#i’m definitely not terminally obsessed

[goldensunset]

i don’t have an addiction to pokémon violet

[leth-writes]

yandere spiderverse

today I’m kinda going insane over the idea of a yandere spiderverse. Just the idea of your death being a canon event in pretty much every universe, the thing that makes or breaks each spider-person (spider-being?). Your death is what either motivates them to become a better hero, or the very thing that corrupts them completely. It’s the difference between being a hero and being a villain. So, you kinda serve as a Gwen figure for most of the spiders.

As a result, when they see Miles’ universe and you’re just… alive, all hell breaks loose.

Since Miles’ universe is a little to the left, especially with all the anomalies, you’re able to slip through that cosmic crack and avoid your death completely. I can honestly see you being a close friend of the Peter that died in Miles’ universe, so when the others all go to Aunt May’s to access his lab, there you are.

You’re giving everyone a tour of the lab, explaining to Miles all the different suits and their purposes and their histories, and they’re all just staring at you, this person they’ve all lost. Peter B.’s having a flashback to you falling, Penny’s thinking about holding you in her arms as you bleed out, Noir’s thinking about seeing you be shot, etc etc. Chaos ensues. They’re NOT letting you get involved, no matter how much you want to help them. You’ve spent the better half of a decade working with Blond! Peter, and you’re used to engaging with all the craziness that comes with the spiders. You’re so used to that particular brand of obsessive you probably don’t even notice how weird they’re all being.

I’m just imagining that it’s a universal constant among the spiders to be a little bit obsessive. I mean even in the films, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-man self-admittedly stalks Gwen all the time. It’s normal for them to keep track of the people they love, using any means necessary. I’m talking following you around, taking pictures of you, stealing your stuff, getting rid of any threats, saving you in case of danger, even trackers in your bag or clothing.

You don’t even blink, you’ve been through all this with Blond! Peter before. It’s honestly a bit comforting, like he’s still watching over you. You’ve had any idea of a normal relationship completely twisted.

That sense of normalcy is also what saves you from being completely kidnapped; if you run, you activate that predator sense they have and they’d give chase, it’s like a horror movie. They definitely let loose, showing their more spidery habits, including that insane flexibility and strength.

You hide behind a dumpster and Peter B. picks it up with one hand, stuff like that.

Anyways, so you don’t run. They still keep you confined to May’s place, who’s more than used to this and doesn’t really notice.

You’re trying to help with the planning and suddenly they’re all blocking your view from the terminal, looming over you, and they’re all like “It’s okay :) Go sit down :) Let Peter B. bring you a hot chocolate, maybe give you a back massage!”

They love that loose, easy sense of affection you have. It’s nice, many of them have been completely isolated since your death, too emotionally wrecked to feel comfortable reaching out or making new friends. Besides, no one could replace you.

You’re probably closest to Peter. He lost you almost a decade ago in his universe, so it’s like looking into the past. He has this almost paternal sense looking at you, he’s so protective he won’t let you out of his sight. He’s particularly disarming, so even if he’s not letting you leave, it comes off almost as a joke. Still, he can be intimidating when he’s pinning you down to the chair with webs and telling you not to worry, that he’ll take care of the Prowler once and for all, that he won’t let you get hurt ever again.

Gwen hadn’t known you very well when she’d lost you, she hadn’t even gotten the opportunity to kidnap you; you died in the same incident that took Peter from her, and that caused the rift between her and her father. It practically ruins her life, losing everyone and everything she’s ever loved in one moment. It hurts even worse knowing she’ll never get to grow closer to you; she was trying not to weird you out with how intense her feelings were. It’s her greatest regret, not just kidnapping you when she got the chance. She makes sure to work with Peter, keeping you trapped in May’s house. She’s the most likely to physically restrain you, with or without her webs.

Noir is used to the grim realities of his world, but losing you sucked every last bit of variety and life out of him. He becomes disillusioned with the system, harsher and harsher and less likely to pull back when fighting. He loses all regard for himself or for others. Seeing you is the most intense burst of color he’s ever seen; he never realized what he was missing, not being able to see the shine of your skin, the gleam in your eyes, the way the sun catches your hair just right so you look like you’re glowing. He’s entranced by your beauty, and you’re most likely to find him just kinda staring at you. It’s honestly kinda creepy, but hey, all the spiders stare at you, so you find yourself putting it out of mind.

[eddiesghxst]

perv loser eddie is something that can actually be so personal. it’s in the way he’s such a loser borderline obsessed little stalker.

i’m not quite sure how to put this into words but he is whipped, the true definition. yes he loves you, blah blah blah. let’s go deeper into that love. it’s psycho, when he sees you for the first time his heart bursts, he follows you around in the halls when you’re in school even tho you don’t know him and he doesn’t even know you. you think it’s a weird coincidence that he’s always there. And when you confront him, his knees literally almost drop to the ground in your presence. when you go see him during a hellfire club session, he stops all d&d when he sees you wait outside the closed door. he ignores all protests from the guys that this is a huge campaign, one HE’S been planning. it doesn’t even matter, he would end all d&d sessions 15 minutes early if you asked him to, he’d cancel a session if you slipped him a note before saying you’d be home with no panties on, he’d forget to tell dustin that he had to blow him off because you needed him to take you out to a new chick flick movie.

like i said previously about the inspiration from an ex thing, i love the way cigarette smoke smells. my ex was a smoker and he knew this and it was “our thing”

i think eddie would be majorly turned on if he found this out. i’m not talking about something odd like this ex of mine would blow smoke in my face or whatever but i’m just saying it was a comforting smell. i’m currently out of the country in europe where everyone smokes and i can smell it drifting up to my apartment window. i can just imagine calling eddie who’s back in indiana and telling him how horny you are, how the smell reminds you of him. he’s such a fucking loser tho. he’s been desperate since you’ve been away, having withdrawals, he’s an addict. he fucks himself to sleep with his hand every night and fucks himself awake every morning trying to get some release, his flesh light and hand won’t ever compare. he smokes and plays guitar and thinks of you, each exhale of smoke and he gets anxious thinking about you.

but when you’re back, he doesn’t let you out of the trailer for a good 24 hrs. his only plan is to smoke with you and fuck your brains out. i mean fucking like a madman. he’s fucking his anger and stress out on you, stress about you being away from his side, anger that you’ve been touching yourself away from him. i’m not talking 2 orgasms and you’re done. we’re talking about several upon several chain orgasms he’s bringing you. he wants you sobbing, he never wants you to leave his side.

he’s a loser.

- 🫶 anon (i went overboard)

no bc ur so right stink. everything abt this is so fucking correct, i’m sick to my stomach i want him

————

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, eddie has no spine when it comes to his girl. meaning, he will drop everything he’s doing to please you or do whatever you ask for, no matter the request (if he’s in a mood, he might bitch about it a little, but he will bitch and get the job done okay).

so when you ask eddie if he can pick you up from the airport on the day he’s planned to have dnd, obviously eddie pushes his campaign back because hello, his girl needs a ride.

he’s waiting for you at your terminal with a single rose and a cute little teddy bear and you giggle when you see him because he looks so out of place wearing his usual black leather clothing and heavy chains whilst holding the soft items.

you tell him all about your trip on your way to his trailer, telling him about your time sightseeing and trying new foods and meeting new people.

you’re still rambling about your trip when you walk into his trailer, but it doesn’t last long before eddie’s got you bent over the edge of his bed, clinging to the soft teddy bear and moaning his name. “fuck, i missed this pussy. did she miss me? she miss how good i fuck her, hm?” he pants against your ear. you quiver beneath him, crying out for him as you push back against his hips.

“feels so good, eddie. gonna cum, please can i cum?”

and eddie’s shaking his head and clicking his tongue, “no i don’t think so, sweetheart. i gave you one rule—- told you no touching and you broke that rule.“ he says, low with a patronizing tone and you sob into his sheets as a chorus of sorry’s leave your mouth.

“so you don’t get to cum until i say you can, okay? and i plan on really taking my time with this precious cunt of yours since she seemed to miss me so much.” his hand cracks down on your ass cheek and you cry out as he lets out a satisfied hum.

and eddie kept true to his word, he didn’t let up until he was thoroughly satisfied and you were nothing but a cock drunk mess. you both wouldn’t have it any other way <3

————

more loser perv!eddie ♡

[cucuumiia]

Just want to say that I am so in love with your art style/OC’s story/characterization of Shane that I have scrolled your blog front to back multiple times, I can’t get ENOUGH 🥹

A while back you mentioned reading lots of good (Shane?) fic, are there any titles or authors you’d be willing to share??

THANK YOUU!!🥺;;;;;; I‘m so happy you enjoy my stuff!!!

Also yes omg let me share the fic that really cemented my terminal obsession with this goddamn depressed chicken guy:

It got everything I need man😩🤌 It hurts me in all the right ways. I love the way they implemented the Dark Shrine of Memory as the main premise. The way Shane‘s written is really close to my personal headcanon of him. Also I eat up every fic that has Shane being an actual dad in it, I have such a soft spot for this. I don’t want to spoil anything more because going in blind gave me a whole rollercoaster of emotions but I can wholly recommend this one!

Another one that I‘ve recently found contains nsfw content and is quite different from the one above but I really enjoy the dynamic between the farmer and Shane. I’m constantly checking in if there were any updates yet so it definitely got me invested:

And yet another I just discovered a few days ago piqued my interest because //shocker// it got a widower Shane👀😭 (why am I like this) and it’s the first fic I‘ve found that explores this premise and I feel so seen🖐😔 So excited to see where it’s going in the future!!:

So yea, if anyone knows some other good Shane fics please let me know!! :] (especially when it’s about him being a dad or getting widowed ) (also lmk if you also like „Memory“ as much as I do ;;; I could gush about it for hours)

[quicktimeeventfull]

god of the fryer

hello all here's (the start of) a death note fast food worker au. you can also read it on dreamwith. cw for abelism & abelist slurs. there is literally no chance whatsoever that i will ever finish or even consider finishing this because working food service at the restaurant this is based on gave me unfixable psychic damage. nonetheless. perhaps you will enjoy this as is.

Light is not above working in a fast food restaurant to put himself through university. He tells himself this mostly because it’s what his father told him, in a slightly exasperated tone, when he’d driven him to work this morning.

“Light,” he’d said, “Plenty of people take on part time jobs to support themselves. You don’t have some special quality which makes you better than them.” Then he’d stopped the car, put on the same wax museum smile he’d used years ago when Sayu was throwing tantrums, and said, “Have a good day at work, son,” in a tone which brokered no argument. 

As of last week, Light doesn’t even live with them anymore. He has his own, terrible little apartment, even though Touhou is easily close enough to bus — his parent’s idea, definitely not his. His father only drove him here today as a last favour. Light feels like he’s being sent to the gallows. He has no idea why this is happening to him.

So here he is, standing in front of what looks like the world’s saddest salad bar but is actually his collection of hamburger toppings while a girl in a backwards baseball cap reads off the menu in a sharp, clipped voice. She is going to be his manager.

“So we’ve got three basic burgers — regular, buttered bun, and regular with an extra bun in the middle.” 

“Like a Big Mac.” 

“Yeah,” she says, blandly, “but calling it that is grounds for instant termination.” 

He stares at her. She sighs. “I’m joking, but still, please don’t call it that. If someone asks for one, just say we have three basic burgers … anyway, we’ve also got a bunch of special edition burgers. There’s a cheat sheet pinned to your station..” She taps a laminated sheet listing a series of increasingly bizarre burger names and the ingredients which go into them. There are six.

Light Yagami, top of his class in every school he’s ever been to, is fairly certain that he does not require a cheat sheet to memorize six hamburgers. 

“All you need to worry about are the toppings, anyway. The guys at the grill will do the patties, and whoever’s on fry will bring you buns. Oh, and anything with mushrooms or fried onions. They’ll do that too. We’ll get you trained on some of that later. It’s honestly pretty simple. You’ll probably fuck some stuff up today, but I’m sure you’ll have it down in a couple of shifts.”

“I won’t fuck anything up,” Light reassures her. She laughs, which he finds offensive.

“Thats the spirit.”

She wanders off towards one of the girls standing next to the grill.

Light exhales slowly. 

The building isn’t as horrible as he was expecting. His vision of the back of a fast food restaurant involves dark, cramped quarters and grease stains on every available surface. In reality, it’s obsessively clean and painted in off whites and a weird salmon colour that isn’t as ugly as it sounds. This makes sense, now that he’s thinking about it — it faces right into the dining area, so the customers can see into it. You can find the grease stains if you look, but they’re mostly around the fry and grill.

His section is shielded by a half wall which he can just barely see over. His toppings (lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, shredded and unshredded cheese, and some strange red and green sauces which he cannot identify) are refrigerated interior of the actual counter, so it’s freezing cold. 

Behind him, everyone is already milling about themselves, talking and nudging each other with a companionability that is equal parts nice to watch and achingly melencholy for reasons he does not with to acknowledge.

He takes his laminated sheet off the counter and scans it. He is very determined to do everything perfectly, especially now that his manager laughed at him for saying that he would. Regardless of what his father said, it’s just hamburgers. He got a perfect score on his entrance exams. He has literally been helping the NPA solve crimes over the dinner table since he was eleven. He can handle this. 

The bell on the front door chimes, and a man in a scrappy white shirt and a hurricane of black hair walks through it, shoulders hunched, and skitters through the dining area, past Light, and towards the break room. Skitters really is the right word for it — he moves like he’s being hunted. 

“God.” The voice comes from behind him. Light flinches, then turns to see his manager beside him, staring at the space where the man had been. “L’s on fry today. Fuck. I told Misa she was absolutely not allowed to switch shifts with him today. I didn’t want to be dealing with him and training someone new.”

There’s a scraping nastiness to her voice which Light does not like. It’s different from the tone she’d sed with him earlier. 

“Is he new, too?” 

She snorts. “Lawliet’s been working here for six months, but he still acts like it’s his first sixteen minutes. Look at it this way, I guess — no matter how badly you do, you’re not going to be the worst one here. He’s kind of a retard.” 

“Oh,” says Light, not sure what to follow that up with. He had not been aware that people said things like that out loud anymore. She seems to mistake this for companionability, and smiles at him. He smiles back, automatically, and she turns and walks away. 

Maybe he should have said something, but it’s his first day, and what is that going to accomplish, really? Keep your head down, he tells himself. It’s just for a little while. If he can figure out whatever the hell his parent’s game is and play it properly, they’ll realize that he doesn’t require whatever lesson they’re trying to teach him and they’ll let him stay at home and eat their food until he graduates and can get an actual job at the NPA which does not involve putting tomatoes on top of lettuce or calling your coworkers retards. 

He stares at his little laminated sheet of six varieties of the exact same food. From the corner of his eye, he can see L scuttling out of the break room, a baseball cam jammed on top of his mass of black hair. He does not join in with everyone’s chatter. 

Someone sprays something on the grill and a cloud of grease rises up towards the ceiling. Not to be dramatic, but he already wants to throw himself into the fryer. 

---

He is a burger god. Of course he is. His manager — her name is Tomoko, and he should probably start remembering things like that — praises him loudly for his formidable talents in memorizing the six recipes and remembering to put the toppings on buns instead of, what, his face. It’s absurdly easy, but they seem impressed for some reason. So that’s neat. 

The less great part is that people absolutely will not stop shouting. They aren’t angry. This just appears to be the only way anyone knows how to communicate. Literally everything — the need to restock the lettuce, the number of french fries L needs to make, whenever L needs to drop a chicken into the fryer — requires shouting. To acknowledge the shouting, the shoutee has to shout back. Light is required to shout at the customers whenever he’s finished bagging their burgers, so he is contributing to the problem. 

The only person who isn’t yelling is L, which makes him Light’s favourite person in the restaurant. Right now, possibly Light’s favourite person in the entire world.

Light absolutely despises unnecessary human noise. Even when he takes his exams, he shows up no more than a minute early, so he doesn’t have to sit through the panicked whispers and incessant rustling of papers and pens which always proceeds them. Between all the yelling and the hiss of the grill and the gurgle of the fryers, he’s just about ready to throw himself directly into the meat grinder. 

Luckily, he has always been excellent at coping in adverse situations. So he makes absolutely perfect hamburgers and wraps them with absolutely perfect folds and pairs them with the perfect number of napkins. If he pays total attention to what he’s doing, he can almost ignore all the sounds. 

He’s focusing well enough that it takes him a while to notice that the number of french fries which appear by his side is almost entirely random. Sometimes there are more than he needs, and sometimes there are less. This actually evens itself else nicely, so it doesn’t occur to him that anything is going wrong until Tomoko touches her hand to one of the bags, then makes an irritated noise deep in her throat. 

“These are cold,” she says, and tosses it with what Light personally thinks is excessive force into the trash can. “Just check before you bag them.” 

She marches off. 

He assembles a Seismic burger (three buns, secret sauce, shredded lettuce, fried onions, and a slice of cheese — and shouts at a customer to take it and its associated heart attack. 

From behind him, he can hear a new voice rising up among the clamour. Light stops what he’s doing for the first time since customers started walking in through the doors.

Tomoko is standing in front of L as he cowers back fro her. He must be tall when he stands up properly, but right now he’s just this tangle of limbs trying to knot and disappear into itself. She’s talking in a voice that’s curled like a fist — quiet, but it carries, and Light can’t help but notice how everyone seems to have paused to listen.

“This is the third time I’ve seen you drop double fries,” she says. “And I know it’s not the first because Yagami’s been bagging them cold.” Light feels a twinge of unfairness. No one told him he was doing anything wrong. “And you missed two orders of chicken. Yuri had to come back and cook them herself. I don’t know why you can’t get this --“

“If everyone would just be a little quieter —“ L starts. One of the guys by the grill cuts him off, abandoning any pretence of not listening. 

“How else do you want anyone to tell you what we need?” His voice is acidic, but L looks at him like he’s just thrown him a life raft. 

You’re misunderstanding, Light wants to tell him, the same way people shout advice to characters on television. He’s not being kind to you. That’s not a real question.

“If you could just talk to me instead —“

“Six months,” Tomoko said. “You’ve been here six months. I’m trying to handle a new trainee — who’s already three times as fast as you, by the way — and you’re screwing up the line. 

Someone drops a set of three buns in front of Light. He looks up, startled, then assembles three sets of cheeseburgers and turns back. 

“I apologize,” L is saying now. He’s actually physically stepping back, as if Tomoko’s going to hit him. From the way his voice is getting lower, more ragged, the way it’s speeding up like he needs to rush to the end before all his words topple over, Light can tell he’s trying not to cry. “It will not happen again.”

“I find that difficult to believe, because it’s already happened three times today and it’s been happening for the entire six months you’ve been here. If you want to keep your position —“

“It’s not going to happen again,” L says, words all in a rush now. He’s blinking quickly. “It will not. I can guarantee —“ 

This is absolutely the stupidest situation that Light has seen in his entire life.

There are many people who look down on adults who cry in public. Light has never been one of them. What he hates is people who look for little cracks of vulnerability and press down on them until they break, then hold their hands with their palms out and act like they had nothing to do with the result. It’s a peculiar kind of cruelty. 

It should be patently obvious to anyone that L is trying his best — if that’s not adequate, they should just fire him instead of batting him around like this. The way they’re talking won’t accomplish anything other than getting him even more upset, which has not once in the history of humankind helped anyone do a better job. It’s bad management, and it’s fucking sad and frankly cruel.

Light thinks of the word retard slipped to him like a gift he didn’t wand and which he’d accepted anyway. He sidesteps Yuri as she drops patties onto his station and strides over to L. 

Light steps between him and Tomoko and clamps his hands down on L’s shoulders. L looks up at him. His eyes are wide and so black they’re disorienting, like the aura of the night where a car’s headlamps drop off, and he looks not just upset but actually terrified. 

But he holds Light’s gaze like it’s a shelter being offered to him.

“Okay,” Light says. “Just look at me, okay? Focus. You’re okay. You’re doing fine.” He isn’t, really. It doesn’t matter. The truth is a malleable thing best tossed away in favour of the information which would be most useful in any given situation. “Do you remember what you were supposed to make?”

“Three orders of fries, two with cheese, and three pieces of chicken tenders,” L says, snapped out in a tidy rhythm. 

“Okay,” Light says, “Make that. One at a time. Don’t worry about all this other stuff. It’s got nothing to do with you.” 

“Yes,” L says. He presses his knuckles to his mouth. He’s swallowing hard. 

“You’ve got this. I know you do. You’re okay?” 

“I’m okay,” L says. He nods, once, as if to prove it. That’s why Light asked him — if you can get people to say something about themselves, most of the time they’ll end up believing it.

Light smiles at him. “Then go on.” He squeezes L’s shoulders, grabs one of the fries, and turns away. 

Everyone is staring at him. He finishes his three burgers, wraps them up, and sets them on the counter. “Customer thirty-eight!”

---

“You’re a miracle worker,” Tomoko whispers to him when three hours have gone past and there haven’t been any errors. He smiles at her. He doesn’t think it’s such a miracle — all he did was decide not to treat someone like dirt. 

His miracle lasts for about twenty minutes longer, after which L sends double fries and can’t seem to get back on track, but at least no one starts snapping at him again. 

---

After work, Light steps into the bus shelter and finds L already curled up on the seat, his knees pressed to his chest, staring straight into the traffic. The lights from the passing cars flicker on his face. 

“Which bus are you taking?” Light asks, just for something to say. 

“Oh,” L says. “None. I’m waiting for my brother.” He brings his thumb to his mouth and chews on it. It’s such a bizarre, childlike gesture. His coat, a long army-green thing which hangs off his skeletal frame, seems too thin for this weather.

“Older or younger?” 

“Mm. No.” 

For a moment, Light thinks that L’s batting down the conversation, but he takes another look at the spellbound way L stares out into the rivers of cars and realizes he’s just distracted. “You’re a twin?” 

L tilts his head very slightly. “Still no.” But there’s something different in his voice now — like it’s a game they’re playing, this guesswork. 

“Triplet, then.” 

L smiles. It’s sudden and starting. He tips his head further in Light’s direction and looks at him from the corners of his eyes. 

“Correct, Light-kun.” 

Light wants to say more, but the blue lights of the bus flash across the glass of the shelter. They reflect L’s face, turning him into a strange and scattered thing. Somehow both inhuman and more human than anyone has a right to be. He straightens his messenger back on his shoulder and steps out of the shelter. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?” he says, then hurries out.

[anonameisadditions]

Norm or Norma: PSYCHO, and how Hitchcock saved the film from studio interference

In the last 7 minutes of Psycho, the film shifts from psychokinetic thriller to dead-in-the-water procedural criminal theater. Gone are the inventive visuals informing the everyday life of Norman Bates- the clothes he wears, the spaces he occupies, the food he eats, the life he lives. He is completely absent from the scene, yet his vanishment from the film makes it feel impersonal, and archaic- Justice has been served, and the uneasy build of tension and insanity has been cut with a sharp razor prepped by Occam himself- “Norman is mad”, the sponsored therapist says, “But he’s not a “Transgender”, but rather, something altogether different.” 

The scene was an addition by the studio, last minute, who feared that audiences would be unable to understand the plot twist- Hitchcock himself thought it to be altogether unnecessary, a sentiment many critics have agreed to. But it is not just a poor scene- It’s a scene that showcases the complexities of identity in Psycho, all through the studio trying to wring it’s hands of controversy or confusion. It is the film stooping down on one knee, to look it’s patrons in the eyes and remind them that the bad man in the film is not real, and that all the horrible, empathic emotions you felt towards Norma and Norman Bates were just a trick of the mind- that bad people do bad things because other bad people did bad things to them- and, despite what Norman said, not all of us go a little mad sometimes.

Charming. But not true.

Hello, My Name’s ANoN. I’m a film school graduate who’s been writing, reading, and watching film all my life, with a particular love of horror, and in particular, exploitation horror. I’ve seen plenty of “cheap trash” in my lifetime, and I’m known among my peers for having an eye for detail when it comes to writing and storytelling. But all of that barely matters to you, the random person who clicked onto this blog post- what matters here is Norman- and explaining to you why the world needed to be told that Norman was mad.

Let’s talk about Norman Bates a little. 

He’s young- a bit odd looking, but handsome in a plain, affectionate way. He’s tall, neat, quiet, and he’s ran the Bates Motel for quite some time with his mother. He seems like a known figure in the local community in the area, for how the police chief’s wife reacts to his families name- but curiously, there’s no hint of suspicion or discomfort for most in his name. He’s definitely an odd duck, given his obsession with taxidermy, and his lack of emotional skills in navigating his feelings around women, and he has a vice- He peeps on women in their hotel rooms, and had a bad habit in his youth of “hanging around” whenever a woman guest would check in. Norman lacks an awareness of social skills, not picking up the discomfort that our runaway fraudster Marion hints at the entire time that he watches her have dinner- an interesting formality that Norman doesn’t seem to understand the purpose of- and he speaks about his life.

Marion is drawn in, shockingly- Norman ends up being unexpectedly charming, despite his clear issues- He’s affable, a bit lonely, the dutiful son who seems glad just to have company around again. He ends the night with a firm goodbye, only offended at the observation by Marion that, in his unhappiness, he should consider leaving his mother. In that moment, you can see something come out of Norman- the pain of his relationship with his mother, his sense of duty and expectation, and- most importantly- the terminal grip of his mother around his psyche. “A man’s best friend is his mother”, he asserts- a common phrase in the 1960s, that takes on a sinister air as we see the murderous behaviors of Norma Bates. 

As Norman tries desperately to cover up the attacks of Norma Bates (a death toll including 2 other women, Marion, and a private Investigator), Marion’s sister, and Marion’s fillandring lover is left to investigate the Bates manor. Marion creeps along it’s corridors and rooms- We see the daily life of Norman in the detritus and mess of the household- the clothes he wears, the places he’s slept, the way he lives on a day-to-day basis, and what we find is not the house of a madman, but of someone altogether familiar. There is no horrific effegy to a fallen god- There is no decapitated cats locked in a fridge- there is no nipple belt, no skin lampshade, no woman suit (as we’d relate to Ed Gein, the murderer that Norman was based on.) We find the tense ordinary- We keep expecting that this door, when opened, will find the proof in the pudding, the sign that would have let Marion know that Norman was nuts- and we keep coming up with dust in the windowsill and tar in the attic.

Except for one detail. We come to the basement, as Norman investigates the house- and discover the taxidermed, preserved body of Norma Bates- firing off the Chekov’s gun of the insane amount of Taxidermied birds in the Bates Household- and launch into, what was intended to be the chilling, final image of the film- Norma Bates, revealed- a man in a powdery wig and a woman’s size 10, knife held in hand. Here is your breakawy moment- the moment that the audience is to be left with, the strange, queer detail that is meant to make us see the latent madness in Norman. 

But strangely, It’s hollow. If you were to take this as the film’s original ending, it would still be a smash hit, do not misunderstand me. But we’ve spent a lot of time with Norman at this point- we’ve seen his inner demons, but even in this strange, messed-up basement, You can’t stop seeing Norman in Norma. Their identities are spiritually interlinked- They oscillate, back and forth, and in that complexity, the story feels altogether incomplete, in only the way that true, good suspense fiction can be. 

This is one of the most cunning tricks of the film- We cannot divine who was the one with the mental illness in the Bates household. The Psychatrist seems to think that Norman, driven mad by the highly controlling behaviors of his mother, is the one whose mind broke once she chose another man over him. However, Norman’s own perspective seems quite different- He seems to regard his mother as a madwoman, cooped up in her bedroom, who would spend her days insulting Norman and guilting him into a relationship of deadly emotional incest instead of giving him the ability to decide his own future. Even in death, Norma passes the buck to Norman, implying it to all be his responsibility, whilst demonstrating the same bloodthrist that Norman tries to repress, in her fly speech. 

They'll put him away now, as I should have years ago. He was always bad, and in the end he intended to tell them I killed those girls and that man... as if I could do anything but just sit and stare, like one of his stuffed birds. They know I can't move a finger, and I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do... suspect me. They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching... they'll see. They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, "Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly..."

Granted, this could just be projection on Norman’s part- He’s hardly a reliable source- but that’s why Psycho works. It’s creeping dread reaches beyond the film, and into your own mind. Can one safely blame their bad impulses on the way they were raised? We profess ourselves capable of being moral, aware of the consequences of our choices, unlike the bad people we know- but is Marion a bad person for stealing the money of a creep to elope with a man who’s in a demonstratively unfair marriage? The film recognizes Marion as a criminal, who is worn down by society to return to honesty- but before she can decide, a madman with a knife takes that from her. Similarly, the line of deviancy runs through Norman, with the implications of his odd behavior around women and his peeping being traits inherent to his fractured feelings about sexuality- but does peeping at women begit murderous intent? 

Who is Norman Bates- Is he his mother, or his own man? We spent a lot of time with him, and yet we come up with frustratingly few answers. We can sit here and psychoanalyze him all we want, but, we are unfortunately stuck with him, from the inside out. And can we really trust ourselves to know when we’ve gone a little mad, sometimes? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Yours Falsely,

AN0N

[vacantgodling]

1 and 9 for Amon and Hya pls im so sorry the brainrot IS terminal

you & me in the hospital like 😩🤝

1. What’s their love languages?

so i did answer this already BUT to delve further into love languages: they have to learn how to speak each other’s languages a bit, yknow what i mean?

amon has to learn how to read hya. how to say what he wants to hear but also to not back down from showing his True Self to him because hya hates liars and hates hypocrites more than anything. he only starts opening up to amon when amon starts being painfully truthful with him — at least in terms of his desires and who he is as a person, and honestly this is daunting for amon. he’s never had anyone demand so much of him (and if u remember that one scene i showed u when we first became friends wink wink, that’s what he meant when he was saying “i’ve never let anyone know me like this” tm) and yet give so little in return. but, he slowly begins to realize that hya isn’t giving him a little; he’s giving him everything he has. YES he’s bad tempered, yes he doesn’t communicate like a normal fucking person but hya is also giving amon so much of him that it’s dizzying. amon almost can’t handle how much of himself hya gives him and it makes him wonder if he’s giving enough. so he keeps becoming more and more fixated, more and more enamored, more and more unable to detangle himself from hya because he’s never had anyone SEE him and GIVE to him like hya has it’s nuts.

but then at the same time, for hya, learning to love amon is an exercise of trust and trust is The Most Terrifying Thing in the world to this man. he doesn’t trust ANYONE outside of himself, and life certainly has not given him a reason to. but even still, he finds himself believing in amon, listening to him, caring for him no matter how much he tries to minimize their relationship or amon’s affect on him. he lets amon touch him! kiss him! see him while he sleeps!! like even hya can’t deny that he’s allowed amon into the most vulnerable parts of himself (that shriveled thing he calls a heart) and amon made a home there and it’s Terrifying to him.

essentially their love language is also overcoming their internal fears and i’m obsessed with them for it

9. Baths or showers together? Do they like elaborate ones with bubbles and flower petals?

so hya has a whole thing where he’s got trauma around showers so you will never ever see him in one. so baths are the automatic go to. i haven’t actually thought about the two of them sharing a bath (sacrilege ik) but it’s definitely married couple era if it were to happen. amon would be so annoyingly pressed about it and hya would keep trying to tell him to Focus but amon’s just giddy like a kid and would absolutely want ALL the stops. bubbles, petals, champagne LOL. hya’s all “i knew you were easy to please but this is almost comical” and amon’s like “of course i’m easy to please i’m with you.” but they are both so DISGUSTINGLY fond.

idk man it’s just the way that hya starts being more affectionate for me UGGHHHH i need to write like 800 chapters of them being the cutest sappiest married couple they’re GROSSSS i love them 😭😭😭

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Video Killed The Radio Star ⭐️ | Rhett Abbott Headcanon

Link to my Rhett Abbott Masterlist

Rhett dating someone obsessed with the 80s would look like:

The second verse in the song “1985,” by Bowling for Soup literally describes you when it goes, “She’s seen all the classics. She knows every line. Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, even St. Elmo’s Fire. She rocked to Wham! Not a big Limp Bizkit fan. Thought she’d get a hand on a member of Duran Duran.” Yeah, you’ve seen all the classics (including Dirty Dancing, Footloose, Top Gun, The Outsiders, The Karate Kid, Terminator, etc) and can recite every line to the point you don’t even need your eyes on the screen when the scene plays. Rhett was amazed the first time he witnessed it and would challenge you during the scenes with a lot of dialogue.

Rhett was well aware of your love for the 80s. The movies, the music, the aesthetic, just everything. The whole damn reason y’all met was because you worked at the record store in town. He’d always admired you from afar and finally got the courage to go in and talk to you. Wearing an AC/DC shirt and smudged eyeliner, you definitely gave off that classic rock look. Sometimes he’d come in and you were more colorful like when channeling Cyndi Lauper or Witney Houston.

After that first conversation Rhett swore he could hear you talk for hours. You spitted fact after fact to him when he asked questions about a particularly band or movie. Like you knew the exact date MTV launched on cable (August 1st, 1981) and the first music video that aired (Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles). Other famous events you knew by heart were Charles & Diana’s wedding, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the Berlin Wall coming down, and the fact the 1984 L.A Olympics was boycotted by the USSR & their allies.

Rhett could easily pick up on who your favorite bands/artists, songs, movies, and 80s heartthrobs were by how consistently you spoke of them. It amazed him, especially because you were likely either a small child or not even alive when the 80s happened, but everything about you screamed you were born in the wrong decade. “I take it if you could go back in time and choose a decade to live in, It’d be the 80s huh?” “Is that even a question? It’s why I need them to crack the code to time travel so I can go!”

Anytime y’all go on road trips you are in charge of the aux and Rhett has grown accustomed to your choice of music. By now he knows all the lyrics from Def Leppard’s Hysteria and almost everything from Journey and Whitney Houston. Before he met you, all Rhett listened to was country and maybe a modern pop or jazz/blues artist once in a blue moon, now his music taste has broaden to classic/metal rock & techno pop. He personally prefers AC/DC, Guns n Roses, & The Simple Minds and you’ll catch him jamming when he thinks you’re not in the room. “Don’t look at me like that, Y/n.” “I’m just admiring those moves, cowboy.” “Stop right there, or imma have to punish you.” “Does punish involve playing ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me,’ if you know what I mean?”

Anytime y’all go on road trips you are in charge of the aux and Rhett has grown accustomed to your choice of music. By now he knows all the lyrics from Def Leppard’s Hysteria and almost everything from Journey and Whitney Houston. Before he met you, all Rhett listened to was country and maybe a modern pop or jazz/blues artist once in a blue moon, now his music taste has broaden to classic/metal rock & techno pop. He personally prefers AC/DC, Guns n Roses, & The Simple Minds and you’ll catch him jamming when he thinks you’re not in the room. “Don’t look at me like that, Y/n.” “I’m just admiring those moves, cowboy.” “Stop right there, or imma have to punish you.” “Does punish involve playing ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me,’ if you know what I mean?”

Not many groups/artists still toured, but the ones that did you guys would try your best to attend the concerts. Together you both saw Pat Benetar, Def Leppard, Journey, & even Rick Springfield a couple times. On your bucket list is to see Mötley Crue, Metallica, Cyndi Lauper, and Joan Jett.

When it comes to birthdays & holidays, Rhett loves to spoil you when he gets enough money too. Merchandise and collectors items are usually what he sets his eyes on to get you, but then he discovered the annual ‘80s in the Sand’ festival that takes place in the Dominican Republic where several of your favorite artists/groups will attend. When he heard about that, Rhett was on a mission. For over a year he saved every penny to book flights, tickets, rooms at the resort before surprising you on your birthday with an envelope. You were a fucking mess at the table when you opened the envelope and read the writing—you couldn’t believe he actually got you tickets for the festival. “What the fuck, Rhett—o-oh my gosh how did you—how did you do this!?” You stuttered between sobs, tackling him to the floor and kissing all over his face as he laughed beneath you. “I love you so much—thank you thank you. This is the best gift ever!!”

The anticipation and working so hard to take you to the festival was so worth it when you guys arrived. The smile on your face never left and Rhett swore you were gonna pass out when Simon Le Bon from Duran Duran waved to you. “I just fucking made eye contact with Simon fucking Le Bon—Rhett!! He waved at me!!” Then after y’all had some drinks at the hotel bar you about shit your pants at the realization Nina Blackwood, one of the five original MTV’s VJ’s, was sitting next to you and had complimented your outfit.

Each time you happened to get the once in a life time chance to meet/interact with the artist/group you spent years fangirling over, Rhett would have a tissue ready to catch your tears (of happiness of course) and capture every picture/video so you could have it forever. He literally was the best boyfriend you could ask for, still in disbelief he had given you such an amazing gift he knew you would cherish till the day you died. It was truly the experience of a lifetime.

That entire trip Rhett fell more in love with you and with your love for the decade. He could see it in your eyes and how you connected with people not only y’all’s age who were there, but also the older folks who grew up during that time. Rhett couldn’t wait for you both to go again the next year, making it a goal to attend annually and working to save every penny to make sure he could see that light in you shine bright in the place you belonged.

[oscarpiastriwdc]

Hiii 🥰

I’ve just finished a reread (that I’ve started immediately after finishing it the first time) of standing at your door and omggg I’m obsessed !!! & I have some lore questions if I may🤲

1. How did Lewis react to George’s termination (apart from what we already know) - has his relationship with Toto/the team changed because of it?

2. I’ve seen you answered an ask about Gax trying to keep the relationship a secret but that it’s pretty much an open secret in the paddock - when and how does the public find out, and what are the reactions like (were there rumors before this or is it a complete surprise)?

3. Does Max really take just 1 year off, do they later race against each other? When does Baby No. 2 potentially come into the story?

Thank you so much for writing this, I can’t wait to hear more of your thoughts ❤️❤️❤️

HELLO!!!! oh these are fantastic lore questions thank you so much <3 here's (probably) way more information than you asked for

Lewis has talked about how the nature of being a professional athlete means you grow up later than some people might. In this verse, Lewis has reached the point where he's grown weary and tired of the whole system. He's been chewed up and spit out again by the system so many times that all he can see is the rotten core. On top of that, Lewis has a whole mess of feelings about the issue of carrier rights thanks to Nico. Nico's known he's a carrier since he was 12, Lewis found out when he was 16. Nico managed to keep his status a secret through his whole career and Lewis was the only person at Merc who knew. When the GPDA didn't pass the protections the first time around, all his feelings were caught up in keeping Nico's secret and, later, the championship battle. After Nico retired, he felt so guilty for how everything went down and George getting fired brought up the whole mess of feelings again. It's not the final straw, per se, but one of them. He's done with the whole circus and ready to move on. He distances himself from Toto bit by bit until he announces his retirement. The GPDA finally passing protections for pregnant drivers and the news of George's lawsuit settlement lets him feel like he can leave at peace.

The public knows George is pregnant/has a baby, but no one knows who the other father is. Speculation and rumors run rampant, but George pretty much goes into hiding, or at least is never seen with Virginia and/or Max once she's born. There's definitely a rumor that floats around that Max is the father but no one takes it seriously—everyone remembers what their relationship was like before George stopped driving and it's a laughable thought. When Max's leave gets announced, coinciding with George's return to F1, no one makes the connection at first. RBR refuses to share the reasons for Max's leave, and Virginia is never seen at the paddock with George. But Virginia is growing up and George and Max are worrying about making sure Virginia is spending time outside, so Max starts appearing with her around Monaco, face always hidden or covered, but the public notices and starts speculating that maybe she's George's baby. No one engages with the rumors, but they keep growing, eventually reaching the point that everyone knows, even if it's not officially confirmed. It doesn't get confirmed until Max returns to F1 and Virginia makes an appearance at the first race of the season with George's giant bambi eyes in the RBR hospitality.

Max LOVES the stay-at-home dad routine, but it also brings up a ton of Big Feelings regarding his future and his identity outside of racing and his relationship with his own parents and childhood. (I have part of a thing written about Max's Big Feelings while at home with Virginia, we'll see if that ever gets finished or posted lol). He was only planning to take one year off, but ends up taking two, wanting to wait until Virginia is a bit older and at a stage where she can travel with him and George to races. George is still racing and they race against each other for two seasons before George's body can't take driving anymore so he retires, while Max races for another season. At that point, Virginia is 6 and they're ready to have another baby—they decided to wait until they were both retired so Max and George can do the whole pregnancy together.

[unpopularghostwrites]

Book Review 5-9: John Green

This is a book review for the following books by John Green: 

- The Fault in Our Stars (3.5/5)

- An Abundance of Katherines (3/5)

- Paper Towns (4/5)

- The Anthropocene Reviewed (10000000000000000000/5)

This is going to be an old review, because the last time I read any of these books was when I was in high school as a Freshman. I am now a 21 year old college senior, and was around for the 2016 Tumblr craze over TFiOS, and the status of it as a meme now.

I have only read Looking For Alaska once. I have read Paper Towns multiple times, and An Abundance of Katherines a few times. I have practically memorized TFiOS... Why? Because it was THE book of angst for 13 year old me.

I like John Green a lot. I like what he and Hank Green do for students, young people, and the community online. They are good people with informative videos and with interesting ideas. So here I am, reviewing John Green’s books from way back when. Please note* I haven’t read any of these books within the last 4 years besides the Anthropocene Reviewed. So this is more a review of the nostalgia and the pieces I can remember.

The Fault in Our Stars. There are faults with this book, but there are great parts too. This was the first book I read that had swearing and a realistic (or as realistic as you can get when it’s a straight white man narrating a teenage girls life) portrayal of teenagerhood. Is it pretentious as all heck? Yes. Are there moments where you want to strangle the main character? Yep. Are there moments when you want to strangle her boyfriend? Yes. Most definitely. BUT. This book was extremely important to me when I was younger, it was the first “adult” book I read. It tackled more than just fantasy novels or things like Amber Brown. It was a book that was about someone who was dying, but who was finding their life through it. It helped I was discovering this around the time of the Sherlock, Doctor Who, TFiOS, Tumblr obsession craze. It fueled my love for the story, and the movie was coming out. Unfortunately, I am a contrarian. My roommate loves to tell me so. So it got too popular and my love for TFiOS was squashed. I put it on a shelf and began to love Paper Towns more, but then the movie for that book came out. The Fault in Our Stars is a sucky book for someone who is going through terminal illness. It glorifies, romanticizes, and is pretentious about it all. The kiss in the Anne Frank house is so infuriating that that’s what I remember. I fail to see why Augustus is so loved by Hazel, because he is just a guy. Hit him with your car. (Chrissy, 2023). Okay, maybe don’t hit the guy with leg cancer with a car, but come on. He goes through such a down hill spiral, and it’s understandable why, but it’s really annoying to read. Even though he is in pain and is dying, so is Hazel. He doesn’t have to be a jerk to her. Isaac is a much cooler person. If I were Hazel, I’d have gone for Isaac.

The imagery and quotes that this book has? Worth reading it for. There are lovely phrases about this. I fear that John Green could be my version of Peter Van Houghton. I’m really glad that he didn’t end TFiOS with an incomplete sentence that would have been really annoying and on the nose. But I did find it surprising he chose not to. So good on him for not being cliche.

Perhaps one of the least well known John Green book out there, this one is one of the top books he’s written to me. I liked the way that the book is, with footnotes and science-y nerdy terms that I didn’t really understand when I was 13. I liked that the book really makes you feel like you’re on a summer road trip, it’s hot, it’s long, you’re bored, but there’s enough intrigue and potential for romance you get your hopes up. I like the idea of being obsessed with being a genius, I can relate to that feeling a lot. I think that writing wise, this was one of his worst ones. I really like this book though. I haven’t read a book like this and still haven’t since. I would read it again, but wouldn’t recommend it to people who are obsessed with Green’s other work and are used to that quality and precedent.

Paper Towns is a great book. It’s funny, it’s got a great ending chase scene, it was relevant to my life when I read it. I grew up idolizing people, thinking that they were special and more than just people. This book is about that concept and someone making someone into more than they are. I love the movie of this book and think that it’s a fair adaptation (Cara Delavigne is hella fine). I think that this movie and the book could have been as successful as TFiOS if people were interested in it and it had gained as much controversy. I love the idea of a manic pixie dream girl being tracked down by a nerd and his friends and then telling them it was not fair they see her as a manic pixie dream girl. Sometimes, girls are just girls. People are people. They aren’t your answers, they aren’t your solutions, they aren’t your soul mates. I think this message would be really relevant to any high schooler, simp, or fanboy out there. I think that this book is great. :)

This is how you do a collection of essays. This project John Green has done via podcast is so good. I cannot recommend it enough. I never thought I’d be crying in my car to someone talking about Jerzy Dudek, contemplating Tetris, or appreciating Piggly Wiggly’s origin story. I never thought someone wondering about the world could be so powerful. I think this is such an important podcast, because it’s not only teaching us cool information about niche things, it’s teaching us about humanity. It’s teaching us about our lives, our earth, our society, and our history. I find great value in this project and am so happy that I gave it a chance. It’s so comforting hearing hope and reassurance when looking at Gingko Trees or the start of the Penguins of Madagascar. No matter what essay, Green makes me feel safe and full of wonder. He makes me feel secure to find joy and power in the things around me, how the world used to be, how it is and how it could be. If you’re going to try out something of John Green’s, please try this.

How I rate books: 

0 - Could not finish

Could not finish due to various reasons. Be it it’s too boring, or that it was highly offensive or poorly written.

1 - No.

Absolutely detested, will not read again, could not believe some people read this and enjoy it. What were they thinking?

2 - Eh.

Not my cup of tea, but I can see why someone would like this. Wouldn’t read again but not a complete waste of time.

3 - Huh.

Welp. This book is very mid tier. I’m okay that I read it, might read it again if I am bored or forget it. This is an okay read and I’m okay I read it.

4 - Hm.

Hm. I don’t know if I really like this book but it made me feel something. I liked it and would read it again, I don’t know when I’d read it again but I’d confidently tell someone about this book and recommend this book.

5 - WOW! I love this book. I am this book. Read this book. 1000000000000000000000000000000/5 - Self explanatory

If I give a book this rating, assume it is now my personality and I am going to force you to read it in front of me.

**All art is not made by me, it is a google search and not my art. If it is my art, I will say so. Assume all art is not mine. Ty**

[the-parentheticals]

Word count: 933

Summary: Love doesn't exist. Or, if it does, it doesn't end well for anyone.

Warnings: harassment, murder, something necrophilia-adjacent (but not sexual)

Note: Alright, Milgram fandom, how do we feel about Mu? Yes, I’m obsessed with her MKDR cover (my Discord nickname is currently MuKDR), and yes, that’s where the title is from.

For @badthingshappenbingo, Leave Me Alone. I’ll be honest, that sentence is probably the least worrisome part of this fic.

The further adventures of terminal//command (the AU with @kung-fu-cutbug in question), and…well, definitely spoilers for the AU. The loveknot is three disasters. I apologize if I’ve bungled Rory. Yes, I snuck a bit of Hiro and Akemi in there, couldn’t resist.

read on ao3

i.    delusion

“Chikako?” He doesn’t quite smile when she meets his eyes, but he comes close. Really, she’s the only person in this forsaken game that’s even close to worth it.

“Leave me alone.” It’s without a hint of remorse. “How many times do I need to tell you? I don’t like you. And I don’t appreciate this.”

“I’m willing to do what you wish me to.”

She leans in close, her breath in his ear, and his heart nearly gives in at the prospect of being so close to her. “Relleve. I will make this very clear. If you make unwanted romantic advances on me one more time, I will kill you.”

“If you did, I’d have no objections.” After all, what could be a better way to spend your final moments than close to your beloved?

“What is wrong with you?” She says it in her ordinary tone, but due to the closeness it comes out so much more intense than she ever intended.

“Love cannot be wrong.”

Chikako falls away, pauses for a moment, an eternity, to consider something, and he knows she’s got something else in mind when she says, “Then I don’t want it.”

“How you feel doesn’t matter. You’ll come around eventually.”

When he leaves, she’s perfectly still, her eyes wide, staring into nothing. Progress, is it not?

ii.    sentiment

“William Stevens? Stevie?” The tone is softer than she usually uses, but she supposes that if she’s going to be vulnerable to him already, a bit more can’t make it worse. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

He nods cheerfully. “What is it?”

This is it. She’s not ready. She knows she’s not ready. But they could die at any moment. And it’ll make Rory shut up, which she figures is most important.

“Relleve likes me, I despise it, and I believe that, if we were to be together, he would stop harassing me.” She takes a quick breath. In, out. “So. Will you accept this?”

Stevie blinks up at her for a moment that lasts forever, and she fights to keep her face straight and guiltless.

“…Rory’s a bad person, then?”

“It’s not that. Not at all.” Of course, the one thing he takes away from it is something that has nothing to do with what she wants. “He is horrible, but we’re not talking about him. We’re talking about me. What I want from you. Stevie, please.”

“What do you want me to do, then?”

“…are you really so stupid?” She slams her eyes closed to avoid him seeing the tears flowing out. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“I don’t—”

Her eyes snap open for the briefest moment. No, she’s not going to go easy on him just because he’s confused. “Forget I asked.” She turns on her heel and walks away, not looking back in the slightest.

iii.    compensation

“Rory…”

The name barely comes out. It’s too caught up in his short breaths, in, out, and the bloody knife he’s holding moves back-and-forth with him.

“Are you dead yet? Is this…”

He stares at Rory’s corpse. The corpse does not stare back, presumably because Rory had not been looking in his direction when he died.

“Chikako got it right, didn’t she? Nobody’s going to miss you.”

Rory does not respond.

“…but…that’s not right, is it?”

He presses his fingers against Rory’s cheek. Cold, it’s so cold, and you did this. You killed him.

“You knew what you were doing, didn’t you?”

A soft sequence of breaths that grows ever quicker.

“She hated you, and she was right to do it, but I don’t. Not anymore. I can’t, you just wanted someone to get you, and that was yourself.”

His head is against Rory’s chest, and he realizes dimly that he’ll have to wash the blood out later.

“…I love you. Or I should have.”

He stands up and brushes a lock of hair away from Rory’s forehead. He has to go. He has to cover things up. Just a little bit longer. It’s all gonna be okay.

iv.    federation

“…okay. To make things clear. You fell in love with your murder victim. Right after you killed him. That’s messed up. So, so messed up.”

“I’m…glad you agree, Akiyama-chan?”

“Oh, Inaba, don’t lie to me, you’re just as confused as I am.”

“Of course I am! Lying is bad!”

Chikako doesn’t say a word. She just looks at Stevie, her mouth covered by her scarf in the way she so rarely does.

“Did any of you miss Rory?”

“Just because we don’t miss him doesn’t mean we want him dead.” Akemi slams her fist on the podium, followed by an annoyed look by Masahiro.

“Stevie-san, do you understand why I’m so frustrated by all of this? When you’re committing murder? The one thing I never wanted anyone to do?”

“Then you shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“Then you shouldn’t have done it!”

“But I did. Is this because—”

“Do not say it. I forbid you from saying it.” It’s the first time Chikako’s spoken up since the vote. The command comes out in the absolute tone she’s used so often on her shoots.

“Emiya-chan?”

“It doesn’t matter why. None of it matters.”

“Chikako?” Stevie tilts his head, and for once he seems genuinely oblivious. “You asked me to do it, right?”

“No, I didn’t. This is exactly what I was talking about.”

“But…you were complaining about him. To me. You don’t like anyone, and why would you…?”

“Because I’m in love with you. And I told you, and it ruined everything.”

[watching-pictures-move]

Tagged by @mariocki, a few questions by which to get to know me better:

Last song: I’ve been listening to Born Too Late by Saint Vitus on repeat over the last week or so, so unsurprisingly it’s something from that album.

Favourite colour: Blue is my stock answer because it goes with most things and most shades of it look good, but over the last few years I’ve warmed up to green.

Currently watching: I don’t watch many TV shows, but I did go through the miniseries adaptation of On Wings of Eagles last week after finishing the book. The cast makes it watchable, but it’s got that TV grade hamminess, and a lot of the changes made to adapt it to the small screen are pretty dumb. Interestingly, once I logged it on Letterboxd, one of my mutuals piped in to mention that his father was a State Department official mentioned in the book and tangentially involved in the events covered.

Sweet/savoury/spicy: Savoury for sure. I definitely have a sweet tooth but I’ve tried to avoid too much sugar for health reasons (not that I’m especially good at it, haha). My friends chirp me for my spice tolerance (which is probably pretty average but low by South Asian standards, I’m South Asian but they are not btw), but I find too much spice, at the level my friends like, overwhelms the other flavours in a dish.

Currently playing: I’m not a huge gamer, but I did recently enjoy RoboCop: Rogue City, which does a great job of capturing the tone and aesthetics of the movies and has some really tasty, weighty gunplay to boot. I will probably get to the Terminator game the same studio put out next, although these days I take a decent break in between games.

Current obsession: This is a tough one. I guess because it’s almost October I’m diving back into watching mostly horror movies as I usually do this time of year earlier this year I did a bit of a Laurel and Hardy binge and watched 29 of their movies. (They are my most watched actors this year, followed by Mae Busch and a bunch of other regulars who appeared in their movies.) Before that I got really annoying about Miami Vice when I went through it last year.

Thank you for tagging me!

[goldmanguyperson]

a lot of my headmates seem to have different symptoms of autism, and sometimes almost symptoms of different disorders than me. though whether this is because of me masking or them being fundamentally different, like inhabiting/having more connection to different parts of the brain than me, is something i couldn’t really tell you

TNB is very loud and sensitive, and definitely a social cue misser but with less anxiety about it than me. They don’t have the terminator overlay in their eyes at all times measuring who hates them unless i’m too up in their mind lol. Not to say they don’t still have social anxieties, but i don’t think they ever have had the chance for them to get as bad as mine. If they were host, we all probably would switch front more due to the lessened anxiety over “acting weird”. They remind me of other autistic people ive met, though i also kinda think that if i wasn’t me they would remind me of me. or me as a kid, at the very least. It’s hard to know because well, i’m me

Leaf is very very sensitive, and scary or bad things stick in his mind like superglue on skin. to the point where he kinda seems to have pure O OCD. But really this isn’t particularly shocking to me, because he’s essentially a vessel for our intrusive thoughts. fortunately, him being that actually seems to make intrusive thoughts and thus his obsessions much easier to deal with—the grounding is a lot more effective when it’s addressed as a problem he is having. that actually was part of what made me confident he was real so quickly when he made his presence known. I’ve suspected myself having pure O OCD in the past, but I’m pretty sure that my generalized anxiety diagnosis is more correct, especially now, with Leaf around to compare myself to. Though I will say that I wouldn’t be shocked if he is in the same part of my brain that made me wonder about me having OCD back then

[colourstreakgryffin]

Yandere! Romantic! KNY Tomioka Giyuu Headcanons

Mooooreee Yandere Hashiraaaa! Fourth Post ever and I’m having so much fun! Let’s do our mismatched droplet of Dead Calm!

Giyuu as a romantic Yandere has the Yandere traits of; Possessive, Obsessive, Delusional, Very Overprotective, Clingy/Needy, Lovesick, Affectionate and Intense

Him… in love? No, this must be a mistake. Giyuu repeated to himself over and over again as he tried his best to ignore you as you carried on the nice conversation with him

Eventually, he falls victim to the alluring web of love after only a few months of getting to know you against his will and becomes all the more enamoured by you that he can’t stop himself any longer. You’re as kind and energetic as Rengoku but less pushy and more considerate then Kocho. What’s not to love?

Giyuu would much rather leave you alone and have his distance, even after he’s decided he truly does love you. He’s dangerous, a walking demon magnet and no matter how hard he’s fallen for you or how strong you are as the Ice Hashira, he wants you as far away from him as you can get

That doesn’t stop him from gaining a newfound obsession with you after his love has unfolded. Your unconditional kindness directed at him is toxic and he’s loving the venom, so much that he wants all of it or should I say, all of you for himself

His growing unhinged obsession with you eventually slaughters that perception of keeping you away and he begins becoming so unbelievably clingy over you, that your personal space no longer exists. He can’t lose you, he refuses to lose you so he’ll keep you with him by force 24/7

Giyuu is no longer the original Water Hashira and it frightens the Hashira to simply watch. He spends all of his time with you, he talks more than a few words, he always glares a “stay the f**k away” at any of them if they even just look in your direction. Something seems fishy… but they can’t pick up on Giyuu’s bad mental health shift

Giyuu manipulates only himself into believing that you have a massive crush on him too as his head cannot handle rejection. No matter what you say to him after learning about his new self, he won’t process it correctly. He won’t leave you alone even if you demand it, he won’t take his hands off you even if you beg for him to stop

Giyuu swears on his life that you’ll have safety. Everybody he loves always disappears and it’s becoming too much. Though, he’d prefer to avoid for your own safety, he can’t help but fall for you. He wants you— no— he NEEDS you. The guilt he feels over his beloveds’ deaths have created an new obsession apart from his main one. The obsession to keep you safe, the obsession to protect you with everything he has, the obsession of preventing you from leaving him

If it’s not obvious, ALL the Yandere Hashira have the matching traits of Possessive, Overprotective and Delusional. So, of course, Giyuu is the same but on different levels

He is extremely overprotective, most definitely, ten times more than every the other Hashira, since he has lost everybody he loves, he will cling onto you desperately to keep you with him. No matter who it is or how many minor the conversation is, Giyuu is breaking it up and practically throwing you over his shoulder with no words

Perhaps, his affection is one of his only good traits. He is very gentle when he handles you, placing you in his lap to press soft kisses all over your face, rub his calloused hands over your waist and belly. He is the type for gentle affection and he loves just giving it to you at random times, sharing this Yandere trait with Mitsuri. Rather his touch makes you smile or not, his love is overflowing and he needs to express it to you so you know

So, yeah. Just like Obanai, Giyuu will eventually start pulling the strings from behind your back to get you terminated from your Hashira position, out of his intense anxiety over your life and safety. You’re less in danger if you’re no longer one of the ten strongest Demon Slayers in the Corp

He knows he doesn’t deserve you. You’re so angelic and he’s a abnormality of life but he wants you more than anything in this whole universe. He won’t say that your his but he is striving to make you his

“Dokusha… I’ve… had a lot of fun… talking to you. I… I know we’ve only been talking for a few minutes but… just being around you… makes it feel like life has meaning… you make me feel complete… I just… I really need you… A-ah! I mean! N-nevermind”

“Lovesick” is a underestimatement with Giyuu. He is love-diseased and that disease of his is killing him and all of his past connections. He doesn’t care for anybody else in this world, not even Urokodaki, the lovely man who saved him. He’d gladly sell out his fellow Hashira to be able to spend his entire life with you. Nothing matters… only Dokusha, only Dokusha…

Whilst Giyuu doesn’t have the gut to talk down people who merely look at you, he snatches your hand and drags you away with the most bloodthirsty look possible for one lonely empty man. Such plagues won’t effect your beautiful pure being on his watch

Giyuu is quite intense once he has you in his hands. Not much with how he acts to the people around him now but with everything in which include you. He is intensely nice, he is intensely intimidating, he is intensely passive-aggressive and he has the most intense murderous thoughts. He doesn’t plan on intimidating you with his intensity, he just developed it and it comes out like spilling spaghetti when he confesses his not-so healthy love to you

Giyuu is another righteous Hashira Yandere. He isn’t really for killing as taking away innocent lives deeply goes against his morals but for you, he’ll just grim and bear it as it becomes absolutely necessary to permanently dispose of the love rival at one point

It’s not that Giyuu feels horrible for the victims anymore, it’s more that he is worried that it’ll ruin his chance with you. You wouldn’t date a murderer! You’d detest him if you knew Giyuu killed a human and that’s a fate worse then death

His morals are rotten. They don’t stem around the people like they use to but purely around you. Pretty much everything Giyuu does now is with you constantly in mind

Would Dokusha like this treat? She said it was her favourite. Would Dokusha enjoy this kimono of mine? It’s her favourite colour though. His obsession gets so bad that he is no longer a person but more a parasite waiting to attach itself to you to become one with you

He doesn’t really like kidnapping either. To him, breaking your heart that way is unforgivable. You deserve freedom, you deserve happiness and love, in-fact, you deserve the entire world and beyond to Giyuu. You’re a angel sent from the heavens and he carves to defend you

Giyuu doesn’t filter his thoughts and feelings as he believes you deserve to know everything. He tells you if you talking to somebody is making him unbearably angry, he openly admits that he did hurt the person you were seeing but spins it in a way to make it sound more justifiable then it really is

“It’s not only demons that are horrible, Dokusha-chan. Humans can also be as ruthless and heartless, what if you become a victim of one of those people? None of our fellow Hashira, especially not me, could handle such a situation. I need to stay with you to prevent that. Understand?”

Giyuu’s Yandere behaviour is confusing and very hypocritical in plain truth. He doesn’t like kidnapping as it hurts you but will not hide what he has done to other people. This is purely his sense of “justice” fighting with all those little voices that scream at him to; win you over at all causes

And if that cause includes hunting down his fellow Hashira, sacrificing other people in your name or forcefully twisting your vision on him, he’ll do it… so, you’ll be all his

[qwilman]

Losing your Twitter Audience: Some Shit of the Top of  My Head, by Me

Reposting a Twitter thread I just made because it's got a lot of thoughts I've had stuck in my head lately:

I don't have a fully-formed version of these thoughts, but I think what a lot of artist are asking when they say "where will we go after twitter" is actually asking "where are all of the normal people going to end up?" I can name a half-dozen sites that are ready and waiting for more artists to come flooding onto their platform. I'm sure there are just as many for writers, musicians, filmmakers, everything else. The actual question everyone needs an answer to is where is the AUDIENCE going.

I've been terminally online for well over two decades at this point. I've been obsessed with the internet since middle school and I can honestly say I've never seen anything like twitter's user base in my entire goddamned life. I've never seen a website that EVERYBODY uses. The closest comparison I have is Facebook, which was really the first internet community that normal people ever truly appreciated. At it's core though, Facebook was a tool that kept you connected with people you knew in real life. As much as it changed, that idea was its bones. Twitter isn't really like that. It doesn't have shared calendars or photo albums or a base instinct to keep you hooked into communities you're already in. Twitter has performance in it's core. It's a bullhorn you pick up to shout to as many people as possible. As much as it's changed that's still it's core feature, the thing it's always going to want to do. That's why it's so appealing for every performer in the world, and I think since most people who don't want to be on stage want to watch a show, that's why it got so huge.

So a bunch of performers can reach enormous audiences and a bunch of us managed to make a living off of it. The question now that this stage is burning down with us on it is where is the next one, and I just don't think this massive audience is ever going to move in unison. I think the thing we all need to be prepared for is that we're going to fragment. We're going to find our own corners again and the more savvy members of our audiences are going to find those same corners as they seek out what they love, but our causal viewers will veer off. Twitter has been an incredible tool for us to put our art in the faces of people who would never think to look for it. This was a big part of what the people who found success on Facebook benefitted from as well, the audience who treated social media like television.

The people who are just looking for an entertainment box to turn on and comfort them without effort are most likely never going to use a Pillowfort, or a Tumblr, or a Cohost, and DEFINITELY not a Mastodon, because they all require a base level of interaction and engagement. And to be clear, this isn't me calling those people stupid, or a "bad" audience. People have their own lives and their own interests. Curating a feed of content requires effort and seeking out new artists is a skill. A lot of people just want to crash after they got off work. So those people aren't going to follow us to new sites. Either because those new sites are improved, but more esoteric, or just because signing up for a new site is a hassle of it's own. We're going to lose that audience. Period. Mourn them if you need to, but accept that.

I think success for artists online in the future is going to look a lot more like what it was in the early 00's-10's. Artists and willingly-engaged audiences seeking each other out. I just don't think putting as many eyes as possible on our work will be a winning strategy. Instead of finding as many people as possible, we need to be focused on finding the right people. 100 followers who are excited that their you, specifically, just posted are as valuable as 1000 followers who don't remember you that well and just want to see some cool art. A lot of people stopped trying to find their 1,000 true fans and focused completely on reaching 10k, 50k, 100k followers, no matter how closely they're paying attention. Honest to god, I think the later is going to be suicide in five years.

FWIW, I've never actually been any good at doing that. The biggest following I've ever had in my life is a little over 3,000 followers in TikTok. I think I just feel weird seeing a bunch of artist who have "made it" panic that they'll be losing everything when Twitter's gone. If you have 10k, 50, 100k followers right now, I don't think it's useful to focus on how many you're about to lose. Instead focus on who the best 10% of those followers are, the ones who've supported you financially and by sharing your work, do what you can to meet them where they live.

Anyway this started as an attempt to excise a stray thought I've had stuck in my head all week, didn't mean to spend 45 minutes on it. The point is get ready to post like it's 2007 again. Best case scenario, the internet is going to be asking a little more effort from all of us pretty soon, but I think at the end of the day if things go right we're all going to come out the other side better for it. If you made it this far, dig through your feed, pick one or two of your favorite artists who have links in their bio to give them money, then give them a little money. I promise you they'll notice.

[grandadtwelve]

any doctor/river song

COMPLICATED….

I don’t have any solid opinion on any classic doctors/river but of the nuwho doctors;

tenriver: love it. not in a relationshippy/romantic way but definitely in a tragic and bittersweet way. david and alex’s chemistry in their episodes was absolutely perfect for what they were trying to portray. angst potential is 10/10 and I love love love the pieces of related media that show how ten viewed and felt about river

elevenriver: the first dw ship i was obsessed with. now that I’m not a kid I think I better understand the complexities of their relationship and the ways in which eleven (and moffat really) disregarded rivers emotional well-being and personal narrative. I love them and I love their chemistry and their sweet moments are so so sweet. but my perspective on them now is definitely sadder because it’s hard for me not to focus on how awful river was treated and how heartbreaking it is that she willingly remained in the relationship. river has terminal ‘cool girl’ syndrome (meaning she feels she has to maintain this persona of independence and intrigue and never appear to need him too much or to ask for too much) and once you realize that it kind of taints all of their interactions.

twelveriver: everything. we have an unexpected reunion, we have a feelings realization, we have the doctor taking accountability, we have commitment, we have an apology, we have vulnerability, we have a couple that’s been together for hundreds of years finally truly communicating w each other for the first time. it’s painful and raw and healing and gorgeous and I adore them. I’m writing a darillium twelveriver fic rn and im having a wonderful time.

thirteenriver: I feel like river would be really sad to see how thirteen is dealing with emotional vulnerability after twelve and I think she would be good for her. similar to tenriver, I like it more for the angst potential than for the relationship itself </3