#very niche meme using a grab from

[haredjarris]

me, an autistic adult, when i'm working 1:1 with an autistic child and an allistic teacher asks them to do something, i can see them start their process to do it, but then the teacher asks again in like 10 seconds:

like they're working on it!! give them a chance!!

[secretmellowblog]

I hope tumblr doesn’t die because No other social media site is as good for long, thoughtful, nuanced analyses of media. Yeah tumblr is also full of dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts, but you can make dumb shallow hot takes and shitposts anywhere —-there are no other popular social media sites that let you easily format and share long essays on the media you enjoy, and then have conversations around those long essays.

Fandom on all the other big social websites just seems so utterly …shallow. And it’s not because people on other websites aren’t thoughtful or don’t have deep things to say, but because these sites’ formats do not allow for any kind of long nuanced conversations.

Tiktok? Things have to be crammed into a super short video with an attention grabbing headline, and you can’t hyperlink sources. Instagram? Everything has to be in an image format with strict limits on length, and nothing will be shown to your followers anyway because of how Instagram’s algorithm works, and also no hyperlinks. Twitter? Strict character limits, and if you split it into threads it means someone can retweet a part of your essay completely out of context, and also very little freedom with formatting.

It frustrates me so much. If I go into the Tumblr Les Mis fandom I’ll find really compelling long essays on the original novel (including essays being written for the ongoing book club) on the story’s historical context, or the parallels between different characters and their narrative foils, or the way the politics were defanged for certain adaptations, or the way Victor Hugo’s personal life and failings affected the novel. But on tiktok I’ll get the same five shallow stale jokes from 2013 over and over, or maybe the same “DID U KNO THAT IN THE MUSICAL JAVERT AND VALJEAN SING THE SAME LEITMOTIF” style of basic Intro To Les Mis 101 For Babies media analysis (which is what Tiktok considers deep media analysis), or stale “LOL JAVERT ACTS GAY” style jokes as if we’re living in the early 2000s and calling a character gay is still a funny punchline. And it’s impossible to have any kind of deeper thoughtful discussions than “DID U KNOW <x Kool Fact>” or “lol <shallow observational joke>” on tiktok because the platform just isn’t built for building niche communities around in depth conversations. it’s built to churn out bland generic content for as wide an audience as possible, which means pointing out a small detail like an Easter egg and calling it ���cool” is deep media analysis, because you cant have longer more in depth conversations without alienating people. And I hate it. Bc like, it’s not because there aren’t smart clever thoughtful people on Tiktok— there are—it’s because Tiktok isn’t built for these conversations, and anyone who wants to have them has to really fight against the things the website encourages or prioritizes!

Or like, if I go into the LOTR fandom on Tumblr, I’ll find tons of extremely long analysis and fanfic, and analysis of queer readings of the story. On Instagram people will still shriek in terror if you suggest the characters are gay, and most of the popular lotr posts are stale memes recycled from like 2007. There’s really no room for thoughtful media analysis, and even if you did create it, instagram’s algorithm would make sure no one saw your post anyway.

And everyone’s going to say “the algorithm shows you what you’ve seen before so maybe it’s your fault ~” or whatever but i do look for things I want! I do! “The algorithm” doesn’t know me or what I want or value or care about beyond this meaningless surface level.

The only thing that was worthwhile about these sites was the great visual art people were creating, but now the websites are overwhelmed with meaningless soulless machine-generated AI glurge, and it sucks. It just really, really sucks.

I’m honestly confused about why people don’t use tumblr….There’s no character limits! You have freedom with post formatting, and can insert images throughout textposts to illustrate specific points you’re making beneath the paragraphs where they’re necessary! You can add hyperlinks, linking to your sources! People can reblog your entire essay and share it, and then add on with commentary that then becomes part of a larger conversation! People can find your stuff through the tagging system! Reblogging means posts stay in circulation for years instead of being dead 30 minutes after they’re uploaded! If you want to have genuinely interesting text conversations about a piece of media, there really isn’t a better social media website for it anywhere.

To be clear, I’m definitely not saying Tumblr media analysis is *always* clever and thoughtful or etc etc. there are shitposts and nonsense here too (plenty of which I’ve created lol.) I’m saying that Tumblr gives people the tools for in-depth insightful analysis to happen. Whether people choose to do it or not is their own decision XD. But the reason lengthy in-depth conversations and book clubs are even possible here is because Tumblr is built for allowing these conversations to happen, in a way other sites simply aren’t.

It’d really suck if it died, because it’d be a huge blow to…being able to easily find long insightful in-depth media analysis written by fans. I currently don’t think there’s anything that could replace it.

[humanmoodring-retired]

Good Vibrations & Coffee Contemplations || Raina & Nadia

TIMING: Current  PARTIES: @rainaim & @humanmoodring SUMMARY: Nadia grabs a coffee. Raina makes a friend. CONTENT: brief parental death mention

Raina leaned against the counter top, bored by the lack of customers. The morning rush had come and gone. Now, only a few coffee connoisseurs trickled in every twenty to forty minutes. Her shift wasn’t going to be over for another hour and a half, and though she knew there was plenty that she could do to pass the time, it was hard to find the encouragement, especially when the overhead speakers had died out and there was nobody with the know-how to fix them. She scrolled through her phone, only looking up at a sudden shadow against the door. A customer! Raina shot up and beamed at the woman as she entered the shop. “Hi! Welcome to Coffee Plus.” She punched in her I.D and waited for the woman to begin her order, finally glad to have something to do that wasn’t scrubbing the burnt muffin tins in the back.

Sometimes, Nadia preferred to just stay in her apartment. Most times, really, if she was being honest. And she was trying to do that more often. But she stayed inside too much, and the days were getting longer, and warmer, and generally more enjoyable. And she liked being warm, and she was thinking too much in her apartment. And… she’d run out of coffee, which meant she needed to go somewhere to get a much needed dose of caffeine. Which was how she ended up at Coffee Plus, hoping that the barista wasn’t that poor girl that she and Sammy had ended up tormenting. It wasn’t, thankfully, just a young woman who went from bored to very, very excited so fast it was like emotional whiplash. Nadia blinked. “Uh, yeah. Can I--” she acted like she was deciding what she wanted when really she already knew. “Can I get a triple shot of espresso.” She needed to not fall asleep for a few more hours, at least. “And, uh, a blueberry muffin.” She guessed that maybe she should probably eat something, too.

As the woman approached the counter, Raina looked past her to see if anybody had followed. Nope, she was alone. Disappointment fell over her for a brief movement before she reapplied the smile and gave her attention back to the woman. She had been hopeful that there’d be more customers to help-- that the remainder of her shift would be spent using up her time, not slugging through wiping down each table until her replacement came in to relieve her. Raina nodded enthusiastically as the woman finally ordered. A triple espresso? That was easy. “Sure thing. Can I get a name--” She looked around. “Never mind. Why don’t you go on and find yourself a seat and I’ll bring it over to you when it’s ready.” She kept her smile as she turned back towards the espresso machine. Raina waited for the filter to drip the espresso into the glass below, humming as she went. She quickly warmed up the muffin and put it on a small, off-white plate. Once the woman’s order was ready, she walked it slowly to the table. “Here you are, hon!” She didn’t know if the woman was older or younger than her, but it didn’t matter-- Southern charm leaked from her candy coated tongue.

There wasn’t really anyone else to focus on as Nadia felt the barista cycle through disappointment and hope and just overwhelming enthusiasm at doing her job. “Uh, yeah, thanks.” Nadia managed a tired smile and went over to a table. She checked her phone for a bit, answering a few text messages and looking over a journal article werewolves in medieval Icelandic literature, which was pretty niche reading, even for her, but some website that she’d been on a few weeks ago kept sending her emails with journal articles attached, and she… kept reading them. She didn’t know how accurate they were, and she doubted that Kaden would give her anything more about werewolves beside the fact that most of them were monsters, but it was still an interesting read, even if the words were a little blurry. She looked up when her coffee was brought to her, her smile lopsided. The younger woman was kind and sincere, and Nadia appreciated it, even if it was a lot. She couldn’t help but return the kindness. “I appreciate you bringing it to me. Really, I could have grabbed it myself.”

“Oh, it’s no problem.” Raina looked down at the table, realizing she had forgotten a napkin. She held up a finger and returned to the small table next to the door and grabbed a few before she returned to the customer. She placed them down neatly next to the plate and smiled. “Ain’t got much goin’ on anyhow, so I figured I’d up my customer service game.” She wrinkled her nose. “It’s too much, isn’t it?” She looked over her shoulder at the clock. Barely a blink had gone by. She frowned slightly. Well, the least she could do was start wiping down the tables so that her replacement didn’t have to. “I’m new here,” Raina said aloud as she grabbed a wet dish rag and disinfecting spray. She moved to a table far, but not too far from the customer. “Just moved here… a couple weeks ago?” She nodded as if in approval of herself. “You from around here?” It was small talk-- not something everyone liked, but Raina was desperate.

It was weird to be treated like it was a sit-down restaurant when it was a coffee shop, Nadia thought, but she didn’t mind. “Well, still. It’s kind of you.” She took a sip of her drink, careful not to gulp it down even though she wanted to. It was hot and bitter, and it didn’t do much to wake her up, but it was the thought of it that counted. “Oh, no, dude. Not a lot at all. It’s really nice, actually.” And it was. The other woman was well-intentioned. Nadia didn’t have to be an empath to tell that. “Yeah,” she asked. She could kind of tell the barista was new, but she didn’t want to point that out. Southern charm wasn’t exactly common in Maine, though. Not with an accent that thick, at least. “How do you like it so far?” She took another sip of her coffee, picked at her muffin. “No, no, I’m from Arizona. I moved here, like, a year and a half ago.” Had it really been that long? It didn’t feel like it had been that long. Then again, it wasn’t like she’d been present the entire time. Nadia suddenly wasn’t that hungry, but she picked at the muffin some more, anyway.

Raina began to wipe down the table and looked over at the woman as she drank her coffee. She watched her expression carefully to see if the coffee was too bitter, too hot, or too cold. It seemed just right by the looks on her face, or lack thereof. She looked back down at the table and decided she was done with her current project and moved onto the next. “It’s good. People keep to ‘emselves mostly, which I don’t mind…” She shrugged. “Everyone’s different, but I do like sayin’ goodmornin, you know?” Raina offered a small smile, “But overall s’great. I’ve got a nice roommate.” Onto the next table. “Arizona?” She hummed, “I’ve never been out West, but I imagine it’s a lot warmer than out here, or even Tennessee.” She scrubbed at a stubborn coffee ring on the table. “So how’re you likin’ it? Any tips for a newbie?” Raina asked, looking up from the now spotless table to look at the customer.

Nadia did her best not to gulp down the bitter liquid as it cooled, eager for something to start taking effect. Maybe it just wouldn’t. Maybe she’d be waiting on the caffeine to kick in for the rest of her life; she’d exhausted it’s usefulness, and now she was to be perpetually tired for forever. Whatever. It was fine. At the very least, chatting with the friendly barista wasn’t at risk of putting her to sleep. “Yeah, totally. I get the wanting a good morning and everything. I’m sure people will start talking more as you get settled. It’s a small town. You’d be surprised how much everybody just… knows everybody.” And they did. It seemed like there was never more than two degrees of separation between her and just about everyone that she met in White Crest. She laughed. “Yeah, it’s pretty fucking hot out there. Desert and all, you know? Phoenix isn’t named after a fire bird because it’s temperatures are balmy.” She kept a more lighthearted disposition, adjusting in her seat more comfortably. “You from Tennessee? Uh, I like it well enough. It’s... I like it a lot better than I thought I would.” She’d stuck around, hadn’t she? She had people here, now. And it wasn’t like she could go home. “Tips… tips… Let me think… Don’t fuck with the mimes.”

“I’ve heard lots about small towns,” Raina said as she wiped her brow with the back of her free hand. She continued to scrub at another coffee ring on a different table, this one more stubborn than the last. “Guess I’ll just have to put on my best manners ‘an show everyone that I mean well.” She knew that newcomers could scare others off. That was the last thing she wanted to do. How was she supposed to find other people like her if she ran them off instead before she could even have the discussion? “Ah, right, right.” Raina nodded. “I heard the road melts. The houses, too?” She wasn’t sure if that was true, but she thought she’d seen it on the news. It was hard to tell what was a meme and what was real nowadays. “Sure am. Born and raised in Knoxville. Big enough place that not everyone is in your business, but small enough to meet someone’s family member twice removed on a trip to the grocery store.” Not that she ever had that problem. Her family wasn’t from Knoxville. A pang of homesickness hit her and she took a deep breath before moving onto the next table. “Mimes?” She laughed. She’d seen the warnings online, but wasn’t sure what to do with them. “Tell me, they hurt people with their fake boxes and goin’ downstairs routines?”

“I believe in you,” Nadia said, and she did. The woman in front of her seemed endlessly pleasant and kind. Nadia could feel it. She laughed. She felt lighter. It was easier to eat some of the muffin, the food not sticking in her throat as bad. “Nah, the roads and the houses don’t melt. Though, I’ve cooked eggs on the sidewalk before. Knoxville sounds nice, though. Phoenix is one of the biggest cities in the country. Sometimes, I didn’t even recognize my neighbors. Of course, I kept to myself a lot.” In college, the only person she’d really talked to was her roommate, Brooke, and whoever Brooke dragged in and out of her life. And that had been nice, and the thoughts of it hurt her less, now. She could remember them with fondness without the bitterness, even if questions would always linger. “Dolly Parton from anywhere near there?” she asked, genuinely curious. She didn’t know shit about Tennessee. She raised an eyebrow, and kept her tone light. She fucking hated the mimes, but it was best not to come off too strong. “Nah, they’ll just shoot you.”

Raina was glad that the customer-- no, the woman! She was her own person, not just somebody who was feeding into the capitalistic society (or coffee culture). She raised a brow. “Oh, really? I swear I thought houses melted…” Raina shrugged, “Guess I was wrong. Interesting about the egg thing. You didn’t eat ‘em, did ya?” Even if the woman had, Raina wouldn’t judge. “I guess that’s one story to tell to people.” Raina finally knocked out the stain and moved to the next table, which was closest to where the woman sat. The table offered little resistance to her cleaning efforts. She set the rag down for a moment once the customer asked about Dolly Parton. “Oh, yes.” She let out a laugh. “Even if you ain’t a Dolly Parton fan, you’re a Dolly fan in Tennessee.” Her own mother who’d sworn off country music even listened to her. The older Raina got, the more she felt like she could appreciate the woman, too. “Are you a fan?” She asked with a smile. Raina picked the rag back up and moved onto the next table. “Shoot you, huh?” She hummed, “well I’ll keep that in mind.” She wasn’t sure if the woman was being truthful or not. Maybe she was. Raina straightened up after she had cleaned every table but the one the woman was sitting at. “You don’t mind me askin’ your name, do you? Feels weird to think of you as someone I’m servin’ coffee when we’re havin’ such a nice conversation ‘an all.”

“We’ve gotten pretty good about building our houses with materials that don’t melt,” Nadia explained. “It wouldn’t do to have melted houses everytime the thermostat hits Fahrenheit 451. Okay, not really. More like Fahrenheit 115. When it’s, like, fucking miserable out.” So hot that heat came off the ground in waves. So hot that it was impossible to go outside without shoes on. Nadia missed the heat, but, damn, it was dangerous. Still didn’t melt houses, though. Not that she’d been aware of, at least. “I mean, I put them in a pan, and it was really just to see if it could happen. My roommate at the time ate them, though. She said I should have added more pepper.” And not cooked them in the sun, but, hey. It was a fun experiment between two people that weren’t particularly scientifically inclined. She grinned, enjoying the other woman’s lightheartedness. “Makes sense. You know, I’m more of a rock kinda gal, but I think it’s a fucking sin not to be a fan of Dolly, you know?” She could feel the other woman’s skepticism, and Nadia sighed. She rolled up her sleeve, exposing the scar from when her doppleganger mime had shot her last year. “They like to shoot people, too, apparently.” She put her sleeve back down and gave a wry grin. “My name’s Nadia. And you? I’d hate to keep referring to you as the super chill barista in my head, too.”

Raina leaned against the neighboring table, wincing slightly as it began to make a small screeching noise from her weight as it moved against the floor. “Sorry ‘bout that.” She pulled it back into its original spot and stood up straight. “That sounds downright miserable. Now I know y’all have dry heat as opposed to humidity… not sure which I’d rather battle.” Maybe one day she’d be able to figure out how to pull water right out of the air. Maybe when her magic was stronger. When she was stronger. She wouldn’t be able to do that in a place like Arizona, she realized. Yeah, definitely not moving out west anytime soon-- at least, not to any deserts. “Well, I guess that brings a new meaning to the term sunny side up, don’t it?” She flashed the woman a smile before she folded the rag in on itself. “I’ll be honest, I don’t listen to much music. When I do, it’s all Top 40.” She cracked an embarrassed smile. “Mostly ‘cause I listen to a lot of what my momma and daddy did, you know?” she looked down at her feet. It’d been awhile since she’d listened to her mom sing trot, or since she’d watch her dad play out the drum solos in the air from Phil Collins’ greatest hits album. She felt a sudden wave of sadness. Raina cleared her throat, immediately eradicating the feeling. It was fleeting, but there was a heaviness in her chest. “Oh, you’re tellin me--” She was pulled from her thoughts as she was shown the scar on her arm. She blinked a few times, trying to understand why a mime could ever want to do that before she looked up to meet Nadia’s eyes. “Oh! Nadia!” She smiled at her descriptor being a super chill barista, even if she couldn’t take her eyes off of the scar. “M’name is Raina!” She looked down at her nametag, which she only now noticed was missing. “Nadia’s a pretty name,” She sounded it out again, “Sounds like you should be in some storybook, I dunno.” She cracked a smile, though the stab wound was still on her mind.

“Personally, I always preferred the dry heat. Easier to breathe, that way,” Nadia said. Though… Maine’s humidity and more temperate climate was growing on her. Maybe it had more to do with the people than the place, though. White Crest? She could take it or leave it. It was as fascinating to live in as it was dangerous, two sides to the same coin. She laughed at the joke, genuinely pleased by the pun. “Totally new meaning to sunny side up, for sure.” She took a bite of her muffin, chased it with a sip of coffee. She was enjoying this, genuinely. She needed to get out more, Nadia realized. At the very least so that she could have interactions like this, something that wasn’t all in her head. Her head wasn’t the most fun place to be, sometimes. “Nothing wrong with listening to the popular stuff. It’s popular for a reason, you know?” There was a wave of sadness that followed that, though, in the aftermath of the other woman mentioning her mother and father, and it caused Nadia to think of her own parents. Their disdain for her. The way her mother had told her to never call back or she’d tell the cops. She managed a smile, though, as they rocketed through another few waves of emotions, of confusement and happiness, and concerne. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to show off the scar, but it’d been what she’d done in the moment. Live and learn. Not everyone was as fascinated in scars as others. “Nice to meet you, Raina.” She laughed. “I don’t know about a storybook.” Maybe a horror movie. “I did study a lot of folklore and fairytales in college, though.”

Raina tried to push the scar from her mind. It was silly to focus on something like that. Yes, maybe Nadia had been attacked by an angry mime, but that didn’t mean they were all bad. Her altercation with the thing in the alleyway alongside Irene sent shivers down her spine and she decided to push the thought of mimes, or mime-esque things far from her mind. Maybe it was for the better, the witch thought-- the warnings that these individuals came in tow with. “Well,” The brunette laughed, “see! You’re already part of the way there!” Raina looked down at the chair across from Nadia and contemplated slipping into it, but decided against it at the last moment. Instead, she busied herself with scrubbing another table. Maybe she had missed something. It wasn’t polite to bother customers as long as she had been. “I went to school for art. One of our projects was to illustrate a children’s book…” She lazily dragged the rag against the tabletop, “that mighta gone mighty well with whatever you were studyin!” She grinned at her before folding the rag up again. She was having a nice time talking to Nadia. It wasn’t often that the patrons who came into Coffee Plus humored her with conversation. If they did, they were usually overtly rude. “Which one’s your favorite?” Raina asked as an afterthought, shuffling between the chairs as she went back to the counter to put the rag in the bin and wash her hands.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Studying the Tuatha De Danann practically makes me a Disney princess,” Nadia said, but there was no bite to her words, and she smiled as she said them. She looked at Raina, at the way she’d hesitated near the chair across from Nadia, contemplating something (sitting, probably), before she decided against it and started back to her work. “Art, huh? That sounds nice. What kind of children’s book did you illustrate?” She laughed. “I don’t know how well it would have gone with some of my research, though, unfortunately. Not children’s illustrations, at least. Sometimes fairytales aren’t as gentle as cartoons want you to believe.” This town was proof of that, too. “Favorite?” she murmured. “Damn, I think I was asked that recently, too… It’s hard to choose. Like picking a favorite kid or something.” She thought about it again. “There’s a story called ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon.’ It’s Norwegian. Kind of like ‘Beauty and the Beast’ or the myth of Cupid and Psyche. There’s a prince in disguise, and trials, and a happy ending. Sometimes those are kind of rare, surprisingly. It’s good, though. A different take on the usual.” Watching as the other woman went and washed her hands, Nadia waited for her to look back up before she toed at the chair across from her, pushing it away from the table. “You know, if you wanna sit, at least until someone else comes in, I wouldn’t mind the company.” The other woman was nice to be around. Her emotions were nice, pleasant. “I don’t suppose you’re also interested in obscure fairytales?”

Raina smiled at the woman from across the way and scrubbed the soap in between her fingers. The witch wrinkled her nose as the citrus-y scent lifted to her nostrils. “It was a project of sorts. We all got a few pages, then it was compiled into this bigger book kinda thing.” She smiled fondly as she recalled said project. She had included her little family, including her aunt, as background characters. She still had a copy of the book back at her apartment-- unable to part with it prior to her move to White Crest. “Well, of ‘course not. It ain’t all butterflies, but I think that’s what makes ‘em interesting. Ain’t about bein black ‘n white, but it’s nice when they have happy endings.” She remembered playing princess of the castle with her father-- cardboard boxes made into extravagant towers, her stuffed animals being that of her subjects. Raina decided not to focus on the sadness that was eager to sweep through her at the memory. No, she’d remember those moments for what they were. “That sounds good, I’ll have to look it up.” She meant it when she said it. She tucked it away for later, deciding that once Nadia left, she’d get on her phone and do her own research. Finally, she turned the water off and dried her hands on a clean towel. When Nadia offered the chair across from her, she let her smile grow a little wider. “Wasn’t sure if you’d get all weirded out by your barista tryna kick it with you or not.” Raina crossed the distance between them and delicately placed herself into the chair, doing her best to avoid smacking limbs against either the chair or the table. “Not so much obscure as just havin’ really been into princesses and all that while growin’ up,” Raina admitted with a laugh. She folded her hands in her lap and thought for a moment, “I only really liked it when good things happened, but there were a few that are… a little more sinister that my mama would tell me.” The fond smile stayed pinned to her features as she let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “I know a few Korean ones, too.”

“That sounds kinda fun, an illustration project,” Nadia said. “Gotta admit, most of the stuff I remember doing were less projects and more papers. Buncha shit on, like, meaning and theme and literary analysis. I can dissect a sentence in a poem and tell you what I think the author’s trying to convey with punctuation, but I can’t draw stick figures to save my life.” Handwriting? Sure, hers was decent when she didn’t rush it. Art just wasn’t her thing. Nadia could appreciate it, though. “You’re right, of course. I’ve been bigger into the happy endings, lately. Kinda dig them, actually.” Nadia could use a few more happy endings in her life. Monster gets vanquished, protagonist gets peace. She liked that. She kind of wanted that. “You’ll have to tell me what you think of it.” She smiled, pleased when Raina sat down in front of her. She liked being able to have a nice conversation. “Trust me, nothing weird about having good company. But, yeah, I really like princesses when I was little, too. Though, I also had an unhealthy obsession with the Brothers Grimm. Kinda dark, not really for children. I liked them, though.” She’d like a lot of things she probably shouldn’t have. Nadia’s smile echoed Raina’s. “Yeah? I read the ones my ma didn’t tell me.” And she was interested, leaning forward, eyes bright. “Really? Any you’d be interested in sharing?”

Raina had her fair share of papers, too. She never liked them much, the words always getting jumbled. She’d never been much of a reader, more of a listener. “Sounds like you had your work cut out for you,” The witch smiled. “Writin’ all those papers and whatnot.” She shook her head. “Glad I don’t ever hav’ta look at another report again-- not workin’ here, at least.” She hummed at Nadia’s admission of not being able to draw. “I know you probably get this a lot, but it just takes a bit of practice. Anythin’ is art if you really want it to be.” She should’ve made herself her one of three free drinks. She decided she’d do it later once Nadia had left. “Brothers Grimm?” She tilted her head to the side, “I sometimes forget that Disney really just walked on in and ripped the stories from their original aspects ‘an made everything flowery.” Raina twiddled her thumbs, “but I s’pose that’s what a general audience wants, y’know?” She didn’t know much about what people wanted, but she did know that Tangled was one of her favorite Disney films while the actual story of Rumpelstiltskin was terrifying. Nadia’s interest made Raina’s ears burn. What if she recalled them wrong? It’d been so long since she’d heard them, or read them. She cleared her throat. “Well, there’s one ‘bout a fox, ‘bout how a family wanted-- or, more specifically, a father wanted a daughter, even if she was a fox.” She thought for a moment, doing her best to recall the details of the story her mother had told her, “They got a girl, but in the night, their livestock would start goin’ missing… and each time a brother would go out and report her to their father.” She tapped her fingers, tracing out the words her mother had said to her on the back of her hand as she tried to pull the story from memory, “And each time, the father’d kick the boys out and say it wasn’t happenin. Finally, a few years had passed ‘an two of the brothers came back ‘round… only to find that their family was gone. All but the sister. She ended up eatin’ her brothers, claimin’ that it’d make her human.” She nodded, “I think that was all of it-- I might’ve missed a few points, seein’ as I haven’t heard it in awhile.” She let out a soft laugh. “Pretty gruesome, I think.”

“It was interesting, for sure,” Nadia said. “I always kind of liked writing papers. I like words, language, the way that sentences flow when time and care is taken to putting them together. I’m, like, a lot better at writing than I am talking.” She laughed. “I don’t know, you’ve got to write down people’s orders, right? I bet that, for some people, that’s practically a research paper in length. Four pumps of vanilla, three pumps of caramel, two packets of Splenda, whipped cream on the side, shake, not stirred. All that shit.” She’d been told plenty of times that she just had to practice to get better at drawing, but she… didn’t have the patience for it. Or maybe she didn’t and just didn’t want to apply herself. “I might just, like, stick to writing, maybe. I’m sure you’re much better at the whole visual art thing. But yeah! The Brothers Grimm kind of gathered and compiled a lot of fairytales that we know of today. Snow White, Rapunzel. Sleeping Beauty. They compiled them together in a collection of several hundred ‘household’ tales. They weren’t really for children, though.” They were warnings, a lot of them, stories to keep people in line, stories to tell how things became the way that they are. Nadia listened with interest as Raina told her tale, remembering the details and filing them away for later. “Sometimes, there doesn’t really seem to be a point to stories. If I remember correctly, there was a story about a young girl that was being chased by a witch and got turned into a lake somehow. From what I remember, the witch ended up drinking her. For the life of me, I can’t remember the moral of that one. Grim and gruesome seems to be the way a lot of folk tales go.”

Raina was grateful for storytelling. It brought people together. At least, for the most part it did. She had to look at the conversation that she and Nadia were now having because of this. It made her feel good that she had successfully gotten somebody to speak to her for longer than two minutes. She knew that her too-sweet optimism could be a lot for most people, and though for the most part Raina was actually shy, those were moments where she knew she was being looked down upon. When it came to people who actually wanted something to do with her, she flourished. “Rapunzel, I think-- I really liked that one.” She smoothed her apron down as it curved around her knees. “Not a huge fan of the original though, too... “ Her expression pinched, “much, I think.” She looked towards the door as a customer shouldered through and looked at the counter, their face screwed in confusion. “Ah, dang. Looks like we’re cuttin’ short.” She looked at Nadia with a small smile before getting out of her seat. “Stick ‘round, if you want. Or, I mean-- Only if you want, no pressure or nothin’, just been lovely talkin’ to the not-so-locals, but also locals, y’know?” She hurried toward the counter and began to take the customer’s order, feeling light on her feet. Maybe everything that had happened in White Crest so far had led her to moments with those she might be able to consider friends, or at the very least, people who’d sit down and have a chat.

[trisshawkeye]

Tagged by @thedreadvampy let’s goooo

Why did you choose your URL? It’s been my online handle since forever. I started using Triss by itself as a preteen on fandom message boards because I was an extremely Redwall kid, then when I found that username was often taken, I added Hawkeye because I was also an FMA kid. And it’s stuck ever since. 

Any side blogs? A couple! @preciousbrosfiliandkili is a The Hobbit side blog I made, focussed on... well, what it says on the tin. @a-foolish-notion is a vaguely in-character blog for stuff I come across that my Empire character would like, which I started because of some larp meme, I think? But still very occasionally reblog pretty masks and rings to. It keeps him happy. And there’s another blog attached to me In Real Life which I want to keep vaguely separate from my fandom presence, so I’ll say no more about it. If you know, you know.

How long have you been on Tumblr? Since summer 2012-ish? Initial Mechs content appears very early on.

Do you have a queue tag? There was a short while when I used a queue, but then I got bored and stopped. I don’t think I had a tag for it though.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? A bunch of my uni/larp friends had Tumblrs and I wanted to join in. Afterwards it became my primary connection to fandom stuff. 

Why did you choose your icon? Artemis is cool I guess, and I like reds and greens. I’ll usually grab a Supergiant icon once I play their latest game. I’ll change it fairly often, depending on what I’m into. It’s usually (but not limited to) redheads of some description. 

Why did you choose your header image? I like space. *shrug*

What’s your post with the most notes? Absolutely the ProBirdRights dramatic readings, particularly the politics one. 

How many mutuals do you have? I have absolutely no idea!

How many followers do you have? 876, but I imagine most of them are inactive given the general demographics of my notes.

How many people are you following? 142, but again a lot of these are inactive. I’ll often go on unfollowing sprees as my interests change unless it’s a friend - it’s nothing personal, I just like a well-curated dash. Occasionally I’ll go look up blogs by name if it’s someone I used to follow who I want to check in on. 

Have you ever made a shitpost? Eh, a couple? What defines a shitpost in contrast to just a silly joke? 

How often do you use Tumblr every day? Uh. Too much.

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Nah. I rarely engage with Discourse, and when I do I don’t directly engage with another person who is wrong. I just silently judge a lot of people.

How do you feel about the 'you need to reblog this’ posts? That kind of emotional manipulation is a near guarantee that I won’t reblog the post.

Do you like tag games? Sometimes, if they’re fun and I’m in the mood. 

Do you like ask games? I do, though I rarely actually get asks when I reblog them so...

Which of your Tumblr mutuals do you think is famous? @thedreadvampy haha. Your blog exists as a regular reminder to me that I don’t actually want to be a Big Name Fan for anything, even something I love as much as the Mechs. You seem to be having a good time but god, I would die. I will write my Weird Niche Fics in peace and I will enjoy it

Do you have a crush on a mutual? I have done occasionally in the past... but usually in the context of having a crush on a person IRL who I also know on Tumblr, rather than solely an internet friend. Make of that what you will, I guess

No pressure to do it, but tagging @morkaischosen @monsterthalia @duckbunny @rubecso ​

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Underwhelming, full of plot holes, and unresolved storylines to the very end. Supernatural was nothing if not consistent.

Supernatural was a grab-bag of plots and ideas.

Half the problem was that there were so many cooks in that metaphrocal kitchen noone had a clear end goal. Look at all the movie series from the last few years, they changed directors and teams at the drop of a hat, the plot got nerfed every five seconds and characters had no real characteristics.

Like Thor, look at all the personal growth he went through in Ragnarock... and they erased it immediately in the next Avengers movie. Or how ZaSnyder has clearly never read a batman comic in his life and madeit all weird, gritty etc.

Also I think the biggest flaw for Supernatural, was a mixture of the following:

1) It was supposed to end in S5, but the executives kept pushing and pushing for the writers to keep going bc it was very profitable.

2) There were no stakes. Death is usually the big Oh Fuck NOOOO of a show. Maybe it gets thwarted in a grand gesture, with love, with sacrifice and tribulation... but when you give the main characters a revolving door to the afterlife, it means nothing. Why should I care if they’re in danger in this episode? Cas or another angel can snap their fingers and everything’s fine.

3) Sexism. Like, every female character was either murdered in the opening, for dean to reinforce his no homo self through commentary or banging, someone to be a replacement mother who also died for them, someone to die for Sam, or just a few episode prop. Always look sexy tho, can’t be an ugly lady on supernatural unless they’re making jokes about it.

They didn’t pass the bechdel test until S5, and the ladies died immediately after.

4) No homo. They went so hard on no ladies as mains that they ended up accidentally making a gay ship canon, queerbaited like mad, then backflipped to avoid it. With pressure, they pulled a fast one and hurled Cas into megahell for being gay.

5) No diversity, unless it filled a niche or need for that season/episode. [Think about how in Teen Wolf they brought in Kira for her heritage, and then just fucking dumped her in a confusing way after it was all resolved, etc.] The one I recall most was the african american female hunter who helped the boys track the 7 sins or whatever the fuck that was about. Her death was just another in the long line used for manpain. 

It’s a little hard to see them as heroes when they seem to survive solely by using everyone they ever meet as a meatshield. There’s a river of blood with their names on it... seriously, like yikes.

There was A fat(ish) character who was a lady deputy, and that was her niche. She did get to come back later on in another ep, but that was... how she died I think. The only reason she was there was to get a treatment for being fat. 

There are others, but that’s the one I recall right this second.

You would think there’d be more disabled hunters, too.

Deafened by a banshee, lost a limb to a rougarou, night terrors after a bad haunting. Anaemic after being attacked by a vampire. Spine damage/nerve damage after fighting a bigfoot. Etc.  Show us the hunters who have faced this and come out of it.

This whole ‘you hunt or die’ thing leaves no wiggle room.  6) And this is just for 2020, but these motherfuckers would have spread corona like mad if they and other hunters were zipping all over the place.

[Insert the shrek meme here: They aren’t even vaccinated!]

7) The way they treated fans was a little... hmmm. The character of Becky?  Hmmmm.

-------

It was a shitshow, realistically. The first few seasons were a FUN shitshow, could have used more non-human monsters (even GRIMM managed this alright, by showing how they hid in plain sight through shifting their faces/bodies etc). 

It just got... boring.

There were gimmick episodes that caught the attention, like the scooby-doo one and all. But it was more of a ‘Hah they did WHAT now?’ thing than, “Oh shit I need to watch the new season for that ep”. Lmao

-

I forgot my point here, I have this headache that is going to make driving a nightmare...

[sypstudiosblog]

Read About Reddit Music

As a Redditor, I understand the content material and I perceive how the situation is constructed. I wanted a while to get used to it though, nevertheless as soon as I did,

music on reddit

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[toadlessgirl]

I just finished Cavalleria Rusticana on Aunt Lilla's recommendation, it rocked and moved me many particles...what other recs has she got?!

Lilla tends to talk about performers more than she does review actual operas/plays, so unfortunately not a lot of direct recommendations.

I do know she was a big Wagner fan. She saw Lohengrin twice at the Met, in 1896 and 1899, and raved about it both times.

1896 - “Thursday afternoon we went to hear Lohengrin with a splendid cast. The opera was most beautifully sung and to me it was rather the most satisfying thing of our whole visit.”

1899 - “I found a note from Cousin Julia enclosing a beautiful seat in the orchestra for Lohengrin Sat. afternoon. I had tried without success to get a seat up stairs for that opera. Was that not pretty good luck? I went to the opera and never enjoyed any thing more. It was glorious with Nordica, Jean & Ed. de Reszke, Bispham & Brema. It was superbly given in every way.”

I’m also assuming she liked Carmen as she saw it in New York at least three times, but she never says anything in particular about it. However, I also get the idea that people in the late 1890s would pretty much see any Emma Calvé show they could grab tickets for as she was a complete rock star at the time, so I can’t say for sure whether she was going for the show itself or for Calvé.

The “the music was graceful and pretty but I do not care a rap for Italian opera” quote I sent you before was referring to Don Pasquale.

The only other direct review of an opera I could find was for Manon, which she thought was a “rather poor thing”.

Not opera, but I think my favorite Lilla theatrical review was her opinion of Sarah Bernhardt which was “a very little of Bernhardt will do for a long time”.

I’m also using this opportunity to share this image I impulse photoshopped two years ago and never posted it anywhere because it’s about as niche as a meme can get.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

JEAN/SCOTT FOR THE MEME PLEASE. if i'm allowed to send multiple i WILL be asking about other fandoms later but like. I LOVE THE KIDS.

The kids!!!!!!  This turned into kind of the Jean hour.  Please enjoy this puree of Comics I Enjoy, ft exactly nothing from the comics of the last twenty to thirty years.

Headcanon

This is actually straight up comic canon, but I love it so much that I have to expand on it a little.  In that...niche, that plateau, when Jean is Phoenix but hasn’t quite tipped over the event horizon of power, she becomes the only person who’s seen Scott’s eyes since he first gained his powers.  She’s never quite clear on what she’s doing, she doesn’t know and has an alarming thought that she might be in his brain far more literally than usual, but he smiles at her thoughtlessly.  Jean can feel that he’s a little dazed by the experience, he touches her face with poorly-concealed wonder, and then his hand lands in his hair and he says in delight, “Your hair actually is this color!”

“Of course it is,” Jean laughs, halfway to sitting in his lap with his glasses dangling from one hand.  “What, did you think ‘redhead’ was metaphorical?”

Scott flushes a little at the teasing, but he still has a lock of her hair between his fingers, turning it in the sunlight like he’s never seen it before.  His glasses are as transparent as anyone can make them, but Jean knows that he still sees the world through a film of scarlet, half because of the quartz, half because of his own uncontrolled powers.  It’s tricky to keep his optic blasts leashed, takes more of Jean’s concentration than she’d like, but it’s worth it to see the way he smiles at her, warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners.

Heartcanon

Jean writes Scott a letter, in the handful of hours that she’s--herself, that she is Jean Grey, who grew up in New York and likes riding in convertibles with the top down on the highway and sometimes makes herself peanut brittle at three in the morning so that she doesn’t have to share, and not Dark Phoenix, beautiful and terrible and hungry.  Those hours of sanity were hard bought by the X-Men, by her family, and so she petitions Lilandra for paper and pen, and she writes Scott a letter.  Jean already has plans for this trial by combat.  She’s sorry about those plans.  But she can feel the fire chewing at the base of her skull, she can taste the iron-sweetness of a dying star on her lips, she wants--

She’s got plans.

The letter isn’t long, not really.  One page, unlined, with the polished cursive handwriting that Jean had drilled into her in middle school marching neatly across it.  It’s all the things that anyone ever wants to say.  I’m sorry, I wish it wasn’t like this, it’s not your fault.  She underlines it’s not your fault until her pen rips through the paper and marks the glass-smooth desk underneath.  Scott won’t believe her, but God, she wishes he would.

I could make him, Jean thinks idly, tapping her pen against the desk as she wonders what else there is to say.  I could make him believe me.  I could tell him, and explain, and he would understand, and then he would stay with me, I could make him stay with me, I could keep him forever, it wouldn’t matter what else I did, I could keep him--

Jean lets out a shaking breath that tastes like ash and hydrogen, and writes one more sentence.

I could never have lived with myself if I did anything else.

She signs it Love, forever, and writes her name for the last time.

Gutcanon

Before everything goes horribly wrong, Jean forges a mental rapport with Scott, a permanent link, one that will let her find him anywhere, let him call for her as easily as if she was in the next room.  It’s what finally lets him drag her free of Mastermind’s illusion, of Jean as the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, much too late to make a difference.  It’s what lets him taste blood in his mouth when Jean’s control snaps and Phoenix’s teeth bite through her lip.  It’s what lets him feel the billowing heat of the star she swallows down, and what lets him say with assurance that Phoenix cannot kill what Jean truly loves, and then--

And then she’s Jean again, herself, tearful and shaken by what she’s done, what she’s become, and the rapport is closed.

It stays closed until the last moment, when she’s already given away her plan and started her suicide, and then Jean’s mind comes crashing back like the tide held away through sheer force of will.  It’s all fire and savage rage and joy and hunger and love, and Scott can’t tell what’s Jean and what’s Phoenix and what’s both--

The silence afterward is worse than anything he’s ever felt.

Junkcanon

Jean is the kind of person who leaves fights with a lot of left-over adrenaline and tends to crash like a motherfucker if she doesn’t handle it somehow.  Scott is an extremely good sport about this, although he does enforce a very strict policy about even semi-public sex, so Jean has mastered dragging him into closets or bathrooms to kiss him dizzy before he can protest.  She has a very fond memory of managing to pin him to the inside of a vault door in a bank, one time.

Also, telepathic sex!  I have a lot of thoughts about it.  Safewords are for people who don’t have a continuously open door into their partner’s brain.  They do Stuff With Blindfolds because Scott finds it reassuring to know that he’s harmless.  Jean enjoys sensation play because...*gestures to the entire Dark Phoenix saga* she just does, that shit’s canonical.

Spleencanon

I have to believe that Jean and Scott were able to raise Rachel for at least a couple years.  Please let these two raise one of their kids.  I understand that they’re the Skywalkers of the Marvel universe, but just let them! Raise! Their! Kids! In! Peace!

On a related note, AU where they find some assorted clones of Jean, courtesy of Sinister.  They’re all half-grown, five girls with bright hair and hard eyes--the oldest is maybe twelve and the youngest can’t be more than two--and Scott and Jean stand there for a moment, looking over the lot of them.

“We’re not perfect,” the oldest says in a clear, cool voice.  She reports her name to be Six.  “So we weren’t finished.  I was the closest--the most recent.  So he put me in charge.  Who are you?”

//I’m going to kill him,// Jean says silently, and Scott grabs her wrist before she can march back to Sinister and crush him.

“Let’s--okay,” Scott says.  “Let’s slow down.  I’m Cyclops.  Scott.  This is Jean.”

“We’re going to take you away from here,” Jean says, with the kind of absolute confidence that implies and god help you if you say we’re not, Scott Summers.  “You’re Six--how many of you are there?”

“Just us,” one of the middle girls says in a shy whisper, the one holding the little girl on her hip.  “I’m Four.  One didn’t--we’re not sure.  She didn’t make it.”

//All right,// Scott allows, on his private link with Jean.  //Maybe we do kill Sinister, actually.//

[sirene312]

oh GOD guys…. You have no idea the crusade i had to went through just to be sitting here, with my dear computer working again, and enjoying the joy of 1.9 Mbps internet connection speed. First thing on the front page of my dash was three shitposts on a row, new niche memes, and good ‘ol fandom drama. god how I missed this hell site. 

In case anyone wants to know what happened, I will put behind a ‘read more’ the story of a missing computer part that quickly become a detective mission, that dragged me unwillingly into the wild ride I didn’t signed for when pressing ‘buy’ on an online store.

TL;DR at the end bc this is very long. English is not my first language so please bear with me! 

Okay, some of you may know a bit about me since apparently i don’t have a “dude shut up! Stop oversharing your woes!!!” button on me but hey here are some things to know about me in case you are curious: I live in Venezuela and not having internet is my personality trait, living in my country is very hard, hard like trying to play the Rainbow Road of Mario Kart but you have butter on your hands, your eyes are closed and you are running on the rain while there is a 8.0 earthquake happening. That hard. I work as a freelance graphic designer and make art commissions so me and my family can survive the economic crisis on my country, having internet and a working computer is a really big deal, like literally we eat thanks to it. Now you see how that would led me to spend a whole month chasing and stressing over a stupid part my computer needed.

Back in December, remember last season of “what’s troubling Sirene now?” where i spend almost a month without internet and then yay internet is back! for like two days? well, after Christmas there was a sudden power cut one night and i was on my computer working on a commission but since this is now a common occurrence i didn't think anything of it …until next day when i tried to switch my computer ON it didn't. I tried everything to revive it, grabbing anxiously my hair, walking on circles, and pressing continuously the power button, you know everything, but it was in vain. It’s dead, Jim. As you can imagine i had a breakdown when i realized i won’t be able to work anymore and needed to buy a new power supply since this one was toast…and was without internet friggin again. AGAIN. I survived till now using my crappy phone data but heavy apps hardly load, tumblr/ao3/twitter sometimes loaded if i refreshed them like a madman. 

My computer is a tiny model and has a power supply that apparently is made by beavers in Narnia, because is so uncommon that the only stores that sell them are on my Capital city two states away from where i live. Knowing this, there is not other alternative for me but to use a online store and shipping the package here, in theory sounds simple right? a reminder that this is a third world country, where everything is falling apart and barely holding it together with chewing gum and prayers, what are the odds of something going wrong hmm….

Okay, this happened in the week after Christmas and before New Year's Eve, so of course all stores in my country decided to go on vacation and return on January. I impatiently waited for two online stores to be back on business that have the power supply i need, they were physical stores too so i thought i would be safe. i liked one more than the other and, as i told my friends, i felt like a telenovela protagonist that was on a love triangle with two galanes but the hotter one was in coma and the other just had 3 episodes in, meaning that the better rated store was still offline and the other was online but only had like 3 products sold …not very reassuring but i desperately needed to start working again so i went with that one. Big mistake.

Everything started on Tuesday, January 14. 

Mercado Libre is a page where people sell things like Amazon, this is where the seller of the power supply was, after you click on buy, you can see the seller info and a chat to talk to them, i wrote but there was not immediate response so i called, i spoke to a woman and she told me to text her on WhatsApp, that should have been my first red flag, if the app had a perfect chat option there why text outside of it?? 

whatever, i went and text her, asked when would she send the package and she told me “tomorrow” the shipping company she was going to use is called “Zoom” (remember that name bc it will be mentioned a lot) when you send something they give the sender (the store) a tracking number the sender should give YOU in order for the shipping office (Zoom) in your city to give you the package. (this number is important)

this was my first time buying anything online so i didn’t know any of that just vaguely knew how it worked, so i asked her if she the next day would give me the tracking number or the shipping company would call me when my package was on the shipping center? and she told me “both, i will give you the number and they are going to call you” I said perfect, thank you very much and thought ‘hey that went well!’ 

Unknown to me, for the next 10 days i was going suffer a weird and painful skin reaction on both hands, and man…it was bad (tw graphic description of a skin condition ahead) the skin on the palm of my hands completely fell off, and it burned like i had scraped my hands on the sidewalk and someone was pouring lemon juice on them. Ouch. as you can imagine all my attention was on what was going on with my hands. I still don’t know what could have caused that severe reaction.

With difficulty texted the woman on Monday 20 i asked again for the tracking number but she said “i’m waiting for the bike delivery guy to give me the number but your package was sent” so she -the store seller- dont go personally to Zoom to send the packages and some else does, i tell the woman again to give me the number as soon as she has it, bc Zoom has an app you can check your package rute and status with that number, she said “okey amiga”.

That week, i could barely lift a fork i was suffering from whatever it was that happened to my hands until my mom found an Aloe Vera plant and i started to rub that gooey, viscose gel thingy on my hands and was slowly getting better, (seriously guys, Aloe Vera plants are a godsend keep one or 10 at home) by the time i suddenly remembered about the package it was Friday 24 the woman didn’t text me anything like she said would do and i didn’t receive any calls either all week, so friday i text her asking again for the tracking number and oh yes finally she has it! My happiness was short lived because……THE PACKAGE WAS RETURNED.

Something occurred and there was an error on the address or something (I triple checked all my personal info was in order before i gave it to her -thanks anxiety!- so i know it was not on me) i was so furious if only the woman had given me the friggin number sooner that week, i would have realized there was something wrong and would have gone to the Zoom on my city where the package was being held before it was returned to the capital. She told me she would send again my package that Friday BUT Zoom only works mon-fri not weekends. Now I need to wait till monday to receive my thing. great.

Monday 27 rolls in and that week i proceeded to text the woman EVERY SINGLE DAY asking if she had sent my package, i hated being a nuisance texting so much but it was necessary, money is getting short and we need food. 

On Wed 29 I even texted her a desperate plea, i told her please i need my power supply to start working again! and you know how she responded? BY LEAVING ME ON SEEN. i called her until she answered and she told me “oh i sent it today” she assured me, in the most unsure voice she could muster, that she totally did it.

So I went the next day to the Zoom office and surprise! it was a lie, she didn’t send anything, nada! again asked her for the new track.num. and she told me “amiga the thing is that …the package has not arrived here. is still in your State.“ [*record scratch*] hmm whAT?

I immediately called Zoom and asked them to tell me where my package is? Where is it!?, it’s still in my city or in the Capital?? So they gave me a number for the returned package to check on the app and…said it arrived at the Capital Fri. 24. Not only that but it was marked as "given to the client” aka the sender. 

Now I realize this woman has been lying to me. For a whole week. I text her screenshots of where the package was and she tells me that supposedly the package is not on Zoom there and insists it is here in my State. A friend knows someone that works on Zoom that checks their database and confirms that no, is not here anywhere and that definitely arrived in the Capital. even shows that a man named A. Rodriguez was the one that picked up the package. Who is this man?? what's going on?

here's a meme i sent my friends in the group chat while i was trying not to freak out about all this. 

This has become a "she-said, he-said" situation because the woman keeps insisting Zoom is the one at fault about the whereabouts of my missing package but Zoom says Hold it! And slaps continuous evidence that shows the places where the package has been at all times. 

Meanwhile I’m like “where the hell is my power supply??? All I want is to work. Why is this happening to me?” ;_;

So far what we know:

Package arrived in my city but was returned to the city of origin (the Capital) on Friday 24.

The following week the store seller lied to me and would everyday promise to send the package again to me. and never did.

On Thursday 30 the woman tells me that the package never arrived from my city and she’s waiting for it to “arrive” but the shipping office tells me the package was returned a week ago on Fri. 24 so it’s impossible that it has not arrived. not for nothing they are called ZOOM they deliver fast.

the app even says “given to the client”, and one thing I know for a fact, is that it is near impossible to pick up a package from there without the friggin tracking number, they won’t even give you info about it without it. so it’s very unlikely that a random person just walked away with it.

so we have two possibilities: 

1. Someone from Zoom stole it. Ok, feasible. Corrupt people working on this kind of service in my country steal things of value all the time. still i doubt this was the case, the company seemed really concerned and would try their best to help me find my package giving me all the info i requested, even the name of the person who took it. 

2. the store seller lied again and the man who took the package is the same bike delivery guy that transported it there in the first place. That's how they were able to take it from there so easily. She denied knowing anyone named A. Rodriguez but she has lied before so i don’t trust her word. To me, this is the more likely scenario for what happened to the package. 

February comes and still I have no idea where is my package and the woman keeps making excuses as to why she “hasn’t found it” she again leaves me on seen after I asked for information, next day I called her non stop because now I’m pissed and i want answers, she finally text me that she will send another power supply since she “couldn’t find the first one” no further explanation whatsoever, and tells me will send it on Friday, but remember that Zoom don’t work on weekends so the new package will be staying on the Zoom office until Monday, my friend tells me that is not good what if the thief works there and steals it again? so I asked the woman to send it on Monday and she tells me that only Tuesdays they send all their stuff to be delivered….now she tells me the store have a specific delivery day? Now? 

I’m not happy about waiting for more days but there is nothing i can do about it so February 11 is here and I send the woman a text telling her to take a photo of the receipt with the tracking number so the story of the first package won’t repeat, and guess what? The woman left me on seen!! you don’t know how that blue seen mark got me shook. that stressed me so bad that finally I had enough, my friends encouraged me to cancel the order and ask for a refund, I stopped texting her on WhatsApp and left a ultimatum on the Mercado Libre chat, that way I had proof on that page of the fraud this woman was pulling on me and could get her banned there. I should have done that before but the need to repair my computer blinded me and was what kept me trying so hard to get my power supply. Desperation can drive you to make foolish decisions. 

After my ultimatum, the woman changed her tune and was very solicitous, and replied super fast, even said on the chat “let it be noted we are a serious company and always answered all your messages” yes, she said THAT, can you believe the audacity, the nerve? I immediately reply “since you didn’t answer any of my texts yesterday, can’t fault me for expressing here my concern about my purchase.”  Then I said very politely but with finality that if she did not send me the photo of the receipt with the tracking number the next day I would not hesitate bitch to ask for a refund. And what do you know? Worked like a charm. The next day the first thing in the morning on my phone was a photo of the receipt.

 SO yes this unnecessary long story has an anticlimactic but happy end after all! Next morning I happily went to the Zoom office and after a whole month of countless lies, unanswered texts, blood, sweat, and tears, I picked up mypower supply. Reunited at long last! This happened on February 14. Valentine’s Day. Love -and being persistent af- always wins! 

TL;DR I bought online a new power supply, the seller tried to scam me or something bc lied about how my purchase was “lost” saying the shipping company was the culprit. Sending me on a wild goose chase trying to find my package. i had to threaten her with a refund to get her to send me finally my power supply.

[featherxquill]

Fics Wot I Wrote in 2019 (and the 2010s in general!)

So it’s the end of a decade, and I wrote some fic this year! I am going to do the usual list, but I thought I might modify the end-of-year meme into an end-of-decade meme, and have a bit of a look back at the fandoms I’ve written in and the fics I wrote throughout the 2010s, because it’s certainly been a more diverse decade than the last!

So, here is the list of Stuff From This Year:

January 28: The Witch of South Kensington - The Infinite Bad - G - Cornelia and Sebastian and a weird, well, infinitely bad sort of domesticity

April 7: to beckon me in languages i’ve never learned - James Bond - Bond/M - E - M decides what bendings of her will she’s willing to forgive

October 18: If Not Me - Arc of a Scythe - Curie/Faraday - T - Faraday fishes Curie out of the water, and they make the long road-trip back to Conclave together

It’s been a bit of a transition year for me, but look! I have been writing! And there’s one more fic I have completed this year but not yet posted, and it’s a long bastard, so I am quite happy with myself.

And here is the little meme thing, though I’ve modified it a bit to reflect on the decade, because I thought that might be fun.

Fandoms I have written in during the 2010s: Harry Potter, Sanctuary, Scott & Bailey, The Infinite Bad, James Bond, Arc of a Scythe. There are few other things I wrote for Yuletides past, too, but I wouldn’t specifically call that participation in those fandoms, so I’ve left them off.

First fic of the decade: An Interesting and Difficut Woman (HP, Muriel/Ollivander, E)

Last fic of the decade: If Not Me (linked above) or, really, the unpublished monster-fic that is now awaiting beta

Longest fic of the decade: One Time Thing (S&B, Gill/Julie, E). This is my longest fic of all-time, actually, and will remain so even when I publish my new thing. 50K. How did I even. I had a full-time job in 2015, though I do remember starting it before that job happened.

Shortest fic of the decade: Was a Yuletide treat drabble thing about Robot Unicorn Attack, but I’m going to go with a thing I am actually still pretty proud of, Burning, which is 173 words of slightly dark Albus/Minerva, that it turns out I’m glad I posted to ao3, because the LJ comm it was originally written in a comment on has now been deleted and purged.

Something I learned while writing in the 2010s: That I am capable of moving on to new fandoms, though probably not being truly multi-fandom. I have learned that I am serially monogamous, fannishly. Apart from Yuletides past, which have always been a bit of a holiday deviation, I rarely go back to back to writing in a fandom once a new one takes hold of me, something that sometimes makes me sad, but the muse wants what it wants, I guess. I think I move on when I am ready to. I started the decade still firmly in HP, where I had been since roughly 2003, and by now I have cycled through several new interests, which can be happy or melancoly depending on the way I look at it (I am generally not sad to move on to new ideas, but I am sometimes sad that moving to new fandoms sometimes means losing touch with friends from old ones).

Something I’m surprised about when I look back at my fic over the decade: That I can look back at my first fic of the decade, and really most things I have written in the past ten years, and still be damn proud of them. I think part of it is age and maturity, but an even larger part of it is that in about 2008 I started regularly using a BETA, and ever since, I can look back at the things I have written and be proud rather than cringing. Seriously, a good beta is worth her weight in gold, and I have known a few. Hold onto your betas, peeps, and if you don’t have one, GET ONE. Your future self will thank you.

Something that I miss: The comment culture of LJ, and the general tight-knit-ness of my little corner of fandom there. Fandom is now definitely a diaspora, and I have made many wonderful connections in the years since I moved to tumblr/twitter, but god do I miss the comment culture of things like LJ fic exchanges in particular. That might also in part be me missing being a part of a fandom that was LARGE even within its niches. But the muse wants what it wants, lol.

Something that makes me happy: The friends that I have made in my fandoms of the decade - shit, I mean, @incandescent-justice and @girlonabridge and @aubrys and @little-brisk all became proper Real Life Friends of mine when I lived on their continent, and @picardcrusher and @sapphoshands and @moocowmoocow thanks for also screaming about lady detectives with me. And I am so, so pleased that being into Sanctuary helped me meet @troiings and audio drama fandom put me in touch with @lothiriel84 and @mifhortunach and just. yeah. There are probably more people I’m going to feel bad about forgetting but like, FADOM FAMS it means so much to me!

Strongest memories of writing from the decade: Writing ‘Scenes From a Very Special Friendship’ in a notebook in 2011 while on holiday attending DiaCon Alley in the UK, teasing it to the person I was writing it for and talking about it with @kiwi-collideoscope. Writing ‘A Sexual Awakening in Five Acts’ in the breaks at my retail job, sometimes skiving and taking hella long breaks on the steps outside the store and sometimes writing smut in the breakroom while trying to keep a straight face - I think that was the first fic I really wrote large chunks of on my phone, a practise that I have continued, and continues to make me happy. Writing a scene of ‘Be Here, By Me’ in which Julie Dodson smokes a cigarette with the sun on her face while doing exactly the same thing myself. Sitting in the restauarant/bar of my hotel in Berlin with my evening cup of tea (because German hotels don’t have a kettle in the room? idek) writing ‘Warrirors’, which was my first Infinite Bad fic, and the first fic I had written in two years. Starting to write ‘Tethers’ in the taxi in Manila on my way to the airport after my stopover on my way home to Sydney in 2018.

Something I wish I’d written: I wish I’d been able to get on the Berena train, fanfic-wise, but it was such a wild explosion that I couldn’t keep up with it, and the fact that canon never stopped really threw me, too. I really wish I’d managed to write that fucking Yuletide assignment in 2016, though, because none of the NYR prompts have grabbed me since.

Where I think the 2020s will take me: i honestly have no idea, but it might be fun to speculate for the future. Into new fandoms, I think is a safe bet - probably fandoms with Awesome Ladies. I hope this Arc of a Scythe thing can carry me a bit further, but after that, who knows? At the start of the decade, I had no idea that Scott & Bailey existed, or that I would fall for Sanctuary as hard as I did. I had no idea a wild and crazy RPG podcast would be the thing to pull me out of a two-year dry spell, or that I would finish a fic that had been sitting in my WIPs for two years (that’s ‘to beckon me’, btw, thanks, @tayryn, for helping me do a thing I never thought possible and take something OFF the backburner!). But yeah, whatever my 2020s fannish journey holds, I bet it has Awesome Ladies in it - particularly older ones.

[edh-a-to-z]

WAR - Best of White

Not every card is EDH worthy. 

Sure, I’ve played with plenty of Draft chaff for fun, or when I had no other option, but the cards below will be ones you’re happy to get in trades, and add value to your decks and collections.

Finale of Glory

Grade: B+

Home: Token Decks, Soldier Tribal, Angel Tribal, Ramp Decks

Range: Very Wide

The finale Cycle is a love letter to EDH.

At 4 mana, you’re getting 4/4 of stats, and it get’s more and more efficient as you pour mana in. At 10 mana, it also makes that many Angels. It also doesn’t stop making them if you keep pouring mana in. It’s good early game to stabilize, it can offer tremendous value later, and becomes a “deal with it or die” quickly.

For everyone else...bring your board wipes.

Gideon Backblade

Grade: C

Home:

Range:

Almost impossible to kill on your turn, and also hard to deal with on other turns, Blackblade is a solid, and cheap, addition to any combat heavy deck, or the every meme-worthy Gideon tribal.

Making a creature Indestructible, like your commander, to end of turn is a great +1, and permanent removal is a nice Ult for a 3 CMC walker.

God-Eternal Oketra

Grade: A

Home: Weenie Deck

Range: Wide

I find it kind of unfair to the original Oketra that this, at W more, is a massive upgrade over the original. Less vulnerable to exile effects, better tokens, no drawbacks.

Spam X or 0 or 1 cost minions to get cheap 4/4 Tokens, which are pretty impressive, even for EDH. Really goes well with any deck, as it’s hard to get rid of for good, and it’s a great resurrection target.

Grateful Apparition

Grade: C

Home: SuperFriends Deck, Proliferate Deck, Counter Deck, Infect

Range: Custom Niche

A nice color shift on Thrummingbird which works well in any deck where the bird fits. Not much to say, just a nice small creature.

Ignite the Beacon

Grade: C-

Home: Superfriends, Legendary Deck

Range: Narrow

White just gets the best superfriends deck toys. 

Outside of the superfriends deck, if you have ‘walkers that function as combo pieces, win-cons, or removal, it may be worthwhile to run this in a deck with 4+ PWs.

Grab this while it’s a penny rare.

Parhelion II

Grade: D+

Home: Angel Tokens, Vehicles

Range: Narrow

I’m a little prejudiced thanks to my love of angels, and this card is such Battlecruiser MTG, it deserved a mention. 

You crew it with an Angel (traditionally 4 power), it has angel abilities, it makes two angels a swing, it can play defense, it dodges some Sorcery speed removal. 

It’s also 8 mana, and without some Haste, it takes forever to take off - and you need value fast. It’s more for casual, big-spell magic, but I really love how big it is, and how big it gets.

Prison Realm

Grade: C

Home: Anywhere where O Ring works

Range: Very Wide

We lose some of the versatility of Oblivion Ring, but creatures and planeswalkers make up 90% of what we want to remove anyway. Tacking a Scry 1 is like half a card draw, so nice for white heavy decks.

Ravnica at War

Grade: D+

Home: MonoColor Board wipes

Range: Narrow

I view this as “kill most commanders/legendaries” than anything else. Most commanders are multicolor, and a lot of great creatures are too, so if you want to gamble or play casually, this has some merit. Exiling is also a nice touch, especially for indestructible creatures that often feature in commander.

Otherwise, it whiffs too often for my taste - it’s inability to be an actual board wipe hurts.

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist

Grade: A

Home: Land Tech, Hatebears

Range: Very Narrow

Solid body, and he’s amazing at what he does, but it’s very narrow. Unless Gitrog, Titania, and Omnath are trampling through your meta, leave it in the binder.

The D section - Just Meh

Ajani’s Pridmate - fine card for the lifegain deck, but only that

Bonds of Discipline - 5 Mana is a lot, but hitting every opponent is nice, especially if you want everyone to hit the player that just passed turn to you.

Defiant Strike - Solid combat trick for the Feather deck

Gideon’s Sacrifice - I know there’s some fun here with a tapped Boros Reckoner and blocking stuff, or other interesting damage plays. 

Law-Rune Enforcer - Decent, but limitations plus small body (and not scaling well to EDH) prevents this from being useful

Martyr for the Cause - Might find a home in a Proliferate deck, but it’s just a bear with upside.

Single Combat - feels better than Divine Reckoning, as it uses sacrifice over destroy, but I hate giving other players reasonable choices.

Sunblade Angel - A ton of fun abilities - that fails to pass the Lightning Bolt test.

Teyo - Planeswalkers will always have niche usage, especially with all the existing superfriends and proliferate support, but Teyo is so purely defensive, I find it hard to recommend him

The Wanderer - Nice abilities, but it’s a narrow use case, and limitations on removal hurt it.

Everything else is an F, and here’s why:

Battlefield Promotion - I always rate Combat tricks low - they don’t scale well to EDH. This does a lot of things, but winning one battle in EDH doesn’t justify this card

Bulwark Giant - I love giant GF, but she doesn’t make the cut. Giant tribal is pretty bad, so this doesn’t have much support.

Charmed Stray - Bad in Limited, bad here

Divine Arrow - Limited level removal, leave it in the bulk bin

Enforcer Griffin - Griffin tribal is nonexistent, vanilla flyer that could be replace by a Serra Angel or Baneslayer

Gideon’s Triumph - F- for the creepy art, and for the weak functionality 

Ironclad Krovod - Trash vanilla

Loxodon Sergeant - Vanilla with ETB

Makeshift Battalion - Battalion was a fun ability, but it didn’t work well for EDH in the past (small number of cards, required to rely on board, very aggressive in Multiplayer), and this isn’t special

Pouncing Lynx - Trash Vanilla

Rally of Wings - Trashy combat trick

Rising Populace - Cute, but not impressive.

Teyo’s Lightshield - A 1/4 is not useful.

Topple the Statue - Cute. Pathetic, but cute.

Trusted Pegasus - Tribal pegasus just isn’t there yet.

Wanderer’s Strike - Exile and proliferate are nice on paper, but Sorcery speed at 5 CMC doesn’t fly

War Screecher - Low impact, even late

[danfanciesphil]

too high (can’t come down) by @danfanciesphil

Suspending himself 7,000 feet above the rest of the world seems likely to be a sure-fire way for Dan to escape normality, and isolate himself for the foreseeable future. The Secret of the Alps, a small hotel tucked into the side of the Swiss mountains is too niche for most avid adventurers to have heard of, making it the perfect place for Dan to work as he sorts through his problems. Unfortunately, privacy is a coveted thing, and as Dan soon finds out, the hotel harbours one guest who values it more than most.

Rating: Explicit Tags: Enemies to lovers, snow, mountains, skiing, hostility, slow burn, secrecy, longing, repression, nobility, classism, cheating, eventual sex

Ao3 Link

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five

Chapter Six

For a moment, no words will come. The blood in Dan’s wrist pulses in odd, shifting patterns beneath the skin. He swallows, caught on the edge of a gelid blue stare. “I… can’t.”

“You can’t ski?” Phil asks, his sneer an anchor that yanks Dan back down from the astral plane into which Phil’s touch had propelled him.   

“Of course I can ski,” he retorts, bristling. He chooses not to mention that he hasn’t skied since he was fourteen, when his family went to Chamonix for a week, and his mum and dad complained the entire time that it was too cold. At a ski lodge. “But I have to… y’know, work. Hotel stuff.”

Mesmerised by the slight twitch of the corner of Phil’s mouth, which still doesn’t quite count as a smile, Dan’s hostile stance falters, then wanes. Like it’s a perfume wafting from Phil’s skin through the air between them, in the next second Dan smells the imminence of his own surrender.  

“Come on,” Phil says, his voice quiet, like it’s just for Dan. It doesn’t seem to matter that nobody else could have heard him anyway. “What else are you gonna do all day? Cook lunch for the hotel ghosts? Sit at reception and pretend you’re not playing on your phone?”

A spurt of blood shoots into Dan’s cheeks; he’d thought he was so stealthy, hiding his phone under the desk as he attempted to load a single meme at a time on Tumblr mobile, using tenuous 3G.

“I- I don’t have any skis,” Dan says lamely.

“Lucky for you that my old ones were repaired by the elusive hotel elf, then,” Phil quips, already stepping away. “I’ll meet you by the front door, shall I?”

He’s gone before Dan can muster up a further refusal. He stands gormless in the middle of the kitchen, gazing around at the pristine surfaces. If only he’d resisted the urge to clean everything already, then he could at least have the excuse of needing to scrub the day away. Perhaps he could quickly throw open all the cupboard doors, ransack the fridge and hurl ingredients and coffee everywhere, feigning a wolf had snuck in somehow, or a snow leopard. 

An image flashes into Dan’s mind, of Mona’s deepening frown as Phil explained to her that not only did Dan let some wild animal break in and contaminate the kitchen, but that he also refused to grant the one request of the only guest. He shudders, closing the door on that image before it can develop. Mona is already far too close to a stark realisation of Dan’s utter hopelessness; despite the words of any fortune-telling crows, a voice lingers at the back of Dan’s mind, assuring him that it’s only a matter of time before he slips up and disappoints everyone. His only hope is to stall that inevitability for as long as possible. 

Plus Phil is, annoyingly, right. There is nothing else for Dan to do today; he and Mona did a deep clean of the whole hotel before she left, and the place is spotless. With no guests to look after, and a low chance of anyone phoning given that the Swiss news helpfully predicted a terrifying blizzard, Dan really is at a loose end.  

It takes about two minutes of dithering in the kitchen before he has to admit defeat. Dan lets out a dreaded sigh, pushing all the air from his lungs, and then goes to wash up the two mugs he’s still holding. As he’s scrubbing the coffee stains, he decides that caffeine is the only acceptable (or available) drug he can utilise to get through whatever lies in store, so he places the mugs on the drying rack, and rinses out a thermos flask he finds, along with Louise’s percolator. He makes the coffee very strong, pours it into the flask, then thinks for a moment, and adds a dollop of soya milk. 

*

As soon as he opens his chest of drawers, Dan is struck once again by how ill-prepared he is for a sudden, impulsive foray into the snowy wilderness. As he lacks proper ‘ski-wear’ - whatever that might be - Dan Instead chooses to go for layers. A clingy t-shirt that barely fit him when he was sixteen, then a baggier, long-sleeved t-shirt. He covers these with a shapeless grey jumper, then a black jacket, and then, finally his warmest coat. He adds thick socks, a hat, boots, sunglasses, gloves and a scarf. By the time he feels he’s ready, his arms stick out stiffly from his sides, but he figures that a little loss of movement is a fair price to pay for not getting frostbite. 

He slots the flask into one of the deep pockets of his coat, and tries not to think too hard about what he’s about to do. Or with whom. He deliberately takes his time getting down to the lobby in order to prolong the inevitable, and also because he likes the idea of the Fresh Prince of the Alps having to wait for him. Phil lowers his phone as Dan approaches, pushing off from where he’s leant against the wall. It takes a moment for him to drink in the sight of Dan, and then his eyebrows shoot up, and he seems to swallow something suspiciously close to a laugh. 

“Err, think you’ll be warm enough?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “I didn’t exactly pack for extreme sports.”

Phil just makes a ‘hmm’ noise, turning to the collection of skis and poles leaning against the wall. “Not sure cross-country skiing could be classed as an extreme sport, but you do y- er, suit yourself.”

If Dan tries to reply, he’ll probably swear, so he clamps his mouth shut, and sticks an arm out to grab for the the red skis. Phil snatches them up first. 

“I’ll wear these,” he says. “You take the new ones.”

He doesn’t look at Dan, just pushes the shiny new skis into his hands. Bewildered, Dan stares at his warped reflection in the electric blue varnish. 

“What? Why?”

It takes a minute for Phil to respond; he’s tugging at the repaired bracket on the red ski, seemingly to test its durability. This alone is enough to make Dan want to slap it out of his hands. Then, he turns to Dan, that vague almost-smile still tucked beneath his smug expression. 

“Haven’t tested the new ones out yet,” he says with a shrug. “Reckon it’d be better for my caddy to fall on his face than me, right?”

Dan splutters, outraged. “Caddy?”

“Grab those ski poles for us, would you?” Phil asks, a spritz of amusement perfuming his words. 

Dan might be intrigued by the lightness of his tone if it weren’t for the fact he were quietly steaming inside his many layers. The heating in this place does not fuck about. Worried he’ll boil alive unless they get outside soon, Dan chooses to just do as he’s asked. If Phil insists on calling him a caddy again, at least Dan will have four long weapons to wield. Dan gathers the four poles up in his arms as best he can, along with his own skis; on the verge of dropping everything, he opts for speed, and scurries after Phil out of the front door.

“If you expect me to haul all of this up some peak or other-”

Dan can’t see, as he’s got a number of pointed objects obscuring his view, so he doesn’t realise that Phil has stopped directly in front of him, a few paces beyond the door. Dan bumps straight into him, and instantly everything he’s holding drops to the ground. When he looks up, Phil is aiming an exasperated gaze down at the pile of poles and skis, as if he’s already regretting inviting Dan along.

“No, I don’t expect you to actually be my pack mule. We’re going to wear our skis,” Phil explains slowly, like he’s talking to a child.

He’s already got his skis laid neatly out in front of him - two bright red parallel lines striking through the snow. As Dan watches confusedly, Phil pushes the tip of his right boot into one of the skis. Dan’s stomach squeezes with discomfort; he’d been correct before, when repairing the skis. The fastenings are not the same as he’s used to.  

“Erm,” Dan says, moving his attention to one of his own skis, laying at an angle in the snow. It has the same unfamiliar fastening, much to his dismay. 

Mind racing to figure out every option available to him that doesn’t involve swallowing his pride and asking Phil for help, Dan moves to inspect the contraption. As if he’s sensed Dan’s incompetence, Phil drops into a crouch anyway, and reaches for Dan’s boot. Instinctively, Dan jerks his foot away. Phil lifts his head to look at Dan. Viewing him from this angle is strange. From this perspective, he seems hunched, small, insignificant. He has none of his Lordly airs about him, hunched down in the snow near Dan’s feet. Phil doesn’t say anything, he just waits, hand calmly outstretched towards Dan’s boot. Wordlessly, Dan moves his foot back into Phil’s reach, and watches as Phil carefully rights the ski, then pulls his foot towards it. He fits the toe of Dan’s boot into the unusual strap. 

“They’re telemark skis,” Phil says, tightening the strap around the ball of Dan’s foot. “I’m guessing you’re more used to Alpine skis? They’re the ones with the strap at the back as well.”

Dan bristles again at the condescending tone. “I’m familiar with both,” he says, because he’s a stubborn moron. Phil says nothing, but that near-smile returns as he reaches for Dan’s other foot; Dan wobbles slightly as Phil guides it into the left ski. “But, uh, it’s been a while. So... remind me again of the difference between, er, telemark and…”

“Alpine,” Phil supplies, standing up. He holds Dan’s gaze for a moment, and then laughs, short and quiet, but just enough for Dan to catch a glimpse of two rows of pearl-white teeth, with a flash of pink tongue caught between them. It’s the most Dan’s seen him smile yet, though he’s obviously laughing at Dan which isn’t ideal. “Telemark skis are designed so that you can wear them for both hiking and skiing. You can move your ankle in them, see?”

He demonstrates, twisting his un-strapped heel to and fro. Dan tries to do the same, and almost falls over. “Why do we need to use our ankles, exactly?”

Dan doesn’t remember skiing requiring a lot of joint movement. From what he can recall of his brief experience as a teenager, he strapped the skis on, let the lift drag him up a big hill, and gravity did a lot of the work getting him to the bottom again.

Phil is full-on smirking now. Dan thinks he preferred the non-smile. “You may have noticed that we don’t have chairlifts up here. We’ll be hiking to the slopes on foot. I’ve put skins on the bottom of these to give us more grip, but we can take them off when we get there.”

Dan tries not let the alarm show on his face. They’re going to be walking up hills? In skis? “And... I suppose once we ski down the slope we’ll be having to...” 

“Walk back up again? Yes. Unless you fancy setting up camp down there.” 

An ill-timed image of the Brokeback Mountain tent attacks Dan so viciously it nearly knocks him sideways. “No! No, no. Walking back up. Cool. Good thing I’ve been practicing with those bloody hotel stairs, right?” 

Dan forces a laugh, but this time Phil’s face remains unmoved. Clearly it’s only Dan’s unintentional idiocy that can procure a genuine smile from him then, right. 

Phil looks to the sky briefly, seeming to assess something in the heavens themselves, and asks, “ready to go, then?”

He doesn’t wait for Dan’s reply. He picks up his ski poles, then turns and begins sort of slide-walking away from the hotel, in seemingly no particular direction. There’s a large thicket of trees ahead of him, but then there are thickets of trees in a few other directions too. Nevertheless, Dan has no choice but to trust this man’s sense of direction, so attempts to move after him; to his horror, his legs immediately split apart in a move he is certainly not flexible enough to achieve. He manages to stab his ski poles into the earth and rectify himself before pulling anything, but in doing so he flails, and almost falls. Luckily, he’s gotten back into a reasonably dignified standing position by the time Phil turns to him, wondering what the hold up is.

“Sorry,” Dan says, making a valiant attempt to copy Phil’s movements exactly as he inches forwards again. It works, sort of, though he doesn’t do it anywhere near as gracefully as Phil seems to be able to. When he gets to Phil, he shrugs, like he’s totally fine. “Just… admiring the view,” he explains. “Lead on.”

*

It takes over thirty gruelling minutes to cross the plains of the mountain in pursuit of a supposedly safe ski-area, but eventually they reach an abrupt dip, where the mountain begins its gradual slope downward. This close to the edge of the mountain, the view is breathtaking. Dan can’t focus on it, however, because his thighs ache, the moisture in his lungs has turned to ice and is freezing him from the inside out, and for the last twenty minutes, Phil Novokoric has been unhelpfully telling him everything he’s doing wrong with the stupid ‘telemark’ skis.

“Is this where we do some actual skiing then?” Dan asks crossly, jamming his poles into the snow.

He’s so glad to get to a point where he actually knows what he’s doing that he’s already shuffling up to the edge of the slope, more than ready to get this over with. He’s so keen, in fact, that he’s only just about saved from teetering over the edge and hurtling down in an enormous cartoon-style snowball, by a far more sensible Phil. He grabs Dan by the hood of his coat before he can topple to his untimely death.

“Careful!” he exclaims as he yanks Dan backwards. Yet again, the irritating warning is at least ten seconds too late. Dan has already been an idiot; unless Phil expects him to travel back in time to ten seconds ago, and take heed of Phil’s caution. Phil pulls him so sharply that Dan jolts backwards, skis slotting between Phil’s as his back crashes against his chest. His heart pounds incessantly. Or maybe that’s Phil’s heart. “Are you some kind of moron?” Phil asks, then pauses, like he’s actually waiting for an answer. “Just wait a minute, we’ve got to take our skins off. Then I’ll lead the way.”

“Remind me why I agreed to this,” Dan mutters, carefully sliding away from Phil whilst trying not to accidentally fall down the slope. 

Sulkily, he stands to the side and watches as Phil removes one ski, and peels a thin black strip from the underside, then does the same to the other. Dan copies his action in silence, though he has no idea why on earth this is necessary. Phil monitors Dan wordlessly, but thankfully makes no judgemental comments.  

“Ready?” he asks once Dan has his de-skinned skis back on. 

Dan shoves the bunched up skins into his jacket pocket. No. “Yep.”

And then, with enviable ease, Phil pushes himself over the edge of the slope, and begins drifting downwards, swaying gracefully to and fro as he descends. Somewhat alarmed by how quickly that just happened, Dan swallows his nerves and shoots after him. It’s terrifying. 

Dan hasn’t experienced this level of self-propelled velocity for years, let alone the searing chill that whips his cheeks, or the sensation of being at once in control of his own speed, and simultaneously ill-equipped to do so. He grips his ski poles tightly, attempting to copy Phil’s swooping motions up ahead, leaning left and right as much as he dares in order to slow his pace. The slope had not looked particularly steep from the top, but Dan should probably have been more concerned about the amount of debris on the path that he has to keep swerving to avoid. Annoyingly, Phil was completely right in insisting he went first, as otherwise Dan would have crashed several times into boulders and tree stumps and icy patches.

It can’t last particularly long, but it seems to Dan that he’s skiing, teeth gritted, eyes frozen open, for hours. Eventually however, the slope evens out, and flattens enough that they slow to a stop. Somewhere in the recesses of Dan’s brain, he scrounges up his knowledge of how to point the tips of his skis together to halt himself. Phil does some kind of impressive, sudden, 90 degree turning move, but he doesn’t outright laugh at Dan’s less stylish method, thankfully.

Dan is just about to collapse to the floor and weep, relieved he survived that and didn’t so much as fall over once, when Phil pulls off his sunglasses, and gives Dan the widest, most brilliant grin. His teeth are as white as the snow surrounding them. Seeing such animation on his usually sullen features is so unexpected that Dan swears his heart literally skips a beat, though that might be on account of all the adrenaline from plummeting down the side of a mountain. Dan removes his own sunglasses, somewhat shakily, and aims a tentative smile back at him.

“Not bad,” Phil says, eyes bright and crystalline in the light. “If you did some fitness training, you might be halfway decent.”

The smile wipes itself away again. “Thanks,” Dan mutters.

“What did you think?” Phil asks, elbow resting on one of his upright ski poles. He’s a tiny bit breathless, which gives his words a whisperish quality. In another setting that wasn’t as eerily silent, it might be difficult to hear him. “Fun, right?”

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Dan replies, heart still pounding at double his normal rate.

Phil chuckles. “This is probably the gentlest path I’ve found.”

“Found?”

“Yeah. I can’t be certain of course, but I doubt anyone else has ever skied up here.” He grins again, jarring and hypnotic. “I’m the Columbus of the Alps.”

This seems highly unlikely. Dan’s no expert in mountaineering, but surely other adventurers have come up and explored the mountain before now. Phil being the first one to ever scope out reasonably skiable pathways seems incredibly dangerous, and probably illegal.

“Are you, like, allowed?”

Phil shrugs, slipping his shades back on. “Who’s gonna stop me?”

It’s this offhanded, entitled flippancy that Dan detests about the rich. He chooses not to respond to such an irritating question, and instead asks, “so, what now?”

“Climb back up,” Phil says, already pulling his skins from his pocket. “Unless you wanna check out one of the trickier slopes?”

“No, thank you,” Dan says tightly.

Phil chuckles again. “Alright then, skins on, Howell.”

*

In hindsight, Dan should really have given more thought to the idea of climbing back up the hill they’d just skied down, in skis. To say it was difficult would have been generous. By the time they reach the top (it shouldn’t go unmentioned that Phil was much, much quicker than Dan at getting back up, and then shouted helpful suggestions of how he should turn his heels, or dig his skis in to the snow from the summit) Dan is so exhausted he never wants to lift another limb in his life, let alone slide down a hill just to climb it yet again. Phil is raring to go, of course, but Dan simply unfastens his skis and falls back onto his bum, unconcerned that the snow immediately begins seeping into the seat of his trousers, and gestures for the other man to go on without him.

“Suit yourself,” Phil says, snickering, and pushes over the edge.

From his position, Dan is able to watch as Phil airily glides down. It’s obvious, from this vantage point, that skiing gives Phil an air of freedom that he lacks in everyday life. His limbs are loosened of their usual tension, and even from a distance Dan can see that he is calm and happy. As Phil re-climbs the slope, Dan peels off the weird skins from the underside of his skis again and studies them for a bit, then stuffs them into his pocket, deciding they’re just flaps of fabric you could make in five seconds, probably sold in sports shops at an absurd cost. He then attempts to browse the internet on his phone, though given that they’re currently in the middle of absolutely nowhere, this does not go well. He quickly abandons any attempt to check his Facebook feed, and plays Crossy Road until a shadow washes over him. He looks up just as Phil slumps down beside him, panting.

“You’re a bad influence on me,” Phil says between breaths. “Usually I do this about twenty times, up and down. On the steeper slopes, too.”

Dan snorts. “Excuse me, but screw that. Nobody told me there’d be climbing involved. Give me a terrifying ski lift any day.”

“Anywhere there’s a ski lift there’s a hundred tourists crammed on, waiting to dawdle in front of you on the slope on the way down.”

Again, Dan doesn’t remember this being particularly true from his previous skiing experience. On the red and black runs, there were only a handful of other people to avoid. He can see nothing wrong with something being made safe by professionals. Deciding it’s probably wise to keep this thought to himself in order to keep the peace, Dan instead digs the flask of coffee out of his pocket, pulls both the plastic cups off the top, and hands one to Phil.

“So you’ve skied in a lot of places, then?” he asks.

Phil is looking down at the cup like Dan just pulled it out of his rear end. “Er… yeah. Quite a lot.”

Dan ignores the curious expression being aimed at him, and just focuses on pouring out the coffee. He’d remembered at the last minute to bring sugar for Phil, so he digs out the packets from his pocket, and presses them into Phil’s free hand along with a wooden stirrer.

“Cool,” Dan says. “Where abouts?”

For a moment, Phil says nothing. It’s as though he’s forgotten how to move, or speak. Dan just waits, the warmth of the coffee cup in his hands starting to spread through his gloved fingers, melting the stiffness. He sips his own coffee until Phil regains composure and pours the sugar in.

“Uh, lots of places. My family used to go every year at Christmas.” He stirs the coffee slowly, gazing out at the thick, snow-frosted trees lining the slope. “I’ve been to Andorra, Saalbach Chamonix…”

This peaks Dan’s attention. “Chamonix? I’ve been there.”

Phil’s eyes go round. “Oh my God… I knew I recognised you.”

Dan’s stomach drops. “W-what?” Surely this cannot be happening.

“The New Year’s Eve party…” he gushes, placing a hand on Dan’s shoulder. Fuck, fuck, fuck, abort, abort, abort. “There was karaoke... we were dragged on stage to sing a duet…”

For a split second, Dan’s mind is hurtling in circles as he tries to remember any such awful event, and then he notes the twitch of Phil’s mouth, the glimmer of obvious teasing lurking in his expression. Right as Dan’s about to grab a handful of snow and smash it into that obnoxious mocking face, Phil clutches his chest and belts out, “this is the start of something newww!”

Dan groans, eyes rolling so far backwards he can see the folds of his brain. “As if you’re making an actual High School Musical reference right now.”

“Hey, you’re the one that got it,” Phil points out, giggling softly.

“You’re so irritating,” Dan mutters, sipping more coffee.

The snow has officially soaked all the way through his trousers, and his bum has gone entirely numb from the cold. If he has to sit here and listen to Phil’s annoying, posh-boy teasing for a second longer, he’s going to ski directly into a nearby tree.

“Are you supposed to call your guests irritating?”

Dan fights a smile, hiding his mouth in his cup. “Depends how much they piss me off.”

This makes Phil laugh; a sound Dan is sure he will never grow used to. “At least I have a dry bum right now. Your idea of appropriate ski attire is as shocking as your technique.”

“You know what?” Dan says brightly, and stands up. He pretty much instantly regrets doing so as the cold water that’s been soaking his bum for the last half hour trickles down the backs of his thighs. He chucks the remainder of his coffee into the snow, and pockets the cup along with the flask. “Being the official laughing stock of the slopes is not part of my job description. It’s been a blast, Mr Novokoric, but I have a hotel to run, so if you’ll excuse me-”

“Ooh, back to Mr Novokoric, is it?” Phil asks, standing up as well. He drains the last of his own coffee, and gathers his ski poles. “Hang on then, let me-”

“No, no,” Dan says, swishing his ski pole at Phil as he tries to slide closer. “I’m clearly stopping you from throwing yourself down some more death-defying hills or whatever. I can get back to the hotel on my own just fine.”

He shoves his feet back into the skis one by one, thankfully able to tighten them to his feet without help this time, and then awkwardly shuffles around to face the direction they came from. There’s a bit of a hill ahead, but in comparison to the one he climbed up not long ago it looks tiny, so he slides towards it with determination.

“Dan, hold on,” Phil says impatiently, still strapping himself back into his own skis. “You can’t just-”

“I said I’m fine,” Dan says through gritted teeth. In truth however, gaining any sort of momentum on this incline seems a lot harder than it had been previously. “Just go do your thing.”

He’s about halfway up the small hill, and he feels alarmingly unsteady. The skis seem to have a mind of their own, and keep threatening to slide out from under him. Dan just shoves his ski poles into the snow as hard as possible, using them to help drag him upwards.

“Dan,” Phil is calling from somewhere behind him. “Can you stop being so pig-headed for a minute? You’ve forgotten-”

Dan cuts him off with an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp as his right ski slips sharply backwards, splitting his legs wishbone-style. With the help of his ski pole, he manages not to rip his own crotch in half, but the back of his right ski crosses over his left, and in trying to correct it, Dan falls backwards. His right ankle seems to not want to cooperate with the angle Dan is toppling, and twists beneath him; his boot still being attached to the ski, this hurts like a motherfucker.

“Shit! Ow, ow ow-”

Pain, scorching and sudden, shoots up Dan’s leg. His ankle is bent somehow beneath him, and it’s agony. He only has mere seconds to revel in the pain however, as then hands are on the strap of his ski, scrambling to unattach him, and blissfully his ankle pops free.

“I told you to wait for me!” Phil shouts, though the sound is fuzzy and distant from the leftover cloud of pain hazing Dan’s senses. “You forgot to put your skins back on, you idiot.” Dan barely understands, too focused on his throbbing ankle. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes it bloody hurts!” Dan snaps, clutching the ankle. "What kind of idiotic question is that?!”

“Let me see.”

“What? No!”

“Dan, I need to see how bad it is.”

“It’s fine,” Dan protests, but Phil is already picking at the knot of his laces, clearly not listening.

As he reluctantly surrenders to Phil’s insistence on acting the hero, Dan realises for the first time just how… close he is. At this level of proximity, it’s possible to detect notes of the shampoo Phil uses dancing on the thin, icy breeze. Coconut, possibly. Or watermelon? In the distraction of trying to place the smell, Dan doesn’t realise what’s happening until his laces are untied, and Phil begins carefully pulling off his boot. He removes his gloves, and blows quickly on his hands before reaching out and rolling down Dan’s thick sock. Something about this whole scenario is so intimate that Dan wants to squirm. Presumably, he’d only blown on his fingers to warm them - to ease Dan’s discomfort. Dan wouldn’t expect such consideration from his own mother, let alone this dick-brain. To stifle his drumming heart, Dan bites down on his lip, and turns his face away.

“Looks swollen,” Phil mutters as he pulls the sock down. Gently, he presses the pads of his fingers to the puffed, pink skin around Dan’s ankle. It doesn’t hurt any more than the existing pain, but Dan twitches nonetheless, and Phil’s blisteringly blue eyes flick up to his. “It doesn’t feel broken. Do you think you could stand on it?”

Experimentally, Dan tries wiggling his toes. It’s unpleasant, sure, but not completely unbearable. “I’ll try,” he says, attempting bravery.

Phil begins rolling his sock back up. “Good choice,” he says, reaching for the boot. “It’s just you and me up here, so unless you fancy spending the night in minus six degrees under the stars, I’d advise hopping if you can. It’ll start getting dark in a few hours.”

“Gee, thanks for the sympathy,” Dan snorts, batting Phil’s hands away to re-tie his laces.

Phil waits, saying nothing, and when Dan is done, he holds out his hand. For a moment Dan just stares at it. He’s seconds away from slipping his own hand into it, when Phil says, “your skins? I’ll put them back on for you.”

“Oh, right,” Dan says, hoping Phil doesn’t notice his odd behaviour. He has no clue what the fuck this mountain air is doing to him recently. He digs in his pocket and pulls out the skins, then shoves them into Phil’s hand. “Cheers.” 

*

“You’re much more… bony than you look,” Phil huffs. 

They’re about halfway through the hideous journey back, as far as Dan can tell. Approximately three minutes in, Dan had realised that attempting to walk on his own, wearing the damn ‘telemark’ skis, was not an option.

“I apologise sincerely for having bones,” Dan replies scornfully. In truth, he feels like a pile of boneless goo, so it’s surprising that Phil seems to think he’s the opposite. His arm is wound around Phil’s shoulders, allowing Dan to lean a great deal of his weight onto the other man. He’s got one ski on, the other is in his right hand. Phil is carrying all four ski poles, tucked under his arm. 

They’ve been moving at a torturously slow pace, so the sun is already dipping towards the horizon at their backs. Even in the space of a few hours, Dan can feel the drop in temperature, and it wasn’t exactly warm before. They were lucky, in a way, that Dan’s little accident had happened whilst there was still a lot of light left. He leans closer into Phil’s body heat, hoping the other man doesn’t notice.

“Are you cold?”

Crap. “Um, a bit.”

They hobble further on in silence. Dan wonders what the purpose of Phil’s question might have been, as now he seems to be deliberating something silently. Please, God, don’t say that Phil Novokoric is about to hand over his snow jacket to invalid-Dan so he can tell the story of his chivalry to some doe-eyed journalist months from now. 

In a way, Dan is almost glad when Phil, predictably, says, “another reason to invest in some proper thermals. Might have been an idea, considering you’re living up a snowy mountain.”

“Noted,” Dan says through gritted teeth. Finally, the sight of the hotel crests the horizon, some way off still, but at least within view. “Thank the fucking Lord,” he mutters under his breath.  

“You could get on my back for the last bit, if you like,” Phil suggests, tone lilting into something like a tease.

“You’re alright, thanks,” Dan replies tersely. He sincerely wishes he could extricate himself from this infuriating human and sprint the rest of the way back, but unfortunately he thinks he might snap his own ankle off, brittle as it is now from the cold. “Can we just focus on getting to the hotel without any further injuries, please?”

“Sure,” Phil says, then effortlessly hitches Dan’s arm a little higher across his shoulders, taking on significantly more of his weight. For a reason Dan refuses to analyse, this action makes his stomach flip multiple times, but he has no time to dwell on the how’s or why’s, because Phil has doubled the pace now, near-dragging Dan along.

(Chapter Seven!)

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Here are the most relatable depictions of women masturbating on TV and in movies

May is National Masturbation Month, and we're celebrating with Feeling Yourself, a series exploring the finer points of self-pleasure.

For too long, female pleasure was portrayed on-screen through the prism of the male gaze. 

When it came to TV and movies, scenes portraying women masturbating were basically straight out of a male director's sexual fantasy. More often than not, the woman would writhing around on her back and she'd usually begin moaning the moment her hand came into contact with her vulva. If only it were that easy. 

Truth is: We don't masturbate like that. We're not always thrashing about on our back making loud fake orgasm noises. It's usually pretty mundane and unglamorous. And we can get pretty creative with positions and props depending on how we're feeling. 

SEE ALSO: This sex toy company uses niche meme accounts to spread the joys of masturbation

Thankfully, times are changing. TV and movie depictions of self-love sessions are becoming more realistic, more anatomically accurate, and much, much more relatable. 

We've ranked some of the most iconic on-screen female masturbation moments for their realism and relatability. 

Samantha's priest fantasy in 'Sex And The City'

Sex and the City's Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) did a lot of good in smashing the stigma surrounding female sexuality. But, it needs to be said that some of the orgasm scenes were a tad melodramatic. In "The Agony and The Ex-tacy" Samantha meets a good looking priest who she quickly dubs "Friar Fuck" — only problem is, this friar won't, uuuh, fulfil her fantasy. Samantha ends up masturbating about him, during which she breaks out into a full-on operatic orgasm. If only masturbating were actually that good.

Marnie's bathroom break in 'Girls' 

In Season One of Girls, Marnie Michaels (Allison Williams) does something many of us have but dreamed of doing. She becomes so aroused after talking to bonafide arty douchebag Booth Jonathan that she has to go masturbate in the bathroom of an event space. "I want you to know, the first time I fuck you it might scare you a little because I'm a man and I know how to do things," Booth says to Marnie. Soon after, Marnie locks herself in the loo, puts her hand down her tights and cracks one out while standing up. I mean, it's a great idea in principle, but who among us has ever had great success masturbating in an upright position (not me!). 

Betty Draper and the washing machine 

In Season 1, episode 11 of Mad Men, we witness Betty Draper become overcome with horniness after meeting a good looking door-to-door salesman. After he asks to come inside to measure windows upstairs (we've heard that one before), she decides against it and instead asks him to leave. Once he's left she begins fantasising about him and rubs herself up against the vibrating washing machine. Anyone who's ever tried this move at home will know that it's a nice idea in theory, pretty anti-climactic in practice. 

The cry-wank in 'Mulholland Drive' 

Naomi Watts' masturbation scene in Mulholland Drive is not bad. It's free from all the inauthentic thrashing around that you often see in porn, and all you see is Betty (Naomi Watts) sweaty, pained expression (accurate) as she makes repetitive motions with her hand down her unbuttoned trousers. The only thing we'd change is the fact that she's aggressively crying. I'm just not one for masturbating when I'm upset.

Naomi Watts in 'Mulholland Drive' in 2001.

Image: Studiocanal/REX/Shutterstock

The giant vibrator in 'Slums of Beverly Hills'

Back in 1998, long before Russian Doll, Natasha Lyonne was already making quite the impression on screen. In Slums of Beverly Hills, Vivian (Lyonne) decides to try out her cousin Rita's (Marisa Tomei) massive vibrator. One tip though: Try not to use other people's sex toys. 

Image: Fox Searchlight/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

The bidet in 'Broad City' 

When it comes to portrayals of sex and masturbation, Broad City is a damn delight to watch. Free from the male gaze sex scenes of old, Abbi and Ilana have sex and masturbate like you and me. Ilana's bidet scene was a wild, wet ride — the only note I'd give is that if she'd turned her body around to face the tap, she'd have a better chance of having an orgasm. But, hey, whatever floats your boat (or bidet).

Ilana Glazer told Out magazine what makes Broad City's portrayals of female desire just so brilliant: "It's like these girls are horny but not under the male gaze. They're horny, period. Just starting from the vagina, not starting from some man looking at them."

The 'Black Swan' 'bating sesh 

All too often, on-screen depictions of female masturbation show women in the same position: lying on her back with her legs spread apart. Newsflash: we don't all masturbate in the one position. That would be pretty boring. This scene gets bonus points for showing a woman masturbating in the face-down position, which is a pretty popular position that you don't often see in TV and movies. 

Image: Fox Searchlight/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Aimee's first time in 'Sex Education'

You always remember your first time. The first time you wank, that is. When Sex Education's Aimee Gibbs admitted that she'd never had to masturbate before, wannabe sex therapist Otis stepped in to offer up some advice. "So you're prescribing a wank?" she asked him. Correct. 

Aimee's first time has a familiar feel to it — she tried out a bunch of different positions like she's on a voyage of orgasm discovery. When she finally comes, she has a sudden pang of post-orgasmic hunger. We've all been there, Aimee. 

Aimee discovers the joys of masturbation.

Image: netflix

The pillow hump in 'The To Do List'

Aubrey Plaza stars as virginal valedictorian Brandy Klark who decides to draw up a list of sexual escapades to complete before heading off to college. In the film, we see Brandy masturbating by riding a pillow, which frankly you don't see often enough in movies. 

Aubrey Plaza and Rachel Bilson in  'The To Do List.'

Image: Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

The dead battery in 'Insecure'

In Season 1, episode 3 of Insecure, Issa goes to grab her vibrator only for the batteries to die pretty much immediately. Obviously, she doesn't give up on that dream straight away, so she trawls through her apartment looking for batteries and yelling out "fuck!" when she fails to find one. It's a highly relatable moment, to say the very least. 

Issa Rae told Glamour about the significance of this moment: "In the [writers’] room we were talking about what it feels like to be thirsty and how we don’t really get to see female characters masturbate. Even in a funny way. Especially black women! So we wanted to portray that, while remaining true to our show and showing sexual frustration."

The Obama speech in 'Fleabag'

Anyone who's ever masturbated with a computer in front of them will be all too familiar with the specific laptop-wobble that comes, uhh, hand in hand with the act of self-love. 

In Series 1 of Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge brought us a refreshingly honest masturbation scene. Not everyone can attest to having masturbated to Barack Obama delivering a speech about democracy while their boyfriend's asleep in the bed next to them, but this particular masturbation scene felt mundane and real. There were no writhing around or fake orgasms in this scene, just a woman wearing her pyjamas masturbating noiselessly under her duvet as her laptop moved up and down with her hand. 

Puberty hits in 'PEN15' 

Puberty is rough. Especially the rush of extreme horniness that comes with it. Episode 3 of PEN15 features one of the realest depictions of teenage self-exploration ever shown on TV. 

When Maya Ishii-Peters (Maya Erskine) first discovers the wonders of masturbation, she can't stop herself from doing it all the time (who can blame her, tbh). But, Maya also feels ashamed of what she's doing — a feeling that many of us can identify with. "I'm a pervert, and I really shouldn't be doing what I'm doing," she tells her friend Anna. "I've been putting my hands down my pants — my area — down there to feel good." 

The episode is about learning to masturbate without feeling shame — which is a rite of passage that's not often talked about, let alone shown on our TV screens.

Happy masturbating! 

WATCH: Consent-oriented condom packaging says four hands are needed to open it, but then again – maybe not

[startofamoment]

to all the WIPs i’ve loved before

rules: post your favorite parts of 3-5 fics that have been sitting abandoned in your drafts for ages. (for extra shame, throw in when you last worked on each thing.) tag 5 other writers to reflect on their life choices. 

a pen pals au of sorts in which jake and amy share a desk and communicate via post-it notes (last edited: december 2017)

Amy is going to murder her deskmate.

The literal trash heap that greeted her last Monday was one thing, the sticky orange soda stain from last month was another thing, but this – this blatant disregard of property and boundaries and the sanctity of office supplies – is the Last Straw.

Spread out across her entire desk is a good fourth of the Post-it notes from the brand new assorted set she got from her brother Tony. They’re all arranged to look like various Star Wars icons, and a few of them are filled in with marker for apparent color correction. It’s horrifying.

Grumbling, she begins taking apart Post-It Yoda, keeping the salvageable pieces in a stack and throwing out the rest. When she’s cleared her entire table, she grabs her favorite pen and a fresh sheet then writes:

Hi, Please refrain from wasting my Post-its in the future. Thank you. - Det. Amy Santiago

She stares at it for a moment and decides, since this is probably the only passive aggressive note she’s going to write her deskmate, she might as well add:

PS: I would appreciate it if you would leave our desk clean at the end of your weekend shifts.

After checking it over once more, she places it in the center of her desk, ready to be read the following Saturday.

a dianetti cake shop au in which rosa owns and runs a store called arlo’s (last edited: june 2017)

Gina takes a moment to look over some of the cakes on display before clearing her throat and leaning over the counter. “’Scuse me, can you help me get a custom cake order started?”

“Sure.” The baker wipes her hands on a dish towel before grabbing a small notebook and pen from one of her pockets. “What’s the occasion?”

“Some old geezer’s leaving our precinct to enjoy retired life, or something like that.”

“Retirement party? Cool. Tell me about this guy.”

“Oh, sweetie, I don’t know or care about him. I’m just here cause my boss told me to order a cake.”

A smirk forms on the baker’s lips. “Ha. Do you wanna just do a standard cake order then? I usually do the custom cakes for more personalized, special events.”

“That’s probably smart. Which one of your standard cakes say: ‘Congrats on being old and rich enough to never work another day in your life, but sorry you’re almost dead’?”

She snickers. “I don’t know about that first part, but how ‘bout an angel food cake as a ‘hope you go to heaven when you die’ sort of thing?”

Gina grins and fishes through her purse for her wallet. “Oh, you should know my expectations on this cake are out of this world high. I’m only here because Yelp told me you’re the Beyonce of baking.” (Actually, she’s here because at least three reviews claimed the baker-slash-owner was “terrifying” and “gorgeous.” – They were right, on both accounts.)

a sequel to i could listen to you all day // the “after ever after” story in which jake and amy navigate their first year together as soulmates (last edited: march 2017)

Jake’s phone buzzed on his desk, breaking him out of his happy daydream. He picked it up and opened a new message from Gina.

“god, quit making heart eyes at the new girl!! your conscience would be v disappointed, kiddo.”

Gina, who had been watching him like a hawk from her desk, expected him to get all flustered and to text or yell back something overly defensive. She raised a single eyebrow when his face instead broke into a goofy grin and he straight up giggled.

Across from him, Amy looked up from her case files. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head and mumbled something about memes and the internet.

She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her lips curled up into a smile. After he redirected his attention to his computer screen, her expression morphed into the same openly adoring look he had on his face the entire morning.

And then it all clicked.

If Gina had stopped to think about it, she would have recognized the new disappointment she felt in both herself (for taking this long to put two and two together) and her childhood best friend (for not keeping her in the loop). As she had not stopped to process anything, she instead yelled across the bullpen: “OH MY GOD. JAKE AND AMY ARE SOULMATES!”

All work stopped, and everyone fell silent. For a good minute, all that could be heard was the faint snoring from Captain McGintley’s office.

“Gina,” Rosa half-snarled, half-whispered. “You can’t just say that.”

“Oops, my b. Y’all know I have no conscience now so…” She giggled, winked at the leather-clad detective, and went back to her game of Kwazy Cupcakes.

Jake let out an awkward laugh. “Well, uh, that was -”

Out of nowhere, Charles appeared right in front of their desks. “Is it true, Jakey? Was Amy the voice in your head all this time?”

“I -” He glanced at Amy for help.

She bit her lip and shrugged.

This wasn’t at all how he envisioned making the announcement, but there was no use denying it. Still looking straight at her, his face softened into a smile. “Yeah… We’re soulmates.”

Charles squealed loudly. “You said the S word! Does that mean it’s official?” He gasped. “Have you said ‘I love you’? Have you met each other’s parents? When’s the wedding? What are you naming your first child?”

pretty much a crack fic inspired by the media’s post-olympics obsession with tessa and scott // my spin on a vm au bc i still refuse to write jake and amy as ice dancers (last edited: may 2018)

Like many of the other bizarre situations he’s found himself in, this all started with Gina. Over the last year or so, she’d been posting random photos and videos of all of them at the precinct. (“I’m devoting my energy to my new project, Ginazon,” she’d declared to the entire bullpen. “It’s a one-stop online portal for my legions of followers. I’m just giving the people what they want!”) Given that this was Gina of all people, Jake wasn’t at all surprised to find out that each post garnered hundreds of likes, but he’d never bothered to venture into the comments section. He’d never known about the apparent niche following that had formed, the group of fans – for lack of a better word – waiting with bated breath for him and Amy to get together.

Charles had only spurred them on, what with all the various Easter eggs on his culinary blog. (“This place has everything,” he’d written once. “My co-workers Jake and Amy even gave it their stamp of approval after they’d shared a quick lunch there before a long stakeout. Make sure to ask for the winter salsa; it’s wonderful!”) He’d sworn that none of it was intentional and that he would never do anything to sell them out, but everything he’d written had still been catalogued and analyzed by the pseudo-experts of the fandom. At this point, Jake’s main regret is not reading Charles’ weekly email blasts.

Their downfall – or rise to viral glory – came when someone from the so-called G-Hive happened to be in just the right place at just the right time, catching their (second) completely-platonic, spur-of-the-moment, done-in-the-name-of-justice kiss on camera. By the next morning, “Undercover Cops Lock Lips Before Locking Up Wanted Criminal” had been viewed on YouTube over a million times.

With everything about the entire situation already being so weird, they’d decided to just ignore their newfound fame in the same way they’d pretended the kisses never happened. (“We’re a great team. We work great together. Nothing should mess that up,” he’d said, repeating nearly his exact words from the night before.)

Evidently, there was no escaping this though. A formal press conference was set up, which wasn’t too out of the ordinary for cases that caught the general public’s attention, except they’d ended up having to say more about their dating lives than the investigation or arrest. He can still feel his heart lurching in his chest at the first relationship-related question, still hear Amy loudly stammering out some vague answer about being “very professional.”

a smutty soulmate au in which jake and amy unknowingly share dreams every now and then (last edited: november 2017)

At this moment in time, Amy Santiago is undeniably, incomparably, drop dead gorgeous.

More specifically: she’s in the hot red dress Kylie convinced her to buy on their last post-trivia night celebratory shopping spree; she’s wearing a matching killer shade of lipstick picked out by her fashion-forward, shockingly sexual 13-year-old niece; and she’s got her hair swept into that one elegant yet fun side ponytail that caught her eye in a magazine a few weeks back.

Normally, she’d be proud of herself for managing to pull off such a look, except–

It’s been a good several hours since she tossed her dress into the hamper, wiped the makeup off her face, and tugged the elastic tie from her hair. She’d buried her head into her pillow and wheeze-cried herself to sleep shortly after changing into her pajamas, so overwhelmed with shame and disappointment over the night’s party-gone-wrong.

The thick haze shrouding her current surroundings tells her she’s in another one of her soulmate’s dreams, which helps a tiny bit in explaining her current appearance but really opens up more questions than answers.

tagging: @santiagoswagger​ @three-drink-amy​ @do-me-decimalsystem​ @arnie-santiago​ @sergeant-santiago

for the record, this was inspired by @disruptedvice​ and @elsaclack​’s responses [x,x] to the writing meme!! i thought it was super clever of them to feature little snippets from various works and felt this would be a good way to give unfinished/abandoned fics some love! 

[tremendousmothergoat]

are you gonna move to somewhere else in case you get hit with tumblrs bs?

((I don’t really know if there’s anywhere else TO move to. Twitter? That’d be the only alternative I can think of. But I can’t post huge posts there. If the blog really disappears then maybe you’ll find me around there.

But, suffice to say, I’m not sure I’ll move anywhere else, cause tumblr fills such a specific niche of one-off ask responses that curiouscat.me might be the only alternative, and even then. I really love being able to pop on here when I’m in the mood for voriel, do some vorishness, then pop back off for a while again. Plus, what about ask memes? Or dice game stuff? The only alternative for that would be something like...I dunno, f-list or something. And I’m not about to jump on there and get mobbed.

So yeah, I’ll be sticking around here for the times when moods hit. If you haven’t, though, I’d recommend grabbing any art off of here you want to grab, cause I’d imagine most of it is flagged. I haven’t bothered to check, I’m just grabbing my backup and being done with that. They mentioned that writing was fine so....hopefully my blog survives. And all the other fun blogs I’ve seen around. I think it might just be a case of “gonna have to get help to get exposure to new people, because tumblr is gonna blacklist us from searches”. But if not, then I’ll probably look into a twitter account under the same name, and go from there.

Thanks for asking, though. It’s nice to know people are still hanging around, even though I’m very off-and-on.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

ohohohohO YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND COOL OKAY SO WORLDWALKER HOLLYWOOD AU, ANY MIXED BAG OF 11, 14, 19, 20, 29, 33, AND/OR 40 PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Hell YES, ask meme!  For a briefexplanation to the rest of the Internet, the Hollywood AU of Worldwalker goeslike this: in a mundane AU of this novel, Crispin Adesso is a rising starA-list actor at 24, who was just cast as the White Wolf, the villain in what’santicipated to be the fantasy blockbuster of the decade.  Problem is, the woman who was cast to playthe lead opposite him just suffered a major injury, and her contract was terminated.  While the higher-ups scramble to recast, theygrab an electrician who has sort of the right look and ask her to do her bestto read the lines, so that Crispin can at least get a sense of what he’sdoing and he’s not getting paid to do nothing.

Brenneth Ghadafi absolutely crushes the role of theFireheart, first try, and her chemistry with Crispin is electric.  They hire her on the spot and she blundersinto stardom overnight.

11) Do they celebrate holidays? Anniversaries?

Holidays aren’t a huge thing for either of them prior todoing Worldwalker, because they’re estranged from their living families, but doingthe movie is a weirdly effective bonding experience.  The woman who plays the Fireheart’s righthand, called only “the Devoted” in the credits (Worldwalker is Oscar-baitfrom moment one and absolutely sweeps the categories it’s nominated for, andeveryone waxes poetic about how beautiful the epithet-only naming scheme is asa creative choice), is immediately tight with Crispin and Brenneth.  Her younger friend is an agent, and Toreitakes pity on Brenneth to get her hooked up with Krei so that Brenneth isn’tsolely responsible for her new situation. They even make friends with the makeup artist, who likes to wear longskirts and always has eyeshadow on her fingertips from touching people up, andget front row seats to Shiko and Krei’s schoolgirl romance.

It’s Krei, a big believer in family after her mother’s deathwhen she was young, who invites them all over for Thanksgiving.  After that, Crispin and Brenneth get a littlebetter about holidays.

Crispin is an Advanced Level Anniversary Planner and it’sonly through tremendous effort that he moderates himself down to celebratingone anniversary a year.  He knows thedate of their first meeting, their first date, their first kiss, their firstdance, the first time they said they loved each other, and the first time theygot caught by the paparazzi, in addition to their actual anniversary.  The paparazzi incident was quite a bit beforetheir first date, which is related to the fact that there’s a flourishingonline shipper network for over a year before they get their act together.

Brenneth is a little chiller about anniversaries.  Crispin is used to having money, so he takesBrenneth to museums and weird niche classes and expensive dinners for theiranniversaries, and she makes jokes about being a gold-digger.  Brenneth gives him two gifts everyanniversary: letting him buy her something expensive and frivolous, and a letter.  The letter is always the hardest part—shedoesn’t consider herself effusively affectionate and it’s hard to put herfeelings down—but it’s always worth it to see him tear up.  She proposes in one of them.

14) Anything they both dread?

Ironically, the things theyrespectively dread are mostly resolved by dating.  Crispin, who shot to stardom at a very youngage, kind of dreads being alone, and having to worry about normal things he wasnever taught to deal with, and calling his parents on their birthdays.  Brenneth, who did not plan for this,dreads being alone, and having to give interviews, and seeing her parents ather aaji’s grave (her grandmother). Brenneth knows how to fix a sink and tells Crispin to stop calling hisparents; Crispin goes with Brenneth to all her interviews to keep her confidenceup and goes with her to see her aaji; when one of them feels lonely,they grab the other one’s hand.  Theyhave very compatible anxieties.

19) What do they fight about? What are their argumentslike? How do they make up?

Their worst fight is the first one, when they’re talkingabout what they’ll do after Worldwalker before they’re even dating and Brennethsays, like it’s obvious, that she’s going back to her real actual job.  Crispin snorts and tells her that’s notlikely, and suddenly all her swallowed-back nerves and all her strain and allher uncertainty is pouring out in a burst of anger, because how dare hetell her she can’t live her life? Crispin lashes right back, suddenly realizing that he is desperatefor her to stay, and she was just telling him how she’s made more money in thelast six months than her entire preceding life, and how could she just givethat up?  There is shouting, and thenthere’s three days of treating each other with icy good manners and weirdlyon point chemistry for the scenes between the Wolf and the Fireheart—they usealmost every bit of footage from those three days.

Then Crispin shows up at Brenneth’s apartment at two in themorning with Indian takeout from the place that she says reminds her of her aaji’scooking and two bottles of wine, more expensive than she’s comfortable drinkingon her floor even though that’s what they do. They don’t really talk about it, not explicitly, but Brenneth sayssomething oblique about not knowing how to do…this, this movie star thing, andCrispin says something equally oblique about how she should do somethingwith her talent, even if it’s community theater.  Things are better after that.

Even after they learn how to have more productive arguments,there’s usually shouting.  They both grewup in intensely emotionally neglectful homes—the shouting makes them feel likethe other person is invested.  It meanstheir arguments are a little scary to see, but it works for them and they’recareful not to argue in front of anyone who might really worry.  They learn to talk about their shoutingmatches, after they have them, and something about the emotional catharsismakes them much more equipped to have a calm chat afterward.  Krei and Shiko, who argue in the stiffest andmost formal way possible, find it absolutely fucking baffling.

20) What does their home look like? Their room?

They move into Crispin’s apartment, because Brenneth livesin a one-bedroom closet with a bathroom so small that someone sufficiently tall(Krei or Torei) will actually hit their knees against the sink if they sit onthe toilet.  

Brenneth has a small anxiety attack about how big Crispin’splace is, the first time they hook up there. It’s kind of a hotel vibe when she first moves in—Crispin travels a lotand never really thought of it as enough of a home to decorate—but Brenneth’sfirst act of unilateral decision making as a resident is to get rid of the plainstock expensive photography and put up some actual art.  Things progress from there.  They still travel a lot, but there’s colorthere, now, and signs of life, and their shared study is full of crafts—Brennethmakes jewelry and Crispin does needlepoint. He made her a sign to hang above the kitchen door that says “We’vesurvived every bad day we’ve ever had, motherfucker” and Brenneth never missesa chance to point it out.

Their room is heavily Brenneth-influenced as well, largelybecause she took one look at it and said, “Well, Christ, at least you have somebooks that you like.”  Basically the onlything in it that has any trace of personality is Crispin’s closet, which isadmittedly full to bursting of brilliant colors and expensive fabrics.  But the rest of the room is practicallyclinical.  

She makes him get rid of most of the crisp minimalistglass-and-steel furniture that he bought when he got the place at 18 and neverreally cared about, and replaces it with wood. Not necessarily expensive wood, but something with a little color andlife in it.  She also makes him repaintthe room from plain fucking white, what are you doing, Cris, no wonder younever spend time here.  They settleon a nice cool blue, accented with a deep venous red that matches the comforterBrenneth spent too much money on when she first moved out on her own.  Crispin, who has an exceptional eye fordesign and a terrible eye for incorporating his own tastes, is glad to stepback and let her do what she wants.

He’s surprised to discover, once his apartment doesn’t looklike a magazine spread anymore, that he actually likes it there.  

29) How do they handle disasters or emergencies? Minorinjuries? Sickness?

Disasters and emergencies are usually fine—they’re both abit high-strung even if they won’t admit it, but it’s the kind of high-strungthat translates into getting their feet back under them real quick.  They also have a good division of labor in caseof catastrophe, based on what kind of problem it is.  Interpersonal disasters go directly toCrispin, because he has been professionally charming since he was fourteen.  Logistical disasters go to Brenneth, who wasconsidered a prodigy at figuring out how to solve problems with the leastexpense when she was an electrician and who has maintained that skill setbeautifully.  Anything that doesn’t fallneatly into one of those two categories is normally handled by both of them intandem, usually with great efficiency.

Injuries and sickness tend to be more upsetting to theperson who’s still in good health, largely because they are both horriblepatients.  Crispin got dropped during a stuntin the filming and was mostly okay except for some bruised ribs, and Brennethsnarled at four people before Torei banished her to sit in makeup and take deepbreaths while he got looked at.  He wentback and redid the stunt the next day, which is the take they used.  Brenneth got appendicitis on their press tourafter the movie dropped and Crispin was useless for the time she was inthe hospital, snappish and downright nasty in a way he’s usually not, andshe almost killed him for hovering afterward, insisting she was fine to go onwith their interview schedule.

They are not beloved of the on-set medics.

33) What kind of presents do they get each other? Do theyonly do it on special occasions?

Brenneth likes to give useful gifts and almostsinglehandedly stocks their kitchen so that Crispin can play with increasinglyfancy equipment.  She prefers to give giftson special occasions, although sometimes she’ll see something small like hisfavorite chocolates or a book she knows he’s been curious about and she’llimpulse buy it.  Anything more thentwenty bucks is probably a special occasion gift.  While Crispin loves her gifts, he honestlysecretly likes her weird texts more, it always makes him grin like a dumbasswhen she texts him a picture of a dog in a hat or something with an inexplicable“saw this, thought of you” and no further context.

Crispin can and will give gifts at any time, and it’s commonfor him to impulse buy flowers (or one time a five hundred dollar coat), but heknows that Brenneth gets more out of things that involve some doing—either somethinghe put work into or something they can do together.  He buys her things like classes or museummemberships or riding lessons, or gives her ornately prepared food or handmadethings, pretty much whenever he can find a half-decent excuse.  

He also likes to buy her nice clothing becausehe knows she won’t.  Thus the coat.  And like five pairs of boots.  And some silk shirts.  And about half her wardrobe.  Brenneth, who was a very reluctant convert tothe idea that jeans and a sort of okay blouse weren’t “talk show attire,” ismore than glad to let him do her clothes and Shiko do her makeup and not haveto worry about anything except putting up her hair.