#it gives two people trying to make up vibes

[chasedeys]

I always find it funny how different Ja’marr and Joe’s aesthetics are (edgy vs psychedelic like you said) given how different their personalities are

like Ja’marr is human sunshine while Joe has very serious black cat energy (unless he’s with certain people but what do I knoooww 🤔)

they truly dooooo have differing aesthetics oughguhguhh like they both love their bright colorful statement pieces to death they just go on about it their own way like i said yeah ja'marr pairs them with dark and edgy while joe goes for downright psychedelic 😭

ja'marr loves his diamonds and blings while joe wears them too but kind of bc its kind of expected of him??? (?? i don't actually know for sure the particular lore of his blings tbh lol but its giving those vibes. kind of expected him to be a grossly expensive charms necklace kind of guy. the recent colorful (?) one is definitely his vibes tho). ja'marr's entire thing with the fleur de lis vs joe's entire thing with his sentimental wristbands. and then their styles just start bleeding into each others oughgughguhh (well ja'marr's to joe lol clearly the better style between the two and also. clothes saga. ehem)

bright sunshine ja'marr 😔🫶🫶 but also specifically he’s THE golden hour moment you know that setting sun brilliance growing darker by the minute bc he’s very free with his laughter and smiles and jolly and happy-go-lucky (joes own choice of word btw crazy) but he also has extremely petty layers like the competency thing, the i won’t trade jerseys if you talked shit thing, the write my name right thing, the whole beef he has with an entire nfl team thing etc etc

ALSO if i could make some cat dog comparisons lol:

ja'marr's giving golden retriever sure but he’s more of a german shepherd to me but specifically the ones with extreme case of soulful puppy dog eyes and whines to be petted and shamelessly thinks he's a lap dog and rips all his toys within weeks and refuses to wear plain collars and leashes and enjoys walks to the park where he gets to run around with all the dogs in the park within the first few seconds of arriving but also stays loyally by your side growling at strangers getting too close to you and also refuses to sleep anywhere but on your bed by your feet and there's times when you sit on your toilet seat trying to take a shit only to nearly die with your pants down bc he just slammed open the bathroom door and sat his ass down right in front of you staring at you taking a shit.

joe's definitelyyyy black cat but particularly those black cats that shows affection on his own terms one minute you’re having a heart attack bc he appeared out of nowhere rubbing on your ankles and purring when you scrub between his ears only to freak out the next minute because he’s disappeared literally to thin air only for him to meow balefully from inside the kitchen cabinets bc you’re too loud and frantic while he’s trying to have his lone time but also incredibly loyal when your family and friends come by he’s nowhere to be found but when you have weird strangers over he sticks by your side hackles raised hissing at them and he also has moments of silliness where you look up and he’s contorted himself to an eldritch horror shape just staring at you in the middle of the dark and it's just because he wants the spot your sitting on.

combine them 🫶 and you come home to black cat peacefully napping on top of a panting german shepherd's head while your couch pillows are obliterated to shreds and stuffing all over the place and there’s kitty claw marks all over the coffee table.

[imgoddamnpluckyremember]

observations/theories i've made while working on an agatha all along fanfic that is basically the show but...more

[*flipping through notes*]

in episode 5 when they're playing with the Ouija board and Evanora starts berserking, Rio says "I hate ghosts." [*stares directly into the camera*]

i have a theory that rio must give off some sorta...vibe? sensation? to whomever she's standing in proximity to. i suspect it's a sudden coldness, which explains why agatha always seems to know she's around.

i don't think agatha lies. ever. she's not very forthcoming, but just because she doesn't show her full hand doesn't make her a liar. she keeps her cards close to her chest.

they never explore this, but i think the only reason why agatha ever got her hands on the darkhold was to resurrect nicky, or failing that, a spell to defeat death. i think they've been enemies for a while and agatha has used murder as a ruse to distract rio from her ultimate plan which was to get the darkhold. attempting to end rio's existence would be a damn good motive for her to be so angry. and also sometimes you just can't get over your ex, even when you're bad for each other.

nicky was a disruption in the natural order of things. he was "planted" by rio, this pissed a few people off, and she was just gonna take him back until agatha begged her for time. so she agreed. but not without huge personal sacrifice.

listen, i know agatha had billy and tommy in a chokehold at one point in wandavision, but i think that was all darkhold. i don't think agatha would've even made ralph hurt sparky if she knew the kids would be devastated.

another bit from wandavision: billy and tommy are at her house on the couch and billy is petting the rabbit when agatha asks "penny for your thoughts?" billy says he likes it there at her house because it's quiet. because she's quiet. which begs the question: if she liked the kid and he felt content with her, why couldn't billy hear her thoughts?

my other theory is that before wanda's spell was broken, agatha cast the boys out to keep them safe. she is why billy got to inhabit another body. she knows a thing or two about hurting and losing your children. she would've known it would eat wanda alive to think she hurt them or lost them forever.

agatha and loki found each other on the titanic, got absolutely trashed, and spent the rest of the night trying to one-up each other to see who could be the most chaotic, just to liven things up. agatha won.

[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

Okay I want to hear your thoughts on sapnap and mcc bc oh boy that sounds interesting

No because, genuinely there are old clips of people laughing when they bring him up because they know he's popular but they don't want to see anything bad about him. Like you can barely tell it's chuckle.

As you may know originally teams were categorised based on 2 factors. Vibes. And if they could go a long period of time without swearing or not.

In the Skizz and Imp podcast, Scott laments about how it was so hard to categorize people who could not go an extended period of time with swearing in their stream and with people who could not stop swearing.

And there is more people who are PG/ can go a long time without swearing, then non-pg people, the podcast was recorded roughly a bit before the sapnap drama with MCC but it was still bubbling.

I need you to go back and watch that podcast because even if they were clear examples you can still sense who he's talking about, because genuinely sapnap would swear so much but even non-pg people wanted to avoid playing with him. If you go back to watches old MCC wins you can hear the nervous chuckles of people when he begin to swear.

Additionally one time they were trying out a new system on MCC and a lot of people were aware of that and it came out that the math was wrong and two teams should have got first place instead of just one because of the math, and One team was willing to just relent a bit and at the end of the day walk away. But Sapnap on his own had caused such a fuss that they still had to give him a coin and had to let him compete in DodgeBolt, and how to get a crown for him post his picture saying that he won along with his team. I cannot describe to you the absolute tantrum that man went on. Over a coin. He was so disrespectful that he didn't come back for a couple mccs after.

There is a genuine reason why a collective group of people do not want him to compete in MCC.

And you're probably wondering why did he compete in the MCC recently? Because before the main deal of him being signed to kick.com he had already signed the application and had been accepted to do MCC. The same week he came out and said that he was joining kick.com and that a lot of it young viewers should join kick.com

People with begging Scott to remove him, but kick.com just gave that man 20 million and he would definitely find a suitable lawyer to take his case because he earns a substantial amount of money from MCC.

But why would he Sue over MCC? I have a longer post going through this, but I will explain it here to.

Scott couldn't say no. For alot of reasons but here are 2 off the top of my lil head

1. Him not allowing sapnap to compete in MCC after already accepting his application is illegal form of discrimination regarding someone's work. Because he would be discriminating against how he does his work and what he uses to do his work, ( a more clearer example of this would be for someone to reject another person's application because they found out that they were Binman/wasteman, explaining the other people thought it was filthy). In reality

Scott had no basis to withdraw his application and to withdraw his place because most arguments (which are true), had came from social media and it could be argued that the people on social media influence Scott to make that decision and therefore sapnap could have lost a large portion of revenue as a self-employed person that MCC and Scott would have had to repay him based on statistics.

Again I have a longer post going through the law on this but I fact checked everything, and he would genuinely have a legal basis to sue them for discrimination.

And Scott had to take all the stray bullets for that. Because in the UK you have to consent to a formal document being shared with someone else. And even though this is an application for a game it's still an application. So he couldn't share the content of the application because it's illegal here.

Also in the podcast Scott mentions him having a waiting list and then bring this up the applications and you brings up a rough idea of when they application started, and you could actually guess when the applications started From when sapnap started turning up less frequently. Meaning that he was one of the many reasons why the application was made in the first place.

2. Publicity. Sapnap brought a lot of viewers to can watch MCC and it's argued that if Dream and George were there but Sapnap was not there, the pair would not participate regardless of what team they were on because their friends. (BBH actually brings up how close their friendship is when he was defending dream against one of his many allegations and you can tell how close the friend group is. An in Sapnap's Defense of dream he literally goes on about how close they are and in the deleted vod he said wherever he goes I go).

But getting back on track, at the time without the large audience that MCC had it would have not been as sustainable as it is today. They definitely contributed to the success in the early days along with others as it will seen as a new form of Minecraft Monday.

He also raged pretty hard when in MCC 14 Scott's team won after giving hints to his teamate, to win ace race. To which half of his team didn't even finish. And they actually placed lower than top 3 in that event. Scott goes on to say about how he and other had tested it, they were giving instructions and Sapnap did actually finish.

But he was so mad that Scott team had won at a game that EVERYONE was objectively bad at that thiers a 15 minutes video of him screaming about it in Youtube.

Scott later went on to say him and many others who did finish also tested the map, and he always give hints to his team, AND SAPNAP HAD WON AN EVENT WITH SCOTT'S HELP AND USING SCOTT'S HINTS. It's only when he didn't win he had a problem with it.

Sapnap cried when he didn't win, and blame everyone about it yet shot up his ego when he did.

And admittedly he did get better as time went on but dude needs a whole ass team fr-

Are realistically you couldn't call the two of them friends they were more, a friend of a friend. And even if Scott didn't like them objectively over people like them and that's why they were there.

Sapnap but did not come back after the kick.com incident and I doubt he will.

And on that notion a lot of streamers have younger audiences ranging from children to teenagers to young adults. While kick.com is a primarily adult site, not completely adults but you're gonna see some weird things. The majority of streamers who participate in MCC, obviously are going to be put into teams. And if you were put into a team with Sapnap, who was streaming on kick.com, you might think to yourself "wow he'd fun ill check him out!" then boom pedo in your Dms.

For many streamers involved in the event he was not ideal to keep around because realistically he was endangering of a people's audiences while pumping out publicity from his own.

It was not fair to other streamers that their young audiences could we expose to an objectively talented person streaming on one of the worst sites known, and he signed this deal back when kick.com has no moderation, so imagine all the convicted sex offenders, criminals and gambling on the site, then in an attempt to get a younger demographic onto the side it paid Sapnap using the money that they gained from gambling to effectively switch over ( because, and Tubbo did a stream on this and summarized it accurately, because he had a couple conversations with this CEO and for money. Not for the audience).

Meaning that everyone is immediate circle who wanted to continue to watch his content or learn who he was through major events like MCC would download the app and then over your targeted by a lot of older people.

And actually this was the basis that allowed Scott to never bring him back but Scott could not get rid of him for the MCC because it would be legally discrimination.

There are a bunch of things too that I could say about how at the start the only people he would team with would be mostly from the dream SMP and how that directly correlates with how people described him in person, ( trying to control and dominate people), and how people like Niki were too scared to say no at the time, but it be a bit late my dude

The takeaway from this is that he was MCC Problem Child and that Scott couldn't immediately kick him out due to discrimination despite reassurance that he changed his behavior only to immediately sign to kick.com. How he'd endangered both his young audiences and other if he actually stayed. How we used to scream and yell at every one of his mistakes to the point where people didn't want to compete with him. How he would target people who faulted him within the game. And even how he practiced the game so much to the point where they had to make new maps and that if he would lose it would genuinely be down to his team and not him as a player because he had practiced so much meaning that his team felt worse after they didn't win because they knew it was their fault instead of just being happy to play the game ( like you remember when they blew up parkour warrior and replaced it with a new map because of them)

He was just realistically a mess and I'm surprised they tolerated him so long, because the amount of money they have to drop on changing things because the Dream Team had paid someone to recreate some of the maps so that they could practice, and then other people started doing that in which they would memorize a certain game practice that game and then come out on top ( an example of this would be technoblade, who memorised all materials needed for BuildMart and they had to change it and he was basically told that he couldn't do that and he was actually sorry because he didn't know because other people like we're doing it. And again with Technoblade killing people in Bingo to which in the Stream he says he didn't know that you could kill people in Bingo and once people figured it out that would be the strategy until they changed it. Philza practicing ace race maps as he had someone build an almost identical copy of the original because other people were doing it. Wil and other, trying to perfect The Glitch block technique and that's one point someone had commissioned another person to remake the map to see where it was going wrong so that they could utilize the bug instead of playing the game). All these things have in common that they were all in the same server at one point and that the dream team had started this trend but all of them stop doing it when they were told to stop doing it but the Dream Team didn't to the point where even Sands of Time had to be changed, parkour warrior, sky battle, battle box, parkour tag and TGTTOS had to be changed, and they actually sparked the "maybe we should have different maps" trend

Because it was a poorly hidden secret that they'd paid people to re-create maps so that they could practice. (but Scott giving hints is cheating he says while paying someone to remake parkour tag so that they can get a perfect run)

[plspush]

Caleb loves everything Halloween, that much is very well known. A lesser known fact is that he has a deep fondness for Christmas. Maybe it's the obvious connection between the two holidays, or maybe it's because most of his wardrobe is cozy and/or winter coded. It's mid November and the wind has begun whipping icily through the primarily bare trees, the sun departs at 5pm, and Caleb's due in just a few short weeks. He knows there's no way he's making it to Christmas with his bun still in the oven. He already feels heavy and sore - practice contractions have been making unwelcome appearances the last couple of days. He knows he has to get all of his December activities out of the way now. He can't go get festive cocktails with Aiden and their friends - he'd feel so bummed to just sit at the bar, uncomfy and so, so pregnant, no fun bevvy in hand - so he and the crew are instead opting to hit up the holiday markets, which luckily opened up at the start start of the month. Jax has taken to protecting the precious bump from the crowds, Maiya has been scoping out all the cute holiday baby merch, and Aiden has been tasked with finding Caleb a hot chocolate that can give him the same vibe as the strong, black, caffeinated hot coffee he's been craving his whole pregnancy. A pretty tall order he isn't sure he can fill. Caleb has been taking in his last few moments with this big round belly, and the last days of the group headcount being four. He smells gingerbread and coffee and hot apple cider, he hears his friends’ laughter among the sleigh bells, and he feels completely full and content for maybe the first time ever. His found family is just so close to becoming a full-fledged family. Maybe pulling through his rough start at life was worth it after all. He’s scared; he had never anticipated becoming a parent, much less giving birth himself. The way his people came through for him though, supported him, made him feel capable. The fact that he has three people willing to do all the Christmas stuff a month early and drag his sore, round, pregnant self around while trying to make everything nice for him and everything go his way… It’s just more than he could have asked for. He’s feeling a solid future ahead of him, when just a few years ago he believed he’d be better off not in this world. He feels community. He /found/ a non-caffeinated, strong hot chocolate that gives him coffee vibes, and it even has sprinkles. He’s okay.

[redeemed-wren]

I'm only halfway through it, will finish it...later. but my biggest gripe so far with Troy (2004) is how much they are butchering Menelaus. And not just by mispronouncing his name. He's portrayed as a cruel brute and I'm like bro. He does not deserve this treatment 😔

I understand some changes due to cultural shift and the nature of a different medium but. Why'd you gotta do Menelaus like that?

[justalittlebluetiefling]

I went by the dance team's practice today (I was invited by the coach, I'm not THAT weirdo) and when the senior captain saw me she fully burst into tears so I also cried.

I miss these kids a lot.

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

I did something completely out of my comfort zone and I lived!

[b0nelessdoodles]

the rest of my wilfree doodles this time more sad 'cause i'm uh

[mushroom-for-art]

My mew oc Mud recently kind of redesigned by @lotusmew thank you I adore hims this is his new look (just credit where credit is due) meeting @phlurrii 's lovely ancient mew Meau

It was pleasantly cool under the treeline but still distinctly warm, the ancient mew roamed in search of berries to nibble upon, modern fruits didn't explode with an array of flavors like they used to having evolved to be mostly just one, but collecting enough and taking quick bites of all of them nearly replicated the same taste.

They glided effortlessly around a large tree with vines beginning to crawl up along the trunk half wondering if they should perhaps pull the vines off if the plant was parasitic in nature..

Meau pondered before their attention was brought to the sudden awareness of a psychic pattern, they stopped suddenly staring upon the, creature in front of them. It could have been some previously unseen psychic Marowak variant were the skull it wore clearly not its own, it smelt of houndoom smoke and dirt as it dropped some psychic held berries in shock at seeing her. She blinked quickly at them confused before their ears went back and a low but deep growl rumbled in the back of the others throat.

Meau quickly felt a snarl growing from her own throat in response to the aggression her own ears going back in response, the others hands bent in claw like emphasis held out in threat and Meaus own paws sharpened ready to strike if necessary. Both parties snarled growling and hissing digits flexing in emphasis, Meaus fur puffed out and the others hackles raised.

They continued to growl, muscles tensing ends of tails flicking in agitation, ready to see who struck first, leaves russeled with patches of light passing through gaps in the treeline as-

"mmmhhyyyaaa"

Meau quietened as her ears flicked upright at the quiet sound, a yawn, a kitten yawn for sure, the others hands relaxed slowly as they too stopped growling. Tiny blue ears popped out from the side of the others body as Meau stared in wonder, a mew kit poked their head out to look blinking large pink eyes at her and making a soft mewing as they crawled around from where they must have been clinging to this others back. A purple muddy paw caught the kitten as they attempted to float forward gently stopping and pulling them back holding the kitten to their chest, a second set of mews began.

Meau leaned her body to the side to look without approaching as the purple other twisted slightly to reach their long arm around their back to scoop and hold a second kitten, darker blue in color with bits of yellow with more curly fur. This one seemed less curious of her burying their face into the fluff on the others chest as they mewed, they leant their head down and chirped making various soothing kitten calls to comfort the youngling, Meau recalled herself making such sound when her own child was born.

The other regarded Meau again before they slowly turned, the berries lifted by psychic energy once more, Meau watched their tail unwrap from around boney protrusions along their spine stretching out into a significantly longer tail and tilted her head as she regarded them again. They didn't notice, looking over their shoulder and gave a warning growl that clearly meant not to follow as they flew away quickly.

Meau blinked after them in pause.

She pondered.

And she followed.

——————————————

None mask version cause god dammit I drew a good face I wanna use it

[potter-inthe-tardis]

Hi, you seem like I can trust your opinion. I am looking for TV show recommendations and I need shows that are either a) actually good, or b) at least entertaining without too much second hand embarrassment. Help me chef

Oh I love this question

1. The Bear, my recommendation of this is mostly inspired by you saying "help me chef", but its also really good (and critically acclaimed if you care about those things). It's pretty popular at the moment so if you haven't seen it already, you've probably at least heard of it. Its a dramedy (like 60/40 drama/comedy), about a chef taking over his brothers restaurant after they (the show has some potentially triggering content so look into that if you have to before watching) killed themself, and if follows the ups and downs that come with that.

2. The Other Two, its a comedy about an older brother and sister, to a teen boy who's become like a teenage Justin Bieber over night celebrity. And it follows how the older siblings handle it/try to exploit their younger brothers new fame. I think its a really good satire of the entertainment industry.

3. Taskmaster, this show, just trust me, its really entertaining, I'd say the show its most similar to is Whose Line Is It Anyway, as its comedians doing silly things, but its also not like it that much, its really its totally own thing, again trust me! It's very funny, it may take a couple episodes to really get the gist of the show but its so worth it. Also there is i think 17 seasons of it all on youtube for free so lots to catch up on!

4. Severance, its a dystopian drama about a guy whos consciousness has been split between his work and home life, so when he's at work he has no memory of life outside of work and vice versa. And each side of his consciousness is slowly trying to piece together what's going on on the other side. It's a really interesting show, if you like the show Black Mirror, you'll probably like this!

I hope you like/check out some or all of these! Feel free to message me back thoughts on these shows, or even ask for more recs!

[bendgineer]

I think one of the reasons the Harris / Walz ticket has so much momentum is because the campaign is genuinely trying to put out this vibe of fun. Like that's all the "brat" thing is, the coconut jokes, just being kind of silly and fun.

And I think it's working, because let's be real, we are all exhausted. It's been all about preserving democracy, defeating fascism, the past eight years. The message has been "vote for us because the country is literally on the line". The vibes are not good when we are stuck back at that fight, and not even discussing trying to make progress on things like housing, healthcare, education, etc. And the fight to just stop fascism? All still true. Project 2025 is real and is extremely scary. We can't let that man back into office.

But the vibe was "vote for us otherwise we're all fucked :(" and now has shifted to "get in, we're making popcorn and then bullying fascists." Like a lot of the issues conservatives bring up, the Harris / Walz is just not engaging them in good faith, as they shouldn't. Republicans bring up abortion, and the Dems are just like, "you want 14 year old to give birth? Weirdo" and just leave it at that. Like YES, that's what you should do. Because it SHOULDNT be a debate. And it's working. This is how you defeat the identify politics thing Republicans have been trying to push for a while. Just mocking them for the stupidity of it all. "Like seriously? You think a book can make someone gay??? Hahaha." None of the Republicans are reacting well. They can't stand it. Vance even complained about bullying!!! Like do you KNOW who picked you as vp??? It's actually laughable, because they have no room to stand on when it comes to bullying.

And a huge part of the mocking and dismissing of Republicans is that the message is clear - were done debating all this stupid stuff. We've won the last two elections' popular vote - most Americans do NOT want christo-facism. It's time to move on. And that's what gives me hope, and the feeling of hope I think a lot of people have picked up on. It's time to address all the issues we've all wished we've been addressing the past decade. It's important we move onto that, and that's the message I'm getting from this campaign (We're not going back). I think it will resonate with a lot of people, because plainly, we're all just sick of this same old news cycle and fake rage bait over things like "should women have rights?", "Should gay people be allowed to exist?" The general populace have answered YES to both these multiple times, and it is time to move on. Maybe I'm being naive, but I am genuinely excited at the idea of putting to bed these debates (it's exhausting trying to fend your very existence) and moving on to actual economic and social policies that could fix a lot of deterioration over the last 2 decades.

[weezerlvr228]

It's giving the...main character syndrome. like who tf does she think she is??? Y/N???

NO OH MY GOSH ANON. LET ME TELL YOU. LET ME FRIGGIN TELL YOU.

[lilgynt]

why was my emo night so fuckin much.

[femonologue]

Many years ago, I was wandering around downtown Ottawa with my best friend. We ran into a friend of his who offered us some hash (it sucked), then said there was a really good house party nearby if we wanted to go. We were like, yeah, sure. So that's how we ended up at some completely fucking random person's house.

I look around to ask if my friend knows anyone here and he's simply gone, as is his friend. And this isn't some red solo cup hangout; this is a party. There's people counting out pills on the kitchen counter. I am clearly neither as cool nor as drug-savvy as the kitchen people, so I back away and instead wander aimlessly into the living room, which seems to give off more of a chill vibe.

A bunch of people are seated in a circle on the floor. One of them is fiddling with a big wad of newspaper or something. A really cute grunge girl with piercings and tattoos scoots aside to make room for me, so I sit down.

"What's that," I ask her, gesturing at the newspaper wad.

She gets a really big smile on her face. You know the smile. It's the I'm About To Watch This Innocent Soul Get High As Fuck smile. "You've never smoked a tulip?"

"What's a tulip?" I ask.

"It's like if a joint was also a bong," she replies. "You gotta try it."

"Alright," I reply, a little uncertainly. This will not be my first encounter with weed. I am more comfortable with the janky newspaper bong than I am with whatever the fuck is going on in the kitchen. Besides, this girl is really cute and I would like to have a friend here now that my existing friend has turned into vapor or been transported to the Upside-Down or whatever the hell happened to him.

I watch as one person holds the newspaper joint-bong upright and holds a lighter over the top while another gets beneath it, tilting their head back to take a puff. Apparently smoking this Cheech & Chong monstrosity is a two-person job.

"Oh," I say, looking at the fist-sized knob at the top of the wonky newspaper joint. "Yeah, it does kinda look like a tulip." Grunge girl smiles at me.

I watch as the tulip is passed around the circle, along with the lighter, and hits are cooperatively taken. It reaches grunge girl, who takes a huge puff and holds it for an extended moment before exhaling an impressive blast of smoke. She smiles expectantly and holds the tulip up for me, preparing to spark the gigantic meteor of dank that makes up its tip. By this point I have completely forgotten about my missing friend. I only care about making a good impression on grunge girl. I tilt my head back and hit the tulip like a smokestack.

It is the following morning. I am sleeping between a couch and a wall. I'm not positive that this is the same house I was just in. My memories are gone. Someone is yelling at me: "dude! Dude! Wake up, dude!"

I sit up. My mouth tastes like cigarettes. I do not smoke cigarettes. "Wha," I ask the yelling man, who I am quite confident I have never met before in my life.

"We're going on a quest," he tells me, gravely. "You have to come with us."

I look around. Neither my friend nor his friend are anywhere in sight. I also do not see grunge girl anywhere. I shrug helplessly. "Okay."

We embark from this house. I learn that the destination of this quest is Tim Horton's. This is a relief to me, as coffee and a donut sounds really fucking good right now. Somehow, the route to Tim Horton's takes us past the Governor-General's residence, which everyone else in the group loudly heckles on the way past. I do not know what the Governor-General has done to raise their ire, nor do I particularly care. I trudge along with my hands in my pockets, pleased to note that I still have my wallet, phone, and keys. I fervently wish that I could remember anything about last night. Maybe I talked to grunge girl. Maybe she's why my mouth tastes like cigarettes. The tulip tasted nothing like cigarettes.

I am asked about my politics. I voice my frustrations with corporate corruption, the pay-to-win electoral system, the lack of transparency and accountability. This is met with great approval. The guy who was yelling at me claps me on the back. I get the impression that we became friends last night. I don't recognize his face. I do not know his name and he definitely does not know mine. I behave as though we're friends anyway. We are comrades on a quest.

By the time we make it to Tim Hortons, the gaggle of stoners I'm walking with have all run out of energy and/or attention span. People order snacks and break away in pairs or solo, to call for rides or plan the day's events or just vegetate and wait for the drugs to leave their systems. I look around and find that my nameless friend has also gone to the Upside-Down. As I wash the cigarette taste out of my mouth with coffee, I unsuccessfully try to remember whether I saw grunge girl smoking tobacco at any point. I remember nothing. That tulip was so fucking powerful that it instantly sent me a whole day forward in time.

Alone in the city, I try to call my best friend and get no answer. I walk to the nearest bus stop, catch a bus most of the way home, and call up my parents to ask for a ride back. They ask where my friend is. I tell them that I have no idea; we went to a house party and I don't remember anything else.

When they pick me up from the bus station, they ask me some very safe, nonspecific questions, and seem to relax when I describe what little I can remember. It isn't until years later that I realize they were probably terrified I'd gotten rufied or something, and were so relieved to learn otherwise that they didn't even bother chiding me for smoking myself unconscious in an effort to impress a strange woman. In any case, they were probably happy to find out that I did, in fact, like girls; I suspect they had been privately wondering whether I was gay.

After getting home, I finally manage to get my best friend to answer his phone. I discover that he tried the kitchen pills, spent most of the night crossing the entire city on foot, and crashed at his cousin's house. He sounds like shit. I tell him that he should have tried the tulip, instead. He fervently agrees with me.

I never see grunge girl again.

That's okay, though. She got to see a clueless stranger get fucked the entire way up on some ungodly strain of giga-weed, and I got smiled at by a cute girl, and then I got to go on a quest. Wherever grunge girl is, I hope she's happy. I hope she's smoking the fattest fucking blunt and smiling as some kid passes out behind a couch.

[alexanderwales]

"I don't think I could have the relationship with you that you have with me," she said. She was very casual about it, and I was immediately on the defensive.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

She put the book she'd been reading down. "It's just, the way you've described it, and the vibe that I get, I don't think I could do it how you do it."

"I still don't know what that means," I said.

"You're always doing this like ... micro calculation thing," she said. "You weigh your words. You try to time things. You have never once called me up while I was at work, or asked me for something when it was inconvenient for me, and you check and double check that you're not being a nuisance."

"And ... that's bad?" I asked.

"No, I love that about you," she said. "It's very kind and considerate. I know that if I tell you I'm not in the mood to hang out, you'll apologize and not push it. If you suggest that we get pizza and I say I'd rather have Korean BBQ, you fold instantly and we get Korean BBQ. I like that. I get the things I want. But it seems like an exhausting way to deal with people."

"I want you to be happy," I said with a small voice.

"I am happy," she replied. "You're great. You remember when we first got together I was like 'hey, look, if you want pizza, we can get pizza, it's just not what I'm in the mood for', and you kept insisting that you didn't care, that you would rather have me follow my needs? And I just thought, 'you know, maybe I should just trust that's what they actually feel'. And it is, as far as I can tell. There's not some secret part of you that wants me to break your way."

"You think I'm ... a simpering coward?" I asked. Even as I said it, it felt too accusatory, the wrong thing to say in the situation.

"Whoa, no, not at all," she laughed. "I think you do all that stuff because ... I don't know, you want to? Because otherwise why would you do it? It's how you are with every aspect of your life, you're a tryhard. I mean you said to me that you wanted to reclaim the term. Your relationship with me is that you're a tryhard (affectionate)."

"And you're ... not?" I asked.

"I'm not that way with anyone," she replied. "You know why I hang out with you so much? It's 'cause I like you. Most days, I am very much in the mood for you, and if you ask for a meetup, I'll say yes, and if you don't ask for one, then I'll ask you first. And for you ..."

"What?" I asked.

"It's like ... you're keeping track," she said. "You want to make sure that you're not sending me more messages than I'm sending you. You're balancing social micro stuff that I don't pay attention to. You're consciously monitoring how much each of us has said and making sure it's the right number of words or whatever."

"It's really not about the number of words," I replied. "It's more ... making sure that social and emotional labor is equitable, that there's a good rhythm to the conversation. I don't think you'd get good results by tracking word count."

"But see, I don't do any of that," she said. "I talk because I feel like talking. I listen when you need to vent because I like you and it feels good to give you an outlet. I mean you are undoubtedly putting in a bunch of work, and for me, there's no work. That's all I meant, really."

"You've thought about it," I said.

"Oh, I'm just reading this book, and there are two characters like us in it, and I was like 'yes, exactly', and then 'that would not work for me'." She shrugged.

"And if I stopped 'putting in the work'?" I asked. "Would we still be ... friends?"

"See, I don't know," she said. "Because that's never who you've been. You're asking me if I would still be friends with you if you changed your personality and how we interact with each other. Maybe? Probably? Who knows? Maybe we'd be better friends somehow. Maybe we're just two basically compatible people, and every time you've ever worried about anything it would actually have been completely fine."

"Or maybe it's load-bearing," I said.

"Maybe!" she replied with a smile that slowly faded. "You okay?"

"I'm thinking," I said. I didn't know if I could verbalize what I was thinking in a way that would be palatable.

"Do you not like being this way with me?" she asked. "Because I have never asked you to. I've made my preferences known, but if you've been bending yourself into knots and feeling a burden, then ..."

"No," I said, because I knew it was what she wanted to hear. "No, I like the way things are between us."

"Good," she smiled. "I do too."

[curiositypolling]

okay gang we fucked up the first one. take two

*since apparently a few people were confused last time, try to make the percentage of the vote match the percentage of the option, if that makes sense

once again:

PLEASE DO NOT TELL PEOPLE PERCENTAGES OR GIVE ANY HINTS IN THE NOTES

also, for everyone saying to roll dice or do math etc, while that would work it does go against the Vibes of the poll, which are to do this based on guesswork and how you think Others are going to vote

pls reblog for sample size