#i spent the better part of 3 months hyperfixated on this show
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just finished watching house
#3am thoughts#house md#hate crimes md#idk what to do with my life now#i spent the better part of 3 months hyperfixated on this show#and now im just#man...#all ik is that i desperately need to get off my ass#and finally make all of that house md fanart ive been planning to make#hooo boy its a lot
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Teacherâs Pet
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Pairing | Jonathan Crane x reader
Summary | After months of trying to earn your professorâs praise, he finally gives you an opportunity to prove you deserve it.
Warnings | Smut, dub con, blackmail, coercion, humiliation, anal, bondage, praise, creampie, degradation, inappropriate use of fear toxin.
Words | 6.2 k
Notes | Started this a million years ago. Finally got the motivation to finish it cause of @hllywdwhre âs fic that I proofread lol. Also ty to the post that gave me the fear toxin idea đđť
Ao3 link | <3
Masterlist
In honor of the one year anniversary since the start of my Cillian hyperfixation <3
Dr. Crane was one of the most strict and unforgiving professors at Gotham University. He graded harshly, didnât tolerate late or incomplete work, and no one would ever dare be lateâ if they were, they just wouldnât show up because an absence was better than his response to tardiness. He didnât have any favorite students, just some that he tolerated slightly more than the rest. That was what you hated the most.Â
Youâve always been the favorite student for every single teacher youâve had, whether they said it out loud or not. After the first couple of weeks, you figured heâd just be harder to crack than the rest. But after almost two months, you were starting to get frustrated. Nothing you did ever earned you any sort of praise. You were always early, always the first to turn in assignments, participated in class, paid attentionâ you were the perfect student. But he never seemed to recognize that. What made you snap was when he gave you a B on your latest essay.Â
Lightly knocking on his office door, you tried to control your nerves and push down the nauseaâ Youâve never had to talk with a teacher about a grade beforeâŚ
âCome in.â He called out. So you opened the door and hesitantly stepped inside. He glanced at you quickly, then did a double take once he realized it was you. âClose the door.â He said, resuming what he was doing. You took in a quiet, deep breath and closed the door before walking over and sitting on the chair across from his desk.Â
âIâm assuming this is about your essay?â He asked, not even looking up from his work.Â
âYes.. You gave me a B, I was hoping to understand why.â You said tentatively.Â
âDid you not read my notes?â Of course you did. But it still didnât make any sense.Â
âNo, I did, but-â He finally looked up at you with a sigh.Â
âThen you should understand why I gave you that grade.â
âThis essay was practically perfect.â You argued, holding up the stapled together pieces of paper, marked up with red ink.Â
âClearly not if you got a B.â He raised his brows and you clenched your jaw, trying not to get too upset or emotional.
âDr. Crane, Iâve aced every single test and assignment, Iâd hardly say this is a fair grade.â You frowned.Â
âYour argument was weak and biased.â Your lips parted in shock at the bluntness of his criticism. âAnd your previous assignments have no impact on my grading. If youâd like them to though, Iâd be more than willing to grade them again to see if I missed anything.âÂ
âIt- it wasnât⌠I spent weeks on this.âÂ
âAnd yet⌠You still werenât good enough for an A.â He said, making your stomach churn. Especially because he didnât even say âyour essayâ he just said âyou.â Looking down at the papers in your hands, you scanned them quickly as if it would magically give you the answer. âReview my notes for the next essay. Maybe youâll do better.âÂ
âWhat is your problem with me?â You snapped, looking up at him again, watching his brows raise slightly. âHave I done something to offend you?âÂ
âI donât tolerate entitled students who are used to being the teacher's pet. Whatever previous, unearned success and praise you're used to receiving is of no concern to me. It is not my fault if you came into this class expecting to be treated differently for doing the same thing as every other student.âÂ
âI- Iâm not.. entitled. I just like my work and effort to be appreciated and not.. given a B.âÂ
âYou want me to tell you that youâre such a good girl, turning in everything on timeâ as expectedâ and doing well on your assignmentsâ as expected.â The faux praise, as well as the condescension that laced his voice, made your cheeks heat up instantly.Â
âNo, but,âÂ
âThen I think weâre done here.âÂ
The next day, you almost considered not going to class, but youâve never had an absence on your record and youâre not about to start now.Â
âWeâre going to deviate from the lesson plan a little and talk about something else today; fear. Specifically, fear of rejection.â Your mouth dropped open at his words and if you had any doubts that this was because of your previous conversation, they quickly disappeared when he made eye contact with you. Â
âThere are a few different causes, can anyone give me an example?â This wouldâve been the time where you raised your hand. But that apparently wasnât necessary because he called on you anyway, making you freeze.Â
âUm, Iâ Iâm not sure.â You said nervously, sinking back into your chair a little.Â
âThereâs a perfect example right there; anxiety and social comparison. Too anxious and insecure to answer a simple question. Who else can give an example?â You stared at him with wide eyes that quickly started burning with tears. Now you felt even more stupid than you wouldâve, had you just answered him and potentially gotten it wrong.
Class dragged on slowly. He talked more about causes, what it looks like, how it affects performanceâ especially in schoolâ and various treatments.Â
You couldnât have been more relieved when he finally dismissed the class. You rushed to pack your things and stood up, quickly making your way to the exit.Â
When he called your name though, you froze, praying you heard him wrong. âStay back for a moment.â Your peers gave you sympathetic looks as you turned around and slowly made your way back over to his desk.Â
âYes, professor?â You asked, voice strained.Â
âI hope you found today's lesson helpful.â You gritted your teeth and gave him a dry smile.Â
âIt was⌠inspiring, Dr. Crane.â You said plainly, trying to control your tone. His expression was only becoming more and more amused.Â
âIâm glad. Though I didnât see you taking notes.â That made you falter.Â
âI- I was,â
âGreat. Let me see them.â You looked away from him and shifted your weight awkwardly.Â
âSee them?âÂ
âDid you not understand?â Your face flushed with anger and embarrassment at his patronizing tone.Â
âI did. I just wasnât aware that notes were something you needed to see.âÂ
âIf a student isnât paying attention for the entirety of my class then, yes, notes are something I need to see.â You swallowed thickly, trying to come up with a response, and he watched you intently as he waited. Â
âLook, professor, youâve made your point, okay? I donât think you need to continue humiliating me.â You said quietly, not looking at him. He let out a heavy breath through his nose and you watched in your peripheral vision as he took off his glasses, setting them down. He slowly rounded the desk and you couldnât help it when you instinctively took a step back.Â
âThatâs a shame. I had hoped this lecture wouldâve been helpful, but since you clearly werenât paying attention, maybe I need to try another method.âÂ
âI- I was paying attentionâŚâ You muttered, keeping your head down.Â
âReally? Then why donât you tell me some of the ways one can overcome a fear of rejection.â He leaned back on his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. The feeling of his eyes on you almost made you shiver and you took a quiet, deep breath before lifting your head to look at him again.Â
This is an easy enough question. You can probably figure out the answer if you just use critical thinking since he was correct about you not paying attention.Â
âUm⌠cognitive behavioral therapy?â You waited and when he didnât out right humiliate you, you assumed that was a right answer and continued. âExposure therapy. Self esteem enhancement⌠Emotion regulation?âÂ
âAnything else?âÂ
ââŚYou said âsome.ââ You muttered, briefly looking away from him again.Â
âI did, didnât I?â His tone made it clear that he didnât care about what he previously said.Â
âUm, I- Iâm not sureâŚâÂ
âFeel free to use your notes.âÂ
Fuck.Â
When you looked up and saw the almost smug expression on his face, you finally snapped. âIâm sorry, okay? Iâm sorry that for one day, I couldnât pay attention after you humiliated me in front of the entire class.â You spat, clenching your jaw as soon as you finished speaking. The longer he stayed silent, the more uncomfortable you became under his gaze, making you look away from him awkwardly.Â
âTell me why this shouldnât affect your grade.â You knew his question was rhetorical, but you still tried to defend yourself.Â
âDr. Crane,â You started, but he raised his brows, silently warning you to not talk back.Â
âIâll see you later today during my office hours.â He said as he packed up his belongings.Â
âBut,âÂ
âFive pm.â He didnât let you continue as he walked toward the door. All you could do was stand there and watch him leave.Â
At 4:30 you paced around your dorm, debating what to do. At 4:35 you decided not to go. At 4:40 you changed your mind. At 4:50 you were pacing outside his office. At 4:55 you finally knocked, feeling like you could throw up at any second. He called out for you to enter, so you hesitantly opened the door and stepped inside.Â
âClose the door and sit down.â He didnât even look up from what he was working on. You closed the door quietly, then made your way over to the chair in front of his desk. You tried to sit there patiently, but he wasnât saying anything. Your leg bounced incessantly as you picked at your cuticles, over thinking more and more with each tortuous second that dragged on.Â
âProfessor?â You finally asked.Â
âYouâre early. I told you to come at five and I need to finish this.â He still didnât look up from whatever âthisâ was and you were quickly growing angrier.Â
Was this some kind of mind fuck? Making you sit here, stewing in nerves that were only getting worse? You werenât sure how much time had passed because you didnât want to check your phone and give him another opportunity to chastise you. But after a while, he finally sighed and gathered the papers, setting them in a pile on the side of his desk.Â
You forced yourself to stop bouncing your leg and place your palms flat on your thighs to keep from fidgeting, trying to exude confidence you were severely lacking.Â
âIâll admit, Iâve been struggling to decide what I should do with you.â Immediately your stomach churned, getting even more anxious. âI could have you removed from my class, but that would be a lot of paperwork.â
âProfessor,âÂ
âIâm speaking.â He said harshly, making your mouth immediately close. âHowever, that does mean Iâll have to put up with this for another few months⌠So the paperwork might be worth the hassle.â You tried not to cry at the thought. You need this class to graduateâ getting dropped from it will set you back a semester unless you add another course to your already heavy schedule for next semester. You waited, not sure if he was done talking or not. After another few seconds you decided to try again.Â
âPleaseâŚâ You said hesitantly, waiting for him to snap at you again. When he didnât, you continued. âPlease donât drop me, professor. I need this class to graduate.â He stayed silent, eyes dragging over your body as you did your best not to squirm. He still hasnât said anything⌠Is he going to drop you anyway? With tears in your eyes, you tried again, âPlease⌠Please I- Iâll leave you aloneâ I wonât bother you about grades anymore, I swear, just please donât drop me.â You all but whimpered, feeling even more pathetic now.Â
He sighed and took off his glasses, then set them on his desk before leaning back in his chair a little, still studying you.Â
âIâd still have to put up with you in class as well though.âÂ
âPlease! Iâll sit in the back and not talkâ Iâll do anything, just please donât drop me.â You cried.
âAnything?â You stiffened a little at the dark expression that suddenly took over his face. Would you really do anything? You wouldnât mind fucking him if thatâs what heâs implyingâ despite his off putting personality, youâve always been attracted to him. Â
âY-yes?â You said, unsure. Â
âThat didnât sound very convincing and Iâm not going to force you so Iâll just go through with the drop request,â
âNo! I willâ Iâll do anything⌠Please.â He continued studying you, probably trying to gauge if you were telling the truth or not.Â
âFine. Weâll call it an internship of sorts. Youâll come with me to Arkham Asylum every Friday and help me in whatever way I may needâ no questions asked.âÂ
âI- I donât know if Iâm qualified for that.âÂ
âGood thing itâs not an actual internship then.â He sneered, the patronizing tone making you blush.Â
âWhat will you have me do?â You asked quietly.Â
âItâll be easier to just show you instead. Give me your essay and after Friday if Iâm satisfied with your performance, Iâll change the grade.â Your heart practically skipped a beatâ all you have to do is go to Arkham with him for a day and youâll get an A? Youâd be stupid to say no. So you retrieved your essay from your bag and handed it to him. âGood. Six pm, do not be late. Iâll meet you in the main lobby to take you to my office.â He said sternly.Â
Since you left his office, your heart has been pounding. You werenât sure what to wear so you just decided on a skirt and blouse that were professional, but still mostly casual. After that, there wasnât much else you could do. You were too anxious to focus on literally anything so you just sat at home, overthinking. Friday rolled around and you left at five, just in case anything happened, and arrived at 5:25. So you sat in your car, waiting anxiously and watching the clock on the dashboard. You were too scared to even listen to music. At 5:55 you decided to go in, worst case youâd just have to wait five minutes for him, but you figured itâd be better to be earlyâ even after what happened during his office hours.Â
It was only a minute before six when he showed up. The second he saw you, he gestured for you to follow, so you trailed after him on wobbly legs. When you arrived in his office, he closed the door and told you to sit in the chair across from him as he sat behind the desk.Â
âI want to make sure that weâre on the same page and I have your consent for anything that happens here.â The way he worded that made you nervous, but you chalked it up to the fact that you were already overcome with anxiety.
âYes.â You tried to sound sure of yourself, but you were having doubts. What would he make you do? Would it really be worth a better grade?
âGood. Take this.â He picked up a small paper cup from his desk with one pill inside and handed it to you.Â
ââŚWhy?â
âThere are certain aerosol drugs that are administered to patients sometimes. That will keep them from affecting you.â He explained calmly, easing your nerves a bit. So you took it from him and swallowed it, waiting for what was next. âFollow me.â He stood up again, this time holding a briefcase, and you followed him out of his office. He led you down some hallways before stopping outside of a door and unlocking it, gesturing for you to walk in.Â
There was a small table in the corner and two exam chairs with restraints on them, one of which had stirrups. Other than that the room was bare. The door closed loudly, making you jump and turn around.Â
âSit.â He ordered, walking over to the table and setting the briefcase down before walking toward you.Â
âWhy?â You asked skeptically. He just stood patiently and watched you. You suddenly got hit with a wave of dizziness and stumbled to the chair to sit down. The dizziness quickly turned into exhaustion and you could barely keep your eyes open. When you started falling forward, he quickly moved closer to catch you, then leaned you back against the chair.Â
Your head hurt like hell and you forced your eyes open to find that you were now laying on the other exam chair, thankfully not with your legs in the stirrups, but with the restraints on your wrists. You donât even remember falling asleep.Â
âThe effects should wear off soon. I apologize for using that, but I figured you wouldnât willingly let me restrain you and I didnât feel like fighting you.âÂ
âWhat⌠what was that?â You asked through a breath. You could slowly feel yourself getting less and less foggy.Â
âA drug.â He said, in the most annoyed and patronizing tone youâve heard from him so far.Â
âWhy?â You whimpered, closing your eyes again because they still felt so heavy.Â
âIf youâre going to ask stupid questions then Iâm just going to gag you. I already answered that.â You heard some rustling noises and his footsteps, then a hand was running along your cheek, startling you and making you open your eyes. âYou remember our agreement?â You nodded hesitantly. It felt like your heart was about to beat out of your chest with how hard and fast it was pounding. âBe a good little girl and if Iâm satisfied, I wonât drop you. I might even change the grade of your essay.â You didnât need the reminder, but the way he said the first part was making your stomach flutter.Â
âI have to say,â he removed his hand from your cheek and moved down to place it on your leg, just above your knee, âI prefer the sluttier skirts you wear to class than this.â He teased the hem of your skirt with his fingers, making you tremble. âNext week wear something shorter. And a more flattering top.â You figured by âmore flatteringâ what he really meant was more revealing. All you could do to respond was nod.Â
âGood. Letâs begin.âÂ
He reached for the zipper of your skirt on your hip, making you stiffen.Â
âWhat the hell are you doing?â You asked, beginning to panic again, and he paused with a sigh.Â
âIf you donât consent, thatâs fine⌠There is still the matter of your seat in my class.â He said coyly. âIf you want me to let you go, just say that. Iâll fill out the paperwork first thing Monday morning.âÂ
âNo,â You choked out. âNo.. please.â You felt like you were on the verge of a panic attack. He shushed you softly, staring at you with a teasing glint in his eyes.Â
âRelax. If you consent to this, youâll keep your seat in my class. Thatâs what you want, isnât it?â You nodded, looking up at him with teary eyes. âGood girl⌠Now be quiet and let me do this.â His tone was significantly darker and all you could do was tremble as he unzipped your skirt, then pulled it down your body before discarding it on the floor.Â
âIâve been working on a new form of a drug.â You squeezed your eyes shut and let out a strangled whimper when he grabbed your leg and placed it in the stirrup, then used the restraints to keep it in place. âWeâre going to try it together.â He grinned wolfishly and did the same to your other leg.Â
You heard his footsteps as he walked across the room for something, then back over to you, now wearing a latex glove on his right hand, holding a small bottle in the other.Â
âRemember, you can withdraw consent at any timeâŚâ You couldnât though. Because you would be dropped from his class and set back months.Â
His hand landed on your thigh, making you jump a little, and he started slowly dragging it up. Once he was close enough, he brushed his thumb over your clothed mound, forcing a quiet sob from you. Â
âYou probably thought this was going to go in a very different direction, didnât you?â He asked teasingly, making you blush. Truthfully, you didnât put much thought into your undergarments because you were too busy worrying about your actual clothes and what he was going to make you do. You cried out when he suddenly ripped the lace off your body, feeling the burn of the fabric pulling too hard against your skin. âReady?â He asked, almost eagerly.Â
You saw now that the bottle was a clear liquid and when he squirted it onto his fingers, you assumed it was lube. As soon as his finger brushed your asshole, you stiffened.Â
âWait!â You rushed out, chest heaving as your heart pounded in your chest. âI- Iâve neverâŚâÂ
âYouâve never done anal?â You almost thought he was going to give you sympathy. âGood.â You couldnât even get another word out before he was pushing a finger in, making you tense up as you whimpered in discomfort. âTell me when you start to feel it.âÂ
âFeel what?â You said through a breath, trying to relax around the intrusion. Even though it wasnât as bad as you were expecting, your heart was pounding even harder and faster in your chest, and your breathing grew ragged. âDr. Crane,â You whimpered, suddenly a million times more anxious than only a moment ago.Â
âAlready?â He checked his watch, âThat was fast. Tell me what youâre feeling.â
âAnxious.â You said quickly, letting out a strangled whimper when he forced another finger inside. âM-my heart is pounding and it feels hard to breathe.âÂ
âThatâs good⌠Anything else?âÂ
âMy hands are clammy⌠and it feels like I'm sweating a little.âÂ
âNo visual or auditory hallucinations?âÂ
âWhat?â You choked out, eyes widening. âW-why would I have that??â
âThe drug weâre testing is my fear toxin. Itâs a hallucinogenic that targets the amygdala and releases stress hormones, causing a fear response in the brain.â He explained, only making you feel worse. âSo far Iâve tested it two ways; administered intravenously and in aerosol form.âÂ
âI donât understand..â You said quietly, trying to calm your breathing a little. He let out an exaggerated sigh and forced a third finger inside you.Â
âI guess I should really expect you to.â He almost sounded.. disappointed. The realization made the twist in your stomach even worse. âLet me dumb it down for you. In its most potent form, it causes visual and auditory hallucinations of the subjectâs worst fear.â If you werenât currently on the verge of a panic attack with three fingers in your ass, you probably wouldâve rolled your eyes at his tone.Â
âNow Iâm testing it via rectal administration. The concentration is about the same, but the effects shouldnât be as strong. At least, thatâs my theory.â His fingers continued fucking you slowly, occassionally spreading apart to open you up more. Despite the amount of anxiety you were currently feeling, you could just barely feel your growing arousal. Â
âW-why would you want the drug in this form?â You asked, gasping for air between words.Â
âIâm a doctor. Why wouldnât I experiment?â He asked rhetorically. You bit your lip and squeezed your eyes shut, trying to focus on the anxiety rather than the arousal, but it was only becoming more difficult. A choked moan escaped you when he suddenly dragged a bare finger through your folds, spreading the evidence of your arousal. âAre you enjoying this?â His voice sounded unnervingly clinical.Â
In response, you bit down harder on your lip and shook your head, denying it. You could practically feel his eyes on you, studying you closely.Â
âI knew youâd be perfect for this.â He suddenly said, and you bit back a moan because he almost sounded proud. âYouâre just pathetic enough and desperate for my approval to willingly become my little lab rat, and now look at you⌠Leaking onto my hand as I finger your ass.â He chuckled wryly. A dark blush took over your face and you whined quietly, but the flutter in your stomach was unmistakable. âI bet you want my cock also⌠Donât you?âÂ
You let out a choked sob and turned your head, trying uselessly to hide yourself. When he suddenly pulled his fingers out, you whimpered quietly at the sudden loss.Â
âLook at me.â He demanded, in a tone that left no room for argument. As if you were in a trance, you turned to face him and opened your eyes. âYou want to keep your seat in my class?â He removed the glove and tossed it aside, then worked on unbuckling his belt and opening his pants.Â
âYes.â You whispered shakily.Â
âAnd youâre willing to let me fuck your ass to ensure that happens?â He pulled his already half hard cock out and started stroking slowly as you gaped at it. How was that supposed to fit inside you?
âI- Iâve never..â
âItâs a yes or no question.â He sighed impatiently. âI fuck your ass or you leave and I fill out the form Monday morning.âÂ
âI⌠Iâm scared.â You whimpered, looking nervously between his face and his cock.Â
âThatâs the whole point, darling.â Right. Because he was testing his fear toxin. You blushed furiously at the new pet name. âYou have three seconds before I fuck you, then fill out the form anyway.âÂ
Your stomach dropped at the threat and when he raised his brows, you blurted out, âYes.â Tears were brimming in your eyes and he stepped closer, but didnât line up yet. He just used his free hand to gently rub your thigh.Â
âYes, what?â Your bottom lip began trembling when you realized what he wanted from you. âSay it. Beg your professor for it.â
âI- I wantâŚâ You let out a strangled sob and squeezed your eyes shut again, making his hand stop moving on your thigh to grip tightly in a silent warning. âI want you to fuck my ass⌠Please, Dr. Crane.â You whimpered. Youâve never felt more humiliated, but at the same time⌠you were only becoming more aroused. Your cunt ached to be filled, and your clit was practically throbbing.
âGood girl.â When you let out a choked moan at the sudden praise, he chuckled quietly. âOpen your eyes. I want you to watch.â He demanded, lining up. Only after your eyes fluttered open, did he finally apply some pressure, entering you with little difficulty.Â
âFuck- Youâre so tight.â He hissed, moving his hand to your other thigh and squeezing almost painfully. Your breath and all of your sounds were caught in your throat as he pushed in deeper, not stopping until his hips were flush with your ass. âTell me how it feels.â He said breathily, not moving yet.Â
âBig.â You whimpered, barely able to get the word out.Â
âDoes it hurt?â You shook your head, trying to steady your breathing, but the overwhelming feeling of being stretched as well as the anxiety still weighing heavy on your chest made it feel almost impossible. âYou look like youâre on the verge of a panic attack.â He sounded uncharacteristically dulcet.
When he reached for your shirt and unbuttoned it to expose your bra, your breathing picked up even more as your heart started pounding even harder in your chest. He pulled your bra down below your breasts and groped you eagerly, showing little regard for your pleasure with his rough, almost painful touch.Â
âYour heartâs beating so fast. Is my little lab rat still scared?â He cooed, very obviously mocking you.Â
âProfessor..â You whimpered, staring up at him with glossy eyes as you struggled to cope with all of the overwhelming feelings, both physically and emotionally. He shushed you softly and brought his hands back down to rub your thighs, trying to soothe you.Â
âIâm going to fuck you, and youâre going to take it.â He said plainly. âYou try to resist at all and Iâll keep fucking you until I finish, then you wonât have to bother showing up to class on Monday. Do you understand?âÂ
You nodded reluctantly and he moved his hands to grip the tops of your thighs. He slowly dragged his hips back, then forward again, forcing you to feel every inch of his cock stretching you open. It didnât⌠hurt. But it definitely wasnât the most pleasurable thing youâve ever experienced.Â
When he suddenly sped up, you cried out and squeezed your eyes shut, trying to focus on taking deep breaths. He was grunting and moaning quietly with each thrust, clearly enjoying this far more than you, and you couldnât help but open your eyes again to watch him. His grip tightened on your thighs, making you whimper, and you watched his mouth fall open in a silent moan as he closed his eyes.Â
âFuckâŚâ He said breathily, letting out a low groan before opening his eyes again. âI didnât account for transdermal administrationâ He almost sounded amused again, but you could barely focus on his words. âThe effects are far less than what youâre feeling, Iâd assume. It almost feels like adrenaline, rather than fear. Next time weâll try it intravaginally to see if your reaction is the same or more like mine.âÂ
You almost forgot that this wasnât a one and done. You have to let your professor do what he wants with you every week for the rest of the semesterâŚ
âAnd I think Iâll try the other forms of delivery on you as well. Not so much for an experiment⌠I just want to fuck you while youâre hallucinating your greatest fears.â His lips curled up into a small smirk at the thought of that. âI canât wait to hear you scream and cry for me.â He cooed, but his tone was far from comforting and your anxiety was only getting worse as he continued sharing his future plans for you.Â
He started bucking into you rapidly and his sounds got louder, clearly getting closer to his release. You could even feel yourself just barely starting to inch toward the edge. Your moans caught his attention and a pleased look took over his face.Â
âYou like this, donât you?â You let out a choked moan and bit your lip, trying to quiet your sounds. âItâs either that or misattribution of arousal... but that seems less likely.â Even though you knew his guess was correct, you were still going to convince yourself that it was misattribution of arousal instead because that was far less humiliating. When he started rubbing your clit, any chance you had of keeping quiet was gone instantly. His moans got louder too when your body tensed up, tightening around his cock.Â
âOh godâ Dr. Crane, please.â You sobbed, feeling the arousal steadily taking over the anxiety that had settled in your stomach.Â
âWhat do you want?â Now that he asked, you realized that you donât even know what you want. You wanted the overwhelming anxiety and stretch to stop⌠but the thought of him pulling out and ending this almost brought tears of desperation to your eyes. His fingers sped up on your clit and your back arched off of the exam chair as an involuntary mewl escaped you.Â
âPlease let me come.â You whimpered pathetically and he let out a quiet chuckle in response to your brazenness.Â
âHow curiousâŚâ He murmured, gaze dragging all over your body. âIâll admit, I figured some part of you would enjoy getting to please me, but I never imagined itâd be to this extent.â He said amusedly and your blush darkened in response. âYou want to come?â
You were nodding eagerly before he could even finish. âPlease.âÂ
âHow about thisâ I'll raise the grade on your essay⌠or Iâll let you come.â You could see the barest hint of a smirk on his lips and you let out a frustrated sob, squeezing your eyes shut. âWell?â
âDr. CraneâŚâ You whimpered, bottom lip trembling as you tried not to cry. When you opened your eyes and stared up at him through the tears, his smirk widened. âPlease..âÂ
âShould I choose for you?âÂ
âNoâŚâ You sobbed, looking away from him and biting your lip. The whole point of this was so heâd change the grade⌠You canât give in to the pleasure now that youâre so close to finally getting what you came here for. âI- I want you to change my grade.â Your voice was barely a whisper. As soon as he got your answer, he removed his hand from your clit to grab the top of your thigh again, bucking into you rapidly as he chased his orgasm.Â
âWeâre going to have a lot of fun together, my little lab rat.â He was clearly satisfied with your choice and while part of you was almost crying from frustration⌠another part couldnât help but revel in the fact that you pleased him, even if it was at the expense of your own pleasure.Â
His hips snapped into you rapidly, the force of it almost pushing you up the exam chair, but the restraints on your legs kept you mostly in place. As he focused on his impending orgasm, you were practically mesmerized. He looked so⌠pretty. The pleasure in his expression was obvious and there was a faint blush on his cheeks. His normally pale blue eyes were darker as he took you in, studying every tiny reaction to his ministrations.Â
When he suddenly pushed forward all the way and stayed there, you let out a whine of displeasure, knowing whatever pleasure you mightâve been feeling before was about to disappear. But the choked moan he let out as he closed his eyes made you almost forget all about it. His hips bucked forward sporadically as his cock twitched inside you with each rope of come that shot out, filling you up. Â
Finally his sounds quieted into heavy breathing and his body went still. You waited anxiously for what was next, not sure what to expect. Opening his eyes again, he watched as he slowly dragged his hips back until his cock slipped free, forcing out a quiet hiss from him and a whimper from you at the sensitivity.Â
âPush it out.â His voice was raspy and still thick with arousal. When you pushed his come out, he let out a low groan as he watched, bending down a little to get a closer look. âGood girl.â He cooed, making you whine as the words went straight to your cunt that was still aching with need.Â
âYou can remain here until the effects wear off. I want to see how long that takes.â He said, almost clinically, while checking his watch. Your eyes stayed on him as he tucked his cock back in his pants before collecting the lube and discarded glove.Â
âAre you going to let me go?â Your voice was quiet and timid as submission still heavily clouded your mind. He looked over at you again, almost surprised by your voice. He glanced at the restraints before dragging his gaze all over your body for a moment. Finally, he smirked a little and went back to what he was doing.Â
âSoon.â You sighed in response and stayed quiet. As you breathed deeply, trying to ignore the arousal still lingering in your stomach, you noticed that the anxious feeling was starting to subside a little. Your heart was still beating rapidly, but now it was hard to tell if it was from fear, adrenaline, or your own unsatisfied arousal.Â
âI think itâs wearing off.â You told him and he checked his watch again.Â
âWhat are you feeling?â He finally walked back over to you and stared at your face with an almost impressive level of professionalism, given the circumstances.Â
âMy heart is still pounding, but my breathing is better. And I donât feel very nauseous either.âÂ
âNext week I want to test this again so I have a control group to compare these results to. Itâll be the same thing, but I wonât finger you for as long and I wonât fuck you until after it wears off.â He reached out and gently grabbed your chin, angling your face up to look at him as he stepped closer. âOf course⌠thatâs assuming you still want to keep your spot in my classâŚâ He trailed off, making the statement sound like a question instead.Â
âI do.â You said quickly. Especially after this⌠you were desperate to stay enrolled in his class, but you were alsoâ as much as you didnât want to admit itâ desperate for more after he gave you this small taste.Â
âGood girl.â Your cheeks heated up instantly and he patted one with his hand before stepping back again. âKeep being my little lab rat and I have no doubt youâll pass my class⌠maybe even with the grade you think you deserve.âÂ
#jonathan crane#jonathan crane x reader#jonathan crane smut#jonathan crane x reader smut#cillian murphy
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Entirely self indulgent rating post about the top 10 TV shows that made me fucking insane for some reason
10. Sense8
God, this was so good. Such a blessing. I saw part of the cast during a Pride Parade and it's one of my favorite memories. I felt every possible emotion with this show, I love it.
9. The Last of Us
This is kind of a cheat, because the obsession comes from the games, but it is what it is. It's one of the few games that had a big impact on me and I closely relate it to my relationship with my dad. Can't wait to cry my heart out at season 2.
8. Good Omens
It's a given, isn't it? That stupid angel with his stupid demon and their stupid God. GRRRAAWW. A lot of thoughts and feelings came from the fandom, I have to point out. It's been very nice.
7. The Umbrella Academy
I have the first issue of the comics autographed by Gerard Way!! I mean, yes, it's because I'm a MCR fan, but it became even more precious after I got into the show. I'm rewatching right now, preparing for the last season. I'll be a mess when I say goodbye to them. Can't even really think about it too hard or I'll cry right now.
Continues under the cut
6. Our Flag Means Death
LISTEN THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING TO ME. What do you mean we can have a show THIS queer? It's all I want now. I ate it up. I smiled so much. I wanted this so badly and had no idea.
5. Interview with the Vampire
Feels like it should be top 3 honestly but I'll get there. This is also a cheat, I've been reading the Vampire Chronicles since I was like 15. Growing up with Anne Rice probably messed me up but hey at least I have great taste. And seeing them on screen? The way they made it BETTER? And Lestat?? Who has been haunting me for 15 years on and off??? And the second season and their reunion and and and?????????? I'm STILL insane about them and will be forever, I'm afraid.
4. Doctor Who
Listen. Listen. Okay. Yeah. What can I say? If you get into it, you're doomed. And I have been doomed for 10 years at least. I stopped watching for a while and got back last year, and it hit me all over again. I love this dumbass genius alien in a way that's calm, even. Just a permanent part of who I am now.
3. The Untamed
The year was 2022, it had been a while since I had a proper fixation and I didn't think it would happen with this danmei live-action, but then came Wei Wuxian. Guys, if I tell you I fell in love. Couldn't stop thinking about him. Everyday I was plagued by his smile and red ribbon and tragic backstory, yadayadayada. I really like other characters too, and their stories, but WWX did something to me that I still don't quite understand.
2. Queer as Folk (US)
This was a looong time ago and it didn't really persist over time like the others, but it was my first actual obsession. I was clinically insane over these gays. I had no one to talk to about them, so for every episode I wrote several pages of notes to comment to my (only) friend at school the next day, the poor thing. It was pretty much all I talked about because I spent EVERY MINUTE we had to talk going over the notes and explaining the episode. Like, between classes, during breaks, everything. Months of that. She held on firmly because she was a good friend, but I'm aware it must've been terrible. Like I said, insane.
1. Dead Boy Detectives
Maybe I'm putting this up here because it's my current hyperfixation? Maybe. But I don't think I have felt something hit as strongly as this since QaF over there. This time I can participate in fandom so I don't need to write every thought I have because it's all a big talk anyway, but I'm still pretty much having those thoughts all the time for *checks notes* nearly three months. I'm writing more than I have in years. I'm back at Tumblr after I don't know how long. I'm staring at GIFs over and over like I have the fucking time for that. I'm distracted at work daily. I talk about it in therapy. I have the main cast's notifications on. I'm getting involved in fandom discourse sometimes even knowing I shouldn't. It's a nightmare. I love it. I love them.
If you read all of this, congrats! Now you know how my mind works, kinda!! I'm open to talk about any and all of these shows. It's amazing how they mess us up. It's also scary, but anyway.
#sense8#the last of us#tlou#good omens#umbrella academy#the umbrella academy#our flag means death#ofmd#interview with the vampire#iwtv#doctor who#the untamed#mo dao su zhi#queer as folk#dead boy detectives#dbda
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So towards the end of February PLL was trending and out of curiosity I browsed the tags bc I used to love the show. I saw screenshots from a YouTube video called "An appropriately unhinged recap of Pretty Little Liars" by Mike's Mic. I thought "I have nothing better to do, may as well watch it". This put a couple things in motion.
1: I started hyperfixating on it. Not the show, just the video.
2: I have now watched the YouTube series five. fucking. times. The series is six hours long. This means that I have spent THIRTY HOURS watching these videos in the last three-ish months
3: I now regularly quote the videos not only in my own head, but also out loud. Some popular quotes: "my back hurts, my bra's too tight" "felon, felon, felon, jail, prison" and the specific way he says "what. The fuck" in one part of the video
4: I have started legitimately thinking about creating my own Plot Wall like the one in Mike's video for another show (probably Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated, one of my other hyperfixations. If not that, then maybe the Barbie movie when it comes out). For those of you who haven't seen the video, it looks like this:
Have I lost my mind??? Maybe. Am I having fun?????? Abso-fucking-lutely
#pretty little liars#mikes mic#pll#scooby doo#scooby doo mystery incorporated#the barbie movie#barbie
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Weekly tag Wednesday Thursday part 2
Hello beautiful kittens! đâ⏠Todayâs tag game is about our wonderful fandom đ
Thank you for the tags, @deedala and @wehangout! <3
How did you get into the fandom?Â
I was watching gay compilation videos on YouTube and found the Gallavich season 1-4 video, then watched too many seasons of Shameless UK (because I didn't have access to US) then watched five seasons of Shameless US, then spent 3 months reading the whole tag on AO3.
How long have you been here?
Since... 2015?
Whatâs the first fandom channel you found? (Youtube, Reddit, Tumblr, Insta, Twitter, FB, other?)
I would say AO3, because I was on there reading people's fics for a long time before I started following their links to tumblr.
Whatâs your favourite now?Â
Tumblr!
Which mutual have you known the longest in the fandom?
@the-rat-wins for sure, but also @wideblueskies @damnnmilkovich @grumblesandmumbles @beckyharvey29 @mimilaroo and a few others that aren't really active anymore
Which tumblerinoâs did you have your first fandom crush(es) on and want to get to know?
I'm so bad at like, retaining what I thought of people before I get to know them? But I'm pretty sure I got @the-rat-wins to follow me back by photoshopping a picture of Cam and Noel at an event together? I absolutely remember thinking I wanted to be friends and what makes better friends than a creepy little photo manip gift?
First Gallavich fan fic you read (or that blew you away that you remember)
I have no idea, I read so much fic. Here are my old rec rambles.
First Fan art that blew your mind?Â
Most likely @luluxa 's art of Mickey...
Fanfic trope that you were sure wasnât for you but now you low key (or high key) love?
Not sure if there is one, I have tried most tropes just to check them out, and I have liked tropes I don't normally like when it's just the once and it's done in some interesting or particularly skillful way, but I don't think I've ever done a 180 on something? I suppose! I usually start out only reading canon compliant fic when I'm first entering a fandom. Then I will either run out of steam or start reading AU, or fully just transition to only reading AU (which is what happened with Shameless, more or less). So I normally start out not liking AUs and then given enough time and steam, I will make AUs my whole personality.
What surprised you most about this fandom?
I'm really surprised by what it has become, it's so nice to see all the crafts and community building that's going on here every week, and how nice and drama free (from my vantage point anyway) it has become, in the last few years. I'm not very good at participating, but I really want to because it feels like such an open and welcoming and community-focused space.
Moment in the show (or YT vids if youâre one of those) that you fell in hyperfixation with Gallavich?
I had zero context for this scene when I first saw it, but oh. My god.
Ian or Mickey?
Uuuuuuh I mean. Ian.
Which Gallagher or Milkovich are you?Â
Probably Liam haha?
Do you want to answer some q:s? Consider yourself tagged!
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My Year in Writing, 2023
And this is another situation where I wish I could pull up last year's post to use as a pattern, but I can't because my writing blog got deleted, so I'm feeling a little lost.
But I can at least see the graphs I made last year in my writing progress tracking spreadsheet, so that give me a bit of a hint as to what I would normally post here.
I wrote 183,465 words on 2023. It's my third year in a row of increases (thank you, Julie and the Phantoms!) and my first year over 150k, which was my goal for the year. I'm at 856,124 words since 2017.
I'm also super excited about winning NaNo for the first time since 2017. November was my most productive month, followed by February, when I spent most of the month working on Baby, This Rain Changes Everything, which I guess I was just excited about because I had a lot of 1k+ days.
Part of the 44k increase from 2022-2023 was due to NaNo, but I also increased my average daily word count for non-NaNo months from 291.8 to 387.5. And I do write every day--December 31 was day 2,395 of my write-ever-day streak.
What I Wrote
Other than 2% of my words for the year for Garfield, a Teen Wolf Movie fix-it fic, everything else was for Julie and the Phantoms: 81% on various scenes for Electric Boogaloo, 12% for Baby, This Rain Changes Everything, and 5% on two different AU fics that I may convert to original fiction instead.
Plans for 2024
So, the saying goes something like, "Write a million words, throw them away, now you're ready to be a writer." I didn't realize it until I was writing this up, but I'm going to hit a million words next year.
And I have to admit, in the last few months, I've started to think about writing and publishing original fiction. And that's partly because the JatP fandom is dying--I'd think the drop in kudos was because I suck, but I've seen declining kudos for new fic by big name fans, too, so it's not just me. No judgement on the fandom, it's just the nature of things. I've left a couple of fandoms myself because of a new hyperfixation. But at the same time, I had this AU idea in the spring, and thought to myself, are you really going to write a whole novel-length fic for 20 kudos?
I think I'd rather earn a couple hundred bucks instead, which seems like about what I would net if I self-pub. And I'm poor, so any little bit helps. Plus, I don't know, I just feel ready. It's partly because I read some pretty bad books this year, and it's like, OK, this got published, and in one case it got optioned and made into a TV show, and I feel like I can do better.
So, my plan for 2024 is:
Write the last ~9 scenes for Electric Boogaloo.
Write season 3, AKA the Electric Boogaloo sequel. Boogaloo is probably going to reach somewhere around 300k total, but I'm aiming for something more like 150k-200k for the sequel.
Finish the two Arrow fics I still can't give up on, even though I haven't worked on them in years. One just needs another 2k, and the other maybe 15k.
Transition to original fiction, taking the idea I had for a JatP boy band AU and "filing off the serial numbers" as I go. (Or something else--who knows what I'll be most interested next fall!)
In terms of word count goals:
I want to hit 50,000 for NaNo in November. For April and July Camp NaNos, I want to write 1,000 a day, so 30k and 31k.
I want to take it somewhat easy in the three months after NaNo events, so May, August, and December - 600/day, or 18,600 words/month.
For the other six months out of the year, I'm going to try doing "NaNoWriWeek" or 1,667 words/day for the first week of the month and then 600/day for the rest of the month, which will get me around 25k per month.
All of this totals up to about 300,000 words.
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Morrotober Overview
October is over and morrotober is done! I actually made it all the way through without missing a single day (I swapped 2 days because I have a terrible concept of time but that dosent count). I'm so proud of myself. I've tried an October drawing challenge year after year but I always gave up and burned out after the first week so this is a huge accomplishment.
I'm not quite sure what made this year different but there are a few things I think might have helped:
Morro is my blorbo and ninjago is my hyperfixation. I'm already obsessed and thinking about it daily so this wasnt too different
I gave myself flexibility. Even though I ended up doing one for every day I never was going to force myself to do so, I had the freedom to skip a day if I didn't want to do it.
Flexibility pt. 2: I didn't make a full drawing every day. I allowed myself to put in as much or as little effort as I wanted which removed some of the pressure and worked better with my schedule
Now for some fun stuff! A recap of the art I made this month and my thoughts on some of the peices.
My favorite peice: day 29 - au/the movie
This was so much fun and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I couldn't decide on one au to draw since I have so many and keep making them so I just did a bunch! (Copy paste my best friend) I've had a bunch of ideas for designs bounching around for a while and getting to draw a handful of them with less effort than a full drawing which is great for my mental health. Honestly I liked making this and the results so much that I'm probably gonna do more of these with more designs.
Least favorite: day 1 - torment/chains
A dissapointing start to the challenge but luckily things only went uphill from here. The reason i dont like it is because this is one of those instances where the idea I have in my head is above my skill level. Additionally this is one of the ones that took the longest which is extra dissapointing considering I don't even like the result. I am proud of the hands though!
Most effort: day 14 - crew
I am NOT used to doing more than like 2 characters in one drawing and this was a challenge. Figuring out a pose for all of them was hard and I had to get creative with Wrayth cause he came last. I originally wanted to put a ghost dragon behind them too but that was just more effort and time than I had. Funny story about this one actually! I completed the base sketch for 3/5 of the characters but then my computer got fucky and I had to restart it. I saved the drawing but when I tried to open it I got the dreaded clip studio Unsupported File Format and had to restart ;-; I spent like half an hour trying to restore but had to give up in the end and restart.
Least effort: day 23 - memories
Little guy. Tiny dude. Took like 5 minutes and I love it. I didn't realize just how small I made him until I got a reblog saying they couldn't find him.
Most popular: day 5 - rope
Would have liked for some of my other drawings to get some of the attention this one got but honestly I'm not suprised it got so popular. It's a masterpiece.
Least popular: day 12 - underwater/submarine
Guess people don't want morro to be destinkified
Extra: day 6 - skeleton
This dude literally showed up on google?? I made that???? The funny part is the link dosent even lead to my blog or tumblr
Additional notes: wait what am I supposed to do now?? I think I forgot how to have free time?? For an entire month it's just been school eat sleep and morrotober but now it's over I don't know what to do with myself. A
Did I enjoy this? Yes. Will I do it again next year? Who fucking knows. Anyway back to my normal bs
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The DuckTales Finale: A Year Later
A year ago today, we were gearing up for the DuckTales finale.
Honestly, I just wrote an essay about cartoon ducks, so brace yourself. Itâs a little critical, cheesy, and pretty unnecessary if you ask me, so youâve been warned.Â
The DuckTales reboot is evidently one of the best cartoon reboots created. It successfully creates a new, imaginative world while still honoring the 1987 series. I am one of the many fans who can confidently say that the reboot sufficiently surpasses the original.
Where was I a year ago?
Well, the news that DuckTales would meet its end came to frustrating head in December, and I was on the verge of acceptance. DuckTales had been my favorite show for about two years, beginning with the rise of Disney Plus. I had seen season 3 as it had been coming out, and Iâm very proud to have been able to say I was watching DuckTales at its peak.
There are many things I loved about this show. The consistent quality, the evidential love and care put in by the cast and crew who worked on the show, and the amount of love the fandom had for the show was unparalleled for me at the time. I loved the animation, the stories, and the characters we were shown each episode. In fact, I donât think there was a single episode I downright disliked.
To hear DuckTales was going to end was disheartening, to say the least. DuckTales had been my current hyperfixation, and that wasnât going to change for a long time. It had been decided by Disney that DuckTales would not live to see another season, and it was incredibly disappointing. It took me a few months, but I did end up accepting it, and about a year ago this moment, I was eagerly waiting for the 3-part finale to hit DisneyNOW.
My experience watching the finale was terrible, but not in the way you think.I had spent the hours of the late afternoon searching the finale spoilers in order to gain more hype for the finale. What I found instead was a lot of many angry and salty fans who were livid about the finale. Itâs not hard to imagine that this may be a bit discouraging to someone who only had high hopes for the finale.
 I was ecstatic to find that DisneyNOW would make the finale available to stream without a cable provider, which was a good thing because I still do not have access to one even now. Unfortunately, that happiness was short lived, as every minute that passed by, I was met with a loading screen that would last another two minutes. As I sat on the couch staring at my buffering computer screen with an empty popcorn bowl and my empty soda can at four AM, yeah, you could probably see why my viewing experience sucked.
I have not rewatched the finale since that night.
From what Iâve seen, the fandom was pretty universally neutral when it came to thoughts on the finale. Some people downright hated it, while others loved it and found it to be a fitting finale.
I belong in the marginally expandable area that remains indifferent. Personally, I donât think the finale was terrible. Itâs definitely not down there with SvtFoE or Voltron, but it wasnât that great either. I feel like it did itâs job. It successfully concluded the main arcs with a cinematic climax. However, it was poorly paced and featured way too many side plots with no hope of proper closure.
I think that season 3 in itself was mainly to blame. The DuckTales crew makes an effort to include references and characters from past Disney Afternoon cartoons, and it was one of the reasons why DuckTales succeeded. Season 3 added so many new characters to the list, and thatâs why there were so many more plotlines to explore that just couldnât be properly concluded, which ended up disrupting DuckTalesâ balance between a plot and character driven story.Â
I partially blame Disney for this. DuckTales had so much more potential, as did the cast and crew. They had something truly special here, and it was only going to get better from here. A possible 4th or 5th season could have easily provided room for much more development for character arcs and plotlines. Sadly, this was not the case, and the crew should have honestly been prepared for a more constrictive runtime.
I had many mixed feelings after the finale. One part of me was not satisfied with the finale. Another was frustrated at the fact that DuckTales was now part of a large buildup of cartoons that would be wasting away in Disneyâs back closet. I was determined to keep the memory of it alive, a grief-stricken feeling that quickly dissipated with age. Itâs just a silly duck cartoon, damnit, get it together.Â
I feel like DuckTales ending really hit a sweet spot of disappointment, so when the news of TOH and Amphibia ending hit, I was pretty much numb to it. You seen, I had never really been a witness to a hyperfixated showâs ending. It had always been a show that ended a while ago, or a show that I just fell out of the loop eventually, but I had actually seen a show I loved so much end, and it was more painful than I like to admit, because one, again, itâs a silly duck cartoon, and two, iâm a teenager who goes to highschool just to ignore teachers to think about the silly duck cartoon.
So yeah, I did not take it well. A grief accredited to my own faults, not DuckTales. I blame no one.
So, exactly 11 minutes as Iâm writing this until March 15th,exactly a year after DuckTales ended.
Well, DuckTales has inspired me to hopefully choose a career path in tv production. I would seriously love a position in writing for a cartoon. The gaping hole in my heart has opened up spaces for The Owl House and Amphibia, other shows I love very much with just as much care and devotion put into it as much as DuckTales. Finally, it made me a bit more self-aware to the fact that I really latch onto these cartoons to make me sane, and led me down a path that helps me accept the fact that Iâm never going to truly grow up.
A year later, I still love DuckTales.
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So I guess Iâm hyperfixating on Death Stranding at the moment
And since Iâve finally finished the story after playing it for like 100 hours over the course of seven months or so I guess I have Opinions(tm) about things I didnât like in the game
Theyâre eating at my brain so Iâm gonna put them all in a single post to get them out of my system once and for all so I can enjoy the rest in peace
Spoilers, obviously
Hi welcome back to âJohannes is obsessing over yet another video game with horror elements in itâ! I guess!!
Our latest entry in that category was Until Dawn but since UD can be played in like 6/7 hours and I spent 100 hours of my life on DS, as you can guess weâre talking about a full-blown hyperfixation, the kind that physically hurts because I canât focus on anything else even after having finished the storyline
But it was super gradual. Again, seven months. I barely made any progress from December to May because I was only doing side-deliveries at the beginning of Chapter 3 instead of... you know... advancing the plot. It became an honest-to-god special interest about two months ago, then 6 days ago while playing chapter 10 it reached hyperfixation levels and now I am in PAIN
I hate my brain
Anyhow
At first I wanted to list the good and the bad hings in it but thereâs too many good things to list them all in full, excruciatingly long details, so
Very Quick And Very Incomplete List Of Good Things That I Love
Itâs a post-apo game based on travel, logistics, and good will, and it straight up goes AGAINST the whole âsurvival of the fittestâ trope that SO MANY post-apo things try to push!! YES
I insist but itâs built on helping each other and keeping everyone alive, seriously that is my shit right there!
The online community is wholesome?? People leave stuff everywhere, you never see anyone but people put little helpful signs and send you likes, and in my game we almost managed to repair all the roads together
Thereâs so many new & strange allergies and disabilities and phobias in this post-apo world and? nobody is trying to ââfixââ anyone?? Like Heartman with his padded floor and his little box that brings him back to life constantly. Heâs just... living like that. Nobodyâs going âhey maybe you should get another heart operation buddyâ
The hero and his phobia of being touched. I. Loved. That. The quiet scenes when he was just talking with Fragile, sitting next to her. In any other context this would just be two people sitting next to each other and talking but it always feels so soft and intimate everytime he allows another human being to just. be next to him. I love it. I love them
Everyone crying constantly because of chiral allergy!!
I loved all the important characters bar one (Bridget/Amelie)!
Why is this walking simulator so enjoyable why am I enjoying the fact that holding L2 + R2 while walking feels like holding your backpack and that you have to relax at times just like youâd have to if you were actually holding a backpack
Seriously. Why
The atmosphere was so great, the music was fantastic and the visuals were on point. A E S T H E T I C
The ghosts!! The giant Beached Things!!! Chiral crystals look! like! creepy hands reaching for the SKY!!
THE RAIN DESTROYS THINGS AND KILLS PEOPLE BY ACCELERATING TIME THIS IS SO COOL SHUT UP
Everytime the game got surreal it was electrifying
THE SURREAL WAR SCENES ON CLIFFâS BEACH
Everyone is using emojis
Thereâs guys addicted to delivering packages in that game and theyâre trying to steal our stuff and weâre like âhaha theyâre dumbâ but weâre basically addicted to delivering packages as the player. So yeah that was pretty fun
Terrorists thinking humanity isnât going extinct fast enough and wanting to just rip the bandaid and speed things up. Simple but effective concept
People ask for SUPER VITAL ITEMS right next to completely trivial stuff and Iâm LIVING for it. âPlease fetch my toy dinosaurâ. I feel you dude
The most isolated characters are like "LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS THING I LIKE" in your emails because they haven't had contact with other humans in years, it's super relatable
Thereâs a farm where people use the fact that Timefall rain accelerates time to grow food super quickly in one (1) Timefall and harvest everything just before it starts to die and I LOVE that detail of worldbuilding so much
YOUâRE FIGHTING BEACHED THINGS WITH YOUR OWN BODILY FLUIDS ITâS SO STUPID BUT ALSO SO COOL?? I love yeet-ing my own blood at eldritch entities
THE T W I S T S
All the fanservice (bar one detail that Iâm gonna complain about later) is on dudes. This game reeeeeeally likes to show dudes naked or somewhat naked. Mostly the main character but this mocap also L O V E S Mads Mikkelsen and thereâs a shit ton of homoerotic shots in there
I love Sam the antisocial papa wolf delivery man and if someone touches him or his baby again, I will cry
LOU. LOU LOU LOU PRECIOUS BABY IâD DIE FOR YOU. Wait I did
I love Fragile and how brave she is and how she keeps helping people even if most of them wrongly think sheâs a terrorist and yes I will eat this cryptobiote thank you
I love soft science boi Heartman who keeps dying again and again and is a bit too much interested in bodily fluids
I love garbage man Higgs and how complex, funny and still somewhat tragic this memelord actually turned out to be in the end
Seriously I want to stop fixating on this character but you canât give me YET ANOTHER character who wants to die but at the hands of someone else, that is unfair to do that right after my fixation on the new Doctor Who Master
So yeah Higgs is yet another character who makes me want to grab him by the lapels and shake him and yell WHY! ARE! YOU! LIKE! THIS! STOP! BEING! LIKE! THIS!!
Cliff broke all three of my feelings beautifully and in excruciatingly well-acted scenes that transcended the sometimes lackluster dialogue
John made me cry during That Scene
Mama your background was tragic and terrifying and you didnât deserve any of this shit and I love you
Deadman was more funny than anything, really, but I still liked him even if he had no sense of personal space whatsoever and it clashed horribly with Samâs phobias
The ending had some sad parts but was mostly positive, thank goodness
Now Iâm gonna explain things I dislike and this looks long but itâs actually only 5 main things so I bolded them to avoid confusion
Things I really disliked (and could have been handled wayyyy better)
We all know it but Kojima isnât a master of subtlety and some parts of the dialogue kept repeating the same informations again and again AND AGAIN and I was like âok ok I get itâ
The dialogue can be so bad at times seriously
Kojima is a bad writer there I said it
It was particularly annoying with Amelie/Bridget and the fact sheâs a horrible person trying (and failing) to justify her actions wasnât helping
Bridges protocols are incredibly intrusive. All of them. I know itâs framed as bad and Sam hates being spied on all the time and in the end he destroys the device that does that, but I wish someone else would openly criticise it in-game
I guess Deadman sort of did but still
Also I know the whole BB technology was Bridgetâs idea, and since sheâs the actual villain itâs framed as a twisted, evil thing during the ending, but I wish that had been framed like that much earlier ; a lot of Bridges employees just... seem to accept the idea that their employer is using premature babies and their dead mothers as useful, if disturbing, devices. They seem to justify it by âuh we stole that technology from terroristsâ to try to cope with the idea but... yeah.
I mean, one of the points being made very early on is that Sam sees his BB as his child who must be protected at all costs instead of a detection device, but I really wish he wasnât the only one to object to that thing
Again, the game DOES frame "using babies and their dead mothers as toolsâ as evil and twisted, I just wish it was given a lot more weight and way sooner
Now letâs talk about the Token Straight(tm) in this game
In any other kind of context it would be a joke! But Death Stranding literally has a Token Straight Guy!
I mean, there IS a few hetero couples among the Preppers. Not a lot, mind you. Like, thereâs the Montaineer and his wife for instance. But theyâre just there and itâs not what their side plot is about
No Iâm talking about this piece of shit right there
This fâcking Junk Dealer guy complains the girl he loves is dead because of Bridges and emotionally blackmails us by sending us old holograms of her before her supposed death (somewhat disturbing holograms too because she looks... pretty young in them), then he sends us on whatâs essentially a suicide mission in a BT infested zone, THEN when we give him proof sheâs still alive and living in another bunker nearby, he wonât go there himself to check??
But SHEâs like âok, bring me to him, then!â
He doesnât deserve you, girl
Iâve already seen several people pointing out that carrying a woman as cargo on your back is... debatable at best and sexist at worst, but that part didnât really bother me to be honest? She asked to be carried to him and itâs her choice. She was talking to us the entire way too, so that made things a lot less awkward. Also Sam has this phobia of being touched by other people so I bet carrying another human being on his back isnât fun for him. It was also super stressful to do, to be honest.
And then thereâs this EXTREMELY AWKWARD scene when theyâre reunited and decide to get married, and thankfully Sam finds it just as awkward as we do because heâs standing super far away from the bunker in a âcanât they talk about this later - Iâm right thereâ way. And Iâm under the impression it was intended as cringy, in a âyeppp young people in love are Like Thatâ sort of way, so I can accept that, to be honest. If you donât take that scene seriously, itâs pretty fun in, again, a cringy sort of way
BUT
Then you receive more emails later and this piece of shit guy complains about her and heâs like âugh WOMENâ or âmarriage is the worstâ and they end up divorced in record time and she goes back to her bunker
Which isnât my problem with this subplot either, I promise Iâm gonna explain myself eventually but this context is important. Itâs okay to have characters who are pieces of shit like this guy who reeks of incel cologne. Itâs alright. Not every character has to be a role-model. Itâs good to have characters you can hate.
BUT THEN they get back together later to try to patch things up and you learn he was part of a gang who murdered her parents even though he protected her against the rest of the gang and thatâs what I hated about that storyline. I guess if you squint it can be read as âthis woman is making REALLY BAD life choicesâ but I read it as âhe saved her so she owes him something, he canât be entirely badâ and y i k e s this left such a bad taste in my mouth, good lord.
But yeah miss Chiral Artist youâre making really bad life choices please get away from this dude as soon as you can, thank you
Also donât do this âsending Likesâ pose ever again, it was hilarious but also you made me use the word âcringyâ several times in this paragraph even though I absolutely hate cringe culture, look what you made me do
Now I have to talk about a scene that was intentionally disturbing as hell but ONE (1) detail in it was disturbing for the wrong reasons
To be honest, I really donât like the Metal Gear Solid games and one of the reasons is the rampant sexism in them so I... was kind of bracing myself for Death Stranding and expecting it to have at least SOME really bad fanservice with a woman at one point or another but to my surprise?? There was none? All the fanservice is on dudes??? Hello? I really liked that (well at some point Fragile takes a shower in our room but we see literally nothing except her shoulder and then Sam looks away)?? What a refreshing change
THAT BEING SAID
And if you played the game you know exactly what Iâm about to talk about
Yep this is the part where Johannes complains about how the bomb flashback was shot
Ok so I guess I should also give some context in case someone is reading this but hasnât played the game, but the deal with this scene is that our friend Fragile was betrayed by her colleague Higgs who used to be a porter but became a terrorist after meeting the âmainâ villain of the game. First he secretly put a thermonuclear bomb in one of her deliveries so sheâd nuke an entire city without even knowing it, and everyone after that thought she was a terrorist. And then he tried to do that shit A SECOND TIME, but she noticed and decided to toss the second nuke into a bottomless lake of tar. But he caught her just before she reached the lake and he decided to give her a sadistic choice, which was âteleport away and the bomb stays there and nukes the city, or carry it to the lake but only in your underwear under this rain that speeds up time and it will do enormous damage to your health and your bodyâ
And of course being the hero she is, she decides to take the second option
And itâs an incredibly disturbing scene and itâs genuinely hard to watch
But itâs also the ONLY time a woman is in her underwear in this entire game and thereâs A COUPLE of shots that were male-gaze-y at the beginning before she started to run and the really horrific part started.
So in a way I guess it could have been worse? way worse, even
But it still tarnishes an otherwise disturbing (and harrowing at times ; seriously I know Iâm oversensitive but it was physically painful to watch) scene with unnecessary shots
We know Fragile had a young body before this happened, this isnât the point of this scene, guys
Whoever decided to keep these shots (probably Kojima letâs face it), that is bad and you should feel bad
Idk how to do a visual transition for that next one because I do not want to screen that memo
So hereâs a screenshot with a nice landscape instead
tw: acephobia
Now I have to talk about something I like the GENERAL IDEA of, but not how the IN-GAME MATERIAL ABOUT IT was written
Because I have to talk about that âasexual worldâ memo
First I have to say that I absolutely love the fact that a mainstream game openly says in-game âthis future is full of asexual people" and?? itâs just that, itâs a part of this world. Thatâs just how things are. Itâs normalised. I love it. For crying out loud this memo has the word demisexual in it. I canât think of any other mainstream game that had this word in it so far.
It should have stopped there and let me enjoy that in peace but it didnât
THE MEMO ITSELF WAS CLEARLY WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO DOESNâT KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THESE CONCEPTS and thereâs some really bad stuff there. Iâd say itâs accidental acephobia but itâs still there. Iâm not the best person to talk about this because Iâm bi, but it still rubbed me the wrong way
The words this memo uses near the beginning are â"sexless lifestyleâ among young peopleâ and yikes, my dude. âLifestyleâ, uh? Really?
And then it goes on about how these new labels were already more and more common âamong young people before the Death Strandingâ and it also rubs me the wrong way, in a âwow young people and their weird labels lolâ sort of queerphobic way?
However Iâve seen a post pointing out that the line âOne theory posits that the Stranding accelerated the proliferation of these sexualitiesâ was maybe a way of saying âyo asexuals are causing the end of the worldâ but... I donât see it, tbh? In the context of the game, society is extremely divided and a lot of people live in complete isolation and social norms have heavily shifted and itâs kind of normal that thereâs queer people visible everywhere now, aces included obviously, because nobodyâs bothering to hide it anymore. Itâs a post-apocalyptic world! People are just being themselves! A lot of characters also seem to be bi/pan! Theyâre just vibing ok
At least thatâs how I read that part, I can understand if someone had a problem with that bit but I didnât
BUT! THATâS NOT ALL because the memo concludes (Iâm paraphrasing) âthe birth rate has dropped, which might be a problem, but harassment and assault have also dropped, which is good, so idk itâs 50/50âł and. like. I get the intention. But itâs clumsy as hell and very bad. Please donât confuse abuse of power and attraction. They donât go hand in hand. Donât do that. Please. And you know that aces can have kids if they want to, right. Come on. Itâs 2020 my dude. This shit is harmful
Also. Like. Itâs the end of the world in this game. People donât want kids. It... has nothing to do with aces. Reality itself is crashing down. People are reluctant to have kids because reality.exe might fâcking crash down at any given moment!
Or a Beached Thing could VoidOut their city!
Or someone might send them a nuke, not naming names!!
Anyway!!!
Itâs really badly written and whoever wrote it should educate themselves and maybe get an ace to re-read their stuff next time??
Again Iâm not the right person to talk about acephobia and I bet an actual ace would have plenty more to say about this
Thankfully itâs a memo written in-game by a random Bridges councellor and NOT by any important character that we actually know
"I must preempt myself by admitting that I do not have any empirical data" yeah so, fâck off maybe
So Iâm just gonna call that guy âanother piece of shit characterâ but it still doesnât excuse the fact that the memo was written by someone who thought it was a good idea to put it in the game
Just let me enjoy my super queer post-apo world in peace and donât write shit like that in your game thank you and goodbye
Minor stuff I also disliked but it wasnât as awful
I get that Sam is upset at the end because Lou is dying but the way he said goodbye to Fragile broke my heart. It was abrupt and you KNOW heâs upset and wants to have nothing to do with Bridges anymore and thatâs very understandable but it isnât her fault
Seriously I want them to be friends again
Iâm gonna pretend theyâre friends again after Lou is saved and that Sam is a freelance porter again and sometimes their paths cross and they just talk together in the middle of nowhere and share cryptobiotes
The pacing is weird, thereâs this deluge of plot in the beginning and the end but not much in the middle?
The BT boss fights could have been these epic Shadow of the Colossus showdowns but no, they were relatively standard boss fights. Wasted opportunity
The running on the Beach scene sdfghjhgfdsdfghjhgf that was... dumb
A lot of preppers are interesting in one way or another but some are just boring. Also I wish the design of their bunkers was more varied
Amelie/Bridgetâs motivations are all over the place, both creating Bridges AND the Demens is... a lot? I know she both WANTS and DOESNâT want the actual, final end of the world to happen but that is a lot to take in and itâs all very confusing
Who the hell cares about ârebuilding Americaâ I just want to build a network where people can help each other
The âlikesâ are fun but donât make much sense
In conclusion
Death Stranding Good
Some stuff Bad
Some stuff Very Bad (but itâs just one memo out of 100+ memos, thank god)
Iâm still hyperfixating
Send help
#death stranding#long post#eye contact tw#acephobia tw#from a minor unamed character but still it's there
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My Big Humiliating Torchwood Confession - Part 1 :P
Warning: this will be a LONG post, and iâm sorry about that!Â
Lucy is sat opposite me asking me repeatedly if Iâve started typing yet because she knows how desperately iâm putting off making this post!!1
This is awful, this is.... probably the most embarrassingly intimate confession iâll have made since the day I opened up about my fetish way back at the start of 2013. And on the surface of it it probably doesnât seem like that big of a deal but IT IS TO ME! And a big chunk of the trauma iâm about to express is tongue in cheek but itâs genuinely been - and continues to be - a huge bundle of DISTRESS AND HUMILIATION AND UTTER RESENTMENT!!! Because this year has been.... one hell of a personal journey and i donât even mean anything to do with the pandemic.
It all started on New Yearâs Day. I was feeling horrendously ill; the miraculous medication that had started to give me my life back had run out and thanks to the festive postal delays my new lot hadnât arrived yet. I was in agony, I had a horrible headache, I felt sick and I could hardly move. We spent the day watching a bunch of muppet stuff, and that night we watched the first ep of season 12 of Doctor Who and, yâknow, it was a pretty damn good episode (plus thirteen in the suit.... fuuckkk)Â
So afterwards we started having a discussion about Chris Chibnall - weâve long held criticisms about some of his writing (not all of it, but itâs a mixed bag) and Lucy told me I still hadnât seen his worst writing because that was for Torchwood...
Which I had never seen. Which I had been desperately trying not to see, although I didnât know why. I just always had this vibe like a big âNO ENTRY!â sign at the idea of ever watching it. Itâs not as though I had a logical reason for it, itâs not like Iâd read up about it and thought, ânaahhhhhh, I donât fancy watching thatâ. I just had a big WARNING sign in my head, telling me not to go there.Â
Several years ago Lucy made me watch the first episode (after iâd been avoiding her threats of showing it to me for like 2 years) and like... it wasnât horrible? It wasnât... great either... but it didnât kill me. Then a couple of years ago she showed me Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang because we were having a big Runaways phase so she wanted to show me an episode with James Marsters in. Again, it didnât kill me. It wasnât horrible. But I still had those big NO ENTRY!!! signs up in my head. I was still trying desperately to avoid actually being shown Torchwood as a show.
And the the new year happened and I was too WEAK AND DEFENCELESS to know what was happening when Lucy and I cuddled up in bed that night. I was too sick to really comprehend what she was doing or to fight back when she announced she was going to show me the very worst of Chris Chibnallâs writing... and put on Day One followed by Cyberwoman.
Oh. My. God.
All day I had been in a state of physical agony. Suddenly my mental and emotional state was far, FAR worse!!! The sex gas alien was bad enough, then by the time she put on Cyberwoman my brain was trying to shut down. I used to suffer blackouts and, god, I kept blacking out all the way through it, and instead of being her usual loving, wonderful self she KEPT FORCING ME TO COME ROUND TO WATCH IT!!!
By this point it was gone midnight and I was in a state of utter distress!! This was the worst double helping of tv I had ever sat through in my life and I sat up and let forth a tirade of absolute distress! This, I decided, had to be the reason Iâd been avoiding Torchwood. Because it was more like.... Torurewood :PÂ
Yep, that had to be it. Couldnât possibly be anything worse, could it?Â
At least now lucy had shown me those two terrible Chibnall eps I would NEVER EVER HAVE TO WATCH THEM AGAIN. Or ANY Torchwood episodes. Yes, my ordeal was over. Had to be.
Nope. We went back to bed and she put on Out if Time. And iâll admit, the story was much stronger but goddddd I had issues with the endings! And my level of despair started to rise even higher. I HATED Torchwood! This was the most distressing nightâs viewing ever and I just wanted to go to sleep and be done with it all! Lucy put one more episode on afterwards: They Keep Killing Suzie. And that was much better but halfway through we finally fell asleep - so surely my trauma was over with.
Nope.
I had horrible nightmares of a very thirsty Gwen coming onto me all night, over and over again and it was HORRIBLE!!! Like, you have no idea how distressed I was! And when I woke up I blamed lucy whole-heartedly and she very sympathetically laughed at my plight!
But yeah. My trauma was over. No more Torchwood. Iâd suffered the night from hell. Now it was time to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on! My medication arrived that day, I started work on some new pet portraits and life went back to normal.
Until that night, when I saw the telltale sign of Lucy putting a video on and turning her iPad around and then there they were - the opening titles of Torchwood - and I wanted to jump out the boat and into the canal and swim as far away as possible!!!
But the episode she put on was Fragments. She said she wanted to show me Chris Chibnallâs finest episode. And yâknow what? It was really pretty fucking good. And god, I was fURIOUS about that!!! When we went to bed she pulled a real double whammy though by putting on Adam - which became instantly one of my favourite episodes of ANYTHING, EVER. And I looked at my wife, shook my head, sighed and told her, ânice save, Lucy... nice save...â
Over the next couple of weeks we also had a major Doctor Who rewatch and revisited most of the New Who era, and - to my mixed feelings - she dotted various other episodes of Torchwood in around them. I was conflicted - after the Adam and Fragments double bill I was no longer in brain-screamy hatred territory. I did however keep having flashbacks to that godawful night. Plus iâd had several further nightmares about a thirsty Gwen and I did NOT like it! But by a couple of weeks into January Iâd seen a fair bit of Torchwood. Some of them twice.Â
Around this same time Iâd started back in testosterone after not being able to afford it for the last 3 years. And then I started to notice I was getting some..... urghhhhhh..... unusual... and very uncomfortable feelings... about certain.... things... and characters.
And I started falling headlong into a great big gay panic :P
And hereâs where the whole story becomes a HELL of a lot more embarrassing so iâm going to put it under a read more :P
Did ya click on that read more? Wh-why? thereâs nothing to see here... especially not a long tale of shame and distress :P ugggghhhhhhh ok, FINE;
Basically there were two things happening at the same time. One was that I started to feel something I hadnât felt in two decades. When I was a kid/teen we didnât have the phrase âhyperfixationâ so I just called them obsessions. I always had obsessions, at any given point there was always this ONE THING that was my entire life. i lived it, breathed it, became it. It was my whole world, my whole personality, my focus, my lifeline. 9 times out of 10 it would be a tv show. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I would generally change my obsession about once a month. There were several âusual suspectsâ that would cycle around over and over - Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halfway Across the Galaxy, Parallel 9, Out of this World...Â
late in 1995 I became obsessed with The X Files and - bizarrely - that obsession just ran and ran. I was so used to my obsession changing around once every month that it was bizarre to still be absolutely hyperfixated on it almost 9 months later. And then, in June 1996, my longest ever obsession took its place, a little known uk fantasy show called Bugs.Â
That... was my longest running obsession. And oh my god, was I ever obsessed with it. I have no idea how that one obsession kept going for 3 years. iâm sorry this is particularly wordy but this is kind of personal and I want to explain this right.
If youâve been following me for a while youâll probably known that one of the most defining moments of my life happened in the summer of â98. My cousinâs husband sexually assaulted me and my life spiralled into total despair. While that night was bad enough, the slow breakdown I went through over the course of the year that followed was harder to recover from. And eventually I came out the other side to some degree but iâd lost my love of three things that made me the person I was: writing, drawing and being obsessed. All three were so closely entangled with that night and surviving afterwards that it changed something that had always been a fundamental part of me.
I was no longer able to feel obsession. To hyperfixate the way I previously had. It was like something was broken inside me. And that was like a loss unto itself. It was SUCH a big part of me. It had been the only way iâd survived years of depression when I was young. My obsessions were what kept me afloat.Â
In the last decade there are a few things that I called âobsessionsâ and I thought were as close as I would ever get to the way I used to feel. I thought maybe it was because iâd âgrown upâ (pah). Thatâs not to say that i wasn't thoroughly into Ashes to Ashes, FNAF and Homestuck, for example, because of course I was! I even called them obsessions, but there was something that just... wasnât the same, no matter what I did.
And over time, I got back the other things Iâd lost. I started writing my A2A fics in 2010 and Lucy helped me to start drawing again in 2018 and god, both times it was like finally having a piece of myself returned after so long! As for my âobsessionsâ, I just thought I wasn't able to feel the way I used to because I wasnât a kid any more.
But then, I thought that about Christmas Eve too, and then lucy came into my life <3
Still, the last thing I was expecting was... for *those* feelings to start sneaking back in my life. Feelings I hadnât been able to experience since the summer of 1998-9. And to my further distress I discovered that they were relating to a certain show that Iâd had a traumatising introduction to on new yearâs day...
Suddenly it was all I could think about; TORCHWOOD! TORCHWOOD! Aargghhhhh and yet I still hated it! It was still awful! And yet... at the same time... it was so goooooooood.... arghhhhh, every time we watched an episode there was a  knife twisting in my guts, reminding me that I hadnât even felt these feelings over things weâd been HUGELY into... the fandoms weâd met through, the fandoms we discovered together. Nope. It was Torchwood that brought back my ability to hyperfixate! And I have SO MANY ANGRY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!
And believe me, I kept thinking it was going to stop and go away BUT IT HASNâT! Itâs only gotten worse! And as of yesterday Torchwood officially became my second  longest obsession ever!!!
I. AM. FURIOUS!!!
Itâs... urrghhhh I hate this fact but itâs almost like I have a crush on the *show*??!!! I... canât explain it better than that??? Itâs like, if I could throw Torchwood on the bed and make sweet, sweet love to it I would :P and yeah, iâm saying all of this tongue in cheek but iâve had a fucking sky high libido ever since I went back on T (ohhhhh and believe me I am LOVING it!!! đđđ) But itâs like... there are elements of Torchwood itself that are so fucking hot that I get.... reactions that I am SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED ABOUT for so many reasons deidjdhdggjhaaahhhhhhhhh
Lucy literally only has to say âTorchwoodâ at me and I end up in a gibbering heap half the time - I am not even kidding!!!
This, however, is NOT the worst thing that happened as a result of Lucy making me watch this god damned show.
But honestly this post has gone on WAY too long already so iâm going to save that for part 2.
Oh god... my shame.... my total and utter shame....
To be continued :P
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I saw the downton abbey movie so now hereâs kind of a rambling personal essay, under a cut for spoilers for the downton abbey movie. downton abbey movie spoilers ahead.
once again SPOILERS AHEAD also tw for death, grief, suicide attempts/etc mention.
so, i know probably no one cares but considering how active i was in this fandom and how incredibly important this show and the character of thomas was to me personally, iâm just gonna sit here and write my thoughts about thomas barrow, the show, the movie, what it meant to me, and my critique overall
so basically i always loved the show and thomas but it really took off 2 yrs ago during 2017.
i had just moved out of my motherâs house and i had just finished a rewatch of the show, i remember this so clearly lol it was september 2017 the rewatch had started like june 2017. and i remember when i got to my new apartment one of the âcomfort showsâ i would put on on my very own tv in my very own apartment was âdownton abbeyâ. i believe the other that was regularly tossed on in the background was âthe tudorsâ, obviously lol
anyways, i was so hyper obsessed. i had also JUST discovered that thomas and jimmy were legitimately shipped in this fandom. i had no idea that was a real thing when i watched it live. and i had never cared about jimmy or thought of them as an actual viable relationship. but with this rewatch they just hit different i guess. i spent hours and hours and hours at my motherâs house before the move (which was an EXTREMELY tense living situation, the month or so right before i left. iâm not getting into all of it now. if you followed me back then you know) watching this show like properly sitting and watching an episode with my sister, and then capping for gifs, which if you make gifs you know is basically spending possibly 3 or 4 hours with the same episode. like it can take that long for me personally to go through it and cap everything i want, then, sorting the caps into folders, especially if iâd capped more than one episode. completely mesmerized with the smallest details, hand and facial movements i specifically wanted to gif or be in a set, clothing movements, emotional moments, like i was just so into all aspects of the show and wanted to gif everything. my fav 4 are thomas, sybil, mary, and tom. i also adore edith and it may be a âfav 5âł now as i think i just love all of those characters equally. so i pretty much giffed every single fucking scene they were in lol. unless they were âugly scenesâ that i knew i could never make work in photoshop. sometimes i would cap it anyway and sort it anyway and open it up anyway and try but would end up deleting all the caps for that set. so all the gifs i have posted, is not even all the ones i capped. anyway
okay and then, thereâs the fanfic. reading it, rereading, and writing it. it took me 2 years but i actually read close to every single thomas/jimmy fanfic on a03. at some point i only started opening complete fanfics because i got burned too many times on abandoned slow burns, and if a fic wasnât my thing i would obviously not finish it. but definitely hundreds of works i read, saved to my phone and reread in google books. works i would think about all day.
so, june 2017 i start the rewatch. i also start planning to move out of my motherâs. a toxic tense living situation. in the past i have used harsher words like âabusiveâ. i canât really use that word and apply it to my mother right now even though it is accurate. it hurts to think about. i canât think about it. september 2017 i actually move.
the hyperfixation is in full swing. hours every night reading. reading 50k word fanfics in a single night. hours every day (or, week, i have a fulltime job) capping and coloring frames in photoshop. eventually i started writing fanfic for them as well.
so, in november 2017 my mother is hospitalized. this was not an unusal occurence. in february 2018 they tell us sheâs going to die. 12 days later she died.
iâm not gonna really get into what happened to my mental state. itâs uh. bad. guilt. self hatred. like hatred isnât even a strong enough word. i wanted to annihilate myself. i believed i deserved to be annihilated. thatâs the only word violent enough i can think of to describe the depth of it. suicidal. etc. whatever.
but! i had this piece of fiction, this series, and assorted fan works. it really intensified after this. i can look back at this time last year and i remember how obsessed i was lol.
when i try to articulate what this character and show means to me, i always feel really embarrassed. at some point when iâm talking about thomas it becomes obvious i am talking about myself as well. but iâm gonna really try and objectively talk about my opinion on thomas and why i adore him and why i want what i want for him. itâs probably gonna be obvious i am also talking about myself but. anyway.Â
hereâs the âmetaâ âopinion on the fictional charactersâ section.
thomas barrow starts the show as an antagonist. heâs rude, could even be called cruel. a bully, snide, dishonest when it suits him and honest when it hurts him. like, heâs an asshole. what he said about williamâs mom. how he treated baxter. his ambition and the underhanded things he does to serve it. overall proud demeanor designed to make those around him feel lesser. feel less able to hurt him. he wants the people around him to feel like they should not hurt him. i think he might be unaware that that is his motivation. because even as heâs afraid of everyone, he craves everyone as well. heâs alone, outside, and heâs been shoved there, constantly, heâs been shoved there politely and heâs been shoved there violently and if theyâre gonna shove him here outside, away from them, unfixably different from them, unworthy of them, then he will stay there. like, the meanness and the comments and the attitude. heâs already Not Like The Others. if they already donât like him, he will make it even harder for them to like him. unless, he can get somewhere safer, which is where his motivation comes in.
i just really view thomas as a character that craves safety.
he wants others to not hurt him. he wants to get from where he is to somewhere safer, somewhere up there, where itâs even less likely for people to be able to hurt him.
so, his motivations: safety, and then, thereâs love.
he constantly has this world and these people implicitly and explicitly telling him he cannot love or be loved. itâs not right, itâs not natural, best case scenario is it doesnât even exist- heâs confused, heâs sick, heâs broken, maybe they can fix it. heâs on the outside, remember, and he just gets to watch thru the window as the others dance and fall in love and have friends and family and be cherished. he can have none of it. this is a really old story that could be told by better people and in a better way.
the loves we get to see him have all have teeth. heâs betrayed by one lover and then abandoned, someone he obviously had feelings for but also betrayed first. then we get a probably one-sided attraction, but still a friend, still someone he can actually be vulnerable with since theyâre helplessly vulnerable with him as well due to the circumstances. who kills himself. and then thereâs the shameless, stupid hope that almost costs him everything, but he does get a friend in the balance.
he finds a friend in baxter, another character i just adore, because she gives to thomas what he needs even though he objectively does not deserve it, at least not from her, who he has terrorized. baxterâs trauma from her abusive relationship with coyle that thomas knows and uses, the impossible situation thomas places her in, the manipulation, the bullying, some would even term his behavior abusive. baxter would have had every right to ignore thomas, to get him fired, to hurt him back. but she loves him instead. she loves him in spite of. she loves him because. she helps him, she speaks to him softly and kindly. she tells him heâs brave. she remembers him as a child. this especially touches me. the idea of thomas as a child, someone who must have been different from who he is now, and she knows them both and loves him. she looks at the grown, hurt, cruel man in front of her and she speaks to the boy she once knew, and thomas listens. slowly. but he listens. AND she tries to give him advice for finding a lover, supporting and encouraging something the rest of the entire fucking series despises or ignores.
i donât have enough energy to really go off but, baxter is supreme. i need a baxter.
thomas clearly cannot form self esteem in the environment he lives in. the ground is dead. he canât grow it himself. he has this ironclad sense that he deserves what the others have, the ones on the inside. itâs immovable. he deserves it, they have no right to keep it from him. maybe heâll never, ever get it, but in his mind, in his heart, he will never stop believing he deserves it. they tell him heâs nothing, heâs dirt, heâs wrong, and he just nods and keeps walking. they can think that. they can say that. he canât stop them. but he will not stop working for the future he wants. he will not stop until they have no choice but to let him inside.
but he wants, i think, for them to invite him inside. but heâll never admit it, and heâll never ask for it, and heâll never get it anyway.
so, he tries to change himself. maybe theyâll invite him in then? no.
then, his attempts to form friendships get twisted, and aborted, and he gets tired stereotypical accusations thrown on him.
then, he tries to kill himself in a bathtub with a razor.
then, he leaves his home and spends his days bored and unchallenged and away from all of the friends and half-friends he had.
then, heâs invited back. heâs invited inside!!!! you might say. and yeah i guess. as close as theyâll ever let him. but part of him always ignored and not commented on. part of him always raised eyebrows at iâm sure. and yes, his bad behavior is also to blame for this. but see, the 2 are linked. and you canât unlink them.
by the end of the show the others still largely tiptoe around him. but due to his now somewhat subdued behavior heâs âlikableâ now.
i think itâs quite a choice to have this character who is completely sharp edges have them worn away by heartbreak, torture, injury, suicide attempt, ostracisation, abandonment, and present that as a victory, as a happy ending. but guess what? it is. and iâll take it. he was back among his friends, back home, accepted, celebrating with everyone else, and i adored it, even as the jarring notes i heard in it wonât ever fade from my opinion of it.
anyway, in the aftermath of my grief i fell heavily into this story and the many stories of thomas finding love and safety. and healing, and friends, and peace. lots different from each other and lots the same. again, i relate very strongly to this character. i was not in a mindset where i was able to be kind to myself. or think sympathetically about myself. i think i fixated so much on this character, became obsessed with finding stories where he gets told and he experiences all the things i think i wanted to be told and i wanted to experience. i couldnât accept it, even the concept, directly. but i devoured and absorbed a billion pixels of a character very similar to me accepting it. itâs the closest the concept could have gotten to me and iâm embarrassed i only recently realized this link and that that was what i was doing considering it is obvious, and common, and normal. maybe not âhealthyâ but like. letâs not get into healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms rn bec i promise you the fanfic and the fiction fixation is not even at the top of the list lol
FAST FORWARD itâs september 2019. the movie is in theaters.
my mom is still dead. but. a lot has happened to me. i have happened to some people. iâve been thru some more things now. dipped my toes and eventually completely submerged and perhaps am drowning in the entire Romance/Love/Sex section of human experience. again, letâs not get into it. but itâs a LOT.Â
i donât quite have the same relationship with fiction and fanfiction as i used to. itâs been only 2 years since leaving my motherâs house, but i feel as though galaxies could fit in between the girl back there and the one here. but theyâre the same! iâm working on understanding that.Â
i love this character and this show so much. i loved the film. there are problems- the writing and plotting is not nearly as neat and crisp and sharp. itâs more smooth, almost to a loss of definition, and instead of quick-wit it feels just... fast. thereâs no time to really dive in in a film, so iâll forgive all that, but itâs a flaw that should be mentioned. but itâs not a flaw that prevents joy in the film. i was overjoyed watching it. the things i wanted for thomas all happened. all the characters and relationships were... smoothed, i canât describe it any other way. i feel like the bumps and corners and quirks and hidden pockets of them were just smoothed away. we know theyâre there because we watched the show, but the film doesnât- canât- show them all.Â
it was frustrating for me to see thomas smoothed in this way, but also satisfying, because while he absolutely one of a kind, unique, damaged, and layered, and contradictory, really a marvelous character and well-built... he is just like everyone else. and i think he would love and hate that and i love and hate that about myself.
for this reason, i really enjoyed a scene where he refuses to help carson. carson is flustered and overworked, in a crisis, and asks barrow for help, and thomas refuses, with a smile. i adored it. carson is one of thomasâ worst ... opponents, i could say. carson hurls homophobic abuse at and about thomas several times during the series, casts aspersions on him in the film as well, and he can choke. i love that even though towards the end of the show and yes during the rest of the film thomasâ sharp edges got smoothed away, but they put this one in and it catches you right on the bone how it should- an older woman in my theater actually gasped, offended, when thomas refused to help and carson was left to flounder. i, on the other hand, thought, âthatâs my boy,â and leaned back in my seat satisfied. it might be my fav moment in the film. surprising considering the AMAZING joy and tenderness thomas gets to experience in the movie (but, i think thatâs just my taste right now due to a personal heartbreak i wonât get into). like, they shoved him outside, carson shoved him outside, outside the realm of normal, and this is a moment of carson needing his help and thomas going, âno, remember how you used to treat me? remember how you secretly think of me? i do. i wonât forget. good luck! bye!â and then goes on to have a terrible wonderful adventure, while someone funny and kind finally falls in love with him, he gets to stand up for himself to the crawleys in the beginning of the film as well and i just felt elated watching that scene.
i could probably write essays about the love and romance portion of his storyline in the movie. but iâm just not in the headspace to do that right now super in depth but.
iâm also annoyed he had to experience yet ANOTHER homophobic plotline. he goes out to a gay club for literally The First Time and gets arrested and called a dirty pervert. i remember this being my exact fear for the movie. like âimagine if thomas goes to a gay club and gets arrested? that would suck!!!â and that is exactly what happens. but at least itâs so quick, i genuinely think that entire plot is like 6 short scenes max. why is julian fellowes obsessed with having this character, the ONE main queer character, suffer solely because he is gay? experience so many gay-specific agonies, the depths of which i just really doubt he, fellowes, can understand. itâs really, really, disappointing. but consistent as the show did this as well. smh. at least he gets out, and his lover, richard, goes to bat for him in this movie TWICE!!!!! and stares at him with stars in his eyes, soft and enamoured? while thomas is oblivious?? IâVE READ THIS FIC BEFORE!!!! so yes that was VERY cute and all i ever fucking wanted
itâs just funny how fiction touches us differently depending on what weâre going through, especially for those of us that were lonely, neglected, children, ones who grew up with favorite characters instead of friends. i might be more ânormalâ i might be more âsociableâ i might have more âlife experienceâ than i used to but this fangirl inside is just not going anywhere.
this was just a ramble, i wrote it with no point in mind and iâm not rereading or editing it lol. enjoy this vague update into my life/movie review/character meta lol
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2019 fic roundup
Buffyverse
The Words Beneath Our Words
MCU
Perfect Targets Beneath the Flap A Light in the Window These Bricks and Beams Carry With Us Though It's Called Dancing (to me it's romancing) things left behind and the things that are ahead
1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what youâd predicted?:
I've had a policy over the past through years of not predicting (Iâm so easily prone to getting weighed down by disappointment in myself), but Iâll say it was less than in the past (not an overwhelming number of individual fics, and not a lot of variation in genre) but in some ways a lot more (things left behind).
There is something a little different from other years, though, because in 2018 I had decided to stop writing. It seemed like a perfectly sensible time to do so: it had been just over ten years since I started writing fic regularly, just under ten since I started participating in IWRY marathon, Iâd made friends and improved in my writing both through age and through practice, and Iâd just finished my World Without Shrimp IWRY series and had no new projects brewing. I was starting to feel sort of old-married to my fandoms, the love still there but the passion somewhat fading. But it was also a move made bitterly, out of anger and sadness and frustration.Â
I know there are writers who will write regardless of the feedback they get. I know there are writers who donât register the hits or kudos they get, those who donât compare their stats to other writers, who keep themselves focused on themselves and their own work, thinking âI like my story - itâs good and writing it helped me to growâ rather than âI like my story, and more people should have too.â I think that type of writer is admirable. Iâm not one of them. I donât know that I ever can be. And, as Iâve mentioned in the past, I was really torn up that But A Walking Shadow didnât get much of a reaction.
Itâs strange - I love my own fic, but I truly donât think Iâm the most amazing writer or anything. And I certainly get wonderful feedback, including plenty on my other 2018 stories, many of which were very well received. But there was just something about what happened with that one story that really affected me. Maybe it was a sense of hopes dashed after a lot of effort, or, as I mentioned during last yearâs roundup, a feeling that I had done everything ârightâ with it, and it didnât result in a greater impact. Maybe it was the feeling that Woman Borne was somehow retroactively not as well-received as I thought it had been if people werenât looking for a follow-up and werenât as interested when it arrived. I felt as if I had spent a decade trying to become Something and had finally gotten close and it just wasnât working. (I was also having a pretty hard year in general, and mental-healthwise, wasnât in the best place.) Regardless of the reason, in the later part of 2018, I started wondering what would happen if I just...stopped?
Like I said, I thought it would be a fairly good time to do it, there were Reasons for it, but I was also having a supervillain moment of âif Iâm not appreciated, I just wonât do it anymore, Iâll just tell myself stories and wonât write them or show them to anyone, so there.â Â
And then Endgame came out. And I wrote anyway. Obviously.
Iâm not much better in my comparisons with others, and in some ways Iâm worse, though Iâm working on it. I know that itâs not logical or healthy, to have this endlessly gluttonous desire for recognition which might not even be possible to ever fulfill. (Like, realistically, what do I want? For every fic reader to be obsessed with my work? For the world to hail me as the next Shakespeare????) I am trying to manage my expectations and to focus on the positives of my accomplishments and place less stock in the reception. Weâll see how it goes.
Anyway, I donât predict what Iâll write, or how much. At this point, who knows.
2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:
As I said, in January, I was certain I would never write fic again, so I suppose it was all unpredictable. That said, everything stayed fairly status quo (Steve/Peggy, Buffy/Angel), though I guess my OCs - the whole cast of them! - were a surprise.
3. Whatâs your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?
Thereâs usually one that jumps out, but from 2019, I was really proud of things left behind in a grand sense (length! characters!) and probably Beneath the Flap in a smaller sense (Iâm always really excited when I can translate one universe into another - Attachmentsâs internet security officer/email monitor becoming a CA:TFA appropriate WWII military mail censor is pretty good).
4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?
Including so many OCs in things left behind, I think. Even though I did something similar before with Adrift, Ashore, it felt so, so nerve-wracking to include pieces like chapter 22, which is almost entirely Drea with cameos by Steve and Peggy and Tony and the Jarvises. Like, how much would peopleâs interest extend past the MCU characters they came to read about? (Luckily, apparently a fair amount.) One of the things I started to realize as Iâve written more and more of the story is that I do feel, I guess, ready to try writing new characters and building a world of my own in a way that I didnât before.Â
5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?
This is not a prediction because Iâve already fulfilled it as of this writing, but: keep posting chapters of things left behind, mostly. Iâd love to expand to a new fandom, but Iâve been in a real rut for the past few years; nothingâs really captured my interest in that certain way, and Iâm sighing over the lack of a shiny hyperfixation.
As Iâve gained confidence in my own writing independent of an extant media universe (see above), itâs possible that I might try writing something non fanfic at some point in the future, but I donât actually have an idea and the details of anything surrounding that are so hazy I donât even think I could list it as a goal. (Also, a maximum of four people are allowed on the page at once, so that will put a damper on things). Â
6. From my past year of writing, what wasâŚ
Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:
I think they all mostly got what they were due this time around (or more than their due; see below), though I would never say no to more feedback on new chapters of things left behind. There are people who comment on every chapter and I absolutely can never thank them enough for that, but it is a little dispiriting to watch the hits going up without even a note saying, âhey, this was great!â or âI canât give kudos again but I liked this chapter.â Like I said, Iâm trying to work past this sort of thing and Iâm not going to stop writing because of it, but...it would still be nice...
Most Fun:
I think Perfect Targets. Thereâs a touch of awkwardness to it that I wasnât really able to smooth out, but I like the tone of it, the seriousness balanced with humor/aggravation.
Most Disappointing:
It has got to be A Light in the Window. I reread my own fic possibly more than anyone else alive, and I canât bear to even look at this one because I think itâs so clunky and weird. Like, the very very center is an interesting idea, but I canât believe I wrote it considering the secondhand awkwardness that I experience when thinking about it. The feedback on it has been incredibly generous.
Most Sexy:
The scene in chapter 3 of things left behind where Peggy and Steve start getting hot and heavy at the carnival? Or maybe chapter 3 in general?
Hardest to Write:
I stopped writing chapter 28 of things left behind for around six solid months and Iâm still not certain I got it 100% fixed up, so probably that.
Most Unintentionally Telling:
I'd love to be either a Buffy or an Angel in The Words Beneath Our Words, but sometimes I feel like my love language is ¯\(°_o)/¯. Good luck being in a relationship with me! (Just kidding - who would?! Rosa_Diaz_laughing_at_the_party.gif)
Choice Lines:
Usually Iâm obsessed enough with my own work to list fourteen million, but this time the prospect legit exhausts me. Pick your own if youâd like, I guess?
#this is like a mental breakdown/ugly look into my ugly psyche disguised as a fic roundup#(I felt like I had to get it out but if you want to like me in the future maybe don't read it?)
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Social distancing tag
tagged by @lorceone ,thank you:)
Are you staying home from work/school?
Yes,I do.If I really wanna call it studying whatever im trying to do,then yes,im studying at home.Its the worst part about it,i could do this staying home thing for years,the only thing im worried about is studying.I havent actually joined any of my online classes yet,and even tho i have a reason for not joining them all and some of them i just watch as videos later, i feel like this is gonna end bad..at least i have that one person at uni who helps me survive,or like weâre helping eachother to survive but if i was more social i would just be in one of those group chats where people just âillegallyâ send all the exam stuff in,so that everybody already knows everything about their next exams,while weâre doing random videochats to do our exams together with this guy..better than nothing but..i blame myself more for my social anxiety since im studying from home..its kind of funny how i feel like social distancing requires more social skills than normal studying..
If youâre staying home, who is with you?
my family.my mother,my dad and my older brother.
Who would be your ideal quarantine mate?
myself.sounds bad but being alone would be fucking nice now...i love my family but ive spent a month with them..i wasnt alone for a minute in the last 4 weeks..or 3..i dont even know...its weird how everybodys going crazy cuz they feel alone in quarantine while i want it to end so that i can finally be alone...and its just frustrating...im used to hearing my dad yelling and swearing but now i hear my mom yelling too and also i hear my brother swearing all the damn time..im the only one in the family who holds in the stress when sth goes wrong and maybe thats the reason i cant stand hearing peoples yelling all the time..it really fucking stresses my out..
Are you a homebody?
i am but i kinda hate that im forced to stay inside..i would probably not go out any more if it wasnt lockdown,but i need the feeling that i could...its like when you were a kid and you got that random burst of motivation that you are now gonna do all your homework and study and its gonna be awesome and then your mom came into your room and told you that you cant do anything until you did your homework and then you felt like âwell fuck it then...doing my homework suddenly became the last thing i wanna do...â
An event you were looking forward to that got cancelled?
Harry Styles concert :( It broke my heart...
What movies have you recently watched?
im doing a marathon on everything that includes Hugh Laurie cuz i guess i ran out of new hyperfixations and i got back to the ones i had as a 12 year old..so i just watched Stuart Little again and im planning to watch every weird movie he took part in..
What shows are you watching?
i watched supernatural but they are on a hiatus as well as every celebrity i love,i started watching Zoeâs extraordinary playlist and im so in love with it,im rewatching House(thats where the whole hyperfixation started lol),and i started watching Chance...for obvious reasons..
What music are you listening to?
i find myself listening to a lot of 80â˛,90â˛s playlists on spotify and for some reason i always do a playlist for my current hyperfixations so im listening to those as well..but im listening to everything,literally..blues/piano stuff when im coding cuz its chill enough,death metal when my family fucks me up with the yelling,a lot of one direction(did anybody use these words in the same sentence before me?),80â˛s/90â˛s hits when im drawing...todays pop when im curious..if theres any music genre im uncultured at its todays pop music...im not proud of it...and a lot of weird hungarian quarantine playlists they are the worst...
What are you reading?
i got a book from my mom like two months ago about how to be a functional introvert,i read that when i cant sleeep...so quite often..
What are you doing for self care?
im not sure i know what self care is...i sometimes work out..but besides that...i dont know how to take care of myself...i do what i have to and i listen to music,draw and watch tv shows for my own entertainment...
and this time im gonna try to tag some people soo: @h-bea92 , @wannabe-loser , @sammyimpala-67 , @youreabadliar , @danisalutations
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So as of today itâs been exactly one year since I first watched Revue Starlight, and itâs been a really interesting year. Iâve been thinking about the impact the series has had on my life lately and felt like I needed to get some thoughts down.
TW: self harm mention, suicide mention
Love Live changed my life. It was not my first fandom ever, but it was the first one where I got seriously involved with the community. Not only did I manage to make friends within the fandom (and to be honest these friends have proven truer than any Iâve had in real life), but I also managed to meet not one but two amazing partners, which is two more than Iâd ever anticipated Iâd have. Love Live was good to me, and for a good three years I happily allowed it to consume my very soul. But things like these donât last forever.
I donât talk about it much (thereâs a reason why but thatâs another story), but I am autistic and I do have ADHD. Obviously hyperfixations are a big part of my life. The big ones tend to last for years. Naruto was three or four, Touhou was a solid three, Kancolle was less than a year but I feel like it would have been longer if I hadnât forcibly divorced myself from it due to the fact that my mental health at the time was spiraling out of control. Love Live was just another one of these things. For years it was constantly in my thoughts, and at the height of all this I couldnât watch a movie without thinking âhm, what if this was Love Live characters?â It gave me a reason to live and got me through a few rough patches. But my interest did eventually start to wane. Unfortunately this coincided with one of those rough patches, and this particular one had something that I hadnât had to deal with in a while: uncertainty.
Early last year I quit my job. It was a customer service job, one that I had been at for a few years and was starting to get tired of. I figured that I would be unemployed for a month or two (which at the time sounded refreshing, one of the reasons I quit was because the job had become so soul-sucking that I didnât have energy for anything else) before getting a new one, preferably one with better hours and better pay. What I hadnât counted on was my depression, which was already a contributing factor in my somewhat fragile state, utterly consuming me now that I didnât have any kind of routine or purpose, and was therefore at the mercy of my thoughts at all times. I tried to take refuge in Love Live like I always had, and for a while, it worked. But eventually it just kind of...stopped working. So here I was, unemployed, depressed, and rapidly losing the ability to find joy in things. All that, but thankfully in no actual, real, physical danger. But apparently my brain thought I was. So thatâs what it started telling me.
Iâm not gonna go into what I specifically believed was happening. The long and short of it was that I started having irrational fears about my health, brought upon by some discussion that was going on in the spaces I hung out in. At first I was able to just dismiss it as paranoia, but certain things happened that only served to deepen it. Eventually I started thinking that I needed to go to the hospital, but what for? Nobody would believe there was anything wrong. I didnât even believe it myself, at least consciously. But my brain was telling me I needed to go. And if I didnât have an obvious reason to, I should give myself one.
I did not actually reach the point of doing self-harm, fortunately. But I came close. One evening something triggered a massive panic attack, and I, sincerely believing my life was in danger, began seriously, seriously considering it. I was very lucky that my parents kind of knew what was going on and rushed me to the hospital before I could do anything I might regret. I ended up spending a few days in the hospitalâs psyche ward, which from what Iâve gathered was actually pretty okay as far as psyche wards go, but it was still a quiet and sterile place with no clocks and no contact with the outside. I was relieved to get out, to say the least. Even spending five and a half hours a day in intensive therapy, five days a week, was an improvement. I even managed to keep the job I had just started.
And that was the state I was in when I first watched Revue Starlight. Crawling my way out from the bottom of a pit. I had heard of the show, Iâd seen it on my dash a few times, and this one anon, you know who you are, kept recommending it to me, which I had responded to every time with âokay, Iâll consider it.â For the past month or two I had been watching JoJo for the first time, and I had just finished Stardust Crusaders. Stardust Crusaders, if you havenât watched it, is not bad at all. But it is very long and has some pacing issues. I needed a break from JoJo. A short one-season anime like Revue Starlight? The perfect palette cleanser. After all, itâs just Love Live with swords, right? Itâs not like itâs gonna take over my life or anything.
And it didnât. The first three episodes were...uh...well, I was more than a little confused. I didnât really gel with any of the characters or understand what was going on, so, upon finishing episode 3, I unceremoniously closed the tab and declared myself done. At least that was how it was initially. One evening a couple days later I found myself bored, and figured that I might as well just finish the thing. I had time to kill, after all.
Now this was what did the trick. This time I found myself blown out of the water, especially by the finale, which had just aired that day. Revue Starlight quickly flooded in to fill the void Love Live had left, and I found myself giddy with that new hyperfixation feel. Therapy was going extremely smoothly, I started getting the hang of my new job, and I was even going to the gym regularly. I had something to live for again. A rope to hold onto so I wouldnât fall deeper and hit the bottom that Iâd struggled so hard to climb away from. No matter what happened, I would have the 99th Seisho class to fall back on.
Things, of course, did happen. I grew to resent my job, which wasnât well-suited for me, so I started looking for a new one. A better one. I had my eye on one in particular, it seemed like a nice cushy desk job that probably had good pay and benefits. I was sure I had nailed the interview. Iâd opted to finish the holiday season with my current job, but I really, really wanted that new one. Iâd just start once I was finished with my current one, and I had gathered the next starting date was early in the spring. It was for this reason that I wasnât too concerned when the place I was currently working at got closed down. No problem. Iâd just wait for my new job to start.
And so I was unemployed again. In winter, no less, so my depression was particularly monstrous now. For two months I sat in figurative and literal darkness, clinging onto two things: the expectation that I would hear back from the people I was hoping to hear from, and my love for Revue Starlight. I was absolutely miserable. But I held on. I held onto those two things. And finally, the date where I would be called in for an initiation drew near.
Unfortunately, it turned out I actually hadnât gotten the job after all. I nearly fell apart completely.
Iâm kind of convinced that if I hadnât gotten into RevStar and renewed my need to hyperfixate on things I mightâve actually gone through with killing myself. The sheer despair I felt when I found out I had just spent so much time sitting around for nothing, that I had wasted a whole two months of my life, was crushing. In the heat of the moment, I really did think about it. I felt so utterly worthless and foolish, and if I took my own life I wouldnât have to feel that way anymore. But I couldnât. Because I did have a reason to keep living and to move on. I still had Revue Starlight.
Eventually I did manage to get a job, my current one. Itâs not ideal, but the pay and hours are better than either of my previous ones, as is the nature of the job itself. The effects of my hormone replacement therapy, which I had only been on for about a month when everything had fallen apart, soon started to become more apparent. Now that I had a steady and regular source of income I decided to make plans to go out and see my girlfriend, who I figured it was about time I met in real life, which I eventually did, and she was wonderful. And those were just things that happened within my personal life. As for Revue Starlight? Shortly after Iâd gotten the job, I managed to actually watch the stage plays, which I hadnât seen yet, and they were amazing, especially the second one. Starira got an English release, pulling new blood into the fandom. Sato Hinata was slated to appear at Anime Central, which is the one con I actually bother to attend, and I got to meet her. For real. In person.
And if Iâd gone and killed myself? I would never have gotten any of that. I would have missed out on so much. As much of a fool as I had felt like at the time, at least I didnât do the single most foolish thing that I could have. And Iâm glad. And thankful.
So thank you, to that one anon (you know who you are) for pointing me in the right direction. Thank you to the fellow fans who make up this community that Iâve settled down in. Thank you to the seiyuu in front of the mics, and the artists, animators, composers, writers, and coders behind them. Iâm here right now because of you. Thank you.
#i've just been thinking about this#like a lot#because so much has happened in the past year#so much has changed and i feel like a different person now#and i feel like i really do owe it to this series#revue starlight#gray posts
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AUG DONE YAY!!! Iâll Post Tuesday Probably
âDonât worry about it kid. Just ignore him. Â Heâll get over you and we can all get back to normal.â
War Machineâs advice was not in the least bit helpful for the youngest Avenger on the compound who had become, and rightly so, more than a little alarmed by Mr. Starkâs behavior.
It seemed like ever since the Avengers had encountered real aliens from space, the so-called Guardians of the Galaxy, and learned about various planets, each with their own threats, and the threat of some Over-Alien that was setting out on a mission to massacre half of the universe, well, Tony had gotten weird. Â
(Or maybe Tony had always been weird and Peter had never noticed before?)
No, actually, many Avengers had noticed it too. Â Tonyâs inappropriate humor had always been a feature, not a bug, but recently it had been dialed up to 11. Â 11? Try 69. Â It wasnât just that he was calling Peter âUnderoosâ again. Â It was more. Â Innuendos when people asked for facts. Â Dirty jokes when people asked for opinions. Â Double-entendres about the must mundane topics, to the point where no one could even ask âwhere are we going for dinner?â Â
And all of them, every single one of them, seemed to be of the homosexual variety.
To the point that Peter was beginning to fear that his hero, his idol and his fantasy-mentor (and his real life mentor for years now) was actually a homophobe.
âA homophobe?  THE Tony Stark??  Nah kid, Tony is an unabashed Trisexual.  Heâll try anythingâŚ.and he never made any bones about itâŚ.â
Both of them winced, both of them turned to look even though they knew Tony wasnât in the room. Â You couldnât say the word âbonesâ around Tony anymore, or any vaguely sexual word, including the word âit.â Â Thatâs how bad it had gotten.
âWaitâŚ..waitâŚâŚare you sayingâŚ.Tony is Bi?â  Peter asked, trying to look surprised.  Trying not to look overeager.  Trying not to look like a kid who had actually recently gotten some information and was desperate to confirm it.  Trying not to look like he had cornered Rhodey in an empty conference room just to ask this question.
âNo,â said Rhodey.
Peterâs shoulders sagged.
âHeâs a hedonist. Donât worry about it kid. Â Just ignore him. Â Heâll get over you and we can all get back to normal,â Rhodey said dismissively, walking away, leaving Peter red-faced and gaping.
âOver me?â
âOver me??â
âWhen was I under him?â
   * * * *
 There were many theories about Tonyâs new behavior, but Peter couldnât find any that agreed with RhodeyâŚ.that it had something to do with him.
Fury blamed the Avengers state-of-readiness for over a year that resulted in absolutely nothing, no visit from the Ultimate Badguy bent on destroying half of Earth. Â Stress made people cranky, seemed to be his theory, and Tonyâs new tourette syndrome was just a symptom of that stress.
Bruce (not a common feature around the compound for the last year but very good for information when he was around) pointed out that Tony didnât like crowds unless they were cheering for him. Â âHe doesnât actually work well with others, he forces himself to work with others, thus all the grants and outsourcing, but itâs a lot of effort. Â If he canât got for 3 minutes without making a dirty joke, maybe he just needs to go back into hiding for a while. Â Weâre all hermits, after a fashion.â Â Peter hoped desperately that wasnât true (he didnât WANT Tony to go into hiding) but he certainly took Bruceâs perspective seriously. He knew a lot about Tony. Â And a lot about hermits. Â
Black Widow would probably have the best explanation for Tonyâs odd behavior. Â Analyzing human behavior was her job. Â But Nat wasnât talking.
So Peter soldiered on. He was the only Avenger who went to training and attended meetings in full costume, mask on at all times. Â The story was it was to protect his secret identity. Â The truth was, the mask covered all facial expressions. Â Tonyâs obscenities, no matter how constant, still took him by surprise. Â Under the mask, no one could see him blush.
Because truth be told, so many of those inappropriate jokes seemed to be aimed at him.
Most Avengers seemed to agree that the new Rated R version of Tony Stark corresponded with the visit from the storied Guardians of the Galaxy.
But in Peterâs mind, it also seemed to start the same day he turned 20 years old, and bragged, in Tonyâs hearing, that he had celebrated with a special party in Boystown.
He had done it very much on purpose â it had been part of his plan. Â
Only the results were notâŚ.good.  Almost overnight Tony was x y and z. [every bad guy needed a good fucking, every x ato to they y, every complaint from Peter indicated he needed to get laid.  Tony had always joked about everything, but now the jokes were not only gay-related, they were downright hostile. Peter had never heard the word âfaggotâ on the Avengerâs compound before (the entire compound, Avengers and military alike, knew Capsâ âLanguageâ rule) and he heard it out of Tonyâs mouth that very night.  It was Peterâs birthday dinner in one of the compoundâs dining rooms where Tony had asked for a âreal drink for me, not some faggoty ass waterdawon drink.  Weâll save that for Pete.â Â
(That was the day Peter realized his life would be better if he just kept the mask on at all times.)
Finally, after a great deal of soul-searching about his Get Tony Stark Into Bed plan and weather or not he even to be in the same room with that man, he cornered Nat and Rhodey (the two people he considered the best informed) and demanded answers.
âKidâŚyouâre smart. Donât  let him rile you up.â  That was Rhodey, who seemed a little hostile himself.  He clearly did not want to be having this conversation. Â
âBut thatâs what I donât getâŚ.why is this about me?â
Rhodey and Nat exchanged a look.
Then Nat looked at him, and seemed to make a decision.
âParker, you announced you were gay, sexually active and legally of age all in the same sentence.â
Peter wished, for a moment, he still had his mask on. Â Apparently he hadnât been as subtle that night as he had thought.
âSoâŚ.waitâŚ..are you saying this is himâŚ.flirting with âŚ..me?â
Nat shrugged. Â âLittle girls get their ponytails pulled by boys who have crushes on them every day. Â They learned to live with it.â
âNo they donâtâ Peter countered. Â âMy friend MJ had her hair pulled by a boy in 3rd grade who said he like liked her and he got sent to counseling.â
Rhodey rolled his eyes and said murmured something about Millennials.
âGen Z,â Peter pointed out, raising a hand.
âExactly â Gen X jokes are going to sound wrong to Gen Z earsâŚ..â
âWrong? Â Half of what comes out of his mouth could be considered sexual harassment in 50 states!â
âParker!â  That was Rhodey again.  âIâve seen these hyperfixations before.  They go away. Arenât you supposed to be intelligent? Be intelligent. DONâT fall for him, DONâT let him talk you into bed.  Just wait for it to pass over.â
âLet himâŚ.talk me intoâŚâŚâ
âKid, donât do it.â Â That was Nat. Â âIf Pepper Potts couldnât tame that mess no one can.â
Nat gave a nod to Rhodey, who took it as a cue to exit, leaving the two of them alone together.
âLook,â she said gently. âNo one will tell you to your face, but weâre all looking forward to when you leave for school again. Â Tony will tone it down after you leave. Â And if you stay away long enough, heâll just get over you. Â
âI can see what youâre thinking, Peter, and you donât want to do this. Â Tony has always been a comedian. Â This is just a new routine. Â You think if you let him talk you into bed, this will get any easier for you? Youâre Gen Z, you talk about your feelings. Â Tony just talks in one-liners. Â
âItâs hard work dating a comedian, kid.
âIt canât end well.â
 * * * *
Tired of walking around with a mask on daily, and lonely for his friends (who knew the difference between flirting and Hostile Work Environment) Peter took Natâs advice and left early. Back in New York he spent his weeks before the semester began researching the psychology of humor, and the sociological limitations of being gay in the 80âs. Â It was eye-opening. Â Also appalling. Â
But the psychology of humor was very interesting â Peter read that when a group, any group, laughed together, the individuals would indistinctly glance at the person they felt connected with. The article suggested reading room to âlearn who is secretly sleeping togetherâ but in general the article dealt with office culture and social hierarchies. Â Still, the tidbit was confusing. Â
Every time the group laughed together, Tony always seemed to be glancing at him.
But the longer he spent away from Tony the more the offensive jokes faded in his memory and the more he remembered just how bad his crush on the man had become (and exactly how far he was into his detailed plan to get into Tonyâs pants.) Â
He wasnât expecting to actually run into the actual man in New York any time soon, but within a week he did. Â The Avenger Parties at Stark Tower seemed to becoming more frequent, it seemed to Peter. Â At least this was the 2nd one in 2 months. Peter wondered vaguely if it was a ploy to make him hang with the Avengers with his face showing â he was invited to attended these things in suit as âMr. Starkâs intern.â Â
Walking into the party he felt, very suddenly, unarmed (more specifically, unarmored.) Â He had relied so much on his mask to hide his face whenever Tony was inappropriate.
Thatâs why he silently determined to just avoid Tony altogether.
 Chapter 2
  Tony stiffed at the sight of Peter holding a glass of wine.  It didnât matter how many times he reminded himself (or Peter) that Peter was now of age.  It still struck him as wrong.
But not as wrong as Bruceâs arm around Peterâs shoulders.
He had already passed them once, talking a mile-a-minute with Bruce and Dr. Cho about the tech behind the cradle. Â He couldnât begrudge Bruce and Peter their shop talk (although the double twinges of jealousy took him by complete surprise. Â He and Bruce had been so long ago, it seems.) Â
Mostly, he was just irritated that the kid seemed to be avoiding him.
But now â oh this definitely was not right. Â
He couldnât be caught staring, so he made his rounds, taking in furtive glances at the two across the room. He must have been mistaken about the arm, Peter and Bruce and some other tech guys were just talking now, and it looked perfectly normal.
Then he lost sight of them.
Then he caught them again, standing by the window alone. Â
They werenât talking shop, that was certain. Â Bruce had his arm on Peterâs back, was leaning over, was speaking directly into his ear. Â Acceptable in a crowded room, but they were far away enough from the crowd to make Tony see red.
Especially when Peter grinned, ducked his head, then turned and said something into Bruceâs ear.
What Bruce said next made Peter laugh and cover his face, and thatâs when Nat appeared in front of him and said âDonât be jealous. Â
âTheyâre talking about you.â
She turned her head to ignore his gape. Â She pretended to scan the room as she spoke. Â âNot that I care, Tony, but if you really want to hook up with a Gen Z you are going to have to clean up your act. Â Reinstate Steveâs âlanguageâ rule. Â Poor kid thinks youâre a homophobe.
âWhatâŚ..me?â
He respected Natâs intelligence, so when she looked at him that way, he took it seriously.
âNew generation, Tony. They donât care what you DID 20 years ago, all they care about is what youâre doing now, and what youâre doing now is recycling gay jokes from the 80âs. Â He honestly thought you were mad at him.
âJustâŚgoâŚflirt with him like a normal person.  Take him on date.  Heâs into you â heâs quizzed everyone who knows you about your sex life.â
  * * * * *
 Peter left the party grinning from ear to ear.
Even though he never actually spoke to Tony that night. Â The man disappeared from his own party, but no one thought that was particularly unusual. Nat, at least, seemed to think that way. She gave him a warning look when he asked after the man, but when she spoke, she was gentle.
âConsider the perils of dating a comedian, Peter.â
âYeah you told me that.â
âThe Millennials way is to exchange facts about emotions. Â Comedians just exchange one-liners.â
âIâll take that under advisement,â Peter said, but he couldnât help but smile.
He went downstairs to the car Tony had waiting for him, smiling all the way.
He had found out a LOT from Bruce that night, information he needed, information he intended to use.
But that wasnât the best part.
âConsider the perils of dating a comedianâ he said to himself as he raced down the stairwell to the garage.
The litany of inappropriate humor wasnât an attack or a slight, it was a sign of interest. Â He could identify the intent, while simply ignoring the actual language. Â He didnât have to speak Tonyâs language, he just had to understand it.
âConsider the perils of dating a comedianâ he whispered to himself when Tonyâs driver took him home.
âConsider the perils of dating a comedianâ he murmured to himself as he lay on his bed in his dormroom that night.
He went to bed with a smile on his face.
Because all he could think wasâŚ
âŚâŚâŚâŚ âIâve got a chance to date Tony Stark.â
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mentions of alcohol, addiction, suicide, self harm under cut
dont worry most of itâs about a family member, Iâm not in danger right now!
uh idk where to begin
after a month of interventions, suicide threats, and overdoses my uncle was admitted to the hospital and was recommended to an outpatient rehab program. We were so proud of him for accepting he had a disease and wanting to get helped, he had been clean for two years before this relapse and we were ready to do whatever we could to help him, and gave him money for gas to the appointments and stuff cuz heâs currently unemployed after you know. he stopped showing up to work to drink and shit.
anywho, my mom stopped over to his house to check on him and give him cigarettes and he was passed out on the couch, she had to check his pulse because she thought he was dead, and of course she quickly found out he spent all the money we gave him on liquor, a whopping 24 hours before his first appointment, so obviously they arenât going to accept him, and we donât know if we can find a inpatient program that will take him.Â
its heartbreaking because i love my uncle but hes so fucked up right now and every time we try to help him, i mean, we took him back and forth from hospitals and called as many programs as we could and checked in on him almost every day for a month, and as soon as we leave him he calls up one of his buddies and gets alcohol. the man had a total of 47 empty bottles of liquor in his house, he was drinking one a day, heâs going to end up dead if something doesnât change soon but its so exhausting and i donât know how much longer we can basically babysit him! it would be fantastic if his son who lives down the road could actually check up on him, but heâs pretending he doesnât exist right now, and didnât even bother to report him threatening to kill himself laying in the road a couple weeks ago so! I donât know whatâs going to happen, I really donât, and Iâm scared. I still donât have my license because im an idiot so I canât check up on him solo, and honestly, I donât know how much more involved I can or should be...
To top it all off, my rat Gravy is nearing the end of his natural lifespan - heâs 2 1/2, and his strain only lives 1-3 years. Heâs the last of the lab rats I adopted, and Iâm trying to make him as comfortable as possible. Iâve decided that after he passes away Iâm not going to keep rats for a while - especially once Iâm working in a lab again, because I canât have bacteria spreading between any pets and the colonies. Plus the ever-looming pressure of student loans, and my father has decided heâs no longer going to be putting any money towards my medical bills, and my ocd is worse the more stressed i am, and Iâm just so messed up and really feel like a burden. I donât really want to exist anymore. Iâm so thankful for my gf and friends and dogs and hyperfixations because theyâve truly helped me so much in getting through the past few weeks. Itâs just brutal. I donât know when things are going to get better.
the worst part is i feel guilty, like im responsible for all these things. like, i keep thinking that there must have been some way for me to prevent all this. if i just did something differently. maybe i could go back in time and change everything. and the feeling that i need to punish myself. because if i caused all this, and nobody is blaming me but myself, then i have to be the one to punish myself. yeah, i deserve this. it just hurts so much. Â
whatever. february 8, this friday, will mark 666 days since I last self harmed. Thatâs a great number. I have to at least make it to that number, you know? Actually, Iâve made it too far to relapse now. Itâs not really an option for me anymore. I canât ruin my high score. because it will take almost 2 years to top it again! Â
Iâm proof that recovery is possible
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