#i don’t have any commentary on that i’ve just been. sitting with it i suppose.

[pinkfey]

is this a safe space

[hold-him-down]

🤝 - Some help performing a basic task

✥ I Got Something For You ✥

Trigger warnings: semi-explicit noncon. 18+ only.

Notes: 2-ish months into West Peterson.

✥ ✥ ✥

When the doorbell rang, and Mr. Peterson inclined his head toward Leo, that should have been the first warning. The, “I got something for you,” should have been the second. Neither, though, prepares Leo for who greets him on the other side. When Leo opens the door to find a man, no older than he is, with short black hair and deep, charcoal eyes, wearing a Department of Labor Services branded t-shirt staring at him, there’s only a brief moment of confusion before the pieces fall into place.

✥ ✥ ✥ 

[Weeks Earlier]

“Come over here,” Mr. Peterson calls to him one night, abrupt but not exactly unexpected. Leo finishes the plate he is cleaning and sets it aside. He dries his hands, unrolls the sleeves to his crisp black button-down, pours himself a glass of wine, and makes his way over to the older man who currently holds his contract. 

He sits down cautiously, and Mr. Peterson offers him a genuine smile. “I'm– I'm just going to cut to the chase, Leo. I’ve been giving this some thought..." He reaches for his tablet and turns it on. “Now that you’ve been here for a few months, and you know– well, you know how fond of you I am,” he continues.

Leo returns the smile and nods, mouthing a soft, 'thank you,' to be on the safe side.

“I just have been thinking it’s too much for one person,” Mr. Peterson continues. Leo takes a breath, his eyebrows rising. “All of this. And, not just that. But they said, uh–” He runs his hand over the back of his neck and takes a long sip of his scotch. “Well, they said you like interacting with your peers. That you crave companionship. Something like that.”

A silence buds, and so Leo, eager to prevent the void from growing uncomfortable, says, “I suppose neither of those things are untrue.”

“Great. So I've– I’ve been thinking it has to be hard on you. When I’m away, or when I’m otherwise occupied. I thought it might be nice to… I don’t know, procure you a… a companion. To help keep you sharp, and uh– to help keep you happy, I guess,” he finishes. 

Leo swallows, tilting his head to one side, as Mr. Peterson turns his tablet so he can see the screen.

“I know that some might think of this as some type of perversion of justice,” he continues, immune to Leo’s curiosity shifting into something more tense. Leo takes a long sip of wine, peering at the screen. “I asked the director at Greenwood to pull a few options for us." Leo's jaw drops. "Before you say anything,” Mr. Peterson adds quickly, “I want you to know that I’m doing this as much for me as I am for you, and I don't... I'm not asking you for permission here, or for your blessing. I think it’ll be good for you to have someone here, but it’ll also be good for me.

"All that said, I do want your input." Mr. Peterson shows him the picture of a worker, and Leo forces himself to remain neutral, if for no other reason than to disguise his discomfort. At seeing this. At getting his first glimpse into this side of things.

“I don’t need you to make any type of final decision about the suitability of these boys,” Mr. Peterson continues. “My attorneys will review their files and ultimately determine if they’re a good match to my, and by extension, your needs. But I’d like to give you the opportunity to veto any, or if you feel strongly attached to any, I’d like to know that, too. Ideally, I'd like to find someone we both find attractive, and someone who may hold your interest through the duration of your contract.”

The evening is spent scrolling through the pictures of seventeen workers, with Leo mostly silent, entirely focused on keeping himself calm, and Mr. Peterson running a verbal pros and cons list for each one. Occasionally, he requires commentary from Leo, and in these instances, as subtly as he can, Leo tries remind him of their humanity. And all through it, Leo actively avoids thinking about the last time Mr. Peterson did this, about his own image appearing on the screen. What he had said then, with whom he had reviewed these files. Inevitably, those thoughts do creep in, but Leo shuts them down as quickly as he can.

And when Mr. Peterson closes the last of the files, glancing finally at a stunned silent Leo, and then, perhaps because he notices something in Leo's expression, excuses himself to bed, Leo finishes his wine in silence and promises himself he will not think about this night. Ever again.

✥ ✥ ✥ 

“Oh,” Leo says now, opening the front door wider. He shakes his head in a kind of detached disbelief, then steps aside, turning in time to see Mr. Peterson making his way to the foyer. “Mr. Peters–”

“You must be Will,” Mr. Peterson says, and Leo, in that moment, wishes he could be anywhere but in this room. Will is… around his age, he guesses. Around his height, around his build. Dark eyes, easy smile. He can’t help but think that Mr. Peterson has a type, and he also can’t help but wonder what�� 

“Leo, introduce yourself,” Mr. Peterson says, sharply enough that Leo doesn’t hesitate to reach out his hand.

“I’m Leo.” He smiles, as he would greet any other of Mr. Peterson’s guests. “It’s nice to meet you,” he continues.

Will takes his hand, offering a gentle, if not a little bravely assertive, handshake. He watches Leo closely, holding his eye contact for just a moment too long.

“Well,” Mr. Peterson says, loud enough that Leo drops his hand abruptly, locking his fingers behind his back. “Looks like you two will be just fine.” He nods, as if to punctuate the thought.

Leo can’t shake the unease he feels as Mr. Peterson looks over Will once, then lets his gaze shift to Leo.

✥ ✥ ✥ 

They spend the first few days falling into a new routine. Leo, on edge since the day Will showed up, waits for the other shoe to drop, and Will puts a razor-sharp focus on assimilating with as little fanfare as possible. And he’s good at it.

Will, who, it turns out, is one year younger than Leo but has been in the system since the day after he turned eighteen, is, in a lot of ways, a perfect product of the training. He meets Leo in the kitchen every morning at seven, and while Leo makes breakfast, Will sets the table. While Leo cleans the bathroom, Will does the laundry. While Leo helps with the restaurant, Will does the yard work. 

Will seldom attempts to speak to him, but when he does, he keeps it light. It’s almost too easy, Leo thinks constantly, so at the end of their fifth night together, when Mr. Peterson stops Will from going to his bedroom with a terse, “Wait,” Leo immediately goes rigid. Partly because it has, he’s decided, been way too easy, and partly because Mr. Peterson is on his third scotch, but mostly because of the way Mr. Peterson looks not at Will as he speaks, but at Leo.

“Sit down,” Mr. Peterson says, and he inclines his head toward Leo. Will feels the danger here, too, Leo thinks. He’s hesitant in his step, maybe not noticeable to Mr. Peterson, but noticeable to Leo, who has watched him navigate the house with nothing but undiluted confidence for the last week. “I want to try something,” he says then. 

Leo nods, and Mr. Peterson says, “Finish your drink,” and so Leo does so without waiting, taking two big gulps of thousand-dollar wine, and then discarding his glass. “Would you like another?” he asks, and Leo eagerly agrees. Mr. Peterson looks to Will, who fills both of their glasses, and he watches as both of his workers body their drinks.

“I thought maybe,” Mr. Peterson eventually says (and here, he has the audacity to sound nervous), “I thought it might be nice for the two of you to get to know one another a little bit better.” He stands, stretching, and says, “I’m going to help myself to another scotch. When I get back, I trust you’ll both be ready to move things along here.” He looks only at Leo, with an expectant stare that makes the hairs on Leo's arm stand up.

Leo waits until Mr. Peterson has retreated out of sight before he speaks.

He looks straight ahead as he speaks, but he knows Will is listening. In his peripheries, Will leans forward, and takes a slow sip of his wine.

“Whatever happens," Leo hears himself saying, shoving his hands under his legs to keep them from shaking, "I want you to know that I didn’t want this." He keeps his voice low, loud enough to reach Will but not loud enough to reach the bar. “Whatever he makes me do, or whatever he makes you do, just know that I didn’t… I didn’t choose this.” There’s a panicked edge to his tone that grows with each word, and he knows he needs to lose it quickly. He takes the deepest breath he can, as his eyes track Mr. Peterson making his way back to the living room.

“I know,” Will responds, equally softly. And then, as Mr. Peterson lowers himself back down onto the sofa, he says, “It’s okay.”

✥ ✥ ✥ 

Leo waits until he’s sure both Mr. Peterson and Will have fallen asleep before he allows himself to stand, unsteady on his feet but eager for this night to end. He walks as calmly as he can to the bathroom before he doubles over the toilet, expelling everything his stomach has to offer before letting his forehead rest on his arm.

The feeling of Will’s hands on him, of Will’s mouth on him while Mr. Peterson coaches every movement. Mr. Peterson's voice, look at his face, and he likes that, and god, fucking perfect, and keep going, and use your tongue, and don't be afraid to go a little rougher, and fucking hands down, Leo, and you're doing good, and you're so fucking hot, and every word plays through Leo’s head on repeat and Leo wants to scream to make it stop, but he can't. There's no stopping it, and there's no end to it, and it reminds him, in some ways, of how... He thought he was done, but as images of Mr. Peterson's weight landing on the sofa next to him, of Mr. Peterson stopping Will to look at him, to touch him, as Mr. Peterson's guides Leo's hand, he doubles over the toilet once more–

A knock on the door pulls Leo back to the moment, and there's a second of sheer, perfect panic where he realizes he was too loud, and someone's awake, and things are going to get infinitely worse, before he looks up. And it's... it’s Will who stands in the doorway, backlit by the dull yellow of the hall light, and Leo can breathe again.

“I was that bad, huh?” Will asks, kneeling to a crouch next to him. Will smiles, an apologetic, soft smile that Leo isn’t accustomed to, because frankly, he's not accustomed to Will speaking to him at all, before he lets the back of his hand sweep the slightly overgrown hair from Leo’s neck.

“It’s not you,” Leo says, voice hoarse and still teetering on the edge of hysteria. “It’s me.” 

Will laughs then, and it's a genuine sound that Leo hasn’t heard in years, and something about it is all too much, setting off the months, or maybe years, of pent up anxiety, and Leo can’t stop the cascade of tears that silently begins to fall.

Will, for his part, sits next to him, and with no pressure for him to stop, and no one waiting for him to get his shit together, Leo cries harder.

Until eventually, he takes a long, deep breath, and he forces himself to calm down.

Several minutes pass, with both boys silent and processing the events of the evening, before Will finally says, “Did I hurt you?”

Leo replies, almost instantly, “No.”

“Okay," Will says. "Good.” He pauses, leveling his gaze on Leo. The silence draws out again, until finally, Will stands, putting his hand out to help Leo up. “I wish I could promise it won’t happen again,” Will says, quietly. “I… whatever I can do to make it easier, I’ll do. But I’ve been with guys like Mr. Peterson before, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you, and I… I think this wasn’t the end of something, it wasn’t a satisfaction of some dark repressed urge he had as a one time thing. I think it was the beginning of something.” Will opens the door and gestures Leo out first, but squeezes his shoulder as he does.

“I know,” Leo replies.

FIGHTER TAG LIST: @whump-cravings @afabulousmrtake @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @pumpkin-spice-whump @distinctlywhumpthing @thecyrulik @highwaywhump @batfacedliar-yetagain @finder-of-rings @dont-touch-my-soup @skyhawkwolf @suspicious-whumping-egg @also-finder-of-rings @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @peachy-panic @melancholy-in-the-morning @urban-dark @nicolepascaline @quietly-by-myself @pigeonwhumps @whump-blog  @seasaltandcopper @angstyaches @i-msonotcreative @mylifeisonthebookshelf @anonintrovert @whump-world @squishablesunbeam @considerablecolors @whumpcereal @whumperfully @pirefyrelight @whumpsday @whumplr-reader @lonesome--hunter @darkthingshappen @alexmundaythrufriday

[carmyberzattosjournal]

S2 Entry 3: One Thousand Short Lives

Photo Credit: Pinterest

Summary: Christmas trees don’t sit well with Carmy (679 Words).

Warnings: Swearing, panic attack, vomiting (not graphic), hurt, fem reader/lass who is a trauma surgeon, she/her pronouns, mentions of Syd, mentions of Richie, mentions of Donna Berzatto, mentions of Mikey Berzatto.

Notes: Thank you for reading and sharing! This is a work in CB Journals Season 2 and will be tagged with #cb journals s2.

Sideblog for commentary and social stuff: @m-z-shoroi

Prompt: Pine needles

Richie was trying to kill me, I’m sure of it.

Why the fuck else would he have secured a dwarf fucking Christmas tree to put in the dining hall? Here, I thought I was getting to the kitchen extra early to take a stab at the 3 recipes that Syd left a thousand notes on—the second of which was just a “no” without any elaboration. Very helpful—and instead, I get assaulted by a barrage of memories, wraiths from my history, from the one thousand short lives I’ve endured. All the chill of that morning (it’s frozen hell season) was annihilated by a surge of red-hot… I don’t even know, was it rage? Was it hurt? Was it frustration? Some amalgam of fiery emotions, all furled together into this tangled mess of heat. Boiling. I was boiling. I had flames pouring down my throat.

The fucking pine needles were strewn all over the fucking floor around the tree, some cursed confetti that’d fallen off the branches while it sat overnight in the miserable fucking corner where there used to be a two-top, lurking for me to find while it familiarized itself with its deathbed. Dressed to the nines in garland, sparkly tinsel, ornaments in blues, silvers, golds, reds, greens, string lights—off at the moment—adorned with a star on top, leaning precariously to one side. Carmy, fix the star. Ma, ask Mikey to do it, he’s tall enough. He never fucking does anything right, now fix the fucking star; we need to take photos.

I could almost feel the ghost of a glass bulb crunching under my heel, exploding with a pop, grinding into my shoe tread as I took a step back. Then the flash of a camera—in my mind? A car going by? How am I supposed to know—the smell of ma’s perfume, so sickly sweet, so saturated in florals and mixed with stale cigarette smoke, that they might as well have been her fucking funeral sprays, invaded my sinuses, damn near crawled down my throat and seized my stomach in a vice grip. My feet carried me on autopilot to the bathroom, where I collapsed next to the toilet, vision blurred, breaths caught in my throat, chest and stomach twisting in pain, are you motherfuckers okay? Some awful, foul beast, an eldritch abomination, swelled under my ribs, but nothing would move past my larynx—not air, not sound, not bile. Warmth trailed down my cheeks.

The light makes a buzzing sound. It’s faint, inaudible any time other than early morning or late night, drowned out by even the traffic outside. I could hear Darling’s voice in my head, almost see her crouched on the floor in front of me. Breathe, baby. Breathe. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay. I hunted for the sound through the twisting of my insides and eventually found myself drawing in and blowing out shaky breaths. That’s it, pretty boy. There you go. My head still spun. Everything still hurt. Tears still welled up and spilled down my face. But I was breathing.

I fumbled my phone out of my jacket, intending to call Darling. It was early. She was probably headed out the door or was already on the road headed to the hospital. She didn’t need me to worry her, did she? No, but I needed her. I needed Darling like I needed air. I couldn’t fucking do this, not alone, not today. Especially not today. Fuck you, Richie. Fuck, I felt so fucking alone. I just wanted to hide in her sweater, inhale her scent, hear her coo and hum at me while she rubbed my back. Darling, baby, I had a bad one. I really just need to hear your voice right now. Please. Tell me it’s okay. Tell me I’m okay. Tell me you love me. Tell me another story of Cookie the dog.

I caught sight of a pine needle on the floor that I’d tracked in.

I hurled bile into the toilet bowl.

Okay. Fine.

Dish two is a no.

Tags: @carmenberzattosgf @jess248 @catharticconsolation @persymons @morgthemagpie @glitch0o0 @nox-is-thename @forgechildofheph @leminjelly @fridavacado @lumoslemon @cyarskj1899

[maygrcnt]

been reflecting on the season a lot recently and on the topic of bucks bisexuality storyline, and i think ive come to the conclusion that theres maybe some catastrphization on the part of people who think the arc is horribly written, but also other people seem to be looking at it through rose tinted glasses and accepting anything given to them just because the storyline was such a long time coming. And i’ve had a hard time with figuring out why both sides of these takes just bother me so much so i sat down with my thoughts while work was slow and i rotated evan buckley in my mind until i had coherent thoughts

When it comes to the self discovery of it all i think that is probably the best thing the show did with the arc. episodes four and five were ultimately huge successes in my opinion on the topic of bisexuality. My main issue with this part of it is not specifically to do with the bi-ness of the storyline but the show in general. The show, showrunner, and Oliver want us to believe this storyline is different, that this is the one that finally changes everything, and I fully believe them in that being their intentions. However, they didnt show that to us well enough. The show has a glaringly cliche formula when it comes to buck and eddie love storylines that i used to think was intentional parallelism but now believe to be a writing rutt that they can't seem to break out of. They meet the partner, they have a romantic moment, something gets in the way of that romance, they meet up at a restaurant to “start over”. Ali, natalia, ana all follow this exactly and taylor sort of. its just tired? And the fact that this is exactly how buck and tommys relationship starts too just makes it so i cant convince myself that this is any different than before. Like i said i truly believe the writers thought they were pulling buck off the hamster wheel and the commentary outside the show tells me that he’s supposed to be doing something new, but they just can't escape their own romance formula enough to actually do it in the TEXT. and one thing about me is i think when it comes to TV, a viewer response lens is the most important way to analyze the story. the intention of the writer doesnt matter as much as the interpretation of the viewer because the average viewer of prime time television isnt reading tim minears interviews or listening to the podcasts oliver stark does, theyre tuning in at 8pm est and tuning out at 9. to conclude on the topic of bucks self discovery arc, i think it was done well. i think this is a general consensus, i feel like most people who think the storyline went sour still believe that episode four was done well at the very least

when it comes to the coming out of it all, this is one spot where i believe there’s some catastrophizing. the storyline had to choose carefully who got the long coming out scenes and i think it’s crazy to say that they chose wrong. do i wish there was a little bit of a longer beat with both hen and bobby about the storyline, yes absolutely. but i don’t think scenes with buck sitting down to formally come out to them would have been either necessary nor in character. bucks strongest canonical ties are to maddie, eddie, and bobby. two of which he never felt the need to come out formally to either by the way. i think a lot of people wanted to see more hesitation and fear from buck about his sexuality, but what they decided to show us instead was a man who realized something new about himself and immediately understood that the people around him were going to love and accept him no matter what. the only slip we see in this confidence is around eddie where… im trying to keep this analysis unbiased by non canon things so im not going to get into what i think of that but… in any sense bucks coming out moments were not about coming out at all but instead always about him being loved by his family. i rate this part of the storyline 10/10 because it all felt so natural and real for someone who has the support system and love that buck does (not saying it isn’t hard to come out even when people are supportive, just that i get why it wasn’t hard for buck). the storyline matched the character really well, but if they were to give the same easy breezy coming out arc to a character with the same backstory as say eddie then i would understand the want for more turbulence.

now the most polarizing part of the storyline for sure is the “established relationship” part of the season i guess you could call it lmao. my personal main complaint here is that we immediately lose any and all insight into the *new* of it all. if you want to make a big deal about this romance storyline being different than the other ones, you actually have to show us on screen what’s DIFFERENT about it. it doesn’t bother me so much on a relationship side of things because the relationship isn’t my personal cup of tea, but i think it would have been nice to see more scenes focused on the reasons this relationship is something new for buck. i’m not a tv writer, i honestly don’t have a suggestion for scenes that could have made this better for me. i think a tone thing is big part of it, if they lightened up tommy’s interactions with buck made him a little more flirty and lively it would have felt truly like a new relationship still in the phase of navigating a new dynamic rather than. well it doesn’t matter what i thought the relationship felt like by the end that’s not the point here. another place i feel like they could have put some more effort in is the bobby of it all, he was very preoccupied but their conversation felt stilted and not actually how i imagine it going. when it comes to the acknowledgment of bisexuality and newfound personal experiences i rate the end of the season: bad. i don’t think this was by virtue of the show not caring or wanting to portray the storyline anymore, but just by virtue of the entire end of the season being… kinda bad.

finally the finale, oh the finale… i swear im trying to come at this as unbiased as i can when i talk about the BT dinner scene but just know that i didn’t like it and that may bleed through. i think it was unfavorable of them to frame this scene the way they did. by having the scene start en media res and having us jump in to the dinner already in progress it feels disingenuous, because now im supposed to believe buck left the hospital, cooked an entire meal, set up a date, started eating and only THEN was the topic of bobby’s health brought up? it feels like this scene was written in a way that it would be for a well established long term couple, not a new relationship we’ve barely seen on screen. in this very scene is the first time tommy even learns what bucks relationship with bobby is like, this is very obviously not a deep connection yet so why are they being given the framework of it? the show is telling us that this relationship has gotten more serious without any proof and i find it very hard to believe them. i think there’s ONE simple change that makes this scene work 100x better and makes me feel like buck is actually settling into the relationship rather than having to take tim minear word for it: just start the scene with buck coming home to tommy! if buck is just getting home from the hospital it doesn’t feel as out of character because there’s less assumed time where buck is for some reason not worried about bobby, which he WOULD be don’t even try to tell me he’s not. and if tommy is already in bucks apartment when he comes home we learn so much about their relationship with such a small gesture. that buck feels comfortable with him there, that tommy feels comfortable alone there, that they spend time there often enough that tommy knows his way around. it just feels like this scene was written in good faith but the forgetfulness by the writers on the overall context of where this scene was in the episode created a strange tone in which i’m supposed to believe evan buckley would ever plan a romantic date night while bobby nash is literally comatose. thoughts on the bisexual storyline in the finale: no. i’m not gonna get into the daddy issues line of it all because that’s a lot more opinion based and it would make this like double length. ask me about it if you want i guess.

all in all, i think there’s … a lot that could have and should have been done differently in order to maximize the goals and effects that tim continuously told us he was trying to achieve. when it comes to carefully telling a story of late life sexuality discovery, i think they did well. when it comes to most other aspects, i think the ball was dropped. pls feel free to send messages or asks regarding this topic because i think im still developing thoughts on it and id love to have conversations regarding :)

[melacka]

Calendiles Secret Santa 2023

Hello @snails-in-my-mouth! I am your Calendiles Secret Santa and I have written a S2 fic filled with workplace banter and flirting. Wishing you and yours a very happy and safe holiday season, and I hope you enjoy your gift!

Title: take my love and wear it by Melacka

Summary: Giles and Jenny suffer through a Sunnydale High staff meeting with banter, innuendo and spilled tea.

Rating: T

Word Count: 1314 words

Read it on AO3 here or under the cut!

Rupert Giles had learned to hate the weekly staff meetings that Principal Snyder had implemented at the start of his tenure. They rarely included any truly useful information and would more often than not devolve into snide commentary and petty asides traded between teachers who barely interacted otherwise. Sometimes he tried to make the time pass quicker by entertaining himself with ideas of the various cliques and groups forming within the faculty, but that only took him so far, given the frequency of the blasted meetings. And so over time he had simply resigned himself to indulging in his hatred of the meetings, quietly seething in a corner until he was released to do his actual job.

That all changed, of course, when Jenny Calendar became more of a fixture in his life. Jenny was an enthusiastic participant in the staff meetings, and she had a habit of positioning herself directly opposite Giles, seemingly for no other reason than so that she could throw amused glances his way. In the last staff meeting before the winter break, however, she chose to sit right next to him. He looked up at her in surprise when she sat down.

“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “I can find another chair if—”

“I don’t mind at all,” Giles said quickly. “Please, join me.”

“Do you have any plans for the break?”

Giles stared at her in surprise. The only plans he had for the break was to spend as much of it as possible with her, and she knew it. They had discussed at length their plans for a sort of hibernation at his place, free from the distractions of the world.

“I have some plans,” he said cautiously, looking around the room. “I hoped to spend some time with a friend.”

“Time with friends is so important,” Jenny agreed solemnly. “Where would we be without our friends?”

“Indeed. And you? Do you have any plans?”

“Oh, I have a few things lined up. There are a few things I’ve just been dying to try.”

“I hope the break offers you the opportunity to try all that you wish.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she murmured. “Your co-operation with be vital, Rupert”

She took a sip of her coffee, her eyes alive with mischief when she looked at him over the rim of her cup. His lips twitched in response, and he hurriedly took a sip of tea, wincing when the person on his other side jostled his elbow as they sat down. Giles sighed as he dabbed ineffectually at the drop of tea now staining his trousers.

“Be careful,” Jenny said, offering him a napkin with a smile, “these staff meetings can get a little rough sometimes.”

He waved away the napkin and gave the stain one last despairing glance, before he turned his attention back to his companion.

“I’ll be sure to keep my guard up against any potential attacks,” he said, trying to inject a little humour into his tone.

“Oh good, I’d hate for something to happen to you.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve barely begun to enjoy our time together, Rupert, it would be a tragedy for you to be taken from me due to fatal inattention at a staff meeting. This is Sunnydale, after all. Anything could happen.”

This surprised a laugh out of him, and she grinned.

“Should I arm myself before attending next time? I do have quite a cache of weapons in the library.”

“Don’t you worry about drawing undue attention to yourself at these things?”

“I suppose a crossbow would give the wrong impression.”

“On the contrary,” she said, grinning, “it would give the right impression.”

“That I seek to commit violence against my colleagues?”

“Merely that you are open to violence against your colleagues, given the right provocation. It prays on my mind, Rupert, really it does.”

She took another sip of coffee, and her eyes held a challenge now.

“Rest assured, I will endeavour to avoid unnecessary violence so that you may continue to enjoy all the benefits of our association. I would so hate to deprive you of something you enjoy, Jenny.”

Jenny tilted her head and regarded him carefully, a strangely tender expression on her face. Giles raised an eyebrow in question, and she shook her head slightly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was just caught up in thinking about all the potential benefits of our association,” she said quietly, doing a truly terrible impression of him. “But what can you expect, engaging in such sexually charged innuendo in the workplace? I truly am shocked.”

Giles, who had chanced another sip of his tea, nearly choked on it. Jenny offered him the napkin again for the fresh drops of tea on his trousers and he waved it away again, red-faced from embarrassment.

“Jenny,” he gasped, looking around to see if anyone had overheard.

“Shh, Rupert, I’m only teasing.”

“Yes, I know, that’s the point!”

“Would you like me to stop?”

“Never,” he answered honestly.

“Not such a fuddy-duddy after all, huh?”

“I have it on good authority that I’m a sexy fuddy-duddy, actually,” he returned, leaning in as close as he dared while surrounded by so many people. “I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or—”

“Oh, it’s a very good thing, Rupert,” Jenny interrupted, her voice dropping low. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Unfortunately, Principal Snyder chose that moment to call the meeting to order and they pulled away from each other to resume a more appropriate distance. Giles took another sip of his tea and tried not to scowl. Jenny turned to face Principal Snyder with a look of bland interest on her face, but she spent the duration of the meeting running her foot up and down Giles’ leg under the table. It really was deliciously distracting.

Giles couldn’t remember a more enjoyable staff meeting.

When they were finally free to leave, by unspoken agreement they allowed most of their colleagues to wander out before they made a move.

“Did you enjoy the meeting, Mr Giles?” Jenny asked mildly as he held the door open for her. “You seemed a little distracted at one point, I do hope you didn’t miss anything important.”

“Impossible,” Giles murmured as he fell into step beside her. “In order for me to miss something important, there would need to be something of import at one of those ridiculous meetings. I regret to say, that there has been no such thing.”

“Not even the ongoing feud between Mr Irwin and Ms Talbot?” Jenny said, her tone amused. “They seem to think it’s important, at least.”

“Perhaps they just enjoy the attention,” Giles replied absently. “Why else would they seek to have the same argument in front of their colleagues every single week?”

“Maybe they’re in a long-standing secret relationship and all the fighting is just a ruse to throw us off the scent?”

Giles smiled as they approached her classroom, and he reached out to open the door for her.

“Do you suppose there is a lot of that going on?” he asked quietly. “Secret relationships disguised by public vitriol?”

Jenny shrugged and tossed her things carelessly onto her desk. Then she spun around and pushed him against the door, laughing at his grunt of surprise.

“I’ve never understood the need for vitriol, Rupert,” she said, leaning into his space and tilting her face up invitingly. “Our secret relationship has always had more than enough fuel without resorting to vitriol.”

“Not even when we were arguing over the relative merits of books and your awful machines?”

“That wasn’t vitriol, it was simply a difference of opinion between colleagues. Now are you going to kiss me or am I going to have to—”

Giles didn’t wait to hear what she was planning to do as he closed the gap between them and kissed her firmly.

[delucadarlingwriting]

I'm really struggling to write the last few weeks, so I've instead been going through some old wips and such. I found the first fic I wrote with Kira and Barbie together in it, but the thing that really interested me was this Lucas/Adam scene I forgot I'd slipped in toward the end.

In this AU, Barbie and Lucas both work for the Agency (Lucas as Unit Alpha's handler, Barbie as a researcher) while Kira is Wayhaven's detective. Adam and Lucas have a past, and they haven't quite gotten through it all.

(I really hope I haven't posted this before)

***

“She’s okay,” Lucas says, his smile bright despite the bags under his eyes and the way he hunches over. The chair he’s sitting in is clearly one of the ones kept in meeting rooms around the facility. Adam wonders if he dragged it over himself, or if someone brought it to him. 

“That’s good to hear,” Adam says. It doesn’t remove the guilt weighing on him, but it does lessen it somewhat. 

Lucas bobs his head. “They say she’ll wake up soon. It’ll be a long recovery. Well…” Lucas gestures vaguely to his leg. “Not that long. A few weeks at most and then she should be up and at ‘em.”

“How is your leg?” Adam asks without really meaning to. Lucas chuckles.

“It’s far from my biggest concern right now,” he says. He straightens up, then leans back against the seat back, folding his hands behind his head. His heartbeat is a steady drum, not the frantic thrashing it had been earlier. “But mostly it’s fine. PT did wonders. I don’t have to use the cane anymore, but I can certainly walk a lot longer with it than without.”

There had been a moment where it was uncertain if Lucas would be able to walk. Amputation had been on the table, but the medics had managed to save the leg through some sort of minor miracle.

Lucas peers at him, a smile tugging at his lips. To Adam it seems exhausting to always be smiling, grinning, laughing, but Lucas does it all like he can’t help himself.

“I’ve missed you, bud,” Lucas says. Adam shakes his head.

“We’ve seen each other recently,” he replies. Lucas snorts.

“Literally in passing while you were getting into a car and I was getting out does not count,” Lucas says. Adam remembers that moment well, and how hard it had been to make himself turn the key in the ignition when his eyes had been stuck on Lucas in the rear view mirror. Shifting, Lucas lifts an eyebrow. “You could also text me back here and there.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Adam asks in a huff. “You send pictures of inane things with no commentary.”

“Hey, that box turtle was neat as fuck,” Lucas argues, but he lets out a laugh. “But I guess you have a point.”

“So you’ll stop?” Adam asks, unsure what answer he’s hoping for. Eyes sparkling, Lucas grins.

“Not a chance, big guy. You’ll just have to suffer gracefully about it.”

Rolling his eyes, Adam puts his hands on his hips and starts to say something, when the door to Barbara’s hospital room slams opens, revealing Mason. He looks at them blankly, while Adam and Lucas stare back in shock.

“You two are loud as fuck,” Mason says. Lucas sputters.

“When did you get in there?” he demands, then more loudly, “Why are you in there?”

Mason smirks. “You don’t wanna know.”

Adam glares at him. “Leave.”

“Sure. She’s passed out anyway,” Mason says with a shrug. He spares a glance back at Barbara, hospital blanket tucked around her sleeping form, then closes the door and strolls away. Lucas manages to pull himself together by then and starts struggling to his feet.

“I’m gonna beat his—” Lucas grits his teeth, snatching his cane up from where he leaned it against the wall. Adam steps closer, hands out to placate him.

“I doubt he did anything to her,” Adam says, no small amount of annoyance in his tone. “He wants to get a rise out of you.”

“He managed it!” Lucas replies brightly. He’s holding his cane more like one would hold a war club than a mobility device. “She’s hurt, in what world does he think any of what he’s implying is appropriate.”

Adam can’t help the laugh that escapes his lips. Lucas whips his head toward him with a scowl.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says. “Do you hear yourself?”

Lucas blinks, and his hackles go down. A small smile tugs at his lips. “Alright, yeah. But it’s different when it’s your baby sister.”

Adam nods. “Then trust that I believe Mason wouldn’t let any harm come to her.”

That seems to shock Lucas enough that he has to sit back down. “You think he gives enough of a shit?”

“I do.” Adam rubs at his chin. Mason’s fixation on Barbara has been long lasting, but it’s clearly more than his usual ‘flings’. The way he’d reacted to Murphy abducting her had been…very different. It’s a side of Mason Adam has not yet seen. Of course, Nat has rose colored glasses on regarding the whole affair, which doesn't surprise Adam a bit, but it also sets him on edge, almost as much as Nat’s own fixation on Kira. 

They’re vampires. Kira and Barbara are human. It’s too risky to involve themselves too deeply, and the last thing he wants is anyone getting hurt over it. 

“Well,” Lucas says, relaxing fully now. “Alright.”

The quiet lingers for a long moment before Adam can muster the strength to say, “I should go.”

“Why, am I not riveting enough company for you?” Lucas asks, humor dancing in his warm brown eyes. Adam takes breath to steady himself, but all it does it bring Lucas’ scent further in, distracting him all the more. 

“You should go as well,” Adam replies, dizzy. “Maybe find a shower.”

“Rude!” Lucas exclaims, then cartoonishly lifts his arm to sniff himself. He puts on an exaggerated expression of disgust. Adam rolls his eyes. “Though you might be right. I’ve been traveling since yesterday, and the employees at the airport tend to look down on sink showers.”

“I can imagine,” Adam says dryly. He sighs, unable to shake the worry that lingers over him. “Barbara will be fine. You should look after yourself better.”

“I look after myself just fine,” Lucas says, waving him off. Considering the number of times Adam has heard through the Agency grapevine that Unit Alpha’s handler has landed himself in the infirmary yet again, somehow, Lucas’ words do nothing to convince Adam. He has the alarming urge to grab Lucas and drag him somewhere else, to take care of Lucas himself so he can be certain of Lucas’ health and comfort. 

Heat rushes to his face, something he’s aware shows far too easily on his pale skin, so he turns on his heel and marches away. 

“Try deodorant,” Adam calls.

“Go fuck yourself!” Lucas calls out with a cheerful laugh.

[macadam]

I miss your posts and tags a lil sometimes, but I hope you being a bit more absent here means you've got some really cool stuff going on in RL :)

Aw thank you anon T-T

I’ve been getting into sewing recently and picking up a bunch of projects that have been piling up in the scary corner of my room. Some of it’s very exciting like this bear I’m finishing turning into a bag today:

But a lot of it is fixing torn clothes or tailoring stuff I’ve thrifted (went to a church rummage sail recently and got soooo many things. They had a big clear out sail the last hour). Not as fun. Still necessary

It’s been very nice to finally get around to some of this stuff but has also meant that I’m not consuming any tf media rn (or media in general) and thus have no commentary to make lol.

I really do miss making posts and chatting with people on tumblr and discord, but I don’t really have anything to say about transformers right now. I suppose I could sit and brainstorm possible things to talk about. I am very good at that and used to do that a lot just to make conversation on here, but I dunno. School has also been crazy

[norgbelulah]

I’d love to get the directors’ commentary on this excerpt from “Now you wear your skin like iron:”

Boyd lets a silent, not quite tense moment pass before he tells Raylan, “I want to talk to him.”

Something hard and stubborn comes into Raylan’s eyes and he sits up, limbs tense and rigid as he tries to pull himself together. He looks right into Boyd’s eyes and says, “Are you out of your mind, son? Why would I do that?”

Boyd doesn’t try to hide the pity from his expression, or the plea. “I’ve done a great many things for you, Raylan. Things you’ve thanked me for before today. Will you do this for me? Please.”

Raylan is angry, frightened, and Boyd knows he’s trying to hide it with a mask of self-righteous confusion. “You’re asking me to give myself over to him? For what? So you can get yourself off with your ghost boyfriend? Christ, Boyd.”

“He may mean nothing to you, for all he’s been with you your entire life--even if you don’t believe he’s--dammit.” Boyd shakes his head. He can’t get into this debate with Raylan, shouldn’t if he’s going to get what he wants. He forges on, “But you know what he was to me, Raylan. I’d like to see him again. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Raylan turns away for a moment, braces his forehead in his hands, as though it’s paining him. “I can’t. I can’t, Boyd. He’s not me. He’s--it’s too much. An’ the echo,” he mumbles, “it’s so loud.”

Boyd frowns and steps nearer to him. He could reach out and touch Raylan’s shoulder now, if he thought Raylan could stand it. He’s never talked about an echo before. “What echo?” Boyd asks softly.

Raylan doesn’t want to answer. His lips are tightly sealed, his eyes pleading, just as Boyd’s had done. Boyd knows he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Raylan,” Boyd says his name clear and plaintive. “What do you mean?”

“Everything he did, I know. Everything he felt, I can feel it,” Raylan answers, his voice breaking. “When I talk to you, Boyd--Johnny,” he grinds out the name, like it was forced through his teeth. He never calls him by that name. “When I look at you, Boyd, I feel the past, but it’s here and now too and--” He shakes his head again, like he might knock it all loose. “It’s all his and not mine, everything--I can’t--please, don’t ask me. Please.”

I think that the one thing I always highlight in my characterization of Raylan is that he's extremely good at lying to himself. So, here, Boyd is discovering just how deep the lies and obfuscation of Raylan's whole past lives deal goes.

Another thing that seems to come up again and again in my fic is Raylan and Boyd's perpetual struggle to communicate with each other. They are two people who have had so many of the same experiences, growing up in the same place with bad dads and no money etc etc, but they react to it completely differently. With the reincarnation thing going on here, it's even more compounded. And it's key that what shapes these men aren't really the things that happen to them, but the choices they make in reaction to what happens to them. It all spirals from the choices made by two different men, who are also them.

Raylan reacts to the strange knowledge and feelings he has as a kid with fear, mostly because there's already fear all around him anyway, how else is he supposed to feel about something he has so little control of? So, he buries it. It feels very Raylan to me that he can have a whole person inside his head, feel all the things that person has ever felt and still be like, nope, that's not me and I refuse to think about it any more deeply than this.

Boyd on the other hand, knows himself always, I think. So that's easier for him, but he's tied to Raylan and is still always having to navigate this tangle between them, always having to ask and give and take what he can get. I hope it came across how exhausting he finds it, but he'll keep going, even forcing Raylan's hand to put himself in jail to help him not get swallowed whole by their past.

This feels like it's gotten rambly...

Anyway, I think what I love about this bit in particular is that it's Boyd asking Raylan for something, when in the past he's mostly given, that brings about a new revelation for them both in how to relate to/love each other. Communication!!!

[mcbitchtits]

okay my weekend got shuffled around and i saw dial of destiny today rather than friday.

completely unspoilery point of doubly-pedantic nerd criticism: hey marching navy bugler in the back ARE YOU AWARE that you are out of step. okay thanks for your time.

now spoilers

this has been bothering me for a hot sec

is it a German thing the way they pronounce it? A British thing? is it a Roman-Latin vs Catholic-Latin situation? I mean, Wikipedia here has it the way I’ve always said it, so what is behind their choice to Not Pronounce It This Way in the movie?

also related to the pre-adventure plot, i was sitting there in the middle of it thinking, like, when the nazis were in disarray and lacking supplies and their empire was falling apart, would anyone have even noticed a jacket with a bullet-hole in it? (i realize this is just a plot moment, ignore that for a second.) and then like ten minutes later i realized i was probably just thinking about the Confederates rather than the Nazis, but ehhhhhhhhhhh tomayto tomahto

also i think it’s very funny that the plot is just like “where did voller get the anitkyhera? who fucking cares. PLOT TIME”

also-also: i know it’s for Plot Reasons but i really wish they said “antikythera mechanism” more than they said “archimedes’ dial”. bah. fie on you

i’m still, every time, in awe of the wacko billing. who’s in this movie? HARRISON FORD and PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE and ANTONIO BANDERAS and TWELVE OTHER NAMES and also mads mikkelsen. i’m sorry. your villain gets last billing? i know why, it’s hollywood nonsense, but like. COME ON. maybe he deserves a few more minutes of screentime also?

i think i posted this in one of my last few shotgun-blast-commentary posts, about all the marion pics being from 1936. i noticed today, waaaaaay in the blurry background, at the end of the movie, there’s one from Crystal Skull. (and I had to go look it up and I realized it was not an Indy & Marion photo as I thought but rather one of the stills of Mutt and Marion. which. PUT THAT UP FRONT AT THE BEGINNING!!!!)

okay. do you see my four exclamation points there? so the subtitles, and forgive me that these are in spanish, but

they do that twice. my freshman high school english teacher is out there somewhere having a conniption fit

i think it’s interesting how much time the score spends with helena’s theme. there are at least a few spots where we should have been hearing the raiders march, and instead we get her theme. and it’s not like mutt’s theme where they harmonize and interplay. i don’t think we ever get it. which is... such a fascinating and, IMO, weird choice.

one of my friends who i saw it with, and i may have already mentioned this also, came out of the movie and was like “not to be an asshole, but it doesn’t make sense that the boat had 100 centurions. the centurions were the military leaders. they would definitionally have one centurion” and i’m just like. this is why we’re friends, and also, i’m so glad you are also a pedantic historian about indiana jones movies because that is Exactly How It Should Be.

speaking of which, every single time we get to Greece i’m just like I AM PRETTY SURE THEY DIDN’T SEW GARMENTS THAT WAY? YES THIS IS A PRODUCTION DESIGN CHOICE BUT ALSO IT IS BOTHERING ME. are there any extant garments like that? i feel like everything i have ever read is chitons and himations and peplos and. you know. mostly big, seamless, rectangles?

in related notes and deep dives into the world of production design vs. historic elements, the graphikos feels like it’s supposed to be like the phaistos disk? perhaps. i like it better than the “dial” design, for whatever that’s worth

and also re: my previous criticisms on the script being poor, “it’s not in a language, it’s in a code.” OH I’M SORRY. I FORGOT THAT CODE RESULTED IN NON-LINGUISTIC OUTPUT this is nonsense and i might hate this line more than any other for sheer stupidity? this being polybius i assume you’d still have to, you know. know how to read ancient greek.

now we’re off to the next part of our journey, If The Script Is Like This Then Surely I’m Overthinking It:

This is about Kythira, as in, the island opposite Antikythira, but also, in light of choosing to Do The Last Crusade Thing Again And Then Failing To Give The Indy-Helena Relationship A Solid Landing i am SO MAD i gotta go scream into a pillow or something brb

On the other hand, in regards to Overthinking The Writing And I Think They Did Mean It On Purpose: Basil naming his daughter Helena. I’m assuming he was obsessed with the Antikythera before all of that, although we never see any indication other than perhaps it catching his ear when he’s tied up on the train. But. Anyway. Helena. now i have to go Lie Down About It

(side note: do we think Indy is the only one who calls her “Wombat”? she does say, in the bar, “it’s been a long time since i’ve heard that”. were, like, he and Basil hanging out being archaeologist buddies and Helena thought he was super cool and wanted to be like him and found out he was named after his dog? like. aside from the “we are just writing in a new, younger Indy character”, that’s kind of just such a sweet little moment to ponder.)

fascinatingly, in every single showing i’ve been to so far, Helena gets the biggest laughs (or all of them). mostly the “I’m a... fan” moment, and then today she got a rip roaring response from knocking indy out. which i appreciate. but also it is interesting to note indy doesn’t really seem to get the laughs in his own goddamn farewell flick.

OKAY ENDING ON A POSITIVE NOTE i noticed something today which i had not caught yet which is, at the end, when marion shows up and indy goes into the kitchen to talk to her— when she opens the fridge to put the food in there, he slyly slips the magnet off of her photo that he put on there at the beginning. that is an indy moment. that made me laugh. sweet and silly.

[maybege]

Hi, May! How are you?

Okay so first things first: I’m sorry about taking so long to do this! But I FINALLY got some time to write down my thoughts for what if (part 1)! Every time I tried to sit down things got hectic again and it’s been annoying me endlessly, cause I’ve been looking forward to this for like 2 weeks now.

I’ve decided to split this up into multiple posts because it got a bit long. I hope that’s okay! 😅 and I think I should also warn you that I’m not the best of putting into words how stories make me feel, but I hope this is getting my feelings across anyway.

First of all: mixing the Calmer AU with a fix it AU? Sign me the fuck up! (Side note: I am almost over what happened in season 3 but only because I’ve lowkey started to view their Paz as the fanon!version of your Paz 😅😅🙈)

Also, another sidenote: I love when your stories feature your characters like chants and briggs because my brain always goes „oooh I know that name“ (same goes for Dreks… who will forever be a dick in every universe). (Part 1/5)

Putting the rest of the asks under a cut because I am LOSING MY MIND THIS IS SO SWEET:

Okay okay, but now for the actual commentary:

“Maybe because they will use any chance they get to exploit the innocent omegas of other clans.”You frowned, not liking any of Axe’s implications. Were omegas of Djarin’s tribe not innocent? Did he think you were incapable of defending yourself?” EXACTLY. AXE NEEDS TO SHUT UP! I was so happy that you immediately noted that cause i legit immediately went „what are you trying to imply, man 🤨“

And about Paz.. him immediately being offended and also „What startled you most, however, was how big that man was.“?? 10/10 no notes, immediately the perfect vibe

And then, „When you heard your name called, it was like you were in the clouds. Far away from everything and everyone. Maybe you could still say no, maybe you could just go and disappear forever. […] What if you weren’t good at the whole claiming thing at all and your failure resulted in a war that was to last centuries?”That is such A MOOD. I, too, would sign up for something and then when it’s happening, realise that it’s real and have my anxiety kick in hard. and the way you describe the feeling is soo realistic??? My anxiety would yell those exact things 😅 (No seriously, I texted my bestie the other day that I’m not prepared for my tutoring session because what if people actually show up 🤦‍♀️)

“Paz Vizsla was a warrior through and through and it showed in the way he was sitting too. He took up almost all the space on the little bench and even when he was sitting down and you were standing up, he seemed so much bigger than you?” HOT. that’s it, that’s my notes on that. 10/10, the size kink for fictional men is clearly a part of my personality now and I am okay with that.

“taken aback by how gentle he sounded. He did not look gentle. He looked dangerous”. Again, 10/10. The appeal of someone looking tough but being a secret teddy bear is honestly always amazing and I love that it’s happening here. (2/5)

“I don’t bite, you know?” “I suppose the helmet would make that very hard,”. THIS IS WHY I LOVE YOUR WRITING 😭 (reason number 1 of ♾️). This genuinely made me laugh out loud. Like, it was funny and also immediately made me go “don’t say that to the intimidating guy, you dumbass 😂”

And then the “Do you not think I should know the name of the omega I am about to make very happy?”???. OKAAAY, no reason to be so cocky my guy. I do love the banter in your stories though. It makes the connection between your characters feel so fun, dynamic and honestly real.

And then you immediately hit me with “as an endearment,” […] “Not because I won't know your name.” I’m pretty sure if you listen closely enough, you can hear me swoon from all the way over here in Vienna, cause I’m now a puddle that is yearning for this man.

And just generally, I love how you make Paz so soft and considerate. (Like making sure that reader is actually fully on board with this). Because that is a big strong warrior and I feel like the obvious way would be to make him just cocky and this intimidating badass (which isn’t a bad thing, if someone wants to write that!) but you just make him feel so grounded and comfortable as a character.

Also, I’m rereading this in order to pull quotes from the text, and I just got hit with “are you wet” and DAMN MAY. I knew that was coming but the mood shift still hit me like it the first time. Again, 10/10.

“Maybe a little bit,” that’s such A LIE! I just know that reader is melting on the inside!

Also, I love when these ‘downplaying moments’ immediately get followed by getting a description of how it definitely affects reader more than they are letting on in that moment. It makes me feel like I have fun inside knowledge. (3/5)

PAZ WITH TATTOOS! PAZ WITH TATTOOS! I LOVE YOUR MIND.

“Shocked at your own daydreams, you tried to focus instead on what you could see and not the images your brain came up with.” Me too, reader. Me too. Very relatable.

“Stars,” he hummed, thick fingers settling on your tongue and pushing down, “I think we are going to have a lot of fun, aren’t we, omega?” genuine question… are you trying to kill me?

I was gonna comment on the next couple sentences as well but I cannot put into words how this makes me feel 🫠

“No one is watching us,” he assured you, pushing his fingers back in your mouth, “No one is looking at you, omega. Wanna know how I know?” […] Because everybody knows I don’t share […]” May, I may not have the words or the knowledge to give actual writing feedback to anyone but I hope you’re aware that your writing is incredible. Because this has me HOOKED.

AND THE “Thank the stars it was you,” he whispered, running his wet fingers over your lips, “I hoped it would be you.” don’t mind me, I’m just crying over here because this is the softest thing ever and I love gentle, sweet men more than anything 😭 and the reassurance that follows like three paragraphs later?? Such a sweet vulnerable moment between Paz and reader that manages the balance between smut and sweetness so well

The trope of “what if it won’t fit?” gf x “I will make it fit” bf? Made for Paz and I will stand by that statement. And just… the smut? I can’t quote it here because it makes me blush and stare at the screen too much but damn… I love your writing so much 😭

And lastly, the last paragraph: nothing better than having the gentle giant calling his partner “love”🥺 (4/5)

Okay, so this was my (not so) condensed review of the new story. I had to try very hard to not just quote every line and tell you why I love it and why I think it’s works so well 😅

Anyway, final thoughts because this is soo long already:

10/10. I genuinely love your writing and this story is just another example why I love it. The way you write makes me actually experience the emotions while reading and be completely submersed in the story. Also, I am not at all a reader of romance novels (or generally books where romance is the main plot), but if you were to ever write a full on romance novel (or any book for that matter), I promise I would be the first person in line to buy it and tell everyone about it. Just like I will always be excited to read any story you want to share here on tumblr/ao3! You’re truly one of my favourite authors and I hope you know that your work will always be appreciated 🧡🧡🧡 (5/5)

___ HOw dare you ask me how I am doing when this basically made me cry in public 🥺😭 Reading this is EVERYTHING and just reminds me every time why I love to share my writing with you all. It made my entire weekend!!!! I am so happy you liked and I am so so so so SO lucky to have people liek you engage with my little ramblings on the internet 🥺

[aphroditestummyrolls]

Something from the Engagement Series??

Hello! Thank you so much for playing ❤️ it took me a little while to settle on what to write, but this has been rattling around my head for days. Enjoy!

It started on their last visit to Novyi Zem.

The council had been coming down on Jesper especially hard since the engagement was announced— what used to be whispered rumours had become outward antagonising. Councilman Veld treated him like an imbecile, going as far as to mention his dropping out of university in the middle of a gala. Boer, Gekkehuis, and even Hansen, though, had started to act as if he was a criminal, about to murder Wylan for his money. Like that had been the plan from the moment they met.

That bothered Jes. Wylan could feel it in the way he’d kiss him after nights like that— both hands on his cheeks, tilting his face up to guide every moment, lush and deep. There was a tension up his spine, even while he made Wylan melt right into him.

Plenty of people thought Jesper was stupid, or a garden variety Barrel bum. They would be wrong, but Jes was used to that— there was so much that could roll off his back. But these men thought Jesper didn’t love Wylan. They thought he was using him.

The constant barrage of insidious commentary had started to get under his skin.

Council dinners had become interrogations. Garden parties were so frosty, Jesper had tried to joke that the flowers were going to die.

It didn’t quite reach his eyes, and his smile was a wane thing. It was Jes who was wilting, frostbitten as autumn set in.

So, Wylan did the only thing he could do— he called a meeting at the Church of Barter, a special meeting. There, he made abundantly clear, with every inch of intimidation he had learned from Kaz, that he and Jesper were taking a trip to Novyi Zem for the rest of autumn, to visit Jesper’s father. And by the time they returned, the council had better start treating Jes with the same respect they’d give to any other mercher spouse.

Their bags were packed before he even told Jes that he’d booked them passage.

It was in Novyi Zem— when Jesper’s tense muscles had finally begun to thaw, and the long hours in the Zemeni sun had brought the freckles out in Wylan’s cheeks— that Colm gave him the idea.

“It’s tough right now, isn’t it?”

Wylan smiled, sitting on the porch step when the old farmer joined him. “What gave us away?”

“Could’ve been the sudden visit, or could’ve been the way Jesper joked about being a gold-digging whore, which… sounded a little too bitter for his usual humour.”

He barely swallowed an apology— Colm would call it needless, he usually did— but the crush of feeling in his chest demanded some sort of explanation. For that moment, he felt like he’d failed Jesper, and failed Colm. His son wasn’t happy with Wylan. Jes was withering under the gazes of these dour old sentinels, and he wasn’t sure yet if he’d been able to make it right.

“I… I think I’ve handled that.” He better have, at least. “But, Jes claims he’s a city boy, through and through. He loves Ketterdam. And I don’t not believe him, but I…”

Out in the distance, under the endless expanse of blue sky, with the jurda growing gold behind him, Wylan could see Jes as he made his way from the barn. He had an empty pail in his hand from feeding the animals, a contented type of grin on his handsome face that Wylan could see all the way over on the porch. Saints. He hadn’t looked that relaxed since the announcement.

“Son?”

“There are some types of joy he only feels here, and I just wish there was a way to bring a little bit of Novyi Zem home with us.” He tugged a hand through his curls, looking out at his lover, the most beautiful thing in the world even while he chased a goat kid who’d escaped their pen.

The answer was right in front of him, he supposed.

“Has Jes ever told you about his old horse?” Colm asked, squeezing Wylan’s shoulder comfortingly. “I bought him a horse of his own when he was a lad. Saints, he loves anything with fur and four legs.”

Which was how they got here— back at the geldstraat estate, with Wylan leading a blindfolded Jesper by the hands. To the stables. Where their two, distinguished old draught horses had a new companion.

Thanks for playing! And feel free to send more or ask questions! ❤️

[itsatechreel]

My Thoughts on HBO Max’s “Velma”

Welp, I watched the first episode of “Velma” aaand yep, it was about exactly what I expected if not somehow a bit worse 🤦‍♂️ I wasn’t sure that I’d want to write out a review for it, but I’m mad and immediately fueled to talk about it, so let’s go.

⚠️ SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE 1 ⚠️

Literally the first scene of the whole show is Daphne and other students in a gym shower, very exposed, making a rough attempt at meta commentary, and all after the image of two cockroaches having sex..  😳 And that’s just one example of MANY jokes/visuals of this nature. Seriously why is this show SO horny?? IT TAKES PLACE IN HIGH SCHOOL! THEY’RE MINORS!! (Velma specifically, according to the “Velma” Twitter, is canonically 15) If you wanted these types of jokes and imagery so bad the LEAST you can do is put them in college so it’s not so majorly uncomfortable.

The writing was rough, some scenes felt like they were speeding by unnaturally, highly specific references to various media were all over the place and never in a funny way, almost every character is completely unlikable (ESPECIALLY the main Mystery Inc. cast) meaning there’s nobody to root for, and the show is truly just being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. It’s honestly amazing how unfunny it is at times, it just prioritizes half-baked attempts at basic jokes, profanity, and overused cliches rather than a well put together story with interesting characters. To be a bit brutal, there were truly some moments that this script felt more like a student’s first attempt rather than a greenlit HBO Max series.

The only points I can really give this show is in animation/design, it all moves pretty well (with some occasional choppiness, though that might’ve just been buffering/my connection) and the style is alright for the most part. There definitely are some odd choices in the mix, one of them being the chosen look for Norville (who I WISH I could call Shaggy, but this is more accurate). His look just doesn’t fit the Shaggy vibe enough, I’ve seen so many redesigns that look leagues better. Though I suppose you could argue that since he (and the rest of the gang) is barely written or acted as the original source character correctly, why bother having a design that fits that? 😤

Last point I want to bring up, I’m not at all enticed by the serial killer plot or who killed Brenda. If it wasn’t enough to change how characters act and how vulgar the series is, now we don’t even get monsters to unmask? It is only episode one, and masked monsters were referenced in background details and at least once in the trailer, but the fact that the main plot of Scooby-Doo as a franchise barely exists in the first episode of this series just made the whole thing drag and feel boring to watch. I’m not saying the franchise can’t branch out here and there by doing things other than the classic formula, but also we know this show is built on mystery solving and will include at least one if not several masked monsters, so to not have any in episode one just makes the show as a whole hard to anticipate. Like is it a simple serial killer mystery? Is it normal Scooby-Doo monster hijinks? What am I watching?

Of course these are all just my opinions, if you’re curious you can watch for yourself and maybe you’ll like it more than I did. All I know for myself is that the only reason I’m even considering watching any more is pure morbid curiosity over how much worse it can get, and even then at least in this moment I don’t know if I can get myself to sit through episode two.

[mlemedt]

The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

💛💛💛💛🤍 (4/5)

—————————————Introduction——————————————-

It feels bizarre to sit here and type my comments for such an incredible piece of literature. I’ve always considered it strange to critique classics, when they’re held on a pedestal so high above any other book. As if im simply not worthy to propose an opinion. It’s actually quite daunting to consider, to the extent this introduction is perhaps much harder than any other.

🍼

Although every review so far has been by a female author, these are perhaps rather the exception. To be transparent most of the books sat upon my bookcase are classics, all written by men with the exception of Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath. I’ve considered this before which is perhaps why I’m exploring new genres in this summer ambition. Many of the books I have lined up for review are books that make me excited and I’ve bought recently. These are female dominated. Perhaps recently I’ve been more drawn toward female focused literature because as Hwang advised in my previous review, that you ought to resonate with what you read.

I will be honest, previously I read a lot of Dostoevsky and Camus, and I still have some of their books on my shelf left to read. I enjoyed them because they made my brain turn, they made me think about the world and what it is to be alive. But sometimes I’d put down their work feeling hollow. I suppose this is the nature of existentialism, but actually, my main issue was that I didn’t feel a part of the story. As much as I understood the characters, I didn’t connect with them. And I think that’s because their authors don’t know who I am. These frankly male dominated books, in character and thought, are stifling. They feel grey and unalive. (However that’s not to say they don’t have incredible meaning.)

The Bell Jar was one of those books where the characters come alive between the lines and beyond the page. When you feel you’re no longer reading words, but dreaming of another world. There’s no greater satisfaction than a character so well realised and characterised that you can see their motions and movements between lines.

🍼

-----------------------------—Commentary—------------------------------

One could argue that, the main theme of this book is its exploration into the dark and harrowing corners of the human psyche, but this cannot be observed without its stimulant. The suffocating role of women and gender expectations in the 1950s. The two cannot be considered without the other.

When I read these pages I understood Esther, I could share her pain and feel her suffocating as if it was the air around myself that had become stale. Then I would put the book down and carry on with my day, I’d think of Plath, and the realness Esther holds. I can’t pretend to understand the extent of Plath’s suffering, but the vividness in which she portrayed her mental health, created a hollowness in my heart, unlike any of the existentialists could ever. To be trapped in the pages of someone else’s torment, to feel yourself suffocating with them, feeling your limbs go weak as they try to drown themselves, it sparks real human compassion and solidarity, and paints clear the constraining experience women have faced for centuries.

🍼

As I’ve said, reading is a way to enrich oneself and understand not just the experience of others, but to further understand yourself. Perhaps, I have not quite yet understood the impact Plath has had on me yet. Unlike other reviews where I’ve taken a couple of days to compile my thoughts, I have just an hour ago from writing this finished ‘The Bell Jar.’ I think that speaks volumes as to how impactful it was.

I don’t feel it necessary to follow my usual format in these reviews, I think you only need to read just one paragraph of this to understand how I feel about this book. And I don’t think it’s necessary to discuss how well realised her image of mental health was, and how that made me feel, and then reflect upon my own experiences. Perhaps I did not cry, but perhaps that was because her experience was not lyrical but realistic.

🍼

——————————————Conclusion——————————————-

I’ll leave you with one final note. The title. I contemplated for a while, why Plath had called it this, there was little mention until the end of the novel, when it finally began to make sense. ‘Bell jars are often used in laboratories to form and contain a vacuum.’ The specimens inside are meant to be preserved for observation. Imagine you are inside one. There is no air, your lungs are constantly screaming for breath, your throat dry and starved, itching for a taste of air. Despite your tormented state, you remain motionless and cold, with a rod here or there to prop you up, and make sure you look pretty and observable. Whilst you suffocate, you must maintain appearance for the many eyes upon you. All whilst you claw for oxygen, bodies circle, and eyes watch. They are inflated and disgustingly huge as they are bent by the glass. The wall maintains between you and the world, and you feel you will never escape. That’s the image Plath painted for me. Perhaps my metaphor isn’t entirely correct, after all I’m quite sure most of the specimens in laboratories aren’t usually alive, and are rather propped to be observed rather than look presentable, but I digress.

It seems cruel to conclude that my favourite part was the ending, but it left me with hope. Hope that we can escape the Bell Jar.

♥♥♥

-Gaia

⚠️ Content Warnings ⚠️

This book is of its time and infrequently uses racist terminology. The protagonist also refers to lesbianism as ‘disgusting,’ however this constitutes only about a page of discussion.

-Sexual themes (discussive rather than descriptive)

-Heavy suicide theme (Protagonist tries to take her own life many times and thinks of it often. Other characters also commit suicide. If you struggle with mental health, I would heavily caution you.)

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

4/8/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

Holy Week Day 7

1 Samuel 1-3

Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible Chronological, I'm China. Today is the 8th day of April. Welcome. Today we are in day seven of Holy Week and today is Saturday in the tomb. And so this is the day which would have been day two of Jesus being dead. And this must have been such a chaotic, crazy day, a very disturbing day because eventually the disciples, the people I really hone in on, the disciples maybe would have gotten some sleep after a full day of not sleeping and waking up and hoping that it's a dream and the devastating reality that it wasn't. And Jesus is still no longer with you. Jesus's body is laying in the tomb and it's guarded by Roman soldiers. Now this is a Sabbath, so until sundown you're not doing any work. So it is definitely a time of sitting shiva, which is in Jewish culture where time you sit and you grieve and you mourn. There isn't too, too much that's recorded for today. But if you want to read scripturally where we are at, you can read in Matthew 27:62-66, Mark 16:1 and Luke 23:56 and John 19:40. Today we are continuing in the Old Testament. We are starting a new book. We are in the book of First Samuel. We are in chapters one through three and we are finishing off with God's Word translation.

Commentary:

Today feels like a very well known popular reading just in terms of the story of Hannah at Shiloh. And like, the first few opening lines makes my eyes roll, where Hannah's husband is like, why are you sad? Don't I mean more to you than ten sons? It's like, bro, come on, this is not the point. What do you even mean? Just because you're married doesn't mean that that satisfies your desire for children. Just what an emotionally immature thing to say. And yet she still has a son with him. But anyways, I don't think he's a terrible guy for saying that. It's just a super immature thing to say. But anyways, the interesting thing about this story is I've looked into this just out of my own curiosity. So in Jewish culture, kids, babies, weren't weaned until like between the ages of three, four, even sometimes five. And so they're toddlers like kids. And so when you think about Hannah leaving her son with Eli, the priest, who's this old dude, like, how is he going to take care of a baby? Well, I'm still asking that question of, like, how is he supposed to take care of a kid when he's not even being responsible as a parent for his two sons who are being wicked? But anyways, a little bit of context there. Samuel is probably around the ages of five or six is my guess. Again, still super young. What a bold promise that Hannah makes with the Lord. That would be so hard for me. Okay, I'm going to raise you up and once we're done breastfeeding, then you're going to go live in the temple of the Lord. I'm going to trust that the Lord is going to take care of you, and that's exactly what happens. And so it's also interesting to me that Eli doesn't share the Lord with Samuel, that he doesn't have him reading scriptures or he's not reciting them to him. He's not doing any discipling or teaching, or maybe that's not uncommon for Eli, the priest, but his roles as a priest, I'm not sure, but that just felt kind of strange. Like, the very least, let's recite some things, torah, anything. And your favorite stories about God, what God's done in your life, how you got here, how are you a priest? But anyways, we hear that no one's really hearing God's voice anymore, and visions were infrequent. And Samuel hears the voice of God clear his day, and he's trying to figure out who's calling. Everything said Eli, and then Eli's like, oh, it's the Lord. The Lord's talking to you. When you go back, go back to bed, you hear another voice. It's the Lord. Tell him you're listening. And then the Lord reveals to Samuel what he's going to do to Eli. And Eli basically forces him to tell him what's going to happen or what the Lord said. And Eli's response is, he's the Lord. Whatever he says happens, he sees fit. And this is the story of Samuel's birth and his infancy, like his formative years. I'm not sure how many years, like, how old he would have been by the end of this story. My best guess is maybe 1012, but I don't know. So super young and he is hearing the voice of the Lord and having these instructions. And I love this because we'll get into, like, when we read about the kings, we'll see some really young kings and we're like, oh my gosh, you should be in middle school, not leading a people, but totally different times, totally different culture. But I love reading this story because it shows that there is no junior size God or Holy Spirit. Like, he doesn't make himself small when we're little and then reveal himself as bigger as we get older. He's the same in size and in magnitude. And so if he's speaking this young or to someone this young, don't be surprised if your kids are hearing the voice of God, or if you're younger and you're hearing the voice of God. That's not crazy, it's not unlikely. It's actually almost positively happening.

Prayer:

And so, God, I thank you that you are a God who speaks, that you are a God who honors what people promised to you. The covenant, the oath that Hannah entered into the prayer, the longing of her heart. When you met, you opened her womb, allowed her to conceive Samuel birth. Samuel. She followed through with what she said, and you blessed her with five more children. God, I just thank you for her faithfulness and that through this lineage we're going to see so much goodness and so much of your hand. And, yeah, I just thank you for your word. I also thank you for what we read about in the beginning and just where we are in Holy Week. What a somber day to try to ponder that Jesus is dead. And it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a nightmare, it wasn't something that we thought of in our sleep deprivation. But this is where we're at in the story. And I thank you for your works. I thank you for your humility and for your love and your ultimate act of sacrifice. May we hold to it with deep reverence, deep awe, for not just today or just this week or this weekend, but all of our days as we recognize and acknowledge that this is the basis of our faith. This is the building blocks, everything that we believe. And so I pray that we would hold that so deeply and so diligently. Hence, in your name we pray. Amen. 

Announcements:

So this is where I leave you for this week. It feels like such a cliffhanger because I won't be with you tomorrow. My mom will take over. But yeah, I just encourage you to read through those scriptures and to just ponder and to just really think about what it would have been like to not have Jesus around, know that he was dead. Like, what kind of hopelessness, despair, defeat, what emotions come up and just kind of sit in that for a second. And it's okay if that's uncomfortable. It's okay if it makes me feel squirmish. It definitely does for me, too. But I think these things have value sitting in. So that is all for today. I'm China. I love you. Now they're waiting for you here next week.

Community Prayer Line:

Hello, this is Unashamed of the Gospel of Pennsylvania calling in with an update. My wife is now 30, 34 weeks pregnant, and we will be inducing her next week, April 11. We are hoping that for a smooth delivery and a smooth last week of pregnancy, ask for prayers for those those things. Everything would be successful, that we could overcome the anxiety of our prior losses. Just pray that next week I could give you a report of the healthy baby. Thank you for all your prayers. Just covered all the prayers that have been given. So thank you and have a wonderful Holy Week and Happy Easter.

Hey, DABC family. This is Justin in Memphis, Tennessee. Really happy to have found DAB chronological. Last time I was in the DAB family, the chronological podcast wasn't even a thing. So now I'm a happy double dabber. I listened to the original program and this one, and that's my introduction. And I just like you to pray for me. I'm going through a healing process where I'm recovering from childhood verbal and emotional abuse by stepparents and a teacher and it's left me with a really shaken self worth and sense of identity. And I'm finally trying to kind of find my way out of all that and also to recover from kind of becoming an abusive person because of all that and just trying to change and become better. And I'm just asking for prayer for God to help me progress to a new state of healthiness, healthy relationships, healthy self image. So please pray and thank you. Have a good day.

Dear God. Thank you Father God, for your love, for your comfort, for your peace. Thank you, Father God, for your healing power, for your divine hand. I come before you and I lived in prayer. My sister songbird, hear her cry, dear God. You are merciful, Lord God. I pray that Your divine healing hand be upon her ears. Your God as she recovers from surgery, Lord, I lift her up with others. Your God to you, dear Jesus, we lift our eyes upon you, dear God to you, dear Father, for our help comes from you, Father God, who created the heavens and the earth, dear Jesus. Father, surround her with your comfort and your peace, your father, lord, remove all anger, dear God, from inside out. Show her, dear God, and the truth to God. Just remind your holy spirit, your father to become. Dear Father, in your name, jesus, help with your God. You know why this anger has come out. Father god, lord, comfort everyone. Comfort her, comfort the dogs, your God. Comfort her surroundings. Your father embraced her, dear God, with your peace, Jesus. My heart goes out to her along with others. Your father in Jesus name, we pray for her. Sister, you're not alone. God is with you and you know that. And this proves to you how much you are loved. We love you so much. God bless you. Take care. Minita from Lombard.

[oatmilkandvellichor]

i am so bone fucking tired of bullshit fucking “uwu be violent towards me i’m horny” supposed compliments. i’m tired of it. i get it. i’m Intersex so i’m manly and gruff looking no matter what i do. i get it. i’m butch as all shit which just makes me seem even more mannish. i get it. all you can parse out when you look at me is Wrong White and it makes me look even angrier and more aggressive and primal in your eyes. i get it. i get it i get it i get it. i’m savagely animalistic and brutish. you cannot fathom me expressing attraction in any way that isn’t aggro and forceful. i get it. i’m supposed to stay stone cold and unaffected in the face of everything. i get it. i get it i get it i get it. idk why i ever expected anything to change. i see how the world treats my [closely related indigenous woman who is notably Less White than i am] - and she’s Very Much Not Mannish at all. her long hair, her thinness, her makeup and her nice dresses. and i still grew up to the echoing sounds of “your [relative] looks mean. she seems scary. why is she always angry? her husband married a woman just like his jackass father didn’t he.” no matter what she did. idk why i expected it to change for me. even being further down the family tree, even being Whiter than her, i swear people sniff this shit out like dogs. even when they can’t put their finger on it. it’s like they’re hunting for it everywhere and even when they still consciously view you as Just Like Them that subconscious has an axe to grind with the perceivable difference that you represent. idk why i expected the violence and harshness projected onto my soft and feminine family member to be easier on my testosterone fueled brutish fat butch self. i’ve always Known that people can see me. because they point it out to my face all the damn time. “are you asian are you asian are you asian are you asian” no. no. no. no. i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. “what are you what are you what are you what are you” i’m white. i’m white. i’m white. i’m white. “are you sure? are you really sure? are you positive? are you lying?” fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me. do i rip the bandaid off and tell you? spend the rest of this conversation snapping at you when you won’t drop the subject of my family trauma? spend the rest of the time i know you fielding inappropriate questions and weird tokenizing as if my white skinned self could ever be the independent spokes person on sensitive Native issues. do i just keep lying till you give up and make sure you never hear a word otherwise from anyone ever so i don’t have to field this shit with another fucking person? “why are you always angry” i’m not. i’m not. i’m not. my face is just masculine. my skin has been prematurely aged by a lifetime of addiction and untreated health issues. my eyes are just slightly different than yours. i’m just fucking autistic. “oh my god you’re so hot you could punch me and i’d thank you please step on me” no. no no no no no. i don’t do that. i’ve never done that. i am capable of basic human decency and base level self control. this isn’t a coordinated S/M scene. i’m sitting in a coffee shop getting frustrated by judeo-aramaic word roots and mumbling to myself about rashi’s commentary and the overt queerness of r’ meir. i open the car door for my femme every single time we get in the car. i call them sweetheart and love and princess 18 million times a day. i text them a million times whenever i’m not home to tell them that they’re the light of my life and my soul is incomplete because they’re not with me. i hold them and lull them to sleep every night after the nightmares come. long after after they’ve rocked me to sleep because i’m a notorious insomniac. i wear a frilly apron with apples printed on it go wash the dishes after they make dinner every night. i wrestle them into their clothes every morning, and they wrestle me out of mine every night when i’m far too tired to move anymore. i say i love you as often as i breathe. i give them 18 forehead kisses every single time i am close enough to reach.

and yes i can get aggro. god i know i can. i used to fight all the time. i would slash and scream and kick and thrash at anyone and anything all the time. sometimes it still comes back to rear it’s ugly head, when things get hard. when i get so worn down i don’t know which way is up. and my femme is there with their hands firm on my shoulders, breathing with me until i collapse into a ball of tears. and i used to yell and scream and run and snap and push and push and push at the people i loved most. because the world told me i love ugly and violent for so long that i believed it was true. and all i wanted to do was push people away so i didn’t hurt them. i have spent my entire life feeling violent and predatory and out of control. feeling like i’m a caged wild animal moments away from ruining someone’s life. because i’ve spend my entire life being told it was true. being told that i had all the makings of an awful, violent person who did nothing but hurt. being told i was lying when i tried to talk about the people who hurt me. because i was too hard to be hurt so i had to be lying. because no one would do those things to someone as disgusting and belligerent as the manly girl with the angry native face.

stop pushing a violent and predatory role on me. stop describing me like every abusive piece of shit i’ve been trapped by, and then getting upset when i don’t appreciate your compliment so much i want to fuck you on the spot. “i (a non metaphorical very real person who is talking to you very casually right now) want you (a non metaphorical very real person i am casually talking to right now) to be so caught up by how cute and adorable i am in this incredibly mundane scenario that you beat the shit out of me right here and now till i’m dizzy, and immediately fuck me like you’re a deranged mindless animal with no self control or higher purpose!” die. i want you to die. drop dead right now. choke on your own vomit and die. right now in front of me. so i know that you’ll never make another person feel as disgusting as i feel right now ever again. you are not complimenting me. you aren’t complimenting anyone with that shit. you’re making me nauseous.

i see/hear that shit and i get so fucking terrified of myself that i avoid having sex with my femme for weeks. because what if that’s all i’m really capable of? because what if that’s what’s actually happening? what if all of this talked through, well communicated, thoroughly consenting play that we engage in is actually just me being a violent animal only capable of destroying everything good?

this is exactly how my femme and i ended up together. because they could see me. they could see the parts of me that full euro white queers could pick out. they saw it. and they saw the way that they talked to me because of it. and they understood, because they get that shit even worse. they saw me and they knew that i couldn’t turnt that shit on someone else. they saw me and they saw how it broke me and they reached out with their own broken feeling and we put ourselves back together again. together. they saw how my exchanges turned me stone. and i saw how their exchanges wore them soft. even with how different our experiences have been, some of y’all are so sincerely god awful and disgusting that we had so much to build on anyways. there’s obviously more to it. of course there is. but the ever present experience of growing up Very Different than the dominant group around you, it permeates so much. and so much of how we love eachother, the way we dance around eachother every day, is inevitably built on the way our souls have been worn down by years of shit and how they fit together because of it. how we can fill in what’s been eroded.

but every single time someone twirls their hair and describes me as i describe childhood abusers to therapists, balks when i don’t want to take them on the floor because of it… every time - i feel old fractures re-split. i really need y’all to understand the weight that this bullshit carries. i really need y’all go understand how deeply shitty it is. how much you’re playing in to a larger and even shittier pattern of how the world treats us. how much damage you can do in a single interaction. how insignificant you truly are in the lives of Black, brown, Indigenous, ethnic, intersex, and perceived-masculine queer folks. and how wildly inappropriate you are when you assume that much importance in our lives and in the world in general. sit with the insignificance. get comfortable. shut the fuck up for once. grow up and get over yourself.

i will absolutely be deleting this later i’m just feeling a lot right now and i need to put this into the universe. it’s been A Week and i got an inappropriate message earlier. because of course i did. of course. i’m angry and refluxy and my tachycardia is a bitch. i don’t even know anymore this is probably staying in my drafts.

[celleryeller]

Holy shit! They have a game development commentary mode!! That’s super fucking cool!! I’ll write down answer to my questions and general cool shit here

The sizing was all just proportional to the distance it moved- twice as far away means twice as big.

The level designer had to careful adding barriers everywhere, because objs could be picked up from any distance so long as they were visible

Originally the game was shipped without controller support! I think that’s a pretty good example of “don’t ship with something that sucks”

I didn’t notice it, but they chose to have interactable objs a contrasting color to the background! Like a yellow chess piece when the walls are beige and greeny cyan.

Art direction was based on questions, like “what would someone in the early 90s think of for a futuristic testing testing site? What would they do with a shoestring budget but infinite time?” That’s an interesting way to phrase art questions! Not “what do I want out of this” but a “ what would someone else make?”

The introduction was designed to solve problems that occurred in playtesting, teaching the players how to do big-to-small and small-to-big and dealing with distance. I like how they did that! I thought the tutorial was GREAT, and it all came from playtesting research!

Players would get lost during infinite hallway moments, so the art direction added some uniqueness to locations and people stopped getting lost.

The music had a main inspiration, piano solo jazz by Bill Evans.

There are secret blueprints in the levels. Like I suspected, they’re top down wireframes of the level!

The principal artist mentioned that they got one pink hallway down in terms of clutter and noise, and that helped with the later iterating

The game commentary itself doesn’t spoil any tricks and Easter eggs with commentary; it’ll only play their explanations if you find it yourself. That’s pretty good, to keep the player experience in tact like that while sharing about everything you can

Secret areas were added as a response to what players did/tried to go. I’m really enjoying how much they seemed to respond to players instead of the fallacy of “ the players are playing my game wrong”. Must’ve been loooots of playtesting

At some point, they had to stop asking realism questions- “why is this door up there?” And just say. It just is. And that’s the puzzle.

Sometimes they chose to not play with perspective, but expectations.

…Wow! They STILL have a bunch of new varieties for the loading screens!! That’s so cool!

Each level was originally supposed to be a story; the idea was scrapped, but the horror level (with the purpose of “making the player scared of their own shadow”) stayed.

Their choice of teleportation cuts was inspired by movie cuts!

They put a commentary node that says “boo” over the scary door that closes on its own. I officially love these developers.

The scary level also introduces the idea, that’s important for the end of the game, that not being able to see, that pitch black doesn’t mean somethings there.

This horror level, due to the fact that everything’s dark as hell, is the only one that makes me itch to just look up where the secret star room is.

Horror Level also plays with an idea I’ve been chewing on recently, about light and dark. Because this is a video game, the human ability to adjust your eyes to the dark is absent. There’s one puzzle where you need to walk backwards into the dark and see the objects via contrast on the light.

Also. The pause menu has nice piano music. Which, although most people aren’t sitting on the pause menu for long periods of time, it’s really nice for me to pause and listen to something nice as a write up each paragraph,

Something I noticed myself doing is jumping over dark spots, because the game as shown it’s not afraid to make a pitch black spot on the floor a giant pit. As a jump over, my heart does a little “auhghha” despite the fact that everywhere else in Horror Level I’m fine and aware that nothing scary is going on.

Sometimes the lights in the horror level look like glowing eyes of giants creatures, and that part stills scaresa me some. But it’s just my perception, nothings really there.

FOUNF ANOTHER NEW COLLECTABLE FUCK OFFF THATS GREAT. The chess piece collectibles really required thinking outside the box- I found this one while searching every nook and cranny for the star room, and ended up using the flashlight object as a jumping platform. That’s a really cool reward! And it breaks the replay problem of doing what worked the first time!

End of level again and I didn’t find the star room… damn.

Whenever the turn on the lights, they talk about the frame rate issues they needed to work around. Suddenly hitting everything with light tanker performance, so they chopped up the room. The room is still a little choppy on the frames, but it’s worth it for the joke.

One new tutorial is introduced as just a sign that says “press lt to return” which they comment is the most unread sign in the game. Ah. The horrid fact that players Don’t Read Signs

I liked how they mentioned that the cloning mechanic would always make players smile. Because that’s a really fun thing to notice! And it has all the right parts to make it fun! The little ascending pop noise for each cluck, the way it makes things tiny, the initial unexpectedness of “huh?” It’s great

The player can changes sizes by changing the size of their doorways they walk through. They worked around this by making kind of “reset doorways” that scaled to the player size before letting you move into the next scale puzzle. That’s cool

They don’t have any commentary on the hidden piano :[

When changing size, they had to adjust lots of things- one of them being gravity. That one’s noticeable, in fact, I just made a huge object take multiple seconds to fall because I was tiny. Sometimes you have to ignore physics to get a better feel.

They were shortish on time for the elevator posters, so the artist just. Put their cat in there. More games should have the developers cats featured.

The Labyrinth level is SO good. The alarm coming in right before teleporting you back, then the sudden room change that completely fucks with perception. Very excited to hear them talk about it. ( they didn’t that much :[ )

The infinite elevator trick, which a node explains, get explained even more by the node’s existence, which marks one elevator that you keep coming back to.

In Whitespace, The paradox world breaking effect is cool, and they talk about how they struggled to get it. It reminds me of the paradox look from Outer Wilds. I also super like the filter on the camera that makes everything look bleary eyed, like you just woke up.

The design choice to fiddle with perception so much you get rid of depth perception is also so incredible. Everything flat and black or white is just a great exercise of how much can you fuck with. How much can you play with the medium?

The hallway puzzle I got stuck on was actually added in, because with no infinite hallways players immediately started rubbing up on everything and found the solution.

The end sequence, was a reflection of the game. The music was originally disliked by the level designer. The movie cuts lining up with the piano was SUPER cool.

During the credits, they said “the design goal of this level was to show you who made the game.”

Thank you to everyone at Pillow Castle for this wonderful game!

Game design thoughts- Superliminal

I’ve decided, for shits and giggles and bettering my analysis skills, that I’ll write and post some thought about the game design of games I’m playing for the first time. Not a rating or anything, just a sort of what I learned from it

I just finished Superliminal on the Xbox. Only took around 2 hours for a solid first playthrough. Made in Unity, released 2019.

The main mechanics were around perspective. Unfortunately, this playthrough wasn’t completely blind, because there was a gif set or promo trailer floating around Tumblr a couple years ago, and it showed the mechanics before I got a chance to figure them out myself. But, the premise is picking up objects, and their size depends on the actual perspective when you drop it.

I think those mechanics are pretty fucking cool. I would love to see how the idea was originally prototyped. Or how they came up with the idea. Honestly tomorrow morning I might look into if the creators have done any interviews or anything.

The tutorial was pretty sick though. Instead of ui elements floating and telling you what to do, everything was written on objects in the game. My favorite was “press a to jump” being on a wet floor sign.

Narratively, it did make me ponder about brute forcing puzzles, and trying the same thing over and over. There was one puzzle I was stuck on near the end that I only decided to change perspectives on after I noticed the classic game trick of teleporting the player to create a feeling of infinite looping. While I didn’t walk away fundamentally changed, I did gain a new perspective on how I do puzzles.

The juice was pretty good, too. It got me giddy to pull every fire alarm and use up every fire extinguisher just because the option was there. There might also be achievements for doing that each level? Idk. Superliminal also had some good (although a little too loud) controller shake when an object was made huge and dropped on the ground. There was text I couldn’t read on papers that I wanted to read. The loading screens were great too, and while the bar animations weren’t accurate, the variation and weirdness for each one made up for it.

The limitations, unfortunately, were a touch obvious. The edges of light could shine through objects in a way that initiated something was up. Too many objects bumping around (which didn’t happen often) made a god awful sound. Screen hiccups happened a lot. Honestly, all of it was bearable, but the first one in particular just made me think about how light does that and it pisses me off as a developer that I can’t control it.

Other thoughts:

The walking around and setting felt very reminiscent of The Stanley Parable, especially in the repeated opening segments.

Music cutoffs were well placed and heavily affected the tone.

Late game played heavily with dream with dream sensation, and so perfectly emulated the dream feeling of looking at everything right side up while it feels like you’re laying down.

Played with the medium. I mentioned earlier that it used teleportation for infinite hallway tricks, but at some point it just started teleporting you for the purpose of being jarring.

On a similar note, it loved to play with the first person camera. It knew that you couldn’t look behind you, so it had complete free range to silently change whatever you weren’t looking at. Then when everything was breaking down, it started fucking with you and changing things as you looked at them, so you only saw the change once you moved

There was one level intended to be eerie, and it did that so well it made me google “is Superliminal scary.” The answer is no. I’m just a bit of a paranoid fraidy cat. It ended with a joke so good I instantly forgave it for making me scared.

The humor was also pretty good. It’s a good reminder that games can bet serious AND a little bit silly with it.

The piano music was superb

The options menu was simple and bland. It didn’t need to be anything else. Everything it had could simple fall under “gameplay” or “audio” settings.

Conformed to the wonderful idea that text to speech voices are evil. Fuck tik tok.

Overall, it was a sick game! I might do a couple more replays tomorrow. Or I’ll move to something else.