#did make me realize there's like. genuinely not a lot from that era which is crazy

[menlove]

Sorry if you’ve been asked this already, but do you have any mclennon fic recs for 1967/pepper era?? I’m obsessed with the vibes around this time, and with Jane away John and Paul seemed to spend a lot of their free time during this period together, but I’ve had trouble finding much of anything. Thx!! <3

oooh good question ! i love love love the 1967/pepper era so let me look back in my ao3 history and see what i've got

these aren't all pepper's era, but they are all 1967 (w the exception of One that's not 67 but Is pepper's). put a 💖 next to ones i especially love

If You'll Shut Up About It, I Will

mature. au. 4k

The day after his birthday, Paul McCartney admits on national television that he's illegally had sex with men. On multiple occasions. But it's the media's responsibility not to spread these things, isn't it? Unfortunately (or fortunately), someone else is watching the broadcast, and wants to know why Paul has decided to declare he's queer to all and sundry when he's the one who's been waiting for Paul to give it a go. AKA, That LSD Interview but make it gayer. note: very interesting, short little au on if paul had come out as having had queer sex rather than having done lsd

you know i know when it's a dream

mature. 5k. In 1967, The Beatles visited Greece with the plan of purchasing an island they could call home. Of course, it was mostly John's idea. note: angsty, smutty little one-shot that hurt my heart

1967 💖

mature. 11.5k. au. In 1961, John Lennon and Paul McCartney left abruptly on a trip to Spain, via France. In 1967, they finally come home to face the consequences. note: not EXACTLY what you're looking for but hey the year is in the title..... but it's sooo good i'll rec this fic constantly. they do definitely have the same aesthetic that they did in real life 1967 too. but this one is so fucking good. it's got an experimental style that lets you see everyone's pov while still remaining really well written which imo is hard to do when you're doing a bunch of pov switches. but it's outsider perspective mclennon & explores the nuances of their relationship and how it was/wasn't impacted by fame and how they'd still be creative with each other if they'd never gotten famous from the beatles...... also they basically create the muppets which i think makes this worth reccing on its own tbh

The Places Where You Bend

mature. 2.6k. "Whatever the opposite of 'toppermost of the poppermost' might be, we're in it up to our asses." It's 1967, all hell is breaking loose, and Paul doesn't know if he can do this anymore. note: ugh i loved this one. it's angsty, as any beginning-of-the-end-of-their-relationship fic is, but it's sooo them and very bittersweet

Stop all the clocks 💖

mature. 30.8k. au. For the following kink meme prompt: ‘1967. After Brian dies, Paul decides not to go ahead with MMT, and takes John up to Scotland for a month instead.’ Also based on the following comment on said prompt: ‘pls someone let them fuck tenderly in 1967’ note: definitely an instant classic! super sweet au that makes you wish life had gone this way for them

Way Up Top 💖

explicit. 12k. Falling out of the sky, together. | Snapshots of the Beatles in Greece, July 1967 note: one of my all-time faves ughhhhhh i just love how they wrote everyone. like ofc the mclennon is great, but this one is so so good for just all around good characterization and writing

always, no sometimes 💖

explicit. 20k. Stolen moments from a single year. Or: four times someone nearly found John and Paul together, and the one time they found each other. Set around the recording of Sgt. Pepper, 1966. note: not 1967, but 100000% the vibe you're looking for. such a good fic. i honestly need to do a re-read bc it's been long enough, but this one was just. augh. so much mustache sex too.

shotgunning

explicit. 3.4k From the kink meme prompt: john/paul, shotgunning weed note: i don't Think this one has a year on it officially, but it definitely fits the vibe you're looking for!

Drop Chute

explicit. 1.9k. paul/robert as well "Paul does coke off Robert's dick and blows him in a public toilet. John is in the neighbouring stall and hates it." FFA asked and I delivered. note: ahhhh we love a good "john getting jealous of paul fucking other men" fic

again

explicit. 1.3k In the summer of ‘67, Paul knows exactly how lucky he is to be the man who gets to fuck John, and then eat him out, and then fuck him again, and then — note: it's smut and it's good smut what else can i say truly

Club Sandwich

mature. 4k. Some drug-fueled party in 1967. Paul ends up sandwiched between two men on the couch. As they start fondling and kissing him, John stumbles upon the scene… note: absolutely great. possessiveness and coke prince paul...... what else could i want from a fic

Carousel 💖

explicit. 3.4k 21 March, 1967. John accidentally drops acid during the mixing of Sgt Pepper. Paul drives him back to Cavendish and decides to take LSD for the first time. Based on true events. John's POV. note: definitely my favorite take on the "john and paul tripping together for the first time" story. so good and introspective.

you can get it wrong (and still think you're right)

explicit. 7.4k. Paul visits John at Weybridge. January, 1967. The laziest man in England, that article had said, and Paul thought suddenly of John, lounging: John, turning the pages of a book with one languid hand, his hair mussed and fetching, making pithy comments to empty rooms. Or maybe he didn’t speak at all when he was alone; Paul realized that he didn’t know anymore. note: aghhhh another great one by stonedlennon. the bittersweetness of their relationship.... love this one a lot tbh

Angles

explicit. 2.7k. John takes another languid drag of his cigarette, his eyes alight now when they look into the lens, meeting Paul's. He's a marvellous subject. They should put him in every movie. "That it?" Paul asks—leading. Hungry. "You're the director. Give us a direction," John goads him. note: looove this one. but all of moeexyz's fics are so good so that's to be expected tbh

an orgasm of sound 💖

explicit. 5.3k “It was a good piece of work between Paul and me. I had the ‘I read the news today’ bit, and it turned Paul on, because now and then we really turn each other on with a bit of song, and he just said ‘yeah’ – bang bang, like that.” — John Lennon Or, John and Paul work on A Day in the Life. note: another great one from moeexyz! this one is..... well. Well. it's very good. what more could i ask for in life than piano sex and a day in the life

[destinationtrekk]

Do you see Wesker being cheater? I feel like at first yes, he doesn't know what love is so he assumes it wouldn't hurt if he cheats on you, but boom, it hurts and you leave him, until Wesker wins you back and they're happily ever after.

at first i was like NO my wesker would never hurt me.

but yeah.....

he's not doing it to be malicious or mean or anything like that. he just genuinely doesn't know what a relationship entails. he's never dated anyone before, and our guy is NOT known for his dedication and loyalty. he's actually surprised when you call things off with him and he doesn't know why you're crying and mad - he was just flirting with another person at the bar because they approached him first, it's not like it's his fault he's so hot

but you have to explain to him that you were dating and that he cheated on you and now it feels like he has no respect for you or your emotions and time and he's just actually confused now. I imagine he has to do a little research on his own and maybe he even gets advice from someone like Chris or Excella (who think Wesker's obliviousness is hilarious and kind of pathetic) depending on which era wesker you want

Wesker tries to win you back with flowers and sweet words to try and get your sexual favor back, but you've completely shut him out. it takes him cornering you and painfully admitting what he did wrong and that he really wants a second chance because he didn't realize how important you were until he lost you. he tried rebound fucks and they all just made him miss you more.

you give him another chance and actually he is a lot better. you're out together and someone approaches him again and he doesn't respond to them - he literally turns around and walks the other way straight back to you and it makes you really emotional. he's trying his best to show he respects and cares about you in his own weird way

but also angry and emotional reunion sex where he tears up a little and has to hide his face in your neck when he spills inside you

[goldenhickeysandramen]

What if we ask for receipts?

(This post is inspired by some recent posts from some moots on Tumblr)

We spend all day defending Jimin and JK's bond.

All day, all the time, always in the position of defendant, against anons here, trolls on twitter, and in general, hordes of annoying people.

Well then, let's see what happens if we are now the prosecutor, and not the defense lawyer  

Let's see where the hell your receipts are:

- Love expressions: how many times have your favorites declared that they love each other in different kinds of language?. And I'm not talking about the "I love you" that are given to friends for a specific situation (like Hobi leaving for the ms)... or weird hand signals, you know a lot about that and symbols... but big signs of love…

Like suddenly this:

Or this:

 Or this: 

- Intimacy displays: have your favorites given each other hickeys? (this is important...u know I love hickeys)

Have they flirted in front of thousands of people? (and watch out! because here the line between fan entertainment (I won't say the damm word, which I know you don't like) and genuine flirting is very subtle, but distinctive. This is flirting, for instance 😌

Do they've sucked each other's ear in front of thousands of people?

(Or do they have some kink for ears?)

Have they stuck their D's in front of thousands of people?

  (my God, do you realize what they won't do in front of thousands of people)?

- Show the evidence that your favorites live or have lived together (not in the dorms era back in 2018): let's see... let me think... how many times have they suspiciously shared a car, when we didn't know where they lived extra officially? 

Or do have they been at 4 am in the morning together alone, celebrating billboard or actually delivering hickeys? 

Or in the deed of the purchase of a house appears the address where the other lives (91).?

- Samples of tension or awkwardness beyond explanation: look, we have so many receipts here that I don't even know where to start... just look at Jimin's recent bomb and see JK's visit... and well, there it is... the awkwardness of some of their interactions... sometimes it makes you want not to look... sometimes it makes you feel embarrassed... I sometimes think they're going to screw up at any moment.

- Proof of inside jokes that show that they actually WATCH a lot of content together. Do you have any of your own?

- Demonstration of knowing certain personal information. Here I'm sorry, but again we have a lot of receipts. Tae had no idea that JK did a 3 hour vlive. Or Hobi also didn't know about Jimin's "time" (10:13). Instead, Jimin sees all of JK's vlives...and vice versa (as we’ve been able to check recently) and they know most of things they have done, or where they are at each moment (they even know what happened at bae's grandma's birthday)

And now...let’s see and talk about YOUR receipts:

made-up dinners out alone and selfies in bathrooms (not to mention other things you say happen in the bathrooms)

trips for which there is no concrete proof, or which are clearly BTS trips

any close-up, or photo, or mention on vlive....

each pic on Instagram

a look

breathing the same air

stepping on the same ground

And, so far the most robust, outings at their free time. We had in the past months vkook, jihope, hobikook, or vhope outings.

This is what most people are claiming lately. Maybe it is our fault, for having repeated so many times that Jimin and JK were the ones who most "hanged out" together..... now it seems that this mantra is turning against us.....

Well..... NOOOO.... I object your honour!

Because jikook have literally told us recently that they are both super homely. Which I understand. Not just because of their personalities or that they like it, but because outside, they can't be totally free lately. 

Because if JK is constantly being stalked in his country - just look at where he officially lives - and also, as we believe, jikook are a couple, they have a lot to protect and I think they know that the most intimacy and security they have is at home. 

On the other hand, they already know what happens when they are seen in a certain location: that restaurant ends up becoming a crowded place of jikookers or k-army. So, if they go out, they're going to be very careful and most likely they'll go to trusted places, where they don't post their signatures on IG. So, my friends,…WE WON'T KNOW about it! Unless they want to, or go somewhere more public and new.

And then again, Jimin has been busy with his album and hasn't been seen with anyone. NO ONE. The only exception, Hobi's birthday and the drink they had last Sunday or Monday (as a farewell). And we know this because they wanted to tell us... because if they hadn't, or posted any pictures, there would be no receipts from them either (of course! who of us could have been at Hobi's house on his birthday to know?).

But even with all this reasoning … the truth is that friends hang out and that does not mean they are dating. Hanging out doesn’t work with jikook either by itself. Other things must happen (see above 👆 ☺️)

So your receipts, imo, are either conspicuous by their absence or rather lacking in robustness.

Ours, on the other hand, are terrific! Stop asking for more! We've justified enough.

It must be pitiful to ship any “couple" whose ultimate proof of confirmation that they are together depends so much on another couple failing to provide certain evidence that confirms they actually are...the audacity!!! 

[cuephrase]

from the questionnaire:

are there any results that really surprised you or that you didn't expect?

oooooh good question!! for me personally, no, not really? at least nothing that automatically comes to mind, so yk, don't quote me on that if i share data later and say "this surprised me/i didn't expect this!!" lmao

ummmm, hmmm. well actually okay, so i did expect Tim to be the Most Disliked Robin, but not by such a margin, if that makes sense? more like, logically one of them was going to be the most disliked even if only like 10 people disliked a Robin and my bet was that Tim would have the most votes, by process of elimination/other hypotheses. i wasn't upset by the results, if you've seen the post you know i was incredibly entertained.

there were definitely some results that were a relief? like they aligned with my personal predictions, but it was still really nice to see them.

oh, something that did surprise me was the amount of commentary i got on batcest!! there is zero discussion of shipping in the questionnaire, which is mainly why i wasn't expecting so much commentary, and there's not really a whole lot of ship discussion apart from batcest stuff that i remember- i did think i might get a couple mentions of it but i got a lot more than a couple lmao.

in favor of and against, to be clear, and to be even clearer to anyone reading- this is not an invitation to share your thoughts about batcest with me, i truly do not care. not to be rude, either, like i don't care if you love it or hate it, i just have zero interest in discussing it since a) my blog is mostly gen and b) i don't see any benefits in engaging in discourse about batcest 🫶

on the individual response level, there were some things that surprised me in isolation, but made perfect sense in the context of the responder's answers, like for instance one person said they didn't see Dick as brothers with any of the boy Robins except for Damian, because "he doesn’t really interact with a lot of the other robins in canon", that being said, the only eras they said they read were pre-crisis and rebirth. makes a lot more sense in that context. like i was thrown for a loop, but then i saw the full picture and i was like, "oh. okay."

let this be your daily reminder that the statement "i read comics" means basically nothing lmao. and i don't mean that as a dig at that responder, not at all, just that if you're someone who reads comics you cannot assume that someone else also reading comics means that you guys will be on the same wavelength. not because canon is nebulous and unknowable imo, but just because there's a lot of it!!

also!! a decent amount of people said i was brave?? that freaked me out a little, because i hadn't really...i didn't think i was stepping into shit, okay? in hindsight, i realize that that was naive of me, but idk. i wasn't thinking about the results in that way, and i also really didn't think i was going to get much interaction either- i was floored by the engagement the questionnaire got. but yeah, idk, i was just genuinely curious to see if my theory had any weight, i wasn't thinking about the broader implications of what the data might reveal. whoops.

and here's what surprised my wonderful data-crunchers:

@chinajousama: Hmm, I think one thing that did surprise me was how little the types of Robin media actually impacted the results [of the Most Disliked Robin]. Aside from that pocket of Jason hate from the post-Crisis fans, everyone was remarkably consistent. Also, it wasn't really a surprise, but it was extremely funny to see how big the gap between tim and literally anyone else was, dislike wise.

(we got an ask about if the media/eras consumed impacted which Robins were disliked, so that math has been done, but i haven't shared the results yet, sorry!!)

@tevyaa: Lots! Off the top of my head: - I was sure that the clear winner of the most disliked Robin poll would be Damian. He's the only one I've ever really seen hate for - probably because I entered fandom through Tim-centric whump fic 😂. I was shocked that it's actually Tim who the fandom is most annoyed with. - I was surprised how much of the fandom does actually read comics! I would have guesstimated that the comics/non-comics fans were something like 50/50, and was shocked to find out that only 15% of fandom doesn't read comics (and only about 4% doesn't interact with canon at all, including comics/ games/ animation)

(dw, we haven't released any data apart from the MDR yet, but you'll be able to see the breakdown of comics read/canon interaction eventually!!)

ty for the ask, anon!! i hope you enjoyed the answer!!

[not-alien-girl-v]

some george fluff, maybe him and reader are childhood friends, or they’re in their school era ( idk if that makes sense💀) and they’re just pining for each other but neither know the feelings are mutual

Heartbreak Girl (George Daniel)

warning: drinking, moshing, smoking, language

note: of course i understand what that means i’m the same bitch who called mattys 2013 tumblr days his ‘small era’ also im starting to realize a lot of you people are british. weird. im from california and in PST but some of you are european or whatever. strange

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

the blood is rushing straight to adam's head from where he lays upside down off of y/n's bed. the comforter is pink, mirroring the walls which are the same hue, so him and his leather jacket look out of place. she's sat at a vanity, carefully applying mascara to what's left of her lashes.

"so why are you so against having fun again?" he asks, out of genuine curiosity but it sounds like he's poking fun.

she snaps her head around, hair whipping around at her shoulder. "it's not like that. i'm not against fun. i just had a... thing... the last time i went."

he sits up, twisting upright to lean back on his elbows. "define 'thing.'"

polaroids from over the years are used as cheap decorations in this pink bedroom of hers. they’re taped the walls, tucked into the edges of this vanity mirror, and unbeknownst to anyone else, she hides a few intimate ones under her mattress.

they aren’t dirty or lewd, but they depict george daniel at some of his most beautiful moments, or so she believes, and they’re private enough that she doesn’t want anyone to walk in and see them, so she keeps them private, just for her.

sighing, "it was george," she's interrupted by adam's loud groan of annoyance but continues anyway, "he was just being weird to me. a bit cold, and he was completely sober through it because he was driving home, so it wasn't like 'greening out' kind of weird it was just him being bitchy to me. i'm scared he found out i like him or something, so i've been keeping my distance."

"just avoid him tonight. if he's choosing to be so cold to you, i'm sure he won't seek you out. you'll be fine."

the makeup adds pounds of weight to her face and she feels undesirable, but then again, she feels the same without the makeup, anyway. it’s a way of life to her.

she’s like a little child in her mothers pearls and heels, like an ugly girl in a paper mache head of a pretty one. she’s always wondered where this sprouted from. it’s not like she has some incredibly beautiful sister she’s been compared to, and she was never harshly bullied growing up, or if she was, george would have taken care of it for her. ‘no one makes fun of her but me,’ he would say.

"you're right. when did you get so wise, hann?" she begins applying a wine red lipstick to her lips precariously, when the door to her room is slammed open by ross, who is careless as he stands there. the red leaves a large smudge off of her lips and she turns back to glare at ross.

"you're still going tonight?" he asks, not caring to read any context clues. "nice lipstick, is that how girls are doing it these days?" he laughs cruelly, like a mean older brother. she throws a decorative pillow his way as he laughs himself out of the room.

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

she hops out of hann's car, doc marten boots clunking on the pavement below. with one quick glance around the landscape of the parking lot, she doesn't see george, which is a good sign, meaning she can proceed with her normal routine, which starts with a cigarette outside.

she started smoking at 16, and now, at 18, she’s more than addicted to it, but it’s just another issue in her life she’ll push aside and never address until it inevitably causes her downfall.

she's adjacent to the entrance, but she always hangs around outside for a few minutes before she buys her ticket and heads inside. cupping her hand around the lighter, the flame flicks into motion and burns the tip of her thumb in the process. a large, looming figure approaches her from her peripheral and it’s roughly six feet and four inches tall and she knows it's already too late.

removing the stick from her mouth as a courtesy, she turns to face george, lazy smile on his face. "i knew i'd find you out here," he grins.

"you found me." she's not sure what his angle is here right now, why he's smiling, why he sought her out after making it abundantly clear the last time they met that he was no friend of hers.

"well, come on, i'll buy your ticket, come," he grabs her by her wrist and she sneaks it out of his grasp but follows him to the entrance table, where one person sits with a cashbox and a marker.

"it's fine, you don't have to," she reaches around to dig cash out of her back pocket but he halts her, again, grabbing her, and she can see now just how drunk he is, he is normally way less handsy when sober.

"no, please, i insist, it's no problem, not when it's you." the words make her tingle in an odd way and she swears to herself every time that its a feeling she will ignore but she never can.

"what's that mean?"

"it means i owe you money, anyway." he hands the cash to the collector and the person draws an x on the back of her right hand with their marker, ensuring her paid entrance.

"hey, i'm gonna... um..." she's pointing to the entrance where she intends on going but george has already gotten distracted in speaking to somebody working at the merch counter. it's whatever. he's always like this, his attention is never long-lasting, and sometimes she swears that's part of the appeal. that he never seems to care too much, he's so nonchalant, like his attention is something she needs to work for, to earn. something about the 'chase' or whatever.

when the 1975 isn't playing a show at this small venue, adam and ross tend to volunteer to work at the functions, doing small things such as selling drinks and snacks, cleaning up here and there, but it's mostly just an excuse to hangout. tonight, adam is selling the snacks and drinks. ross is supposed to be, as well, but he's just eating the snacks, mostly, sitting behind adam so he doesn't have to deal with customers.

"can i get a cup of coffee?" she asks adam, who greets her with a bright smile. his expression is warm, almost apologetic, he's speaking with his eyes, 'how are you doing tonight?' adam is by far her best friend on this earth.

believe it or not, george used to hold that title for years, until she met adam through george a few years ago, and despite him being two years older, the two got along swimmingly, brought even closer once she realized her feelings for george, which ultimately wedged it's way between her friendship with him.

she even dated adam for 2 strange months before they both came to find that they were better off as friends, and they've been even closer ever since.

"ay, is george being a dickhead again?" ross yells from the back, a bag of chips in hand and also filling up his crunching mouth. he has a habit of speaking with his mouth full. "what'd he do. i'll fuck him up if he's been bad again!"

his threats are empty, ross is too much of a lover to be a fighter, and she knows he's just saying it to make her feel better.

"he's fine. it's all fine, stop looking at me, stop worrying about me, i'll survive this tonight, i'm fine." she informs and adam doesn't believe it, his skeptic gaze following her all the way to the couch that's located in the back room.

the show is in between bands right now, with a total of 4 playing tonight. the first one finished up their set a few minutes ago so the stage room consists of one band packing up and the next band setting up to play.

as she sits silently on the couch, sipping away at her coffee, she notices george walk past her, not stopping to talk or sit or even look her way, which is fine, why wouldn't it be? it's not like they're supposed to be friends or anything. right?

he walks past again, looking lost.

the third time he passes, she calls out for him, "g? what are you doing?" he looks genuinely surprised to see her sitting there on the couch, like she's just suddenly gained visibility and she hasn't been sitting on the couch the whole time.

his dopey drunk smile shows up on his handsome face again, curly brown hair in the way of his eyes and he plops his heavy body down next to her on the old couch, making her bounce a bit on the other end. there's only room for two on this couch.

she makes eye contact with adam from across the room, and it's like he can bluetooth connect to her brain just through one thoughtful glance, but through the wireless connection, she informs him that 'its fine,' like that's her new catchphrase for the night. adam nods but doesn't let the two on the couch out of his sight.

"i was looking for you."

"you found me."

"hey, you said that already," he pokes his finger into her cheek and she smiles, bashfully pushing his hand down. "ok wait, when the next band plays will you get up and dance with me?"

"i don't know, are you going to throw me into the pit again, mister?"

he laughs all too loudly for a private conversation, "for the last time, honey, it wasn't me, i swear!"

she huffs, rolling her eyes, "sure, yeah, you just happened to be standing right there with a guilty look on your face. shit hurt, that guy punched me so hard i got a black eye! you remember that?"

he gets silent and still, a little too silent and too still before he suddenly blurts out, "i punched that guy afterwards."

"what?"

"he knew better than that. i wasn't just gonna stand there and watch him push you around like that, it isn't right."

she's blushing now. she wishes she wasn't, but this is the world she lives in. she speaks small, "you didn't have to do that."

"of course i did. that's what friends are for."

"right."

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

once they hear the heavy drums introducing the first song of the next bands, george is quickly up on his feet, reaching out his hands for her to grab, and he pulls her up with too much force, sending her flying into him, which she chooses not to discuss as she wordlessly continues next to him over to the stage room.

people have already filed into the room, forming a decent sized crowd, and even aside from the heavy music playing on the stage before them, it's loud.

she stands awkwardly by his side, not knowing if she should dance or mosh or leave the room or go home or go cry about it to adam in the next room. however, once the crowdkillers come in, throwing themselves blindly into the confines of the crowd, george makes a point to pull her out of harms way.

it's thoughtful, it's really thoughtful, that he doesn't want her to get hurt by anyone, that he doesn't want anyone to touch her, or maybe it's just that he feels guilty for last time. either way, he threw his arm around her shoulder and held her steady there to his left.

then, seemingly out of nowhere, matty crawls out from the midst of the crowd, shit eating grin plastered over his stupid, stupid face. "don't you two look cozy. almost like a real couple."

in this very moment, matty is the worst man in the world and she wishes him nothing but death in his future. she also wishes she never confessed her crush on george to matty because, of course, he can't shut his big fat mouth.

but then george does the unthinkable, he gets a fake-serious expression on his face and pulls her in by the shoulder to a tight, messy hug. her face is smushed into his shirt but it's not like she's complaining. she waits to see what happens.

"of course she's my wife and i love her. we have two dogs at home and a horse," he seems to laugh his ass off at his own joke, something about the horse really doing it for him.

knowingly, matty responds, "you're wasted, man," he claps george on the back like best buddies do, then to y/n, "i trust you'll get him home safe, won't you, love?"

matty is a bit of a small guy and he doesn't have any fighting experience. if rage completely takes over her body, mixed with adrenaline, she's sure she can rip his entire head off and chuck it onstage. but george doesn't let go of her, so she'll never know if it's a possibility.

she reluctantly peels herself off of him and with an awkward feeling, "a horse?"

he laughs in her face, "yeah, a horse."

she decides to play along with it. "since when do we have a horse? i can't handle your spontaneity, we need a divorce.”

“fine. but i’m taking the horse. you can keep the kids.”

“i never even wanted the horse, silly,” the lights are on and the band’s set is over now, so she walks out the door of the venue and continues out to the parking lot, more than sure he’s following behind like a lost puppy. she’d take sappy drunk george over cold sober george any day.

the night is inky black and light pollution causes stars to cease to exist in the sky. it’s no big deal. y/n’s seen them before on other, clearer nights, and george just doesn’t care.

she leans against the stone wall of the building and george stops to stand right in front of her. he’s close. he’s too close. he’s not still in place. he’s jittery, fidgety, his hands wring together like his words will pour out of them like water if he squeezes hard enough. they never do.

she chews the inside of her mouth, maybe all the damage she does to her cheek from her teeth is the reason george never liked her back. maybe that was the big deal, the one reason that held the line.

but she knows things aren’t black and white like that. she knows it’s a cocktail of things all put together that george has observed about her over the many years growing alongside one another.

she could argue it’s near impossible to love someone through all the changes from childhood to adolescence, all the phases and new shapes an individual inevitably takes in order to find some peace of mind.

but it wouldn’t be true, because through it all, she’s still so in love with him.

she’s thought about writing him a letter. a long letter, it will cover everything she wanted to say, everything she almost did but never came out. in this letter, she’d magically gain the confidence and cadence of an old poet, an old soul who’s words are like honey to the tongue, and she’d give it to him.

no, she’d give it to adam to give it to him. no, she’d mail it to him. his mom would retrieve it from the mailbox and leave it on his messy desk where he wouldn’t notice it, much less read it, until she’s long gone, somewhere far, far away.

she’d go to london. no, she’d go to amsterdam. no, seattle. if he dared to read the letter word by word, between the lines, he’d find secret instructions telling him to meet her there.

wherever she ended up fleeing to, it wouldn’t matter, as long as she would be far, far away from the aftermath of confessing her feelings to him. she can’t imagine looking him in the eye when it happens, much less being right in front of him.

she’d stand at a distance, a 1,000 mile distance, and watch her life implode into chaos and she would have nothing to do with it until she chose to come back. or maybe she wouldn’t. and maybe when reading the letter, george would never know to meet her in seattle, maybe he’d get two lines in and he’d fold it up, crumple it, and toss it into his wastebin under his desk in his bedroom.

then maybe years later, she’d finally come home for christmas, and he’d have stayed there, he’d have waited for years and years for her. and by then, the city of seattle had changed her, she’d have lost the meaning of christmas, and george, who had taken up work at a local christmas tree farm, could return it to her with a few witty jokes and sweet kisses.

then she could sell the story to hallmark and leave again. maybe george could tag along this time. maybe the years apart aided him in gaining some worldly wisdom, and he’d know to follow when she walks out of her own life for the second time.

george’s fingers dig into her knotted hair. his thumbs parallel on each side of her frosty cheeks and his mouth is blowing warm air onto her lips.

she gasps, quiet and low, “what-“

he acts for himself and doesn’t let her finish her sentence, he traps her lips into the embrace of his own.

she always did wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. it had occurred in dreams many, many times before and once they parted, it would always be followed by some friendly remark, like ‘i was just curious to know what would happen’ and then the plot of the dream would continue on like normal.

but this isn’t a dream, this is real life, as real as it gets, and if she doesn’t act on this now, she may never get another chance.

she pushes him away, “what the hell george?”

he stumbles back, backing away from her absentmindedly. “fuck, god, fuck, i’m sorry, shit, i’m so sorry.” he grovels like it will fix this. “i’ll go, i’ll leave you alone, i’m sorry.”

now it’s her turn to grab him harshly by the arm. “fuck you, no. you’re staying here. we need to talk about this. why did you do that?”

“i’m so sorry, i’m so, so sorry. i’ve just had these feelings. for so long, i’ve had these feelings and i didn’t know what to do so i didn’t do anything and i know i should have but i didn’t and i’m sorry. and i thought that tonight was the right time and that you have feelings too but you don’t and that’s ok, i’ll leave you alone for now, i’m sorry i screwed things up with you, i hope you can forgive me.”

george doesn’t cry. it’s not in a toxic masculine way, it’s not like he’s not allowed to cry or he doesn’t let himself cry, but as a general rule of thumb, he simply doesn’t cry.

y/n’s known him for ages. even as a little kid, falling off his bike, tripping over his feet, blood could be gushing out of a fatal wound of his body and she swears he would just walk it off, free of any tears.

but now tears stream down his face. it’s a sight to see. he roughly wipes them away with the sleeve of his shirt, even looking surprised at himself to be crying.

and she isn’t quite sure what to do about any of this, she’s aware, now, that her initial reaction made her seem as though the kiss was unwelcome. and that’s far from the truth.

“stop. just stop.”

he’s got a desperate look on his face and it physically hurts to see.

“what do you want me to do? i’ll do anything. just tell me what to do.” he looks much more sober now. his eyes are more focused and he’s swaying a lot less.

“kiss me again. please.”

he just stands there, jaw slack. if he were animated, he’d have a big question mark over his head.

so she makes the move, instead. she holds him by the back of the neck and kisses him harder than he had.

he smiles into the kiss but again, he pulls apart, this time holding her head tenderly with both hands. “you’re confusing me,” he shakes his head.

“then i’ll make it simple. i’ve had the biggest crush on you since the first grade. here i was thinking i’d be the only pining idiot but now you’re here telling me you feel the same? i can’t believe it.”

he giggles, “you mean year 2?”

“that’s what you get out of this?”

he smiles wider. “can i take you home?”

“you’re drunk. i’ll take you home.”

“yeah, yeah that sounds good.”

⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:*⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

taglist: @indierockgirrl @itssimpleanditgoeslikethis @milkluvr8 @americanangel

[missielynne]

The special thing about Ghosts is that I really feel like it has something for everyone. We get a ton of very distinct characters who we can be entertained by and relate to. And characters that don’t mean anything to some people will resonate with others. For example, you seem to have an anon who’s obsessed with Jenkins and Baxter, while I literally keep forgetting they’re even on the show! And while many here don’t seem to love or click with Sam, those of us who had a very critical parent and a lot of pressure and expectations tend to find her very relatable.

The show’s humor runs the gambit from dark gallows humor to sharp observational wit to just silly sitcom stuff so can appeal to all tastes. People who love supernatural stuff can get super into the ghost lore, but it can also be enjoyed purely as a standard sitcom. People who love history can enjoy all the references from the previous eras that each ghost represents. People who really enjoy romance get their share of those moments but there’s also a ton of focus on platonic relationship relationships and individual growth for those who don’t ship.

I’m so glad the show is fairly popular because I would hate to worry about cancellation but I’m almost surprised it’s not even more popular because like I said it really does have such wide appeal and something for everyone in my opinion!

I started out in the Ghostsverse with BBC and I loved it. When I heard we were getting our own version, I was extremely excited, but some of the initial reviews of it were on the negative side, sort of a "enjoy it while it's here because it won't be here long" sort of thing. And that did make me nervous because it looked like a really good show.

And here we are four years later with much more of a community than I thought. I love that there's so much appreciation for a genuinely cheerful, feel good show. (Although I do love the times when it dares to go a little darker or intense like it is right now with Patience, which I know isn't for everyone.)

I agree that there are so many different ways to enjoy it, and that's one of the things I love about it.

I mean it's got things that could be improved naturally (like I understand how people think it's overly focused on couples and could use more platonic focus and just what is up with the insistence on Flower and Thor? I think development of Nigel and Isaac would have been a much better use of time, but that's just me.)

I definitely click with Sam because of the pressure and expectations thing. When she was freaking out about getting the website done and how the B and B had to be a success because of all she'd done to make it happen, that hit me like a ton of bricks.

And I love all the different character types and how the show doesn't take itself too seriously but still gets lessons across. Like with Hetty for example: we know she did a lot of crappy stuff when she was alive. All the stuff she says about kids in the mills is just horrible but we're also shown that everyone else is horrified when she says these things. That she's starting to realize thats not the way to go/be, and I don't just have to feel bad for her cause Elias sucked and she had a lonely childhood and whatever else and give her a free pass. I LOVE watching Hetty grow and develop while still being Hetty. They don't make her a saint, they make her a better person and that's awesome.

And sure, there have been a few episodes where the plot/humor doesn't hit with me, but those are few and far between because this show gets what makes a ghost show, at least to me: remember the ghosts! Lots of ghost things (especially if they have human characters central) tend to focus too much on the human characters (BBC is guilty of this IMO, even if Alison and Mike can be delightful), and sort of put the ghosts at their mercy, but I feel like by and large, CBS has learned or is learning how to do Sam and Jay's story in a way that mixes it in well with the ghosts' stories if I make any sense. And if an episode's themes or story doesn't hit one week, I can be pretty confident that the next one will since there are so many different kinds of stories to tell. :)

[wendytestabrat]

cartman’s behavior in “jewpacabra” explained

something that always stood out to me abt this episode when i first watched it (and btw this was WAYYYY before people started changing their stance abt cartman and realizing he’s not all that horrible, this was when he was still in his menace era and people would shit on cartman all the time) was how sad & pitiful cartman was in this episode. like honestly when i watch this one i can’t help but feel bad for cartman bc this episode rlly highlights how truly delusional and fucked up in the head he is and how he can’t help it, and it also rlly shined a light on cartman’s schizophrenia & mental issues too how he was imagining this thing in his head (which was the jewpacabra) that wasn’t even real and then there was that whole sequence/dream cartman had where he was a jew and all that. i think a lot of cartman’s anti-semitism stems from mental illness and delusions he has which they also explored further in “cupid ye” how when once cupid me was on his meds he stopped being an anti-semitic asshole bashing jews. and i DEF don’t think cartman’s anti-semitic behavior in this episode was him being malicious or anything bc he actually delusionally believed there was a creature named jewpacabra that was out to get him LOL and then he was scared af and thought he was gonna die and shit. i feel like the episode def did start out with cartman just being an anti-semitic dick as usual and trying to mess with kyle over the jewpacabra thing but then as the episode went on it took a DARK turn bc cartman started believing the thing he made up in his head was real. and i feel like this is what kyle finally realized later on in the episode, which was why he felt bad for cartman and unchained him & took him home. at first kyle assumed this what just cartman being a bigoted asshole as usual going after jews which was why he was pissy at cartman AF in the beginning bc he took it personally and assumed cartman was just trying to harass him, but then he had a moment of mercy for cartman when he rescued him at the end. i feel like what was going through kyle’s head was him realizing cartman wasn’t trying to be an asshole but he was genuinely scared of something that wasn’t real to the point he got himself chained up outside in the cold, so he just felt bad for cartman & pitied him bc he realized this was more about him just being an ignorant delusional idiot than it was about him being cruel or mean. so yeah OFC kyle couldn’t stand to let cartman stay out there in the cold all sad & scared over something that he was suffering from which was a straight up schizophrenia episode, which ofc triggered kyle’s codependent side. that’s also why at that scene at the end kyle went easy on cartman and was nice to him when cartman was saying how he believed in juddaism now and all that LOL. cartman tells kyle how kyle prob thinks he’s lying or making it all up and kyle is just like “i know you’re not” bc kyle realized cartman rlly wasn’t lying bc he delusionally believed this shit. bc normally if something like that happened kyle would just get mad and be like “you’re not jewish fatass!1!1!” 😡 but kyle decided not to get mad and take shit personally this time and was able to overlook his behavior and see what was RLLY going on with cartman. i also love how kyle didn’t reveal at the end that HE was the one who took him home and just decided to let cartman believe it was a ‘passover miracle’. i feel like this episode parallels “smug alert” A LOT how cartman didn’t want kyle to find out he was the one who saved him bc he didn’t want kyle to know how much he cares abt him. so i feel like kyle was the same exact way in this episode, he was prob embarrassed with himself for trying to help cartman and didn’t want cartman to find out how much he cares.

[wrongcaitlyn]

Just read chapter 17! It was sooo worth the wait!

It totally flew over my head that nico and will got a apartment (had to go back and reread, lol) but I feel like someone needs make a pintrest board on what there house looks like, what do you imagine?

As soon as I read that will was going to a party I KNEW he was going to trigger nico with alcohol. It was really sweet though how he just kept confessing his love to nico, I couldn't keep giggling at that part

Oh poor will, the dating accusations with ncio are only going to get worse lol. In all honesty I guess he's not going to care that much about people knowing he's bi, but I don't think nico will like the speculation

Nico making the luckey one the seventh track omg we love the cabin 7 refrence!

I am so ready for this new album (my spotify playlists consist of nicos music from this au, not even egsagurating) I'm so happy with the addition of all falls down (I hc that the saxophone was Austin's playing!)

Also will Hazel and or Frank ever make a appearance in this au? If not why? (Genuinely curious)

This was a great chapter! I hope you have so much fun at the eras tour, and I hope you get a good suprose song!

so sorry it took so long for me to respond to this!!! at first i wanted to wait till i was able to make a pinterest board, but then i couldn't really find exactly what i wanted (but still made a board - here's the link!) so i decided i'd just describe it:

it’s a penthouse, and right now it’s veryyyy empty. they moved into it just before will’s next semester started so not much time to decorate!! they kept all like the basic furniture, so i do think they have a sort of living room connected to the kitchen - hold up, now i’m realizing i sorta based that layout off my uncles house. don’t know why i did that but!! we’re going with it. so they have two couches in the “living room” and a tv, leading to a kitchen with the generic appliances + a kitchen island - then i think that there’s a hallway with doors to one of the bathrooms, the guest room, and the studio, and then the master bedroom is also like. right across from the kitchen. if im even making any sense. i actually don’t know what a penthouse looks like so im just going off of pinterest vibes💯💯 anyway i think that eventually, they’ll also def have a lot of (fake) plants (bc lord knows they don’t actually have time to water and take care of plants), and LOTSS OF BLANKETS. i think that like almost every time they go to a target or smth to get smth they actually need, they walk out of the store with at least one blanket. they’re all over the couches, the beds, the chairs, idk why but i just want their apartment to be very very cozy :) aside from that, will 100% has his record collection moved to their room, with a few hanging from the living room- there’s definitely shelves of a bunch of awards or posters and things like that - A PHOTO WALL TOO!! definitely a photo wall. i also think that both nico and will are very messy, at least when they’re busy with something (and they always are) so every countertop and table and desk is filledddd with clutter. like so much. papers and textbooks and headphones and laptops they’re everywhere.

i realize it’s actually really hard to explain my vision for their apartment, which is funny bc i have a very specific layout in my head - and also one for nico’s apartment in so american btw!! so maybe sometime ill figure out how to draw a floor plan just so i can show yall what im thinking, but in the end, that’s the general vibe of it!!

now on to the rest of the ask‼️

will is ADORABLE he’s just such a simp and i love him for that. drunk words r truly sober thoughts in his case

youre 100% right with will not really caring abt people knowing!! i know some people assumed that will was the one being outed, and this was going to lead to some sort of angsty plot line, but seriously- will doesn’t care for that stuff. in his eyes, he’s already out, because he’s come out to all of his friends and the people he knows. the people on twitter are trying to search for something that just isn’t really that important

YES YES YES FOR THE ALL FALLS DOWN HC!!! i forgot to mention the songs and the artists in the end notes but seriously, all falls down by lizzy mcalpine is SOOOO fucking nico. i almost considered it being apollo (which i think it could also be) except the production style just wasn’t rlly very him if u get what i mean?? he’s much more like mainstream pop, and nico is too but he’s less worried abt sticking to a genre and i think it matches him perfectly

hazel and frank WILL be making their appearances soon!! i’ve had their backstories planned for sooo long and i can’t WAIT to finally include them. it’s been a long time coming but i swear it’ll be worth the wait!!

thank you SOO MUCH and i’m sorry again for taking so long to respond to this!! i had an incredible time at the eras tour and got some AMAZING surprise songs so thank you for that!!

[atla-confessions]

It pisses me the fuck off how some zukka shipers talk bad about zutara just to turn around and use tropes zutarians created (ambassador katara x fire lord zuko) or they don't talk bad about zutara BUT they make katara into an homophobe who hates zuko and ohhh poor zuko, sokka needs to defend him! Which is a 100 times worse btw, I know we all have our headcanons and shit but that's lowkey misogynist as hell. I'm saying this as a zukka and zutara shiper, I don't interact much with the fandom beyond fanfics and fanarts but what I consume is honestly a lot so this is simply from my experience in the last four years in the fandom. zukka became more prominent after 2020 and it's amazing to see content about them but some stans need to back off (just like some homophobic ZK shipers)

I am pretty sure Ambassador Sokka is popular outside of Zukka (because of Korra and him being shown as a water tribe representative in flashbacks). Also, the earliest Ambassador Sokka Zukka fic I have found is 2008? The same year as the earliest Ambassador Katara Zutara fic I found. Fire Lady Katara was way more of a prevalent thing with (early) Zutara. First fic I found being a 2006 fic. And both Ambassadors becoming more prevalent in 2017-2019 likely due atla renaissance and the realization of the problematic nature of Fire Lady Katara and such. I used to read Zutara fic way back when and I don't remember Ambassador Katara being a big thing at all (I do remember Fire Lady Katara being pretty a pretty popular trope in art and fic). I genuinely think these both became popular at the same time. I don't think it is a Zutara trope. (As someone who has been 'in the fandom' a lot longer than 4 years). I actually encountered it with Zukka first.

The Homophobic Katara thing is (well was) a joke. I think it was even started by a Katara fan, but some people took it way too far. And the 'Katara hates poor Zuko' did not emerge originally from Zukka fics. It was a gen fic Zuko whump trope (Season 3 era pre Southern Raiders, usually). There is probably still a lot of it, honestly (I was whump fan so I found a lot of it, did not like the treatment of Katara in a lot of those because I found her anger entirely valid. But sometimes people react strongly to perceived mistreatment of their fave.)

Misogyny has always been a big problem in this fandom. Zutaras towards Mai used to be one of the biggest ones back when Zutara was pretty much undisputed as the biggest ship (biggest competition being Kataang which was more prevalent with casual enjoyers). It's not a Zukka thing.

I have not seen as bad stuff with Zukka as I did with Zutara back in the day, although I will admit current Zutara is different to the Zutara I encountered back then. (I used to read a decent amount of Zutara because there is some really great stuff but I kept finding Mai/Aang and occasionally Jet hate fics and I like all of those characters. So I stopped seeking them out after a while. Still haunted by my fave Zutara fic though :))

X

[staraxiaa]

shutter-click, the afterword:

author's corner/first thoughts.

firstly, to those of you who know what it's like, and those of you who don't, i hope i did these themes justice. i'm not sure if this is an entirely accurate representation - i tried to take some of my own experiences and exaggerate it into what fit for my vision of the story. i apologize if i have trivialized any aspect of it. also there is like. negative actual romance like the tension is not there bc i imagine them to be pure balls of sweetness and fluff and like. it will probably happen? but like 5 years down the line. i called this story shutter-click partially after the sound of a camera, and partially because when i think of pictures now, i think of the importance of the memories present in them. it could be the ugliest picture you have ever seen, and yet it still means something to someone, because it reminds them of something they might have forgotten once upon a time. that's also why the reader names the first collection shutter-click - in part in reference to the title, but also the importance of these 'pictures' that are carried on throughout life. i.e. nanny's grin, the first person to ever believe in them, which also helps them overcome a great many barriers. ngl i didnt think about the rest of the art. maybe the rest should also be smile-inspired. but i am not going to call it the smile collection. this was also in no way sunflower caliber LOL sorry. genuinely have no clue i feel like the pacing was really fast. too fast. shouldve probably spent more time with the growth era. i will very likely revisit a similar concept eventually ok now that that's over - rant time. this was the brainchild of a discarded mc concept for another of my works. i couldn't quite get her character to fit with my vision, and then this was born. i wrote all of this in a day. i said i would take a break. well, i didn't. lowkey a hiatus time now <3 sorry. really wanted to get more work done on porcelain but then i was like WHAT IF and then i thought of a kiri fic. and then u know what i realized? mc is literally just katsuki like. i am in despair like now i really want to make porcelain a coming of age fic too. discovering oneself, forging yourself anew. what if it was a whole collection. oh my god. please send me some katsuki asks so i can brainrot over him instead (please) mentally i feel like the clown meme music and a thousand bouncing balls in my brain all at once. i have been listening to the same song for seven hours. this was also partially inspired off the prompt 'tragedy of a spare heir' but really reader is neither a spare nor a heir so ? ? ? dunno man i wasnt lying when i said i was tired seriously though, thank you to everyone who commented + liked shared my first work. i genuinely never expected to receive such a positive response, and i hope that this one is up to the same caliber. i still think im a god btw im genuinely on 4 hours of sleep and just churned out like. 10k? in less than 12 hours HAHAHA #if i don't laugh i am going to cry #i want to carve my brain out and examine it. these last few hours were such a blur but it's over. i feel both defeated and glorious at the same time. this was also significantly harder to write than sunflowers. that one was so nice. so easy. i miss it. im never hitting that peak again i think seriously though i think it's temp hiatus time i am emptied of thought will continue updating as i think of things i guess

unwritten scenes, headcanons, more ramble? no clue

i'm not sure if social anxiety disorder/selective mutism is necessarily something you are born with. i am aware that you can develop it as the results of past traumas, but in this case, there is very little explanation about that - it's left unexplained in the fic. could both be from hatred of cameras (ik i hate having photos taken of me lol), but again, a lot of this is entirely exaggerated and fictional. sorry. the nanny was supposed to die, but i am tired. so tired. i did not want to write an angst scene that had no relevance to the happiness of the plot. so now u guys just have the most tooth rotting fluff i have ever written in existence. she doesn't appear again in a lot of the later scenes, did i write her in alive? if i did: she actually lives forever. literally immortal idgaf more about the nanny: i imagined someone who also had difficulties in communication, and i hope that translated in the way her speech was very often broken? idk if that was accurate i wrote all of her dialogue at 3am and passed out right after. probably definitely isn't in japanese. my english was not englishing at this time. i hope it was made clear in the fic: everything that the reader that thought about herself and her relationships was wrong, with regards to the parents/sister. idk if this is accurate, but in my mind, and from my experience, my social anxiety at least is that i overthought a lot of things, misinterpreted a lot as well. soooo actually guys you DO have a loving family! i am saving the trauma for porcelain! honestly, i thought about this fic, and when i think of midoriya i just think of pure innocence lol. does it reflect ? similarly to sunflowers, the themes were childhood friendship and growth. i once again skip out on my proper kiss scene bc i think it would suit them even less than the ones in that one. but at least she kissed him on the cheek. it felt pretty ooc to me though so i think she shouldve just hugged him. at least there is also that the thing is though: you're the one to do everything first. he's really hesitant, because he still remembers you as you were, before you were out of your shell. he doesn't want to push you, overwhelm you in any way. you definitely have to be the one to initiate everything -> i just didnt think the hug + cheek kiss together was in character for me but whatever i wrote it i hope u enjoy you kiss him and hes an absolute fucking dorky mess . but honestly this is like every step in the relationship originally, the all might figurine you gift him was supposed to be a birthday present in return for the camera. this is just a fun fact. also i know both of the characters were both supposed to be insanely socially anxious but that would never have worked out so i took some liberties with it/midoriya's character. hope it still makes sense? also hope that his ramble was in-line with canon oh yeah there was supposed to be a side plot with the dead brother. i cannot tell you what it was, seeing as how i do not remember. probably some form of traumatic thing i removed from porcelain reader doesn't have a described quirk cause i am on negative brain juice and couldn't think. you can imagine that it is something art related if you'd like. but i didnt wanna yap more so.

[kairoseas]

request from @coffebean: Can you do umm a Sukuita one about sukuna fantasizing about yuji in a bride dress Sukuna's never been one to fantasize. It's more of an activity reserved for those who cannot make their slightest whims a reality at the flick of their wrist; it was something the brat did a lot, but not he himself. He was more inclined towards making what he imagined in the darkest recesses of his own mind a reality when he simply saw fit to. This was not an occasion where he could simply put his idea to reality, much to his own painful chagrin.

That doesn't mean he hasn't had... a passing whimsy. A fantastical image. This modern era has changed a lot, certainly that was so, but others had remained very much the same. He'd first gotten a glimpse of this idea from the brat's posters, some gaudy older woman far too out of his league on his dorm room walls, flashing a particular kind of staged smile (he recognized it, it was similar to the ones he was once forced into giving at events) that made her expression all the more false to anyone trained in the art of expression. He, however, was elated at the slightest. "Oi, brat." The sudden speaking had Yuuji jumping in surprise, and it was a little on the adorable side, if Sukuna had anything to say about it. Still, like a good vessel, he answers when prompted: "Mmn? Something you need, 'kuna?" No, there wasn't anything he needed per say, but there were questions to be posed, fancies to be taken into consideration, and while he could search the brat's 'brain' (whatever was in the space between his ears, he certainly wasn't that optimistic) for his answers, he found it easier to lounge in the same way a lion did, surrounded by artifacts of his domain. "That woman. What's she wearing?" he asks from his place on Yuuji's cheek, the singular protruding eye stuck on the image in his magazine. Yuuji blinks before he realizes that Sukuna's talking about the image in front of him in modern print, fully colored, beautiful in a lot of ways, even when some were lost on him. "It's a wedding dress. You had those, right?" "It was different than that." "Really?" Not that the infamous Ryomen Sukuna paid much attention to marriage ceremonies of any sort, since he was never interested in participating in one up until ... these past few months. Thus, the culture surrounding them caught the curse's attention, caused him to absorb what information he found in passing. Yuuji, too, didn't have too much of an eye out for things pertaining to a wedding in their everyday fight for survival. "The wedding-kimonos were more ornate than that. More ... unique. These atrocities are mass manufactured, aren't they?" "...? How'd you guess?" "... they all look too similar to one another. Isn't the point of a wedding to be unique to all others in accordance to the tastes of the bride and groom?" the curse states with genuine disgust; how could people water down such a beautiful custom? Ah, well, it was one of the many things that the modern day watered down and diluted. "Heh, 'kuna has some romantic ideas. Did you ever marry anybody?" "What do you think?" "... no? But you were famous, right? Wouldn't you have been chased after?" It's at this point that Sukuna rolls his eyes, shaking his head inside of his domain at the very idea; he was courted many times, but it was never once returned in any regard. That was one of the problems with being all-powerful. Romance was trickier, more obtuse. "That's not to say that I was not courted, brat." "Courted...?" Ah, right, another word long gone out of fashion, Sukuna had to watch his own language if he wanted to speak and be understood by anyone, including his own vessel. "Others wished to romance me often. They were all foolish." Sukuna answers him easily, to which Yuuji laughs a bit. "Yeah? I can see you turning a lot of people down. You seem more like a loner to me." "Correct. ... have you entertained marriage?" "Not really." What a shame. In the Heian era, women were groomed to be brides fairly early, and it was around this time that they would have been wed away for power. Even if Yuuji had no desire yet to be by his side for an extended stay, well, safe to say Yuuji didn't get a say in the matter. He was the other half of Sukuna's rotten soul, everything he was not, tied to his littlest finger. "Doesn't matter. Don't get any bright ideas." Sukuna pulls back, resting his knuckles against his face as he sat on the throne of bovine skulls, You're still my vessel, and you won't belong to anyone besides me anyway." ... we'll work on the wedding dress part.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/17/2023

started explaining why this one is a little lighter than last week's gallery wall behemoth bc of a uhhhh kind of dire week, personally and professionally speaking, but then realized when fic authors do that in front of chapters i don't actually care or require an excuse from them, im just delighted to have a new chapter.

listening

this is a deeply cheesy little folk song but the lyrics "man you name it and if we ain’t got it: we’ll get it" gave me a sensible chuckle.

now for a moment to expound upon houston: they truly have imported every possible food service establishment. the two chains i miss most from jersey, jersey mikes submarine sandwiches and 7-11 gas stations, are both here. i get that this is the fifth largest metro area in the US or whatever but both of these companies are SO niche. absolutely bonkers. spotify.

i think this started autoplaying after a playlist inspired by f/allout: new v/egas came on??

-

reading

i originally had a very mean-spirited graf about the utility of a pool in northwestern massachusetts and the kind of person who can comfortably lose $31k, but it is genuinely awful that there are no rules around zelle. that money goes into a black fucking hole and there's no way to get it back, which is not the case for any other kind of recognized money except cryptocurrency

Did we confront Gary Kruglitz [the pool contractor]? Yes we did. We marched right into his office and grilled him hard until he defeated us with a simple and probing question: What's a zelle? It defied belief, we quickly realized, that a man who had been trapped in technological amber since the Nixon era was running a cyberscam designed to come between us and our money out of an AOL account.

-

watching

Van Helsing (2004, dir. Sommers). this movie is horrible. this movie is terrific. i don't have anything to say about this movie bc i was distracted by equal opportunity tits and asses the entire time. the time of the “Kate Beckinsale in a corset” movie genre is long over but GOD. watched with my sister bc it's leaving tubi soon

playing

one week i will have the energy to try New Thing but until i do it’s genshin. there's a poetry event that has terribly boring minigames, but the story quest has finally tied a bow on a piece of folkore we came across in the very first release so that was fun!

wrapping up some stuff in sumeru bc im running out of map pins, this game has done one of the things i hate most: progress-locking one extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the music gates) behind another extremely long and tedious collectible hunt (the robots locked in the vines). the next time i see one of those little fucking budget koroks i am going to drop kick it into the sun. what the fuck is the circumference of teyvat anyway. it feels like we have explored so little of this planet's surface

i have graphics turned down pretty low bc of performance issues on my elderly laptop and this is still such a remarkably pretty game. look at this big estuary leading off into the distance

-

making

i wildly overextended myself this week, partially bc im trying to take advantage of this brief post-covid heightened immunity. lot of dinners. lot of late nights. on top of that BOTH of my siblings were in town for unrelated professional reasons this week :) no overlap so we did not have a nice fambly dinner :( but did have pretty okay separate dinners :) if they could learn to fucking communicate their trave plans and the number of peope that will be showing up at my home that would also be pretty okay >:(

one of the party games i played this week asked the question “what could you give a 40-minute PowerPoint presentation on” and i started saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad and they very nicely let me continue saying facts about the downfall of the penn central railroad, the largest bankruptcy in US history until ENRON, until the round timer went off.

i have some thoughts about Train Guys and how it's very easy to fall into being a Train Guy, bc there's a very easy template to follow, and there's a lot of Train Guy content, and have i been doing this bc i actually like trains, or bc it's easy to listen to Well There's Your Problem on repeat bc it's familiar and comforting, or do i just really really really fucking hate flying?

who could possibly say.

mackintosh update: allowed herself to be scooped up by my brother (who she met at christmas and loves) but did NOT allow herself to be pet by the strangers in his company. did hang out in the middle of the floor observing tho. a regular little extroverted socialite!

[domini-porter]

Hi, I genuinely just want to pop in to say that I’m very excited to begin reading your series The Age of Wickedness!

I loved what you did with CMYK, and I was waiting because I’m currently working my way through FAR too many stories.

So I didn’t honestly come to ask a question as much as I came to say thanks for your work & I, too, am a certified Drake hater. I wanted to scream to someone else who shares the love for Rizzles and hate for Drake. It is a very specific overlap in the Venn diagram of active fandoms here. 😂

But while I’m here, I do love getting a glimpse into writers’ processes, and I’m curious to know if you had a passion for this particular era, or if you had a particular idea for Rizzles and you felt this would be the greatest way to realize it?

Thanks for keeping the fandom alive & stay hating 🥂

Oh hi hi thank you!

First: wop wop wop wop wop Dot fuck ‘em up (very thrilled to start the Intersectional Haters Society with you)

As for the AoW time period—it’s kind of a confluence of things! It all started with a mental image of Maura wearing a bustle while doing taxidermy, and kind of developed from there. But I’m a biiiiiiiig Edith Wharton fan (there are lots of little references to her works throughout, including the series name), a less-big Henry James fan, and so on.

Then you gotta add the influence of my best friend/sounding board/biggest fan, who LOVES this time period more than any other, as well as fringe religions, social movements, etc, and has declared himself my research assistant (thx jda).

Then you gotta add my unstoppable love for trivia and my immovable need to be both correct and authoritative, now with the entirety of human knowledge available on the same device I type my stories into, which means not only am I able to reference the correct building and location for the specific year (1885, in this case), but the architect, the financiers, the floor plan. The internet will probably turn out to have been a mistake, but it also tells me the dates of home games played by the Boston Beaneaters during the 1886 season, so.

And then? When I got into it, and started researching in earnest? Turns out every-fucking-thing of note that happened in this time period happened in Boston. Okay, not everything. But a lot of things! Incidental things! Things I discovered during research! Like how general anesthesia was developed at Massachusetts General Hospital, a facility designed by one Mr. Bulfinch, father of legendary myth-collector Charles Bulfinch (who compiled the first, and still most famous, book of myths and legends). Neat, right? Now add in that I only discovered this when researching that hospital’s Ether Dome, after spending a couple hundred pages heavily incorporating Greek myth as a motif (and namdropping Bulfinch’s Mythology specifically). I dunno, it thrilled me, at least? And there’s tons of that kind of serendipitous detail woven in, which hopefully isn’t a chore, because it soothes and delights me to share cool facts.

Then you’ve got the other stuff that makes it a compelling setting—it’s during the Industrial Revolution but before a lot of medical and scientific discoveries (horrifying fact! surgical gloves weren’t developed until 1892!). Huge developments were underway socially and culturally, with massive immigration and the emergence of organized social services, especially in ultra-progressive Boston. Things move slowly without internal combustion and optical cables, and everything requires significantly more effort (travel, communication, etc). This is so fun because it both forces creative problem-solving and really forces the universe of the story to slow down to allow for more character development and world-building and honestly, a sense of wonder and mystery (not that you can’t have a slow world in the modern era, but due to the ubiquity of technology it feels more difficult—there often must be a reason this modern setting is de-emphasizing technology, etc, instead of just not including cell phones; plus the massive advantage of hindsight for historical fiction).

Okay, WHEW. I could clearly talk about this stuff for another 600 pages, but I gotta go get stoned and hang out with my cats, as is tradition. Thank you again for asking! And even more for caring about The Beef, which is still at the front of my mind (Drake’s gonna drop something else, is my theory, to bait Dot, and oh jeez am I ever hype for how Kendrick scorches the earth)(also the whole West Coast scene hates Drake now, which is THRILLING)

[gontagokuhara]

Just went on Instagram to look at more DR art (because tumblr won't let me see a lot of DR art for some reason) and saw hinanami discourse out in the wild which made me say, out loud, "oh, are we still doing this 💀"

Like idk if I've just aged out of the fandom (on Instagram) but just seeing that hinanami rant made me realize I've been spoiled by the DR community on Tumblr bc I'll scroll on here for 2 minutes and see a text post that will literally SHIFT my entire view of a character/ship and CHANGE my LIFE in just a small analysis that was probably written by op while they were on the toilet💀

Anyway it made me think of the post about Maki and Chappel Roan that I actually recited by memory out loud to my friend last night [gooning over wlw content together after watching Muriel's Wedding], And also that one post abt Monomi and Monokuma being Junko's satire of her own rivalry with Mukuro, and Junko not liking that her friends don't appreciate her fursona doing stand-up 💀💀 and like compare that to Instagram discourse and it's like "Komahina is stupid bc hinata isn't straight" like 💀

Anyway maybe it was the same on tumblr before [it probably definitely was] but now that I'm older I'm really appreciating mature convos/takes about danganronpa because good fanfiction/fanart/fan interpretations are truly adapting the story+characters in much better ways than the creators could ever imagine circa 2010 [pointy objects] [peaches and cream] [anything w/autistic nagito] [anything w/transmasc hajime]

number one rule of modern fandom experience (at the very least with media that has a propensity to draw Certain Crowds [looking especially hard at danganronpa and p5]) is CURATE YOUR OWN SPACE AND STRAY NO FARTHER ‼️‼️‼️ i personally escaped the early era dr fandom (pre v3 localization/the 2019 Danganronpa Renaissance) but time capsule posts tell me i dodged something of a bullet there ❤️ in that vein 2019/2020/covid era discourse was still crazy insane (<- was a part of it for sure LMFAO) but it had a much different Flavor than it did way back when. and the same is true of present-day: still a little kooky if you search hard enough (insta/tiktok/twitter/tumblr all have their own demons). but at least This go around i have largely avoided that by picking my people that i trust not to be Weird and just living in my own bubble wrt the dr fandom at large. and thats served me very well the past year+ since i got back into dr <3 and i have also seen MANY of those perspective-altering posts in that little curation circle that has deepened and made better my experience THE GOOD IS OUT THERE ‼️‼️‼️

THE JUNKO FURSONA POST ALSO LIVES IN MY BRAIN its so real and just one of many takes i’ve seen fly by in a post and been like This is so real and it’s mine now. many such cases <3 i follow people like that and simply block people expending energy on discourse i DOOOOOONT care about. like simply enjoy kmha (I SURE DO ‼️‼️‼️) if you like it and ignore hnmi/kmnmi if you dont (cant relate I LOVE YOU TOO HINANAMI + KOMANAMI ‼️‼️‼️) and live your life happy not angry ❤️

like re: maki lesbianism (which was written on the toilet no lie) she is The most lesbian of all time i could write 10,000 scholarly articles on her comphet + traumatic past of being made to hurt people keeping her from fully coming to terms with herself as a lesbian and as someone who wants to Protect the people she loves (an integral pillar of butchness!!!!!!!!) and it is so important to me. and MANY people disagree! and i simply just dont worry about it <3 but i DO think about the people that agree (and the people who i Influence to agree…..that makes me so happy to hear you talking about it with people :D) and that makes fandom FUN!!!!! not arguing over word of god or whatever that isn’t going to change anyone’s opinions anyway 😭

there is a LOOOOOT of good discussion and character/scene analysis and genuinely fun unique takes on tumblr (+ im sure other places but i rly only interact with dr on her & Occasionally by liking a twt post on my main) and that’s where i’ve made my niche <3 people having fun with the media they enjoy and trying to salvage its shortcomings and missteps because they love it!!

and putting little old Me up amongst the dr goats (transmasc hajime) (autistic nagito)………..framing this ask tbh the HIGHEST honor 4 me……..thank you my beloved cider as always KISS MWAH MWAH

[sometimesiammybpd]

this one is a rough one to talk about. that's how i'm gonna start this.

i've only ever been in one real relationship. i had no luck in high school and to be fair, my method was pestering people over and over again until they usually stopped talking to me. safe to say it didn't work out all that well. it also was the aforementioned "toxic era" which to me says that even if i had gotten lucky enough to have someone date me, i probably would have been extremely emotionally abusive at the time because in hindsight, i was to a lot of my friends. so unlike most, i'm grateful to not have dated anyone in high school because i just . . . didn't know myself and wasn't ready to change. and putting that on someone like it's their responsibility now would not have been okay. and yeah, it sucked at the time because i was so unwilling to accept i was in the wrong at any point that i believed there was no genuine reason for people to not want to go out with me. and of course, i was always wrong. like so badly wrong it's not funny. either way, that's how it was until the end of senior year for me. that's when i met my now ex. we're gonna call him nathan for the sake of the post because this isn't going to be me shitting all over him and i don't want to leak his info anyways.

nathan and i met through an instagram comment section of all things. i don't remember the specifics outside of us talking because i thought he seemed cool. neither one of us thought it'd ever go anywhere and i honestly never even saw us being friends for that long as it was. except that we kinda just hit it off from the start. the usual awkwardness was there at first, but i mean it was smooth sailing. and then i realized i liked him. with bpd, it was pretty early on for me and he did NOT like me back. at all. but, this was still in the point of time where i never let it go until i got an answer and i effectively pressured him into saying yes the first time. i didn't know this until later because nathan told me himself. i still am so mad at myself for doing this and trust me when i say, i wish we could go back to before either one of us ever crossed paths with the other. for his sake more than mine. we only lasted a week after he said yes because of a big reason. up to this point, nathan and i talked all the time and i knew things about them that they didn't tell anyone else. obviously would not reveal any of those even if it was to save my own life. but the important detail here is for reasons i will not say, nathan was not comfortable with sex to a point he had ptsd because of it. i have to also make it clear that he did NOT ever get an official diagnosis, at least as of when we last spoke. it's briefly important now but becomes unfortunately really important later.

so, we broke up after a week. nathan wanted to show me that he trusted me and offered to spend the night at my house, which was a fucking huge thing for him. i said i'd like that and we made plans for that friday that he'd come and sleep over. he'd take my bed upstairs and i'd sleep on the couch because i did really want him to feel okay and comfortable. for most of the relationship's life span (all four times we dated, not just the first), i never even saw him sexually. i never had sexual attraction because he was not comfortable with it and all that mattered to me was that i liked him romantically and he kinda seemed to feel the same way. anyways, the friday comes and we go to the mall first as a date. that part was fun and fine. we went to hot topic and i got my first ever MCR shirts. still wear the hell out of the basic fan "black parade" shirt. and then we went to my place. the mall went fine. the drive went fine. but once we were alone in my mom's apartment, he shut down because of the ptsd. i knew something was wrong immediately because he fell silent instantly and froze up. after ten minutes, maaaaaybe a little bit more(?), i asked him "do you want to go home?" and of course he did. so i took him home. i felt so bad for him and he kinda came out of it at the very tail end of the drive when we were by his house, but it was clear he had shut down mentally and there wasn't really anything i could do. i was 18 here and on the drive home, i cried my eyes out. i felt really bad for him but i was also afraid he was going to want to break up. it was one of the worst days of my and i'm sure his life. when i got home, i messaged him on insta saying we should break up and we did. and i ended up falling into my worst habit at that time and writing a bunch of cryptic posts that were clearly directed towards him but i wouldn't say it to him. and the next day, he texts me telling me that he couldn't forgive me because i manipulated him and turned his ptsd into my issue. that's how breakup one ended.

before i go into anything else, this is how i'm gonna handle this post. everything i just told you was past me. that's how it was for me in the moment. present me sees it differently. i don't think i could have helped the crying because it really did freak me out. but everything after? i so wish i could undo. it was not okay for me to tell him i cried, or tell him we should break up, or write the posts that i did. i don't actually know if i mentioned the "telling him i cried" thing above but that was also a big part of it. i did make his ptsd about me and i don't excuse that. i really don't. i don't even think we should have dated because i really did pressure him into going out with me and he didn't even like me at the time. i thought he did but he didn't. and he made that clear later on because all of this kept coming back up.

there then was in-between time where i did spend a lot of it trying to repair what i damaged or broke after that day. and i meant everything i was doing. i didn't want to lose him because he was the most important person in my life for over a year. but eventually nathan said he'd give me a second chance and we started dating again for the second time. the key difference this time was he actually liked me back. and it was fine for a while. this one lasted almost seven months. his love language was insults and nothing else and i took it because i really did love him. i was also so infatuated with the idea of being in a relationship that i didn't care that we had nothing in common and all of that shit. this is not me dragging him either. it's just that we really were never compatible.

nathan had a lot of issues from things that happened that were not his fault. but it fucked him up and he didn't want to deal with it. his main coping mechanism was drinking and smoking weed. mainly drinking. and i don't mean he'd get drunk every night. he'd be drunk by morning. he'd be drunk all day and night but would only drink more as the day went on. and i ignored it for a long time because i didn't want to upset him. he didn't really ever take the issue of his alcoholism lightly. mainly because he didn't want to admit he was one. anyways, that's not the point. we broke up twice during this period. i say four times in total because it was, but i considered both of these to be the second time because i don't remember us staying broken up with for all that long after the second time into the unofficial third. to explain why we broke up the second time, i have to explain one other very important thing about him.

without further details or context i refuse to give because it's not my story to tell, nathan did not like people touching him especially in a romantic way. hugging, kissing, all that stuff. and i knew this. i have always been a physical attraction = love kinda person, so it wasn't easy but in the end i didn't care because i just wanted to be with him. and when we broke up the second time, it was after we saw sonic two. we had talked about us holding hands because it was the one thing he was okay with doing. the day of, i made sure of it and then went to go get him because nathan couldn't drive. and when he gets into my car, he reveals that he doesn't want to because he's germophobic. this one is harder to talk about because i was in the wrong for being mad at him for saying no. but at the same time, i was told over and over that yeah we can. it was the one thing i thought we could do, physical attraction wise. i never had my first kiss at this point. i had never hugged someone outside of my family or held hands with anyone. and y'know, it was exciting for me. but when he told me this, i kinda just shut off. we watched the movie and then on the drive home, i was so pissed that we broke it off either that night or the day after.

our timeline is so messy that i don't remember when this happened but we had another break up (pretty sure this was the unofficial third one). this one was weird. i had severe anxiety and insecurity issues during this and with undiagnosed bpd, it only got worse. i had a habit of apologizing for nothing, except for one time. i had sent a text before going to bed and after he was asleep that read something like

"i'm sorry i'm not a good girlfriend. i'm really sorry i'm not good enough for you.... and a bunch of other shit i don't remember."

and i went to sleep. i woke up to paragraphs up on paragraphs of messages from him. nathan kinda just laid it all out there. he told me i had been making him upset for months, but that he didn't want to tell me or upset me. so he ran to his friends behind my back and was venting for months which led them to say to him that i was a "manipulative, abusive piece of shit." honestly, i still don't know if they were right about that or not. but i remember him ending all of this. paragraphs and paragraphs of soul-crushing shit with "don't worry, i won't break up with you." i almost didn't respond because i didn't know what i was supposed to say. i pretty much had assumed up to that point that everything was fine and it wasn't. i kinda lost myself at that point and a certain friend of mine could easily recall the conversation that followed the receiving of those messages. i ended it that time.

the real third time we dated, it was... the worst time. because at this point, i was losing feelings for him. and this time, he initiated it. this is really the point it all went to hell. somehow, i made him comfortable enough to want to try and have sex again. although, i'll explain in a bit what he told me about how he wanted it to go down. it was not okay. it started with him sending me a series of nudes and led to him asking if i'd be okay having sex with him. i had no feelings for him and a lot of my feelings that still existed were mostly frustration. but i said yes. and i want to make this clear: originally, i did NOT say yes because i was sexually attracted to him. i was so used to doing whatever i could to help him and this was a big deal for him. i had no intention of doing this because i just wanted to lay him. and this is where my biggest issue came in that i honestly didn't even know i had at the time.

a big thing that comes with most people who have bpd is something called hypersexuality. if you don't know what that is, basically it's like a sex addiction. when you're horny, it's all you can think about to the point that most people with bpd will go out of their way to get sex even if it means putting themselves in horrific situations that could get them hurt, killed, given an std, whatever. and for me, i have come to learn that with mine especially, once someone introduces sex into the relationship, i literally cannot view it the same no matter how hard i try. cause all i can think about is the sex. and most if not all of the time, i'm NOT sexually attracted to whoever it is. i rarely get down peoples where i'm repulsed by it which is also what happens with people with hypersexuality. and it fucking sucks. it makes things so difficult and drives people away. i want to go into this more in its own post, but that's what's important for this. and one more very important thing: me knowing this doesn't excuse what i did then. and no. it's not what you're thinking most likely.

so nathan wanted to warm up by sending nudes. getting comfortable showing me his body, i guess. and i was at first saying fine because he said it helped and that's all i cared about. but then the hypersexuality started to take over and all i started to want was the sex. i was still not sexually attracted to him. i never was. i know that sounds like it makes no sense or isn't really the truth, but it is. it happens so much more than i want to admit. so he kept sending nudes except that i started to ask for a lot. he told me at first that i could ask for some. and because all that stuck in my head was sex, i asked him for a lot and the worst part for me that i did to him was basically only talk to him for it. the explanation is that i started to seriously resent him because for over a year at this point, all i felt like i did was take care of him and basically try to fix him myself. and it wasn't like he didn't lean into it himself which only solidified that that had to be my purpose in the relationship. it's why i said yeah initially to him asking if we could fuck. it's why he wanted to date the final time because he told me himself that it made him feel better about it than if we were just friends. we never had sex and i never forced him to have sex with me. i need to make that clear. i would fucking never and i don't take that shit lightly. but i went way too insane with the nudes and i made him severely uncomfortable and kind of didn't realize it ever. he had to tell me when it was beyond too late to stay friends that it made things worse. but besides all of that, the way it ended is all i remember.

and before i say that, i want to tell you what he wanted in order for him to be okay with us having sex. i couldn't ask if he was comfortable or if what i was doing was okay. he told me he'd immediately shut down once we got into it and i had to basically just . . . go through it with it anyways. he told me he wouldn't be speaking and i kind of had to r-word him basically. i'm not even kidding. this stuff i don't remember agreeing to because it came after the initial "would you have sex with me" question. because it made me severely uncomfortable for him to unironically say i'd basically be r-wording him but somehow it was okay.

this entire thing makes me . . . really uncomfortable to relive. uhm, so, uh. i wanted to take him to kings island. we both were not the biggest fan of roller coasters, but i thought we could ride some of the smaller ones together. i thought it'd be sweet. and i feel like if i didn't miscommunicate things, it would have been. because i do remember telling him he didn't have to ride rides if he didn't want to. i meant to say the real rides as they're called. rides like diamondback, vertigo, the beast. not shit like shake, raddle, and roll (which is a contained ride where you go in circles until it slows down. it's fun and only lasts like five minutes, give or take). that day, i asked my best friend at the time to come with me and him. i knew it wouldn't end well and yeah, it didn't. he agreed to and we went to go get nathan. the ride there was fine, but after we got him, it wasn't. nathan had an abusive father, so any signs of anger shut him down and a particularly stupid mother fucker got me to scream for a second because he didn't know what he was doing and almost got us killed. actually. nathan freaked out thinking i was going to hit him and i had to calm him down. the rest of the day was a $200+ waste of money (i paid for both his ticket and mine). from the getgo, it was clear he wouldn't even try the effective kid (or "all ages" depending on who you ask) rides. it made me so angry because at the time especially, i thought i had communicated it well and didn't get it. in hindsight, i could have done it better. infinitely better. but i don't excuse him letting me buy him a ticket just for him to not effectively using it. every time we went on a ride, he'd sit on the curb like a child in timeout and it just . . . yeah. after two rides and a meal, we left because i couldn't do it anymore. i still remember him asking me if i was mad at him when we were leaving. this is another "i don't really know who's at fault" one or if there is even a right answer for that.

there's more that happened after we broke up, but i wrote the stuff regarding sex last and i don't like to think about that. because i don't like how bad i was then. how desperate and how i treated him. because i apologized a million times, but it does a lick of shit. and i didn't deserve for him to accept the apology anyways. i still don't and i don't want him to. in his story, even if i never crossed that line physically, i did with the nudes. i made him feel like he couldn't say no and i will never be able to undo that.

the overall point of sharing all this because for all the stuff he did do in return, to me, nothing comes close to our final time together and the way i acted. and it's something i think about every day and something i probably will til the end of my life. i have brought this up in therapy and the hypersexuality. it's one of the things i am trying so hard to understand and control since i can't afford medication. but i have nothing since then but try and change and stop myself from ever doing that again to someone else.

there's no positive message for this one. so, uh, yeah.

[dr-mechano]

Cautious optimism about Eggman's role in the 2020s

In the 00s, I was really dissatisfied with how Eggman was utilized in the series. I feel it was (SA2 aside, which was a stellar performance) easily his weakest decade in terms of appearances.

In the 00s, Eggman was sidelined by other villains repeatedly, and not even in a cool way that made him a playable character most of the time. From being imprisoned by Metal Sonic to getting slapped aside by Dark Gaia to (perhaps most humiliatingly of all) getting slapped to death by Shadow in the mopey miscreant's spinoff title. Non-canon ending or no, there's a certain indignity to the way the scene was (ahem) executed that no other game has sunk to. He did alright in most of the handheld titles, but the home console games were usually so bleak for Eggman fans.

So when I see the 2020s embracing the "darker" themes of the 2000s - much to the praise of fans who are nostalgic for that era - it gives me pause as an Eggman fan.

I have to remind myself that just because the series in the 2020s is leaning into "darker" themes again, it doesn't mean it's just going to be just like the 2000s.

Let's step back, and look at Eggman's performance this decade so far:

Sonic Frontiers (2022): Not the main villain, but important to the story. He gets a lot of character development through Sage, and I would argue Eggman and Sage's familial bond is the heart and soul of Frontiers' entire story. Also got those Egg Memos that delve into his psyche, which was super cool!

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (2023): Main villain.

Sonic Superstars (2023): Replaced as the final boss by a big ol' generic dragon. Not a fan of this appearance, as it doesn't really "make up for" Eggman's lack of final boss status by giving him some other cool thing.

Sonic Dream Team (2023): Main villain.

So far, Eggman in the 2020s has been the main villain of two games (Murder, Dream Team), and gotten extremely good character development in another (Frontiers). Of the former category, one of them even had a veritable "super form" (Nightmare Eggman) for him. It was cool as hell.

I genuinely don't think he's having a bad performance so far. So far, in his four game appearances this decade, he's two for two on being the main villain, and in one of the cases where he wasn't, the story focused so much on him that I don't even mind.

So even if the series is embracing some of the aesthetics of the 2000s, I don't think that Sonic is automatically going to be "2000s-esque" in the sense that the series just fails to utilize Eggman in cool or interesting ways. They've clearly demonstrated they can do that. I think Ian Flynn and even Takashi Iizuka realize that people like Eggman as a character, so I'm not expecting to just get a glut of games where he's completely sidelined with nothing interesting to do.

So yeah. Despite Sonic X Shadow Generations not looking like my cup of tea at all, I am still pretty optimistic for Eggman in the coming decade.

I'm hoping that next year, we get a game that's more for me. Hopefully Eggman plays a big role in it.