#written while i watch

[theoldkyokodied]

posting all of these on the same day as i'm posting them on insta. as an early christmas treat. just for you :) imagine a little bow on all of this stuilly art, okay?

[erwinsvow]

rafe thinks it’s harmless—in fact, he told you to stay at home and watch your stupid show, because he didn’t want you getting upset while he was out doing his work. you pout, but comply, curling up on his bed and watching your show until he returned later that day. 

he thought you were too soft to deal with his reality, that the shit he got up to would upset you, like it had before. you were real shy and innocent when the two of you first started dating, to the point where you wouldn’t even tell rafe if something was upsetting you because you didn’t want to make him mad. 

he had coaxed you out of it a little, thinking that you were a lot better now, but he could still see that shy girl resting inside of you, when you were nervous to ask him for something you wanted, when you felt embarrassed for wanting to stay over, how you clung to his arm at parties because you didn’t like big crowds.

“what the hell d'you watch, anyways? what is this crap?”

“it’s called jersey shore, rafe. how do you not know this? you’re just like them.” he glances up at the screen briefly, taking in people storming around a dirty house and cursing at each other.

“shut up. turn this crap off so we can sleep.”

he doesn’t think he needs to concern himself, until you accompany him to a party a couple days later. you’re dolled up in a short dress and heels, when normally you’d be in your sneakers. he doesn’t pay much attention to it. he swings an arm around your shoulder and pulls you in.

“gonna go sell to kelce and his guys. stay here with your friends, got it?” you nod in agreement, and he walks over, thinking that everything was fine. 

and it was fine, until one of the girls that kelce brought was getting a little too handsy with him. you see it from the corner of your eye, a girl in a tight dress with your boyfriend, touching his arm and leaning in to get closer. 

“c’mon, kelce, control this girl. sheesh.” rafe sees you notice it too, right when he’s trying to get away from her. he thinks he fucked up—that you’re gonna start crying and want to leave the party, since that’s the sort of reaction he’s used to, when he sees you march over. before he can even process what just happened, you’ve smacked the girl’s drink out of her hand, which falls to the floor and spills over her shoes. 

“are we gonna have a fucking problem or are you gonna keep touching my boyfriend?”

“hey, woah-” for once, rafe is the one watching with wide eyes. you don’t even look at him, addressing the girl infront of you and not letting her get a word in.

“no, i said are we gonna have a fucking problem or are you gonna go?”

“excuse me-”

“you fuckin’ heard me, bitch. are you staying? you wanna get your ass beat? you gonna stay and get your fuckin’ ass beat? cuz you can get your ass-”

you can’t finish the sentence as rafe lifts you up and over his shoulder, carrying you out while you continue cursing at the girl. back in rafe’s car, you cross your arms and stare at him.

“i could have taken her.” he sighs, exasperated with you and mildly amused.

“no more jersey shore for you.”

[sysig]

How much of me is me? (Patreon)

[alicenpai]

i love...wanpee...........🍊🍶🧡💚

[numbuh424]

I just love it when death note adaptations get meta. When they point out that this story has already been told before. Deep down, L and Light know they're bound to their roles, that they've done this all before, and that this story can only and will only ever go one way for them.

[julijbee]

if youre cold hes cold. let him die.

[smile-files]

nickel and balloon stuff from spring on the breakfast!!! i'm keeping in mind that in the previous episode, both of them were under the impression that their friendship wasn't real...

in a way, ii3 balloon is a lot like late ii3 cabby. of course, balloon did something indisputably immoral (manipulate and exploit others), and cabby only did something thought to be immoral (keep and use files about her fellow contestants) -- but both did something wrong and had to subsequently undergo a disproportionate amount of abuse and malignment for it, ending up with them being apologetic and submissive to avoid any chance of being framed as bad again. the biggest difference is that cabby has internalized the guilt others have attributed to her, while balloon largely hasn't -- he understands the concept of rolling with the punches for the sake of keeping good connections, but he doesn't believe he deserves it.

nickel brushes off ii2 a LOT this episode. to rid himself of his guilt regarding that time, he necessarily has to delegitimize the hatred he felt towards balloon then, thus also ridding balloon of his guilt. he expresses this all vaguely, choosing to remember ii2 fondly and saying off-hand that its baggage should be laughed off -- implying that balloon has been forgiven. reasonably, balloon is happy that nickel seems to actually believe he's changed for the better, so initially this makes him happy.

of course, though, it becomes clear that nickel just wants to shove his own actions under the rug, and balloon reasonably gets pissed off. nickel treated balloon and suitcase like complete garbage in ii2, and balloon clearly hasn't forgotten that.

"it keeps things easy." it keeps things easy to roll with the punches, to endure nickel's abuse and accept his sudden friendship. note, also, that nickel is still placing the blame on balloon: he's saying that balloon didn't want to "make things better", as if nickel and balloon ever having a rift was entirely balloon's fault, and his problem to fix.

and as we can see, nickel still hasn't fully forgiven balloon for ii1. as i've discussed before, nickel seems to secretly feel incredible guilt about how he treated balloon in ii2 (which is why he goes to such lengths to repress the whole memory of it) -- but that guilt is about the way in which he expressed his disdain and distrust of balloon, not those opinions themselves, nor the motivations for them. this is all very interesting, then -- if he still believes balloon can't change from his old, bad self, why did nickel start being friends with him at all?

i think a large part of it is his projection onto balloon. nickel sees himself in balloon: someone who screwed up big-time and isn't able to become a better person after that (according to nickel). we tend to gravitate to people similar to us, after all. i wouldn't be surprised if nickel was also trying to overcompensate for his hostility towards balloon in ii2 by being very friendly with him in ii3, thereby helping him forget that he was ever hostile to him at all.

the most fascinating thing to me about balloon and nickel's relationship is how impersonal it is for balloon. he seems to value what nickel's affection represents rather than nickel himself -- and it represents that he's been forgiven. anyone who saw balloon and nickel's conflict in ii2, which was a product of balloon's nastiness in ii1 and nickel's subsequent inability to forgive that nastiness, would likely come to accept balloon and forgive him themselves if they then saw nickel being friendly with him -- because nickel is the epitome of the ii contestants' anger at him, and nickel of all people (seemingly) forgiving him would imply that he's really changed. the relationship is almost entirely a symbol in that regard. i don't think balloon has much residual guilt about is actions in ii1 -- he feels like he's adequately addressed them and changed -- but nickel having a positive relationship would be helpful in affirming that stance and proving to himself that he really has changed.

i wouldn't say it's cruel of balloon to keep this relationship going on under that pretense, but it is backhanded, and it helps explain why he was ever willing to accept nickel's friendliness unchallenged. he wanted his crimes to finally be laid to rest once and for all, and keeping nickel on good terms with him would let that happen. people would finally shut up about it. up until now, nickel wasn't explicitly denying his past cruelty towards balloon anyway, so balloon would be able to ignore that he neglected to ever bring it up; now, though, nickel is denying not only what he did to balloon but also to suitcase, which balloon is not able to tolerate. now that he's confronted nickel about that though, nickel snaps back with his condemnation of what balloon did in ii1, thereby uprooting the social stasis balloon had been able to maintain precisely because nickel refused to bring anything up before. in a way, then, balloon is purposefully shoving the past under the rug, just like nickel is.

we can't forget, though, that nickel has his own complex about fearing that he's incapable of change and incapable of forming positive, genuine relationships with people. balloon is essentially revealing that, in a way, he wasn't really friends with nickel -- at least not in the way nickel wished and fooled himself into thinking they were. if balloon truly were friends with nickel like that, then that would mean that balloon had forgiven him for his cruelty in ii2, and perhaps that he really has changed... but no. balloon hasn't forgiven him. why should he? nickel never apologized -- and given how he never apologized, it's impossible that he could've changed anyway: nickel doesn't want to apologize because that means addressing his guilt and allowing himself to feel it. he wants the forgiveness to be handed to him on a silver platter, without him having to do all of the painful work, and he's incredibly upset when it isn't. he wants to not be a bad person, but in order to do that, he has to feel like one, and he really doesn't want to. he hates who he was and doesn't want to associate with it at all.

(note how it's the suitcase robot who says "you can say sorry" when nickel says that nothing can be done about making things better...)

there's clearly an immeasurable amount of resentment these two have been harboring for each other throughout this season, which they'd only been hiding for the sake of fooling themselves into thinking they've changed (nickel) or thinking that others think they've changed (balloon). and now that they've let themselves explode with anger, partly related to the lies they'd been telling themselves falling apart, they yell at each other and balloon drops nickel down a hole!

ah, balloon and nickel's relationship... it's bizarre, it's toxic, it's convoluted, it's shady, and it's incredibly sad. i'm glad i'm revisiting ii3, especially this episode -- i used to be utterly baffled by nickel's writing, particularly in spring on the breakfast, but now it makes complete sense to me. also, i used to think balloon was entirely the victim in this relationship, while now i know that he has his own faults and own baggage in that regard. it's weird -- they hate each other, but at the same time they're dying to be liked by one another. god i love these freaks...

[prongsmydeer]

Reasons to Watch Drive-Away Dolls (2024):

Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as Jamie and Marian, in the 90s Lesbian Road Trip Adventure Crime Comedy of Our (My) Dreams

It was delightfully absurd! I love a movie that is off-kilter at every turn!!! The stakes are escalating but rather than suspenseful, it is snappy and spirited

If you have ever wanted to watch a crime movie where the criminals are so incredibly inept at committing crimes that they have to keep pleading with lesbians they've just met to help them, this could be the movie for you

If you have ever wanted to watch a movie where for every scene involving violence there is also a longer lesbian sex scene, this could be the movie for you

Curlie, the Drive-Away Rental Dealer, who is decidedly in a different genre of movie, and who doesn't like people calling him Curlie (his actual name) because it's too familiar, deserves his own shout-out

This movie was exactly the right length!! It didn't drag, it told the story exactly in as much time as it needed (1h24min)

There is only one character in this movie who is based on a real person, and while I could not have predicted who that would be, they were once described with the phrase, "Someone like [them] should be in the Smithsonian."

Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke, who are married, in a polymarous relationship and the latter of whom is a lesbian, directed and wrote this self-described B movie and have been trying to get it made for almost 20 years, which is incredible dedication

Quotes like: "Take the wall dildo." "It's your dildo, Suzanne."

[eli6abesxo]

Controversial take, but as somebody who has recently finished all of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden for the second time, the shows are only actually good, at least from a story perspective, if you perceive them as an epic love story between Naruto and Sasuke.

[athousandbyeol]

st(r)ay.

he dreamed of warm hugs. tender caresses on the crown of his hair. tidying the messy curls of his bangs behind reddening ears. and he would giggle. he would blush. he would have tears in his eyes. all good things. everything wonderful.

he dreamed of a pair of piercing eyes. that gaze was never directed at someone else but him. and he would replay that scenario every night, each scene was an animation against the emptiness of the ceiling—before he could remember how lonely his nights were before he came. because he was alive when those eyes were on him—he felt so seen.

and that infamous cold smile. he saw it through the haze in his vision and the daze in his mind. and he couldn't remember anything else but that smirk, the smugness of it all.

the roughness of his palms against the softness of his own. they flutter like broken butterfly wings. but still so mesmerising. when their fingers intertwined, he saw a splash of colour, in all shades of black and blue and grey and him.

sheng wang dreamed of jiang tian.

he saw jiang tian in the recesses of his imagination. there were tears in his eyes. they fell. and fell. but jiang tian was still quiet—why was he so silent?

and sheng wang tried reaching out. but the distance between them grew the more he crossed the forbidden line. jiang tian was untouchable. elusive. like the nightmare he had as a child. like the memories of his father's fading warmth on his skin, the conversations between them, tiki-taka. and by then, sheng wang realised, everything was in vain.

so he opens his eyes.

he opens his eyes and sees a shadow of light against jiang tian's face. his features gradually soften as the moonshine dances elsewhere, promising the stars to tango. and its darkness again, in all of its glory, bestowing on the sleeping jiang tian. but in sheng wang's vision, he has always been the brightest. nothing could ever compare to jiang tian's blinding shine.

oh.

and sheng wang feels the overwhelming urge to hold him. to embrace him. to be with him. because he has always been curious—those little touches were lethal, and sheng wang's already addicted. there's so much more in jiang tian that sheng wang wishes to desire. can he?

the sense of security washes over him like a growing tide, making his lungs tighten, and sheng wang could never forget how jiang tian made him feel.

and he feels so much. too much.

he could never forget how jiang tian made him be.

jiang tian is now drenched in red.

sheng wang knows this is a warning, a sign—don't. they sound like white noise in his ears, these no's and don'ts and pleas. sheng wang couldn't care less. because temptation has always been so delicious, and sheng wang's always a bit reckless.

so he leans closer. just enough to count the long lashes brushing against jiang tian's cheekbones, lulling him to sleep. just enough to remember the zeal of jiang tian's presence, ever-so-grounding, like an old tree under the pouring rain. just enough to understand that he loves.

he loves jiang tian so. he hopes jiang tian won't go.

his heart, oh, his poor heart. sheng wang believes that jiang tian could hear it. the roar. the growl. but maybe sheng wang wants jiang tian to listen. listen to the voice calling his name ever since—ever since he knew what wanting is—ever since he understood what loving is.

it's cold. so sheng wang pulls the blanket further up, covering both of them, sheltering them from the potent glare of these red lights. and when he breathes jiang tian in, sheng wang surrenders. he shudders.

don't leave me.

sheng wang shatters.

[good-to-drive]

Abuse, Silence, And Why Kevin Can Fuck Himself

I recently finished watching Kevin Can Fuck Himself on Netflix, and, aside from being the most brutally honest portrayal of domestic abuse I have ever seen, I discovered a beautifully written examination of narrative as power and silence as abuse and how this manifests in our larger culture. 

Without going into too much detail, the show is filmed in two distinct styles that are interleaved throughout each episode to tell a cohesive story. Allison and Kevin’s relationship as seen by the rest of the world is told through a multi-cam, laugh-track sitcom that depicts a very typical “goofy husband, shrewish wife” mainstream comedy. Allison’s life through her own eyes is told through a single-cam drama/thriller about Allison planning to murder Kevin to escape his abuse. 

It’s an absolute masterclass in screenwriting, but more than that, every episode explores the difference between truth, fact, and reality, and how none of these things are quite as much or as little as story. But while the process of transforming the chaotic and plotless reality of life into a story is as involuntary and essential as breathing, misogyny and the degradation of women is just as ubiquitous in our society, and a story that exists at the expense of another person’s lived reality is a refutation of their humanity. 

It's also just a great show for anyone who likes to engage with history (or reality TV or true crime or “real life stories” in general), because while we have to tell ourselves stories about her own lives, we have to tell ourselves stories about other people as well. Eternal silence is narrative death, and the perpetual silence of an unspoken narrative is often the last death we can visit on someone whose story we’d rather ignore. 

I also pulled up some books – Lolita and Disgrace – that dealt with similar themes, but from the perspective of the abuser. And what strikes me the most is that, across three beautifully written stories about narrative and silence within a culture that normalizes abuse, Allison, who began her story within a state of narrative death, was the only point-of-view character who had any chance of surviving. 

One of the main themes of Kevin is that a compelling story is often a story that reinforces what we already believe or like to believe, and while the story may be factual and true it often also exists at the expense of someone's lived reality. The exact same series of events can be a silly joke or a harrowing tale of abuse depending on the lens through which we view it, but historically we've only been willing to see the multicam, laugh track, sitcom perspective on unbalanced relationships.

The alchemical process of turning a series of disjoint facts and experiences into a narrative creates something new and compelling, and erases much of what previously existed. In this way, it’s entirely irreversible. We spin our experiences into a very thin thread, a story we can tell ourselves that elicits something within us, something we need in order to live with the complex, uncertain, and unsatisfying reality of life. In think in many ways the thing we elicit in ourselves is truth. But truth is both more and less than fact, often more a reflection of our own beliefs and desires than the events of our lives. And in telling that truth we may never stray from the facts, but we almost by definition cannot give voice to another person’s reality.

There's a scene in season 2 of Kevin when Allison is hit by a door – a la the classic excuse – because of Kevin’s carelessness. And while he absolutely did not hit her, the way it's written is such an incredible allegory for how Kevin has curated their story and curated their friends' and family’s perceptions of their story such that even if she tells everyone the exact, unvarnished truth of what's happening to her and begs for help, they will only be capable of seeing the laugh-track, sitcom, “Kevin is a harmless goofball and his wife is a total shrew” perspective on the events of their lives. 

As so often happens with abuse, their friends and family saw Allison being hurt because of Kevin. But the alchemy of creating a narrative around Kevin and Allison is irreversible, and the series of events they witness can only be spun together to a joke, an accident, a silly, childish mistake. Allison’s reality, Allison’s pain and fear, is completely elided. Like a lost sound in the middle of a sentence, her experience goes silent, and their larger understanding of her relationship never has to change. And you feel so acutely how Allison lives her entire life in that silence. 

Storytelling is human, it’s essential, there’s no other way to engage with our own lives. And it’s not lying. It’s never lying to tell the truth. But it doesn’t reflect every reality, either, because another person’s reality can’t be reflected within our own narrative, because that’s what it means to be another person. To spin two different threads.

And because narrative is the essential process by which we understand our reality, denying someone their own narrative, or denying that this narrative be heard, is inherently abusive. To allow someone a voice is to give them humanity, and to suppress it is to strip that humanity away. 

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee, follows the story of a professor, David, who rapes a student and then fails to protect his daughter, Lucy, from being raped by intruders in their home. He destroys his daughter’s life  – not through failing to protect her, but through twisting her rape into a story about why the rape of his student wasn’t wrong. The main theme of the book is generally considered to be exploitation, but Coetzee doesn’t deal with the exploitation of the rape. That’s too direct, too immediate, too easy for the reader to understand as misogynistic and wrong. Rather, Coetzee delves into “the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs” (Ruden).

The rape is how we understand David as a fundamentally exploitative person, a person who denies others their humanity by converting them into a vessel for his own desires, who erases their voice in order to speak through them and give himself the things he needs. And that’s how we recognize that the way he absorbs and claims the stories of his daughter and his student is another kind of violation of their humanity. Another way of turning women into vessels for men’s pain and fear and need. 

What’s fascinating is that David's student finds her voice – files a complaint against him – and is eventually able to continue with her life. The woman he raped is less damaged by him than his own daughter, because she was the woman he couldn’t permanently silence. 

In Lolita, another brilliant novel about abuse, dehumanization, and storytelling, Humbert turns to the reader at the end and says, “Imagine us, reader, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.” 

It’s not that Humbert knew he was fictional, but that he knew everyone was fictional. Believed the entire world only truly existed in his own mind, because anything beyond that was irrelevant to his needs. He coped with the collapse of his ability to dehumanize Dolores (who he called Lolita) by demanding that his voice be resurrected. Demanding immortality. Demanding his narrative exist in another person’s world, and thereby be given the existence and humanity that Allison and Dolores and Lucy and David’s student were denied. 

Pushing his needs, finally, onto the reader, because we are the only person he has left, and a person like him can only exist through the use of another. In that way, Humbert was powerless. In that way, Kevin and David were powerless, too.

In Disgrace, David’s dream is to write an opera, and at the end of the book he realizes he’ll never finish his magnum opus. He’ll never be able to terminate the process of converting himself, his world, into a story. But he does learn to decenter himself in that narrative. And it’s when he loses all fear of death, and any conception of the self, that he gains the ability to give dogs – who he generally equates to women – a voice within his opera, his life’s work. 

It’s in death that we discover our true unimportance as human beings, that we learn to let go of vanity and our conception of the self entirely. And David had degraded women so thoroughly in order to justify how he used them to meet his own emotional needs that it was only in losing all value for his own life that he could gain the ability to see them as equal voices. To actually put those voices into his own life story. It's at the cost of himself that he allows other people to truly exist, in the death of the self that he finally allows the world to exist outside of himself. It’s almost a positive character arc. Almost.

When Kevin finally loses the ability to abuse Allison, he, like many abusers, loses all desire to live. His world was built on a structure of superiority and inferiority, on beings and vessels, on the inherent value of men and the inherent meaninglessness of women’s lives. The system on which he based his entire reality has been destroyed by Allison’s declaration of the self. And, if he was a being because she was a vessel, then in losing the ability to treat her as a vessel, to fully and completely dehumanize her, he has lost his own humanity. 

It may be perfectly summed up here: “Become major. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise, what is life for?” (Coetzee).

If you’re not to be a main character, if there indeed is no split between major and minor characters, between people and the paper dolls that populate their story, between living beings and the vessels into which they pour their need – what is life for?

Nothing. At least, not for people whose narrative must exist at the expense of another. 

And that’s why I say that only a narrator like Allison could survive this kind of story. Despite beginning her story trapped in eternal silence, her reality fully elided no matter how immediate and obvious it became, Allison was the only point-of-view character of any of these three stories who didn’t establish her power through the degradation of another. Who didn’t conceptualize the world via being and vessels. Whose narrative didn’t exist, by necessity, at the expense of another person’s humanity. Whose thread could exist in a larger tapestry without destroying her sense of self.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not generally a likable character. She’s misogynistic, cruel, selfish, jealous, desperate, afraid, and in pain. Like anyone in an abusive relationship, she’s not at her best, and she’s often pushed to do things that are ugly and disturbing because she’s simply been pushed too far. 

But, for me, the power in her character is in how her last scene never felt like a final scene. Her story didn’t have to be killed, her conception of the self didn’t have to be killed, in order to reveal the brutal reality of stories twisting and intertwining without any inherently superior truth or narrative among them. Allison’s story was one of declaring herself. And that’s why it didn’t feel like it ended at the end. Instead, this felt like a beginning.

[seiwas]

HI MY BELOVED ANGEL!!! i am sending u mattsun + campfire as well as kisses n hugs <33

SAINTTT hello 🥺 thank you for sending a prompty!! 🥹 idt i've ever written mattsun fully before so this is something new!

help me get back into the writing groove! send me a character + any word and i'll write a short blurb about it!

contains: exes, stranded-y situation, feelings are complicated, some expletives

mattsun + campfire

"i told you we should've brought the spare—"

"yeah, let me go back in time for a sec and do just that."

"asshole."

lesson #1: nothing good ever happens when you're stuck in a car with your ex on the way to somewhere remote.

you blame iwaizumi for this one. who the fuck chooses to spend their birthday weekend in the fucking wilderness?

(okay, you don't actually think it's so bad. to be fair, he did plan this a year ago. and it did sound like a good idea. then. at the time. anywhere with the boys was always guaranteed fun―at least, until you and matsukawa broke up.)

"can you pass me the flashlight?" he points at the backpack behind you. when you hand it over, your fingers brush over his as he takes it away from you.

and you hate it, because―

lesson #2: you should never be alone with your ex when you still have feelings for them.

you'd agreed to take two cars to the camping spot: iwaizumi's with oikawa and hanamaki and matsukawa's with you. there was no way you'd fit in one, and hanamaki ultimately decided to ride with iwaizumi because, "you and mattsun have shit to sort out," he'd said.

with night setting and the two-hour headstart they managed to get ahead of you, the best thing you and matsukawa can do is to set up camp temporarily and wait for them to come back for you come sunrise.

you sigh.

leaves crack underneath your feet as you maneuver around your camping space. the light from matsukawa's flashlight tells you where he is, just a bit deeper in the forestry as he looks for wood to help set up the fire.

you unload the car in the meantime, bringing out some snacks and sleeping bags while waiting.

matsukawa eventually comes back with arms full of wood, and you help in whatever way you can, clearing the space and fetching more twigs when needed.

the entire car ride here had been quiet, so it's not surprising that this entire process has been equally as silent. until―

"did you already pull out your tent?" he asks, half of his body disappearing into the trunk of the car.

"huh?" you go closer, "i only brought out the sleeping bags."

then he sighs, ducking out from the trunk with a hand on his hip, "we only have one tent."

"what?"

"makki must have gotten yours with his when he decided to move cars."

his hand runs through his hair, a habit you know well. it lights up all sorts of weird feelings in your tummy

you don't know how to feel―

"i can sleep in the car."

―but you know that you definitely don't want him to do that. all things considered, you were friends first. and you've both been trying to be friends again since the breakup. you wouldn't want to cause him discomfort like that.

so, with a deep breath, you say, "it's okay, we can just share."

"are you sure?" he stares at you.

you nod.

after setting up the tent, you eat a few energy bars and clean up from the day's events. the campfire provides ample enough heat, but with how fast the flames are burning, you're doubtful it'll last the two of you the entire night.

it’s much later on, past midnight, that your doubts are proven right when you and matsukawa are cramped together in a tent made for one. it started to get cold a few minutes ago, and you've found yourself inching closer and closer to the warmth you’ve gotten used to laying against for the past two years.

he's only pretending to be asleep, you know that much, too. the rise and fall of his chest is hardly there; you can see it, how he's holding his breath being this close to you.

"issei," you whisper.

he opens his eyes, eyelids lifting lazily as he meets your stare. the vibration of his hum reverberates to you.

"it's cold."

for a moment, your stomach drops at the thought that he could ignore you; how it would make perfect sense for him to. you broke up with him after all, and he doesn't owe you anything, much less favors as intimate as this one.

but he closes the already dwindling gap between you, wrapping an arm around your waist as he pulls you closer. it's near, far too near for exes to be―noses touching and all.

"warmer?" his voice comes out hoarser through the whisper.

you nod, your head shifting up and down—which, truly, is where you ultimately fuck up. you feel it, a little chapped but still pliant against your lips.

in your carelessness, you accidentally brush your lips against his, the sensation alone surprising you enough to inch your head back as you mutter your apologies.

"sorry? really?" he asks, eyes half-lidded still as he chuckles.

his question settles into the small space you're in.

your vision trails from his eyes, down to the slope of his nose, until it lands on his lips again. a little split like you've always known, but still your favorite. still the only lips you want against yours.

when you lean in again, you know you're fucked, because―

lesson #3: the number one rule is that exes shouldn't kiss each other anymore.

[utilitycaster]

I put this in the tags of a post but I think one aspect of cultural Christianity that is the hardest to shake is that people raised Christian (and particularly Protestant), especially people who have since left, will interpret depictions of religion that are actually drawing on practices/imagery common across multiple world religions as specifically a reference to Christianity.

[manchesterau]

thinking of new ways to do each other

pairing: Dan Howell/Phil Lester

rating: explicit (this is smut lol)

word count: 3.4k

summary: The stream ends but their night isn't over just yet.

tags: impact play, spanking, catholicism, roleplaying

click here to read on ao3

[bugeyedfreaks]

I still haven’t been able to pick up a copy of the new PPG comic but you know what? I saw this panel online from it and…

…if this is like a Super Zeroes-esque comic where the girls are envisioning alternate versions of themselves with different destinies and if Blossom wants to be a detective GOD! BLESS! whoever wrote this ‘cause it’s perfect.

Bubbles as a bunny and Buttercup as a wrestler are also both perfect but that goes without saying. 🙏

[sky-is-the-limit]

Eddie saying 'This is my kind of therapy' when it's just him, Christopher and Buck sitting on the couch, playing games..

Aka like every happy parent who has his kid and his partner.. And you are telling me that it's platonic? Nah.

And the kitchen scene, the sexual tension? Buck apologising like a desperate spouse?

This better happen in s8.