#because i'm feeling unwell

[kaiminluu]

happy birthday to our most beloved will byers :) here're some byler grease concept sketches

[jakeperalta]

defining a "comfort album" as whatever feels right to you :)

[uncanny-tranny]

Genuinely, doing things "half-assed" or for a short period of time is generally better than never having done it in the first place.

Writing one sentence is better than none. A minute of brushing your teeth is better than zero minutes. Answering two questions for a homework assignment is better than answering none.

The overwhelming mountain of things can be done peacemeal. You do not have to do it all at once. It is okay to take life in whatever amount you can. The point is to allow yourself the grace to be.

[zetterbabe]

ekky mic'd up during picture day

[gideonisms]

I will admit I hate the trend towards measuring how Healthy fictional relationships are. they're not breakfast cereals! we don't need to measure the amount of fiber! even if it did matter how much fiber a fictional relationship has "healthy" is also a very general, vibes-based word for concepts that I think we probably should get more specific about

[sillyabtmusic]

(220607) Fragile - Seoho

+ bonus

[currentlyonstandbi]

i am never going to mentally, spiritually or emotionally recover from the way they flashed between anakin and vader during the force dream and memories because it was like! yes ! exactly! you cannot have one without the other! just because anakin made the right choice in the end by saving luke and killing the emperor (and sacrificing himself in the process) it doesn't mean he ever stopped being vader ! it was a decision made in selfish love that started it all and it was a decision made in selfish love that ended it all. the parts of anakin that make him vader are the parts of him that make him anakin !!!!

[daily-hanamura]

[raveartts]

turt

[cassowariess]

AO3 still experiencing birdrick drought :(

[sleepanonymous]

Do yourself a favor and take a seat for this one fam 👍

I fell upon a point The axis of the spectrum To bathe in abstract joy Or die without direction

Determined steps we take But please, for goodness sake We’re not gonna make it out alive

I sit for wasted days and toil in desperation To weep beneath a sky of fractured indication Let faith lead you down But please, for goodness sake We’re not alive; we’re just getting older

I would help you, but I can’t Seems that time got the upper hand To live yet never understand Is there a purpose?

But you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders

But you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders (Do we) And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders (Deserve this) And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders (Do we) And you look like heaven crashed on your shoulders (Deserve this)

Live by the subordinate belief That we are more than this we live By the subordinate belief That we are more than this we live

Okay so you guys are just gonna have to trust me on this one. This came from an(other) anon source since the link on Way Back Machine is dead. This was published to Ves's YouTube channel on July 15, 2012. The description said something along the lines of this (basing it off memory, it's very loose):

I wrote this song about the idea that humans have evolved beyond our means. We suffer implications due to our sentience and awareness of our world, which leads us to questions we cannot answer. Animals are programmed to fear death but they probably aren't aware of its inevitability, where humans most certainly are, but are totally powerless to stop it.

Update on this song as of December 2023:

Two different Anons provided me with more background info. The first screenshot is the original description that Ves had (he also worded things in a much better and more Vessel way than I did lol). The second screenshot is copy+paste text from the lyrics portion below the description. I updated the lyrics to reflect the text.

[skylarbee]

milex and 'white nights' by dostoevsky

if you love milex do not, for the love of god and the well-being of your mental health, read 'white nights' - i am crushed and utterly inconsolable, and the fact that this whole story fits so well with the lyrics of 'killing the joke' and 'the meeting place' and the la cigale performance has me wanting to cry until tomorrow, and i can't keep all these thoughts to myself.

for those that don't know, it is the story of a man who meets a girl and falls in love with her; unfortunately, the girl is in love with someone else and is waiting for him to come back to her; and in the end, she returns to her lover, but wants to remain friends with our nameless character.

the two characters meet during the night, always in the same place - 'but I want to see you tonight'

the man can't sleep, he is too excited about their next night when they'll meet again; he even goes back to their meeting place on his own: - 'he struggles to sleep at night and during the day/he's worried she's waiting in his dreams/to drag him back to the meeting place/his love had left him there' - 'he's crying out from the meeting place/he's stranded himself there'

things taking a wrong turn is indicated by grey and gloomy weather, rain and dark clouds - 'cause the clocks count down and we're in for bad weather'

the man confesses his love to the girl, despite knowing that she can't love him, knowing that what he is going to say "is all nonsense, all impossible, all stupid! I know that this can never be, but I cannot be silent" - 'why do I always have to go killing the joke?'

the man has been lonely all his life and has been unsuccessful with women, but despite his loneliness and despair, he manages to make the girl laugh multiple times - 'but I, I live a lonely life / but I, I know I'm a funny guy'

at the end, she writes him a letter, asking him to forgive her for leaving him - 'her voice still echoes/ I'm sorry I met you, darling, I'm sorry I've left you'

nastenka's lover has been away for a year, but before he went, he promised her that when he comes back, he'll marry her. but when he does comes back, he doesn't go to her and the girl begins to doubt his love for her - this is when how our character finds her. in her misery, she wants our narrator to come live with her and tells him that she will love him; but after discussing their plans, her lover turns up - and tell me that this does not remind you of la cigale:

"Come along! Look at the sky, Nastenka. Look! To-morrow it will be a lovely day; what a blue sky, what a moon! Look; that yellow cloud is covering it now, look, look! No, it has passed by. Look, look!"

But Nastenka did not look at the cloud; she stood mute as though turned to stone; a minute later she huddled timidly close up to me. Her hand trembled in my hand; I looked at her. She pressed still more closely to me.

At that moment a young man passed by us. He suddenly stopped, looked at us intently, and then again took a few steps on. My heart began throbbing.

"Who is it, Nastenka?" I said in an undertone.

"It's he," she answered in a whisper, huddling up to me, still more closely, still more tremulously.... I could hardly stand on my feet.

"Nastenka, Nastenka! It's you!" I heard a voice behind us and at the same moment the young man took several steps towards us.

My God, how she cried out! How she started! How she tore herself out of my arms and rushed to meet him! I stood and looked at them, utterly crushed. But she had hardly given him her hand, had hardly flung herself into his arms, when she turned to me again, was beside me again in a flash, and before I knew where I was she threw both arms round my neck and gave me a warm, tender kiss. Then, without saying a word to me, she rushed back to him again, took his hand, and drew him after her.

I stood a long time looking after them. At last the two vanished from my sight."

and despite all this, the man is not angry with her; the last thing he'd do is hurt her in any way; he wishes her to be happy - and realises, that all his life, he's only been truly happy during these nights with her:

"my god, a whole moment of happiness! is that too little for the whole of a man's life?"

which hits even harder if we read the epigraph of the story:

"Or was his destiny from the start

To be but just one moment

Near your heart?" (Ivan Turgenev)

[enhanced-operatives-division]

Junicrane/Starstruck Ramble

I will not be brief, all under the cut

To clear some things right off the bat:

No corpse, no proof with Juniper. Obligatory this is set in a canon where he's alive and adjacent to the agency in some way.

Reggie & Juniper are just gay to me, but I don't mind any interpretation of their sexuality

The games are set in 1967/68 to me (based on a couple bits in game) which is before it was legal to be gay in America at least (1971), which is relevant to how I interpret canon as being somewhat grounded in reality, despite unrealistic elements.

This is just an insane amount of headcanons/elements of and AU all culminated into one post. I will talk about some headcanons like they're just facts because they are established in my head, and it saves me over explaining literally everything, however I will explain some parts a little bit for clarity.

Alright. Actual beginning of the ramble:

Juniper is a character to me who had gotten so lost in his job as an actor and a social presence that in the end his whole life revolved around that 'role'. Because of this, by the time he's put into the situation where he's around the Agency, he basically knows nothing about himself, though he doesn't realise at first. Furthermore, what little identity he had has changed in so many ways. He's no longer a beloved famous actor in the prominence of public light, he's legally dead and he tarnished his career just before he was supposed to die, with the bonus of that making him lose the majority of his estate. From that, he also has horrific facial scarring from the electrical burns from literally having his face fried. I believe a friend of mine made a post about this a while ago (I also think they were the first to think it up also), but, to me, Juniper has a permanent trimmer in his right arm (aka his dominant hand) from the electrical current and it is messing with his nervous system.

All in all, he's not doing great, but he's too proud to admit that he's not doing great, because if anything, what's left of his ego is all he has as a defense since he's deep in unfamiliar water.

Before ending up around the agency (I have multiple interpretations of this, so I'm just going to bring it up generally), he'd never actually seen Reggie, and his only impression of him is a single voicemail, which was his only reference he had to later impersonate him. Juniper probably has very little feelings other than the ones he projects onto him because of Phoenix and that, at the very least, he's physically attracted to Reggie to some degree (that's like the beginning of how everything else would tumble into place in this sort of interpretation at least).

And on Crane's side? His feelings towards Juniper are probably very intense and muddled. On the one hand, he adores musical theatre, and that's his now ex-favourite actor. The thought of just casually being around him blows the bit of fanboy in him away at first because THAT'S the GUY, plus the inklings of a celebrity crush which still poke at him. And then there's the rational side of him, which knows Juniper has committed absolute atrocities on the side of Zoraxis, and hates him for that. Then there's how much Juniper comes off as an asshole at first because he refuses to cooperate with anything the Agency tried to put in place. He finds Juniper endlessly frustrating, and yet he's stuck working with him since, afterall, he's the one who knows the Agency's history with Juniper the best. I imagine him acting a lot like how he does IEYTD 1 around Juniper.

At this point, I'm just describing the pitch for a romcom.

I think the start of their relationship with one another largely started with Juniper trying to wind Crane up. It was a way of getting his attention, and I don't think Juniper knows why he's so dead set on that at first, because I don't think he realises he has a crush on 'this grump' at first. (I think that's actually the fun part about these two, because it's almost like a role reversal of the celebrity crush dynamic. This ex-big name actor has a TERRIBLE crush on an average joe and it is KILLING HIM.) But of course the Agency keeps them together because Juniper is at least conversing with Crane, so it's a start.

Through one way or another, they actually get talking casually, at least mildly at first. It takes Juniper a long time to fully deconstruct the wall he's built, and the thing is, Crane isn't the one trying to deconstruct it, at least at first, because yeah, Juniper realises if he wants Reggie to actually like him in any way, he can't keep winding him up. So they talk. Small talk at first, something rhythmic and almost easy to keep to a script. And over time that turns into actual conversations. Genuine ones in which Reggie rips out the occasional one of his jokes which Juniper is endlessly endeared about. The way he smiles just before he makes them, like he wants to chuckle at what he's about to say before he says it. That's probably when Juniper realised that he does have some vague crush on him, and that it wasn't going away.

This is what kickstarts John I can't-buy-you-things-to-impress-you-so-acts-of-service-it-is Juniper to do little things for him. It mostly starts off as him trying to make Reggie his tea how he likes it. However, the nerve damage in his arm makes that hard, as the weight of the kettle and trying to pour is hard all of a sudden. And he refuses to accept that, so he tries for a very long while. Long enough that Crane would go to investigate what was going on. And when he does see Juniper leaning over a cup with the kettle as he uneasily tries to pour it, and when Crane asks Juniper responds so matter-of-fact that his intention is nothing but genuine. And it catches Reggie off guard because Juniper hadn't done anything like that up to that point, and his very apparent vulnerability is so clearly on show.

It shifts something between them.

From that point on, conversations are longer, more familiar. Both of their attitudes soften, and Reggie makes more jokes. Juniper learns how to better use his left hand while strengthening his right back to a point where it could be used again. Slowly, they're both spending time with one another not because they have to, but just because they can. Little bits at first, not too far outside what they already were doing, but those little bits turned into long bits to a point where the other person's company was genuinely desirable.

As time passes, Juniper probably realises that he doesn't genuinely know much about himself or what hobbies he's into, because he never really had the time when he got big, and his home life in his youth wasn't bad, but it wasn't picturesque. I think Reggie would pick up on it, and absolutely try to introduce him to some things he's into. Some things stick, other things don't (corn husking very much stays Reggie's passion, and John will go with him sometimes because it's him, but it's not something he strongly cares for). Crane introduces him to a lot of music, and it's something that becomes a staple between them, with tracks they listen to more than others (tragically, I know relatively little about 60s music so I couldn't really say what). Occasionally they dance, never anything intense, think slow dancing, but the closeness is nice.

Through all of it, Juniper is battling the worst crush of his life, and he can't stand it, because I think he struggles to read people since he doesn't have anything like a script or a director to refer back to, so he has no idea if Reggie likes him back or if he's just desperate for that to be true. I think because of that any sort of confession between them would be incredibly raw, not only because of the time they live in making it hard for them to be truthful about how they love, but because it's a complete show of Juniper who's worked to be this better person. I don't exactly know how that would go, mainly because I don't have one set version of their dynamic, this post is just a generalisation of main consistent points.

Reggie does like him back, because he's gotten used to Juniper being just this guy, not a figure in the public eye, not a Zoraxis lackey, and not any sort of Agency operative (despite being under their care to some degree). He's someone he genuinely cares for, because they've given one another the time of day to learn one another, and I think because Reggie was a field agent, he was a lot better at reading Juniper than Juniper was at reading him. Eventually Juniper's company becomes something he could see around him for the rest of his life, and I think he accepts that he likes Juniper a lot more gracefully.

I think any affection directed at Juniper would at first be met with him feeling a little muddled. Reggie was a very physically affectionate person when he could be, and sure the initial flirting with one another came with the occasional little touches, but everything now was so deeply intentional. I also don't think Juniper would almost ever get over the novelty of being able to kiss him, or many other gestures, because it made the fact that they were together so very real, and it was great. I do think it comes easier to Reggie, and it's a big way of showing how much he cares, so it's important for Juniper to try and show it back because he knows how much it means to the other.

I like the idea of them eventually living with one another, too. I think Juniper would have always had a quiet little daydream of sorts where he does just live a domestic quiet life, and he can with Reggie (well, as close as they can get between the Agency and Zoraxis always being at odds), and he loves that, and he loves him, and it's immense.

I think they cook for one another a lot, it helps Juniper work on his dexterity in a controlled environment, which means a lot because it's a huge point of insecurity (that and his scars). He does improve, and Crane is proud of that and shows it and it's great. I also think they'd probably cook together too, because they can deal with being in the kitchen together and they work well with one another. It's probably a good way for them to unwind because over time they can do it in relative silence.

As I said before, I also think music is a staple in their household, and that Reggie listens to things on vinyl almost all of the time because he likes the background noise. Sometimes Juniper will catch him chuntering along to the music which he finds endlessly endearing. I wouldn't put it past his dramatic ass to also join in to fluster Reggie, but I also don't think Reggie would mind that terribly because Juniper has listened to the music enough to know the lyrics, and that's huge to him.

I don't think they are without rough patches, no relationship is, but I think the good part about them is that they're willing to talk about it (... eventually). They're used to long conversations, and while they're often less fun conversations, they're needed and they know that, and it works out.

Alright. I think I'm done for now. I haven't mentioned everything, but this definitely got the worst of it out of my system. If you ever want to hear any specific thoughts my ask box is open but other than that, behold my general dynamic for these two which has been festering in my head for years. I think they're great

[uncanny-tranny]

You know... it's okay to trust your body. If you are separated from your body to such an extent you feel you cannot trust it, I truly from the bottom of my heart empathize and feel grief for you, but you can trust your body.

It's okay to listen to your body and to heed what it is telling you. I wish you (and your body) well wherever you go. You deserve the peace of mind to feel able to do what you want.

[digirainebow]

things that are (probably) true now that we have canon birthdates for the oxenfree characters

the events of the original oxenfree take place on june 4th, 2016. if taken into town, nona reveals that her birthday is in 3 days. since we now know that her birthday is june 7th, and that lost signals takes place 5 years afterwards in 2021, we finally know the exact day the first game happens. yay!

clarissa's birthday happens to fall on the same day that anna was killed. as maggie writes in adler letter 9, april 4th is the day in 1952 that she and anna tried to bring the sunken back.

last year, ren went to the movie theater and watched oppenheimer with nona (and clarissa) because she wanted to see it, even though he wanted to go see barbie, and it was his birthday that day.

[celecaster]

It never fares well to say this as a schizo because people will always chalk it up to me being grandiose and delusional but it really feels like most people don't actually see or engage with reality but merely a socially constructed model of it tainted by things like... I don't know, etiquette? Norms? Unnecessary fear?

It's nothing 'big' like 'People can't hear the voices of other beings even though they exist!' or anything like that. An analogy I would use is that sometimes I see arguments online where the responses don't actually seem to be what the OP is even talking about so even if the responses aren't 'wrong' per se I get an uneasy feeling witnessing it, like people cannot 'see' what the original purports and instead of facing it they 'substitute' something easier to digest and argue with that substitution.

I cannot right now think of a practical example of what I'm talking about, just that it feels like people do this because it's easier and maybe... 'polite'? I don't know. It feels like there's a lot of denial of what reality is, either people deny negativities that make them sad or fabricate problems that don't need to exist.

I feel like people are more preoccupied with abstract meandering and not only refuse to accept it but will also attribute it to people like me who are superficially vague.

I wish I could articulate it better. It makes me genuinely suicidal to think about it and the worst part is how alone I feel in it, like not only does nobody understand or believe what I'm talking about but they can't even engage the idea with any dignity, I feel like a hypothetical audience is scoffing at me for being insane, in a sort of dismissive 'You think you're special? No-one's special' sort of way.