#i've been thinking about this a lot now and i have got pretty much all i want from t

[offsidetracked]

I've been thinking about how I'd go about byler in S5.

When I got hooked on byler it was the same way I got hooked on every other ship; it's heavily supported by subtext, regardless of if it's confirmed by the text later on or not. Sasunaru, reylo, bkdk... all are ships that have intricate and beautifully woven subtext that made us fans speculate for years. In some cases discourse is still ongoing. That's a hallmark of some great writing as far as I'm concerned (all of these ships crashed and burned in different ways but until they did the writing was truly stellar).

Stranger Things and byler are in the same league. I just believe that this time the outcome will be a lot more satisfying. So how do we get the GA to root for it when it happens? I'm not the Duffers but I know some things I would do to help it along:

Dial up the homophobia. When byler becomes canon there can be absolutely no question; the bad guys of this show are the bigoted close-minded homophobes. It must be explicitly shown how mindlessly cruel this specific type of hate is and that it's incompatible with viewing yourself as a hero or good guy. I'd continue to spin the thread from last season and have the town blame pretty much all that goes wrong in Hawkins on your resident nerds, outcasts and misfits. Mix that with the aids crisis and the Reagan administration and next season is gonna be brutal. But it needs to be to drive home that in Stranger Things, if you're a homophobic bully, you're the monster.

Make the subtext hornier. One of the things I adore about Rian Johnson and Masashi Kishimoto is how they do subtext, particularly sexual subtext. Funnily enough dudebros in both the Star Wars and Naruto fandom, just like a lot of Milevens, didn't pick up on any of it. The Last Jedi is filled with Freudian sexual imagery. From Rey falling onto a hairy seaweed-filled cave hole to Kylo's light sabre design, yoni-shapped doorways and their joint fight towards the end—all sexually loaded and masterfully tongue-in-cheek. Naruto had a much longer run and was consequently more parsed out with it's subtexual imagery. Still it's not hard to find if you know how to look (there are some really excellent accounts on here if you wanna dive into that rabbit hole). Stranger Things has the beautiful benefit of being a horror; a genre that excels at showing our suppressed desires in grotesque and weirdly relatable ways. Phallic monsters, fluids everywhere, exposed scratched up and damaged skin, tending to wounds in intense and intimate ways, grime and dirt, panting, moaning, grunting through pain... It's up to the Duffers how in the face they wanna be about it. But it would be a missed opportunity if they don't crank up this type of imagery at least a little. Also, I want to see Mike suffer. Let him sweat and have a nervous breakdown over allegory.

Show that repression = impotence + harm. Freud, no matter what you think of the guy, is all over horror. This quote from Men, Women and Chainsaws sums it up pretty neatly; "Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways". Well bitches, now is later and it's time for the subconscious to come out of the closet and ruin everyone's day. Will is gonna be stuck in the victim part of the Final Girl trope until he fully embraces his queerness by having his feelings reciprocated by Mike. Mike, on the other hand, will probably actively find himself and the people closest to him in dangerous and harmful situations as a direct consequence of all the shame, fear and desire he's bottled up. Until he too, embraces his queer self by confessing his feelings to Will. Poetic cinema. However the Duffers go about it, the lesson everyone watching S5 needs to leave with is that forced conformity is harmful to you and everyone around you, and that there is no greater horror than the horror we subject ourselves to when we deny and repress the truth of who we are.

Well there you have it, this is what I would do to promote byler, get the GA on board and tie together this wild, wonderful, nerve-wracking ride we've been on for the last ten years. Godspeed to all of you, however it goes.

[iron-mage]

I return now with a blocked bank card, whoever you were trying to send a 8.99 transaction to some business called LovelyVoice I wish you well & also curse you for inconveniencing me i was going to order a fancy ereader & now I can't until my new card arrives there's only one left in stock hopefully it doesn't sell before i can get it

Anyway back to the misery of a seeker & his mates

Shockwave is stumped this is definitely Starscream's frame he's had it strapped to his laboratory table enough to know, but it's not reanimating they way it usually does, such a shame he was planning on trying to get him to spread a biological contaminant with a much weaker bomb in the next raid so that anyone who comes to rescue bots trapped in the wreckage would become vectors for a new plague to spread throughout the autobot cels it would have been a very interesting experiment taking advantage of his new labtech's expertise in xenobiology

Meanwhile with the autobots Starscream is starting to wake up, which autobots? I've no clue open to suggestions, but what i do know is they're angry, at Starscream & at Megatron for using one of his own like nothing, maybe they're religious & think that there's something unholy or too holy about the seeker,

They relish in telling him about the planted corpse, it wasn't that hard he's a pretty standard model afterall, & now no ones coming to look for him, those trine mates of his have been spotted without their matching trinkets obviously not very devoted to him if they've taken off his colours already, they're surprised when upon learning this Starscream reacts by begging to be melted down into slag

It's the only thing that'll stop him coming back or so Shockwave hypothesized, the autobots— are happy to test that hypothesis

Meanwhile, back with the cons Skywarp and Thundercracker are free of the collars, no use wasting good explosives especially not when you're going to have to pivot your strategy since you're now down one immortal soldier, Skyfire still has his though even as Shockwave's lab technician he's still not trusted enough to have it off, afterall he only got the position because Starscream was more compliant when Skyfire was around administering the tests & there's no good reason to leave a perfectly good resource like a scientist languishing in the brig

Megatron meanwhile has gotten a little rusty in the area of detecting coup attempts, afterall Starscream didn't have time to plan anything between piecing himself back together from missions, piecing himself back together from being Shockwave's labrat, & sitting in medbay making energon donations until his lines ran dry, tho he does still keep an eye on the seekers both the broken trine & the others in case they get any ideas, which is why he doesn't see Soundwave coming, just, as, planned,

afterall Shockwave spends most of his time secluded in the labs, and Megatron is either on the battlefield, in the command centre, & he's certainly not spending his leisure time amongst the rank & file troops, so if the Communications & Intelligence Officer doesn't bring the rising discontent to their attention how were they to know, Starscream's death was the breaking point that caused them to accelerate their carefully layed plans, what happens to Megatron exactly? Im not entirely sure but i know that Skyfire relishes making use of that biological contaminant he's been working on, Shockwave did so want to see how it would affect a living mech & now he gets to experience it firsthand

The cons are still in shambles months later they've never exactly actually had a change of leadership in this way & bringing everyone to heel is taking all of Soundwave's attention, a lot of them simply deserted the moment they knew Megatron was unable to come after them anymore

So the Autobots take advantage of the situation & gain a lot of ground, & they keep coming across groups of con deserters who fill in the blanks about why Decepticon command seemingly imploded the moment Starscream wasn't there

They paint a picture of a brewing storm, of bots waking up in medbay watching their SIC give his life over & over again so that they could heal a little faster & get back to the battlefield while their Leader never even bothered to get to know them, knowing that their fate would be the same if they happened to share an exploitable ability like that

The Autobots are understandably horrified, & they consolidate into a unified force again, some of the former cons even join their ranks rather than going to any of the numerous new neutral settlements popping up, so they reach out to Soundwave with the hope that the former communications officer would be willing to well– communicate

He is, & so the war ends

& that's how we set our scene

The remaining members of the trine retreat to their old apartments in what remains of Vos, & Skyfire goes with them, they're trauma bonded no one else understands the weight round their necks that stays even after the collars are gone, now they actually have to get to know eachother

It's awkward, there's a great deal of guilt, they all blame themselves for being too compliant, too complicit, too late, & now all they're left with is his worldly affairs left to rot in this apartment

As far as they're aware that is

I got nothing else at this point feel free to take this and run or comment your own ideas i would love to see them

Thinking about a post war situation where Skyfire has to crash at the elite trine's place for a while and it's interesting

[b1asho]

Erm, oc comic? Just click on the images idk how to change the image position formatting here yet :(

This is what I've been doing all this time, I need to practice putting these things together. I like some things and had fun, but it also looks kind of yucky.

Oh well

Featured here are Rinshi, a muttreazik, and their boss/sister Maro, a Sundyne who's been (violently) ousted from her extremely politically important clan (for terrorism and attempted assassination :D )

The two are hiding from authorities in the SEZ, and not having a great time in general.

Here's a buncha other info, aka i want to talk about my wretched ocs :

-Rinshi is a mancer, meaning they're a muttreazik with a degree of control over matter around them (think telekinesis). Their blue eyes aren't the result of my choice of coloring, thats the color they are all the time (a highly highly unusual color for muttreazik, even in the 'other' color category).

Rinshi is also a 'they' in the same way you'd call an animal an 'it' rather than a 'he' or 'she' if that makes sense. They don't think of themself as nonbibary in the human sense, instead it's more of an "outside of the binary and therefore a nonperson" way that Cerest use for xenos. It's the only option that's not male/female/he/she that they're aware of in this point in their life

Maro is a she (and VERY upset that it means she can't ascend to God emperor)

Rinshi is hunting with a nail that they’re controlling with their mind because that’s a lot easier than chasing down the alien rats yourself.

Normally this would be very easy for them but they’re kind of going through it right now, thus the major space-out and eye-bleed at the end (which normally happens to mancers who either overextend themselves or try to do stuff without any energy support from the body)

Not all Cerest-homeplanet animals have a decentralized nervous system like Cerest themselves do (such as these two animals, who have all their thinking meat in their head), but either way a shard of metal through the face isn’t good for anything

There are pockets of Cerest wildlife in the SEZ if you look for them hard enough, which Rinshi has to do because they’re currently in the outer reaches of it away from any inhabited districts where you could just buy/steal meat products. They're spending a considerable amount of time doing this since they're trying to keep a large hypercarnivore alive right now.

Maro got her face and torso cut up pretty bad during her.uh. Incident. Luckily Cerest heal fast, though infection and only eating rats has complicated and prolonged things. They’re currently living in an old habitat pod, which she can hardly leave thanks to the healing process (which has left her pretty much unable to walk. If she could, she'd definitely be the one doing the hunting because she has fewer qualms about killing things than rinshi does.)

This conversation is pretty out of character for her, but like she said, it's boring spending most of your time asleep in a garbage heap rather than pursuing your ambitions of ruling the world. Thankfully, she can always just ask her trusty retainer about things they don’t want to talk about.

‘et kerusit’ is just the Cerest version of like ‘my liege’ but specifically in the Sundyne female context and specifically for someone in Maro’s (former) rank/position in her (former) clan. "Princess" is also a pretty close analog but neither really sounded right so I made up some words. "Retainer” is the closest word I could find for what Rinshi is to Maro, and it fits fairly well (there is probably a better word out there but i like the old-timey knight vibe) they were originally employed to her clan as basically her little assistant and mandatory friend/bodygaurd/ally/etc. This happened mostly as an insult to her because that role should normally fall to a fellow sundyne and not a 'lesser species', but she has made it work.

I'm still testing this out but the Cerest language conventions are also why the question marks are out front most of the time, they don't change tone to indicate a question and instead just say an "I'm asking you a question" word at the start.

Rinshi also has a sort of stutter no matter what language they're speaking, with different words and sounds causing prolongations or repetitions. They didn't have any kind of support for the issue growing up, so theyre not great at managing it. So that's why some of their words are like that

The aforementioned rank difference is also why Maro gets 2 << instead of 1 when speaking (she's using a different enunciation of words to indicate her status, as is Rinshi. Basically ï for royalty i for commoner, or something. If they were speaking a Drecu dialect rather than a Sundyne one, their words would be in these things -> [[ ) .

As I’ve mentioned up there, they see each other more like siblings in their own mini clan (but she definitely calls the shots in their relationship )

Muttreazik think rebirth is real and they’re kind of right (at least within their own species). Rinshi does NOT want to dwell on where they used to live but those ideas were drilled in at a very young age.

[lucy90712]

Telling family

Gavi: 

It has been a couple weeks since I had my first ultrasound but we are yet to tell Pablo's family. Just a few days after the ultrasound once I had wrapped my head around it all I called my parents and told them. I didn't expect them to be over the moon as I know Pablo and I are young but they were a lot more angry than I thought. They lectured me for most of the phone call about how irresponsible I'd been and how I'd regret things in years to come so I haven't spoken to them since. After their reaction I've been way too scared to tell Pablo's parents, he wants to tell them naturally but I've made him wait and wait because I'm just so scared of what they are going to think. 

Now though I can't wait anymore as Pablo's family have invited us both to dinner and we agreed that the next time we saw them in person would be the time we tell them. Pablo promised me that he'd take the lead in the conversation which makes me feel a bit better but still I feel so incredibly anxious. I get on really well with Pablo's parents and I don't want to ruin that especially with the lack of support from my own parents. I can understand why they wouldn't be happy about the news because having a baby is going to affect Pablo's career and he has such a bright future ahead of him that I might be ruining. I know that it takes two to make a baby but I can't help but feel responsible for this situation and anything that comes from it including our parents reactions. 

Pablo drove us to dinner which was at a nice restaurant in a quiet part of town meaning there wasn't many people around to create any distraction from the situation. We had a lovely dinner but I couldn't eat much in part due to sickness but mostly due to nerves. Once everyone had finished eating a conversation was started about what had been going on since we all last saw each other. That's when Pablo squeezed my hand under the table to tell me that he was going to make the announcement. 

"Actually y/n and I have an announcement we are expecting" Pablo announced 

"That's brilliant I'm so happy for you two" Pablo's mum said 

"You aren't mad?" Pablo asked taking the words right out of my mouth 

"No of course not it's your life not ours plus we know you two will make great parents" Pablo's dad said 

"Thank you your support means a lot" I managed to say despite the shock of how well the conversation had gone down 

Pedri: 

Pretty much ever since we found out Pedri has been desperate to tell his family about the new addition. The only thing that has stopped him is the fact that he wanted to tell his parents in person. They were supposed to be coming over for a few days this week but a few things happened so now they aren't able to come and Pedri is devastated. I told him that we can wait until they can make it out here to tell them but he still wants to find a way because he doesn't want them to miss out on much more of my pregnancy. It has been a difficult dilemma for him and I've tried to help but ultimately it's his decision as to what he wants to do I will just be there whether he decides. 

This morning Pedri woke me up all excited telling me that today is the day we tell his family which had me very confused. He explained that he invited Fer over this afternoon and he plans to FaceTime his parents so that they can all find out at the same time. Then he showed me the little onesie he got made that he was going to give his parents but instead he's going to give to Fer and get him to show his parents through FaceTime. He was so excited and had a smile to match which was so infectious that I couldn't help but smile too at how cute it is the Pedri is so excited. His family means so much to him and I know he wants our announcement to be perfect but no matter what happens it will be perfect. 

Fer came round right on time but Pedri acted as if he was hours late as he rushed Fer into the living room and set up his phone before running off to get the onesie which he'd put in a box. Fer was laughing at his brother but he let him do his thing and listened when he was told to wait to open the box. Pedri FaceTimed his parents who were happy to see all of us together and wanted to chat but Pedri was preoccupied. 

"Ok you can open the box now but make sure you show mum and dad too" Pedri instructed 

"What is this" Fer said pulling out the onesie so that the writing on it was facing the phone 

"Are you two joking?" Pedri's mum asked

"No we aren't" I said 

"Congratulations I wish we could be there to hug you both but we will come over soon" she said 

"I'm still confused" Fer said 

"Turn it round you dumbass" Pedri said 

"Oh my god congratulations both of you" Fer said giving both of us a hug 

Jude: 

Jude has been nervous to tell his family not because he thinks they won't be supportive but because they know he didn't want kids and he doesn't want them to get the wrong impression. He is so worried that his family will think that I'm baby trapping him but I'm not worried about that because I know once we explain that this baby is a happy accident they will be super supportive. It is this reason that Jude hasn't wanted to tell his family the news over the phone so now that he has a break and we are going back home for a few days he doesn't have any excuse. Seeing as it's his family I have left him to decide how he wants to tell them but I told him if he wants me to do or say anything he just has to tell me. 

Throughout the flight Jude was so nervous he was tapping his foot and playing with the rings on my fingers which he only does when he's deep in thought. I really want to be able to support him more but there's not much I can do as we won't know what's going to happen until we tell them plus I don't have the same fears he does so I don't know how he's feeling. I do think it's sweet that he's so worried about what his parents might think of me when we tell them because he doesn't want them to resent me in any way. If he wasn't so caring he wouldn't be this nervous which I guess in this scenario has its pros and cons. 

Once we finally arrived it was late and I was very tired so we went straight to Jude's parents place as that's where we are staying. Even though it was late they all stayed up for us and greeted us at the door which was really nice. As it was late I expected Jude to wait until tomorrow to tell his parents or find a better time but as I made my way to the stairs he gave me a look and I knew he was just going to say it. 

"Y/n and I are expecting" he just kind of blurted out 

"Oh wow congratulations" Jude's dad said 

"I know I said I didn't want kids and I know what you are thinking but it's not y/n's fault we both made a mistake but I'm actually really excited to be a dad" Jude explained 

"We would never think anything like that I'm just glad you two are happy that's the main thing" Jude mum said 

"Congrats bro I can't wait to be the fun uncle" Jobe laughed 

Joao: 

Joao has been so excited to surprise his family with the news he hasn't stopped talking about all the different ways he could do it. He has been looking on Pinterest most nights to come up with ideas which I never thought I'd see as he used to make fun of me for looking on Pinterest for inspiration. After much consideration he made his mind up on what he wanted to do so we ordered the stuff we would need and made sure it would arrive in time for his family coming to visit. 

Today is the day that Joao's family are due to arrive so Joao dragged me out of bed far too early so we could assemble the idea he came up with. There was a lot of layers to Joao's plan he had a box and he wanted to created different layers with different things on them. On the bottom we put a picture from the ultrasound we got then going up we added other things that were slightly baby related but not too obvious so it wasn't completely given away at the start. Once it was done he was so excited to give it to them but I told him to at least wait until they are sat down  after getting here as we don't want to overwhelm them at the door. He knew he would be able to hold back to he told me to give him a signal when I thought the time was right. 

When it was time Joao went to the airport to pick everyone up leaving me at home. I was fully prepared for him to have given everything away on the drive but he hadn't although he did look like he was about to burst from anticipation. I made everyone a drink before we all sat down and got to catch up, to begin with it was just sort of small talk but then the conversation moved to things that were hard for me to answer truthfully without making it obvious that I am pregnant. That is when I gave Joao the signal so he excused himself and came back with the box which he gave to his mum but made sure everyone else could see it too. I wasn't nervous until they actually started looking through the box which is when a bit of anxiety kicked in as to what their reactions would be. By the time they got to the last layer of the box my heart rate was through the roof.

"Oh my god you aren't joking right you are actually expecting" Joao's mum exclaimed 

"No we aren't joking y/n is actually pregnant" Joao said 

"Thats amazing congratulations" Joao's dad said 

"How are feeling y/n have you been doing ok?" Joao's mum asked 

"I'm fine just the usual symptoms but nothing too bad so far" I said 

"If you need anything just give us a call and we will do our best to help" she said 

Ruben: 

Ruben couldn't hold off on telling his parents so they found out a few weeks ago not long after we did. His brother however doesn't know and everyone has been keeping it a secret from him so Ruben can tell him in a fun way. His brother has been there for us through the months and months of negative tests and really helped Ruben not get down about it so Ruben decided he needed to do something special to tell his brother that he will finally be an uncle. While Ruben has been thinking about how he wants to surprise his brother I've been finding it really hard not to say anything as Ruben's brother is around a lot and my pregnancy is quite often on my mind. Trying to cover up when I'm feeling sick or tried has been difficult but I've done it for Ruben as I don't want to be the one to ruin the surprise. 

Last night Ruben told me he was finally ready to tell his brother which is great timing as he is supposed to be coming for dinner tonight. Ruben had training this morning so he sent me out to get a few things for him which I happily did. As soon as Ruben was back he got on with his plan which he hasn't told me so I just watched as he stuck a design onto a t shirt he made me get. Once he was done he showed me that he had made a t shirt for his brother that had uncle Ivan written on the back of it. He was so happy with himself and I must say it was a good idea one that his brother will definitely like. 

Ruben made dinner as I wasn't feeling well enough to be stood up cooking for too long but I did greet his brother and sat with him until dinner was done and we could all eat together. After dinner Ruben went and grabbed the t shirt which was folded to hide what was written on it and handed it to his brother. As he unfolded it he read what was on the back and I could see his smile grow and he went straight to hug Ruben before he hugged me too.

"Congratulations both of you I'm so happy for you" Ivan said 

"Thanks for your support until now we wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for you telling me it will come when the time is right" Ruben said 

"You don't need to thank me I'm just glad you've finally got what you've been wishing for" Ivan said 

[chaotic-average-child]

getting back on my drawing slowly but surely ^^ here's an aleena

[kyouka-supremacy]

DELACROIX SPOTTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[buttercup-art]

hey

[memorys-skyscraper]

fuck the new year, everyone say happy birthday ichiban kasuga!!!!!

[medicinemane]

At least I could disable the suggestions but just... I'm sick of it, I'm sick of companies trying to think for me

I'd rather be miserable but doing shit my own way than placid and glass eyed and just taking whatever companies tell me to

Like... literally just asking what I get out of writing a post on tumblr... zero suggestions, just letting me say whatever dumb stuff comes to my head

[keeps-ache]

streetlamps.. orange streetlamps..... <33

[turtlemagnum]

one of my favorite parts of strategy games like chess and advance wars is that feeling when you haven't quite won yet but the enemy has no real options so it feels like you're just sloowly wrapping around them like a snake. when all your enemy has is their king and you've managed to turn 3 of your pawns into queens, and all you've gotta do is get in juust the right position, and in the meantime all they can do is squirm. god, that's such a wonderful feeling. nothing quite like it

[yearning-gay]

feel evil recommending this but if u wanna bald later in life instead of now minoxidil and finasteride apparently do bits, and when u stop taking em u just go back to balding

i did run into those while i did some anxiety googling about this yesterday yeah shdjdks im trying not to be like. hasty about things especially when it's something like this that feels very silly to stress about but im lightly considering minoxidil in some form since you don't need a prescription for it apparently. it is a bit expensive feeling though so im hesitant to jump into it right away

[nexus-nebulae]

fuck yes i got my island up to 3 stars two hours before saturday KKS COMIN HERE TOMORROW BAYBEEEEE

[running-in-the-dark]

I think I mentioned that I was looking into getting a better sewing machine? well, it arrived today 🙈 that happened much faster than planned. I found the model I was looking at at a (relatively) local sewing machine store, for 30% off because it had been in the shop window, so the plastic has yellowed.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that (the website only said it was a floor model or something similar, then someone from the store called and told me the specifics and asked if that was still okay), but honestly? I never ever would have paid the full price, it was just too much, I couldn't justify that. but this reduced price was only a little more than the ones I had been looking at before (that were not great quality and probably wouldn't last very long).

I am very particular about things like this but I'm trying to make myself accept that it really is not that bad. it actually looks kinda cool. I just have to get my brain to accept that it's not a flaw, it's just a completely superficial and insignificant thing that doesn't affect its function at all. it's good that this machine that works perfectly won't end up in a landfill just because it doesn't look brand new.

I only got to try it a little bit today because I wasn't feeling well but damn, the difference to my old machine is huge!! it's so much more fun and easy to use - I love having the needle threader and that it can automatically cut the yarn when you're done. and with the start/stop button it's actually really fun to wind bobbins!! I always hated that on my old machine.

I skimmed through the manual earlier (and put page markers in it so that I can easily find anything later) - it did seem somewhat overwhelming at first. I've never used or even seen (irl) a computerised sewing machine, so of course it did! but it already felt much more familiar after just using it a little bit today. I love it 🥰

(also, I think the fact that it doesn't look perfect and brand new actually helps - I'm not afraid to use it in case I 'ruin' it!)

[sysig]

Cards 👏 cards 👏 cards 👏 (Patreon)

[silverselfshippingchaos]

good morning! i just put a.khos on the f/o list!