opinion of Carrie gets worse and worse with time, which extends to the rest of his family when they catch wind of what happened, but as Lela starts growing closer to Carrie's brother, the more time they have to spend around one another. Carrie is crowned The Diamond and as a consequence starts courting a duke (Seacat, don't ask me why, I just feel like I picture him being her other love interest in this more than Eric lmao), which Miles and his family are subjected to bear witness to after Lela and Tanner also start courting, and they're invited to spend some time at the Coles' huge estate. In Bridgerton S2 fashion, they all partake in a croquet game, where Carrie and Miles' bickering reaches an ugly head. Sick of listening to them, Mick knocks Carrie's ball off into the woods and, in an act of defiance, Carrie insists that she doesn't need Seacat's help to go and retrieve it. Vivien, a close family friend of Mick's, who is also along for the trip, and takes on the 'Lady Whistledown' type role in this story, knocks Miles' ball in the same direction after Carrie has left to annoy/tease him further, and in an unlikely turn of events, the pair end up helping each other retrieve their balls from rather precarious places, leaving them both giggling like children and covered in mud. This reveals a little insecurity on Seacat's part, however Carrie reassures him it was nothing. But when she catches Miles awake and wandering the house that night, and they get to talking again, they start to realise they might have been wrong about each other after all, and scary, new feelings start to be uncovered. They're caught by Mick before anything can happen, but the can of worms has already been nudged open and the damage has already been done, and she keeps an extra close eye on them from then on as her suspicions start to rise.

I've already gone into way too much detail already, so I'll summarise the rest of it quickly, but basically, as much as they try to deny it, Miles and Carrie start catching feelings for one another, and their unlikely run-ins just keep making it worse, especially when things are supposedly getting serious between Carrie and Seacat - at least from an outsider's perspective anyway. One day, when Miles is out tending to the horses in the stables (because that's the closest job I could think of to match his mechanic skills lmao), Carrie once again gets caught in the rain, and runs there for shelter. One thing leads to another, and in true Miles and Carrie fashion, and in true Bridgerton fashion, they get way too carried away with one another and just start going at it right there in the stables. They're not as careful as they thought they were being though, and Vivien being the nosy little genius she is, immediately figures out what is going on and runs to Royce to fill him in. In a panic, and desperate to stop Miles from ruining his life, praying that if he does everything will just go back to the way it was before, Royce comes up with a plan to use Vivien's Lady Whistledown-esque writing powers to put together an expose on Carrie and her adulterous habits (without revealing the identity of her partner in crime though, obvs), thus ruining her reputation. They don't have the foresight to realise that it will bring down Carrie's family with her though, including Tanner, and then, by association, Lela, since by the time they've sent the draft off to be printed, Tanner and Lela have announced their engagement. With a push from the queen, Seacat and Carrie announce their engagement promptly afterwards, leaving Miles horrified and Mick concerned for him, since she had been suspecting Miles had been developing feelings for a while now, which is then confirmed after getting him to open up to her, and him breaking down about how badly he's messed up by taking things as far as he did with Carrie. With Carrie and Seacat's engagement being the talk of the town, the queen throws together a whirlwind wedding in mere days, and before anyone knows it, Carrie is reciting her vows with her eyes locked on Miles, and Seacat is reciting his with his eyes locked on one of Carrie's bridesmaids. In a display not dissimilar to the bracelet incident in S2, the queen finally sees through the cracks in their charade and calls the wedding off, leaving Carrie and Seacat in a state of shock, and Carrie's reputation in the gutter, which is only made worse by the arrival of Royce and Vivien's Lady Whistledown pamphlets. Cue an utter meltdown inspired by this song from the unofficial Bridgerton musical, where Carrie, who had only agreed to the marriage in the first place to help expand her family's connections, and to help cover for her handmaid, who had slept with Seacat and had ended up pregnant, goes completely off the deep end. Will Royce and Vivien be able to enlist the help of Mick and Butchy to fix their mess, and give Miles the happy ending he deserves? …I guess we'll never know. But it sure is fun to think about! 

I know I already mentioned one song from the unofficial Bridgerton musical, which I love btw, but the only other one, besides the opening number, that really makes me think of this AU is If I Were A Man - because how cute would it be for Vivien to sing this when she's hanging out with Royce and Bentley, complaining about how stupid the Season and all this 'courting' business is, only for Royce to be watching her the whole time with the biggest heart eyes imaginable??

And it's not a part of the musical or anything, but every time I listen to this Bridgerton-esque arrangement I think of this AU. I mean it just fits so well! Like the fact that it's a cover of Paparazzi when in her og universe Carrie's a famous actress - it's perfect! And it sounds so good! I feel like I can so clearly picture Miles and Carrie dancing together for the first time with this playing in the background and everyone just watching them like: 👀 ...are they supposed to be doing that??? but he's poor?? and she's supposed to be unlovable?? what's going on?? 

Idea 2: Star Wars AU

I only thought of this one recently but godddddd it's so fun. Like just picture Miles vibing on some random planet in the middle of nowhere, just trying to mind his own business and get by looking after his little brothers and their handful of a best friend, Vivien, aka a wannabe resistance fighter, who is always getting told by Miles to stay away from that stuff because it's dangerous. And then one day, Miles is unwillingly dragged into helping a runaway evade capture - he doesn't know who she is, he just knows that she's very charismatic, and very pretty - and she has a LOT of hair. He ends up repairing and hijacking an old space cruiser, and, with some prompting from his little brother and Vivien (any maybe Riven too; I feel like he would thrive in this universe), all hungry for a little adventure, he ends up agreeing to take Carrie across the galaxy to where she needs to go.

They run into Butchy and Mick along the way, a pair of resistance fighters working on a mission to steal some plans from the First Order, and they decide to join forces, although Butchy is incredibly reluctant to trust Carrie, despite having no problems with anyone else - he just senses there's something off with her. When they stop on a planet to refuel, the First Order has managed to track down Mick and Butchy thanks to bounties they have from a previous mission where they took down a fleet of First Order Star Destroyers, and a huge fight breaks out, that, despite their lack of experience, Miles and his family are swept up in. Surprisingly, they manage to hold their own quite well, but Miles is soon distracted when he sees that the First Order have taken Carrie. Butchy tries to help him, but his efforts land them both in First Order prison cells after they're both knocked unconscious. Butchy tries his best to reassure Miles that Mick will already have a plan in motion to come and rescue them, and tells him to just stay quiet when the stormtroopers inevitably come to question them. It's not a stormtrooper that comes to interrogate them though, instead, a pair of heels clacks along the polished floors in time to the Imperial March, accompanied by a long, black cape with a hood that is dropped when its owner comes face to face with the boys to reveal a devilish smirk belonging to none other than Carrie, who's actually been working for the First Order the whole time. Miles feels understandably betrayed, Butchy feels frustrated that he didn't trust his gut feeling more, and after some pretty intense Force mind games, not dissimilar to this scene, Carrie reveals her boyfriend Eric's master plan to bring down the Resistance once and for all. There's an obvious back and forth, as Miles tries to talk her around to see sense, but when Eric shows up he's quick to shut him down, and the unhealthy nature of his and Carrie's relationship is quickly exposed. Carrie chooses to ignore Miles' pleas, and leaves with Eric, however, as to be expected, before all hope can be lost, Mick and the others show up and come to their rescue.

On their way to escape, Butchy and Miles run into Carrie yet again and a pretty epic lightsaber battle commences. It's mainly Butchy (blue lightsaber) and Carrie (red lightsaber) to begin with, and it's rather intense since they're both, understandably, super pissed at each other, but when Carrie wounds Butchy pretty badly, Miles, despite his lack of experience and doubt in his ability since he's never even heard of The Force before (apart from through the stories Vivien would tell his brothers, which up until now he'd believed were entirely fictitious), let alone used it, has to step in to defend him. Their feelings for one another make the fight a difficult one, but when Eric finds them and starts taunting Carrie, bossing her around and degrading her right to her face, and Miles starts pleading with her and helping her try to see reason, telling her that it doesn't need to be this way and that she can be happy like she was back on the ship with him and his family, and that despite what Eric says, there is light in her because he's seen it, she finally sees Eric for who he really is, and sees through all the lies he's been telling her about the First Order. Her lightsaber, locked in place by Miles desperately trying to block her latest swing, starts flickering from red to purple (I know lightsaber colours don't work like that, but the symbolism of it shifting from totally red to a mix of red and blue [ie good and bad] is too good, so just let me live) as her allegiance to the dark side starts to waver, until finally she's had enough and turns on Eric, killing him with a final, ruthless display of passion. Miles helps Butchy to safety on the rescue ship as Mick leaves Riven and Vivien in charge of piloting it, in favour of helping tend to Butchy's wounds, before he goes back and convinces Carrie to leave the First Order once and for all. Vivien and Riven navigate the ship through one last First Order attack as they make a break for it, and by the time that the group makes their way back to the Resistance base, the fight has found itself six new soldiers: Miles, Royce, Bentley, Vivien, Riven and, of course, Carrie. Kind of a fun concept, right? Well, maybe, but maybe I just want to see Butchy and Carrie going at it with a pair of lightsabers to Duel of the Fates. Is that too much to ask? lmaooo

Idea 3: The Little Mermaid

 Okay, these ones are much shorter now, and this one literally only materialised a few months ago when I started getting excited about the new Little Mermaid live action remake. Tbh, there's not really any substance to it other than the fact that I think Carrie would make SUCH a good mermaid. Like she grew up at the beach spending pretty much all her time in the ocean, she has the voice of an angel and her hair would be SO FUN underwater haha. Also, you know if Carrie was a mermaid, Miles' ass would get dragged out to sea in like two seconds flat lmao. And even before I saw you pinning some mermaid stuff to Kona's Pinterest board, I felt like she would have made such a cute little mermaid companion for Carrie - getting all grumpy about her acting weird and ignoring her (a la She's In Love from The Little Mermaid musical) and then teasing her like crazy about crushing on a human once she's figured out what's wrong and has come around to the idea of it. In a similar way, I think Vivien would also make a great mermaid pal for her, if not for anything other than the fact that her purple hair would look incredible underwater hahaha. Plus, I've always thought it would be cute for, in a totally separate AU, Carrie to start taking some of Vivien and Kona's dance classes to earn some extra cash whilst she tries to book an acting job, and when they find out that Miles is crushing on her big time, they start meddling and trying to get them together, and end up getting super close with Carrie in the process. Obviously that wouldn't work for this concept since idk how mermaids would dance, but the theme of Vivien and Kona teaming up to get Miles and Carrie together, and building a really close bond with Carrie in the process remains lol. There's literally no other substance to this idea, I just like the thought of Carrie singing pretty songs and splashing around underwater with a sparkly mermaid tail, because, let's face it, she would absolutely neail Part Of Your World. 

Idea 4: Mrs Murphy meeting Carrie for the first time

Again, no real plot idea for this one, I just really like the thought of Mrs Murphy slowly realising that Miles has a crush on someone and trying to do what she can to encourage him to follow his head and go for it - giving advice here, and fixing his hair before he leaves the house there. And then when she finds out that he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out and it all went well, she's obviously overjoyed, and is always trying to convince him to bring her over for dinner, much to Royce and Bentley's dismay. Eventually, Miles agrees, but when Mrs Murphy opens the door to find that the girl her son had brought over was basically the exact opposite of the one she'd envisioned he'd fall for in her head, she's understandably…confused. Will she start to appreciate the lovably egotistical blonde for who she is with time, or will Carrie's reception at the Murphy house meet the same fate as a certain ship of special interest to none other than the girl that had the Murphys wrapped around her little finger from day one?  😉

Idea 5: The One With The Pregnancy Test

Okay, this one just totally rips off the scene in Friends where Rachel finds out she's pregnant, but it does have its own fun spin, so I'll go ahead and include it anyway. Basically, everyone's at the cabin in New Hampshire, and Mick, Vivien, Carrie and Miles are all chilling in the kitchen. Carrie goes to grab some milk from the fridge but can't stand the smell of it and starts feeling really nauseous. Miles takes it from her and gives it a sniff-test, but says that it smells fine to him. He offers it to Vivien and she says the same thing: it smells fine. Carrie's majorly weirded out, but that confusion soon turns to complete and utter terror when Mick says that the last time milk smelled weird to her was when she was pregnant. At first Miles thinks Mick's just joking because she knows how much the thought of having kids freaks them out, and says that there's no way of that being possible anyway because they're always careful and Carrie's on birth control. But Mick says stuff like that's never fool-proof and starts telling them about how Lela had to go and get a new prescription of her birth control pill because her batch had been recalled due to the dosage being too low. Carrie, knowing that she takes the same brand, instantly starts to panic because she hadn't heard anything about the recall and immediately goes to check her batch number. Miles tries to calm her down and tell her to not jump to conclusions, but when she's gone, starts freaking out in his own right to Mick and Vivien about how this all just has to be a big coincidence because there's no way he can be a dad. They talk him around a little, and say there's no point in worrying about something that might not even be happening, and eventually send him off to go and talk to Butchy and his brothers to help distract him. Mick and Vivien then go and track down Carrie, who is hyperventilating into her purse as she checks her birth control batch number for the hundredth time, praying that the next time she looks at it it'll be different. Mick tries, and fails, to get her to relax and tries asking her if she's had any other symptoms: but the missed period (which she'd previously chalked up to the stress of a busy work schedule), persistent nausea (which she had thought was just because of Bentley's poor cooking skills), and sore boobs (yeah, she had no explanation for that one) were not making things look good.

Mick finds some old pregnancy tests in her bathroom and convinces Carrie to take one so that she can get a concrete answer before she starts having a total meltdown over a hypothetical, but only if her and Vivien wait around to check on the result with her since she's in no fit mental state to find out that kind of news alone, and she's too nervous to get Miles involved yet, knowing that he'd be just as stressed about the result as her, if not more. As they wait, Carrie starts opening up to Mick and Vivien about why she doesn't want kids, why she doesn't think that she'd be a good mom, and how selfish she feels ince most of it revolves around her own vanity. She confirms what the girls had already been suspecting about Miles' view on it all: how his relationship with his dad basically ruined his desire to take on that role in his own life and saddled him with a fear of one day turning into him if he ever did somehow have kids of his own. But she also expresses a fear that she'd be letting him down by continuing to focus on her career if his views on parenthood ever changed, and worries that he'd forfeit that opportunity for her sake when she knows that, if he was to be put in that position, he'd be an amazing dad - which naturally leads on to her venting about how terrible she thinks she would be as a mom because she cares too much about the way she looks and has such a crazy work life and doesn't have a maternal bone in her body, at least in her mind anyway. Mick and Vivien do their best to reassure her and talk her around to the idea, but before they can get a definite read on her feelings towards the situation, the timer for the test goes off. Carrie makes Vivien read out the results to her; she can't bear to look herself, and Viv says that it's negative. Carrie breathes a  huge sigh of relief, and says that she feels silly for working herself up over nothing, but it doesn't take long for the enormity of everything to hit her. She'd basically already started mentally preparing herself for how different her life would be because of this baby, and had started considering all the good that could come with it (yes, it was in a bid to counteract the bad, but it was still good in its own right), and part of her, although she didn't want to admit it, was starting to not only come around to the idea, but kind of getting excited about it. And even if the test was negative, she still had the problem of what the hell was going on with her body to deal with. So she asks Vivien to check again to be totally sure, which is when she reveals that it was positive all along, and that she knew Carrie would be happy about it deep down, she just wanted to get her to come to that realisation on her own first - which, thankfully, worked wonders! And after the initial shock wears off, all three girls are thrilled by the news…until they realise they now have to go and tell Miles… 

Idea 6: Carrie booking a dream role

Okay, Carrie's acting roles could have their own mega-post entirely, because I have a LOT of plans for storylines she's involved in on Find Your Voice, as well as other projects like Broken Shadows and Chasing Down Chelsea, and a whole slew of other things. One of the big and pretty important Find Your Voice ones is her character's Season 2 romance with Tyrone though, which comes off the back of her Season 1 breakup with Scott (Eric's character). The reason why it's so important is because, in a similar way to how Glee was pretty monumental in the portrayal of gay relationships in TV shows aimed at teens back in the early 2010s, I wanted Find Your Voice to be one of the first mainstream TV shows to properly explore interracial relationships. And like how Kurt and Blaine and Santana and Brittany were a huge deal for Glee, Candace and Tyrone telling the story of a white girl and a black guy falling in love like any of the other couples on the show was a huge deal in the 60s. Carrie's managers were reluctant to let her accept the storyline because of what it might do to her public image, and several of her co-stars had turned it down for fear of being blacklisted from the industry, but Carrie stuck by her beliefs and her and Donny (the guy who plays Tyrone) put their all into their performances, and as a result, they won over the majority. Sure, there were naysayers and protests about them 'corrupting the youth', but most people fell in love with the couple's love story as hard as the characters fell for each other, and cemented their position as series favourites. They made TV history with their on-screen romance, paved the way for generations to come, and won a bunch of TV awards for their performances as they went - but most of all, they became super good friends in the process. That all being said, this idea doesn't involve any of that lmao. It's just important context for her career-wise, and it needed a home somewhere, so I dumped it here haha.

Now, you may remember a brief Metalex and Ultraviolet comic being mentioned in Drive My Car Part 6 (don't worry if you don't, I just hyperfixate on these things lol), and if you do, you may also recall Miles saying that he thought Ultraviolet was one of the most badass superheroes of all time. Well, this idea basically revolves around Miles having a long history with reading these Metalex comics growing up - loving the stories and becoming obsessed with the characters. So when he hears that the studio Carrie works for have bought the rights to turn the franchise into a series of movies, naturally he starts freaking out and begging her for any information she can get, which is only made worse when she finds out that her agent also manages the guy who they've cast as the lead. What she doesn't tell Miles though is that, knowing how much he adores this franchise, she decided to audition for the part of Ultraviolet. By some miracle, after a pretty rigorous audition process, she books the role, and confides in the first person she finds in the house after she's given the news (idk why I picture it being Royce, it could be anyone lol), who is equally as excited about Miles' imminent reaction, knowing that he'll lose his mind when he finds out. She ends up surprising him for his birthday by saying that she managed to talk her agent into giving her one of the promotional posters before the cast list is officially announced, and wrapping it up for him to open. And as I'm sure you can imagine, unrolling that poster to find that his childhood crush is being played on the big screen by his girlfriend, is a pretty huge deal for him. Profanities may have been shouted, tears may have been shed, shits may have been lost. All in all, a pretty successful birthday surprise if you ask me.

Idea 7: Vivien and Carrie's ✨Girl Day✨

I don't know why small-town America fascinates me so much, but I would just love to read about Vivien showing Carrie around her hometown and doing the most mundane everyday stuff you could imagine with her. Like that little snippet of them at the mall in one of your Christmas stories? Drinking boba? I need more of that. I love itttttt. Like them going through a drive-thru and then having a picnic in Vivien's car as she fills Carrie in on all the gossip from her school to get her take on it? How cute and iconic is that? I'm obsessed. 

Idea 8: Pampering Session

This was going to be one of my Christmas one-shots but, as is the theme with me lately, I ran out of time. Buuut, basically it was just going to be a little culmination of a few random little self-care based headcanons I had. Like a major one is Carrie having a super extensive skin-care routine that The Murphys tease her to no end about, but she doesn't care because she loves all her random little lotions and potions and tying her hair back and setting to work on her face every morning and night - it's like her definition of 'me time' lmao. And part of that headcanon is Miles lovingly teasing her about it, but also low-key getting pulled in once she starts introducing him to his own products that he can use too. And whilst at first it's super basic stuff like: look here's some ✨moisturiser✨, it goes on your ✨face✨ to stop it looking like the sAhaRa DeSerT 🤩 and Miles looking at her like: 🤨 ...you sure about that? It progresses to him taking more of an interest - it's only slight, but he at least has a little corner of the bathroom dedicated to his handful of nice products he uses to take care of himself. And, it's mostly to humour Carrie, but there have been a few instances where she's convinced him to do facials with her - it's largely influenced by her teasing him about getting wrinkles, and he always drags his feet at first, but as soon as she starts slathering it on and it feels all nice and cooling he tooooootally relaxes and enjoys it haha. And I loved the little mention of Carrie helping Vivien dye her hair purple in Through The Valley, so I was going to have her barge in on them mid-facial chill-out-time at the cabin, likely watching some trashy reality tv show together (because I feel like they would get so invested in that kind of thing, especially if it's a really shitty one where they could make fun of it together lmao), and ask her for help re-dyeing her hair because Royce is proving to be ✨incompetent✨. Of course Royce and Vivi would tease Miles to death about the facial - but because he was in his ✨relaxation mode✨ he'd be too chilled out to care and would just laugh along with them. And knowing Carrie, as soon as she started working on Vivien's hair and fixing the mess Royce made of it she'd start grilling him about how he thought he was capable of doing this when he can't even take care of his own hair properly. After a lot of protestation, they finally convince Royce to give Carrie's hair care routine a go, with Carrie shouting instructions to him through the bathroom door as he washes his hair lol. And, much to Royce's initial disgruntlement, by the time his hair's dry it looks healthier than it ever has. He grows to appreciate the advice in the long-run though because of how much more defined and silky it makes his curls look once he starts looking after them properly, and because of how crazy his hair now drives Vivien as a consequence lol. Cute, right? If only I'd had more time over Christmas lmaoooo.

Idea 9: Ghost Mrs Murphy

This one probably sounds more ominous than it actually is, but I keep seeing TikToks about people on the verge of death being comforted by loved ones, and then afterwards realising that they weren't actually there because they died x number of years ago. And whilst I don't think there would be any sort of complications surrounding Maisy's birth (because Carrie and Miles are already stressed out enough at the thought of a baby alone, I don't want to put them through anything else lmao), I did have an idea where Carrie starts haemorrhaging and is super out of it, but all she can focus on is this really nice 'nurse' who keeps talking to her and keeping her calm. She reassures her that she's okay and that she's doing great and that her daughter is beautiful, and just basically stops her freaking out until she drifts off to sleep (i.e. passes out lol). When Carrie eventually comes around though, this 'nurse' can't be found, and none of the other nurses or doctors she speaks to seem to know who she's talking about. Miles obviously can't know for sure, because he didn't see what she did, but when he listens to Carrie's description of her, he can't help but have a sneaking suspicion (or at least a fleeting hope) that it might have been his mom :')

Headcanons:

AKA, all the other random little ideas that I have that aren't enough to warrent a full story of their own, but I still wanted to share...

Okay, I feel like this is such a random little thing for me to have latched onto, but I love the fact that Mick loves blistering hot showers. And whilst I feel as though sometimes Mick and Carrie struggle to see eye to eye (at least in TMM they do anyway haha), one thing they can both bond over is their love of lava showers. If they don't leave the bathroom looking like freshly cooked lobsters then what's the point? 

Whilst I feel that generally Carrie gets along better with Bentley, her and Royce have a really similar wicked sense of humour, and if they catch each other in the right mood then they can set each other off laughing for hours. But one thing that both Royce and Bentley can agree on is that Carrie is INCREDIBLY fun to tease, and they do so ruthlessly, at every opportunity possible. Thankfully, she has a good sense of humour though and, even if she doesn't think so in the moment, she'll always be able to see the funny side eventually. 

Royce and Bentley LOVE all the different accents and impressions Carrie can do, they're always so entertained when she whips a new one out of her back pocket, especially if it's unprompted.

When Carrie's pregnant, especially the first time around, she gets really bad morning sickness, like to the point where almost everything makes her at least gag, and Royce (in true sibling-esque-bullying fashion) finds this HILARIOUS, and pushes it to its very limit. Again, thankfully Carrie can also see the funny side of it and entertains the game for a while, but when they discover that the sight colour green alone is enough to make her nauseous it's game over for Royce; he's laughing so hard he needs his inhaler.

The concept of Carrie giving Bentley singing lessons is literally the cutest thing ever to me holy shit. Like little Bentley doing a cover of The Climb like the version in HSMTMTS? Brb I'm crying. 

Once Royce and Carrie's relationship starts to become not terrible, he develops a weird sort of familial protectiveness over her, especially when it comes to stuff people say about her. I only say it's 'weird' because it's not like how he's protective over Vivien or Miles or Bentley, or anyone else in his family, it's like its own entity. And sometimes he doesn't even know why he cares, because both Carrie and Miles got used to ignoring it pretty quickly, but he just can't stand it. Sometimes it's just because the kids in his class are being racist pieces of shit talking about her on-screen relationships, but it's mostly gross, vulgar stuff the guys say about her body or her more 'adult' scenes in certain shows and the stuff they come out with literally makes him sick to his stomach. Maybe it could manifest as Carrie catching him defending her, or maybe he just vents to her about it one day after school, idk. But the weird protectiveness of her that neither of them really understands is such a funny, but well-intentioned little notion to me lmao. 

On a different note, Miles was PETRIFIED at the very thought of meeting Carrie's parents for the first time, and obsessed about it for weeks, but they both absolutely adored him pretty much as soon as he walked through the door, and just immediately jumped to treating him as if he was already part of the family 

And if anything the bond only grows stronger with time - like when Maisy is born, and Carrie's parents visit the hospital for the first time, Carrie's dad goes over to check on Miles and give him a hug before he even thinks about looking at his granddaughter lmao 

And although Royce and Bentley feel super awkward about it at first, Carrie's mom is such a motherly person that she can't help but want to take them under her wing when she first meets them. They're pretty reluctant to open up to her for a while, more so than Miles was anyway, which is totally understandable, but over time, as they get more familiar with her (and she bakes them more and more birthday cakes) they start seeing her as another mother figure (after Aunt Mack though, of course lol)

Miles and Carrie's mom become low-key besties though, like she's always asking Carrie where he is if he's not with her, she's forever baking little treats for Carrie to pass on to him, and she loves filling him on all the drama she has to deal with at her catering gigs because the way he humours her by getting so invested literally makes her day

Carrie does not handle pain well at all. She trapped her finger in her car door once and from the way she reacted Miles thought that her entire hand had been ripped off lmao. But I guess that's to be expected when she's such a drama queen.

On a similar note, she hates any sort of creepy crawlies, especially spiders - and don't even get me started on her reaction to finding out that Riven has a pet lizard. She thinks he's certifiably insane.

And to round off Carrie's dramaticness - she is SUCH a cryer. Like she's such an emotional wreck that she can be laughing her head off one minute and then bawling her eyes out the next. Movies are normally the worst culprit since she's almost guaranteed to cry at something over the course of the 90 mins, which Bentley is incredibly entertained by, but as she spends more and more time in the modern world, TikToks of old people are really proving to be her new downfall.

I love the thought of Miles and Carrie both loving to cook, and both loving to cook for each other, but really struggling to cook together because they both keep wanting to take charge. Usually they can work out a compromise, but sometimes, especially with Carrie's temper as volatile as it is, stubborn bickering can escalate into chaos.

I've definitely mentioned this before but I can SO see Royce owning a cat. He's just a boy who needs a kitty to snuggle with whilst he reads, it's a necessity.

And I think you maybe mentioned this in your Christmas stories, or maybe it was your Hocus Pocus AU, it was definitely one of the two, but I LOVE the idea of Miles driving an old Jeep/truck. Like it's one that's kind of a heap of junk when he buys it, but he loves it to death anyway because he saved up all his own money to get it, and spends hours upon hours fixing it up and making it look like new again hehe.

Idk but I feel like Royce would really be into taking photos. Like he's not quite as artistic as Bentley or Miles, and he can't draw or paint very well, so he turns to taking photographs instead. That, and I feel like he's really sentimental, so I the thought of capturing memories like that would really appeal to him.

I know in your character info posts you mention Vivien getting her appendix out, but idk why I can just so vividly picture Miles getting appendicitis. Like at first he just tries to power through and insists he's fine because he's a 'man', but he taps out after like an hour and can barely move. And then maybe because Viv's been through it before she's like "this is an awful lot like when my appendix went 'boom'" lol, and suddenly everyone's like: hospital. NOW. Idk why I love the thought of that; it's so random. And the thought of Carrie and all the others taking it in turns looking after him afterwards? Ugh. Adorable.

Omg and speaking of your character info posts: I love the thought of, a couple of years down the line, once he's not feeling as financially responsible for Royce and Bentley, Miles being convinced by the others to go back to school to pursue one of the careers he always thought he'd go into. Because Miles as a teacher is such a perfect fit! And Carrie is like soooo not about school for herself, but she'd be super proud of Miles if he went back. Like at his college graduation ceremony she'd be cheering SO loud haha.

Musicals:

Okay, this section is literally just for all the roles I'd love to see our characters play/roles I just think they'd nail, which I feel like is fun because we both love musicals, so why not indulge that a little bit here?

Eponine - whilst I could totally see Carrie nailing On My Own, I really think that Vivien would be a brilliant Eponine if her school were to ever put on Les Mis, especially if Carrie was there to help her. Also, the thought of Vivien and Royce singing A Little Fall of Rain together, especially when I'm still riding the high of all that angst you put them through in Scattered Screams? SO GOOD. And if Vivien is Eponine, Carrie would make a great Fantine, don't you think? Omg and if Viv is Eponine, and Royce is Marius, then wouldn't Riven be perfect for Enjolras? Aaaah, and you could have someone like Erica or Jade playing Cosette and having a running joke with Royce about having to play each other's love interest when they'd both sooner go off with Eponine lmao. Is Scattered Screams influencing this too much? Maybe, but idc it just shows how good it was haha.

Belle - in a similar sort of vein, I feel like Vivien would be a perfect Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Like smart and brave and kind? That is so her! I feel like Carrie's character in Find Your Voice (Candace) would also be a really good Belle because she's a little braniac bookworm, and I've toyed around before with the idea of them putting it on through the show (HSMTMTS-style), but as is the theme with this post, idk where what would ever fit in a story lol. Still, I think this role would be perfect for Vivi if she was ever going to be a leading lady again after Acting School Dropout haha. And I'm sure Carrie would be more than happy to offer up her coaching expertise again haha.

Elle Woods - this will probably be a short one, because I don't feel like I really even need to explain myself but I feel like if Carrie was ever destined to play any role on stage, it would be Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. Ditzy and girly, but determined enough to put her mind to something and succeed with flying colours? That's Carrie all over! And Miles would literally never do it, but how perfect would he be as her Emmett? And with Eric as Warner? Oh my god I could die. 

Regina George - purely for the iconic vocals and how good she would be at playing a bitchy villain like this, Carrie would kill it as Regina George. 

Elphaba & Glinda - Mick & Carrie are such a good match for these two, and whilst I feel like Carrie would make a great Elphaba vocal-wise, the only person that I feel could be the Glinda opposite her Elphie would be Juliet

Evan & Zoe - this one only really came to me as I was putting this post together but how good would Royce and Vivien be for these roles?

Heather Chandler, Heather Duke, and Heather McNamara - played by Carrie, Molly and Juliet respectively, especially in the context of TMM; they give me major Heathers vibes there, but that's never happening in that AU lmao

And just to tag this on the end here, the thought of Kona, Vivien & Carrie singing each of the three Fionas through the ages in I Know It's Today makes me so happy

Fancy dress costumes:

Again, I have no idea how I'd fit any of these fancy dress ideas into stories, especially the first two since they're for my TMM AU and there is no excuse for the characters to dress up in that plot, but these ideas are too good not to share…

Concept 1: The Mystery Gang from Scooby Doo

Just picture this: it's Halloween at All Skate and these guys are working their shift dressed like this: Ethan is Shaggy, Mick is Velma, Miles is Fred, Carrie is Daphne and Midge is Scooby (yes, Midge, not Barney, it'll make sense later on, I promise). How perfect is that?! I literally could have screamed when I first thought of this and how much potential is wasted by a lack of a Halloween plot. But hopefully the mental image is entertaining enough on its own haha. 

Concept 2: The Wizard of Oz

Again, picture it's Halloween at All Skate and the group are attempting yet another group costume with: Mick as Dorothy, Ethan as the scarecrow, Miles as the tin man, Carrie as the cowardly lion and Midge in a little basket as Toto.

Was this mostly fuelled by me realising that Mick would pull off a Dorothy costume ridiculously well? Maybe. But how well does it work for all the others too? Like Ethan might as well have straw for brains anyway, Miles is so stressed about his brothers he always struggles to loosen up and have any fun, and Carrie's huge mane of curls was practically destined for this costume. It's PERFECT.

Concept 3: Miles and Carrie

And then I just have a few couples costume ideas for Miles and Carrie, because I feel like with Carrie being an actress and practically dressing up on the daily anyway, she'd take Halloween very seriously. First of all, and quite possibly my favourite, how good would they be as Kermit and Miss Piggy??? I CAN'T BREATHE, even their dynamic is perfect for it! And it's such a fun, silly concept, I love it. Perhaps a prettier and a little more normal option would be Rapunzel and Flynn Rider because Miles' floppy brown hair and Carrie's insane blonde hair are just screaming for it lmao. But also, because they're both always down for fun above all else, they're not afraid to rock up in outfits as iconic as this too.

Concept 4: Carrie and Eric

Okay, I'll admit that this was heavily influenced by the new Barbie movie trailer that was released, but how iconic would Carrie and Eric be as Barbie and Ken? They'd be perfect! And I know based on what I've already written about Eric, he hasn't been painted in the best light, but his relationship with Carrie up until their break-up was actually pretty good - and with where the story is atm in TMM, it's actuually pretty healthy as well (I just don't know if I've done a good enough job at showing that yet lmao). They really did genuinely care a lot about each other, and had a bunch of fun together since they're naturally both pretty goofy characters (as you would expect from two actors who specialise in comedic roles). It was just an unfortunate set of circumstances really with the whole cheating scandal and Eric being a dumb, reckless twenty year-old. He never meant to hurt Carrie in the way he did, the fame just got to his head from all his newfound attention and, because he thought he was invincible, he stopped thinking about the consequences to his actions. That mentality soon came back to bite him though haha. Anyway, tangent over! I think I'm probably the only person that cares about that anyway lol. But back to my main point: they would have 100% killed a Barbie and Ken costume - Eric is perfect himbo material for Ken and Carrie would have such a fun ditzy, but super determined, take on Barbie. Whether it was for a couples costume, or as actual roles in a movie back in their universe, they're nailing it in my mind lmao.

Songs:

Here's just a bunch of songs that I have saved on my story inspo playlist that either make me think of our characters, or have entire little scenarios planned around them, that otherwise would sit in my head forever…

Doomsday - Okay, this one freaked me out when I first heard it because of how perfectly this fits, but literally every time I listen to it it makes me think of Vivien in your Through The Valley story, but specifically in that period at the end where she's waiting for Mick and Royce and the others to come back from Canada and slowly losing her hope of them ever returning. Like I always picture Vivien just trying to go about her daily life, listening to this to get her through, and her and Carrie belting out the bridge as they drive across these big, barren, open roads to get out their frustration about being left behind. And the fact that she literally says 'you did it on Halloween' when they left at the end of October??? It. Fits. So. Well.

No Time To Die - I don't know why this gives me such Scattered Screams vibes, but it just does. Like the intrigue but the promise of danger idk, I love it. I've got an idea for where I could use Skyfall, but that involves Carrie and her Chasing Down Chelsea show, which is so niche I won't even bother explaining it, but just the thought of her slinking around a party full of dangerous, wealthy people in a silky dress with a hit on someone to fulfil before she's hunted down by an intelligence agent she knows for a fact is also a guest there - ugh, it's so cool. I just love the concept of someone being dressed up so glamorously but being so badass at the same time haha

Taylor Swift: There are SO many Taylor Swift songs that I feel would work so well for Carrie (like Bejeweled, Karma and Anti-Hero all fit her vibe perfectly), but also Miles and Carrie's relationship too…

Style is one, particularly the chorus, that just makes me think of them both instantly. Like you can't tell me that chorus doesn't fit them both to a T. Plus it feeds into my headcanon that Miles' sense of style and confidence in the way he dresses sky-rocketed after he started dating Carrie, so I love it hehe.

Red is one that will be VERY important in a story I have yet to mention in this post, because I'm still holding out hope that I'll get to write it one day. But this song features heavily and proves to be a pretty pivotal moment in their relationship. And again, every time I listen to it, those two are immediately who I think of. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and All Out Of Love also play big roles in that story, but like I said, I'm still hoping that I'll get around to writing it one day, so I don't want to give too much away too early. But that might at least give you a bit of a vibe of the theme lol.

Paper Rings is one that I first listened to after you said that you had a prompt in mind for it and holy shit, idk if the prompt was about Miles and Carrie, but they are ALL I can think of when I listen to it now. It fits Carrie's adoration of him, and her willingness to give up her flashy/dressy lifestyle in the blink of an eye if he needed her to brilliantly. God, it's so cute, I love it.

Burning Love - There's no real story behind this one, I just love the thought of Vivien visiting the Wet Side Story world and stepping out of the machine for the first time, and immediately being hit by the scent of the beach, the sound of the waves, and this song floating along on the breeze from nowhere, simply because it's one big musical lmao. Like a little montage of her discovering their world and seeing everyone going about their daily business (spotting the surfers waxing their boards, seeing Butchy working on his bike, watching Kona playing volleyball with her friends, waving to Carrie and Miles as they catch some rays, running into Royce and Bentley riding their bicycles down the boardwalk), all set to this song, would be so cute. 

Keep Driving - I've definitely already mentioned my idea to do a series of Carrie and Miles one-shots based on the lyrics of this song, but I thought I'd throw it in here anyway, because I love it so much and wanted it to have a good home haha.

Mine & Landslide - I'll keep it simple with these two, because I can't elaborate just yet. But picture this: an AU of Carrie singing these to/with someone, where 📢spoiler alert📢 it's not Miles lmao. For extra context, there's a reason why they're the Glee versions of the songs lol.

Freak - I have no idea how I'd work this into any story, but every time I listen to this song I think of Carrie in some sort of Hunger Games/dystopian-esque AU where she has this picture-perfect image, and she's all sweet and nice one minute, and then as soon as she loses her temper/shit hits the fan she flips a switch and her nasty side comes out. Maybe she's provoked, maybe she doesn't know she's doing it (like some sort of Peeta situation in Mockingjay, where the Capitol are controlling him), idk, I just have not nearly utilised her insane temper enough, and the prospect is so tempting.

Uninvited - I thought I'd throw this in here because it was almost included in Drive My Car part 6, right after Carrie's let Seacat down but before Miles plucks up the courage to go over to talk to her. And it was basically just going to be Miles imagining her singing this to him to sort of test his feelings for her, but I cut it to stop myself from dragging the damn thing out to be even longer than it already was. I love the song, it just didn't need to be in there, you know? But I thought it'd still be fun to include here so that the idea isn't completely lost to time haha.

Maybe This Time & Cabaret - I've got no real concept for these songs either, other than them being used in a story that's set, again, in some sort of dystopian-esque AU where Carrie has this perfect image to upkeep, but as the life she always knew starts crumbling around her, that perfect facade starts to crack as she starts to go off the deep end…

Green Green Dress - Another very rough concept for this one, but just picture Miles and Carrie (a little tipsy) singing this together before they go out for the night. It can be before a date, before some premiere for Carrie's job, or even a party, it doesn't matter to me. I just love the thought of them goofing around all love-drunk and actual-drunk, singing this to each other.

What Do You Know About Love? - Okay, I actually have somewhat of an idea for this one, as weird as it may be. It's an AU where Miles meets Carrie stranded by the side of the road after a huge snowstorm where her car skidded into a snowbank and is now stuck there. She's not even remotely dressed for the weather because the beach is all she's ever known, and she's trying to get to a tv studio to continue the promo tour for some new show she's on, where she stars opposite some guy she's basically been shoe-horned into a fake relationship with. She naively believes it, but she barely knows anything about the guy, and he never wants to spend any time with her unless there are cameras around. Miles tries to get through to her, despite thinking she's a total spoilt airhead, and after digging out her car to no avail, failing to fix it, and then trekking through the snow for hours, when Mrs Murphy, Royce and Bentley finally come to the rescue, and Mrs Murphy offers to take Carrie where she needs to go, Miles all too quickly finds out that he's become awfully attached to the ditzy diva…And isn't quite ready to say goodbye. 

You Oughta Know - I don't quite know how I'd set this up in any story, but I just love the concept of Carrie trying her best to keep her cool around Eric and Molly once they start officially dating, but then ultimately losing her temper with him and just belting this in his face. Maybe like backstage at an awards show or something for some extra drama? I've got no clue. Like I said before, I just like the thought of angry Carrie and I have not utilised her enough thus far lmao. 

Supermassive Black Hole - You probably thought that I'd forgotten all about your Ordinary Human AU, but every time I hear this song I think about how cool a superhero montage would be set to this. And since one of Carrie's powers in that story was manipulating sound, I just love the thought of her grabbing random songs and using them as backing music in her practice battles at the training centre, especially because it pisses Butchy off since he thinks she's not taking it seriously. But like how cool would this be? She could bounce the audio back and forth between her opponent's ears, make the lights start strobing through the chorus, and then if she's teaming up with Miles he could start manipulating time and shit to speed things up or slow things down to fit with the music, or start conjuring stuff to make their opponents think they're seeing things. Random, I know. But it's what I think of every time I hear the song lmao, and I thought you might appreciate knowing that.

Lay All Your Love on Me - I just would love to see Miles and Carrie recreate this in the early days of their relationship, like when people at the beach start realising that there's something going on between them. At first they don't let on that something's up, no matter how much everyon tries to get it out of them, but by the end they can't keep their hands off each other (as usual lmao). So fun!

Ain't No Doubt About It - This is cheesy as hell, but how cute would it be for Miles and Carrie to flaunt their movie musical universe roots when visiting Mick's world and just burst into a rendition of this when asked by Vivien if they're aware of/worried about Royce and Bentley's determination to break them up? 

At Last - There is very little else to this idea other than I love the thought of Carrie and Miles singing this at Mick and Butchy's wedding, especially if Miles had flat-out refused to sing anything when they had initially asked him, only for him to turn around and surprise them with this.

I Want It All - Basically I just really want Carrie to sing this with someone, but in the current AU I'm working most of this from, I think the only person I could see it making sense with would be Juliet. I could see it happening, and I could totally make it work, I just don't know where I'd ever put it lmao. But it's too over-the-top and cheesy for Carrie not to perform, like come onnnnn.

TikToks:

And finally, here's basically all the tiktoks I've saved as potential story ideas that will never meet their full potential, or ones that just remind me of our characters. I thought this might be a fun way to round the post out hehe...

Okay, idk if you've ever seen this guy on TikTok but literally every time he pops up he reminds me of Miles, and I don't even fully know why. I feel like ever since I first noticed it I've been subconsciously been making my take on his character more and more interested in playing the guitar, to the point now where it's becoming one of his defining characteristics. Like I just imagine him jamming out like this to random songs all the time. And on top of that - I feel like he kind of looks like Miles too - at least how I imagine him anyway with the blue eyes and floppy light brown hair. I know you already have a bunch of faceclaims for Miles, but I think he has the right vibes to slot somewhere onto the list lmao. Either way, just know that every time this guy pops up on my fyp, Miles is the first person I think of, without fail haha.  Similarly, this is Royce once he starts getting good at the guitar. And I know Ethan is my OC, and he's only appeared in the few parts of TMM I've posted so far, so you might not really care about this - but he is OBSESSED with music, especially the electric guitar, and this kid is EXACTLY how I imagine Ethan would have played this at his age - he still would now tbh lmao, he's just that invested in the music. Moving on from guitars, lol, just imagine a modern All-Skate-esque AU with Carrie and Ethan goofing off at work and surprising Vivien with this after they find out she's obsessed with the Titanic. Again, super random, but this is what's bouncing around in my head all day lmao.

Concept behind this one: in true Sam Evans from Glee style, when faced with the prospect of being lonely while Carrie is away on long shoots across country/abroad, Miles decides to adopt a puppy to keep him company, and in this case, that puppy just so happens to be the canine version of the very girlfriend he's worried about missing - OR, as an alternative to this, Miles just gets the canine version of himself.

This is very Butchy/Miles-core with them both being mechanics lmao

This is so Bentley with his niece and nephews when Miles and Carrie start having kids (at least in my universe of them anyway lol). He always has the best intentions when babysitting them, but every time they start misbehaving he just panics and stares at them like: 👁️👄👁️ what. are. you. doing???

Staying in that same AU, this is 100% Miles with Maisie. And it's already cute and very on-brand with the video being Dirty Dancing, but just imagine how much cuter it could be if she was making him reenact something like this with her but it was Carrie on the TV instead. OUCH! 

idk where my headcanon for Kona being insanely good at martial arts came from (at least in my TMM AU anyway), but I'm pretty sure this tiktok is partially to blame. Like she can be all cute and innocent and make you a friendship bracelet one minute, and then the next she can flip you over her shoulder like you're made of paper. I love to think that she gets Miles to help her practice too because I'm still not over how cute their bond was in Glory & Gore - but also, I can't stop thinking about Ethan hearing about it one day and totally underestimating her, leading to him making a bet with Miles that he doesn't think Kona would be able to get him on the ground - cue Kona taking literally one look at him and knocking him flat on his ass in about three seconds, leaving Miles laughing his ass off. 

Again, staying in the TMM AU, Ethan 100% showed Bentley this when he was a little kid and got the exact same reaction 

Carrie and Ethan's interactions with each other because they have such a hilariously chaotic dynamic - and by the end of TMM 1, sort of Mick and Ethan's interactions too (kind of a spoiler, kind of not, but we move - anyway, it's your birthday, you deserve it lmao)

Continuing with the TMM theme, as a way of summarising Miles and Ethan's friendship, coming up with shit like this is EXACTLY what they do when they're bored at work

In some AU somewhere, Vivien would SO do this for Miles with Carrie lmao

Since I never really explore Tanner and Carrie's relationship, here's a little window into it where, in true twin sibling fashion, they have been forced by their mom to be nice to one another for one

Okay, I've seen a bunch of compilations of these guys on TikTok and maybe it's just the fact that they're three brothers but every time I see them goofing off like this I always think that this is how unhinged Miles, Royce and Bentley would get if they were left alone together for too long lmao. Like they love each other to death but oh my god they can get on each other's nerves and be stupid like any other siblings.

Again, another multi-example one because my fyp is FULL of these guys, but the dynamic they have gives me such Miles and Ethan vibes - Miles is Joe, Ethan is Frank, and whilst most of the time Miles is just in despair at how Ethan has made it this far in life being the way he is, there are way too many instances where they both just revel in being absolute idiots together.

Suuuuper random headcanon but ever since Vivien showed her an ASMR video like this on her phone, Carrie became OBSESSED with them. I like to think it's because she's so in tune with her hearing because of all her music stuff she does, but she is just so fascinated by it that she could watch them for hours. And she gets so excited and tries to show them to Miles when they're just laying in bed together or chilling out on the sofa and he's always just like: 🤨 ...and???? But she LOVES the little brain tingles it gives her, and Vivien finds it hilarious. Maybe Royce is the only one that can kind of understand where she's coming from because he's got his sensitive hearing, but it has to be the right kind of video or he has to rip his headphones out. Like if it's someone whispering into the microphone and they have that whistle thing going on? Absolutely not, he's yeeting that phone across the room. 

Miles with Carrie's Velvet Sunrise friends. That will make sense after Acting School Dropout part 3, I promise lol.

Okay, this works SO well if you stick with the idea from WAY back where Mick and Butchy name their son after Miles. BUT, even though they don't name any of their kids after family members besides Miles' mom, I could totally just see this being Bentley meeting Miles and Carrie's first kid.

Concept here: Miles cheering Carrie up whilst she's on her period having super bad cramps and when she's finally been doped up on enough pain meds to not be curled into a lifeless heap on the couch, they start goofing around like this as she tries to explain to him what she's having to go through because Miles is CLUELESS. Or, this is just one of their many random lunchtime activities back when they car-shared before dating, and would find any excuse whatsoever to go hangout together. Like Carrie gets wind that Miles doesn't know what a tampon does and just drops all her plans for the day to go show him lmao.

Very Carrie-coded.

Miles and Carrie's relationship in a nutshell.

More will come from Carrie's downtown apartment in Acting School Dropout but as a little insight, she would totally have a cool, fancy ice drawer like this (which leaves Royce and Bentley bAfFLeD) - and the decor is very this & this because she needs an escape from all the testosterone in the Murphys' house, and just because she has a really fun, colourful sense of style anyway haha.

Okay, I'll leave it here with this one, because I'm itching so badly to get back to working on TMM, but just imagine this transition with Royce, Vivien, Bentley and Kona on one side and Miles, Carrie, Mick and Ethan on the other. UGHHHHH. I LOVE IT. 

So yeah, I know it might not be the most interesting of posts, but hopefully it was still a nice little surprise to help you celebrate and make you smile today!

Also, I'm so sorry about this being late, I stayed up editing it until like 2:30am, and I was 14/16 pages deep when my laptop decided to spontaneously shut down. 🤦 And to save me rushing through it again and being all grumpy and half-assing it, I thought I'd get some sleep and try again in the morning. And it worked because I had so much more fun coming back to this with fresh eyes lol.

But yes, that's finally it! I might come back and add stuff to this as and when I get any new ideas, but for now I'd love to hear what you think of what I've got so far if anything peaks your interest haha. And like I said before, because you always bring me so much joy with your stories, I hope I was able to do the same for you today with this ridiculous jumble of the inner-workings of my imagination haha. Happy belated birthday! 🎉

[taylorswiftdebut]

hhhhmmm

i’m gonna say it: i hated the eras tour

the actual physical show/performance itself was amazing the visuals and time and effort put in was astounding, taylor swift is genuinely superhuman and there will never be another like her

but being at the actual show and watching it around others sucked fucking ass. which is so strange to say and come to the realization because getting tickets was so mentally draining and she’s my favorite artist and it was such a privilege to be able to go and be on the floor but i genuinely don’t think it as a concert was worth the time and money i put into it. no one was dancing, people were barely singing, it was so hard to see because everyone had their phone held up so high recording every little bit, if taylor came near you people started screaming and making grabbing motions at her like she is subhuman and it just flat out wasn’t fun and that’s only half of it coming online after was even worse.

people will make comments such as “what did this city ever do to deserve this” and “you literally won” and “if you got this surprise song i hate you” and so on and so forth just such vile comments that sure are “all in good fun” but are they? and everyone being like she should have done this at MY show it’s just exhausting. concerts shouldn’t have to be a competition, live music is an art it’s supposed to be fun but i don’t believe anyone but those in the nose bleeds are actually having fun! and even still on this online aspect in the most picky way possible but i hate the quality of gifs this go round because they are so smooth and high quality which no fault to gif makers but what happened to overexposed shaky videos because people were jumping too hard.

it all feels so much a symbol of status and so fake like who’s a better fan who had the better surprise songs who had prettier costumes did taylor give a good speech tonight was there a deviation in the dance moves

i know more about this show than i ever wanted to know about anything in my entire life nothing was ever truly a surprise even when avoiding spoilers it was everywhere it just idk people keep asking me if it was everything i ever dreamed and honestly? no and all i have to show for it is 70 cents in my bank account from buying friendship bracelet supplies (and i didn’t even make enough apparently even though i thought it was a lot!) and outfit supplies and whatever else i needed to “prove” i was a good fan and i deserved to be there and calves that won’t stop cramping from standing and dancing for 6 hours. the best part of the night was hearing about it from my sister who was in the parking lot because she wasn’t preforming for anyone she was just enjoying an artist that she loves

[whatyourusherthinks]

The Fall Guy

THIS! THIS IS WHY I DO THIS! THIS IS WHAT I AM DOING! THIS! THIS! STOP READING THIS REVIEW! STOP DOING ANYTHING YOU WERE DOING! GO WATCH THIS PERFECT, ABSOLUTE TREASURE OF A MOVIE! THIS MOVIE IS SO GOOD! IT'S SO GOOD!

What? No I'm not gonna calm down. This movie is, with no exaggeration, hyperbole, or embellishment, a perfect movie. After watching this movie I wanted to immediately go and get another ticket to see it again.

We showed two trailers for this movie. Did you know I hate seeing the second trailer for a movie? Because the second trailer always sucks. It always spoils too much and is completely unnecessary. Also they usually are just worse in general. But the Fall Guy? Nope, both the trailer we had were pretty good. Honestly they were mostly the same trailer, just with a different classic rock song.

Also did you know this is based of a TV show? Yeah, I didn't until the movie came out. I literally think that the only thing they took from the show was the character names and that the lead is a stuntman.

What's The Movie About?

Doesn't matter, you will like it. After a terrible accident, stuntman Colt Seavers gets pulled back into being in movies and needs to find the lead man, or else the movie is ruined and his crush, the director, will miss her big break.

What I Like.

Everything. The characters are good. The action is great. The comedy is hilarious. The premise is fun. The story is exciting. The acting is charming. The romance is beautiful. The editing is wonderful. The music is excellent. The pacing is superb. The dialogue is jovial. The movie is just fucking perfect.

I just... don't know if I can say more. Scratch that, I KNOW I can say more, but I don't want to. Not only would it just be me repeating the movie back verbatim thus spoiling it for you all, it would just be incredibly redundant. All I can really say is I really really REALLY REALLY really love this movie and all of it's parts. It doesn't feel like a movie made for me, but it feels like a movie for the people who made it. Specifically stuntmen and women, but really all the little people who's blood, sweat, and tears go into making movies.

In the movie, the heroes are not the actors, producers, or directors. The big celebrities are all assholes. The producers are corrupt and overbearing. The director means well, but she's a little bit dippy. The hero of the movie is a stuntman, and everyone who really helps him are other stuntpeople, technicians, prop makers, writers, artists, special effects people, assistants, and coordinators. Y'know, all the people who allow the movie makers to actually make the movies. Hell, even on the villain side the ones driving the plot forward are the actor's bodyguards. All blue collar men, women, and enbies. There are so many movies, and I've seen so many movies, where the heroes are the directors, or actors, or the day is saved with the power of film/filmmaking. And I don't really like those movies. I think they are really pretentious, and self-masturbatory in a way. This movie doesn't feel like either. It feels like someone who understands the struggles those people go through and wanted to show their appreciation. Makes a lot of sense, considering the director was a stuntman before moving on up.

I love this movie.

What I Didn't Like.

Nothing. Literally nothing. Even things I don't normally like are good in this movie. This movie has a dog who's main purpose in the movie is to bite bad guys in the dick and I still thought he was cute despite the fact that would normally terrify me.

Final Summation.

Do I recommend this movie? DO I RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE? DID YOU READ MY REVIEW? OF COURSE I DO!

Okay okay, folks. Folks. I tend to embellish my language a lot. I get very caught up in things I see and feel very passionately about it. I understand that may make it hard to take my reviews seriously when it seems like every good movie is a masterpiece and every bad movie is complete garbage, but SERIOUSLY. The Fall Guy is a masterpiece. It is absolute entertainment from beginning to end and everyone should watch it.

...

I wonder if the show is any good.