#but also don’t because connecting to fictional characters is my fucking jam

[feelingtheaster99]

About to start Ragenarok Part 2 and I’m already overwhelmed with emotion. I love this cast and these characters so much. Like I will physically ache with missing them once all this is over

[im-the-punk-who]

Hey, I was wondering if you have a book rec

!!

Okay so in full disclosure, I have a really hard time reading books. My brain sometime around six years ago just decided that wasn't its style anymore, so I don't read a TON. A lot of these aren’t going to be recent releases. However, here are a bunch of books I would absolutely recommend checking out! I tried to include a variety of genres but I have uh.....five bookshelves in my apartment so if you're looking for more of a certain genre let me know!

Theatre:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

These are my two favorite plays - they're both absurdist, humorous, and have some fun things to say. They’re both by old white guys but like....I love both Tom Stoppard and Samuel Beckett DEEPLY and they have all of my love and respect.

Non-Fiction/Educational:

Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum - this is considered a 'classic' on the psychology of racism, and was particularly helpful for me as a white person in arming myself against 'reverse racism' thoughts and in dissembling my own prejudices. This is mostly a rec for other white folks, but Tatum also addresses 'having the courage to sit at the black table' as a way of claiming your own identity outside of the stereotypes the dominant society expects of you.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown - Okay listen I just really REALLY love Brene Brown, she is a therapist most famous for her TED talk about Vulnerability and this is just...listen I really like to read this book when I am sad and feel like shit because it makes me feel strong. I reread this book at least once a year.

Imagined Communities by Benendict Anderson - This is an absolutely fascinating read on the rise of nationalism. It’s a bit dry and wordy, but the ideas and use of history as propaganda, spinning the story of a nation to pit it against or on the same side as other nations, and the ways in which these tactics shaped cultural history is just!!!! Amazing.

Gay New York by George Chauncey - This is just one of the most informative and interesting reads of queer history in New York that I’ve ever come across. It’s one of the ‘must reads’ of queer history and has so many interesting tidbits that I have to recommend it. It’s a bit old(published in 1994) but I still find it relevant and interesting to read.

Personal Fiction/Autobiographical Fiction

White Girls by Hilton Als - I went to a reading of this book when it first came out. It was so much fun and so eye-opening for me as a baby queer in NYC that I bought the book there. I wanna be really clear that Als does not pull punches and a lot of people don’t quite like it, but I love Als’ style of writing. The stories and essays in this book are amazing and funny and heartbreaking and informative of queer experience - particularly black queer experience - that I always feel like...honored? to experience through writing? This is one of those ‘you’re gonna suffer but you’re gonna be happy about it’ reads - it can be hard to face because of how very hard the pills are to swallow but like....gosh I just love this book and it’s interesting and hilarious and great.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins  - this is my tin hat favorite. It hits....ugh. This is one of those books that came out and like every government agency freaked the fuck out over it. It’s an interesting look into the quote-unquote dark underbelly of capitalism; how and why countries manipulate each other through economic policies. Super interesting read with a nice style of prose.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs Okay so full disclosure I have not finished reading this, but I’m far enough through to rec it. This book chronicles the author’s attempt to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from front to back, and it is just as kooky and hilarious as it sounds. I am very incredibly and deeply offended this author stole both my schtick and my initials, thereby preventing me from doing this exact thing. I read through the phone book in its entirety when I was three. I had it in me. Anyway, this is basically the author just listing weird interesting facts he’s read about and connecting them to his daily life, but it’s a fun read, and you learn a lot of totally useless facts, which is absolutely my jam.

When Skatboards Will Be Free by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh - HI I LOVE THIS BOOK. I’ve read it maybe three times over. It’s so fun and interesting. You may notice that a lot of the books I rec are very absurdist in their humor, and this is no exception. This book is full of the dry wit and just weird goddamn shit you could only expect from the child of a revolution that never came. You want to read a book about someone who Went Through Shit? Read this book. It’s funny and heartbreaking and just. AHHHH. Seriously I cannot recommend this enough.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch - FIGHT ME ON THIS. I love this book.....so much. Yes it’s technically a comic book but the stories are so INTERESTING and hilarious and full of exactly the dry absurdist humor I eat the fuck up. Also! Allie Brosch recently released a sequel of sorts called Solutions and Other Problems that I recommend without even reading it.

Poetry

Pansy by Andrea Gibson - IF YOU ARE NOT READING THE POETRY OF ANDREA GIBSON WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. I cried seven times reading this book. There are only like 14 poems. Please please read this to break your own queer heart :)

Bloodsport by Yves Olade - This is a tiny book full of absolutely devastating poetry. Most of it has to do with the grief of relationships, but like....gosh I love all of Olade’s stuff. (Also!! This is available as a pay-what-you-wish pdf!!)

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón - This book focuses a lot on the author’s experiences of loss, and knowing that loss is going to happen. I’m completely devastated every time I read this.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Bartimeaus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud - So what if I am a dumb millennial I love this series. It’s another dry and deadpan humor, with weird additions and Stroud’s use of footnotes to absolutely crack me the fuck up means I gotta rec this. I just gotta. Four(I think?) books following the deeply unlikeable Nathaniel and his Djinn Bartimaeus, who just wants to eat humans and have a deeply enjoyable enemies to lovers plotline with his arch rival.

The Magic's Price Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey - Okay I know I’ve recced this before. I will rec it again. This was the very first series I ever read that featured a gay protagonist and I was. Devastated? Reformed? I latched onto Vanyel Ashkevron and I am never letting this depressed emo boy go. Try me, I bite. Seriously, this book was released in the 80s and yet it is still relevant, I still cry - god i LOVE this series SO MUCH. And, MERCEDES LACKEY actually invented unbury your gays, sorry I make the rule on that one. :) Also there are magic talking horses??????? Seriously please read this series I love it so much.

Fire Bringer & The Sight by David Clement-Davies - This is another series that was absolutely formative in my baby lexicon. These are books about magical animals and their inner societal workings and both books address the ideas of good, evil, darkness, compassion and good will, and destiny. I am obsessed with these books, they are some of the most interesting of the genre I’ve read, and so incredibly intricately written. LOVE these books.

Vampire Earth Series by E. E. Knight - The Witcher before it was cool. Sort of but like...there are schools of Cat, Bear, etc and it has COOL VAMPIRES I LOVE THSI SERIES. Basically, earth has been taken over by a race of alien ‘Vampires’ and follows a human involved in the resistance. The writing in this series is...wow. It’s so intricate and interesting and involved. I own the whole series because I love it so much, including the after-series hardback novels. I’m so messy and I love it.

Kindred by Octavia Butler - You know how people are like ‘YOU SHOULD READ OCTAVIA BUTLER!!’ ? You should absolutely do that. This novel is mindblowing and interesting and the pace and narrative are so so so interesting. Heartbreaking, god, horrific. Butler is an amazing writer and this novel, while my personal favorite, is not by any means the only of her books I would recommend. STORIES. STORIES!!!!!!!

Fiction

The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel: A Novel by Magdalena Zyzak - This book is so fucking good. It’s imaginative, funny, intelligent....it’s honestly one of the best fiction novels I’ve ever read. Again, dry, absurdist humor, this book sort of reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s style of writing.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London - This is a classic, a true classic. The social commentary of this book is so so good, London’s style flows and, personally, as a dog and animal expert, the anthropomorphisation of Buck and his fellow animals is just so well done. I love this book, it’s quite an easy read, and I reread it at least once a year.

Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark - Okay. Okay okay!!!!!! I gotta take a deep breath about this one. This book is. Yuh. This is a bit younger leaning than the other fictions, focusing almost entirely on high school level characters, however the experiences and commentary is just so so good. Focusing on a diverse group of characters growing up in Hawaii in the 1970′s, this book addresses the intersectionalities of gender, sexuality, race, immigration, education, and how we define who we are. I’m obsessed.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles - A heartbreaking novel about war, innocence, adolescence, and how we hide from our truths. It’s...so good, this book hurts me a LOT okay. The prose is phenomenal, the story is poignant, and it feels like I’m ripping my own heart out with a fishhook every time I finish it.

The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan - This is one of those books I half recommend because it’s so good, and half because of the deep wealth of knowledge it presents the reader. The author’s use of her own culture is just....goddddddddd. Intricate and interesting and so delicately included in the narrative that you can feel the love the author has for it. It’s a long read and it took me almost a month to get through reading every day, but god. It’s so soft and amazingly written I both wanted to read it all at once and take my time with it. This is another one that deals with the duality of humanity and how we connect with one another. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead by James Kirkwood Jr. - I love this book I love this book I LOVE THIS BOOK. It’s fucking hilarious, entertaining, I literally laughed out loud at every single chapter. Hilarious and poignant and surprisingly deep, this book literally follows the journey of a man in which literally everything that could go wrong does. It’s fucking hilarious.

I hope that helped and gave you some new books!!! <3

[dancingstarsbornfromchaos]

4. What is/are your favorite trope(s)? 5. What is/are your least favorite trope(s)?

Shipping Asks

4. What is/are your favorite trope(s)?

Oh gee. I have a quite a few tropes that I really enjoy when it comes to ships. I guess they can all be considered more or less “popular” ones in general too, but hey. It’s good shit, so it deserves to be popular, if you ask me.

I’ll list a few and spend just two words on each of them, because otherwise this answer would turn in a novel. Alphabetically:

Enemies to Lovers: This sums up a lot of my ships, tbh. I thrive in seeing the contrast between two characters and all the feelings and situations that can come into play starting from that. There’s a lot of potential for angst, character study and introspection, relationship development, and it leaves that bittersweet taste on your tongue that it’s just my jam. I could put the Hero/Villain ship trope in this category too.

Fake Dating (that then turns into the real shit): I always find stories that involve fake relationships funny, especially if then an unexpected spark happens and makes it all awkward. This is one of my go-to when I’m looking for some humour.

First Kiss: At the cost of sounding cheesy as hell, I’m weak for first kiss stories. Aside from the variety of situations that can contain this, I enjoy it because it’s usually the culmination of something bigger that unravelled before, so I particularly like the build-up to the kiss, more than the kiss scene in itself. The Love Confession trope fits right next to this one.

Mutual Pining: This is one of the things I’ll never get tired of. I like seeing a relationship being built way more than an established one and the pining is an essential phase in my eyes xD

Power Couple: At times I just love seeing two characters that are badass on their own and even more badass together, you know?

Rivals Team-up: This one has a similar appeal to the “Enemies to Lovers” one for me, but with a more humourous twist.

Sex Pollen, Aliens (or who else for them) Made Them Do It, Fuck or Die & Co: I’m not huge on smut, but these are some situations that can turn really interesting when handled right. There can be a lot of really good shit built around the sex scene itself, both concerning what leads to it and, even more, the aftermath (which is often left untold and that’s a real pity because it’s a total waste of potential!). Of course, the scene in itself can offer you a lot in terms of feeling and introspection too, and that’s something I like to explore.

Soulmates AU: There are just so many cool ideas in this category! Some are funny, some are heartbreaking and there’s every shade in-between. I find this trope very inspiring in its complexity and in all the openings it offers. It’s a multiverse in itself.

The Matchmaker: Again, the humour of this idea really gets me. Moreover, I love the idea of having one character who’s forced to deal with all the others’ crap, as some sort of unofficial therapist. Idk, maybe it’s because, in way, we shippers are like the Matchmaker in a story, but I always connect with whoever is in this role in a story xD

Specialy mention: Found Family. It’s not a strictly shippy trope, but it’s perhaps my number one fave.

5. What is/are your least favorite trope(s)?

The list here it’s shorter bcause I have quite a few tropes I enjoy, a lot that I can take or leave and few I don’t like.

Most of the tropes I don’t like are “daily life AUs” (like Coffee Shop AU, High School AU, etc). I guess I’ve read enough of them that they have stopped being original, so I get bored pretty quickly with them (of course there are exceptions, but they are rare).

The whole “Girls like Bad Boys (or vice versa or with genders mixed up)” thing is also something I’m not too fond off. It’s become too clichéd and the characters end up being so stereotyped that it makes me wanna roll my eyes.

I’m a bit iffy about the whole Major Character Death trope. As much as I love angst, I want my fiction to have a happy ending or at least a hopeful one. We already get enough bad ending IRL, so I want my fantasy worlds to skip them, when possible. It’s the same reason why I’m not extremely fond of Unrequited Love (between the characters that make up the ship, I mean) that never becomes requited.

Also, I never understood what is the big deal about heigh difference. It’s not that I dislike it or anything, but...I just don’t get it??

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

I don't know if you ever answered something similar but here's my question. Once in a while there's comments saying that he tian is forcing himself on mo, but I think they misunderstand the situation because mo is a tsundere and will always say something like "fuck off" to he tian, even if he cares. So my question is: in your opinion is tianshan still toxic like in the beginning?

Good morning, anon-san!

I have actually talked about Tianshan’s (power) dynamic quite a lot. Here are some previous answers/posts you might find interesting:

Tianshan coming a full circle

My 19 Days OTP

My favorite Tianshan moment

Physical and emotional closeness in Tianshan

Will there ever be a verbal Tianshan confession?

Future of Tianshan

He Tian’s jealousy and possessiveness

Is Tianshan toxic?

The last link on the list probably comes the closest to what you asked, but there was actually something I wish I had included. So, I’ll take a look at your question and also talk about the things I left out. There will be some repetition, though.

“comments saying that he tian is forcing himself on mo”

In my previous answer about Tianshan being toxic, I came to the conclusion that toxicity is in the eye of the beholder. What we see as being toxic depends on our own perspective and individual taste. I don’t think it’s really about misunderstanding but rather reading things through differently tinted lenses and different things appealing to different people. To each of us, the line between “toxic” and “non-toxic” is different. Our tolerance for a certain kind of behavior can differ quite a lot from other readers’ - He Tian’s character and Tianshan being an excellent example.

Tianshan is a certain type of dynamic that often appeals to a lot of people but it will always also have a fair share of anti-fans. So, I doubt there is such a thing as enough development to make the comments about Tianshan being toxic stop. At least not without changing the dynamic fundamentally in which case, it would become something else. As a Tianshan shipper, I wouldn’t want the development ever go in that direction.

However, that doesn’t mean fans should stop listening to each other. I believe people who think Tianshan is toxic can have a lot to add to the discussion. Their points are based on their original perspectives just like ours. Just because we might disagree doesn’t have to mean we can’t learn from each other. 

“in your opinion is tianshan still toxic like in the beginning?”

To be honest, I never really saw Tianshan overall as toxic. To me, there isn’t some point in the story prior to which their relationship was toxic and after it was less toxic. Then again, I have quite a high tolerance for behavior that others deem toxic or problematic. I’m usually drawn to those kinds of dynamics in fiction and find them endlessly interesting instead of something that should be get rid of. More often than not, they end up being my jam and OTPs.

But I’ve always wondered what people who see “before” and “after” in Tianshan think has been the defining moment that turned their relationship for the better. Personally, I’m struggling with that since I have never really had a problem with how their dynamic works. 

Instead, I see Tianshan’s journey through the development of both He Tian and Mo Guan Shan’s characters. Both of them have gone through some changes but also have some parts that won’t probably ever change and ultimately affect the overall dynamic of their relationship.

Mo Guan Shan has gradually started to trust He Tian more and warm up to him. His walls aren’t as high as in the beginning. He doesn’t want to deny their connection as fiercely anymore. And he even shows more of his “tsun” side towards He Tian. His resistance has become more about getting flustered and being increasingly conscious of He Tian than rejecting him out of resentment.

But. Mo Guan Shan will never not stand up to He Tian and strive for being independent. He will still tell He Tian to go fuck himself and ask if he’s supposed to be that familiar with him. He will always spit that He Tian can’t tell him what to do and that he can’t control him. And that is, in fact, one of the reasons why He Tian admires him. As persistent as He Tian is, Mo Guan Shan will agree to things at his own pace. That is both a warning and a promise.

He Tian, on the other hand, has come to learn Mo Guan Shan’s limits and to be more aware so he can keep earning his trust. The nature of his strength has changed. It’s gone from “you better watch your mouth because you answer to me now” to “I don’t care how long it takes but please don’t leave me”. He Tian’s role as the strong savior and someone honing down Mo Guan Shan’s personality has started to slip. We readers and Mo Guan Shan have seen more and more of his weak moments, fears, and insecurities. He has started to feel safe and secure with Mo Guan Shan. And I suppose all of that is where the usual arguments about the development from “toxic” to “less toxic” stem from.

But. He Tian will never not be pushy and dominant. Even if he doesn’t want Mo Guan Shan to become meek and agreeable, he still won’t let his objections and resistance discourage his affections. He will never be the type that asks for permission for everything. Or even every other thing. He will always keep his arm hooked around Mo Guan Shan’s shoulders despite how much he keeps struggling.

You could see all of that through the lenses of “toxic” but also as two characters developing together. It can be a very subtle difference in perspective, but I think it’s a rather important one.

Some time ago, OldXian gave us part 3 of the Christmas special that takes place in the future. I saw readers being somewhat disappointed that Tianshan hadn’t developed as much as or in the direction they had wished. These two panels especially seemed to dampen the mood a little (ch. 313):

It didn’t seem like they had grown much closer. However, I would say their future relationship is pretty much as I expected it to be. Mo Guan Shan was quick to say no as a knee-jerk reaction but kind of letting He Tian get away with things. He wasn’t putting up quite as fierce of a fight as he would have in the past. He Tian, on the other hand, was still physically dominant and mischevious and yet affectionate. It almost seemed like he was craving for physical closeness.

If you take into account the things I think are fundamental about the characters and will never go away in their relationship, I think the level of development might make more sense. I doubt Mo Guan Shan will ever be honest or open about his feelings towards He Tian. But he will grant us little pieces of subtle, unexpected affection here and there. Little hints that he doesn’t mind He Tian’s company as much as he claims. And in return, He Tian will keep pushing because he knows he’s not truly making Mo Guan Shan do something he really doesn’t want to. But that dynamic is still toxic in the people’s eyes who have always thought so.

Moments that have bothered me

As much as I ship Tianshan, there have been a few moments in their dynamic and development that I have been bothered by. But again, I don’t really see them as being toxic but rather as learning curves of their relationship.

The first kiss (ch. 174):

I have never found this kiss hot or sexy. Actually, He Tian sticking his tongue out like that and shoving it in Mo Guan Shan’s mouth always freaks me out a little. I’m frankly turned off by it. But it served as an important lesson. And I don’t think it made He Tian toxic. He hadn’t meant the kiss the way Mo Guan Shan took it. He was genuinely confused by Mo Guan Shan’s reaction and realized he had crossed a line with him.

Let’s make a run for it (ch. 273):

I know this was a rather minor moment, but the level of disregard by He Tian at the moment has always annoyed me. Mo Guan Shan has responsibilities he’s getting paid for, so he can’t just up and leave according to He Tian’s whims. The world doesn’t work that way. But his life has always been vastly different from Mo Guan Shan’s, so it’s good he’s exposed to different ways of life.

He Tian and people who aren’t Mo Guan Shan (ch. 295):

I doubt He Tian really pays attention to the group around Mo Guan Shan or cares about them. I think that also means he wouldn’t hesitate to be an ass to them if he’s not feeling particularly nice or thinks they’re getting in the way. That trait is what I have always disagreed the most with the thug way of life. Not really caring about people who don’t directly concern you and thinking it’s okay to be over the top offensive if someone happens to wrong you somehow. In society, you don’t have the right to take matters into your own hands and become the judge. And just because He Tian happens to care about Mo Guan Shan the most, it doesn’t entitle him to treat others badly or bark orders like they don’t have a choice but to submit. 

I’m not in a good mood (ch. 295):

Kind of a continuation of the previous one. I think this was the most frustrated I have been with He Tian. I know what ultimately made him behave that way and it made sense, but for a while, I was annoyed because it seemed He Tian had regressed back to his old ways. Like dude, the world does not revolve around your moods. Other people have feelings, too. The fact that He Tian doesn’t bow down to anyone is one of my favorite things about him, but the lack of humility can also get a bit annoying at times. He Tian is quite physical when it comes to showing his feelings but I hope he will keep getting better at using his words, too. Luckily, Mo Guan Shan is someone who can take him at his worst.

I’m not trying to make it sound like people who see Tianshan as toxic are somehow wrong or can’t make valid points. As you noticed, even I’ve had certain moments I didn’t agree with. But perhaps because crying “toxic” is so common in fandoms these days and it’s used as a weapon to diss other’s taste in fictional relationships, I somewhat prefer to distance myself from that particular way of looking at things. He Tian and Tianshan most certainly aren’t flawless, but if you take a step back you come to realize toxicity is a surprisingly narrow perspective. It leaves out the characters as a whole by pointing at just certain traits and removing them from their context.

Thank you for your question, dear anon-san!

[ayankun]

things that make me ABSOLUTELY INSANE about episode 5

REMEMBER WHAT I SAID ABOUT THE LAUGH TRACK PROBABLY BEING OF NARRATIVE IMPORT, and then it COMPLETELY WAS A PLOT POINT this week, in the first scene with Agnes flubbing her part, AND THEN the CCs actually did notate the audience reactions --

-- but only at the end of the fucking episode when “Pietro” shows up???????

whyyyyyy

The fact that Elizabeth Olsen plays a character who not only is a twin but also has twins on a show that sends up the show on which her IRL twin sisters played one single character. 

The part where Wanda tried to use her powers on her babies physically turned my stomach and I was SO GLAD it didn’t work.

UGHH that dancing-with-the-babies-date like FUCK domesticity is my KINK.

There was an OVERLOAD of primary colors on the set this week, and I desire to know what it means.  Is it because babies/kids are associated with primary colors?  Was the Full House house littered with red-yellow-blue?  TELL ME WHAT IS THE REASON.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAT is the connection between Agnes and Dennis.  They had that whole interlude in ep 2, and now they both demonstrate an actionable fear of displeasing Wanda, when everyone else is/has been more or less outwardly oblivious to the situation.  (Dennis has a copy of his IRL person’s driver’s license on the mystery board, but Agnes DOES NOT)

I legit called the aging-up of the kids.  I said it out loud two weeks ago.  You know who you are, you can back me up on this.  They can play within the cut-corners of the sitcom-fiction format.  In fact, Jimmy said what we were ALL thinking, “they’ll be empty-nesters by the end of the episode” and I’m IMPRESSED AND DISGUSTED that they know what we’re thinking because they wanted us to think it.

when the Wanda-magic red brush went in and lovingly, unnervingly brought Vision to life in the new 80s opening credits, I screamed “FUCK YOOOOU” at my computer screen I do not lie

Birds.  Birds and flowers.  Birds and flowers are very everywhere.  On the walls, on the clothes.  This whole times.  oh what can it mean.  I need to know what it means.

I LEGIT thought the joke was going to be that Vision doesn’t have any baby photos and just existed as a full grown adult, but then the joke was that he does have baby photos

THIS

He has a chip in his hand and then he throws it over his shoulder because he doesn’t eat food.

I’m honestly conflicted as to whether I’m reading Jimmy as gay or in a very cute and nerdy OT3 with Darcy and Monica.

STOP

HAMMER TIME

Is Wanda being mind-controlled to resurrect Vision so that SWORD can co-opt him as their new weapon and the investigation/rescue/assassination scenario is itself a staged production cast with unwitting players??????

I PROMISE this is not what it looks like:

IT’S THE LOBSTER JELLO MOLD OR WHATEVER FROM THE TOASTER AD IN EP 1

ok I won’t joke around, I rewatched this on my folks’ monster tv and when I paused to see what ad was on the paper this time, my brain CRUMPLED:

THAT IS A PICTURE OF AN ASTRONAUT INSIDE A TV.  MOONMEN CONFIRMED

Also, the frontpage headline is “Local Homemakers Innovating Recipes,” emphasis on home-making.  Making a home.  From scratch.  With your mind.  Wanda.

Also-also, the tiny scroll over the top is like “MORE DRAMATIC DETAILS ABOUT THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY ABOVE WESTVIEW”

Are these SWORD-infiltrating-the-magic-barrier lights, or are these UFOSSSSSS

The realization that when Agnes appeared like a fairy godmother to help Wanda out of the dinner jam in ep 1, it was Wanda manifesting a solution to her problem using her God-will :|||||||||

HWAT is the emblem on Agnes’ brooch:

“Wanda, we are usually so much of the same mind.”  OOF

Jimmy just GLEEFULLY marching in with coffee for his girlfriends and ONLY for his girlfriends

fukkin  HEXAGON >> HEX >> MAGIC >> SCARLET WITCH INCOMING YOOOOOOOOOOOO

NORM SNAPPING BACK INTO CHARACTER MID-EXISTENTIAL-CRISIS GOOD LOOORRRRDDDDD GIVE THIS MAN AN EMMY RIGHT MEOW

NOT WANDA INSTRUCTING HER CHILDREN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIBLE OWNERSHIP OF LIVING THINGS, AND THEN WATCHING HER SON MAKE THE DOG DO TRICKS AT HIS BIDDING -- LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON AMIRITE

So I don’t have a Unified Theory of Color for the WandaVision canon yet, but even a chump like me can pick out RBG:

somebodypleasejustellmewhatthegoddamnbirdsmean

I KNOW I’m insane, I’m totally not debating that, but “no joy” sounds a lot like it could have something to do with NJ, WestView, NJ.  W V, N J i mean I’m crazy, but it’s not not there

like okay, so IRL Wanda is still fully Sokovian, accent and all ... she had a tough life from a young age and I firmly cannot believe she spent any of that time watching mid-century American sitcoms so I STILL BELIEVE, AT THIS POINT, that we are being told that there is some other entity at least partially responsible for what’s going on here. 

like Monica said, I don’t think any of this was by Wanda’s design.  I think there’s a Wanda what done the grave robbery, and a Wanda what got whammied same as Monica did when she got stuck inside, the difference between Wanda-Wanda allowed to be in control somewhat and Monica getting overwritten as Geraldine being that Wanda has Mind Stone powers and that’s the root cause of all this reality-bending stuff (and the CMBR)

CASE IN POINT OF WANDA STARTING OUT AN INNOCENT AND INADVERTENTLY, OVER TIME, SLOWLY, WILLFULLY TAKING CONTROL ---

1) Vision suspects as much, and he’s perfect, so he’s probably right.

2) The nature of the female-empowerment agenda depicted in the mid-roll ads, where early on the Woman Character was subservient to the Man Character, and as of this week’s ad, the Man is comically infantilized while the Woman more or less has her shit together

3) FOR WHEN YOU MAKE A MESS YOU DIDN’T MEAN TO

Jezus you guys, the whole concept of the show using the gradual sophistication of the American television audience, as represented by the amalgam of the content it consumed in particular eras, to underscore Wanda’s own gradual journey from the vapid fiction of the post-war Dream Life to the slightly more heavy, but no less contrived fiction of the Perfect Family,,,,,,,,

AND THEN you have the ads, which also mirror the real-world marketing attitudes of the time

which also mirror Wanda and Vision’s personal histories to date

which also mirror the evolution of Wanda’s personal rise to power as depicted in this specific show

“Bring who back?” GOD there is an ELEPHANT in the ROOM and his name is VISION

Vision just BLUNTLY BRINGING UP THE FACT THAT WANDA IS RUINING EVERYONE’S LIVES LIEK WHAT ARE YOU DOING BRO

and then she ROLLS CREDITS ON HIM LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL GIRLBOSSSSSS

holy crap, 4th wall much???

WHY DID THEY AHVE TO BE IN THE AIR FOR THAT ARUGMENET I MEAN I’M NOT COMPLAINING BUT IT IS HILARIOUS AS ALL HELL

JEEEEEEZ so the reveal that all this is real people real stuff real place, and that this is Vision’s stone-cold corpse with a fresh new mind shoved inside of it -- he legit has no memory of the Before, because that wasn’t even him.  He’s just as trapped as anybody else, and Wanda is his domestic abuser !!!!!!

I HATE IT HERE

[ftkd-arts]

this is just a dump don’t worry about it

And i’ll break their ass down

Felicity Smoak

How I feel about this character

I’m love her. Felicity is the main reason why I kept on my Arrow binge, and now it’s one of my favorite shows.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Oliver, of course! Let’s go down the list, in order of which I shipped them; Sara, Alena, Nyssa, Black Siren. Probably more but i haven’t rewatched the earlier seasons in a while

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Curtis, bffs

My unpopular opinion about this character

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

More badass moments. Felicity is an amazing hacker, but I truly believe she would have advanced in the field as well if trained. Sure, I love Morally Gray! Felicity, but this part of her was quickly demonized by her friend group and I dunno that’s just uncomfortable for me. Felicity ain’t allowed to carry a gun so she can feel safe? She’s been kidnapped how many fucking times and Oliver’s throwing a shitfit now that she has the means to protect herself? It just doesn’t make sense. I feel like Oliver would object to Felicity killing, but also, she’s already commited mass murder? That’s the entire reason Ragboy left? Like she’s already killed people, Oliver, she’s been to the dark side before, dude, you can’t “save” her. I think he would’ve been more likely to train Felicity so she can defend herself properly so the gun wasn’t her only source of defense just in case it was used against her. Honestly all the teams need to train their more brainy members how to fight in general, you cannot have a person involved in something that could get them killed and not do that guys

Killer Frost (The Flash)

How I feel about this character

TSUNDERE BABE

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Caitlin, OTP. I’ve never created so much art for a pairing before, whether it be fanfics or drawings. Silver Banshee and Livewire is my favorite crack ot3 for her. Probably makes passes at all her boys’ girls, like Iris and Kamilla and Sue

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Ralphie! They’re bros

My unpopular opinion about this character

Gagagagagagagaagay, socially awkward tsundere, just wants to be loved, will punch you in the face if you find out, panic attacks 24/7, so much anger issues

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

More soft moments with the team. I think she and Iris would work really well as passive-aggressive friends, y’know the type whose love language is insulting each other constantly

Cisco Ramon (The Flash)

How I feel about this character

I wuv him. Third favorite in the Flash, behind Frost and Cait respectively. Long hair, don’t care, nerd boy, i have a big gay crush on him, I really connect to his whole ‘i-was-emotionally-neglected-by-my- parents-and-fictional-characters-raised-me’ vibe. Also hair. pwetty. run hair??? run fingers through hair? ples

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Alright I’m poly and a multishipper so this is gonna be a long one. Keep in mind that I personally headcanon Cisco as bisexual aromantic, but as a subset identity called cupioromantic; my basic understanding of it is that though this label has no romantic feelings, they desire relations that are romantic-esque. Let’s go down the list! Ralph Dibny, Sue, and Kamilla as an ot4 absolutely melts me, Iris and Cisco are so good but Barco is neat too! Them as an ot3 could be so cute. Ronnie x Cisco is a gem. OH and he and Hartley used to date but broke up

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Caitlin of course! They’re best bros! The nerdy scientist and the professional doctor, both emotionally stunted idiots. I like to think they bonded over a shared love for horror movies, and that’s how they became friends. Also a bit of Killer Frost! Of course Cisco would have some relationship with his best friend’s alter. They’re not best friends (Frost considers Ralph her best friend), but they’re close. He introduced her to Game of Thrones. Frost calls him “Cissy,” “Transco” and “Vibeboy.” Cisco overuses “White Walker” way too much when talking with her.

My unpopular opinion about this character

A good boy?? I dunno, I can never find any content for Aro Cisco. I like to think that he’s emotionally stunted because his parents weren’t affectionate, and he developed a broad fixation on escapist fantasies for comfort and stimulation, like tv shows and comics. This could just be a projection ha 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish Cisco would just get confirmed as trans already! And he should talk about the fact he has a dead brother more often, that sting doesn’t just go away after a few episodes. Also give him and Iris more of a relationship. Also make him talk to Ralph more. Also there needs to be more chemistry with Kamilla, like comeon guys let’s see some banter over here rn he has more canonical chemistry with Ralph’s girlfriend

Caitlin Snow (The Flash)

How I feel about this character

My socially awkward darling.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Killer Frost. Just,, Frostie. Killersnow is my jam, I still chug out content for it to this day. Also Patty x Cait is a fun crackship, maybe throw Iris in it, too. Probably has a small crush on Kara and Kate. Way bigger crush on Lena and Alex. Buff smarties are her bread and butter, probably why she was so into Ronnie. Otherwise I generally see her as asexual

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Cisco, Barry, Ralphie. Cisco especially, they’re besties, everyday, inside jokes, binge-watch together, dumb idiots with wildly different coping mechanisms, I think that;s why I like their friendship so much? Cait sort of just shuts down, ignores it, pushes herself into something she views as more productive than her thoughts and feelings. Cisco de-constructs his emotions by putting them in ways he can easily understand, into comics and characters, because tv was his only escape from the emotional neglect his family offered. Caitlin focused solely on getting out and being someone Thomas could be proud of, y’know? 

My unpopular opinion about this character

Ace, bi, poly. Neutral, polite, aloof, superiority complex, inferiority complex, definite imposter syndrome-- idunno i fell in love with s1 Cait and I wish her canonically life-long tendency to repress and deny would show up more. Definitely the smartest in any given group (and she knows it), but is nice about it. Remember in season one when she called a brain freeze the long-ass scientific name? Instant love, I’m love her, I wish she did that more, clearly she loves science and medicine and biology so so much and I really hope they show more of her being a fuckin dork for it, it makes her feel so much more human, she’s just. great

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Just went on a rant about it in the above text. Let Caitlin be a dork! Let her be repressive and emotional and I-can-do-it-on-my-own-y! Let her be all this and more, a human whose conditioned herself a robot, I love that concept so much. Let Caitlin be herself!

[partly-cloudyskies]

Outer Wilds fucked me up

I’m probably gonna think about this game for a good long time. It joins games like Undertale and Night in the Woods and Fallout: New Vegas and Chrono Trigger and Myst for games that make me think about… just… all sorts of shit. So yeah. I’m gonna think about Outer Wilds for a good long time.

At the very least, I’m going to write about it.

Massive spoilers below. Don’t read if you haven’t beaten the game. Go play it. Or don't. I'm not your boss.

I think about Chosen One narratives, of one person anointed above all others to be the select who achieves the impossible. And it’s easy, at first, to see Outer Wilds fit into that narrative. I wake up to the stars wheeling overhead while a campfire crackles just out of sight. I’m an astronaut about to take my first flight and I’m part of an idyllic village in the coziest planet of a star system of wildly hostile planets. Even its name, Timber Hearth, evokes cabins and campfires and warmth and trees. An onomatopoeia for a planet and a life and how it’s something I want to save. Because I do want to save it, because 22 minutes after waking up, the sun Timber Hearth orbits contracts into a single point of light and then explodes out in an expanding blue-white wave of destruction.

And then I wake up to the stars wheeling overhead while a campfire crackles just out of sight. A time loop, narratively, signifies unfinished business. There is a problem so profound and existentially vital that failing to resolve it causes one’s life to rewind so the problem can be tackled again. Whether it’s time travel or your traditional ghost, stuck retracing the steps to some regret that lingers past death.

So it’s safe to assume that as a result of being caught in this loop, I’ve been selected by some unknown force to stop the sun’s death, to save Timber Hearth. Because surely it’s something worth saving. Surely the destruction of a place and a people so charming is the result of some cosmic misunderstanding or a malevolent force that needs correcting. With every death, the mask of a Nomai, the ancient aliens that inhabited this solar system long before my time, plays back my memories as if to review what I had done, and what I had done wrong.

The first time I blasted off, I died in one of the dumbest ways possible. I landed on the Attlerock, Timber Hearth’s moon. Found a barren patch of lifeless dirt and stepped out. And suffocated. Because I forgot to put on my space suit.

Your Chosen One, everyone.

It takes time and several more deaths.

A lot more deaths.

But I have a computer which collects all the clues I get from blindly scrabbling over planets, meeting other Timber Hearth astronauts and stumbling over the remains of Nomai settlements, reading their writings. Eventually, a picture starts to emerge. Of the nature of the Nomai, why they came to my solar system, the purpose of the machines they left behind, why they died.

And the nature of my sun.

And that’s the ultimate twist, in my eye. There are mysteries. There are questions about what it means to exist and what it means to want something, to explore and discover. But to me the real twist is why the sun keeps exploding and it is revealed on a crumbling space station in a decaying orbit that causes it to fall into the sun.

There, a computer that monitors the sun’s status tells you on know uncertain terms that the sun is dying because… it’s old. It’s old, and it’s time for the sun to die. The destruction of all these worlds, of Timber Hearth and its people, isn’t the result of some experiment gone wrong or some evil that needs a champion to combat it. The destruction happens because it is time for these things to be destroyed.

It felt like a murder mystery where the reveal is there was never any murder. But there are still victims. People for whom this death is unfair, unjust, and demands a reckoning that never happens. And it’s all the more outrageous because it’s happened before.

The Nomai were endlessly curious, a nomadic race of aliens who travel through space in great Vessels. When one Nomai vessel came to this system, it was out of curiosity. They were in pursuit of some great mystery called the Eye of the Universe; a signal older than the universe itself. What they got, when they warped into the system, was disaster. Their Vessel is caught in the vines of Dark Bramble and attacked by the things that live there. Three escape pods break from the dying Vessel. One never survives Dark Bramble, and two land on worlds that are only slightly less hostile to their existence.

Yet they survive, and they seek shelter and build settlements and the populations of the two escape pods eventually establish contact with each other and they populate the star system. Their ruins can be found on every planet and in several space stations they construct in between. They write their stories in spiraling script on the walls and specific names are repeated often enough that they form characters in my head. Small stories and big stories. Debates and disagreements and relationships and mourning.

When the Nomai die, it’s when a comet enters the star system carrying in its nucleus a rock that gives off a lethal radiation called Ghost Matter. The stuff still exists, albeit in small pockets. But back then the entire system was bathed in it and the Nomai died where they stood. Or slept. Or sat at tables set for a meal. The moment they came to this system they never stood a chance.

There was no murder, but there were so many victims.

But before their death, the Nomai worked towards a single purpose. The Eye of the Universe, the signal that brought them here, was still out there and right up to the moment of their death they were committed to solving it.

It’s in this solution that I discovered the nature of this character I played. I thought I was a Chosen One, sent hurtling through time to somehow make it all right. But how do I make it right when the sun is at the end of its life. And how do I make right all the stars overhead, which are also dying, their explosions visible when I zoom in with my portable telescope?

It turns out that I don’t. Because I was never chosen. There was no grand design. At least, not one that I was a part of. This whole thing was a bizarre accident, countless years in the making. My character is little more than mote of dust that had slipped into the gears of a broken machine whose creators have died.

In attempting to understand and reach the Eye of the Universe, the Nomai undertook an ambitious project that converted the entire star system into a machine that was meant to destroy and recreate itself endlessly until it pinpointed the Eye of the Universe’s location. The theory and execution of it is all written into the walls of their ruined laboratories and workshops, but the practice of it never took off. Crucial parts failed, the energy was insufficient, then the comet came and the Nomai were wiped out.

It’s only at the end of my star’s life, when it explodes and releases unimaginable energy, that the power the Nomai machine needed becomes available. Which triggers a cascade of cause and effect as old mechanisms come back to life which ensnared me an unending time loop. It also kickstarts the search for the Eye of the Universe. The Nomai probe launcher finally fulfills its purpose and finds the Eye. 

But only after nearly 10,000 loops.

There are ways to resolve this. The game doesn’t really seem to care if it’s “beaten” or not. I could, if I wanted to, simple exist in the game. I could skip over the waves of Giant’s Deep. Plunge into the black hole in the middle of Brittle Hollow and watch the sun explode from the edge of the solar system. I could watch the sands of time literally trickle to its end on the Hourglass Twins. I could go to Dark Bramble and…

On second thought, let’s not go to Dark Bramble.

I could do all these things because bringing about the end of the game means bringing about the end of the loop, and that’s when death is final. Final for my character and final for all the stars and the planets and the village on Timber Hearth. There are ways to really screw things up in this game, and my character goes from being a mote of dust caught in the gears to being the pebble that jams up the cogs and unspools the springs and sends the wheels careening off their axis.

But finding the Eye of the Universe means destroying the machine.

It also means going to Dark Bramble. Fuck.

If you’re familiar with the kind of science fiction that concerns itself with the nature of time and life and death and the cosmos, the ending of Outer Wilds probably won’t be that much of a surprise. But it’s okay to not be surprised by something that you’ve seen before and are seeing again. It actually might be appropriate in a game of loops and repetitions.

And by destroying the loop engineered by the Nomai machines, the character becomes a part of a greater loop; a cycle of cosmic death and rebirth. And maybe the Eye intended for all this to happen. Maybe it brought the Nomai to this system, where they built these machines, where they died this death, so that the player character could complete their work and bring their Vessel to the Eye as they had intended so long ago. A reckoning so long in the making.

Or, again, maybe it’s all just random. But even randomness was accounted for in the Nomai machine, so it’s no stretch for the Eye to do the same.

Even if the ending was telegraphed, it’s beautifully done. And the game’s moments are more in the process. Death comes easily in Outer Wilds, so the player starts to accept its inevitability. And even then there’s the triumphs that come before it. The tricky maneuvering to get your spaceship to dock with a shattered space station. The elegant solution to a confounding puzzle. The realization of the connections between people and places. The game is dense with mysteries and coming to their solutions becomes the high points interspersed throughout the cycle of death.

And so I’m gonna get Personal here, kind of. Cuz this game happened to me at a time where I’m kind of Stressed the Fuck Out.

I don’t know how many times we’ll tell ourselves as a species that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. It feels trite. But it’s also a survival mechanism.

I’m in the middle of some Bad Shit at this time in my life. I almost hate to say it, my reflex is to say that other people have it worse. And of course they do. But this is my damn Tumblr post so I’m going to be selfish inside of it. About the only thing I’m willing to bring up in this context is that I’m looking for a job. And. It’s awful! The job searching process is one of the worst and worst and also worst things a person can do! I love to write, but I can barely concentrate because I’m so nervous about how much I need a new job! I’m a bundle of anxiety because some recruiter out there decided to take a break from paging through hundred of emails, one of which is mine, so that they can go grab a sandwich!

It’s easy to feel small. And forgotten. That is, in fact, how I feel. And trapped in a cycle of resumes and rejections. If I’m lucky. Most of the time it’s resumes and silence. And it’s been that way since December last year. So yeah. About a year of that.

So a video game where I die, over and over, and puzzle over the nature of this existence, might be a video game that resonates with me, in this moment I find myself in.

There’s a certain comfort in loops. But there’s also something exhilarating about breaking the machine and running from one end of the solar system to the other, like Prometheus carrying fire from Olympus.

I can’t even begin to imagine what breaking the machine might look like in my own life. But it’s a nice thing to indulge in on a computer screen. And in the meantime, I’m still in my cycle.

I have to hope all the defeats and the triumphs are leading to something, but I feel so tired of it all.

I’m glad I played Outer Wilds. It’s charming and cute and grim and awful and scary and hopeful and accepting. It uses a lot of they pronouns and I think we should normalize that just generally.

There’s a soundtrack. It’s great.

And it makes me feel like I can hang on, because maybe the next time will be better.

[pacifv]

HE MEGA RP PLOTTING SHEET / MEME.

First and foremost, recall that no one is perfect, we all have witnessed some plotting once which did not went too well, be it because of us or our partner. So here have this, which may help for future plotting. It’s a lot! Yes, but perhaps give your partners some insight? Anyway BOLD what fully applies, italicize if only somewhat.

Mun Name: Mik      Age: 26      Contact: IM, discord

Character(s) I rp: Eden ( in bleach ) -- I have other ocs but that’s another story Which muse(s) inspires you the most atm?(for MM): Eden... ? Current Fandom(s): Bleach , so far Fandom(s) you have an AU for:  more fantasy esque ones?  My language(s): spanish , english  Themes I’m interested in for rp:   Fantasy / Science fiction / Horror / Western / Romance / Thriller / Mystery / Dystopia / Adventure / Modern / Erotic / Crime / Mythology / Classic / History / Renaissance / Medieval / Ancient / War / Family / Politics / Religion / School / Adulthood / Childhood / Apocalyptic / Gods / Sport / Music / Science / Fights / Angst / Smut / Drama / etc. Themes/Genres you have an AU for: fantasy , religious

Preferred Thread length: one-liner / 1 para / 2 para / 3+ / novella. Asks can be send by: Mutuals / Non-Mutuals / Personals / Anons. Can Asks be continued?:   YES / NO   only by Mutuals?:  YES / NO. Preferred thread type: crack / casual nothing too deep / serious / deep as heck. Is realism / research important for you in certain themes?:   YES / NO. Are you atm open for new plots?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS. Do you handle your draft / ask - count well?:  YES / NO / SOMEWHAT. How long do you usually take to reply?:  24h / 1 week / 2 weeks / 3+ / months / years. I’m okay with interacting: original characters / a relative of my character (an oc) / duplicates / my fandom / crossovers / multi-muses / self-inserts / people with no AU verse for my fandom / canon-divergent portrayals / au-versions (as main or only verse). Do you post more ic or occ?:  IC / OOC. Are you selective with following others?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS.  

Best ways to approach you for rp/plotting:  IM since this is pretty much new . just slap me with that and if you have some ideas , better --- if not let just brainstorm with what we have in hand . 

What expectations do you hold towards your plotting partner:  some minimal idea of the context and eden’s character . some ideas if possible . more than often I have gotten people straight up jump with no clue of what even is going on in my side character wise . 

When you notice the plotting is rather one-sided, what do you do?:  depends , most likely really stop trying or let it sink . I’m not much of a person who would pressure for ideas when they don’t even come naturally for me in these kind of situations . 

How do you usually plot with others, do you give input or leave most work towards your partner?:  First of all , ask what they particularly want and if they read the bio . and of course , have their bio as well ( if oc or any relevant hc on vague canons ) . I am honestly a bit shy on the input but if I found a ground to start letting my imagination loose ( like , something in common between characters or something that clicks well with my muse ) I can suggest several things . but in any case , I’m pretty passive and it’s a lot of gives and takes . 

When a partner drops the thread, do you wish to know?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS. - And why?: depends on the thread , the time and the interest . things that go downtown in the excitement scale are :/  and I can’t blame anyone for dropping a thread . not all the time you will have muse for them , tho , if it was a relevant thread I would ask at least . - What should your partner do when dropping a thread?:  pretty much free to tell me or not . I’m no one to judge.

What could possibly lead you to drop a thread?:  losing muse , interest , time ... pretty much the same . feeling like my muse is going too OOC for the sake of the other muse or smth .  - Will you tell your partner?:   YES / NO / DEPENDS.

Is communication in the rpc important to you?   YES / NO. - And why?:  I am very old school and having some OOC interaction to at least know how things are going , it’s as much as I can ask here .  - Are you okay with absolute honesty, even if it may means hearing something negative about you and/or portrayal?:  I mean , I should . it can turn me off a bit but it’s just natural ? there’s no way something can be perfect or be of someone’s taste . plus I am not that smart to be fully aware of all the things around the motif and IRL information I use on my muse . I’m no book , buddy. - Do you think you can handle such situation in a mature way?  YES / NO.

Why do you rp again, is there a goal?:  development , exploring the muse , seeing what works and doesn’t work . often new blogs for me are basically prototypes , they are and will  most likely have minor or major modifications as my imagination starts working and getting excited . besides , in the basics , you can hardly manage to cover all ( if anything ) of how one’s muse would react to X situation .

Wishlist, be it plots or scenarios:  a lot of quincy lore , come up with more personal connections with other quincies , fully develop a backstory and a post war scenario . cultural exploration  --- relationships of all kinds . 

Themes I won’t ever rp / explore:  pretty much I am fine with anything as long as we don’t cross the gross line . but I’m not afraid of the dark .

What Type of Starters do you prefer / dislike, can’t work with?: absurdly basic and with no context given . not even have an idea of what is the deal between muses . I can squeeze my brain but there is as much as i can do with little information .

What type of characters catch your interest the most?:  quirky ones , conflictive ones , most likely muses with specific motifs that spark my interest -- deepness . Aesthetically interesting ones . but overall , those who have out of the normal personalities . 

What type of characters catch your interest the least?:  personalities that doesn’t work or do not harmonize with the context of their characters . that’s all I can say .

What are your strong aspects as rp partner?:  I am.... creative ? gdi I did this meme already but it’s hard to reply these two ones. I am easily excitable . if we end up in a ship , expect me to be pampering af . I really enjoy the exploration of relations between people , emotions and psychological stuff tied around it . I do like casual and also very deep things . I’m not afraid of dealing with heavy topics . I like horror ???? also I am very into the secondary character role , as in : my muse is here to help your muse to grow or insight . that stuff . not much of a protagonist role in RPs. 

What are your weak aspects as rp partner?: I’m .... very.... sporadic . My mood is annoying esp when I’m “new” blog around kind of thing . I’m shy , even if I don’t seem so --- I get pretty anxious over details . I am impatient --- with myself . I want to do so many things at the same time I end up overwhelmed . 

Do you rp smut?:  YES / NO. Do you prefer to go into detail?:  YES / NO / DEPENDS. Are you okay with black curtain?:  YES / NO. - When do you rp smut? More out of fun or character development?:  mmmmmmmmm , both. Depends on mood and context tbh . - Anything you would not want to rp there?:  nothing I can think from the top of my head.

Are ships important to you?:   YES / NO. Would you say your blog is ship-focused?:   YES / NO. Do you use read more?:  YES / NO / SOMETIMES. Are you: Multi-Ship / Single-Ship / Dual-Ship  —  Multiverse / Singleverse. - What do you love to explore the most in your ships?:  again , I’m big mood for interpersonal relationships ( romantic or not ) , the pros and cos of certain traits , ideology clash , personality clash , anything that comes in a relation that could make it come and go .  - What is your smut tag?: unholy.

Are you okay with pre-established relationships?: YES / NO. - And what kind of ones?: all are hella okay for me . pre- est is my jam bc jesus christ the awkward first encounters make me go blue screen .

► SECTION ABOUT YOUR MUSE.

- What could possibly make your Muse interesting towards others, why should they rp with this particular character of yours now, what possible plots do they offer?:  the fact she is basically a “religious fanatic” , with a quirky personality and a questionable morality , considering she has an inner conflict between the wellness of her race and her loyalty towards yhwach . At least pre war . post war , she has a flipped personality were she is mostly bitter and more angsty but will go from fanatic to straight up hater . 

- With what type of Muses do you usually struggle to rp with?:   bland personalities ? not sure myself , Eden is pretty much ready for anything since her personality is pretty laid back . I guess I would say shinigamis in general --- since she basically is stuck inside Silbern . - With what type of Muses do they usually work well with?:  Quincies , ofc . and people who are willing to put up with her crap .

- What interests your Muse(s) in general:  the prosperity of the quincy , doing a proper duty , order , tea , annoying the fuck out of people . being eerie ....  - What do they desire, is their goal?:  the ideal world as thought by Yhwach --- later on simply for her kind to survive after losing the war and being left to their luck . - What catches their interest first when meeting someone new?:  mmm , appearance  and reactions to her witty or narcisistic comments .  - What do they value in a person?:    loyalty , uniqueness . - What themes do they like talking about?:  most likely about the order of the army , tea stuff , herself (?) , but she is also a lot for debates and insight . - Which themes bore them?:  rebellious , silly thoughts . justice related topics . anything that critics her loyalty/life style . 

- Did they ever went through something traumatic?:  the first war was enough ? most likely losing comrades --- yhwach sacrificing the quincy for power later on .  - What could possibly trigger them?:  the simple sight of anyone laying a finger of the quincy for being against their views .   - What could set them off, enrage them?:  nothing. she cannot literally , physically get angry or enraged . but if we are talking bitter , that would be completely post war and it’s just the mention of yhwach’s name or those who went to god’s palace with him .  - What could lead to an instant kill?:  invasion of silbern , chaos . 

- Is there someone /-thing they hate?:  chaos , rebels , shinigami , anyone against the quincy . - Is there someone /-thing they love?:   her race , her pride , herself .

Is your Muse easy to approach?: YES / NO. - Best ways to approach them?:  just .... come to her and say hi . she is literally wandering around silbern all the time ( quincy speaking tho ) . for others , eh ... good luck . and wait post war (?) - Where are they usually to find?:  Silbern ... then Siberia . 

Something you may still want to point out about your muse?:  She is no saint , clearly . She has a questionable sense of things like loyalty and preservation of her race . she is honestly all over the place

CONGRATS!!! You managed it, now tag your mutuals! ♥

Tagged by:  honestly stole from @skyvar​  Tagging:  no one in particular.

[luciana-galvez]

rockstars & runaways | part 1

Nikki and Kat go way back, but with his issues and her family history, finding their way back together is a long and rocky road. And with the rockstar life, what’s the hurry anyway?

Fandom: The Dirt

Words: 2.1k

Pairing: Nikki Sixx x OC

Warnings: Nothing, as of now. Angst maybe?

Note: I’m basing this on the fictionalized version of the characters. This is an ongoing story. This is also my first OC story on tumblr, which is exciting! Feedback is always welcome! 

1984

It had been over two years since she had last seen Nikki. Two years, eight months, and fifteen days to be exact, not that she was counting. She remembered the last time better than she liked, and there was still that small pang of guilt that gnawed at her whenever she thought about it.

Not that she hadn’t had valid reason to leave. She had been in LA for too long already, but when she met the broken boy that was almost as angry at the world as she was, the part of her that was longing for connection convinced her that it was okay to stay for just a little longer. Just a couple of weeks.

And the weeks turned into months. It would have turned into years if she wouldn’t have had that close call that almost rendered all her years of running irrelevant, so when she eventually left, she did it in the most cowardly way possible, and the only way she knew how — she ran.

She did leave a note, but she knew it didn’t make up for sneaking out while Nikki was passed out after a long night jamming with the boys and an even longer night partying.

So when she saw the poster for Mötley Crüe playing in Boston a couple of weeks ago, she was shell-shocked. She hadn’t seen their faces for so long that she even doubted her own sanity for a brief second, but even back then she had known they were good. She had known they would become big. She just hadn’t expected it so soon.

She also knew that she had to go, no matter how bad an idea it was.

So she went.

She stood in the back during the concert, watching them go wild on stage with a feeling that was half pride and half jealousy. She longed for their familiarity and it felt like the weight of knowing she missed out on everything that happened wouldn’t leave her anytime soon.

After the show she had lingered outside for long enough to overhear one of the roadies mention which club the band was headed, and she was on her way there not long after. Now she was skimming though the crowd of people that all wanted to party with Mötley Crüe and cursed under her breath whenever someone would bump into her.

But the longer she looked, the more she realized they might not actually be here. The roadie could have mixed up the name of the club, the band might have gotten distracted by the nearest strip club, or they might have just as well taken the bus straight to their next stop instead.

She had gone into this night knowing it was a bad idea, but realizing that it might not be in her hands if she actually got to see him was so crushing that she needed a moment to steady herself. Leaning against the nearest wall, she closed her eyes and went through her mental checklist, as she always did when she got anxiety.

Breathing in. She was in Boston. Breathing out. Her name was Charlene. Breathing in. At least that’s what her current ID said. Breathing out. She was 23 years old. Breathing in. Nothing had happened in 2 years, 8 months and 16 days. Breathing out. She was safe, she was safe, she was safe.

She was pulled from her thoughts when a crowd of girls started screaming so loudly that she felt the roof must be coming down, and it didn’t take long for her to find the source of the commotion. Across the room, which was so clouded with cigarette smoke that it was surprising there was any visibility at all, the band had just walked in through the front door, and the crowd was going wild.  

She watched as Vince locked arms with the closest girl that threw herself at him and Mick beelined past him straight to the bar. Tommy came in next, and his expression was so full of pure joy and excitement that it was hard to combine the picture with the out-of-control-rockstar that she saw on stage just an hour earlier.

And then she saw Nikki.

Instead of his glamourous stage outfit he was now wearing a plain black tank top, and the horizontal black paint under his eyes was smudged. There was a smile playing on his lips as well, but he wasn’t glowing nearly as much as Tommy. He grabbed the drink of someone standing close to him, downed it in one go, haphazardly threw the empty glass at someone else, and continued walking to the bar as well.  

For a moment she felt frozen. She had been so nervous about seeing Nikki, about seeing all of them really, that she hadn’t thought about what would actually happen when she found them. What would she say? What could she even say in this situation?

She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other and slowly approached the bar, where the whole band was now lined up, thirstily finishing their first drinks. Each of them had at least one girl next to them, and she watched with an even bigger twist in her stomach as Nikki readily and happily flirted back with the blonde next to him.

She eventually came to a stop ten feet away from the bar when the lump in her throat became too big and she had to press her palms against her thighs to stop them from shaking. She felt utterly lost. The thought to just turn around and leave crossed her mind. She had seen them now, seen Nikki and seen that he’s doing alright. That should be enough, right?

She was just about to turn on her heels when she locked eyes with Tommy. It took a moment, but when he realized who he was looking at, the grin disappeared out of his face instantly. It took him even longer to break through the daze and move, stretching his long arm past Vince to tap Nikki on the shoulder. Before she could prepare herself, Tommy had Nikki’s attention and pointed towards her.

When Nikki’s eyes found her, his expression vanished from his face right away. He simply stared at her for a moment, but before she could think about what to say, he turned away and headed straight for the exit, his posture so tense that it felt like he might bend and snap any second. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and hurriedly followed him outside.

She moved out the door just in time to see his black mop of hair disappearing into a side alley and jogged after him. When she turned the corner, she found Nikki bent over, his palms pressed against the stone wall.

“What the fuck?” he exclaimed when he saw her, straightening up and facing her. The expression in his face had turned to pure rage.

“Nikki,” she started, but he wasn’t done.

“No, don’t ‘Nikki’ me! Three sentences,” he snapped. “You left with three sentences on a goddamn napkin! He found me. I had to leave. I’m sorry. I thought you were dead in a fucking ditch.”

“Not yet,” she said softly, with a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Nikki simply stared at her, disbelievingly. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You knew it would happen eventually,” she said, her voice still soft.

“Then why show up again now? Saw that we were getting rich and famous and wanted a piece of it?”

He might as well have slapped her. In fact, slapping her would have hurt less.

“You’re right,” she managed to say eventually. “This was a bad idea.” And with that, she turned around and walked away.

As she walked, she balled her hand into fists so violently that she felt her nails digging into her skin. She didn’t know what she had expected, but she knew it wasn’t this kind of rage, and it was hard to swallow the disappointment she felt. She managed to get halfway down the street before she heard him call after her.

“Kat,” he shouted, and when she didn’t stop, followed it up with another, “Kat!”

She finally stopped but needed a moment to compose herself before turning around. Nikki was slowly walking up to where she was, and the anger had been replaced by an expression Kat couldn’t quite identify.

He eventually came to a halt right in front of her. “Nikki,” she started, but he interrupted her right away.

“Shut up,” he said, and for the first time there was no malice in his voice. He almost sounded like the Nikki she knew a couple of years ago.

And before she knew it, he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, one hand on her back and one gently pressing against the back of her head. It took her a moment before she managed to reciprocate the movement, and when she did she didn’t know if she would be able to let him go again.

Nikki was strong and warm and familiar, and she instantly regretted showing up tonight because now it would be so much harder to leave again. She wrapped her arms around him a little tighter, holding on for as long as she could.

“I thought you were dead,” he repeated, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

1980

The Starwood was a shabby place. The floor was constantly sticky no matter how often it was mopped, the air was stagnant, it was constantly dark, and let’s not even start about the bathrooms.

Kat loved every bit of it.

She had managed to talk the owner into giving her an off-the-books cleaning job a couple of weeks earlier. Most of the customers were rude or too drunk to care when she stayed until the shows, and the other employees didn’t pay her any mind. Kat relished being there.

At night, when the live music turned out all the other noises around, she felt more alive than she had in a long time, maybe ever.

She was currently unsuccessfully mopping the floor of the concert room, trying to avoid thinking about how many bodily fluids and alcohol had mixed up to create this particular kind of superglue. Moving backwards across the room, the was taken aback when she bumped into someone and jumped in surprise.

It was one of the other guys working here, currently picking up stray trash, but it was the first time she got a closer look at him. He was skinny and tall, and his messy dark black hair was almost bigger than his head itself.

“Relax,” he uttered at her reaction, and made to turn away.

“Aren’t you the guy from the band yesterday?” Kat asked, furrowing her eyebrows. She hadn’t made the connection before, but looking at him closely, she noticed the familiarity. When he didn’t answer, she added “London?”

“Yeah,” he answered offhandedly, continuing to pick up trash. Kat’s task, however, was forgotten. She leaned on her mop and watched him, noticing that he was ever so slightly hunching, and his eyes were smaller than they should be. Hungover, she bet.

“Why are you working at the club your band plays at?” she prodded.

“Believe it or not, I have bills to pay.” He didn’t even try to mask his annoyance.

Kat grinned. “Okay, Rockstar.”

When she didn’t seem to get back to work, he eventually stopped as well and properly looked up, his eyes moving from her small face over her hair down to her body.

“You’re new,” he said eventually. It wasn’t a question.

“Observant.”

For the first time, a small smirk played on his face, and he looked a little less hungover and a little more pretty.

“I’m Nikki,” he said after a moment.

“Okay, Rockstar,” Kat repeated, and then she turned around and went back to mopping the floor.

“That’s where you introduce yourself.”

“Is it?” she asked without turning back to him. She hoped he couldn’t hear the grin in her voice.

But before Nikki could say anything else, the manager of Starwood appeared in the doorway. “Kat!” he bellowed, and Kat cringed.

“I’ll be right there,” she told Gary before eventually turning back to Nikki with a resigned expression.

“Kat, huh?” he grinned.

“Well,” she shrugged, “I tried.”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned around and headed to the door. “So long, Rockstar.”

Before she turned the corner into the hallway, she allowed herself on last glance back. Nikki had gone back to cleaning up, and his back was turned to her. She grinned.

Oh, this would be interesting.  

[sophygurl]

Hi! I was just browsing through my activity and noticed that after I responded to your ask about ships a while back, you reblogged and shared your thoughts about Spuffy. I'm so glad you were able to read my opinions and understand them, even if you didn't agree with them. I just wanted to stop by and ask what your thoughts and feelings are on Spuffy? I'd love to hear your perspective :)

Oh wooooow, you have no idea how happy you just made me! I feel like I talk about spuffy quite a lot but without ever really saying much of anything because inside of me it’s just a lot of (!!!!!>?>>?!!?!>fjhghhf?!?!?!?!!?) YKWM? Like feels central exploding all over the place and it’s really difficult for me to put into coherent words. 

But I’ve also been wanting and meaning to write some serious spuffy meta and kinda dissect what it all means to me personally, as a survivor, for some time now. And like. Especially with all of this purity culture stuff coming to a head, it feels like a good time to take the time to try and do it because, yea, shit not only doesn’t have to be pure to be helpful - but sometimes the darker stuff IS the Most helpful. 

And I really did appreciate your perspective about the relationship because you talked about the ways in which it did and didn’t work for you without ever shaming anyone for the way it does work for them? And I wish we could all do that more. 

So thank you so much for sending me this ask, and asking for my perspective because sometimes all it takes for me to finally settle down and write something I wanna write anyways is to be asked by someone else to do it! 

This is absolutely gonna get long so have a read more cut.

For context, let me start by saying that I didn’t watch Buffy when it first aired - it was, mmm, I wanna say about 10-11 years ago when I decided to try it out. And while I was watching it, I was also in the midst of doing some heavy duty therapy work on my PTSD stemming from childhood sexual abuse and then some further traumas in my young adulthood that happened because of poor processing of said abuse. I’m not gonna get into details about my personal traumas except for some specific ways in which they relate to the lens in which I watched and processed the relationship between Buffy and Spike. BUT, due to that lens, there very well may be triggery content in this post. 

My experience watching Buffy, in general, started out with me being really unsure what the draw was in season 1 and then slowly getting more involved in the characters and relationships and mythos as the series developed into a more mature and nuanced show. I was really hooked by season five, and season six is my favorite, with seven a close second. 

I liked Buffy, the character, okay in the beginning but it wasn’t until she started really going through and processing her traumas that I started to personally connect to her. So season six was like, my jam. She was raw and stripped down to the nerve, and cycling between like outright rage to pure numbness and just lashing out trying desperately to feel and to make sense of her experiences and I was like - yea, Buffy, same, Same. And then in season seven she starts really contextualizing her trauma and using the pain of it to give herself more power and then sharing that power with others and it was just … fuck, I can’t even begin to tell you what that meant to me. In that last episode, I felt her handing me back my OWN power - like I FELT it - it really … anyway. We’ll get there.

And then there was Spike, who I loved right away. I love me some snarky villains. I love me the bad boy who has hidden depths inside of him. I love the villain who doesn’t … really fit the mold of the other villains in-verse. I love the villain who doesn’t mind working with the heroes if it fits his agenda. Basically, Spike was fictional catnip for me right out of the gate.

I adored Spike and Drusilla together for a lot of reasons, but for Spike to develop beyond just Big Bad, he had to fall out of her orbit, so I was okay with that ending.

On the other hand, I was never into Buffy and Angel. Watching the series as an adult, it just felt creepy to me how this old vampire basically stalked a very innocent-seeming to me teen Buffy. Their romance reminded me of girls I knew who fell for older guys when I was in high school where the older guy seemed sort of dangerous and mysterious and I get the draw from Her perspective - but not necessarily his? I don’t know, I just personally never really bought them being truly in love - they were sort of practice relationships for one another? Her as a young teenager, and him as someone just starting to re-learn humanity. I never Disliked them together… I just never shipped it. The idea of them being one another’s One True Love’s was just sorta meh to me. 

So when Spike started having his crush on Buffy? I was so ready for that. Because it was so silly at first, right? It was not serious. It was creepy and weird and wrong. But in a way that appealed to me. 

How do I explain? I guess, it had to do with all of the reasons that Spike was Not Like All The Other Villains/Vampires. Angel was always different but ONLY because he was cursed with a soul. It was a thing done TO him and when he reverted back to Angelus he was literally a whole different person and did not have any desire to turn back into Angel. When he was Angel, he was all brooding and guilt-ridden and terrified of his other self. 

But Spike was always different just because he was different. This didn’t mean he had a soul or a capacity for love or the ability to be a Good Guy. It just meant he worked a little differently than the other vampires. I truly think he loved and was devoted to Dru. I don’t think she was capable of returning that love in the same way. 

So, anyway, Spike is back and he’s split with Dru because Dru could just … tell … something was off and Spike was wanting to deny that but then suddenly - crush! Not love, not attraction, not lust, not desire - a freaking schoolboy crush.

But of course it was creepy because hello - soulless vampire who has never had a healthy relationship of any kind in his LIFE. But he starts doing these odd things, like wanting to comfort Buffy when he sees that she’s upset and being willing to take care of Dawn when no one else was available and HE doesn’t get it either, but somehow he’s becoming a slightly more decent person because of this weirdass crush? 

IDK, that’s appealing.

And let me clarify. It’s not appealing to me because I see myself in the Good Girl who can make a Bad Boy into a better person. That is never what’s appealed to be about these types of relationships. 

In large part because of my abuse, I see different layers of myself in each character. 

I went through a large portion of my life pretending very hard to be a Good Girl and then when I finally came out of denial about the abuse realized that was because inside I felt like a very Bad Girl and then as I pursued more recovery realized it’s all a lot more complex than that but really I’ve been more of a Decent Person who felt like a Bad Person trying really hard to be a Good Person. I hope that makes sense.

But the point is. I see myself in both the Good and the Bad characters in these sorts of push-pull love-hate dynamic relationships.

And what I love about spuffy, specifically, is that they’re both … both. Eventually. I’m getting ahead of myself. But yes, Spike suddenly wanting to be decent here and there because of his weird developing feelings for Buffy appealed to me - and especially to part of me that feels Bad. I’m Spike in this scenario, not Buffy. 

But I’m also Buffy, being really grossed by this Bad Person’s interest in me. When Buffy throws her money at Spike and says he’s not good enough for her - that’s me hating myself and saying I’m not good enough. But it’s also, strangely, me taking a stand and saying I’m worth better than the ways in which I was treated.

Gods, this whole abuse recovery dichotomy can be so confusing to explain because like. I never abused anyone. But the ugliness I feel inside of myself has to do with what happened to me, and also with what I know people in my family have done to others. So there’s this idea of Badness there. And the idea of there being forgiveness and redemption for that Badness is very very appealing.

And at the same time? There’s this beauty inside of myself that I always thought I was faking but that it turns out - is fucking real and precious and important. And standing up for that broken beautiful part of myself and saying no to being used and abused again is so powerful.

So in that scene? I’m the ugliness in Spike being hated by Buffy but I’m ALSO the powerful beauty in Buffy standing up for herself.

You can maybe see how this all gets even more tangled up the further we go, yea?

So Spike gets chipped and becomes a part of the team - all the while simultaneously reminding them that he’s still a Bad Guy AND slowly becoming a slightly better person because of his interactions with them and his feelings for Buffy. He’s not even close to redeemed, okay, he’s still a villain. He’s just a more and more intriguing villain, an anti-villain, even, eventually.

And then season six. And Buffy comes back. And she’s broken and raw and needing something that her friends cannot give her. She is needing to connect to the darkness inside of herself, and who is waiting there for her? 

And so yea, okay, hatesex is very appealing to me just inandofitself. It’s like double the passion and it’s animalistic and there’s something so sexy and gratifying about two people just using one another with equal force, yk? 

And Spike and Buffy are physically matched perfectly. She can take all her anger and pain and rage out on him without permanently damaging him. And she’s NEVER been able to let loose like that before. Her first time with Angel was a more tender and sweet moment and then - welp - turns out they can’t do the do. And otherwise she’s been with humans who she’s had to hold back with. There was zero holding back with Spike. 

So from Buffy’s perspective, there’s this amazing relief and release and yea, even, empowerment in being able to just freely let herself go in this way. 

From Spike’s point of view, it was about more. And here is where I feel for him because, at this point he’s still not really capable of love in the way we talk about it as being something from a soul. He’s chipped but not soul’d. He has strong feelings for Buffy that no vampire (besides cursed-soul Angel) should be able to have. But it’s not … quite … love. It’s passion and it’s care and it’s wanting and it’s even becoming something like friendship. But it’s not love, much as he thinks it is.

But he does Think it is. And he’s thinking it’s the same for her, but she just can’t admit it, yet. The hatesex to him … is just  … sex. And he fully believes he’s winning her over. And so her constant rejection of him as a fully human person with a soul and feelings guts him - even as he’s still trying to convince himself that he does love her and she does somehow secretly love him back. 

The fact that she keeps using him physically, and also keeps coming to him for emotional support, supports this belief and keeps him from understanding the reality of the situation.

Now, I think I mentioned than when I was watching this for the first time I was in heavy duty therapy mode yea? Well, there was another even heavier duty therapy mode a good tenish years prior when I had first admitted to the abuse I experienced and got really good and fucked up and made some bad personal decisions and here is where some of that comes to play because I saw myself in this scenario - again from both sides.

I am Buffy learning to enjoy the pleasures of my body and sexuality for the first time but also making really bad decisions about who to share that with because I am still so new to processing my trauma.

I am also Spike - longing for something more and better and being told (by myself) that I was not good enough, that I was bad, that I was not a full human person who deserved good things or good relationships.

(There, there, pastme - it does get better)

Back to first-time-Buffy-watching me. And I am enjoying the HECK out of the spuffy sex and I am feeling for poor pining Spike and feeling for Buffy who is hating herself for what she’s doing and also shipping them like WHOA because there is so much about their dynamic that is just sexy and fun and FEELS everywhere. 

But I knew Seeing Red was coming, because I did have a few things spoiled for me just by existing in the world for years without having watched the show yet myself. I really didn’t wanna watch it, or the rest of season six. So I got into a spiral of just watching the earlier parts of the season over and over - specifically the musical and through the 3 episodes of heavy spuffy sex. I did a LOT of processing during this time and then eventually girded myself to watch what I knew was coming. 

And Seeing Red is awful. Traumatic. Triggering. Terrible. But also, like, gods, did it make sense for where these two characters were at this point in time? I didn’t feel like it was contrived or somehow put in just for the heck of it. It made sense in the narrative. Spike legitimately just did not get it. He did not realize he was attempting rape until … finally … he did. 

And the horror of that, the horror of realizing that he almost did that to the ONE person in the world that he has ever cared that much about? Broke him. Sent him off on a magical quest to get his fucking soul back.

No one did that. Even Angel was Cursed with his soul, right? No vampire ever wanted to get their soul back - even had enough non-ensouled feelings to have the ability to want such a thing. Not to mention going through the trials of actually getting it back.

Season seven Spike is such a different beast. He’s messed up from the soul-thing, but I honestly believe Most of his messed-up-ness came from what The First was doing to/through him. Because … gods, okay.

When Spike goes through the flashbacks and recognizes what his trigger is? (Like the show legit uses PTSD terminology here - it was a Trigger) He processes his Own old traumas and he is able to tell Robin basically - fuck it, I know who I am. I know I did terrible things without my soul, but I can’t and won’t beat myself up for that (for example the way Angel does) because it wasn’t entirely my fault and all I can control now is who I am now and what I do now.

Now THAT spoke to me as a trauma survivor. Stop hanging on to all of this so-called badness inside, forgive yourself, and move on. WOW. Fucking powerful. 

And what he DOES choose to do is to be there for Buffy in any way she will allow him to.

Ensouled Spike is no longer creeping around her or making weird assumptions about her or trying to Get something From her. Ensouled Spike defends her when others attack. Ensouled Spike holds her all night when she needs it and gives her pep talks and asks what he can do to help and accepts when he can’t help and just stands there quietly willing to do battle With her. 

I just … phew… that makes me emotional. 

Because, again, I look back at some of those dysfunctional relationships I got into in my early 20′s and like. None of those fuckers would have done anything like that. 

And my attraction to the Fictional Bad Boy with a Hidden Heart of Gold was never about expecting any of them to. I was with them, unconsciously or even some cases consciously, on purpose to punish myself or to work out past traumas with or just to Feel Something. I never expected or even necessarily wanted deep love from them.

So, here’s the thing. None of those fuckers would have done anything like that for me. Nor I them. 

So Spike slowly gaining his redemption through his willingness to become a better person because of his love of Buffy? Fucking spoke to me.

And Buffy slowly accepting the darker parts of herself through her willingness to let Spike into her orbit because of her feelings for him? Fucking yes. 

And when she hands him the - shit it’s been a long time - that medallion meant for a champion? And he doesn’t think he’s worthy, but she says she knows he is. Fuck!!! That is ME accepting ME, okay? All of myself, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the messed up and the slowly healing. All of it. 

And when he sacrifices himself in the end??? When that’s how she’s finally able to defeat The First? All that power sharing with all of the other women was *chefkiss* but it also took Spike. Spike who stormed on the scene in season two with snark and a twisted sense of love and no desire to ever be a hero? That Spike!? Sacrificing himself and STILL NOT BELIEVING BUFFY LOVES HIM. 

Because by then, let’s be clear, she did. Maybe not the same way he loved her, but she did love him. And he doesn’t believe it, can’t believe himself worthy of that love. But he sacrifices himself ANYway?

THAT Spike? Is no longer asking anything in return. He gives all of himself and won’t even accept her statement of love in return. “No, you don’t. But thanks for saying it anyway.” Just AUGJH?!? You know??? 

That was me … redeeming me … for me…. 

So anyway. 

I just want to add that AS I WAS WRITING THIS OUT, I got another ask in my inbox stating “People who like problematic or villainous characters are apologist for shitty people and should rethink their life because they’re shitty people.”

And this is the exact WRONG time to come for me like this because I just poured out my entire traumatized abuse surviving soul into the internet to explain why watching a problematic villain evolve and learn to do better helped ME to contextualize and process my fucking trauma. So fuck you. People who write anonymous hate without knowing the full story are being shitty and should rethink their actions because they’re shitting on actual REAL LIFE COMPLEX INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE. 

The end. 

[icequeen-shiva]

alright, you know what

about two weeks ago maybe by now, i made a post about how i’ve recently hit 200 followers and i’d like to do a q&a again, and even with a reblog from someone more ~*popular*~ than me, and multiple reblogs once a day for a few days by myself, i didn’t get a single fucking question. not one. earlier today i posted two pictures of myself where i felt pretty (i’ve since deleted them) and nobody i actually know of liked it and i got asked by a stranger who doesn’t even follow me if i had any nsfw pictures. i don’t get asks anymore, i don’t get shit. and that tells me that, you may be following me, but you aren’t connecting with me. and i feel that. i get on tumblr and i don’t feel like i’m friends with fucking anybody. and i did that. i know i did that. 9/10 times i let my fear of rejection and embarrassing myself overcome my desire to talk to people, so i don’t do it, or i let it fizzle out and we go our own ways and we don’t become friends. 1/10 times i actually function as a human being and make a connection or at least something that sticks a little.

so here, below the cut, is a comprehensive (loosely) list of things that i like, in no particular order at all, besides tickling, because apparently both sides of this need a little help connecting on any front.

scooby-doo

beetlejuice

the addams family

the sims

the mcu

classic disney animations; my favorites are dumbo, the great mouse detective, the rescuers, sleeping beauty, and oliver and company (it’s old enough that i consider it in the classic category)

~modern disney animations too; my favorites are treasure fucking planet, coco, and... i’m a sap, beauty and the beast. rise of the guardians too even though it isn’t disney.

musicals; i can’t pick a favorite just fucking ask me, but i don’t know a lot of newer ones honestly

empire records

the greatest showman still

cats (i mean the animals but i also like the show even though it is Weird As Hell)

my cat in particular

alice in wonderland

stranger things

space jam

tsum tsums

elvira, mistress of the dark

dice

kiki’s delivery service and specifically jiji things

winnie the pooh i don’t even fucking care i LOVE HIM AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

silly hats

playdoh

interesting earrings

exploring libraries or big bookstores

true crime mysteries; my favorite youtuber for this is georgia marie, bless her. i also watch bella fiori and kendall rae

fictional mysteries too

i have a kind of fascination with jack the ripper and with the lizzie borden case

shipwrecks! i don’t know why but shipwrecks fascinate me! why did they go down? all the stories that went with them!

i once read a novel that was told as a series of letters, or journal entries, by people on the titanic, including the iceberg and it was THE absolute saddest book i have ever read in my life. like, obviously i knew what was coming, but i got attached to the characters, the letters made them alive and it was just like... NO. NO I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE. I KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO BUT THEY CAN’T. and it was awful. i had to put it down and cry.

cryptozoology

the bermuda triangle theories (i’m not saying i believe sOmEtHiNg’S gOiNg On but i think some of the theories are interesting)

ghosts

the nancy drew computer games

monopoly

i still play a lot of my snes games; my go-to time killer and head-clearer honestly is kirby’s avalanche. i also play a lot of super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, super mario world, kirby’s dreamland 3, and donkey kong 2 and 3

final fantasy x in which i’m guaranteed to call almost (i can’t stress that enough) every character at some point “my child”

hyrule warriors, i know it’s not a tRuE zelda game but it’s fucking fun

same with fire emblem warriors

red dead redemption

kingdom hearts

the uncharted series

splatoon but i don’t have it wahhhhh

mind you i am not very Good at videogames, i just like to play them anyway

game grumps

ninja sex party

jacksepticeye

markiplier

monty python

crocheting

tea

harry potter

classic rock. pretty big on queen lately. i like tom petty and the heartbreakers. i like joan jett and the blackhearts.

i just... like rock. across the board. i like the offspring. i like some rage against the machine songs. acdc on the radio makes me happy. def leppard on the radio makes me happy. beartooth, starset, powerman 5000, as long as it’s got a good beat and good stuff going on behind the vocals then i’m gonna be happy. i’m way more into the guitars and the bass and everything going on instrumentally than i am vocally, honestly. the whole big guitar solo to van halen’s “you really got me” and then that bassline that comes in, that bassline is sexy. it’s so simple but i LIKE it.

anyway music as a whole gets me right in the heart and can lift me up when i am at my literal worst point

it’s hard for me to name a favorite or specific bands that i like because there’s so many and i’m not really picky about it. 

pop vinyls

good ol’ vines

buffalo wings

mac and cheese

grilled cheese

dr. pepper

i drink a l o t of dr. pepper

pretending i know how to do makeup well

history; i watch a lot of expedition unknown and mysteries at the museum, and sometimes i’ll watch a free documentary on youtube if it catches my attention. last weekend i explained the donner party to my boyfriend. just.. on a whim. because i’d just watched a thing on it and he said he didn’t really know what it was. i’m that person.

OH I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS BACK AROUND TRUE CRIME BUT I READ A BOOK ABOUT H.H. HOLMES AND HIS MURDER CASTLE AND THE CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR. it was by erik larson, i believe. larsen? i could google this. devil in the white city. there’s been talks to make it a movie. it’s a good read though i will admit i skipped a lot of the fair parts because i was there for the murder.

i also read a book about the lusitania by the same author and i was like ohhh my goooood what. it got a little boring sometimes, i had to push myself to keep going, but i would read dead wake again.

csi: miami reruns are the greatest thing don’t @ me

dark purple and black aesthetics

just like... witchy aesthetics. those colors and black cats

if you haven’t noticed by any selfies i’ve posted, i do have my lip pierced and i love finding new lip jewelry. i have a new opal stud in and i love its look

leather jackets

combat boots; i have a galaxy print pair and a pair with classic marvel comics stuff printed on the inside and you can fold down the sides to show it. they’re my faves.

owls

drunk history

the first 5 seasons of supernatural and i still have a soft spot for the winchesters and castiel

i’m slowly making my way through watching the librarians

i’m also making my way slowly through watching the magicians

(american) football

nature walks

going to the zoo

going to the aquarium

like really take me to either of the above and i will lose my shit

road trips

savannah, georgia

the smokey mountains

last august i drove by myself from ohio to boone, north carolina for a friend’s wedding and that wedding was smack on a mountain top and it was the coolest thing i think i’ve ever done

roller coasters BUT NOT EXTREME ONES baby steps ok

log rides tho, i don’t know why, i always love the water rides

ren faires!

cosplay, even though i’m not exactly active in it myself (but i want to be; one of my offline friends is an actually-getting-kind-of-internet-famous mei from overwatch cosplayer)

cards against humanity

foosball

pool but i suck at it

speaking of pools i love swimming ... but i suck at it, i just like boppin’ along in a pool

cookouts

summer

there is nothing like being out in the middle of nowhere in summer when the evening starts to fall and the sky is dark, dark blue and there’s a sea of shimmering lightning bugs out over a field. it’s beautiful. it’s peaceful.

there’s nothing like sitting outside on a calm spring night and listening to the spring peepers (they’re frogs) either.

if you couldn’t tell, i live in the middle of nowhere. i have to find enjoyment in the little things.

campfires

dancing around said campfire, you cannot have a campfire without good music. this is when a lot of my classic rock education came to pass.

elephants

my favorite books are the abhorsen trilogy by garth nix, tied with the serpent’s shadow by mercedes lackey

i am trying to get into comic books by way of the youtube channel comicstorian. they break comic books down for you and read them aloud with the images, altered slightly to avoid copyright strikes (and that’s all made very clear, it’s not done sketchily), and it’s been really easy for someone like me who doesn’t just have a comics store close (and i would otherwise continue on as i have been, forgetting to ever look for them on the internet). i listened to injustice 1 and 2, and they covered the game. i’m actively following scooby apocalypse, and there was some teen titans stuff i went all the way through up until now. i don’t think it’s finished yet from what i remember.

i love museums

candles

i actually kind of collect tea sets

i also have a collection of sand art bottles AND IF I’M EVER AT A FESTIVAL OR A FAIR WHERE THERE IS A SAND ART STAND YOU CAN BET I AM GOING TO MAKE ONE

yugioh duels; i’m definitely just a novice and it’s just a fun pastime my friends got me into when they found their giant binders of cards again

i’m not actually that big on pokemon, i don’t know a lot of them but it’s still fun and i know some. but i did love pokemon go when my friends still played it (don’t really have time anymore, and it kept crashing way too badly on one of their phones anymore anytime they tried to join a raid and it just wasn’t fun as a group then)

i don’t have any but i like the ~look of crystals and would like to have some, not for my own aesthetic but i just... like having pretty things!

listening to the rain

how the air smells (at least where i live) after a long rain and everything is just cleansed

depression has stopped me from writing for a long time but, in my heart, writing has always been something that has touched me ever since i knew how to do it and could put my stories down on paper instead of having to just talk about them... so i’m going to include that here

root beer floats

hotdogs

hard dip ice cream (if you don’t know what hard dip means... as my boyfriend didn’t... it means ice cream that you have to use a scoop with, not soft serve)

soft serve’s good too tho don’t get me wrong

strawberry milkshakes

this isn’t even stuff that anyone would need to know on this site to befriend me at this point, nobody’s gonna message me like HEY I READ YOU LIKE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES ME FUCKING TOO

you’re cool if you do that lmao

so bad they’re good creature features from the 50s and 60s

the old godzilla movies

i like the moon more than the stars, but i like them too

flower crowns

bouncy balls

original skittles

this has gone on way too long, nobody is reading this, your mom’s a hoe, goodnight

no she’s not, i’m sorry, if you got this far then i hope your mom is a nice person

[tarysande]

AO3 Writing Meme

I was tagged by the lovely @todisturbtheuniverse whose username remains one of my very favorites (yessss T.S. Eliot), and who is an all-around wonderful human.

———

What is your total posted word count on AO3? (Go to your Works, then click Statistics.)

1,316,777 (since December 2011). Haha. Ha. To be fair, probably only a million of those words are mine because @w0rdinista and I wrote From the Ashes together. 

Only a million, she says.

How often do you write?

Um. Look, when I was extremely underemployed, I was also extremely prolific. There have also been periods where I only wrote fic and all my original stuff sat unloved. The last couple of years have been ... challenging. Partly because I’ve been navigating working a lot more, partly because of health (mental and physical), and partly because I’ve devoted a lot more attention to original fic. Which is a long way of saying: not as much as I’d like to be. I am trying to write at least a little bit most days, now. It’s very slow-going. Like learning to walk again after a serious accident slow-going.

If you count any writing and not just fiction writing, though, I write pretty much every day. 

Do you have a routine for writing?

I’m really fortunate that I have a home office. I mean, I use it for paid work, but it also means I have a room of my own. Usually, I make myself a tea/coffee (or pour myself some water), turn on music if it’s not on already, and boot up my Mac. I use my PC for work and work-related writing, so using a different computer tends to tell my brain to leave work behind. (Plus, Scrivener is way prettier on the Mac.) 

I use internet blockers if willpower’s not cutting it. I also use pomodoros or sprints to push myself past overthinking and hypercritical inner critic nonsense, if I need to.

Sometimes, when home isn’t cutting it, I write in cafes. With earphones in. And usually a snack.

What are your favorite kinks/tropes/pairings?

Kinks: Basically, if the sex doesn’t need to be there for narrative purposes, I’m extremely meh about it. PWP is not my thing. That said, I have a real soft spot for tenderness, comfort, vulnerability, goodnatured competitiveness, very light use of restraints/blindfolds (never as punishment; pain does nothing for me, even if it’s consensual; it’s more about trust), hands, intimacy, readiness/foreplay/consent. Basically, I’m all about sex-as-emotional-connection; *shrug* my demisexual is showing.

Tropes: Hurt/comfort, friends-to-lovers (sometimes enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, but the enemyness can’t be things I consider unforgivable), fake/pretend relationships, slow burn, humor as a mask, angst (with at least a bit of hope, even if it’s bittersweet), mutual pining, fluff, domesticity-depending-on-the-characters, kidfic very much depending on the kids and the characters. There are probably more that aren’t coming to mind at the moment.

Pairings: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Femshep/Garrus, F!Hawke/Sebastian, F!Hawke/Fenris, and Cullen/Trevelyan (Rose) are the ones I write. For reading, I also love Phryne/Jack, Wimsey/Vane, and several other BioWare ships (especially when written by people I admire) though I don’t have time to read much right now! I like my pairings to include at least one f!character, so m/m has never been my personal jam. I do like a few f/f pairings though!

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

And choose between all my children? From the Ashes, because it cemented so much of my friendship with @w0rdinista . Something Like Home, because it was important to me for a lot of reasons. Any Four Walls, because Rose and Tyrra? You, because it was the catalyst for jumping into Lucifer fandom (even if it didn’t get finished until a year later).

To be honest, a lot of my other personal favorites are ones with fewer kudos, but whatcha gonna do?

Your fic with the most kudos?

A Handful of Dust, with 1241 (but, shockingly, Any Four Walls has almost caught up to it at 1214! I still can’t believe that. It’s kidfic. It was gonna be a one-shot prompt fill! ...then it grew plot against my will.)

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

That some of it is un-fucking-finished? See above. I’m so sorry, AHOD and AFW; you deserve better, and someday I will finish you both. I hate unfinished things. I hate that I have unfinished things. 

Also, I don’t like when I catch myself reusing phrases/gestures/etc.

Now something you do like?

I’ll be real with you here. If I didn’t like my writing, I wouldn’t post it. You’d never see a word. If I don’t love one of my own stories, I don’t share it. I am my own biggest fan. I know in ways other people can’t how incredibly hard I work on everything I do, and how incredibly important it is to me to do the very best I can. I know how often I’ll watch a clip or how much research I’ll do just to nail a voice or get a tiny fact right. I have been writing a long, long, long time. I’m still changing and growing and learning---and it’s awesome. So, even when I look back on something very old? I still smile and know that version of Tara was doing her very best, too, even if Current Tara would change things.

Also, I think I write pretty great dialogue and excellent character psychology/motivations.

Tagging ... anyone who wants to ramble about their fic and their feelings??

[professorbellarke]

Honestly a bit disappointed in the “traitor you love” moment. Am I crazy for wising it had been a quieter character moment instead? I love soft bellarke so much. Please convince me I’m wrong! im begging you, I don’t want to be a negative Nancy :(

OHHHH. Oh sweet honey baby, you have come to the right person! And I hope you have some time to relax and pull up a chair as the dining room proudly presents the thesis you didn’t ask for! This is going to be a long one.

Because I loved everything about that scene. Honestly, I loved the entire episode top to bottom, and I’ll tell you why. Because this story is a genre story. It is science fiction. And while good genre stories have intimate character moments and connections as the…I don’t know, the flesh and blood of a story, the BONES of genre fiction must be plot. And sometimes, it feels like The 100 carves away too much of that flesh and blood to focus on the bones, when the blood is what makes us care about the bones (this metaphor went cannibal places, oh no). BUT THAT MOMENT! Ohh, that moment, sweet anonymous, was the perfect fusion of flesh and bone. Heart and head. Plot and character. In other words it was our beloved Bellamy’s favorite thing:

!!!!!!HIGH DRAMA!!!!!!!!!!

One of the things I love best about genre fic is that everything—even and especially emotional revelations and turning points—must be done in the most dramatic way possible. It’s ingrained in the dna of the genre, and I’m always disappointed when sci fi and plots take the easy way out. No, I don’t want a magical amulet that’ll just fix everything! YAWN AND SNOOZE AND OO. The 100 never does this, which means it always pushes its characters into impossible corners, forcing them to make unthinkable choices, and that is what I love. If there’s an easy way out, like say, a space station that can shelter Skaikru from the radiation, THE 100 BLOWS IT UP. I LOVE WHEN SHOWS BLOW THINGS UP! I want the drama so explosive that my nose is three inches from the screen because I’m so eager for what’s next that I’m trying to physically leap into the story. I like the stakes SO HIGH that I’m in a constant state of tension. It’s why I’m obsessed with this show. It’s why it’s also not for everyone.

But like I said, this show is at its best when it has the character stakes and the plot stakes working in harmony. 5x08 was a masterclass in that.

For an example in how stakes make a story, Clarke’s radio could have worked (ignore science, I don’t know her, I know only story.) So Spacekru could have known she was alive the whole time, she and Bellamy could have had merry chats across space, she could have told them about her berries, they could have laughed together about that time Murphy slid into a coma, lol, classic Murphy. Then Spacekru could have come bback down when the five years were up, because of course they had enough fuel, and then Clarke would be waiting for them and yay! Good times.

Good snooze.

I have read really good fics that are about this exact thing. They’re cozy, dreamy, romantic, and beautiful. They fill a crack in my heart formed by the agony of Praimfaya. They are also NOT MARKETABLE GENRE STORIES BEING EXPLORED ON THE SCREEN. There are certain expectations there. You need obstacles before you earn the payoff. Bellamy must think Clarke is DEAD!!! And learn to move on without her! And Clarke must talk to him EVERY DAY because the thing that keeps her going is that he’ll come BACK TO HER! BUT THEY CAN’T GET BACK BECAUSE NO FUEL!!!! BUT CLARKE IS IN TROUBLE AND NEEDS THEM NOW!!! Ahhh! The stakes raise with every plot twist. And we’re personally invested to boot.

Bellamy could have learned Clarke was alive in a million ways, by stepping out of the dropship and seeing her waiting, by hearing her on the radio, on and on. But it’s so much better that they reunited in the climactic scene of the WHOLE EPISODE. That the first time Clarke sees him in six years is through a haze of pain, when all hope is lost, and then there is hope. Her drama bae. Dramatically saving her life like no time at all has passed. The whole plot of 5x03 was Bellarke reuniting! That’s what the stakes were. Will Bellamy get to Clarke in time? First he must overcome the fact that he’s stuck in space, and then that he thinks she’s dead, and that Diyoza will kill him, and ack it’s getting harder because Clarke is getting in deeper water by the second!

I LIVE FOR THIS. Those are the moments I watch over and over and over again.

So Octavia could have thrown out that “lol, you love Clarke, you’re so lame, sick burn Blodreina well done have a humansnack ration” at any time in the episode to try to get a rise out of him. But they saved it. For when it counted most. For when it would have the most impact for us and for them.

Bellamy (and the writers) didn’t just not deny that Bellamy loves Clarke. No, Bellamy’s love for Clarke was declared by the narrative while he was POISONING HIS SISTER to SAVE CLARKE’S LIFE as the FATE OF ENTIRE SOCIETIES AND THE LAST LIVABLE PLACE IN THE WORLD HANG IN THE BALANCE. BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS AS MUCH AS HIS LOVE FOR CLARKE! HIS LOVE FOR CLARKE WAS THE FINAL PLOT TWIST, THE TURNING POINT, THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE BELLAMY’S BACK! BELLARKE WAS THE PLOT!!! THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PLOT!!!!!!

That is my ABSOLUTE JAM RIGHT THERE oh my god. Oh my god I can’t even word about it. Yes, I love quiet character moments. I love them so much. And this show could use more of them. Honestly, this episode was so strong because it not only HAD them, but it let us feel them: Bellarke in the tent, Monty and Harper planning their happy farmlives, Emori and Murphy having a very sad second breakup in the woods while McCreary cursed his entire existence, Raven and Echo holding hands, Raven breaking down with Zeke at the end. From a character point of view, this episode was a gift.

But one of the things I’ve always loved best about Bellarke is that their emotional beats are TIED DIRECTLY INTO THE PLOT IN THE BIGGEST WAY. The stakes in their relationship are literally world-changing, life or death, apocalypses and war and, well, epic, in the Logan Echolls sense. What’s the first time the word love is used in connection to Clarke’s feelings for Bellamy? WHEN SHE’S SENDING HIM TO SACRIFICE HIMSELF IN MT WEATHER. When is the first time Clarke realizes how much losing Bellamy will hurt her? When she closes the dropship door on him and believes she has just killed him herself. Who is the one person on earth Clarke cannot sacrifice, even if THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE HANGS IN THE BALANCE? Bellamy freaking Blake, that’s who. Your OTP could never.

I love quiet, subtle, low drama Bellarke in my fan fiction, so very much. They deserve to have a break and so do we. But there’s a reason that never happens on screen���because that’s not Story, in the classic way of sci fi and fantasy, where the stakes are magnified. I had a writing professor who liked to use the common writing adage Twist the knife. You stab them right where it hurts, but you don’t just leave it there. You twist it. You milk it for everything its got.

Everything in genre fiction must be bigger. It takes the themes of our world and blows them up by adding bloodier stakes. It’s the same interpersonal struggles, but instead of you losing a job or a friend, you lose a kingdom. You lose a planet. Genre stakes are both personal and external, and the really good genre stories manage to fuse them—which is what they’ve done with Bellarke since day one. The fate of the hundred, of skaikru, of spacekru, of humanity, rested on Bellamy and Clarke being able to forge a working partnership.

And, spoiler alert, they did. And now they have to fucking kiss, hopefully in a moment of high plot-related drama as well.

I know fiction is objective and you super don’t have to agree with me. But I’m a high stakes ho, and 5x08 gave me my high stakes fix. Thank you for coming to the TED talk you only a little bit asked for.

[thecloserkin]

book review: K Webster, Hale (2018)

Genre: Romance

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Yes, extremely explicit. In fact if this had been published on literotica i would have accounted it a well-above-average story.

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Yes

Bottom line: This is the most vanilla thing I have read in a LONG time and if i hadn’t paid $3.99 for it i doubt I would have bothered to finish it

I picked up this title because shipcestuous added it to her to-read shelf on goodreads, and while it’s clear from the editorial copy (“This book is an epic, emotional, raw love story”) that they think something groundbreaking is going on here, I would like to direct these amateurs to the Sibling Incest tag on Ao3. Or the Incest Shipping Yay page on TVtropes. Or Astrid’s now-defunct blog, if tumblr ever sees fit to restore it. Trust me, you do not have to be doing anything experimental or original for me to enjoy your tropetastic incest story. You don’t even have to be good with words. Stephenie Meyer, for instance, is not what anybody would call a first-rate stylist, and yet I’ve never had any trouble finishing any of her books (none of which feature incest, but the point was about writing generally).

Hudson and Rylie Hale lose their parents in a tragic car accident. Their shared grief is the catalyst for the affair that blooms between them, and I will give them this much: these kids at least know better than to leave any incriminating texts or pictures lying around on their phones. Their vigilance in the digital realm is then completely nullified by the way they conduct themselves irl—they’re walked in on by (1) their aunt aka Rylie’s guardian and (2) Hudson’s roommate at college, all within a week of getting together. I know the risk of being caught is part of the allure of incestuous relationships, but these clowns need to learn to keep it in their pants at least until they can find a closet.

In my opinion this story would have benefitted from an Outsider POV or two. Not every story needs one—Cathy Dollanganger’s first-person POV is more than adequate to carry Flowers in the Attic, and speaking of authors who are shoddy stylists, look at how bad V.C. Andrews was, and how little it mattered—but there’s not enough substance to either Hudson or Rylie’s characters for their alternating POVs to keep the reader invested. In brief, Rylie’s clinically depressed, and Hudson’s attending college on a baseball scholarship. There’s a scene where they watch a movie together and end up fucking on the couch, which would usually be my jam (standard sibling interaction leads to white-hot sex), except I was boooooored. There’s a scene where she visits him at school and they go skinny-dipping in a lake with some of his friends, and they both have to fight off the attentions of prospective romantic partners, and it ends with him carrying her to his truck and fucking her in the back off it. Which again in theory sounds amazing. In practice I think the jealousy trope works better if you’re threatened by your partner’s emotional intimacy with somebody else. And what is Rylie worried about? That this girl has porn star tits, where Rylie is much more modestly endowed. Ok you know who else has small tits? Natalie Portman. Keira Knightley. Emma Watson. Physically unprepossessing women the whole lot of them, amirite? Rylie is overcome by the same unwarranted insecurity when it comes to Hudson’s on-again-off-again ex-girlfriend, who is described as having humongous knockers. I understand how this can make Rylie feel inadequate—women are taught to hate their bodies from day one—but this chick also clearly has nothing going on upstairs, and her emotional connection with Hudson is nowhere in Rylie’s league. So Rylie’s jealousy strikes me as unearned and unrealistic.

Hudson and Rylie spend a good chunk of this book struggling against their feelings, berating themselves for being sick and twisted, all of which would normally be my kryptonite since i am on record gushing about the taboo/forbidden angle of incest and how I’m into sneaking around!! And none of it did damn thing for me in this case. The more reviews I read that contain the word “raw” the more I start to wonder if we all read the same book.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

As far as canon incest happy ending goes, the “run away together to where nobody knows you guys” strategy has its drawbacks, namely that it means leaving loved ones behind. I have discussed my preference for Option B before, but that option isn’t on the table for Hudson and Rylie because THEY GOT THEMSELVES CAUGHT IN THE ACT and exposed their relationship to multiple people so they can’t plausibly carry on denying it. Especially when Rylie starts popping out kids. Look, I’m into pregnancy kink as much as the next person but it just seems unearned. As is the fact that Hudson found a good-paying steady job even without the college degree their parents worked so hard to push him to get (he was kicked off the baseball team + lost his scholarship due to a combination of grieving for parents & obsessive infatuation for sister). This is America, where good jobs don’t just fall into high school graduates’ laps (unless you have family connections, which the Hale kids don’t, bc they had to move a thousand miles away to live amongst strangers!). And I can’t write these lapses off to the influence of the genre because I know there can be coherent class discourse in a romance novel.

A professor of mine once gave me a copy of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature (1984) by Janice Radway, and it remains to this day one of the most transformative nonfiction reading experiences of my entire life. Janice Radway conducts interviews with dozens of mostly-married, mostly-middle-aged women in a midsize midwestern American city, and finds that for them reading romance novels is a form of self-care. They spend the rest of their time supporting and nurturing their families & extended social networks, but with a Harlequin romance in hand, husbands are much less likely to bother them. They can carve out time and space for themselves, they can draw from these escapist fantasies the emotional sustenance that their marriages/children are not providing. They can form friendships with like-minded women who also read a lot of romance. It resonated deeply with me even if I’m not a middle-aged white homemaker in middle America in 1984, because ever since, I’ve been very clear-eyed about why I read romance: To meet my own emotional needs that are for some reason not being met by my existing meatspace relationships. That, to me, is the point of the romance genre, and to hell with character and plot. And that’s why I say Hale let me down, because it didn’t succeed in making me feel anything.

There’s a post floating around that contrasts the way we categorize published fiction (by genre, ie. what happens—wizards or starships? corsets or lawyers?) with fanfiction, which is organized based on how it makes us feel: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, etc. And fic has never let me down in that department, so I guess that’s why romance and fanfic fall under the same mental classification in my head. In this essay I will

[newmoneytrash]

GOOD VIDEO GAMES THAT I PLAYED IN 2018

(I haven’t proofread this yet so it’s probably grammatically stupid, but I’m a stupid person so it fits my aesthetic)

I finished over 30 games in 2018, and spent I don’t know how long playing bits and pieces of I don’t know how many others, and, I gotta say, I feel maybe less connected to video games than I ever have before? I’ve had so many moments of weird disassociation while playing games this year where I’ve just felt like I’ve stepped outside of myself and asked “why am I doing this?”, only to handwave my astral projection away because I know why I’m doing this. I’m having fun!

I think?

There were many times where I would have this haunting, sinking feeling. The words of the modern philosophers Blink-182 reverberating around the inside of my head; well, I guess this is growing up. I turned 30 this year; it’s only natural with age that I would slowly move away from something that was so important to me from my childhood. My life has pretty drastically changed over the last five years or so, predominantly positive changes, thankfully, and my priorities are just different now. So it makes sense that my love and dedication towards video games should change too, right?

But then that same disassociating feeling would come when I would engage with other mediums. I felt it while reading books, watching movies or TV, when I was working, even while listening to music. Even while eating? And I *know* why I eat, it’s important! Which slowly lead me to the realisation that *I* wasn’t growing up, I’m still as cool and chill as ever. I own a skateboard and a basketball and completely ignore the dress code at work because I’m chill as hell! But like so many other aspects in my life, my priorities and the things I value have changed. It’s just that they changed without me realising and it took me the entire year to catch up with them.

I spent a lot of time playing games I didn’t like playing without realising that I didn’t like them. If I had the year over, I wouldn’t have banged my head against God of War trying to like it just because everyone is telling me it’s Good. I wouldn’t have spent dozens of hours playing and finishing Spider-Man despite feeling no connection to it all. I used to pride myself on playing and liking old games and bad games and finding things that I enjoyed about them on their own merits, but on reflection I realise they were just the games that I played in the gaps between these giant grey pillars of Big Video Game releases. This year, for whatever reason, that thought process inside of me snapped and I’m glad it did.

A big part of what made me want to play the new big releases was that I liked to be a part of the larger conversation about them, but now I realise the only people I actually want to have conversations with don’t care how new or old a game is, or how good or bad it’s considered to be, as long as I care about what I’m talking about.

Anyway, this is just a *very* long way of me making a very simple point, which is; fuck video games, do whatever you want.

Despite all of these weird misgivings and all this introspection I still had a good time with some dumb, stupid video games and I still like writing about them, so I’m gonna.

 Resident Evil

I finished 2017 by playing both The Evil Within Games as well as Resident Evil VII and Revelations, and started this year by playing Resident Evil 4, 5, Survivor, and Operation Raccoon City. That’s a lot of Resident Evil! Too much? Who’s to say? (Me, I’m to say. And; yes, it’s entirely too much). I also spent about a month or so this year watching through all of the Friday the 13th movies which, weirdly, helped me frame the weird feelings I had towards Resident Evil. For both franchises there is something extremely specific that I want from them that I just don’t think either of them are really interested in giving me. I don’t want an impervious, hulking demon-Jason rampaging through the streets of New York or floating through space, I want the weird skinny, nimble Jason with a sack on his head who has lived almost his entire life alone in the woods just outside of Crystal Lake. An extremely human Jason who, when he gets hurt, grunts and cries in pain, but perseveres regardless because his mom is just a decapitated head now and he’s not really sure how he feels about it.

With Resident Evil I just want these small, personal stories. Individuals caught in a shitty situation with no escape and no larger agenda. No neat fitting, worldwide conspiracy or double turns involving the president’s grandfather owning founding stock in Umbrella or the T-Virus being written on the back of the Declaration of Independence. I loved the first two thirds of Resident Evil VII because that’s how it felt. It felt so *personal* in a way that I wanted. Resident Evil never wants to give me that, at least not entirely, but I will latch on to the few instances it does with dear life because, when they commit, even just slightly, it’s as good as anything can be.

Tony Hawk’s Underground

On Christmas day I fell into one of those weird deep but fleeting depressions that really only Christmas can provide. I tried to sleep but I just couldn’t, that weird sense of dread and helplessness eating at me, keeping me awake until the early hours of the morning. So, I got out of bed and decided to just embrace my depression by sitting in the dark and staring into the harsh glow of my computer monitor. I don’t know what it was that drove me to download all of the Tony Hawk games available for PC, but I did. It was cathartic spending hours mounting disks and entering cmd prompts to get those old games to work on stupid Windows 10. I then stayed up until six in the morning playing Underground, letting this warm and familiar game gently ease me back to a place and time when the only thing I cared about was stealing ten dollars out of my dad’s wallet so I could go to McDonald’s. It’s good to know that no matter where I am or what I’m doing or how I feel there will always be a place I can retreat to where Eric Sparrow is the world’s biggest dickhead and where I can do a 720 Benihana behind an alien themed strip club next to a cop standing suggestively next to a goat.

I was 15 when I first played Underground, and I’m 30 now, and it’s comforting to know that on the simplest level the things that I value the most are still largely the same. And those values are hating cops and listening to NOFX. Hopefully I can revisit it when I’m 45 and, if I do, I hope that I feel largely the same way.

Yakuza 4

I started my slow journey through the Yakuza series almost exactly three years ago and, in that time, I have played through seven games (finishing Kiwami, 4, and 5 this year). I’m part way through the Yakuza Fist of the North Star game and then, after that, I only have three games to go until I’m all caught up. Which, to be fair, will probably mean that by the time I’ve finished those three games two more will have been released. It’s a never-ending cycle!, but one that I’m glad I’m on.

I chose to specifically highlight Yakuza 4 because it just felt so special to me. It was the perfect meeting of everything that I have loved about all of the games that I have played, while also introducing me to characters that I have grown to love more than any others. Kiwami is a good game, but it’s just a remake of the first, and a budget remake at that, so it’s hard for me to feel strongly about it. Yakuza 5 is also good but, fuck, it’s *way* too long. It shouldn’t be that long! It’s like 60 hours long. That’s too long! Yakuza 4 gets everything right, it hits all of the sweet spots that every game after it should be judged against. And it also introduces Akiyama, a fictional man that I would risk my life for.

I try to recommend Yakuza to everyone, but it’s a *very* hard sell. It’s so long and so story dense. Every game except for the very first is spoken exclusively in Japanese, and reading subtitles for a series where each entry averages a 30-hour minimum play time is a lot to ask. But when you see Kiryu fight with his conscience over whether or not he should buy a porn magazine for a kid it really puts it all into perspective.

Final Fight: Streetwise

Final Fight: Streetwise is such a meme of a game. One of the classically bad attempts at converting a beloved 2D franchise into a 3D game. I’d seen videos of it before, even once watching an entire playthrough of it, and, sure, it seemed bad, but it also seemed charming too. I decided to finally sit down and play it for myself to see if I was just missing something in only having watched it and not played it and, to really no surprise because I’ve accepted that I’m just trash who loves trash, I loved it! It’s not a *good* game, but it has so much heart! I thought it was going to be something that was phoned in, a poorly put together 3D brawler with the Final Fight named slapped on top of it, but it isn’t. You can just feel that they wanted this to be something, and I really think it could have been! It’s too much of a stretch to think if they did a *few* things differently this wouldn’t be a bemoaned misstep in a dying franchise, but a cult classic that never got the praise it deserved.

It's very silly and unnecessarily over the top, but there is nothing that you can say that will convince me that if this game didn’t have the Final Fight name on it people would still bring it up today as something that we missed the potential on. This is maybe the hottest take that I have that no one will ever even pretend to care about, but I don’t care! Final Fight: Streetwise deserved better.

Florence

I don’t really have any patience for mobile games outside of this one NBA Jam game that I’ve had on my phone for like eight years and play exclusively when I hide in the bathroom at work because I don’t want to do any work, but Florence is so short and so incredibly charming that it might be my favourite game that actually released in 2018. It’s a narrative game about the life of a relationship between you, Florence, and some dude that maybe had a name but I don’t remember. A lot of the actual activities you do in the game are mundane, like brushing your teeth or unpacking your belongings or doing math on a spreadsheet at work, but they serve to make this very personal story feel all the more grounded.

It’s also the only video game I’ve ever played that has been set in Melbourne, where I live, and incorporates a lot of local places and scenery and that was very cool and exciting for me!

If you have a compatible smartphone please play Florence.

Severed

I don’t know that I really have anything particularly interesting to say about Severed. I played Guacamelee for the first time this year after owning it for a long time and just never getting around to it, and I fell in love with it, devouring it in a few days. It sent me on a trip through Drinkbox Studios’ catalogue, playing all of their games with the exception of Guacamelee 2 (I want to get around to it, but I’m just destined to take a long time getting there). The game that I probably looked forward to the least was Severed. It’s a first-person dungeon crawler with metroidvania elements where the combat and interactions with the world is done exclusively on a touch screen. I don’t like touch screen games at all, especially not ones with precise movements and timing, but I thought I would try it regardless and almost immediately fell in love with it. The art style is incredible and the general tone and mood of the game rules. Guacamelee and those Tales from Space games are super goofy, so I wasn’t expecting Severed to be so… dark. But it is! And it rules. I really can’t oversell how beautiful it is, especially if you play on like a newer iPad or something where the colours can really pop.

Kingdom Hearts II

Kingdom Hearts is some stupid bullshit where you play as a guy who looks like a DeviantArt sketch titled Cloud-Strife-Twink.bmp with amnesia and Donald Duck yells homophobic slurs at you until you remember who you are and then you fight members of a My Chemical Romance cover band because they stole the last of Aladdin’s magic beans until Mickey Mouse shows up to tell you to kiss your girlfriend about it.

It’s the only game franchise in history that makes you want to fly to Japan and choke Tetsuya Nomura to death for making the most consistent voice of reason in this elaborate universe Goofy, the idiot dog-man.

Fuck Kingdom Hearts. Five Stars.

Red Dead Redemption II

Despite feeling totally disenfranchised with the Big Video Game industry, I still remained extremely excited for Red Dead Redemption II. The first game might be my favourite game of all time, and this game just looked like more of that but better looking and bigger and more new.

It *isn’t* that, though. At least not entirely.

The thing that I love the most about this game is that it doesn’t even consider valuing or respecting your time. It goes at its own pace, it takes it’s time in almost every single thing it does. It’s slow, sometimes painfully slow, but in a way that’s consistent. It never feels like it’s slow because they fucked up and a made a mistake or because they needed to pad the game out, it’s slow because that’s the speed that this world moves at and I respect the hell out of it. Newer games seem to lean more towards being snappier and faster and more accessible, which is a largely positive move, but Read Dead Redemption II could have very easily been called Minutiae Simulator 2018 with the amount of small and mundane things it asks of you.

Creating a world this intricate and purposeful and slow made me feel a connection with Arthur Morgan that I don’t know I’ve felt with a video game protagonist in… well, ever, I think? I care about changing his clothes, not just to make him look cooler but just because people need to change their clothes, so he does too. I care about grooming Arthur, making sure he’s well fed and bathes at least somewhat regularly. It got to a point where I realised that I had very easily slipped into role playing this character in a way that I have never done before, and it happened very naturally and without a conscious effort to do it.

I used to live across from a park that held a regular LARPing group and, whatever, that’s cool! They have this thing that they’re passionate about and it lets them engage with it creatively and they have built this community and that’s valid as hell and it rules. But? Also? At the same time? They’re just fuckin’ big huge dorks. They’re still valid, but there is just no escaping that they are giant nerds doing something extremely dorky.

Well the stupid shoe is on the other idiot foot now because that’s me, but without the creativity or community or even the part where you go outside.

At least I don’t have to carry my giant wizard stick on the train.

[theclubofhomies-blog]

System introduction.

Greetings, we are the Club of Homies, also known as the Homies’ club. We are currently a system of 26 and this will be a brief introduction of the ones of us that are comfortable with writing something. 

( n ) = nicknames.

Benji ( n ) : They / Them, Main host, Middle ground of system, Teen alter.

assuh dudes. im benji, the main host of the homie’s club. i enjoy art, baseball, memes and listening to trap music. im taken by axel, the main host from @fragmentedcollectors. theyre my best friend of many years, whos also the most adorable ginger in the world and i always want to spend time to with them because theyre fucking precious. a random fact about me is that i have a shit ton of water bottles because i have an unquenchable thirst.

Benevolence : She / Her, Insider / connected to Benji, Teen alter.

Hello, I’m Benevolence but you can call me Bene for short! I like watching makeup tutorials, kinky stuff, and dramatic love movies! I’m a bit of a talkative person and definitely am not able to keep my mouth shut when I’m interested in a topic discussion. I love the 90s fashion style and have a bit of a mixed music taste. I have a twin and two sort of brother figures in my life, one of them being Benji; We’re a very tightly interwoven family of sorts and I adore them all very much. Feel free to talk to me, I’m not very mean!

Vincent : He / Him, Protector, System manager, Leader.

Greetings, everyone, My name is Vincent. I am the main system manager of the Homies’ Club, working with many others to make sure that my system is stable and that all the alters in my system are always in a good state. I am one of the most flexible alters when it comes to jobs around my system and I am often seen working many jobs. Though despite me always being busy, I am currently in a happy and content companionship with James (@ceruleansaturdays). Some facts about me are that I enjoy songs from the 60s to the 90s and also have a leaning preference to always wearing suits.  Thank you for reading. 

V

Ace : They / Them, Main rationalist, System manager, Second in command.

My name is Ace, I’m the main rationalist of my system and the second in command, working under Vincent and his counterpart. I’m happily fucking taken by Al, the main rationalist of the Fragmented Collectors (@rationalisticsinner), so if you direct any flirty shit at me, expect to get quickly shut down. I’m in charge of how most of the system runs and am the one that usually takes charge in making plans. I generally don’t type in perfect grammar but for the sake of this introduction, I will. Just don’t fuck with my system and we’ll be on a good note. ♠️

Sky ( n ) : She / Her, Main caretaker of H, Emotional alter.

Hello! My name is Sky, I am the main caretaker of the child alter in my system, H. I love the colour yellow, flowers, spending time with children, reading on sunny afternoons, hot chocolate and having soft lights in rooms. I’ve been told that I’m a very friendly person and that I am a little too nice but caring for everyone is just part of my personal values. I love spending time during special days of the year, such as Halloween and Easter as that’s when I’m able to spoil H and see him have fun! : )

Jonathan : He / Him, Second unconsciousness.

what’s up? name’s jonathan. i’m an alter that’s usually responsible for the vessel falling asleep, not the main one as that’s usually my girlfriend, monet but.. as she’s not able to do the role right now, i’ve taken over. i like sleeping on couches and in the car while music is playing in the background. i’m interested in poetry, photography and am always a sucker for astrology because I just love looking up at the night sky and identifying constellations. i’m not much of a fronter as i generally only come out when it’s time to sleep but i am hoping to sometimes spend some time writing here. 

Jon

Evan : He / Him, Insider, Connected to unconsciousness.

Hey Tumblr, my name is Evan. I’m part of the small group of alters who play the role as unconsciousness ( Monet, Jon, Leo and myself ). We all used to be merged together until recently this year when we all decided to fully split and become our own people, though it’s unfortunate that by doing that, the numbers of alters increased but we all really did want to live individual lives instead of being one all the time. I like bands such as Panic!AtTheDisco, Falling in Reverse and Set It Off and prefer to nap during the late afternoons on beds. My best friend is Leo and there’s no one I’d rather ever be with than him because of how nice and caring he always is. 

Leonard : He / Him, Insider, Connected to unconsciousness, Fragmented.

Heeeeeey everyone, my name is Leonard but Leo for short. I’m part of the unconsciousness crew and am a pretty down to earth guy. I’m like the type of guy that sends you wholesome appreciation memes at 3am when you’re not having a good night so I guess you can consider me as a pretty good friend lol. Despite me always being tired and sleepy, I really do like spending time outside and sleeping in the sun or under a shady tree is always like the best thing ever. I also am very huggy and am a bit of a foodie. Will be honest though, my cooking skills aren’t like Gordon Ramsey quality, kinda just chucking stuff into a pot until it tastes good lmfao. Anyways, that’s me, just a random guy. ;)

- Leo

Ikere : They / Them, Insider, Emotional protector, Slider alter.

Heya~ <3 uwu My name is Ikere, I am an emotional protector of the system and is an alter that specializes in the love department, in the aspect of relationships and crushes. I adore people, love songs, walking in the park during spring and writing love letters and poetry. I like watching fashion shows, makeup videos, and anime in my free time. I’ve been told that I’m a good person to chat to and that I’m very nice so, if anyone would ever like to talk to me about interest or just about life in general, I’m always happy to meet someone new! uvu <3 

Avian : He / Him, Rationalist, Teen alter.

Hello, my name is Avian. I am much like the teenage version of Ace and we both are obviously very close and share many of the same things, such as similar signatures, food choices and music tastes. I am the backup rationalist in this system and work with Ace most of the time as well as with my own friend group whenever errands need to be run. I am taken to BZ in the Fragmented Collectors so like Ace said in their introduction, please do not try anything with me, I’m simply not interested in anyone else. Thank you for reading. Avian ♠️ .

Bradley : They / Them, Insider, Teen alter.

What’s up, Tumblr? I’m Brad, a teenager stuck between a punk and normal sense of style. I’m the younger sibling of Siobhan and have always wanted to grow up to be like her because she’s honestly pretty cool, despite her weird ways of eating takeaway at 2 in the morning and watching rock band interviews on Youtube. I like drawing and doodling on my hands and arms and I’m really into sci-fi stuff. I love my friends and I couldn’t ever live without them because they generally really complete my life and make me happy. In the future, we all plan to get matching tattoos. ^^’ Bradley

Siobhan : She / Her, Internal self helper, Slider alter.

Hey party animals, I’m Siobhan, leader of a group in the Homies’ Club and kinda always just co-leading with Vincent.. or at least just supporting the system. I’d describe myself as a pretty gay, punk, rebellious lover of technology and rock who also likes eating junk food and burgers instead of salads because who the fuck wants to eat kale and lettuce?? But yeah, I love rock music, leather jackets, tattoos, and burgers. My favourite band is Hollywood Undead and you best believe I jam out to their songs whenever I’m fronting. Not much else about me honestly, I’m just a simple chick. 

Marien : He / Him, Internal self helper, Slider alter.

what’s up my dudes and dudettes? i’m just a promiscuous nerdy blond punkster you can call Marien. i’m chill, relatively loud sometimes and love being with my friends or people I just genuinely like. i love video games, cyberpunk shit, loud music and watching people fail, gives me joy. i enjoy being reckless and a little too energetic sometimes and am usually the one at parties who jumps onto the table and chugs two bottles of beer before raiding the person’s fridge for food and passing out in a bush the next morning, so i guess you can call me the life of the party haha. anyways hmu whenever, totally free to chat

Marien Ⓐ

Nathaniel : He / Him, Internal self helper, Slider alter.

Hello, I’m Nathaniel. :D I really like pop music, the colour green, birds and coding. My wardrobe is always filled with green sweaters, hoodies and my favourite beanies. All the people in my friend group are my best friends and I always treasure my laptop and phone because they’re my most precious belongings. A lot of the times I make spelling mistakes but thankfully a lot of my friends point it out to me and I sometimes use an app to correct everything! Technology, ducks, and cereal are honestly my favourite things! Nathaniel :D

Oli ( n ) : She / Her, Emotional alter, Teen alter

Hi, my name is Oli. I love everything pastel, comfortable sweaters, and blankets. I have a little bit of trust issues and I’ll be honest, I’m not the strongest alter out there so I am very dependent on others sometimes. I like making cheesecakes, taking care of plants and sketching up fictional characters. I do promise that I’m nice and very approachable! :o <3 

Mallory : He / Him, Persecutor / Perpetrator, Slider alter. 

Hello. My name is Mallory but do feel free to call me Mal. I’m not an alter that usually fronts but I am a very important alter in this system, just preferring to spend time in my own place. I like to spend most of my time in the dark and with the people I like. Other than that, I also do like laughing. Always helps lift up the mood. 

MALLORY.XX

Anyways, that is a short introduction from most of us. We’ll be posting and reblogging whenever we have time. Do feel free to chat if you’d all like, we’re always happy to make new friends.

- TheClubOfHomies