#this story just like
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Taking in the information about Henry/Edward/Vecna/001/000/ahhhhhhhhhh
Has changed my brain chemistry
Looking at this story as a whole, thinking about how it’s all gonna connect in S5, thinking about all the characters and how this story is gonna effect them and how their stories will affect it and how it’s a spider web of beauty AND OH MY GOD
#this has changed me as a person me thinks#this story just like#HITS HARD#YK?#LIKE OMFG#stranger things#henry creel#will byers#mike wheeler#eleven#byler#vecna#edward creel#LITERALLY EVERYTHING#ITS ALL CONNECTING VAGUELY IN MY HEAD#RAAGHHHHHHHHH
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filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^
#THIS TOOK ME FOREVER RAAHHHH#i had help from my mom with stuff like the parts of the traje de mestiza which is the outfit shes wearing#this trend looks so much fun and i wanted to join in.. im first gen canadian though so ive never been to the philippines and only#know thru stories of my parents growing up. im proud of my heritage but there are some things i didnt grow up with that#make me feel disconnected from my culture. so it was nice to talk to my mom abt it and ask for her help with this :3#the pleated tapis is meant to resemble her skirt.. i had no way of adding her stockings but i noticed the piano key design#so i used that for the saya. the bandana is meant to resemble her hairties and shes wearing bakya wooden slippers with embroidery#i kinda wanted to add the panuelo to resemble her tie as a finishing touch but i forgor ;w; just imagine it i guess#my mom really likes this. shes a little confused abt the blue hair and i had to explain her hair is like that but she thinks shes pretty#originally i wanted her holding the woven pamaypay and fanning herself because ITS HOT ITS 25 FUCKING DEGREES TODAY#but i couldnt get the pose right so i settled for this. i wanna draw her and brazilian miku high fiving ill do that tmrw#my art#myart#hatsune miku#miku worldwide#philippines#vocaloid#miku
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wait do people read first person stories and think they're the ones in the story???
Saw people talking about not liking first person, which is fair, but their reasoning was like "I would not do that" and I don't understand that mindset.
First person stories are still about a character. A character making their own decisions. First person isn't about you???? At least I thought it wasn't. What am I missing? I've always seen first person as just a more in-depth look into a character's mind and stricter POV. Not as a reader stand-in.
#reading#writing#writblr#writeblr#isn't second person the one more likely to be projection#because it's involving you in the story#unless it's told in a more artistic way#like dislike a pov style if you want idc#I just don't understand this specific reason
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Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:
Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.
The actual difference is
when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names
when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names
hope this helps!
#audio books vs reading#honestly this debate is just pineapple on pizza again#personally i like reading better#i’m a poor listener and since i read faster than people talk i get bored and my mind starts to wander#but who gives a shit#just do what works best for you#in the end we all get the same story#oh and this post is about stories in english#in finnish you rarely have either problem
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i did wrestling in middle school. on one hand, i was actually quite good at it, which was nice. being good at any sport was a new achievement for me. on the other hand, i was bi, and i was trying very hard not to notice that i was bi, and getting folded into knots by very kind, very muscular dorks made that task somewhat difficult.
adding fire to the problem was that my parents and my grandparents wanted to watch my matches, because they were very proud that their Gangly Nerd Son was actually Sporting, and they wanted to cheer me on. which would've been sweet and all, but if there are four people you do not want there during a key part of your Burgeoning Sexual Awakening, it is your mom and your dad and your grandma and your grandpa.
right? i mean, imagine some guy's got your head in his armpit, and you're going you know, old sweat smells bad, but fresh sweat has a sort of and then you make eye contact with your grandpa in the stands and you remember you're swearing spandex so if you pop a boner people aren't just going to be able to see the outline, they're going to be able to count the veins, and the only way you will be able to restore your family's honor after that would be by moving to siberia and renouncing joy, forever. that, or lift your entire body up by your kneck then twist 180 degrees without paralyzing yourself.
it’s a lot of pressure, is what i’m saying.
still it did motivate me to win my matches really fast. because i was so tall and skinny, i was stupidly good at the double leg takedown, and then once someone was knocked down, i'd just do the half nelson and kind of flip em over for the pin. then the ref would count to three and i’d win. EZPZ.
i had one match where that went great. won in the first ten seconds, sat back down, and prepared myself for a good hour or two of doing fuck all. didn't even feel bad the parents/grandparents were gonna be bored. the matches went up from me in 5 pound increments (i was in the 115 lbs division) and it was going great until we got to the 145 lbs division. the other school's wrestler stepped onto the mat, and she turned out to be a girl so our guy flipped, because for straight guys, wrestling a girl is not a pleasant experience.
i'm not entirely unsympathetic. my experience wrestling dudes was definitely a little traumatic. but also, i dealt. guy could've dealt too. instead, he refused to wrestle, and the coach went - fine. not even worth fighting over.
so he went to the 140 pounder, and that guy said, nosir, my mom said mormons can't wrestle girls. next guy down, 135 pounder, now he knew he could pull the same card and thus did. 130 pounder, 125, both tapped out. he got to the 120 guy, and that guy was catholic, but he said he was considering being mormon, and thus would have to pass. as a precaution.
coach blew up a little at that. he said "is there anyone - anyone - on this entire goddamn team that is willing to wrestle a girl?" and then he pointed at me and said "YOU. MAT. GO."
and i'll be real, if i'd been paying more attention, i'd have pulled the mormon card too, but i'd just been putting all that audio into a buffer file because i was reading, so i was halfway across the mat before i even processed what had been said and by then it was too late to turn back.
still i had a plan. and my plan - my beautiful, perfect plan - was to do what i'd always done. tackle, flip, pin, win. sit down. read. bore my family to death. move on.
i got the first part right. she was bigger than me, but she wasn't taller. just an incredibly stout woman. god built me like a snake with glasses, just as he built her like a combat cube. the problem was the half nelson. soon as she was down, i tried hooking my arm under hers from behind and for both genders, the defense for this move is just clamping your arms really fucking tight against your sides. if you're a guy, that's whatever, but if you're a girl - especially if you're god's chosen combat cube - that pins your opponents hand right against your boob.
so, i got the hook in, she clamped, my whole arm pressed against something soft, my coach was yelling THE HALF NELSON. BABYLON! JUST FINISH IT! FINISH THE HALF NELSON! and i was just trying to press hard enough to finish, when then my brain went
...oh.
and i flipped out. of course i flipped out. i like girls, and touching a boob is an elemental experience, and i was not ready. i was not prepared. i had not committed the sacred rites. i recoiled like i'd just brushed my arm against the surface of the sun, stood up, and backed away. nobody in the room knew why i'd given up. all they saw was me, right about to win, suddenly flailing around and scrambling. so everyone started screaming at me to just get the half nelson again, and i couldn't really yell back there's a fuckin' boob in the way and it was very distressing, and the only way i could think of to make them stop was just doing it over again the right way.
so i did.
i hunkered down and prepared myself for Wrasslin' Attempt #2: The Sequel.
i knocked her down again, EZPZ. i went for the half nelson again, but she knew what i was about to do so she super clamped, and i knew she was gonna super clamp, so i wound my arm back like a pop-eye cartoon punch before swinging my arm through the gap between her bicep and her side, but the amount of time i spent winding back super signalled what i was about to to do, which gave her time to clamp even harder, which somehow redirected the entire force of the popeye punch to the bottom of her bra.
it spat out a single boob the same way an action hero might spit out one single tooth after getting a solid crack across the jaw. as if to say:
*ptooie.* "that all you got?"
i did not actually see this. my experience was that first there was an arm, then there was a bit of boob, but i was braced, i was ready, forward at all costs, tatakae motherfuckers, and then the boob went away, and i didn't know where it went but my team, and the audience, and everyone who was in front of me, they all gasped like i just kicked them in the stomach. except for my coach. he was behind me, and thus one of the four people in the room who did not see the boob. now my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my grandpa, they all got flashed but nooooooo, coach thunderbutt was behind me, and he didn't see shit so he was still yelling NOOOOOO BABYLON WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST FINISH THE NELSON! GO FOR THE KILL! BABYLON! BABYLON!
but i did not go for the kill. i stood up and she stuffed her boob back real fast, and we just kind of circled each other awkwardly until time ran out and i won on points. that's not technically allowed, but the ref had some mercy on me.
my coach did not.
i barely had time to sit down before he strode over to the bench to chew me out.
"babylon," he said, in that very calm way people get when they're too pissed to yell. "why didn't you pin?"
and i didn't know how to say well coach, i tried, but there was a boob, and it kept getting in the way, and my mom was watching, and so was my dad, and so was his dad, and his mom, and god (like bible god) and that's a can of worms because i'm pretty sure he was already mad at me, and i'm wearing spandex, and i think i might have to move to siberia, so instead i said
"i uh. i forgot how to do the half nelson."
which is actually impossible. forgetting how to do the half nelson is like forgetting how to swallow your spit.
and he looked at me, like i was the dumbest person in the entire world, and i looked through him like i'd just survived my 250th day in a trench at verdun, and he said: fine.
fine.
but we're all going to practice it for an hour tomorrow because you forgot.
and then he left.
and my buddies had the gall to be salty about it. i got so many comments saying "dude, why didn't you just tell him the truth?" and i said "you can if you care so damn much. you could've wrestled the girl too. maybe someone else should do the hard thing today."
but they didn't. so the next day, we did an hour of half nelson drills, and i spent a decent amount of time getting thrown around the mat, and it was pleasant in exactly the way that i hated and the year after that, to the surprise of everyone but myself, i quit wrestling and joined the trivia team.
and if you want more reasons to love my mom, my grandpa joked after the match that i might have to talk to my bishop about it, and my mom told him he would be allowed to make jokes after he stood in front of a crowd of 110 people in spandex underpants while wrestling a woman that was not his wife.
he paused for almost five seconds after that. then he said: aw. hell. sorry babylon.
and i'd have preferred my apology from god, but getting it from him was pretty good too.
#whew boy this make me anxious just typing it#wrestling#middle school#the dread#i feel like i have to write some stories about my grandpa not being a dick#because he was actually an amazing grandpa#he just had a few goofs are very comedic moments#and you know if you're gonna have a goof making it comedic is a virtue in itself#he was there for me more than a lot of my classmates dads were#and i dont want that undervalued#yeah#babylon-lore
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local ladies man’s signature move totally useless against autistic monster enthusiast. more on Kabru’s fumble era at 6
#i’ve seen so many interpretations of that 1 hr freeze frame of Kabru’s smile in ep 16#he’s meeting his long time crush of course he’s trying to charm him#Kabru so obviously has a big fat giant crush on Laios#like atp in the story he’s tried to talk to him and get his attention so many times agjdjajdj#Laios is the human rubix cube he’s been searching for his entire life#everyone else is almost too easy for Kabru to pin down#Laios on the other hand … a treasure trove of autistic mystery#Kabru is so locked in#Kabru used signature move: charming smile#Laios: no effect!#there’s something so beautiful about the popular pretty boy entering his fumble era when his one true love turns out to be autistic#labru#laios touden#kabru of utaya#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#wasabi rambles#seen so many clock that smile as nefarious and machiavellian#baby no Kabru is just dialing the charm up to 100 and what we’re all feeling is second hand embarrassment LMAO
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...weird amount of dunmeshi fans have been saying being a caretaker in a relationship is the worst thing ever..marcille must want to killl everyone soo bad because doing things for people suuuucks sooo muchh
it's an act of love, not just a job i promise. we all want someone who's willing to take care of us in some way, just like how senshi shows care for others by cooking for them :'|
#marcille donato#dungeon meshi#dunmeshi#laios touden#falin touden#chilchuck tims#izutsumi#delicious in dungeon#this is also about kabru and mithrun stop focusing so hard on how it was ‘forced upon’ kabru as if it’s the most evil thing in the world#they took care of EACH OTHER during that time and mithrun wasn’t doing nothing#people are so weird about him and reduce mithrun down to his disability as if he isn’t CAPTAIN for a reason#it’s sooo insane#try thinking about how their time together serves the themes of the story rather than a biased interpretation#of all the things that happen in this manga people focus on the weirdest things to apply to real life#people try to construe is as something evil with evil intent as if it’s not there to benefit the THEMES of the story#woah a huge...heron? just landed on a tree i've been staring at it for like 10 minutes its pretty#dungeon meshi spoilers
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what's my biggest pet peeve well it's when someone makes a text post on tumblr dot com in which they are trying to romanticize the notion of the livestock guardian dog but they don't know the distinction between a livestock guardian dog and a herding dog and also they've never met a livestock guardian dog and do not realize what their attitudes towards the sheep that they protect actually are
#a livestock guardian dog does not desire to possess the sheep that it protects I promise that's not the vibe#a livestock guardian dog is biologically conditioned to guard thing. I have heard multiple stories of livestock guardian dogs who#somehow get lost and just decide to start guarding a random deer and her fawn#like hedging my bets found an ungulate. just going to guard it now#I LOVE LGDS THEYRE THE PERFECT ANIMAL.#gourd dog
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author’s notes today: hey guys so just a warning there isn’t 100% explicit verbal consent even though they’re both really into it so remember this is FICTION, also they don’t use a condom :((( but in real life safe sex is important!!! please be safe out there everyone
a/n back in the day: kept thinking about ____ stabbing knives through both of _____’s hands to pin him in place while they fucked so here you go lol =P
#i’m not saying it was better at all! i just find the contrast hilarious#no one posted stories with the belief that readers would use them as instruction manuals#kids today write author’s notes like they’re about to be sued for practicing without a license
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i dont like the idea that kids these days are doing their fandom rps with ai chatbots. that's how you're supposed to make lifelong friends as a weird really online teen.
#i was never really an rper of any kind it just did not do it for me#im like im sorry actually i cant do this collaboratively i need to be controlling all of the little dolls myself.#however homestuck rp deck epicmafia. now that was another story
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listen I know it's heartbreaking that Claudia dies and it's understandable to wish she didn't, but let's please not accuse the writers of fridging her. to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story and is frankly insulting to the intelligence and skill of the writers of the show.
Claudia's death, and the overwhelming grief and regret her parents experience because of it, is quite literally the point of the entire story. she dies because Anne's daughter Michele died of leukemia when she was five years old and there was nothing she or her husband could do to prevent it.
writing IWTV was how Anne coped with the unimaginable loss of a parent losing her child. she created a story about a little girl that could not die and then killed her anyway. Claudia's death is a senseless, unavoidable tragedy, just like Michele's was. the grief that haunts Louis and Lestat for the rest of their lives is the same grief that haunted Anne and her husband.
so when you're accusing people of killing Claudia off to benefit a story about two men, please remember that in real life sometimes parents lose their children. please remember Michele Rice.
she's the reason Claudia exists.
she's also the reason Claudia cannot be saved.
#interview with the vampire#claudia de lioncourt#iwtv#lestat de lioncourt#louis de pointe du lac#saw some rancid takes on twitter and i just can't not say something#like how do you encounter a story so clearly about the fathomless grief that comes with losing a child and blaming your partner and yoursel#and somehow finding a way to live again after years and years of suffering--not forgetting NEVER forgetting--but living and loving again#and go 'the writers just hate women. claudia should never have died'#like you're right that Claudia shouldn't have died. Michele shouldn't have died either.#but she did. and so Claudia did. and her parents will never stop grieving her.#iwtv spoilers
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At least once a month I remember that Ozai ruled for ~3 years. That's shorter than one presidential term. That's nothing. In comparison Zuko - who suffered so much cruelty and was made to feel worthless under Ozai - ruled for ALMOST 70 YEARS. That's more than 22 times the length of Ozai's rule - and he will go down in history as one of the most influential and well loved Fire Lords of all time
#i'm almost positive i've made a post about this before because this just kills me#avatar#atla#my posts#zhao made a big stink about being remembered by history then quickly died in obscurity#like ozai!!! he's a foot note in history and so much of his story is linked to zuko and aang's!!!
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Everytime I see posts like this I get filled with such profound sadness
Cause you know who has the same brainrot as you? The same unhinged feelings as you after you've read the fic? The person who always wants to scream about the fic with you?
THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT
I never used to leave comments but since I got into the habit of commenting on everything i enjoy it's been incredible. Especially when the author gets back to me about it and we get to have a discussion of what other ideas they had. One writer replied to my comment with a 5 paragraph essay detailing the Floorplan of the building the characters lived in and it was incredible
Anyways this is all to say that if you find a fic that just makes you want to scream from the rooftops, leave a comment saying that to the author and maybe they will join you and you can scream incoherently together
#i really think people have reached the point where they forget theres a person just like them who wrote the story#and it makes me sad its wonderful talking to authors#also this screenshot isnt mine i found it on twitter skkskfksk#fanfiction#fanfic#ao3#archive of our own
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you’re my hero!
bnha doomed yuri was not on my 2024 bingo card
(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)
#my art#artists on tumblr#digital art#fanart#bnha#boku no hero academia#mha#my hero academia#togachako#ochako uraraka#toga himiko#a snack for the og bnha followers if any of you are still here#really liked the lines on this one so i tried to go easy on the rendering#which has been burning me out lately#thankfully theres a cure for that (silly doodles)#no idea whats going on with the story though#like wdym bnha is ending???#I literally started watching as a high school freshman its been going on forever#i did hear abt the togachako storyline so this is a product of all the bits and pieces floating in my brain#doomed yuri my beloved#just girls supporting girls (ft incredible violence)
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Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?
I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?
In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".
Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.
This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.
Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.
The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]
There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.
This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.
[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]
As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.
But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?
Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.
#transgender#trans history#transsexual#transphobia#Magnus Hirschfeld#holocaust#holocaust denial#book burning#j.k. rowling#jk rowling#just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :)#trans people have always existed#and we will always exist#if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit#queer history#queer#lgbt+#lgbta+#lgbt#lgbt history#edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month#also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it#it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs#and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had#also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2#Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices#considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived
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bad dating stories time: the shoe incident
so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.
at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.
he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?
and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.
but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.
i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?
(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)
and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.
i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.
that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.
i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.
anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.
i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.
we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.
he was okay at it.
eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.
soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.
realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:
"i can't get pregnant"
which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.
still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"
and then i was in my car, and i drove away.
if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.
and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.
WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.
we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.
do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.
and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.
then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.
and then they started making out.
i was close enough to hear it.
i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.
so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.
now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.
so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.
about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.
my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.
my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.
they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?
and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.
#dating stories#anecdotes#long post#funny story#babylon#im really bad at dating#like i can do a lot better than this but also it just was kind of a nightmare for me#shit like this did make the whole thing easier tho#like#every date after this i could go you know ive seen how bad it can get#and i lived#didnt even get shot#writing
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