#maybe i am going insane. just a little bit

[kaelidascope]

On one hand, I'm relieved to see that it isn't just me suffering in the engagement department whereas I used to get flooded with comments and the like every time I dropped something. It isn't the only reason why I've moved from fanfic work to original work, but it is part of it. The last round of engagement on the latest MM chapter was abysmal, and while I know it's not a reflection of my quality in writing, I kept beating myself up over the possibility that I took too long to update it and people gave up on it/forgot/fell out of love with my work because I as a creator was not performing good enough. It drove me into a bit of a depression for a while.

On the other hand, this is making me rethink my stance on never telling my favorite authors how much they have inspired me to take off with my writing career. This is going to get a little lengthy but I want to talk about it so bear with me here.

Closed circles know how much of an insane, unhinged fan I am of certain writers, yet I have never actually said a word to them. I think I left one comment on maybe two fics that went unanswered (which is fine. They're not active in the fandoms I'm in anymore and I'm just some guy out of probably hundreds all saying the same thing. They're not gonna reply to me) but apart from that, you wouldn't catch me dead actually admitting how much the works mean to me. But why?

I guess I was far too proud and too terrified of being let down if I exposed myself like that. Despite the fact that these authors were literal catalysts for borderline impossible feats I have done within the last year, WELL RECEIVED FEATS at that, I swore I'd never tell anyone how inspiring they were for me. (Unless a casual friendship has been established. I have had the tremendous honor to able to talk to some of my inspirations one on one but under incredibly lucky circumstances)

I had a scenario in my head that these were the cool kids, and if you ever got picked on at all for admiring anything, you know damn well you never tell the cool kids about your admiration. I was afraid that they'd take one look at the work that was inspired by theirs and laugh at it in their enclosed circles. I wasn't going to risk having my confidence crushed and lose the motivation to continue working on my projects by being a fan.

I know not all authors do this. Every time someone comes to me and tells me I've inspired them to be a better writer, I literally frame it in a collection of screenshots I have saved on a hard drive. Every. Single. Time. And I know anyone else would tell me that if the person I admire would actually be cruel enough to mock an up and coming writer, then they're not worth admiring. Which I agree with! But try telling that to sensitive little Kaeli that safeguards their interests with the fiery defensiveness of a feral bear on cocaine.

But then I see posts like this, and I put myself in their shoes. I don't know them. They could be a jackass but they could also be like me - someone who bases a lot of motivation for project completion based off of whether or not people even care to see it completed.

This is all a very long, round about away to say that who cares if the author you build a mini-shrine for in your brain thinks your cringe for liking their work? Odds are they probably need to hear that you liked it so much, it inspired you to do something with that feeling. We all need to hear it. They inspired you and now you're making something that will inspire someone else. To be a creator is to share that passion everywhere you go. There's nothing cringe about it.

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

how about A Gordon and Edward Analysis

Ooh yes… the OG dynamic! The first one, the foundation for everything!

(Unless you count “Edward and railwaymen”... or “Edward and coaches”... which, to be fair, I do…) 

These two are insane (affectionate). Hot take but this may be the saddest relationship on the N.W.R.?* They’re my two bestest boys but, man. Their dynamic is fucked. Edward and James are nothing compared to this. Gordon and Henry are healthy, relatively. 

tl;dr: They need couples counseling. 

Jobey, aren't you being a little dramatic? 

Am I? Take my hand. Let's do a close read… 

* This is going to focus on RWS (not tv series). Right now and for the rest of this post, I’m going to be talking strictly from the Wilbert books (and, thus, analyzing their relationship from the ‘20s to the ‘60s only) unless I specify otherwise 

Part 1 (this post): Gordon, what's your damage? 😭 / The Doylist Reason / Rent. Free. 

Post 2 (upcoming post, link later): Edward's Defences / Gordon's Growth

Post 3 (upcoming post, link later): Collision / Uh… Cleanup Crew?

tagging @weirdowithaquill because you asked for Edward+James and i wound up folding in most of what i have to say about them into this analysis 😅 in RWS they're a good foil for understanding Edward+Gordon

Gordon, what's your damage? 😭

There is a strong drive, right here on ttteblr, to portray how despite some notorious conflicts these two are canonically old friends. Also that maybe Gordon’s bad behavior is not so bad. 

That is a valid mission, indeed I flatter myself that I had some influence steering us down this road a few years back, however sometimes I think we're in danger of forgetting how often Gordon really has just been like… This: 

"You watch me this afternoon, little Edward," he boasted, "as I rush through with the Express; that will be a splendid sight for you." (1923) 

“I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!” he said proudly, and forgot all about Edward pushing behind. He didn’t wait to say “Thank you”... (1923) 

Edward puffed and pulled, and pulled and puffed, but he couldn’t move the heavy coaches. / “I told you so,” said Gordon rudely. (1923) 

So Edward found coaches for the three engines, and that day the trains ran as usual. / But when The Fat Controller came the next morning, Edward looked unhappy. / Gordon came clanking past, hissing rudely. “Bless me!” said The Fat Controller. “What a noise!” (1926-1934) *

When Gordon and Henry heard about the accident, they laughed and boasted. “Fancy allowing cows to break his train! They wouldn’t dare do that to us. We’d show them!” they boasted. (1952) 

“The Fat Controller would never approve,” said Gordon loftily. “Branch Lines are vulgar.” (1965) 

Edward scolded the twins severely, but told Gordon it served him right. Gordon was furious. / A few days later, some Enthusiasts came. On their last afternoon they went to the China Clay Works. / Edward found it hard to start the heavy train… / “Just pathetic,” grunted Gordon. “He should give up and be Preserved before it’s too late.” (1965) ** 

I am sportingly not even saddling Gordon with the blame for the line "Driver won't choose you again. He wants strong engines like us." (In TTRE, this is said by the collective of big engines – although the illustrations do clearly point a finger at Gordon. Still, like I said, I'm going to be sporting. The pictures aren't canon.) Also note that in RWS Gordon doesn't say "No use at all" when he learns Edward has come to push his train; that whole bit of dialogue was something Britt and David cooked up. 

Even being as generous as possible, this still leaves us with… seven. Seven instances of Gordon taking a shot at Edward. 

That’s actually quite a… lot? 

I mean, not necessarily if we were racking up all the complaints, ranging from major to miniscule, that you’d have about someone you’d lived and worked with for over 40 years, lol. 

But we shouldn’t actually be expecting a complete inventory at all. RWS books are minimalist on detail. There's just so much less in 'em than the sprawling TVS with its 24 full series, lol. And let’s focus here on just the Wilbert canon, since that’s where all these examples of Gordon being rude to Edward come from. Seven times, in 26 books. For context, the number of times Thomas teases Gordon in this same corpus is… three. Three times. Thomas cheeking Gordon. Also kind of a fundamental dynamic. THRICE! 

Passengers saying What a Bad Railway It Was… two. Number of times Thomas and Percy squabble… three. Number of accidents that Percy gets into (and this includes the piddling stuff, like crashing into that wagon of flour that was left on the rails)… five. Reflect on that for a moment: Gordon is a dick to Edward in canon more often than Percy's had an accident. That's crazy. Indeed, there are plenty of RWS characters who are canonically friends or who shed together who don't even get to have seven shared moments. It's actually kind of a fun game, to try to think of any two of them who, like Gordon and Edward, have seven of a specific kind of interaction. Have at it! There has to be something I've missed. 

But I hope it's clear, that by the standards of these books this character dynamic is hit A LOT. You know me, I'm going to go on to contextualize a lot of these seven examples, and I'm going to play Gordon defense attorney to a certain degree, and plead mitigation. But I can't possibly explain away the sheer size of this pile of evidence. This specific dynamic is not meant to be overlooked. It's not meant to be minimized.

This is a big inescapable part of what their relationship is. 

The Doylist Reason

Now, in fairness, the meta reason this dynamic is so pervasive and repeated is that it's The Template. 

“Big braggadocious engine needs help from humble plucky little engine” was trite before The Three Railway Engines was published. This is not a slam; I’m not gonna get on another parent’s case about the story they improvised for their kid because “it relies on cliches.” But it’s just a fact: Edward and Gordon, to begin with, are simply THE foundational cliche of “anthropomorphic train” media. 

One of the reasons the RWS (and the whole subsequent TTTE juggernaut) is so successful is because it features so many creative variations on this template. Most of the relationships are just "okay so one of them is the Gordon, and one of them is the Edward, but this time there's a twist!" (This is how you get Thomas as the big breakout character – because the Thomas and Gordon variation is a lot less cliched, and a lot more fun.)

Just an observation. 

Now, Awdry did keep writing the OGs again and again and again, for a couple'a decades, and he developed them both quite a bit. So by the end of his run we do have a very elaborate Jenga tower built on this template. Loads of fun* to be had yet. So let's jump right back into analyzing this shit in-universe. 

* For certain definitions of fun 😈

Rent. Free.

The first thing I wanted you to note about Gordon’s Edward-directed crimes was that there were a lot of them. 

The second thing I want you to note is that… these are, perhaps, not all so very criminal? 

Some of it is – the group harassment about the strikebreaking and the “Just pathetic!” bit (more on both of those later). But a lot of the rest of it strikes me as more the results of being blunt or un-self-aware or even just plain boisterous than actively choosing to bully anyone. In particular, the early stuff, the Three Railway Engines stuff on which the whole foundation of their relationship is laid… 

"You watch me this afternoon, little Edward," he boasted, "as I rush through with the Express; that will be a splendid sight for you." (1923) 

Condescending. Tone-deaf. Belittling (literally). But… not actually spiteful?

“I’ve done it! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!” he said proudly, and forgot all about Edward pushing behind. He didn’t wait to say “Thank you”... (1923) 

That's not cool, but it's also not… that bad. 

At the point where The Three Railway Engines ends with the claim "all three engines are now great friends," it's like, sure. You can see that. Indeed you can see it much more easily for Gordon and Edward than you could with Gordon and Henry – Gordon's behavior toward the latter (though in a similar vein of "kick a fellow when he's down") was much more extreme, and Henry's behavior was so bizarre that you hardly know what to expect from him next. (What you don't expect is that those two will be joined at the hip for the next thirty years.) By contrast the Edward and Gordon relationship should be kinda easy, the former's really nice so the latter just has to remember some basic manners and they should be okay. Right? 

But that's not how it goes. Partly of course because Gordon has much more out-of-pocket shit in him than he ever displayed in TTRE. But I'm going to set aside some of the more severe tests that Gordon makes of these friendships till later – stuff like punishing Edward for breaking his tender engine strike and "Just pathetic!" (not to mention all the needling of Henry around the Flying Kipper accident). Setting that aside, Gordon's original sin is simply being a dumb, self-centered, out-of-touch rich jock. Yes, he’s consistently “rude,” but usually more in an ignorant, superior, “I cannot be bothered to try not/learn how to prevent myself giving offense” sort of way than an aggressive, malicious “hurting you for fun and profit” sort of way. In contrast to, say, James. Whose behavior really is consistently mean. And who is hurtful on purpose, because he’s having a bad day and tearing someone else down is how he copes. James insults; Gordon (except in those couple of asterisked cases that we’re tabling for later discussion) merely boasts. And it’s really quite interesting to me how Edward seems to have much less problem with the former than with the latter! 

Because he does have a problem with it. We know, because for most of this long list of incidents the source must be… him. 

This is a series where canonically the Author is a human “friend of the railway,” collecting and publishing these stories in order to publicize the railway to the world. This is something that really can’t be forgotten when reading these (indeed, thanks to the “Author’s Note” each time, the books will not let you forget it). The narrator is canonically a figure in this universe, and is not omniscient. 

And, when it comes to the Edward/Gordon dynamic, the Author’s point of view is consistently collapsing into Edward’s point of view. 

Certain times when the narrator editorializes about details, we can be pretty sure, are lifted straight from Edward’s take on the moment (and, if not Edward’s, then The Fat Controller’s, which to be frank is also roughly aligned): 

Edward puffed and pulled, and pulled and puffed, but he couldn’t move the heavy coaches. / “I told you so,” said Gordon rudely. (1923) 

That Gordon said that, I don’t doubt. That the adverb is necessary, or even correct? That’s… that’s interpretative. I totally understand why Edward and TFC, respectively, took it that way, but I’m not 100% convinced it was meant that way, nor that everyone else on scene regarded it as much more than Gordon glumly colour-commentating the group effort to recover from his breakdown. Is he being ‘rude’? Or is he merely too blunt for North Western sensibilities?

Anyway, even if ‘rude’ is the correct interpretation, it is again worth noting that it’s certainly not part of the narrative as Gordon would have been telling the story in the 1940s. (The 1940s! It's over twenty years later! And Edward is getting his side of the thing in fuckin' print… Big win, that.)

So, if we agree that Edward is the source the Author primarily relies on for these 2+4 scenes, what does this show us? Well, for one, I'd say it shows us that Edward may ‘forgive’ all this but he is certainly not forgetting one bit of it. Indeed the narrative’s repeated return to this dynamic almost certainly mirrors how much room Gordon’s superior attitude occupies in Edward’s headspace.

Which is kinda wild. There's no evidence Edward is petty by nature, if anything there's a lot that suggests the opposite. Gordon getting this far under his paint is… something of an achievement. 

But we can see how he managed: 

Even discounting the illustration. Even if Gordon isn’t the speaker. He was one of Them. The other big engines who tormented Edward may have been worse, were probably worse, but they are gone and Gorson remains, an eternal reminder of 1922-3. Of the primordial period when Gordon has the power, Edward doesn't. Gordon is on top of their world; Edward is left alone in a shed, cut off from all his former friends and supporters, afraid for his life, roundly denigrated by the engines he lives with, and quite possibly lost his previous job directly in favor of Gordon. Who, at best, is careless and oblivious. Who, at worst, is belittling and rude. 

Ouch. 

Gordon's arrival is still bound up, probably even the direct cause, of one of the most miserable and humiliating year of Edward's life. And – maliciously or not – everything about how Gordon conducts himself only serves to keep tearing again at that wound.  

Ouch. 

If Edward were to write off Gordin as a potential friend till the end of time, well, you know, it would be valid. Not very "wise" or anything, but it’d be understandable.

To be clear, I don't think this is what happens. I'm not going to argue that the famous line from the end of TTRE is a lie, some sort of diplomatic fiction. No, Gordon and Edward quickly make a go at genuine friendship. Indeed, throughout all this mess, even as I analyze it in excruciating detail… there's something kind of touching and weirdly wholesome about the way that they both try so hard to make it work despite the headwinds against them. Edward (and Gordon, for that matter) make sincere efforts to overcome the wounds they have inflicted on each other's egos. Kudos, lads. 

However, I also don't agree with a vast assumption on the part of many fans that Edward solves the issue by simply… rising above. Puts aside his own ego, takes a pacifist approach to all the jockeying for position, acts purely as mentor, just sits on the moral high ground and philosophically accepts everything as it is. 

This is canonically nonsense. Yes, Edward was passive in his first-ever story – he was at the end of the line; he needed someone to give him a damn break before he even had options – he doesn't actually remain passive after that, though. Indirect (he’s allergic to conflict), but not passive. We see very clearly that Edward may be judging status by a bit of a different yardstick than Gordon et. al., he doesn’t think picking up the slack on secondary or support jobs is a source of shame and his relative physical weakness drives him to find different ways to distinguish himself, but, like, when it comes to points-scoring, he’s still very much in the game. Of course his first priority is just to be wanted and useful at all, but that is not the end of it. Edward is competitive, with a proper amount of pride (“Good! Don’t let them beat you”) and he has normal engine-y desires and ambitions (“Look at me!”). ‘Course, in his case they don’t drive him to make a straight-up nuisance of himself. But, still. It matters to him that he gets to be the Smartest Engine in the Shed. It matters to him that he has nice blue wheels. It matters to him that he’s important, it matters to him that he’s respected, and he’s quite as pleased to get important jobs as any other engine (even if he doesn’t begrudge an engine who gets a jammier job than him). When canon kicks off no driver at Vicarstown has laid a claim on Edward, Topham Hatt has just succeeded some previous General Manager and shows no sign of knowing or remembering that Edward exists, and Edward has nothing – no job and no allies. It is not an accident that all three of those things change. It’s not even merely a natural karmic reward for being a nice, humble engine with a winsome smile. Edward set out to earn recognition. His main method (be helpful and reliable to others) is admirable, but it is also a means to a goal (be recognized as important and ensure he's never again stuck in the sheds). And he succeeds wildly. There’s luck there, sure - there always is, with success - but he didn’t have a lot of natural advantage at his tender, either. What I’m saying is that he’s not some innocent unworldly soul who aww-shucks’d his way into it. He meant for this to happen. He played smart and he worked hard for it – but, like, he had to know what it was he wanted. 

Am I belaboring this point? Maybe. But I feel like so many people only see Edward as nothing more than a dutiful, responsible, maybe even stuffy oldster with at most an occasional twinkle of fun in his eye and, hell, often that’s not even a big problem (though I think it sells short later characters who arrive and who are ACTUALLY more unambitious and above-it-all than Edward - for instance, I think Donald and Douglas are actually our first tender engines who show up and legitimately just never once give a shit about their status, at least not beyond the status of ‘alive’ vs. ‘dead’). But I think it IS a problem, that it does lead you wrong, when you bring that assumption to bear on Edward’s relationship with Gordon. Edward never "mentors" Gordon. It’s a fundamentally competitive relationship. Oh, maybe it shouldn’t be! It shouldn’t be, because Edward is not jealous by nature and so if Gordon were halfway chill himself it never would have been. And it shouldn’t be, because Gordon so easily outclasses Edward that there should be no reason for Gordon to ever get jealous, either. But they both manage, somehow. Edward’s not just benignly pulling a quarter out of Gordon’s ear every so often, to gently remind him that Gordon doesn’t know everything yet. He might have settled into this role, if Gordon hadn’t scared the existential shit out of him throughout the ‘20s, but Gordon did and so Edward didn’t. Edward’s in it to win it, babe! He accepts that his express days are over, but he’s not willing to be told he never again gets a cut of the cake, either – and, when Gordon snubs him, Edward is not just rising above the fray and letting it go. They’re always playing tug-of-war. 

To reiterate: I don't think Edward is faking friendship after Gordon's failed express. He's really working on it – and he might have had more success letting go of the previous wounds Gordon inflicted on his ego – if only Gordon had stopped that sort of shit, going forward! 

But that's asking too much. It's still the 1920s, baby; Gordon's gonna Gordon; so what's a little tender engine to do? 

[carmyberzattosjournal]

S2 Entry 2: Soothe the Goosebumps

Image credit: @neverscreens

Summary: Carmy’s girlfriend (who he calls Darling) soothes him down from an impending panic attack with apple cubes. (1346 Words) FLUFF.

Warnings: Swearing, hurt, comfort, fem reader/lass who is a trauma surgeon, she/her pronouns, finger sucking (light), impending panic attack (panic attack doesn’t happen), praise kink, feeding kink?, subby!Carmy. Mentions of Donna Berzatto.

Notes: Thank you for reading and sharing! This is a work in CB Journals Season 2 and will be tagged with #cb journals s2.

Sideblog for commentary and social stuff: @m-z-shoroi

Prompt: String Lights

“Do you not decorate for Christmas?” she asked. “Not even string lights or a mini tree?”

No. Fuck Christmas.

The silence, and the subsequent recoil evident on her face when I looked up from the apple I was dicing, is what told me I’d said that aloud. My stomach flipped. Hands abruptly turned cold for some reason. Heat flooded into my face.

I can’t even begin to explain to you the biblical level of shit I was in that week. That whole month, honestly. The review didn’t go well—we weren’t given our star, which meant that not only did all my bullshit that I pulled in the restaurant after having that mental fucking breakdown after the walk-in incident severely strain all my interpersonal relationships, it also did fuck all to give us any sort of results. If we’d gotten the star, then maybe, maybe, it would’ve stung just a little less. The wounds haven’t gone away—the repeated flare-ups of fighting between Sugar, Richie, Syd, and me are evidence of that—but the star would’ve been salve on the cuts. Maybe taken away some of the burn. No, it just redoubled everyone’s rage at me (including my own. I was getting dangerously close to hating myself more than I hate the fucking Devil at this point). So, the burst of fighting at the top of November turned into all-out war for the rest of the month. We’d found something of a balance before—minus the flare-ups—where I’d do a new menu every month using seasonal ingredients. I’d be mindful of what the kitchen staff could do, Syd and I would actually properly collaborate on them, so she didn’t feel voiceless (even if working with another person drove me fucking insane sometimes), and Richie and I would, generally, as much as we both could corral our familial trauma, try to stay out of each other’s way. Sometimes even get along a bit.

“Carmy?”

Now? Now I lost all fucking control of my restaurant. Syd and I were battling over the menu because even when accounting for her notes, she wanted to scrap whatever I did. Richie was so far out of my grasp that Sugar maintained a demilitarized zone between us, acting as the Secretary of State—or I don’t know, a fucking messenger pigeon—bringing things back and forth, all while trying not to (and failing on multiple occasions) explode at either of us for our bullshit. And it was bullshit. We’re fucking adults, I keep trying to act like a fucking adult and get a handle on myself so this doesn’t fucking happen again—I’m in therapy, for fuck’s sake!—and yet Richie and Syd insist on being fucking children about it.

In retrospect, I don’t blame Syd. If your coworker spiraled off the fucking deep end, and all you got out of that was the trauma of surviving that spiral, would you even want to fucking look at them again? She worked her ass off to make The Bear what it is, she put stock in her own identity as a chef, and wants, more than anything, to be able to take pride in her work.

I said I wouldn’t stand by and let her do to herself what I did to me, right?

Am I not her Devil?

So here we are, December three days away, still without a fucking menu.

“Baby? Sweetheart? Hey.”

Shit. Shit. Fuck. I dropped the knife onto the cutting board. “S-sorry. Sorry, I-I should explain—”

“I just wasn’t expecting such a strong reaction.” She held her hands up, palms out towards me. “It’s okay. It just caught me by surprise is all.”

“Christmas-Christmas is fucking traumatizing.” Why did it come out like a question? It’s a fact. It was fucking traumatizing. I closed my eyes, trying to retreat to the quiet dark, where it’s stable, where it’s safe. “My-my mom, she would, uh, she would do this-this big feast. Seven Fishes... And it was-it was always such a fucking disaster. And-and she would always explode at the tiniest thing. I-I hate fucking Christmas and New Years a-a-and-and fucking birthdays. Fuck birthdays.”

Something burned in my chest. A deep sort of fiery sting that took me two heartbeats to recognize as stomach acid bubbling into my esophagus. I grasped at the pain as if I could somehow get ahold of it and remove it from me, could toss it away like a wet paper towel, but all I found was the front of my apron.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay.” Oh no, Darling sounded worried. I fucking hate when I worry her. I pried my eyes open and found her expression contorted in concern, eyebrows scrunched together, corners of her mouth turned down. “What’s wrong? Pain? Nausea?”

I tried talking, but I couldn’t produce sound past the hot iron burning my insides. Blindly reached for the quart of water and chugged a few sips down. It provided some relief initially, but the flames came right back.

“Hold on.” She rifled around the cabinet above my head and pried off the lid of the baking soda container. Put two pinches in the quart. Swirled it. “It’ll taste weird, but it should help.”

Metallic. Metallic, bitter, kind of salty? Like I licked a dirty penny or something. Weird doesn’t sum it up, it’s fucking disgusting. She rubbed up and down my sternum as I gulped this vile concoction down.

“It’s a base, it’ll help neutralize the acid,” she explained. “Just take little sips until the burning stops.” I’m sure she knew I understood the logic, but I appreciated her talking to me anyway. It was comforting. Something to focus on. Something to drown out the memories of ma’s yelling bubbling away in the back of my head.

Goosebumps exploded on my arms when I took another gulp of the baking soda water. It just kept getting worse. Now the weird taste was lingering on my tongue well after the water was gone, but my chest still burned like a brand was on it. Darling rubbed her hands up and down my forearm, trying to soothe the goosebumps away.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

I responded too slowly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Not even giving me this horrible shit; it was helping the heartburn.

“No, about the whole…” she gestured in a wide circle. Ah. About Christmas and shit. Got it. “It’s gotta be tough. With. How much those things are engrained in society and all.”

I shrugged a shoulder. Grimaced and got another wave of chills on the next sip of baking soda water. She picked up an apple cube and pressed it to my lips. It wasn’t meant to be an intimate gesture—I’m getting better at reading her face and knowing what the intention behind anything she does is—but something deep in my core tightened and warmed when she fed me the morsel of apple, when the tip of her finger rested just a second too long on my lips. I must’ve had a certain look on my face because she made the cute little cooing sound that meant she figured something out. Cupped my face with her other hand. Stroked my cheek.

“That better, pretty boy?”

She brought another apple cube to my lips, kept her eyes locked on mine—this piercing gaze halfway between interrogative and fascinated, like she was a cat observing a new toy, trying to figure out how to pounce on it. My navel flooded with heat, dick twitched in my sweats. Half of me wanted to shrink in place, become tiny and insignificant, small enough to fit in her pocket like a pathetic but endearing pet. The other half of me got lost in her eyes, in those shimmering river stones, in the perfect architecture of her eyelashes, as if admiring a fine work in some pretentious fucking museum somewhere. She let me suck the tip of her thumb clean. Dragged it slowly over my tongue.

I nodded. Yes. Yes, it’s better.

The fuck was I even stressing about before?

Tags: @carmenberzattosgf @jess248 @catharticconsolation @persymons @morgthemagpie @glitch0o0 @nox-is-thename @forgechildofheph @leminjelly @fridavacado @lumoslemon @cyarskj1899

[donuts4evry1]

Quiet i am OVERANALYZING over here

[thenoisethatkeepsmeawake]

I apologize for adding on to this, but what am I even reading? People gatekeeping Starlight Express, because there's a new part of this fandom specifically flocking to one new change?? WHY WOULD YOU?

Let's be real here. Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals are already very specific. Growing up in Germany though, his musicals made a big splash. And Starlight Express is the longest running musical over here (the theatre was never used for anything else, it was specifically built for this one purpose only). It is also the most nonsensical, insane and hilarious one. IT'S ABOUT TRAINS! It's a spectacle. The gimmick of the rollerskates is the best thing about it, because that has always made StEx stand apart. It's a thrill ride. You can go and just enjoy that part and not even care for the story at all. A story with anthropomorphic trains!!! Who cares which train is your favorite? Who cares which character grabs your attention? WE ARE ALL A BIT MAD FOR ENJOYING THE CHOO-CHOO-MUSICAL.

Starlight Express is about unadultered fun. It's the fever dream of a kid. That's the actual explanation. And this is what it's meant to be above all - fun. And now this fun also has a lesbian himbo diesel engine; the world is a better place for it. Also the dining car, Greaseball got a gender-swap, and Dinah loves her just the same. She's representing, too!

The trains race each other, the engines need coaches to qualify, there are partner swaps, search for true love, we get different technologies battling each other - and it's all on skates. StEx has had a few changes over the years. New songs, new characters, some re-writes. But in the end it's really about having a fun time with easy to grasp relationships, an underdog tale and some catchy tunes.

If you enjoy any little part of the madness - WELCOME TO THE FANDOM! Of all the musicals to gatekeep, because maybe somebody has the wrong idea about a key theme or whatever... Starlight Express is the wrong one to pick. We are here for the trains. We are the clown car. They should introduce a circus coach for a fandom insert.

Also I think it's normal to have a clear favorite for which you go crazy. Especially in such a big ensemble. And the way Greaseball treats Dinah is one of the bigger plot points, right next to Pearl shopping around. Dinah has a whole break-up song that makes you want to hug her. It's so valid to focus on that.

Please don't steal joy from people who are finding Starlight Express via tiktoks about lesbian Greaseball.

'well, actually starlight express isn't about lesbian trains' - Who cares?? Let me tell you, Starlight Express isn't about much of anything, so if people want it to be about lesbian trains, it's about lesbian trains.

'greaseball isn't good lgbtq+ representation' - She's one of the main characters in a musical written in the 80s by an old white conservative dude. She's not a good person train, but that's different from not being good representation. Let lesbian engines be bad! Let them pay oil trucks to sabotage races! Let them live!!

I can personally attest that you can go to the show and watch it almost entirely through the lesbian train lens. Sure, Greaseball and Dinah's relationship isn't the focus of the show, but there are lots of little moments, interactions and things going on for folks to look out for.

And as mentioned elsewhere, actors have a lot of scope as to which moments they play up, so you get different interpretations depending who is on.

As someone who came up through fandom when everything was about subtext and interpreting tiny moments, it's pretty much ideal for me and other people might be the same.

So, let people enjoy things, is what I'm saying. It takes nothing away from how you want to engage with the show. Block the lesbian Greaseball fans on tiktok or on here if you don't like them. But let people enjoy stuff.

[3-aem]

thinking about touch starved touch sensitive gojo again. Absolutely desperate for even the most grazing touches from getou and yet overwhelmed by it all.

[skitskatdacat63]

sobbing at how happy they all look

[revolutionarywig]

I think i can do a pretty good robespierre signature forgery

[vvitchering]

I’m replaying act 1 (for the fifth time) and when Gale is explaining his condition to you he mentions he’s “never told another living soul” about it, except for Tara. You’re telling me this man shut himself up in his tower for an entire year and didn’t tell anyone why and no one ever bothered to find out? He has so few people who care about him in his life that he fell into a depression and disappeared for a year and NO ONE thought to go and check on him and find out what was wrong? He’s had no one but Tara providing help and support until he meets Tav???????

[desired-misery]

Not me considering a short fic from Ashley’s POV telling how she gets abducted on her drive home from university.

Since I need to plan out what happens in anyway since I need those details for her POV chapters in my Re4r fic... hmm...

(Because Leon absolutely will ask her about what happened to try to see if she has a lead on how the fuck this happened). Because the concern is still the mole and traitor.

[a-murmur-of-a-prayer]

So all of a sudden I may be moving out of state in ten days

[cupcakesmoothie]

...So I may have went a little insane designing the MC from @psychopomp-enthusiast's Blade x Reader fic To Mourn The Living

Am I confident in my art skills? Lmao (No)

I am not rendering this (I did have an idea for the highlights but) it's 5 am oh god and if I don't go lie down right now I am not waking up tomorrow (Today at 8)

I tried to keep the design androgynous but well. Am Girl. So I am a little biased towards Reader being also Girl. I think I did ok tho

The first HSR fanart I've made and it's fanart of a fanfic. Typical me behaviour tbh

I did research for this for some reason like I stared really hard at a couple wiki tabs for a while (Haven't seen actual scales on either of our High Elders) and skimmed the fic again. The scales were specified to be silver?

While doing the aforementioned research I think I've crafted a theory? I somehow completely missed that there is more than one High Elder, like there are other ships that have their own High Elders too and like??? I'm making some connections??? Is this a "I've connected the dots" moment? Who knows.

I did think maybe the whole storms thing had something to with Jing Yuan and his Lighting-Wielding Thunder-Clapping Spirit-Squashing Lord (YESSSSS FIRST TRY BABY OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD) but the whole thing with black hair and evil vibes just felt off to me. AND THEN. Until I get a reply on this/the fic gets updated I won't say anything further, but ough. I am so normal about the media I consume guys

I kinda felt like putting the scale pattern on the outfit was a little OOC since MC was mentioned to not really follow Vidyadharan customs, but I also figured they were close to Bailu and have horns so? Maybe?

I gave MC blue hair because Ice type. I was gonna give them really long hair, but then again, not a High Elder. The hair was mentioned to obscure their horns underwater tho so I think some length is fine?

It was actually really hard to find physical descriptions of the MC? I mean for a fic like this, that's actually a good thing, it gives me more leeway to do whatever I want but also literally one of the reasons why I don't do fanart is because I wanna be accurate as possible (This is probably some kind of anxiety thing, idk)

[iceeericeee]

I wonder how many tags i can add on to this

[the-casbah-way]

sometimes being so overly sensitive makes it hard to function like how do people do it. today we drove past three dead pheasants and i'm expected to be fine about the fact that they died alone and in pain and everyone keeps driving as if they never mattered. as if they didn't live and breathe and think. ok

[nomairuins]

also its so dumb that one of the arguments ppl have against a sims 5 is that theyve already invested too much money into 4. like yes its fucking scummy that ea charges so much for dlc and its Ludicrous the amt sims 4 costs if you have all the dlc and its going to keep getting more and more expensive but . to be honest . why are you paying for sims packs. im sry

[skitskatdacat63]

2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix - Fernando Alonso