#don't even believe me when i essay andy

[finelinens1994]

it always pisses me off a bit when i see people trying to use their platform to Educate The Public and the "educational resources" they provide are twitter threads, tiktoks, and carrds. like yes absolutely a social media post from a primary source is invaluably helpful when it comes to getting first-person perspectives on current events, but you just cannot learn extensive history from tiktok. idk. maybe you can. maybe i'm being too quick to write off tiktok as a whole. it's just rare that a tiktok is going to be well-researched and provide sources for the viewers to vet or use for further research on their own, so it's natural to be doubtful.

people easily believe anything on social media if it's well-said and seems sincere, which is just dangerously stupid. vet your sources. think critically. don't just blindly believe a tiktok because the person filming it is using smart people words

[sunshine-jesse]

In defense of Andrew Graves: Facing Yourself​

Alt title: Andrew Graves: The Will to Plow Her

I think my analysis of Andrew is one of the best essays I've written so far. But since then, I think I've expanded my understanding of his character in a way that urges me to add on to my prior essay. What I intend on doing is further fleshing out my reading of Burial, and going deeper in detail on why I think Decay ends up panning out the way it does. This essay will end up sharing a lot of text with my prior one, but will add enough scattered throughout that I think it merits a complete reread instead of just scrolling down and seeing what's new.

I've focused a lot on Ashley in my past writings. She's my favorite character in the story (and depending on how episode 3 pans out, maybe ever) and I'm pretty mortified by how some parts of the fandom have reacted towards her, so I pretty much made it my life's mission to push back against that. From highlighting the ways Andrew mistreats her, to coming up with justifications for her behavior that aren't just being a manipulative bitch, I really wanted to prove that a more favorable picture of her could be painted than most were willing to.

But in doing so, I've left Andrew in the dust.

In highlighting his flaws and the ways he mistreats Ashley, I think I've implied a level of intentionality to his actions that I don't believe he has. When I say that Ashley did nothing wrong, it's in direct response to the idea that she holds the most responsibility and agency in how their dynamic plays out, when in reality, I believe she has very little. Most of her actions in-story are in reaction to a variety of stimuli that come directly from Andrew, that he has control over and are aware of how Ashley feels about. His refusal to use clear and direct language to deny her most toxic tendencies causes her more and more stress as time goes on, and instead of giving her clear answers he opts to be catty, passive-aggressive, or, at his worst, threatening. Never direct and never clear, except when establishing boundaries over his name after the choking scene. Andrew fails to help Ashley be better in some frankly depressing ways throughout the whole story, especially in their childhoods, so we never get to see where she'd fall short if given a better influence.

...

Kind of. More on that later!

In mentioning his thing about preferring to be called Andrew instead of Andy, I also implicitly mention one of the places where Ashley falls short in their dynamic and could stand to do better: recognition.

This scene says a lot. It's the most heartbreaking scene in the game, if you ask me, and probably the single most profound and well-written moment in the entire story. I could write a whole 2000 word essay on it alone, but I've already said most of what I have to say about it through what I've said in other essays, so I'll spare you all that. Instead, I'll use it to highlight something:

"I had fun."

Their dysfunction is fun to her. She's so used to abuse and alienation that even the most awful, stressful (as far as we know) route of the game is still fun to her. And that's not a sign of her being a secret evil sociopath or whatever; that's actually not abnormal behavior to develop for a lifelong victim of abuse. Those highs and lows, those strong emotional highs and lows are -addicting-. They're -fun.- Part of why abuse victims get into so many abusive relationships is because it's easy to pick up on those patterns of thought and take advantage of them, and the cycle of abuse is often furthered when a victim of abuse tries to draw out mutually abusive behaviors in someone with no interest in having that kind of dynamic.

This is where I'm willing to acknowledge Ashley's manipulative tendencies. Not just as a matter of controlling Andrew for its own sake, purely out of jealousy or possessiveness, but as a matter of trying to further the only dynamic she's ever known in her life. Better the devil you know, right?

That push and pull- that emotional rollercoaster- is all many of us know. And it's all Ashley knows. This dynamic is something she's so used to that she reacts incredibly harshly to any attempt to change it, because she doesn't know that things can be better. Because of this, she refuses to engage with who Andrew really is, and tells herself- and him- that she *hates* Andrew:

This scene is almost as heartbreaking as the above one in a lot of ways.

Andrew putting his foot down about the Andy/Andrew name dichotomy wasn't arbitrary and it wasn't just about his comfort. It was about Andrew giving a clear indication about what needs to happen for their relationship to improve. He's recognizing the cycle between them and wants to put a stop to it, because he's confident that things between them CAN get better and evolve into something healthier. Ashley, not understanding that their dynamic can get better, because their "fun" little push and pull of abuse is all she knows, rejects that. She rejects the unknown, and says- in Andrew's mind at least- that she'll never accept that new dynamic, nor will she accept who he really is.

Ouch. No wonder he looks so sad in that screenshot.

They have a conflict of understanding here, and I think it's fair to pin most of the responsibility on Ashley. Andrew was clear in what he wanted, and Ashley just... Didn't. She didn't see the importance of it ("...whatever that means in practice") and didn't really ask. This gap in communication, perfectly displayed in this scene, is likely what causes the Decay ending. He wants things to be better, and wants to treat Ashley better, and whether or not he understands the ways in which she communicates with him is in part what determines what he sees her as.

But there's a lot of evidence that he always wanted things to be better, that he always wanted to treat her better. But external factors have made it very, very difficult, and I think there are two key points in which he started to shed the importance of those external factors and seek that better relationship, both of which happening in the apartment: The killing of the warden and the 302 lady. In the first case, he was forced to do it to protect Ashley in a way he hadn't done before, or depending on how you look at it, since the death of Nina. But the intentionality was the key point here. After this point, he calls Ashley Leyley, which may or may not seem important at this point, but it's something I'll draw attention to later, so keep that in mind.

Next is the killing of the 302 lady, which is the much, much bigger point. We don't learn much about it until later on- as at first he just gives an excuse about the nail gun that doesn't line up with what we see on the map- but during the dream, it's revealed it was a calculated, intentional killing that he did to make sure there was no evidence left behind, and because Ashley (supposedly) would've wanted him to do it anyway. I say supposedly because Ashley herself doesn't seem to ever want Andrew to kill for her past Nina's death, because he only ever kills for her to defend one or both of them. If you want more evidence that violence for violence's sake isn't something she wants, look at this part in the final dream:

A knife isn't what opens the door, despite it being placed on the ground in that very map. While it seems obvious that the knife (violence) would be the key to solving the puzzle, it's put there explicitly to show you that it isn't. It's not what she wants; what she wants is a flower.

So, why is this important? Why am I centering Ashley- again- when this essay is supposed to be about Andrew?

It's because these two killings are when Andrew's self-delusion over who he really is starts to break down. It's still there, mind, as he still relies upon Ashley as an excuse to justify it, but, as well as what I've said before, the name ultimatum is an implicit confession that the normalcy he finds comfort in is starting to lose its grasp on him. There's a lot that's been said about Andy being something close to a "moral impulse" for Andrew, given his child self's reaction to Nina's death being the only thing he does that approximates a normal moral response to his and Ashley's actions, but if you do think that- which I think is a reasonable thing to think even if I don't necessarily agree- there's something you must also keep in mind:

-He- is the one who doesn't want to be called that anymore. -He- is the one who wants to let that moral impulse go, and Ashley is the one making it difficult.

That reading is assuming that Andy is a moral impulse, which I think is... either wrong or too simplistic. Every time I see that reading, it's from someone who's trying to paint him too sympathetically and absolve him of most moral responsibility. I also find it infantilizing to equate morality with childhood in such a way? But that's another tangent that I didn't sign up to talk about. What I do think, however, is that it's a useful framing device to display his own relationship with morality; the allegory to his child self doesn't have to be there for the general pattern to exist.

When Ashley starts to grill Andrew over the killing of the 302 lady, he gets mad. Very mad. Ashley sees it as pointless, as him covering his own ass, but he genuinely did it for her sake, because he thought that's what she wanted, and that it'd make her happy. But what makes her happy isn't violence- or any similarly extreme action for that matter- it's attention and validation. Something he's always reluctant to give her, despite the fact that he always chose her over the alternatives. But despite making that choice, it's always empty and meaningless, because in Ashley's mind, he never did it for her sake.

And hoo boy, does he not like it being framed like this.

He is perfectly willing to do whatever it takes to keep them happy and safe... but only for her sake. It has to be for her sake. He still needs that traditional role, and he still needs to have a narrative in which he's the good guy- a protector. Because it can't be for his sake. It can't be because that's what he wants. He has to uphold that romantic (in the literary tradition sense) ideal. His darkly romantic idealistic streak colors many of his actions and beliefs. This is most plainly visible in his quip about a double suicide being romantic, but it's also visible within the symbolism present within his dream, such as how he can only pave his own path in blood unless Ashley lights the way. It's visible within his appreciation for poetry, and it's visible with how the cultist within the dream speaks in Shakespearean English.

But the transient nature of this ideal is also revealed within this dream, because there's never a cohesive, guided path, even with Ashley there to light it up. Contrary to Ashley's dream, where you literally have maps showing you where to go, Andrew's dream has many more dead ends and no map to guide him. The symbolic role he acts out gives him no clarity, and there's no overarching narrative; merely a bunch of disconnected symbols.

This is contrasted with Ashley's dream, which has narratives so clear that the story literally gives the dream an episode title.

In a sense, he wants to view himself as an actor acting out a role in a story. He wants his life to be poetic, to represent something greater, and to have a cohesive narrative. This is why he's so disconnected from his true desires: He's more concerned with acting as a representative of an ideal than a person with agency. But every time the mask drops, every time he stops acting, his true self becomes visible. He naturally settles into being comfortable around Ashley, in treating her with warmth and kindness, and their banter becomes much less toxic. As intent as he is on acting out his role, it does nothing for him, and as his dream sequence shows, it doesn't even form a cohesive narrative, because he can't act one out. It's too contrary to who he really is, and what he really wants. But that idealization doesn't just apply to himself, it also applies to Ashley. Specifically, who Ashley is, vs who he wants her to be.

In his unique dream sequence, he sees two versions of Ashley; the child version of her- Leyley- and the adult version of her- Ashley. And the differences in the ways he interacts with the two of them are stunning. Leyley is an obstinate, annoying child. She's the one he NEEDS to take care of, and he hates that. He hates Leyley for what she did for his childhood. He hates that he needs to provide for her. He has the option of trying to kill her, even, over something as small as a candle!

But in the room with all the murders, the gilded cage, he sees Ashley as an adult. This version of Ashley is stuck in a closet that he himself has to open- and to choose to see. Their interactions are calm and friendly. She teases him a bit, sure, but she's still helpful, and they have fun together. He doesn't need her, and she doesn't need him. He needed Leyley- needed the candle- but here, there are other limbs strewn about for him to take. And, crucially, he doesn't even have the option to kill this Ashley for one of the limbs.

And during the choking scene, he lets her go the moment she acknowledges that he doesn't need her anymore. This is the first time we know of that he seems comfortable enough to set a clear boundary, which is acknowledging that their prior dynamic is dead and that they're now Andrew and Ashley, not Andy and Leyley. It's a bit late to express a clear boundary -after- literally acting like he was going to kill someone, but it's the first time we know of that he sets a clear standard for what, in his mind, would improve his relationship with Ashley.

After all, what he wants is to want her, not need her. He wants Ashley for Ashley's sake. Not for what she can provide him. He doesn't even need her for sleep, he just wants her. But Ashley has trouble acknowledging this, because he's never before shown that WANT. Only a NEED. She keeps trying to find ways to make him need her, because she's never seen what his desire for her is really like. She's only ever seen him desiring someone else, someone other than her.

She's only ever seen him as Andy, because she's never truly seen Andrew, only the violence he can inflict on others. But Andrew can see both:

He can see Leyley, the needy, bratty child who always needs his attention, that he needs to provide for. The one he hates and wants to get rid of. The one he kills for to protect.

And he can see Ashley, the one who engages in friendly and cute banter with him. Who comforts and shows him physical affection. The one he loves. The one he kills for to make happy.

He just can't choose which one he wants to see. Every outside influence- from his parents, to Julia, to Nina- makes him see her as Leyley. Ashley herself makes him see her as Leyley too, whenever she brings up all the things he did for her, and calls him Andy, his child self, instead of Andrew, his current self. And as long as he sees that child, he feels like one too, and can never give Ashley anything that comes from the heart.

But he really, really wants to see Ashley as an adult. He wants to take pride in her, how much she's grown, and how driven and competent she really is.

But god damn, does that bitch ever make it hard, because there IS no real difference between Ashley and Leyley. She's grown and changed over time, taking more adult (and stereotypically feminine) responsibility upon herself, but the fact that her temperament and personality hasn't changed much obfuscates that growth. When you talk to Ashley in the closet during the dream after getting the limb, Andrew asks Ashley to come out of the closet, but she refuses to come out because he won't invite Leyley over to play, which is a pretty strong metaphor for how he interfaces with different aspects of Ashley's personality and refuses to accept others. But the reality is that he needs to accept both, or rather, see her whole self as Ashley, rather than just the parts he likes.

In the end, it's him who has to make the choice how to see her. Ashley can only see what she's been shown, but Andrew can choose.

And in the basement scene, he makes that choice.

If Ashley refuses to leave him alone with their parents, that's it. In one of the most critical and important moments of his life, she couldn't give him the space needed to make up his own mind. She couldn't treat him as an adult. She couldn't see him as Andrew. If she does give him that choice, she chooses to acknowledge that Andrew is an adult who can be trusted to make his own decisions, even though she (perhaps foolishly) believes that this choice lines up with her own interests. And frankly it does either way, but in accepting their mom's offer, her chooses to see her as Leyley once and for all. He chooses not to reciprocate what Ashley showed him. He does it because he needs to, not because he wants to. Because it's his duty, not his desire.

This is what results in the Decay ending. Through his inability to see Ashley as an adult, he surrenders his agency and views all of his actions as an extension of his responsibilities, his role, which he no longer wishes to uphold. He dissociates fully from who he really is, acting in accordance with that disconnected, barely-cohesive narrative that exists only within his mind. The game starts to resemble the heartwrenching tragedy that many seem to take for granted that it is, as their dynamic fully doubles down on its painful toxicity. And, in an example of a poetic book end, Ashley's dream shows a double suicide, closing the book on their tragic tale.

It's tragic. It's heartwrenching. It's poetic. It's beautiful.

...Except it's not. Not at all.

It's actually fucking stupid, pointless, and brutal, and Burial shows us that. When we view their spiral as beautiful, we project the same darkly romantic ideal that Andrew possesses onto the story.

But the actual reality is horrifying.

Ashley spends most of Decay terrified of Andrew, the one person she found comfort in. He acts cold, distant, and aggressive towards her, showing pointless cruelty instead of any warmth. All she wants is comfort; all she wants is to not die. She doesn't want to engage in this death spiral at all, and, in her dream sequence, shows none of the same willingness to die alongside Andrew that Andrew does with her. The moment we stop focusing on the end of the Decay dream sequence, which has very striking imagery, and if you choose not to shoot, one of the most beautiful scenes in the game, we can see it for what it really is:

A scared animal running away from a predator.

The moment you see Decay through Ashley's eyes, and not the perspective of some romantic ideal, Decay becomes terrifying, tense, and painful. There is no catharsis to be had in this tragedy. It's easily avoidable as long as Andrew chooses to engage with reality, and not the empty promises of his mother and incoherent narrative of his ideal.

Finding beauty and meaning in tragedy is how we cope with the harshness of reality. But there is no coherent narrative to the tragedies we experience, just like there's no coherent narrative to the ideal Andrew wishes to uphold. It's something we create- that he creates- but it's not something that actually exists.

And when Andrew casts aside his desire for that ideal, and the responsibilities it shackles him to, it grants him clarity that he never had before. He sees the world for how it really is, and acknowledges that nobody- the least of which their mother- is as different from Ashley as they pretend to be.

They're no better than her, and he's tired of people pretending that they are. People are all the same, no matter what ideals they try to uphold and represent. They still sacrifice others in the name of advancing themselves, still punch down whenever they can, and still lay blame on those beneath them rather than try to take control of their lives. They just use those ideals to justify themselves, but Ashley, and now Andrew, reject even the need for that justification.

This is why I believe the story is nihilistic. Not in that it asserts the inherent meaninglessness of life, but in that it grapples with the ideals we uphold and how they obfuscate the reality of the world we live in. The story, intentionally or not, highlights how ideals are often but a pretense we use to justify what we were likely going to do regardless, and how holding to them too strongly can lead to our ruin- and how monstrous they make us look to those who do not share them.

Consequently, this is how I view the part of the fanbase who thinks Decay is a good ending.

(the characters themselves represent existentialism rather than nihilism but i couldn't really fit that analysis in here without it feeling forced so i might cover that another time)

From that point on, their relationship becomes a lot more friendly, lighthearted, and playful. They ironically start acting more like children, but to quote CS Lewis:

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence."

He's not ashamed of being playful with Ashley, or showing affection towards her. He's grown up. He finally sees her, and himself, as an adult- although he still doesn't show that in full until much later on (more or that later). But in Decay, he still sees her as a child, and to an extent, probably himself. Let's compare the ways in which he reacts to being called Andy. In Decay, he lashes out at Ashley and gets angry, even threatening her. But in Questionable Burial, he calmly says that Andy is dead and doesn't need Ashley's comfort, but still tries to reassure her that she's still needed. He's not ashamed of or hostile towards their prior dynamic, because he's grown past it. He still acknowledges Ashley's need to feel needed, but here, he recognizes its importance to her, whereas he was hostile towards it before.

It's a display of respect towards her feelings.

This interaction doesn't happen in the Sane ending, however. He doesn't play games with her and is just a lot less fun to be around all together. Why is that? Because he still hasn't yet shaken viewing Ashley as Leyley there. He still views her as a burden, as someone who needs taking care of. He's calmly accepted that, too, mind you, but he lacks respect for her because she's still a child, in his mind. But in Questionable?

The vision did more than just make him extremely embarrassed and lay his deepest desires bare. It forced him to recognize Ashley as an adult. When choosing between "Never" and "Never say never," if Never is chosen, the burden of thought is lifted off of him. But if Ashley chooses "Never say never!", he has to reckon with the fact that Ashley is an adult, someone who can consent to those kinds of things. Someone who MIGHT. Someone who has agency, and can make her own decisions. And more importantly… someone who can trust him to make his own.

Whether he desires sex or not is secondary; he's always had those feelings and has always been ashamed of them. But now that the part of him where that shame came from is dead and buried, there's no childish impulse to grow up. There's no attachment to the hate and bitterness he had before. Look at what he worries about when he picks up that she's uncertain or confused about who he is now:

​

It's her feelings.

He wants to be fun to be around. He wants to make Ashley happy. He loves her, and not as a romantic interest or even as a sibling. He loves her independent of all that baggage.

He loves her as a person.

Their relationship runs contrary to societal ideals in some pretty huge ways. So contrary, in fact, that it's hard for some to accept it as anything good, that it can ever be best for the people involved. It's incestuous. It involves them killing and eating their parents. It involves them distancing themselves so much from society that it's hard to believe they'll ever fit in it again. It's chaotic, it's messy, it's codependent, and maybe even toxic. And yet, here they are. They're coexisting. They're happy. They're healing. They're navigating the world in the only way they can: together.

Meanwhile, in Decay, Andrew refuses to allow himself to get closer to Ashley. He surrenders all agency to her, buys into his own narrative, drinks his own Kool-Aid, and may or may not condemn one or both of them to death in the process. Like it or not, the only path where Andrew takes ownership of his life is the one where he's closest to his sister. It's the one where he decides where they will go next, the one where he decides his own feelings matter, and acts in accordance with what he wants instead of how he thinks he should act.

His agency, his freedom, and his growth don't happen in spite of his codependency; they're happen because of it. They can't grow alone. They can't heal alone.

In reading the story, one must interrogate how important those societal ideals are in the face of the realities of what makes people happy. Are those ideals worth upholding in spite of this? Can we really allow people to fall through the cracks in the name of social norms? Can we blame people for taking rash actions when the social contract has failed them?

Or are we so blinded by those ideals that we can't see that people can be happy while blatantly disregarding them?

All I know is that in Burial, Andrew, having cast aside normalcy, now appears to be truly happy for the first time in his life.

Who are we to take that from him?

[sweetmariihs2]

List of inspirations that I noticed in ✨️The Amazing Digital Circus✨️

an almost-essay (PART 1)

When I watched the first episode for the first time I started to notice several similarities to other subjects that I also like and know, other fandoms and popular things on the internet, and I soon thought about sharing them on Tumblr (which I'm doing now).

I know there will be things that other people have noticed that will be missing from the blog, but I will try to include all the things that I remember recognizing at that moment. Feel free to share them, though!

I don't know the formal names of some things I'm gonna mention, and also my english It's not the best, I'm trying to practice my writing <3

I'll have to divide this blog into two parts because Tumblr doesn't support more than 10 images per blog. grrgrrgr I really wanted to put everything together but I can't. At the end of the blog I will put a link to part 2 and you can continue reading [when i finish the part 2 of course]

1 - Popee the Perfomer

Popee the Performer is a low-budget animation made in 2000, at the time when 3d animation was still a new technology. It's a collection of shorts and they talk about three circus performers' interactions. People found this on the internet in 2021 and they started a new fandom on top of it. What makes this show talked about it's the disturbing situations the characters put themselves through. There are a lot of violent scenes and sometimes the characters die by the end of the episode, but when we go to the next one they're just alive again, and that makes us question if they are living stuck in an eternal loop with no way of getting out of that small circus setting.

The 3d is pretty simple, mostly because it's old, but that makes me think about the connections between PTP and TADG are the aesthetics, the whole "disturbing adult cartoon about serious topics with a children's colorful aesthetic" thing, and also those connections with the Nintendo 64 graphics. I'M GONNA MENTION IT TOO!!

And a part of this fandom also it's part of Raggedy Ann and Andy's fandom. They were pretty close in 2021.

2 - Raggedy Ann And Andy

Ragatha, next one

I'm kidding there's more

Their fandom started around 2021 because the YouTube algorythm just decided that it was time to recommend a video about Raggedy Andy to EVERYONE! And that's how I discovered them too <3 (I WAS THEREEE I WAS THERE). Andy got the main focus and he was everyone's dream boyfriend lol

Also that's completely unrelated but I wanted to say that I'm one of the people whose video was recommended to everyone through YouTube algorythm and helped the fandom to grow even more (I'm so proud of myself guys I'm sorry awnqbehdjwndbwjdnh)

I believe that if that first video that helped me (and more people) to discover them were never recommended to us, maybe Ragatha wouldn't even have that design!! It's alright that Ann is a doll from the 1900s, but the whole "Raggedy Ann And Andy" thing wasn't a fandom topic, they were just normal ragdolls and they were recognized only by grannies and "the anabelle doll" (this one makes me pissed)

3 - Nintendo 64 (and old 3d art)

And this recognition that it is a fandom united this subject to other famous fandoms, leading to the same audience, and this audience is also TADG's audience. I'll talk more about this at the end of the blog! (Edit: Part 2 of the blog. *silently cries*)

And there's this blog:

That low budget 3d aesthetic it's turning really popular recently. I'm not much of an expert on the subject since I don't know much about games, but I recognize it from the old graphics and my biggest reference is Mario 64. There's a good explanation for it being so popular, I have a theory that it's related to liminal spaces, but I'm not sure. Still, it's worth mentioning.... and also that bubble character really looks like chain chomp!!

They're besties

4 - liminal spaces (backrooms and the "dreamcore" aesthetic)

happy balloons because the backrooms scare me (i hate it)

I think if you're on Tumblr it's very likely that you already know what the backrooms are. A part of our reality, but outside of it. There are floors and floors of eternal levels, where you wander in the same place and don't go anywhere. As if you had broken the matrix and were trapped outside, in a bug. This has become very popular on the internet and it's interesting that it is being used as inspiration for creating a show.

Furthermore, there was also the popularization of aesthetics such as dreamcore, traumacore and weirdcore, which consist of images that look like they came out of a dream. Things that you recognize, but don't know where they came from, like a deja vu, which makes you uncomfortable. It's extremely linked to the backrooms, since it's the same feeling. Many of the images are things that take us back to childhood, to the past, but they are not right, as if they were corrupted. Old 3D is also used a lot to make some of these images, like the example I gave of the Nintendo 64. The fandoms are all interconnected!

In this whole concept they also like to be inspired by childhood characteristics, such as old images of toys, empty birthday parties, playgrounds, and it also takes us to that famous sensation on the internet that I don't remember the name of, but it is basically feeling afraid of a place where people should be going, but they aren't. Abandoned places. The fear of being alone. All those topics revolve around each other. They makes us question abour reality, "do I even exist?" (I know I do, but writing characters that way and exploring the possibilities is kinda nice)

I know a brazillian youtuber that made a good video about it, her name is Replai and in the video she talks about how Poppy Playtime's art was made, but I know that most of the people reading this don't know how to speak in portuguese so... yeah. It's a good video.

5 - Children's aesthetics (but something's off)

This gif speaks for itself. It's that traumacore/dreamcore/weirdcore thing that I was talking about.

Still talking about that empty feeling of knowing that something it's familiar but don't knowing where it came from, childhood memories can be related to this, as they are vague, distant and sometimes carry a feeling of sadness. I'm not a great expert on the subject, but somehow the way that's explored scares us, I know there's a good explanation on the internet. This reminds me of the reason why people are afraid of clowns: they wear this fixed smile on their face and try to appear friendly, but it's this frozen, empty expression that leaves us afraid that there are other intentions underneath. And the fact that they are so related to childhood and children's innocence makes us fearful, because we don't know if they can do any harm to them. (of course, this all happens subconsciously, you don't think about it that way but your brain activates this instinct of fear) (not you YOU, people with that phobia)

I refuse to believe that these things are not interconnected. There is a strange feeling that can be explored from this childish aesthetic and connection to childhood.

Many media are using this aesthetic as part of their stories, especially horror ones. Five Nights At Freddy's was a pioneer, exploring this in the early 2010s, and then there were other franchises like Poppy Playtime, Bendy And The Ink Machine, other FNAF games (and there are also discoveries of things that do this unintentionally and that were created before this popularization, like Popee the Performer. In music we also have great examples like Melanie Martinez's old albums, during the Cry Baby era. There are also other aesthetics who like to explore this childlike-creepy vibe, and they're a little unrelated to all this stuff, like Morute/Dollcore). Whenever I talk about this I remember FNAF SB Daycare, as it is the result of all these topics we have talked about so far. The Security Breach DLC "Ruin" decided to explore this fear of empty, abandoned places, but which once had happy children walking through the corridors. This feeling is very scary.

Do you remember when I gave clowns as an example? The circus is also a way to explore this scary+childhood feeling. A place where there should be lots of games, but which only causes fear, as in the case of those scary clowns. It's quite common in the media for the circus to be used as a focus of terror, however in the internet version we were talking about just now, it doesn't have to be directly a horror circus, just feeling that childish sensation and feeling that something is wrong is enough. Enough to make us feel uncomfortable. It's like the characters were suffering, but they can't scream for help, and it's a disorted vision of how a circus should look like. Hi Pomni!!

The Daycare Attendant also explores that.

6 - Bendy and Fnaf (for the same reasons I already told you all, but one more)

Jax it's Bendy's and William Afton's lost son. We don't need no DNA test.

(I'm obviously just kidding btw, his design was probably inspired by them, MOST ESPECIALLY BENDY and maybe the Cheshire Cat from Alice because of his smile??? Idk)

stay tuned for part 2 <3

[bookwyrminspiration]

Quil you read the left hand of darkness?!? You’ve got to tell me more about your thoughtsssss!!!!!

Also I think I know what scene you were posting about and I so relate because I was reading the book out loud and my voice started breaking when I got to that scene and now I have a recording on me reading that scene and crying (and I am actually almost crying right now writing about it)

Also on the post where you mentioned finishing the left hand of darkness I realized that since I’m currently reading The Tropic of Serpents which you recommended to me we basically did a book swap! ;) (I will give you more book thoughts on that book when I finish it in return for your book thoughts)

Amethyst

I did!! Sorry for the delay, I wanted to give this ask the attention it deserved, but the semester started like right when you sent it so it's taken a minute to circle back to.

And my GOD that scene. It hit me entirely out of nowhere what was he thinking!! Estraven's so attentive and logical he had to have known he couldn't make it. And yet he full sent it anyways! In that sense it only makes sense as to be intentional, but that's devastating in its own right. chapter 19 you terrible horrible devastating thing..."they let me do that. then they made me get up, and took me off one way and him another, I going to prison and he into the dark." I am dead on the floor!!!

I absolutely adored the relationship Estraven and Genly developed. Estraven's attention to Genly's situation and needs, guiding him through his world, his faith in Genly's mission. And Genly in return trusting Estraven and putting his life in his hands. The way their lives have come to entwine with each others. The culture exchange and the trials and the everything! It, to me, defies labels and understanding, which I find beautiful.

You were, of course, right that I'd love the gender fuckery. I think I mentioned before, but I'd read Coming of Age in Karhide (here's a pdf with multiple short stories; it's the first one) before reading Left Hand, so I think that made the experience a lot smoother. I already knew all the subtle worldbuilding that a new reader would have to puzzle together.

I don't know if you've read Andy Weir, but the whole journey across the ice reminded me a bit of The Martian. The careful calculations about supplies and distance, the seemingly endless treck, the daily logging and the complications that arise.

And the tone of the book as a whole! I believe it's due to when it was written, but it's very...subdued? Matter of fact? I'm not sure the best word, but it's not in your face or constantly amping up drama and stakes. It understands its scope and world and works within it. No need to dramatize. Which is always a nice break, even though I do like high stakes dramatic stories.

This was the first long piece of Le Guin's I've read (I've read short stories and several essay excerpts), and man. This one is going to be an excellent reread, I'm sure.

Very sorry it took me this long to respond! I hope you've enjoyed/been enjoying Lady Trent!! she's very dear to me <3

[freshdotdaily]

A lot of y'all know I been obsessed with Rammellzee for a hot second now. I don't have the crazy obsession y'all have w/ Basqiuat, or Andy Warhol. But of that downtown scene, I reaaaally loved Haring as a yute dem and I really fucked with A. Charles just off seeing their work publicly all around me.

But once I found Ramm, it was another revelation. A convergence of a lot of shit I like wrapped in one enigmatic weirdo artist's ideas to pick apart and break down. Bruh, this nigga straddles genius and mental illness in a wild way. There's a touch of Rammellzee in MF DOOM.

One of the reasons I liked the young rapper Wiki when I found him in 2012, (outside of this video) is because him/his crew "Ratking" refers to "Letter Racers". I instantly thought, "yo, this kid is tapped in!".

Also, I'm guilty for really obsessing over late 80's and 90's era NYC culture. Y'all wasn't outside, but there's just something super ill about that downtown time/space that incubated so much of our culture from my hometown. Alex Corporan (of Supreme's OG crew) summed it thusly: "The ‘90s in NYC lands as the last of the epic, raw, untouchable, unstoppable, fearless times for life. You're unable to replicate the experience of what was happening in New York during this time. Skateboarding, music, nightlife, art, fashion... you name it! 2000-2004 held onto that energy for a bit, but from 1990-1999 you grew up real fast and experienced shit in light speed."

Anyways, NY Times did a piece I wanna hit y'all with. I sprinkled in some video/links/pics for razzle-dazzle. Long live Rammellzee! In the late nineteen-seventies, the sociologist Nathan Glazer had grown weary of riding New York’s graffiti-covered subways. The names of young vandals, who identified themselves as “writers” rather than as artists, were everywhere—inside, outside, sometimes stretching across multiple train cars. Glazer didn’t know who these writers were, or whether their transgressive spirit ever manifested itself in violent crimes, but that didn’t matter. The daily confrontation with graffiti suggested a city under siege. “The signs of official failure are everywhere,” he wrote in an influential 1979 essay. Graffiti, with its casual anarchy and cryptic syntax, offered glimpses into a “world of uncontrollable predators.” In the nineties, Glazer’s essay would help inspire the concept of “broken windows” policing—a theory that preserving the appearance of calm, orderly neighborhoods can foster peace and civility.

Graffiti has always had this kind of metaphorical power. It is somehow more than art or destruction (even though it is both), and it prompts awe or dread, depending on your tolerance for disorder. For every Glazer, there were romantics like Norman Mailer, who had written the text for a book of photographs elevating graffiti to the status of “faith.” From his perspective, graffiti forced the upper crust to reckon with the names and the fugitive dreams of a forgotten underclass: “You hit your name and maybe something in the whole scheme of the system gives a death rattle.”

Few people understood and internalized this power as deeply as the artist, rapper, and theoretician Rammellzee (which he styled as The ramm:ell:zee). He believed that his time in the train yards and the tunnels of New York gave him a vision for how to destroy and rebuild our world. He was born in 1960 and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens. His birth name is a closely guarded secret; he legally changed it to his artistic tag in 1979. (He also insisted that The ramm:ell:zee was an “equation,” not a name.) Little is known about his youth, aside from passing aspirations to study dentistry (he was good with his hands) and to be a model (in a 1980 catalogue, he is identified as Mcrammellzee).

Ramm—as he became known—believed that language enforced discipline, and that whoever controlled it could steer people’s thoughts and imaginations. His hope wasn’t to replace English; he wanted to annihilate it from the inside out. His generation grew up after urban flight had devastated New York’s finances and infrastructure. Ramm channelled the chaos into a spectacular personal mythology, drawn from philology, astrophysics, and medieval history. He was obsessed with a story of Gothic monks whose lettering grew so ornate that the bishops found it unreadable and banned the technique. The monks’ work wasn’t so different from the increasingly abstract styles of graffiti writing, which turned a name into something mysterious and unrecognizable. Ramm developed a philosophy, Gothic Futurism, and an artistic approach that he called Ikonoklast Panzerism: “Ikonoklast” because he was a “symbol destroyer,” abolishing age-old standards of language and meaning; “Panzer” because this symbolic warfare involved arming all the letters of the alphabet, so that they might liberate themselves. He lived these ideas through his art and his music, and by being part of the hip-hop scene during its infancy.

In 1983, Rammellzee and a rapper named K-Rob went to visit the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. Though Ramm and Basquiat were friends, they were also rivals. Ramm would later say that Basquiat wasn’t a “dream artist”—he didn’t so much radiate visions outward as take things in like a “sponge,” learning about genius from books. He and Ramm once bet on who could most convincingly parody the other’s work. (Ramm claimed not only that he won but that Basquiat’s art dealer, who wasn’t in on their ruse, told Basquiat that “his” work was the best he had ever done.)

That night, Basquiat invited Ramm and K-Rob to record a song he’d written. Ramm, who had rapped in the movie “Wild Style,” was already known for his unique nasal sneer. (He called it his “gangster duck” style.) The two men looked at Basquiat’s elementary rhymes, laughed, and tossed them in the trash. Instead, they made up their own lyrics—a brilliant, surreal tale of a kid (the earnest, bemused K-Rob) who’s on his way home and a hectoring pimp (Ramm) who tries to tempt him toward the dark side. Basquiat called the song “Beat Bop,” and paid for it to be produced; he painted the vinyl single’s cover art himself. The song was murky and strange, like a spiky funk jam slowed to a sinister crawl. In the background, someone tunes a violin. There’s so much echo and reverb on the track that it sounds like an attempt at time travel.

In the eighties, graffiti gained acceptance in the art world. Despite Ramm’s charisma, the intensity of his work and his stubborn, erratic personality kept him on the movement’s fringes. Where Basquiat and Keith Haring seemed shy showmen, Ramm came across as a nutty professor. His early paintings took inspiration from the psychedelia of comic books and science fantasy, with mazy train tracks running across cosmic reliefs. His palette was attuned to the era’s anxieties about nuclear war and nuclear waste. The colors were bright and garish, suggesting a box of neon highlighters run amok.

Rammellzee created and wore full-body suits of armor that he called “Garbage Gods.”

Photograph by Mari Horiuchi / courtesy Red Bull Arts New York and the Rammellzee Estate

In the mid-eighties, he began rendering these ideas in 3-D. He made sculptures that evoked the fossilized remains of twentieth-century life: newspaper clippings, key rings, chain links, and other junk, floating in an epoxy ooze. The most remarkable works were his “Garbage Gods,” full-body suits of armor, some of which weighed more than a hundred pounds. They look like junk-yard Transformers doing samurai cosplay. His most famous character, the Gasholeer, was outfitted with a small flamethrower.

Ramm’s art, thought, and music are the subject of the exhibition “ramm∑llz∑∑: Racing for Thunder,” at Red Bull Arts New York.

Befitting the popular drink’s own sense of iconoclasm, “Racing” bathes in Ramm’s frenzied, free-associative, and occasionally overwhelming energy. There are his early canvases and sculptures, along with flyers, business cards, manifestos, and patent applications. A small theatre screens previously unseen videos of Ramm rapping at nightclubs. The most impressive part of the survey is a floor devoted to his “Garbage Gods” and “Letter Racers”—skateboards representing each letter of the alphabet, armed with makeshift rockets, screwdrivers, and blades.

Throughout the exhibition, you can hear moments from Ramm’s lectures on Gothic Futurism—a thrilling jumble of street-corner hustling and technical language, all “parsecs,” “integers,” “aerodynamics.” As I was examining a collection of hand-painted watches, I kept hearing Ramm pause as he reached the end of a long disquisition on ecological catastrophe and graffiti-as-warfare, and then bark, “Next slide!”

In early May, the Red Bull Music Festival staged a Ramm-inspired concert to mark the opening of the art show. Ramm had continued to make music after “Beat Bop,” never wavering from his philosophies, just declaring them against increasingly turbulent, industrial-sounding backdrops. The eclecticism of the bill spoke to his wandering ear, and ranged from the terse hardcore of Show Me the Body to the wise-ass raps of Wiki. K-Rob, wearing a T-shirt featuring a mushroom and the words “I’m a Fun Guy,” reprised his verse from “Beat Bop,” grinning the whole way through. Gio Escobar, the leader of the deft punk-jazz band Standing on the Corner, dedicated a song to a late friend. The departed are everywhere around us, he said, as a groove emerged from the band’s dubbed-out chaos. “And they’re waiting.”

As hip-hop and art changed, as graffiti vanished from New York’s trains and walls, Ramm delved further into his own private cosmos—namely, the enormous loft in Tribeca where he lived, which he called the Battle Station. His obscurity wasn’t a choice. In the early eighties, he offered to send the U.S. military some of the intelligence he had gathered for national defense. (It declined.) In 1985, he wrote an opera, “The Requiem of Gothic Futurism.” In the nineties, he tried to promote his ideas by producing a comic book and a board game. He thought that toy manufacturers might want to mass-produce his “Garbage Gods” models.

He was the first artist to collaborate with the streetwear brand Supreme.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Supreme (@supremenewyork)

There was a series of infomercial-like videos to seed interest in “Alpha’s Bet,” an epic movie that he hoped would finally resolve the narrative arc of his extended universe.

By the time Rammellzee died, in 2010, after a long illness, New York City had been completely remade by mayoral administrations that took broken-windows policing as gospel. The Battle Station became condos.

The Internet has made it easy to take what the culture provides you and rearrange it in some novel, cheeky way. It’s much more difficult to build an entirely new world—to abide by an ethical vision with a ferocity that requires you to break all the rules. I was surprised by how moved I felt standing underneath Ramm’s “Letter Racers” and studying the textures of the “Garbage Gods.” To see their meticulous handiwork up close was to believe that Ramm’s far-flung theories, his mashup of quantum physics and “slanguage,” made sense as an outsider’s survival strategy. I noticed all the discarded fragments of city life���bulbs and screws, a billiard ball, a doll’s head, old fan blades and turn-signal signs, visors stacked to look like pill bugs. His commitment was total. These are works of devotion.

This is where Ramm wanted to live—at the edge of comprehensibility, but in a way that invited others to wonder. Cities are filled with strangers who possess an unnerving energy, who hail us with stories, songs, and poems. Ramm was one of these. In an interview filmed in the aughts, Ramm sheds light on his everyday life. Sometimes, he says, he’ll be walking down the street or sitting at a bar, and people will just look at him. And sometimes they’ll come up to him and ask, “Who are you?” He’s explaining all this while wearing one of his “Garbage God” masks. You notice his paunch, the warm crackle of his voice at rest. “I’m just an average Joe,” he says, and he sounds like he believes it. 

♦Published in the print edition of the May 28, 2018, issue, with the headline “Graffiti Prophet.”

[venusinmyrrh]

9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 25, 28, and 30 for the book asks!

ok here we go!

9. if you were stuck on an island and could only have three books with you what would they be?

D.V. (Diana Vreeland), A Natural History of the Senses (Diane Ackerman), and Book of Longing (Leonard Cohen). all books that richly reward rereading.

10. the worst book you have ever read?

Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony (Eoin Colfer). I believe the term is "jumping the shark".

11. the best book you have ever read?

probably still The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood). I read it senior year of high school and it's never really left me. "I feel like the word shatter."

12. a book/book series you wish you could read for the first time ever again?

Heir Apparent (Vivian Vande Velde), which I read when I was eleven or twelve, and apparently nobody on the planet but me has ever heard of it. it's like you don't even care what would happen if Tron took place in a medieval fantasy universe except instead of evil capitalists the real enemy was evangelicals, and also wizards. jeez.

14. an overrated book?

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six (both by Taylor Jenkins Reid). the framing devices of both books necessarily require telling instead of showing, her toothless plots and bloodless characterizations do not have the courage of their convictions, and she writes about beautiful women like they are exotic aliens from another planet.

15. an underrated book?

Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom (Rachel Pollack), which I hardly ever see on tarot book rec lists but I think everyone who's interested in tarot simply must read.

19. a book you came across randomly but ended up loving it?

I came across Dress Code: Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink (Véronique Hyland) because I was actually looking for Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History (Richard Thompson Ford), and I'm so glad I went for it! I started reading a digital copy from the library and actually stopped and went out the next day to buy a physical copy to annotate.

25. a book that had you bawling your eyes out?

I never, ever cry at books... unless it's Joan Didion's essay "Letter from Paradise, 21° 19' N., 157° 52' W" from Slouching Towards Bethlehem. the description of nineteen-year-old soldiers' graves at Pearl Harbor got me.

28. the last book you read? did you like it?

My Body (Emily Ratajkowski). incredible. blisteringly intelligent. feels like it took my half-formed thoughts right out of my head and put them into words. existing as a woman in modern culture means being full of contradictions, and I appreciate the way she articulates them without trying to resolve them.

30. give any 3 book recs to your followers!

the feminist trifecta of 90s Bitch (Allison Yarrow), We Were Feminists Once (Andi Zeisler) and Female Chauvinist Pigs (Ariel Levy). all of them sharp, snappy reads, well reasoned and well researched. all of them will make you so very, very incensed about the state of feminism from the 90s to today.

[randombubblegum]

THIS TURNED INTO AN ESSAY I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE I'M JUST VERY LONG WINDED AND THIS BAND WAS THE BIGGEST PART OF MY LIFE FOR LIKE 3 YEARS AND I DIDN'T EVEN GET INTO EVERYTHING W THE GUY I DO TALK ABOUT. PROCEED WITH CAUTION

okay i may as well be like a semi-official as it is scholar (less so in the last several months just due to some me stuff) so i may have a bit of insight but i do wanna say patty is quite literally My Boy like. parasocial relationship aside he is 100% for sure the nicest "celebrity" i've ever met in person and i've met quite a few, his vibes are really just immaculate and as much as i'm able to not knowing him personally i think he's genuinely very sweet and cares a lot about just people in general and also in a really unique turn of events i have literally only heard of a single other band dude that had a problem with him and surprise surprise: it was a palaye royale guy. there was a tiny bit of drama there during warped 2018 which i will recount later if you don't know it already but the entire thing is pretty ridiculous and was not long lasting either. the thing that another anon mentioned with all of then suddenly cutting a member off is i believe to do with andy westhead, who was a former guitarist that ronnie ish took the place of in ~2017/18 (can't exactly remember u get the deal). i do not know this for like certain but i saw a few different things on various social media sites that i believe line up with whatever he was doing on his personal social media that alluded to them deciding to cut ties with him due to some really iffy personal politics of his. i also don't know what those would've been exactly, but i will say i kinda got whiffs of some (BRITISH. HOW) trump supporter and homophobia shit. they're really not a "political" band in terms of their music and presentation of the group but the members themselves have always been pretty open about the fact that they're like. very much not the conservative type of people? like they weren't doing crazy ahead of their time shit or anything and they were usually bro-ing around with a lot of the other white boy pop punk bands but they were always pretty affirming of feminism and lgbt+ people and the like. that was also very close to the time that they were shifting from their kinda generic "it's okay not to be okay" vibe and starting to get into more serious issues and darker themes surrounding mental health and they really 180'd their aesthetic and took a lot of their inspo from like mcr and other aesthetically emo bands and patty (+ben a bit) specifically was starting to present like pretty androgynously so i definitely think that's worth noting when you try to make some sense out of it. they've actually lost quite a few members up to this point now but i don't think there's much to say about the others that isn't like Known, i think ben leaving may have been a little bit messier than they portrayed it but i can't say for sure and it almost definitely wasn't anything other than like purely musical or within the band. they did swap bassists like several years ago and i can't even remember the og guys name but that was like before they'd gotten almost any substantial attention as a band and i literally haven't heard like anything about it at all. it may have been what the other anon was referring to but since i actually had like an idea about andy i figured i may as well shed some light. obv take this with a grain of salt since i don't know them personally and i actually only got very into the band just a bit after the dust had settled on this so there really wasn't much talk of it at that point, i just dove deep like a mfer after i did get into them bc y'know special interest things. would be cool to see if any like Veteran as it is fans have something that'll like blow the lid off this whole thing and prove me wrong lmao

i dont even have much to say this is just so cute LOL…… i love how much u love them :,) patty does genuinely seem sweet i think hes more than made up for his sin of being a youtuber

i wanna hear the warped 2018 if u remember it!!! also yikes @ the conservative bassist but good on them for booting him immediately. im kind of curious abt ben leaving being potentially messier but not even in a like ooh dig up the dirt gotcha way, they seem too nice and generally chill for me to believe theres actually any shit behind the scenes now…… anyway its kind of refreshing to have a band thats just Some Guys (positive) :)

[justoneofthoseghosts]

Maybe the CF writers could also FINALLY touch on the fact that Kelly's best friend moved to Oregon and he has to be missing him. Matt has been a constant in Kelly's life for over a decade now and has always been there for him (almost two decades really since they met at the Academy) and yet we have had like two scenes of Kelly missing him -when he was alone in the apartment (that was more about Stella I felt) and when he was against Hermann taking Matt's office. Why has Kelly not even mentioned talking or texting Matt?

With the OFI storylines this season it almost feels like the writers don't know what to do with Kelly as a character but there is so much they could do. Maybe we could see him think about taking the Captain's exam or whatever it is for Squad.

Also if the writers see Ritter, Gallo and Violet as the future of the show then they really need to delve into their backstories. They need to do better with them than they've done with their other main characters like Matt, Stella, Sylvie etc. I think the only person they've done justice with their backstory and past is Kelly

I would also like to see Mills back and maybe even some memorable patients or people they've rescued.

Honestly, the writers deserve a strongly worded howler from me

I am with you on that howler!

The Casey and Severide friendship has outlasted most ships on the show and they got 1 second in 10x05 to say goodbye? All kinds of tragic. I think the writers chose to focus on all the angst with Stella being gone and that's the direction they took with Severide which is also very tragic. Am I supposed to believe that Stella would ghost Severide after he pulled away from her after Benny's death? Like, really?

10x05 in itself was a bad episode. I can write a 2k word essay on it 😅 But yes, while Severide is not my favorite character, there should definitely be more time to show him feeling sad or lonely that this person he's been with since the Academy is no longer there - it's like everyone leaves - Andy, Shay and now Casey. He should have been able to talk to Stella about that or maybe Boden.

Ritter deserves more than being the middle person in all of Gallo and Violet's bickering especially since he is the only LGBTQ character in the OC shows (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Gallo deserves more than being written as a jealous, petulant child. There was a lot of potential in season 8 after they introduced his backstory. Violet deserves more character growth as a series regular especially being a POC and we rarely see POCs still as main characters on network shows.

This season really took a turn. I don't know if it's the writers still recovering from Jesse Spencer's exit but actors leave all the time and they have to figure out what to do with the characters and actors they do still have. I still hope they can turn it around. They still have season 11 to plan for and what with the OC shows doing so well, I don't doubt them getting renewed again beyond that.

[beckykai]

Friends Don’t

words: 5746 

a/n: this is my first post, and I’m dedicating it to tyrus week! i wrote this awhile ago and never got around to posting it, but i’m really excited to show you guys my work! i’ve got a few other one shots to share, but also send in requests and i’ll see what i can do! 

They don't cancel other plans

“Yo, Cyrus!” 

The brunette turned from his previous conversation with his best friends in the hallway of their middle school with a smile at the familiar voice. 

“Teej!” he exclaimed, returning the bro hug offered to him with glee. 

“There’s a new exhibit opening in the Natural History Museum this weekend if you wanted to go? It’s featuring a new fossil they discovered just a few miles outside of Shadyside!” the blonde looked ecstatic, sending Cyrus’s heart whirling. 

“Dinosaurs and history? Sounds like fun for both of us - I’m in!” he responded with a wide smile. 

TJ beamed. “Great! I’ll text you the details tonight! See ya! Andi, Buffy.” he nodded in acknowledgement before walking to his next class, leaving the trio to their previous conversation. 

“Cyrus!” Andi hissed. 

“What?” the boy asked in confusion. 

“We were supposed to go to the art gallery with Walker and Jonah this Saturday?” Buffy raised an eyebrow. 

Cyrus sighed. “I know, I know, but-” 

“It’s TJ. We get it, Cy.” Andi smiled mischievously, sharing a knowing look with the other girl. 

“Wait,” he shook his head, “I don’t think you girls do. Put those looks away - those are the weird looks we give Jonah when he and Walker are together.” 

“We know.” Buffy smirked, closing her locker. “We’ll see ya at lunch, lovebird.” 

Cyrus rolled his eyes. “We’re just friends, nothing more.” 

“Yeah, whatever.” Andi hooked her arm with Buffy’s and they walked off to their next class together, leaving the brunette stuttering excuses under his breath.  

Have conversations with nothing but their eyes 

“Dude, that’s gay.” 

Buffy’s eyes shot up to find the voice that had just pierced her ears, ready to give someone an earful for using the word in such a derogatory way. 

“Shut up, man. You’re gay.” another voice responded, Andi now joining in on Buffy’s searching. 

“Who the hell is that?” TJ asked, looking around the booths at The Spoon. 

“I don’t know,” Buffy huffed, “but whoever it is is about to get their ass kicked-” 

“Buff,” Cyrus’s meek voice said, “don’t. It’s not worth it.” 

His friends softened immediately, taking in the solemn look painting his face. 

“People suck, man.” Jonah said in an attempt to comfort the teenager. 

“You got that right.” Cyrus breathed, fidgeting with the straw in his milkshake. TJ unsuccessfully tried to catch his gaze and read his eyes. He grabbed a baby tater from their shared large basket in the middle of the table and dipped it in Cyrus’s chocolate milkshake, making the smaller boy look up at him. 

“Hey! You have the same flavor, dude!” Cyrus whined playfully. 

“But yours tastes better.” TJ smirked, plopping the baby tater into his mouth. Cyrus offered him a smile, but his eyes didn’t match the glow they usually had. Instead, his eyebrows furrowed anxiously at the blonde and his orbs spoke words that didn’t need to be said between the two. 

“So then I told Bex-” Andi was interrupted by TJ answering his phone, making a scene of saying hello. 

“Hey, mom. Yeah, sure - of course. You want him to come, too? Yeah, I’ll ask. See you soon, love you.” he shoved his phone in his pocket and looked up at Cyrus. “My mom needs me to help with the garden in the backyard. She remembered how much you liked it and asked if you wanted to help?” 

Cyrus nodded eagerly. “Sounds awesome! You guys don’t mind?” he turned to the rest of his friends, who only smiled and shook their heads at them. 

The pair said their goodbyes as they waved at the group and left the diner, shoulder to shoulder. 

“Okay,” Cyrus said once he was for sure they were a far enough distance from The Spoon, “I know for a fact that your mom works the day shift on Saturdays. Thank you for that, Teej.” 

TJ flushed, hiding it with a shrug. “Of course. I know it can be overwhelming in that situation. You looked like you needed an out. Swings?” 

The smaller boy nodded, his heart beat rushing as TJ slung his arm over his shoulders and guided them to their favorite spot. 

They don't hear each other's names and forget to concentrate

Hits a nerve and lights you up like dynamite

“You guys would not believe what just happened.” Marty said with a laugh as he joined their regular group of friends at their table in the Jefferson High cafeteria. 

“What, Mr. The Party?” Buffy teased, nudging his shoulder with her own. 

“So I have biology with TJ right? And we were like-” 

Cyrus couldn’t hear anything after the mention of the boy who lit up his heart. A heat flowed from his chest to his neck, ending in his cheeks, and the tips of his nose and ears. He had to bite back a smile at his rushing heart, feeling it warm at solely the mention of the boy’s name. 

He didn’t realize he had dazed out until his entire group of friends busted out with laughter so suddenly that it made Cyrus jump. 

“Yo, Cy, wasn’t that hilarious?” Marty asked, furrowing his eyes at him at his lack of laughter. 

“Oh!” the brunette squeaked. “Um, sorry, I kinda dazed out.” 

“It’s ‘cause you said TJ.” Andi teased, smirking at Cyrus from across the table. 

Cyrus scoffed. “No! I just had a hard quiz in French, that’s all.” 

“Why would he be distracted by TJ?” Jonah asked obviously. 

The friend group collectively sighed.  

Friends don't call you in the middle of the night

Couldn't even tell you why

They just felt like saying "hi"

Cyrus groaned, dropping his head into the pile of worksheets and open textbooks laid out across his desk with a ‘thud.’ The amount of homework teachers gave high school students was absurd. He was only in 9th grade and he had two essays, three worksheets, and a presentation due the next day. He wanted to pull his hair out. 

His phone started to vibrate harshly against the table, causing the boy to jump in surprise. He looked at the alarm clock situated on the nightstand next to his bed. 1:59. Who the hell was calling him at two in the morning? 

“Hello?” Cyrus said, not bothering to check the name on his phone. 

“Hey, Underdog.” 

“TJ? The hell are you doing up right now?” Cyrus asked with furrowed eyebrows. 

“Couldn’t sleep.” the athlete answered, and Cyrus swore he could hear him shrug his shoulders on the other side of the line. 

“Is something bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?” the brunette asked in worry. 

TJ’s laugh calmed his thoughts. “No, everything’s fine.” 

“Then why’d you call at two in the morning?” 

There was a beat of silence. “I- I’m not sure. I guess I just wanted to talk to you, say hi.” 

Cyrus’s heart swelled. He spun around in his chair, biting his lip. “Well, then, hi.” he giggled. 

“Hi, Cy.” 

Friends don't stand around, playing with their keys

Finding reasons not to leave

Trying to hide the chemistry 

“So, how was your first drive with your new chauffeur?” TJ asked as he pulled up to the Goodman’s doorstep, Cyrus smiling gently in the passenger seat. 

“A little bumpy, I may take some dollars off your tip for that.” The smaller boy teased, making the blonde scoff in fake disbelief. 

“I am offended, Mr. Goodman.” TJ said as he dramatically placed his hand over his heart, clutching at his shirt. “I guess you’re going to have to find a new person to drive you places.” 

“That’s alright, I’ll have Reed be my new chauffeur.” Cyrus shrugged, a knowing smirk playing at his lips as he crossed his arms. 

“Wha-” TJ let out an offended gasp. “You’re going to replace me with Reed? Out of literally anyone?” 

Cyrus laughed at the shock in his voice. “I’m just kidding, Teej. No one could replace you.” TJ caught his gaze and smiled widely, the smile he seemed to only reserve for the boy in front of him. Cyrus blamed the tiredness in his eyes when he saw a blush spread across the boy’s face. 

“I should get inside.” he said quietly, not wanting to break the soft silence that had blossomed between them. It was gentle, welcoming. 

“I’ll walk you to the door.” TJ said, hopping out of the driver’s side to meet Cyrus at the passenger’s. Cyrus met him with a smile, closing the car door gently. 

“You don’t have to.” Cyrus wanted him to. 

“I want to.” He wanted to, too. 

“Wow, you really aren’t a scary basketball guy anymore, huh?” the brunette teased as they walked agonizingly slow. 

TJ chuckled. “Thanks to you.” 

“No, that was all you.” 

“But you made me want to be better. Thank you, Cyrus.” TJ turned to face him on his porch, a soft look crossing over his gentle face. 

Cyrus blushed, hoping to hide the red tint in his cheeks by looking at his shoes. “Um, yeah, of course. Thanks for the ride, and for walking me to the door.” 

“Anytime, Underdog.” TJ pulled the smaller boy into a hug, his arms straining themselves as they hugged Cyrus’s waist tightly. Cyrus was taken back for a moment at how close TJ held him, but he didn’t want to waste the moment he was given so he quickly returned the hug by wrapping his arms around TJ’s neck, squeezing him just as tight as the taller boy was holding him. It fit. This fit. Why didn’t they do this more often? 

“And I really mean anytime,” TJ said as he pulled away, his hand lingering on his hip long enough for Cyrus’s heart to leap into his throat, “I have my license now!” 

“You’re my go-to guy!” Cyrus smiled, a chuckle hiding behind his lips. “Goodnight, TJ.” 

“Goodnight, Cy.” 

Drive a little too slow, take the long way home

Get a little too close

We do, but friends don't 

“Chill with the bumps, Amber!” TJ whisper-yelled to his sister, who was driving his pickup truck back to Cyrus’s house to drop him off after a movie night with their friends. He sat in the back seat with Cyrus lying against his chest, soft breaths coming out of his nose as he slept against the blonde, arm draped across his waist. TJ had an arm wrapped around him, pulling his body closer to relish in the warmth and keep the bumpy roads from waking the tired teenager. 

“If you wanted your boyfriend to fall asleep on you why didn’t you just invite him over?” the blonde girl teased her younger brother, a smirk playing on her lips. 

“First of all, he’s not my boyfriend.” TJ ignored the heat coursing into his cheeks. “Second of all, I have a morning shift at the gym tomorrow. I would’ve invited him if I could’ve.” 

He looked down at the boy tucked underneath his arm and smiled softly, the world seemingly melting around him. “Hey Ambs? Could you maybe take the long way to his house?” he asked quietly, eyes not trailing from the boy’s sleeping state. 

Amber caught one glimpse of her brother’s love struck state and a genuine smile peeled at her lips. “Yeah, sure.” 

They don't almost say "I love you"

When they're downtown somewhere, just a little drunk

“TJ, what the hell?” Cyrus asked the boy as he stumbled into his house. He thanked the universe that his parents were gone at some shrink convention this weekend. “Are you drunk?” 

TJ flopped onto his couch, facing the ceiling with a dopey grin on his face. “Only a bit, I can still comprehend thoughts.” 

“Honest drunk then?” Cyrus sighed, closing his front door. “I’ll get you some water.” 

TJ only hummed, playing with his fingers as he waited for his best friend. 

“Did you go to a party?” the brunette asked, handing him a glass filled with water. 

TJ took a long drink before answering. “No. I snuck wine from my mom’s cabinet.” he giggled. 

“What?” Cyrus exclaimed. “Why would you do that, Teej?” 

“My dad died five years ago today.” TJ deadpanned, seemingly numb to the world. 

Oh. Oh. 

TJ never talked about his dad, and Cyrus never pushed the subject. He knew that he and Amber lived with just their mom, but he had never felt obligated to ask why. He never needed to because he knew it was most likely a touchy subject for the boy. Cyrus made a mental note of the date to remember next year.  

“I’m so sorry, Teej.” Cyrus took a seat next to his best friend, linking their arms together and resting his head on the boy’s shoulder in comfort. He was too short to pull him into a hug, so he settled for the next best thing. 

TJ molded into Cyrus’s hold immediately, relaxing at the boy’s gentle grip on his arm. He held his hand gently and rested his head on top of Cyrus’s, nuzzling into his hair. He took a deep breath. “My mom says I took just like he did when they met in high school. They were together a long time. I’m too scared to look at pictures of him still.” 

“That’s alright, Teej.” Cyrus dragged his thumb across the older boy’s knuckles. “You can take the next step when you’re ready. These kind of things are always really hard. But I’m here for you.” 

“I know, Cy. That’s why I came to you.” TJ paused. “I hope he’s proud of me.” 

The brunette picked his head up. “I know for a fact that he’s proud of you. He’s proud of the friends you’ve made, he’s proud of the letter man jacket you got freshman year, he’s proud that you’re captain of the varsity basketball team, he’s proud of how well you’re doing in math, he’s proud of how you care for your mom and Amber, and he’s proud of how strong you are. He’s proud of you, TJ.” Cyrus gripped his hand, noticing the tears dripping down the blonde’s cheeks. 

TJ smiled gratefully. “I lo-uh, I’m-I’m really lucky to have you, Underdog.” 

“I’m lucky to have you, too.” Cyrus laid his head back down on TJ’s shoulder and TJ resumed his position of resting his head on his shoulder with a content smile. 

They stayed there until TJ couldn’t hold his shoulders up anymore. 

They don't talk about the future and put each other in it 

“Ugh!” Cyrus grumbled, taking puffs of his hair in his hand and yanking at the strands. He sat on his bed, his laptop lying on his lap. He slammed it shut and tossed it to the other side in frustration. 

“A penny for your thoughts?” TJ asked, standing up from the chair at Cyrus’s desk. He sat next to the brunette with a small and encouraging smile. 

“Now that we’re juniors all I hear about is college this, college that! It’s stressing me out, dude.” Cyrus ranted quickly, resting his head on the back of his wall. 

“I thought you were excited about joining an Ivy League school?” TJ raised an eyebrow. 

“I mean, yeah, that’d be great - but now that we’re older, there’s a lot more going into my decision than how smart I’ll look on resumes.” 

“Like what?” 

“Well, I don’t want to be far from Shadyside, because this is where I grew up! Everything’s here, and I want my whole life to stay in this little town.” Cyrus started, closing his eyes. 

“Really?” TJ asked. “I figured you’d want to start your own business or become president or something.” 

“That was 12 year old Cyrus that took Shadyside for granted. I’ve basically fallen in love with the place now.” 

“Okay,” TJ nodded, “what else?” 

“I’m not sure about my majors yet. I’m thinking English and Film Making, but I might change the second one for Screenwriting.” 

“You can always change majors while in college, dude.” 

“I know, but that’s a lot of work. Besides, I need to have steady jobs ready for when I graduate.” 

“Alright. Anything else stressing you out about college?” 

“Yeah. Leaving you. Leaving my family. Leaving our friends. I don’t know how I’ll be able to do that.” Cyrus breathed shakily. 

“Oh.” TJ looked at his best friend, who surprisingly had tears building up in his eyes. 

“I’m so used to having all of you right here. We grew up together! How am I supposed to let that all go?” Cyrus sat up quickly, blinking quickly to try and dry his eyes. 

“Well, you won’t have to worry about me, Underdog. I’m going to the University of Utah on a basketball scholarship and then coming back here to coach.” TJ said, unsure of how it would comfort his friend. 

“Really?” Cyrus looked at him with wide eyes. “You’ve got everything planned out, Teej.” he chuckled. “At least I know I’ll see a familiar face after college.” 

“Are you assuming that we’ll lose touch during college?” TJ asked, scooting a bit closer to the boy. “‘Cause there’s no way I’m letting that happen, Cy. We’re gonna face time every other night and visit during the summer and text at like three in the morning like we do now. It’ll be alright.” 

“Really? I mean, I hoped we’d still do that stuff, but like, you won’t drop me?” Cyrus whispered. 

“Why on earth would I?” 

Cyrus shrugged. “College, distance, all that stuff.” 

“Never, Underdog. I’ll always be right here.” 

They shared a soft smile before returning to their previous tasks, this time with Cyrus leaning against TJ’s side in contentment. 

And get chills with every accidental touch

“We’re doing this, Cy. It’s on your list!” TJ exclaimed, holding out a basketball for his friend to take. 

“One of us is going to end with a black eye or a broken rib.” Cyrus deadpanned, staring at the ball as if it had a disease. “I think I’ll be fine with not crossing this one off.” 

“Ah! You’re not getting out of this one.” TJ said, dragging Cyrus to the court by his shoulders. 

The brunette groaned but didn’t fight him, letting his best friend drag him in front of the basket. 

“All you gotta do is make a free throw. Not hard.” TJ said, dribbling the ball casually. 

“Not hard for you, Mr. Captain of the Varsity Basketball Team.” Cyrus rolled his eyes. “But I am called Mr. Trips Over His Shoes at Least Four Times a Day.” 

“You don’t have to move for this!” 

“I should also inform you that I am called Mr. Lack of Hand-Eye Coordination.” 

“You’re being too hard on yourself. Try it.” TJ handed him the ball. Cyrus shot. And missed. By a long shot. 

“Okay, let’s try actually teaching you this time.” TJ said as he retrieved the ball from the grass nearby. He positioned himself behind Cyrus, wrapping his arms around the boy to correct his stance. He tried to ignore the flares of electricity that were ignited in each place they touched. 

“Hold the ball like this, yeah! Do that! And your legs, yeah, bend them like that-” TJ instructed, smiling as Cyrus caught on. “Now, shoot!” TJ used his own arms to help Cyrus aim, and sure enough, the ball flew into the hoop. 

“Yes! See? You can do it.” TJ smiled, now standing in front of Cyrus. 

“That was basically all you, Blondie.” Cyrus rolled his eyes. 

“Try it by yourself this time, then.” TJ smiled encouragingly. 

It took eleven almost baskets and three complete misses until Cyrus took a groundbreaking shot. 

The ball flew through the air and swished through the net, not hitting the backboard or rim. 

“Yes!” TJ screamed, throwing his hands into the air with pride welling in his chest. “Yes, Underdog! You did it!” 

Cyrus stared at the net, which swayed gently because of the ball that had just passed through it. He turned to TJ and let out a surprised laugh, a smile erupting on his face. “I did it.” he breathed. He ran towards the boy and jumped into his arms instinctively, laughing out of joy and pride as TJ spun him a few times. “I did it!” 

TJ put him down and smiled at the smaller boy. “I knew you could.” 

“Thank you, TJ.” 

Friends don't call you in the middle of the night

Couldn't even tell you why

They just felt like saying "hi" 

“TJ, it’s like two thirty in the morning, you gotta stop calling me so late.” Cyrus mumbled into his phone, snuggling back into his covers after being woken up by his best friend’s call. 

“Tristan James.” his voice was thick and full of sleep, but TJ’s words woke Cyrus up completely. The brunette shot up in his bed, eyes wide. 

“What?” he breathed. 

“That’s my name.” TJ paused for a moment. “Tristan James Kippen.” 

Cyrus stared at the end of his bed for what felt like ages, taking in the information. Suddenly, a smile spread across his face, stretching his chapped lips upwards. “Y-Your name?” he laughed softly, a warm feeling enveloping his entire body. 

“Yeah.” TJ shared the same light-hearted laugh, breathing the word into the phone. 

Cyrus was in shock. No one besides his mom, grandparents, and Amber knew his real name.  Not his cousins, not his aunts or uncles, not his childhood friends. He’d always been TJ to everyone except for four people. Four people. Now five. 

“Tristan James.” Cyrus said, and it felt like silk flowing off his tongue. The name felt so natural in his mouth and it made his heart soar. He smiled wider. “Tristan James.” 

“Yeah.” TJ laughed again, pure joy and adoration seeping from the vibrations in his throat. “I wanted to tell you.” 

“Alright.” Cyrus breathed. “Tristan.” 

Friends don't stand around, playing with their keys

Finding reasons not to leave

Trying to hide the chemistry

“Hey, Cy!” TJ called, grabbing Cyrus’s attention as he closed his locker. He smiled at the blonde and met him at the end of the hall to head to the gym for his basketball practice. 

“What’s up, Teej?” the brunette knocked shoulders with the taller, wearing the hoodie TJ had left over at his house that Saturday. TJ had pretended not to notice it when he had left for work that morning. 

“Nice hoodie. It looks good on you.” the blonde smirked, enjoying the blush that encompassed Cyrus’s face as they walked. 

“What? This old thing?” Cyrus looked down, ignoring the heat in his face. “I just found it lying around.” 

TJ chuckled, taking his turn to blush. “Anyways, Andi invited us to The Spoon after Buffy, Marty, and I are done with practice after school. You in?” 

“Of course, dude. I haven’t had baby taters and a milkshake in forever.” Cyrus said excitedly. 

“We went like last week?” TJ raised an eyebrow. 

“Exactly - that’s too long to be deprived of such goodness.” the brunette said dramatically. He stopped in front of the gym doors, waiting for TJ to head inside. Instead, the blonde just fiddled with the car keys in his pocket and blushed as he looked at Cyrus. 

“I should leave more hoodies at your house. I like you wearing them a lot.” he said sheepishly. 

Cyrus turned redder than the shirt TJ was wearing, heat flowing from his cheeks and into his neck as the blonde flashed a smile at him. He shifted his weight and coughed awkwardly, a smile tugging at his lips. He looked at his feet nervously, hugging the strap of his backpack into his chest. “T-Thanks, Trist.” 

TJ threw him one last smile before joining the boys and girls teams in their daily practice, leaving Cyrus with his heart thudding so hard against his chest he was afraid there’d be a bruise. 

Drive a little too slow, take the long way home

Get a little too close

We do, but friends don't 

“The movie’s over, Cy.” TJ whispered to the boy lying on his chest in the back of his pickup truck. 

Cyrus turned to face the blonde and smiled. “I know. The credits are rolling, silly.” 

“I thought you were asleep.” TJ chuckled. “You were so still.” 

“Nah, just comfortable.” The brunette resumed his place in TJ’s side, cuddling closer to the teenager with a content smile on his face. 

TJ tightened his grip around the smaller boy, tracing the lines of the sleeve that adorned Cyrus’s shirt with his fingers. “Me too.” He smiled, leaning his head back on the back of his truck. 

They stayed there until the credits ended and the screen fell black, only a few cars left in the drive in theater. 

“We gotta go, Underdog.” TJ said gently, rubbing his hand up and down Cyrus’s arm comfortingly. 

Cyrus groaned and buried his face into TJ’s neck. “I don’t wanna.” 

The blonde chuckled at his adorable antics. “C’mon, we’ll take the long way back to your house.” 

Cyrus smiled and slowly picked his head up, following TJ as he helped him out of the trunk. They hopped in the front and sped off, turning left instead of right with their pinkies linked together. 

“What time is it?” Cyrus asked. 

“11:30.” TJ raised an eyebrow, catching on to his best friend’s words.

“I don’t have to be home for another hour and a half.” he smiled knowingly. 

TJ returned the smile immediately. “Wanna teach me some new constellations?” 

Half an hour later they found themselves in the same position they had been watching the movie in: Cyrus tucked into TJ’s side with the blonde’s arm wrapped around him tightly, Cyrus’s arm draped over his waist every time he wasn’t pointing out a collection of stars to the taller boy. 

“Which one’s your favorite?” TJ asked softly, his head leaning against Cyrus’s naturally. 

“The Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. It’s the jewels of the crown the Cretan princess Ariadne wore to her wedding. She was abandoned on an island and found by a man who fell head over heels in love with her, and she did the same for him. They were married and afterwards she threw the crown into the sky, the jewels turning into stars that symbolize their love.” Cyrus answered naturally, spewing the story as if it was his fondest memory. 

“Wow.” TJ breathed, looking down at the smaller. Cyrus met his gaze, his lips parted. “You’re such a sap.” TJ whispered, making the other boy laugh and slap his chest playfully. 

“Oh shut up. It’s beautiful.” 

“Yeah,” TJ looked back down to his best friend, who had returned his gaze back to the stars glimmering beneath them, “it is.” 

I keep telling myself this might be nothing

But one look in your eyes and, God, there's something 

“I thought there were no secret presents?” Cyrus asked with a smile as TJ handed him a small box wrapped with a green bow. “That was the whole point of doing Secret Santa even though I’m Jewish, right?” 

TJ blushed, ducking his head with a chuckle. “Yeah, but, come on, Underdog. It’s you.” 

Cyrus smiled, his heart beating rapidly. “In that case,” he reached into his bag and pulled out a carefully wrapped rectangle, handing it to the boy in front of him, “I secretly got you something, too.” 

The blonde laughed as they traded gifts. “Of course you did.” 

“On three?” Cyrus nodded. “One, two, three-” 

They tore into their gifts, each pausing to admire the objects in their hands. 

“TJ, I-” Cyrus studied the small key chain in his hands, watching the sunlight reflect off the constellation engraved onto the front. “It’s The Corona Borealis.” 

“The Northern Crown.” TJ nodded, holding his own gift into his chest. “A sketch book?” 

Cyrus nodded. “You have all of those drawings tapped around your desk, and I thought it’d be cool to see what you can do with a larger piece of paper. I want to see you create amazing things.” 

The world seemed to still around them as they smiled gently at each other, no words needed to be spoken to express their gratitude for each other. Cyrus practically melted at the look in TJ’s eyes. Kindness? Love? Adoration? Was that it? He wasn’t sure exactly, but he knew he didn’t want him to ever look away. 

“Thank you, Cyrus.” TJ breathed. It was on rare occasion that TJ used Cyrus’s full name, usually casually replacing it with a nickname on a normal day. But one look in the blonde’s eyes told the brunette that it was most definitely not a normal day. 

“Of course. Thank you, Trist.” 

TJ looked down and flushed, the same way he always did when Cyrus used that nickname. 

He didn’t need to be told that they weren’t friends. They both already knew they were so much more than that. 

You can lie to me and say you don't

But I know you do, and I love you too 

“To Mr. and Mrs. Mack, my mom and dad.” Andi finished her speech with a light rim of tears in her eyes but an unmistakably bright smile on her face. She turned towards her parents and hugged them tightly, whispered ‘I love you’s flowing between the tight knit family. 

Bex and Bowie finally tied the knot in the spring of Andi’s junior year. It was a small but light hearted wedding, one where a passersby could feel the love radiating from the backyard. Only their direct family was invited, meaning CeCe, Pops, Bowie’s mother, Andi, Buffy, Cyrus, Jonah and their plus ones, along with Bowie’s band and other friends they had from high school and work. 

No choice about it, Cyrus had brought TJ as his plus one. And as he watched him talk to Bex from across the dance floor, he was so glad that he had. 

He wore a dark blue shirt and a light blue button up, his tie matching his suit jacket. It reminded him a lot of the suit he wore to Cyrus’s Bar Mitzvah, only with less gel packed into his hair and a taller figure for the suit to fill. His green eyes popped with the dark blue and his skin glowed in the soft glow of the dance floor, leaving Cyrus in a puddle. 

Bex tilted her head towards the Jewish boy, urging TJ to turn towards him as well. Cyrus blushed, realizing they were most likely discussing him in that moment, but nevertheless waved, receiving Bex’s excited smile and TJ’s nervous one in return. The pair turned back to each other and Cyrus turned back to his phone screen, trying to fight off the blush littering his face. 

The song switched from an up beat pop tune to a slower song, the first one played since the bride and groom had their first dance. Cyrus looked up to find several couples leaning against each other already, including Buffy and Marty and Jonah and Walker. He wondered if Andi would pluck up the courage to ask Amber to dance. 

“Hey Underdog,” TJ said suddenly from above him, “you wanna dance?” 

Cyrus opened his mouth to answer, staring blankly at TJ’s outstretched hand. They’d danced together before, but never during a slow song that was meant to shape a romantic moment for couples. Never that close together. It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating all at once. 

Cyrus took his hand and laced their fingers together with a shy smile. “I would love to.” 

The blonde lead them to the dance floor, pulling Cyrus into his chest without a second thought. He held one hand on his waist gently and kept the other hand occupied with holding Cyrus’s hand into his chest tightly, gripping his fingers as he ran his thumb across his knuckles. Cyrus wrapped his left arm around TJ’s neck, his right hand gripping onto TJ’s just as tightly. He rested his head in the athlete’s chest, swaying along with him as the music continued. 

He could hear TJ’s heartbeat through his suit and it almost perfectly matched his. Baboombaboombaboombaboom. 

“We’re not friends, are we?” Cyrus asked suddenly, surprising even himself as he picked his head up to meet TJ’s eyes. 

“What? Of course we are, Cyrus.” TJ’s eyes bulged out of his head, hands tightening on the boy in his arms. 

“No, no, sorry - I should’ve worded that better.” Cyrus chuckled nervously and looked at his feet. “I mean,” he looked up at TJ through his eyelashes, “we’re a lot more than friends, aren’t we?” 

TJ stopped swaying for a moment as a smile spread across his face, chuckling before starting to sway Cyrus once again. He nodded softly. “Yeah, Cy. We are.” 

The brunette smiled uncontrollably. “Thank god.” 

TJ laughed loudly and pulled the boy closer. “I’ve already given up on convincing my mom and Amber that we’re not dating.” 

Cyrus laughed this time, biting his lip as he looked at the boy who made his heart do somersaults in his chest. “I think it’s amazing.” 

“Yeah, well, they were so insistent so I just kinda-” 

“No, not that.” Cyrus said softly. “I meant falling in love with my best friend.” 

TJ stopped completely, eyes searching Cyrus’s face with an unreadable expression. The blonde smiled wider than Cyrus had ever seen. “I-I, god, I’m so fucking in love with you Cyrus.” 

He leaned down and captured his lips in a powerful kiss, letting go of Cyrus’s hand only to wrap his other arm around the boy’s waist tightly as Cyrus buried his hand in TJ’s hair as the other stayed wrapped around his neck. They kissed with the unsaid emotions of their years together, puzzle pieces fitting together like clockwork as they held on another. 

Cyrus pulled away first, hands still gripping TJ’s hair. “I’m in love with you too, Tristan James.” 

TJ smiled so hard he laughed and pulled the brunette into a hug before spinning him around a few times due to the pure adoration seeping from his heart. Cyrus laughed in his ear and he thanked the stars above them for putting such a remarkably amazing boy in his arms. 

“I guess we know who’s getting married next.” Bex’s voice interrupted as TJ placed Cyrus down. They turned their attention to the small crowd of their friends that had gathered and blushed, Cyrus hiding his face in TJ’s chest. 

Everyone laughed and TJ pulled the boy impossibly closer. 

He wouldn’t mind being next.  

[raisedbyfandomwolves]

Your curse is totally multi-dimensional now 😖🤦‍♀️ Just when I was trying to sleep my mind even thought of a SG Power Rangers AU 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ I'm totally "blaming you" for my long list (Oh, how great were the times when I didn't even have a list to begin with...😔) And well, I haven't exactly thought it through yet, but I would kinda wanna keep a few key elements from S2 so with Rhea as a villain, Mon would probably be some kind of hybrid (not exactly sure which kind would work best) [TBC]

TBC: If he were half demon it'd be a good reason to have him "lie" to Kara who would probably equal demon to evil... Additionally, knowing how powerhungry Rhea is it could lead into a plot where Rhea is trying to resurrect the source of all evil by offering her son specifically bred for that reason? 🤔 That could also nicely lead into a scene similar to the S2 Finale with Mon sacrificing himself to end the source 🤔 Not sure about his other half tho, maybe a good witch or whitelighter [TBC]

TBC: Since a purely good half would give Kara enough reason to believe there is good in him despite his demon side 🤔 That would still give them the romeo&juliet vibe 🤔 Kinda a mix of Piper/Leo and Phoebe/Cole 🤔 For their whitelighter I thought maybe J'onn at the start who later becomes an Elder and Winn being their human friend who dies and becomes their whitelighter? 🤔 Cause Winn gives of more whitelighter vibes than Mon does 🤔I don't really know Kelly, but Maggie could be their Andy/Daryl

Aand I might even have a side idea with reincarnated/recycled souls since that's a thing in Charmed too (and I totally "blame" you for enhancing my reincarnation obsession 😉😂) so Kara could still be a special little snowflake (and maaayybee Mon, too, Not sure yet ) but well, as I said, haven't really thought it through since I was way too tired yesterday 😂 Oh, and maybe even Lena could be Part of that as a Phoenix witch or sth? 🤔 James could be around as a human reporter I guess 🤔😅😂

I'm really sorry... but I have to admit a Power Rangers AU is so left field you totally can't blame that on me. Dare I ask for details? XD

Yes, well... Welcome to the Long List of Fic Ideas Club. >.>

...You say you haven't really thought it through yet but here I am staring at a whole essay so... methinks someone might be lying to themselves here. XD

[finelinens1994]

honestly i think a big difference between this situation and any other controversy they’ve been in is that their actual friends who have stuck by them through bullshit are also rightfully upset with them. i’m hopeful that because of that they are able to figure out what they actually need to do better, since it has been (imo understandably) more difficult to do that when most of the criticisms you receive are from are people who already didn’t like you and have no desire to see you improve.

one of the things that this has personally prompted reflection on for me is that even though it’s unfair and sometimes seems kind of fucked up that there are things they should be allowed to do that they will always get pushback for because they are public figures that a lot of people dislike, doesn’t mean it’s responsible or cool of them to continue to do things they should have learned by now won’t go well for them.

like as an example i find dream’s essay andying and his chronic need to explain himself endearing in low stakes scenarios, and it seems pretty obvious it’s how he conducts himself in real life but i genuinely don’t understand how he hasn’t realized that it’s entirely ineffective as a way to communicate with people who don’t already like him.

i completely agree with you! it's kinda like how as a teenager if your mom said you should major in something in college you'd think "yeah ok whatever don't tell me what to do" but if your sibling or best friend said the same thing you'd actually hear them out and consider it LOL at least that's what it reminds me of. that's also part of why men who are feminists will say that men need to talk to their boys and keep them in check; no matter how many women tell a man he's behaving inappropriately, he often won't actually receive the criticism until it's another man saying it to him.

when criticism is coming from someone who you (consciously or not) view as below you or someone who you believe thinks they're above you, you're way less likely to listen than when it's one of your peers or someone you respect. seeing some of their closest friends, especially the men, finally show them some pushback is super impactful and i believe could signal the beginning of some personal change for them.

it's sooooo much easier to just brush off critique from strangers or acquaintances as people being haters, being jealous, or some other kind of conspiracy. but when the critique comes from your close friends, that shit hurts. you can either decide your friend was secretly a hater all along, or you can try to use that critique for growth. personal growth isn't linear and it's difficult so i'm sure it'll take time, but i have hope that they'll really start introspecting now.

[bartsugsy]

I hope the use of Seal lyrics was intentional Lo (I mean I'm pretty sure it was lol) cos "my power my pleasure my pain" distracted me from the great meta (to be?) post you were making! But back on topic I feel you on all the unresolved shiz, I just don't think the show think anywhere near as deeply into it as us! I do think more effort is put into Robron (and Coira) then other couples which translates into longer story arcs, so there's still hope.. pleasure and pain... lol!

oh, yk i just can’t resist throwing nonsensical song lyrics into things 

the show definitely doesn’t think about this shit as deeply as we do because… well, they’ve got other characters to worry about and we’re all out here like HERE’S 200 WORDS OF META ON THE SIGN IN THE BACKGROUND OF A SCENE WHERE ROBERT AND AARON ARE MAKING OUT 

(i say we but that was me. i did that. I DID IT AND I STAND BY IT)

sometimes i do think though that… even if yes, ok, OK FINE, none of these scenes were made to withstand the level of in-depth scrutiny we put them under and no, i never needed to write a 3000 word essay on the confusing characterisation of rebecca white when she’s clearly, in the crudest terms, more plot device than representative of an understandable human and as such it’s all just sort of futile, but… sometimes, just sometimes, i think the bigger picture ideas aren’t actually necessarily off base

ok and i just got this ask from another anon, so hopefully neither of you mind, but i’m going to put this in here, because this ties in to the point i’m going to attempt to make (that’s really just me validating my inability to be succinct and my love of meta) lmao:

anonymous asked:

but i think - because its a soap - robert and aaron are never going to resolve any of their issues in a satisfying way. because if they were resolved and dealt with then the show wouldn’t be able to use those issues for drama. so i can’t really see their reunion addressing any of the january stuff tbh

on some level, i agree with you. i totally do. on another, broader-picture level, i think that… i think i’ve been surprised by the level of cohesiveness in the storytelling for aaron and robert - like, it’s not the most tightly constucted thing in the world by any means, and this is obviously coming out of me coming from the glee fandom, where we had literally no cohesiveness ever and so i’m probably just over-impressed by even the most marginal attempts to write a meaningfully constructed longer form story, but… but i think, given that it’s a soap and given how much content they need to produce and given the inconsistent treatment of a lot of the characters on the show, aaron and robert’s relationship does get a decent amount of care put into it, on the whole, and sometimes that’s visible in the storytelling - like sometimes, a scene will happen that just sort of… slots a lot of things into place and calls back to meta we’ve been writing the whole time and… idk. like, you really do just need to look at rebecca as a character and compare the writing for her over the past year with the writing for aaron and robert, who have much more consistent traits and motivations.  

i think this is why i like writing meta for this show. because sometimes there’s a pay off, where the show will specifically highlight things we’ve been talking about and examining and make them explicitly canon. it’s super satisfying. the heavy handedness works (for me) for this purpose. it’s like taking our meta and saying to everyone ‘oh hey, that thing you were reading into is exactly what we were going for’. and the general audience will do this as well - everyone will have an opinion on what’s happening beneath the surface of some stuff, it’s just that they might mention it off-hand to someone they’re watching the show with whereas we sit down and spend three hours typing up an argument to support it based entirely on how we’ve interpreted that last three years of canon and then use it to try and convince people to feel the same way lmaoooo. it’s awesome. but those bigger picture ideas that maybe aren’t called out specifically 

like… don’t get me wrong, i don’t believe in the idea that they’re going to call back specifically to the january argument and take a big, in-depth delve into why that specifically happened and why it was some sort of turning point that they ignored in favour of being together and how that ultimately went wrong… i can’t imagine that’s happening lmao, that’s absolutely what our meta is for (which is fine). like… i don’t see them calling back to the specifics in any meaningful way (at most we might get some dialogue parallels bc the show loves those, as we know lmao)

but like… ok, some of this is going to come back to how early on did the show know they were going to break aaron and robert up, in all honesty. we know that iain has been intending to get rid of the whites… probably since the time he started? going by the interviews he was giving at that time? we know rebecca was brought on with some sort of plan in place for her character (to get in between robron lmao). obviously we can sort of… like, chicken or the egg, what came first - lucy announcing she was pregnant and them realising that rob and aaron would have to get married quickly, or iain deciding to go max feeling exploitation and get two weddings out of robron? this is all random extrapolation on events we know, because we can’t pinpoint when it became clear to them that they were going to do a wedding, followed by a big break up, followed by a big reunion and culminating in another, ~~~~real (so to speak)~~ wedding. but at some point, that would have been firmly in their plans. 

the january argument -

ok. ok fuck it let’s meta the january argument even though i literally said i wasn’t going to and that i wanted to wait until they got back together idc i don’t listen to me she doesn’t know what’s up

the reason i love the january argument so much as a turning point within the larger overarching story they’ve been telling is because it works so well as this big flashing harbinger of doom that the boys both ignore - it’s built up specifically from problems they have been having since right before they got engaged 

and look, i wanna write meta about all the arguments they have firstly from the reunion until ssw and then from in between ssw to the january argument, because i think the stuff that takes place when rebecca is in the village is very pointedly building towards what ultimately happens in january

and i think it’s clever because when you watch it for the first time, the fact that aaron is ultimately driven to violence and puts kasim in hospital and then ultimately gets arrested is what you’re left thinking about - it totally draws attention away from the things aaron and robert are saying to one another and the way that their argument(s) echo previous fights they have had around rebecca and aaron not understanding rob’s bisexuality and rob’s tendency to lie and scheme and rob’s defensiveness around his schemes and how much he has changed and is trying to change vs how much aaron needs from him and just… the ways in which they’ve been slowly falling apart. 

(and ok at some point i will write my actual meta where i actually quote the dialogue instead of making vague references to it, although i usually feel like it’s a safe assumption to think that you guys know where i’m sort of pulling these ideas from when i talk about this shit - specifically, stuff i want to talk about includes the things aaron has said about rebecca and robert’s interactions with her, the moment robert talks about his scheme as something that is no longer about andy and absolutely about the money, aaron’s understanding of the robecca kiss, rob talking about how aaron can’t be happy and that he screws things up (which is horrible foreshadowing for kasim), rob yelling about aaron walking away from arguments and not recognising the change rob has made and the way that rob literally brushes his kiss with rebecca under the table, aaron literally saying that he doesn’t like the person he is around robert because of how things have played out with rebecca ec. etc.)

anyway, they just… i’ve fully written about this before, but the kasim stuff acts as a distraction both for robert and aaron - who, before aaron’s arrest, are having a tentative conversation where rob is gently pushing for them to still go to vegas to try and work things out and aaron is absolutely not convinced. after aaron gets arrested and then gets released, the next scene they have is aaron trying to give robert an easy out and robert point blank refusing - over the course of the three episodes, from aaron getting arrested to aaron giving the police a new statement, rob makes multiple references to fighting for their relationship even if aaron doesn’t think it’s a good idea - literally says that he’s not going to stop fighting for them, which is important but also sort of conveniently skims past the point that this argument didn’t occur in a vacuum and at no point have they faced up to what happened to bring them there between the two of them.

when, during the reveal, aaron says that rob was the one who pushed for this, you can sort of see where he’s coming from in a sense. i think aaron’s impending sentencing also made it harder for them to focus on what the real issue was (or rather, made it way easier to ignore, because they were too busy being terrified of losing one another) - but even then, rob decides to throw a surprise wedding because in canon we know that aaron is panicking about leaving robert and losing him completely - which is ultimately what happens, both exactly in the way aaron feared, but also not at all because rob’s motivation to cheat is, as we all know, entirely about aaron (or rather, about both rob’s feelings for aaron and rob’s horrible decision making/tendency towards lashing out impulsively when confronted with things he doesn’t know how to deal with like a normal human and fucking up his and other people’s lives in the process). aaron’s fears that rob would want someone else were unfounded but those fears also sort of led him to underestimate how much of a toll his getting sent to prison would have on robert and so, in the most perverse and unexpected way, his fears about what robert would do given rob’s behaviour up until that point, ended up being spot on.

all this is to make a point that the january argument played a massive role in robert and aaron getting married the first time round and also led them both down a road where they were distracted from what should have been the ultimate sign that things weren’t working and thus didn’t take the opportunity to fix it, rather let things get dangerously and disastrously out of control. i remember a lot of the meta around the time of the jan argument pointing out that things hadn’t been resolved and that they would be resolved at some point - i saw a lot of people talk about an immediate resolution. i think my instinct was that it would take them a little longer - maybe a month max, but that things would be worked out before the wedding. the fact that the wedding wasn’t legal was like this big red herring - it made us all believe that the only reason they’d have a second wedding would be to legalise things. but oh, oh no, no - little did we realise at that point that the whole first wedding was just another distraction (a very beautiful and romantic distraction, but a distraction nonetheless). the first wedding wasn’t a random break from the misery they’d had between that point and ssw, it was a symptom. once again, robert finding a way to push through their issues, to make it more about their love and the fact that they want to be together, and aaron following because that’s what he wanted too - neither of them wanted to deal head on with any of their shit.

uh, taking things right back to my original point of ‘how much of this will we actually see resolved when they get back together’ - i mean, it’s difficult to say? because on the one hand, it depends on what story the show wants to tell with them next and on the other, it depends whether they want to sort of just brush their issues under the carpet and pretend they never happened (worst case lmao). i think, though… i mean, i don’t know, i actually genuinely don’t want to speculate at all on what we’ll ultimately see because down that road leads madness and also an inevitability that we’ll all get it wrong, as we did before with both the jan argument and the purpose of the first wedding, for instance. i think, particularly because it is something i’m looking forward to, i also don’t want to put any expectations on it, really? i’d rather just watch it as open-mindedly as possible. which is also why i want to wait until after i watch it until i really write my meta around this break up, because then i can sort of shape my opinions about what we’ve been shown and where they’ve taken things. i don’t want to try and assume they’ll deal with x or they won’t deal with y or they’ll have them do this or whatever.

having said that!!! that doesn’t stop us from looking at what’s been done so far - the wedding, prison and the ons happened over six months ago now, so we’ve got enough distance from it to say that… look, rob and aaron had so much misery and so many problems from ssw onwards and they ended up going through a massive break up. so big-picture wise, it’s logical that all that misery was intentional. it wasn’t just fuelling the andy plot or whatever, it was there as a build up to ultimately splitting aaron and rob up and making it last a while (even if they hadn’t decided at that point to actually break them up - it’s chicken and egg, they would have known what they’d put them through up until that point and understood that this could realistically ultimately lead to a break up). the january argument wasn’t resolved because it couldn’t be, because that would be counter-productive to the eventual plan of separating them. the first wedding was rushed and not legal and the reason for it being held was literally LITERALLY bc aaron was afraid rob would cheat - because again, that wedding wasn’t going to be the one that lasted. there had to be problems there.

basically - yes we absolutely put more thought into this shit than the show does but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the thought we put into it is… wrong? or will lead to us not feeling satisfied? because the way that things have gone wrong with robron so far have led to a break up. it feels like a safe assumption that they’re not going to go through a massive break up again after they get back together at the beginning of 2018, so on some level somewhere, it seems like a safe assumption that we’re not going to have rob kissing his ex to get money, or aaron doing a miserable 6 week prison stint, or robert knocking someone up etc. basically, i guess what i’m saying is… the pain wasn’t for nothing? it was there to play a function in the story and while i doubt that aaron and rob are gonna get back together and the show is gonna be like ‘ok well their problems are fixed now so that’s nice’, they’re going to be writing with a different eventual goal to the one they’ve had this year?

this wasn’t even ur original question i just took this to an entirely different place lmao. sorry. i guess what i’m trying to say is i’m not particularly concerned about getting a final resolution on rob and aaron’s issues, but the writing for them will change as the direction of their story changes, so. the reason i’m waiting is more because i’m waiting for that direction to stop being “keep them apart” and start being “get them back on track and prove they can be together”. which is sort of… the next step? i guess? regardless of whether or not they have problems (and it’s a soap so u know they will), the story needs to shift from a break up to a big second wedding - the one that you assume will last more than a month (because they’re not stupid - they know there’s only so much you can wring out of a thing and they’re already pushing it). so… yeah. that’s what i mean when i talk about this particular storyline wrapping up.

i could just keep that last paragraph and delete the rest and you would still have your answer but im obviously not going to do that.