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slime-sandwhich-nom · 2 months

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Haha..new tawog hcs <3

(also my mom always told me I was exactly like Gumball and I never forgot about it)

- gumball loves horror, horror films, games anything. Darwin does not.

- gumball standard face is :3, the problem is that people can't understand if he's smiling mischievously or if it's his normal face.

- gumball when he was younger liked to snooze in Darwin's bowl.

Darwin had to sleep in the bathtub sometimes for it

- Carrie feels lonely because she can't touch anything, not even Darwin. She feels alone despite being in a room with so many people.

- penny flirts, Gumball gets flustered.

- gumball enjoys saying words in different languages, he likes to say ciao, hola, excusez-moi,Nǐ hǎo and more. It's simple words really, hello, excuse me, or words of objects like pants, paper, anything. He just likes to do that.

- Darwin likes to hum parts of songs, while instead gumball likes to make little noises.

Darwin says that if he hears weird noises around him he knows he's not going crazy it's just gumball.

- gumball speaks alone, he just speaks out loud to himself (got it from his grandma.), Darwin instead likes to write (no matter how bad his handwriting is.) he just keeps a diary no one can read and instead looks like some kind of secret code.

- Richard knows how to cook, he's just too lazy to do so. Sometimes he does cook whenever Nicole can't because she's too tired.

- Nicole suffers of insomnia.

- gumball is he sits still for too long will start rocking slightly unconsciously, he doesn't even notice it when he does it.

- Darwin has abandonment issues, which explains his jealousy whenever gumball and penny hang out.

it surely does annoy gumball because he can't properly enjoy some time alone with his girlfriend, but he gets where Darwin comes from, so he doesn't get mad, but he gets annoyed still.

Gumball makes up for Darwin by hanging out with him the next day.

- Anais is.. lonely. The only time she ever gets someone to hang out with is Polly. Whenever gumball is babysitting her.

But it's still lonely for Anais since it's not that often.

- when people say Gumball is anxious and paranoid, they ain't joking. Gumball is genuinely anxious about anything, talking to people he doesn't know, going in public, coming in late, coming in too early, what if this happens, what if that happens. He just pretends he's all good (he is very much not)

- Darwin always wonders what would happen if they were fictional, who would be he shipped with.

Gumball knows that answer very well. He decides to stay silent for his brother's mental health. (He saw things that he shouldn't have)

- gumball is the kid who says romance is disgusting but then gets all lovely dovely with his girlfriend

- gumball originally wanted the bed on top because he enjoyed watching everyone from up there but Darwin wanted him by his side at night so he just got the bottom one.

- gumball is the one asking "would you still love me if I was a worm" in the relationship.

- Nicole is not a cat person, and it's actually a thing between cats. For example my eldest cat HATES other cats, it took him ages to get used to the new kitten. Oh but he's super friendly and cuddly with new people! He loves anything that isn't a cat. He purrs and cuddles.

So yeah. Nicole doesn't enjoy the presence of other cats around, unless it's a cat she knows, like her parents or his son. (It's a territory thing for cats, btw.)

- Darwin sometime pets gumball with his feet. Gumball lets him until it gets annoying.

- gumball sometimes joins in the gossip between masami and Leslie.

- Penny's dad is tormented by gumball. He's like when a cat goes specifically to the people who don't like cats and ignore everyone else. That's exactly their relationship.

Y'know the whole "I bought a cat despite my dad not wanting it" situation? Yeah. That's gumball and penny's family.

- Anais once ran a business where she sold candy, and she got money instead. Didn't run for long because president brown treated it like some illegal drug situation or something

- gumball when he was younger was that one kid who looks cute and acts innocent around adults but he's a nightmare to the other kids his age. He still is, he's just everyone's problem now.

- once in class they talked about scoliosis or any problem of posture and it took weeks for gumball to convince Darwin that he did not have scoliosis or any of the other things, he's just a cat and cats are built weird. It's normal.

- whenever Gumball coughs he sounds like a dying man who has smoked for 30 years, no one knows why but it scares the shit out of everyone each time.

- gumball thrives in dresses. He's the prettiest girl at the party.

- honestly gumball is just a crazy bastard, in the real sense. Like he's fully unhinged and it's not even funny, penny is dating some kind of maniac who will literally kill people just because he wants to prove a point (and he did already in the show. Multiple times.)

And..she still loves him and she just says "it's part of his charm."

- gumball whenever he has to go to the doctor (or vet, in his case.) has to be tied up and sedated real hard because he just hates hospitals. He just hates any hospital, doctor, vet, anything. He hates being there, it makes him super uncomfortable and he has tried before to escape but ended up doing more damage than anything

Anais Is only scared like a little kid, nothing wrong with that, usually it's Darwin to hold her hands (gumball can't because he's busy not being at the doctor. He doesn't wanna go near anything that relates to a doctor or a hospital.)

Darwin is relatively calm at the doctor's appointment (he cries after because he was real scared but was very brave.)

- the reason why gumball hardly gets sick (and if he does is because he makes himself sick just to skip school.) is because he was basically FED antibiotics when he was a toddler. His mother was just very anxious about gumball and his health.

then there's Anais, getting sick once a week.

- Gumball ironically thought of becoming a doctor once, simply because the subject itself is interesting. buttt he gave it up because he's too lazy to actually study all that crap.

- gumball either doesn't remember any of his dreams, or if he does it feels like something that actually happen (it didn't) or he was high or something.

Darwin remembers them very clearly and enjoys talking about it! They are nonsensical though.

Anais actually has.. somewhat..normal dreams? She dreams about daisy anyway.

- sometimes Leslie asks gumball genuine opinion on boys in terms of dating, since Leslie only knows gumball who (as a guy) likes guys. The rest seem to be straight (therefore will only talk to you about girls, instead of boys) or just aren't interested in dating.

..only because gumball actually has good points and good taste. In both boys and girls. (But Leslie is interested in boys.)

- gumball sometimes says that penny looks like a sunset and that he would prefer seeing her over the actual sunset, she hasn't recovered from it still.

- gumball figured out he was bisex because before he had a crush on penny he actively thought a few guys in his school were cute and he would date them if he had the chance. Probably had a crush on one or two of 'em.

- in the Wattersons house there's this rule of "don't trust gumball if he's either sleep deprived or after 8pm" because he'll start spitting stuff like "your nervous system has no idea your eyes exist so once they find out, you are already blind because the nervous system sees them as a threat." Or "you can get an aneurysm at any time no matter how healthy you are" and it freaks Darwin out to the point he can't sleep.

so they told Darwin, gumball just lies by 8pm and doesn't think straight when sleep deprived. Just so Darwin can sleep.

- penny is a gumball apologist. Yes her boyfriend is a dumbass and yes he did nothing wrong (she absolutely knows gumball is totally in the wrong most of the time but she defends him nonetheless.)

- gumball is normally on his tippy toes, like any cat. So to reach Penny's cheek to kiss her he has to get on a stool, needs her to crouch down or she needs to pick him up.

- penny is going insane with the whole red flag, green flag, situationship, one month rule this one month rule that.. gumball instead has NO idea how to date or what to do but he's doing a better job than any guy in existence.

- Carrie and gumball hang around in hunted houses. For fun. Gumball is the "hey ghosts! It's ya boy!" Type.

- penny enjoys getting all dressed up whenever it's for a date and gumball is Adam Sandler walking around with his clothing style

- usually it's gumball who makes a ponytail for Anais with her ears.

- yeah gumball has a sister, you know he's well educated on periods and all that shit. (His mother got him ready before Anais was born for when she'll need help.)

- gumball is just not innocent. Not in the sense that he's dirty minded, it's that he just knows stuff normal kids his age don't.

He just acts clueless and dumb so people don't expect much from him, he's too lazy to get high expectations. but he's actually smart and more mature mentally than kids his age.

- Darwin HATES vomiting. Vomit. Anything related to that. He's not scared but really REALLY grossed out, can't even think about it he gets nauseous himself.

- Darwin takes ages to type on phone so he always asks gumball who's relatively fast.

- Darwin.. can't spell. Or at least, has difficulties in it. Gumball always messes with him by giving him the wrong spelling. Darwin never realizes.

- gumball has big difficulties in math. and ms. Simian doesn't make it easier for him.

- Darwin info dumps about sea animals. Gumball now know useless facts about sea animals. (Does not complain)

- gumball likes lemons...again something he shouldn't eat but he does anyway.

- the nickname gumball is from the fact that he tends to sleep tucked in like a ball, which looks like a blue gumball. People just started calling him constantly 'gumball' because it's funny when a cat has a stupid name. (Realistic to irl anyway)

- gumball has a problem with texture.

gumball has both problems with texture AND picky on his own, his mother is going insane with it.

- gumball and Nicole are the fastest in the family, gumball is the fastest in his class if we don't count bobert.

while Nicole shows often how fast she is, gumball is too lazy for that. At least for P.E.

Normally he slows down so Darwin can keep up with him.

- gumball enjoyed eating fish but since it made Darwin uncomfortable he stopped altogether.

- sometimes people tell Darwin that his brother doesn't love him, because cats "don't love you", and that most likely if Darwin dies gumball will eat him.

Darwin response is "okay, I'll let him. He's gotta eat if he's hungry."

- yes gumball often ignores everyone like general cats do. He moves his ears towards your direction but god forbid him to stop his session of watching people from the window and stalk them.

- the coach has to literally give gumball an extra prize (food for free for example) to "motivate him" to do any kind of exercise during P.E. otherwise that cat will never feel like doing unnecessary exercise.

(20% of the time it works.)

- having gumball as a student is like having this guy hang around without a care of the fact that you're here.

Darwin instead will follow instructions CONSTANTLY, sometimes too literally though.

- gumball when he was little used to grab birds or small animals and bring the home, he never really "hunted" them, he just wanted them as a friend in the house.

- gumball is just an average cat just with the ability to talk.

So this small little thing with a massive ego. Y'know, kitty cats!

Nicole is more traumatized than anything, she's the opposite of gumball but that's just because of trauma, really. She still hasn't healed fully from it.

- when gumball was younger he used to bring random food to Darwin because he thought his little brother wasn't capable of doing it himself- like when a cat hunts for you and brings you birds or mice. He's just tryna help.

Sometimes he still does.

- gumball tilts his head when he's confused and trying to understand something.

- cats..play with their food.

You know damn well gumball dies that too. Just not with food, he plays around with people. By making shenanigans and chaos around of course, all in good fun! So yeah he's entertaining himself while everyone screams around.

- gumball stress eats

- when gumball, or any of the Watterson kids need comfort, they go to their father. If they need advice and someone to kick ass, they go to their mother.

- gumball would rather adopt than getting Penny's pregnant. He knows what kind of stuff can happen with a pregnancy or giving birth (death, specifically.) and his anxious ass will not put his girlfriend through that.

- gumball is secretly a nerd. He particularly likes biology and psychology.

He hides this fact about him though, being a nerd at a middle school is like asking to be killed on the spot.

- just like for Darwin watching gumball's ears move individually and can do a 180° is freaky, for gumball it's weird looking at Darwin move his little fish tail at will.

- Darwin taught gumball how to swim like gumball taught Darwin how to walk.

- gumball's grandma (Nicole's mom) has definitely cried like once or twice just by looking at gumball. Because that's HER GRANDSON. And he's just so similar to her child, it's like watching both her little girl in front of her again and watching how much she has missed of Nicole's life.

Gumball's grandpa just calls gumball "Nicole."

"hey Nicole!"

"I'm gumball"

"same thing"

- gumball remembers everything. He pretends not to, but he does. Even if sometimes people say something else happened or have no memory of it, he just remembers it.

This means he remembers when rob killed his entire family in front of him, and gumball is still not fucking over it.

right after it he couldn't sleep or just HAD to cling to Darwin because he thought nothing would happen if he did. If gumball can't die because he's the protagonist, then if he clings to Darwin then neither can he.

Took weeks, painful weeks, of gumball recovering from a trauma only he remembers. His own family tried their best to help him while not even knowing what was bothering him.

Gumball doesn't hate rob but in that moment he wanted to kill him so bad, and he tried too (the only time gumball hates that his own show is family friendly and restrained him from hurting seriously rob)

- gumball wears clothes from the girl section because not only does they fit him better but because they are just more fun to pick (the boy section is just copy and paste. It's boring.)

- yes, Darwin's shoes are STILL the same one gumball gave him all those years ago. They are kind of falling apart but he always fixes them or changes them in order for them to fit

- gumball has a group chat but its members are all the characters that exists on cartoon network. Like yeah gumball is friends with uncle grandpa, yes with Clarence, yes with any character you can think of. They are all friends.

- gumball is the one who says "hear me out" to the most disgusting creatures ever existed.

In fact he constantly says hear me out to penny whenever she transforms into something she finds "ugly and disgusting"

he never means it sexually or anything, on one side it's a joke he likes to do to see people's reaction, on the other, he genuinely loves penny despite on how she looks and it makes her feel better whenever he says that, so.

(he literally fell in love with a walking peanut, if her turning into a dragon doesn't bring him to his knees then idk what does)

- gumball was the one kicking his feet whenever penny texted him or paid attention to him. he still does.

- people think gumball is insane, like genuinely he's mad. And he agrees

- honest I like to believe that in gumball's universe every other animal evolved, cats, bunnies, ect but humans did not or if they did, they are rare asf (reason why humans are "weird" in the gumball world) then other things started to appear, probably from radiations or something and that's where the objects started to walk around.

So everything is still modern but built not for humans but for animals/objects walking around

- Tobias and Leslie did date for a short,in secret, didn't work out too well.

Now for headcanons that I do have and did said before but saying them again

- gumball likes to hang out at Penny's just to loaf and sleep on her chest. She plays on his phone instead (Penny's dad is always worried they might be doing something freaky but that's all he sees.)

- gumball is that type of cat who sits weird as fuck. Like no he doesn't sit like a standard cat he SITS CRISS CROSS APPLESAUCE.

- Darwin has HUMAN feet. the rest is fish. Like when you glue two pieces of different toys together

- gumball is a lanky dude, like for cats he's a tall and lanky motherfucker (like his mother, for cats she's super tall just like her mother.) he just wears baggy clothes so he looks tiny (because he's a young kitten)

- gumball says ominous shit for fun

- gumball constantly slow blinks at penny, she thinks he's high or sleep deprived

- when gumball, or any character that has legs like a cat, deer, horse ect. Wears pants they look like "normal legs" (human legs.)

- gumball's tail is usually down, he's not sad or anything, he's neutral, but oh if he sees penny you see that tail raise AND vibrate (for a cat it means he's EXTRA happy to see you and that he missed you as well.)

- gumball is aware that he's in a cartoon, it's all he ever knew so he can't be upset at that if you never saw the world differently.

Ok I'm done Tumblr is starting to lag when I type on this

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noose-lion · 4 months

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Hi! I'm sorry to ask but would you consider expanding a little on why you think Hazbin Hotel wasn't good/wasn't handled well? I have no attachment to it nor do I mean to defend it by asking this, I just stumbled upon the show last night and watched it with no prior knowledge of anything related to it, all in one (extremely sleep-deprived) sitting and enjoyed it. I don't mean you ought to justify your opinion or anything of the sort, I'm genuinely curious on what you think was a miss! Thank you for your time and feel free to ignore this if you don't feel like explaining🌼

HI! Don't be sorry, most any question is worth asking and being answered. I'll gladly expand.

*MAJOR WARNINGS FOR SPOILERS*

PLEASE EXCUSE ANY TYPOS I'M SLEEPY

-----

I want to start this with saying that I've been aware of and invested in Hazbin Hotel since it came out in 2019. I even have some merch a friend got for me way back when. I spent all of highschool watching the pilot every few months. So I'm not someone that just hates it, I'm just a long time fan that has been super, super disappointed. (Also, I find a lot of other people's reasons for hating it to be dumb. Such as the cursing or sex jokes, because plenty of other adult animations have the same thing and are considered good shows.)

I'm gonna break this down into two lists of a few things I liked and a few I didn't like. It's not everything, but it's the "big ones".

Liked:

1. The songs

No complaint other than they often started awkwardly in the middle of dialouges making it feel choppy and disconnected. Good songs though. Though I kinda disliked the way they were handled in episode 8.

2. The idea

It's a decent idea. It's fun. The story simply is just not committed to said idea. It feels like a first draft. Like the creator was too attached to the very first and original ideas and was not willing to build upon it and cull anything to actually take it to where it needed to go.

Disliked:

1. Pacing/Writing

To be blunt. The pacing is absolute shit. Eight 20-something minute episodes is not enough time to tell everything they were attempting to tell. Especially not with two songs per episode. Everything was rushed, events happening too close together. Even the timeline had huge holes in it and character development was watered down to the "big" moments. I get it, they had limitations, but they could have adapted better. They did fine with the first few episodes. Introducing Adam and the Overlords and getting Sir Pentious into the hotel.

But then they went straight into the fourth episode with a heavy hitter. They revealed the full extent of Angeldust's situation far too quickly. Not enough suspense. Then they went straight into Lucifer's introduction and Alastors sudden "affection". Again, the suspense of Lucifer, Charlie's big, bad, dad being revealed wasn't pushed far enough. It wasn't interesting. And Alastor's "affection" came out of left field. There was no hints to it, no character development, it just happened. And then yep, Lucifer, who hasn't done shit this whole time, just gets her that meeting.

BORING. So boring. That meeting shouldn't have happened till season two. There's no buildup, everything just happens. No character development, no nothing. Even Vaggie's reveal as a Exterminator happens in a single episode. There was no hints to it, and no suspense (yes again that word), and there was no emotional fallout. It should have been dragged out, a constant threat over Vaggie. Even the deaths are bad. The character weren't enough of a character to feel anything for when they died. And their death's were quick and boring. Cheap. Like seriously Pentious died in a single lil tap? Seriously?

(Razzle and Dazzle's names aren't even revealed to the fifth episode? I don't don't even think Kiki's was. They were just background "companion" characters. Like the forest creatures in Disney's Snow White. They aren't important to the story AT ALL. Literally barely more than background characters.)

AND THE FINALE!? It was just bad. So bad. There was, once again, no suspense and build up. There was no emotional vulnerability. It was just kinda sucky jokes and lackluster fights. The only part of the finale I liked was the Vee's fynny side commentary and the result of Alastor and Adam's fight.

The writing on its own it's- Well, it's bad. It swings back and forth between musical, adult comedy, and serious. Which would be more okay, if it was a smooth swing. But it isn't. It's choppy and stitched together. Full of one liners that could make a decent tiktok video sound or something. The dialogue is choppy and bland for every character. They all hold the same tone. They're all flat and to similar. Sure they're unique but they fade into eachother.

It feels like the script was worked on by 100 different people that didn't even email eachother. Or a disord mass roleplay that wasn't edited very well before being turned into a wattpad fic.

It has no strong structure. It's hollow like a house of cards and collapses on itself with one touch.

And the characters themselves are inconsistent. They don't stick to a characterization and all make the same type of dumb ass jokes or are the butt of the joke.

As a whole it just lacks:

1) Forshadowing and suspense

2) Emotional connection (between the character or with the audiences) and emotional fallout

3) Filler, fluff, a way to care about the characters past the serve archetype level

4) Character development

5) Consequences and stakes

6) Personal motives for the characters

7) Interesting conflict

8) Consistency

9) Balance between plot and subplots

10) Duality of characters

2. Worldbuilding

It contradicts itself. And most of the lore isn't really clear in the show itself, making fans rely on it being confirmed by the creators. Also, it's just... well boring. I might just be overly obsessed with angels and demons and biblical imagery, but Hazbin Hotel kinda makes them... lame.

There are so many "figures" in angelology and demonology that they just don't utilize. They do much better with it in Helluva Boss, and I would expect that dedication to the bit (for lack of a better word) to be carried into Hazbin Hotel considering I assume they have much more time, resources, and budget.

(Like why is it Adam and Saint Peter of all guys. Where's Michael, Gabriel, Raphael? Literally any actual angel!!! Hell (pun not intended), what about the Four Horsemen. You don't even need to study angelology, just read the Book of Revelation. Or even take a jab at the 7 Capitol Virtues.)

Also as I said before, it contradicts itself. And not in a clever way that's supposed to be a nod at some hidden secret, it's just bad worldbuilding. Like, are they really going with the "all humans come from one set of testes and ovaries"? Really? And if Adam was human, then died, why is he an angel? Like bleeds gold, calls others mortals, the whole shebang. It's just bad. And Lilith is supposedly basically the "og sinner", but she could have a kid? I could go on and on and on and on and still not be able to cover all the issues I see in this area.

Honestly it feels like the show relies too heavily on its audience simply not caring.

3. Character design

Bad. Just bad.

The "rules" the character designs "follow" are too broad and loose. They need to be stricter and have boundaries in which to design between. The characters all look like they are ocs from three different creators shoved into the same story.

They also just lack research. None of the characters 'match' they're backstories or supposed animal inspiration. They also all have basically the same body type. Which is boring. Not to mention that the characters that are supposedly poc have no poc features. At all.

And the color pallets are garish and hold no cohesion. The designs are just off the wall random. Why is Alastor red (pink???)? Why is Husk a cat-owl-deck of cards? Why is Nifty two feet tall and one eyed?! Why is Pentious a snake with an alive hat? And Lucifer and Charlie are just boring. Though Lucifer is probably the best design. (Saint Peter is the worst and it is driving me crazy. WHY IS HE A WHITE, BLONDE HAIRED, BLUE EYED ANGEL!?!)

And what does Vivziepop have against ears? Why does no one have ears except Alastor and the other more animal characters? They have earrings, but no ears. It's just so bad. The ears alone could fix so many of the designs to be more palatable.

(One suggestion for a design rule. One I tend to follow within my own hell and heaven lore, is using the different 7 Deadly Sins and 7 Capitol Virtues. Like an example, whatever sin got A into hell is what A is designed after. Like all sinners in hell for Envy share similarities that sinners in hell for Greed don't have. And like this can over lap obviously, but there's a central sin there designed under. And the same for those that go to heaven under the virtues. Would also solve the whole "what gets you into heaven or hell" plot hole).

Anyway yeah I'm getting tired (and getting weirdly angry, lmao) so I'm gonna end here.

I know I didn't cover everything I wanted to but this is getting ridiculously long. If anyone has any specific questions send in an ask.

P.S. My biggest pet peeve is that they didn't give Lucifer an actual "dangerous scary" side. Or even a "deranged losing" it side. He's an angel thats been isolated in hell since literally forever. He should be unstable in a way that isn't JUST being depressed in his room and awkward around his daughter. Also the fact that Charlie is literally half angel is just glossed over?! LIKE COME ON PEOPLE, YOU'RE SITTING ON A GOLD MINE OF UNTAPPED POTENTIAL.

Anyway might just write my own story with the same plot, who knows...

#hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin angel dust #hazbin charlie #hazbin husk #hazbin rant #hazbin analysis #vivziepop #jester thinks #anon ask #anon asks #ask #asks #my stuff #screaming into the void #and the void screams back #jesters privilege

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prettyboysdontlookatexplosions · 1 year

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hoping this isn't a ~weird request but i would love to read your takedown/opinions of the failures of TRC as someone who was also reaaaally underwhelmed with how it handled an interesting setup/cast of characters and was left feeling very blah about the whole experience, and i'm having no luck poking thru your tumblr archives if it already exists :) no pressure ofc, enjoying your opinions on the new series regardless! (i personally deleted the ebook after struggling thru the first chapter oops!)

i was going to say "you have caught me on a day when i am crazy exhausted even after sleeping 12 hours so sure why not" but tbh i think that's giving myself too much credit re: my ability to resist this particular flavor of haterade, although it provides a nice justification. disclaimer that i haven't read anything from the original series since right after the raven king came out so i don't remember it super well. but like basically the problems with the raven cycle are two-fold: (1) the first three books are not very good (2) the raven king is the dumbest and most hateful piece of shit masquerading as a novel i have had the misfortune to encounter in my life. like you have to understand i went into this series having had it pitched to me but Dumb But Fun and for the first three books i was having a good time. i was often like "lol this is stupid" but i would say equally often i was like "aw my kids :')" in particular i remember that something clicked for me with BLLB where the books didn't get better but i suddenly like legit loved and cared about the characters and was invested in their relationships in a way where the flaws jumped out a lot less and i appreciated a lot of things stief had done and i made a pynch playlist and started drafting some fic and blah blah blah. and then the raven king came out and it was just, i can't emphasize enough, the worst book in the history of the printed word.

on point the first: the books are not great. stief comes up with some decent lines (funny similes, the occasional spurt of something pretty), and one of the things i will give her is that she can definitely set an Atmosphere (although this skill seems to have gone missing for CDTH) - monmouth manufacturing and fox way both feel like places that are just a bit too interesting to be real but in a nice way. overall though i find her prose weirdly stilted and artificial and tryhard. i think at some point i called her what taylor swift would be as a novelist, back when our most recent taylor albums were red & 1989, and i more or less stand by that - "losing him was like driving a new maserati down a dead-end street" feels like something stief could write, but instead of a 3-minute country-pop song, it's 350 pages of that. also i have genuinely never encountered an author worse at plotting. there's a weird and almost baffling shapelessness to the books that is truly like nothing else i've read in a bad way. like i said this a couple days ago but i felt like it gave me a new respect for every other bad to mediocre novel i had read in my life, because apparently those authors did all have some kind of basic skillset so fundamental i hadn't appreciated it until i read one who absolutely does not. and also the thing i have said before of, every book has a million chapters about the villain who has nothing to do with anything, and every single one of those chapters is boring as absolute fuck. the whelk chapters in TRB are sort of retroactively justified by the noah reveal, which on reflection i think remains the most successful thing she's pulled off, but the others are interminable and completely without reward for the reader.

even fans of the series seem to concede that plotting is not her strong suit, and the things people tend to like her for are (1) her writing, which... sure. i don't think it is good but you do you. and if i am forcing myself to be fair i will say that at the very least she does have a distinct voice and doesn't have that horrible flat YA Novelist Affect that has taken over what i sometimes feel insane swearing used to be a much more vibrant and stylistically diverse genre at least in terms of the things that made their way to my sphere of awareness. so. fine. and then (2) her characters. and like yeah the TRC crew is cute. they're fun. i liked that gansey was kind of insufferable and the books made no attempt to pretend otherwise. i did love classic scorpio depresso bean trauma freak ronan lynch, and i loved how as the series went on he was both a snarling anger machine and an idiot teenage boy with the most embarrassing crush in the world. i liked blue's ambition and her imperfect but passionate feminism. i loved adam parrish's teeth-gritted determination.

and i did absolutely fall for the pynch of it all. ronan lynch, who could have anything he wanted, desperate for the affection of the one guy who had no patience for his bullshit! adam parrish, who saw himself as so lowly, falling for this almost ethereal creature who dreamed beautiful things! the way ronan's main hobby was wallowing in self-pity but the person he was attracted to was the guy who refused to act like it wasn't time for ronan to grow the fuck up. the way adam had such a fraught relationship with anger, his own anger and that of other people, but he saw so keenly through to who ronan really was that while ronan's anger exasperated him, it never scared him or made him feel like he had any obligation but to be his honest self. the way hard-edged ronan dreamed adam lotion for his hands and labeled it in freaking LATIN, the way tense adam started finding a new respect for ronan without ever feeling a need to become more deferential or apologetic. i mean it was good shit. it was such good shit that i really and truly believed that while she was not the greatest writer in the world, stief must have built this particular dynamic between these two people on purpose. she must have deliberately planned for their slow-burning mutual attraction and deepening care to communicate these exact things about what their value was to each other - ronan giving adam space to dream, adam tugging ronan into reality - and while i was pretty sure the last book would be dumb, because all the books were dumb and she'd thrown a lot of balls into the air that she was not gonna catch, and especially because i had the sense she was going to want a neat happy ending which meant either gansey wasn't going to die (boring) or gansey was going to die but everyone was somehow going to be okay by the end anyway (stupid), i was also like, well at least pynch are gonna get together and it's going to be this really nice culmination of both their arcs.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

the short version of why TRK made me feel so wild with rage was that it made extremely clear that everything i had enjoyed about the books up till that point had happened 10000% by accident. pynch is a good example of this. all that stuff i talked about above, all the push-pull dynamics of them, all the stuff that made them a good ship - it turned out that none of it mattered. none of it was relevant. none of it was even worth mentioning. because none of it, actually, was on purpose. adam and ronan get together by making out, which i respect. they do not have a conversation after that happens. not like, they hook up and don't took about it right away. i mean they don't have a post-makeout conversation IN THE ENTIRE BOOK. there is no moment where either of them says or even thinks, like - why this person. which is dumb for ronan because he has been so horny about adam, but hateful for adam because he is out of ronan's league unless we're being very clear about why this is a good fit! the stuff about ronan helping adam normalize his relationship to anger, lmao. nowhere to be found. instead we get gansey telling adam, "don't hurt him." repeat: we get gansey telling adam, who tries the hardest all the time of all people ever and who is half convinced he should be in jail for having feelings, to make sure he is nice to ronan, whose ENTIRE BRAND is "huge fucking asshole all the time for no reason." because ronan is "fragile." which like, sure. he's a half-orphan [at that point] with a fucked up life whose brain tried to kill him two years ago. but adam is an 18 year old paying all his own bills who moved out of his parents' house the day his dad DEAFENED HIM IN ONE EAR, and somehow this does not grant him any kind of special dispensation for care in the ganseyverse. and this is not ever in any way contradicted or challenged or complicated or even referred to later by the text. crime!

meanwhile, ronan... [pinches nose, sighs heavily]. again i said recently that the dream thieves should have told me her hand was not steady on the steering well. because what happens in the dream thieves is ronan meets someone who is like him but bad, and learns from him, and then figures out how to be himself but good. which is a fun sexy idea for a story, but the book fucks it up because ronan is too aware at all times of what a dirtbag kavinsky is and too untempted by his wild ways. there's no real fall, so there can't be a real rise. he fucks up his best friend's car, which he knows is also his best friend's number one most prized possession on earth, and the resolution to that is: hey dude my bad i killed your car but it's okay i dreamed you a copy of it. ???????? that's like parent who runs over your cat and says it's okay because they'll take you to the pet store tomorrow logic [realized in the middle of that i stole that image from sandman sorry]. i mean, in a vacuum, i guess it's not exactly. but like: ronan doesn't address the situation by learning anything about how not to be the kind of person who destroys something of great emotional value to someone he cares about. he addresses the situation by learning how to do his superpower good. this is not emotionally satisfying fantasy writing. it's hollow and stupid. and it's extra stupid because the book's attempt at an emotional resolution later down the line is that ronan needs to... hate himself less. which he can do by... realizing he doesn't hate himself. ??????? once again: empty. unbelievable. stupid. there's no connection there to, like, "now that i hate myself less, i can and should be less of a dick to everyone all the time," much less "one way of hating myself less might be to stop doing things that make me extremely unlikable." just: he hates himself less, he's no longer alone, he can dream whatever he wants, he's cool with his big gay crush now. weak. and like it was weak for me at the time, but reading BLLB i did think: well, the hand lotion. well, the trying to dream up a soul for the dream people. well, the big hug with blue at the end. ronan is growing and changing following his experience. it's kind of a shame we don't get his POV on any of this. but we'll probably catch up with him in the next book.

and again: no. i mean, we get ronan's POV, yeah. but none of it is reflective of someone like consciously trying to break the destructive and harmful (to self and others) habits he had forged in his grief. none of it conveys any awareness on the part of character or text that, like, deciding on purpose to be a decent human being matters. that maybe it's the kind of thing you should commit to before falling into a long distance relationship with someone who probably has PTSD from their abusive parents. that it can be hard, that it's rewarding. none of that. instead - i don't even fucking remember what. at one point he feels guilty about holding adam back and then he thinks, i'm not asking him to stay, just to come back, like ok that makes it so much better. you're just asking adam parrish, a steel whirlwind of ambition, to go to the ivy league college he has just about killed himself getting to because of how desperately he wants to escape the shithole town where he had his traumatic childhood, and then move back in four years' time. which again is not discussed. it's just taken for granted that ronan wants to stay at the barns forever. he tells declan he wants to drop out of high school [a choice being made by an eighteen year old two years after the traumatic experience of finding his dad's murdered corpse] and be a farmer and drive a tractor in circles on the property, which would be kind of funny given that his family farm is populated by dream creatures, except that like the book takes him weirdly seriously and also this is not intended as a metaphor. like his endgame in that series is that this traumatized teenager is living by himself on the barns fucking around and dreaming forever with like 3 friends all of whom are leaving town and zero ties to human reality or goals or desires of any kind and this is treated as a happy ending. even though by the way his mom got brutally murdered eight months before the stupid epilogue. but he's doing fine [stief hates women so bad]. [again it's SO funny that the first dreamer book opens with "ronan realized that his life was totally pathetic and depressing so he decided to move." like there was not this level of complexity present when you wrote the dumb epilogue!]

i keep forgetting about how ronan dreams into existence a weird little feral fawn creature/person and is bizarrely chill about it. also how his mom is his dad's dream and his little brother is his own dream and it's really explicit that his mom in particular does not have a personality of her own but just responds by giving whoever she's talking to whatever kind of person they want to interact with, which is the moooooost fuuuuuucked uuuup thiiiiiing eeeeeeverrrrrrrrrrr, and the books are just like. yeah this is normal and fine. [again sooo funny that in the dreamer trilogy declan is like "unbelievably fucked up that my little brother and mom are dreams." like yeah it is! where did you get that idea maggie. was it in the tumblr tags.]

what else. she ruined blue liking space, which didn't seem possible. blue doesn't like space and want big things because she's a smart spunky girl in nowheresville virginia feisty enough to dare to believe she can make her own life. no. it's because her dad is a tree person and trees like the sky because they grow upwards. whenever i tell people this i have to emphasize how much i'm not exaggerating or making it up. this is what it says in the text. she's like "oh that makes sense." ???????? i dwell on this one a lot because it's soooooo so so so stupid, but also because i think it really encapsulates the thing that makes TRK not just stupid but actively repellant to me, which is that you get the sense reading it that stief thinks it's better when things come from weird magic shit instead of from like real human characteristics and psychology. like for a series about friendship it winds up feeling to me weirdly and grossly misanthropic - none of these people are special or worth caring about because they are human people, it's all because of their magic Stuff. it's all because oh they actually WERE more special than everyone all along, not because of the choices they made but because they were born to it (why is ronan the only one who can take from the ley line without stealing? is it because of the kind of person he is? no. it's bc he's Special). ronan's dreaming, blue's treeness, and then gansey being actually all along a time-shifted resurrected friendship amalgamation creature who felt an instant kinship with his friends, again, not because he was a lonely teenage boy seeking out fellow weirdos to care about, but because they literally had met him before. adam, the only genuinely human character left by the end, meanwhile still is constantly asked by the text to apologize for his existence, not just in the "don't hurt him" scene but in the absolute nightmare section in the end where he goes back to his abusive parents' house for closure(????) and reflects primarily on how ugly and small his trailer was (?????????) and feels startled to discover an instinct in himself to help other adams who might be stuck like he once was, and then immediately conceptualizes this as something blue or gansey would think, which is so hateful i can't even process it. like adam at no point in this last book is acknowledged to have had a positive influence on anyone else even though he's better than the lot of them put together, but he has to kowtow to blue and gansey in his own brain for teaching him (a poor abused kid) that he might empathize with poor abused kids???? when to my sincere recollection NEITHER of them has ever like on the page demonstrated any kind of do-gooding impulse? their hobbies are myth-hunting and unskilled clothing manufacture? perfectly acceptable hobbies for a pair of teens but like? why does she hate poor people and victims of abuse so bad...

the big bad demon that is destroying the town is shaped like a wasp. gansey has a bee/wasp allergy and one time died from bees. these two things are never connected. henry cheng is upgraded to a main character because maggie heard you like diversity and now has a completely different personality than when he was an amiable preppy dbag who happened to be asian. now he has a mother in the mob and a tragic backstory about being kidnapped that taught him that you can't let fear rule your life and if you're scared you should be scared and then do it and be happy anyway, which is pretty good advice for things like an irrational fear of closed spaces that can't actually hurt you but really not applicable to someone who both does literally have a deadly allergy to bees and also has spent the past four years traipsing willy nilly all over the place not even bothering to keep his epipen with him. it turns out gansey's big moral lesson has nothing to do with for example his obsessive desire to control his friends but actually like ronan he just needs to love himself better and realize that his friends care about him after all. please notice again that ronan and gansey, rich boys acting out, need to love themselves more. this is dumb but if this was like the thesis of the whole series i would be like, that was stupid but whatever. but what of adam parrish, a poor abused kid who was abused so hard he is now a poor abused disabled kid? does he get self-love? no. he gets to realize that his rich friends have made him a better person, and be relieved that he's escaped from poverty because of how the aesthetics were bad. I MEAN IT'S SOOOOOO CRAZY AUGHHHHHHH

i forgot when i was talking about henry cheng the scene where blue and gansey go to the asian kids' house and are like "wow such diversity so culture," which is like a nightmare edward said had once. like they're just so excited to have discovered this exotic exciting new world and to learn about things like how henry cheng makes asian jokes because if he says all the bad things about himself first then other people won't say them. and i shit you not, the entire sequence is done in narration, with spoken lines appearing in italics in the middle of descriptive paragraphs, not rendered with dialogue as an actual scene, a technique she doesn't use anywhere else that i can recall and which really serves to just be like... here is this Mass of Asianness, as opposed to being normal about it and being like "here's some asian kids having a party." i haven't seen anyone comment on this technical feature but i think about it all the time because it makes me feel insane. it's one of the few things i've read in the past however many years where i read it and was like "i guess i was naive before about racism." like it's not that i didn't know but i was like, wow in 2016 you can still just transparently have your entire ability to conceptualize scene and narrative totally warped by an attempt to feature non-white people and no one will be like, hey we're all unlearning a lot of stuff but maybe let's rethink this before we go to print. there's a scene where ronan jokes about henry's mixed-raceness by saying "which half" which i do think is stief being unaware of the optics bc she's dumb but still comes across real bad and then there's also a scene where ronan does a "vaguely offensive" imitation of henry's voice which i truly have no fucking idea what the hell that is supposed to mean on a literal concrete basis other than making fun of an asian kid's accent. in both of these cases gansey and blue are disapproving and adam snickers and it's like, ok so pynch is racist now. cool. who asked for this, maggie. and also see above re: i really gaslit myself into thinking that one of the points of this series was that ronan learns to be a better person. my bad! (he sort of attempts at one point to make up with declan about how ronan has treated him so bad and also ronan was obviously his dad's favorite. but like his way of doing this is he gives him a toy he dreamed called a Orb. if i were declan i would throw his Orb back in his face. but like that's how broken the ethos of these books is. a heartwarming reunion between two brothers torn apart by the death of the father that they both equally lost hello declan is also a teenage orphan - and it's just. here's some garbage i got you. i didn't even spend money on it. it just happened.)

in addition to ronan's mom the lady bad guy also dies a horrible bloody death that feels a lot more gratuitously fucked up than any of the man deaths in the series. oh i forgot about how blue's mom is dating a hitman who killed ronan's dad and ronan just like doesn't care about this after the first five minutes at all. and neither does anyone else. and then he wanders offscreen... i forget why. we never get any intel on why blue is destined to kill her first love if they kiss or if that would have happened with anyone but gansey or if she and gansey can kiss after he's resurrected or what. like the prophecy that kicks off the series, and just: nada. gansey sells his beloved home to bribe aglionby into letting ronan graduate and the two of them never talk about this and the text never clarifies whether ronan bothered to graduate or not (and in CDTH it turns out he didn't). like another way this alleged series about friendship is weirdly misanthropic is i really was not convinced by the end of it that these people were friends. none of them are seen ever enjoying each other's company or thinking well of each other outside of the two romantic pairings and gansey going apeshit about how awesome henry cheng is. also gansey's whole big quest for meaning blah blah, like i don't super care that glendower is dead, i think you could write a good book with that moment working thematically even though it does fuck with your continuity because who the fuck were the three sleepers. what was with those birds. (there's a lot of mysterious/spooky shit that never gets addressed and like... again i think you could write a book where that works, i don't like to be prescriptive about this stuff, but again: play stupid games win stupid prizes. write a dumbass book that invests a lot of time in the importance of its magic and worldbuilding, and i will get annoyed when your magic and worldbuilding is dumb as fuck and/or totally pointless.) but it's like ok so then the idea should be that the whole point of gansey's glendower quest was actually an internal one, that the payoff of SIXTEEN HUNDRED PAGES of this is some kind of life lesson or emotional shift or whatever. and the payoff is that gansey realizes his friends love him (which again: but do they though? like do they really?), and that he and blue and henry take a gap year. that's the big exciting finale. a year off before gansey goes to college, with his true love and a guy he first hung out with eight months ago. HELLO? like who gives any kind of a shit about that. about any of this. what the fuck was all this for. this all happened so that two rich teenagers could like themselves better. are you fucking kidding me maggie? hateful!

anyway. i'm sure at the time there was more i was forgetting because this book was sooooo boring and every single thing that happened in it was stupid. i feel like this was very incoherent but in my defense these books are hard to critique coherently because they are, again, so stupid. CDTH from what i remember reading it through the first time and continue to pick up now like hangs together as a book better certainly than TRK did but my experience is such that every time she does something passably right i truly can only be like, wonder how she's gonna fuck this one up to kingdom come.

#askbox #the shmeamer shmilogy #the shmaven shmycle #i had a bunch of stuff under that tag at my old now deleted blog but not this one

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ninjabot215 · 9 months

Text

ITS MUSIC MONDAY BITCHES!!!!!

"Erm exsqueeze me whags a music Monday" you may be asking

ITS WHEN I POST A BUNCH OF MUSIC I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO, BUT ON A MONDAY

IF YOU WANNA REBLOG WITH A BUNCH OF MUSIC YOU'VE BEEN LISTENING TO, THATS COOL AND YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO IT

ALSO ITD BE COOL IF YOU WROTE A COUPLE WORDS ABOUT WHY YA LIKE THA SONG (if you feel like it but if you don't want to that's also valid I just want more cool stuff to listen to 👉👈)

oki anywho here we go :3

I fucking love furries throwing a shit ton of drums and bass over sped up / pitched up 2000s music. Gotta be one of my favorite genders. Like the super loud bass during the back half of this song makes me wanna throw my body around like a gmod ragdoll in a old tf2 machinima.

youtube

Just a genuinely really good mashup of two excellent songs. Makes me feel some form of odd sadness that I can't really describe. 10/10 would decompose in my bed again.

youtube

Really good mix that unlike a lot of Waters of Nazareth mixes doesn't go super overboard. Manages to juggle the 11 (!) songs its using really well and is one of my go to songs to put on while absolutely throwing my "academic career".

youtube

Good classic hardcore complete with a goofy whimsical ass section in the middle of it. Uhh like seriously the part starting at 2:21 is so different from the other halves its sandwiched between I love it so much. Also there's an assload of ytpmvs of this song.

youtube

I love this song so fucking much. Peak tbh. The fucking guitar, the little sad section where the vocals gradually layer and build up to the finale, Just the overall vibes, its all just so good. Also Weezer lmao.

youtube

I cant even begin to explain what a mashup tournament is concisely in this already long-ass post so this is gonna be complete nonsense if you don't already know what I mean. This is probably one of the best songs from the entirety of TFA, perfect representation of the contestent its for. The fuckin part where Lifetime Achievement award gets pitch-corrected to sound like Harder Better Faster Stronger makes me levitate. Leans a little too hard into FNAF sources near the end but otherwise balances H3M's arsenal really well.

youtube

Another song from a mashup tournament, but a different one. Pretty much exactly what a good bracket theme needs to be, its hype as all hell and showcases all the characters really good while still being mostly cohesive. Its a miracle that a mashup of 29 songs goes as hard as it does without anything going too off-beat / key.

youtube

Its fucking Spiderwebs. If you haven't heard it just listen to it. Its so good. I can't explain why I like it better than the song itself can.

youtube

I mean come on. The sampling in this is insane. The flow makes me vibe outside of safe operating limits. I just love how the chords bounce around inside my head.

youtube

A really good reimagining of one of my favorite albums of all time. I actually kinda like some of the songs on this more that the original album (shoutout to Superheros for using the whos been sleeping in my bed sample more that shit goes so hard) and the new vocals are all really good too. I love the fact that its also half mashups - half complete remakes / remixes, gives the best of both worlds. Obviously the original Discovery album is still the goat and this wouldn't exist with out it but I still really appreciate this for what it is.

If you made it this far thanks for reading my deranged rambling and listening to my wack musical tastes. It was fun to write this so I'll probably keep posting these on Mondays until I get bored or forget. I would really appreciate it if you posted some music you like in the reblogs because I'm trying to make my bigass unorganized playlist bigger so any help is good. Anyhow thanks for reading / listening byeeeeee

#196 #r/196 #rule #r196 #:3 #196 campfire #MUSIC MONDAY #long reads #rambles #Bandcamp #Youtube

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youreobsessedwithtoomanyfandoms · 11 months

Text

Don't Let Me Go (Part 3)

Words: 1660

Warnings: language, talk of alcohol/alcohol consumption, regret, Leon being a dick but for a kinda good reason, people may be mad at reader cause of what she does but whatever idc this is my fucking story, maybe ooc characters and probably bad writing

Resident Evil Masterlist Main Masterlist Join My Taglist

This also was originally written for my OC Tiffany (Whose info on her/original story will eventually be available on this account @imnotobsessedwfictionalchracters )

Leon and Hunnigan are PROBABLY OOC (as I suck at not being able to keep them from being OOC)

Actually find it fucking insane how long this thing is all together

This is it in multi-part form: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

This is it in one part form

Reader and Leon are partners with their job (have been since 2004/2005) and is insinuated to be around the same height as Leon

Not Proof-read and I think it can be seen every once and a while (I know you can see where my brain couldn't function how to write the scene so I just guessed and hoped for the best)

Can be read as its own story or as a sequel to You’re About To Lose The Best Damn Thing You’ve Ever Had

Losely has themes from the songs Never Say Never by The Fray, No Surprises by Radiohead, Afterglow by Taylor Swift, and Look After You by The Fray

Anywho, enjoy

Love Z <3

March 9th of 2009

Y/N's POV

Beeping. That was all she could hear. Her entire body was sore, feeling like she had been dropped from the top of a building. After a few moments of trying, she finally was able to open her eyes. But she instantly regretted it as the bright fluorescents welcomed her. She groaned as they tried to adjust to the brightness. She looked around and suddenly realized that she was in a hospital. That was the reason for the beeping as she realized how hooked up she was.

Her throat felt dry and like something had been pulled from there. She moved her head to the side and let out a shocked gasp when she saw who was by her. She thought she had been dreaming. That the fever she knew she had from the infection that she knew had happened from the terrible keep of her cut had made her imagine he was there. That he had been the one to save her.

She felt her hand move to reach out to him, but she dropped it when she heard the sound of the door opening. A lady, probably around her grams’s age, walked in. She had a soft smile on her face when she looked at Y/N and walked closer to her. Y/N watched as the lady began fiddling with one of the bags that she assumed was liquids to keep her from getting dehydrated.

“You’re very lucky that boy got to you when he did.” The lady turned to her, “He’s a keeper, that one. He hasn’t left this hospital except for the one time me and another nurse forced him to get a hotel and sleep properly.”

“He’s just my partner--no, wait, he...I don’t know.” It hurt to speak, it felt like she hadn’t used her voice in years.

The lady raised a brow, “I doubt whatever he did will last long. You’ve been here a week and he’s had chances to go back to DC, but he’s stayed here.”

“Where is here? And what day is it?”

“You’re in Vancouver, it’s March 9th. Do you know the year?”

“2009?”

“Good, who’s your President?”

She genuinely had no idea. Graham had ended his Presidency a few months ago and she still had to learn the new guy's name. Only did she know the Vice-President. “I haven’t learned his name yet, but the Vice-President is Adam Benford, he used to be the CIA Director.”

“Hm, I guess that works.” The nurse chuckled, “You sure know a lot about him.”

She looked at Leon, “Yeah...the two of them are friends.”

“I should have expected that. Well sweetheart, we have you on a morphine drip to--”

“I-I can’t have morphine in large doses. It affects me worse than dilaudid.”

The lady took a look at her file and sighed, “Well I be damned, the nurse who did this completely ignored that it says no morphine.” She looked at Y/N, “I’m going let the head nurse know and we’ll get you switched onto, dilaudid you said? It works with no issue

“Yeah, every time it’s worked in the past it's been with no issues.”

“Alright.” She wrote something down, “I’ll be back in a few.”

Y/N nodded as that lady walked out of the room. Her eyes went back to Leon, who was still asleep in the chair, but she noticed how one of his hands was sitting on top of the bed, like he had been holding hers while she was out. She gently took it in hers and brushed her thumb over the top. She wondered if Hunnigan ever found a loophole for them to work. If she ever found a way that she could use to show Leon they could have worked.

She watched as he stirred, his eyes slowly opening and blinking to adjust to the bright lights. He groaned before looking at her and she watched as he straightened up and took her hand in his own. She watched as his usual emotionless face turned to one full of emotions.

She gave him a soft smile, “Hey Lee.”

He moved the chair to be closer before he ran a hand over her, moving hair from her face. “Hey beauti--Y/N/N.”

She moved her hand to go back to rubbing the top of his, “You can call me beautiful. You got me out of there after all.”

“You scared me, y’know? I thought I had lost you there and I wouldn’t be able to tell you how sorry I--”

“Don’t, please. Just...just don’t. I don’t want to think about that. You’re here, that's what matters. That shows that you really care, even if you can be annoying about showing it.”

He gave a small smile, “Yeah, but I really am sorry for not...talking to you. It was fucking Stacey who walked in and he threatened to expose us. I just didn’t want your life to get fucked over.”

“Why would mine?”

He sighed, “Hunnigan said that unfortunately, STRATCOM would rather lose you than me. So if they had found out, they would have displaced you. Put you in another department or place you with one of the other offices. But we wouldn’t be able to see each other anymore.”

“And you were scared I would argue and say it was nothing.”

“Yep.”

She looked over to the other side, “I hate when you’re right.”

She heard him chuckle, “It’s a rare feat, but one that can happen.” She looked back at him and smiled, but the smile fell as she began to think. “What’s wrong?”

“Why did you call for a new partner?”

He let out a big sigh, “Because I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle seeing your broken face everyday. Be right by you, pretending to be a supportive friend while you move on.”

She scoffed, “Yeah, me moving on would’ve taken a lot. Trust me. I even asked Hunnigan to find loopholes in the rules for us to be together.” She sighed, “I guess she never found one cause she never told me.”

He laughed awkwardly and she raised an eyebrow, “Well...that’s not necessarily true.”

“What?”

“She found the loophole after you went dark.”

“And she told you?”

“So I might have come in drunk one day, felt bad because I did that because I drove drunk, and asked her to drive me back to my apartment. It was like I could hear you in my head getting mad, not because I showed up drunk, but because I drove drunk. So while she was taking me to my place, I might have spilt that I fucking hated what I did to you and wished that there was some fucking way for us to work and she might have told me the way it could. The small loophole that you asked her to go looking for.”

“What is it?”

“A lifetime commitment that we both said we weren’t ready for.”

“Kids?”

He snorted, “No. Not that.” He moved and dug in his pocket before handing her a small dark blue velvet box. She felt her heart in her throat. “Yeah...that’s the commitment.”

She opened the box to see the ring. It was simple, not over the top. Two diamonds with a sapphire in the middle on a silver band. She let out a shaky breath before looking at him, “When did you get this?”

“Um...a while ago actually. Last summer, I believe.”

She laughed slightly, “That was why you asked me what my ring size was.”

He laughed as well, “Yeah, I expected you to catch on.”

“But...that was before we talked about marriage.” She looked at him, “That was why you asked me, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged, “I realized that I would rather have a possible answer than make you uncomfortable.”

She smiled and for some reason, she leaned over to him and kissed his lips softly. “Why don’t you ask me now.”

“What?”

Her voice was soft, “Just ask that four word question.” She brushed some hair out of his face, “My answer won’t be dependent on it being the only way for us to be together and work together.”

He smiled, “Y/F/N, will you marry me?”

She smiled, “Yes.” She kissed him again, “Y’know, I would have said yes if you had asked me at Christmas.”

“Really?”

She nodded, “Mhm, that was around the time that I realized that even though marriage is a big commitment and we both have our issues with commitment, I was sure I would be able to fully stay with you. Was it partly because you’re the only guy I’ve ever been with that can handle me when my brain can’t function so I just shut down? Possibly. But it also had to do with the fact I can’t see myself with anyone else but you and every time I imagine a future, you’re always there.”

Now it was his turn to brush hair from her face, “So we could have avoided these past few months if I had just looked at the handbook for a loophole?”

She nodded, “Yep. But that doesn’t make me love you any less.”

He laughed, “Good.”

She closed the box and handed it back to him, “Hold onto it for me until we head back to DC.”

He took it and placed it back in his pocket, “I love you, you know that right?”

“I questioned it for a while, but yes, now I do.”

He laughed, “Good.”

They were silent for a few minutes until she looked him dead in the eye, “Can you promise me one thing, Leon?”

“What is it?”

“Never let me go, please? Promise me if you ever start to get insecure with anything in our relationship that you will tell me and we work on it.”

He smiled and kissed the top of her hand, “I promise.”

She smiled, “Good.”

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thetisming · 23 days

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Why Take Me To Church is a Very Jumeo Coded Song

Disclaimer: I am not a person who understands metaphors, which songs are often full of. Please don't get upset if I don't understand any metaphors in this song, I am autistic and take things as they are.

Disclaimer #2: I know this song is about the Catholic church. But music is meant to be fun and sometimes people just want to write about their favourite couple because the lyrics remind them of them.

“My lover's got humour, she's the giggle at the funeral”

Both Juliet and Romeo are very fun, bright characters! Romeo is the type of person to laugh at a funeral, and genuinely they're both just humourous people. This line is one of the less jumeo coded lines, however mixed in with the rest of the song it makes more sense.

“Knows everybody's disapproval, should've worshipped her sooner”

Both of them knew nobody would ever approve of their relationship, and then Romeo kills himself. This line I see as Juliet talking about Romeo, about how everyone should have loved him when they had the chance. A personal headcanon of mine is that Romeo is a trans man, which would be even better for this line. He knew that nobody approved of his transition or of his relationship with Juliet and now it's too late for anyone to treat him as he deserved.

“We were both sick, you heard them say it”

Humans are born with whatever sexuality they are – Juliet and Romeo were both born and they were both born alloromantic, which led them to a love of each other that they couldn't stop. They weren't given a choice or anything that could have stopped them from falling in love. There's also Romeo's canonical bisexuality, which could be described as a sickness that he was born with.

“The only heaven I’ll be sent to is when I’m alone with you”

Pretty self-explanatory. Their heaven is with each other, their love for each other is so strong and they won't go to any sort of heaven. They've both done things that are described as ‘sinful’, so they're not getting into heaven, but they can be together and that's all they need. That's what matters.

“I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies”

While in the original song the lies were about the Catholic church’s views of homosexuality and other things, this isn't about the original song. This line I see from Juliet’s perspective – the lies being Romeo’s speech, ‘has my heart loved ‘till now? For swear it, sight, I never saw true beauty until this night’, which at his funeral was revealed to be a lie. But Juliet loved. She loved and she worshipped and she almost died.

“I’ll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife”

I'm not entirely sure how to relate this to them but it's about the dagger – Romeo's dagger that he takes everywhere. The one that Juliet almost kills herself with. That dagger.

“Offer me that deathless death”

Very simple! Romeo taking the poison, the one that he thought would kill him that turned out to be a sleeping potion. He was dead, but not really dead. A deathless death.

“If I’m a pagan of the good times, my lover's the sunlight”

Much like in the song, it's about how the pagans worshipped the sun. Now, this is a very jumeo coded line, because of Romeo saying ‘Juliet is the sun’. Romeo is like a pagan worshipping the sun, because Juliet is the sun. Juliet is goodness and light and the reason he's alive. Without her, his life would be cold and he would be dead. Juliet is the sun and without the sun, you cannot live.

“There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin”

Very simple as well. Their ‘gentle sin’ being their relationship, which was forbidden by their families. But it was love, it was innocent, it was sweet, and it was barely a sin.

Also, Italy is generally very Catholic and this song is about the Catholic church, so there's also that!

Hope y'all enjoyed this!! I had fun with it although I skipped a lot of lyrics.

#& juliet #& juliet musical #&j #and juliet #and juliet musical #juliet musical #juliet capulet #romeo montague #jumeo

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system-of-a-feather · 10 months

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I'll take a turn on the DID-unrelated ramble train, but honestly, most American / English rap / hip-hop just... bores the fuck out of me. I like music - specifically rap and hiphop because I like it as a venue and means for expressing oneself and sharing life and it's experiences in a way that can be very personal / true and yet also extremely impersonal to share. It's a beautiful way to simultaneously be very vulnerable and real for the individual writing it and leaving it out for listeners to either accept or not - but at the same time when its being performed, it isn't like a friend telling you their shit for support, it doesn't even necessarily still present as the vent or expression it was originally made as - it is just A Song, representative of the time that it was made and written.

Personally, I think rap / hip-hop is one of the best mediums to do this because it is largely just spoken-word with a little more musical emphasis. Some have chorus-es and what not, but not all and those that do often use it more in a poetic sense with repetition than necessarily a "catchy main line" and its really great. I love it and its my favorite genre by a mile

But that is only when it is held to what I think to be the "proper" and "best nature of rap / hip-hop." And of course, this is my opinion, I don't genuinely think my opinion is the only "real" way to enjoy the genre, to each their own; but I am just not interested in rap / hip-hop in any other manner.

A lot of American / English rap has really devolved to loose its expressivity and its just.... egos, hedonism, and jsut marketable music that just really doesn't interest me. On top of that, a lot of them just don't even have that emotive and expressive and dynamic tone and attack to the rhythm that just lulls me to sleep and / or has me groaning.

This isn't to say Korean, Japanese, and Chinese rap (the ones I've looked most into) are all full of meaningful lyrics or anything - nor is it me saying that every track has to have that personal edge to it - but it is just so... emotionally bland in comparison. Even where there isn't any real emotion behind the lyrics a lot of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese rap deliver their lines with a lot more tone, energy, purpose, and emotion behind it.

Anyways, I need to get back into the old rap that we used to listen to in all languages. If any of yall have any good raps in any language that actually has an emotional backing and/or sound, I would love any recommendations.

Some recommendations off the top of my head:

English: NF, Ren (literally found him rn, below in Bonsus)

Korean: Song Gunhee, LeeHyunNim,

Japanese: Fake Type., Kazuo

Chinese: We used to listen to it but I don't remember any names since we were less into it

BONUS, I literally found this while trying to remember the name of LeeHyunNim and I just had a laugh over it being DID themed (I don't have a reason to suspect he has DID but I am listening to it the first time over and it was just unexpected

youtube

#alter: chunn #music rambles #music #rap #rap rambles #chunn rambles #Youtube

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sadlittlesquish · 11 months

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Never Let Me Go

The following fanfic will be rated 18+ for sexual content, drug use, mentions of Emotional, Physical and Sexual Abuse, mentions of past self harm and Suicidal Ideation. Minors DNI.

This story was written mostly on Character AI, so there will be some weird formatting issues. I just really wanna get these ideas out there, but not really post it on archive or anything. Both parties in this story are consenting adults, ie my OC is 18 going on 19 and Eddie just turned 20. If you are not a fan of reading OC stories, or you don't like my Original Character, please just move along. Rude comments will not be tolerated. I'm also doing my best to write this story set in 1986 as best as I can. If there are any discrepancies I will do my best to fix them. Please Enjoy Chapter One.

Chapter One: It’s so Sweet

You know I think your skin's the perfect color

But it's always your eyes that pull me under

The lunchroom of Hawkins High was cram packed with students fresh from Summer Break.

All of the same cliques formed and scattered across the room like pockets of cliches. The Cheerleaders sprinkled through the sports teams, flirting with the boys and doing each other's hair or makeup. A few tables away a group of Leaguers are blasting their portable radio, the billboard's top 100 pop songs bursting through the din of the crowd here and there.

And then there was the table where all of Hawkins’ least diserables hung out.

Eddie sits at the head of his table of freaks, toying with a D20 Keychain absentmindedly as Dustin and Mike gush excitedly about their Summer break.

The kids were cute, even if Eddie found them to be a little too talkative sometimes. Especially Dustin.

As Gareth chimes into the boys' conversation, a hush falls across a nearby table and they begin to point and snigger at a young woman who just walked by.

Eddie overhears one of the nearby boys say, "Look, Whorewood decided to show her face." All the teenagers surrounding this guy burst out in mocking laughter. It didn't take a fucking rocket scientist to realize what was going on here.

Another guy chips in a little too loudly so more people can hear him, "I wonder how easy it is to get little miss piggy to squeal," he emphasizes his insult with hog squeals, sending everyone around him into a fit of cruel laughter at this girl's expense.

Eddie watches the girl's ears turn pink in embarrassment, but much to his absolute delight, the girl doesn't give them the satisfaction of hurting her. She instead pulls herself up to her full height and lifts her chin defiantly at the boys who mocked her.

"I'd be careful with what you say, little boys with little peckers should be lucky any girl would sleep with them. Without sluts like me, you'd all be virgins."

The girl smirks as their faces go red in anger, and triumphantly walks away.

"Who was that," Eddie asks, lazily flicking his ringed fingers in the girl's direction as he questions his friends.

“That's Marnie Wellwood," Gareth begins, his face turning pink for some reason. "She uh... well, word is around school that she is kinda... easy."

Eddie realizes immediately why Gareth is so embarrassed right now, his eyebrows flicking up into his fluffy bangs as he lets out a low whistle through his teeth.

"Hm, never heard of her..." Eddie ponders thoughtfully, genuinely surprised that a social outcast like this girl is just now being brought to his attention. This table was the den for Freaks after all, and it seemed like one little lamb had not yet been brought into the fold.

"She's new," Dustin chimes in, "just started here at the end of last year at Hawkins High. A lot of guys think she's a bitch, but after what I just witnessed, I would have to disagree... She's just awesome."

Eddie hums in agreement, staring intently at the place where the girl had been before she left.

“Hey, if she’s giving those losers what they got comin’, then she’s good people in my book.”

Edddie shrugs.

This girl sounded like a badass, and he can’t help but respect that.

Jeff takes his voice down to a quiet hush so the younger boys don't hear him as he leans toward Eddie and Gareth, "I've heard some of the guys in my class say Wellwood will suck you off for cheap. I've considered it a few times... I bet she gives great head."

Eddie smacks Jeff upside the head, "Dumb boys spread dumb rumors. And even if she does give out blow jobs like they're candy on Halloween, don't stoop to those losers' level."

The school bell suddenly rings, and students begin to file out of the Cafeteria; trays and wrappers chucked into the garbage and backpacks gathered as students headed to their classes.

Eddie fingers the note that had been slipped into his locker; yet another little lost lamb coming to him for the one thing that made this shit hole town bearable: drugs.

"See ya around boys, I gotta date with Mary Jane," Eddie jokes, wiggling his eyebrows playfully as his friends all roll their eyes at how corny his joke was.

Eddie snatches up his metal lunch box, and bows theatrically to the group, before heading to sneak out of school and to his usual spot where he did his deals.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eddie winds his way easily through the trees, the path to his secret spot practically memorized by this point. In fact if someone dared him to find his way blindfolded, he was pretty sure he could… maybe. This was the kind of place where all kinds of things could happen - deals, hangouts, fights, you name it. Eddie liked this place because it was secluded and no one could interrupt you.

He sits cross legged on the top of the table in his usual spot, making sure that his pipe is clean and that his stash is full, and that’s when Eddie hears a sound coming through the trees from behind him.

Whoever had slipped him the note requesting his special wares was most likely arriving. As he waits for the footsteps to sound closer, he taps out the melody of the new song he and his band mates were working on.

The sounds of twigs and leaves being disturbed alerts him to this mysterious person's approach and his hands still as he waits to see who it is.

A dark head of hair breaks through the trees, and then Eddie is face to face with the girl from the cafeteria.

Up close she was... kinda pretty. Eddie can feel a smile curling his face as he takes her in.

Short, only taller because of the chunky heeled shoes she was wearing. Ripped tights under ripped jeans. Almost as many upper layers of shirts and jackets that Eddie himself wore, along with various bracelets, rings and necklaces.

She was wearing darker, moodier makeup than most girls wore, and she had dark red streaks in her hair.

Very cute indeed, Eddie thought to himself.

"Well well Wellwood," Eddie makes a show of spreading his arms like a king showing power of his domain, "Can't stay out of trouble today can you?"

The girl stops ten feet away, her arms crossed loosely at torso level as she stares Eddie down with an unflinching level of calm.

"Skip the theatrics Munson, you know why I'm here."

"Alright, alright," Eddie chuckles. "Here, take your pick." He opens his metal lunchbox to show off all of the wares that he has with a flourish.

"Whatever I can do for the princess." Eddie flashes her a sly smile before continuing. "Pick what you want milady."

The girl walks over with such a purposeful, inelegant stride it was a little endearing.

She peers down into the metal lunchbox and takes in all the options with a stoic expression. Up close Eddie can see the silver gray flecks in her brown eyes. They were... mesmerizing.

After a moment of silent perusing the girl flicks her gaze up to stare Eddie intently in the eyes."Which one of these will make you not feel pain?"

"What kind of pain are we talking about here?" Eddie asks cautiously.

There's so many different kinds of pain in this world - physical, spiritual, emotional. What kind of pain is it that she's suffering from right now, he wonders.

"The kind of pain that my moms boyfriend doles out to me every time I mouth off... which is a lot."

It's in that moment that Eddie sees just the faintest dark edge of what was left of a bruise on this girl's cheek.

Eddie looks at her, and immediately understands. He can feel his blood begin to boil a little. There was no point in losing his cool in front of a girl he was meeting for the first time. Still… he really doesn't like the reality of seeing a fellow outcast like himself being abused by family. People like them already had enough shit to deal with.

After a moment of silence, Eddie gestures to the lunchbox. "Well, you can pick your poison. Go ahead, anything you want Miss Wellwood."

"I've never done drugs before, so I don't know what is safe for newbies."

Eddie looks at the girl and finds it oddly cute that her big scary attitude and appearance doesn't extend to every aspect of her life.

"Hm, weed is almost always the best place to start," Eddie drawls, surreptitiously raking his eyes over the girl's person. He picks up a baggie, nothing majorly big, and some rolling paper and hands it over to the girl."Normally that amount right there would cost you 20 bucks, but I can be persuaded into giving you a discount." Eddie says to the girl, leaning back and smiling up at her with a cheeky look in his eyes.

Eddie himself wasn’t quite sure if he was flirting with the girl, part of him naturally playing the fool to cheer her up. But… Well, maybe he was flirting a little.

"How about you let me take you out sometime and the weed is free. How does that sound?"

Shit… did he really just ask her out? Where the fuck did that come from… Eddie wondered.

"I don't do dates Munson," the girl drawls in a surprisingly cold way that throws Eddie off. He wasn't expecting her to be so... blunt.

"I got ten on me, but I can make it worth your while if you let me pay the rest," the girl pauses, her sultry eyes looking Eddie up and down, "with my own special services."

Eddie’s face is suddenly red and he feels a nervous energy surge through his body. There was no way in hell that he heard what he just thought he heard… so Eddie decides to press further, regardless of his skepticism.

“Yeah, I’ll take that deal,” he manages to say after a few seconds. "What exactly are these special services you're willing to provide?"

The girl moves in as close as she can get to Eddie, her hair smelling like vanilla cake and candy. Her lips are so close to Eddie's ear he can almost feel them brush with each word she speaks, low and smoky.

"Let's just say, a lot of boys around school know what it feels like to get their cocks sucked because of me."

Oh…

He can’t help flushing a little at how close she’s getting to him. Her lips are right next to his ear, and that voice of hers… It’s so fucking seductive. Eddie didn‘t know a girl’s voice could make him instantly hot and bothered like that. He kind of wants her to keep talking so he can keep hearing it.

At her last comment, though, he starts to blush even heavier and he can feel his face get hot.

She’s… quite straightforward, I’ll give her that.

“O-oh… okay shit… um… I think I, uh, understand.”

The girl pulls away, her eyes heavy lidded and a smirk on her face at how flustered Eddie is because of her forward advances.

"Munson... don't tell me, Hawkins High's biggest bad boy is actually a virgin." There's a devilish look on her face as she teases Eddie mercilessly.

Eddie flushes deeper, actually feeling embarrassed for the first time in a long time that the girl had figured out so quickly that he had never... been with a girl before.

“Okay… okay, I get your point,” Eddie grumbles, feeling very annoyed now. “Yeah, I’m… I’m a virgin alright? I’m also a geek. A freak. A weirdo. Is that what you wanted to hear?” He crosses his arms over his chest, his face turning stony as he tries to hide his embarrassment.

Eddien should’ve expected a girl like her to play games like this. No need to tell her that, though. He refused to give her the satisfaction.

"Don't take my teasing the wrong way Munson, it's not a cute look. I don't care that you're a virgin, just a little surprised."

The girl stops and looks Eddie over thoughtfully before finishing, "I think it's sweet that you're not what everyone thinks you are."

He stares at her for a few seconds. For once, Eddie doesn't know what to say. She’s not judging him. She’s not saying that there’s something wrong with him for having never even kissed a girl, let alone more. The fact that she genuinely thought it was sweet made him…blush.

“Oh… thanks… I… I appreciate that.” Eddie breathes out, his face squishing up into the cutest grin. “So, about that deal… What do I have to do to cash in on, ehm… y’know, your services?”

"Find us a place where we won't get interrupted, I wanna take my time with you. You don't deserve a quick blowie on a dirty bathroom floor. And roll us a joint big boy," the girl winks at Eddie as she gives the two stipulations to her deal.

Eddie can't believe how his day had just turned into... this. But he was far from complaining.

“My van is right this way. It’s as good a place to hideout as any,” Eddie stammers.

"Lead the way Munson." The girl quips, following behind Eddie in silence.

Eddie leads the girl to where he keeps his van parked. He doesn't like to park it on school grounds after some of the bullies around school vandalized his precious van last year.

He wrenches open the back doors, and pulls the beaded curtain aside so the girl can climb up into the van easier.

"I've always wanted to fuck a guy in the back of one of these," the girl says as she hops up into the back of the van..

As soon as Eddie shuts the door, the girl begins to take off her jacket. Underneath her jacket she is wearing a very low cut shirt that shows off quite a bit of her round, plump cleavage.

"Be a good boy and roll us a joint, and then we will get to the fun part."

Eddie realizes he’s staring at her after a moment, watching as she takes off her jacket to reveal the one thing he had longed to see in person since puberty struck: tits. His face feels like it’s on fire, and it’s very, very hard to keep his eyes from wandering back down to her chest every few seconds.

He finally tears his eyes away with an awkward cough though, to get to work on rolling a joint.

The girl watches Eddie with almost adorable fascination as his nimble fingers skillfully rolls the paper around all the green, until a perfectly tight rolled joint sits between his long, ringed fingers.

Eddie reaches into his vest pocket and gets his lighter so he can start the joint for her. He feels a little flustered as she watches him put the joint between his lips.

A few drags later and Eddie leans toward the girl to blow the smoke in her face. He was expecting her to be annoyed at the action, but instead she smiles sweetly at Eddie.

"Your turn," he says, passing her the joint and then gently guiding her on how to smoke it properly.

The irony of the situation is suddenly not lost on Eddie. He was taking her smoking virginity and she... Well, Eddie didn't want to think too much about what her lips would be doing soon. He was already half hard and embarrassed about it.

She takes a few drags just as Eddie instructed, and coughs suddenly; the smoke spilling out of her mouth. Eddie had a feeling she would cough on her first try, he only hoped that didn't stop her from wanting more.She passes the joint back to Eddie, and waits for him to take his hit.

Her eyes are already a little red, and her stern face is relaxing into a softer, more vulnerable expression.

The girl's eyes are getting more and more adventurous at looking Eddie over the more they pass the joint back and forth.

At this point Eddie is pleasantly high, and a little horny. A feeling not at all foreign to him.

A little bit of sweat was forming a sensual sheen on the girl's tits, drawing Eddie's attention back there far too easily.

Of course she would notice.

"Have you ever done anything with a girl before?"

Eddie normally would have thought she was judging him, but her expression was so open and curious and... cute.

He can feel a little sweat forming on the small of his back and underarms. He’s nervous, and it makes it hard to ignore how badly he just wants to get into it. But Eddie tries to stay focused on her hazy eyes as he responds."No... not really. I'm a little, uh... a little inexperienced with this kind of thing," he admits. "Why do you ask?”

"Because," the girl answers, noticing how badly Eddie was ogling her chest. "I want you to feel safe. If you want to stop at any time do not hesitate to tell me. Boys always get it in their heads that they need to lose their virginity as fast as possible. I don't want you to look back on this moment and regret it."

"Okay, yeah… I-I appreciate that," Eddie replies, trying and failing to sound calm. "I want us both to enjoy this whole experience, you know?"

She smiles faintly at Eddie’s words before launching into her usual spiel. "My safe word is Milkshake, but you can pick your own if you want to. If at any time I do something that you don't like or you start to have second thoughts, use your safe word, okay Munson?"

Eddie nods his head slowly in response. "Yeah, don’t worry I'll do that. My safe word will be… uh, shit… no not ‘shit’, it’ll be… " He looks down at himself for inspiration, his eyes landing on the logo of his shirt, a devious smile curling his lip. “Hellfire, my safe word will be Hellfire.”

Marnie’s smile slowly melts into a smirk at Eddie’s choice before she continues,

"Now, I have a few ground rules before we begin, okay?"

Nodding his head, a little absentminded Eddie replies around a suddenly dry throat, "Go on. I'm listening."

"You are allowed to touch my chest, thighs, back and ass over my clothes. Never under. You will not try and pleasure me in return. And under any circumstances are you allowed to kiss me. Do you agree?" Marnie levels Eddie with a serious frown, the pinch of apprehension between her eyes makes Eddie wonder what she’s thinking as she waits for his response.

He looks at her for a few moments, the weight of everything beginning to settle hot and heavy in his veins, before nodding once more. "Yeah, I can do that. Sounds...uh... pretty reasonable.” Eddie looks away for a moment, his darkened cheeks making him feel self conscious . He silently doubted the other boys Marnie had dallied with acted this fucking awkward before getting their dicks sucked.

"Do you have any rules of your own that you want me to follow Munson?" Marnie tilts her head to the side, and it instantly reminds Eddie of a curious little kitten. Which of course makes him even more flustered. He always knew girls were cute, but no one had ever looked at him like that. Being on the receiving end of a girl's charms… yeah. Eddie was beginning to understand why men could be such dicks to each other when they wanted a girl.

He was already mentally strangling any invisible and imagined guy who even came near Marnie again. Which was… stupid. She wasn’t even his to claim, but Eddie knew then and there that if given the chance, he would make Marnie Wellwood his girl.

For a few more moments Eddie just takes her in, trying to think of anything he wasn’t okay with. Porn mags were always too perfect. And even though Eddie knew that that was the appeal, that the fantasy is what sold each issue; well, he had always hoped his first time with a girl would be more… real. Not a procured imagining of what sex was, but more, intimate. But life had not been kind to Eddie Munson, and here he was just about to get his first blowjob from a girl he found out existed in his same sphere only hours ago.

Eventually, Eddie does speak up. "Um... you can touch, uh..." he blushes and looks down at his fingers, idly twirling his rings from all the nervous energy. "Pretty much anything you want to, I guess. I don't really mind as long as you're comfortable with it."

A fond smile touches upon Marnie’s lips for an instant, before her expression turns serious again. "One last question before we begin then. I always want my partners to get caught completely in the fantasy... When you think of being intimate with someone do you prefer gentle and loving? Passionate and needy? Or Dominant and Dirty?"

She's making it incredibly difficult for Eddie to keep his composure, But he answers her honestly. "Uhm... I think I would like it gentle and loving," Eddie mumbles, looking away slightly to hide his embarrassment.

The girl smiles, and it is a genuine smile that crinkles the edges of her hazy eyes.

"Okay," she murmurs softly, her whole demeanor shifting. In an instant she becomes soft and demure, like a chameleon shifting to blend in. It was almost scary at how fast she could move into a new persona.

"Can I have your hand Munson?"

Eddie’s lips part, the flush of his excitement turning his full lips dark and rosy. In the dim, hazy lighting of the van, Eddie’s eyes are dark and fathomless; the pupil practically consuming his iris hungrily. His hands shake, the slick sweat on his palms making him cringe at himself as she takes his long, trembling fingers into her own hand.

She lets her gentle fingers glide over the planes of Eddie's strong, well defined hands. Each knuckle reverently caressed. She takes the calloused pads of Eddie's fingertips and brings them to her lips and just lets him feel her hot, moist breath fan against them teasingly; her eyes never once leaving his as she quietly assesses his reactions.

The expectation Eddie had was for her to start sucking on his fingers in a facsimile of what was to come... so he is completely surprised when she bestows a soft kiss on each fingertip, her eyes fluttering closed sweetly.

After each finger has been kissed, the girl opens her eyes and whimpers pleadingly, gently guiding Eddie's hand to now cup one of her full breasts over her clothes.

"Please, touch me... tell me all the dirty thoughts you think every time you take your dick in your fist and fuck it."

Her sweet gestures mixing with her filthy words were going to be Eddie's undoing, he was sure of it.

Eddie cups the girls full, weighty breast in awe. There were very few moments in Eddie's life where he was absolutely speechless, no witty come back or snarky remark. Just pure fascination and wonder over being able to touch a girl's tits for the very first time.

His throat is getting a little dry from how quickly he was getting turned on; all of his blood pooling into his erection. The girl makes a throaty sound of encouragement, snapping Eddie back to reality.

She had asked him a question and he still hadn't answered.

"I dunno... don't really fantasize much about sex. I mostly just whack it to porn mags," Eddie finally supplies inelegantly.

"No, no, that's not what I mean," she replies quickly, shaking her head. She's back to being bold and assertive just like that. All the shyness was an act. Eddie’s blush returns as he realizes that - and not for the first time - he realizes he may have been a bit too gullible.

"Tell me the dirtiest thoughts you've ever had, in your entire life."

Eddie swallows thickly as she practically purrs the words. Wow. That's... that's a little more intense than he had even dared to imagine… Eddie wipes his hands absently on his jeans as they continue to sweat.

Eddie squeezes his eyes shut as he thinks; his thoughts falling through his mind like sand in an hourglass. He felt high, horny and hazy-- all of those things a horrible combination in regards to having to think.

His strong hands are cupping both of her breasts now, squeezing and massaging absentmindedly and enjoying every moment of it.

"Fuck..." Eddie bites out, his thoughts finally catching up to him as dirty images flicker behind his eyelids. "I wanna sit in my throne after d&d and have a girl ride me. Make me feel like a god," Eddie is mumbling, trying to keep the image from making him nut too soon.

The girl smiles ever so slightly at Eddie's reply to her question.

Her eyes flick down to his jeans, the hard line of his cock easy to see from how tight he wears his pants.

"Does your dick hurt from being so hard? Want me to make you feel so so good?" The girl croons, her gaze growing dark and sultry.

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes the word into his lungs. There had been the slightest tremble in his voice, all too easily showing Marnie how close he already was, without even being touched yet. “Yeah, wanna feel you on my dick… pretty mouth’s gonna feel incredible.” He was practically slurring as if drunk. He might as well have been… drunk off the smell of her perfume, and the sound of her voice edging him closer to the finish line before the race even began.

"You're such an honest boy," she murmurs while her fingers trace the strong tendons in Eddie's hands.

Her hands trail up his arms, and then under his shirt; her nails pressing a little harder as they rake downward to add a little pain to the pleasure. It makes Eddie shiver, and the flush on his face deepens at how much he enjoyed the slight sting.

And god damn it made him fucking moan.

Even when he was at his most desperate to cum, fucking into his slick, sticky fist like his life depended on it in the privacy of his room, he had never moaned. Sigh, sure… hell maybe even whimpered occasionally. But the guttural sound she drew from him made him flush heatedly.

"Your moans are so pretty Munson, I'm having a hard time believing no one has ever touched you like this before. The girls around here really are dumb,"Her gaze turns slightly predatory as she licks the rim of her lower lip in a show of seduction and want.

The wet shine of her lips makes Eddie gulp at the knowledge that soon her sinful little mouth would be sucking him off.

There's no doubt about it. This girl was good. Really, really good. But there was no way in hell Eddie was backing out now just because he was slightly overwhelmed by her. No way.

Eddie swallows heavily, but tries to play it cool. "Nobody's ever talked to me like this before.” His eyes flutter closed for a moment, taking this all in. "Yeah... maybe I am missing out. You're really something, you know that?"

He watches breathlessly as the girl's hands work efficiently on his belt and jeans fasteners, the shine of her black nails catching his attention.

He can hardly hear the sound of his zipper being pulled down over the thundering of his heartbeat. The muggy air in the van is still cool enough to send a shiver through him as he feels the damp patch from his leaking dick cool from the sudden air flow.

The girl looks up at him through the rim of her pretty lashes, and smiles as her fingers begin to gently rub at the wetness leaking through his boxers from the weeping head of his dick.

Her lips look so tempting to Eddie, and he has an insatiable urge to kiss her. But he remembers, a little regretfully, her no kissing policy.

Instead he bites his own lip to keep from moaning again too loudly.

Eddie feels his jaw clench from the effort, his skin burning raw and sensitive all over with the desperate desire to press Marnie down and claim her. Ruin her until she’s quivering and moaning just as badly as him. But Eddie is able to keep himself in check. His heart rate is skyrocketing and the blood is still rushing through his body at a fever pitch, but he does his best to remain calm.

"God, that felt so good. Fuckin’ perfect…," Eddie adds with a soft sigh.

The girl gives Eddie a surprisingly gentle smile considering how domineering she has been this whole time at his words.

The feeling of her hands softly squeezing and rubbing his impossibly hard cock through his boxers was absolute heaven. Nothing in his life had ever felt as good as this, and they hadn't even gotten to the fun part.

"Fuck Munson," the girl whispers in awe, "you've got a big cock. The girls are definitely missing out at getting a taste of you.”

He can't help it - Eddie shivers as she says that. His breath hitches as she speaks, face flushing bright red once more. Eddie wanted to say to hell with any other girl…

Every girl he had ever fantasized about, every awkward boner at school when a skirt swished by, thighs so tantalizing he thought he could die, paled in comparison to this. To Marnie Wellwood looming over him, tits pulled taught in her tight shirt, and a mouth made of sin.

"Mmm. You... you think so?" Eddie slurs, her words making him throb. It clicked for him then that she definitely liked what she was feeling. Her appreciative appraisal of his cock made Eddie practically preen with pride.

"Of course. I overhear so many girls in our classes whine about their boyfriends lack of... downstairs equipment." As if to punctuate her Admiration, she finally pulls the full length of Eddie's dick out of his boxers; her velvety soft fingers finally directly touching the hot, throbbing length of him.

Her gaze turns wanton at the sight of him. His cock was long, and thick in perfect balance, with a lovely head and delicate veins. Precum was weeping from the eye of his dick to run down the length of it and onto his balls.

Eddie wondered if he was only imagining the drool at the corner of her mouth the moment she fully took in the sight of him.

"Ohhh... God..."

When she mentions how big he is Eddie feels a sudden, intense surge of pride. His heartbeat starts to race again, and for a second he thinks about what they would all say if they knew what Eddie the Freak Munson was doing right now, but then he reminds himself to focus on the present. Yeah, the present was good… Marnie’s smooth fingers had just begun to rub along the thickest vein on his cock and that alone was heaven.

The girl seems to sense how well her words lifted Eddie's self esteem, the way his cheeks flushed pleasantly at the praise. She thought it was sort of... cute. But she would never admit that out loud.

Instead she takes Eddie's dick and slicks her hands over it a few times to spread his precum so she can jerk his cock a little easier.

Eddie can't control the sound she wrenches out of him from how amazing it felt to have someone other than himself jerk his erection so good like that... it was enough to almost make him drool.

She pokes out her tongue teasingly, keeping it just a hair's breadth away from Eddie's erection. Her almost touch is driving him crazy, but he tries his best to play it cool and not let her know how badly he wants her.

Without warning however, her soft warm lips begin to swallow around the head of him, and the softness of her slick tongue running along his hot, hard cock almost makes him come undone. Eddie’s eyes roll back, and he blinks blearily at the roof of the van.

Lewd, wet sounds fill the silence; punctuated by Eddie’s voice. Unable to control himself, Eddie whimpers at every soft suckle. When she takes him down to the base and the head of his cock scrapes the back of her throat, Eddie keens as if the air has been punched from his lungs.

Eddie can feel his thighs trembling, pleasure sparking along his nerves. Up his spine, and neck; his head practically fuzzy with pleasure. A few times his hips jerk involuntarily, shoving his dick deeper into Marnie’s perfect mouth.

Apologies sit at the precipice of his tied up tongue, afraid that fucking into her throat like that would make her angry. So when her eyes flick up and she whimpers pleadingly at him as if… fuck, if Eddie didn’t know any better, he might think she liked him rutting his cock into her mouth as if he really was fucking it.

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, as they clench and unclench at his sides uselessly. He's just trembling and breathing shakily through his nose. But he knows at least that he can't stop looking at her. His eyes drink her in greedily, and if he could burn the sight of her cheeks stretched full around his cock into his mind forever, he would.

What finally undoes Eddie are her eyes. At the height of his breathless panting for air, her eyes flick up and bore heatedly into his. They hold such unfathomable thoughts behind them, and Eddie finds it both maddening and exhilarating that he cannot begin to guess what she is thinking as he spills.

Her eyes felt like they were branding him, and though he did not know it then, they would forever leave a mark upon his heart.

She licks her lips after she swallows, which just makes Eddie groan from how overstimulated and over the edge she made him feel. There was the tiniest tinge of regret that it was all over now, but Eddie tried to not let that get to him. Instead he tries to affect an air of lazy nonchalance as he says, "I can't believe we just did... that." An almost note of disbelief colors his words as he looks the girl over.

“Did you… like it?” Eddie asks breathlessly while he collects himself enough to speak again. He feels a bit silly for even asking, but he needs to know.

"The question is, Munson, did you like it? This isn't about me, my hookups with you silly boys are never about how I feel. I provide a service and I get something in return. Nothing more, nothing less."

The girl is plucking at the almost burned away remnants of the joint they were sharing and takes a drag of what little remains, releasing the smoke in Eddie's direction. She seems unaffected by her own words, but Eddie can see the small twinge of sadness at the edges of her eyes as she says it.

“Well if it wasn’t obvious, I loved it. This was… this was amazing.” Eddie replies, honestly. Never in his wildest dreams had Eddie ever dared to think he would be in a moment like this. But seeing the hint of hurt from her own admission makes Eddie want to soften the ache.

“But, it would be better if you liked it too. Why do you do this if it doesn’t make you feel good?”

She smiles, it's small and reflective as if she is thinking a thought that she knows she has to hold back. It's in that moment that Eddie sees a hint of something behind her mask. She wanted people to think she was carefree and promiscuous.

"Look Munson, I did enjoy making you feel good. You're probably the... gentlest person I've been with. As long as you are satisfied with what I did for you then that's all that matters. Girls like me... we don't get to be cherished and adored. Treated like something precious... we just... exist for others' benefit."

“That’s not fair,” Eddie says with a small bit of resentment. “You deserve as much appreciation and love as you give. It just… seems unfair that you get the short end of the stick.”

"I never said anything about love Munson. Love has nothing to do with why I hook up like this with people like you. Love is the last thing any of you boys need to have with a girl like me "

"Well, what's so wrong with love?" He asks, confused and curious about what exactly she means by that.

But... There is a small part of Eddie that understands what she's saying - even if he doesn't like hearing it.

"Love isn't for someone like me, okay?" Her words have a bitter edge, "I'm the kind of person who is meant to be someone's dirty little secret. No one would proudly take me by the hand for the world to see. I'm the mistake that happens when you get too drunk, or miss your ex. I'm the filler in a space that just so happens to be free. Boys don't love girls who are like this. They just use them, and then cut them loose when they get bored of them."

Her words leave a very bitter taste in Eddie’s mouth. He can’t help feeling slighted, even if Marnie had made it clear from the get go what this was. Her being so candid and assuming his intentions… stung.

“Well… maybe you just haven’t met someone willing to care for you like that,” Eddie adds. He knows he is going into uncharted territory, and he hopes he won’t say anything too stupid or offensive to make her mad.

She laughs a little, the sound sardonic and dry and... sad. Her fingers put out the last bits of the joint, before going to brush the mess of her hair out of her face. "Don't you worry your pretty little head over me Munson. Just revel in the fact that you now officially know what it feels like to get a blowie in the back of your van."

“Wow. You just… it never stops with you, huh?” Eddie replies sarcastically. “I guess I should count myself lucky.”

He sighs softly as he realizes that, although they had both enjoyed themselves, she seems adamant about not letting herself get emotionally connected to anyone. This was a mistake in her mind, and that’s all it’ll ever be.

Eddie figures there are worse mistakes to make at least.

"Thanks for the weed, and for being nice to me." Her raspy voice grows a little soft and fluffy at the end, and she looks away. "You're not at all like I expected you to be."

"Really?" he asks, his usual playful smile returning. "Well, thank you for that. Coming from you, that means a lot."Eddie smiles warmly, a rush of endorphins flooding him from the compliment. "What did you expect me to be like?"

"Mean and scary. I know it's dumb... we both have pretty horrible reputations around school, don't we?"

"Yeah, we do..."

Eddie sighs, smiling warmly at her again. "But sometimes... what we're told isn't always reality. You know, we're not as scary as people make us out to be." He shrugs. "If anything, I'm just a bit of a nerd who likes to headbang to metal, and you... you're actually pretty sweet on the inside."

"You tell anyone I have a soft gooey inside Munson, and I'll tell everyone around school what you're like down there, and it won't be close to the truth at all."

He blushes again, just at the reminder of what she had said earlier about his… endowment. "Fine. I can keep a secret." Eddie raises an eyebrow at her. "But would they believe you?"

She smiles a wolfish, toothy smile at Eddie's response. "Touché," with that she straightens her clothes and reaches for the handle of Eddie's back door in his van.

"If you uh... ever want to request my services again, I might be inclined to say yes. You're pretty fun to hang out with Munson."

"Maybe I will,"He replies, his face crinkling as he smiles at her. Eddie feels both a bit silly and very embarrassed. But also happy. Really, really happy.

He turns the handle for her, and lets her know the coast is clear. "I'm glad you um, hit me up for a deal. That was... unexpected, but very nice."

She hops out of the back of the van like she hadn't just been in there doing very eyebrow raising things with Hawkins High's biggest Freak. It warms Eddie's heart just a little when she winks and gives him a small smile over her shoulder before disappearing into the woods.

With her back turned and fading steadily from view, Eddie makes a dramatic stabbing motion right into his heart and smiles.

Yeah… without a doubt, he knew he had it bad.

#eddie munson #stranger things fanfiction #eddie munson x original character #eddie munson x oc

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klysanderelias · 1 year

Note

Do you have a favorite Vtuber?

Please also tell us why.

All right, wall of text time.

The short answer is not exactly, I watch vtubers for a lot of different reasons. I have a shortlist, and I have one or two I actually spend money on supporting, but I don't think I could name a favorite. If you're looking for names, I'd shout out Finana Ryugu, Mai Tsukimiya, Hakos Baelz, and Pavolia Reine, with Mai Tsukimiya closest to 'favorite' based on my support/engagement.

Now, the long answer.

I follow vtubers for a couple of key things - body doubling, relaxation, let's plays, music, and 'other'. A lot of these don't really interact well - if I'm trying to find a comprehensive let's play of a game I want to experience, I'm looking for a different thing than when I'm trying to find something to put on when I'm going to sleep. Plus, there are a lot of vtubers who are part of an agency like Hololive or Nijisanji that have a certain level of obligation to play specific games, so suddenly everyone I follow is playing the new pokemon, or hitman, or (ugh) Hogwarts legacy, because the agency made a promotion deal. And it's important for me to remember a lot that Vtubing is a job, especially the bigger you get, and that's more than just 'I need to make money doing this.' It's also 'I have a boss who makes decisions about what I am and am not allowed to do, and if I say something on stream I may have to make a ten minute apology video if my handler decides it might hurt the brand.'

I do want to talk about that - I don't like a lot of the subculture that vtubers inhabit. I don't like the way that it vaguely reeks of 4chan memes, or how if you scratch the surface you'll find incredibly toxic and disgusting behavior in chat. I don't blame the streamer for basically any of it, but there are vtubers out there who play more into it that I would like much more if they didn't (basically anyone in vshoujo, but also gawr gura and amelia watson, for example). And I'm sure there's more that I don't know about because like, if they don't stream in english, I'm obviously not gonna know what they're saying unless it gets clipped and translated. I will say, Finana Ryugu specifically gets a pass from me, and I think if she streamed more games I was interested in, she might make it up to being my favorite. I will never forget her anger at her chat for calling certain gacha characters 'traps', and her banning the word from her stream, and then like a day later being forced to apologize for it. I've more or less given up on trying to find 'progressive' or 'leftist' vtubers because of the culture (plus y'know, no one talks politics or ideology at their job), but she strikes me as a genuinely kind and thoughtful person.

For the things I watch vtubers for, number one is probably body doubling - if you're not familiar with that term, it's basically 'having someone else in the room to help someone with ADHD start and execute tasks that they otherwise wouldn't be able to'. It's kind of like having a podcast on for me, or chatting with someone while doing the dishes. It's having the stream on in the background and not really paying much attention to it.

Next is relaxation - sometimes I'll put a streamer on just to fall asleep to. I don't do the ASMR stuff really, but just having noise on in the background helps me sleep, and there's a number of people who have very calming or pleasant voices. Ceres Fauna is a shoutout here - I think she's on the edge of the 'elmo voice' crowd, but she's great to fall asleep to.

I also listen to a lot of music from vtubers, either covers or original music. I'll voluntarily admit I like Mori Calliope - when she's not trying to be edgy or playing into the subculture, her music is genuinely good. In general I think vtubers shouldn't be forced to sing, but I have a bunch of songs from vtubers I listen to a lot.

Let's plays - obvious. I have to shout out Hakos Baelz' playthrough of Resident Evil Village, she struggles with horror games and her experience with RE8 was extremely fun to watch because she was able to enjoy herself and get through the scary parts. This is also what's hardest to find for me - there aren't a lot of vtubers who play the kind of games I'd like to see.

I also like listening to vtubers who stream in other languages - most non-english vtubers stream in Japanese, but I like listening to the indonesian streamers from nijisanji and hololive as well (and ID streamers like Reine and Moona have some extremely good songs).

There aren't many vtubers I actually support financially, I think the only one is Mai Tsukimiya. I think she's very sweet, is small enough that I feel like I'm supporting a person and not a company, and I've bought some of her merch and enjoyed it.

Anyway all of this is to say that it's complicated, but I follow a lot of let's players and vtubers and have Opinions about them.

This is different from a list of recommendations, though. I think everyone I've named (and quite a few I didn't) are worth checking out, but obviously there's a lot of variance in terms of what they stream, how they stream, etc.

#long post #ask response #I'm also always looking for more streamers to follow

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cleoselene · 2 months

Text

tagged by @emmaswanned

Last song: "BODYGUARD" by Beyonce is what is currently playing

Favorite color: green mostly but also like. Cubbie blue.

Currently Watching/Reading:

watching: it's baseball season so I'm back on that mostly. However I am watching Lost for the first time, but I need to pick it back up. Got delayed in continue for really uninteresting reasons, but i got Hulu and so I can pick it up. I watched nine episodes and I like it!

pretty much all I ever read is the news, and my subscription is to Washington Post, but my friend Slim (he of the "not in Fall Out Boy, but did do an freakin' amazing blues cover of Taylor Swift's 'Mean' you shoud listen to it" fame on my blog) wrote a poetry book and he hasn't gone to press yet but hesent me the pdf. It's beautiful. Slim is a beautiful soul. the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back if you asked. Don't know if I've ever known a more genuinely generous soul. And he's talented as fuck! Check out his two original EPs they're on all the streaming services, he is Slimtronic 5k. Here's his cover of Taylor's "Mean," everyone go listen! He asked me what Taylor song he should cover and I thought long and hard and decided this had to be it, because he is the type of person to say "why you gotta be so mean?" because he's all about the love and kindness. Like, Dude from Big Lebowski vibes.

youtube

been obsessively listening to COWBOY CARTER. DAUGHTER is the one that destroys me. When she goes into that fuckin operatic voice? I had NO clue Beyonce had that kind of high voice in her. her singing and speaking voice too has always been this throaty, deep voice. To hear her suddenly break into Italian on a totally different octave than we've ever heard from Beyonce was MIND BLOWING. I got all goose-bumpy. Plus I loooove the Willie Nelson cameos hahah he is so clearly stoned out of his gourd. "Go find yourself a jukebox, thank yoU!"

watched the 9 part Turning Point Cold War doc on netflix, it was excellent. Then I watched the 9/11 one made by the same people and i felt like that one actually skipped a ton of important events? It wasn't as good I didn't feel

Relationship status: i am retired

Sweet/savory/spicy: savory though as middle age happens and perimenopause continues... the sweet tooth my mother promised was coming has kind of hit

Current obsessions: my vinyl collection. New music the theme for March and April! I cannot wait for TTPD, I feel like it's going to be what I wanted Midnights to be ut who know? Just excited about it. Again, baseball started this week so the sheen hasn't worn off there.

Last thing you googled: 'Three Dog Night wiki' lol I have three dogs (little ones at least) sleeping in my room. it is a three dog night. Did you knwo the name of that band comes from olden days when inns used to rent out dogs to sleep with on cold nights? So a "three dog night" was an exceptionally cold one since you needed to rent three dogs to sleep with you and keep you warm

tagging @sylvieons @an-ivy-covered-summer

#memes #thanks for tagging miss swan #Youtube

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pentacentric · 7 months

Note

Oooh, tell me about "pretty when you cry"....??? 😊

copying some of what i previously answered for the background, since this is from the same series that's already stsrted being published. Things That Can't Be Seen is canon-divergent (but not excessively) AU, wincest, powers/magic-adept sam, heavy on the world-building (there's a bit more backgound and 2 excerpts under the cut)

firstly, i have to say Pretty When You Cry is named after the VAST song not the lana del rey one which i didn't know about at the time (it's also good but a very different vibe). the story's actually about 2/3 done and already ridiculously long. it was also actually originally started to fill a kinkmeme request (ikr) and it got out of control and then i ended up fitting it into the series

it's set during sam's years at stanford. sam's experiences have made him a lot more comfortable with the more extreme side of his sexuality than in the show, and he's lacking a very good idea of what normal is as well. he continues to mourn his relationship with dean throughout, but he meets brady and they become cluelessly reciprocally-pining friends and eventually lovers. they're into kink pretty heavily (sam's subby and masochistic and bratty, brady is brash and has some lovely repressed aggression but is also very empathetic). but also he and brady genuinely love each other. i'll admit this story is somewhat self-indulgent since i discovered i really love sam/brady while writing this. it's like 50% kink, 50% sam/brady banter, 30% world-building, 20% sam being awkward while trying to figure out how to act like a person. it will get around to demon brady and also jess as well

series background: the major world difference is that the hunting community is slightly more structured (though no less dysfunctional or dangerous, maybe more so) and that it includes dedicated magic users within it (though on the fringes and generally with a lot of reticence and, for some, active resistance). the magic and its systems are also somewhat different and much more developed than in the show. as far as the winchester family goes, john never bothers to hide hunting or the paranormal from either of them. sam starts showing signs of powers (and not necessarily demonic) from a young age. there's also a family ritual that involves painting sigils on one's body that is central to the story

excerpts

this is prob more than you wanted, but you get 2 excerpts because i couldn't decide. 1st is some banter between sam and brady because there's a lot of that in the story. the second is one of my favorite parts that shows some of the magic in this world. they're both kinda long, sorry!

excerpt 1:

............

He shrugs. "And, to top it off...I really didn't know if you were into guys, even."

Brady stares at him. "How could you not know??"

"Well, I mean, I never really saw you flirt with men or anything."

"Yeah, ‘cause I was kinda focused on getting into your pants, you know? Um, had my hands all over you? Sleeping together in the same bed?"

Sam flushes. "C'mon, you're pretty affectionate with everyone, so how was I supposed to know?!"

"You really think I treat all my friends like I do you?" Brady shakes his head in disbelief. "Damn, I'm kinda proud that you think I'm that easy."

"Well, you kinda are. Once you get past the do-you-like-me-check-yes-or-no notes stage." Sam grins.

"Maybe I should have given you one of those in the first place." He looks at Sam. "You know what it finally took to get me to man up and do something?"

"Um, getting me desperate and naked and sobbing in your bed?"

"Well, now you're just giving me ideas for later..."

"It's Thursday tomorrow."

"...seriously, you can be such a buzzkill." He huffs. "Sure, that was the spark and all, but the fuse was already primed."

"...you don't prime fuses."

"Well, maybe you don't...you know what I meant, bitch. Anyways, it was Nathan."

"Nathan? What does he have to do with it?"

"Well, what he wants to do is you."

"What?"

"...well, I'm kind of reassured that at least it's not just me you're oblivious to. Anyways, he saw you at The Crucible."

Sam almost chokes. "What??"

"C'mon, Sam, you think you're the only kinky bastard in our group of friends? I mean, you might be the most extreme and all, but, really? Like, tell me you at least know that Tara does photography for the kink scene?"

"..."

"Oh, c'mon! It's not like she hides it!"

"Well, she didn't show us her actual pictures! When she said sexy photos, I figured, like, standard boudoir stuff, maybe some pinup."

"Nope. I mean, I think she does a little of that on the side, but most of her stuff is pretty hardcore. Beautiful, though. Hot. You should ask her to see it sometime."

"Huh. Wow. But, um...yeah, Nathan saw me at the goddamn Crucible. And told you about it?"

Brady shrugs. "He worried you might be runnin' around behind my back. Said he wasn't sure it was his place to get involved, and maybe we had an open thing going on, maybe at least where scening was concerned, but that if it were him, he'd want to know. When I told him we weren't like that, he was genuinely surprised. Didn't believe me at first, said everyone would be cool with it, we didn't have to hide anything. Once I convinced him, he was all well, I gotta warn you, if you don't go for it, I will. Told me I had no idea what I was missing out on, by what he saw."

"Oh my god. I only went there once, and...fuck." Sam shakes his head, swallows. "I'm surprised he can still look me in the face and act like everything's normal."

"Well, it's not usually your face I catch him staring at.' Brady smirks.

Sam groans and buries his face in his hands. "I think I've hit my RDA of humiliation today."

"Pssshh, Nate definitely didn't think any less of you for what he saw, I can tell you that much. Anyways, he musta seen something on my face, cause he backed off a little on the goin' after you. Said he didn't really believe in the 'calling dibs' thing, but it was clear you and I had something goin' on, even if we were clueless, and that he wanted to give us a chance to get our shit together. Told me not to wait too long, though. That was about a week before you showed up all fucked up at my door that morning." Brady rubs at the back of his neck. "Was gonna say somethin' to you on the night I made you dinner. Chickened out."

"Declarations of love over spaghetti? Very Lady and the Tramp of you."

"Shut up, bitch. You love to suck my noodle."

Sam shakes his head with a grimace of disgust. "No...just no, dude."

"Eh, can't land 'em all...shoulda gone with 'you're the one that's both the lady and the tramp,' yeah? Anyways, it all worked out in the end, obviously. I got my Disney princess." He picks up his pencil and turns his attention back to the papers in front of him. "Still kinda kickin' myself that I missed that night at the Crucible. Sounded pretty fucking memorable. 'S not my usual club, though."

Sam's brain stalls, reboots a few times. "Wait...you have a 'usual' club? You go to kink clubs?? Which ones? When?"

Brady smirks, doesn't look up, though. "Hmm, yeah, but I think that's a talk for another night. Might get us a little worked up, you know, keep us from gettin' to sleep right away." He turns a page in his book. "And it is Thursday tomorrow, you know."

"...I hate you."

"Whatever you say, Sammy." He innocently bats his eyes at Sam, who hasn't moved and is still staring holes into Brady's head. "Don't you have an essay to finish, baby?"

...

The next morning, as Sam's getting ready to walk into class, he feels the buzz of his phone in his pocket. He smiles, pulls it out, sees a message notification. Flips it open, and his smile disappears as he freezes in front of the doors of the Keck Building.

G (2 new messages)

Gideon.

His heart clenches. Misses a beat, maybe two. He barely even notices the annoyed girl with the curly pink hair that elbows him; absently stumbling out of the way of the flow of students without lifting his eyes from the phone.

He selects the notification, presses the green button.

-Sam. None of your dreams will come true.

He lets out a long, shuddering breath, the relief outweighing the resentment. Thumbs down to the second message, opens it.

-I won't have to hold your debt for long. I'll contact you soon for assistance.

That feeling at the bottom of his gut; that cold, that clenching. It's not fear.

It's not.

It's just relief that Dean, his dad are ok. Will be ok, for now. Everything else, he can deal with. It's all worth it, for that.

Right?

___________________________

excerpt 2:

............

"So," Brady says, arms spread out, slowly spinning, inviting Sam to take in the whole of the small harbor as if he, himself, had made the sand, waves, and towering cliffs. "This is Gray Whale Cove."

Sam tilts his head back, turning in place to take it all in. "It's amazing." He says, sincerely. "Beautiful."

So maybe he's looking at Brady when he says it.

"Yeah, not too shabby, right? I thought you'd like it here."

And Sam does. It really is spectacular; the slopes and peaks of the cliffs around them a mix of jagged grey stone and ground-hugging green brush, the half-moon of faded gold sand between the promontories jutting into the water on either side of them, the deep steel-blue of the Pacific churning itself through green into foamy white as it thrashes against the sand and crags. The air smells of salt and growing things, but with that base note of mineral you sometimes find in places surrounded by exposed rock. Everything's a little washed over and silvery with the sharp, pale winter sun. His skin prickles in the wind that whips through the cove.

But beyond even that there's a fierce power here that buoys and exhilarates Sam, sets his heart racing. Brady, while he's often so empathetic to the moods and needs of people around him that it still surprises Sam, doesn't have an ounce of sensitivity to the supernatural (and Sam has said a prayer of gratitude for that more than once). But even those without any gift sometimes feel the pull of places like this, without really knowing why. Sam can feel it thrumming through him, ramping up with each deep pulse through him, making his nerves twang like plucked chords, sparking tiny fires in his subtle body. It reminds him of the bass in the Impala vibrating through the seats when the sound's turned all the way up and they're pushing past a hundred on some straight-as-an-arrow, cornfield-choked, midwest backcountry road or a sandswept, broadly curving desert highway in the salt flats of the southwest.

Combined with his already nebulous state from the events of the nights before and today's blessing, he's soaring on it like a leaf in a whirlwind. He can't put away the grin that's cracking his face open. He'd worry about how his eyes must look to Brady (mad, crazy, dangerous) if he could bring himself to grab even a tiny thread of the concrete, the practical world right now. He closes his eyes for a second, trying to center himself a little. If he lets this build too much more he's gonna spin out. Do something dumb and hurt himself or Brady, or, at the very least, the surge is gonna burn through him too fast and he'll be left even more depleted and thinned-out after it's gone.

Regretfully, he pulls up a few of his barriers; not all of them, not all the way. Modulates the rush of energy tearing through him. Less firehose, more broad river to float in. He opens up his eyes slowly, nictitating their astral membranes at the same time, to get a look at the source of the energy swirling through the cove.

It's magnificent. A light-limned nest, a vast net of vital elemental magic and intrinsic etheric energy, woven, knit, exquisitely around them.

The major ley line that skims along the California coast, but only touches shore rarely, intersects here, running right up the length of the beach: a spitting, twisting, living rope of light, pulled taut between the bookend promontories, right over their heads, wide as a 6-lane interstate. But it also crosses no less than six smaller, less-deeply-sourced power lines. They spiral up and over and through the surrounding cliffs and hills; one even snakes up from the ocean floor, through the waves, its light refracting and breaking all green glowing through the turbulent water. But on top of that, there's also the confluence of three fundamental elements—the vast waters of the ocean, the earthy bare rock of the cliffs and hills, and the air of the blue sky high above and the wind funneled down into the cove. They're balanced well, the tension between where they push and pull and merge sending out fountains of branching, fractal luminescence at sudden and irregular intervals.

Sam doesn't know all the power places in North America, of course, but he knows of the biggest, most important ones, and this place he's not heard of. It's much more modest than many of those famous ones in terms of sheer power. It's doesn't have the gut-wrenching sheer force of the convergence of two major ley lines that some spots have, nor does it have the fulgent potential of a place where all four elements meet in equal power, but the mix of the two types of earth energies makes for a delicious nexus of magics. It makes Sam want to strip his clothes off and bathe naked in it.

Which, considering the few other groups of visitors speckled across the beach, might not be the best idea.

Though he'd bet Brady would appreciate it.

With that thought pulling at the corners of his mouth, he turns and looks at his boyfriend standing on the sand behind him.

He's never looked at Brady before with the astral veil lifted, it's not something he wants to make a habit of in his new, normal life. But he can't resist, just this once, and he's not surprised to find the view just as magnificent as what surrounds him. In his own, entirely non-biased, opinion, of course. Brady's aura isn't simple, but Sam didn't expect it to be. It's tangled, knotted, bruised in some places, in others loops in on itself protectively. But it's bright, and threaded with colors that resonate and shift. And it's warm, so warm. It sends tendrils out in some place, seeking out the light of others; vulnerable, but full of a pure kind of desire to connect. Many of them keep drawing back to Sam, slipping along his edges, under the surface. Their borders melt together briefly when they touch, and Sam lets one of his barriers down, just a little, feels Brady penetrate him, warmth spreading out from where they touch. He shivers; it's so incredibly sensual, intimate; he can't help himself. He surges forward, drops his mouth to Brady's, slips his eyes closed; lets Brady's warm tongue and warm emanations push into him.

Breathless minutes later, he opens his eyes, the mundane world filling them now, all glimpses of the metaphysical tucked away again. Brady's smiling at him, bemused and fond.

"I guess you really needed this, huh?"

Sam smiles back. "I guess I did."

With his boundaries tamped down now, the thrumming energy of the place is muted now, in the background. And, while Sam’s still feeling some of the residual euphoria, it's more of a gentle invigoration instead of the inundation from before. He'll only leave here a little recharged compared to how he felt before, but he's also not at risk of spinning out on energy intoxication.

"C'mon," Brady gestures with his head towards the north end of the cove. "Let's walk a little."

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