#imagine this being the reason you get shouted at on the internet

[hyperfocusthusly]

I fear that my ‘what do you call your front room’ poll has broken containment and now the Americans are coming for me with pitchforks

[sturniolosass]

I..want you - C.S

In which Chris tries to handle a relationship that he’s no where near ready for, and you can’t have your emotions be toyed with…

warnings: swearing, feeling neglected, uncertainty, hurt feelings, talking stage chris.

ANGST, FAT ANGST!

Chris and I have been in this "talking" stage for around 3 months but the thing is stuff has been getting really serious and its gotten to the point where we've become so attached to one another that we see each other each day and sleep in each others beds, at one point we both spoke on marriage.. not like seriously about it but what we’d like to gain from it..if you get what i mean.

But this pass week somethings been off, I've texted, I've called, I've messaged him through DMs for christ's sake.. No reply..

So today I've been contemplating heading over to the boy's place and seeing what's been going on.. maybe he's sick, maybe he's down in a rut about something... I'm not sure but I need to see what's going on maybe I'll stop by and even find out they're out of internet or something.. I couldn't imagine the reason Chris would ghost me for 3 whole days.. He doesn't even seem like the type of guy to go talking to a bunch of girls, I couldn't imagine him being unfaithful to me, even though we're barely a couple to begin with.. regardless heading over there wouldn't hurt that bad... at least I hope not..

Getting dressed I head out the door sending chris one last message before I head out to his home.

Hey, I'm headed over, i know I wasn't invited so if you don't want me over or something just let me know...

I wait 10 minutes, No response

I grab my keys and head out the door.

Arriving I hop out the car to knock on the door, I'm greeted with Matt. "Yo! what's up, Chris should still be sleep but he's in the basement if you wanna wake em" he greets. "hey, yeah I've been looking for him" I speak. He let's me in walking up the steps to the living room.. I immediately head to the back of the house towards Chris' room, walking down the steps and then the hallway leading up to his door. I hesitate, thinking of all the things that could possibly go wrong when I turn this door knob.. twisting the door knob I'm met with a pitch black room.. a sleeping Chris laying flat on his stomach with one knee bent up north.

I just sit at the edge of the bed contemplating whether or not I should wake him and risk being greeted with his morning anguish.. Being the pussy I am, I just kick off my shoes and lay with him, picking his arm up off the bed and snuggling under it cozily.. He moves mumbling under his breathe inaudible words... I soon fall asleep right next to him..

Chris' POV

I wake up unexpectedly cuddled into y/n confused as to how she amazingly got into my room yet alone my house... Things like this genuinely annoy me, I've started to distance myself for some time now because of how serious we were getting, it began to really freak me out.. from the goodmorning messages to the worrying about my sleep schedule... things started feeling all too real. Don't get me wrong I really, really like y/n but us doing all these lovey-dovey things really scares me... aggravated I head upstairs to find out who the fuck just let her come down here while I was sleeping... Once I'm up the stairs I see Nick and Matt sitting at the dining room table, Nick editing, Matt eating cereal. "ouuu Mr. lover boy is up, how was you cuddle session?" Matt jokes.."Matt shut the fuck up, who the fuck- who just let y/n in my room and when did that happen? I didn't even go to bed until like 4 am so I know it was one of you fucking early birds" I ask angrily grabbing a Brisk can from the fridge.. "wasn't me." Nick blurts.. "who cares, its not like she was gonna murder you.. she said she was looking for you.." Matt explains.. "bro I was ignoring her for a reason.." I shout.. "well she's here now, what were you gonna ghost her something? did she do something?" He asks.. "yeah she's getting all weird and clingy and shit.." .... "like asking 'how my day was' and' if I slept well' and shit" I add... Matt looks at me weirdly "you mean caring about your well being? you're such an idiot" He gets up from the table heading to his room.. "GRAB YOUR FUCKING BOWL IM NOT YOUR MAID" Nick nearly busts my ear drums yelling at Matt.. "dude are you crazy?" I ask heading to the steps that lead to my bedroom.. "shut up bitch" Nick rolls his eyes...

Your POV

I wake up in Chris' bed alone.. not worried where he went I just wait for him to come back down the steps which is where I assume he went, starting to scroll on TikTok I hear Nick scream at the top of his lungs about 'being a maid' which I laugh at..

I then hear Chris heading back down the stairs, I hurriedly sit up fix my hair worried of what he'll have to say to me, then I start to think of what I should say to him.. I don't even know how I feel.. I wanna talk about us moving forward in our relationship but I also need to figure out why he's been acting all distant lately, I hope he doesn't think I haven't noticed.. because to be honest it feels like he has literally blocked me out of his life for the past 3-4 days..

He enters the room I stare down at my feet He walks straight pass me.. I look up. He heads straight into his bathroom... I flop back down on his bed..

Getting up from the bed I decide to make it, fluffing the duvet, tucking the sheets , fluffing the pillows.. Chris has been in the bathroom for around an hour now, I hear music, assuming he's in the shower, I clean a little more. Throwing away Pepsi cans and food casing from last night, I assume.. grabbing dirty clothes off the floor throwing them in his hamper... Suddenly I hear the water and music stop.. shuffling in the bathroom continues until Chris comes out in fresh love sweats and a black tank top, dropping his dirty clothes on the bed near his bed and heading over to his computer, I grab them and throw then in the hamper to which I assume irritates Chris.. "Can you stop!" Chris shouts... "wha-" I start to speak soon being cut off, "like you're being weird leave my clothes where I left then I didn't ask you to clean for me!" He adds.. "I mean what else am I supposed to do? You've been ignoring my presence sense I got here!" I shout back... "go home! I don't fucking know!" He replies.. "what the fuck is even your problem? like what have I even done for you to react this way to me cleaning for you?" I ask genuinely confused... He doesn't respond.. "hellooo" I speak in a questioning manner... “maybe i just don’t like you anymore and don’t need you to be here, i’m starting to even question why i did in the first place like you’re being so fucking annoying and clingy” he huffs… “all you do is bug me now gosh!” he adds…. I look to the ground genuinely hurt… it honestly makes sense, every guy i like always ends up ghosting me and it makes sense why at this point.. i can’t help that i am too “caring”.. apparently that freaks out a lot of guys..

“what so this is how you treat every girl you like? or liked?” i ask.

"I was ready to drop everything and be your girlfriend, in fact my plan today was to come ask you to be with me..I was ready for everyone to know how we've been these pass few months and not give a fuck what any hater or 'fan has to say.." I say holding back emotions.. "I never said I was ready for that, I never spoke on being together like that" He speaks.. "So what? we were just gonna be 'talking' for however long?" I ask. No response.. He just continues to stare at his computer screen. I just look back and sit down on his bed. blinking back tears.. He stares at the computer screen, nothing on it, not scrolling, no video, no music, nothing... Just staring, deep in thought...

We sit in silence for around 10 minutes before I speak again

"Chris?, can you say something? because I've done nothing but try to keep things working between us.. You've ignored me for almost 3 days when before you'd message me everyday 'How are you' , 'come over' , 'when are you free' , 'lets see a movie' , 'lets hang out before I leave for Boston.' " I count off examples.. "I just don’t get how we can go from something so good.. or what I thought was good, to you completely ignoring my existence." I add.. He continues to stare at the blank screen, until.. "I don't know okay, I just feel weird when I'm around you? you're always so caring and shit like that freaks me the fuck out..." he breaks silence. "I never feel this deep of feelings for anything, its fucking annoying.." He adds... "Well, I care about you.. its true, I care about how you slept, I care if you have a nightmare, I care if you feel a cold coming on, I care if you're upset with how much I care... because I genuinely like you Chris, and I don't know maybe this is one of those " right person, wrong time" moments because I feel like we deserve each other..." I speak whole-heartedly.. He just stares at his hands... I stand up.. "maybe in another life then?" I ask headed for the door... He doesn't respond.

I grab the door knob opening it slowly hoping he'd say something to keep me from leaving...n

"wait" he speaks "I wanna try- I want you- I wanna be with you..." he adds looking up from the floor despair in his eyes. "Chris I just don't feel like you're ready for what I'm ready for.." I reply.. “i’m ready- i am” he pleads… “how when just a moment ago you were telling me you were unsure if you even liked me” i ask… He looks down at his hands, I grab my bag and keys walking out of the room..

I hear him get up rushing out the room, he slows down once he sees me standing at the steps. Walking up to me slowly he pulls me in for a kiss, which i kindly reject hoping he gets the hint.. “i like you a lot Y/N.. i just- i need time to understand my self more. i’ve been used and hurt so many times..” he tells.. I just look at his hands in mine.. letting go i turn to walk up the steps… “can i call you later?” he asks.. I turn back “i feel like time apart might actually be what we need at this time, my feelings are genuinely hurt by the things you’ve said to me today” i reply. “i didnt mean it- you know that…” he looks up at me… I walk up the steps walking past Nick and leaving the boys house “bye Y/N see you sometime again hopefully, i know my brothers an asshole” Nick yelps from the dinning table…

I smile walking out the door.. knowing that’s possibly the end of my friendship with the boys…

fin.

A/N: the long awaited.. sorry yall i got busy but here it is!!! Hope yall like Chris and his trust issues!

taglist- @junnniiieee07 @frankdelreyy @ireadstoriss @freshsturns @unbruisable

[sanest-bsd-delegate]

𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙛𝙛

Headcanon: Daily life of you dating them. Ft Dazai, Chuuya, Nikolai and Ranpo

A/n: accept this as a payback for being gone for to long. Miss you guys, how have you been?

ARMED DETECTIVE AGENCY

PORT MAFIA

MASTERLIST

Dazai:

You need to deal with him fr to much.

Can see him ordering drinks during you dates, specifically asking the waiter to bring two straws only to see him drink it from both.

Are you even dating him if you both haven't already taken couple quizzes on the Internet.

This mf istg. LIKE you are about to kiss and he would bump his forehead with yours.

Either he is 10/10 romantic or will be the worst lover in history.

Aww but imagine, if you are in bad mood and insecure or stuff, or saying why you hate your self, he would overhear that and list you things he likes about you. Cute, BUT STOP HIM BEFORE IT GOES FOREVER.

Never leave him alone at home. This man would bring those glow in the dark stars and paste it all over your room. THE LIGHT SO BRIGHT IT BLINDS YOU EYES.

UwU that gives him and you a reason to sleep together on the couch.

You both tried to set up yourself as avatars on games, trying to get your virtual self together only for Dazai's avatar to turn into a bread and commit arson.

Chuuya:

Can imagine you both raking up leaves and jumping into them.

he trying their best to be quiet while you are taking a nap.

This man gets into a heated argument with someone begins threatening them, only for you to pick him up and toss him over your shoulders walking away while he still shouts.

10/10 perfect dynamic couples

You both will visit a field of flowers as a dating spot and thinking you have time to take photos but then both of you end up laying in the field together and picking beautiful flowers for each other. Bonus when both of you make flower crowns for each other.

He kisses you before heading out to kill people, while you lie still in bed trina cope up completing your education degree he can never have. (Lets be real, they are 22, people are finishing college at that moment and not killing people for fun-)

You tried to connect to his Wi-Fi and jokingly put your own name in as the password.

WELL that actually worked and you are connected to his Wi-Fi. (STFU ITS NOT CRINGE ITS FLUFF)

Nikolai:

THIS MAN likes stealing your phone to change your phone's wallpaper into cursed pics from your Pinterest. 10/10 morning trauma

He helps you dry and brush your hair after a shower and visa versa.

Normalising playing on the swings at a small playground that nobody goes to anymore because that's what two sane persons do.

Hands down, both of you tried to cross your kitchen playing three-legged race.

Never let this man draw. You both will be drawing each other and man will breakdown just because he cant lift a pencil. HOW CAN YOU LIFT A MF GUN THEN??

Once you and him were stranded on a raft in the middle of a lake. DONT ASK WHY.

Ranpo:

You have to tie balloons around his hand so he doesn't get lost in the crowd.

JUST IMAGINE-, He has a french fry in his mouth and dares you to steal it from him. and when you try to do it, he puts the whole fry in his mouth and makes you kiss him. 10/10 RIZZNPO.

Thanks to his amazing direction skills, you both get lost in IKEA.

HUJFDISF He will touch your face and tell you its really soft while he gives nose kisses!>>>

Presuming you can knit, he forced you to make a very very very long scarf, only for him to make you sit beside him and share it. (No dazai, that cannot be your rope)

Thanks for reading! I am thinking to change my writing theme. But either ways Do vote if you like ig? Byee lysm :D ๑ARMED DETECTIVE AGENCY ๑PORT MAFIA ๑MASTERLIST ๑HEADCANONS

[donat-senpai]

Reminder: English is not my native language. There may be errors here

I have more headcanon content. (I wrote too many.) Let me know if you want to see part 2 ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Please don't read this if you are uncomfortable with the yandere! Pairing: Yandere! Tangerine x Reader, Yandere! Lemon x Reader tw: platonic obsession, restriction of freedom, invasion of privacy (reading other people's correspondence), infantilization of the reader

Being a sibling to these two is definitely not an easy task. They love you more than their own lives. And they will do almost anything to make you happy. But work makes them terribly controlling.

Minimal social contacts. No schools or universities. The most you can hope for is homeschooling. They will be against you working. Darling, the Twins are some of the best assassins. Anyone could want to hurt you to get revenge on them. No one in the criminal world should know about your existence.

Another important point for them is the need to frequently change their place of residence. Despite owning properties in various locations around the world, they prefer not to stay in one place for too long. You will be able to visit a bunch of different countries and cities. As a compromise, the Twins are willing to occasionally return to the place you liked living the most. But only on the condition that you behave well.

It's most likely that such family relationships have developed since your shared childhood. I can't imagine these guys taking someone off the street and suddenly placing them in their family. That's impossible. They don't trust anyone. They don't let anyone get too close. But the fact that you grew up with them is more plausible. The older you all got, the deeper they got into the criminal world, the more they protected you. It was a slow and gradual process. Because of this, you didn't experience a strong shock from the restrictions and simply got used to these circumstances.

Tangerine is a bad cop. He constantly forbids everything and is the first to punish. It's important to him that you obey. But he does this not for his own sense of control, but so that you are always prepared for a dangerous situation. He does not tolerate fooling around in the face of a threat to your lives. If he says to hide and stay quiet, you do it. If he says to run, you don't ask questions and run.

Lemon is the one who pushes you into silly, funny adventures and then pretends he had nothing to do with it (an absolute rascal). After that, he throws crackers into your room window to make the punishment a bit more bearable. He relies more on your ingenuity and cunning in a dangerous situation. In his opinion, Tangerine underestimates you.

Punishments, though unpleasant, are not too harsh. They may lock you in a room for a few hours to a few days (Of course, they will continue to feed you. This is not torture). You may also lose various privileges, such as walking around the city with your brothers and some types of entertainment. There is a possibility of receiving a temporary ban on using the internet.

About the internet. Negotiating with them about this was the most difficult thing in your life. But through arguments (mostly Tangerine's shouting) and discussions, you all managed to find a compromise. They allowed it, but set several rules for you.

Rule #1: Maintain anonymity.

Rule #2: No real-life meetings.

Rule #3: Tangerine can read all your messages at any time. (Sometimes this "honorable" task falls to Lemon. Usually when Tangerine is busy. Then Lemon takes your phone and with the most concentrated expression he can muster, reads memes for 10 minutes. Afterward, he tells Tangerine there's nothing suspicious in the messages. This guy is the best bro in the universe.)

Most often, Tangerine is the one you go out for walks with. He takes you to trendy boutiques and restaurants. Sometimes it seems to you that he does this just to have a reason to give a menacing look to other visitors who dare to flirt with you, or to start a fight with those who are rude. You roll your eyes every time at his nasty character when you get kicked out of a trendy restaurant because of a fight or his foul language. (God. How does this guy manage to work undercover? He has zero patience.) He simply shrugs and says it's not his fault. However, Tan genuinely enjoys spending time with you. He listens attentively and remembers everything. Tangerine feels a slight guilt for partly keeping you away from their lives and constantly disappearing on missions with Lemon. But he understands that this part of their life is dangerous. Therefore, he tries to make up for the lack of communication with these walks. He hopes this will help you not feel lonely. Sometimes when he pulls a stick out of his ass, you have a lot of fun with him. He taught you how to shoot a gun and basic self-defense techniques. At the same time, he's confident that these skills will never be needed for you. He and Lemon always watch over you and are ready to remove anyone who gets in their way.

Lemon is the one you spend lazy evenings with. Watching movies and eating all sorts of goodies are your main goals on every such evening. (He always suggests watching Thomas & Friends, but you swear that soon you'll start feeling nauseous from how often you've watched it.) Lemon is more approachable of the two brothers. Because of this, you talk more openly with him and often trust him with important secrets. Lemon honestly keeps it (which annoys Tangerine, but he can't do anything about it), but only as long as it's not something really important that he feels needs to be discussed with his brother. He often gives great life advice, though he disguises it as characters from the Thomas. Also Lemon loves to get on Tangerine's nerves through you. If there's something you can do to annoy Tangerine, under Lemon's careful guidance, you'll do it. And you don't mind. When else will you have the chance to get back at Tangerine for being such a jerk?

[sunaluv]

“ALL YOU HAD TO DO IS TRY”

Prompt: fake dating is easier when your “partner” actually cares about their reputation, or anything else for that matter

Pairings: k.sakusa x famous!reader

Note: this got hella angsty out of nowhere😭 this was originally supposed to be head cannons

CW: reader is lonely and has been done dirty, not explicitly mentioned but hints at suicide, mentions of weight loss

It was dangerous going into such an agreement with feelings for a guy you promised you would not pursue, but what made it even more dangerous was having to choose between love and life.

You were evidently never good a choosing people to hang out with. Your ‘friends’ were either gold diggers, fame leeches or just straight up bitches, but you had to put up with them per your publicist’s request demand. At this point, you knew this would be an endless cycle of people being forced into your social circle to try and mend the cracks left by the person before them and you were sick of it. People really weren’t lying when they said “your probably happier than your idol will ever be in life”.

You kept up your side of the appearances. You went to his games flashing a perfected faux smile that was guaranteed to keep your name floating around social media for the next couple of weeks before something bigger or more stupid caught the short attention span of the internet. As much as it pained you to see them, paparazzi shots of you and him holding hands, feeding each other ice cream and other “normal couple things” seemed to grow the nations love for the two of you together.

But past the lenses, you could feel his hand twitching and itching to get away from you. You nearly cried when he spat out the ice cream you had fed him into a napkin under the excuse that it doesn’t fit his diet plan. Your heart shattered at the way his facade dropped as soon as you left the public eye, how he always put himself at maximum distance away from you.

—

Another lonely night. You lived together as your contract stated, but you did not live together. You understand he probably didn’t want to get too friendly with the stranger he was dating, but it surely wouldn’t kill him to acknowledge your presence once.

You started to lose weight, whether he was the sole reason, or part of it was unknown. If he noticed, he didn’t care enough to say anything. You wore baggy jumpers and tinted glasses to hide the consequences of you neglecting your body. You didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten until the media picked up on how ‘unhealthy’ you looked.

—

News spreads fast and it didn’t take long for yours and his publicists to meet up to revise the conditions of your contract.

“I don’t want to continue this anymore.”

You never imagined those would be the first and last words he spoke to you, addressed directly to you. His onyx eyes you once fawned over now made you want to throw up. To hide. To sink endlessly to the bottom of the ocean.

Was it pity? disgust? relief? Genuine sadness? You could not tell what underlying emotions were in his eyes, if there were any. You stopped caring ages ago.

The protests of the woman beside you who clearly cared more about this than you slowly drowned out in your mind, becoming nothing but background noise. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, his publicist packed the contract away, his chair screeched obnoxiously as he got up to leave, not before throwing one more questioning glance your way.

The door shut then silence.

You were ready for your publicist to start shouting at you, berating you for not putting in your effort, but you both knew it wasn’t worth it. This had always been for his benefit more than your own.

—

Life sucks when you have nobody to turn to. Your life seemed to be fast-tracked to your downfall and you were done fighting it. It had been two months since anyone last heard from you. Your social presence seemed to be frozen in time, the last photo on your feed before you went cold turkey was a picture of you and him, and that would be the last association with your name forever.

[chronically-ghosted]

can you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills?

rating: T (this is the tamest thing I’ve written in years)

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

word count: 8K

summary: a year into secretly dating, you are overwhelmed by your feelings for Dieter Bravo, confident and resigned to the fact that he doesn’t feel the same way. But on Oscar’s night, drunk on sparkling wine and a terrific win, Dieter gives you a reason to doubt your fears. 

warnings/tags: age gap, self-aggrandizing rumination on our public vs private personas, a stupid amount of kissing, angst but soft angst, angst that is resolved, this is very different from anything i’ve done recently, and there’s no smut? just kisses? What have you become Taylor? one very very very soft Dieter, waxing shamelessly poetic about being in love and being loved by Dieter Bravo 

a/n: this comes from the same request by two of my LOVELY followers ( @tvversionperson and @bitchwitch1981) from my 100 followers event: “I’m not drunk. Can a drunk person do this?” “You’re not doing anything.” “But… I sent you my love. Did you… did you not get it?” with Dieter Bravo. this is so wildly different from anything i've done before, i'm flinging this into the internet like a goddamn trapshooter of emotional angst

shout out to @iamdesibell for the visuals of Dieter at the party. She spoils me with all of her incredible Dieter artwork.

🤍Masterlist

Every artist knows it's about the looks. The aesthetics of it all, the internet’s new favorite buzzword. Increasingly too often, the merit of the artwork is equated to the moral merit of the artist; it’s not so much about selling the image you create, it’s about selling the image of yourself. Does the artist fit into the image of what the masses imagine when they hear what the artist offers? Can the artist balance both the expectations and provide something new? When is the right time to break the mold, and be different, or when is it best to follow the crowd? Keep your head down and make more content than art. When does the aesthetics of a thing matter more than the thing itself?

For Oscar’s night, often there is nothing more important than the look of things. The elegance. The allure but approachability of the stars. Beautiful but obtainable. Handsome but effortless. But beneath all the veneer, all the lights, and gold and glitz, there is a yearning, an animalistic hunger, for a quite literal shiny object waved in their faces to clamor and push and shove for. The beauty is a mask that covers fragility and fear and anticipation – and that mask must remain firmly in place, no matter the outcome. Remember, they’re watching, always watching, and you cannot want a thing too much, lest you become conceited or conniving. You cannot love in a way that scares them.

And sometimes, you think you love him in a way that scares yourself.

His warm palm grips yours over your knee. He, along with the other nominees, wait patiently as the names are read allowed from the gilded stage. His face, a mask – of curiosity, of wonder – but only you, perhaps because you are so close to him, can see the fraught want in his eyes. You know how much he wants this, how much you want this for him. He wants it so much he’s trembling. Microscopically. Barely at all, barely a flinch of genuine human emotion, it makes you sick. Because Dieter, the Dieter you’ve come to know in the past year, is so wonderfully unpolished, such a sterling testament to the beauty in the raw, it makes a spot behind your sternum ache to watch him hold himself back. 

You want to give him a smile of encouragement, to kiss his knuckles and soothe his hammering pulse with your thumb, but you can’t. You can’t even look at him, any movement immediately flagged by the cameras. Always watching.

But behind the rows of seats, they can’t see your clasped hands. Can’t see his tapping foot. They can’t see how much he wants, how much he loves. As the names are read aloud for the category of Best Actor, you lift your thumbnail to the meat of his palm, between his own thumb and index finger. Gently, softly, quietly, so as not to startle the molecules of air around you, you draw a heart in his skin. 

But by his rigid posture, you’re not sure he registers it. You can’t tell if he knows you’re there at all. 

It began a year ago. 

After a truly spectacular break up that left you bereft and aimless, you decided to quit. Quit it all. Quit and start over doing the one thing you actually had passion for: screenwriting. Was it risky and dumb as hell at your age? Absolutely. But it didn’t matter if you never ended up writing for a big Hollywood film, you told yourself, as long as you were writing, that’s all that mattered. 

So you quit writing articles about car insurance, packed up everything, and moved to the City of Angels. 

Two years later, you were still earning your dues. Still working from the bottom of the barrel up, climbing through muck and verbal abuse and emotional exploitation and the very dredges of the industry. 

You tried to focus on your craft, on getting more than just getting coffee for the actual writers, but after multiple days spending nineteen hours on your feet, the capacity to be creative so rarely comes, your brain often sizzled and fried like the back end of a janky, unreliable toaster. The production company you worked for had just purchased the rights to a popular novelist’s book for a film adaptation. The party you were at was more of a “pat yourself on the back” sort of thing for the director and novelist to rub elbows while surrounded by beautiful people. Attending mind-numbing parties for the sake of building connections was one thing. You could actually have fun when you wanted, but this? This self-indulgent, ego-driven, flattery bullshit, when all you wanted to do was sleep?

You watch as Eliot Baker, friend of the director and whose house is currently being trashed by a bunch of dangerously drunk and high animals, steps up onto his kitchen table. His pupils nearly dilated to the size of quarters, he holds up a baggy of white powder.

“Anyone interested in Colombia’s finest, please join me in the bedroom. Beautiful women, please stay.” 

The three shots you had done earlier had done nothing to dull your irritation, now amplified by the grating cheer that goes up from the crowd. Coke rarely puts you in a better mood, but at least it’s better than sulking by the stairs. Eliot leaps off the table and leads a gaggle of giggling women, and men with their hands all over their sparkly asses, down the hall and you try not to roll your eyes, your feet all but dragging beneath you. 

Then someone catches you by the elbow.

And you wonder how a homeless man got past security. 

A comically large green beanie on his head, a blindly yellow hood zipped up over what perhaps had been a white t-shirt – you are immediately arrested by his dark, soft eyes. Thick, furrowed brow. He hasn’t let go of your elbow. 

“That guy is a fucker,” he tells you with vehemence. 

“What?” He could have asked you your name and you would have said the exact same thing.

“Baker,” he sneers over your shoulder at the small crowd tumbling through the open door, Eliot’s too blue eyes watching like a farmer counts cattle to the slaughterhouse. “He laces his shit. Makes you too fucked up. He’s the kind of evil fucker who roofies drinks.”

The stranger looks at you, the twist of rage around his mouth fading, eyes softening again, as if he is worried about you.

“Don’t go in there,” he says. 

His warm hand is still around your elbow. 

“Okay,” you say because you haven’t come across anyone this earnest, maybe in your entire life, and certainly not since moving to LA. 

He blinks, as if surprised, and slowly withdraws his hand. You stare at each other for perhaps too long before he jerks his thumb over his shoulder.

“Wanna smoke some weed?”

The cool night air of LA always surprises you. It’s never cold, no, but the chill is noticeable, tangible, always right at the back of your neck when you least expect it. You stifle the urge to shiver as the man slides the glass door behind him, immediately deafening the party inside. You hadn’t realized it had been so loud until there is blissful silence, the sound of blood rushing in your ears replacing the trance music and the dull hum of overlapping voices. 

The man straight off the set of The Big Lebowski unhurriedly digs around in the pocket of that obnoxious hoodie for a bit, as if he could lose an item in that small pouch. 

He finds what he’s looking for with a grin on his face, and when he brings both the lighter and blunt to his lips, you realize his left arm is in a cast. 

He sees you eye it, managing to light and hit the blunt with one hand before pocketing the lighter and offering the smoke to you. The browns in his eyes are overcome by the darkness surrounding you on the back porch overlooking the valley below, the skyline of Los Angeles winking in the far distance. 

You notice something, not writing or words on his cast, more like a dark blot, but you don’t ask him about it. Most people in this business you’ve found are only on for the cameras and when it comes to personal, quiet moments, the less personable they have to be the better. You feel like you’re already pressing your luck by getting a few free hits off this guy so you wait your turn, ready to be as silent as he wants it to be.

Which apparently isn’t very much at all.

“How’d you end up here?” He asks with genuine interest and just a touch of weariness. 

You shrug as you take the blunt from him again. “My boss is here to schmooze his new writer. As his assistant, I think I’m contractually obligated to be around him more than his own shadow.”

“You’re a PA?” He asks, voice strained and full of smoke, before he puffs out the side of his mouth. A considerate smoker, then. 

“No,” you shake your head. “I’m whatever is lower than a PA. I think an actual bottom-feeder in a fish tank has more power than me.” 

“So you’re new to the scene?” 

You scowl, one arm tucked around your waist, the other tapping on your thigh. “Yeah, if two years is still new.” 

He frowns. “What are you trying to break into?” 

His fingertips brush yours over the next exchange and maybe it’s the earnest look in his eyes, or the bizarre fact that he actually smells good despite looking like he’d raided a garbage can, or maybe it’s the weed finally hitting, but you are honest with this complete stranger.

“I wanna be a screenwriter.” 

Maybe it’s the drugs finally hitting him too, but the glossy shine to his eyes doesn’t seem to be from boredom as you explain to him the past few years of your life, starting from the breakup in Boston to getting a very specific brand of q-tips from a drugstore on the other side of town for your boss at midnight. 

“I know I have to pay my dues, and I don’t mind that, but I just want to do something that matters, you know?” The unexpected chill of the night air curls around your neck as he listens intently to your uninterrupted ramble for ten minutes. “I don’t even care about big movies, or the awards, I want to write something that touches just one person. Give them something to think about for years to come. Comforts or encourages them to do the thing they’re scared of doing.” You feel heat climb up your ears as he watches as though you’re the most fascinating thing in the world. “It’s silly. It’s just a job, and I know I should treat it like that . . .”

You trail off, waiting for him to admonish you, but instead he grins. A smile that widens his whole face. On someone else it might look condescending, but he’s grinning wildly as he slides the joint back into his mouth with two fingers and leans back on his heels.

“So you’re a little dreamer, huh?” That faint blush now beats a harsh red. Fuck, you knew you sounded like an idiot – always opening up too soon and too fast to strangers who don’t really give a fuck. You were just supposed to have a conversation with this nice, albeit weird guy and go on your way and – 

He cocks his head as he looks at you, takes in your beet-red ears and cheeks and that smile falters.

“You know that’s not a bad thing, right? The world needs more dreamers. People, who despite all the bullshit, continue to believe they can be happy.”

“You could also call that being delusional,” you mutter as you take the halfway-spent joint from him when he offers. 

One of those thick eyebrows jerks as though thinking of a funny joke. He shrugs, his mouth twisting down in a disbelieving smirk. “Personally, I like to call it whimsy.” 

Whimsy? Who talks like that?

You fight a giggle and find him looking at you again, that smile smoothed out and warm again. One glance and you snort loudly, then bust out laughing. 

Those magnanimous eyes glitter as he watches you laugh yourself silly. 

“Child-like, wondrous whimsy,” he teases and you laugh harder as though he tickled you. Another snort explodes out of you and you clap your hand over your mouth, finally hearing the noises you’re making and mortified beyond reason. You glance over your shoulder, worried someone else might have heard your donkey laugh. In fact, you wish anyone other than the gorgeous man standing next to you had heard it. 

But if he finds it unpolished or annoying, he doesn’t show it. He just rolls on his heels, grinning and looking overly pleased with himself. When the giggles subside, you bite your lip at him.

“Can I ask you something?” 

“Fire away, Pistol Pete.” 

“How’d you break your arm?” 

He looks down at it as he forgot it was there.

“Uh, it’s a long story.”

He finally pulls it out of the sleeve of his jacket. Your mouth drops.

You can’t even tell what medium had been used, either paint or sharpie or something else entirely, but the cast is a mosaic of some of the most gorgeous artwork you’d ever seen. Birds in gold and blue hues, flowers and leaves in stunningly rendered detail, the curves of anonymous noses and lips and teeth and earlobes – all wound together in collage by someone with an eye for detail and a precious reverence for the mundane. 

But for all the artwork, designs you fully believe should be in a museum, you realize no one has signed it. Maybe only twelve year olds sign each other’s casts, you think harshly to yourself. Grow up.

But still, the sight makes you a little sad. 

“Did you do these?” You ask quietly.

He nods, turning his arm to give you a better look, as if eager for your approval. You think you see the horns of Goya’s El Gran Cabrón before he pulls his arm back. 

The man hasn’t answered your original question, watching your face for every microexpression. Finally, you do glance up and he has his bottom lip in teeth, as though preparing to be scolded. 

At that moment, you want nothing more than to kiss those plush lips. You swallow, feeling rather lighted-headed and capable of making terrible decisions, so you take a clear step back. 

“I got daydrunk and fell in my pool wrong.”

You frown at him. “That’s not a very long story.”

He drops your gaze, suddenly bashful, and shakes his sleeve back over his cast. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t come up with a better story that makes me look really cool, or makes you laugh, so I went with the lame truth.”

You don’t remark that it sounds like he wanted to impress you so you go for the easy alternative.

“Why would I laugh at you?” 

He flops his arms in half-shrug. “I don’t want you to laugh at me. I just want you to laugh. I like your laugh.” 

How does someone who wears their heart so openly on their sleeve survive in a place like this? You want him to swallow you down so you can count the rings in his stomach, learn his history like oak trees. 

“Who are you?” You blurt out, your mouth full of cotton and brain somewhat disconnected from your brain stem. 

At that, he laughs. “Gimme your number and you’ll find out.” 

His smile elongates the longer you stare at him. “It’s not a line. I mean, it is, but not like that, if you don’t want it to be. This fucking industry is built on who you know and I know a couple of people to know. You can call me if you have any questions or need a reference.” 

The whiplash between flirty tease and professional contact is jarring. Your fingers shaking from shock, you take your phone out of your pocket and hand it to him. 

He taps away, bobbing his head to some tune only he can hear, before lifting it up to his face and snapping a selfie – tongue out and eye squinting into the flash. 

He tosses your phone back and you learn his name for the first time. 

The shock wears off immediately and you roll your eyes.

“Okay, my turn.” 

He digs into his back pocket and slides a bright pink 2007 motorola flip-phone into your outstretched hand. 

Full – chock full, in fact – of surprises. 

“I’m not gonna get tracked,” he says seriously, eyes narrowed. “You really should think about giving up your iPhone. All kinds of bad vibes.”

You eagerly look forward to him explaining the Big Foot Conspiracy and his theories about the magic silver bullet. 

It takes you a second to type out your name with the multiple buttons, some old sense memory from seventh grade coming back like a grumpy, displeased ghost, but finally, you snap the phone together and toss it back to him.

With the nub of the smoking joint poking out of his mouth, he frowns when he looks at the phone screen. 

“Dolly Parton?”

You pluck the joint out of his mouth, a surge of playful confidence keeping your eyes locked on his. You nod. “Since we’re doing the whole fake name thing . . .”

You want to wink, with your hand on your hip, so clever to have figured out his little game, but when he continues to frown, that rush of bravery fizzles out.

“But the name I put in your phone is actually my name?”

You chuckle, surprised and confused he’s still committing to the bit, a little frustrated at this point because you are actually starting to like this guy and . . .

Unless . . .

“You’re actually Dieter Bravo? The actor? Three-time Emmy nominated actor Dieter Bravo?” 

He loops his finger through one of the free-roaming curls from under the beanie and twists it. “That’s what it says on my underwear . . . when I remember to wear it.” 

The blush on your face now scalding, you dart across the space between you and him and snatch his phone back. You can literally feel the shameful heat in your spine, your lower back, as you delete Dolly’s name and frantically type in your own. 

“I’m so, so, sorry. I was just trying to be funny. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you but it’s dark and, um, you don’t look like I thought you would and I-I had no idea – I’m so sorry –,”

“Girlie, take a breath,” he chuckles and strokes your fingers as they tremble over the keypad. “I’ve never seen someone so stressed out after smoking half a joint before.” 

You’ve gone stock still as he bleeds the panic out of you with just his touch. You watch as his warm hand, dwarfing yours in size, slowly moves up to your wrist, your pulse point. His thumb presses into the vein and gently rubs. You can’t help the sigh that eases out of your throat as all the tension in your arm collapses into that one focal point, that one place he presses against you. You inhale, not realizing you had stopped breathing for a second and he releases gently, the ache in your body left over from the rigidity gone. 

A brief dark haze passes over his eyes when you sigh, but gives you space easy enough when you settle. 

He takes the phone out of your limp hands and reads what you’ve typed out.

“Cute name. But I think I’m still gonna call you Dolly.”

Humor is your gut instinct. Defuse a situation or calm your nerves, sometimes the best you can do is crack a (often poorly timed) joke. You feel all fluttery inside, partially because you’d been talking to Dieter “I know people who know people” Bravo all night and partially because you’re about 86% sure he’d been flirting with you. And so, without thinking, you say:

“Because of my massive tits, right?”

His eyes flit up from his phone screen to, presumably, your tits. Which are very much not Dolly-Parton-comparable. 

But he grins. He actually giggles, pressing the back of the hand holding his phone against his lips as if trying to hide his smirk.

“Yeah, that’s definitely it.” 

It is the kind of laugh that you know he’s laughing with you and not at you and he’s still staring when his laughter subsides. 

He is still staring at your tits.

Just as your face flushes what feels like the hundredth time tonight, he glances up at you. He offers you the last puff, you shake your head, so he sucks in down before flicking the nub over the railing of the patio. His hands sit heavy in his front pocket, the frown on his face contemplative, eyes searching the horizon.

“I think you’re going to text me . . . on a Tuesday,” he says, like he’s divining portents from the shapes of the clouds. 

You swallow, trying to purge yourself of this whiplash embarrassment, but you can’t quite decide what exactly to make of this man or this conversation. “What makes you say that?”

His smile is so genuine it rattles something inside you. “It’s my favorite day of the week.” 

This feels too good, too real, too intense, too fast. It was a quiet, but familiar story passed around in writer’s rooms or on the back lots of sets: an older man seduces a young girl, promising the world, and then offering nothing once he had gotten what he wanted. 

You beg your heartbeat to slow down. 

But Dieter Bravo doesn’t seem capable of that, not with his honesty, his open heart, but then again none of them ever do. 

That’s the whole point. 

“So, um, I should go. My boss is probably out back, breaking things, pissed off because I’m not behind him with a fresh macchiato.” Your phone feels absurd in your hands, as if it now carries something vital inside of it. “But, uh, thank you – for everything. The smoke, the advice, listening to me ramble endlessly –,”

“You weren’t rambling,” he says, arms crossed and finger tugging at an errant curl again. “You were talking about what makes you happy and I was listening. I like listening to you.”

You wanted to believe him. You really did. 

“I’ll call you sometime, okay?”

He nods, raising a hand in a wave, but as you turn away, something final, the last piece of the puzzle, pops into your brain.

“Why me?”

Dieter looks at you, big brown eyes confused like a puppy whom you scolded for chewing on your shoe. 

“What do you mean?”

“There’s gotta be at least fifty people here. Why did you stop me from going into Eliot’s room? 

Dieter shrugs, that easy smile returning. “You looked like the only other person who didn’t want to be here. And you’re really pretty,” he adds casually and your heart launches itself into your throat. “I’ve got a thing for really pretty girls. Gets me into a lot of trouble.”

There comes that heat, that flare in his gaze that makes you wonder how someone like him fucks, all proof necessary that he has a working cock, and he’s not some mystical, Willy-Wonka-esque Ken doll. 

It’s a look that makes you wonder if he wants his cock in you. 

“Good night, Dieter.”

“Night, Dolly.” 

Weeks passed and immediately you were so drowned in work, Dieter Bravo occasionally slipped your mind, falling back on your list of things to do when a deadline was approaching.

But when a contract for a position in a new writer’s room passes over your desk, you pause, and immediately think of him. The offer is unbelievable. More money than you thought possible working as an underling. The channel set to produce was the real deal, likely to order more seasons if the first went well. 

“Saw your writing,” your boss told you by way of explaining your dreams falling directly into your lap. “Good work. I sent some of it off, and the studio came back with this. Don’t take too long signing the dotted line, okay?” 

You nod, dumb-founded as he walks off, and you glance back at the contract.

And, despite your almost desperate elation, something felt off. But you didn’t know enough about the industry to confidently say if this is a bad deal or not. 

So, with a glance down the hall, you call the only person you know who would.

He is immediately livid. Not that you haven’t called, of course, but that someone has clearly tried to take advantage of you. 

“Do not take that deal. That corporate bullshit means they’ll own your IP for years to come. I can’t believe they’d do that to you. Stay right there and whatever you do, do not sign that. I’m calling someone at the studios.”

“Yeah. Uh, okay, Dieter, I won’t,” you murmur, half-expecting your hand to burn if you picked the contract up again. “But, um, thank you, for being honest with me. It felt weird, but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity and I was freaking out that this was the only one I was gonna get but I didn’t want to be rash,so I, um, . . .”

You trail off, the sudden silence on the other line only making your panic and shame more pronounced. You cringe inwardly – Dieter Bravo had better fucking things to do than console a baby screenwriter out of her first mistake – and Jesus, if there was ever a chance he was going to sleep with you, it’s long gone now – it must be, no one willingly sleeps with someone so goddamn gullible.

“Dolly?” His voice is quiet, but with a certain edge that makes you picture that implish little smirk. “Do you know what day it is?” 

“No?”

“It’s Tuesday.” 

That phone call turned into a new job with a female-led production team, thank yous over drinks, late-night dinners at obscure and dark Chinese food restaurants, movie nights at your shamefully small apartment, and then . . . a kiss.

Which led to all the rest. 

A year later and you’re so in love with Dieter Bravo, you crank up Beyonce’s Countdown and belt it from the top of your lungs every time you hear it on the radio. 

There’s a new irritant, a new agitation that can only be soothed by him. He’s remade you, changed you, reformed your very being to be missing a piece when he’s not around. He’s made space for him inside you, there was no life – not a real one, not a happy one – not before him and there won’t be anyone or anything after him. No one else fits with you anymore. Ever again. 

Your blood runs hot over the ridges of his fingerprints, stamped deep on your soul and your bones.

Trouble is, he’ll never know.

“And the award for Best Actor goes to . . .”

His grip is almost painful and you return it with everything you can, your jaw drawn tight.

The pause feels like it lasts forever.

You hear his name and you think for a second you’ve blacked out, that you’ve somehow missed the moment, or you’ve somehow slipped into a pungently real dream. 

And the crowd erupts.

The spotlight finds him in the crowd and you’re being pulled into his chest. 

The cologne he wears costs more than your car payment but the instant you’re crushed up into his silken shirt, it’s him. Beneath all the layers, beneath the veneer, the man with the green beanie and fervent yellow jacket is still there. Somewhere. You love them both.

“You did it, darling, you did it,” you whisper into his ear and that’s all you can say before you know you have to tear yourself back, because every second you linger on him, the harder it becomes to quell this rising tide inside you that increasingly tastes like salt water whenever he’s around. It’s become so obvious his name resides in the cup of your mouth. 

But when you do pull out of his embrace, in the ringing shout of the crowd, the sparkle of the spotlight, his hand lingers on your elbow, and in a space of a heartbeat that lasts impossibly longer in your memory, you’re met with such a look of profound regret you feel it take up room in your chest. 

And in an instant, it’s gone. Grinning broadly, he drops your elbow and moves on down the line, cheered on by his peers, the white light from above illuminating his broad back, the bits of gray becoming ever more present in his beard. You cheer and you cheer and you cheer and you hope it’s from all the cheering that your voice grows hoarse and the tears start to trickle out of the corner of your eyes. 

You’re trembling visibly as he accepts his award, showing just the right amount of awe, and appreciation, and excitement. He glances up into the spotlight and there’s the real Dieter for just a split second before he humbly gawks at the golden statue in his hand.

The clock begins.

Make your speech thoughtful and poignant – relevant to what is close to people’s hearts right now.

Be profusive with your thanks. Better start with that, actually. Lower yourself at the height of your glory.

Mention family, friends, names and faces that the masses don’t know because it makes you appear connected to a reality those watching on the television can only speculate about. Say something kindly about how this means so much to you.

Cry a bit, but not too much. Keep your voice steady but with tears in your eyes. Cut yourself off, the emotion too much, and say thank you again. 

And anything more than three minutes, they start to play you off. 

You’re mentally going through the notes on a potential acceptance speech his PR manager gave him on the drive over, but in the end, it’s clear he doesn’t need it. 

Dieter’s speech is excellent. 

Really good. Really, really, really good. It has a flare of genuinity, but not the bite of vulnerability that makes people uncomfortable. 

He’s been practicing for weeks now, editing as he talks, in the mirror, while driving home from the grocery store, before he goes to sleep. Tonight’s speech, a compilation of all that you’ve listened to time and time again, is the best version of all of them. 

He’s soft when he needs to be and excited when he can. He’s onto the gratitude bit, going through the director, the writers, the cast and crew, even his costar, whose beautiful face is shown on the twenty foot screen above the stage, joyful tears in her eyes. And as the applause dies down, his big hand dwarfing the tiny metal statue, his fingers flexing, Dieter’s back goes ridgid, his eyes downcast. A smile slips out infinitesimally. 

Dieter clears his throat and looks up.

“And there’s someone else I’d like to thank. This, uh, this one goes to all the little dreamers out there. Working nine to five, to make your dreams happen. We did it, baby, couldn’t have done it without you.”

He stares into the camera and you swear, you fucking swear, he’s looking right at you. 

It’s a drowning sort of wave, this focal point that draws you down into him. It’s all consuming and it’s tender and it touches places you didn’t know could go this warm and what else could describe this but love? You resent the Academy, this place, these people for keeping him away from you. You think you’ll claw out the eyes of anyone who tries to separate you again.

You are crying – for your industry friend, his guest at the Oscars, so sees the cameras and the glitz and the glamor. 

You’re crying because you’re in too deep. 

The rest of the night is dipped into a champagne glass and swirled fast, catching like lighting in a bottle.

Gold dust falling fast, dizzily. 

Bubbles, glinting green and pink in the light, rising and winking out of existence.

Golden bubbles in your drink, in your mouth. Your throat. Your stomach. 

You feel lighter than air. 

With him, you feel as bright and as strong as diamonds. As timeless and luminescent as pearl.

As beautiful as gold. 

When the door finally shuts behind you in a darkened apartment, you’ve entered a secret, separate realm of domesticity: mismatched shoes, coffee creamer flavors you don’t like, and shampoo bottles that take up too much space in your shower.

It’s quiet here, blue and shadowed. The girl who left here hours ago to get ready in a hotel halfway across town forgot to leave on a light, rushing out in her haste. 

Behind you, you hear him snicker, his tongue behind his teeth, champagne bubbles still in his nose, as he hangs his silk jacket on your coat rack, right next to your muddy raincoat and baseball caps faded with sweat. 

“We gotta be quiet,” he hums, wobbling a bit as he toes out of his expensive loafers, pushing them near your off-brand birkenstocks. “Nala’s gonna hate me forever if we wake her up now.”

He is, of course, referring to your tabby cat, who hates everyone who isn’t you, and has a distinct requirement for twelve hour naps with no interruptions. Dieter swears he’s going to wake up one morning with that cat flexing her claws against his throat.

It takes you a moment to recognize and comprehend how your lives have melted together, how extracting you from him and him from you would be akin to destructive alchemy, the process of deconstructing two things causing both of them to oxidize and reduce to flaky rust. You’re drunk and you’re a little dizzy and you’re swaying slightly because your feet hurt but you are too consumed by introspection on your own feelings, what it means to love something other than yourself, to do anything about it. 

You’re so far gone from your own body you float, untethered and lost in thought, right up until the moment his arms come around your waist and he pulls you into his chest, like slipping on a beloved coat. 

“I think I can buy you for a quarter at Coney Island,” he murmurs into the nape of your neck like he is reciting Neruda’s poetry. You stifle a smile, your hands gripping around his elbows, as he sways with you. He does this a lot; thinks one thing, then two, then three, and by the time it comes out of his mouth, it’s nonsensical to anyone not strapped into his train of thought. 

“Try again, darling.” You stroke his cheek with your thumb, his chin tucked over your shoulder, ear pressed to yours. “I think you missed a couple of steps.” 

Your voice is gummy even to your own ears, the endless drinks at the afterparty stitching your syllables and consonants together into some freakish creature. He’s slightly blurry in your eyes, his presence overwhelming all of your senses as they try to keep you upright. 

He chuckles and presses his face into your neck in what you believe is an attempted kiss. 

“I mean, you glow,” he admits quietly to your skin. The grin falls from your face when your heart constricts. “You fucking shined tonight and I couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful and sweet you looked. Sweetness I wanna lick up.” He chuckles again, this time through his nose, laughing at his own absurdity. “And then I remembered cotton candy is sweet too and you can buy cotton candy at Coney Island for a quarter and. . . I think I can buy you for a quarter at Coney Island.” 

He scrapes the back of your neck with his teeth as he nudges you forward down the hall, not sparing an inch between your bodies. Which makes for a disastrous time, both of you drunk, his socked feet slipping on the wood, and your heels and dress tangling up together. 

“Baby, wait–,” 

“We’re almost to the bedroom, we can make it–,”

“Not if we break our necks first. Gimme a second, I’ll just–,”

You slide out of his grasp, inching down the wall and tucking up the truly insane amount of tulle they managed to stitch into your dress. You feel like you’ve been digging for five minutes before you find what you're looking for.

You stick your heel in the air and fiddle with the clasp around your ankle, drunk and working in near total darkness.

Dieter huffs and slides to the floor next to you. He watches you struggle for a minute, nearly swallowed up by the layers and layers of tulle, before he squeezes the air with his open hand.

“Gimme. We’ll be here all night.”

You pout visibly and awkwardly rotate until your foot is in his lap. His fingers are warm as he plucks at the clasp.

“I am perfectly capable of getting dressed on my own.” You toss your hair indignantly. 

“Yeah, but you’re always going to need my help to get undressed, right?” He smirks, eyes bleary, as he slides the heel off your foot and takes up the other one when you don’t move. 

Always, he said. 

Forever.

He’s being so soft, so gentle.

He sees the red marks left behind by the straps of your heels and frowns, displeased. Slumped over in the hallway of your tiny, pathetic apartment, his top few buttons of his pressed dress shirt hopelessly gone, tonight’s bow tie slung around his neck like a tipsy snake, Dieter gives you a foot rub by way of kneading out your pain. 

He kisses your ankle with such reverence, adoration, the liquid in your mouth vanishes and ends up in the crotch of your tights. 

You’re both too drunk for an actual fuck (“don’t make fun of my whisky dick, baby, it makes it sad,”) but you don’t want to be anywhere else but in your bed with him when you do sober up. So, you let the tulle drop, Dieter giggling as he gets hit with an avalanche of dress and you both clamor over each other to stand up. 

Towering over you and smelling like rich, warm, leather and splash of something spicy, he raises an eyebrow at you. You scrunch up your face, your twisted-up mouth betraying the stern look in your eyes, and put your knuckles to your hips. He matches your stance, this town ain’t big enough for the two of us . . .

“You’re in my way,” he grumbles, his mouth twitching. 

“Maybe you’re in mine.”

“Well, then it looks like we’ve got on our hands a good ol’ Mexican standoff.” 

“By all means, pardner, stick ‘em up.”

You eye him like PopEye, cheek full of nothing but air, your one eye all squinty. At that, he completely breaks, going red as he laughs. You hold the pose for a second longer before you collapse against him, laughing until tears run out of the corners of your eyes. You press your forehead into his chest, his heartbeat like a homing beacon, as he nuzzles the back of your head, giggles escaping occasionally on puffs of air. 

“That’s it!” He says after a moment of silence and tosses his hands into the air. “I’ve had enough! I can’t do this anymore!”

Without warning, he bends down and hauls you over his shoulder. He continues his tirade over your brief gasp of surprise – “Dieter!” – his finger indignantly in the air as he marches off towards the bedroom.  

“I can no longer date a girl who is funnier than me and so goddamn, fucking pretty. Who let you do that, huh? Who taught you how to be so fucking adorable? Answer me, you sexy, little weirdo.”

He tickles you enough just to make you squirm before dramatically tossing you onto the bed. You assume your best heart-broken divorcé pose, hand draped over your forehead, one leg tucked under the other. 

“Think of the children, honey! Nala needs a father’s influence, a lonely girl trying to survive in a man’s world! You can’t shoulder me with the responsibility of single motherhood!” You sit up, eyes fluttering up at him. “Everything I learned, I learned it all from you!”

Smirking, he kneels onto the mattress, your body folding back as he hovers forward, his nose inches from yours. You fight the shiver that arches up your body every time he gets that look on his face. He’s got your sanity between his teeth. “That child loathes me, darling,” he purrs. “She’s better off with you. She looks far too much like the milkman to be mine anyway.”

Your fake gasp is buried beneath the lunge of his mouth over yours. His hand cups your cheek as his mouth seeks out all its favorite places against your lips, your skin, your jaw. Your fingers dig into his wrinkled, once-starched shirt, the heat of his skin pricking your fingertips.

It’s right there, that knife edge between starting something there’s no going back from, no alternative path that ends in anything other than him buried deep inside you, filth that still makes you blush pouring from his mouth into your ear. A part of you, the part of you that’s been stalking behind every smile and touch he sends your way all night, the part of you that every nerve sing for him, is begging you to continue. To touch him in the right places that make his eyelids drop, mouth wrench open, to take on the animal that’s gnawing at you both. 

But you don’t. You can’t.

The simple fact of the matter is – you’re exhausted. You know he is too. The Oscar statue sitting on your entryway is a culmination of dozens of exhausted nights that finally paid off. 

He sighs when you pull back, there is no anger on his face, no disappointment that you’re ending things here. There’s only . . .

“You looked really, really pretty tonight,” he confesses to your nose with a smile. “Thanks . . . for coming with me tonight. You make everything better.”

You tuck his hair over his ear, feeling whole and small beneath the gentle search of his gaze. His hair is getting long and you love it, but you don’t want to nag him about it. The universe has finally balanced itself with him in between your legs, the foundations that make up the galaxy all settled in right here. 

He takes it one step further, reaching back behind him to the comforter you keep on the end of the bed that inevitably gets kicked to the floor every time he stays over. You’d pick it up and put it back every day of your life without complaint if it meant him in your bed until the end of time. 

Dieter tosses the blanket over both of your heads and crawls back in between your legs, elbows tucked by your ribs. All the champagne in the world couldn’t give you this same warm, bubbly feeling in your chest as his weight sinks into you.

He’s submerged you both in another realm, a deeper one than the one before, and in this one you have to whisper, even though the only other person in all of existence is inches from your nose. 

“You’re drunk,” you murmur, hushed. You can barely find the outline of his chin, his lips, his nose. The steady drum in your chest misses a beat as you consider where he might be looking on you. 

He awkwardly tugs your knuckles from both hands beneath his head, kissing them gently before allowing them to quietly slide into his hair. He’s so warm, nearly completely invisible to you in the blackness, the weight of his broad chest threatens to choke the air right out of you. But this exactly is how you want it to be. You want to be overwhelmed by Dieter Bravo.  

“I’m not drunk,” he tuts, a soft slur still tucking his words together. 

You reach down just inches to his temple, following the lines of his body that swear all lead to you, to find the arch of his cheek. He closes his eyes, lashes fluttering like butterfly wings against your thumbs. 

“Could a drunk person do this?” He asks quietly, as close as he could come to indignant in this special, dark little world. 

You wait, for a sloppy kiss, for something hard to tap against your thigh, but nothing comes. In fact, he doesn’t move. 

You inhale as best you can, grinning, ready to start another proverbial sparring match with him.

“You’re not doing anything, Dieter.”

His eyelashes stroke your thumbs again, a kitten lick, as he opens his eyes. 

“I sent you my love. Did you not get it?”

All in the air in your lungs is purged in a heavy gasp as his words impact your chest the way comets collide with meteors. 

He says your name, concerned by the wounded noise you just made, and when you don’t answer, he leans back, tugging the blanket as he goes.

It’s not until you’re looking up at him in your bedroom, his face blurry and your cheeks cold, that you realize you’re crying. 

“Dolly, what did I do?” He sounds so concerned, so visibly shaken, you can’t help but cry harder. He only touches your wrist, as if he’d been banished from your body. 

If you hadn’t had so much to drink, this wouldn’t be happening or at least you’d be able to get it to stop, reign in those explosive feelings that you had kept for so long deep and buried until he came along with a match in the dark. 

You take a deep breath, eyes locked onto the ceiling, hands clenched in fists. You know he can feel the tension in your forearm beneath his thumb making circles inches below your pulsepoint. You thought you never, ever wanted to have this conversation, but now you understand this has been the only thing that’s been on your mind for months.

“You don’t mean that,” you croak into the darkness. You feel small and foolish, embarrassed for having a body that produces emotions. 

“Don’t mean what, darling?” He’s still talking quietly, but firmer, providing a hook onto which you can grasp and fight the current in your mind. He knows this feeling, anxiety, and he hates how it looks on you.

“That you love me.”

Your words ring in the air, like the distinctive pitch of singing glass. You swallow that choking knot further down your throat and, wrenching your gaze down from the ceiling, finally look him in the eyes.

It’s the same look he blinked at you from the seats, there and gone so fast you partially convinced yourself you’d imagined it: profound, deep regret.

“You think I don’t love you?”

His tone makes you instantly feel guilty. Did you miss something? What if he texted it to you and you didn’t see it? Or wrote it in a note . . .

“You’ve never said it. At least not to me.” 

And his face crumbles.

He slides off his haunches, feet dangling over the edge of the bed, his big shoulders curved. 

Slowly, as if believing he has no right to, he touches your ankle, where he had rubbed away those painful marks in the hallway. He shakes his head, smirking darkly at himself.

“At the risk of sounding like a dramatic fucking actor, I didn’t want to put you in harm’s way.”

You sit up, unable to help yourself from curling up next to him, his grip adjusting to your thigh, instantly finding the heat of it beneath all the tulle. Cutting right to the core of you. 

He gets this furtive glance when he’s thinking about something unpleasant, his eyes darting rapidly back and forth, as though unable to choose the right course of action. How much does he say, how much does he give away?

He rubs your dress material between his fingers.

“I’m older than you,” is how he starts. When your mouth twists open, ready with a litany of reasons why you don’t care, why no one should – reasons you’ve already said to him a dozen times – he meets your gaze and silences everything in your head. “And it’s not me they’re going to come for.” 

The weight, the finality to his voice shoves that knot right back up your throat, your eyes hot and tight.

“I . . . I didn’t say it, outloud, because then we’d have to do something about it. I don’t want to keep us in the dark, but . . .” he swallows as if choking too. “But after the dox two years ago and then the incident in Austin, I feel like I’ll be putting you in physical harm when they find out we’re together. And I would literally rather die than have anything happen to you.”

He kisses your temple, the touch a consolation. 

You don’t want to turn away, you want every kiss he gives you, but all you can feel are the studio’s words, the words of your managers, pressing down on you:

You know how some fans get. For your safety, let’s give it two years. 

We’re happy for you, we really are, but you can’t be seen together too much. Minimal instagram, rare public appearances. We’re just trying to keep up appearances until the fans settle. 

Appearances.

Aesthetics.

Image.

You’d happily kill anyone who tried to take him from you. 

But you know he’s right.

“It has nothing to do with how I feel about you, what I feel for you,” he promises, voice warm, dipped in honey. “I just . . . I can’t lose you.”

“Then can you say it just this once? Just to me?” You try to smile but the tightening of your skin only spills the tears. “Please, Dieter, I won’t ask again. I have to hear it once from you. After that, I promise I–,”

His great warm palm covets the back of your neck, rolling you into him like melting chocolate drips onto the floor. He stops, inches from your mouth, so close you can feel your neutrons mix with his.

“I love you.” 

Earnest, genuine, real. 

A green beanie and a yellow jacket.

Chinese food and dreams of a better life. Of a happy life.

You steady yourself, your spinning world, against his hand around your cheek, clutching onto his wrist like it’s the last great lighthouse at the end of the world.

You open your eyes and, yes, yes, there is adoration in his smile, in the way he watches his words soothe some ache inside of you with joy.

“I love you too,” you tell him, in case it wasn’t obvious. If somehow he couldn’t smell your obsession for him. “I love you,” you say again, firmly. 

It’s an inevitable sort of fall, his mouth into yours.

Like neutron stars collapsing together, alone and quiet in the far reaches of space.

Like the stone bones of an ancient church cracking and tipping into the sea as time and erosion eats away at a once great monument.

Like the spinning metal within a compass, never failing to find north, to find home.

When you awake next to him the next morning, warm in a way that goes behind physical body heat, he kisses your nose.

I love you, he tells you, with his words, with his body. With the dozens of ways he’s been mulling over in his mind to keep you safe and make you his for everyone to see.

I love you, he tells you that morning. 

And every morning after that.

[atamatajiih]

To Hazbin Hotel fans and haters alike, a reminder: you hold very little power over this thing's success and you shouldn't really worry about that either

The web-show pilot turned Amazon Prime animated series Hazbin Hotel by Vivienne Medrano/Vivziepop is scheduled to finally start airing next January after a very long wait since the pilot of the show was first uploaded to Youtube. There's a big crowd who are looking forward to the show, both fans who are eager to spread the love and dedicated haters who are waiting to rip this show to pieces.

I'm not really gonna pour over the reasons why this show has such a strong fanbase and hatebase, because the reasons aren't really important to this message/call out/shout into the void. Good thing is that love is just hate turned inside out and vice versa so these two feelings have a lot in common! To be more specific, both of these emotions require heavy emotional investment. And, as someone who has largely watched The Great Vivziepop Discourse from the sidelines, I can definitely say that both sides are extremely emotionally invested in this show. People who love it really love it and people who hate it really hate it.

Just as I am not gonna go over the reasons people might love or hate Hazbin Hotel, I'm not gonna tell anyone how they're supposed to feel about the show. Whatever your thoughts on Hazbin Hotel are, they're totally valid. Instead, now that the show is only about three months away, I think both fans and haters need to start internalizing one thing about the show before it releases and the floodgates truly open:

You do not have any power to affect the success of this show.

A simple thing, no? Obvious one might even say. And yes, you'd be right. Most people, when they have feelings about a thing, can accept that it's success, or lack thereof, is wholly independent of their own actions. A show doesn't succeed or fail because you, as an individual, choose to support or not support it.

But the thing is, when you become very emotionally invested in something, you start to imagine things. Fantasize a bit about how you'd wish for things to go. And if the posts I've seen online from both fans and haters are to be believed, both groups have stacked a lot of hopes and dreams on how this show's big debut will go.

On one side, Hazbin superfans have painted in their minds a scenario where Hazbin breaks all the records, wins all the prizes, Vivzie becomes the Hayao Miyazaki of indie animation and the Hazbin criticals get owned so bad that they shrivel into dust.

On the other, the Hazbin Hotel criticals have written in their mind another scenario: A24 despises the show, the whole thing falls apart under it's creator's lofty ambitions, the entire Hellaverse universe comes to an embarrasing end, Vizie becomes a pariah and the Hazbin superfans get owned so bad that they shrivel into dust.

And while there's nothing wrong with some flights of fancy like this, the problem is that it seems like both groups are so sure, so absolutely certain that their favored scenario comes to pass, that they have started to essentially treat it as fact, lambasting the other side for being delusional in the face of obvious facts. All of this ignoring the fact that, frankly, both sides are talking out of their ass. The only party involved in this who actually gets to decide whether this show is a success or not is A24, since they now own the series. What anyone else tries to tell you about how the numbers line up is at best making an educated guess or at worst talking nonsense. The circumstances that allowed show X to succeed or show Y to fail are not something you can actually use as a measuring stick when it comes Hazbin Hotel. The measure of Hazbin Hotel's success is not something that some rando on the internet can claim to be an authority on.

Now, this isn't to say you can't have any influence on the show's viewership numbers. A popular post on social media or your talks with people you know IRL can certainly influence a small number of folks to watch or drop the show. However, the actual impact these actions have is breathtakingly small. My current team at work has about 12 people in it and I'm not at all convinced I could easily sway all of them to watch or not watch a show. The exact numbers are all over the place, but Amazon Prime subscriptions seem to be somewhere in the ballpark of 200 million. That's, well, a really big amount. And I feel most of us realize that even the most popular, record breaking post on tumblr is probably not gonna be enough to sway 200 million people into your preferred opinion on Hazbin Hotel. If that huge mass of people has enough people who want to watch Hazbin, you'll have no choice but to accept that. And if that mass doesn't have any people who want to watch it, you'll have to accept that too.

Everything I've said is probably painfully obvious to people, but I have seen both of these groups get incredibly invested in their dream scenarios for how how the big Hazbin Hotel debut will go down, I am starting to really be worried about the folks who will inevitably have their dream scenario come crashing down before their eyes. And someone must, when the possibilities being proposed are either historic success or catastrophic failure. That's why, regardless of which side you're standing on when it comes the Discourse, I am urging all of you to start emotionally distancing yourself from this show, at least to the extent that you can accept the show's actual reality without having feeling emotional anguish. Because placing this much emotional weight on the success of a TV show, something that again, is completely out of your power to meaningfully affect, is just not healthy to you. Whether you love the show or hate it, please start processing the possibility that your desired outcome for it may not come to pass. Entertainment industry is a fickle business and really, as a viewer it's not even your job to really care about how a show is doing, that's the burden of the people working on it. All you need to do is sit back, relax and let your heart fill with love and/or hate. Not to mention the success or non-success of a show isn't even that conductive when thinking about a show critically. A successful show simply means it is popular, it doesn't mean it's good. Is your Hazbin hating heart really gonna step aside and not enjoy ripping this show a new one just because it made money? And of course, vice-versa for the Hazbin stans! Everyone knows tons of great fiction goes underappreciated by the masses, are you really gonna stop filling the internet with your endless gushing and adoration just because enough normies didn't like your hell cartoon?

So, really this heavy investment both sides of the discourse have for the show's future success is kinda preplexing. Discourse is about whether something is good or not! And sales and viewership numbers should barely be a footnote when it comes to that discussion. There's so many more interesting things to dissect in a show. TL;DR: Whether you love Hazbin or hate it, none of us individually can actually tangibly affect Hazbin's financial success, so it's best you stop making up scenarios about it in your head and getting invested in them + it's not like financial success actually matters when you wanna talk about the show's actual quality.

[polinator]

I have come here for one reason. To shout into the void of the internet.

Y'all. Y'all. Y'ALL. Bless your hearts. I love the Bridgerton canon. Since I read TVWLM over 20 years ago... well, liked it since then. Loved it more when I read AOFAG (and yeah, I know some people hate it, but I do not). And I say this as a person who has written fan fiction in this fandom and made physical things celebrating this universe.... It isn't that serious.

These are historical romance novels that lean into comedy a lot of the time. Historical rom coms, if you will. I wish people would stop interpreting them in the most tragic way possible without taking into consideration the intention Julia Quinn had when writing them.

Are there issues with scenes in some of the books? Yes. Do I adore every tiny thing in them? No.

But, what do you think JQ intended? Do you think she intended for her romantic heroes to come off as abusive sometimes? No. (Well, unless you are talking about Turner. For Turner the answer is most definitely yes.) The office scene in TVWLM, the lake scene in AOFAG, the engagement ball scene in RMB, and so on... they were written to be read like physical comedy. Like a screwball comedy. Like I Love Lucy where Ricky spanks Lucy. Is that problematic when we look back at it in 20fucking24? Yes, of course. But was Lucille Ball trying to imply Ricky Ricardo was an abuser? No. It was meant to be funny.

People take Colin to task for thinking about hitting Eloise. Y'all must be fucking saints if you've never thought about hitting your sibling. The fact he only hit her once I find amazing. My sister and I fought all the damn time. The love in the Bridgerton household must have been like a huge bubble. My parents were/are the most amazing parents God had ever put on this earth.... and my sister and I still fought. Also, I've def thought about strangling a boyfriend or two. And a child or two. Did I do it? No. But I thought about it. And you've definitely thought about doing bodily harm to someone. Because it's a human thing. It doesn't mean you are actually going to do it. And it certainly doesn't mean you're an abuser. Good god girl get a grip.

Julia just didn't think about these things as deeply as some in the fandom think she did. Like 20+ years ago when the books were first released they were popular but not that popular. People were not all over it analyzing everything like they are now. (I mean, we were to try to figure out who LW was at the time, but not everything else.)

On the same lines, Edmund was not an abusive father at all. Again, what do you imagine JQ's intentions were when she said Colin was horsewhipped? Do you think she actually meant beaten? No, of course fucking not. Over and over in her canon she shows and tells you what a great father Edmund was. She has absolutely no problem telling you if someone's dad or guardian are trash. Let us count the ways (spoilers below and trigger warnings for real):

Simon's father- pretended he didn't exist because he stuttered, fuck him up so badly he was going to not have an heir just to spite the hateful son of a bitch.

Sophie's dad- didn't give her any attention, left her to be raised by servants, only called her his ward, left her fate in Araminta's hands

Phillip's dad- horrible shit who actually beat Phillip with a whip, his scars are detailed, how he is beaten is detailed, his father's anger is detailed, is a huge part of the book, Phillip is afraid to touch his kids because he doesn't want to be like his father.

Gareth's dad- shit of a human being who treats his youngest son like trash because he is not his biological son, cut him off completely, tried to ruin the estate so he would have a shit ton of debt when he actually died, betrothed him to a girl with intellectual disabilities without his consent and said if he didn't marry her he couldn't go to school

Lucy's uncle- the third to worst person in a JQ book, stole money from their estate, betrothed her to (a very lovely) gay man because he was being blackmailed for treason, said he didn't give a fuck about her, made her believe her father was the treasonous bastard so he could guilt her into marrying the man, threatened Lucy at knifepoint, said he was going to watch while Lucy's marriage was consummated and implied that if her new husband didn't do it he would let the man's father rape her to ensure it happened

And who could forget... Hugh's father- a psychopathic piece of filth so wretched it's hard to list all the horrible things he's done from memory, but just here's just a taste: beats his sons when they do anything he considers to be wrong including misremember some part of their family tree and he enjoys it, repeatedly hired sex workers to rape his gay son and then would encourage them to beat him and helped beat him with his cane when the son wouldn't have sex with them, raped his wife repeatedly (and their sons could hear it), is so obsessed with his lineage that when Hugh, one son, was accidentally crippled he paid men to follow poor Daniel (the guy who slipped and accidentally shot him) to the continent to murder him and didn't stop until his son told him he would kill himself if Daniel died, he bribed servants so he could keep tabs on Hugh because that title is super important, he then kicked Hugh on his painful, injured leg and drugged him so he could tie him to the bed so that he could lock a lady in the room and force their marriage for the sake of that damn title, and more I'm sure I can't remember. AND he did all this without a trace of remorse.

And probably other fathers I can't remember. What does Julia Quinn say about Edmund? He was the best of men and of fathers. Now, thinking about JQ and how she's written alllll these other fathers, do you think she really meant that Colin was actually horsewhipped? No. She probably thought spanking but make it Regency.

I love her books, but do you think she's deep diving into research? Probably not. I mean, she forgot that she wrote Colin's birthday was in January. At the beginning of 'Just Like Heaven' Colin and Penelope are married and in the middle of the story they aren't even engaged yet. She is not thinking about things that deeply.

They are supposed to be fun and romantic and sometimes humorous and the drama... they are not meant to be analyzed and dissected like you would 'Invisible Man.' They aren't supposed to be all moody and intense-- it's not Dickens. Emotional, yeah of course, they are romances, but not taken so seriously.

But you know, don't come for my Bridgerverse canon babies, or I will cut you because I do take my love for them seriously. (Well, not Turner, you can have Turner.)

@your3fundamentaltruths I am not coming at you about Turner... well maybe a little bit. But you and I and maybe like five other people know the Bridgerverse well enough to get the reference.

[tofueggnoodles]

Extreme Bath Log Disk 2 – Track 2: Youthful Aspirations

Click here to listen to the track on youtube.

Click here for translations of previous tracks.

Summary: Goku and Saito talked about their dreams and aspirations. Goku wished to travel to various places. Tokito did not say much about his own ambition, only providing the reasons why he would not join Goku on his travels. As for Saito, there was nothing he wanted to do more than take over the family business and ensure its continuing prosperity.

--------

(Sounds of the Westminster Chimes and a door sliding open.)

Tokito: Goku! Shall we drop by the game arcade today?

Goku: Sure!

Boy 1: Then, see you later, Goku.

Boy 2: Just give it some thought, okay?

Goku: I will. See you!

(He and Tokito walk away amidst distant shouts, probably from other students at the training ground.)

Goku: Would it be fine if we stop by KFC after the game arcade? For some reason, I’m feeling extremely hungry today.

Tokito: You’re always hungry! Those guys just now – are they from the soccer club?

Goku: Yeah. They told me that one of the regulars is injured and can’t make it to next week’s match.

Tokito: Weren’t you asked to fill in by the track team too the other day?

Goku: Stuff like inter-school club matches are usually held on weekends, right? It’s tough for me to join those, since I have to help at the bathhouse during weekends.

Tokito: Is that why you’re not a member of any sports club despite being incredibly athletic?

Goku: Uhh... well, there’s that, more or less, but club activities are just not my cup of tea.

Tokito: Huh?

Goku: I really like being physically active and I kinda enjoy doing sports. Still, whatever sort of games I play, I somehow get the feeling, ‘this is not it.’

Tokito: Ah, now that you mention it, you sure don’t give the impression of being hooked on any kind of sports in particular.

Goku: I’m not smart, so I’m not good at keeping track of the scores and rules in a sports game. Even in martial arts, there are surprisingly tons of rules, right?

Tokito: Well, if there are no rules, you can’t call it sports.

Goku: Rather than liking sports, I just want to freely move my body as much as possible. That’s why I feel bad for those who practice sports seriously.

Tokito: If that’s the case, it’s sure tough [to identify what’s the best pastime for you]. Are there any physical activities with no rules? Dancing, maybe?

Goku: Somehow... how should I put it....

Tokito: What is it?

Goku: I want to go on a journey!

Tokito: Once in a while, you say the most unexpected thing.

Goku: Eh? Do I?

Tokito: Where do you want to travel to? Somewhere overseas?

Goku: No, it’s not like I have a specific destination in mind.

Tokito: So it’s something like backpacking?

Goku: Mmm, I guess I can imagine myself doing that sort of thing.

Tokito: You’re really carefree.

Goku: How should I say it.... Let me put it this way: I only live once, so I want to try traveling from place to place and to experience all sorts of things.

Tokito: Ah, that’s how it is.

Goku: Oh, but it’s not like I want to go on a journey of self-discovery or something like that. I’m not dissatisfied with my life as it is now and I’m very happy being together with my family. Perhaps, it’s precisely because I have a place to go home to that I feel like I can leave on a journey anytime with peace of mind.

Tokito: As expected, that’s a mindset you inherited from your dad, isn’t it?

Goku: I wonder if that’s the case.... Now that you mention it, I heard that grandpa did stuff such as go on pilgrimages and travel across Japan on a motorcycle in his youth. Maybe you’re right – it runs in the family.

Tokito: Is your grandfather Oizumi Yo? [An actor – the only hits I got searching for his name and the word motorcycle are some articles about a road accident he was in....] But, I do see the point. Traveling is nice, right?

Goku: Would you come along too?

Tokito: I can’t survive in an environment without internet connection and Amazon home delivery service, so I'll pass. In the first place, I can’t leave Kubo-chan behind.

Goku: That’s right. Anyway, if I’m to go overseas, I first have to be able to speak English to some extent, right? According to dad, it’s dangerous to travel abroad ** without being familiar with stuff such as the history or the current state of affairs [of the destination country].

Tokito: If you do your best, you’ll manage somehow. You’re smarter than you think, you know.

Goku: Also, I rather fancy being in wide-open space where there’s no people, like a prairie or a desert. I’d love to have a ride on a jeep, which happens to be dad’s favorite vehicle, across such a place.

Tokito (laughs): Your talk smacks of teen pretensions, but I get it. It sounds like an epic adventure, huh.

Goku: Eh? Hey, the guy walking in front of us–

Tokito: Why, it’s Mikawaya!

Goku: Oi, Saburo!

Saito (turns around and sighs in exasperation): I’m neither Mikawaya nor Sabu-chan! It’s Saito! Jeez, how many times must I tell you that before you finally remember?

Tokito: Oh, right! You’re in the same high school as us.

Saito: The classrooms for second-year and third-year students are located in different parts of the school, so we don’t run across each other that often at school.

Goku: Since we only see you during your delivery runs around the shopping district, the sight of you in the school uniform is kinda refreshing.

Saito: Eh? (giggles) Is that so?

Tokito: You’re in your third year, so you must be busy preparing for the university entrance exam.

Saito: Ah, that. No, I don’t have to worry about getting into a university, because I have no other plans for the future aside from taking over the family business.

Goku: Just as I thought.

Saito: I do know that university graduates are equipped with marketable skills. But, our shop’s perpetually short-handed. Moreover, in my case, there’s no point in eating ourselves out of house and home in order to fork out the fees for university. My goal is to discover ways to ensure that Saito Liquor Store continues to be a well-loved shop in this region. Or so I think....

Tokito: He’s quite realistic, isn’t he?

Goku: Yeah, he is.

Saito: Eh?

Tokito: You give the impression of being a man of the world.

Goku: Yeah, you sure do.

Saito: Hold on! What are you on about? Please don’t butter me up all of a sudden – it’s embarrassing!

Tokito: If you’re gonna be bashful about something, then don’t tell us about it!

Goku: We even took the trouble to praise you.

Saito: Ah, would you two please not pull the ladder out from under me right after putting me at the top of it?

Tokito: There’s one thing I’ve been curious about for a long time: Why do you use honorifics with us despite being our senior, Saito?

Goku: That’s right! Furthermore, you don’t seem to mind the two of us using casual speech when talking to you.

Saito: Well.... of course there’s the fact that your families are valued regular customers of our shop. But also–

Goku: But also?

Saito: For some reason or another, it doesn’t feel as if you two are younger than I’m.

--------

(Round brackets): actions and sound effects. [Square brackets]: translator’s notes or clarifications. Double asterisks **: Stuff I am not sure of. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are more than welcome.

[marciabrady]

i rewached the hunchback of notre dame on friday for the first time, in a long time, and i'm still in shock.

hond was a film that was around when i was a child, because it had just come out, and the merchandising was still prevalent. it was being pushed a lot, so to speak, and growing up in the era that i did, the kids on the playground or online were either belle, meg, or esmeralda girls- there wasn't room for anyone else. as a child that gravitated more toward the classic princesses and femininity, it was not a movie that spoke to me and the fact that i felt it was shoved down my throat turned me off of it for a time. too much happened, even in the first five minutes, and there was constantly a wild series of events that i would try to reel my head in from. it wasn't a universe i wished to inhabit and, frankly, i think the crux of the reason why i didn't like it was because esmeralda was really the only female character (aside from laverne) and there wasn't enough for me, as a child, outside of the violence and shouting men and misery showcased. i revisited the film when i was twelve and i loved it so, but i think parts of me valued it at even higher a premium because of how rare and forgotten it had been. i even wrote esmeralda for a time. needless to say, it didn't last, and until now i've kind of been undecided about it

but watching it on friday...wow. i'm filled with both wonderment and despair. after craving quality content from disney for so long and continually being disappointed with tangled and frozen and moana and brave and raya, and every other movie i've tried to watch, i was instantly transfixed by how adult hunchback was, from the opening frames. the epic scale of the art, how ambitious it seemed, how elevated the jargon was- but mostly, how raw and realistic the storyline was. this movie threw no punches- it contained swear words, topics relating to disabilities, religion, death, genocide, se*ual assault, you literally name it. it exposed an underbelly of society that could be flattering and unflattering. while parts didn't age well, i'm surprised at how nuanced the conversation was around certain topics- decades before me too and social activism became more commonplace. i couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how much guts it took for the artists and writers to really go there. i was in disbelief for how evolved their viewpoints seemed, and this was before the internet was commonplace and they could've gotten as many viewpoints as readily as we can get them now...but then it filled me with instant sorrow, because i know they all got so much pushback and this film was so discouraged, we never saw the likes of it again.

it's funny because this film came years after the little mermaid, and you can tell how much of a higher budget this crew had to work with. the film's crew had sharpened their abilities and skills from previous years and made astounding technical advancements. that, mixed with how varied and diverse their topics became really signaled them finding their footing- or trying to. can you imagine, if they didn't give up on these types of movies, where we'd be today? how many more diverse stories, in diverse settings, we would've gotten- all adult in nature? the beautiful 2d designs and animation mixed to heighten the effect and impact and how it would've rounded out walt's vision, of wanting these films to not only be kid's stuff but genuinely be able to compete as a film genre unto itself? how different this movie was from any other??? and compare that to now, where they're all the same. what's the difference between dreamsworks, pixar, and disney movies anymore? and the activism they push now is 20 years too late, nothing cutting edge, and it's all the same. this female character is this much more badass, our first (minor) gay character that actually has no weight, addressing x about generation trauma, etc. even the topics we address in films now have been so sanitized and vetted out for audience approval that there's no real risk or edge to anything anymore, it's all monolithic and as safe as you can get.

but that's the thing with how experimental these later movies were- pocahontas, hunchback, hercules, mulan...while certain elements aged better than others, these movies should've been the beginning of an entirely new genre, not the last of their kind? how disturbing and offputting is it that tangled and brave came out decades after these films? that we've replaced the 'hellfire' villain type song with 'shiny?' we really could've had so much and it's sad that everything collapsed out from under us in that last breath of disney creating true art

the only thing that gives me hope is that we, the generation that grew up on these films, are the marketplace now. perhaps that will make these films come back into vogue and disney start producing them once more? but can they ever pick back up after such a long hiatus, without the original creative teams? is it all just a lost art form? also disney is making more money than ever with their marketable, but soulless, movies that are coming out now...also if these movies are to be in the spotlight again, does that just mean they'll be primed for another unnecessary remake? don hahn recently said disney only did animation because they couldn't make the special effects look real, but now that there's cgi to achieve hyperrealism, there's no need for 2d anymore and that's so sad to me. just because photorealism is in (which looks dated by the minute) and 3d is what people prefer, does that mean 2d is banished forever? that's like saying the invention of photography justifies the banishment of art. idk i just hope our generation can get these renaissance style movies back and to stay

[greenerteacups]

The worst part is that JKR did actually admit years later that upon reflection Hermione and Ron probably wouldn't have worked out as a couple and (while I totally thought that all along) I was like.... yeah, that's why the epilogue should never have existed! So that the people who liked Hermione/ Ron could have that as the end game couple and the people (like me) who thought it would never work out, could happily imagine that they tried dating for a bit and then realised within a year that they were better off as friends... Tbh that's still my headcanon and I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, they broke up and ended up dating and marrying the kind of people they'd actually be happy with... I kinda actually ship Ron with Lavender and think a post DH war hero Ron and more mature survivor of werewolf attack Lavender would be an awesome couple (yes Lavender lives in my headcanon). And I ship Dramione so of course I'd imagine that being an epic slow burn for my girl while she works to make the wizarding world a better place!

yeah this was always what confused me about wanting to establish that they got married, because like — i'm not going to pretend i don't see the appeal, i would have gone absolutely wild if we'd timeskipped two decades and saw "Hermione Malfoy" rocking up to Platform 9 3/4, i would have rioted, i would have run down the street like it was fucking V-Day, i would have quite simply lost my shit. so i get why fans of the ships like the endgame marriages, it's a nice bow-on-the-present to have confirmation of the happy ending. but it's not necessary. and hey, after a million words and seven books, maybe she's earned the right to twiddle her thumbs a little. but it's like... man, i really do think that ending on that scene of the Golden Trio standing on the parapets of Hogwarts after Harry snaps the Elder Wand would have been amazing. that's your last scene, man. that's the whole series, right there.

i have to admit, i really dislike the extracanonical stuff where she talks about her own writing. it's like she's trying to edit a text she's already published. and especially when she made that comment about ron and hermione needing counseling, i was like... who is this for? if you like that pairing, this is awful, and you're furious that you're having your legs cut out from under you years after you thought you got a happy ending. and if you don't like the pairing, you're standing there shouting: YEAH, I TOLD YOU SO! and fuming that Rowling essentially admitted she didn't think about their long-term compatibility before she wrote them into a twenty-year relationship.

and incompatibility isn't even a problem if you believe, as many fans of other ships do, that ron and hermione are a realistic intra-friendgroup couple who get babycrushes on each other, or perhaps mistake platonic feelings for romantic ones, date for a few years, break up, and then go back to a strong and loving friendship. and if DH ended on the Battle of Hogwarts, everyone who thinks that could just go on thinking that, and the people who like the couple — well, R/H is canon and endgame, so i don't think the people who ship them would have a reason to care what other corners of the internet think about it.

[velvetterabby]

Hello! I just wanted to say that I really appreciate your input on my CiFlower post and civility in handling this matter. However, I'd like to point out that this isn't the first time this artist has used AI art in an otherwise professional work.

For the piece on the left, look at the man in blue's hands, the man in red's chest under his coat, the layering of certain parts of the woman in white's outfit, etc.

For the piece on the right... well, you can look at almost anything in the image and it'll begin to look off, but a special shout-out goes out to this girl right here.

Besides, I wouldn't say CEViO would be above asking an artist to use AI for official art. Several CEViO products support NFTs (KZN, Kafu, Sekai, the Tohoku family, R/ME, etc.), so it's clear that CEViO does not support actual artists.

I'm not saying you've done anything wrong by disagreeing with me! Again, I appreciate your input, but I this is really important to me and I'd like to share. Thank you for your time!

Alright, once again no hate towards you I bet you're pretty young and not an artist so I can't fault you for thinking this way and can fully ignore this this post is more for my own benefit than yours it's a subject I've wanted to talk about for a while.

Unfortunately your examples aren't really that great if you want to convince me that they do AI art... if these hands are bad I don't even want to imagine what you'd say about mine...

Actually no I'll show you some bad hands I've drawn right now

(these are all from the same piece and it's unfinished but I have drawn these and I can prove it in many ways)

There's nothing wrong with not being able to draw hands, and there's nothing wrong with making mistakes it's human, it's natural. I've looked at all these example images and unfortunately I can't see anything that tips me off about it being AI.

This girl's face looks fine actually it's clearly just stylized and she's definitely not human so that's why she looks off

To be honest, to me this seems more like you personally didn't like the art that much and were looking for reasons to dislike it, which is fine and normal. It's ok to not like art u can just say that. Sure, it's kinda mean, but it's a lot nicer than tearing apart a picture and meticulously pointing out the flaws to "prove" it's AI. This kind of thing is dangerous it can really affect an artist, I know if this happened to me I'd probably leave the internet forever, not to mention spreading rumors that this artist uses AI can ruin future job prospects.

They could lose their current jobs, since using AI would be a breach of contract, and it can prevent them from getting jobs in the future. Not to mention that it could potentially lead to them getting sued because selling art that you don't own/didn't create is fraud. And getting stuck with the reputation of an AI artist if ur not an AI artist would probably make you completely unemployable.

On another note, ceVIO would not use AI art. It's clear and obvious that the community does not approve of AI art whatsoever and I'm not sure if you're in the same circles I am, but game studio Rayark made a statement that they were replacing their art staff with AI art, and they were eaten alive. They lost most of their community support and even after walking back the decision, a lot of people completely abandoned them and they lost a lot of money. CeVIO would not risk this. I did not know about the NFTs before and I won't defend them, but this and that are different situations entirely. I could walk you through how the ci flower art was not AI step by step but that wouldn't be very constructive and I doubt you would ultimately care.

Once again I'm not attacking you by saying all this, and I don't even expect you to read all this. Honestly, I didn't expect a response at all I was mostly talking to myself here. I don't know what backlash you've received and I'm sorry if you've gotten any hate that's not the way to talk to people you disagree with, and even if we don't agree I would never wish anything like that on you. Please stay safe and know that I have no ill will towards you, I just don't think speculating on whether something is AI or not without knowing the trademarks of AI art is a very good idea.

Also, on a side note, the ci flower art was released a while ago, before AI art was as advanced as now... honestly if she was AI she'd probably have a third arm, or something like that

[muiromem]

I hope some day that more people will understand that just because the internet allows for a wider array of world-wide communication and the ability to hide behind a username, doesn't mean you shouldn't still be a polite and considerate person.

Think of it this way: if you overheard a complete stranger standing in a public park, talking with their friends about their interests, would you go up to them and start nitpicking their opinion just because they're in a "public" space? Would you inject yourself, uninvited, into their conversation so that you could disagree with them? I hope not, because that would be incredibly rude.

"But people online aren't always talking directly to friends, sometimes they're just shouting into the public void"

Okay, then imagine if you saw someone standing in a public park with a sign that said "I love cats". Would you take this as an invitation to go and tell them why you hate cats? Would you start telling them why you think dogs are better pets and that they shouldn't be expressing their love for cats in front of everyone? No. Because someone expressing their opinion in a public space is not an invitation to start a debate with them.

Do you understand? Expressing an opinion is not the same as inviting debate or critique.

You can have a different opinion! There is nothing stopping you from going to the same public park and having your own "I hate cats" sign. You can even hold a club meeting or a public debate somewhere to find other people who want to discuss why you hate cats, and how dogs are better. The issue isn't about anyone's opinion being the "right" one, which is I think where some people get lost. It's about understanding when to share your opinions and when to stay in your own lane.

A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: is this person expressing an opinion that is directly causing harm or inciting others to do so? No? Then stay in your own lane.

Ask yourself: Did this stranger ask for other people's opinions, or are they just expressing theirs? If it's the latter, stay in your own lane.

On the other hand, if you were standing with friends in a public park and were talking about a shared interest, would you be mad about a stranger approaching to tell you how much they also love said interest? No, because it's fun to share things you enjoy with people and thats how you meet new friends. But if that stranger approached you to tell you they hated the thing you're discussing, it would be considered very bad social behavior. There is no reason why the internet, which is also a shared public space, should be treated any different for socializing.

Also think about the difference in someone saying "I don't like this character" versus someone saying "this character is bad". The first is stating an opinion (whether it's "right" or "wrong" isn't the point), the second is taking an opinion and stating it as though it were a fact (something that I have often encountered in less pleasant fandom spaces).

So yeah, not to sound like some early 2000's internet etiquette campaign, but maybe think before you type and remember that the internet is full of actual humans and you should still be polite and considerate in how you interact with other members of society.

[suiana]

Oki oki 🥹

If I were to imagine how Junie (my kind of Internet persona) would look like this would be her/them!

-An absolute airhead

-Obsessed with cats

-sometimes they can't read the room

-smol can and will beat the shit out of you

-they bite either to assert dominance or to show affection

-has a constant tired bitch face look

-they absolutely love to eat (but they're too cautious about gaining so much weight ;-; )

-easily flustered even if they keep saying they aren't (their tail isn't wagging! You're just imagining things!! >:T)

Btw! You can decide which yanderes would match her Sui!

And headcannons please!

As for the scenario...? Hmmm maybe as roommates I suppose?

(and ye my art style is so all over the place lol haha ^^;;)

🐄

✎ so basically a short angry tsundere cow? pretty sure yandere! ex would have heart eyes at the mere sight of you.

✎ even though you two have broken up, you were still roommates. so that sucks, but hey, at least your ex can still adore you! ...after getting beaten up by you for the nth time that week.

✎ you'd be bickering with your yandere! ex every single day. it's a guaranteed. though the fights are usually one sided with him just staring at you lovingly while you scream and shout at him LOL. bro would literally go "you're so pretty, my sweet darling..." while you insult the shit out of him HAHA

✎ yandere! ex would comfort you when you have bad days because he's still your roommate yk. so even if you aren't dating he feels obligated to help you out :) though he'd be extra touchy and act like you're still dating one another so instead of being sad you'll feel mad again and your daily fights would ensue once more.

✎ all in all it would be very comedic, with yandere! ex holding his bruised cheek as he comes to shower you with his love annoy you every single second. you just look so cute! how could he resist you?! that's the very reason why his obsession started... but anyways, he'd probably tease you and enjoy the blush you have as he gets ready for another slap on his face!11

[apocalypticavolition]

Let's (re)Read The Eye of the World! Chapter 46: Fal Dara

Another day, another spoiler warning. Do not read this reread if you don't want the entirety of Wheel of Time to be spoiled for you. The revelation that the seven seals are the fragments of Lews Therin's childhood sled Rosamund needs to be experienced within the text itself, not blabbed on some internet blog. Block the tags and move on!

This chapter has the tree at night icon, which is interesting since this chapter takes place in the day and the journey the heroes undergo isn't the main thrust of the chapter. Perhaps it reflects Fain? Or maybe Jordan couldn't think of a good fit for this chapter but didn't want to make up a whole new icon just for one single one.

Rand shook his head. Trees bursting? And that was during an ordinary winter. What must this winter have been like? Surely like nothing he could imagine.

As a young lad growing up in Alaska, I could only laugh at Rand's naivety. Really, there were almost no winter scenes that could impress me in fantasy worlds. Shit's cold, y'all.

“Curtains.” Perrin chuckled. He immediately wiped the smile off his face when the two women raised their eyebrows at him. “Oh, I agree with you. There wasn’t enough rust on that scythe for any more than a week in the open. You should have seen that, Mat. Even if you missed the curtains.”

Perrin, don't mock Egwene for having pretty decent Sherlock Holmes deductions. You can't even hide your supernatural powers from everyone else. Why is the people ta'veren so bad at subterfuge?

“So many?” Perrin said. “The stories say the Green Man is hard to find, and no one can find him twice.”

When I first read this bit, I was immediately put in mind of The Neverending Story's Childlike Empress, who (at least in the books) operates on similar rules. More on that in a moment.

If you boys . . . you men, can do what has to be done when you’d rather do almost anything else, why do you think I will do less? Or Egwene?

Isn't Nynaeve wonderful? She's got every reason to beat Rand over the head with a stick for this suggestion - and let's be real, that's absolutely her habit - but instead she sticks with complimenting Rand and insisting at staying by his side.

“I only danced with Aram, Rand,” she said softly, not looking at him. “You wouldn’t hold it against me, dancing with somebody I will never see again, would you?”

Was Egwene being super possessive about all of this because she thought Rand would behave the same way? Just trying to beat him to the punch because he's been so consistently shitty during this adventure? It seems like a better explanation for her behavior than anything else, and lets us move past this, right? We're never bringing this up again book, RIGHT????? PLEASE?

It's such an annoying subplot...

A number of others shouted, “Glory to the Builders!” and, “Kiserai ti Wansho!” Loial looked surprised, then a broad smile split his face and he waved to the guards.

Poor Loial, wasting all of his time in the south where people think everything interesting is all snarks and grumpkins instead of going to the North where the people know that all the myths are true. The Ogier stoneworking probably has done more to forestall the fall of the west than any specific person.

From one of the gate towers an armored man called down, “Welcome, Dai Shan.” Another shouted to the inside of the fortress, “The Golden Crane! The Golden Crane!”

This chapter is also our first taste of just how wildly popular Lan is in the Borderlands. It's probable that he gets the most love here in Shienar, since presumably most of the diaspora ended up here and the countries used to be neighbors, but he gets plenty of respect everywhere else too. It's a shame his relationship with his people and supporters is so tenuous at this point.

“Things are never as bad as they appear, Dai Shan. A little worse than usual this year, that is all. The raids continued through the winter, even in the hardest of it. But the raiding was no worse than anywhere else along the Border. They still come in the night, but what else can be expected in the spring, if this can be called spring. Scouts return from the Blight—those who do come back—with news of Trolloc camps. Always fresh news of more camps. But we will meet them at Tarwin’s Gap, Dai Shan, and turn them back as we always have.”

Good on Ingtar for being so optimistic. Shame it's all a damned lie and he genuinely thinks that it's only a matter of time before the Trollocs finally overwhelm humankind and drive them to extinction. It makes him a rather funny contrast to Lan, who as we've established is not remotely optimistic about anything but is completely faithful in his service to the Light.

“Ninte calichniye no domashita, Agelmar Dai Shan,” Moiraine replied formally, but with a note in her voice that said they were old friends.

The sheer amount of Old Tongue being thrown at us in this segment is a bit annoying because most of it is just nonsense at this point. (And really later on too.)

I am so sad that we'll never get to know how Moiraine and Agelmar became old friends. They must have crossed paths many times in her twenty year search for such a relationship, which makes me wonder: why? What Black Ajah schemes was Moiraine trying to thwart? It's still a damn shame we never got the other two prequel novels.

Agelmar hesitated, pulling a map from the tangle on the table. He stared unseeing at the map for a moment, then tossed it back. “When we ride to the Gap,” he said quietly, “the people will be sent south to Fal Moran. Perhaps the capital can hold. Peace, it must. Something must hold.”

I have to note though that Jordan's having the Borderlands in this kind of state so early on in the novels really hurt the overall momentum of the story. In just a few books - a year and a half of in-universe time - the Blight will be unnaturally quiet and the monarchs of the land utterly derelict in their duties. The later quiet does make a good deal of sense (the Shadow is holding everything it has back for the Last Battle), but the overall arc isn't strong as a result and the monarchs look incredibly stupid for having forgotten what just happened and being unable to connect the dots even as Maradon comes under siege.

When he raised his head his blue eyes burned with a fierce light, but his voice was calm again, and flat. “I am a Warder, Agelmar.” His sharp gaze slid across Rand and Mat and Perrin to Moiraine. “At first light I ride to the Blight.”

In a way, this moment must be something of Lan's last temptation. He's offered what he wants, a suicidal but honorable battle in the Blight. Further, from here on out, his path is set: Moiraine arranges for him to be handed him off to Myrelle next book so there's no way for him to truly leave, and then of course Nynaeve plays interception and keeps him alive until the end. For all the tragedy of Lan's upbringing, it is good he never gave way to this option and that he doesn't now; all he would have accomplished is the loss of too many good fighters in battles that didn't matter.

Rand abruptly realized the Lord of Fal Dara assumed it was Nynaeve and Egwene who with Moiraine would fight against the Dark One. It was natural. That sort of struggle meant using the One Power, and that meant women. That sort of struggle means using the Power. He tucked his thumbs behind his sword belt and gripped the buckle hard to keep his hands from shaking.

I like how subtle Jordan has been about Rand's firm denial about what's happening to him. Even here, it's not immediately apparent that he's forcing down the revelation about what Moiraine's quest means.

“You have seen the Green Man, Moiraine Sedai?” The Lord of Fal Dara sounded impressed, but in the next breath he frowned. “But if you have already met him once. . . .” “Need is the key,” Moiraine said softly, “and there can be no greater need than mine. Than ours. And I have something those other seekers have not.”

The exact mechanics of how Moiraine pulls this off are technically obscure - she's probably right about need, but surely there's more to it than that since the Green Man decides and apparently never helped anyone twice before but...

There was a reason I mentioned the Childlike Empress, whose "once per customer" logic had a single, strange loophole. Visitors from our world were able to see her as many times as they wished, because each time was the first time. I can't help but wonder if Rand's ta'veren made it so that to the Green Man and his magic, something like this was going on as the party approached.

“The Trolloc Wars left nothing but memories, Loial, son of Arent, and people to build on them. They could not duplicate the Builders’ work, any more than could I. Those intricate curves and patterns your people create are beyond human eyes and hands to make. Perhaps we wished to avoid a poor imitation that would only have been an ever-present reminder to us of what we had lost. There is a different beauty in simplicity, in a single line placed just so, a single flower among the rocks. The harshness of the stone makes the flower more precious. We try not to dwell too much on what is gone. The strongest heart will break under that strain.”

I hope that when the Last Battle is done and the Blight is gone, the Borderlanders can embrace intricate and soft beauty again. They're not wrong in their aesthetic, stark and simple can be truly great, but there is something tragic in their being forced into it by the Shadow when they're clearly a far more poetic people than circumstances permit.

“Your pardon, Aes Sedai, but I must see to this. Perhaps he is only a pitiful wretch with his mind blinded by the Light, but. . . . Two days gone, five of our own people were found in the night trying to saw through the hinges of a horse-gate. Small, but enough to let Trollocs in.” He grimaced. “Darkfriends, I suppose, though I hate to think it of any Shienaran. They were torn to pieces by the people before the guards could take them, so I’ll never know. If Shienarans can be Darkfriends, I must be especially careful of outlanders in these days. If you wish to withdraw, I will have you shown to your rooms.”

Again with that beautiful hypocrisy. You probably do know, Ingtar. You might very well have been the man who set them to it, thinking and hoping that a fast and painful battle yesterday might lead to a retreat today, with more men spared to fall back in the capital and forestall the end just a little while longer.

Or maybe not. Darkfriends do operate in cells and this one might have been entirely beyond Ingtar's reach.

“He made me his hound! His hound, to hunt and follow with never a bit of rest. Only his hound, even after he threw me away.”

And since Ingtar has proven false, I wonder a great deal about the other major Darkfriend in this chapter. Is he playing up the Smeagol act so that they'll underestimate him, maybe even try to set him on a path to redemption so that they can all be corrupted or killed faster? Did the merger he just experienced with Machin Shin leave him pretty traumatized in an immediate sense? Is he really experiencing spells that have him alternating between the Smeagol and the Gollum, possibly as a result of all the different forms of evil running through him? Will any of this matter after book seven or so?

“Great Lord, your might is unquestioned, but can it stand against the Dark One forever? Do you not often find yourself pressed to hold? Forgive my temerity, Great Lord; he will crush you in the end, as you are. I know; believe me, I do. But I can show you how to scour the Shadow from the land, Great Lord.”

This seems to be the Shadar Logoth surfacing but getting all mixed up with the Darkfriendliness along the way. I feel like calling anyone in the Borderlands "Great Lord" is a hell of a way to make enemies.

Stopping behind Mat’s chair, Moiraine put a hand on his shoulder and bent to whisper in his ear. Whatever she said, the tension went out of his face, and he took his hand from under his coat.

I suspect that when Mat loses a great deal of his memories, this particular moment is one of the ones that goes out. Again we do see that Moiraine can be a human, caring mentor figure, she's just not very good at it.

[timbrrwolfe]

On the topic of gaming, I recently rented Super Mario Bros. Wonder from my library (shoutout to that being a thing I can do).

Historically I actually haven't been much of a Mario gamer. And the games I have played for any length of time have been 3D Mario games. Super Mario 64 (DS. Somehow missed the original), Super Mario Sunshine. More recently Super Mario Odyssey. And Also Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Inside Fury. Odyssey and 3D World+Bowser both also being library rentals.

But with 3D World and a limited amount of play of older Mario games, I'm not /completely/ new to 2D platformers. But I definitely prefer 3D platformers.

All that to say that the beginning of my time with Wonder was a little rocky. Not awful just...I was glad I was renting it. But then the game picked up. The levels got more intricate, I started getting badges to augment my movement (and I do love some augmented movement in games). And I got connected to the internet.

And the way the online worked was I think the best part of the entire game. Like sure, it's fun to run through a level and clear obstacles and figure out puzzles. But saving people who died, either by them flying up to you frantically or dropping a standee at the right place? That's a dopamine hit. Using the limited communication available (including standees) to help people solve those puzzles? Also very satisfying. Fulfilling even. I think the rare levels where you ran around looking for Wonder coins or whatever are some of the best show of the online gameplay.

It was probably more common back when the game was launched, but one day that I was playing I saved someone who had died, and they pretty much followed me through the rest of the level. Towards the end, I saved another person, though they went back (intentionally or otherwise). So I waited for them. And the first person I saved waited with me. And once the second person caught back up we all hopped on the flagpole together. Which is a thing I'd done before but not intentionally like that.

And then not long after that, in one of those puzzle levels I was able to drop a standee to try to hint at how to solve at one of the puzzles I'd figured out. When I /finally/ figured out where the final coin was I spammed the shout communication and got at least two more people to figure out where it was who I had also seen running around the level for a while. Which isn't even to mention the help that /I/ got while playing.

My point being fuck capitalism and the forces that be for pushing us to be competitive with each other when we should be working together to live life.

Anyway, I was kind of surprised because the badges I saw talked about the most were the parachute hat (which, to be fair, was part of the marketing), the vine grapple, and the one that lets you run on air for a few seconds off the end of a platform. So imagine my surprise when my favorite and most used badge ends up being the Boosting Spin Jump badge. Essentially a double jump badge. One I hadn't even heard about (though to be fair I didn't hear about most of the badges). But then I do love my air time. And this was definitely the most versatile of the jump augmenting badges.

The game wasn't perfect. It was pretty short (a pro or con depending on how you feel). For some reason you could buy duplicate standees? Nintendo why do you love doing this in your games? ...honestly that might be all I can come up with.

Overall a fun, cute game. Worth playing if you get the chance.