#well guess what I am fucking unfortunately REALLY INTO PIGEONS STILL.

[intrn37]

I posted 144 times in 2022

That's 144 more posts than 2021!

41 posts created (28%)

103 posts reblogged (72%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@fabulousatomicstarburst

@lettersfrombeyondthegrave

@revengeromance

@moldy-junk

@collarful-clover

I tagged 132 of my posts in 2022

Only 8% of my posts had no tags

#mcr - 21 posts

#my chemical romance - 17 posts

#xd - 8 posts

#mcr reunion - 6 posts

#gotham series - 6 posts

#gotham fox - 6 posts

#fall out boy - 6 posts

#oswald cobblepot - 5 posts

#gerard way - 5 posts

#edward nygma - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#my only questions are did she leave literally everyone else on the isle and if she let the other three tag along on her world conquest xd

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Guess what I’m finishing!😆 #mychemicalromance #mcr #mcrfanart #dangerdays #killjoys #thetruelivesofthefabulouskilljoys https://www.instagram.com/p/ClOGesqr7ck/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

8 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

#4

No Broadway musical songs really make me that sad or hit me hard except for one

And that’s Carrie’s “And Eve Was Weak”

It shows the impact of being overly religious and how it affects people around you. 

I am Christian myself and I don’t see any problem with loving your religion openly or making it a bigger part of your life than other people. But this song is telling people about the impacts of being too religious, too dependant on the things they deem holy, to the point where they can’t even see a problem in front of their own eyes.

For example, Mrs White believes that periods are caused by sin and won’t even listen to Carrie trying to explain what Mrs Gardner told her. She’s so adament that what’s happening to her daughter is because of sin that she’s dismissing the fact that Carrie (who is right in front of her) is clearly distressed and confused.

And even if periods were caused by sin wherever they live, instead of comforting Carrie and calmly explaining things, Mrs White goes into a flying rage screaming about sin and how her (if I’m right) 16-year old daughter must repent for her sins! She even locks Carrie in a basement when Carrie doesn’t get on her knees and pray!

This is a prime example of over-dependence on religion. You become so blinded by the words you hear that you can’t even see what’s happening right in front of you and you think that any misfortune that happened to someone was because of their sin. And unfortunately it still happens in the real world.

Religion is used as an excuse and has been used for YEARS. It really sickens me that people can be so oblivious and cruel to others because “God said so” They use God and the bible to excuse their behaviour as “they will repent” and “nobody is free of sin” 

And WELL, if nobody is free of sin then WHY THE FUCK are you condemning and snubbing these people who do sin in your book when you should be enlightening them and forgiving them if they’re not religious like God (the alpha and the omega himself) fucking told you to, NEARLY A MILLENIA AGO??!!!

15 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#3

If you have no money to buy band posters or your parents won’t let you, Paint the motherfucker yourself😂 #mychemicalromance #mcr #mcrfanart #dangerdays #thetruelivesofthefabulouskilljoys #thewidow #partypoison #kobrakid #jetstar #funghoul #thefabulouskilljoys #gerardway #frankiero #raytoro #mikeyway #mikeyfuckingway #wowthisisalotofhashtags https://www.instagram.com/p/ClkY4wvrHp_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

16 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#2

Four ways of dealing with problems

Marc Spector: Leave it to someone else

Steven Grant: The someone else who's too polite to argue

Jake Lockley: Will tackle it head on even if it's dangerous

Khonshu: bREaK hIS wInDPipe!?!???!!!!**!!

36 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

A summary of Moon Knight characters

Steven Grant: Murder is wrong :<

Marc Spector: Violent croissant 

Khonshu: “stupid pigeon”

Layla El-Faouly: #Goddess

Arthur Harrow: Rabid Fanboy

Taweret: The type of friend that makes people scared of them but is actually really friendly

Other avatars: Fucking oblivious idiots

Ammit: Sussy baka

Bonus:

Jake Lockley: Murder is ok >:D

65 notes - Posted May 25, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

Cool😎

[pigeonfancier]

This is a really good post! I wanted to add onto this, because the size references here are fantastic for helping people conceptualise how very small this area is in a way I've fumbled on explaining - but also, I've been talking to people about this whole disaster a lot lately, and most people just.. do not know much about pigeons, it turns out, or why, exactly, the Ramsey Loft is fucking up beyond just the size?

CW for animal neglect / hoarding / mistreatment in this post. Nothing graphic, but still a little depressing.

I've been prattling non-stop about this on Discord, but the tl;dr summary for those on my dash who have been spared: The Ramsey Loft is a well-known pigeon keeping blog, who is breeding several varieties of pigeons. As of the last month or so, there has been a significant number of birds lost to a disease within the aviary.. and the fact there's sixty or so birds in residence, many of which were bred intentionally, and, iirc, were not bred with a guaranteed owner in mind beforehand. This, along with other issues with a rescue and, uh, racism in their discord[?!], has been a topic of discussion in the community.

I don't typically touch the pigeon fancier community on Tumblr, so I'm just addressing the coop, because I've been explaining why the Ramsey Loft set-up is horrible to a lot of friends lately. It can be a little hard to conceptualise how much space pigeons need! The ask up top is a great written example, but I'm a very visual person, so here's some pictures to demonstrate:

This is the exterior of a 40-pigeon loft, source (cw animal death in article).

This article doesn't have measurements. But you can see, just from visual reference, that this is bigger than Ramsey Loft's loft in comparison:

source

The size of the loft should allow eight to 10 cubic feet of air space per bird. A well-made loft would include at least three partitions: one for breeders, one for young birds, and one for old birds.

- backyardpoultry, citing what's pretty fucking standard to the business

Keep in mind: the Ramsey Loft has sixty birds, whereas the first one has forty.

For some further context, here's a thread of people discussing loft size on pigeon-talk.biz, one of the larger fancier forums. The OP has an aviary that is ~3 x 6 feet, and people are advising him on how many birds he can keep. That is 4 to 5 birds, because as people tell him:

The reason you should even know how many birds can be kept is so that you don't overcrowd. That is one of the biggest health problems there is. If you put, let's say 10 birds in your aviary, probably no big deal, but put 10 birds in you [sp] loft, and you've got a problem. They do spend their day going in and out but at night and during really bad weather, they are all inside. If there's not enough "air space" per bird, you start running into health problems. So, basically you figure out how many birds you can keep INSIDE your loft. The aviary is just bonus space.

pigeon-talk, discussing loft sizes

One of the posters notes that 15sqft per bird is ideal, but it's not often followed. He advises that the OP can keep 8 birds in his loft, and notes that “he personally [keeps] 3 pairs of birds in a 5x7x6foot sections, with 210sq feet.”

I've never been in the Ramsey Loft personally, but it is pretty clearly too small, especially when you look at it compared to the house next to it.. but also just from the pictures she herself has shared of it:

source

Her nest boxes. In comparison, this is what nest boxes look like in more typical, less horrifically crowded aviaries:

Please note the size difference, the clean floors despite the presence of pigeons within them, and also how the nesting itself is contained within the bowls given for them to nest in.

source

I don’t know the measurements of her aviary, but she has videos up of her within her loft. It is not large.

I’m not going to link specific youtube videos, but she has dozens up on her channel.

This is not just an overcrowded aviary. Ime as a rural fuck, people who breed pigeons specifically for hunting practice still generally keep their animals in larger lofts and less birds, because to do otherwise would be cruel. And to keep this many animals in this small of a space, without them getting sick.. the cleaning needs to be rigorous to an extent I do not think the vast majority of people are capable of maintaining.

For the record, below is a fancier discussing his loft. I’m not entirely sure of what his flock size is, but this is what I’ve always heard of as being fairly routine for commercial aviaries of any notable size, of which over forty birds would certainly qualify:

He cleans his “Cary’d Away Loft” once a day in the mornings and then feeds and waters the birds. In the summer, he cleans the loft twice a day. Fans and electricity were installed to aid in ventilation and convenience.

Deone Roberts, the Sport Development Manager for the American Racing Pigeon Union, says that a well-designed loft consists of a floor, four walls, a roof, external fixtures (landing board, trap, ventilators and turbines, and aviaries), internal fixtures, a storage area for feed and other supplies plus an infirmary. The loft needs to prevent vermin, including aerial predators.

- backyard poultry

The Ramsey Loft is very open about her cleaning habits. They would not be acceptable if she only had ten pigeons. To be honest, I wouldn’t find them acceptable if she had two pigeons, because:

source

If you scroll up, you can see how she cleans the mats within her aviary. Keep in mind, this is where she shows her feedbags to be: on the other side of the partition where she’s spraying the mats down.

No new deaths so far.

But there may be more than just salt poisoning going on.

We may also be dealing with crop rot, or an outbreak of coccidia or giardia.

The only bad thing about the Versele Laga blend I feed my pigeons is the paper packaging.

It breaks extremely easily, and a bag split at the loft door trying to get it in a few weeks ago.

Usually, they just sprout and I pull them up.

But it was freezing for those few weeks.

They started to sprout when it got warm before the rain, but as it continued, the shoots drowned.

The result of that will be under a cut, because it’s graphic. If you have a phobia of maggot like things, do not look at the photos.

That patch of literally writhing ground was too big for me to step over, so I bought pavers and made a path yesterday.

But the flies would not have been drawn to lay eggs there if the ground was not spoiled enough to attract them.

Long periods of rain in rural areas also bring out Coccidia and Giardia (the reasons pets should not be allowed to drink from puddles).

They are water loving protozoa that live an inch or less in the soil, depending on the average moisture of the biome.

They are free swimming in standing puddles or muddy yards.

The loft pigeons had access to the porch, where I put my sandals when I come in.

source

So she's spraying the detritus off of her mats into an area that is accessible to the birds. This isn't great, because it has resulted in her feedbags getting moisture damaged. This also isn't great, because it has resulted in one of her birds dying and getting consumed by maggots by falling behind or between them.

6/3/21

Well…

That was fucking horrifying.

I was tidying the porch.

I sweep out from behind the grit container when I refill it.

Normally, I just hold the empty feed bags up and sweep, but there were so many, and after Riddle got trapped behind them in the corner that one time, I’ve been thinking of moving them.

So, after I refilled the grit container, i heave all the bags in the yard and I’m picking them up one by one to stack in the storage building.

Tw. For graphic description of animal death…

I lift one that’s moisture damaged near the bottom of the stack and Jojo’s remains fall from between the bags like a pressed flower from the pages of a book, alive with maggots the ants have just found.

Yeah.

I’m not ok.

I feel pretty sick.

I had to carry him to the fire ant hill we maintain peace with.

source

This is not the way that show and companion aviaries generally work - lofts that lose birds annually are, in my experience, racers who lose them to hawks, or other risks of free-flying birds. But the Ramsey Loft does things differently. Very differently, in some cases, such as feeding their birds on the ground, rather than from feeders -

For large flocks, spreading grit and feed in a line allows the maximum amount of space for the flock to eat shoulder to shoulder, which allows each bird to get what they need without feeling pressure to fight over any.

Eating together is a bonding activity for pigeon flocks, so the less tense that can be made, the less flock aggression you will see in general.

I used to just pour out their measures in a pile.

source

A note here, for those who are not aware: pigeon fancying is a hobby that is very common and most often pursued in the global south, and other areas that are frequently close to or are labelled as third world countries. Pigeon fancying is a hobby that is, in many cases, built around being able to maintain a number of birds for sport, food or companionship, at a low personal cost, while maintaining those birds’ healthiness and happiness.

The majority of fanciers I have spoken to generally just make feeders out of old milk jugs or something similar, because feeding them on the ground is one of the ways you can spread disease rapidly throughout your flock - same as with any other animal, you don't want them eating where they shit. So it is not expensive or difficult to maintain a healthy, clean flock.

But she is not doing so, for whatever reason. She talks about quarantining her birds, but this is her quarantine:

source

It isn’t a surprise that the Ramsey Loft’s pigeons died. It’s a miracle that she hasn’t lost significantly more prior to this, and as someone who’s been into pigeons for over the last ten years, this is not a good set-up for this many birds.

And even if there were less birds, even with the disease aspect of the birds set aside, this isn’t particularly safe - from a human POV of exposing yourself to that much dander, but also for the squabs she is breeding. CW for a wounded squab, but the Ramsey Loft mentions squab injuries at a much higher rate than I’d expect from someone who has had pigeons this long.

At best, this is wildly unhealthy for the birds, and a sign that she was overwhelmed by her work. I do not believe this is the best: given the sheer amounts of squabs that she has bred this year alone, and the previous incidents of animal death in her care, this is just essentially a puppy mill for birds.

And that fucking sucks.

Ramsey DOES hatch control. They get replaced with fake eggs when she has too many birds and has a loft limit of 40.

That sure is crazy considering she still somehow got to 70+ birds while still breeding more. :/ Guess the birds underwent mitosis.

I also cannot stress enough that a 10x10 loft with 40 birds is still overcrowded and impossible to manage properly if you are in very poor physical health. I genuinely think some of you are not grasping how small of an enclosure that is, or what a room full of 40 pigeons looks like. The average guest bedroom in an American home is around 12x14. That is 68 square feet larger than the loft, assuming it truly is at least 10x10. Look around your bedroom. Imagine a single pigeon in that room. Bare in mind a pigeon is a bird that takes up loosely the amount of space as a coconut, give or take a bit depending on breed. Now imagine ten of those lovely coconut sized birds in your bedroom. We can pretend we took out all the furniture you had in there and added perches and anything a bird might need such as nest boxes and bowls of food and water. Those ten little coconuts seem pretty happy, but what if you doubled that? There are now twenty coconut sized birds cooing, flying, pooing, and waddling around. It’s getting a bit crowded in there, you have to be very careful to not accidentally step on any pigeons now since they’re all over.

So what about when you double that again?

Do you honestly think it’s ethical to keep 40 pigeons in a small bedroom? If not, why would it be ethical to keep 40 in an enclosure even smaller than that? Why would it be ethical to ever let the number get up to 70?

[blasphemecel]

Yami Bakura — Not Exactly An Elegiac Romance

PAIRING: Yami Bakura/Reader WORD COUNT: 6.3k TYPE: Crackfic, Minimal fluff, Canon Divergence WARNING(S): This takes place in an AU where post-canon Bakura is Kind of rehabilitated. Like he's not a good person but he's not actively trying to destroy the world and etc. He's going through a version of peaking in high school where the peak in question was threatening humanity and he's microdosing on reliving it through being a major pest

You would have to be insolent not to realize there's something off about this man. It's not a matter of deceit — his profile makes his mental instability clear as day to you.

Your problem could be your stupidity, but maybe it’s your lack of impulse control, but either way it’s something cardinal and you can’t seem to shake its roots.

Sparing his bio another glance, you let the words sink in and eat away your frontal lobe like they did the first time you read them.

Bakura, 20

I Am Not Here To Fuck Around. I Am An Ancient Evil Spirit Of A Thief And I've Been Mad For Thousands of Years. I Need A Ride Or Die Willing To Put Their Lives On The Line Or Get Sent To The Shadow Realm Assisting Me. You Must Handle My Cunning Be Willing To Feed Pigeons At The Park Laxatives Among Other Minor Evils... Serious Inquiries Only.

Then you look at his picture. You zoom in close enough to count the pixels in your search for any kind of imperfection, though unfortunately, you have to admit he's the most handsome man you've come across on this app, with sharp features and long white hair (even if strangely styled). He's striking in a way that makes you second guess your decision to ignore his existence.

Unsure of what to do, you switch back and forth between the description and gallery tabs, thinking, Hot, insane, hot, insane, hot, insane.

Well, it's not a given he'll swipe back on you. Maybe you could just... approve him since he's so good-looking, and then you'll move on with your day, and nothing will come of it-

Fuck.

You furrow your eyebrows immediately after sliding your fingers across the screen. Fuck. Seems like he liked your profile before you got to his. Now it's a match.

You let out a curt laugh. What's the worst that could happen?

__

The worst that could happen is arranging a date with him, apparently. After two weeks of no messages which led you to forgetting his existence, five flop dates with your other matches from the app, and nothing to smile about in your life, you somehow ended up getting called a mortal and being invited to a public park.

You show up ten minutes early with your inner discussion of Hot VS Insane still going on.

Something rustles in a bush nearby. Startled, you stop debating whether this was a good idea and look around until your date appears out of thin air with a leaf stuck in his hair almost immediately. With too much nonchalance, he throws it off, self-content expression not wavering.

"Were you, uh, were you hiding in the bushes?“

"Leaving you waiting would be inconsiderate, would it not?" he asks with a conceited smile, like what he said is something to be smug about.

You blink at him. Levelly, "That doesn't really answer my question."

"A guy like me is used to lurking in the shadows," he says, as if that's supposed to mean anything. For good measure, he throws in a somewhat sinister laugh at the end of his sentence.

You continue staring at him. "Okay," you settle on, figuring there's nothing else you could say to that. "Your hair looks wonderful for someone who was hiding in the bushes."

"I don't care," says Bakura with a grin before grabbing you by the wrist. You stumble after him while he drags you along to the best of his twinkish ability.

"Where are we going?" you ask with a hint of anxiety. What if he's a crazy kidnapper? Shouldn't he at least try to get to know you before attempting a felony? It's way too soon for any of this. You feel unappreciated, but also too shocked to try fighting him off.

"I'm trying to show you something."

"Is that something an abandoned warehouse?"

"What? Of course not. I haven’t done that in years."

"... What."

Bakura doesn't seem to care to elaborate on this, at least not when he finally has you where he wants you to be. Gesturing towards a motorcycle with a flair of drama, he smiles at you like a lunatic again, offering no explanation.

"That's great." You wince at the sound of your own unenthusiasm.

His lips twist downwards. "Are you not impressed?"

"Is it yours?"

"And why wouldn't it be?"

"Because it has a huge shiny purple plate that says Marik Ishtar on it."

With a vacant expression, Bakura continues surveying you, until he bursts out into another fit of wild laughter, though this time it's more deranged. "Yes... You make a fair point."

Your eyebrows almost fuse with your hairline out of incredulity. You want to ask him what's going on, but something tells you he won't be much help.

On cue, his phone rings. You watch him fumble around with it, almost like he's not sure how to use it, or like his fingers don't belong to him. Then a condescending look contorts his face, most likely reserved for whoever's calling him. "Marik."

"So the bike really isn't yours, then?" you chime in.

"Shut up [Y/n], no one's asking you," Bakura barks out, making you raise your hands in surrender and lean away from him.

"Bakura, stop stealing my motorcycle! I know it was you! You always do this stupid shit," the other person — clearly whoever Marik Ishtar is — yells out. In his frustration, he's speaking loud enough for you to make out what he's saying when you’re not even seeking to eavesdrop.

The smile on Bakura's face doesn't fall in the slightest. It grows bigger, oozing arrogance. "Well, sorry. I borrowed it to ride my DATE around."

"That's not what 'borrow' means," Marik argues. Bakura frowns just this once. You assume because that's not the answer he was looking for. "Besides, you don't even know how to ride it."

Bakura rolls his eyes like a teenager getting scolded by his parents in a sitcom. "You're so boring," he says. "Don't drive without a license this, don't take candy from children that. Grow up! Give me a break."

"You don't even like candy, Bakura."

"And people don't enjoy getting mind controlled by millennium items to win children’s card games."

"Whatever. I've atoned," Marik says dismissively. Meanwhile, you're gawking at the mention of brainwashing. Did you get involved with a LARPer? Or the only other option that could be possibly any worse — two LARPers? "My motor's got a tracker now because of you. So, I’m afraid to say we’ll be seeing each other soon."

"Heh, heh. My displeasure." With that, Bakura hangs up, a creepy smile coming over him. "Alright, we're going for a drive."

"No, we're not. I'm leaving. You keep doing whatever you're doing."

With no warning, he throws you on the seat and places himself behind you before forcing the safety helmet on your head. He's hugging you stiffly so you can't escape, and you realize he's actually kind of holding you hostage, which is also somehow the most predictable thing that has happened today. "You ride then if you think you're so much better than me."

After contemplating the events of the last twenty minutes while Bakura twists the key, turning the motorcycle on, you glance at him from the corner of your eye. "Have you ever considered taking medication?"

He deadpans, "Yes, I'm claimed to be anemic. Now drive."

"You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?"

Before he can retort with anything snarky, you hit the brake and speed straight down the road.

Bakura's hair whips around and goes inside his mouth, rendering him speechless.

Once he spits it all out, he yells, "Marik really likes this thing. You should scratch it a little."

"You know, we're supposed to be getting to know each other, but right now I know more about Marik Ishtar than I know about you," you exclaim through the air whisking by your head at rapid speed, making it hard for you to hear.

"Oh, don't be sad. We can play Naked Kill and break each other's legs later," he says tauntingly to satirize his idea of a sentimental night, you presume, before you make a harsh swerve and he rams his head into your helmet.

"I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Clearly planning a romantic night." Apparently, mild concussions also don’t stop him from running his mouth, nor do they rid him of his sardonic undertone. With the way today’s going, you’re thinking you might benefit from blunt force head trauma yourself.

"You're a fucking weirdo," you tell him. "I should crash the bike and kill us both."

"You can't total it! It's Marik's favorite," Bakura hisses out.

"Is that the only thing which concerns you about my plan?!"

You're about to cut another corner when some other guy drives towards you at full speed. It's going to be a head on collision.

"Moron! Get off the road. You clearly don't know how to drive!" You shake your fist at him indignantly.

"That's ironic, coming from someone who's driving my stolen bike."

"Shit," you mumble, realizing you might die a criminal, though you don't sound too upset about it.

Avoiding each other narrowly, you don't pay Marik any mind when he takes a U-Turn to keep following you. "Bakura, why's a man wearing tons of fake gold chasing after us?!"

"Will you two stop it and get off my case?"

"And for the record, it's not fake!" Marik insists, hot on your trail.

"Sure it isn't," you call back sarcastically before parking the motorcycle in the first convenient spot you can see.

"Why'd you stop?" Bakura asks, not bothering to hide the immature disappointment in his tone. "We were just getting to the fun part."

You sigh because words have failed you many times today.

The guy you’re sure is Marik pulls up not much later. When he takes his own helmet off, you can't help but glance between the two of them with mild curiosity. Bakura seems unreasonably happy to meet him considering the circumstances, with the circumstances being the probability of facing serious jail time.

Marik looks at you impassively before commenting, "Oh. It's a different one again." Then he refocuses his attention towards Bakura. "You need to stop doing this. You're already making me regret moving and I've been in Japan for less than a month."

"You're letting little old me affect you this much?" he asks with a mocking chuckle.

"You're a pest. How many times does someone need to send you to hell before you actually stop showing up?"

“I thought you’re a goody-two-shoes and don’t do that ‘skinning people alive’ thing anymore?” Bakura challenges, which only serves to make the other man grit his teeth.

You get the impression you're hearing something you're not supposed to be witnessing at all. Regardless, you clear your throat with a very fake cough and extend your hand towards Marik. "Erm. It's nice to meet you?"

"No, it's not," Marik says, despite shaking it and giving you a pleasant smile. "Your name’s [Y/n], right? I heard Bakura verbally abusing you over the phone," he continues conversationally.

"Yeah, that's me."

Bakura wants to point at both of you accusingly and kindly inform you you're not supposed to be getting along — at least you weren't in his imagined version of this occasion. Though he figures that'd only make him look stupid, so instead he laughs again and wraps his arm around your shoulders. "That wasn't verbal abuse. If you say it like that again, you might just hurt my feelings."

Opting to not pay him any mind, you continue engaging Marik in idle chatter and pointless small talk. And Marik, he doesn’t seem all that bothered by your presence. He might be enjoying himself, which only upsets Bakura more. Don’t you understand you’re the ones supposed to be feeling uncomfortable? Or does he have to tell you so you can play your part?

Maybe that would be an alternative if he was a more efficient communicator. Instead, as a woman holding a bouquet passes him by, he stretches a little and plucks out the centerpiece — a large, red rose — before presenting it to you with a smirk. “For you, love.”

Your face almost shrivels inside itself like an asshole. You think it might be the nickname, but it’s also the way you recognize the gesture really isn’t for you. It’s easy to tell by the subtle hint of him not paying attention to you at all and instead ogling Marik for the slightest twitch, trying to detect any betrayal of a reaction. Also, you stabbed your finger with a thorn while taking it from him, which honestly isn’t putting you in a better mood.

Bakura gets nothing besides Marik pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re hopeless.”

“You,” he scoffs, pointing at you. “Don’t make that face! I was trying to be nice.”

“We met an hour ago,” you remind. “And most of that time, I was breaking traffic laws. It’s way too early for me to be your ‘love’ or to receive your ‘roses’, if that’s even their real name.”

“What would you like, then?”

“Your silence.”

Sneering at you, Bakura crosses his arms then and turns up his nose like a snob. “Don’t be foolish, the likes of you could never boss me around.”

__

You’re not sure why, but Bakura is walking you home. Actually, he’s not really walking you home since you wouldn’t have allowed that, and you don’t think him knowing your address would be a good thing, but either way, he’s following you. Instead of calling for help like any rational person would, you turn towards him and ask the one thing that’s been on your mind since The Situation. “So, was it a recent break up?”

Bakura halts and glares. He turns his head around so suddenly you think he might have pulled a neck muscle. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on! That was obviously your ex you’re not over. Why else would you act like this?” While elaborating, you muster up the most innocent smile you’re capable of, pretending you’re not aware of how presumptuous you’re being right now. You might break a boundary or two, but he’s also tailing you home, which is pretty invasive.

By the look he’s giving you, you can tell he wants to squash you like an insect. You’re not sure if striking a nerve was the right call, but then again, you don’t seem to make reliable decisions lately, if ever.

“For the record,” Bakura spits out, before switching towards smugness and turning away from you with another one of his creepy grins and shifty-eyed expressions, “I AM over him. I’m just doing this to irritate him because I hate him.”

Your eye twitches at his transparent lie, but you don’t push it. “I see.”

It doesn’t take you long to reach your house after that. Instead of bidding you farewell like a normal person would, though, Bakura smirks and takes some sort of dramatic stance. His posture stands way too stiff and straight for it to be natural. The parting words he chooses for you are:

“Lovely day, right?” followed by exaggerated laughter.

You peek at him through the door, looking quite unamused. “Goodbye, Bakura.” And you don’t miss the way he switches to (somewhat murderously) staring at the ground with a distant stare after your dismissal either.

__

“Why are you hanging outside my house like a creep?!” you yell out through the window, eyes still blurry with sleepiness.

“I’m not very good at texting,” Bakura says. Again, he seems pleased with himself and his words despite them being embarrassing. Still, you wouldn’t assume this man to have even a shred of self-awareness, considering the way he conducts himself.

“Alright,” you tell him. “I’m going back to eat stale bread with shitty butter on it. You keep it pushing.”

“No.” Bakura raises his index finger at you suddenly. “We’re going out on a date. I hear you mortals call it brunch.”

Well, that sounds more like a demand than an invitation, first of all.

You put your hand over your mouth, trying to hide your amusement. Why did… he say it like that? All he can do is watch you with tears streaming down your face as you try to pretend you’re not having some kind of laughing fit.

“Are you paying?” you ask him finally.

“No,” Bakura replies. “Heh, heh, heh, I would never!”

“Lightning and curses, crud, foiled again, etc.”

__

The moment you set foot inside the specific location Bakura picked, he waves at someone in greeting while giggling ominously under his breath and your world shatters. Mainly because you’ve had enough of his acquaintances. Or maybe you’ve just had enough of him, even if you would have to begrudge and admit he’s entertaining.

Marik is a nice guy, you know? He seemed well-adjusted, at least for someone who willingly went out with Bakura.

It’s a boy and a girl, and after Bakura introduces you, you come to find out their names are Anzu and Yugi. Anzu appears confused at your presence and your lack of desire to run away screaming, meanwhile Yugi just says, “Awesome that you’ve found a friend, Bakura.”

“Sure. I’ve found an amazing friend,” he answers somewhat mockingly before sliding closer towards you, observing you in a manner which you can only describe as lecherous. God, this guy’s so annoying. Marik’s right.

You scoff. “Don’t look at me like that. Friend.”

“Sure, friend. I won’t.”

“I’m glad to hear that… friend.”

“Why do they keep calling each other ‘friend’ like that?” Yugi does his best attempt to whisper, but you can make out what he’s saying.

Then Anzu’s answer, as discreet as she seems to think she is being, comes out even louder. “I think Bakura’s insinuating they’re more than friends.”

Yugi gasps. “No way!”

“Do you think he’s holding this person hostage? Or maybe they were raised underground like Marik and don’t know any better?” she suggests.

“I don’t know. They don’t seem to be intimidated by him. Maybe we should be happy for them?”

“I hope you know me and my FRIEND can hear you,” Bakura grunts, turning the pair’s attention towards him again. Anzu leans away further into her seat when she catches sight of his scowl.

“Are we getting this brunch or not?” you interrupt, sounding annoyed. “I got dragged out of bed for this.”

Anzu and Yugi glance at each other for one prolonged moment until they agree it’s maybe a good idea to order something. The atmosphere remains tense, like neither of them particularly wants to be around him.

He makes it worse by trying to feed you croissants in front of everyone. With an evil glint in his eye, he hovers it in front of your mouth, though you don’t react like a romance movie protagonist would. Instead of parting your mouth and closing your eyes, you stare at him in confusion while he brings it closer to your lips, as if to tempt you.

“What do you w-”

Seizing the opportunity, Bakura shoves the whole thing. You choke on the croissant and think about how much you hate fucking French people. You also wonder if Bakura is French for doing this to you.

Anzu panics, scandalized that Bakura would go back to attempting murder in public. You hear a mix of her So much for changing! with Yugi’s Oh no! tangling into word diarrhea, but you’re too busy dying to pay them any mind. Your ‘friend’ watches the scene with glee.

After some struggle — and everyone suffering from Bystander Syndrome or something, because no one even pretends to care for your predicament — you manage to spit it out. There’s drool running down your chin, and you try not to gargle on your own saliva because getting strangled by a pastry is already embarrassing enough.

With a broad smile, Bakura picks up the croissant you conveniently threw up by the wet edge and dangles it in front of Yugi and Anzu now, as an offering. “Anyone gonna finish that?”

“No thanks,” Yugi denies politely, still gazing at all his companions guilelessly, even smiling at you and the crumbs of croissant near the corner of your mouth, eyes clouded while you try to recover your signs of life.

“Hell no,” Anzu denies before grabbing Yugi by the wrist and dragging him away from the crime scene (brunch). “Let’s get out of here. Bakura’s doing weird things again.”

…

There’s a short stalemate, but after it passes — when you’re well enough to speak — you shift towards Bakura, nose almost brushing his. “You know,” you start, curling up your lips, “when I said goodbye, that implied I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“Come on. Wasn’t it hilarious watching them be uncomfortable?”

Yes, it was a little funny, from what you could remember through the fog of your health hazard. But you’ll never tell him that.

__

The third time you go on a date with him, between the few times a week he makes it a routine to stand outside your house and make small talk through the window (“I read on an astrology website that Sagittarius is apparently the most evil zodiac sign.” “Did you know the occultism of the past is the science of the future?” and the like), you think it’s going to be normal. It’s not a surprise double date, and there are no motorcycles in sight, and you’re doing something as innocent as going to the arcade. It can’t go wrong, you don’t see it.

You’re beginning to think your problem isn’t that you’re a moron, or even your impulsivity. Maybe you’re naïve, or perhaps you secretly crave the same chaos he does.

Everything leading up to it — the key affair — is uneventful.

He uses some more of his small talk skills on you (“Recently I learned ducks become cannibals when they’re bored.” “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if I had a knife right now and you had nowhere to run?” “No, seriously, wouldn’t it be fucked up?” “Marik likes getting tickled behind his ear. It’s kind of off-putting.” “Actually, I use conditioner. I hope you don’t think anyone wakes up looking this good.” and the like) on the way there. You’re not sure if you’re enjoying it or not, but soon enough, that seems to become irrelevant.

It’s always the stupid fucking claw machine, ruining everything in your life… Your life which has been full of pain and claw machine violence.

You spot him before Bakura does, and he’s easy to recognize.

Yugi from the damned double date and his star-shaped hair with crazy colors in it. He’s hovering over that apparatus of doom, doing his own thing. Determined not to let them be aware of each other, your gaze shoots away from him immediately.

“I want to play a shooting game,” Bakura once again demands more than he requests, but you don’t mind his pick, so you don’t argue with him about it for once. And then he freezes. And then he lets out one of those annoying laughs he does, and your jaw ticks.

“Bakura, don’t bother Yugi. Please.”

“That’s clearly not Yugi, it’s Atem,” he tells you with a pout, like this is information you were supposed to know.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Okay, fine. Please don’t bother Atem.”

“I won’t bother him.” You’re too quick to feel relief when he claims that, though. He shoves his fists deep into the pockets of his trench coat, and somehow hanging around him so often has made you stop questioning that fashion choice. “We’re just going to have a bit of friendly fun.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your friendly fun is a little sadistic.”

“Only a little? You wound me,” he says with a faux saddened expression which makes you want to punt him.

He notices your frustration, and that brings a big smile to his face. Then he remembers he has a mission and strides up to this Atem fellow who looks just like Yugi. Mulling it over, you wonder if they’re twins. You also wonder why Bakura gets a kick out of tormenting men who don’t stand any taller than 5’3.

Considering you don’t want to get involved in this, you choose to stay on the sidelines and don’t follow him. Bakura and Atem seem to get into a heated discussion with many flamboyant gestures being thrown around, and at one point Bakura puffs his chest and points in your direction with a sense of superiority. Atem scrutinizes you with mild curiosity, but the moment ends quickly.

You can’t determine what they’re doing, but you think they’re competing over the claw machine. Except Atem wins a few plushies while Bakura wastes coin after coin only to receive nothing. He’s probably going to develop the same claw-machine-bankruptcy trauma as you.

Atem crosses his arms, and you assume this is when he’s going to declare his win, but Bakura doesn’t let it happen. No, the way he goes about interrupting his triumph is way overdramatic, in your opinion, because he punches through the protective glass with his bare hand. Then he starts throwing everything he grabs in there at you and mumbling something about conquest.

Conquest? Is he serious? Everyone saw his ass failing to win even one of these things.

Trying to get him out of his frenzy, you awake from your stupor while Atem watches this clownery with wide eyes and no commentary. “Bakura, stop,” you seethe, shoulders rising to your ears with tension. “Security will take you out of here and your hand is bleeding.”

“Well, take the fucking plushies then! I didn’t shred my skin just for you to throw them on the ground,” he counters, all but shoving his open wound in your face. It looks worse than you imagined.

“Fine, fine, I’ll take them if it’s that important to you,” you grunt in annoyance before collecting his trophies.

And you spend the rest of the day running away and in hiding. Later, when you’re home, you see he ended up on the news. They dub his case ‘Insane Man Throws Tantrum Over Claw Machine Scam’ and you’re mentioned as an ‘accomplice’ and Atem is apparently a ‘witness who refused to testify’.

Sometimes, you kind of hate your miserable existence.

___

This time, Bakura warns you he wants you to meet someone, which gives you hope it’ll go better. After all, the last three times you saw his acquaintances, you weren’t mentally prepared, but this time you’ve been listening to subliminal videos for positive energy and good luck for almost a week.

When he comes to pick you up, the first thing he does is ask you if you kept the plushies from the last date storyline, to which you say yes. You’re not sure what response you expect, but it’s not a squint of his eyes and a menacing grin before he tells you, “That’s good,” in the most intimidating voice possible.

“Yeah,” you trail off, unsure what to make of this.

On the way to his apartment, of course, you’re subjected to more small talk (“The arcade thing was nothing. They’ve never arrested me before.” “A few days ago I watched an avalanche happen in real time up close, and thought of you, and wondered if you’d survive it if you were there. But probably not.” and the like).

The interior isn’t the way you would’ve expected it to be. There are a few horror movie posters — of movies you don’t think are even that good — and a lot of nerdy merch. Your concerns that Bakura is some kind of role-player only grow stronger the more you examine his living space.

There’s also a boy who looks kind of like a smaller, rounder and friendlier version of Bakura, which makes you blink. Another pair of uncannily similar siblings?

Well, he looks nice. He has kind eyes, you think, unlike Bakura who always stares at you with a mix of wickedness and eyeliner. That must be who he wants you to meet, which is a kind of pleasant surprise.

Or at least that’s what you think before the introductions really start and you hear the details.

“So what you’re trying to say is,” you start with an eye twitch, “that this is your twin who’s also younger than you and has a different birthday-” he nods, “-and he calls you Bakura and you call him Bakura, even though you’re brothers, and Bakura isn’t his first name, but it’s your first name. Is that right?”

The… other Bakura is all smiles during this entire, nonsensical explanation.

“Precisely,” he snickers at you.

“Bakura, you have to think I’m lobotomized if you think I’ll believe this bullshit,” you spit, something icy lacing your tone.

“I’m not lying, but if it makes you feel any better, I think you could pass as a lobotomy victim.”

You consider telling him that doesn’t make you feel better at all, but you also figure it’s worthless. This has been a tremendous waste of time. The guy you’ve become attracted to — for some inexplicable reason that probably aligns with mental illness — really doesn’t have any redeeming qualities.

After taking a deep breath, without uttering a word, you tip your chair back until it creaks. And after a pause, you stand up and leave.

Some minutes of confusion without either of them reacting passes, until Ryou asks, “Was it something I said?”

Bakura snarls, “You didn’t say a thing.”

__

When you first go home, you cry a little, but you’re not sure why. It’s not all-out sobbing and there are no wails or anything — only a few tears streaming down your face. You’re also not heartbroken, or anything stupid like that.

If you have to be honest, you simply feel more like an idiot than usual, and that’s depressing. You thought maybe… finally it’d work out with someone, since you didn’t like any of your dates with anyone else since they were too boring, but now you realize you were a little out of your mind to think you could make it work with someone that dysfunctional. You figure he kept showing up solely to amuse himself.

Perhaps you had a “I can fix him” reaction, and you find it shameful now. To rectify this, you push all the plushies off your bed.

You can cut him off. You’ve always been good at that.

__

Maybe you’re not good at anything. You don’t know how you even got into this situation. Recounting the events leading up to this doesn’t help you feel any more sane than before.

First, you’d been moping around for a few days at work and dodging Bakura’s borderline illegal attempts to talk to you via trespassing until he understood you don’t want to see him for realsies and left you alone.

Second, you bought an entry ticket to go to an amusement park and pretend you’re eight years old again in a silly attempt to make yourself feel better.

Third, nearing afternoon, you got into line for one of the Ferris wheel rides. It was a long while of waiting, though, so you were one of the few people left for the last turn.

Fourth, in a stroke of unbelievable bad luck, the Ferris wheel stopped working. You’ve been stuck looking out the sliding doors’ windows to pass the time while they try to fix this thing. The sight isn’t even entertaining since your cabin was still near the ground when it malfunctioned.

When, from a distance, you saw a blob of white and… trench coat color in the horde below you; you felt a little sick to your stomach. Still, you figured it was a coincidence until.

Until.

You don’t know how else to say this, but you had to watch Bakura perform an impossible feat of athleticism while amusement park security and employees were screaming and, you assume, swearing at him for doing something so unsafe. It took him some time, but he looked confident in his abilities to pretend he’s King Kong, and he reached your cabin.

Now you’re watching him try to balance himself while gesturing for you to open the door since he’s too busy trying not to get steamrolled into the ground. You avert your gaze and consider it. It doesn’t sound like a good idea, yet you have nothing better to do. And with this conclusion, you do as he requested.

Once Bakura squeezes himself in, he does nothing productive. Crossing your arms, you glare at him while he poses stiffly in front of you, and you get the impression he’s not about to explain himself. Then again, when has he ever explained himself?

Finally, you bite the bullet. “What was so important for you to tell me, that you had to do this?” Your skin is boiling with anger.

“I have nothing important to say,” declares Bakura with a gesture of his hand. Your teeth grind against each other. “I just did it for the thrill.”

Now you want to throw him off of here, but you don’t twitch to do so. Instead, you snap at him. “Can’t you just go bother someone else?!”

“Obviously I can,” he replies in earnest, before realizing standing and sneering down at you is more awkward than it is intimidating. Then he sits on the seat opposite yours and smirks. “It’s just that you’re the one I like.”

“Well, I don’t see it.”

He lets out a ‘huh’ in genuine surprise, which serves to piss you off more. Like he’s been showing you how much he appreciates you all this time or something. You want to analyze his thought process in a lab. With dissection.

Yeah, lots of dissection.

“I’m not that dumb,” you say. “You’ve been using me to make these people you know or whoever they are feel uncomfortable for your own twisted joy.”

“Oh, come on. I didn’t mean anything bad by it after the first time.”

Slouching more, you narrow your eyes at him with a semblance of hatred.

“Okay, fine. I didn’t mean anything bad by it after the second time,” he corrects himself.

“What about that whole thing with Atem at the arcade? And the ridiculous story you told me? That dumb shit almost became my thirteenth reason.”

“Can’t you be a little grateful?” Bakura reproves, with an edge to his tone you don’t like the sound of. “I was giving you presents and trying to introduce you to my family and what-have-you. You’re supposed to value things like that.”

A little speechless by his audacity — as usual — you dig your fingers deep into your forehead, movements almost vicious, possibly trying to massage all memories of him out of your brain. It doesn’t work.

“Was it not entertaining? Be honest.”

“It was, but I’m not gonna settle for being toyed around with just because you happen to be funny twice a day,” you exclaim, dipping your fist into the material of your seat, then burying your face behind your hands. You’re concerned you might burst a blood vessel if this conversation progresses any further. You’re… You’re going to blow a fucking gasket.

“Wh- Listen.”

You peek at him through the cracks between your fingers. “What?”

“I don’t apologize to anyone, but you should forgive me, anyway.”

Cogs turn in your brain. At first you don’t want to do anything besides cuss at him, but mid-grimace you get an idea. “Tell me, then. What do you like about me?”

You admit, in a strange way, he seems hung up on you for a reason you can't understand.

You must be hallucinating now because Bakura’s face goes red a little, and his lips quiver their way out of the perpetual smirk they seem to be stuck in otherwise. “That’s embarrassing!” he denies, like you’re asking him to do something frivolous. Which you are, because you’re both overgrown toddlers.

“Too bad. Seems like you’re not being genuine to me.” You look at your nails, feigning disinterest.

“I like,” he begins, “that you don’t care and just go along with everything like it’s normal. Well, I admit I was being a little cruel at first, but I came to like you, anyway. I thought we were just having a good old time! Is that so wrong?” Bakura turns sarcastic near the end. As if you thought his passivity would last for long.

Is it possible that stealing, self-injury and trying to kill you are this man’s definition of a good old time? Judging by everything you know about him, you can’t say it’s implausible.

“I’ll give you one more chance,” you raise. “But I have conditions.”

Bakura rolls his eyes and pouts, you assume, since he doesn’t relish playing by other people’s rules. “What are they?”

“No motorcycles, or meeting literally anyone you know, or committing any crimes, or any other Bakuraesque shenanigan. I want it to be normal. The next time we hang out has to be normal.”

“I can work with that,” he grunts. Even if you’re killing him a little and these just so happen to be his favorite things, he can tone it down as long as you don’t feel you’re being used.

You two stare at each other in a rare moment of silence and serenity until he raises his eyebrows in contemplation.

“You know, if the next time we spend time together is after they fix the Ferris wheel, we’re going to have to go on the run again.”

[stylishanachronism]

Okay so we’re going to open with the fact that while Obsidian has at least one person on staff who understands armor, literally nobody understands clothing, especially historical clothing, and though they stumbled into something... acceptable in two and a half cases(1), literally everything else they’ve produced on the subject is garbage.

So what’s the most garbage cultural garb in Eora? I’m going to shock you, despite my complaining on the affront that is the Dyrwood, it’s actually the Vailians. They’re supposedly primarily metalsmiths and textile traders, (iirc Obsidian called Venice and the Phoenicians as the major guiding influences), with really strong textual aesthetic sensibilities, and yet they’re all wearing drab closefitting garments with neither wild shaping nor excess fabric, mostly in deeply boring greys. It’s like... bad period piece Renaissance Venetians, but make it 90s haute couture. It is *painfully* bad. Deadfire improves, a little bit, but these are supposedly the most baroque bitches around, I should be seeing vivid colors (especially in reds and blues and purples), rich blacks, and enough spare fabric to drown a medium sized child. Also lace. A famous vineyard’s worth of lace. At least blackwork, come on Obsidian they look cheap.

Based on Pallegina’s armor, I should also be seeing a ‘pigeon breast’ silhouette on literally everyone, or alternatively low, square cut bodices to show off extremely fancy underwear (and don’t worry, we’ll get to the underwear), and I should be seeing split hose, not pants, if I am seeing hose at all. I will accept pants for exactly two cultures and no more. and the Republics do not apply.(2) Deadfire did them a good turn by introducing brocades but where is the velvet. The silk. The weird hats. The dagged, slashed sleeves to show off the fact you’re rich enough to wear an overdress, an underdress, and then your underwear’s fancy as hell too. Everybody on the south-eastern half of the Eastern reach is wearing, at minimum, a chemise, hose, and if you’ve got boobs some sort of stays to keep said boobs put, and pockets, before you even get to their outerwear.and just like today, everybody wants pretty underwear. Embroidered cuffs and collars, clocked hose, lace on everything, if you’re rich, blackwork if you aren’t, extremely beautiful pockets, the works. The Republics, being the rich people with all the fabric, have canonically raised fashion to an art form, so they should be dripping with extra details, and they should not only be the only people with flat patterning, they should be reveling in that fact. They are not doing any of these things.

The second most garbage cultural garb is, of course, the Dyrwood. Again, I should be seeing lots of color, not necessarily saturated but given their climate and stated food products I can make an educated guess about what dye plants are around, so lots of greens and yellows and rusty-orange reds and (maybe) pale blues, and a billion extremely rich shades of brown and almost-black, mostly plainweave for themselves (they’re shipping out their brocades for the most part), but lots of embroidery again. They can keep the bracers, they’re the only canon-given detail I actually liked (and it plays into a different headcanon re: where the fuck did you get the standing army), but they don’t even get split hose, much less pants. Skirts for everybody! Again, these people are producing all the fabric, and it’s cold(ish), so multiple layers are a thing, as is excess cloth, and if you’re going to do that, you’ll dye your underdress a fun color to contrast with your overdress (which very well might be quartered, too), at the very least. There’s probably a lot of plain trimming, and guards, and they’re coming out of Aedyran fashion so there’s not a lot of shaping but stripes and plaids are probably a thing, and certainly no flat patterning. Think bilaut over later kirtles, with side lacing and belting around the waist for various purposes (like making your boobs stay put, depending on if you’ve got stays or not, or holding up said skirt when you’re working in the fields, to get it out of the way.)(3)

Based on the leather armor you pick up, I should also be seeing the beginnings of a more conical style, moving away from clothes you just drop over your head into separate skirts and bodices (for everybody, not just women), which still probably lace up the front or (more commonly) the sides. (There’s an argument to be made that kilts are a thing, coming out of Eir Glanfath, but it’s probably more of a western than an eastern thing, and frankly I’m not sold, get back to me on this.) Also, going back to my dearly cherished ring lace headcanon, pretty much everyone wears extremely beautiful knit lace shawls (but not trim, and not non-knit), because even if you’re selling all the really nice stuff you’ve still got piles and piles of little apprentices practicing their trade, and somebody’s got to wear it.

Unfortunately I just don’t have enough information about Glanfathians to say anything other than what they’re wearing is also probably garbage, and fashion is probably a hugely tribe-specific thing. More nomadic tribes probably don’t wear many wovens, probably saving what cloth they make or trade for for things like belts and blankets and carrying bags, but again, it should all be extremely colorful. You’ll see more shaping and piecework here, because leather does not appear in neat rectangles the way cloth does, and if you’ve already got that curve you might as well use it, lots of fur, mostly for warmth but also as decoration, and we might see Dyrwodian fashion influences with the more eastern tribes, depending on the mystery of what’s going down politically at that border and whether or not those tribes are more or less nomadic.

Ixmitl gets an honorable mention for having the most color and also horses, and so the pants are acceptable, but I’d like to see more color and more embellishment. And also more information. Rauatai gets an honorable mention for having actually reasonable rectangular construction on everything (clearly an accident but I’ll take it) and again, some color. Aedyr gets an honorable mention for having some logic put into it’s creation, even if that logic isn’t extended out to its colonies like it should be, and even if what we see in game makes it clear Obsidian doesn’t actually understand how things like chitons work.

Engwith gets all the honorable mentions for somehow being the most internally consistent culture as far as art and fashion go, despite 90% of that art and fashion being extremely hard to see frescoes, and the rest of it being Thaos. Yeah it’s basically a straight copy off Sumer but you know what? That just means it works.

At some point in the distant future I may update this with illustrations of canon v. what we reasonably should be seeing, but right now is not that time.

1: Whoever Obsidian picked up for Tyranny clearly stayed on (Tyranny’s clothing was uniformly pretty great, even if it had the same bra problem), and they’re the only person with half a clue, which is why the Huana look as good as they do. Pillars gets half a point for Aedyr, Iximtl, and hilariously enough Engwith, for having reasonable starting points, and Deadfire should get another half point for Rautai, but that picture of Maia exists and it is such an affront they lost it again.

2: Ixmitl and the various groups of the White that Wends can have pants, the first because they’re canonically horse people, and that’s what pants are for. The White doesn’t actually get pants, per se, they’re fairly clearly inspired variously by the Inuit and the Vikings, so they have separate undergarments we would call pants in order to help keep warm, but it counts for this. Nobody else gets pants.

3: Just for the record, this is also where Raedceras should be, fashion-wise, but we have huge amounts of nothing when it comes to non-priest everyday wear so I can’t really talk about. My logic still stands, plus they’re even less likely to know about flat patterning, but, y’know.

[dbh-is-a-crime]

All Dbh Chapters

@kaydel your reply to my ask has inspired me to give my thoughts on each of the chapters.

Chapter 1: The Hostage

Is honestly a good first chapter, the tension and stakes are high, it pulls you in. There's a reason people who played the demo were hyped for the game. And regardless of what I think of Cage's writing, it's not the first time he's done a solid intro to a game. (Swiftly followed by garbage but I digress..)

We learn something about deviancy and how it starts, we get a sequence of dialogue based gameplay to set up how important it is to the story, and we get a taste of Connor’s somewhat underdeveloped investigation gameplay. 

I will admit that there are several lines I kind of like in this scene (’You can’t kill me, I’m not alive’ I’d like this even better if Bryan didn’t love it so much) And most of the outcomes are very cool! 

Chapter 2: Opening

Is not a chapter, it's the opening credits. It's not really interesting, but it's not as bad as Heavy Rain's, only because it's about half as long. Kara was robbed.

Chapter 3: Shades of Color

What a title am I right! And no, it's not just because of the paints. This chapter, title aside, isn't bad! We don't learn anything about Markus but it sets the world up nicely. It's one of the cooler open areas. It shows off the graphics nicely. 

And all of that is promptly ruined by the overly heavy-handed scene with the protesters. With the follow up of the back of the bus! Also the preacher guy is weird what was the point of that.

Chapter 4: A New Home

Easily one of the most (if not The Most) boring chapters in the game. Mundane QTEs? We all looooooove those! At the end of the chapter you get some exposition to a very nice composition (this game really would be nothing without the music) and that part is actually ok. But the mundane housework gameplay doesn’t get a pass, even if it is to give context for what the life of an android is like. Would be 100% better if there was 40% less housework.

Chapter 5: The Painter

A solid chapter! Learning about Markus through his interactions with Carl? An actual good narrative device? Unbelievable. At surface level their relationship is sweet and Carl is so supportive of Markus growing beyond his programming. Though there is a darker undertone that mirrors the caged android birds. And that it’s all a gilded cage. And I like both of those interpretations, they’re interesting. 

The music mini game is interesting the first time you do it but after that I’m never picking it again, chess it is from now on.

Chapter 6: Partners

Connor’s return after 5 chapters. I think that might be the longest break between appearances for any of them. Anyway this chapter is mostly fine. It sets up Hank and Connor’s troubled partnership and shows us what most of Connor’s gameplay is going to be. (Detective work and trying to reason with Hank) It would be interesting if there was an option to let Ortiz’ android go, seeing as there if a version of the scene where you don’t find him. But I guess it’s too early for Connor to be disobeying.

Chapter 7: Stormy Night

Classic David Cage has women being abused by men! Unfortunately this is one of Kara’s best chapters. The tension from the very first moment if real, and as soon as Alice runs up stairs, you just know what’s going to happen. Without fail, every person I’ve ever watched, immediately tries to follow her. Honestly? Solid way to make me care about the kid. 

I know some folks have problems with showing child abuse on screen, but my opinion is that they kept the worst of it as implied, like in the failed ending of the chapter, you don’t see it actually happen. So I’m personally okay with it, but I can understand why some may disagree.

10/10 for the chase/escape scene. It’s stressful as hell but honestly the music just makes it...like idk the moment Kara deviates? I nearly, literally screamed the first time. The build up to it is so good, and you as the player are determined to protect Alice and will fight through the programming to do it.

Chapter 8: Broken

Gonna be honest, Markus’ deviating scene falls a little flatter for me. I’ve watched several people play for the first time and actively not want to break programming and retaliate. Which makes the fact that its a scripted event you can’t avoid frustrating to them. I guess we just haven’t seen any anger from him yet so it doesn’t feel like the reaction you expect? (I get that it’s supposed to be him finally cracking, the story just...doesn’t convey that very well.)

Also the fact that you get punished for staying silent with Carl dying is shitty.

Chapter 9: The Interrogation 

Talk about fucking tense! This scene is a real challenge, in either difficulty. Unless you don’t care about the android self-destructing? 

I don’t have much else to say, it’s not a bad scene but there’s not a lot of substance to it. The ‘the day will come when we will no longer be slaves’ line is...the start of the truly terrible writing choices in this game.

Chapter 10: Fugitives

Not a bad scene. Getting to choose to steal a bunch of stuff is fun, and the fact that you can steal all this shit and then go and sleep in the car is pretty funny. I don’t like the house or Ralph, just because it’s another chance to put a female character at risk from a male character. 7/10 I’m never picking the house. (Also did you know you can fail to steal from that guy in the laundromat and he wakes up lmao)

Chapter 11: From The Dead

Ok this is going to be kind of a controversial opinion...but I’m tired of this scene. While it’s true that no scene in the game holds up on the 20th watch/play, this scene lost most of it’s shock value on the 3rd watch. Now that being said, the sound design in the scene is brilliant. And putting the audio processor back in does still give me chills, but the rest of the scene? I mean, I guess cannibalising other androids is a pretty powerful story action. But the fact that you can take all of the things you need from dead androids if you search hard enough kind of ruins that for me. 

Also idk why but everyone collectively thinks that Markus screams when he reaches the top of the slope and I have no idea why.

Chapter 12: Waiting For Hank

Boooooooring. Ok, getting beat up by Gavin after refusing to make him coffee is mildly interesting. But the fact that Hank just hates you in the scene is honestly quite tiring. Like, his opinion of Connor will inevitably go down at least once, you can’t avoid that. Also there’s nothing to explore in the office so...

Chapter 13: On The Run

Both versions of this scene are very tense. And not in...a super fun way. Like ok, Kara has that empowering woman moment where she cuts her hair, great, but the rest of the scene isn’t that good. (And the version with Ralph is downright disturbing.) 

Chapter 14: Jericho

Oh god let’s players cannot do this part. And the amount of time I’ve spent watching people run around clueless because they weren’t paying even the slightest attention or follow the obvious path, makes me hate this chapter. I also hate it because the gameplay isn’t very interesting. Markus’ precog is mildly interesting, but that’s really it. (The end of this chapter has some pretty stunning visuals tho)

Chapter 15: The Nest

Ok, the opening conversation with Hank is cute if Connor is trying to be nice. Though the actual chase is pretty tense. The music is on point as always, because the composers for this game were very overqualified for the job. Also the fact that you get punished for not saving Hank both amuses and vexes me. You don’t catch the guy because you were a shitty partner. But what was the point of taking the risk with Hank if there’s no reward? (Yes I know he still ends up in evidence lock up but that’s hardly reward enough for risking your partner’s life)

I mean okay the pigeons flying through the roof is pretty funny, but the investigation in the apartment isn’t all that interesting. Also I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned the Zen Garden once but honestly most of the scenes there aren’t that interesting anyway.

Chapter 16: Time To Decide

Wow where do I start on how uninteresting this chapter is. You learn very little about Markus’ companions, you get to have a conversation with a magical minority, and you get a line about an android being dragged behind the back of a car. (After reading the wiki about James Byrd I feel genuinely sick and could not be more disgusted that this was used so clumsily in the game.)

Chapter 17: Zlatko

His name sounds like a brand. Also this is my least favourite Kara chapter. They go to his place for almost no reason (just so they can get caught) and we get a 20 minute scene of Zlatko being a cartoonish monster of a man. Also this has been pointed out and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Why is Kara scared of Luther when she sees him? Like...??? Anyway re-finding her memories is boring, finding Alice is also boring, and hiding from Zlatko is just stressful. Nothing interesting to the story happens here, except that Luther joins Kara and Alice.

Chapter 18: Russian Roulette 

Perhaps the shortest chapter in the game. It’s not like...super boring, but it’s not interesting either. Also don’t forget to notice the picture on the table or you’ll have no chance of getting the good ending later! Seriously, they should have made it a requirement for the scene to move on if it’s going to be that important.

Chapter 19: Spare Parts

The whole freerunning thing at the start is lame. And the fact that you have to grab the android and then release him to get the best outcome is confusing as hell. (I have seen many folks fuck this up.) The part where you sneak around in the guard house is actually kind of cool. Also North go down if you’re nice to people....I love this game.

Chapter 20: The Eden Club

Pity the lesbian sexworker androids!!! In all seriousness though this is a chapter I do not like. The endings are unfulfilling, the whole storyline is gross, poorly written and very Cage-esque. (Also why would you make the two android lovers the same model?! Just make one of them one of the other 8 female WR800 models you have!) I mean I guess I can say that the glowly design of the sexclub is nice or whatever.

Chapter 21: Pirate’s Cove

Ok this is a personal one but I don’t like this chapter. Something about the family dynamic between the three falls flat for me and so the whole scene being about them makes it...ehh. Also Kara under threat again! Woohoo! The scene on the carousel is kind of cute and the scene composition is nice, but the fact that all the Jerrys are standing around watching is a little weird. Also bait us with rA9 crap why don’t you! we’ll just never learn anything about this i guess

Chapter 22: The Bridge

I like this chapter to be honest. I know Pirate’s Cove is meant to be relaxed but I find this chapter more relaxing. Even if it ends with a gun to Connor’s head. I mean it’s not that hard to not get shot really. And seeing Hank start to care and question their mission is interesting. I don’t know, I guess I just like the visuals of the snow and the bridge. (Anyone notices that it goes from raining to snowing like three days later, wtf)

Chapter 23: The Stratford Tower

Now this one is complicated. Because I like the breaking in and getting up to the broadcast department part, I even like the pre-speech tension. Markus carrying the weight of history and knowing his words will shape what people across the world think of androids. 

The music as he gets ready to start the speech is....just so good. But then he starts talking and.....mmmmm press x for civil right yes please! Press square to end slavery? Absolutely! God...the writing in this scene is Bad. Which is a shame! Because it squanders the carefully crafted tension built up until this point. I like the energy going into this scene, the idea that they’re about to take a stand, make history. But it is unfortunately ruined for the sake of a poorly executed racism allegory.

Chapter 24: Public Enemy

Ok, going to investigate the crime scene of what you just did as Markus is pretty good. Its not an original idea, that was the opening sequence for Indigo Prophecy, but it still works I’m not going to lie. Also the cop from the Hostage showing up to thank you if you saved him is cute. The fact that Hank is starting to question Connor and look for signs of deviancy in him is also nice! Also I hate it but going after Simon gives you a more cohesive storyline if you’re going for a deviant Connor route. (Can I get an F for Simon? He can die so many different ways)

Chapter 25: Midnight Train

Can’t believe that the chapter about the underground railroad is literally called Midnight Train. Yeah the dialogue in this? Shocking, terrible, absolutely unforgivable. Rose I am so sorry this happened to you. Also a cop arrives to....put Kara in peril at the hands of a male character again! Can’t go a chapter without that!

Chapter 26: Capitol Park

Hmmmmmmmmm. ‘We have a dream’? ‘I can’t breathe, but I’m still alive’? Hi, yes, hello? David Cage is doing it again, yeah he’s co-opting black history for his story about androids, somebody needs to stop him. Why did no one stop him.  

Ok, most of this chapter other than that is ok. It’s not particularly good, but it’s ok. (wiLL yOu bE gOoD oR eViL?!?!1)

Chapter 27: Meet Kamski

Ok this man is so creepy and emotionally manipulative and as a narrative tool I’ve actually come to love it. Like the tone of this chapter is such a breath of fresh air. Maybe it’s just the fact that they added a new character after such a long time and that he knows more than he ever lets on. rA9 baited again...

Also this is Connor’s turning point in a way. You can still choose to change your path later on, but this is the real moment of truth where a character pushes him to reveal where he’s at. (Also the fucking MUSIC)

Chapter 28: Freedom March

Oh no. I’m so sorry Markus you deserve better. I hate this chapter if you can’t tell. The combo of the black history slogans and the jesus music is too much for me. Also the good ending is locked behind Simon being alive/Spare Parts success route??? Also F for that random android who’s name is John that we hear about twice.

Chapter 29: Last Chance, Connor

I usually keep a low profile with Gavin so I miss out on the beatdown unfortunately. But having the option is hilarious. If you don’t sacrifice at the march, Simon is alive, interrogation bad end, Rupert and the Tracis escape....can you even find Jericho?

Just a thought, anyway this is short but tense chapter. Don’t hate it.

Chapter 30: Crossroads

Kara’s part of this is dumb as hell. The Alice twist literally destroys the storyline but anyway...

Markus has very little to do until the end. His version is ok, but Jesse’s line delivery leaves something to be desired. (You’re one of us....)

Connor’s is easily the most interesting of the three concurrent stories at this point. Going in to capture Markus/North, chasing them through the hold if ur a machine..very good. 

And....going deviant. Okay yes that still gets me, I did actually shout YES!! out loud the first time I witnessed it. The music’s slow build in the scene, and most of the dialogue (if you choose carefully) swells to this point and...and..it happens!! 

Like idk I’ve only been slowly building up to this for 9 hours, sue me.

Chapter 31: Night Of The Soul

I like this chapter! Or Markus’ version anyway. Connor’s...well the Hank version is just sad. The Jericho version is fine.

But Markus? Visiting Carl’s grave or the man himself is such an emotional moment for the character. And the single humanising moment he’s had in several chapters. The conversation is so weighted with his doubts and fears and Jesse Williams gives a beautiful performance! (Also as I’ve said, the alarm system saying ‘welcome home markus’ kills me on impact)

Chapter 32: Battle For Detroit

Is a good chapter. What, did you expect me to say it isn’t? Cause it is. Or some versions of it are.

The tension in all three characters stories, regardless of which version, is perfectly hit at this point.

Kara’s....ah fuck idk I mean the border version is ok? The others....kind of suck? The guy letting them through with high public opinion and Markus doing a peaceful demonstration is kind of cute and sort of makes sense in a way.

Markus’ versions (both in which he is alive) are pretty cool. The revolution is hard, and I do like that it ends with him saying that they haven’t won, they’ve only started a war. The demonstration is kind of dumb, and I actually prefer them getting shot and then the news anchors suggesting that maybe androids are people in their own right that humans refused to acknowledge. (Feels more real, ya know?) Also black folk song!! Why??

Gonna be real, most of Connor’s versions of this scene are pretty good. Cyberlife tower is tense as hell but he’s a fucking badass. Machine Connor on the roof gives us the best line in the game. ‘What’s up lieutenant, ran out of whiskey so you came here looking for trouble?’  

So that’s some of my thoughts on each of the chapters of dbh, I could go into more depth but my eyes hurt and I’ll probably hit post limit soon.

[my-soul-sings]

Prompt by @patient-blossoms on @dailyau​: 

This is pretty normal for us but you look terrified, you’re not from around here are you? AU

When Jim asked me to cover a report for him in a small, quiet town, I expected to find quaint little shops and homes, old ladies feeding the pigeons on benches, and young people sipping on tea and eating pretty cakes at quiet cafes.

I thought he was doing something nice, maybe as a sort of early birthday treat for me, though it’s two months too early. I kind of brushed that detail aside at the time, because I just really needed a break from frequent late-night stays in the office churning out articles and getting pushed around to do other people’s work. You could say I was desperate to have an excuse to get out of town for a bit.

I guess I should have known better than to trust someone who gave his blind mother a furry pillow for her birthday and told her it was a cat.

I inch backwards slowly till I hit the grimy wall of the small alley I’m in. I hastily take a step forward, grimacing and hoping it doesn’t leave a stain on the back of my favourite denim jacket.

“You okay?”

My head snaps up, and I meet the hazel brown eyes of the man who just saved me. He’s panting, with droplets of perspiration running down the sides of his chiselled face and neck. Aside from a cut lip, he looks like he just finished a 2-kilometre jog and tripped at the end of it. You wouldn’t think that he just won a fight bare-handed against four relatively big thugs who could barely manage to bust his lip.

To be fair, this guy isn’t exactly petite either. He looks like he works out a lot. He has big shoulders, huge pecs that rival the size of my own chest and a rounder butt than mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had an eight-pack hiding underneath his tight black shirt. He’s a full package deal.

He gives me a once-over to check that I’m not wounded when I don’t offer an answer. I’m fine, aside from the bleeding scrape on my temple, and potential bruises on my arms. He, on the other hand, has bleeding knuckles, though I’m not sure if they belong to him or my attackers.

A groan sounds from the side, and I notice one of the thugs lying on the floor struggling to get up on shaking arms. If he didn’t just try to rob me, I’d actually feel a little sorry for him. All those bruises have got to hurt.

He utters a profanity directed at us as he slowly attempts to get up. In the next second, he receives a hard kick to the face and rolls over till he hits the opposite wall, before he finally stills again. I turn away, unable to stomach any more violence for the day. A wave of nausea washes over me and I do my best to keep it in.

Hopefully the guy isn’t dead, or I might be an accomplice to a murder.

“Damn, I just washed these too...” The man clicks his tongue as he peers down at his white sneakers that are now covered in dirt. His right shoe has some blood on the top now, and I’m guessing that belongs to the thug he just kicked. “Guess this is what I get for helping someone out.”

Well, he could have picked a better spot to kick if he really didn’t want to ruin his shoes.

“Is this your first time getting robbed?” he asks casually, leaning his weight on one foot and cocking his head to one side. He’s acting as if we’re meeting for the first time on a Tinder date instead of standing in the middle of a dark alley that smells like a garbage dumpster, with four men lying unconscious on the ground.

“Yes,” I reply, not meeting his gaze. I don’t know if I can trust him, after all the things I’ve witnessed in the span of fifteen hours in this small town. Everywhere I’ve been today feels like a scene out of a movie. There were druggies and alcoholics walking the streets, yelling profanities to the air and shattering glass bottles on the litter-covered ground. Someone flipped over a table in a small shop while I was having lunch and then a fight broke out between what seemed like mafia gangs. I didn’t stay for long to find out more, in fear of earning a knife in my chest or a chair to my head.

He might have just saved me, but this guy might be another shady character with other motives in mind for keeping those guys from robbing me. Maybe he’s going to sell me off to some underground human trafficking business. Or maybe he’ll try to rob me instead. Multiple scenarios cross my mind, which makes me break out into even more cold sweat as my heart palpitates.

All I want to do is get out of this town, drive all the way to Jim’s house and bash his head repeatedly with his favourite camera. He’s going to pay for making me go through this just to cover some silly story on their new goose mayor.

“You don’t seem to know any self-defense moves either. You’re not from around here, are you?”

I shake my head. So knowing self-defense is normal here? I guess that’s not too surprising, considering all the things I’ve seen today. Gang fights, drug deals and daylight robberies... What’s next? A serial killer?

...Probably shouldn’t jinx myself. I’m only heading home tomorrow. I need to find a way to not get knifed in my sleep tonight.

“You don’t talk much, huh?” he questions, raising a curious brow. “Still scared?” Amusement gleams in his eyes as he leans in slightly to get a closer look at my face.

I duck down to avoid having him get too close, picking my bag off the ground. I pat off stray specks of dirt. Or maybe it’s dog poop. I try not to think about it.

“Thanks for the help,” I say curtly. “I should go.” Better get out of here while he’s in a relatively good mood. Maybe he’ll let me go without asking for anything in return.

I turn on my heel, ready to hightail it out of there, but his hand wraps around my wrist before I can take a step away from him.

“What’s your name?” he drawls in a deep voice.

Swallowing thickly, I do my best to hide the trembling in my voice. “Why- Why do you need to know?”

“Because I want to?” He sounds amused. At least he’s not angry. Good. “The name’s Dustin.” He releases my wrist when I turn so that I’m half-facing him.

“Oh. Hi.” I cringe at my flat reply. Better think of something fast. I don’t want to reveal my real name, lest he uses it to track me down or something. What’s a good girl name to use? Uh... Um...

“So what’s your--”

“J-Jenga. Name is H-Hannajenga.”

There’s an awkward pause.

“Your name is... Hannajenga?” he repeats.

“Y-Yeah. Parents were a big- big fans of the card game.”

“Right...” he mutters, not bothering to ask further. I guess weirding him out is one way to get him to not target me. Good going, Anna.

“So... Hannajenga, are you in a hurry to go somewhere?”

Crap, I am so screwed.

“My great-grandfather passed away today and we burying him so I’m leave now bye.”

I’ll admit, I’m not the best at coming up with excuses on the spot. Not to mention, my brain forgets that grammar exists when I’m panicking as much as I am now. In my defense, Dustin can probably break my neck with one hand if he wants to so my fears are a hundred-percent justified.

“Too bad then. It’ll have to wait.” With one sharp tug, he grabs my arm, spins me around and I stumble, nearly slamming straight into his chest. Instinctively, I grab at his black bomber jacket to steady myself. He reaches for my other arm and holds me in place, before his face slowly leans in closer towards mine.

Oh no. Ohhhhh no. This isn’t happening. I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. I may not know any self-defense moves, but there’s nothing stopping me from inventing some.

I dig my heels into the ground and raise my knee, aiming for the spot where the sun doesn’t shine. I’ve seen enough shows and read enough books to know that this is an effective way to immobilise a male attacker.

Unfortunately for me, Dustin is too fast. He steps to the side, and my knee only finds air. I’m not about to give up though. I lunge for him, forming fists with my hands and attempting to throw a punch to his nose. He catches my wrists easily with his big hands, and pushes me back, causing me to lose my balance and fall to the ground clumsily like a rag doll.

“Firstly, I don’t fight girls.” I hear Dustin’s voice and his footsteps as he steps closer. The asphalt crunches beneath the soles of his shoes, muffling the sound of my dismayed groan as I find a new scrape on my elbow, along with dirt on my jeans. "Secondly, last I checked, punching someone isn’t how you thank them. And thirdly,” he squats down next to me as I get up. “That’s not how you form a fist, Miss Hannajenga.”

I back up till my back hits the wall, and I curl up instinctively. My eyes go to his shoes, where the blood stains still remain. This is it. I’m going to get beaten to a pulp just like these guys on the floor next to me. Maybe worse. Tears spring to my eyes as terror seizes me. There were so many more things I wanted to do with this life, and so many things I wanted to say to my family. Guess time’s up for me.  

If I die today, I’m going to haunt Jim for the rest of his miserable life.

Screwing my eyes shut, I brace myself for the first kick that will crack my skull open, but even after counting to five, nothing comes.

I hear him squat down, and I press closer against the wall, a whimper escaping me before I can stop it.

“Wait. Are you- Are you crying? What the hell? Why are you crying?”

“P-Please don’t kill me,” I plead in a tiny voice, my shoulders beginning to shake with sobs.

“Fuck, I just said I don’t fight girls.” He sighs exasperatedly, taking my hands gently and lifting them to reveal my face. I probably look like a mess. My mascara isn’t waterproof, my hair is a mess from the scuffle with the thugs earlier, and I’m an ugly crier. At least snot isn’t running down my nose yet.

I take a chance and look at his eyes. He’s telling the truth. There’s no malice in them. I only find traces of guilt and worry in his frown.  

“I wasn’t going to attack you. I was just gonna say that you should get that wound on your head looked at. They hit your head against the wall pretty hard earlier.”

Most of my suspicion and fear clears. If Dustin really wanted to attack me he could have done so earlier. He wouldn’t have let me attack him and let me get away with it with nothing more than a rough push to the ground. Even that was just in self-defense.

He extends a hand towards me to help me up. It doesn’t seem like he means any harm. Warily, I accept it, and he grips it firmly to pull me to my feet.

“I feel fine,” I tell him honestly as I wipe my tears away. “Thanks for saving me. And... sorry for trying to hurt you earlier.”  

He waves it off. “Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t be able to hurt me even if you tried anyway.”

True.

“Are you heading back to wherever you’re staying? I can give you a ride. It’s getting late and it’s dangerous for you to walk along on the street at this time. Lots of bad guys are roaming the streets and pretty girls like you won’t escape their notice.”

My cheeks warm at the compliment, and at the devious smirk he throws my way. He’s cute, but still, there must be a reason why he’s offering to do all this for me.

“Why are you being so nice?” I ask.

His smile widens. “Do I need a reason to help a pretty girl who’s in distress?”

So... does he want to get in my pants or something? Because that’s definitely not an option.

“I’m not trying to get in your pants,” he laughs, as if having read my mind. My face burns and I avoid his amused eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind,” he pauses to wink, “but I’m really helping you out just because. It’s not cool for guys to team up against a girl like that.”

“So... you’re the only good guy in this town?”

He chuckles. “Not the only one, but I guess sober people like me are rare to find here.”

“What’s a guy like you doing here then? You look a little out of place from all the,” I gesture vaguely in the air, “drunkards and druggies here.”

“I grew up up here,” he replies. “Long story short, my parents got a divorce and I moved away with my mom. I come back occasionally to visit my dad.”

“I see. And you happened to be passing by when you saw me getting mugged?”

“Pretty much,” he shrugs, placing his hands in his pockets. “So, do you want a ride back?” he offers a second time.

Normally I would say no to getting a ride from a stranger, but he did just save me like a knight in shining armour and he is kind of cute...

“Just promise not to kill me or threaten my life in any way?”

“Promise.” He flashes me a charming grin. Damn. That’s not very good for my heart.

“Okay then. Follow me, Hannajenga.” With that he turns on his heel and walks off, leaving me with my lips parted and staring dumbly at his broad back.

First things first, I really should tell him my real name.

[paradoxidolatry]

Brotherly Love

@birdhole , @beatconductor a lil bit

TG: hey TG: sup

TT: Hey. TT: Not much.  Lunch break at work. TT: Sup?

TG: oh thats sweet TG: sucks theres no free pizza in it when you work as a cop huh TG: i guess its overall kind of a step up from the pizza gig tho

TT: Right? Free donuts though. TT: But nah, yeah, not so bad. TT: Didn't get a chance to tell you about it but I figure Dave or whoever's already spilled those beans. TT: Kinda weird, right?

TG: yeah dave told me TG: donuts just like a real cop huh TG: still cant quite wrap my head around this cop thing tbh TG: i can see you working as a LOT of things but a cop? thats wild

TT: Yeah. TT: I mean, I figured.  Got all that military experience, right? TT: But I didn't want to go back to the military. TT: Plus, working as a cop is an equal mix of 'keeps me active' and 'allows me to work around certain roadblocks in regards to the acquisitions business', so it was a good compromise. TT: Better than fast food and skin flicks again, at any rate.

TG: i mean i guess that makes logical sense n all TG: still fucking wild as shit to me TG: guess you can still wear a uniform even its obviously not as sweet as the fast food ones

TT: Yeah, I really miss that old greasy apron. TT: But what can you do?

TG: the grease just made your eyes pop in that special way ykno TG: chicks love it

TT: They fuckin do, don't they? TT: But somethin tells me you didn't message me to talk about the chicks missing my pizza funk.

TG: you sure about that? its a pretty great topic you could write a book on it become rich quick with your pick up tips

TT: Hey, I'm already on chapter 7: the Sausage Party. TT: But really though. TT: What's up, boss?

TG: nothing TG: i was just TG: thinking about you is all

> Heart, squeeze. TT: That right? TT: Cool, cool. TT: Was thinking about you earlier too, actually.

TG: oh? any reason or

[Dave txt @ bro] im watching u [Dave txt @ bro] > that chicken image

TT: Just, y'know. TT: Was outside on a smoke break and I saw a couple of pigeons hanging out, eating some sandwich or some shit on the sidewalk and like. TT: Got me thinking about you, and like. TT: I spent the past 13 years thing you're dead or some shit, and now you're alive and it's. TT: Just fuckin buck wild. TT: Pardon me for sound fucking sappy but it's kind of like a dream come true.

[TT > Dave: I'm behaving, dad.]

TG: ...am i a pigeon now? tho i do admit i would eat that floor sandwich(edited) TG: yeah its...its fucking wild huh? TG: kinda thought id never see you again even after TG:  i got away and shit TG: idk why not like you up and died but? after looking for you and you werent there i dunno i guess TG: i thought you just TG: werent going to come back TG: ...you didnt even see my wings yet you dont get to relate me to birds just yet dude

TT: I mean, I saw them in a picture. TT: One of you and Dave and a bunch of trolls and some old dude in front of a candy cane dildo? TT: But also you post about birds and shit all the time, so I figured that was sort of your Thing now. TT: And ... well.  I dunno. TT: Almost didn't. TT: I was just gonna stay on Earth, maybe pop in to visit every so often. TT: But then all that shit happened and Dave wasn't answering my messages, so I thought he was dead too, and...well. TT: I guess I'm, uh... grateful to the apocalypse for.  I guess bringing you back to me? TT: Well, no. TT: But like, at least letting me know you're alive.

TG: oh...yeah thats TG: thats my sisters actually and uh..shit what even is grig? grandpa i guess TG: already know mr d after all TG: i mean... im not sure how i feel yet TG: i guess im sorta glad because TG: i mean it has been my embarrassing dream to play family with you again for a while TG: i want to be a family again TG: a lot TG: its just TG: hard

TT: Sisters, huh?  Well damn, you got the whole family package with these folks, huh? TT: Nice.  How long you been with them? TT: Yeah, I figured. TT: I didn't, and don't, make it easy. I know. TT: A lot easier when you were a baby, even if our folks were shit, just cuz, y'know. TT: Everything hadn'tt happened yet. TT: Hadn't started to completely fuckin lose my mind and treat you like dogshit. TT: But I mean.  I dunno. TT: I'm not gonna force you or nothin. TT: But if you ever wanted to come backto the apartment and chill for a day, see how you feel about it? TT: That'd be uh. TT: That'd be really nice.

TG: 3 years TG: as long as ive been TG: away from scratch... TG: i..yeah i guess maybe TG: can you even handle seeing me get gay with dave tho

TT: God.  You were with Scratch that whole fuckin time? TT: Fuckin sonnuvabitch refused to tell me what he did with you. TT: Anyway. TT: Handling y'all and your homogay is a small price to pay at the end of the day. TT: Even if it's still. TT: Kinda really weird from my perspective. TT: But I respect y'all and he takes good care of you, so I can't complain too much, right?

TG: ...yeah like ten years TG: kinda fucked up huh TG: ill..ill think about it TG: okay so im gonna be real with you here for a sec okay TG: i TG: messaged you because i was talking to dave and i realized i missed you and TG: that i TG: kindawantahugiguess

TT: ...Yeah? TT: I can do a hug, yeah. TT: Where are you?  I can meet you, if you wanna.

TG: ...workin TG: at [coords] TG: dont arrest me mr officer these drugs are prescription

TT: I'll leave the cuffs in the car. TT: What happens off-duty stays off-duty, though, so. TT: See you in five.

TG: kay > Try not to freak out. Freak out anyways.

> Pull up by the curb a short walk away and park. > Look, you even pay for the parking meter and everything. > Step out of the car in your full uniform and approach Sock, one hand in  your pocket, the other raised in a wave hello.

> Oh god, he really fucking is a god damn cop. That's so damn weird. God. > Not as weird as randomly meeting up with him for a hug though. Damn it that was the dumbest idea. > You wave back, trying hard to look cool and not like you are dying on the inside and failing miserably.

> You stride up alongside him and... ...well, now what, actually. > Neither of you are very good at this kind of planning, are you. > Damnit, Striders. "Hey." > Now just to... > ... > Open your arms up? > Yeah.  That's how hugs happen.

> Oh god, he's going right for it.Oh god. Not even small talk or anything really bro? > Maybe that's better anyways because god know you don't know what to say. "Hey." > You take a deep breath and you...Go for the fucking hug. Squeeze that big bro tight.

> Aww shit here it comes and here he is.  All up and hugging you. > Actually, that's uh. > That's real nice. > You wrap your arms around him and pull him in for a good, tight hug. > It's probably not the most comfortable thing, what with your radio strapped onto your chest and name plates aand shit, but. > At least for you?  This is a fucking good hug. > (Don't you dare tear up in public.)

> You don't really care about the cofort level of this, it's something you've been craving for 13 years now, a little radio isn't going to stop you from enjoying it. > It's nice. It's familiar, like all the good parts of Bro you've been missing wrapped up for you in one big huggable form. Easy to forget all the shit for a moment. > But the moment does end and when you pull away you have to wipe at you eyes like an idiot. "Uh...Th-thanks."

> Aww, shit goddamn.  He's teaaring up too under those glasses. > You swipe one knuckle under your shades, and you take a steaadying breath. "Hey, yeah, no problem." > Breathe easy, Strider.  You glance up for a moment as you see a fatass snowflake come drifting down, then you look to Sock again. "Hey, you wanna maybe grab some lunch with me?  Haven't eaten yet and it's still my break, so."

> Well at least you are both sappy motherfuckers now. > Oh. You didn't expect that. You think about what Dave told you earlier "Stay in control" and promptly decide to fuck that advice because shit. You are already here. You already went for it like an idiot. "Yeah sure. Gonna have Donuts like a proper cop?" > You make such a face at the snow. Ugh, you didn't really prepare for that kinda weather, fuck.

> You snort a laugh and give your flat stomach a pat. "Gotta work on that signature cop gut, don't I? C'mon." > You gesture behind you with a jerk of your thumb. "Hop in up front.  You can pick the place."

"Hell yeah you do. You look like a fake ass striper cop dude." > You get into the car and immediately get the seatbelt. Doesn't feel safe otherwise. You don't really like cars still but you can't pin point why. It's just a weird personality quirk yeah? But you are used to being in one at this point of your life. > Just drive carefully. Please.

> You hop in and buckle up too, both pleased and a litttle saddened that you didn't even need to remind Sock to put on his seatbelt. > Poor kid. > Luckily, you are an impeccably safe driver, and the drive to Wherever is smooth and uneventful.

> Old habits die hard. > You feel kind of awkward in the car with him, it's too silent for our tastes. > You get out of the car at whatever this amazing food place he's taking you is. Fingers crossed for fast food- "Y'know kinda funny. Always figured my first frive in a cop car would be because I'm getting arrested."

> You snort a laugh.  It's Sock's old favorite pizza place. > God you hope he still likes this shit. > Also this wasn't a Pizza Pimp before, was it?  It was Gino's-- > Wait. > Ugh, well, maybe Dave's not at work. "If you're planning on getting arrested, you're doing this pushing thing wrong, kid."(edited)

> Oh the Pizza Pimp. Fucking score. Maybe Dave is there, that would be rad. "I didn't say I was, I said I didn't think I'd ride a cop car otherwise. Your hearing getting bad?" > You immediately freeze after saying that. Oh man, actually sassing Bro though? Please don't hit me.

> Dave is unfortunately not there, but he sure would love to.

> You catch that freeze, and you... > You snort a little, before pointing to your ears. "Too many concerts and phat-ass beats.  Knew I shouldn't have gotten all up and personal with those speakers.  Who knew the grown-ups were right about that?" > You smile, and it's a little awkward cuz you sure as hell have never been the smiling type, before you hold open the door for him. "C'mon, before we freeze our asses off."

> Oh. Okay. It's cool. It's chill. In a quite literal sense even so you get your silly ass inside. > A smile though? You haven't seen your brother smile in...far longer than you haven't seen him for sure. > That little scare knocked the speech right out of you though so you just awkwardly sit down at the next best table, suddenly really not sure how good of an idea this was.

> You take a seat opposite him, and when the server approaches, you order yourself a water instead of a soda. > Who are you, even. > You glance over the menu, humming softly.  Some of these item names... fitting for a place called Pizza Pimp. "You wanna split one, or do individuals, or?"

> Who is he indeed. You order a black coffee instead of apple juice though, so maybe the traditional Strider beverages are just staying outside today. "Uhhh..Not super hungry honestly I don't mind sharing one." > You haven't been able to eat a whole pizza at once in a while but you don't say that.

"Alright.  We'll split a medium and you can take the rest home if you want." > You let him pick the toppings too.  This really is a strange Strider day.

> The strangest. Do they have nuggets as topping because you want that.

> They might have like, baked chicken, which is kinda like nuggets and also? Is Carro-approved.

> Do you think the pizza pimp doesn't have a nugget topping what kinda fool do you take Dave for.

> A big one. >:3

> LISTEN Nuggets have been added like at least two months ago. Cock Special.

> Goddamnit, Dave.

> Sock loves Dave and the Cock Special Pizza. Prepare ya taste buds Bro.(edited)

"One Cock Special with extra cock please" > Yes, this is exactly how you order.

> Oh your face. > You're so fucking proud.  Dave sure is your little brother, and so too is Sock. > Bless these fucking kids.

"Hope you like it, it's my fav." > Both the pizza and you know.

> Yeah.  Yeah, you know. "Sure I will." > Snort a laugh. "This sure isn't Gino's anymore, huh.  You remember that place?"

"Oh yeah. Man..That's been a while. Clover gifted the place to Dave what? 2 years ago?" > Back when you were on a no homo basis. Memories.

> [Clover: nya face]

"Used to be your favorite, but maybe that's because it was free when I worked here. ...Clover?"

"I'm always a slut for free food but I still digged their shit later. Oh uh..Yeah. Little green guy? 4 of the Felt?" > Should..You now have mentioned that?

> [Dave] Oh no.

> There's this shift in your face.  It's not a frown, but a certain tightening of your lips as you're hit with the full brunt of what Sock just said. "...Dave's...doing business with the Felt?"

> WHOOPSIES >Oh. Oh, oh, oh shit. You fucked up. You didn't really think about that when you said it. At all. Shit. Fuck. Damn. "Hahaha whaaaat? Noooo. Of course not! He'd never uh...Clover is just y'know his uh... Sugar daddy yeah. Cash money man, can't say no to that even from a greenie right?" > Well it's not entirely a lie. You are sweating though.

> You paw at your face and you sit back in your seat, eyebrows knit together tightly. > Looks like you're going to have to have a little talk with Dave when you get home. "...No, guess not.  Desperate times and all that, right?"

"Yeah exactly! Haha..." > God this is uncomfortable. You are going to warn Dave but you already feel like shit. Fuck. "Don't...Don't hurt him okay?" > There's fear in your eyes now. Not for you but for your boyfriend, which is so much worse in your eyes.

> That snaps you Right out of your bad thought spiral and you quickly wave your hand. "Hey, no, no.  Not gonna hurt him.  It's chill." > There's that smile again, even if it's uneasy and a bit green around the gills.  Your brother and the Felt... "Really.  Just surprised he hadn't mentioned it before now."

> [Dave] GUESS WHY.

" 'kay..." > He probably hadn't mentioned it for a reason. You couldn't have known Dave wasn't supposed to do business with the Felt but you still feel like shit. It makes sense in hindsight and considering your history of course but...You just plain didn't know. > The Pizza arrives but you suddenly don't feel very hungry at all, sipping on you coffee awkwardly instead.

> You're, similarly, not hungry, but you've got to salvage this.  Not telling when or if Sock will agree to see you again after this. "Sorry, I just... Y'know, getting offered a gift by those guys.  If they had snatched Dave too..." > You shake your head, and sigh it off.  Out with the bad. "But they didn't, and that's that.  So." > You take up a slice of the pizza and you point is casually at Sock, an eyebrow quirked. "What're you out there peddling?"

> Oh. You'd really rather not follow that line of thought, yeah.  Smooth topic change. "Dude, don't think I should be discussing that with a cop in a pizzeria. Mr D would murder me man."

"Hey." > You make a show of taking off your badge and laying it upside down on the table. "Off-duty, not a cop.  So is it the good shit, or is it like, oregano in a dimebag being passed off as weed."

"We're still in public man." > And you don't want to piss off your Dad on top of the shit you just pulled.

"Yeah, yeah.  Weren't you in public anyway?" > You chuckle a little and you point toward the kitchen area. "Your big bro used to sell shitty dimebags out of there, way back.  Dealt to all the line cooks."

" Course you did." > You roll your eyes behind your shades. "What you want an inventory list? Okay I'll just tell you my favorite product aight? Kinder Überraschungseier......The surprise is Cocaine." > Huh, sure did slip into your mother tongue there. Welp..

> Okay.  You actually laugh then. "You're selling Kinder Überraschungseier full of Cocaine.  Shut the fuck up, seriously?" > You're nodding approvingly now. "That's a fucking great idea.  Where the fuck'd you get the chocolates, though? Make them yourself?"

> That makes you feel..really proud? Huh. You can't stop the big dorky grin from spreading on your face. "Best idea I ever had, honestly. I'm importing them from earth, duh. Along with a bunch of other banned sweets and shit. Who the fuck thought peeps are illegal anyways?"

> You balk at that and you laugh again. "Peeps are illegal here-- wait, shit, right." > Smack your forehead. "That's my job to know that now.  Wow, fuckin fire me now."

"Maybe I should show you my stock, just as a reminder. A fucking lot of dumb shit is. Fucking Lattes were banned man. Until the King unbanned them just for Jude which is honestly so fucking stupid. Way to play favorite, just like royalty should am I right? Not that I'm complaining, love me a big fat Latte." > Man it's...Nice to be able to make that kind of shit tier level german dick joke and to know you're gonna be understood just fine.

> You snort your water and you pull a face,but you're clearly goofing around a loving it. "Fucking nasty, dude.  I don't need to hear about your love of big hot fuckin Lattes."

"Aren't you glad the prospitian monarchy digs a steaming hot Latte too? What a life that would be otherwise." > You snort yourself.

"Jesus christ.  Fuckin whities, dude." > You stuff some pizza in your mouth and you talk withyour mouth full like the fat nasty trash you are. "Can you believe I have to work with them?  Like what the fuck."

"The Queen gives me the creeps with her I love everyone bull. And the King seems like a huge fucking idiot so...Congrats man. Jackpot."

"Not had the chance to meet either, but this is the closest I've gotten to infiltrating the corrupt government yet.  Maybe if I keep my shit up, I can finally overthrow them from the inside." > You are entirely dead seriouus.

"What's the masterplan? Shoot them in public?" > You aren't but you also don't mind the topic. Not a fan of these guys.

"Nah, nah, nothing like that.  Too messy.  Besides." > You gesture at the scar that runs oveer your eyes. "Never been a fan of guns."

"I know." > Hell maybe you should be grateful he ain't. Swords fucked you over bad enough. "Seems like a popular approach is all. Like historically or whatever. But I guess you gotta go for something less stale huh?"

"Of course.  Flashy's the only way to be when you're taking out a corrupt system of government."

"Looking forwards to the show Bro." > Except you hope he's fucking joking.

> You totally fucking aren't. > You toss him a wink, which of course he can't see all that well behind your shades. "Hope it's a good one.  You gonna eat any pizza, lil bro?"

"Oh, right." > You finally grab a piece too. "How's the Cock Special?"

> Stuff the rest of your piece into your mouth and brush the crumbs off of your fingers. "It's not big hot Latte, but it's nice and tasty all up in my mouth, so it'll do."

"I mean we can grab a Latte next time-" > Did you just say next time. Did you just imply you want to meet up like this again? Shit. > Stuff your mouth with Pizza real quick.

> Oh. > Oh... That makes yourr heart do the smiley emote. > You grin a liittle bit about that and you say, voice kinda soft, "Yeah... alright.  I'd like that."

"Me too...I think." > If you don't hurt my boyfriend tonight that is, is what you think.

> Don't you worry, Sock.  Not gonna hurt your boyfriend tonight. > You're not gonna be home, so Dave gets to go unhurt for another night.

> Or any other night Bro.(edited) > Or day, or ever:

> Well, at least you'll try to keep your cool when you talk to Dave about it later.

> That's a good start.

> Fuck yeah.  Before you all finish up here, you nod back to the streets now lightly coat with snow. "You going back to your corner, right?  You need a jacket?"

"I mean, I'll live..." > But it's pretty obvious that you don't have any especially warm clothes on you, you know like an idiot.

"Yeah, and you'll get sick, doofus." > You shrug off your jacket--it's a plain black windbreaker, while you wait for your city issue polcie jacket to come in--and you ball it up, handing it over to him. "Here."

> You open your mouth to respond but the Jacket is already in your hands. Oh. That's..Oh. > Is that what it's like to have a caring older brother? "Thanks..." > The Jacket is far too big for you and smells like Bro. It's a weird feeling to put it on. Like a hug you can wear. > Your heart is doing several emotions.

"Hey, no sweat. No good to go out there to work if you're just gonna freeze to death, yeah?" > You have the server bring you all a box for the leftovers, and you give those to him, too. > You stand from the stand and stretch. "Alright, my lunch is about over.  You ready to go?

"Uh, yeah." > You are still trying to sort your feelings over all of this. It's weird. It's nice. > It's what you wanted all along. > Except for the part where you are scared about Dave. > You get up too feeling like a huge fool.

> You, very very carefully, put your hand on his back and lead him out back into the cold. > Look to him, then to your car. "Back to tthe same corner? Or you got anywhere else you need to be?"

> You tense up just a little at the touch but let it happen anyways. "Y-yeah same place." > You just get into the car quickly to cut off the awkward moment. Not without putting on your seatbelt of course.

> Always seatbelt first, kid! > You buckle in and drive him back to the street corner you found him on, putting the car into park but not getting out. "Alright.  Don't get into any trouble, alright?  Oh, and patrol comes past here in about 30 minutes, so be cool when they pass, yeah?"

"Oh uh..Okay. See you, I guess." > You wave an awkward goodbye, overwhelmed by a lot of conflicting emotions.

> You're about to drive off, but then you open the door and, hanging halfway out, you call to him, "Hey! Love you, Sock."

> That just leaves you starring for a moment. Did he just-? Does he? What. Can not compute. "L-Love you too Bro..." > You are not sure if he heard that with the way you mumbled that. You are not sure if you want him to or not. > It's only getting weirder. > But it also warms your birdy little heart.

> You heard it--you've actually got pretty good hearing still, despite all tthatt music and shit. > You smile and wave again before ducking back into your car and driving off.

> The patrol driving by half an hour later doesn't find a drug dealer, just a crying kid in some back alley. > This absolutely kills the bird.

[sieben9]

“7:15 AM” impressions

Oh, look. The two people I said wouldn't be able to keep their hands off of each other weren't able to keep their hands off of each other! (Though, to be fair, there was never much suspense there. They are married, after all.)

Still. David, We have to talk.

Shalalalala, my oh my, you should divorce your wife, before you~ Kiss the girl~

Did I fucking stutter?

Again a great example of how the modern day and flashback plot feed into each other. Especially since I'd have been... really, really unsympathetic towards the modern day storyline, but the way it is now, I'm... well, not happy, exactly, but at least on board enough to enjoy the train wreck.

That said, the whole dove-thing was so beautifully on-the-nose. From the whole "she'll be alone foreverrrr" to the almost-drop from the cliff to the "oh no, the storm has surprised us and we must take shelter together!", it was just straight from the clichee-est, most contrived romance plot of ALL TIME and I loved every second of it

"oh look, an abandoned cabin in the woods! how fortuitous for us, who have been caught out in this rainstorm!"...listen, I'm not saying that this has to go badly, but you need to be very certain that you're in the opening chapter of a smutty fanfic and not that of a horror story before you go and do that.

All in all, nothing really unexpected happened in the modern day plot. The curse-mystery got a rest, and even the "guy in black leather"-mystery wasn't milked much (which surprised me, but I assume they're drawing out the tension). The whole typewriter-thing made me chuckle, not going to lie. He is some type of fairy tale person, too, isn't he? Should I even try to guess? Because right now I'm not coming up with anything.

And with that, we come to the actual heart of this episode: the flashback plot, where the parade of people making terrible decisions continues with...

*sigh* You people never learn, do you?

I am the common sense pigeon and i am here to stop you from making a colossal mistake. Except it's not, unfortunately... Plot Wolf and Common Sense Pigeon should team up and fight crime, or something.

The whole memory-plot was... surprisingly tough to watch. Don't get me wrong, I really like Snow and her Prince Charming, and I am invested in their relationship, even though the result is already a foregone conclusion. I just hadn't realised how invested I was up until now.

You can all but see their hearts shatter into a million pieces. Which makes the modern day plot even worse. There, they don't really have a good reason to be apart; it's just David's wishy-washy attitude that makes the whole thing impossible. I mean... it's the 21st century. You don't have any disapproving parents around (well, technically Mary Margaret has Regina, but screw her), you can just get a divorce and be with the woman you love

...and yes, I realise that Regina wants Mary Margaret to be miserable and would most likely make trouble, but still. There's a right thing to do here, David, and you just keep not doing it.

Oh and speaking of not doing the right thing... You know, after he threatened David's mother, I didn't think I could dislike George more, but surprise! Apparently I can! The whole speech he gave to Snow really cemented him as a villain, in case anyone had doubts about that. And not even the interesting over-the-top kind of villain. No, he's just... well, he's Umbridge. The kind of banal evil that you could totally encounter in real life.

But, awful though her enemies might be, Snow has without a doubt the most awesome friends. First there's Ruby (...I don't even know what her real name is. Does that make me a terrible person?) and I did not expect to love Grumpy as much as I do. I mean, I liked him well enough on nostalgia alone, but this moment here...

...made him jump from "like" to "love" in .03 seconds. I have a soft spot for the whole "guh, I hate being one of the good guys"-trope.

And then they killed the other dwarf. I cannot believe they killed the dwarf. The hell, show. The. Hell.

So, to close this out, let me be perfectly clear on one thing. I expect a dramatic and, more importantly, epic resolution next episode, where "James" finds Snow White and they have to fall back in love all over again. Not only because it hurts to see them apart and I need this like oxygen, but also because I am a total sucker for that exact plotline. It's ridiculous, really. (And it's probably the reason I like all AUs so much...)

[zigsexual]

Theoreticals; part 1 (maxwell x mc)

lol remember when i started this in july and am just now posting it? also remember when i said that i would post it yesterday ha ha ha lol anyway it’s too long for one post so imma break this shit down into PARTS!!! 

this is the final companion piece to hypotheticals and empiricals, and honestly if you haven’t read those then u probably should because this one has a lot of plot throwback and also tbh its like very divergent from the main storyline seeing as i started writing it in JULY

summary: the coronation is actually happening feat. private planes, maxwell as a baby????? an unfortunate run in with some potpourri, dancing, drake, and an uber driver

word count: 3700+

Riley paces across her room yet again, halfheartedly feigning an attempt to pack for the upcoming trip to the palace. Her suitcase, empty but for a single black camisole and jeans, is splayed out across her bed next to Maxwell, who is also splayed out across her bed.

“Do you think I should bring my boots?” She asks. “My other shoes have like, no tread, and all of the roads by the palace are old-ass rocks so tread is probably important. And what if it rains?”

“I don’t think it’s supposed to rain,” Maxwell replies, but she’s already tossed the boots in his direction.

“Okay, so if I bring the boots, I need boot socks,” Riley tugs open a dresser drawer, rifling through it. “Except I’m pretty sure I only have red boot socks, and that’s going to clash with all my outfits, so maybe I should just stick with a bootie? Except then the tread is an issue again.”

Maxwell laughs. “Riley, it’s two days.”

She whirls around, brandishing a boot sock. “Yeah, two days in the goddamn palace!”

He breaks his gaze from the ceiling to watch her as she makes another futile pass towards her closet, sitting up and leaning back on his hands. “You really want to keep pretending you’re going to finish this tonight?”

She sighs, dropping her things onto the floor. “It’s already too late to give up.”

“Few more hours won’t hurt.” He reaches over and closes the lid, then holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s go on a walk. You’re all strung out.”

She takes his hand, in spite of herself yet again. Everything about him, about this, is in spite of herself and her better judgment. But it’s midnight on the eve of what may be their last chance at anything, and she doesn’t care that much anymore.

It’s dark in the house, the sconces dimmed, and they walk through the second floor hallways like they have the entire place to themselves. Maxwell is still holding her hand, his other shoved into his pocket, watching the portraits on the walls as they pass.

“Is that you?” Riley asks, pointing at one of the frames. It’s a painting of a boy who couldn’t be more than eight years old, posed like the subject of a renaissance art piece and clearly none too pleased about it. He’s got the same soft brown hair and mischievous eyes as Maxwell, his face dusted with freckles and mouth pulled into a barely concealed pout.

“Oh my god,” Maxwell laughs. “Yeah. That’s… yeah.”

“You were cute.” Riley bumps her hip against his, grinning. He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, looking at the painting sheepishly.

“My parents, they were really into the ‘nobles’ thing,” he says, “You know, ridiculous estates and portrait painting and etiquette classes, all that. I mean, I guess you have to be when you are a noble. I mostly let Bertrand handle that stuff now.”

Riley holds out her free hand and traces the curve of his painted face, the rough brush strokes in sweeping lines under her fingertips. She smiles.

“Bertrand would kill me if he knew I was letting you touch the paintings,” Maxwell says.

“Bertrand would kill you if he knew you were letting me touch you.”

“Touché.”

She steps back from the portrait, squeezing Maxwell’s hand gently. “Your parents, what were they like?”

He doesn’t say anything at first, and she worries she’s treaded into inadmissible territory. She turns to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, you don’t have to—“

“No, Riley,” he smiles, but it’s sad. “It’s fine.”

He looks up at the painting for a long moment, and she wonders how much of that baby-faced boy is still a part of him. He still has those faded freckles across his cheeks, that air of something…. more, like he’s privy to a thousand secrets one could never hope to know. She suddenly wishes he were as much of an open book as he likes to say he is.

“My parents were… well, I guess they’re pretty self-explanatory.”

“What do you mean?”

He’s still got his eyes on the painting, but his jaw is set. “You’ve been in the study.”

“Duh.”

He breaks for a moment, to shoot her a smile, but then he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “So, that’s my dad.”

“The study?”

“Yeah.” He frowns. “We didn’t change anything in there after he died. It just… felt weird. And there’s already all these rooms in this place, it’s not like we needed another one. So now it’s just there, filled with polo trophies and fencing equipment and all that ‘nobles’ shit.”

“And Drake,” she adds, a tentative step towards levity. Maxwell pulls her closer, letting go of her hand so he can slip his arm around her waist. He doesn’t have to say it, but she knows he’s grateful for the reprieve.

“And Drake. Unfortunately.” He looks at her and smiles. “You would’ve liked my mom.”

“Yeah?” Riley smiles back.

“Yeah. Well, I know she would’ve liked you, anyway.”

They make their way down the rest of the hall, passing more portraits and art pieces and the occasional odd sculpture, everything in brocade like something out of her high school history books. She runs her fingers across gilded wallpaper and marble shelves, still marveling at the fact that this, somehow, has become her life.

“What’s New York like?” Maxwell asks her. “I mean, I know what the tourist parts are like, thanks to Liam, but what’s your part like?”

“My part?” She tilts her head. “Uh, not that great, honestly. My part is a shitty studio in Queens with an elevator that doesn’t work, a roach problem, and a toilet that only flushes half the time. I don’t even have a bedframe, I just sleep with my mattress on the floor, and sometimes if I’m lucky, there isn’t a drunk guy peeing on my stoop when I come home from the late shift.”

“Sounds like a dream,” Maxwell says, and the funny thing is that she can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not.

“Can I quote you on that? My landlord keeps asking me to leave him a Yelp review.”

Maxwell looks puzzled. “I thought… you didn’t have nobility in America?”

Riley shoots him a bemused look. “We don’t.”

“But then, why would you…?”

It takes her a moment, but then she shoves his shoulder and laughs. “Oh my god, wait, are you talking about my landlord? That’s the guy who owns the place I rent. It’s just like, a name for rental property owners. God, you’re such a one-percenter.”

“Shut up,” He rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Things are different in Cordonia, okay?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know what a landlord is. I can’t believe you thought landlords are literal lords of the land.”

Maxwell makes a face at her, and she doesn’t even remotely try to stifle her giggles. “Excuse you, the only ‘landlords’ I know are literal lords of the land, so it was a logical conclusion.”

Riley taps him on the nose before turning away dramatically, hand on her heart. “Deepest apologies, Lord Beaumont. I would never disrespect your status or your land.”

“Hilarious.” He crosses his arms, but he’s smiling.

“Please accept this token of my atonement,” she continues, lifting some imaginary skirts so as to further sashay down the hall, “Imported from the duchy of Newest York, one hundred — no — one thousand of our finest Manhattan pigeons.”

Riley dips down in a ridiculously low curtsey, stumbling forward a bit and catching herself with a laugh. “Perchance would you like to visit with one of our most prestigious landlords? He is so terribly fond of — Max!”

She shrieks as he comes up behind her, arms around her waist, pulling her close and spinning her. She can feel the breath of his laughter against her neck, his whispered, “Shhh, you’ll wake everyone up,” and the way his fingers linger on her when he sets her down.

Riley, flushed, brushes her hair out of her face and adjusts her shirt. “You’re the worst.”

“I accept your pigeons,” Maxwell says with mock formality. “And I would love to meet your landlord.”

“Oh, you really shouldn’t, the pigeons are fucking gross.”

“Okay, pass on the pigeons then.”

“My landlord is gross too.”

He sighs. “You’re not making a great case here.”

Riley smiles, and compelled with a sudden irresistible urge to touch him, reaches out and runs her fingers along his jawline. She almost expects to feel the brushstrokes there too, a perfect likeness of his childhood painting, all grown up and still off-limits.

“You could come visit, if you want,” she says softly. “The mattress is a twin, but we can make it work.”

He kisses her, and she closes her eyes and lets herself believe for a moment that they’re not here, not in this ridiculous world full of princes and balls and family portraits, but somewhere else, somewhere loud and brash and filled with the scent of street food and smoke and dreams yet to be realized.

But of course, they aren’t.

“Come on,” he says, his voice gentle against the sudden sharpness of the moment. “Let’s go finish packing.”

They walk back to the room hand-in-hand, and Maxwell helps her fold things and find things and then sits on the suitcase so she can shove everything in properly and zipper it away. The sky stops getting darker and starts getting lighter, and the laughter between them grows less practiced and more delirious as they finish up.

She smiles when she steps out of her bathroom, face washed and hair up, to find him tucked in against her pillow, finally stolen into sleep by his own exhaustion. It’s a rare occasion to find Maxwell so utterly still, and she stands there for a second watching him.

She’s known for quite some time that she’s fucked. This whole situation: the competition, the prince, the stupid stupid boys. She’s just fucked, no way around it.

But as she lingers in the doorway, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest, it occurs to her that she is now — for lack of a better term — royally fucked.

---

It’s as if she’s barely slept at all when she feels his hand on her shoulder. “Riley? Hey, time to get up.”

She burrows her face back towards her pillow, trying desperately to shut out the light filtering in through the curtains. Maxwell, however, refuses to be shut out.

“We’re leaving in an hour or so, if you want to get ready.” He sounds just as tired as she feels, and she realizes then that he’s most likely spent the entire night here, with her, probably shoved into the corner while she bundled herself in covers. The thought makes her sit up suddenly, blinking blearily into Maxwell’s face, only a few inches from hers.

“Oh,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says back.

They look at each other for a moment, Riley squinting up at him as she adjusts to the rush of sunlight. Under the sudden scrutiny of his gaze, she pulls the blankets up around her, a flush spreading into her cheeks as she realizes what she must look like: hair a tangled mess, sleep marks across her face, oversized t-shirt hanging in a particularly unflattering way.

“What’s the ‘Knicks’?” Maxwell asks.

“Hmm?” She quirks an eyebrow in confusion, and he nods at her shirt. She looks down. “Oh. Basketball team. They’re the… uh, the professional team for New York.”

“Do you like them?”

“I like their shirts.”

He laughs, turning away from her to slip down onto the floor. “Sometime, will you teach me what basketball is?”

“You guys don’t have basketball in Cordonia?” Riley lets the blankets fall back around her and pushes herself out of the bed with the intent to follow him, but the hardwood is like ice against her feet. She lingers near the familiar warmth of the covers while she watches him go.

“We don’t have a lot of stuff in Cordonia,” he answers. “Basketball, Disneyland, those breakfast things you like.”

“Pop-tarts?” Riley grins, crossing her arms. “Yeah, real bummer on that one.”

“Prom, Costco, monster trucks,” Maxwell continues, “And we’ve barely even got you for much longer, so.”

The words hit her harder than expected, and the smile drops from her face just as her arms fall to her sides. The chill of the floor spreads up from her feet, twisting its way through her body and settling in her heart.

Maxwell heads towards her suitcase. He lifts it down off the table, yanks the handle up until it clicks. “Come on, you gotta get dressed. I’ll take your bag out to the car.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, hands fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “Will you come back?”

He turns his head, eyes ghosting over her face as she bites harder into her lip.

“Riley…” he says, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, totally.” She crosses her arms over her chest, pulling her shoulders up in what she hopes looks like a nonchalant shrug. “Just, big day, you know.”

“Understatement.” He smiles at her, and the sinking feeling subsides.

“What should I wear?” she asks, in a feeble attempt to keep him in the room a few moments longer.

“Definitely just that. The king and queen will be so impressed.”

“Shut up.” She sticks her tongue out, reaching back to pull the comforter up from the bed and around her shoulders before crossing toward the closet.

“No I’m serious, the press will not be able to stop talking about it. Bertrand will love that.”

She whacks him with the comforter as she passes. “You know what else Bertrand will love?”

“What?”

“You spending the night in my room.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay, point taken.” He turns to grab her suitcase, but not fast enough to keep her from noticing the blush rising in his cheeks. She laughs too, pulling open her closet door.

“Go get dressed,” he calls after her, “I’m actually taking your stuff out this time.”

“As you wish, Lord Beaumont.” She twirls around to drop in a curtsey, blowing him a kiss as he makes a face at her and heads out the door.

---

Riley wakes up to Maxwell once more, her face smashed in against his shoulder in the back of the car. She lifts her head, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, only to meet Bertrand’s disapproving ones.

“You have lines on your face,” he says disdainfully. “You look wretched.”

Riley sits up, rolling her neck and wincing. “Thanks, B. Are we at the airport?”

“Yeah,” Maxwell answers, seemingly unfazed by her using his arm for a pillow. She hopes she didn’t drool. “There’s coronation traffic, but that’s to be expected. We’ll be at the plane in five.”

Riley looks out the window, expecting to see the familiar bustle of brake lights and taxicabs that punctuate all her visits to JFK. However, all she finds is a great wide sea of black tarmac and planes.

She turns to Maxwell and Bertrand. “Wait, where are we?”

“The airport.”

“No, I — yeah, I know that. But where are the people?”

Maxwell looks confused. “…On the planes?”

“Don’t we, y’know, have to go through security and stuff? Or is that not a thing in Cordonia? Or like, don’t I need to show someone my passport and check my bag?” She nods her head in the direction of the trunk. “That thing is not gonna fit in an overhead compartment, I can already promise you that.”

The car slows to a stop and Maxwell laughs. “What? Riley, we’re broke, but we aren’t fly commercial broke.”

Riley says “Oh,” and then someone in a full suit and black sunglasses is opening her car door and saying, “Lady Riley, I’ll be taking your bags,” and she says “Oh,” and Maxwell says, “Thanks, they’re in the trunk.”

Riley whips her head around to face him, eyes wide. Maxwell shrugs. “Liam has a plane.”

Her eyes go even wider, and she pauses to make sure Bertrand is mostly out of earshot before whispering, “You didn’t think to tell me we’d be in an enclosed space with Liam for an extended period of time?”

He smiles sheepishly. “Well, the thought crossed my mind, but I was worried you’d try to cut your losses and run before we got here. And besides, he told me he wanted some time with you. To talk about something.”

Riley shoots him a pointed look before turning to slide out of the car. Talk to her about something! Great. What a mystery as to what it could possibly be.

The man in the suit, most likely a member of Liam’s security team, is already unloading their things from the trunk. She squints into the sunlight, eyes settling on the enormous white jet just a few hundred feet from their stop, its wings ringed with gold and an egregiously large Cordonian seal plastered along the side.

“Discreet,” Riley mutters, sighing as she heads off towards the staircase lowered down from the plane’s back entrance. She’s never boarded a plane like this before, not without hours of waiting and TSA screenings and watching as every other boarding group took their place ahead of her in line. The tiny staircase seems too easy, and the staff waiting at the bottom are too quick to offer her their arms as she climbs up into the ridiculous fixture of luxury.

As she makes her way inside, wandering slowly towards the aisle, she gawks at the interior: a scaled down recreation of the palace sitting areas, complete with ornate lamps and crystal stemware and what looks to be an entire grand piano off in the corner. Riley feels her stomach clench at the sight of it all, a reminder of how desperately she doesn’t belong in this world of opulence and glamour.

There’s a rustle of a curtain and footsteps behind her, and she turns, expecting to see Maxwell on his way in. She’s already whispering, “Max, I think I should—” before her eyes settle on the person who’s actually in front of her and she stops mid-sentence. “Oh, fuck.”

Drake looks her over and frowns.

“What are you doing here?!” she hisses, shoving him in the shoulder. “And why are you sneaking up on me?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he answers, leveled. “Pretty sure your boyfriend is still back at the car.”

Riley shakes her head, letting out an agonized sigh. “I am truly not in the mood for this, Drake.”

“Aldridge, you going soft? Can’t handle the banter anymore?”

“On Liam’s goddamn plane? Yeah, maybe it’s not the ideal choice of venue.” She crosses her arms, but her defense wavers. “Drake… you didn’t… I mean, you didn’t say anything, did you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Relax, I’m not that much of an asshole. Liam’s on a conference call in the diplomat suite anyway.”

“Diplomat suite?”

“It’s a big fucking plane.”

Riley lets her hands fall back to her sides, glancing around the room once more, eyes following the rows of soft leather seats.

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

He shrugs, looking everywhere but at her. “I know you’ll talk to him. You don’t need me to do it for you.”

She lets out a sigh. “Maxwell said he invited me on the plane so we could talk, so if you’re awaiting my downfall, it might come sooner than you think.”

“I’m not —” Drake looks taken aback, “Riley, come on, you know that’s not how I feel.”

She starts to say something in reply, but the sounds of footsteps coming up the staircase echo loudly into the cabin. Drake turns, and Riley feels her nervous tension ease. Maxwell is finally here, he’ll know how to handle Drake and she can just —

“Riley,” an all too familiar voice calls, “Is that you harping on and on in there?”

Riley grabs Drake’s arm, face twisted in horror, and mouths, Olivia? He nods, looking slightly pained, and then there she is at the landing — mouth twisted in distaste, red hair spilling out of a white fur hat, sheathed in some sort of emerald green evening coat that could probably cover Riley’s apartment rent for the next ten years.

Her mouth curls up into a smile when she sees them. “Oh lovely, I was right.”

She steps into the room, her heels clicking against the hardwood, and drapes her arm across Drake’s shoulder, leaning against him as she surveys Riley. “You do know we’re going to a coronation ball, right?”

“Wonderful to see you too, Olivia,” Riley replies with a grimace.

Olivia smiles again, straightening up and patting Drake dismissively on the back. “Hey Drake, will you be a dear and roll out the bar cart? I have a feeling we’re going to need some drinks.”

Drake rolls his eyes so hard it almost looks painful. “Sure Olivia, I will happily roll out the bar cart. For myself.”

As he turns and pushes past her, she frowns, watching him walk away with a hand on her hip. When he disappears through the cabin door, she looks back at Riley. “Is he always so pleasant?”

“Pretty much, yeah. You’d think you two would get along.”

Olivia arches an eyebrow. “Cute.”

She hears someone else coming up the stairs and prays it’s Maxwell this time. When she sees him step inside, she releases an audible sigh.

“Hey Riley, did Bertrand already come up here? I think he — oh.” His eyes fall on Olivia, who flutters her fingers in a wave. “Olivia?”

“And Drake.” Riley smiles through gritted teeth. “Isn’t it wonderful? Gang’s all here.”

Maxwell blinks. “Uh. Cool?”

Drake emerges from the door then, glass in hand, and stops short when he sees Maxwell. “Hey Max! Long time no see. Great talking with you in the study last night.”

Riley glares with the ferocity of a thousand suns. Maxwell blinks again. Olivia looks between all three of them and rolls her eyes. “You guys are so fucking weird.”

She turns toward the closest seat and settles in, draping her legs across the length of it so the red bottoms of her high heels are on full display. She pulls an eye mask out of her purse, tugging it over her head. “I’m going to take a Xanax and listen to Ryan’s Roses. Do not even think about speaking to me.”

“Trust me,” Riley says under her breath, “It was the least of our concerns.”

part two.

[sinnhelmingr-a-blog]

A Softer Love

"There are two types of love. True love, and the love we actually get."

"I would love you more if you were someone who could love me."

"Our love was doomed, a burning building, a broken neck. But nothing since you and me even feels like love."

"I want everyone to love me and I'm pretty sure the trick is to just be myself, but with money."

"I can only infer that love exists from its effects on others."

"I will always love you, or anyway I will always have loved you now."

"You are the love of my life so far."

"Will you still love me when I am a spooky ghost?"

"I'm in love with the you I wish you were. I only stay with you because you look like him."

"Sometimes even love isn't enough. So what chance do WE have?"

"I wish being in love was enough. I wish it counted for anything at all."

"I hate it when you leave but I love to look at your butt while you walk away."

"Yeah, maybe we all die alone. I masturbate alone, too. Sometimes."

"Sometimes when two people love each other it's really unfortunate."

"I don't believe each person has just one true love, but sometimes we don't have enough time to find another."

"If love lasted forever, we'd only ever get one."

"Just once I'd like to fall in love with someone? who will ruin things before I do."

"Ah, unrequited love. When your best isn't enough."

"I am terrified I will never find another love like ours."

"I want to carve our initials in the bark of everyone who ever hurt you."

"I love the way your face lights up when someone says, "It might be dangerous.""

"All I ever wanted was love, until you loved me."

"Our love is like an animatronic pigeon. No! It's like a sex party on the moon! Also I am a bit drunk."

"I want people to tell their children terrifying stories about the things we did for love."

"When you get that look, nobody is safe. It's why I first fell in love with you."

"You are a good person and I love you. This just isn't the life I hoped I'd have."

"Marriage isn't just between a man and a woman, it's between any two people who love each other and want to ruin their lives."

"Our love is a forest fire and we are the little things that live in the trees."

"Sometimes I think you might fall in love with someone else and all my problems will be solved."

"I keep all my old love letters, but to be honest I just skim them for the dirty bits."

"It would be easier to deal with falling out of love if it hadn't somehow made the sex exciting again."

"Unrequited love is a waste of time. Just walk it off. There. I said it."

"If our love lasts forever it's gonna get real awkward when one of us dies."

"There are just two things that make life worth living. The people you love, and sweet pranks."

"I love those quiet moments in the dark where you can stop pretending."

"I don't know what the fuck true love even is but I do want to hang out with you for basically the rest of my life."

"I said I'd love you forever, and really meant it at the time. I guess that's my problem. A failure of imagination."

"I know I can't make you love me. But I wish I could make you shut up about not loving me."

"Our love is a meteor impact, a super volcano erupting. We won't survive but we won't die bored."

"At first I was angry you had fallen in love with someone else, but you seem so happy now I didn't even know you were sad."

"You don't love me, but you used to. I wanted to say thank you for that."

"You and I will never be a great love story. That's ok! Let's see what kind of story we'll be."

"When I picture you with your new lover I get angry, and then sad, then kind of horny."

"I lost the woman I loved and now all I have are my father's well-meaning words, "Maybe now you can meet a nice man.""

"I have loved since you. But when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath."

"She's like an angel. My family loves her but I just don't believe anymore." 

[talesfromacrip]

Tea Time With Yours Truly:

Don’t you love it when you finally realize you’re truly moving on from a toxic situation like the adult you are, when a song you like makes you rethink your visions, feelings, etc. of someone?? or it that me? everything starts to feel entirely new again though regardless. better n’ cooler bc you know you’re not suffering anymore.. just, a fantastic feeling. woo

fucking incredible. I’m F R E E. absolutely free. still hurts though. some things made me realize I should’ve done it sooner and I did. as best I could, i did.I tried all I could and I succeeded for the most part,but damn do they haunt me so badly. I hate it.

Go away, pest. the last 5/6 years have been an emotional roller coaster for me and I want off.somehow I did,the ride still catching me occasionally and pulling me back on, dragging me to the unknown

((some good things happened here n’ there like me meeting some friends I still talk toooo, playing new games and finding new animes))

it’s just good to know though that my mind doesn’t associate them with anything anymore bc they didn’t deserve anything much tbh. just like told me

———

———

I really want to bug my online buds constantly. From when I get up to when I fall asleep. send them memes, all that funky jazz..but I don’t. I can’t. I feel like I’m too clingy.. too needy.

I AM ACTUALLY. I shouldn’t care, but I do. Maybe it’s because I’m too emotional, too sensitive, too much, blah, blah, blah. Something "bad". Shit the grump hated that has just stuck to me like black balloons since. (( NF is the same with his mental issues. I’m glad to know I’m not alone with thinking of depression, anxiety, etc. as black balloons. Their like lifeless weights, but we still feel them weighing us down))

I love constant communication, especially from close friends.. bug me. 24/7. whenever, whatever. I don’t do anything. much that is. I’m overwhelmed when communicating nowadays so help me out pls??or not><

I don’t ask for it much though bc i was put down for asking for it. I was always told to say certain things as well, not think a certain way, send things at certain times. nothing nsfw even though we where adults. no art much bc it was always judged, other dumb shit.. I felt like the ultimate fucking bother bc of that.. person.

So I stayed to myself because of that and that made me worse ove time.

((I drove some people away when I did and I still am I feel,but I’m trying not too.. I couldn’t deal with myself though, I felt absolutely horrible. When I did, I said some nasty shit and I regret it all because a prick made me feel like complete shit and worthless about myself. I didn’t have to take it out on others like that, but wow.. I did. If I told anyone though,he’d come after me and that was what I didn’t want.. so nice huh?))

I felt like a broken down old dog. I still feel like that occasionally not as bad. not a pleasant feeling at all though

Are all of the things that make me like this really that bad or annoying or make me even less though?? fuck no it doesn’t. It makes me wayyyy better and much more cooler honestly, but those feelings still linger bc the manipulation was so bad..

—

Why the hell would you want me to be boring or better yet be with a boring person who doesn’t talk much and puts others down for similar behavior??

Why would I be with someone who doesn’t share any interests with me much or puts mine down bc they’re childish or unnecessary??

Why would I be with someone that doesn’t communicate anything at all and whatnot,like...please tell me??

I’m genuinely fucking interested.

-

They told me I was always being too nice all the time. too soft, too babyish. too honest. too sensitive. blah, blah, blahhh. whenever I said something that was tooo personal or informative it’s like: "That’s too much information don’t ya think??" UMM, N O?? "Don’t say that around me ever or I’ll unfriend you and never speak to you again." Okay.. THEN DO IT, PUSSY.

Fucking asshat, douche canoe looking ass cunt.. ((He didn’t like those words or almost any word tbh it seems. true killjoy, I swear and I thought I was. I couldn’t even say oh my god or anything with lord in it because he’d then start saying "why are you saying that when you’re an atheist?" Umm actually I’m agnostic.. ))

he hated the whole "umm actually" deal too that I would do.. literally drove me up the damn wall every time. who fucking cares if I say that?? I’ve been accustomed to it because of my parents and people in general. come the fuck on now

It’s pretty common to say, twit. Don’t take it seriously, joke or not to piss me off to make you happy..man, he irritated the hell out of me and I’m glad he’s gone. like..look ‘bud’ should I just be angry and a constant liar and hateful and just, overall vile like you then all the time?? Guess so huh!! ohh boy!!

Which was almost that unfortunately.. i’m not good at lying and all like you though, you snake. when I did it wasn’t how I was feeling, it was how you felt.. which disgusted me.

I was always honest to you. maybe a few lies, but those were mostly about certain games that I didn’t really play and what I was laughing at. which was your dumb ass most of the time.

He made me start to hate things that made me very happy by being a total prick about it.. I miss feeling overwhelmed with overflowing joy for the things that bring and brought me peace.

I still have it, but it’s not as strong as it was before because some dumb fuck stepped on it too much telling me I’m weak in the process.

I couldn’t like anything anymore much without hearing him yelling at me occasionally and others as well that I never noticed till everything happened. just,yelling at me loudly and telling me how awful i am and other annoying, idiotic shit.. maybe that was your plan all along , to ruin me. ruin my confidence, my strength and my will to move up and thrive in life..

you tried dragging me down your well for being myself when you couldn’t.. pathetic. I bet you’re happy bc you feel like you ‘succeeded’ with this,but you didn’t win the war.

You never will

———

———

they always manipulated me to dislike the things in life that made me happy. This irritated me a lot.. ((my interests in obscure and ‘buttrock’ bands/music in general, anime, weird games, my love for peculiar art, my badass friends..))

said absolute dumb shit if I got closer to some more than them. ((making me waste sooo much god damn time. say you’re busy all the time even though you live a "boring fucking same day to day lifestyle." tell them how you can’t message all the time when in fact you can and that you’re constantly on the only device that gets you connected to the world outside. tell them.)) makin me lie and be distant about how I felt with some of my amazing friends..

It was never about how I truly felt, but how they felt for me. (("Ohh they made you feel like that?? Well, it made me feel like this and you should too because //insert dumb explanation here//.", "You shouldn’t feel like that towards them, they don’t deserve it.", "Maybe I deserve to be treated like that instead, screw them.", "Don’t feel like that towards them or //issue//, thats absolutely appalling, childish, flat out sappy.", "Don’t let them know how you’re really feeling.. just act like you don’t care at all. They don’t care to help you anyway or else you’d be living a better life.", "They’ll just spread it around so just stay quiet instead until spoken too about it."))

E N D ME !!!  

Pls, I beg of you.. not really but the thoughts though, please

———

———

he would tell me to not bug him when hes on a game, but he could to me. even on social media, which is how we stayed connected and not by messenger pigeons like it’s the 1500’s.

"Don’t bug me on FB when I’m not on." Okay, but I wanna share this with you...?? also, how the hell am I gonna know when you’re on when I’m drawing and trying to occupy my on edge brain??

proceeds to spam me shit in process irritating me. "Don’t bug me, don’t bug me" I hear like a whiny little baby.

"Why do you bug me all the time??" UMM, MAYBE BECAUSE I CARE AND I WANT TO UHHH, IDK SHARE THIS NEAT SHIT WITH YOU??? PENDEJO PUTA DE MIERDA!!

"I’ll message you and send invites when I feel like it." - Shithead towards the end. Circa 1818. ((Yeah, weeks or a month later like nothing happened. "I’ll see you later or tonight when I see you on, get back on, when I’m done eating" just, excuse after excuse..))

((IM ALWAYS FUCKIN ONLINE 24 GAT DAMN 7.  YOU KNOW THIS, SHITHEAD. I ALWAYS WANT TO TALK TO YOU OR SOMEONE IN THE DAMN GROUP. DNT FUCK WIT ME, MY TIME, OR PATIENCE LIKE THAT ANYMORE. ENOUGH. S T O P. And it did.. thank g o d))

———

———

would literally make me wait around and feel like a complete and utter fool when instead he could’ve messaged and been like maybe tomorrow or something, but no.. nothing. made me believe in all sorts of dumb shit. ((Sad I did, but I was pretty gullible. still am. some stuff was just, a big nope though and obvious. I wouldn’t let him get to me that much, but he did in some ways.. disgusting ..))

I was made to feel like I was cared for when in fact I never was to begin with. explains a lot tbh. I felt like a disgusting half empty shell of a person with barely any fragments of a heart and soul left inside. that’s very dark, I know, but that’s how it feels in a way

"It’s not real, this depression you’re feeling, it’s just a phase. it’ll pass/ just suck it up and move on / don’t worry about it you’re fine, you’re just overreacting or overthinking about it / think positive more and be happy nothing bad has really happened to you yet/ I remember when you didn’t act like this."

HOW AND WHAT?!? EXCUSE ME, PEASANT!? SAY THAT AGAIN.. TO MY ACTUAL FACE. I DARE YOU N’ YEAH, I DO TO CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.

———

———

I love how people ((friends and some mutuals)) thought I actually wanted to be, be with him, romantically and all that, that is but I just couldn’t..it was never there. I felt it for others though or someone to be exact, during those times which is how I knew I was in a toxic situation and it wasn’t real love or love in general I felt for them. just a facade

I just couldn’t let people know how badly he was treating me so I was sucked into a woven web of lies that got out of hand and ruined some pretty good moments for me completely it seemed

I never once wanted to fuck him or anything of the sort.

at first, we were kinda flirty and sweet with one another. talkin about cuddlin n’ goin on silly dates when we meet ya know. cute and fluffy things. things I got shit for down the road keep in mind. we’d give each other cute lil compliments to one another. It was just, cute and fun stuff ya know. especially since we were young as well.

there was never anything sexual between us either or too sexual, just crushy feels. ((I’m really fucking glad because mm, mmm. hard fucking pass))

he’d never and i mean never get my moist meter high, EVER. drier than this damn valley I live with scattered tumbleweeds, I tell you. not even a lil tingle. no bells ringing.fireworks flinging. I thought about it too and I’d just get disgusted tbh. thats how I knew

I felt like he’d be the worst in the end anyway and he was in general. he wasn’t even comfortable with himself or his sexuality and others things.. sooo, noooo, NOPE. thank u, next!!

I’m completely comfortable with mine.. thanks to my friends and some a bit more. I’m a bit scared to admit though that I’m demi bc of manipulation, but it is.

Happens unfortunately and I know I’m not alone on this journey of self acceptance. I wouldn’t have mind talking about it though, in a calm civil manner like adults do instead of giggling and making weird noises like an idiotic child.

Having it being brought up randomly amongst mutuals and all that got extremely awkward too as well, I hated it. "You wanna fuck him?", "You ever thought about it you two since y’all so close?" crickets and a few mumbled noises.. HA.mmm, I cared about him or what was left of him, not like that. honey flower ain’t or never will be feelin it for him.. EVER. HE EMOTIONALLY MANIPULATED ME AND I DIDNT EVEN KNOW SEX THAT MUCH OR MYSELF LIKE THAT SO FUCK HIM. uwu

She’s kinda quiet and scared tbh because he’s such a total killjoy asshole. she senses fear. she knows who really gets her bud blooming. just, the thought of him though like that made me wanna scream and kick him in this stupid ass face.

Ruined a lot of things for me, I swear but I’m moving on as best as I can.

—

He had this switch flip type of mood. I don’t even remember how or why it happened, but it just got worse during and after his breakup it seems.

Which was like 3-4 years ago. started happening out of the blue and over time it just started to bug the living fuck out of me. daily. I was starting to hate it and hate it I did. made my skin crawl.. ((all the Linkin Park jokes))

It made me hate myself which I never did much tbh and I didn’t like that at all.. I wanted out, but I didn’t know where to go. I didn’t know who to talk to bc he’d come after me if I did especially if they knew him..

they didn’t though and were on my side, but yeah. I’m glad it stopped

A L L OF IT. I don’t need that kind ‘love’ in my life. that,awful presence. I don’t need any of that at all.. MMM, MMM BYE, BYE!! Disgusting.

———

———

I wanted to help em try to be happy so fuckin bad after what happened ya know as friends do, when it should’ve been myself making me happy instead.. it was,but everything just got to me.

All the sighs. How lovely huh. We were ‘best friends’ ya know. I can’t even really call anyone that much bc it unnerves me. you’re supposed to make each other happy and all that as best friends, not a sad sack of low shit.

I can’t believe I wanted to be with him and or be around him that is... eughh. I was confused and in a dangerous situation towards the end.. feels like it was my fault, but it wasn’t.

Couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It was extremely fucking stupid on my part

Long time or not, why? just, holding onto old times I guess

That’s where I messed up. I didn’t even really bother trying to be with him tbh as I’ve said. in the beginning maybe yeah when we were younger, but he made me feel less and less over time as we grew older. I was embarrassed about a lot of shit and slowly I just finally realized how much of an asshole he really and truly is and how bad I wanted him out my life.

I couldn’t get away and when I did, he’d still be there someway.. haunting me with his negative nagging.it was dumb I know. I just don’t know exactly how I got lost in it so damn badly, but man, am I really dumb for doing it..

I wholeheartedly despise those feelings I had then and I fucking despise them now. ALL OF THEM. THEY HAVE RUINED MY LIFE AND IDK WHAT TO DO ANYMORE

((Great character development though, Cynth. Growing up and moving on. Something he could never do))

I don’t want to bring these problems into anyone else’s life and I did and I regret it.. I would like to disconnect from the server please bc of it, thank you

———

———

I was made to feel like my disability was cureable around him and that I can do shit when I get my operations done when in fact, I can’t at all and won’t ever get ‘cured’ or anything like that of the sort.typical ableist /lamdwalker activity. despite how many times I told him,he’d forget. Mhmm, sure.. you only heard what you wanted. It’s fine

"We’ll be able to do this when you get said //part// fixed.." what? can I not do that now or something?? I know I can’t, but I can at least try right?? am I really not that good enough to be around and do shit with?? guess so, cool. Okay, I see. I really tolerated some extreme ableism and I still do, but it’s not as bad as that was..

I wish I could cure my RA though like that and have said money to do it. Snap my fingers and it’s done right? ummm, no. not as easy you think dumb ass. I have fused joints, osteo, it’s everywhere like how the hell am I gonna fix that so easily?? tell me, doc

You trippin more than younger me did. I think that’s why he just flat out ditched me in the end and got a gf while he was at it that had an almost exact personality as me in the process. he would point it out too and made me feel fucking creeped out even more.. like, I get it. can’t be youre, abled dream

Why do you care if we’re alike in some ways though?? ((Look where it got him though. He’s still struggling with it, the breakup, bringing it up once n’ awhile like it didn’t happen. It was hilarious to me bc he really was a basket case. I know he was trying to get rid of it, but he was more obsessive about it than a mf))

thankful I don’t deal with it anymore

———

———

"You live the same day to day lifestyle. Ever since you and I graduated. The same fucking thing. The only new things you do are go to your stupid concerts or teach those weird kids. I see it or you end up telling me anyway." ((I know captain obvious yet again.. at least I’m having fun when I’m doing that. concerts for my favorite bands make me happy, teaching my kids do too ya asshole))

"Nothing is gonna change anyway if you get those procedures done. It’ll be worse for you and we all know that. Just deal with it and try to move on." ((I hate hearing your voice in my head. I want to ban it, mute it from all existence.. I’ve been replacing it with others and I’m glad it’s working))

———

———

I keep hearing his voice sometimes when I post something on social media. not his actual voice, but something similar, especially in tone. moody and monotone. art,status, any of those with hashtags, rt‘s, anything.. I heard it

"Why did you post that?? Looking for attention or something?", "Not many people liked it because it’s //insert stuff I love here//", "Don’t like shit like that. I don’t want to scroll around awkwardly when I’m out.", "I saw what you put. Idk how to approach it, but I’ll like it to show you I care/to look at later to process."

Tf does that mean and huh?? Why do you care what I put anyway?? I don’t care what you put so why should you care what I put?? Why make me feel like shit for putting this up or talking about something I have some balls too. I want people to know. I’m close to some of these people

I haven’t been posting much because of that. It’s very noticeable and my some of my friends can vouch for it from the viewing couch. renders I do of friends stuff, my original work, OC stuff, fan arts. A L L gets judged by the mighty grump. who it is, colors, the style, shading.. nothing was good enough I guess. even though you said it was and so did my brain at one point. It does, but she’s just not that confident much anymore

He’d get on fan art which was the most irritating thing. "Try and draw like that or do something like that for once.", "They didn’t get me right.. did you give them the references? Even though you still haven’t made a proper one?", "Why did they draw me like that?", "That’s cool. Why my character though?" PEOPLE DRAW IN THEIR OWN WAYS IN MANY STYLES AND CAN CREATIVELY DO WHATEVER THEYD LIKE YA FUCKIN DUMBASS. IN THE END, ITS MY CHARACTER ANYWAY. YOU DIDNT DRAW HIM. I DID N’ WHO CARES. MAYBE THEY LIKE YOUR CHARACTER OR IDK I REQUESTED IT TO MAKE YOUR SAD ASS HAPPY.

"Ohh yeah, I used to draw back in the day." The shit he sent me was traced, had his signature on it covering the original artists, no consistent style. Straight up thief and ugly liar. He can’t even draw a straight line, let alone paint a piece. Please, boy. I KNEW IT AND HED MANIPULATE ME INTO THINKING IT WAS AND I KNEW. AINT FOOLING ME THERE. I maybe or might’ve been extremely gullible as a teen, but ooohhh honeyyyy, I knew, I knew.

Artist my ass. Yeah con artist :))

———

———

I hated the awkward silence moments between us when we spoke. I literally wanted to fucking scream at you like you did to me sometimes when you were having a "bad day".

I wanted to yell at you about everything you’ve ever done to me the last time we talked and I just broke down instead because I am an "emotional bitch" as you say. HOLY SHIT though, are you boring. I thought I was, but I just get dissociative and I space out because I didn’t know what to say and when I did,I got judged for it. for everything else as wel which made me feel worse. fuucking fantastic you are

You made me feel like I was was swirling in this dead and extremely lonely silence that was ever so slowly drowning me and dragging me down.. ((Like BMTH says, don’t let me drown and you did to an extent)) i couldn’t breathe right for the longest time with you there.. felt like an enormous weight on my chest

when I was in there, it was awful and made me feel worse. I didn’t want to leave and when I did,you’d think I’d be having a fit or something.so, I would stay until you left and when you did it was absolute freedom.

I swear I hated being around you. I got judged for making any sort of weird noise, hiccup, burp, humming, my singing, jokes. such a fun person you are, hmph

[positive-stress]

top 10 albums of 2017!!!

10. diet cig - swear I’m good at this

idk how much there is to say about diet cig. they’re just so cute and fun and good. semi-angsty indie pop for semi-angsty millennials. I should save the words anyway because these are definitely just gonna get longer as this goes. thanks, diet cig! tummy ache

9. charan-po-rantan - mirage collage

a duo of sisters, older sister koharu plays accordion while younger sister momo sings and for some reason carries around a stuffed pig. idk. charan-po-rantan’s music is a blend of all kinds of world music, from klezmer to polka to cabaret to balkan brass, and it’s good as hell. they put out two fantastic albums this year, and this is the more... traditional one, I guess. we’ll get to the other one shortly. ikku yo!

8. björk - utopia

I don’t think it’s possible to describe this album without using the word “lush” so there’s, it’s out of the way and I don’t have to say it again. described by björk as the “tinder album” to follow up her breakup album vulnicura, this album is just... fucking beautiful. the flutes, man. the FLUTES!!! it’s a dense album and I have no idea where it’ll fall in my björk rankings once I’ve spent more time with it but I have a feeling this might be top 3 for me. utopia

7. seiko oomori - MUTEKI

I feel weird putting this in my top 10 because it’s not really an album but... god damn it I love it so much. with the exception of the first two tracks, the absolutely gorgeous “ryuusei heaven” and the catchy as hell “mix juice”, everything here is a re-recording, mostly on acoustic guitar, occasionally piano, of one of her older songs, going all the way back to her 2012 EP PINK. this album is basically pure fanservice but... it’s the best fanservice. a blend of greatest hits and deep cuts, that sweet tape hiss, those voice cracks, the one song where gets too into it and has a coughing attack. who else would release this? thank you based seiko. ryuusei heaven

6. charan po rantan - toritomenashi

oh hey! good to see you again. here’s the, uh, less musically consistent one. most of these songs could easily fit in with mirage collage but then you’ve got a couple with... loud synths? what? why? why am I listening to japanese electro polka? what is HAPPENING and why is it so GOOD? unfortunately none of those songs are on youtube so here’s an incredibly good jazzy song with tokyo ska paradise orchestra which showcases momo’s good as hell voice and also that fucking stuffed pig she’s always carrying around. otakebi

5. blanck mass - world eater

benjamin power of fuck buttons solo project blanck mass takes all of the raw, heavy noise of fuck buttons and channels it into a sound that is less drone, more dynamic. it can still be as much of an assault on your ears as ever (and I mean that in the best way) but it’s more, uh. for lack of a better word I’ll say “accessible”. this album rules. rhesus negative

4. you’ll melt more! - youtopia

I first started listening to YMM! about two months ago after being vaguely aware of them for a while from ano’s collaboration with seiko oomori on kitixxxgaia (foreshadowing!) but I never really felt inclined to listen to them since, you know. idol music. gross! I just happened to come across a thing talking about their recent EP, disco psychedelica, and the album cover immediately caught my eye. what the hell, why is this idol group mimicking the cover of screamadelica by primal scream? it was too weird to not listen, and hey, it turns out that’s just YMM! in a nutshell. idol pop influenced by bands like primal scream, too weird to not listen. looking back in their discography I found a whole bunch of stuff with heavy new wave vibes, and sure enough almost immediately after I started listening to them they put out their TALKING HITS EP, this time with an album cover mimicking that of talking heads’ remain in light. (it’s not on youtopia but their song NEW WAVE STAR is very reminiscent of the great curve and I love it.) they also have collaborated with the lead dude from POLYSICS as well as mariko goto formerly of midori which if you know either of them, you should be interested. anyway tl;dr youtopia is their latest album, just out, gotta love it. a handful of tracks from those two EPs and a bunch of great new shit as well. YMM! are the fucking best. music san, yon bu de owacchimau yo ne

3. neil cicierega - mouth moods

this album was a huge hit on the online so it’s very likely you already know about it, and basically impossible that you don’t already know who neil cicierega is, so I’ll just cut to the chase. this is meme music, a mashup album full of IT’S BEENs and someBODYs and [tim allen grunt]s. it’s an album of legitimately great mashups, but it’s also a comedy album that has some moments that genuinely caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud. if you haven’t listened yet, I won’t spoil those moments, I’ll just urge you to check out mouth moods, because it really is the most 2017 album and it’s very near perfect. everything comes together so well, and there’s very often moments where I’d be listening to a song and look at the title and something would click and I’d realize the joke of the song goes even deeper than I’d originally thought. there are layers here. basically what I’m saying is, this album is like an onion. smooth

2. seiko oomori - kitixxxgaia

hey, we’re back to seiko! there’s a reason I say she’s my beyonce. in a lot of ways, this album is the biggest departure yet from her older folkier style of music (thank god she later put out MUTEKI, almost to reassure fans like me that she hasn’t forgotten). every song here is a banger. from the explosive “gutto kuru summer” (oh hey ano) to the slow and beautiful ballad “orion za” to the more straightforward j-poppy “IDOL SONG”, it’s all so fucking good, and it says a lot about seiko that I’d say this is one of my least favorite albums of hers. the star of the show though has to be the incredible “dogma magma” where seiko really shows off her most dramatic, art-poppiest side. leave it to her to put the thematic centerpiece of the album as the first track. thank god it’s all so good anyway. dogma magma

1. terror pigeon! - we will never run out of love!

terror pigeon has never been one to shy away from getting personal in his music, and this album is arguably his most personal yet. in the past his music has been mostly love songs in one way or another. songs about being in love, songs about loving your friends, songs about loving your life, whether you’re happy or sad, songs about feeling so full of love your heart could burst. as the title suggests, this is no exception, but in a lot of ways this is his darkest and saddest album yet. there is a sense of regret and loss throughout this album, but still a definite message to try to keep that feeling of love and positivity in your heart even when things are fucked up. there’s no better example of this than in the heartbreaking “arms”, where neil sings about losing a close friend: “I don't get it / I will never understand / how the good are taken from us / when I'm still only a half a man. / if there's no justice to it / and no bracing ever works / then how do I explode with love / despite all of this hurt?” if his previous releases were about the joy of love, this is a recognition of the realities of love. it doesn’t always last forever, and it can’t always protect you from pain. but even at the darkest moments, the love is still there. the final song on the album, “friends”, is one of the most heartfelt love songs I’ve ever heard, a love song dedicated not to the standard topic of romantic love but to friendship and the simple joy of hanging out with people who you care about and watching TV and eating pizza. a perfect end to a perfect album. chamber of secrets for 1 / more songs with keyboard solos

[nickatnightwalker-blog]

damian doesn’t understand the entire concept of The Baby, nick’s apparently been engaged to a bird for months now, nick is honestly confused by damian’s blatant refusal to behave likeably or even neutrally in front of anyone but him

a-thousand-dreadful-things Is he talking about a literal baby?

nickatnightwalker oh uh i dont know how old iti s it might be a baby for all i fucking know

a-thousand-dreadful-things Is it his baby?

nickatnightwalker he found it, so i guess so he didnt like, give birth to it though i feel like that's beyond the level of weirdness we're dealing with

a-thousand-dreadful-things He found a literal human baby?

nickatnightwalker it's a six eyed bird that comes up to my waist and i personally cant hold up with one arm it's the baby.  it's helpless you know

a-thousand-dreadful-things Are you fucking with me?

nickatnightwalker ive met it eye to eye to eye to eye to eye etc

a-thousand-dreadful-things I hate this fucking school.

nickatnightwalker i know the whole concept of enormous bird of prey as helpless infant is kind of a lot but you just gotta roll with it just fucking. go with it.  or else youll wanna shoot yourself. besides, it's pretty ok.  little bit of a brat though.

a-thousand-dreadful-things It can't possibly be happy locked up in a dorm. It's a wild animal. He should let it go free.

nickatnightwalker it is free it just like comes to visit or something we went up into one of the towers in ra and he called it and it fucking came dude.

a-thousand-dreadful-things Beholden to a master who feeds it is not the same as free.

nickatnightwalker oh it can most definitely feed itself damian i think it comes to him for like, hugs

a-thousand-dreadful-things Unsanitary.

nickatnightwalker youre preaching to the choir here buddy birds fucking love me for some goddamn reason and they're the worst

a-thousand-dreadful-things How much experience do you have with "birds" as a general category that you know that they "love you"?

nickatnightwalker once i was in central park and as an experiment i just didn't move and no less than four pigeons eventually ended up sitting on me

a-thousand-dreadful-things Pigeons roost on anything that stays still for an extended period of time. Insufficient evidence for significance.

nickatnightwalker alright then the seagulls at LBI who not only didn't steal my food, they actually brought me someone else's sandwich and then laid down around my chair

a-thousand-dreadful-things You're making that up.

nickatnightwalker pictures are on facebook dont like, like anything or comment on anything though my dad's a demon also there was a crow that lived on my street and brought me buttons and shit once it brought me someones engagement ring that was awesome

a-thousand-dreadful-things Though I imagine less awesome for whomever lost the ring. Or perhaps the crow was proposing?

nickatnightwalker maybe they threw it, you dont know oh shit

nickatnightwalker i cant fucking believe im engaged

a-thousand-dreadful-things I can't believe you've been fooling around with me, and all this time... Your poor crow fiancee must be devastated.

nickatnightwalker i cant even believe i did that it's like i dont know myself

nickatnightwalker although on a scale of one to divorce papers i feel like you and i probably only fucked up at like, a level three

a-thousand-dreadful-things Perhaps she doesn't even know.

nickatnightwalker well damn am i supposed to come clean honey i held a guy's hand im sorry i know now it was wrong although actually i didnt at the time or do i spare her the pain

nickatnightwalker she doesnt even HAVE hands d that's gotta be a sore spot

a-thousand-dreadful-things You can tenderly clasp her scaled feet. Explain it was merely an emotional affair; beg her to forgive you.

nickatnightwalker ugh have you ever actually touched a bird's feet that's been a huge obstacle in our relationship

a-thousand-dreadful-things I see. Birds may love you; but you clearly do not return the feelings. Unfortunate.

nickatnightwalker all they really like me for is my hair

a-thousand-dreadful-things Well: understandable.

nickatnightwalker oh my god not you too

a-thousand-dreadful-things Frankly, I fear the day you get a haircut, Nick, and all my tenuous feelings vanish into thin air.

nickatnightwalker well what the fuck i thought it was for my motherfucking charming attitude and tact

a-thousand-dreadful-things What a pleasant surprise! Nick Walker apparently has heard the word "tact" before. I wondered, since you possess none.

nickatnightwalker pot, meet kettle

a-thousand-dreadful-things I suppose that's fair.

nickatnightwalker im a fucking UN diplomat next to you d

a-thousand-dreadful-things I can be composed when I want to be. Most of the time it just doesn't matter to me whether anyone thinks I'm tactful or not.

nickatnightwalker i thought you were aiming to keep the enemies to a minimum

a-thousand-dreadful-things *Mortal enemies. "Enemies" as a blanket category is much more difficult to maintain.

nickatnightwalker you think so? probably wouldnt be if you worked on that tact thing ive been here as long as you and theres only one person who hates my ass, jsyk

a-thousand-dreadful-things As long as no one's trying to kill me I have no objection to a pool of low-level dislike. I can only control myself, Nick, not others.

nickatnightwalker right but have you considered it might just be like

nickatnightwalker nice if people liked you

a-thousand-dreadful-things It doesn't really matter to me either way. All the people whose opinions I give a damn about like me already.

nickatnightwalker not daisy

a-thousand-dreadful-things I do not say this with intent to offend, but; you think I still care about her opinion?

nickatnightwalker damian, is there anyone else here like at all that youre on good terms with?

a-thousand-dreadful-things Ines.

a-thousand-dreadful-things I helped Valentine and Aud a few days ago. Not that they rank very highly on my list of people whose opinions I care about.

nickatnightwalker who IS on that list

a-thousand-dreadful-things You. Ines, I suppose.

nickatnightwalker damian.  did you care about having my good opinion before you actually had it because i feel like you might be doing this backwards

a-thousand-dreadful-things That depends. At what point did I finally succeed in gaining your good opinion?

nickatnightwalker who says you have it?

nickatnightwalker that was kinda presumptuous ngl you know if you talked to more people how you talk to me youd probably have and then care about their good opinion in that order

a-thousand-dreadful-things I suppose I understand that. But I have no real interest in it.

nickatnightwalker how do you not see how that could like, generally make your life easier d

a-thousand-dreadful-things My life isn't terribly difficult as is.

nickatnightwalker i dont get it

nickatnightwalker i mean i get not caring i do that every day but it's so easy not to make people hate your ass except for aud but shes a basket case

a-thousand-dreadful-things Aud's not so bad.

nickatnightwalker she HATES me so i kinda dont care for her

a-thousand-dreadful-things She seems incapable of true hate. Like a particularly angry kitten made of clay. Anyway; it's certainly possible you've done something by accident that riled her up. Any idea?

nickatnightwalker oh yeah definitely. wynn asked me to the dance and she decidedthat made us rivals

nickatnightwalker i tried to throw you under that bus actually by pointing out she ditched me for you but it didnt really stick

nickatnightwalker anyway sorry i was making a vinegar and baking soda volcano with misha it was a scientific breakthrough

[lindwurmkai]

Okay, storytime. :D

This day has really been quite the adventure, and of course it started with a missed train. This is me we’re talking about, after all.

Once I had finished panicking, I carefully selected the most optimal ticket, paid for it, and found I still had half an hour to kill until my next opportunity. So I decided to take a walk, during which I saw a pretty pigeon, was asked for directions by an UNFAIRLY ATTRACTIVE PERSON whom I could unfortunately not help much, and bought ice cream.

(Please take a moment to imagine a cross between Bodhi Rook and Lito from Sense8. Then also imagine this person being super charming??? The world brightened, my skin cleared, choirs of angels were singing, did this encounter even really happen,,)

Anyway, eventually I made it onto a train. The train took longer to reach its destination than it should have. I panicked some more and tried to call the doctor’s office to announce I would be late, but nobody answered. I decided I would look for a taxi when I got off instead of going the rest of the way by train as well like originally planned, which in retrospect was a great idea (albeit expensive) because that way I didn’t have to search for the office but was dropped off directly outside and the driver even helpfully pointed out the entrance.

(I had been unsure how to approach a taxi that was just parked in front of a train station waiting for customers. How could I tell they weren’t there to pick up a particular person? Well, I must have had such a helpless expression on my face that the driver shouted “DO YOU NEED A TAXI” when I got close enough, so like, that’s one way to do it I guess. LMAO.)

And now ... let me tell you about that doctor’s visit.

I had been warned about this doctor; I was prepared. Sort of. Nothing could have quite prepared me for the multiple “funny” notices signed “Dr. House” on the walls of his office, which--okay, I can see it, he has a limp and his name starts with an H. But aside from that, he’s almost the opposite of House. Friendly, supportive, absolutely unprofessional, not remotely thorough. LOL. (Also not that funny.)

When you go somewhere specifically to evade a rule ... well.

I told him, basically, “I want to start taking testosterone because I’m not a woman.” He asked me like 3 questions and then agreed to do it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Finally, THINGS GOT REALLY WEIRD, because I thought he’d just take my blood to have my current hormone levels analysed and next time I’d get a prescription, etc.? But, surprise!!! He gave me a prescription immediately? And then he said, “I actually still have some of this left, do you want a first shot right now?”

? ??

??????? ??? ?

Listen. I know all of this sounds shady as fuck, but why would I say no.

Sooo I spontaneously got myself stabbed in the butt. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

That part went well! It barely hurt, and the injection site looks unremarkable now. No bruising, just a little red dot that feels a bit tender. I’m relieved.

Afterwards, he warned me about skin changes and then paused, looked at my chin, and asked if I was having skin problems anyway? Why yes, thanks for noticing. At this point it occurred to him that he should probably take a blood sample next time, and he informed me that my skin would get better if I avoided dairy because surely I must be lactose intolerant.

...

Who knows what made this man the way that he is? Not me. But I am more or less confident he means well.

I’m to come back for my next shot in two weeks, and like, should he forget about the goddamn blood analysis, I WILL REMIND HIM MYSELF.

Unbelievable.

Well, that was that!!! I got out of there and kept bursting into giggles for the next 15 minutes or so, in part from the absurdity of the situation and in part from excess adrenaline.

And then I met up with Nis! I HAVE MET FOUR ENTIRE INTERNET FRIENDS IN PERSON NOW U GUISE. :D

It was good to have someone to talk to after all that, especially someone who Gets It. Damn.