#but like back to the text of the post...what i mean is like

[bcbryar]

Text from Tom's music video:

TommyInnit just posted a song and a video, and in the video there's a bunch of quick, flashing screens with text. I screenshotted them all and transcribed them in this post (below the cut because it's kind of long).

If you find a corner of this world wide web that has any substance at all, then please stick to it. The hundreds of millions of people that now place absolutely no value on their time, their precious time, and spend it watching soulless content designed to hold their attention is depressing. This all depressed me. There is so little substance in this mess of a world wide web. So little heart or soul or love. If you find any substance, stick to it.

A Tribute To Minecraft, The Great Potato War, TheOriginalAce's Q&A's, Ludwig's 2020 streams, SMPLive Talent Show. This was everything to me.

Status is irrational & nature is cyclical It's attention porn. Don't get addicted to it. It's nothing. It means nothing. They are more insecure than you. But what the fuck do I know?

When I was a boy, alone, this meant everything to me. I found my people. My place. Along the way I was a part of something that really meant something. That is the only good bit. Whatever I did that meant something, that is the only good bit.

I CAN'T WATCH BACK MY OLD VIDEOS BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THEM WASN'T WHO THEY SAID THEY WERE. DO YOU KNOW HOW SAD THIS MAKES ME FEEL. DO YOU KNOW HOW SAD I HAVE FELT ALL YEAR.

HOW COULD ANYONE POSSIBLY FIND OUT WHO THEY ARE WHEN YOU ARE ALL IMMERSED IN THIS NEEDLESS, SELF INDULGENT SPIRAL OF INSTANT GRATIFICATION AND DISTRACTION. THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU.

[Text is upside down in the video] I don't think I trust anyone here. I don't think anyone trusts anyone here. the poor 12 year old watching this sad ass video when he subscribed for funny minecraft videos. poor guy lmao.

yeah i know it's too much like bo burnham. It won't be in a year though. IN a year it will be like Tom Simons. Just let me figure out what that means, OK?

I used to feel like I was just doing everything wrong. That I just wasn't smart or good like any of my friends. I realise now I was the only one doing the right thing. I just wanted to have fun. What I'd do to get that back, my god. What I'd do. To have things be simple again.

I just don't want to slip back into who I was. A year ago I needed you. A year ago most of my self esteem and worth and love came from you. A year ago I wasn't happy unless you were. I don't think I can ever do that again. That really was wrong. How did I possibly end up there?

[glypt0don]

So, this is quite a rant. You can skip to the bottom, if you want to know my opinion but don't want to read that much... But I worked hard on it and I think it's important, so it would make me very happy if you read through the whole text.

So this fits into something I wanted to post about anyway: a broader theme of why do we frame things as wars? Like, why is it culture war, specifically. First I liked the concept, I thought it described something quite complicated reasonably easily. But I pondered on it a bit more and I think there's more going on.

It's pretty trivial, that most societies went through a huge change over the last half century. It's not just feminism. I could make a whole list of things we as a people took on. Anti-racism and civil rights, religious acceptance, global trade, reinterpreting the meaning of peace, connecting the word through the world-wide web, etc. We ( or, as I am barely an adult and have no idea how to change things for the better, I should say you, or maybe chat) decided it was time for change, so change came. You brought it about.

And I agree. Change WAS and IS necessary. What that change should entail, well, we all have our ideas, right? And they have the ugly tendency to differ from each other. The question then is, how do we coincide our contradictory ideas on society? The answer is both worrying and very important.

To be fair, our race doesn't have a great track record on solving these kinds of issues. I dug into my historical knowledge, since, you know, those who don't learn from it, repeat it... The only thing I can compare to what's happening today would be the Reformation (which probably says a lot about my historical knowledge). That's the only time I know, where societal assumptions were altered so much in such a short time. That time it was specifically about the Catholic church (if you don't know, what I'm talking about, you really should, so Google it), and the result was a series of wars, that ultimately may have wiped out about a fifth of Europes population. The wars were of course led by powerful men, who capitalised on the divide to further their own goals.

As back then, now too, we can't rely on institutions to tame the public. Many media and political identities have a direct interest in polarising society. Because that's what happens. All these contentious issues about gender, class, or foreign policy become dividing lines between folks who are supposed to be parts of the same whole (call it community, state, nation or humanity, depending on how wide you can think). You know, how it works, probably saw it a few times, whatever your interests are. It's literally everywhere! We fight it out with the perceived enemy of the week sometimes, when there is an election, something notable happens, or it's simply Pride Month. Then everyone goes back to their respective corners, where they vehemently agree with themselves. We don't talk a lot, just throw words at each other, like Buggs Bunny, playing tennis with a dynamite.

I should say, this post is a notable and refreshing outlier. Thanks, @trans-androgyne , for starting a discussion for a change!

I know, it's a bit like nuclear armament. You can't just stop, because THEY won't, and then they win, and you can't allow that. It's life and death! And I don't have some magic pill to make it all go right, or believe me, I wouldn't sit here, typing this out at 3 in the morning Central European Time. But let me propose this: don't call it a war! Neither culture war, nor gender war, nor anything like that. Because this isn't a war. Just ask anyone in the middle east! They can tell you, what is war, and THIS IS NOT IT! And also, because it may not be guns and destruction yet, but nothing guarantees, that it stays that way. We already had multiple attempted takeovers of capital buildings since this cursed decade began, because our social reality became so fragmented, that you can't accept the results of a popular election anymore. That should raise alarm bells. I know it does, but it can be much worse! Learn from history, do not repeat it! Hit the Wiki page on the Huguenot war! On the siege of Magdeburg. Or, if that's not your cup of tea, watch Civil War! I genuinely think it's the best movie of the year.

Call it Social Discourse! That sounds much more manageable, doesn't it? Or you can come up with something else, as long as it isn't some warmongering bullshit. And maybe the next time you meet someone with sexist, homophobic, racist, or maybe radical left and anarchistic views (whatever you're opposing), don't attack them with your words! Those aren't weapons. Try to talk to them instead! Try talking about feelings! Listen to theirs, make them understand yours! I say feelings, because you both have those. Try finding a common ground, however small, and build up from there. Like Minecraft Skyblock. It can be hard in a challenging way, instead of making you want to shoot yourself in the head. Remember, you aren't fighting a war. You are having a discourse.

All of it is to say, the world and society are changing, wether you like it or not, and we have to change with it, to survive. That is the simple fact. If you call that change a war, that's just gonna make the whole thing unnecessarily painful for everyone involved.

This was sociopolitical advice from a giant armadillo.

Genuinely, what happened to “feminism is for everyone”?

That’s the feminism I grew up with: encouraging people to recognize that fighting sexism and restrictive gender roles helps folks of every gender. We’d push back on the idea that feminists hate men, pointing to inclusive feminist literature and how many men are feminists.

Now, there are so many people insisting that the solution to patriarchy is to openly hate and ostracize men no matter what. Why? What is the benefit? It’s certainly not effective in fighting oppressive structures to exclude half the population from your cause on the basis of immutable traits. It may feel cathartic to say horrible things about men and try to punish them for your frustrations with patriarchy. But the only actual effect I see is the increasing right-wing radicalization of young men, who are being told that the left hates them for the way they were born and presented with an abundance of proof that it’s true.

Why are we going back to treating men and women as different species? It doesn’t fix things to say “well women are the good gender and men are the bad one” this time. If you sincerely want to dismantle sexism, you’re going to have to unpack and let go of all sex and gender essentialism—even that which considers women inherently pure and men inherently immoral.

[nickssidewitch]

✨❤️ How the Sturniolo Triplets Flirt With a Crush 😻✨ (a Tarot Reading)

Chris 🧡

Very invested, will make sure to keep up with his crush almost every single day 😭

But he also overthinks A LOT during this stage, so he’ll ease back if he thinks he’s doing too much.

He’ll post little things on his socials so the person he’s flirting with can see them. It’ll be little subliminal messages and things of that nature.

But he’ll also overthink that as well, and will probably even make little clarifications to try not to make it seem like it’s directed at someone (even though it most definitely was).

My Gosh, this man worries so much when he flirts because he hopes the girl can pick up on it and if he’s not being super cringy or he’s not making her turned off.

If he can see that the girl is enjoying his flirting, he won’t worry as much, but she has to be super direct about it, otherwise he will literally die of overthinking 😭😭

He flirts the most via social media posts, but he also texts and does FaceTime calls a lot with the person he’s into. He’ll wanna text/call them late at night just so they can both catch up on each other’s days and just vent.

He will literally stay up for hours, laying on his stomach, feet dangling in the air like a giddy schoolgirl, staring down at his phone just to see if his girl will ever call him or text him. I’m exaggerating… but also I’m not.

He’s a great listener, so he doesn’t mind a rant or a trauma dump or two 😭

He will buy his girl things that remind him of her. Little trinkets like charms and stuffed animals. He’ll buy clothes and jewelry if he sees something he knows the girl will like.

He will pay for everything.

He definitely puts on a certain voice that he doesn’t even realize. (I can hear it in my head and it’s sexy as fuck. A bit raspy and low, a bit of a whisper). He even has a look on his face and will stare at you with that look 😭 He has no clue he does it though.

Lots of music. Lotsss.

If he feels that the flirting is not working though, he will be devastated.

Nick 💜

He actually prefers being flirted with. He likes being the center of someone’s affection. *debby ryan meme*

He will do obvious things to flirt with someone. And if the guy don’t pick up on it, that’s on him ✌🏾

He’s a gift giver and acts of service kind of guy when flirting. If the man doesn’t appreciate what he’s doing by actually acknowledging it, then he’ll be devastated and won’t give you the time of day anymore.

I think he knows what he wants, who he wants, when he wants it, and sometimes why. 😭

That can be a bit intimidating for some guys because they have this expectation of him being someone who will change themselves just to get their attention. But in reality, Nick is very confident in who he is and would never change himself for a man’s attention (unless it’s literally just him working out or drinking more water, etc.)

He’s asking his brothers about what guys do in certain situations (because usually it’s a bi or more masc guy he’s into). He’ll literally go to Chris or Matt with his phone, show a text and be like “oh my gosh what does this mean??”

He’ll definitely be touchy-feely with you, and that’s a big deal because he hates touching people and people touching him. So if he’s got his arm around you, then you’re the one for him!

Matt 💙

Super invested like his brothers.

People keep saying he’ll be dry which is very untrue. That man will always find a way to keep the person he’s flirting with entertained.

He wants them to laugh and actually find him funny, otherwise it won’t work and he knows it.

Humor is a way for him to figure out whether you’re actually listening to him and understand him and the way he thinks. So if you can’t pick up on his humor or don’t laugh at certain jokes he makes, you’re out.

He likes flowers and chocolates, but doesn’t mind jewelry and expensive things to bring his girl as well. And if she’s like “Oh, Matt, you shouldn’t have”, he’ll be like “Um, yes, I definitely should have, and I did!”

He’ll send risky texts or say risky things just to see the girl’s reaction to them. Nothing too crazy or frisky. Just something that can spark a reaction that can be a telltale sign of whether she’s into it or not.

These are the basics of it! Lmk if you guys liked this post!! 🥰

[youzicha]

Thinking about that that "slop accelerationism" post, and also Scott's AI art Turing test.

I also hope AI text- and image-generation will help shake us loose from cheap bad art. For example, the fact that you can now generate perfectly rendered anime girls at the click of button kindof suggests that there was never much content in those drawings. Though maybe we didn't really need AI for that insight? It feels very similar to that shift in fashion that rejected Bouguereau-style laboriously-rendered pretty girls in favor of more sketchy brush work.

But will we really be so lucky that only things that we already suspected was slop will prove valueless?

As usual with AI, Douglas Hofstadter already thought about this a long time ago, in an essay from 2001. Back in 1979 he had written

Will a computer program ever write beautiful music? Speculation: Yes, but not soon. Music is a language of emotions, and until programs have emotions as complex as ours, there is no way a program will write anything beautiful. There can be "forgeries"—shallow imitations of the syntax of earlier music—but despite what one might think at first, there is much more to musical expression than can be captured in syntactical rules. There will be no new kinds of beauty turned up for a long time by computer music-composing programs. Let me carry this thought a little further. To think—and I have heard this suggested—that we might soon be able to command a preprogrammed mass-produced mail-order twenty-dollar desk-model "music box" to bring forth from its sterile [sic!] circuitry pieces which Chopin or Bach might have written had they lived longer is a grotesque and shameful misestimation of the depth of the human spirit. A "program" which could produce music as they did would have to wander around the world on its own, fighting its way through the maze of life and feeling every moment of it. It would have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night wind, the longing for a cherished hand, the inaccessibility of a distant town, the heartbreak and regeneration after a human death. It would have to have known resignation and world-weariness, grief and despair, determination and victory, piety and awe. In it would have had to commingle such opposites as hope and fear, anguish and jubilation, serenity and suspense. Part and parcel of it would have to be a sense of grace, humor, rhythm, a sense of the unexpected and of course an exquisite awareness of the magic of fresh creation. Therein, and therein only, lie the sources of meaning in music.

I think this is helpful in pinning down what we would have liked to be true. Because in 1995, somebody wrote a program that generates music by applying simple syntactic rules to combine patterns from existing pieces, and it sounded really good! (In fact, it passed a kind of AI art turing test.) Oops!

The worry, then, is that we just found out that the computer has as complex emotions as us, and they aren't complex at all. It would be like adversarial examples for humans: the noise-like pattern added to the panda doesn't "represent" a gibbon, it's an artifact of the particular weights and topology of the image recognizer, and the resulting classification doesn't "mean" anything. Similarly, Arnulf Rainer wrote that when he reworked Wine-Crucifix, "the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker"—doesn't this sound a bit like gradient descent? Did he stumble on a pattern that triggers our "truth" detector, even though the pattern is merely a shallow stimulus made of copies of religious iconography that we imprinted on as kids?

One attempt to recover is to say Chopin really did write music based on the experience of fighting through the maze of life, and it's just that philistine consumers can't tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit. But this is not very helpful, it means that we were fooling ourselves, and the meaning that we imagined never existed.

More promising, maybe the program is a "plagiarism machine", which just copies the hard-won grief, despair, world-weariness &c that Chopin recorded? On its own it's not impressive that a program can output an image indistinguishable from Gauguin's, I can write such a program in a single line:

print("https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gauguin,Paul-Still_Life_with_Profile_of_Laval-_Google_Art_Project.jpg")

I think this is the conclusion that Hofstadter leans towards: the value of Chopin and the other composers was to discover the "template" that can then be instantiated to make many beautiful music pieces. Kind of ironically, this seems to push us back to some very turn-of-the-20th-century notion of avant-garde art. Each particular painting that (say) Monet executed is of low value, and the actual valuable thing is the novel art style...

That view isn't falsified yet, but it feels precarious. You could have said that AlphaGo was merely a plagiarism machine that selected good moves from historical human games, except then AlphaGo Zero proved that the humans were superfluous after all. Surely a couple of years from now somebody might train an image model on a set of photographs and movies excluding paintings, and it might reinvent impressionism from first principles, and then where will we be? Better start prepare a fallback-philosophy now.

[lazyturtlehottub]

He doesn't delete that voicemail.

He listens to it again and again and again, palm shoved over his mouth as his teeth sink into his flesh, eyes tightly shut as he strips his cock with increasingly desperate strokes. It's wrong, he knows it, but it's Evan. Evan with his heartbroken whimpers and pleas and breathy moans and whenever he spills into his hand, or against the mattress where he ruts into it (or the bathroom room, his car's engine, one of the stalls at Harbor), he feels a brief moment of peace before he turns dizzy with nausea.

He needs to stop. He has to stop.

But he doesn't.

There are photos too. Not anything Evan's sent him since—

Then.

—but old ones that litter their text chat. Post-workout selfies, early morning selfies, horny selfies of all kinds.

It's like the voicemail's cracked Tommy open and suddenly he's jerking off like he's fifteen and just discovered no one questions him if he buys basketball magazines where the men are muscled and barely clothed. He holds his phone above him, nearly braining himself only once, and he finds he can play the voicemail while drinking in Evan on his screen.

And it's wrong and it's awful and he feels like the monster his father always says he is.

"Tommy, I need you. I need to feel you inside me again."

"Fuck," he gasps out around his palm, hot come burning his flesh, and he chokes down the sounds searing through him when the door swings open.

"Tommy, we've got pre-flight checks to do," Lucy calls out, not able to see him in the darkness. "Rise and shine."

"Yeah, yeah." He clears his throat, hoping she'll mistake the rough scratch of his throat for sleep and not what it really is. "I'll be there."

Lucy laughs, easy and friendly even though he's been keeping her at arm's length for a year now. "I'll make sure there's coffee for you, man."

The door closes behind her and Tommy wipes his hand with the tissues he now keeps on his person at all times. Tucking himself away, he picks up his phone from his chest and swipes off the picture of Evan fingering himself open (taken to encourage him to get to the loft quicker).

He lands on a picture of Evan smiling, sleep rumpled but happy in Tommy's old hoodie. One of the few times they actually spent at Tommy's house where there was less to entertain themselves with, not that Evan seemed to mind. He gave the impression of enjoying the quiet rather than heading out to bars, restaurants, movies, and clubs. But it always left Tommy jittery, like having him there for a long period would mean he would see too much of Tommy and decide to leave.

But in the picture he's frozen in that moment on the deck in the back garden, warm and content with his curls loose on the top of his head and his mouth softly curved in a smile.

Right after the picture was taken, Tommy had sat next to him, knees knocking together and had laughed when Evan buried the tip of his cold nose into the soft flesh of his neck.

He wants more than anything to go back to that moment, to have Evan in his arms once more, but all he's got are pictures and a voicemail.

And that's going to have to do.

hey so one night eddie takes buck out for a few drinks to take his mind off tommy and he ends up sloppy horny drunk and sprawled across his uncomfortable couch palming his dick through his pants and finally caving into his fucking hunger to call tommy only to for it to ring and ring and ring until he finally hears that bitchy voice again and proceeds to leave the breathiest messiest most pathetic voicemail while stroking his cock, whimpering and moaning tommy’s name until he comes all over his fist.

[3igbootyl0ver]

who hurt you? [i]

pairing: tara carpenter x reader

summary: Y/N struggles with unspoken feelings for Tara and is shut out when trying to help her after discovering possible abuse from her girlfriend.

word count: 1522

warnings: mentions of abuse, bruises, angst

a/n: hellooo, this is my first time writing in these type of situations (about abuse) so I apologize for any inaccuracy. I'm just kind of experimenting with this fic plus I'm not sure how many parts will it take to complete it. As always, any feedback is appreciated <3

“Let’s go! One more lap!” Coach Melissa’s voice cut through the air, sharp and firm. The team pushed forward, legs aching with every step. Your legs felt like they were made of jelly. With each stride growing heavier than the last, you fought to keep them moving. The fatigue was relentless, creeping up like a shadow, threatening to overtake you. Your muscles screamed in protest, and the rhythmic pounding of your feet on the track seemed to get slower and slower.

The pressure was heavy on you. Being the captain of the Blackmore High soccer team means handling the heavy amount of responsibilities and standards to upkeep. You would be up for the state tournament for the finals in a week, and you were afraid that you were going to disappoint your team and coach, eager to win and experience the triumph of being the champions. It won’t be easy, especially when you’re up against your rival team, Woodsboro High. You have to—no, need to—win against them since it’s your last year in high school, especially when you harbor a deep loathing for their captain, Amber Freeman. Her name wasn’t new to you; she has been dating your friend, Tara.

Tara has been your friend since middle school. You guys were inseparable back then, sharing everything from food to secrets and dreams about the future. Even through all the awkward stages of adolescence, Tara was always by your side, offering a comforting presence when things felt uncertain. You’ll have to admit, you started having feelings for Tara a year ago, noticing her in a way you hadn’t before, captivated by her doe eyes and her personality. The more time you spent together, the harder it became to deny what was growing inside you. You imagined all sorts of scenarios in your head, rehearsing the words over and over, hoping one day you would find the courage to tell her.

But the day never came; your plans to confess your undying love to her were halted and shoved down the dumpster when you found out she started dating Amber six months ago. The universe must’ve hated you; finding out your best friend was in love with someone else the same day you wanted to confess felt like a punch in the gut, a cruel reminder that you had waited too long, that you had kept your feelings hidden for so long that someone else had stepped in.

You ignored and neglected your feelings, pushing them into the corner of your mind, hoping they’d disappear. You couldn't risk ruining your friendship with Tara, especially now. It hurt too much to see her with Amber, but the last thing you wanted was to make things awkward or lose her entirely. Recently, you’ve been noticing her pulling herself away from you. She wouldn’t answer your texts or calls or act like she didn’t see you in the hallways. But you would see her post on her social media, always being with Amber.

It hurt—a deep, sharp ache that seemed to pierce straight through your chest, leaving you breathless. It wasn’t just a passing pang; it was a constant, gnawing pain that lingered, like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Every time you saw Tara with Amber, laughing, holding hands, something inside you twisted painfully, as though a part of you was being slowly ripped away. It felt like your heart was caught in a vice, tightening with every smile Tara gave to Amber, every word she spoke about her. It was the kind of hurt that made it hard to breathe, hard to think, like you were suffocating under the weight of all the words you could never say. You’ve decided to shove your feelings down the drain and focus on getting your grades up before graduating and leading your team for your final year at Blackmore High.

You were walking with your friend Chad, who was also on the soccer team, as the two of you made your way to class. The crisp morning air after the exhilarating and tiring practice made the walk a bit more refreshing, but the weight of everything going on in your mind made it hard to truly enjoy. Chad, as always, was complaining about the harsh punishments he had to do by Coach Melissa, gaining a deep sense of hatred for your coach.

“She’s nuts, man!” Chad ranted, venting his feelings about her absurd method of training. You smiled and nodded along, trying to keep your focus on his words, but your mind kept drifting back to Tara.

Chad glanced over at you, noticing your silence. “Hey, what’s up? You’ve been kinda quiet today. Something on your mind?” He nudged you lightly with his elbow, clearly oblivious to the storm swirling inside you.

“Nothing, man. It’s just... Have you been noticing Tara has been acting distant lately? She hasn’t been to school regularly. Has she been talking to you or Mindy?”

“Oh! That’s what I wanted to ask you about. Mindy found her in the bathroom a few days ago. She said Tara had some bruises around her arms. Tara was trying to cover it up and just shrugged it off, saying she fell down the stairs or something..”

The world seemed to tilt for a moment, and you could feel your breath catch in your throat. Bruises? Tara? No. It couldn’t be. Tara was always so careful, so strong. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. Or would she? You could feel a knot tighten in your stomach, and your mind began racing, replaying every interaction you’d had with her recently, trying to make sense of it.

“Tara would never...,” you muttered, almost to yourself, trying to push the thought away, but it lingered. "Are you sure? Maybe she just bumped into something." Chad’s face was serious now, his usual easygoing expression gone. "I don’t know, man. Mindy said it didn’t look like something she could’ve just gotten from falling. And Tara’s been acting a little off lately, like, way more distant than usual."

Your stomach twisted further. Tara had been distant—now that you thought about it, she'd been a little quieter, more closed off, not the same carefree friend you’d known for so long. But bruises? It didn’t add up. “Maybe we should talk to her,” you suggested, your voice betraying the concern building inside. “I mean, if something’s going on... we need to be there for her.”

Chad nodded slowly, looking just as worried. "Yeah. But if Tara's covering it up, you know she’s not gonna want to talk about it. She’s always been like that, right? Stubborn." The silence between you both grew thick, a heavy feeling settling in your chest. You both knew that if something was truly wrong, Tara wouldn’t come forward easily. It was hard to imagine her going through something like that alone, but it seemed like she was. And you, you didn’t know what to do.

One afternoon, you finally made up your mind and talked to her. You couldn’t just sit by and watch anymore. You found her standing by her locker, her head down as she fiddled with her phone, looking like she was on the verge of crying. You almost hesitated, but you knew you had to speak up. “Tara,” you said, your voice tentative as you approached.

She stiffened at the sound of your voice, quickly wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater before glancing up at you with a guarded expression, her posture immediately closing off. “What is it, Y/N?” Her tone was cool, but there was an edge to it, as if she was preparing for a confrontation.

You swallowed, trying to find the right words. “Tara, are you—” you hesitated, unsure what to say. “The bruises... Are you okay?” Tara's face hardened almost instantly. She crossed her arms over her chest, as if trying to protect herself from more than just the physical cold. “I’m fine, okay?” she snapped, her voice sharp. “It’s nothing. Just..personal stuff.”

You took a careful step forward, trying to keep your tone gentle. “Tara, I— Is it Amber?”

“I said I’m fine!” She cut you off, her eyes flashing with frustration. “Why does it matter to you anyway?” Her defensive walls were up, and the more she spoke, the more distant she seemed. You froze, feeling the sting of her words. It wasn’t like Tara to shut people out like this. Your Tara.

“It matters because I care about you. I don’t care if we don’t talk anymore. I’m worried, Tara.” You said, your voice shaking. Tara’s eyes flashed. She didn’t want to hear it. 

“I don’t need anyone’s help; I’m fine.” Without another word, she turned and walked away. You stood there, watching her go, feeling the weight of her defensiveness hanging in the air. The look in her eyes said it all—she wasn’t ready to talk, and she wasn’t about to let anyone in. But you couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d just lost your chance to help her, and a part of you wondered if she’d ever let anyone close enough to see the truth.

---------------------------------------

a/n: I hope this is up to standard lol, I won't be promising a next part. I'm not experienced enough to write these type of sensitive topics or just writing in general lol. i know the pacing is a little messed up hehe maybe I should disappear and never write again and delete this account idk

[chugging-antiseptic-dye]

"So, this is it? After everything we have been through, you won't even try to keep us together?"

Your voice cracked as you tried to hold it together. Tried to stop your body from shaking. Because you knew that if you didn't, if you had one less iota of control, you would start brawling. And that was not something you are willing to let this man witness. It's enough to make you lose your mind that he was sitting all casual on the sofa with a visage made out of stone.

It has been five years now. Five years of memories being flushed down the drain. Does he even give a single fuck? As this thought wedged itself into your brain, a bitter unnamed feeling lodged in your throat.

You watched with trembling lips as Jihoon finally stood up. Without breaking eye contact, he took small unsure steps towards you. He only stopped when he came close to you. Finally, he asked softly, "What else do you want me to say? I already told you I am sorry. You deserve someone better than me."

Those words were an instant punch to the gut. Bowlegged and stumbling, you put both hands on his shoulders and started shaking him like a maniac. You didn't even notice when tears started pouring from your eyes. You almost screamed out your next words,

" I-, I deserve better? I deserve b e t t e r ?! Then why wasn't I worth getting better for? Why can't you be better for me? Why won't you be better for me?" Feeling lighthearted and almost breathless, you took a step back and continued, "Our anniversary was two days ago, Jihoon. And you only came back today. You didn't even send a text."

With resignation felt in every bone in your body, you dealt the final blow, " Am I not worth a text?"

You heard him release a pained whimper at this. As if it physically hurt him. But you were beyond caring. You cared too much and that was the problem. Using both hands to wipe away your tears (You don't even have a boyfriend now that would do it), you picked up the suitcase and started walking.

It was then when you heard a mangled "I love you" come from Jihoon. Without turning back, you replied, "Do you? I haven't felt that for a long time. Even if I believe you, the problem is, I love me too. I never expected to be your main priority. But it turns out that I wasn't even a priority."

You opened the door and gently whispered your parting words into the wind, "It's not about you forgetting to send a happy anniversary text. It was never about it. I hope you know that. Yet it was my last straw. I love you, Jihoon. I don't know when I will stop loving you. But I just can't do this anymore."

In the sudden silence that followed, only the sound of a door clicking shut was heard. And in the next moment, Jihoon fell to his knees. It was as if someone cut all the strings holding him together. Unbiddenly, a tiny box fell out of his pocket. It was the sole thing keeping him company through the dead of the nights that followed.

a/n: it's woozi's birthday so i wanted to celebrate it in my own way. he is my bias wrecker and therefore i wrecked him in this fic. oops ( i am joking, hehe). but, on a serious note, he is the one who made me fall in love with seventeen's music. he is the one who redefined the meaning of friendship for me. his mindset inspires me everyday and i look up to him so much! so, happy birthday to our hardworking singer, producer, dancer, idol, and artist, mr lee jihoon. i hope you will always be happy and healthy <3

(also, this is the post that inspired this whole mess.)

[the---hermit]

how I take notes on non fiction books

I recently made a post on my study method, and decided to make a whole separate post on my note taking method. The structure of the notes I write doesn't vary too much from my lecture notes to things I might have to read. A couple of useful informations you might want to know before I start actually talking about note writing is that I am mainly focused on studying history (tho I have had other humanities exams in my degrees), and that I study for oral exams in which the material is mainly composed of non fiction books, but sometimes include articles as well as lecture notes. Somehow I have also failed to mention that I am speaking about HANDWRITTEN NOTES. I only do handwritten notes, I don't work well digitally, so keep that in mind. And with this being said brace yourselves for a very long post. The bullet points I will be making are not really in a specific order and I will be including a few pictures too.

The first step when I am working on the materials for an exam is to figure out in which order I will be reading (and writing notes) the books. This hasn't really much to do with the notes themselves, but it's important to know which of your materials is more general and what other things go more in depth, so that you don't struggle too much while studying. Another plan related thing I always do is to write down each chapter of the book I have to study on my bullet journal and how many pages it is so I can plan my studying more comfortably. If the chapters are very long, and divided in subchapters I sometimes also write those down.

The goal of the notes I write is to fully take the place of the book, so they tend to be very detailed and long. I do this because the very act of writing is part of my study method, and working on things I have written down in my own words is just much better for the type of learner I am. So basically I read the book only once, then it goes back on the shelf and I work exclusively on the notes. This means my notes need to be detailed and well organized.

My method is to read a chapter, underlining important stuff as I am reading, and then right after I am done reading I work on the notes for that chapter before moving onto the next. I do this because it makes the note writing more effortless, I am fresh with informations I just read and I basically just need to skim over what I have underlined.

On underlining, since it is so important. I underline everything I will be including in my notes, it might seem much as sometimes it consists of full paragraphs, instead of key words. But this is okay because my notes I don't just copy and paste.

To create useful notes you need to be re-elaborating the informations. You need to read, understand what you read, and be able to write it down using your own words. That way the notes will be easier to review, they will often be composed of shorter sentences, and by doing so you are also actively making writing part of your studying and not just a mindless activity.

Personally I don't work well with full pages summaries, I need the text to be visually broken into sentences/small paragraphs, and I use a lot of symbols as well as abbreviations.

Symbols and abbreviations are in a way part of your very own language when you are writing notes, you tend to develop these with time, but they are so useful. I personally use different types of arrows, all caps words, position of the text in the page, different methods of highlighting and abbreviations (usually for words that come up often like country names, for example Italy becomes ita, France becomes fr, etc.).

Your notes need to be useful for you, they don't have to necessarily be comprehensible for another person (which means you can and will fuck up sentence structure because sometimes skipping a couple of words makes the notes shorter and still understandable), and they do not have to be pretty. They should be as tidy as possible, but again that might change from person to person, I have some very messy looking notes that make total sense to me. With time you'll learn what works best for you.

I have a visual memory so as I mentioned titles, highlighters, all caps, the placement on the page and other similar things are very important in my notes. I cannot fully exapain some of these things because some definitely only make sense to me in the moment (like the words I choose to write in all caps, or the way I highlight things).

I like to have a clear chapter and subchapter break (so that in case I need to refer back to the book it's super effortless). I like to write those with a red pen, usually the chapter title is in all caps and the subchapter in coursive, but it really depends.

I use only two highlighters in each set of notes yellow for dates, and the colour I associate with the book/the subject of the book (I have synesthesia I don't make the rules when it comes to colours). This of course might change depending your preferences and on the element of your notes you want to focus on. I like to have spacific colour for dates and time periods, because of course while studying history that is a fundamental element. If you are focusing on other subjects you might want to have a specific colour for names, or other elements.

I like to leave a big side margin to add either key words (especially in lecture notes since they might be messier and jump around informations more often), or additional information in a second time (sometimes it happens, after you read another book, or attended a particular lecture you have to add a couple of sentences and I rather have a blank space that never gets used rather than no space at all for emergencies).

I honestly mentioned everything that came to mind right away, but since note writing is now basically a mindless skill I have been practicing for years I surely forgot about something. I might end up adding to this post in the future or write another one. My note-writing method has also changed a lot thought the years from high school to university, it's a skill I have been perfecting for the past decade. This to say that depending on what you are working on things might change, and by experimenting with different things you might find out things that work very well for you. If you have any questions on specific things I didn't mention or that wen't clear my inbox is always open and I am more than happy to help.

Since this post is already very very long I am adding the pictures below the cut

Example of a page of notes before and after highlighting

Example of symbols and structure of the notes and the way I highlight things (in which you'll hopefully be able to understand my handwriting, and in which there might be some spelling errors but alas that often happens in my real notes as well so if there are any it's for the sake of accuracy lmao). If I end up adding informations on the margins I always use a pen of a different color so I can tell which informations I got from what source (ex. main notes from lecture, colorful notes from additional article).

Example of messier notes in which the main text in black are the notes I took during lectures and the additional colorful text was added while writing the materials (I rarely do this, it usually happens when the lectures follow a book precisely, which happens when we have to study books or summaries written by the professor). As you can see I often use post it notes to add more writing space, and sometime I even use them to create visually separated sections. If I end up adding some drawings I also usually like to have them on post it notes so they stand out more (and if you are wondering why the hell would an history student need drawings it's usually either because I need a map or a region/state to mark things out, or when studying for archaeology exams I often needed visual references, for example to identify different types of vases or decorations).

[mage-ical-character-person]

Time for more because. Because!

first off: wanna point this out: Meme games

The fact that the minigame format like Meme is used for WOTFI instead of the using the usual non-minigame challenges, or the choose your own adventure of WOTFI 2023 despite the whole “We should really do this again sometime”

And Just... That's Puzzles' whole thing. Don't know what to make of that!

and... this

hehehe… sillies… Second, some stuff from other posts I’ve made and discussions I’ve had I wanna stick here so it’s all in one place. Colored text is new stuff if you've read the other posts already and don't want to read repeat info and musings. Alternatively if you haven’t read the post and you want to. I got links.

First from here: Puzzles and Four both struggle with empathy to some extent. Four has more practice with the aspects of empathy that can be learned (cognitive empathy) but it’s still something he usually needs to actively think about, which is something he forgets to do sometimes. Puzzles sucks at just about every form of empathy. But they both still care very deeply for the people they consider friends (see reblog above about protectiveness)

Also Four and Puzzles both put people through torment for content. Puzzles with just about everything he does, Four with stuff like “I put Mario in Danger for Views” “Mario Does Literally Anything for Views” and this

Next, this.

Mario only is friends with SMG4 as a result of not being the Mario he was before Four showed up. When Mario is briefly turned back during the Lawsuit arc, Four and Meggy make him back into the Mario they're friends with without any input from him. This sorta parallels the whole Leggy situation in a weird way. In addition, Puzzles brainwashes people to make them more entertaining and cooperative for his shows. The USB SMG4 arrived in did the same thing for Four automatically as soon as he arrived.

And!

We're talking about It's Gotta Be Perfect again. Puzzles gets a fatal error that tells him to contact the manufacturers, then we get eye imagery. Then we get the IGBP Goop.

Notably, this happens when Leggy is turned back into Meggy. In other words, when Puzzles loses his only friend and source of support. I've gone on and on about how what snapped Four out of it in IGBP is his friends and being reassured they'll always be by his side, and what that means for Puzzles. and this is just... another instance of that.

But with the Goop, there's something else. It seems to be tied to strong emotions, but the fact that it shows up when Four is worried about being left behind for not being good enough--and being reassured otherwise is what allows him to break free-- AND the fact that with Puzzles it shows up when he loses his only friend and wants her back...

And, well... This...

(Seriously what was up with the stuff that happened to Three in IGBP I feel like we don’t talk about it enough) It's... well, it's something. Puzzles would do ANYTHING anything to not lose his friend, regardless of if said friend is okay with it. I don't know if Four's quite to that point, but he's... adjacent to that, at the very least.

The desperation to be seen... and the eye imagery associated with the Goop... it���s something

...Not wanting to be left behind, wanting to hold on to the people you have... wanting to be perfect...

Well... I mean, it parallels other characters, too.

(With Niles Specifically, I can't help but think that the Goop is some kind of virus similar to Niles/Eldritch Zero. I mean, it was invoked by an adware)

On the subject of characters other than SMG3 and SMG4 that parallel Puzzles, let's talk about Clench and Tari.

Both Puzzles' TV head Clench are prosthetics in a way, and Puzzles can transport people into TV shows, while Tari can, with Clench, do the same with video games. And for what it's worth, with Western Spaghetti, they're sort of on the same... frequency? Tari being able to interface with the simulation and hijack Puzzles' signal to bring forth dancing Mario.

AND

Oh and also Puzzle has parallels with Axol as well.

I mean just...

friendless childhood to becoming obsessed with media to creating that media (still obsessive).

And.. resourcefulness?

Yeah we'll call it resourcefulness.

Puzzles Parallels Post

feel like I keep repeating things over various reblog chains and stuff and my thoughts are never all in one place so. This where I keep linking said reblog chains. One of which has an endpoint that does not involve me but sshhh.

Mr. Puzzles and SMG4 have SO much in common. Four comes pretty close to Puzzles-level bad on some occasions and they share a lot of the same insecurities

I believe part of the reason Puzzles targeted Four in the first place (because I doubt “You’re the stupidest show I’ve ever seen!” Is the only reason) is because it’s easy to exploit the insecurities of someone who has the same insecurities as you, because you know that feeling in and out. Even if for Puzzles he probably didn’t have a lot of self awareness about it. Probably something more along the lines of “Oh, this guy clearly cares the correct amount about pleasing an audience and the quality of his content! But he’s not even good at it! I can use this!”

The difference is that Four has friends. He has a support system to pull him out of it when these insecurities start to make him spiral. Puzzles does not have that and frankly seems to have given up on ever attaining it. Twice.

AND THEN THERE’S ALSO THE PARALLELS WITH SMG3

Because part of it is because SMG3 and SMG4 already parallel each other so you can’t have Puzzles parallel one without the other.

But ALSO! Very similar motivations of wanting to be seen and appreciated. With a side of pettiness and jealousy. Also this

And this was also an incredibly SMG3 adjacent moment

But also the show keeps calling attention to SMG3’s difficulty making friends. Which is also Puzzles’ whole thing.

I need them to actually go somewhere with this so bad. Because 3 and 4 might be the only people who can actually understand Puzzles. Or at least let them understand themselves better as a result of Puzzles.

I NEED the “You and I aren’t so different” moment SO BAD!!

[soombee]

ଳ⋆｡˚𖦹 caught in the current of you — 07 , which could mean NOTHING

warnings ! none

wordcount , 200<

7:50 pm — @ leehan’s

the chemistry project was supposed to be a casual hangout at leehans house, but something felt.. off?

during the first hour, it was fine—the typical banter and shared glances—but then leehans phone buzzed. and buzzed again. and then the third time.

“huh..?”

“oh shit, sorry, give me a sec,” he said, grinning down at his screen, typing quickly. you could hear his fingertips tap on the screen, how eager is he..? who’s he texting..?

you tried not to overthink it, but the way his lips curled into a soft laugh sent a spike through your chest. who is she? what was so funny? was is it about you?

“you good?” he asked when he caught your eyes lingering, he seemed genuinely concerned but that doesn’t stop you from letting the negative thoughts get to you..

you nodded, forcing a tight smile, “uh yeah, just remembered i got something to do at home.. i should go.”

leehan’s face flickered with confusion, but he didn’t stop you. Instead, he walked you to the door, gave you his usual warm smile, and said, “see you tomorrow?”

“mhm, see ya” you hurriedly slid on your shoes and left, not wanting to cry in his presence

but it didn’t feel the same.

later that evening, lying in bed, you absentmindedly scroll through your phone. a notification popped up;

@taesaniscool liked your post

@taesaniscool commented on your post: “hi gorgeous”

your heart skipped multiple beats. who was he? you go to check his profile;

1.6k followers?! 439 following?! FOLLOWED BY LEEHAN?!

“could my life get any worse?!” your heart heavy, “what fucking ever, I deserve to be happy, right?”

for the first time that day, you smiled, but the confusion lingered. why did leehan’s smile haunt you when someone else gave you butterflies?

and maybe everything—those loving gazes, the subtle gestures, the chemistry—never meant anything.

@ocyearn followed you back!

prev | mlist | next

taglist (open) ! @saintriots @yourmyst4r @sftsohee @httpenhoon @alisonyus @astrae4 @lynnimini @enhacolor @mari3s @voikiraz @yveol @sol3chu @saritahwang @kazemiya @kamfaye @meoriapeuda99

[weepingwillow2000]

All text i found hidden in the new tommyinnit video (warning! Long post)

Reads: If you find a corner of this world wide web that has any substance at all, then please stick to it. The hundreds of millions of people that now place absolutely no value on their time, their precious time, and spend it watching soulless content assigned to hold their attention is depressing.

This all depressed me.

There is so little substance in this mess of a world wide web so little heart or soul or love.

If you find any substance, stick to it.

—————————————————————

(Can’t quite make this one out. Sorry)

Reads: They want you to be angry

so please stop being angry

———————————————————

Reads: A tribute to Minecraft. The Great Potato War. TheOriginalAce’s Q&A’s. Ludwig’s 2020 streams. SMPLive Talent Show.

This was everything to me

———————————————————

Reads: Status is irrational & nature is cynical. It’s attention porn. Don’t get addicted to it. It’s nothing. It means nothing. They are more insecure than you. But what the fuck do i know?

—————————————————————————————————

(this one's seems to be retracted a bit so i apologize for whatever mistakes i make)

Reads: When i was a boy, alone, this meant everything to me.

I found my people.

my place.

All along the way i was a part of something that really meant so (redacted)

that is the only good bit of this, whatever i did meant something.

That is the only good bit.

————————————————————————————

(This one's fucked up)

Reads: I can’t watch back my old videos. because everyone in them wasn’t who they said they were.

Do you know how this makes me feel. Do you know how sad i have felt all year.

————————————————————

(Edited this one to hopefully be easier to read)

Reads: How could anyone possibly find out who they are. All immersed in this needless, self indulgent spiral of instant gratification and distraction.

This is not good for you.

———————————————

Reads: the poor 12 year old watching this sad ass when he subscribed for funny Minecraft videos. Poor guy lmao.

I don’t think i trust anyone here. I don’t think anyone trusts anyone here.

——————————————————————

Reads: Yeah i know it’s too much like Bo Burnham. It won’t be in a year though. In a year it will be like Tom Simons. Just let me figure out what that means, ok?

————————————————————————

Reads: I used to feel like i was just doing everything wrong.

That i just wasn’t smart or good like any of my friends. I realize now i was the only one doing the right thing.

I just wanted to have fun.

What I’d do to get that back, my god.

What I’d do to have things be simple again.

———————————————————————

(This one makes me wonder)

Reads: I just don’t want to slip back into who i was. A year ago i needed you. A year ago most of my self esteem and worth and love came from you. A year ago i wasn’t happy unless you were. I don’t think i can ever do that again. That was really wrong.

How did i possibly end up there?

[aenariasbookshelf]

Fic: The Intern (MCU/911 ccrossover)

Finally posting this here because I have apparently lost my goddamn mind and it's all @typhoidmeri's fault.

(Also I have had an absolutely terrible last few months and could use some validation, pretty please.)

Title: The Intern

Summary: “Okay, wait, why the hell is your name popping up in a SHIELD file, of all places?”

All right, so maybe there are still one or two secrets in Buck’s closet. But in his defense, they’re all Darcy Lewis’s fault anyway, so the blame lies solely in her hands.

a/n: I plead temporary insanity, that’s the only explanation for this piece, which is probably only of interest to me and like three other friends. But, given the last few months I’ve had, I figured it was worth it to exorcise some demons and get this piece out before I chicken out.

Timeline wise (which, dear god, trying to figure out timelines for this show gives me a migraine), this takes place very early in S1. Like first couple of episodes early. As for the MCU, we’re going with a kinder, they all lived in the tower sort of a universe, no Civil War, no Thanos, etc. Because that’s how I roll.

More notes after the piece to avoid spoilers.

*

“Okay, wait, why the hell is your name popping up in a SHIELD file, of all places?”

Buck looks over Hen’s shoulder at the tablet in front of her, a page of search results front and center on the screen. Halfway down the page, past a few youtube entries of his spiderman interview, is a link to a searchable database full of files from the massive 2014 document leak that emerged when SHIELD had collapsed in on itself.

Ah, shit.

“Why the hell are you googling me?” is all he asks instead, because this is a story that he really doesn’t want to get into.

Actually, he may not even be able to get into it, considering the approximate 5 billion NDAs he   had to sign before he closed the book on that so-called vacation. None of which were his fault, thank you. He was just an…innocent bystander. Ish. He really just followed his cousin straight into the midst of trouble. So really, it was all her fault.

“Because that’s what we do with the new people around here, probie,” Chimney adds. “So what exactly were you doing in the UK in 2013?”

Buck just gives them a wink instead, because that’s what they’d expect from him. “Well, I’d tell ya, but then I’ll have to kill you.”

I mean, it’s not like people haven’t heard about aliens by now, especially in light of what happened in New York in 2012. Which was another incident that was also his cousin’s fault, though it doesn’t look like Hen and Chimney have found that link yet. So that’s one small mercy, at least.

“Just like a bargain basement James Bond.”

He’s ready to fire back another retort at Hen, but then the alarm bell goes off and it’s time to go to work, all talk about mysterious files forgotten.

(Though, to be fair, before Buck skips down the stairs he makes sure to wipe the history and cookies from Hen’s tablet. Just in case.)

*

It’s well after ten by the time Buck gets back to the frat house, which is still buzzing because his taste in roommates isn’t exactly the greatest (look, he knew at least one of them before he got there from Peru, and the room was cheap enough that it totally didn’t obliterate the meager salary he got as a probationary firefighter) and, well, it was a Thursday. Any excuse for a party, really. He doesn’t bother to hang around, just gives them a wave and heads up to his room.

He tosses his duffel into the corner, and is sure to lock the door behind him, because no one needs to witness the call he’s about to make.

With an exhausted sigh he flops down on the bed, but he can’t sleep. Not yet. Not if he’s going to speak to his cousin and annoy the hell out of her in the process. He pulls up Darcy’s entry in his phone, flips over to the text message thread.

>> hey u up?

Is what he texts, solely because he knows it’s going to annoy the hell out of her.

About ten seconds later his screen lights up with an incoming FaceTime call, followed quickly by Darcy’s familiar face. Brown hair tossed up into a messy bun, glasses, pursed lips, and definite dark circles under her eyes from some inevitable late nights.  He can’t see much of the room behind her, but there’s plenty of glass and steel and sterile white walls, which doesn’t exactly scream astrophysics to Buck, but then again what does he know?

“Hey, fireboy!” she says, far too chipper for the late hour.

“Really? That’s the best you can do?”

“It’s after one in the morning here, cut me some slack. Science and Jane Foster don’t sleep, therefore neither do I.” To emphasize the point, she picks up an iced coffee and slurps loudly on the straw, echoing loud and clear over the call. “So what’s up, cuz? Why are you calling at this stupidly late hour?”

“Did you know that my name is apparently showing up in SHIELD files online?”

“What??”

Buck nods. “Yep. My co-workers were having fun during some downtime today and decided to google everyone’s names. And there in a database of all the files from the 2014 data leak from the Triskelion is a file that mentions me, the UK, and 2013.”

“Goddamnit,” Darcy mutters, wincing and running a hand over her forehead. “What, you mean you’re not showing up as L.A.’s finest Spiderman knockoff anymore?”

“Oh, don’t start. Also, it’s after those entries.”

There’s the telltale clicking of a keyboard coming from Darcy’s side, then a few seconds later Buck sees her grimace again, looking none too pleased. “Yeah, that is definitely your name showing up in the leaked database. Well, shit.”

“Yeah, understatement. Is there anything you can do about this? I don’t exactly want my new coworkers to…know any of this.”

“I mean, the internet is forever, so I don’t know if there’s any putting this back in the bottle, so to speak.” Buck just groans at that, falling back on the pillows and falling out of the frame of the call. He pulls a pillow over his face, because this is just what he wants to hear. Really. So much. “You mean you don’t want everyone you work with to know that you helped defeat an invasion of alien elves from before the dawn of time in London one year?”

“It’s not exactly something easy to explain,” he shoots back, still offscreen and muffled by his new face covering.

“But it’s still a hell of a story.”

“A story that not a lot of people will believe, even now.” Because even though it feels like the world’s gone mad, more than once, these days, what with aliens and superheroes and killer robots, sometimes it’s still hard to believe the stories when they happen to someone they know up close and personal.

(Happens twice, really, but the first time he legitimately was just a bystander. Not the only one, not by far, but just an observer rather than a participant. Unlike the second time. That one they were well into the thick of it, hence the interviews, NDAs, and eventual SHIELD file.)

Buck sighs again, pulling the pillow off his head and sitting up so he can look Darcy straight on through the phone screen. “Are you sure - are you absolutely sure that even with all of your alleged connections that there’s nothing you can do?”

Darcy glances off camera again, followed by a few more keyboard clicks, and she chews at her lips. “I may be able to tweak the optimization so it gets those entries buried a few pages further back, get the L.A. Spiderman entries further up the list to take priority, but there’s not much else I can do.” She sighs heavily, pursing her lips and blowing air through them. “I might - and this is no guarantee at all - be able to ask someone else to help.” This statement is followed by another grimace from Darcy, and a muttered “I am going to owe Nat so much for this.”

“I will owe you so much for this,” Buck insists. “Even more than the fake ID debacle of 2007.”

Darcy smirks and jabs a thumb at herself. “Bucks County’s finest teenage fake ID forger, that’s me.”

Before any more words can be said, there’s what sounds like a small explosion offscreen on Darcy’s side, followed quickly by an “Oh, shit!” and scrabbling feet.

“Everything okay?” Buck asks.

Darcy flips the camera to the other side, revealing a slender brunette woman whacking at a smoking piece of technology with what appears to be a damp towel. “Lab’s on fire. Again. It happens a lot with our homemade equipment.” She flips the camera back to her face, rolling her eyes at the sight in front of her. A loud, strident alarm sound erupts from somewhere on her side, accompanied by rapidly flashing strobe lights in the reflection of Darcy’s glasses. “And there’s an Assemble call. Just fucking ducky. Gotta go, fireboy, we’ll talk soon!”

With that the call ends, the screen going black and silence descending on the bedroom. Buck flops back again, dropping the phone on his chest with a sigh. “That was not helpful.”

(And what the hell did she mean by an Assemble call anyway? Whatever, half the things Darcy says don’t make sense anyway, and he pushes the thought aside.)

Still, the matter of Evan Buckley’s SHIELD file never comes up again at work, so Buck figures that the matter’s over and done with.

Until it isn’t, of course, but that’s a story for another day.

*

a/n part two: So while it may not be entirely obvious here, but this universe has spun out in my head over the last few weeks and has become its own, canon divergent mash-up crossover of an alternate universe beast. This is just a little part of it, to test the waters and see the story come to life a little. A kinder, gentler universe where some characters get treated a little better than in canon (because this is fanfic and I can do what I want). Though there may be one or two hints in here about this alternate universe…

And yes, just picture Thor: The Dark World with a younger Buck in there playing the role of Darcy’s intern, with a lot more personality and a bit more sass. The movie would play out exactly the same way pretty much (except for the kissing bits because ewwww no. They are family, people.)

No constructive criticism please, gentle readers. I’m just here to have fun. Thanks for reading!

[lord-squiggletits]

Actually the funniest example of Megatron apologism (neutral) I've seen is when people call it biased and rigged for Optimus to be the judge for Megatron's trial, but have nothing to say about the fact that Optimus let Megatron on the Lost Light AS CO-CAPTAIN which is ALSO incredibly rigged and biased and no one wanted it and Optimus barely had the authority to even do that.

It just seems like a case where people will always take the angle/interpretation that favors Megatron as a victim of Autobot eeeevillll, so they harp on how unfair it was for Megatron to be put on trial, but completely skirt over exactly how and why Megatron even got to serve parole/not rot in prison in the first place. I guess because it would disrupt the ever-present fan wank about how actually Megatron is being victimized for being put on trial and those Autobots are "just as bad" (lmao).

[proselles]

clinging to the sex warning for arcane like an angst with a happy ending tag on ao3

[bread-wizards]

I actually think Dorian and Orym should fight more.

Remember when their slowly building tension over and entire episode (full of passive aggressive remarks and blame throwing) led to threats? And how after, Orym thanked Dorian for handing over the crown sadly because he knew Dorian would be mad at him? And Dorian couldn't even look at him because he was legitimately hurt, thinking Orym was disappointed in him for doing what he thought was right? That was peak.

The fact they went from that to their current closeness and trust is the best part of their entire dynamic. Their relationship was hard fought and still will be. They will fight for it because they respect and care for one another deeply, and their disagreements don't change that, only improve it.

[writer-room]

Its so funny that Arin and Sora have shown to have significantly better emotional intelligence than any of the ninja from all of the old seasons combined. "You should be taking care of your mental health" and "yeah saving the world is upsetting! no wonder you're having stress dreams" oh my precious children. You are surrounded by a teen dad with massive self-worth issues, the only one of two people who remembers the genie incident and also turned into the sea once, guy who's died like 3+ times and committed genocide under mind control, and a child soldier who's been living the hard knock life since age 2.

I hope to god you two are prepared to witness the most mentally unwell behavior you've seen in your entire teenage lives. You think you've already seen how bad it can get now? Fools. Just wait until you get a mission involving the Departed Realm