#OK STALLING

[neo-shitty]

so junghwan.

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

RE2 lethan AU where leon finds ethan hiding under a desk in the racoon police station

[silentgrim]

night market outing!

[mayhemspreadingguy]

Delight of the Endless

A collab with @magnusbae who came up with the concept and the colors (⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠).

[3416]

mitch.. watching the camera.... ok

[skeletonshower]

listen i respect a man and his pranks but did he really have to peek over the stall like that💀

[smoosnoom]

corollary

“Okay,” Mike echoes. “So, I was – thinking. We should sleep together." Will, for some reason, still looks lost, but he looks cute – sweet, like that, pink cheeks and eyes wide and glossy and the slight furrow of his eyebrows like Mike has given him something outlandish. “I,” he starts, “don’t understand.”

Mike proposes a sleepover.

Unsurprisingly, no sleeping is done.

[somecunttookmyurl]

i have had a terrible awful no good very bad day

they moved a bubble waffle place into the (built in) unit right behind me. and when i say right behind i mean like.... 4ft.

i've had people shoving into me all day, leaning up against the back (working side. where i work) of my stall and generally crowding right over my shoulder because there is simply no fucking room back there

which also meant it was nigh impossible for me & babs to watch each other's stalls when going to the bathroom or whatever because people were just. in the way of that line of sight all the time. at the back of the stall. where the cash and personal belongings are. i've never had to pee so much in my LIFE

couldn't even pack up when i wanted to because i couldn't get around the outside of my own fucking stall

and of course, the noise. it's been so loud all day directly behind my earballs that i haven't been able to hear anybody on the other side of my stall. they haven't been able to hear me. the result of which is massively increased foot traffic but an 80% loss in sales.

everyone in our little corner did "worse than a slow quiet day" today but i took the biggest hit on account of being the one directly in front of it. turns out it's really hard to sell things to people when you can't talk to them! or get out to go around and show them things! who knew (sarcasm)

the icing on the cake then being having theft from my stall for the first time ever bc it turns out that crowd cover will help people do that so more than half of what little i scraped in today was wiped out

[dragonseeds]

there’s a horrible sickness in me that makes me want to stop and replay da:i whenever i start a different game. how am i supposed to resist the story of my own unwilling apotheosis? especially as lavellan, who doesn’t believe in the maker and who has every right to hate and mistrust the chantry but chooses to use what power they have to try save people, to fix what’s broken, no matter how afraid they are or how careful they have to be. walking side by side with the great trickster god/adversary of your people without knowing, befriending him, changing his mind about this world but ultimately not his choice. he understands what’s happening to you because it happened to him once and he gives you his castle, built over the place where he sundered the world, and paints your story there in frescos that will last long after you’re gone and after the story has been retold and reshaped so many times that the truth of who you are and what you did is lost—just as he did his own story, which was lost and perverted by war and propaganda, and he shows all of this to you knowing you’ll understand because you’ve lived through something similar, grown into something larger than yourself and your true name, and it doesn’t change anything but. he wanted you to see him just for a moment, even if he can’t tell you everything (or almost anything) and you can’t save him—because he owes it to you as a someone who is a friend, almost an equal, and because there’s no one else left who knows: a direct result of what he did to your people and which he now seeks to undo at the cost of this world.

[chirpsythismorning]

This is a continuation in exploring why I think Mike's character regression over the seasons can be explained in part by guilt, which he has yet to confront

Original post

Now we're onto s2, which jumps us ahead in the timeline a bit.

Mike has been calling out to El on the walkie for approx. 252 days now, under what he views as the false hope she might actually be alive. This is mostly based on the fact that Mike thought he saw El outside of his house a few hours after she 'died' (he did see her, bc she was there...) and so a part of him does think there's a chance. And yet this is also isn't something Mike seems to be comfortable talking about the others with.

Which brings us to the crazy together scene. Although this scene has a lot going on, there's one aspect of it in particular that I want to focus on, as it's the driving force for what is going to be discussed, which is that Halloween night was also the last night Mike called El, aka day 353.

I just want to preface what follows, with the fact that I do not personally think Mike giving up calling El, as a concept on its own, means that he couldn't possibly love El romantically or something. It's not even about that idea from an audience perspective. And this is because any average person, in reality, mourning someones' death, should not be calling out to that person for almost a year. Letting go doesn't make you a bad person, whether it was romantic, platonic or even familial. It's called healing and accepting what is and trying to move on and live your life.

Neither does Mike giving up after that night make him heartless or a bad character in my opinion. It literally just makes him human. But that also doesn't mean that's how Mike feels about it, nor does it mean that the manifestation of this guilt isn't going to affect his behavior over the course of the series, causing some very unfortunate choices on Mike's part to then lead to some very unfortunate events for everyone...

Where it starts to get sort of complex is that I think the whole point of the crazy together scene and where it ended up was to for it to showcase how Mike and Will were both willing to accept each other, despite these secrets they've been keeping to themselves.

Will revealed the truth to Mike about how he could still see into the UD, with the addition of seeing this big 'shadow in the sky', followed by asking Mike to not tell the others because they wouldn't understand. Mike then responds by saying El would understand, followed by confiding his own secret to Will that he's been keeping from the others, which is that he thinks he's seen signs that El could still be alive.

The scene then ends with them in agreement that if they're both going crazy, they'll go crazy together, with it arguably being their most incriminatingly romantic moment to date, as it juxtaposes other uncannily similar romantic mentions on the show involving that same word.

But no matter what happens, they're promising to support each other, specifically the weird shit they have going on and could presumably continue to explore that weirdness, without telling anyone else who might judge them for it or misunderstand their feelings entirely...

This is why Mike had no problem with Will going crazy in s2 because as promised, he was going to be right there with him. Also meaning, Mike COULD have had no problem continuing to test out his theory that El was alive, because Will would have supported him.

Obviously, Will sort of had his hands tied in s2 (literally?), but the point still stands. It's not like this was something Mike HAD to give up, because that conversation between him and Will instilled that they would support each other and what makes them feel crazy.

I think the issue though, is that what's causing Mike so much grief daily for almost a year now, is the guilt that came with El's death and him feeling responsible. And so, in contrast to Will's slightly more justified assumptions that what he's seeing could actually be real based on what's happened to him, it's like Mike is asking himself whether he's actually seeing El because she's still alive OR is he just imagining she's still alive because he wants to forgive himself?

A kid deducing that in their head would make them feel pretty awful, don't you think? Maybe even lead them to calling out to that person for almost a year in hopes that they might still be alive?

Meaning Mike choosing that night to walk away, to give up, is likely a result of his conversation with Will making him feel more comfortable with finally letting go of some of that guilt in order to actually start the process of moving on. Because a big part of why he didn't want to move on was because of guilt in the first place.

Also confiding in Will and only Will, not the others, who were hell bent on interpreting all of Mike's feelings for El as romantic, was maybe Mike's way of avoiding the pressure to associate his whole relationship with El as strictly romantic. With Will, maybe Mike knew he wasn't going to spin it into something like that. And he would’ve been right, because Will didn't.

October 30th, Halloween Night (Day 353 - Last call)

You cannot tell me that day 353 isn't framed as the last call. Like Mike is literally walking away dramatically, leaving El alone, with her now just a tiny dot surrounded by darkness. The way it's framed leaves the viewer genuinely feeling heartbroken because there's some very evident finality to what is being presented. And we even see that El feels it too, hence the episode cutting off dramatically with her tear filled eyes.

And so why did Mike choose THIS moment to give up? Why did he choose now to put his 353 day streak to rest? Like, that was impressive as hell. He could have easily kept that going, but instead he decided that this was going to be the last time he was going to try calling out to her...

November 1st (Day 354)

El is still pretty bummed that Hopper came home late last night, but I'm guessing she's even more bummed still processing what might have very well been Mike finally giving up that night too.

Although I don't think El would blame Mike for giving up, still, she too throughout all of this had been building up hope herself. El's been clinging onto the bond she made with Mike, specifically the romantic moments, to the point where she has been watching shows with romantic themes, putting herself in the position of the love interest.

So him not giving up, to El, has been a signal that what they are feeling between each other is very deep and... romantic. Him keeping this going this long is a sign to her that these feelings are pretty much guaranteed. And if he doesn't continue, that hope would obviously dwindle.

At breakfast that morning, Hopper acknowledges the TV cord peaking out of El's room, which is the device she uses to visit Mike from the void, all the way from the cabin. Without it, she is not able to 'communicate' with him, let alone see if he actually didn't give up after that night she feared he did...

Unfortunately her and Hopper have an argument after this, leading to her storming off to her room. And after Hopper is gone, El finds herself being so impatient to see Mike after almost a year of waiting, that she decides to take fate into her own hands. She isn't willing to wait until the evening, which is roughly speaking the usual time Mike uses the walkie to call her every night. She needs to see him now.

And lucky(?) for her, she does!

Finally! A SIGN! After almost a year of no signs that El is alive, since the night she went missing, Mike is getting a sign El is alive!

And he runs after it! He goes to check to confirm his (valid) suspicions, only for her to not be there, with Mike looking disappointed, but also kind of like he's accepted it's a lost cause at this point.

Mike's hope that El is alive and okay and the relief that would come with finally letting go of this massive weight of guilt, is not within reach. He just needs to accept it and let it go. He needs to forgive himself and move on.

On top of all of this, Will is experiencing his own version of crazy. And Mike seems more concerned with focusing on this and supporting Will, than holding onto this hope that El is alive.

So even though Mike just got a sign that El is alive (which parallels to the initial evidence of her being alive outside his house, what literally initiated him to call out to her for almost a year), he doesn't revert back to his approach of not giving up. He sticks by his decision.

The irony of what happens with El the same night that Mike doesn't call, for the first time, is not lost on me...

Tragically, El doesn't know Mike actually gave up (just like she feared he did) because she lost her ability to communicate with him that night.

I wonder how differently things would have played out if she new the truth. Would she have held onto this really romanticized idea of her and Mike's relationship because he never gave up? Or would she have maybe reassured Mike that it was okay that he gave up and moved past it and still hoped and tried to make it work? Honestly, I think the later.

Because again, it's not Mike giving up that makes him a bad person or something that refutes his ability to love her romantically, it just means that it's not true that he never gave up.

And Mike being the only person to know this fact... Um... Cannot be good for him.

October 2nd (Day 355)

As El is trying to revive a modicum of hope that she can see Mike again through the void, to confirm her hopes that he didn't give up, by using the TV like she usually does, she discovers that the cord is broken. It's a lost cause.

On the other side of town, Mike is entirely focused on Will. The previous night, he did not reach out to El. He gave up. And El is none the wiser.

The writers made the choice to have one more night that Mike could have called El because he was at home that night on day 354, a day that actually involved an incident that you'd think would have reignited his hope that she was alive, before he inevitably jumped head first into focusing on Will, with him not being home for the rest of the season. They could have shown us Mike calling out to El from the other side of town, and then cut to her in her room not knowing... And yet, they didn't...

This is where I jump to the end, because the focus primarily when it comes to El and Mike's arcs for the rest of the season are with El trying to find her mom and discover more about herself, while Mike is trying to be there for Will in any way he can.

The sad part is that despite Mike giving up and trying to move on from El's death, that guilt is never really going to go away. He gave El expectations that she had to risk her life to find Will, and all of that built up and inadvertently led to her death.

But maybe Mike can right the wrongs he had El endure by following through on his focus of not letting Will die too? Maybe if Mike can save Will, El wouldn't have died for nothing?

But with this guilt and Mike trying to overcorrect it all, he's also experiencing very real and emotional moments with Will. Will is his best friend, and just a year ago Mike risked everything to get him back. A lot of those moments he experienced with El in s1, moments mixed with romantic expectations, are now also lingering here with him and his friend in s2. Except these aren't forced expectations. Everything Mike’s feeling and doing the entire time comes naturally to him, with none of it requiring pushing or advice from those around him. It's just pure instinct.

In the end, Mike's beside Joyce and Jonathan, who are sharing memories they have with Will to him in hopes it will prove to them he's still in there and able to be saved.

This emotional sequence builds up to Mike using his own memory of Will to try to reach him, one that comes off as platonic in every sense of the word, but visually, and when looked at in the grand scheme of things, especially with what is about to follow and those romantic expectations with El soon being thrust back on him... Well... Shit is about to get real messy.

Upon reuniting with El, Mike was quick to want to tell her that he never gave up, only for her to interrupt him with the exact number of days he called (before he gave up).

This is news to Mike for an abundance of reasons. It means he's not crazy and that El actually was alive those two times he saw her. All this (survivors) guilt that's been building up over the last year could have been avoided if he'd known that she didn't die, that she was okay.

It also means that for some reason, El heard him, and yet she doesn't know that he gave up...

And here Hopper is, revealing that he's been hiding her the whole time aka the perfect person for Mike to take all of this pent-up emotion out on.

Hopper then tells Mike that they will discuss this privately, which I find to be very interesting because it offers a chance for the viewer to see just a glimpse into Mike's emotional state at this moment, without everyone around to affect his ability to truly open up about how he's feeling. And not alone just anywhere in the house, but in Will's room...

Mike is understandably upset because El is alive and Hopper knew this whole time and didn't tell him.

While Hopper didn't technically lie to Mike, at least not in canon because we never got an outright scene on-screen of Mike asking Hopper if El was alive with him denying it (all while knowing she was), it's at the very least a lie of omission...

But the thing is, if Hopper not clueing Mike in on El being alive qualifies as a lie of omission (off-screen), so does Mike not telling El he gave up (on-screen).

If anything Mike's lie of omission also qualifies as a plain old lie, because he outright told El he didn't give up (lied) and didn't correct her when she informed him she knew he didn't. She fully believed it, despite him knowing deep down that it wasn't the full truth.

So while Mike is taking all of his anger out on Hopper as this fighting match comes to a head, it takes a turn.

Hopper is fine with Mike blaming him, he says it's 'okay'. But it's not. Nothing about this is okay to Mike, seeing as this isn't even the whole problem. It's not the problem Mike's actually hiding within his outburst in the first place.

Suddenly Mike starts screaming to Hopper that he's a 'disgusting, lying, piece of shit', chanting LIAR over and over and over again, shoving him repeatedly, only for him to fall into Hopper's arms and start crying, with Hopper reassuring him that he's okay.

Something tells me Mike's emotions here aren't all about Hopper...

Something tells me that Mike's fixation with the word liar doesn't apply to Hopper here as much as it applies to Mike himself (in his eyes)...

The main reason why I think this is what's actually going on here, is because there was no reason to put so much emphasize on this concept of Mike literally walking away that last time he called her.

Why go through the trouble of creating this misunderstanding, by having the TV not work, with El not being able to go into the void to see Mike, THE very night he gave up, if to not plant the seed that this misunderstanding was going to bear some significance? That this misunderstanding (lie? lie of omission?) was going to lead to El assuming Mike didn't give up, all while Mike knows he gave up, but going along with the story that he didn't, for both El's sake and his own?

BECAUSE it's a surprise tool that will help us later!

I also think it's interesting that they decided to have Will go off and dance with a girl at the snowball BEFORE Mike decided to devote himself to El here on out. Like... that is quite the choice after a season of highlighting this bond between Will and Mike where they promise to go crazy together, which is a moment we know Will took romantically.... So, is it possible Mike also took it romantically? We know Will also took Mike's speech to him in the shed romantically, so is it possible Mike did too, with that experience only heightening his emotions and confusion over his feelings for El when he found out she was alive shortly after, leading to his outburst? But then Will is going and dancing with the girl, and here we have Mike's own version of falling behind (the Time After Time lyrics were more literal than you think).

What if they didn't do all of that? Would things have maybe panned out slightly differently if Mike wasn't under the (incorrect) assumption that Will didn't take those moments romantically?

While Mike's guilt might have started in s1, when he played the biggest role in pushing expectations onto El to help them find Will, only for her to 'die', it doesn't end there. Mike's guilt only builds when he holds the knowledge that he did give up hoping she could be alive, all while allowing El to believe the opposite based on what she saw, which was a guiding force for not only her love and dedication to him flourishing, but also for him to then shift his own version of expectations onto himself going forward to make it up to El by trying to be who she wants him to be.

We see how romanticized 353 days is interpreted exclusively as meaning Mike has to be in love with El. But he did give up. So what does that mean for all of this? For their picture perfect love story?

What does it mean for Mike to hold onto this truth, a truth that makes him feel immense guilt, only for him to spend the next year or so making it up to her...?

It means either Mike has to come clean, or he has to deflect and double down.

What option do you think a guilt-ridden, repressed homosexual kid in the 80's is going to choose?

Answer? Deflect and double down.

In s3, Mike is so focused on worrying about El (giving her what he thinks she wants) so he can right all the building up of wrongs he has done at her expense since he met her, and as a result loses Will in the process (where have we heard this before...?)

Instead of Mike having a moment in s3 where he acknowledges that he himself was the first to ever refer to El as a weapon in the first place, to try to save Will in s1, he's now turning around and blaming the others for using El as a weapon 'for no reason'...

No reason? Really Mike? Is it for no reason, or is it just not a good enough reason to you this time?

Or maybe has Mike just actually spent enough time with El now to truly feel a bond with her in order to see her as a full person, slightly outside of this imaginary superhero he's cooked her up to be when he met her that day in the woods, the day his life started because she was his first and only hope of finding Will? (I say slightly bc... I mean we all saw what happened in s4?)

I honestly think it's a mix of both...

I also think it's not a coincidence that Mike doubling down instead of facing the truth about this manifestation of guilt only makes things worse for him. And El. And Will.

Because suddenly he's choosing this moment to blurt out that he loves and can't lose her again, in front of everyone, even to his own dismay and shock. And when El walks in and gives him a chance to say it to her himself, like any person whose in love with someone would want to do, to make them feel loved, he looks terrified.

And when the season ends and Mike is given another chance to say it finally, to El directly, in roughly the exact same spot he had his emotional outburst in the previous season over finding out she was alive at the same time he was still grappling with losing Will again, IN WILL'S ROOM, he freezes. He just lets what happens, happen.

Because after everything, with El right now in front of him, telling him she loves him while being fully convinced he loves her too after everything they've went through, how could he possibly take it back, or try to make her understand his complicated feelings about all of this?

Answer? He can't.

As hard as it is to believe (not that hard honestly based on his track record), Mike's deflection and stalling era is just beginning...

[lilbitosunny]

New Fic!!

As You Do (I Think I Found A Place For Us)

It's 3.7k words, and is oc-centric!

Skye Rosewall is a new hire at the Pizzaplex as the new naptime attendant! She meets some of her coworkers and is very endeared by Sun's general goofy actions- but she's confused by some of the rules in place. Like- Why does she need to be out of the building by 10 pm? Why is Sun so insistent on keeping the lights on? And why does management want her to have a taser when she's working with toddlers??

I am mentally ill about my own oc and I wasn't satisfied by only drawing her- so surprise! Fanfiction time. Inspired by Solar Lunacy as well as a few other fics I've been reading the past month or so- and

I've also never written Sun or Moon before so forgive me if it takes me a bit to get their personalities and characters down. But I hope I did ok with Sun!

Low-key terrified of how people will react to this but LET'S NOT WORRY ABOUT THAT-

[mxtxfanatic]

Book of the Week: Transmigrating Into The Heartthrob's Cannon Fodder Childhood Friend

Author: This Concubine Is In Shanyang (妾在山阳)

Genre: transmigration, high school setting, danmei

Rating: T (despite Xie Sui’s best attempts 😔)

My Synopsis: If you’ve ever wondered how someone can play both bully and victim, look no further than Song Yu, our transmigrating main character who’s first instinct when faced with conflict is ✨violence✨ while his second is calling the cops, as he fights against his system to befriend and protect the reborn blackbelly protagonist-turned-love interest, Xie Sui, from a slew of dickwad suitors. Watch as Song Yu threatens to take on the whole damn world if he has to in order to keep Xie Sui single while Xie Sui just wonders whether he’ll even get a turn to enact his revenge on his foes without interception, thank you very much.

My Actual Review: The moment Song Yu walked into a room and immediately tried to brain an antagonist with a bottle of alcohol without so much as a “by your leave,” I was hooked. I think this is the first cnovel I’ve read where the MC’s first solution to a problem is just his hands 😭 Song Yu’s name can be found in the dictionary as an example of the word “tyrant.” But don’t worry! He’s only a harbinger of pain towards those who mess with the innocent and his loved ones (plus Xie Sui totally thinks it’s hot that this short king fights his battles for him). And for all of his violence, Song Yu’s goodness and persistence draws in both reader and LI, translating into an especially soft romance to counteract Xie Sui’s tragic romantic history. The drama and comedy tastefully interwoven into the high school setting makes for a lovely and moderately gripping read without becoming too stressful.

While the translation is currently incomplete, I finished it with an mtl and it was fine. However, it is still currently being translated and is almost finished, so if you want to wait for completion, that’s fine too.

Translations: currently incomplete

Dummy Novels: unlocked, last updated Sept. 2023:

Foxaholic: locked (though password available), still currently updating:

https://www.foxaholic.com/novel/transmigrating-into-the-heartthrobs-cannon-fodder-childhood-friend/

[spectrumobligado]

ok whatever whatever WHAT!!!! EVERRRRR!!!! I'LL POST THEM HERE!!!! BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO MAKE A SIDEBLOG!!!! WHATEVER!!!!!!!! throws this at you and it's as heavy as a really big rock

[devondespresso]

Chicken Noodle Oops

G | 126 words | ao3 link??? (do lil drabbles go on ao3??) | cw: just swearing

STWG Prompt: noodle with a word limit of 100 but let's not worry about that

• divider by me this time!! wahoo!! •

Steve nearly missed the trilling doorbell, covered by the echo of own damn coughing.

"M'coming!"

The door opened and slammed shut, and footsteps led to the kitchen.

"Said I'm coming."

"Oh, sorry-- fuck!"

Steve bolted to the kitchen to find Dustin cradling a few fingers like they'd been burned. He darted to the sink to flick it on, and Dustin stuck his hand under the icy water.

Steve looked over to find no visible marks, and deflated onto the counter.

"What're you doing here, man?"

"We're having chicken noodle."

Steve looked at him, then back towards the thermoses on the counter, one still sitting in the sunflower tote bag, the other partially spilled on the counter.

"You can have the unspilled one."

Steve huffed a congested laugh.

[vamptits]

i wanna see boys in bikinis too (they'd look good on you)

[monstrsball]

oikawa making a dramatic love declaration in the rain because he's a romantic. suga can't help but laugh but he's blushing too and he invites oikawa into his apartment and shares his umbrella with him for the rest of the walk. and he gives oikawa a towel and some dry clothes. and he still hasn't actually responded to oikawa's confession and oikawa is getting nervous but then suga says that of course he likes him back. and they make plans to go on an actual date soon.