#and also because i missed the community here and all the people sobs

[prosciuttulipa]

"Prosciutto," It carries itself over into the kitchen, where a blond man works at the counter, knife stalling. "I'm home."

He knows he has every right to be mad. The culprit comes into view, surprisingly quiet and composed. From what Prosciutto remembers of her, she would've made a ruckus, tripping over ten things and herself before making it to him. But it has been two years. A lot can happen in two years.

She looks friendly but tired, and her smile has dulled, like she's been through something difficult, and is still crawling her way out. "I'm sorry I've been away," and the words are tender and wonderful (he'd almost forgotten her voice). "How have you been? Taking care of yourself?"

"Obviously."

Silence fills up the space as they take a moment to orient themselves. They've been apart, but that doesn't mean they've been unaware. He has felt her change, knows how parts of him no longer fit against her as well as they did. She knows he's felt the push and pull between them, how she occasionally crawls into his arms at night and disappears in the morning, a dream to the both of them.

And yet. She laughs slightly, and the cadence is the same. Right on cue, he finds himself smiling at the sound.

Times have changed the two of them, but enough of them has stayed. He chops up the rest of his ingredients, throws it in the frying pan. "How about staying for dinner?"

The pan sizzles, oil popping like fireworks. "I'd love that."

[yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere]

as a queer person #FellowTravelers already means a lot, but THIS episode8-finale ep-ending scene? this scene means absolutely the world, it's everything, for all of us.🌈

can't watch it without sobbing.

(please do check the WHOLE post, and watch How to Survive a Plague 2012, it's a MUST watch (+everything you spot in this post)

+important reading about AIDS/HIV: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=about-aids-hiv

+ a special episode where we hear(literally) from listeners of the show who were lovers, nurses, relatives, students, and friends of people who died from AIDS. (have tissues nearby):https://open.spotify.com/episode/4rTjExVqMVoEtCVPISSW5t?si=Dx09EVStQAiNHoTYvwZvFw & https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-a-bit-fruity-with-matt-ber-117844074/episode/stories-from-the-aids-crisis-191687576/

+ also queer history/facts from RWRB(Alex engaging with queer history)(thank you SO. MUCH. CASEY MCQUISTON!!)-GREAT POST here on tumblr!!-many links here, lots of information! (Waterloo Vase, Stonewall, SCOTUS decision 2015, Walt Whitman, Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Nights Riots, Paris Is Burning, THAT David Wojnarowicz photo 'If I Die Of AIDS-Forget Burial-Just Drop My Body On The Steps Of The F.D.A' https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757305651356729344?source=share (I encourage you to research more about David!!) , Thisbe & Pyramus, The V & A, James I & George Villiers and MORE!!) https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757308307835895808?source=share (Learning about things referenced in Red, White & Royal Blue, thank you @ elipheleh)

+ https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/743725164968214528?source=share

+ https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/746941244472786944/so-alright-here-are-the-moviesmedia-that-make

BOOKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BISEXUAL HISTORY & ACTIVISM:https://www.tumblr.com/ruimtetijd/686000390089621504/list-of-books-about-bi-history-and-activism-from &https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=bi-bisexual-characters-done-well &https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q--nIkJu0OS0BgiyZmdKVwOVg1G90SFzWijNDWFTt58/edit#heading=h.wqkaxpi7o5je

+ https://www.queeringthemap.com/

+ https://www.aidsmemorial.org/interactive-aids-quilt

+ https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/752340111366160384/this?source=share

+Thank You Howard Ashman, I love you forever, so many of us are here and sane because of Your legacy and impact.(DISNEY-QUEER SONGS-MUSIC-POST):https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/753605532240216064/howard-ashman-i-love-you-forever-so-many-of-us?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/754612616112046080?source=share

about Howard, about AIDS, listen to the song 'Sheridan Square' if you haven't yet, Howard wrote it with Alan Menken. And yes, it makes me sob every single time i hear it: .https://open.spotify.com/track/5p61V1pNfa4qoZIxm6apex?si=a32ca6011ab44782 &https://youtu.be/-4fr8JGkeO4 &https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97-NzeIkkJI&list=OLAK5uy_l7U2qdUmOPfgWwmsCA0cc_-KDxwjMj5zM +Learn more :https://stanforddaily.com/2019/06/05/sheridan-square/ & please research more about Howard, there's a lot of Him in THIS IMPORTANT post because we, queer people, owe him so so much.

♥.https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19uKl8PZixNjsMBBqSP1bf?si=e6186d9a0a824679 &https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0X8DlZ8X0q9Pzvqq857XlV?si=fa85b32666b94e74 &https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vdBgNpWvIwjCLD2JrJwxj?si=3274258c86f842

+ :

View this post on Instagram

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A post shared by matt bernstein (@mattxiv)

+ https://twitter.com/beames_josh/status/1500938296209199108 + https://twitter.com/beames_josh/status/1500935379154657281

+once you're here check out this important posts:

bi ig highlight : https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18280848235083086/

.

[doctorwhoisadhd]

i’ve been seeing ur blaseball posts for a while now and i have to say i have No earthly idea what it is. is it a webcomic? a band?? a sport??? pls give me a crash course on this seemingly cool thing

well shes dead forever unfortunately (riv) BUT blaseball was an absurdist baseball sim that u watched in ur browser, basically like if fantasy football was simultaneously massively multiplayer AND an ARG and also completely fucking insane. it was the best because it ran at all hours of the day and was so so fucking insane and spawned a LOT of memes and fanworks especially art and music! one of the best fan communities for fan music that has maybe ever existed if not The best. ur experience of it was largely filtered thru the team u followed (mine was the hawaiʻi fridays)

here are some blaseball sites for u

blaseball roundups from the youtube, i would recommend starting here itll give u the cliff notes And the vibe. these were done in character, the anchor is a guy who exists in the blaseball universe, also later on they started to be Plot

sibr faq <- this will probably be more helpful but do the roundups first because itll throw u into the lore (and while im at it heres sibr aka the society for internet blaseball research but most of that will. probably be unintelligible. when stuff makes no sense consult the wiki. or ask a fan)

the wiki, where u can read about history and the players and teams and such

BEFORE <- this is where you can still to this day watch old games!!! i love u so much before thank you sibr for allowing me to relive the beautiful game that we are all love (sobbing crying throwing up)

the garages bandcamp <- by far the largest of the fan bands (though there was also the park park rangers and the hades tigers and the los angeli juxebox) there is so much music on here. the majority of it was made in the span of like a year and a half. i got music on there! i recommend starting with away games or blattle of the blands or reunion tour or one of the world tours, they have the widest variety of vibes and will help u learn about most of the teams (im not biased <- guy who has a couple songs in there)

theres also sites like reblase and blaseball-reference and such but those are just catalogues of old data i wouldnt think youd want to trawl thru those as much. theyre probably accessible via sibr anyway

also frankly just ask fans to tell you stories, go in the tag on here and just go in random peoples inboxes. youll pull up some fantastic stuff that way. blaseball was so active and alive and changing and no two people had the exact same experience of it. and god there will always be stories. we will always be telling stories

rest in violence blaseball. i will always love you and i will always miss you and it will never stop

[thatscarletflycatcher]

can you tell me what your thesis is about if you're willing to share??

Hi!!! Yes, of course! I need to go over and over the description of this thing in order to turn in a precise and compelling project for the board (attempt #3 at finishing this cursed degree, here we go! *sobs*).

My area of interest has always been Medieval Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Virtue Ethics and Aristotelian Ethics-Politics. My very first attempt was writing something on Metaphysics (transcendentals) then Ethics Metaphysics (the role of intellectual intuition in moral reasoning in Aristotelian Ethics, Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics)... Neither worked mainly because a problem when talking metaphysics is... well, there's few words to use and little to say and I have always been a very succinct academic writer (yeah, I know, but it is true).

When I reached acceptance about that XD I moved on to trying something about Aristotelian Ethics-politics. Alasdair MacIntyre is a key author in that area, and he's a favorite of mine because in agreement or disagreement he's thought provoking, he has a sense of humor, and he's a hater of the fun kind. I know it isn't proper to call or pick academic authors because they are fun, but hey, he is. He is a curmudgeonly old man (present tense: he's 95), who kind of manages to disagree with everyone because he hates being put in boxes, but he's also always been very willing and open to listen to other voices and change his opinions on things.

For example, the refinement and reformulation of many ideas between his After Virtue (1981) and his Dependent Rational Animals (1999) came (declaredly) through a reading of certain feminist theory, which brought to the foreground to him how little academic Ethics had focused until that point on disability and caretaking.

He's also always been a versatile author in the sense of breaching the barriers between disciplines for the purposes of philosophical inquiry -After Virtue has a great deal to say about Sociology, and Dependent Rational Animals talks a lot about dolphins XD.

I decided I wanted to write something about this guy, but I got stuck because if you are writing on an author specifically, alone, how do you manage to write something that isn't like, textbook regurgitation? Theoretically I know it is possible, but it was very paralyzing to me all the same.

Enter Elizabeth Gaskell with a steel chair.

I love Gaskell dearly for many different reasons. I love the way in which she writes nuanced, believable, textured characters. I love the treatment of grief in her work, I love the compassion she has for her characters, I love how she makes interesting, central, and natural relationships between parents and children. I love that she's versatile too, and that she saw writing as a vocation, and how she manages to talk about so many different things in a novel without making it come across as didactic or preachy. But one very special thing that has called my attention is her specific interest in communities, and community building through friendship.

Very often her "proposals" of "solutions" to social problems, specifically in her industrial novels, have been dismissed as the utopian sugary pap of learning to share and be nice of someone completely out of touch with reality, but I think those readings are fundamentally missing the framework that makes her ideas make sense and be solid.

As an aside, I feel like that ungenerous reading is kinda rich when Hard Times and its "imagination to power!" concept or Shirley and its marriage solution keep getting praise to this day. You know. It comes across as a bit double standard-y, if you ask me.

But back to topic, guess who did consider friendship, understood as the ties that unite virtuous people in the pursuit of the good for themselves and their fellow men, the very foundation of society, and mankind as essentially social, and therefore for ethics and politics to be a continuum? That's right, my boy Aristotle!

And to that, between other things, when talking about the Aristotelian tradition of Ethics Politics, MacIntyre adds teleological narrative as the element that frames and anchors virtue ethics in this scheme. What is more, he dedicates A CHUNK of chapter 16 of After Virtue to Jane Austen, and why he thinks she's "the last key representative" of this tradition (which has sprung a non negligible amount of scholarship on Austen and virtue ethics).

And I'm persuaded that Gaskell is a significant successor to Austen in this way too, and that the certain sympathy people often perceive between them comes from this aspect (because, in all honestly, it's clearly not about tone or style).

So that's the aim/core of my thesis: to present/analyze/contextualize Gaskell's work within the framework of the Aristotelian Ethics-Politics tradition as understood by MacIntyre.

Of course because I am, in Nelly Dean's description of Edgar Linton, a venturesome fool, this is clearly very ambitious, and I am making it worse for myself by doing things like harvesting circa 350 titles for a thesis that won't require more than 50 and that cannot be more than 80 pages long. The clown shoes can be heard from the other side of the world no this has nothing to do with the fact that I don't think I'll ever get a masters or a PhD where I might be able to develop this concept beyond a very summary overview of N&S and maybe Cranford and My Lady Ludlow if I'm lucky.

And that's how I should have sent something to my advisor three weeks ago (I haven't yet) and how I'm half agony half hope about the whole thing, because I'm scared and anxious and full on rowing through Nutella executive function wise. Maybe I should get a rubber duck.

[oshinohoshi]

What do Ai's words in ch 154 say about her?

I thought I said all I wanted to say about the Hikaru/Ai breakup in this post but I want to comment on something major I glossed over: Ai bringing up Taiki, and therefore Hikaru's sexual assault, before she left.

I've had to mull it over because (without some of the context provided below) it's just so out of character. Ai started her breakup speech with "being with you forever is too much for me," followed that up by stating that Hikaru's child born from molestation was too tough, and ended with "I can't love you." Talk about psychological damage. If I was him, I'd be curled up on the floor sobbing. I'm sure he was.

Just look at the below panel. Fifteen years later, he framed Taiki's birth as something he did. That's devastating.

BUT I'm coming back to critically alter this post (sorry to anyone who liked/reblogged it already) because the lovely @aihoshiino provided some important context about Ai's words being vaguer and less harsh in Japanese. I have pasted this as bullet points at the end of this post and it's far more important than anything I have to say, so if you want to stop here and just read that, I highly encourage it.

To summarize: In English, it sounds more like Ai blamed Hikaru for Taiki, whereas in Japanese it's vaguer and not as cruel. Which isn't to say Ai did nothing wrong when she glibly walked away, but it's far more in line with her character.

But there's still the question of why say this at all. Didn't Ai realize that "I can't love you" was enough? Why bring up the worst thing that ever happened to him, the very thing that broke him so badly she felt he couldn't raise their kids?

She may have wanted him to hate her, thereby setting him free of the supposed burden of herself and her pregnancy. It was also a convenient lie. Unfortunately, it was one Hikaru easily swallowed because that was already how he felt about himself.

She said in the DVD that she thought he'd be OK once she was gone. I do wonder if she really thought that or just hoped so. After all, she later felt that a whopping 15 years later he might still be struggling. Either way, it worked to chase him away.

Did Ai blithely say something hurtful and uncalled for that caused lasting damage? Yes. Was she a teenager who couldn't communicate her emotions, ran away from conflict to protect herself, and had a traumatic childhood that influenced her developmentally? Also yes. Not to mention, she was dealing with an emotionally dependent boy and an unplanned pregnancy. It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation.

Even if we were to ignore the subtleties I mentioned and view this in the worst possible light, saying a horrible thing you don't mean doesn't make you a horrible person.

Hikaru gets Ai's characterization mostly right in the below panel but he's wrong if he thinks Ai's cruel words were an accurate representation of her.

Finally, I think getting hung up on what we, as people who don't have the lived experience of Ai, would do in her shoes is missing the point. The idea isn't to judge Ai as innocent or not innocent. Instead, we are invited to see that Ai was a loving person but she was also human and humans sometimes fuck up badly.

A good chunk of the manga focuses on the complex relationships between characters as well as their relationships with their inner selves. This chapter touches on both. Hikaru misunderstood Ai's intentions and Ai failed to understand her own feelings for him or what to do about it. The reader, meanwhile, if they were clinging to any misconceptions of Ai as some kind of saint, is forced to reconcile with who Ai really was.

The below is the context I mentioned from @aihoshiino. I'm just gonna paste this word for word from Claire:

Ai's words aren't quite as pointedly cruel in Japanese. Her line in Japanese that mangaplus translates as "I can't even, that's too tough, I can't bear it" is '無理無理、流石に それは キツいって、背負え ないよ!` Which is more like, "No way, no way, that's too hard, it's too much to carry"

Importantly, she does not specify who cannot carry this weight

The only time she specifically talks about herself is when she says `子供も･･･うーん 私じゃ難しいかな` which mangaplus tled as "about the baby, it's difficult for me too" and ig that's not WRONG but the tone is kind of off. In Japanese there's more of the sense that she's saying that she, herself, is not up to the task, that she's lacking, she wouldn't be able to do it VS the situation (and Kamiki with it) being in of itself the problem

Basically mangaplus's TL is not incorrect in strict text but does kind of mistranslate the spirit of the exchange imo

It makes Ai more pointedly cruel and self-centred whereas the Japanese text imo is more in line with the thoughtless, innocent cruelty she hurt Nino with

The wording of the Japanese text makes it clear that this was a misunderstanding and Kamiki took the worst possible interpretation of it because he hates himself

That's why Aqua frames Kamiki as being punished for "not understanding her"

Because if he really, truly understood Ai like he said, why would he be so comfortable assuming for nearly 20 years that she would have meant something that cruel?

Thanks Claire!! Saving the fandom one translation at a time.

[orion-r34l1ty]

Alright…last Bad Batch episode on Wednesday. Time to pour my heart out

Bad Batch is one of the first series I’ve seen start to finish, from the day it released to this very last episodes.

I don’t get the chance very often, as I get into fandoms later in their lifetime, but I’ve been here since the beginning.

This characters mean so much to be, their lives and personalities and relationships, I feel connected to them. And I love that. The storytelling in this show is top-notch, and I don’t care if the finale leaves 500 unanswered questions, I will still love the show. It’s been fantastic from the start. Omega is definitely my favorite Star Wars character by now, and she’s been my favorite Bad Batch character from the start.

I will miss this show dearly. I do not want it to end at all, and I will be sobbing through the whole finale. But at the same time, I’m hoping for a happy end. I’m hoping they all get to go off and live happily, and hopefully live long enough to see the end of the Empire.

I’m also incredibly grateful to the fandom. This is such a wonderful place, and I’m glad it’s enjoyable. I love when I get to see people online with the same interests as me, who understand what I’m talking about when I ramble and can add insight, because they know the context. It’s nice to rant to my irl friends about Bad Batch, but they have no idea what I’m talking about. They listen, and that’s great, but being able to communicate and have a two-way conversation about these things is even better imo.

So, as the show wraps up, I think Bad Batch has definitely earned its spot as one of my favorite Star Wars TV shows (not sure if Andor can be beat). I will miss this show dearly. But maybe we’ll see them in the future. Maybe.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 19 (Dumped at a Wedding!)

"Heather, I care about you, so I need to be honest: I was working late, but I was also afraid to come tonight."

Offended, Heather tore herself from his arms and zipped herself back into her dress. "And you're telling me this now? What's wrong with you, Malcolm?"

"Yeah, I'm a jackass, alright! Is that what you want me to say?"

"You don't respect me or my life as a vet in a small town. Why are you with me at all? Are we just supposed to build a future on great sex?"

"Who doesn't respect who here, Heather? Or should I say, 'Buttercup'?"

"Switching suppliers wasn't about you."

"No? You made it pretty clear how little you're interested in the business success of my family," he countered. "It's a beautiful venue for the wedding, by the way. With fireworks, too. Really looks like your dad's enjoying the windfall from his new business venture."

Heather seethed. "You should leave. Don't call me."

"If I leave right now, I'll never call you again," he vowed. She couldn't stop the tears, but refused to crumble and held her ground. "My loyalty to my family is no different than your loyalty to yours. We're done, Heather."

"Just go!" she begged, sobbing as she watched him walk away. He didn't turn once, and she scowled at his back.

She made her way inside and found comfort in her friends and family. Her mother Daisy offered a hug. "I'm so sorry, honey."

Heather dabbed her tears with a napkin. "I know it's the right choice, but I'm embarrassed. And I'm angry I didn't end things with him sooner."

"Our hearts don't always feel what our heads are trying to tell us," said Daisy. "Don't beat yourself up. Just remember you've always got us."

She drowned her sorrows in her mother's shoulder. "I'm glad I don't need to go back to work for a few more days," she said. "This vacation's been more emotionally exhausting than I expected."

"How's your friend, Dylan? You should visit her before you leave the city."

Dylan and Gavin missed Holly’s wedding because Dylan had just had a baby, so before she left town, Heather stopped in to meet her friends’ newborn daughter, Pearl.

"How's married life?" asked Heather.

"A lot easier than taking care of a baby! But we're doing great. And I've never been happier to have my mother around!" Heather laughed as Dylan's clingy mother, Susan, hovered nearby. "Sorry we didn't invite you to the wedding. We just went down to the courthouse with my mom when we found out we were expecting. We didn't need a celebration, but I don't want you to think we wouldn't have wanted to share the day with the people we care about."

"Are you kidding? You can do whatever you want for your wedding. We're friends, and I'll just support you whatever you do."

Dylan breathed a sigh of relief. "My mom really had me thinking not having a wedding would alienate people! She's so old-fashioned."

"My parents eloped in Oasis Springs when they found out they were expecting me, so I think it's kinda romantic."

Dylan smiled as her friend cradled Pearl, making faces at the blinking babe. "You're going to find someone who makes you feel as special as you are," she promised her friend.

"You don't know that. Maybe I should stay single."

"For a while, maybe, but not forever! You're a real catch, and the right guy is gonna see it."

Nearly everyone around her was happily married or on their way to it, but Heather had a broken heart to mend.

As always, she leaned on her work. She was great at her job and brimmed with confidence at her clinic. With every successful pet surgery, she felt more a part of the Brindleton Bay community.

Heather had navigated heartbreak before, but would things be different with Malcolm? ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

[hearts401]

"do NOT ask me about ggy or patient 46 because i WILL begin ranting"

You see, I am incapable of ever listening to anyone, ever, so I must ask about GGY and patient 46

I have absolutely no knowledge of modern FNaF lore; I have not read any of the books (something I plan to fix whenever my bank account stops bleeding) so you're gonna have to do some heavy lifting here and tell me all about it

Ooh boy rubs my hands together

okay so im gonna start with ggy because i love Tony and Ellis. (i dont have the book in front of me tho so this isnt gonna be 100% every detail)

GGY is about a kid named Tony Becker who has an assignment in his 6th grade english class. He has to write a fictional mystery with side plots that tie into the main plot. He chooses to do this with his two friends. They use pen names whenever they do their english projects together (sobs and wails and cries into my hands) and Tony picked Tarbell, and his friends were Boots and Dr. Rabbit (or Rab for short).

Tony wants to start working on their project, but Boots and Rab want to go to the fazcade. Tony gives in when rab backs up boots (tony sees boots as immature and worries about outgrowing him and hanging out more with rab) tony wanders around the fazcade trying to find inspo, and then notices someone named GGY with top scores on some of the games. when he asks other people about it, they tell him the scores are seemingly impossible, but when he asks a staff member, he's told they haven't been hacked.

At some point he makes an online blog to ask about it and a girl he'd talked to in the fazcade asks him to meet her. she tells him that she thinks this is more than just high scores, and that he should stay out of it.

Oh also freddy keeps watching tony and at some point begins following him.

Tony finds out that GGY has a hacked party pass (or it was like a fun pass or smth) that gives them access to much more than it should, working almost like a security card.

Tony then finds out one of the school counselors has gone missing, and he sneaks into the librarian's office to learn more about it. he finds out two other counselors have also gone missing, all of them having gone to the pizzaplex before disappearing.

tony writes his paper and gives it to Rab and Boots to look over, and when they come back the next day, they've changed it into a fantasy story. And GGY is labled as the wizard's favorite apprentice, rather than someone getting high scores on arcade games.

tony is upset with rab and boots and begins calling htem by their actual names.

Rab is Greg, Boots is Ellis.

tony is also in trouble for sneaking into the librarian's office and using her laptop, so he has detention shelving books.

Greg come and offers to take him to the pizzaplex when he's done, and it's kind of implied he killed him there.

again i have bad memory and i dont have the book in front of my so anyone can feel free to correct anythign i got wrong or missed

now onto patient 46 who's from the therapy tapes in sb.

this'll be undeniably easier because i can just listen to the tapes. patient 46 is also not confirmed to be gregory, its just a theory, so im just gonna call them 46.

its important to note that 46 does not speak.

everything here is things implied to have been nonverbally communicated to the therapist.

Tape 2:

It starts with the therapist talking about how the day is nice, but 46 doesnt like the light, so the therapist draws the blinds. she then comments on how 46 is not talking to her today, and says that she gets reviews from patients, and when 46 doesn't let her help them, she gets bad reviews. she tells 46 she could get in trouble and get put in timeout, which 46 finds funny.

Tape 4:

New therapist is here, she asks if 46 is going to talk to her, and they dont reply. she asks whats wrong, and they gesture to the flowers. the therapist comments on them being particularly fragrant and moves them. The therapist then comments on 46 staring at something, and says they're "amazingly alert." she says shed like to have 46 tell her about themself, but 46 does not. the therapist instead chooses to look through their notes. she also comments on the chair not fitting 46, but its not specified if its too big or too small. she then asks if 46 is bothered by a new therapist, but 46 doesnt seem surprised or confused at all. the therapist says shes surprised by whats in 46's notes. she says they have a "rebellious side" and a knack for computers, and explains the word phenom to them. the tape ends with her asking if 46 considers themself a hacker

tape 6:

new therapise again! she tells 46 shes already read their files and knows what theyve worked on. 46 asks for a candy, and she gives one to them, taking one for herself as well. she says she wants to start with 46's parents, and claims it was tragic but she doesnt think 46 has processed it emotionally. she says they wrote it like they had read it off of a book. (her exact words are they wrote an objective rather than a subjective narrative, but 46 didnt know what that meant.) she says 46 spends a lot of time alone and is good at self-dialogue, which she explains is "asking urself questions and getting answers" she tells them to try asking themself how they feel about what happened to them. she tells them to let themself be upset about it so they can let it go.

tape 8:

same therapist as 6! she asks 46 if theyve thought about what they talked about. 46 had told them their past had made them sad and scared. the therapist asks if they had written down exactly what made them feel that way. she then says she works with many people who respond to tragedy differently. she asks 46 if their fantasies would be different had this tragedy not happened to them.

Tape 13:

new therapist again! she says when shes getting to know a client, she likes to find out abt their hobbies. when she doesnt get a reply, she asks if they like sports. 46 tells her they like to watch sports, but not play them. and that they like to stay inside. the therapist then reluctantly tells 46 that their previous therapists have gone missing. except one who was found dead, and they said her body looked to be mangled by machinery. the therapist also comments that 46 doesn't look concerned about it. she jokes about watching her back, which 46 finds funny.

Tape 14:

same therapist as 13. she asks if 46 knows about the pizzaplex, and says the technicians who work there know them. theyve seen what they think is 46 on the security cameras. they say 46 was accused of hacking their systems. the therapist says that the hacks are causing tons of problems, but that there's no solid proof it was 46, and 46 finds it funny that the techs are having issues. she says she finds it weird that 46 would spend time in such a busy, crowded place despite their loner attitude. she asks if its the electronics that 46 likes. she also says theyve designed programs that talk to them and repeat phrases. she says it asks them questions and prompts for responses, like their own little therapist. she said at first she had thought they were talking to themself, but it seems more like they were talking to someone else. she asks who it was.

Tape 15:

same therapist as 13+14. she starts with asking if 46 wants to do an ink blot test. she shows them an image, and 46 asks to hold it. 46 says it reminds them of a mask. the therapist asks if 46 likes the idea of being disguised, and how they make you invisible. she says being invisible lets you get away with anything, and asks 46 if they like that idea. she then moves on to something else, telling 46 that it seems theyve been talking to someone else. she says the techs think that its someone trying to lure 46 away, or manipulate them. the therapist moves to where she can see 46's eyes, and says she got something different from the communications. she accuses 46 of manipulating someone, rather than being manipulated. she says they were recorded on the security cameras with someone else. she says that it looks like the person theyre with has rabbit ears, which 46 finds amusing.

Tape 16:

Same therapist as 13+14+15. she says shes gotten another message from the pizzaplex that says that theres a glitch in the system that makes the animatronics more eerie than entertaining. she says the glitch spread system-wide and infected all the machines. she also says it was traced back to 46. she says the glitch broadcasted a dangerous message. she also says that when the techs were trying to fix it, the source shifted. she says that the glitch changed from a glitch and became a set of sub-routines that were made to do exactly what the glitch was doing. (which basically means it stopped just being a glitch and became part of the system?? i think?? idk shit abt computers bruh) when 46 does not reply, she presses, saying she is on their side and wont tell anyone what is told to her during the session and that the techs have no proof it was 46, so theyre not in trouble. when 46 doesnt reply still, she brings up their past. 46 refuses to look at her, but she continues. she says it doesnt matter if they look at the floor, because nothing they told her about their parents was true. she says they had great parents, and a great childhood. she asks 46 why they lied, and tells them to look at her. she then says she understands why 46 would be upset about the confrontation, and says they can come back to this another day. the last line she says is "you're shaking your head like that's not going to happen."

UHM YEAH IM NORMAL ABOUT THEM LOL.

i have a lot of thoughts on both of these parts and i personally believe 46 is Gregory. but if i dumped all my thoughts we'd be here all day so have this long ass explanation instead

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 13

welcome the the tenth fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

1. i was always yours (even before you knew it) by paladarns

Lance thought Keith was just an asshole. Lance has always thought of Keith as an asshole, all throughout traveling into space in a large mechanical lion, all throughout bonding moments. All throughout becoming closer as teammates and friends.

Even now, with his hands pinned above his head and Keith’s thighs straddling his waist, Lance thinks Keith is an asshole.

Lance had always thought he could see right through people, but now he’s starting to think he has a bad judgement of people.

---------- a fic in which keith is obvious and lance is a bit of a gay nervous wreck

takes place as if season 1 is the only season to exist but its now years later

so many things to love about this fic. so so many. so i am going to list them. a) secret relationship bc i love that shit and eat it up every time, b) ‘takes place as if season 1 is the only season to exist but its now years later’ -- paladarns my love thank you for this truly excellent description of where i write my fics like 80% of the time. c) keith has game, and d)  HE WAS ALWAYS KEITHS EVEN BEFORE HE KNEW IT IM SOBBING BEST TROPE BEST TROPE

2. Wake Up, Sleephyhead! by @transbakugou

Keith has never loved someone like he loves Lance. Lance is his sun, his stars, his happiness. Their hands fit together like they were created to do nothing but hold each other, and he fits perfectly inside of Lance's arms. But he can never let anyone find out how much he loves this boy, how wholly and endlessly. Who knows what the Galra would do with that kind of information?

One morning, the lie comes crashing down around them.

Maybe it won't be as bad as they feared.

i love gay whipped klance and truly every single fic that has ever been written based on a vine is truly amazing, this fic is no exception. also secret relationship lol i am a sucker

3. Something Secret by @kingswriting

It was funny at first. Their arguments became more banter than actual disagreements, yet the entire team continued to assume they were at each other’s throats.

And Lance knows they’re not. He is fully aware that every sharp word, every sly smirk, every heavy handed push, and everything in between is anything but malicious.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss the softer side of things.

Or, Lance and Keith are in a secret relationship, but honestly want to omit the 'secret' part.

okay u can always tell what tag im following obsessively at certain times lol. for yall i present yet another secret relationship fic. ahem. this one is cute! banter and flirting and misleading and kisses and GOD its so sweet

4. Things Held Sacred by yarrie

So maybe, just maybe, Pidge was right. Maybe, just maybe, Keith had shot himself in the foot with his first attempt at resolving the blanket-hogging situation, because now Lance seemed to think it was a game and the rules were: steal the blankets, get sex.

To be fair, Keith hadn't exactly been...dissuading him very well.

okay so heres how this works. every fic rec friday so far has been from a specific collection of mine called ‘rereadables’, which was literally started because of this fic. i dont even know what specific part of this fic gets to me so hard, but you know when you read something that makes your stomach go all swoopy? and you can’t stop smiling? thats this fic! i remember i finished it for the first time and then i scrolled right back up to the top and read it again, then again, and again. like i cannot get over this fic. it gives me butterflies every time

5. Communication is key, they say by @ellana17

They already had communication issues before… Or: a malfunction with a healing pod leaves Lance able to speak only Spanish for a few days.

the idea of lance getting stuck in spanish and then almost immediately using that to flirt with keith without him knowing. like. i love that SO much that is quite possibly one of the funniest concepts to exist

that’s it for today!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

[oliviartist]

ok so I know I’m late to rewriting wish but I’ve been thinking about this for a while so here are some ideas I have ( also I may or may not make a comic about this but we’ll see )

My idea for what Star looks like is He has very pale skin with bright glowing yellow hair and a glowing aura around him that that changes depending on his mood HOWEVER it never leaves the red and yellow color palette 

His eyes are a very pretty gold color his irises have a slight pattern of stars and faintly twinkle 

When he flys the he leaves a glowing trail behind him ( it doesn’t look exactly like pixy dust but it give the idea) 

For the story 

Get rid of all the Disney shared universe stuff it drags down the movie a lot and it’s better to just cut it all out 

However there will be small references and nods to past Disney movies ( that I point out )

The whole thing with magnifico changes he uses peoples wishes to fuel something that keeps him in power ( I’m still not sure what but it’s something) 

magnifico gets really greedy and try’s to still the wishes directly from the Stars but instead of stealing the wishes he accidentally shots star from the sky 

Asha sees Star fall and goes to check it out when she sees him there is a shot similar to the little mermaid from Stars pov 

Asha takes the unconscious Star to her house 

Star can only speak a little English ( “ the language of the sky” is his native tung) so he mostly communicates with the few words he knows , Star sine language and gestures to communicate. over the course of the movie he starts speaking more English as he learns but by the end he’s still not speaking 100 % but he’s pretty good and can hold a conversation 

The Star language greeting is shaveniad especially when someone walks through the door Star will say this several times throughout the movie whenever he greats Asha 

Star’s actual name is Sta’tarka’va but obviously Asha struggles to pronounce it she shortens it to Star 

Asha’s name is also very difficult for Star to pronounce so he calls her Ashva 

The longer star stays on earth the more human he becomes slowly over the movie he changes ( like Miguel in coco ) it’s very slight and the audience would barley pick up on it but it would be obvious enough to understand what’s going on

His hair and eyes would go dimmer his flight would get sloppy ect

and halfway through the movie he try’s to fly and plummets to the ground 

Asha picks up on all of this by the way 

Many parts during the movie star will talk about his family to Asha he will talk about how kind his mom is how his dad is the funniest man alive he talks about his older sister and say things like “no matter how much she annoys me I wouldn’t trade her for anything “

and this creates a conflict inside of star on one hand he really likes Asha and over the course of the movie they create a romantic bond ( in a way similar to tangled) however he also really misses his family ( do they even know what happened to him he was dragged down when he was asleep) he doesn’t know what to do about it 

At the end of the movie Star is greeted by his family as he is flying away he gives a look towards Asha on the ground he can tell that she’s heart broken to see him go but she’s smiling because she wants him to be happy even if it’s not with her 

That stops Star in his tacks 

And we see Star calling out to his family telling the to wait 

While Asha walks home 

We cut to Asha walking back to her house shes wiping tears from her eyes she tells herself that “he’s happy now”, “ it wasn’t meant to be “ and “it’s for the best“ as she openers the door she is greeting by a familiar voice  “shaveniad Ashva “ 

His hair is now a dirty blond and no longer glows his eyes are golden but have no faint sparkle Asha stands in the door way in complete shock before running over to him grabbing him in a embrace 

She hugs him with tears in her eyes she is so overwhelmed she can’t even speak she can only get out a few sob and a “ I thought I would never see you again “ Star just holds her as tears are starting to form in his own eyes Asha looks up cups his face and they kiss 

the credits roll 

[onlyinmy-ass]

i never cared about being a virgin and "missing out" until anal. want it so bad and been training up and anal only for almost 8 months now. but also kinda saddens me that i'll never be with anyone irl. I am scared to death of anyone who gets close, like beyond friendship close.

You have come to the right mess of a person with this, friend. I understand 100% how you're feeling, trust me. This is about to get long and personal but I hope it'll help in some tiny way

I'm aroace and have had very similar feelings and experiences to what your describing here - so you're not alone. I had two really good friendships at uni (almost 6 years ago, sobs in late 20s) that I completely fucked over the moment I realised they were actually interested in me romantically, I turned and fucking ran to the hills to get away from that because I knew I'd never be able to give them what they wanted or needed from me

Those feelings and that fear haven't really gone away but as I've gotten older and interacted with more people in life, in other countries, online, in the kinky community etc what I've found is a whole broad spectrum of relationships that I'd never imagined possible as a young adult

And that can be turned so easily to these difficult thoughts right

So, okay, you and I might never want a romantic thing. Platonic relationships with sexual elements exist. BDSM relationships are often added to the context of romantic partnerships but can also be platonic, outside separately or in addition to traditional relationships. One off encounters with clear expectations and boundaries and, perhaps most importantly, defined endings can be found if you want one

Or, if you're not all that keen on having another person actually touch you, toys exist - as you already know! We don't need anyone else to enjoy those great sensations of anal. But maybe you do want someone, so you can find a person that is in to watching, directing or even using the toy on you without any other contact.

What I'm trying to say is that there are SO many possibilities that don't require deep emotional bonds. (Trust and consent and boundaries absolutely but these are not exclusively linked to long term partners)

With some searching and vetting, you could - if you so desired- find someone that matches your freak and have an encounter (s, if it goes well!) with that satisfies your needs and theirs

Sex, anal, play, control.... It can just be a physical thing done for fun. You don't need to put the fear and pressure of something more on it if you don't want to.

I know that for me personally that romantic relationships really aren't on the table, and I'm not particularly fussed about getting anyone else in on the action because I can get the physical enjoyment and sensations on my own and know I'm avoiding the potential emotional freak out/fall out, but if I ever chose to pursue something it would be solely on my shoulders to explain what I wanted and how it would have to play out; I couldn't expect someone to understand if I didn't lay it out for them and, unfortunately, that's probably gonna be the same for you. But as I said, that doesn't mean noone will be interested if that's what your putting out

TLDR: if you want someone to fuck you in the ass without crossing into uncomfortable feeling territory, I guarantee there are people out there also looking for this sort of arrangement. You just have to be clear with what you want, set your boundaries and for the love of sanity have an exit plan so you can leave immediately if the vibes are wrong. And if you don't want that? Keep on riding that dildo and enjoy yourself anyway

You're not missing out because 9/10 people aren't doing anal anyway so actually you're doing better as a virgin that most the population. That's pretty fucking cool honestly

(also 8 months anal only training? Get it!)

[possum-quesadilla]

Chapter 11 of Time’s Arrow, “Wait for me, I’m comin’, Wait, I’m comin’ with you”, is here!! Yeehaw!!!

Extras below!!

- The lyrics for this chapter’s title are either from “Wait for Me” (live version) or “Wait for Me (Reprise)” (album version) from Hadestown, for obvious reasons. Pick your poison!

- “The air around her felt so cold. She was sure death had never been so cold before.” - Once again, my silly theme of warmth. Beetlejuice didn’t realize he was giving off warmth and love just as much as he was receiving it.

- “Percy lay a short distance away, one paw outstretched to gently touch Lydia’s knee.” - Based on a weird, silly thing my own cat does.

- “None of them really seemed to mind as the cat strolled over to the rug, his nose loudly whistling as he sniffed at the air.” - Percy has a deviated septum that makes him snort when he’s excited, and whistle when he breathes through his nose! It doesn’t bother him too much. Partially based on my own cats.

- “ Lydia’s gentle whimpering sobs quieted when he raised his head and let out a loud, strange meow. (That kitten really did have one of the strangest voices she’d ever heard from a cat. Perhaps Beetlejuice had some sort of influence on him?) “… what is it?” She whispered, voice hoarse from crying.” - He’s got one of those weird, long, creaky meows. He did take after Beetlejuice. Also, familiar communication! He’s alerting her to Cyrus’ fur.

- “What’s up, Soos-” - She calls him ‘Soos’ as a nickname. It is one of those fun, weird pet nicknames that evolves over time. Also a reference to “Gravity Falls”.

- “She froze, letting out a loud gasp when her hand made contact with the carpet in front of Percy.” - She can use things like strands of fur to scry.

- “It felt like mere moments, it felt like it stretched out for weeks.” - Another instance of a character feeling how Beej often feels and being unsettled.

- “Deb could not guide them. “… I’m sorry, little ghosts. I care for you all and for Goose, but..” something dark clouded her eyes as she averted her usually bright eyes away from them. “… I can’t help you any more than preparing you. I can’t risk losing the precious, peaceful, fragile existence I carved out for Bela and I.” ” - The last sentence is a reference to “Good Omens”! Also, yeah, Cyrus is very powerful in the Netherworld and could ruin Deb and Bela’s unlives.

- “She nearly wretched as a pungent odor hit her open mouth, revolting and… familiar.” - Beej used to reek of the Netherworld.

- The various dead people - I made them up! Not based on any real people. They were fun to think up.

- “ “You two again?” She groaned, shaking her head. “What part of ‘pick a number and wait your turn’ do you people not understand? You cannot skip the line!” ” - This is a joke at the fact that they met in the movie, but not the musical. This version of Adam and Barbara have not, in fact, met Miss Argentina.

- Huge shoutout to @raineisinkless for her help with Miss Argentina’s dialogue <3

- Miss Argentina and Beetlejuice - Time works weird in the Netherworld. Beej was cursed and cast out long before she died, but since time there is nonlinear, he was in the Netherworld for when she first died and started working there. He was very nice to her.

- “She turned to the pale woman sat next to her, dressed in a beautiful blue figure skating gown stained red with the blood that constantly flowed from the gaping wound in her neck. “Patrice, take over for me. I’m taking my lunch for the year.” ” - Yes, she only gets one break per year. And Patrice is a reference to Miss Argentina’s original actor, Patrice Martinez!

- “Is she living it up on top?” - This is a reference to the Hadestown song, “Livin’ it Up on Top”.

- “The room they stepped into was pitch black. Not even the dim lighting from the hallway could permeate it’s darkness.” - It’s kept dark because demons have sensitive eyes. And they can see in total darkness! Well, most of them.

- “They growled again, the little supply closet suddenly feeling much hotter. “Shut up.” ” - They got very embarrassed at the implication that they care about Beetlejuice.

- “The other demons would swallow your souls whole if they knew you were here.” - Partial joke reference to “Evil Dead”.

- “I know it’s not like how we talked about, but-” - Surprise! Well, maybe not to some of you. They’ve been discussing becoming demons for a while now!

- “She heard their bones creaking as they did.” - They got bad joints.

- “Something brushed up against Barbara’s arm. “All you two have to do is shake my hand.” ” - Larry was being nice and showing Barbara where their hand is here.

- “Your souls need time to create and bond with your new bodies.” - Demons have their bodies and souls combined, which is why they don’t pass on to an afterlife! Their soul dies with their body.

- “Barbara gasped as a warmth flooded through her, hot and exhilarating in her veins.” - Hellfire!

- Altair and Vega - Their demonic names! Yes they have meanings behind them. No I will not elaborate currently. I will in a different post if I remember (or if someone asks me/reminds me)

- “Barbara yelped as it seemed fabric was passed over her head.” - Larry straight up tucked them under their coat here.

- “There were no stars or moon above to light their surroundings, just the dim glow of humming pink fluorescent lights somewhere just outside the alley.” - There are no stars in the sky because they’re all wandering the streets.

- “It was out of the kindness of my Hearth that I brought you two here.” - hehe, yeah, they say ‘Hearth’ instead of ‘heart’. As a joke on the fire in their chests.

- “He looked down at himself, glasses briefly slipping down his nose.” - A little bit of foreshadowing to his ears changing.

“‘Pollux’, in bright yellow. It seemed like half the sign had burnt out, and Barbara could just barely make out that it used to read ‘and Castor’.” - They were besties that made Deals and ran their Covens together. Then Castor died. Whomp whomp.

- “Barbara had to shield her eyes. Had neon lights always bothered her eyes that much? Maybe being stuck inside for so long had made them sensitive.” - Her eyes are getting more sensitive to light as she changes!

- “Adam was covering his ear with his free hand, gritting his teeth and softly complaining about how loud the lights were.” - Similarly, Adam is getting more sensitive to sound.

- “Thick, blue smoke, pungent and noxious. It smelled… herby, but Barbara could not quite place her finger on which herb it was.” - The blue smoke Cyrus and other demons smoke is actually something of his own creation! It’s how he gained so much power among demons. Perhaps I will elaborate in a Cyrus lore post since this is the last we’ll see of him in this fic! She knows her herbs, but not this herb.

- “It was dim, lit only by the sign outside, but somehow still Barbara could make out nearly everything.” - Again, demon changes! She can see in the dark now.

- “A particularly short demon manned the bar, ignoring one demon quite literally barking at them as they wiped a glass clean.” - Author demon sona cameo! I didn’t halt to describe them so I didn’t break the flow of the scene.

- “(Although, he wasn’t wearing blue like they’d said he was. He was instead wearing black wool cloak.)” - Uh oh. Where have we seen black wool before?

- “ “Where is he?” Adam repeated, gripping his wife’s hand tighter.” - A reference to the live version of “Wait for Me” from Hadestown.

- “You won’t find him. You could look for the rest of your un-lifetimes and you’d never find even a hint of him.” - A reference to the song “Home”, how Lydia mentions she could search the afterlife for an eternity and never see her mom.

- “Barbara wanted to punch that smug look off his face.” - Foreshadowing.

- “It was then that Barbara realized he was missing three fingers on the hand not holding the cigarette.” - HE FUCKIN’ GOT HIM GOOD!!

- “Barbara just about growled, the words coming out with a throaty noise.” - She can actually growl now!

- “The demon only paused when Adam involuntarily let out a strange little growl of his own. Cyrus slowly looked between the two of them, something glinting in his eyes. His smile wavered for a few moments. (Barbara thought perhaps she recognized… fear?)” - He is afraid of the power they both now wield. Perhaps this will be elaborated on later? Also Adam can growl now too hehe

- “His smile widened as his eyes flicked over to the Maitlands. “It was only made tolerable by the feeling of his intestines snaking between my claws.” ” - He said this to rile them up. Also, this has been previously mentioned by Beetlejuice as something Cyrus did! Just not directly.

- “Ah. Shit. Lydia didn’t mention how tall he was. That’ll make it much harder to reach him.” - Foreshadowing!!

- Adam recognizes the tale they’re recreating, hence his apprehension at first; Orpheus and Eurydice. Just with added stakes, since all three of them have to not check, not just Adam and Barbara.

- “She swore she heard the bartender whisper, “good luck”.” - :)

- “Yeah, well, die mad about it,” - A joking reference to a scene in “The Owl House” I accidentally mirrored here.

- “ “S-seven,” Barbara stammered, picking the first one that came to her mind.” - thank you @ten-chocolate-sundaes :) I wonder what he’ll do with this number

- “It seemed like days passed.” - because they did! Thirteen days to be exact.

- They’re deers!! Surprise!! All of the deer and star foreshadowing for Adam and Barbara is finally paying off!!!

[tangledbea]

hi, Bex! just wanted to say that I looveee your blog and I also miss the time where tts was airing and we would talk about it with the community every time a new episode would come out! 😭

I already knew you because I listened to your podcast with Ellie and Kelsey back then and I was only active on twitter but now the fandom is kind of gone there (sobs) and seeing your blog here made me sooo happy! seeing people discuss and talk about tangled after all this years... share their love for the movie, the series, the characters, etc here is great, specially on your blog! I'm so thankful that I found you here!! <3

You know, I've seen you liking my posts for ages, and it's nice to have you talking to me, now! Thank you for these kind words, and for reaching out to me at all.

Tonight's been really special to me, because even though Anon is still on, no one's used it since I made that post, and it makes me feel seen and heard, and like you guys actually do want to be my friend. ;u; So thank you so, so much.

I'm glad you enjoyed to podcast back then, and I'm glad you're enjoying my blog now! Thanks for sticking around! 💜🔆💜

[good-beanswrites]

Okay, kyanako said that I can ask for a director's commentary on the fic you wrote for me.

Is there anything you’d like to share about writing this fic? Any thoughts during the writing? Maybe any questions for me?

Not you too 😭😭😭 Haha, but thank you for the option to ask you questions, because I actually do have a few! My normal commentary is in pink, but I put questions in blue :) Some of them are specifics about your characters, but I also just want to hear your takes on writing Es 👀 I don't write them super often, so I'm curious how you characterize them...

Es clutched at their head. Their fingers tore through their hair. It was the middle of the night, so they resisted the urge to shout. They didn’t want to draw any attention to themself. If they remained completely silent, though, they wouldn’t need to refrain from crying.

And so they cried.

I wanted to start off right away by setting the theme of Es experiencing the typical pain of a child in their position, but refusing to be treated like the are.

You see, there is only one sensation worse than waking up from an awful dream: waking up from a very, very, good one. 

I'm kind of relying on readers understanding this feeling already, I didn't really know how to put it into words 😅 (Is this common for people?) It's happened to me several times, and it genuinely can hit harder than a nightmare.

Es had grown accustomed to the nightmares that Milgram produced. In these dreams, Es might take the place of the prisoners. Their stomach would twist with horror at the blood on their hands. Other times, they found themselves in the victim’s shoes. They’d wake in a cold sweat, feeling hands closing around their throat, or weapons swung at their temple. 

I feel like a lot of fics (rightfully) focus on all the messed up things Es experiences on a daily basis, like this. I'm usually more upset by their canon lack of interest in their past and future. Their refusal to miss/hope for anything better is really what hurts me, and it took a while to figure out what may push them to the point of finally acknowledging it. I thought a dream was a good start. When you picture them, are they wondering about their identity a lot? Would certain things be enough to jog their memory, or do only extreme situations get through to them?

But they weren’t prepared for a dream of absolute peace. They were happy. They were laughing. There were people nearby, smiling. It was all emotion and no detail – not a single face, place, or voice, was clear – but they knew for sure what the dream had consisted of.

Es was with their family. 

I debated so long on naming specifics about what they saw, whether it was glimpses of your characters or small lines of dialogue... I still hadn't decided if I wanted the dream to be a real memory or just their imagination, though, so I kept it up to interpretation. (Also, I was so afraid of getting something wrong about who they'd be close to or how they'd react in your mind 😭 "he wouldn't fucking say that" fr). In an early draft of this, Es had fallen asleep while cataloguing the prisoners' family members, and dreamed that they were a part of some of those families. It wasn't as effective as I'd hoped, so I got right to the point and made it their own family here.

So uh, I guess, what would they dream about if it were 100% accurate to their real family? I also thought about making the dream a vision sent from them to communicate a message -- is this something that a family member could/would do? And which relative is Es closest to? I've heard you talk more about their father, but I wasn't sure if that necessarily meant they were the closest. (I wanted to make a more specific parallel with one of the prisoners. I'd pair them with Amane if they were close with their father, Haruka if it was their mother, Mikoto if it was a sibling. Since I wasn't sure, I thought Haruka was a safe bet.)

They choked out another sob. 

For the longest time, they wondered if they even had a past to remember. But that was all foolishness – Milgram was in the business of judging humans, not creating them out of thin air. They’d tried asking Jackalope, once. He turned out just as cryptic as some of the prisoners in their interrogations. Another time, they had considered using the prison’s mysterious machine on themself. There was no way to operate it alone, though. And when it came down to it, they were always alone.

Yeah. So. I made myself upset realizing the isolation Es feels :((( They're at Jackalope's mercy as much as the prisoners are, but they can never truly bond with the others over it. They're different from the prisoners, but they don't even have that much power over them (only responsibility). I thought about including an actual attempt to use the machine without someone watching over them, and what a risk that would be. It ended up taking the story way off-focus, but I wonder what could actually drive them to the point of doing something dangerous in the name of getting memories back, or would they always be accepting of the situation, given their personality?

They curled themself tight, dragging the bedsheets with them. Usually when they wondered about their past, mere curiosity washed over them. Now, they were flooded with an entirely new type of longing. It filled their chest. No, that wasn't it. Rather, the feeling left a wide hole through them.

I'm glad you thought the curling up was cute ;--; I just wanted the reader to remember how young and small they are ;----; I was sad writing this and needed everyone to remember along with me 😭

If they did have a family, had Es been stolen away? Could there be someone else out there right now, crying in the middle of the night, just as hard as Es was crying for them? The thought was not comforting.

Or, like Es, had they forgotten all traces of their connection? That possibility also did more harm than good.

Es tried to reassure themself – if this family hadn’t come looking for them, maybe it meant they weren't wanted in the first place. Maybe Es had been willingly turned over to Milgram, their parents glad to be rid of them.

That thought didn't help at all.

I had a lot of fun evilly choosing the most painful possibilities for Es to consider >:3 (<- SHE'S LYING SHE MADE HERSELF CRY). The uncertainty would hurt any any reader, but as my target, I hoped to pinpoint some exact things you'd mentioned in the past. I was picturing the art of Es' father hunting Milgram down, and some of your comments about them remembering and missing Es.

Something clattered out in the corridor. That must have been what woke them. They rose from bed, ready to raise hell. How dare one of the prisoners rip them from such a dream. Es could never return. The offender would pay for this. 

It took only a moment to put on their uniform and wipe the tears from their cheeks. They swung the door open to find Haruka stumbling down the hall. 

I'm always a sucker for the uniform being a symbol of Es' obsession with their role -- putting it on is the same as them putting up an act, even if they don't quite realize it.

“Prisoner number one, what the –” they grabbed his arm. Only then did they notice the dazed look in his eyes. His body flinched, waking from what must have been sleepwalking.

“Ah! W-warden!” He blinked, his mind still stuck somewhere else. “I’m s-sorry! What, ah… I was dreaming... She was – she was right here…”

After this part I tried ending the drabble with Haruka saying, "I was dreaming," and Es replying bitterly, "me too." Haruka then says, "it was about my family," and much quieter, Es repeats "me too." As much as I loved the exchange, I wanted the gut-wrenching pain of Es rejecting their family rather than missing them at the very end 😎👍

Es took a measured breath. They steeled their expression. There would be no unleashing hell tonight. They had lost sight of their role. They had gotten distracted with childish emotions and silly dreams. They were Milgram’s warden, not some kid like Haruka who wandered around the prison late at night looking for his mama. 

Es adjusted the hat over their hair. It was good, they told themself, that they couldn't remember a thing from the dream. They didn't need any of those people. They were perfectly fine on their own. Such a distraction would not happen again.

I had to mention the uniform hat again because I'm just too obsessed with the symbolism asdfsdfs. And yeah, like you said, all of this was an attempt to convince themself. They don't really believe it, but they have to make themself believe it, or else they'll be in even more pain...

“Let’s get you back to bed.”

“But, my p-parents, they were–”

“They’re not here. Nobody is. Back to your cell, prisoner.”

Of course "they're not here" is reflecting Es and Haruka both missing their parents, but I hoped the last line would also continue the parallels between them -- at the end of the night, Es is a prisoner here too :(

[carcarcraziiv2]

Hi! Oh, it's so good that I came across your blog! I would like to make a request. Kayn & Younger Sister!Reader. And the situation is like this. Reader is a teenager of sixteen and she has already graduated from high school. She's enrolled in college, but she'll have to move into a dorm. She begins to worry wildly, because she is afraid that she will not be accepted by completely new people for her, and also that she will be lonely and bored because Kayn is not around. You can even add scenes where Reader already lives in a dorm and communicates with Kayn via video link (for Kayn, this is a means to make sure that his sister is okay). Thank you very much!

Yay! I'm glad you came across my blog too!

I love this idea. I feel like Kayn would be an exceptional big brother 🥹. Lowkey winging it cuz I am an oooonly child hehe.

Here we go! I hope you enjoy!

P.S. Sorry it's kind of short, but I hope you like it anyway!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The days just keep getting more stressful.

At least that's what you thought- you hadn't even began packing for your move in date to the university dorms. At only sixteen you were going to be the youngest one in the sorority, and you weren't sure how the other girls were going to react to you.

As you walked into your room with a few empty boxes in hand, you sighed at the mess on the floor. You had been so busy with celebrating your graduation from high school and your scholarship that you hadn't had time to do anything- much less clean.

You were grateful that your big brother was home for the holidays, as he was helping a lot with the upkeep of the house while your parents were constantly off working.

Feeling defeated, you let yourself crumple to the floor, landing hard on your knees which only made you feel more frustrated. You tossed the boxes blindly, causing them to crash into a few items on your bookshelf- of course it did.

Reaching up to cover your eyes, you let out a pathetic sob before completely falling into belligerence. You were a heaving, snotty mess on the floor with no hope as to how to ease the anxiety coursing through your veins.

What if the girls don't like me?

What if the professors think I'm too young to be in college?

What about Kayn? Will he miss me? Will we even get to hangout anymore?

You trembled at the thought of not being able to see your brother. He was your rock, especially in tough situations. Even now, he was so busy with his band all of the time you hardly got to see him. With you going to college, you were certain there was no hope at all.

Soft footsteps patting towards you caused you to jerk your head up and quickly wipe away your tears and running nose.

"Oh, hey Kayn. I had something in my eye," you blurt out, smiling slightly as you quickly avert your gaze from his prying one. He leaned down in a squat to your level, grabbing your chin with his fingers and forcing you to look at him.

"What's wrong? Do I need to kick someone's ass?" He says, studying your face. You sniffle and shake your head slightly in response, trying really hard not to cry again. "Then what's wrong, kid?"

"I- I'm just really worried about going to school. What if people don't like me? What if I fail or what if the professors don't think I am good enough?"

"What?! You? Not enough?! And there is literally no way that people aren't going to like you. Either way, I'm always one call away from coming to back you up. You know that, right?" Kayn smiles at you kindly, standing and reaching his hand out for you to take to stand.

"Thanks, Kayn. Love you."

"Love you too sis."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Three Weeks Later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hi, I'm Y/N," You sheepishly reach out your hand toward your new dorm mate while tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

"Hi! I'm Sarah. It's great to meet you! I am so excited to be your roommate!" Sarah, the short red headed girl in front of you, grabs your hand and pulls you in for a hug. "I think we are going to have a lot of fun together. Come in, let's compare classes!"

The first week was a breeze, meeting a lot of new people and luckily finding your professors eager to have a younger student in their midst.

This particular day was a Friday, and during your last class your roommate texted you.

Hey, Y/N! Come to the rec center after class, I wanna show you something!

You raised your brow in confusion, texting her back hesitantly.

Should I be worried?

Hahaha, of course not! See you theeeere!

The rest of the class was hard to focus on, as your thoughts kept drifting back to whatever your roommate could possibly be doing. She has been very nice to you since the beginning, but you couldn't help but to worry that she was doing something shady.

After class you quickly dropped your books off at your room and headed to the rec hall. It wasn't too far, about a fifteen-minute walk from the building you lived in.

The door to the hall was closed, which was unusual especially for a Friday. You quickly looked at your phone to make sure this is in fact the place that she said to go to, and after confirming you reached forward and slowly pushed open the door.

You would hit with a sudden burst of light, then a loud booming sound. You flinched, throwing your hands in front of your face.

"What the..." You started but were quickly interrupted by a group of shouting people.

"SUPRISEEEE!"

You jumped back, staring at the crowd in front of you while trying to make sense of it all.

Before you the tables were all decorated, multicolor balloons drifting from their tops. Above it all, ribbons hung from the ceiling, a big white banner in the center reading "Congratulations Y/N!".

Amidst it all you saw Kayn, his band, your mom and dad, and your roommate Sarah.

Your burst into tears.

In the short time you had been in college, you hadn't had any time to think about how much you truly missed all of them. Kayn, especially, as you hadn't had time to even consider grabbing your phone and calling them.

"Hey, hey now," You hear Kayn's voice beside you, a gentle hand rubbing your back. "Surprised?"

You nodded and lifted your head, wiping away your tears as you gripped him in a tight hug. "What the hell are you guys doing here?"

"Well, we realized we never really gave you an 'officially started college' party and thought we should probably do that. Plus, I missed my little sister!" He smiled, pulling away and dragging you towards everyone else.

Smiling, you enjoyed your evening, grateful for the best brother in the world. He always reminded you that everything was going to be okay, and he was always right.

[magxit]

Just dropped: https://twitter.com/rollingstone/status/1663660316817780745?s=46&t=Jv7EvC8oVb-dKk_gHc29yQ

I haven’t read the full thing. But kinda sad when the media gets it more so than her own fans…

We Wouldn’t Be Having This Conversation If Taylor Swift Was a Man

Publicity stunt or not, Swift can have a sleazeball summer if she damn well pleases.

ON THE FINAL night of Taylor Swift’s MetLife shows this weekend, 80,000 Swifties screamed in the swamps of New Jersey for over three hours. They wore outfits from every era — tinsel fringe dresses, serpent arm cuffs, and heart-shaped sunglasses. I saw countless faces in cowboy hats similar to the emoji — only these cowboys were sobbing uncontrollably while eating foot-long hotdogs. And the bracelets! They were all wearing beaded bracelets coded in Swiftian lyrics, trading them in the parking lot like Deadheads swapping grilled cheeses. (Take my advice: do not try to pay for the bracelets. They will look at you like you’re from outer space.) 

It’s hard to believe that while this magical Eras tour is happening — and while Swift is somehow reaching previously-unimaginable heights of popularity, surpassing even the ludicrous highs of 2015 — she is also experiencing a backlash from some corners of the Swiftie community over her supposed new boyfriend, the 1975’s Matt Healy. 

Their sentiments were best summed up in an open letter on Twitter using the hashtag #SpeakUpNow (named after Swift’s upcoming re-recording of her 2010 album), which states that Healy’s many controversies “deeply trouble” them. “From engaging in racist remarks, making offensive jokes, and admitting to watching degrading pornography in which people of color are being humiliated and assaulted, his actions contribute to the perpetuation of hate, stereotypes, and objectification, which targets and hurts some people from the Jewish, Black, Chinese, Hawaiian, Inuit, LGBTQ+ communities, as well as women.”

The statement refers to the derogatory comments Healy made about the rapper Ice Spice on The Adam Friedland Show podcast in February and the questionable apology he delivered onstage last month. Fans raised eyebrows when Swift recruited the rapper for her “Karma” remix last week, and on Monday, Healy finally addressed the controversy in a New Yorker profile that only exacerbated the issue. He explained that the whole thing “doesn’t actually matter” and that the backlash he received was merely virtue signaling: “It’s just people going, ‘Oh, there’s a bad thing over there, let me get as close to it as possible so you can see how good I am,’” he said. “And I kind of want them to do that, because they’re demonstrating something so base level.”

If you didn’t catch this quote aggregated on the internet about 137 times (you probably had better things to do than scroll Twitter and hustle children for their handmade bracelets), you aren’t missing much. This is all part of Healy’s artistry: an intricate, tangled web of bits intended to rile you up and piss you off. This is the guy who eats raw meat onstage, gives Nazi salutes, and delivers intelligent observations like, “I’m obsessed with my dick for some reason.” Stupid Shit is his brand. Are we really supposed to take anything he says seriously? 

I’m not here to answer that, but I am here to tell you that none of it is Taylor’s problem. For the last 17 years, we’ve held this woman responsible for the actions of men she chooses to spend time with, and it’s time to stop. It would be fair to criticize her for walking out of Electric Lady with the ghost of Pol Pot or wondering why her dad and Matt Lauer are grooving out to her performance of “22.” But this is just a hot sleazeball who wants Oasis back together (I don’t know about you, but I’ve dated a lot of guys who fit that description), and it’s up to Taylor to spend her time as she pleases.