#maybe they are actually i guess these guys started at the start of season 9 didnt they

[killjoygem]

Is this a new year in greys? Like are the interns not interns now? Does that mean lexis group have started fellowships?? I wish this show had a more cohesive timeline

[scoops-aboy86]

Break Free (Secret Admirer pt 9)

This is the last chapter, but there will be an epilogue posted soon.

wc: 4663 / rated: T / set after season 3 / also on ao3

It ends with Steve’s hands sliding into Eddie’s hair—damp from sweat and a little tangled and stiff from whatever product he uses to make it look so full when, actually, the curls seem fine and almost wispy against Steve’s fingers—to cradle him closer. Eddie sways back, big brown eyes glazed and slow-blinking but coming back from whatever stratosphere the kiss had sent him to. Instead of letting go, Steve lets Eddie slip through his fingers until his hands come to rest on the guy’s shoulders. And then, when Eddie starts to scuttle backwards, he keeps a loose grip on his forearms that slides down until they’re nearly holding hands. 

“Eddie,” Steve tries desperately, stomach sinking. His lips and heart feel bruised. “No, please don’t go, it’s okay.”

For a moment, Eddie’s palms settle in his hands. Those wide eyes focus on him, seemingly with great effort, and Eddie starts shaking his head and muttering, “Shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have…” Slurs the words a little. 

“It’s okay,” Steve says again, softer, trying his best to be gentle, imploring. “It’s okay that you did, don’t worry about shouldn’t. I am the opposite of mad, alright?”

Eddie hesitates, then adds uncertainly, “M’drunk.”

“Yeah, you are, kinda,” Steve agrees. “I mean, kind of a lot. I’m not, but I’m… I’m good, baby. Please just stay and talk to me? For a minute?”

“Oh,” he says in the smallest voice Steve’s ever heard—smaller than he thought Eddie even could be. It sounds a little like something breaking, and everything about him seems to shrink in on himself. “So you know. That I’m me.”

“Yeah, I know you’re my secret admirer.” Something is breaking in Steve too, just watching it happen. “Look, Eddie, you’re a theatrical guy. Maybe you had an idea about some big, dramatic reveal where everything would fall right into place with, with an impressive speech like something out of your letters. You’re so good with words, man, so I can see it. I get the vision. I don’t know your voice as well as I want to yet, but I know how you sound from those letters because you’re so expressive and smart about that shit, fuck high school and what the teachers might say, but…” 

He rubs his thumbs gently over the pulse points at Eddie’s wrists, feeling how it races, and desperately clings to eye contact through the head tilt that sends curly hair draping across his face. 

“I don’t know what you had in mind for this, or if you could even picture it because it’s such a huge thing after all the build-up. But maybe this is okay? I mean, yeah, you’re drunk, that’s not ideal I guess. But I could go inside with you and get you some water, make sure you don’t puke again, get some aspirin out for you to take in the morning… and we could try that kiss again when you’ve sobered up. What do you say?”

Immediately Steve feels like an idiot for that last sentence. It sounds more like something he’d say when offering Dustin ice cream to cheer him up after missing a radio call with Suzie or something, not offering to take care of someone he’s hopeful about being able to date. He can feel his face heating up… and after a moment, Eddie raises one hand to very, very gently touch his cheek. The one that’s still bruised under the makeup. 

“Stevie,” Eddie murmurs, and that’s a new one. Maybe a little girly, but Steve kind of likes it because it makes their names match: Eddie and Stevie. “You’d really…?”

“Offer to take care of you? I think I just did.” Steve allows himself a tentative smile. “Kiss you again? Absolutely. I would maybe direct you to a toothbrush and toothpaste first, maybe some mouthwash, but—”

Eddie shakes his head with a wet snort. “Oh fuck off, don’t… don’ rub it in.” He blinks, one eye slightly slower on the uptake than the other but for the most part pretty well coordinated. “We can go in. You, you don’ care ‘s a trailer?”

“I’m literally considering getting one of my own when I move out,” Steve tells him. Because he has been, there aren’t a lot of options for a single dude in Hawkins that don’t involve a sublet basement or room above a garage or something else to that effect. Maybe if he had roommates to split the cost of renting a house with… but all the friends he has now are still in school. 

So. Yeah, Forest Hills trailer park had been on his radar before tonight. Right now, if tonight goes well, it’s honestly at the top of his list.

Big brown eyes blink at him again. “But where’ll you put your pool?” Eddie asks, dead serious in the way only little kids or the very drunk can pull off. 

“It doesn’t travel well.” Smiling, he reaches across and pops the passenger door open. “Come on now, you need more water. No, hey hey hey, wait for me to come around—!”

~

Eddie wakes up queasy and with a pounding headache. Definitely hungover, but vaguely aware that he should feel worse. 

He has a fuzzy memory of waking up in the middle of the night (or morning?) to hurl, and being coaxed afterwards to drink more water, nibble his way through a piece of toast, and swallow a couple of pills. Aspirin, probably, based on the fact that he’s not hallucinating right now, which—he’d had a bad experience once when he grabbed the wrong tin, okay, he does not want to think about that right now. 

…

Upon further consideration, the fuzzy memory was probably a dream. Because he remembers it being Steve fucking Harrington doing the coaxing. Coaxing, and blushing deliciously whenever Eddie’s fingers had brushed against his, so of course Drunk Eddie had made a point of letting that happen as often as possible.

Nice dream, though. 

…

Why is it so warm? Like, yeah it’s summer and the trailer has one dinky AC unit in the living room window that doesn’t really do shit, and it doesn’t feel like he’s slept until the hottest part of the day, but. He’s holding a pillow to his chest or something? Damn thing is radiating heat. 

He should move. 

Ugh. He doesn’t want to move. His stomach rolls less when he stays still. 

…

The pillow is breathing. It’s holding his forearms where they’re crossed over its stomach with big hands, grip lax with sleep. 

…

Wait.

That’s no moon. 

Eddie tenses, finally starting to actually wake up.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you’re… a fictional character and I’m SPOONING STEVE GODDAMN HARRINGTON.

The only thing Eddie doesn’t get is how he could’ve gotten his arms around the dude like that without waking him up. He’d been a gross, vomiting mess last night, surely Steve wouldn’t have chosen to cuddle up. Maybe Wayne had come home from work and sent him crawling in here to share the mattress instead of risking a perfectly good spine on their old monster of a couch… and then Eddie had wrapped around him somehow? While they both slept?

He tries to sit up, but immediately regrets it when his head throbs, his stomach clenches, and he realizes his left arm is numb from where it’s wedged under Steve. It’s enough to make him groan out loud, and of course that’s when Steve starts to stir. 

There’s nowhere to run. Even if he rolls away, the farthest he can go is flat on his back between Steve and the wall. It’s just a twin mattress, there’s not exactly— Oh god, and he’d spilled bong water on it again yesterday but hadn’t gotten around to stripping the sheets off and doing laundry yet. He’d figured he’d hit the party and afterwards bribe Jeff to take him by the grocery store for baking soda. But that hadn’t happened, because apparently he’d decided to get blackout drunk instead and now he’s in bed with Steve Harrington and, and, and—

“Eddie, Eds, hey, breathe!”

Steve is rolled over and facing him now, propped up on one elbow and eyes wide with concern. He has a hand pressed to Eddie’s chest over his heart—and this is how Eddie realizes they’re both shirtless, fantastic, absolute cherry on top of the freakout sundae that is this morning—while holding Eddie’s non-numb hand over his own. 

“Like this,” Steve tells him, and takes a slow breath in and out. 

In and out. Eddie tries to copy him. 

In and out. 

When trying finally dissolves into actually doing it, into breathing like a human again, something in Steve’s expression loosens in relief. “Fuck,” he sighs, sagging a little but still careful not to pin Eddie’s arm again. “I’m glad that worked, I’ve never done that with anyone besides Robin before.” He bites his lip, gaze scanning over Eddie’s face like a hot brand. There’s still fading evidence of a massive shiner around his left eye, more obvious than Eddie remembers it being last night and with hints of inexpertly wiped-away concealer here and there. “Are you okay?”

“No?” Eddie manages to croak. “How did— Why are you— What did I do?”

Because he must have done something to end up in this situation, something which he has absolutely zero recollection of, to end up in this predicament, wearing only his boxers and one sock, cuddled up to the guy he’s in love with.

Who is currently wearing a borrowed pair of Eddie’s shorts. Jesus H. Christ. 

And yet, somehow Steve manages to look bashful about the whole predicament. “I, uh. Kind wanted to make sure you got home safe, because you said you didn’t have a ride.”

Eddie rakes his brain for an explanation for that, because he had had a ride. And, fuck, where the hell is his lunchbox? He winces and holds up a wait a minute finger, because while this crisis is important, he literally cannot afford to have lost that and it’s making the bottom fall out of his stomach in a completely different direction. “I need to make a call. It’s very important.”

“Oh, uh… okay.”

There’s some shuffling, not made any easier by the pins and needles feeling now rippling through Eddie’s left arm, but eventually Steve manages to sit up and swing his legs off the side of the bed so Eddie doesn’t have to suffer the mortifying ordeal of physically clambering over him. It’s the one saving grace of the day so far. He stumbles out of his bedroom, mindful to keep quiet but still glaring down the length of his trailer where Wayne is asleep in his cot, sleeping soundly while his only nephew suffers. 

“Pick up pick up pick up,” he chants under his breath while the phone rings, using the mantra to keep his breathing steady. “Pick u—Oh hey, hi, good morning, is Jeff home? Uh, awake? I need to speak with him on an extremely urgent matter. Life or death. Please tell him that. Thank you?”

Jeff isn’t a morning person. Neither is Eddie, usually, but here he is at… Christ, only 8:42am on a Saturday morning, twisting the phone cord around one finger that it’s starting to lose feeling again. He just about jumps out of his skin when he hears Jeff’s gruff, “What the fuck, Eddie?”

“Goooood morning to you too,” Eddie blusters, trying to sound insanely cheerful rather than panicked. “Quick question, did I give you my lunchbox last night?”

The immediate groan mostly answers that question. “Yeah, Munson, you did. And I’m hauling your ass home next time if this is the thanks I get for letting you stay and get wasted.”

Eddie sags against the flimsy wall separating the kitchen from the bathroom. “Oh thank fuck. Sorry man, thank you, I’ll… It won’t happen again, I’ll never call you before noon for the rest of my days, I swear.”

“Yeah right.” Jeff yawns. “What the fuck has you so wired this early, man? Or are you still awake from last night?”

I wish. “Nope, weird dream,” Eddie replies. “I’ll, uh, swing by later. In the afternoon. Go back to sleep.”

“You know that once I wake up I can’t get back to—”

Eddie feels bad for hanging up on his best friend, but it’s not like he can tell him what’s actually going on. There’s the whole gay thing, for one, but even having a female jock in his bed would send shock waves throughout his tight little friend group, so panicking at Jeff about the remaining, and once again much more looming issue isn’t an option and never has been. Probably never will be. Maybe. Eddie doesn’t know. He has a Steve Harrington to deal with.

He doesn’t even have the presence of mind to check how he looks in the mirror. Too much pressure; he already knows it’s not going to be pretty after a night of drinking, and whatever his bed head has decided to do on feels lopsided and tangled and weird. 

Or maybe he’s overthinking it. He probably is. 

Okay.

Okay, he can do this.

… He can run out the trailer door, boxers and one sock be damned, and never look back. 

No, no, he can do this. He’d had the balls to start writing the letters in the first place, he can deal with whatever inexplicable fallout has come of it! What’s the worst that could happen? 

Maybe Steve had stayed to tell him to stop writing the letters. So he could reject him face to face in the light of day, without the risk of alcohol washing the memory of it away. Maybe even reveal that he’d figured Eddie out a long time ago and played along, that it was all just a big joke. Prank the freak, right?

Just for a second, Eddie lets himself contemplate bolting. Sinks down on his haunches with his reddening face in his hands and thinks it through: how he could get to Jeff’s on foot, pick up his seed money and his guitar, buy a bus ticket out of Hawkins and maybe find an apartment when he gets to Indy, maybe catch another bus headed for Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. He doesn’t have a high school diploma but shop was the only class he’s ever passed with flying colors, so he knows he can find work somewhere even if it sucks starting out. Set up in some city where no one knows his name and no one from home (except Wayne, of course, he could never cut Wayne out) knows his mailing address. No more letters from Steve, and it’s only a matter of time before Steve breaks out of his parents house and then Eddie really won’t be able to write to him anymore. And then life would be just… like that. Never knowing if it could have worked out after all, but by then it’d be too late. Forever. 

A world without Steve. Without sunshine. Without air. 

Okay. 

Eddie groans, scrubs his hands over his face, and reluctantly goes back down the hall to his bedroom. Without a stop to check the bathroom mirror, he’s already hanging on by a thread as it is. 

~

Waking up to Eddie having a panic attack wasn’t the best way this morning could have started out. The longer Steve waits for him to come back the more awkward he feels, enough that he gets up briefly to try and find his shirt. He fails, in all the mess, but opens a nearby drawer and pulls out the first shirt he can find: something so faded he can’t even read it, with the sleeves hacked unevenly off. 

Not that this makes him feel any less presumptuous about being here.

Eddie clearly doesn’t remember giving him a ‘grand tour’ of the trailer, or ending it with “And this is where all the magic hap’ens” while dragging Steve into his room, or whining for him to change out of his clothes and and get some sleep. He probably doesn’t even remember what had happened in the car—the music, the kiss, the pleading confession on Steve’s part. 

Actually, maybe it’s better that Eddie doesn’t remember the confession part. It was kind of embarrassing. Steve could probably do better. 

… Except he’ll probably have to do it all over again, which suddenly seems a lot worse. Shit. There are a stupid number of butterflies in his stomach and it feels like they’re about to form a tornado in there. 

He nearly jumps out of his skin when the bedroom door opens. Eddie slinks back inside and leans against it until it’s closed behind him again. “Sorry, had to check on my… illegally gotten gains.”

Steve almost frowns before he remembers that Eddie had been at the party in the first place to sell. He himself has a plastic baggie in his jeans pocket (carefully folded with the rest of his clothes on top of the messy dresser) that Eddie had literally sold to him. “Oh. Shit, man, I didn’t even think to check on that last night. Sorry.”

Eddie laughs thinly and slumps his way from the door to the bed, grabbing a t-shirt off the floor, sniffing it, and wiggling into it along the way. He keeps a carefully neutral distance between them—not close enough to touch, but not so far away that it seems like he’s avoiding him. (Or maybe Steve is overthinking it.) “I don’t think you have to apologize for not helping me enough, man. Pretty sure I’m the one that should be saying sorry for taking up so much of your time.”

That makes Steve frown. Is Eddie talking about last night, or about the letters too? Does he even remember that Steve knows? Butterfly tornado is officially a go. “It’s fine. Like I told you last night, I don’t mind helping.”

“Yeah…” Not quite looking at him, Eddie reaches up to rake the bangs out of his face, even though they fall right back into the same curly fringe just covering his eyebrows. That’s when he seems to notice the shirt Steve has on, pupils dilating slightly before he looks resolutely away and fidgeting. “I don’t exactly remember last night, but I’m pretty sure ‘helping me out’ shouldn’t include letting me grope you in my sleep.”

“I’ll take an octopus over a starfish any day,” he replies immediately, and truthfully. Embarrassingly. Lately, as the nightmares have started to calm down enough to catch some actual rest sometimes, Robin has become more prone to stretching out in her sleep. Not, like—she doesn’t stretch out so quickly that she’s flailing around and giving him more bruises, but the crowding is pervasive. Like the goddamn butterflies. 

The look Eddie gives him is flat, tired, and a little manic, plucking absently at a loose thread dangling from the bottom of his shirt. Which, upon further inspection, is inside out. “Steve. What am I missing here?”

Last night, after Steve had finally found him again in the crowd, he’d kept grinning and making dimples pop in both cheeks. If there hadn’t been so many people around, and if Eddie hadn’t been so drunk, Steve probably would have kissed him long before they got to the car. 

Steve takes a deep breath, lips tingling with the memory and urge to do it again. First, though, they have to get through this part. Again. 

He reaches out, taking Eddie’s hand from where it’s fussing with the shirt, and threads their fingers together. The chunky rings Eddie usually wears are still on the nearest flat surface to the bed, but this hand still has the thinner band—an old mood ring, Steve thinks, though the stone always seems dark so maybe it’s broken. He looks at their hands together, and feels something settle in his chest. 

Nervous as he is, this feels right. When he hazards a glance at Eddie’s face, it’s pink. Also angled down to stare at their linked hands, but Eddie is looking at him through unfairly long eyelashes. 

“Steve?” Eddie whispers, sounding… what? Afraid, awed? He’s got to be nervous too, it’s written into the tension in his slightly scrawny frame, looking smaller without all his usual layers of denim and leather. 

“I know you wrote those letters,” Steve murmurs, leaning into the carefully curated distance between them. “And I still like you. I keep telling you I like you, but you keep being surprised. Just let me want this, okay?” 

He squeezes Eddie’s hand again, watches as those eyelashes flutter slightly with the pressure. 

“Last night I said a bunch of stuff you probably don’t remember, and… I kind of don’t remember exactly either, now that I have to say it again?” Steve gives him a sheepish smile. The damn butterflies have stopped doing anything as coherent as tornadoing and are just flying around like lunatics. “Basically, you’re smart and fun and really good with words, which I’m not, but after you kissed me—”

Eddie’s eyes snap up, open wide as they’ll go. “I did what?”

“Shut up, let me finish. I was listening to that new tape you sent me on the way to the party because you make me feel good. Like everything is okay and I can do anything, even talk to you at a party. And I kissed back, by the way, and I really want to do it again now that you’ll remember it, if you still want to. But the point is—” he squeezes Eddie’s hand again “—I like being your sweetheart. I want to keep being that, but with face-to-face privileges this time. As… your boyfriend?”

He’s never seen anyone’s jaw drop outside of cartoons, but that’s what happens. Eddie’s pale cheeks go from pink to outright red, a flush that travels down his neck, and Steve can’t help but wonder how far down it goes. Stupid inside-out shirt that’s in the way now. 

“I,” Eddie says weakly. “I think I might pass out.”

“Well, I caught you the first time,” Steve jokes, and only feels a little bad for it when Eddie hides behind his free hand with a groan. And then second thoughts hit. “Um, pass out in a good way though, right?”

“Yes,” Eddie whines behind his palm. He peers out at Steve between his fingers, the hand in Steve’s gripping him back tightly. It makes the butterflies still swarming in Steve’s stomach suddenly feel a lot friendlier. “Fuck, definitely a good way, sweetheart. I was just… really braced for this to not work out, just in case, and instead I just woke up with a boyfriend.” His hand lowers just a bit, pulling a lock of his curly hair over his mouth. “And, apparently, a first kiss with you that I don’t even remember.”

“I can fix that,” Steve says eagerly, leaning forward—just a bit, he’ll wait for the official go-ahead, but god, now he’s focused on Eddie’s plush, bitten lips. He wants to feel them on his again. To feel the sparks, that rightness that he’s been missing since Nancy. The early days with Nancy, anyway… Back when she’d been just as in it as he’d been, before Barb died and monsters started crawling out of the woodwork on a semi-regular basis. 

Steve wants. 

Eddie looks like he wants too, gaze growing heated as he licks his lips in anticipation, but still his hand and hair are in the way. “I should, uh, brush my teeth…”

“Already did a few hours ago,” Steve assures him with a chuckle. “You used so much toothpaste I thought for sure you’d gag and lose that toast and aspirin I finally got into you, but you insisted on your ‘god-given right to hygiene  and tonsil tennis’ and threatened to duel me over it.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie groans, squeezing his eyes shut briefly. “Can’t believe you’re still here after that.” 

Then it seems to occur to him that Steve is still here, and Eddie frees both hands and lunges forward, their mouths connecting just shy of too hard. 

Their bodies press together a second later and Steve lets momentum carry him to the mattress, the planes of Eddie’s body overlaying his. One arm goes around Eddie’s waist to keep him close and the fingers of his other hand sink into that sleep-wild mane of curls. The butterflies have dissolved, leaving his heart beating at its cage of still-healing ribs—which Eddie keeps himself propped up on his elbows just enough to not put pressure on. Steve’s lips part in a pleased sigh when he realizes, and it’s equally an invitation to deepen the kiss, his whole body tingling with glee when Eddie immediately accepts. 

It’s the opposite of the first time, which had been slow-fast and uncoordinated, desperate. This starts at a hundred miles per hour, even while chaste, and only intensifies as Eddie licks his way into Steve’s mouth. Firm and smooth, and, fuck, Eddie is good at this. Good enough that there’s a little green flicker of jealousy in Steve’s gut, in amidst the red hot coals of excitement, at the thought of Eddie making out with other guys—but he’d picked Steve to write love letters to. 

And even though Steve has been the lead when kissing girls, with extremely few exceptions, he’s happy to follow wherever Eddie wants to go. 

Just when he’s fighting off the urge to gasp for air, Eddie breaks the kiss without going anywhere, both of them panting against each other’s lips. And then Eddie presses close again and it’s even slower, savoring, tasting. Steve is floating with it, kissing back on pure instinct because everything beneath his skin has gone molten and glowing. He doesn’t have to think, because he’s the one being guided. He’s held in the gentle grasp of Eddie’s hand coming to cradle his cheek; he is loved. 

~

Dear Steve,

I hope this is not untoward; I have not written to you before, nor am I in the habit of writing letters to anyone. But as I’m no stranger to wielding a pen, I hope these words might convey the depth of feeling I hope to—no, that I must convey. 

You’ve looked so sad, for months now. It makes my heart ache to comfort you; to smooth the crease between your brows with my thumbs and shield you from the cruel world with its untold horrors. I don’t know if this will help, but I have to try. 

You, Steve Harrington, are loved. 

We’ve existed in each other’s periphery for years, enough that you might recognize my name or face if I dared to reveal them. For my part, I don’t think a day has gone by since the first time I saw you that you haven’t been on my mind. It’s as though there’s a spotlight in every room; whenever you’re there it always shines on you. I’ve seen from the way you share the contents of your lunch tray without a second thought, the way you work to cheer up your teammates after a bad game or what have you. You’re kind, Steve. While I can’t say I care for some of the company you used to keep, as some of them are real gold star assholes, even with them I could tell that you tended to give more than you took. I grew up without someone like that in my life for a long time, but I’ve come to hold it in the highest regard and you have it.

That’s all, for now. I’m going to slip this in your locker. Maybe I’ll hang around, try to see if any of it makes you smile, because god that’s such a sight. If it does, maybe I’ll write again. Try to break up a little more of that dark cloud hanging over your head, sweetheart. In the meantime, and forevermore, I shall remain—

Your Secret Admirer

Tag list: @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @tangerinesteve @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @steviewashere @cryingglightningg @theresebelivett @sleepy-steve

@rozzieroos @lunaraindrop @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @swimmingbirdrunningrock @yesdangerpls

@matchingbatbites @ihavekidneys @p0lybl4nkk @grtwdsmwhr @cheesedoctor

@whalesharksart @thetinymm @envyadams-vs-me @practicallybegging @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme

@dauntlessdiva @nerdyglassescheeseychick @fuzzyduxk @chaosgremlinmunson @greatwerewolfbeliever

@goosesister @dolphincliffs @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @beckkthewreck @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao

@kurofuckingshi16 @bookworm0690 @millseyes-world @live-laugh-love-dietrich @the-tenth-mus-e

[the-chessboard-is-personal]

ii s3 liveblog

I'm a bit sad rn so sorry if my reactions are bad this time

1 - I'm not supposed to relate to Balloon am I. y'know. the guy that did something bad in the recent past and now everyone hates them even though they're trying to change.. sigh. wHAT? h. how is he here?? HOW IS SHE HERE??? ...does MePhone look different from how he was in the first half of s2? it's been a bit since I watched that but I swear there's something different about him. oh, new intrthe island is alive. warp pipe.

2 - yup sure :) 👍 right okay BOW is glitching now. something to do with chairs and maybe she lost her memories? she was obsessed with chairs before she died, so..oh fuck I'm taking as many notes as Cabby huh

3 - oh I thought I had something to say about this one. sorry

4 - if the floor gets eliminated, how will that work? .yo WHAT is going on with candleMUMBO JUMBO CATCHPHRASE ... I. I don't think that's what polishing a screen does.?

5 - what if Box wins lol ..oh. wait there was no formal elimination, I guess that got replaced with Box being pulled this episode

6 - them ,,,,,they,both of them,, the cool(s) -> ☯

7 - well call me a camera because [screenshots the auras file]. . . . . . . . . . a. ..nobody knows about this joke yet but if I had a- uh. nickel. for every time a series I know about had a character named Bow with trigger words, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice what is going on with Bow and chairs. HEY MARSHMALLOW TOO?? yes I will keep doing this strikethrough bit

8 - oh fuck I just realized. "iii" as in Inanimate Insanity Invitational but also as in 3 (roman numeral) because it's season 3. also just based on the title I have a bad feeling about this episode (<-half-right??) wait WHAT. MePhone what the fuck does that rnean. whhaaAAAA- oh. agdjhk s ghdclod damn it the commercial is pLOT RELEVANT. hhhhey quick question. how uh. how do we know that everyone's back in the right body..? like. there were some characters who weren't onscreen after they all died again. uhh

9 - th. this episode is probably not like. actually worse than the other ones or anything. but, with the bias I had already formed because I distrust people with the name of the one this episode is a collab with, some stress I was already feeling today before even starting this liveblog, something Balloon said at around 9:14, said pre-liveblog stress making me associate the whole "animation machine" thing (which is seen as bad) with something I like but everyone else hates, I personally have nothing good to say about it.

10 - why is Cabby gold. oh it's whoever has the Immunity Cookie. wait did Cabby forget about TBD because her file was burned??

11 - bat? pokemon. the game you're thinking of is pokemon. wait did he say backstab HOW DOES HE KNOW CANDLE SAW BETRAYAL?? ..yeah I was wondering how that would work

12 - I knew it. I knew Cabby would forget stuff that isn't in a file! urghhh can they Please vote out silver spoon already. he's not gonna WIN, right?? sorry. but I don't like him.

13 - oh the intro reflected Bot's change in appearance. neat! nononoononoNONOONNO GAUhokay. listen I know it's probably not going to happen but I really want YinYang to win. and holy shit that "for the rest of your life" was foreshadowing.

14 - okay off to a start that makes me want to punch something. okay. okay. it's not a real ad. good. HUH HE GLITCHED holy shit, damn uzumaki lookin rooms what is this /positive(?) ☯ 👈 GRIAN INSTINCT (which. to be fair, mood). p u r p l e . PURPLE ACKNOWLEDGED. WHAT WAS THAT! ohhh what the hell. you fuck off this INSTANT you silver shitface. ohh I hate him. I hate him more than I hate Cobs. ..does Cabby not have parents? SPLRINGY IS FAKE. SPRINGY IS A ROBOT OR SOMETHING MADE BY COBS I'M CALLING IT NOW. please please please kill the spoon kill the spoon plEASE- ARRGHHH

15 - seeing as the next episode has Blueberry in the thumbnail and is called The Great Bluish Bake Off, I have a slight prediction on who will win the rejoin. wait what. yeah I'm gonna be honest I don't think it was murder. NO NONONOONO DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAUGHHH,,,,,

16 - why....why am I finding Nickel so relatable. w h a t . now I've never had oatmeal raisin cookies, but I don't think they're the Number One Cause of global warming. I know it's a cartoon and awHAT THE HELL HE JUST DIED

(between 16 and 17) m. MePhone knows. MePhone knows what's going to happen when the season ends, doesn't he? that's why he doesn't want it to. that's why he's desperate. but the question remains, what does he know that the viewers don't?

17 - wait this episode is from 10 months ago. is- is the series not over? damn it! I prefer to binge watch stuff so I don't forget while waiting for new episodes. oh don't even fucking go there. 14:01 FUCK OFF.

(between 17 and 18) y'know I was trying to watch this to ESCAPE all the drama and discourse everyone hates me for. this just feels personal at this point. but hey, who cares about me, right? onto the next damn episode!

18 - there's another 4 under that 4. are they all 4s. ohhh noooo, what an inteeense moooooment. wow it's really fucking difficult to care right now.

19 - again final episode so I'll break this into sections. kinda

..,.Cabby..I think I understand a bit more about my own..situation because of Cabby. wait wait. "built" to? BUILT to?? HMMMMMM 4S is still here?? what ??? ? well at least the one that YinYang wanted to win won..!

and that's season 3 huh.

well. that was kinda filler? tbh?

and the message in episode 17 sucked- ..eh. hold on. I'm getting too angry over some discourse. I need a break from typing this.

okay after like half an hour I realized something. they were trying to win an award. I like AI art, but I don't think it should ever win any awards in competition with human art. the two are fundamentally different. I don't think there should be any competitions that have both, especially high prestige ones. that line at 14:0whatever was too far though.

my opinion is that human art and AI art are both art. but they're VERY different forms of art, and should probably be kept that way.

overall I liked the season. sure, YinYang didn't win and episodes 9 and 17 are...like that. but it's not that bad tbh.

probably gonna watch the rest of s2 tomorrow, but for now I just want to play minecraft.

[fruitbasketball]

wnba recap 8/23

EXCELLENT night of hoops to cover tn 😮‍💨 i’m so ready y’all

las vegas aces vs minnesota lynx

we got to see this matchup again and i gotta say it feels like 2017 the way the lynx are so dominant rn. the fact that the aces are losing to them not once, but TWICE in a ROW… man. MAN.

a’ja was a little off her game - i rarely see her w out a double and shooting under 50%. problem with a’ja being off her game is it doesn’t feel like the rest of the starting five is stepping up. nobody even broke 15 points y’all like… this the back to back champs??? shitttt

like this is a team that is not taking care of the ball on either end of the floor. every single one of the starters turned the ball over at least 3 times except alysha, their efficiency was fine but come on. it’s the ACES. i’ve seen it way better, and considering this is a team they just LOST to??? obv we’re not even worried about playoff berth here - but damn! that should be an ego hit at the very least!

i just wanna talk about napheesa collier for a second. phee needs to be in more mvp convos. like in my head rn, the mvp ranking goes a’ja, phee, stewie. i don’t think that’s anything crazy, and obv i got AT up there, too.

look at what phee did tonight y’all!!!! i mean this shit is WILD: 27 points, 18 REBOUNDS??? ONE EIGHT?? EIGHTFUCKINGTEEN??? on 73% SHOOTING???? 50% from three y’all and 5 dimes and a couple steals like. that’s an insane stat line bro. it’s fucking NUTS. WHY are we not TALKING ABOUT PHEE??? maybe we are and i’m just not seeing it but… phee, man.

lord look at that husky

atlanta dream vs phoenix mercury

i cannot wait until the atlanta dream aren’t playing anymore bc i actually cannot stand watching them play. i got my stanny loyalties but haley jones is so painfully mediocre rn so i’m really just gonna leave it.

diana lorena taurasi a 360 pass is stupid. it’s STUPID. oh my god that shit is so dee i love it.

los angeles sparks vs washington mystics

hellooooo bueckers bowl!! paige watching this game, biting her fingernails, knowing she’s going to whichever team loses… man i love the w 💀💀💀

battle of the shitty franchises i fucking GUESS like… anyway slim had a gameeee (28 points), kira w a nice double double (14/11), ariel atkins with 15 too (you know i had to get my longhorn in there)

you know what LA’s fuckin problem is??? imma tell you what LA’s fuckin problem is. DOGSHIT efficiency. and y’all are like… yeah, no shit. but like ACTUALLY consider how ridiculous this is: they play a four-forward lineup and not ONE of their bigs breaches 50% fgp except rickea this game. WHAT the FUCK.

especially with THIS lineup?? clock the mismatch!!! you’re gonna have smaller guys on you - there is literally NO REASON they should be out scoring y’all in the paint.

OH MY GOD A1 FUCKIN TANK JOB LIKE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

chicago sky vs connecticut sun

clock how close this was y’all: 82-80 sun win.

then clock that marina mabrey got 24 tn to get the W over her old team.

you can’t even script this shit bro it’s just too good 😭😭😭

man just one more board for AT for the triple: 12/9/11 like she really like that bro.

speaking of stats… how angel reese had 20 BOARDS?? just wiping down that glass tonight HOLY SHIT

yeah this should’ve been an easier win. every day i wonder how the FUCK chicago could’ve given up marina and why the FUCK they did when somebody got their pick anyway… jesus christ y’all

anyway… excited for the rest of the season and the postseason. college football coming up, i won’t yap about it but i’ll be internally insufferable about being in the sec now 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 have a blessed night y’all

[idkiwasntsupposedtobebackhere]

rating all the beefs between rory’s love interests:

4. dean VS logan. they saw eachother one time and dean just decided to drive away and never see rory again instead of entering his third homoerotic love triangle situation. i guess they do learn. the narrative told us that rory is ready to date rich guys now. the narrative is NOT gonna make me feel bad for dean. pretty boring, nothing happened. 5/10

who did i root for? i was ready for dean to gtfo already but you’re not gonna catch me saying i rooted for logan in any situation. let’s go with nobody. if they actually would have interacted it would have been such a loser-off. i still think emily and lorelai respectively are the ones who actually wanted these men for rory.

3. dean VS tristan. the first one. will always be funny. I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I NEED MY TAXES DONE is one of dean’s maybe 2 contributions to the series. he made me chuckle once, okay. barely. these two morons fighting over season one rory who just wanted to read thick books at benches and didn’t gaf is so unserious. respect to my girl, though. this was the strong start of several similar situations. poor rory. 6/10

who did i root for? tristan is hotter, more charismatic and just, you know, not dean. but rory did want to be with dean (for some reason) and clearly didn’t want to be with tristan (who just couldn’t get the hint already). so i guess my answer here is nobody too. i don’t like to see dean winning, so i’m not gonna contribute to that

2. logan VS jess. jess ended team logan on a striking level. like woah. self-made, hot, unbothered, funny. logan was catching strays here, holy shit. it was incredible to watch. one of the best episodes of the show. who i rooted for is pretty clear. 9/10. this beef, however, will never top…

1. jess VS dean. 10/10. chef’s kiss. mwuah. the tension😭😭😭😭 the way they focused more on their feud with eachother than actually dating rory. the way they went out of their way to find the other around town to deliver a threatening message or just annoy the other. (also the way they made fun of the other’s shitty job while having a shitty job themselves. like whatever makes you feel better😭). the way jess bought that basket just because dean looked all tall and mad and it was funny😍 the way dean was bothered as hell by jess before jess even knew who he was😭😭😭😭😭 you just know they wrote angry diary entries about eachother. as you can see, dean is dominating this list and is in a situation such as this every thursday, but you just know this one hit different for him.

just kiss already. that’s what i rooted for.

[quasi-normalcy]

Star Trek series rated by horniness (as rated by me, an asexual, so you know its objective):

Star Trek: The Original Series - what is there to say for the series that invented slashfic, fuck-or-die, and Thiess's theory of titillation in costuming? The universe is full of greased-up pecs and scantily clad women wondering what is this thing you call...love? It's easier to mention the episodes that *aren't* horny. 10/10, for how could it be otherwise?

Star Trek: The Animated Series - It's a Saturday morning cartoon series from the 70s, and yet... 3/10, for the surprising number of scantily clad muscular guys

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Oh, we *start* quite horny; Roddenberry is keen to let us know that the android has a penis in the second episode; but then Roddenberry dies, and by the final season even Troi is wearing a sensible duty uniform. 6/10 for Will Riker, though

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - We've got Quark's, where the women are scantily clad, the holosuites are for fucking, and the waiters give themselves ear infections from doing too much oo-mox on themselves. We've got Jadzia Dax, who has three hundred years worth of sexcapades in two genders and will tell you about them at the drop of a hat. We've got Bashir and his sad blue balls for the first two seasons. We've got Klingons breaking each other's clavicles to initiate coitus. And we've got an enemy power led by the perpetual mind-melting gangbang that canonically is the Great Link. 9/10

Star Trek: Voyager - Weirdly conservative in its sexual politics. I mean, it goes out of its way to stick poor Jeri Ryan in that body condom, and there's a whole episode about space whales wanting to fuck the ship, and another one about Janeway wanting to fuck an Irishman, and *two* episodes about Pon Farr...actually, you know what? 6/10.

Star Trek: Enterprise - You know what, let me tell you about this series; this series is like a 14-year-old asexual boy boasting about his supposed sexual conquests in the hopes that it will endear him to the cool kids. It doesn't work; there's nothing genuine about it and everyone knows it; no matter how many innuendos he throws in, it's clear that there's no joy in it for him and he'd be happier if he could just go off and read comic books. Secretly, he wishes his friends still wanted to play with action figures. -1/10

Star Trek: Discovery - The show presents us with wall-to-wall gays who just...never seem to shtup each other. Like, I of all people know that sex doesn't define queerness, but...really? I guess maybe they're afraid of being less than wholesome? Anyways, 2/10 for that time that the Emperor went off to fuck a couple of Orions in the middle of a dangerous secret mission on the Klingon homeworld.

Star Trek: Picard - A series so sexless that it can't even show its main canonical couple enjoying each other's company for more than 5 seconds each season. And yet the chaste Jurati/Borg Queen pairing manages to be the hottest thing ever in the history of fiction. Anyway, I guess they technically had Agnes sleep with Rios in the first season, so 1/10.

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Oooh boy, we're at the heavy hitter now, my god. Completely, unashamedly horny. Gene Roddenberry *wishes* he could have done that orgy scene that people on Twitter were freaking out about. 11/10

Star Trek: Prodigy- They're *kids*. 0/10

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Not really a lot, surprisingly given their TOS pastiche. Still, we get some stuff with Spock. 3/10.

[paopaupaus]

Continuation of the Buddie development->

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10

Okay so i humbly accept that Queer hints started until season 2 with Eddie arriving to the 118, i was kind of surprised that in S1 i felt like Buck had less screentime and surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) most of the time he was with Abby or talking about her so i guess it was necessary to build the relationship up and maybe the writers hadn’t thought about buck’s bi future.

But we’re starting off strong!

S2:E1 Under Pressure

We are introduced to Eddie and i actually didn’t remember this but they start of as (sort of) enemies! Buck feels defensive that the New Guy is the new Hot Guy, so in his immature Buck way, he teases and picks on Eddie.

Now i don’t know what was the purpose of putting the two hunks in the gym scene, but i know they definitely checked each other out when the other wasn’t looking. Eddie pointing out Buck is in “the wrong light”? while he’s taking pics of himself.

Now after they take a granade out of a guy, eddie says to Buck

“you’re badass under pressure brother”

Buck, looking sheepish “me?🙂”

Then Eddie says “you can have my back any day” huuuuhhh okay sure

AND THIS TAKES THE CAKE because Buck responds

“yeah. or you know, you could… (LONG PAUSE WITH EYE CONTACT) you could have mine” *smirking* SIR keep in your pants.

Well that was all for Ep 1, i think this is gonna become my ranting space, you’re welcome to rant in the comments too <3 xo

[imactuallyreallycool]

Of course the one time I actually join a fandom and post art, one of the actors of my favourite ship literally promotes genocide, and finds genocide "sexy" apparently

FREE PALESTINE AND FUCK NOAH SCHNAPP

IM TAKING A BREAK FROM POSTING BYLER ART (sorry to those asks I still haven answered, maybe one day I'll get to you but for now I'm having a break)

If you just need need a break from stranger things/ byler I completely understand!!! So if you block me or unfollow me that's understable

Now if you are unfollowing/blocking me because I'm being anti-zionist, then fuck you I guess.

You don't have to do a lot of research to realise murdering a thousands of innocent people (a lot of which are children) is not a good thing.

hopefully noah can become a better person but the likelihood of that happening is fucking extremely low, so low in fact i cant even see it happening so fuck you noah schnapp.

Hopefully you guys understand what I was trying to say here and everything I’m trying to say here is a complete mess. I will be having a break from posting byler art (you might get some mike wheeler stuff but thats it... for now, I had so much planned for future art, maybe I will get to do it one day but for now FREEING PALESTINE IS WAY MORE IMPORTANT THEN ME DOING ART FOR MY COMFORT SHIP ) and I'll still do fan art but for other fandoms for the moment.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH SEASON 5, PIRATE IT!!!!!!

FREE PALESTINE

Here's a post to help you understand what's happening in palestine (for a start, this shouldn't be the be all and end all for your research)

[andavs]

I finally gave in to the massive peer pressure (half a dozen people posting about it in my dash and in no way directed at me) and watched 9-1-1. You’re the person on my dash who’s been posting about it the longest, and they’d sort of started feeling like blorbos-in-law.

So I knew going in that I was going to be more of an Eddie girl than a Buck girl. And I knew that all the characters were kind of sucky in season 1, and that Buck had the whole Buck 1.0 thing. But like. When am I actually going to start liking him?

I’m in the law suit arc now, and all I want to do is slap him upside the head. I feel like I was finally just starting to like him too, with the tsunami and everything, and now he’s back to driving me crazy. And when I go to ao3 and look for law suit and post law suit era fics, all I see is poor little meow meow Buck. Old subreddits all seemed to be filled with people being mad that Eddie called him exhausting.

Am I crazy? He’s an idiot here, right? I feel like I want to call him things a lot worse than exhausting. Maybe insufferable, that seems applicable. Sorry, I do have faith that he’s going to get better, and I’m think I’m pretty much aware of all the major events that are coming up since I’ve been experiencing them vicariously for years. I guess I’m just confounded that he seems to be the fan favorite even when he sucks the most.

Are there tags for fanworks that don’t think Buck is owed some kind of apology from everyone including Eddie? I feel like there’s got to be something out there.

I was fully peer pressuring you specifically! Everyone should directly experience and love Eddie because he’s the best little guy! He has so many things wrong with him and I love him so much.

But yeah, I admit I’ve gone through several periods where I just did not fucking like Buck, and the lawsuit is definitely one of them. I understand why he did it, but I do not agree with his perspective on the whole thing and it was all very stupidly done even though I did enjoy the emotional beats of the arc.

But then he gets better! And then he gets worse. And then better! And then more annoying. And then better again. 

I think I get why he's the favorite? He's cute, and he’s super relatable and expressive so you know exactly what he’s feeling, and his core fears are ones pretty much everyone is familiar with. Like nobody wants to feel unwanted or left behind, and everyone has at some point worried about being replaced by their friends or being the problem in a situation, which makes Buck super easy to connect with.

And super easy to woobify when you ignore all of the messy parts those fears bring to his character. So that also contributes to my annoyance towards him.

The lawsuit fics are notoriously bad about it, and even now in totally unrelated fics, you’ll get random mentions of the “you’re exhausting” comment like Buck’s been holding onto that for the last four years. Even though he apologized to Eddie and admitted he was acting like a self-centered ass.

Anyway, if there is a tag to avoid all that but still explore the lawsuit, I would love to know what it is, because again, I liked the emotional beats of the lawsuit arc! Just not the details or how people have latched onto poor angel baby Buck who’s done nothing wrong ever in his life.

[i-promise-i-am-not-on-drugs]

Okay, rewatching 06×02 today! Let's go!

(future me here: this episode is 52 minutes long, why the fuck did I take ≈1h30 to write all of this. ;-;)

1) Hospital

Holy shit, I forgot how intense that whole scene is.

My poor baby's dying here. :((

2) Dustin and Steve

They're so awkward lol--

Feels weird to watch them like that after two and a half season of them being beasties, plus the whole fandom "mama Steve" thing.

Also,

Dustin: How do I know it's not a lizard? Because it's face opened up and it ate my cat.

THE WAY STEVE NODDED LIKE "yeah, fair enough" I CAN'T

I like how Steve middely belived Dustin about Dart tho, it shows how his character development is starting to actually happen but isn't really advanced yet. Idk.

3) Hospital

(the way Mike is just next to Will and watching at him like he's going to disappear if he stops looking makes me so happy TuT)

Joyce is such a badass protective mother I love her.

These damn scientist better be scared.

4) Nancy, Jonathan, and Murray

Badass detectives and journalists ✨

Love how Jancy got Murray'd. His talk is just SO iconic, I love it so much. 😌

Also, "Oh. Steve. We like Steve." THAT WAS SO UNNECESSARILY FUNNY HELP ME

5) Nancy and Jonathan

Oh my gosh just kiss already.

(kiss scene happens)

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT I DIDN'T MEAN THAT LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK JUMPSCARE 😰😰

(I actually forgot that they did, in fact, kiss here, and I was NOT prepared help me)

6) Lucas a Dustin (+Erica and Steve)

Love Erica's sassy self, but as an older sibling myself I would NOT like to have her as my sister. She's nosy as fuck.

Anyway, love how Lucas immediately apologize and how Dustin explain the situation so clearly. Love my boys. :)

7) Hopper and the scientists

Hopper: Why aren't you burning it?

Owens: There's been a complication.

Uh. That's one way to put it I guess.

8) Joyce and Bob (+ Will and Mike)

Love how Bob is still hella confused, but is trying to be supportive of Joyce. He would've been such a great dad and husband... Just, not the the Byers. :(

(Mike sleeping in the chair next to Will's bed and waking up right after him ToT💕💕)

Will is already forgetting things, my poor baby. :((

9) Nancy, Jonathan, and Murray

The breakfast scene is so funny help me--

Poor Jonathan has no idea what's going to happen once he gets back home. :(

Murray is so "weird oncle that you see once every ten years and has no idea what he's up to the rest of the time" coded lmao

10) Lucas and Max (+ Billy(ew))

I'm still mad at Billy for breaking Max's skateboard by the way this guy's a grade A asshole.

Anyway, I like how Lucas immediately went to bring Max with him, it's pretty cute. Tho, it's definitely the raison for many other problems after that so, maybe not his best idea. :(

Love that Max is hiding Lucas from Billy, she knows his racist ass would beat the shit out of him.

11) Will and the others

("That' my friend. Mike." MIKE'S TINNY SMILE AAAAAHHHH!!! TOT💕💕)

The fuck is wrong with that guy?? He told you he could feel it, why did you have to actually burn this God damn vine thing??? What is wrong with him???? That's literally just torture!! And toward a child!!! I hate them so much.

My poor son. :((

12) Joyce, Hopper, Owens

That was honestly pretty interesting.

13) Dustin and Steve

Honestly Steve's love advices are pretty... Uh. Mid. Honestly. But I guess it works for him because he's hot and popular or something. (Well used to work, but yk)

But I love this line in particular:

Steve: She's only gonna break your heart, and you're way too young for that shit.

He's speaking from experience here. He's talking about Nancy.

You know, he was saying how she's "different than other girls" (probably because he actually fell in love with her a little), and Dustin started saying that Max's different too. And Steve was like: "Wait. You're not falling in love with this girl right?" And when Dustin told him that he isn't, he says "Good. Don't." A d then this ligne that I highlighted earlier. Because Steve is going through a heartbreak, and he doesn't want Dustin to feel like he does.

Which is actually pretty sweet if you think about it! :)

Anyway, the hair advice is also just so sweet, it's adorable how Steve's trying to help Dustin with girls, I love them they're so siblings. TuT💕

14) Hopper and "Eleven"

That whole scene was just so :(((

He's going to have such a bad breakdown when he'll be back :((

15) the scientists

I am calm. I am very calm. I am absolutely not rooting for the death of these assholes. I. Am. Calm. Relaxed. Chilling. Breathing. 🙂

16) Joyce, Bob (+Will)

We love a (trying to be) supportive boyfriend..! Yay. :')

(Honestly Noah did such an amazing job in this whole season, the way Will is just blankly starting at the celling without blinking is so unsettling and impressive)

17) Will and Mike

WE LOVE AN (ACTUALLY) SUPPORTIVE BOYFRIEND!! YAY!!! >:'D

But seriously, you can see the difference between how Bob and Mike handle this whole situation so clearly it's crazy.

Bob is trying to comfort Joyce by giving her a possibility to be "normal" once all this is done, which is clearly not helping much and is also involuntarily dismissive of her fears.

Meanwhile, Mike is helping Will by trying to understand what he's experiencing, and he is never dismissing him. He uses the terms that Will put on what he sees. And, especially, he is not scared of him. He's treating him like he normally would, just with a bit more worry in his eyes and caution is his mouvements, but that's it. And that's exactly what Will needs. I love them so much.

18) Dustin and Lucas (+ Steve and Max)

(Dustin and Steve are so siblings kskdjqldkbdb I love them sm)

Love that they talk about stuff and how Lucas extend his hand first because he "drew first blood". It's sweet. :)

19) Jonathan and Nancy

Our favorite detective/journalists couple are on the way!!

20) Will (+others)

(the way Mike is almost always the closest person to Will jdkdodksj ToT💕)

You know, I kinda like Dr Owens. He's the most decent out of all these assholes scientists.

21.1) Scientists

Random scientist: Alright, let's see if this kid's a wizard of a schizo.

This line has no right to be this damn funny. >:(

21.2) the vehicle graveyard (or smt)

Whoa, they're doing all that so fucking fast :0

It's pretty cool!!

22) Steve, Dustin, Max

Rip Dustin's crush, it was fun while it lasted 🫡

23) Lumax

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGJHHLJDTLUTDDRULLXUULHFLUTDOYRSOGYOGOYGIYLUXTIDYFDIYDYI MY CHILDREN I LOVE THEM SO FUCKING MUCH THEY'RE SO ADORABLE I'M DYING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!! ༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽💕💕💕

Anyway, sorry. But seriously, lumax is my second favorite couple/ship of ST and I love them so much. This scene is definitely on of my favorites!! :)

Also,

Lucas: I like talking with you, Mad Max.

Max: And I like talking with you, stalker.

RELATIONSHIP BUILDINGS FOR MY BABIES *pterodactyl scream*

(Sorry.)

24) The vehicle graveyard

HOLY SHIT I FORGOT HOW AWESOME THAT SCENE IS!!

Love how Dustin thinks that Steve's awesome, it's cute. :)

And Lumax hold handing! :3

Honestly the actors did an absolutely crazy amazing job here, I can't even imagine the scene without the demodogs, and they had to act without them?? Super impressive.

25.1) The scientists + Hopper

That scene is so cool. Love how Hopper immediately recognize the "graveyard" lol--

25.2) Will, Mike, Joyce (+Bob ig)

The way Mike almost immediately understood what Will was saying is crazy. And then assholes are calling him stupid, istg. *eyes roll*

Anyway, my poor baby Will is GOING THROUGH IT, once again. :((

Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again, but Noah's acting is absolutely amazing here. He gave me literal chills!

And Finn too!! The way you can immediately see the exact moment were the realization hits Mike is absolutely incredible.

Loves these guys.

Annnnnddd, here comes the end of this episode. That was a rollercoaster.

[meteor752]

Spent a whole week binging rwby because why not

Here are mah thoughts

Very interesting decision of the show to open on literally the best character, like I’ve heard of peaking early but come on

No but fr Roman is actually so special to me

I just finished volume nine and I broke down crying at his and Neo’s final moments

Thing is, I’m a person with daddy issues and my favorite family member is my uncle so like of course Qrow is second favorite guy

We love us a bisexual subby whore

Ozpin is number three so like guess what my favorite ship is

(Side note, My Own Worst Enemy by Elektric Angel is one of the best fics I have ever read and I cannot recommend it enough)

Why the fuck did this show start out with having one of the four main characters be racist?! What a bold choice

I hate Jaune so fucking much. If you like him, cool, but he’s one my most hated fictional characters ever, not just him but like what he represents

Tho it is worse with Neptune, who’s also like why tf are you here bruv

It’s very funny to have a borderline kinda racist character and a literal meme from 2014 be drafted into war

It took me five days to break and create ocs. They’re called Lemon Lime, Azure, Iris, and Koral. Team LAIK. Maybe I’ll talk about them more at some other point

Listen okay I know that animated shows like to have your hero be depressed in a whole arc, but like god Ruby was kinda grating in season 9.

Blake is kinda rolling with like, one personality trait, but ya know good on her for getting a cool gf

Yang is also the best out of the main four girls

So is Tai, Summer, and Raven’s relationship supposed to be a polycule? That must have been awkward for poor Qrow back in school

Why the fuck is everyone so mad at Ozpin all the time. Like boohoo, daddy didn’t tell you Santa isn’t real, get fucking over yourself Qrow you’re forty three

But fr what is the animosity about. I think Jelloapocalypse summarized it the best in his rwby video

Also did you know the top comment on there is from Technoblade? Check it out, it’s true. No idea he was a rwby fan, but like good for him

Season 6 episode “Alone in the woods” is the best episode by far. I really like when they do more unique stuff with the Grimm, other than just ‘monster’

That being said I’m always a sucker for a space whale

But the line from that episode, “No one was angry or sad or scared. No one was anything. And then, no one was left” is so powerful

Season nine is like fully a fever dream, but it helps with connecting to the main four again, so I like it

Also they need to stop introducing characters we don’t need any more it’s so cluttered

Why the fuck did the tree have Summer’s weapon? What the fuck was she doing there, frolicking in wonderland? Gurl…

I miss Oobleck. He hasn’t been around since like season 4, like what the hell man

What the fuck is Cinder and Emerald’s relationship supposed to be? Are they sisters? Friends? Is Emerald in love with her? Because she seems to be.

Emerald and Mercury are fully siblings tho. Also I love Mercury

Arthur’s monologue to Cinder was one of the best scenes in the show. I loved it, I’m sad he died

The character I relate the most to is little scorpion freak, because honestly dude saaaaaaame

God I want Salem to fuck me

The motivation of the villain being that they’re an immortal being, who wants the world to end because then they can die, is so fucking interesting and I’m surprised I don’t see more of it.

Do you guys think the only reason that Jaune was made leader of team JNPR was because they couldn’t think of a colour with those letters that started with P?

Do you think that’s how they choose all leaders?

How the fuck is Ren supposed to be a version of Mulan? Apart from him being Asian, there’s no correlation. Jesus Christ…

Him and Nora are very t4t tho. Very glad that they established boundaries about their relationship tho, like open communication is all I need

Why is Ambrosius kinda 💅

This isn’t related to rwby but there’s like a bird or smt screaming outside my window and it kinda sounds like a ghost girl and now I’m scared…

I feel like Salem and Ozpin’s relationship is very uncomfortable with Oscar stuck in the middle. Like why did they have to make him fourteen

Pupsicle!!!!

If I had a child in this universe I would absolutely name them something that starts with a vowel. Some of these team names are a fucking stretch, I mean SSSN?!

Another bold move by the creators is having the first few seasons villains be minorities fighting for Justice and equality. Like idk anything about these dudes, but it’s a little yikes

The fact that everyone in this world is an X-men and the show took four seasons to actually explain that is hilarious

Actually the show taking its time to explain anything is hilarious

Like, six seasons in and we find out the villain’s motivations. Hell four seasons in and we find out the villain

The first opening song was easily the best. Like I said, peaked early

The ship names of this fandom are fucking baller dude. Very creative

[mtkay13]

im not op but im gonna bounce off on it still!!!! mt such a great analysis i love what youre saying about how the narrative in tyk works, how through recontextualization (either by the narrative itself, shifting angles at a later date, or the reader when rereading the novel) things come to light that were intentionally or by happenstance hidden before. many thoughts regarding narrative and how it works (and how zzs makes use of it). this topic specifically has my brain rotting since i first read the novel. tyk has always felt like a tragedy disguised as a comedy to me, youre putting it so well. anyway, this is not an analysis but your words (and also op‘s words) reminded me of the scene in ch.8 (i think) when wenzhou are in the forest and investigate these two sudden murders and follow wkx‘s underling into the abandoned graveyard. especially the scene at the graveyard, told through zzs‘s eyes, is so super interesting to me. i imagine in other wuxia stories this would be atmospheric, spooky, maybe intimidating and creepy. but zzs seems so unimpressed! he relays the atmospheric markers (he remarks on the state of the graveyard, mentions the rat with its red eyes, the single owl perching utop the branch, the odd fog) but narrates it in such a way that the first time reading it, it sounded jarring and almost comical to me. it gets even weirder by wkx starting with his ghost stories and trying to impress zzs, who continues to not be impressed at all. i feel like, since zzs is such a die hard jianghu fanboy, and this is basically his first time doing jianghu things (and he seems to be aware that this scenario is characteristically wuxia), he is basically not just narrating whats happening but also commenting upon it from the angle of someone who had higher expectations and is very eager to follow that path to its end to see what turns up, but doesnt really seem all that moved when happening upon these things in reality. zzs is not the usual wuxia hero, and tyk is very earnest in taking these differences and zzs‘s familiarity with violence seriously and has zzs react and act in authentic ways. like, when they find that murder scene in the woods upon following the scream, and immediately start their weird investigation-flirting-insulting and wkx goes and casually pulls that guy whos hanging in a tree to the ground so they can have a better look at it, and it just severs the poor guy’s head. thats so fucked up and strange!!!!! but its so downplayed its actually jarring!!!! its almost comical!!!!! anyway hello hi hello mt!!!! i didnt mean to write so much i just have a lot of thoughts hehehehe

hahaha hello!!!! Sorry I took so much time to respond!!

Yes yes to all this!! Essentially answering so this can be out in the open hehehe. One thing that I feel like reacting to, though---translating Qi Ye, I recently stumbled upon several references of ZZS being a "seasoned jianghu traveller" and having had a lot of experience in jianghu already; so I guess we can conclude that he does have experience in jianghu (only that he left it around 8-9 years ago) but that he probably always had a remote look at it, from the shadows from which Siji operated. This time, he gets to "play" too, in a way. I feel like, given how smug he tends to sound when bringing up Siji's skills and activities, he may have this sort of patronizing look on the "sillier", more "classical" strange wuxia adventures, which he has been able to watch but almost like a puppet master (since Siji controlled a lot of the politics etc) and his fun, curious, detached and "demystifying" approach could be reflecting that. Anyway, thank you so much for the thoughts!!!

[spiderdramaqueen]

so, i’m finally writing a post about my ren/doc/red king/martyn au i mentioned here.

it’s called complementary quartet au (or cq!au for short), because Ren’s and Red King’s color is red, while Martyn’s and Doc’s is green, which are complementary colors on color wheel.

in this au, traffic life and hermitcraft are different universes. also only third life happened at the start of the au.

cq!au is set in season 9, during Ren’s king arc. rift that grian found doesn’t lead to empires. instead, one day, Red King (RK for short) and his Hand come out of there. mentally, they’re still red lifes. so needless to say they’re pretty hostile to the new server, especially to the players who ‘were’ in third life. besides, it’s hard for them to believe that on this server you can respawn infinite amount of times and you don’t have to battle to death.

and then they meet Ren and Doc, and new problems arise…

okay, let’s start with relationship chart at the beginning of an au.

now let’s examine every pair closer.

Ren and Doc. these two are in established relationship at the start of cq!au. but they’re kinda in a fight because of Ren’s kingship. Doc didn’t declare Perimeter’s independence yet tho. Ren and Doc didn’t took an official break in their relationship or anything, but they started seeing each other less than before and there is some sort of tension between them at the moment. they both miss each other, but too stubborn to actually talk it out.

RK and Martyn. they’re in love with each other, but didn’t talk about it yet! it seems that everything is good between them, but meeting Ren changed things. Martyn is trying to get closer to Ren. seeing this, RK… he doesn’t feel jealous (…it’s a lie), but he’s… thinking. he doesn’t think that Ren is a good king, but at least he’s living on a peaceful server and has a lot of friends (while RK has only enemies and dead allies). so, he distances himself from Martyn, because he thinks it would be the best for his Hand. (at some point they have a conflict about it, but maybe i’ll elaborate on this in another post, because this one is getting long already. let me know if you’re interested i guess?)

RK and Ren. they’ve seen some pieces of each others’ lives in their dreams. things are VERY tense between these two at the start of an au. Red King despises Ren and think that he’s an unworthy ruler. secretly, RK’s also envious of Ren’s peaceful life and doesn’t know what to do with this feeling. meanwhile, Ren is a little bit scared of his alter version. but they grow closer to each other after RK and Martyn have a fight (again. i’ll need a whole another post for this)

Ren and Martyn. as i’ve already said, Ren and RK have seen bits of each other lives in dreams. therefore, Ren has seen Martyn in his dreams before. the most vivid dream was Martyn promising to “go through as many crits as he can” and then taking three painful swings of axe to kill him. so. Ren is wary of Martyn even tho he seems cool. at the same time, Martyn is very curious to get to know this version of his king better. he likes to spend time with Ren. eventually, Ren warms up to Martyn.

Doc and RK. oh, these are fun. their first meeting was literally RK attacking Doc. so, they start with some sort of rivalry. but in the end they both have a lot of fun with it. RK can blow off steam and his pent-up blood thirst with Doc. plus, he respects Doc as a worthy adversary. Doc was irritated with him at first, but now he enjoys thinking of new ways to counter RK’s attacks. though RK’s red life morality kinda unnerves him sometimes. when Doc declares Perimeter’s independence, RK supports him.

Doc and Martyn. probably the most chill guys here, they’re on a good terms. RK told Doc a lot about Martyn, so Doc thinks Martyn is a nice guy, even tho Martyn likes to mess with Doc every now and then. and Martyn heard a lot about Doc from Ren. he’s extremely curious to find out why he and Ren fell apart. these two also grew closer after rk-martyn argument.

so, even tho these four definitely have some troubles at the start, with some time they get to know each other better and overcome their problems and end up in a weird and funny polycule.

if you have questions or just want to talk about cq!au, my askbox and dms are open!

i actually have more bits about cq!au scattered in my friends’ dms lmao, so i think i might post some of them later too. i also drew some stuff for this au but idk. don’t really like these scribbles.

[eviltiddyprodnz]

so I ended up starting Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon recently because I saw a pretty cute edit on Instagram and thought why not.

y’all I wanted to be a part of the fun SO BAD but either I’ve lost my ITV tolerance and need to build it again or I’m just failing to connect with the show…

I’m on Season 3 (for some reason Hotstar divides the same show into the like 9 seasons 💀) and it feels like we haven’t moved at all. we’re moving at the pace of a tortoise and the thing is I’m aware of the spoilers so I keep waiting for something to happen, something to start and nothing does. In fact, I’ve realised that there’s still a very VERY long way to go before things get remotely cute 😭

I’m at the part where Shyam is beginning his psycho era and has paralysed Khushi’s bauji. Arnav is nicer to Khushi but like most shows I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s kind of the only thing that has me going but since I know it’s going to turn soon I’m kinda losing interest which is CRAZY because guys I actually sat through the entirety of Ishqbaaz and the Redux. I skipped the Niti Taylor era because I simply didn’t have it in me to watch more of that show 🙏 but you gotta realise the mess I sat through.

So everytime I want to drop IPKKND I keep telling myself you finished Ishqbaaz, you can sit through this but I guess I’m just finding it difficult. Ishqbaaz was low-key on TV steroids because SO MUCH was happening on that show all the time.

I was kinda tuned into every character for a long time. I don’t want IPKKND to match Ishqbaaz��� freak but apart from Arnav and Khushi I low-key dgaf about anyone 😭👎 Lavanya and the goat (a literal goat Lakshmi) are the other characters I don’t tend to skip over.

I feel like maybe I’ll slow down or take a break for now (I say this as I still want to watch the show because I want to see them fall in love! 😭) but I keep losing patience.

I think what I find super tiring is sitting through anything that isn’t the lead couple and I guess that’s where this show differs from the other ones I’ve watched. Ishqbaaz had 3 brothers as main characters and their parents and they were insane 😭 like truly doing anything !!! So while the female lead was forced to sit through the literal GARBAGE treatment the male lead gave her, you had other things going on.

I don’t really care for other characters for now and also know they’re going to turn on Khushi soon so it keeps pissing me off 😭

Khushi is the only person I root for. My sister is a klutz (god help her feet) and she’s definitely crazy to constantly come back to this house but she’s so loveable. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way towards a character in ITV. for all the Ishqbaaz yapping that I did, Khushi reminds of Gauri. Like I get the same I’ll protect you from these losers energy when I see Khushi that I used to get with Gauri.

I also think they both have a great knack for comedy. IPKKND is getting slightly into the phase where Arnav and Khushi’s interactions are less yelling and throwing daggers at each other and more just awkwardly vibing and Khushi’s SOOOO FUN 😭😭😭

but the plot is soooo slow. y’all I think it’s 2 FULL more seasons of Lavanya and ASR and Shyam for some bizarre reason not getting caught. Like…. someone help me through this.

and I know all of their asses are going to turn on Khushi and bully my sweet sister once ASR does that classic blackmail wedding. She’s already been through so much. WHYYYY 😭💔👎

I’ve just realised this is a rant with no point because I might still go and watch that show. I guess I just wanted to vent because apart from the main leads everyone just frustrates me. 💀

Also Shyam getting to exist for SUCH a long time on the show is crazy….

someone save my Khushi because I’ll take time getting there 😭😭😭

for now l’ll take a breather lmao. ITV truly is a test of patience 😤

[ltwharfy]

"Bob's Burgers" Season 9 Episode Ranking Rewatch (Long Post)

So, I've been rewatching "Bob's Burgers" from the beginning and ranking the episodes using the spreadsheet that @babsvibes created! If you want to know why I'm doing this or how I view the 1-5 rating scale, you can check out my Season 1 post! If you want to check out any of the other seasons, I've been using the "bob's burgers episode ranking rewatch" tag for all of them.

Now, on to Season 9:

Average (Mean) Score: 4.55

Mode (Most Common) Ranking: 5

Ranking Breakdown: 12 5s 10 4s

Season as a whole thoughts:

"Bob's Burgers" is turning nine and it's feeling *uses inhaler* fine!

Seriously, this is just another really excellent season in my opinion. It joins Season 4 and 8 as one of the seasons to not getting any episodes rated lower than a 4, and it's average score is good enough for 4th place of the currently ranked seasons below 7, 4, and 5. In some ways, it reminds me a lot of Season 7- a great mix of humor and heart along with introducing some new characters and other innovations- it's definitely representative of the series at its best, in my opinion.

Some thoughts on specific episodes (and feel free to ask if you want my thoughts on an episode I didn't comment on):

"Just One of the Boyz 4 Now for Now": It's a tough call, but this might be my favorite season premiere and my favorite "musical episode" (ie: one with more than the typical 1-2 songs). All the songs are absolute classics and great parodies of romantic comedy tropes! it's really a brilliant episode. It's hard to name a favorite song, but I think I might have to go with "Friend Zone" just because "Now let's kiss over this cake/'Cause it's your birthday, I guess" always cracks me up. The baby rat subplot is also really fun, and a great use of Hugo. And this episode gives us another (brief) appearance of Louise's Boo Boo crush, which is one of my favorite running gags! A great way to start the season.

"The Taking of Funtime One Two Three": While we're on the subject of great songs (or we were recently) "let an egg roll, from your egg hole" and "if wooly mammoths had had wheels maybe they'd still be around" are among the "Bob's Burgers" song lyrics that are always living in my head. Sadly, I rarely have an occasion to say either of them in conversation. I do like to say "To what end, people?!" occasionally, so thanks for that, Trip. Anyway, this is another classic "The Belcher Kids and their friends have an adventure episode" with a healthy does of Mr. Fischoeder and some fun moments with Yuli the security guard, one of my favorite minor recurring characters.

"Tweentrepreneurs": I love this episode because it helped inspire one of my favorite future career headcanons for Louise (and an outlined multichapter fic I'll probably never write). While taking over the restaurant or being a film director seem like the most obvious future career for Louise, this episode has the biggest of about three canon moments that inspired my "Louise Belcher, future labor union organizer" headcanon. I worked in the labor movement for several years and I just think would Louise would love it- taking on the rich and powerful, helping other people stand up for themselves, causing good trouble- it's a really good fit for her. And here she is, leading a walkout at age 9! (And, given my fondness for her relationship with Rudy, I have to mention that it's her concern for his health that is the final straw leading to the walkout.)

"Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street": Probably my favorite Halloween episode; definitely has my two favorite Halloween costumes! Rudy and Bob are probably the two characters I relate to the most, and it cracks me up that their costumes in this episode are totally things I would do: "what? It might look like I'm wearing normal clothes, but actually I'm totally Paul Rudd or Bruce Springsteen, can't you tell?!" Also, I don't think I've mentioned before how much I love the guy who's about to throw the candy into the incinerator. He's really one of my favorite one-off characters. Dude just got out of six month coma, doesn't know what day it is, still goes to work...and apparently will just throw anything into the incinerator that anybody tells him to (unless he gets a more compelling reason not to)? I think he might rank second after the "Boyz 4 Now" security guard as my favorite nameless one-off character.

"I Bob Your Pardon": Maybe my third or fourth favorite Thanksgiving episode! I've always had an interested in politics and journalism (I wanted to be a journalist when I was a kid) so this hilarious small town Thanksgiving turkey pardoning scandal really hits a lot of the right notes for me. If I had become a journalist, I definitely would've stolen "Well, somebody better call Huey Lewis because I may have found myself some news" as my catchphrase. And the end credits song is a total banger! "Don't you taint my mayor!"

"Better Off Sled": An excellent Christmas episode! Generally speaking, Louise and Logan's dynamic isn't really my jam, but I enjoy them here. The one-upsmanship of the snowball arms race is a lot of fun, and the "stupid Christmas" ending is sweet but not too sweet and feels totally in character for Louise. Also, I can't help but love this exchange: "Then why does it look like your butt could take a sheet of fresh-baked cookies out of the oven?" "Genetics?" (Kristen Schaal's delivery of "genetics?" is one of at least three times on the series when she absolutely kills me with her delivery of a single word). All that being said, I think Teddy is the real comedic MVP of this episode- pretty much everything he says cracks me up! And I love that Rudy is basically the one who saves the day for the Belcher kids! And Knitcracker, I can't believe I didn't mention Knitcracker yet! (That said, it's still not my favorite Christmas episode since it doesn't involve any references to murder mannequins.)

"The Helen Hunt": I feel like this might be one of my least popular shipping opinions but...I like Teddy/Kathleen! Not in the sense that I want to create fic or art for them, but I just think they are kind of sweet together. Like with Roger and Judy from "Aquaticism" they have that "awkward middle-aged people finding each other" vibe that this awkward middle-aged single person finds appealing. And I think her pretty easygoing, laidback nature is a nice contrast to how stressed out/excitable Teddy can be. And I always enjoy people who watch odd sports! Okay, Teddy/Kathleen aside, I also just enjoyed that they did a followup to "Housetrap", and the father and hot son plumbing duo subplot is so cute! "You, you make plumbing fun..."

"Bed, Bob, and Beyond": One of the things I've noticed in this rewatch, is that I really enjoy the three-story episodes (aka vignette episodes aka triptychs aka who knows what else some folks have called them.) I think what I really enjoy is that the reason for them is always different, and therefore it always says something different about the characters and their situations. it's not just the Simpsons having a trio of non-canon Halloween adventures ever year. I think showing Linda and Bob having a stupid fight, and the kids view of it and their efforts to get them to reconcile, was a really clever use of one of these stories. Also, if I am ever asked to do an English accent, I will likely say "I'm watching footie on the telly in the pubby where the beer is". (Which is probably offensive, so please don't ask me to do that!)

"Every Which Way But Goose": Another thing the rewatch has made me appreciate more: Jimmy Jr. and his relationship with Tina. I never hated J-Ju, but I will say that I probably took him and the Tinimmy relationship for granted- it's been there since almost the beginning but I never really thought much about it. But the rewatch has helped me realize how funny of a character J-Ju is (it's just a really funny voice by H. Jon Benjamin) and how the Tinimmy relationship has given us some really funny episodes- most notably this one and "Ex Mach Tina", which are both all-time classics in my book (and, of course, they play a big role in "Bob Actually" as well, but I like that one for other reasons as well.) To me, it's clear from this episode and others that J-Ju does care about Tina...he's just very much a 13 year old boy. So, he's occasionally thoughtful but more often dumb or oblivious. Also, the end credits song to this one is another classic. I wish I could go to a concert of "Bob's Burgers" music just so I could scream out "secret kiss with Bruce the Goose" with thousands of other excited concert goers, because that is what that lyric deserves, dammit!

"The Gene Mile": So, I recently posted about how much I enjoyed some of the Rudy moments in this one. This is another great "Belcher kids and their friends" adventure; and I really wish that Courtney and Alex had more appearances in stories like this- where they and their relationship with Gene isn't really the center of the story- they are just part of the gang! It's always fun to watch different combinations of the kids have fun together. Also, nice for Large Tommy to get his largest role- going back to Season 1 of the rewatch it's funny to think that he was introduced much earlier than some of Louise's more iconic classmates (Rudy, Chloe, Millie, Jessica, Harley, etc.).

"P.T.A. It Ain't So": I feel like this might be the first example in the rewatch of an episode that really grew on me. A lot of the episodes I've given 5s to were ones I remember loving as soon as I saw them. Or they were "sleeper hits" that I had basically forgotten about before rewatching. This episode I remember when I first saw it, and I remember thinking it was fine but nothing great. But on rewatches I just find myself enjoying it more and more. I really love the Kim and Sons hardware store bird subplot- especially the ridiculous flyer the kids make. Also, it's fun watching the kids play with their pipe in the background (such a great kids being kids moment)! But the PTA stuff is great too- I love the fact that Tammy's Dad is Linda's PTA bestie for some reason! And Linda's idea of Colleen being in the shark suit for the dramatic revelation! And the Bleach Boys! Also, as someone who headed a neighborhood political group for a while, Joanne's line "Do you have any idea how many emails I send a week? No, you don't because no one reads them" resonates with me.

Random thoughts (stuff that doesn't affect the ratings):

-More great new characters continue to arrive on the scene! Hi Susmita! Hi Arnold!

-I would totally watch Randy's movie "A Life, Well, Steved". "And I thought to myself, 'I can't take another hurdle. I think I am that baby turtle.'" That's some beautiful, profound stuff there.

See you in the Season 10 post! It could be pretty soon since I've already watched rated it all- just need time to write!

[hankwritten]

Slake Her Thirst

Pauling/Pyro, 2k Warnings: binge drinking

Sunday (July 9) : Party | Music | Games

Escape was before her. A thin band of light under a closed door. And just as easily, that chance was whisked away by being a second too late to leap on it.

“You’re not staying for the party?” Demo asked, a lager in each hand.

Pauling groaned internally, her hand on the doorknob now as useless as an ice screw left lying on the ground. She drew it back and tried rustle up a smile.

“I didn’t want to impose…” she said.

Which was a bad start because Demo immediately replied with, “Ach! It’s no imposition. We hardly ever see ye lass, it’s good to have you come every now and then.”

Damn. She’d walked right into that. “Seriously, I’m kind of don’t do well at parties, just going to bring the mood down…”

“What’s the matter? Ye got somewhere to be or something?”

There. No way out of this one, not when she’d already tipped her hand and let slip this was her day off. Her palm glumly fell from the doorknob.

“…No. I guess not.”

Demo took this opportunity to shove one of the lagers into her now unoccupied hands.

“Good!” he boomed. “Drinks on the house lassie, so start throwing ‘em back!”

Actually drinks were on TF Industries, and the generous salaries it was doling out to these guys, but she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She tipped it back and drained it in one, long-running gulp (much to Demo’s enthusiasm as he cheered her on) and wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve when she was done. She was probably going to need several of these to make it through tonight.

Because mercenary parties were nothing to sneeze at. Pauling wasn’t a fan of normal parties—of their prying, incessant purpose to crack you open and get you to spill yourself onto confetti and barely trustworthy acquaintances—and the mercs of 2Fort didn’t stop at too loud music and a lot of beer. No, a lot didn’t even begin to cover it. It was a stupid amount of beer. A disaster-waiting-to-happen amount of beer. And she was right there in the middle of it.

Sniper had brought his family’s moonshine. Heavy, as she watched, hauled a truly massive keg into the base common room. Even Pyro was drinking a beer through a curly straw.

That last one was pretty adorable, actually.

“Ah, so you decided to stay after all!”

The sudden appearance of the team’s Medic made her jump, and if there were still beer in her mug she certainly would have sloshed it over herself. Medic, immediately categorizing this as a deficiency, replaced her lager with a full one.

“Oktoberfest!” he cheered warmly.

“It’s July,” Pauling said.

“Not if you find the spirit of the season in your heart,” he said.

She shrugged, and began to imbue from the new one as well. Still, her eyes kept finding her way back to the Pyro, even as she hid it behind glass and glasses. Medic, of course noticed.

“He was very much hoping you would stay,” Medic said. “It was his idea to do the briefcase pre-check, thought you would be more inclined if we did so.”

That had been a welcome surprise when she’d first stopped on base, saving her the hassle of going through the checks herself.

“I should go say thanks then,” she said honestly. “Maybe try to get him to itemize my other classified documents too.”

It was a joke, but one not too far from the truth; she trusted with secrets, and that trust went both ways. Namely, the fact that ‘he’ wasn’t an accurate descriptor.

Or at least, that’s what the Administrator said. She hadn’t really provided any proof, or what Pyro might look like under that suit—that was left to Pauling’s imagination and it was something she really shouldn’t be thinking about while drunk and approaching Pyro’s sofa. She waved the thoughts away.

It wasn’t hard to guess the reason for the deception. This was a man’s job, and no one was going to let you forget it. Every other person in this room was showboating and getting hopped on testosterone, and even if they’d always treated her kindly, she’d never be treated the same. The Administrator wasn’t immune to either—to work for Helen you did assassinations in heels and you negotiated weapons contracts in a skirt, and if you couldn’t do that you went home. Even now, she could feel Scout’s eyes on her, desperate to come over and wind up another ill-fated schmooze on her, only screened by the Engineer trying to convince him of something.

So no, she didn’t begrudge the Pyro for being private. And she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to blab to the guys.

“Heyyy buddyyy~” she said upon reaching Pyro and wow was she drunk if her voice was already doing that thing.

Pyro didn’t mind, immediately sweeping her up into a bone-crushing hug.

“Good to see you too. Thanks for um…the um…briefcase thing.”

Though, maybe if she’d still been stuck in the intelligence room, she would have had a valid excuse to skip the party. Oh well. She was actually starting to enjoy herself.

And becoming a little afraid of what that meant. Quashing the little part of herself that hated losing composure, hated becoming uninhibited.

“Hudda huh?” Pyro asked, setting Pauling down.

“Noooo…I’ve only had like. Two.” Within the span of ten minutes.

“Mmph,” Pyro said, tapping her own straw.

“Contest? Oh hell yeah. You’re on.” Then Pauling’s brain caught up with her words. “I mean, actually, I probably shouldn’t stay for too long…”

“Pssy.”

“Oh fuck you! You’re the pussy.”

So Pauling chugged the party down thoroughly, Pyro by her side and matching her drink for drink. Until the straw proved to be too much of a limiter, and Pauling started taking on extra drinks while waiting, taunting Pyro to catch up.

She found herself on the dance floor, maybe being a bit too clingy to her ‘favorite buddy’. But she quickly soothed that spike of worry—they guys were taking notice, and maybe having a bit of a laugh as Pyro and Pauling made clumsy fools of themselves to the overly sugary music, but as far as they knew there was nothing wrong with it. Sure Scout was oddly put out, but that was a blessing really, and the whole situation became almost comforting. That for one night, maybe things would go well.

“Huddah huh!”

“Keg stand? I can’t do a keg stand! I’m in a skirt!”

“Hudd mmrr huh.”

“Pantyhose don’t count as pants. They’re underwear, Pyro.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yuh-huh!”

Somehow, maybe a testament to her level of inebriation and a sign that she should stop this, Pyro convinced her to do a keg stand under the conditions she would hold up her skirt while she did it. The nearest mercenaries cheered when she finished, and she put both fists up in victory.

“Wooo!”

“Mmmm!” Pyro echoed.

“This is great! I’m having so much fun. I can’t even remember why I didn’t want to have fun in the first place.”

“Great to hear it, lass,” Demo said.

“You guys are my best friends! I feel like my skin is on fire. I could kill every person in this room and no one would even care. I’m holding together the world’s most expensive corporate conspiracy with packing wire and multicolored sticky notes and I can’t even get a government mandated sick day! Isn’t that funny? Ha. Haha. HAHA.”

It wasn’t that funny.

“Pmmph hudd?”

“I’M HAVING SO MUCH FUN.”

She doubled over laughing. She tried to wrap her arms around her stomach to keep the fun inside her, but it wasn’t helping. The laughter was shaking every cell in her body, threatening to tear her apart at the seams.

The mercenaries were milling about in concern, and it was only Pyro holding up a hand that kept them back.

She found herself in Pyro’s room. Minutes blurred by or when on achingly slowly with no rhyme or reason, and the hysteria only started to lessen when the thrum of the party was applied through several layers of base walls.

“This,” she said, still trying to hold herself with arms and elbows. “This is why I can’t. Can’t let it go for even a second.”

“Mmm hurr?” Pyro sat by her on the bed.

“It’s like molecules in a solid. Stress is keeping you together. But then you start bombarding them with energy and they bounce off each other and then the whole structure goes bleh and leaks like goo out of the edges.”

Pyro was rubbing her back. Pauling’s hands found her shoulders, her neck, the edge where the suit met the mask. She was barely thinking, here whole structure, her whole all of her leaking over the edges and on to Pyro.

“And I just…I can’t let my guard down for even a second…”

Except for now maybe. When her lips were bumping against rubber mask that was just close enough to skin it could trick her brain into believing something else.

What was she doing? What was doing? They other guys might know Pyro was a woman, but Pyro knew was a woman, and here she was now doing something that definitely couldn’t be brushed off as being too drunk or too out of her mind…

But Pyro wasn’t pushing her away. Even as Pauling straddled her, gloves came up the back of Pauling’s neck, undoing her chignon and letting her hair fall black and cascading around them. They were suddenly kissing in a tent of darkness, and Pauling was here, on pushing her flat onto the bed, her finger’s searching for the zipper of the chemsuit-

“Prrmmng.”

It had to be here, somewhere along the neckline-

“Prrmmng,” Pyro said more firmly, guiding them back into a sitting position.

“What?”

“Hudda mur hhrm.”

Pauling tried to follow the finger as it moved from one side of her face to the other. She really did. But suddenly one finger became six, then down to two, and then her eyes started to hurt for no reason as the scrutiny of the blank lenses kept her pinned. Pyro shook her head, and gently moved Pauling off her lap.

“Shit. Shit, Pyro I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Pyro silenced her wish a shake of her head, and gently cupped Pauling’s cheek with a gloved palm. An assurance that everything was alright.

It didn’t feel alright. But she was suddenly so, so tired, and didn’t have it in her to fight anymore. She could only manage one last surrender, obeying when Pyro told her to get some rest. Collapsing unfamiliar pillow, her hair spread out in an absolute mess, she let the mercenary take off her kitten heels and pull a thin blanket over her shoulders.

The rim a plastic filter nudged her temple, a kiss goodnight.