#how the times change smh
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Had the sort of month where I could feel my books crying out for me while I was at work. They wanted to draw me home into their loving embrace…
My main take away from this month is that if you're going to be anything, by god be sincere
Bury Your Gays // Straight
My hold on Chuck Tingle’s latest horror novel came in just in time for spoopy season, which felt very appropriate, so I read both it and Straight, his horror novella that I hadn’t known about until I was looking up the release day for Bury Your Gays.
Both were quite enjoyable reads, and struck similar chords. He does a really good job of taking a potentially campy concept that’s been done before, and giving a very unique spin — not just in the inclusion of queer themes which can often come across as surface level and token if poorly done, but from the societal commentary that’s woven through both works. The queerness isn't window-dressing, but inherent to the story, horror, and criticism that’s present in both. Another thing they both have in common is that they are also, fundamentally, about hope and community and overcoming horror, which feels very relevant to the topic matter.
Straight is the shorter of the two, and on the surface is a zombie story. Due to vague cosmic horror, a strange thrall comes over straight people once a year that causes them to become rabidly violent towards all queer people. Two years out from the first instance, this story looks at how a group of queer friends deal with the trauma, how society has responded to it (and the fact that this came out 2021 feels very obvious as it looks at a fictional global pandemic), and how the friends themselves brace themselves for this years event. Isolating themselves out in the desert, they batten down and hope to wait for it to pass by relaxing and playing board games… obviously this doesn’t happen as intended.
Bury Your Gays was very different again, and between the two feels like the more ambitious in terms of imagination and story telling. The main character of this story is a partially closeted screenwriter for a major film studio who has had some success, both cult- and critical-success. However he starts to realise that there may be something sinister pulling the strings when he comes face to face with a fan dressed up as one of the horror monsters he had created for the screen. It must be a fan, right?
Both of these are excellent stories, and I appreciate how they shamelessly demand the reader suspend disbelief. They don’t bother over-explaining things, and allow horror to be unapologetically horror, slightly fantastical and campy and definitely scary. I have to admit, neither quite lives up to Camp Damascus, but I enjoyed both quite a bit nonetheless.
Defekt
The sequel (technically midquel?) to Finna, though it honestly stands alone fairly well. Finna, which involved hopping wormholes through fictional Ikeas, was alright, but I definitely think if you want something like that you’d be better for reading Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix. Defekt, on the other hand, I thought was an excellent novella and I’m glad I decided to give it a try! If you’re on the fence about this series, I’d skip right over Finna and just go straight to Defekt.
This novel is about Derek, who is LitenVärld’s most loyal employee. Everything about his life is centred around his work… even after his shifts he goes no farther than the storage crate in the LitenVärld parking lot where he lives. In this way, and many others though, he starts to notice that there are some… inconsistencies between how he views the world and how his coworkers view the world. He has never quite connected to them before, but do they have entirely different manuals? And why is his superior getting so angry about him taking a sick day when his colleagues seem to see no problem with it? Things come a head though when he’s scheduled for a special sort of inventory shift and he finds himself face to face with not just one but a whole team of people who seem to be his direct clones…
Doctor Who: The Day She Saved The Doctor
Like many Doctor Who novels this one is… fine. If you’re in the mood for more Doctor Who and want something easy it’s pleasant, but nothing world rocking. It’s composed of four short stories that bill themselves as feminist tales that focus on Sarah Jane, Rose, Clara, and Bill and how they “save” the Doctor. Honestly my main complaint is that they don’t actually do a great job sticking to this theme. The stories range from rather hamfisted to completely insincere — none of them have a truly impressive “save” but part of that might just be that they’re such short stories that they really have no space to come up with a complex rescue mission. None of them were actually bad, but also none of them stuck with me enough to describe them now…
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
I was disappointed by this one. I feel like I’ve seen rave reviews for this novel, and it’s been on my reading list for ages, but now that I’ve finally sat down to read it I found it… profoundly underwhelming. It seems to be going for a sort of “cozy academia” vibe and I’m sure that works for some people but mostly I just found it… very boring. Maybe I was hoping for something more like a grown up Spiderwick. Emily Wilde was an okay character, but without much depth, and the male character they introduced was uninteresting to me. I ended up giving up on it part way through when I finally gave up on the plot picking up in any significant way. If it does get better, it wasn’t worth the slog to get there imho sorry to all the people out there that love it.
Hakumei & Mikochi v1
I honestly just adore stories about Very Tiny People in a Very Big World. This completely scratched this itch I have for Borrower-esque stories! It’s an episodic manga about the lives of Hakumei and Mikochi, who live together in a tree house, and little events in their life such as shopping in town, camping, and befriending a necromancer! Normal day to day things! I wouldn’t mind reading a second, it was very chill and charming.
Jaws
I honestly don’t know what I expected here. I had never seen Jaws before, but me and my friends have spent so much time swimming this summer to keep cool that we decided it was the time to finally watch it. I see why the movie is such a classic, it was an excellent film! Very well made thriller! And a great end-to-the-summer movie. Then I made the mistake of deciding to read the original novel. I got about eight pages in before they said faggot for the first time. At that point I decided maybe I should read a review or two. Honestly I might have pushed past the homophobia if the novel itself sounded good, but apparently the types of horror used in the novel vs the film are very different. The novel has none of the subtly that the movie uses and is primarily sexual and gross-out horror that was fairly typical of the 70s pulp horror scene. So. I did not continue reading Jaws. I feel like I need a nega-pride flag for this one.
Poison For Breakfast
Really neat novella by Lemony Snicket, and honestly I have a hard time classifying this one. It’s technically fiction, but in a lot of ways feels like it’s not, it’s autobiographical about someone who doesn’t actually exist. It starts with the author receiving a note telling him that he ate poison for breakfast. More than anything, it’s an entire book of philosophy told through the lens and language of Lemony Snicket. If you have any fond memories of The Series of Unfortunate Events then honestly you should read this. Even if you don’t, it’s worth reading. The language is so evocative and it genuinely made me stop and think and squirm with a general discomfort that good philosophising around life and death can bring about.
Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window
I stumbled across Poison for Breakfast specifically because I decided to reread the Series of Unfortunate Events. I’ve been fairly anxious lately (more than usual, which is saying something when it’s me) and I needed something that would hold my interest but otherwise be an easy audiobook to listen to at night or during my morning commute. Since I’ve never actually read the whole series as a kid (they weren’t all out yet when I started and I never got around to finishing it) I decided now was the time. I’m especially excited to read it as an adult because I’m picking up a lot of nuance I simply didn’t notice as a kid, especially related to the Snicket / Beatrice subplot. Lemony Snicket really does now how to write a compelling mystery.
If you’ve never read The Series of Unfortuante Events, it’s got to be one of the best youth novel series out there (I say, unbiased). The narration is unlike anything else I’ve read in any genre, as is the strange world that the story is set in. The series starts with the three Baudelaire children learning that their parents died in a horrible fire that consumed their home, and that they will have to go stay with a distant relative who they have mysteriously never heard of before: Count Olaf. It quickly becomes apparently that the cruel Count Olaf is only after the Baudelaire fortune that Violet will eventually inherent, and though they expose him by the end of the first book it’s only the beginning of the tragic events that will dog at their heels from here on out…
The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room and The Wide Window are the ones in the series I’ve reread the most, and were very comforting to return to! (also I feel compelled to mention that Tim Curry does the audiobook for The Reptile Room and he uses his fucking Nigel Thornberry voice for Uncle Monty and you haven't lived until you've heard Nigel Thornberry get horrifically murdered in a completely unrelated novel... wild experience.)
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent
Easily the best book I read this month. This book was originally meant to be a series of interviews between Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea about her time as a Shakespearean actor. The interviews took place over four years and were meant for archival purposes before O’Hea realised how much these might be enjoyed by a wider audience — and boy was he correct about that.
The interviews are profoundly insightful about the various roles Dench played, her opinions on the characters and plays themselves very compelling, while also being interspersed with wit, banter, and reflections on everything from her fellow actors, to costuming choices, to green room antics. Dench has a remarkable memory and it means the interviews are able to go into great detail about the specific productions of each play that Dench participated in. I listened to the audiobook and if you have even a passing interest in Shakespeare I really can’t recommend it enough.
The Scum Villain Self-Saving System v2
I continue down the SVSSS rabbit hole and honestly I have to applaud this series for proving to be more than mindless fluff, which is kind what I had been expecting of it (sorry, I was very biassed against this series). Don’t get me wrong, it is a genuinely hilarious series and an absolute parody of the genre, but it’s more than that which I think is important. Despite being a parody, it’s very sincere in its characters and relationships and story; while the main character may bitch and moan about certain “story tropes” and the “shitty author” who wrote the webnovel he’s found himself in, he’s as much swept up in this world as anyone else is, and the story forces you to acknowledge even the tropier aspects and look at how they would fit into a world where such things dictated every day life.
In this volume Luo Binghe (the “protagonist” who is supposedly destined to kill Shen Qingqiu) returns from his “presumed death” in the Abyss, much earlier than in the original story. Shen Qingqiu is frantic when he finds out, desperate to ensure his back up plan is in place and that he might yet avoid the inevitable death his character is meant to suffer at Luo Binghe’s hands. Of course, nothing is that easy, and Shen Qingqiu has irrevocably changed the plot (and possibly the entire genre) of this story, though he himself may not realise it yet…
Yuri Is My Job v1
So, my earlier comment about sincerity? How both SVSSS and Chuck Tingle’s stories intentionally use a lot of specific tropes and parody their genres? Despite this, both examples clearly love the genres they’re lampshading and ultimately commit to the story they’re telling. They never break away from the story to wink at the audience and say “see how dumb this is?” (cough Marvel) — they are completely embroiled in the worlds they create, they are entirely sincere in the story they’re telling.
And then you have this. Yuri Is My Job is a yuri manga about a protagonist who hides her true self behind a cutesy, beauteous mask. She’s determined to be the prettiest, sweetest, most desirable person in any room — she always wants to be the first pick! And things continue well for her, until she finds herself getting roped in to covering a shift at an usual themed café: one that’s based around a fictional private academy where the “students” work at the cafe and play out little dramas for the customers.
This could have been fun, especially as the protagonists realises that everyone is wearing a mask, and how their performed personalities can differ wildly from their true personalities, but there’s just no sincerity here. It makes me think of Ouran High School Host Club but without any love behind it. OHSHC can get away with a lot, and I’ll suspend a lot of disbelief while reading it, because it’s having so much fun with what it does. This manga seems to suck away any joy by constantly poking fun at its own premise.
So I dunno… YMMV, maybe this is something someone else would enjoy a lot, but it honestly just kind of annoyed me, especially when I sat down to figure out what exactly I didn’t like about it.
If you’re going to be anything, be sincere at the very least. Show me that you love what you’re about.
#book review#book reviews#queer lit#lgbt books#svsss#shakespeare#judi dench#doctor who#lemony snicket#series of unfortunate events#the man who pays the rent#chuck tingle#bury your gays#straight#hakumei & mikochi#defekt#nino cipri#poison for breakfast#honestly i'm about halfway through the third book of svsss but i have to keep stopping to go and frantically make are for it instead :P#i am so delighted by how good it is i didn't want to be done with mxtx's books yet and was really worried i wouldn't be into this series#but i has its HOOKS in me#what really shook me was realising that we're at a point were kids just... don't know about the series of unfortunate events#it was SUCH a big thing while it was coming up#i still remember the madness around The End#i think the only reason i escaped that point in time without spoilers was because no one knew wtf was going on#anyway i was talking to a couple of kids and realised neither had even HEARD of this series#there used to a block of ratty copies in every elementary library#how the times change smh#chatter
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jamais vu line ♡ cr. namuspromised (original)
#usersky#annietrack#heyryen#usermaggie#userkelli#usersolis#raplineuser#useremmeline#userpat#tuserandi#rjshope#useryoonqiful#userines#userzaynab#dailybts#cyphernet#btsedit#mine!#thank you for the challenge kelli!!!#I’ve changed how I do everything since I first made this set but I have especially wanted to fix every old gif set of mine where I didn’t#understand timing 😔🤡#rip#anyway <3#also why didn’t I include the cutest scene in the first one??? smh
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horror is so BLESSED he's the only one out of the murder time trio that has actual good people trying to influence his story 💔💔 dust and killer were both driven to INSANITY because of the choices of their respective humans but horror??? every time without FAIL the polls for horrortale's plotline have always ended in a good place for aliza (either by bettering her relationships/reputation or for her to just. not DIE)
horrortale's potential alternate timelines my beLOVEd🙏🙏 they're SO lucky that we're being kind and benevolent hehe (≧ω≦) now where are the aus based off the possible different outcomes that could've happened in horrortale HUH???? (like how aliza couldve killed toriel or chosen horror's puzzle or gone with undyne to the core........)
#something something all three of them have their fates determined by an outside force#ermmmm but horror doesn't- yeah he does. what aliza does decides EVERYTHING for horror and horrortale#just because its not direct like dust or killer doesn't mean theyre all subject to the same community x3#PARALLELS MTT PARALLELS FOR THE 500TH TIME THEY HAVE SOOOO MANY PARALLELS OHHH MY GOOOOOODDDDDD#mtt going to visit horrortale would just be dust eying aliza (out of paranoia. he knows shes a good kid)#and then killer knowing in his head that the poor kid aliza that horror weirdly seems to like doesn't have control over her actions#she doesn't know horror doesn't know nobody knows except killer. is that a bit sad?#theyre all living in the dark unaware of the reality of their world. i mean thats how its meant to be after all thats what the players want#but....... it would be tempting to tell horror...... hehehehehe- and then he's interrupted by horror and dust#(theyre trying to get killer to eat papyrus's spaghetti in their place. he's the only one that can stomach it even though there's no human)#mtt i love thee SOOOOO much. theyre back in horrortale for the holidays ✨✨ coming back to visit the family ✨✨ WHAT horror's visiting.......#not dust or killer of course. this isnt their world noooope thats not papyrus. but that doesn't stop dust from having everyone like him#its just like the good old days :333 except now there's three sanses and triple the insanity :333 almost like nothing's changed!!!!!#oh killer??? yeah he's there. probably won't try taking up the sansish type of role horror and dust do but he'll find a way to get used 2 i#after all the point of this is whatever he wants it to be now ;33333 were these tags all just a reference to my mtt fic. yes. yes they were#LMAOOOO i forgot that aliza didn't fall into horrortale yet in my fic. still a fun thing to imagine tho!!!#i think it would be fun having aliza be the first of humans for horrortale to deal with that they won't instantly kill#itll be hard but really rewarding for all of them........ especially horror i believe!!! man he didnt even go through therapy but#just being away from horrortale and out doing new and FUN and NOT MURDEROUS things has done wonders for him :3#i need to get to writing smh..... winter break is the day after tomorrow (TECHNICALLY AT 2:32 PM SINCE THSYS WHEN SCHOOL ENDS SO HAHAHA)#so ill probably work on it more over break since i'll have nothing to do hehe.......#today was an amazing day for me ✨ TWO mtt angst death related hcs..... some work on my latest chapter i've yet to post..... SWAPINVERSE FAN#ARE YOU KIDDING ME MORR SWAPINVERSE ART THIS IS SOOOO AMAZING THABK YOU UNTITLED29876011111 I DONT EVEN KNOW WHY YOU DO THIS!!!!!#tricule rant#killer sans#dust sans#horror sans#murder time trio#utmv#sans au
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Lucy spends the entirety of the show being the bigger person and being the nicest person to ever exist, but eventually she breaks and she’s about to do something horrible and Maximus and The Ghoul, having being constantly influenced to show humanity and see the good in people, now have to talk off a ledge of doing something she’ll regret forever, showing how Max and Coop have been changed by Lucy and how the wasteland has changed her idk
#fallout#fallout series#lucy mclean#the ghoul#cooper howard#maximus#it’s giving#Lucy no this isn’t you look at me 😩#but at the same time I love her rubbing off on them and showing her how they’ve been changed for the better because of her#I fuckin love Lucy smh I want to her to go through the wringer in every way possible#while also giving her a little kiss on the forehead everytime#I need to stop talking I think
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hehe~~ i am soooooo sleepy and tired right now :3 i’m all cuddled up in all my blankets🥰 so warm and comfy hehe…..oh and also my past is haunting me😐
#girl help i tried to go to sleep but remembered the Anger™️#experienced a Situation recently that i have been very bravely and sexily ignoring#and - literally WHO would have known - ignoring it is not making it better lol#so now i lay down all comfy to sleep and my brain is just like: the thing😦#and then i gotta stay AWAKE😒 so i can distract myself from the thing#until im tired enough to sleep BEFORE my brain remembers the thing#smh#it sucks#also im good mostly!#it’s just hitting me worse rn because my period always puts my emotions out of whack😪#but im getting proper sleep and everything#and hope to take action to lessen the impact of the thing soon it just takes time ya know#like sometimes things ARE going to hurt you and bother you for a while#and that’s just how it is#but life will move on eventually and good things will come to steal some of the space those bad things take up#just gotta be patient😪#sorry for my nonsense rambles again#i just found it really funny#because tonight i really was legitimately more annoyed by the disruption to my sleep than i was about the life changing situation lol#sleep is my number one priority at any given moment fr#to be fair though i WAS so comfy and tired from cramps and really looking forward to sleep#so i think i was justified😤😤
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No, he’s right. —Since when did you wanna get involved in anything? Maybe since I got someone’s brains blown out all over my face.
Antonia Thomas as Alisha MISFITS — 2.04 (2009-2013) dir. Owen Harris
#misfits#antonia thomas#misfitsedit#alisha bailey#alisha daniels#cinematv#filmtvdaily#tvcentric#*mine#blood cw#beautiful people#tiny pixie princess#still smh at how they randomly changed her last name#like????#90% of the ppl following me have no idea i used to be a misfits blog#back to my roots#for the entire time she was on the show it was bailey (dixon for a brief moment)
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ive actually put myself in so many situations and seem to come out doing socially well, youd think at some point i could get it in my head im not irredeemably bad
#that post about dysphoria like ‘u feel like ur covered in slime and people will eventually see the rot’ rly truly hits it#idek if its dysphoria or autism or what at this point#maybe its everything#but shit#ive stayed at hostels and hung out with and chatted w complete strangers#i went back to my hs reunion this week and actually hung out w people i thought didnt fw me anymore#my coworkers generally seem to like me- its felt rare when one didnt which is a shocking percentage#ive maintained friendships with my core group of friends despite living w them for over a year (u know how that can go) and not#being able to participate in like half the activities they do (sex parties i dont wanna attend or im busy at work)#made internet friends. believe it or not there was a time as a teen i thought id never be able to do that!#shit bitch even the guy i like who i constantly worry secretly hates me#and i constantly worry only puts up with me etc#yeah he doesnt always seem to let me in much but he barely lets anyone in?#comparatively he does seem to let me in a lot#i really have to remember to put things in perspective sometimes#just bc im not in my holmes/watson era or facetiming someone all day doesnt mean im a lonely loser……. smh#there was once a time i had no irl friends. I CHANGED THAT. I DID THAT. i can do anything
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Nancy's GBF (ghost best friend)
IT'S OCTOBER QUICK POST GHOST BARB FIC
She dreams about Barb every night.
She’s dreamed about her before, of course, but ever since Vecna died it’s different. She doesn’t scream. Doesn’t cry. There’s no blame placed on Nancy’s shoulders, no shrieking accusations about how it should have been her instead.
She’s a silent figure. Unmoving, unfeeling. No matter how far Nancy reaches, or how fast she runs, she can never get close.
Eventually, she comes into focus, and it’s awful because she seems younger than she ever did in real life. Her best friend died a child, closer to her little brother’s age than Nancy’s own now. The red shade of her hair, the exact outfit she had on, it’s all things she forgets in the waking world. But for these few minutes she can have Barb back. Even if she can never hug her best friend again, or exchange secrets, or laugh together, she still has this.
When she wakes up, it’s with tears on her face.
“Nancy?” Jonathan asks groggily, still half asleep. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Later, when he tells her he was accepted to Lenora Hills, she’ll wonder if she could have saved their relationship if she hadn’t started lying too.
Two months after the dreams start, Barb speaks.
“Nancy? Nancy, it’s so cold. I don’t like it here, Nancy, please–”
In that moment, Nancy can finally reach out and take her hand.
She wakes up shivering and automatically checks her surroundings. Mike bursts through her door when she shrieks, her mom not far behind him.
They both try to ask her what’s wrong, but she can’t answer, too busy staring at the dead girl in the corner.
“Nancy?” Barb asks, pool water dripping down her chin. “What’s wrong with me?”
She tries to ignore it.
She’s having a mental breakdown of some kind, that’s fine. It’s to be expected, really. She’s been struggling keeping up with school, and the end of the world, and breaking up with Jonathan. Of course she’d see Barb around every corner. Of course she’d be cold all the time. Of course. And everyone knows the first step of having a mental break is to not feed into the delusion.
She checks with El and Will, just to be safe.
They both look confused when they open the door, which makes sense. She and Jonathan have been split up for a month, she hasn’t exactly been around. Still, they accept her inside without question.
“I need you to make sure Henry isn’t back,” she blurts out as soon as the door shuts behind her. Both of them rear back in tandem, and something clatters in the kitchen.
“Nancy?” Jonathan pokes his head around the corner, bewildered. “Are you okay?”
“Jonathan!” She feels herself flush. Why didn’t she think he’d be home? She knows he doesn’t have a job anymore, and his friend Argyle went back to California a while ago. Where else would he be?
“Nance, you’re pale,” he says, like she hasn’t noticed. As if her mom hasn’t said the same thing a hundred times in the past few days. He reaches out to guide her to the couch, and flinches back as soon as he feels her bare skin. “You’re freezing. Let me get you a blanket.”
She turns and looks at the kids as soon as he’s out of sight, noticing the way Will is rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “I’m sorry, I’ve been having weird dreams for a while, and lately it’s gotten…worse, I guess, and I need to make sure it’s not him. It doesn’t feel like him, but I need…I can’t…”
El’s face turns into something determined, and oh, Nancy hates asking this of her. But if Vecna isn’t really dead, if they can get a headstart on his next plan, well. The sooner the better.
Ten minutes later the three siblings are sitting across from her, El tying a blindfold around her eyes as a blanket sits on Nancy’s shoulders. It doesn’t do anything to help, of course. It’s nothing like when Will was possessed but the mindflayer. The heat doesn’t bother her, no matter how many times she brings a spare blanket to add to the pile on her bed or turns the shower faucet to its highest setting. In fact, she can’t feel it at all.
“Close your eyes,” El commands. “Focus. I need to be able to see inside you.”
She grimaces, involuntarily glancing at Barb in the corner. The past few days she’s been weeping nonstop. More than a few times, Nancy has cried with her. Now, though, she looks around the Byers’s new place curiously.
Nancy shuts her eyes.
“Don’t shut me out,” El reminds her gently, and then light floods her vision.
Barb, always Barb. When they were kids they would push each other on the swingset and dare each other to climb trees. The last time she saw her, reassuring her she’d be fine before following Steve upstairs. Vecna daring to taunt her, as if she could ever forget what she’d lost.
A million memories, some she’d almost forgotten. And then it’s over too soon.
El rips the blindfold off, breathing heavily. Jonathan hands her a tissue for her nose, looking at Nancy with so much concern it feels like it’s going to kill her.
“What did you see?” Will asks frantically. “Was it him?”
El shakes her head, confirming what Nancy already knew deep down. “It wasn’t him.”
“Then what was it?” Jonathan asks, eyes still on Nancy. She raises a shaking hand to her face, and it comes away wet.
“Nothingness,” El finally says. “And then sadness, and cold, and dark. And a light. There was a light, and a hand, and then there was warmth and feeling again. But the feelings are bad. They are not Henry, but they are not good.”
“So she’s real?” Nancy’s voice cracks.
“What? Who’s real? Nancy, what’s going on?” Jonathan asks. WIll just looks at her, concern in his big eyes.
El tilts her head. “I think so? But I do not know her. I can’t see her like you can.”
“Who is ‘she?’” Jonathan demands. “Will someone tell me what’s going on?”
“I actually have to go,” Nancy says, almost stumbling as she stands up. She takes a moment to fold the blanket Jonathan gave her so kindly. He’s still trying to get her attention, but she brushes him off as she heads out the door and to her car.
“Nance, please, I know we broke up but I still care–”
“I know!’ She says, whipping around. Barb watches curiously from the corner of her eye. “I know you do, and that’s great, really, but it’s none of your business. I didn’t even think you’d be here, so…”
“Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know, Jonathan, California?” She snaps. He rears back. “Isn’t that where you’re going anyway? Just– stop acting like this is any of your business! We broke up, we’re done, I don’t… I don’t want to talk, Jon! Just leave it alone.”
“Nancy…” he reaches out, and Nancy takes a step back. Barb appears between them in an instant, and his hand passes right through her. He jumps, swearing and turning pale. Nancy feels herself gasp, feeling warm for the first time in days in that split second before he pulls back.
He watches her silently, with those big eyes she’s always been weak to. She doesn’t have anything to say to him, or maybe she has too much to say. Either way, she gets in her car silently, driving off and leaving him standing in the rearview.
For once, she doesn’t startle when Barb jumps into existence in the front seat.
“Byers, huh?” She asks, something like humor in her voice. She always sounds distant now, like she’s underwater, or whispering from across a field. But Nancy understands what she’s saying. She always will.
Barb sighs when she doesn’t answer. “At least his brother’s alive, I guess.”
That makes Nancy laugh, a harsh cackle that would make her jump if it came out of someone else. “Yeah,” she agrees, speaking to the ghost of her best friend for the first time, “At least Will’s alive.”
It’s not like having Barb back. Not really.
She’s bitter, and angry, and she screams and yells and cries all the time. Sweeps her arm across Nancy’s desk like she’s trying to break something, and only gets angrier when she can’t. Yells at Nancy sometimes, which she knows she deserves.
There’s the blame for her death of course, which is nothing new. She’s been having nightmares about that for years. But then there’s the other stuff. The weird questions, like, “Why did you bring me back? Why couldn’t you let it be?”
When she asks about it, all she gets is Barb turning away from her.
“Nancy? Naaaaaaancy. Nance, are you listening to me?”
She turns her head and almost shrieks to see Robin staring at her, almost nose to nose. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for, like, forever minutes,” she complains.
Nancy looks at Steve. “It was, like, forever,” he confirms, staring at her intensely. “You okay, Nance?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “It’s been thirty seconds,” he deadpans.
Robin flops onto the floor. “Forever.”
“I’m starting to think getting you guys high was a mistake.”
“You say that every time. It’s not even your weed.” Steve yanks the dying bud out of his hand, taking a drag that has to be mostly ash at this point and putting it out on the ashtray. They don’t do this often, or at least Nancy doesn’t join them often. She’s not fond of the floaty feeling the weed gives her, preferring alcohol if she’s not going to be sober. But Eddie asked her to come, and Steve and Robin prefer having more people around if they’re going to get high. Something about what the Russians gave them.
She hasn’t seen Jonathan here since they broke up, but she thinks that’s less about them not inviting him and more about everyone trying to give them both space.
Nancy’s gaze has already wandered back to Barb. It’s been a quiet day today, which makes her nervous for tomorrow. But at least during quiet days she can seem semi-normal in front of her friends.
“Nancy? Seriously, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she tells Steve, not bothering to look away from Barb. She looks from Nancy to Steve, this new, older Steve she’s seeing for the first time, and pretends to gag herself on a finger. The pool water that never stops coming out of her mouth splatters silently on the floor. Nancy doesn’t laugh.
“Hey.” Steve moves in front of her, slightly wobbly as he sits cross legged across from her. She can barely see Barb past his hair. “Yanno, Jonathan asked about you.”
“What?” That breaks her from her trance.
“Yeah, he said he was worried about you. I asked him why he was asking me and not you, but he said you didn’t want to talk about it. But he was, like, really worried Nance. So, like, is everything alright?”
“Do you ever dream about dead people?” She blurts out.
All three of them go completely silent, staring at her. She laughs nervously. “Never mind! Never mind, that’s weird. Wow, why did I ask that? I think I took too many hits. Where’s your bathroom?”
“I mean,” Eddie says, after Steve doesn’t answer, “I dream about Chrissy all the time. How could I not? Shit was a real life nightmare, of course it made its way into my dreams.”
Steve shakes himself. “I guess I dream about Billy, but that’s different. I mean, it’s still a nightmare, but it’s not like…” his hand drifts unconsciously to the faint scar on his forehead. “It’s not about the Upside-Down, I guess. It’s not the same as my other nightmares.”
“I have dreams where people die all the time,” Robin declares, scooching herself across the floor until she can lay in Steve’s lap. “They suck.”
“Yeah, but are any of the dreams ever…weird to you guys? Like they’re not normal nightmares? Like they’re there all the time, just staring at you, and you try to reach for them but you never can?” She asks desperately.
The three of them look at each other, and shake their heads.
“Cool,” Nancy says, palms sweating. “Me neither.”
It’s raining when Mike storms into her room while Nancy is trying (and failing) to do college prep. “What is wrong with you?”
Barb starts laughing, a gurgling, chilling sound that Nancy heard once and made her summarily decide to never make a joke again.
“What are you talking about?” She asks, eyes flitting between Mike and Barb. “Get out!”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” he accuses. “You’re not even looking at me!”
“Maybe I just don’t want to see your dumb face.”
“Fuck off!”
“Michael!” Their mother hollers.
He rolls his eyes. “Ugh, sorry!”
#stranger things fanfic#nancy wheeler#barbara holland#ghost barbara holland#nancy's gbf au#barbs got JOKES in this frankly nancy should have laughed at them smh#the idea of barb coming back somehow to see how nancy has changed since she died is so intriguing to me#in my mind vecna dying released the spirits he was holding and somehow nancy's freshly reawakened regrets were so strong she like#summoned barb somehow instead of letting her rest or whatever#so thats what barb means when she asks nancy why she couldn't let her go#this doesn't happen with anyone else bc uhhhhh reasons. i am no longer taking questions at this time#or maybe max is going through the same thing#OHHHHH THAT WOUD BE SO FUN TO WRITE I LOVE NANCY AND MAX PARALLELS
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Little thing I wrote about Dizzy's time after the tapes but before the anon shared space (aka their time in space ) ft. A guest appearance of o!Smajor and o!Sparklez
Disclaimer: I am NOT a writer in any way
It always started with the tapes didn't it? One moment they were in a cabin they found in the woods, watching old tapes they found, next thing he knows he was in the middle of space...
They found that his previously short brown hair turned red and fluid like??? When star passed stars hand in their hair he saw some pieces of it detaching and floating upwards in droplets (or what he assumed was upwards, he was floating too after all). This... was weird....
Well, this could be worse... somehow surely... their surroundings were empty, filled with only a red galaxy, close to their new hair. Not a soul could be found in the space... welp, no interaction soon...
After trying in vain to remember their past, a vague memory of a friend but no memory of the rest of their life... did star have a family? Friends? Hobbies? Their studies? All hazy. He didn't even remember his name!
...
In the next event that happened (well, there were two starbornes passing around for a bit a while ago but that hardly counted), had it been days? Months? Years since he arrived? He already was barely human anymore, ears and new tail having appeared or changed during their stay. After checking his star for quite a while, he received a new transmission, one of characters he had already seen but somehow younger, before whatever happened in what he knew, maybe end could help them avoid that end! He decided to send in some help, making himself seem as a longtime viewer of Showfall. It went well, he was heard!
Soon after a door opened. That was new? He had no reason to trust it wouldn't lead it somewhere worse than the he'll that was his galaxy... but he couldn't risk it disappearing and leaving his stuck here again after leaving this fragment of hope of any other event...
He gathered his courage and turned the doorknob.
#dizzy posts#AAAAAAAA I DON'T USUALLY WRITE AND IDK IF IT'S GOOD AAAAAA#also dizzy doesn't use their name bc technically dizzy isn't their old name but they got their name after arriving in the anon house#gosh i hope this makes sense#anoncinematicuniverse#dizzy lore#i tried to show his desperation to interaction (and how his time spent in space...)#*how his time alone in space affected him#also getting the tail and the change of ears hurt but idk how to show it (<- should've just given him wings smh)#ok it's meh so uh... bye
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yikes yikes yikes
#somehow sent an earlier version of a document to my supervisor instead of the final one#so of course got feedback with all this stuff I missed and stuff#a lot of which I did not miss! it was right in my final version that you inexplicably didn't get?????#for simplicity I told her I must have forgotten to save the final version but I don't think that's true!#I think I have been betrayed by word and/or dropbox!!!#bc it said on there the last time saved was right before I sent it to her#so then riddle me this: how were NONE of the changes I made today in the version that she got#WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS I just know the whole time she was reviewing it she just thought I was an idiot#and probably still does#the worst thing is that could totally sound like me making up an excuse bc I didn't want to admit that I had just missed a bunch of stuff#BUT IT'S TRUE#and I don't even know how to prevent it from happening again#smh maybe I'll start emailing each document to myself before I send it to anyone else#AHHHHHH I feel like a lot of my recent assignments have kind of been flops for various unrelated reasons but stacked up it's not a good loo
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The first time I ever drew this character was exactly ten years ago today :'>
This is such a quick doodle, sorry Sylvestre, maybe I ought to muster up something better for your anniversary– but at the same time, it's kinda fitting? I made him up one day where I was very frustrated with my art, because I couldn't get anything to look how I wanted, and I just… decided to draw something for me. And then I wanted to draw him again, and, eh, it's ten years later and I'm still doodling this guy, apparently!
#mydrawings#MyCharacters#Sylvestre#there's not much left over from his very first design but. despite everything. you know#i don't draw him nearly as often as i used to but he still lives in my head rent-free#damn. rent free for a whole decade. can you believe that? tssk tssk#i really need to start charging him smh#it's funny to think how much i've changed as a person in that time#but telling myself stories with little guys my brain conjured up has been a constant
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20 years later, the mercury have not changed lmao
youtube
#phoenix mercury#i can't believe this guy doesn't have any storm merc games uploaded but w/e#it was a good game actually#the wild thing is that dt is like th 4th option for most of this game#and at season's end she was first in points first in stocks first in assists second in rebounds and first in field goals for the team#not everyone can be that person.......#obviously there is a different pace and style of play#also again it is wild that the merc shock and mystics all finished at .500 but the merc missed the playoffs#bc there were more teams in the western conference#that being said it is impressive as hell that they won the title the first time they made the playoffs since 2000#tamara moore is also interesting as a player bc she too is a guard but i feel like at least in this game#she moves so similarly to dt and she's wearing the knee socks and a bun#and they handle the ball similarly you know how dt loves to palm the ball moore does a similar thing#and dt has not changed the way she's moved in 20 years so it's not tough to id her#so penny's not in the game she's at an aus camp but in the july 5 game vs the sparks she and anna deforge are both in#and they are also very similar looking in 240p#plus penny as we know is 13 anna is 30 so they both have the 3#fun fact this is also the first tech of her wnba career#it's not a fun one tho#but you watch these early games and you see why she has to fight with the refs so much#Oh and another thing sometime between 2004 and 2024 the sparks changed the shade of yellow from a vibrant beautiful one#to something very ugly and pale. Pls change back. Yellow is so good when done well but is so easy to do poorly smh#Realizing they were in purple this game but yellow in the 7/5 game. Point still stands#and the old purples are better too league wide
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happy holidays, friends! whether you're celebrating or not, i hope you have days full of peace, contentment, love and time with the people you care about the most. if this is a difficult time of year for you, please be gentle with yourself and give yourself all the time and space you need to get through it safely - don't let anyone make you feel bad or guilty for struggling during what's meant to be a "happy" time. life is hard, and it's okay to need a bit of extra support and grace.
#ily all and hope for nothing but good things for you now and in the coming year#this is a really good year for me tbh... probably the best in a very long time and i just want that for everyone#it's... incredible how much recovery has changed my feelings about the holidays smh#i can just? enjoy everyone's company? and not have to hide not eating?#amazing tbh#if you're rolling your eyes at this just scroll on by thanks#anyways back to the annual watching of the lotr trilogy bc it's my mom's favorite thing in the world and i would do anything for her
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who else spends their time thinking about how in 6 months your life could suddenly be completely different whether rocked by tragedy or miracle and you just dont even know, youre just setting yourself up for that thing without even realising it but you have no control over it!!! AH. i know i just described anxiety but whatever.
#6 months in generous like your life could also change within a day#i feel so relaxed all the time#edit- how many typos does this post need damn smh
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i'm about to throw hands with this yt poll.
this is the zelda version of that twitter butch post to me.
#the best zeldas arent even here!!! if og 'i was like 8 y/o when i SHATTERED the triforce and hid it ALONE in a monster infested land' zelda#and st 'the only one with a character arc u see play in real time & goes from i'll wait here to i will STAB malladus with my own 2 hands#and alone if i have to' zelda were here they'd obliterate the competition. maybe not in votes but just in terms of correctness#BUT EVEN IN THIS CASE. ur not voting for ms. 'i saw my family home and kingdom be systematically destroyed over the course of 7 years &#stood back up said no & changed my ENTIRE self to try to save everyone largely on my own for 7! years! as a child!! only to at the end of#it all be the only person who can truly empathise with the hero who had his childhood stolen from him and return it even though i will#never have mine again'????????????#or even ms. 'i was normal & happy & loved until i wasnt and i learnt i was the orchestrator of my own and everyone else's misery because im#not even myself & im so much bigger yet lesser than who i thought i was and if i cannot be divine then i will be less than worthless i will#be a blight who couldnt execute the plan i had tossed everyone into and they will have lived in my lie and died for nothing so i will be#divine even if that means sealing myself away for an eternity. even if i will never know happiness the way i did again'????????#i cant say anything about twipri. i barely remember her bc i watched that playthrough ages ago and she was barely in the game idk what ur#voting for#but botw???????? /BOTW/?????????????????#girl wasnt even the best princess in her own game and she only had one other competitor smh#(<-THAT'S A JOKE. THAT'S A JOKE. I AM JOKING.)#this whole thing is half a joke. i love botw zelda (dont look at me like that. i do) and i get why she's winning but like. come on. that's#way too big of a divide. how are oot and skysw losing that much. botw zelda's voice alone should have cost her half her votes#WKSHDKSDHKKA#anyway this whole thing is for funsies so dont be weird on my post ok <3? ive had a shit three days and if being fake mad at a silky video#game poll makes me laugh then that's fair ok? and if you're weird i have the license to explode you with my mind and curse your family for#3 generations ok <333?#freya talks loz
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Had a realization so I just quickly did his on my phone with my finger 😭
iykyk
also no those aren't the right colours cuz I don't have the colours on my phone
#did I change the stripes a tiny bit?#um maybe but this is how they were supposed to be the entire time so--#/srs#also oh my gosh i really need to stop with only drawing nardo smh#rpwasobt#rpwasobt nardo#my art#tmnt leonardo#tmnt au#tmnt fan iteration#tmnt iteration#tmnt mutant mayhem#art
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