#i literally don’t know which of those is the brand name

[abominableabbey]

So I got one of those BEEMAI/AnTu/Penny’s Box/ShenZhen blind box bjds from amazon, for $27 she was a steal

I got “Bear Poking Beehive”

I have named her Miel (she/her)

Here she is with my pukipuki, Gwin (they/them)

They are borrowers who live in my house

[clarenecessities]

He-man.org will close in 5 days.

He-man.org has been a staple of the Masters of the Universe community since the early days, originating as an email list that worked to document episodes before anything (not footage, not lists, nothing) was available online. It grew into a sprawling, multi-faceted beast of a thing, including an encyclopedia (an in-house wiki), merch lists, a marketplace, forums, anything you could think of.

Several years ago now, the main site went down for updates/maintenance. For a few weeks, we were told, maybe months. The forums remained open for fans to communicate, and barring a period of downtime earlier this year things were going smoothly.

Yesterday, the owner of the site, Val Staples, announced the site would be closed on November 14th, 2023. Six days later. We are currently attempting to contact him, to see if he’s interested in selling, and if he means closed as in “no new posts” or closed as in deleted entirely. Regardless of its eventual fate, the archiving of these forums is essential to preserving the history of the franchise, the fandom, and the brand.

TO SHE-RA (and MotU) FANS SPECIFICALLY: I have personally used these forums to answer questions that could be answered nowhere else. Had I not had access to them, I would never have been able to prove that Purrsia was fake, or found so much unpublished concept art, or discovered that Scott “Toyguru” Neitlich personally wrote Catra’s MOTUC bio (even if he’s put off answering my questions about it for over a year now). Forum members have conducted interviews with the likes of Jon Seisa, Cathy Larson, Janice Varney-Hamlin—essential figures in the very foundations of POP, and those interviews revealed and recorded priceless information for future generations (me! you! us!) to find. Did you know Cathy Larson named Adora? That she originally pushed for “Dorian”, after her own daughter? We cannot let this treasure trove disappear into the ether(ia).

TO THE UNAFFILIATED: Please help. Pretty please. If you’ve ever liked my art or my writing or my haphazard blogging, ever, at all, consider archiving just one board. Just one page. Literally anything helps. I am spiraling into madness & this is my library of Alexandria. The mythical one that was totally unique and persevered nowhere else and was destroyed in a single cataclysmic event. Pretty pretty please help.

HOW TO HELP:

Archive.org has several ways to upload shit but most of them are longer term than “a few days” so we’re focusing on two (which can be run simultaneously): Save Page Now, and browser extensions. From their help page:

1. Save Page Now

Put a URL into the form, press the button, and we save the page. You will instantly have a permanent URL for your page. Please note, this method only saves a single page, not the whole site.

We want to keep outlinks and screenshots wherever possible. The Archive does not keep your IP address, so your submission is anonymous.

2. Browser extensions and add-ons

Install the Wayback Machine Chrome extension in your browser. Go to a page you want to archive, click the icon in your toolbar, and select Save Page Now. We will save the page and give you a permanent URL.

One plus to installing the extension is that as you surf around, when you run into a missing page they will alert you if we have a saved copy.

More extensions, apps, and add-ons:

Firefox add-on

Safari Extension

iOS app

Android app

I strongly encourage you to use these tools even if you aren’t helping with this project/after it ends. Documenting and preserving information is essential in this day and age & The Internet Archive is at the heart of it. Please support them however you can.

I’m serious about paying you, though I may need more communication with folks I don’t know so we can coordinate/verify shit gets done. I think this is a worthwhile pursuit in itself but I recognize your time is valuable & like, people gotta eat. DM me if you’re interested and we’ll talk. I may need to adjust pay depending how many people bite but I’ll do what I can

[scoops-aboy86]

Last Party of the Summer

Prompt Used: Pool party (@thehairandthebanished) and make-up sex (@steddiesmuttyseptember) | Last Party of the Summer | Rating: E | CW: hurt comfort, weight gain, body image issues, mildly intoxicated sex | Additional Tags: chubby Steve Harrington, miscommunication, breakup to makeup, makeup sex

also on Ao3

It’s hard to keep tabs on someone at a crowded pool party without being obvious about it, especially while working at getting drunk. But Steve, pausing to shotgun another beer, thinks he’s doing pretty good all things considered. He’s not glaring literal holes through Ed— through Munson’s stupid leather jacket, at least, so he can’t be that obvious. Even Tommy hasn’t commented on it, and Tommy isn’t one to notice things and not run his mouth, so there you go. 

He’s not being obvious at all. 

Then, out of nowhere, Eddie emerges from the crowd and uses a firm grip on his upper arm to propel him from the side of the pool back inside the house. Steve hadn’t even realized he’d lost track of the guy among their peers, which only adds to the unreal feeling of being frogmarched up the stairs and into his bedroom, ringed fingers burning like a brand through the sleeve of his t-shirt. 

“Alright,” Eddie snarls after kicking the door shut behind them. “You are the one who ended things, so what’s your fucking problem, Harrington? Mad that the riff raff got in to supply this dumb shindig with party favors?”

Indignance kick-starts Steve into scowling and yanking his arm away, crossing them across his chest. (But also, hearing his last name roll off Eddie’s tongue when just a few weeks ago he’d been ‘Stevie,’ ‘baby,’ ‘sweetheart’ makes something twist painfully in his chest.) “Watch what you’re calling dumb, Munson. You’re the one who snuck in uninvited.”

“It’s called working. It’s what some of us have to do when we don’t have daddy’s money to fall back on!”

The words make Steve take a sharp step back, because Eddie knows his parents throw money at him as though it’ll make up for never being around, never paying much attention to him unless there’s something to scold him for. How he’s gotten checks in the mail after making the winning shot or run or lap in an important match or getting a good grade on a big test, but they’re never there to actually see any of it; how he feels more like an employee or an investment than a son. 

And maybe it’s because he’s toeing the line of drunk, but his eyes sting. A little. 

“That’s a low fucking blow, freak,” Steve sneers, blinking hard. His crossed arms tighten further over his chest like he’s trying to keep something from breaking out, and he doesn’t care about the way Eddie’s face twitches. He doesn’t! “But I guess that’s par for the course with you, isn’t it? Never pull a single fucking punch.”

“I’ve pulled plenty,” Eddie sneers right back. 

Which is. Oh. That’s worse. 

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, huh?” And Steve can hear his voice going humiliatingly tight, there’s just nothing he can do about it. Fucking beer. “I told you to go, what’s the point in dragging me up here just to rub it in more, huh?”

Almost worse, what if someone had noticed them going up the stairs together? He could’ve withstood that before, when they were still… But now Steve is all alone, painfully unwanted even by the town loser, who must have pulled his punches long enough for the sake of getting laid for a while, just like all the girls who had ever found Steve wanting after a few dates. All he wants is his own sad business to stay pathetically his own, but Eddie just had to be out selling tonight. 

“Maybe I just wanted a little fucking closure, Steve.” Eddie leans back against the closed door, like he’s trying to get as far away as possible without leaving the room, glaring. There’s nothing soft in those eyes now, not anymore, not even as he says Steve’s first name instead of his last. A concession? No, it must just be a lapse. A lingering habit of familiarity, soon to be broken. “You kicked me out without any warning, and now you’re following me around with this look like I’m the one that did something wrong. Rub in what? What the fuck did I even do?”

Steve feels his jaw drop. “What did you do? Are you stupid or something?”

They’d been in Steve’s bed, plaid comforter kicked to the floor in their hurry, too wrapped up in each other to give even half a shit about the chaos of sheets around them. And maybe Steve had been a little self conscious about taking off his shirt that night, because it was between sport seasons and he hadn’t been keeping up with his workouts lately, too wrapped up in Eddie and shared joints that set his mind free from what Eddie called the ‘shackles of conformity.’ He’d still done it, stripped as eagerly as if he’d never noticed the way a few extra pounds had gone to his ass and belly lately. Because surely Eddie wouldn’t care. It was conformity to worry about that kind of shit so much, and Steve was trying to be better. To be someone Eddie could not just like, but respect, too. 

At first it was fine. Eddie pounced on him like he usually did, with a demanding kiss before lavishing attention on the constellations of Steve’s moles that lead from check to neck and further. He latched onto a nipple, teasing at the quickly tightening bud with teeth and tongue until pulling back in satisfaction and diving for the other. Then further down, raking his blunt, black-painted nails down Steve’s sides until he reached his waist, gripping… then, unusually, pausing. And then, then he’d—

“You laughed at me,” Steve spits, and oh god his eyes are really stinging now. That’s all he’s got, that four-word complaint, but it’s anything but little. Humiliation and hurt and shame coiling in his gut and making all the beer he’s downed tonight churn unpleasantly, because he’d been stupid to think that what they’d had wasn’t as superficial as everything else in this stupid town that Eddie wants to ditch the second he graduates. Everyone knows what the Freak of Hawkins High thinks about jocks. Probably sits around snickering to himself in his free time about how Steve’s let himself go—

“When the hell did I laugh at you?” Eddie is still pissed, still scowling at him, but there’s an undercurrent of bewilderment in his voice. (Steve recognizes it from the time he’d tried to explain the rules of baseball.) “Before or after you shoved me off, bare ass fucking naked, and told me to get my shit and get lost?”

“Before!” Steve can’t believe this. What is Eddie trying to do here, pretending he doesn’t know? “Right before that! When you… felt my stomach.”

Face burning at the admission, Steve is looking anywhere but Eddie and doesn’t know what to make of the sputtering noise at first. Until the lack of response gets to him and he glances, then focuses, then frowns, the tight cross of his arms loosening infinitesimally in distraction. 

Eddie is just… standing there, pointer finger held aloft in a ‘hold on a second’ gesture, his other hand pressed hard against his mouth and his eyes downcast in deep thought. 

It’s the same thing he does when he has a light bulb moment about a new plot point in a campaign and is trying to sort out in his head how all the threads of it mesh with what’s already there. The recognition makes Steve’s heart ache, regardless of how baffled he is to see it in this context. 

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters after a second, rubbing his hands over his face and sighing heavily, a hint of frustrated growl to it. “Well… fuck, okay.” 

He presses both hands together, tapping both pointer fingers against his lips and breathing out heavily through his nose, and finally looks up to make eye contact. 

“Okay, I just heard it how you must have heard it, and that’s—” A grimace passes across Eddie’s expressive face. “I wasn’t laughing at you, Steve. Pretty insulted that you’d just assume I even would, but that’s… that’s not the point.”

Steve blinks and keeps blinking, hard, not sure how the argument has turned into… this. He’s still mad, hurt, everything he was a minute ago, but now he’s confused too. And kind of indignant, a little unsure, half ready to tell Eddie to just get out again. “What? Dude, I heard you!”

“Not a laugh!” the metalhead insists. “This is so—For fuck’s sake, Steve, I liked it. I was excited, and I… I fucking giggled, alright?”

And… what?

“Giggled?” Steve repeats. 

“Yeah,” Eddie bites back, embarrassment coloring high on his cheeks. “Like a goddamn schoolgirl. I wanted to bite you there, you asshole,” he adds, but it lacks heat. His voice has gone tired, the fight draining out of him as he realizes—and as it occurs to Steve, if he’s telling the truth—that what they’d both been hissing mad about was a complete and tragic misunderstanding. 

“But… I don’t get it,” Steve says numbly. Maybe it’s the beer catching up to him, but his conviction is wobbling now and he feels off kilter. He shuffles a few more steps backwards until he runs up against the bed and sits so fast it feels like falling. “I’ve let myself go and you… I thought you…”

He’d been so sure. That laugh has been ringing through his head ever since he’d heard it, but suddenly it sounds like a caricature, like something out of a cartoon. 

Not how Eddie sounds at all.

“It’s not ‘letting yourself go’ to not be skin and bones, man,” Eddie says, shoving both hands in his pockets and looking down at the toes of his own sneakers. “Some padding never hurt anyone. I like it, alright?” Defensive, defiant, but… a little subdued now. 

Sad, Steve thinks, and then suddenly that’s all he can feel. It hits him that he’d pushed Eddie away, ended things between them… for no reason? 

His shoulders are already hitching up before he even registers that he's crying, wetness trickling straight down to dampen the hair at his temples. It’s been weeks. Weeks of being angry—he’s so tired of it, but the only alternative was to feel horribly lonely so he held onto it anyway, a rope burn on his soul to distract from the pain of his heart cracked in two. 

And he’d known as he watched Eddie earlier tonight that his gaze bordered on more pathetic than mad. Not quite cooled off enough to realize on his own that he’d made a mistake, but enough to recognize it now that reality (and Eddie) stares him in the face. 

It’s over for no reason. Eddie hates him now and if it was just a dumb misunderstanding then, then Steve absolutely deserves it—

The bed dips at his side. Not close enough that they’re touching, but that it happens at all is a surprise. And then Eddie murmurs “Stevie?” so hesitant it makes Steve choke. 

It’s the barest hint of an olive branch, and he’s absolutely going to blame the beer for how it makes the tears drip faster. He hasn’t felt this pathetic since the car ride home after one of the few basketball games his dad had ever bothered to attend, where Steve had missed not one but two easy free throw shots. 

“I’m so s-stupid,” he gasps wetly, and immediately feels even more pathetic for saying it out loud, as if it’s not obvious. He turns away, away from Eddie, trying to hide—his face, his body, everything. This is the worst pool party ever and he’s never drinking again. 

“You're not stupid, you dumbass. Hey.” Eddie touches his shoulder, keeps his hand light but there when Steve tries to shrug it off. He sighs heavily, almost a huff. “It’s not stupid to react to me pressing a button I didn’t know was there. Look—Would actually saying something instead of jumping right to kicking me out been better? Absolutely. That really fucking hurt, man.”

“Sorry,” Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “And sorry I called you a freak. You’re not, I don’t… I don’t really think that.”

There’s a pause, and then Eddie squeezes his shoulder. “Thanks, man. I’m, uh… sorry for the crack about your dad and calling you an asshole.”

“I am an asshole.” Steve’s eyes are already shut; he squeezes them tighter until colors start to bloom across the inside of his eyelids. “Fucking ruined everything over some stupid thing that was only ever in my head, so I… I deserve this. But you didn’t and I’m sorry, I hope you—” and here his throat tightens up, because he wants to say I hope you can forgive me, but that would be even more pathetic than he’s already being. “I hope you find s-someone who treats you better.”

This pause stretches out for a lot longer, so long that Steve would think Eddie had left if not for the remaining dip in the mattress and the hand-shaped brand on his shoulder. He’s just waiting for the agreement and for Eddie to finally leave for good, holding in a wordless, futile scream for when he’s alone. Fuck the party downstairs, he’ll call the cops himself if he has to just to clear them all out, and suck up whatever punishment he gets if the Hawkins PD decides to notify his parents. 

Finally, after a thousand fucking years of that scream burning a hole in Steve’s throat, Eddie says quietly, “Or, you could just… not do that again. Think you could do that for me, Stevie?”

Absolute fucking whiplash. 

Steve is so shocked he actually turns back to look, and all it takes is the sight of the other boy’s big brown eyes and the softness there, the tender flaming hope in them. “Yeah,” he croaks, doesn’t even think he sounds like himself anymore but at least he gets the word out. “Yes, Eds, please—”

And then Eddie is on him with a bruising kiss, scrambling to kick his shoes off while Steve scrambles at the black leather jacket, pulling it off to grab desperately where Eddie’s bare sides show through the intentionally ripped shirt beneath it. Ripped denim rasping against swim trunk fabric as Eddie straddles him, grinds down hard, refusing to let either of them up for air. Steve is just as hungry for it, just as desperate. 

It’s different. They’ve still got their residual hurts, he can taste it in the way Eddie bites at his lips, bites all the way down to his neck and sucks a dark claim on the side that Steve can’t help arching into with a moan. A breach of their unspoken rule not to mark each other because they can’t be out, not in this town and definitely not while they’re still only going into their junior and senior years, respectively—but Steve is in just the right mood not to give a shit about that right now. Although…

“Door,” he gasps, trailing off with a whine when Eddie rolls his hips down into his again. “Did you lock it?” 

Eddie pulls back fluidly with a curse under his breath, which Steve takes as a no. “Get these off while I’m gone,” he says, voice rough, and tugs at the waistband of Steve’s swimsuit. A second later he’s on his feet, backing away with a smoldering stare until Steve gets the hint. 

With a jolt, Steve shoves the trunks down, bracing his heels on the bed to tug them over his ass. His cock bobs free, and his breath catches at the way Eddie keeps watching until he backs into the door. 

“Good boy,” Eddie breathes, turning the lock behind his back. “Scoot back on the bed. After tonight, I’m going to make sure you’ll never think I’d laugh at you ever again.”

Steve does as he’s told, partly because he’s still shivering from the good boy (what is it about Eddie taking charge and calling him that, gets him every time) and partly because Eddie turns away to his tape player. Downstairs, it sounds like the party has seeped into the house; the living room speakers are thundering out don't you want me baby? at a volume that will probably spur the neighbors into action—morons. But all the better that the door is locked, if the party is going to ramp up unchecked; it’s only a matter of time before couples start breaking off to find any free privacy they can get. 

Eddie puts in a mix tape, one of the ones he’d gifted months ago for what he’d called Steve’s ‘auditory re-education,’ and moves the smaller player close to drown it out.

In that cocoon of some of the metal songs that Steve actually likes, Eddie comes back to bed stripped out of his jeans and shirt. He crawls up between Steve’s legs until he’s hovering over him face to face. Then he gathers up Steve’s wrists, moving them to cross against the headboard above his head, and Steve lets it happen because it makes breathing pick up, makes his pulse throb faster between his legs. 

“Keep these here,” Eddie says, and then kisses him so gently that Steve is shaking with the need to pull him closer, to have more. But the second he reaches to do so, Eddie catches him again. “Stevie…”

“I missed you so much,” Steve groans. Pouts, too, but lets Eddie replace his wrists above his head, not sure if he’s fully forgiven yet—doesn’t m is if this is penance or a reunion, or to what degrees it’s both. “Eds, please—”

He’s interrupted with another kiss, just as gentle and slow, but so unchaste it makes him feel like he’s melting. And then Eddie murmurs against his lips, “Missed you too. Let me show you, sweetheart.”

Before Steve has a chance to answer, Eddie wraps a hand (when had one of them left his wrists?) around his cock and drags a slow thumb over the head. 

“Just keep your hands up here for me and be good.”

With a shuddering breath, Steve tries. He keeps his hands in place while Eddie nuzzles down the front of his shirt to the soft swell of his stomach, no less noticeable than their last night together. (Watching what he eats is hard, okay? He’s a teenage boy, he gets hungry. And maybe he’s still a little bloated from the beer even though he can’t really feel the alcohol slowing him down anymore.) There’s a faint red line, visible when his shirt is lifted, where it’d pushed slightly over his waistband all night; Eddie presses a gentle kiss to it and sighs.

A good sigh, like this is exactly what he’s been waiting for. Steve’s heard it before when taking the other boy in his hand, in his mouth—and even if his mind is inclined to overthink it, his body is hardwired to respond. Precome dribbles onto Eddie’s fingers, easing the glide as he slowly, slowly starts to stroke. Makes Steve shiver with dueling sensations of shame and pleasure because Eddie is still kissing the little pooch of his tummy, free hand kneading gently over the softness at his side, starting to tip the scales with how good the combined attention feels. 

“That’s it baby,” Eddie tells him breathily, almost crooning. “That’s it…”

And slowly, slowly Steve starts to relax into it. He does try to look away a few times, overwhelmed, but Eddie answers each attempt by turning his face gently back and staring him down while kissing him more, tummy and soft sides and chest. Leaving love bites here and there. The sounds Eddie makes, pleased hums and low moans and quiet praise and Steve’s name, over and over. 

It feels like coming home. 

The next morning, Steve wakes up to Eddie kicking the door shut behind him as he comes back into the room. 

“Everyone’s cleared out, but you do not want to look out there,” Eddie announces, setting a tray piled high with easy breakfast foods (scrambled eggs, bacon, buttered toast, jam, poptarts, fruit), two mugs of coffee, and a jug of orange juice on the bed with a flourish before crawling back into it himself. “At least not before noon.”

Steve doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t care, because Eddie is here. Eddie is here. With a breakfast that perfectly suits his level of hungover—not bad, but not great. 

“Eds,” he starts, another apology ready to spill out, but Eddie pops a piece of toast into his open mouth and settles at his side. 

“We’re good,” the other boy says simply. “It was a dumb misunderstanding that made you feel hurt and sad and made me feel hurt and pissed off, but it’s untangled now. Just never try to dump me like that again and we’ll be fine, alright?”

“Uh-huh,” Steve agrees quickly through a full mouth. He’s struggling to chew the big bite that had been shoved in, reaching for Eddie’s hand. Eddie loops an arm around Steve before letting him take it and twine their fingers together. As soon as he swallows, he adds, “I don’t want to dump you.” Not ever again, he hopes, but it doesn’t feel like the right time to say so. Not right now, not something so big that it’ll sound like a grand empty promise right after making up. 

But Steve is pretty sure the fact that it hurt so much to push Eddie away means he’s capital L in love with him. 

“Good.” Eddie kisses him, a hint of sweetness on his lips that suggests he sampled some of the jam while cooking. “Now, eat up sweetheart. That makeup sex wiped me out, and we’ve got a lot more celebratory banging on the schedule for today. Gotta keep that strength up.”

And, he has a point. Steve feels the grumbling of his empty stomach, along with the easy throb of all the little marks Eddie had left on his body the night before as a form of… of worship or something. Reminders that maybe letting go isn’t such a big deal. Because if he skimps on breakfast when it’s what his body wants (needs), sooner or later he’ll get restless and cranky and risk ruining everything all over again. “Yeah, keep my strength up,” Steve agrees, feeling his face heat a little. But Eddie beams at him, starts fussing around with the pillows so they can recline comfortably while they eat—while offering Steve forkfuls of scrambled eggs and bites of this or that, really—and slowly, slowly relaxes into feeling like everything’s going to be okay.

Permanent tag list: @hotluncheddie @lawrencebshoggoth @sofadofax @irishvampireboy @oatmilk-vampire

@wheneverfeasible @hamiltonswiftie @grtwdsmwhr @yesdangerpls @theseaofdespair

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I turned my coworker in for using his phone?

☎️ for obvious reasons.

So I’m gonna put this up front: this isn’t actually about the phone, it’s about the coworker. The phone is just convenient.

Our players are me (35 AFAB), Coworker A (~30 M), Supervisor C (N/A M), D (N/A F), and L (N/A F).

So first, the reason I have beef with A: he has never had a conversation with me that didn’t involve hitting on me and/or inappropriate questions. These have included demanding to know who I voted for, how my paycheck is delivered, whether I’m in a throuple with my roommates, and whether I have a boyfriend, which wouldn’t be weird except it was literally the first question he ever asked me—he didn’t even know my name yet. After I yelled at him over the voting thing because he refused to take “I don’t discuss politics at work” for an answer FOUR TIMES, he tried to break my glasses when I put them down so I could put on my safety goggles.

You may be wondering why I haven’t turned A in for harassment, ESPECIALLY after the glasses incident. I have. The problem is, he’s very good at looking pathetic and saying “I was just _________.” In this case, he was just looking at my glasses (never mind that you shouldn’t be playing with someone else’s expensive medical device!), and just making conversation. In spite of the fact that he was ignoring his trainee and distracting me from my work, he somehow got away with this. After a few of my screwdrivers went missing the same day he went pawing through them and he broke my brand-new pen, C told him to stop having anything to do with me, that his attention WAS NOT WELCOME.

Now we get to L and D. They’re two of our coworkers who can solve just about any problem you have. Ever since A was warned off, I’ve noticed that if I’m working with L or D, suddenly A needs all kinds of help that keeps bringing him over to our machine, and he always seeks out help from whoever it is I’m working with—if I’m with L he’ll go to L, if I’m with D he’ll go to D. If you’re a dude and think I’m overreacting, go ask a couple of the women in your life—you probably know someone who’s had similar experiences. (And for the record, another coworker I only know to say hello to has commented that his behavior toward me makes her feel like “he wants to wear your skin or something.”) I don’t think A is actively dangerous, but he’s very clearly a creep—especially because he also has a girlfriend and baby and still keeps doing this.

Now we get to the phone. I work in a factory where we’re not allowed to have phones on the floor because we work with food product and a phone dropping in a box is a huge contamination issue, on top of which distraction at my job can lead to life-changing, possibly even life-threatening injuries. (I was on a machine that threw its chain drive once and the only reason I didn’t lose an eye is because there happened to be another machine piece between me and the snap.) So: phones are a big no. Management will look the other way for people in extenuating circumstances, like having a sick kid at home, but in those cases your phone is to remain in your pocket and if it rings and you need to answer, you have to leave the floor.

I have caught A texting FOUR TIMES in the last month. Once I caught the words on his phone screen, and he was making plans for a party. That’s definitely not extenuating circumstances, and twice I’ve found his phone in the product catch tray.

So: very against rules that are there for the safety of us and our end users, and if I turn him in he’s going to get a writeup and possibly even a termination, which would mean I didn’t have to deal with him anymore. On the other hand, if he gets fired for violating safety standards he’ll have a hard time getting new work, and his baby doesn’t deserve hardship just because Dad is a creeper. Also, while I don’t carry my phone on the floor, I worry that turning him in could lead to a blanket ban that affects those in extenuating circumstances, because I’m almost positive he’d try “I was just checking on the baby” as his excuse.

WIBTA?

[sirianasims]

Chapter 43.6

My mother taught me that sometimes it rains. Sometimes it pours, and you’re soaked through and miserable and it feels like it may never stop. But no matter how heavily the rain falls, no matter how drenched you get, you are not the rain.

Some day you will be dry again.

Things have been easier since I blocked Paul, the pain slowly fading to a dull ache, barely noticeable as long as I don’t dig too deep. I try to keep myself distracted, reading Lucky Girl for what must be the fifth time. It’s my comfort read, Evie reminds me a little of myself. I think we could have been friends, hanging out and agreeing that being in love is the absolute worst, actually, while we yearn for our respective idiots.

The memory of Paul is not the only thing I’m trying to escape. With all my channels inactive, even the haters have gone quiet and my views are dropping every week. I’ve toyed with the idea of simply abandoning everything and starting a new brand, but I don’t want to rebuild my follower count from scratch. I don’t have time for it. My bills are starting to pile up, and while I can still pay them for now, it won’t be long before I have to either crawl back to mom and dad and ask for help, or get one of those real jobs people keep talking about. I’m not even sure which option I would hate the most, so I hide in my book for now.

A sharp knock on the door jerks me away from Evie admiring Jude in an art gallery and back to reality.

I hesitate for a moment. I have no idea who it could be, and I don’t want to see anyone, especially not some smarmy salesperson – or worse, my landlord. With a sigh, I put my book face down on the armrest and shuffle to the door.

Miranda is leaning casually against the doorway, her high heels making her look almost as tall as Samara. At their feet, a couple of large shopping bags are threatening to fall over and spill their contents on my doormat.

“See, Samara? I told you she was still alive.”

“So you did. Then I sure hope she has a very good excuse for refusing to see her best friends for almost two months!“

I feel my cheeks get hot. “Uh, hi. I’m sorry I disappeared, I’ve just had a rough time since, you know. But I promise to call you, maybe we can make plans soon?”

“No need, we’re here now, so you won’t have to worry about that.” Samara’s smile is cheerful, but her tone is resolute. Even so, I try to object.

“Seriously, it’s not a good time, I haven’t even showered for like three days, and the place is a mess.”

“Girl, since when do we care about mess? We’re here because we love you – stinky or not.” She wrinkles her nose, making the freckles on her face dance.

“What is this, some sort of intervention?”

Miranda smirks. “Pretty much. Sorry, but someone’s gotta save you from yourself, and we’re not letting you waste any more time moping over a man who didn’t deserve you. We’ve got snacks and a box of rosé with your name on it, so you might as well get out of the way.”

“Fiiine, but no judging the absolute state of the place.” I roll my eyes and invite them in with a dramatic flourish of my arm, but I can’t help but smile. Samara bounces through the door despite the heavy shopping bags, and Miranda goes straight for my laptop.

“What’s your login?”

“It’s just my birthday, and before you come for me, yes, I know that’s bad.”

Miranda shakes her head as the laptop plays a jaunty tune and lets her in.

“You’ll get the full security lecture another day, right now it’s time to declare inbox bankruptcy. We’re getting rid of all this bullshit so you can get back to business.”

“Miranda, there are literally thousands of messages. It’ll take days to go through, maybe weeks.”

She doesn’t even look up, her perfectly manicured fingers a blur over the keyboard.

“Give me an hour. I’m going to delete anything that contains profanity, and then I’ll sort the rest into folders, so don’t worry, you won’t be losing anything permanently. But I’m going to mark everything as read and archive it so you can get a fresh start. If anyone wants something important from you, they’ll reach out again, trust me.”

I stop myself from protesting further. Miranda knows what she’s doing, and it really would be a relief not to worry about everything.

Behind me, Samara has stopped unpacking the groceries.

“Just let Miranda work her magic and get your smelly butt into a bath. And make it a nice one, soak for a bit and pretend you’re a mermaid or something. We’ll get everything set up in here while you scrub off the sadness.”

I feel a slight pang of embarrassment as I walk into the bathroom. The sunlight is creating little islands of warmth on the black tiles, but it also mercilessly illuminates the limescale in the shower and a couple of cotton swabs that missed the bin. The sink is decorated with a few dried clumps of toothpaste, each of them outlined in red from last time I dyed my hair.

How did I let it get this bad?

I turn on the taps and leave them running while I undress. Then, I lower myself awkwardly into the tub and let the water cascade through my fingers. It would be nice if it was this easy, washing away the sadness and frustration, the longing and the hurt.

The gentle sound of flowing water is mesmerising, and before I know it, the tub is full. I add a small handful of bath salts and swirl it around. A soothing scent of lavender rises with the steam.

When I lie down, the hot water envelops me like a hug. It feels like it’s thawing something in me that I didn’t even know was frozen. I close my eyes and listen to Samara and Miranda laughing about something. It’s almost like being home and hearing my parents talk softly in the other room. It always made me feel safe. Less alone.

As the water begins to cool, I scrub down, slowly, methodically, running soapy hands along every inch of my body. It feels good, like I’m massaging life back into my limbs. Tonight will be fun, I decide. We’re going to stuff our faces with junk food, get absolutely smashed on cheap wine, and pretend that my heart was never broken by some has-been actor from Tartosa.

I watch as the tub empties, imagining that all my sadness is flowing down the drain with the water and the tiny undissolved purple specks from the bath salt. Finally, I move to the shower to wash my hair and rinse off.

When I get out, I stop and examine myself in the mirror. I look a little tired and worn, like I’ve been sick. In a way, I guess I have. But the black tiles are radiating warmth under my feet and there are birds singing outside my window and I’m beginning to feel like everything is going to be fine.

Samara’s blue face glitters in the candlelight. The packaging from the masks we’ve applied is littered with adjectives like “rejuvenating” and “revitalising”, bold statements, but they do actually feel pretty good.

“Sorry, Julia, I know you love this crap, but I just can’t get over the cake tongue. Who decided cake would be the best bait for people? Are we really that obsessed with desserts?”

I look over my nails one last time and put down the file. “I’m actually more disturbed by the whole chin udder situation. I mean, who came up with that?”

Samara makes a disgusted face, but she’s not ready to change the subject. “Seriously though, even if you were absolutely starving and cake was your favourite thing in the whole world, would you really approach a plant shaped like a giant cow head with huge teeth? Really? And then try to grab what is obviously its tongue?”

Miranda giggles tipsily. “No, but can we talk about how Ned’s relationship with the cow plant is super toxic, though? I mean, it always starts out slow, right? Oh, so it eats meat, little bit of a red flag there, but it’s probably fine. And before you know it, you find yourself luring your neighbours to their deaths just to keep it happy.”

“Yeah, it’s classic, the way he keeps making excuses for her? She didn’t mean it, she’s just misunderstood! She only bites me because she loves me! I’m like, Ned, your girlfriend is eating people, you need professional help.”

Samara laughs. “I guess some men would literally rather feed their neighbours to a plant than go to therapy.”

My phone vibrates on the armrest behind me.

“Sorry, it’s Marten again, I better let him know I’ve got company. He’s been super busy with his exams so we haven’t had much time to play lately.”

Miranda raises an eyebrow.

“And he’s still fine just being your friend, is he?”

“Why wouldn’t he be? I mean, he was fine being my friend even though I was dating Paul. Besides, I haven’t even seen him in person since GeekCon, it’s been almost a year…”

I stop. Almost a year since I met Paul. It feels like a lifetime ago. I wonder what would have happened if I’d cosplayed as someone else, or if Paul hadn’t been there that day. Maybe I could have been dating Marten instead of having my heart trampled by some fickle celebrity. Nice, normal Marten with his mousy hair and his robot facts. I smile.

“Anyway, there’s nothing between me and Marten. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Miranda sends me a mischievous grin. “That reminds me, you know that hot bartender from The Rooftop? Super flirty, cheekbones that could cut glass?”

“The one who gave us free refills on Samara’s birthday? Shane or something?”

“Yeah, him! He asked about you last time, wondered why you hadn’t come with us for like three weeks in a row.”

“How does he even know my name?”

“He didn’t, he just asked about our red-haired friend but you’ve clearly made an impression.” Miranda winks. “Maybe he’d be willing to help you get over Paul.”

I shake my head. “No thanks, I’m pretty sure he’s slept with like half the regulars. And I’m not looking for hook-ups, not now. I need to get my so-called career back on track, but I want to do something… different.”

I think of Paul, of late nights in hotel rooms, laughing at the most ridiculous b-movies before having amazing sex and falling asleep with his arms around me. “I don’t want to do cosplay again, absolutely nothing with movies or comics or superheroes.”

Miranda looks thoughtful. “What about just fashion stuff? I started out with just my shoe reviews and now it’s more general style advice and outfits to match your heels, but you have an eye for it and you know a lot about cuts and materials and design.”

“I guess? I don’t really know a lot about classic fashion, though, like couture and such. And it’s a really tough business to get into, plus I’d kinda like to keep the expenses down for now.”

“You could always just jump on one of the big trends. I bet you’d make bank as one of those clean girl aesthetic influencers or something.”

“That’s actually a good idea. I mean, I can probably get pretty far with just the makeup and clothes I already have. And I could move my sewing machine and rearrange the room, set up my camera and the lights…”

Miranda laughs. “We can start right now as long as it means we don’t have to watch any more terrible movies tonight.”

I reach for the remote. “Not a chance.”

beginning / previous / next

[talenlee]

do you have any thoughts on how (if at all) the Toy Story films impacted how children play with their toys?

Yeah, quite a bit.

Toy Story is a 1995 animated feature film by Pixar Studios, distributed by Disney, that serves as one of those iconic examples of early 3d Animation that ‘holds up’ over time by people who haven’t gone back and looked at any of the humans in it. With the voice talents of Tom Hanks and Tim Toolman, it follows the narrative of a pull-string cowboy doll competing with a kung-fu action grip spaceman toy for the attention of their gigantically towering owner, whom they must never allow to know that they live, breath, and know his name.

For kids!

Look, classic yada yada, groundbreaking yada yada, wholesome yada yada. I actually got to see this one while inside a controlled christian media bubble, and if tomorrow I found out all copies of it had been deleted I would react like that ‘oh no, anyway,’ meme. It is not a movie for which I have an enormous amount of affection. I don’t want to talk to you about the narrative, though, not of Wilson’s Best Friend negotiating with the Last Man Standing about which of them will be more validated by an actual literal child and the ontological questions of why aren’t the parts of Mr Potato Head independently alive?

I want to talk to you about the humans of Toy Story. Specifically, about Andy, and Sid, and the weird world they live in, and the weird world they’ve created.

Andy’s a weird kid.

Andy’s a weird kid, in this specific case, because of the toys he loves.

Andy’s collection of toys features a lot of things that were, for want of better phrasing, are old. Plastic army men, Mr Potato Head, metal slinky dogs. In 1995, none of that stuff looked like the heavily branded, overmerchandised toys I was used to. Kid didn’t own any legos? No rainbow vomit coloured plastic slinky?

Sure, my collection had some old toys in it. That was because I was poor, and we got a lot of toys from the Salvation Army story or second hand from the throwouts in the church charity bins.

Thing is, as toys, Woody and Buzz aren’t really like the toys I was interested in during the 1990s. Cowboys weren’t cool. Cowboys were old. Cowboys were shown on TV in largely black and white. Cowboys were always about being sour and mad and long periods of nothing happening and nobody did a single kick flip and there weren’t any ninjas. Buzz Lightyear looked extremely embarrassing, and not like the kids’ toys of the time. He didn’t transform, he was big and chunky and not an action figure. Lords knows he wasn’t going to stand up to either GI Joe or Action Man. The scale was all fucked up, he clearly cost a lot, and we never saw signs of playsets or vehicles in the movie.

Though I say that, and you know what he did look a lot like, size wise? GI Joe. Not my GI Joe, from the 1990s, which were the size of my thumbs and cost five dollars so you could army-build. Original GI Joe, from the 1960s, which was a much taller toy, literally a foot tall. You know, like how tall Buzz Lightyear is.

My point is: Buzz Lightyear is not a 90s toy. He was a toy that looked like a boomer’s toys. Andy, a child created to fit in 1995, in a large expensive home with lots of toys, has lots of old toys. Andy has toys that speak to growing up in the sixties, with one toy that’s meant to be a toy of the 90s that’s still kinda not.

But now those toys are iconic kids’ toys, now, because Toy Story became a classic, and people who saw it as kids had kids and shared it with their kids. That is, the parents saw Toy Story and went ‘oh that’s fine for my kids,’ then those kids passed on Toy Story to their kids, and so on and now thanks to it being interdimensional meme cryptid’s extended tentacles into our reality, Woody and Buzz are now iconic kid’s toys that rely on being this sort of post-packaged boomer nostalgia.

That’s the wildest thing. The combination of Andy’s wealth and diversity of toys (why do you have a ceramic Bo Peep statue?)  creates this weird impression of Andy being somehow a child with vintage toys that represent taste thirty years older than him. If Andy was poor and isolated it’d make a ton of sense for him to have all these old toys and none of the newest, coolest toys, like Sid has.

I’ve written about Sid in the past, in part because I think he’s the only character in the entire universe I have any real fondness for.

Well okay, maybe Rex.

Anyway, Sid’s poor? Like, his house, next door to Andy’s, is grungy and grimy and there’s a question about how Andy’s house is so nice and clean and fancy and Sid’s is basically a hell dungeon, but in hindsight it’s kind of hard to look at it and not see it as classic Disney Fisher King stuff. You know, the way that when Scar ruled Pride Rock, there was a drought, and the second Scar was replaced by Simba, there was rain. In this case, Sid, being bad, has a house that’s full of Badness, and Andy, being a good kid, has a good house.

But Sid is signalled as being poor. Everything in the house is grungy and secondhand, and he’s constantly playing with toys that have been discarded or lost, and he modifies them. Sid is curious and creative and yes, destructive, and he’s destructive of things that, as far as he knows until the movie decides to massively traumatise him, are just toys.

Like, think about that. Sid damages and messes with toys but he uses that to make other toys, to make things he plays with. His play is seem as scary and traumatising, because… what? Because he violates the ‘proper’ image of the toy. The toy that is not properly preserved, the toy that is torn in pieces and put together again is seen as somehow violated because it is no longer’ right.’ The implication there unstated is that toys are ‘right’ when they are sold to you, and when you change them from that product, they are ‘wrong.’

Sid’s sin is making his own toys, and he is punished by the avatar of a multinational company that will sell you toys that are right.

There’s this fun story beat, where in Toy Story 3, you find that Sid is now a garbage collector. You can see him wearing the same shirt, and dancing happily as he collects trash. In the garbage dump in that movie, you’ll find there are also no toys, which creates the strange question of how things get that way. A story that explains this, a story I like, is that Sid, with the skills he has with toys, took the job as a garbage collector to rescue these tiny sentient creatures from humanity discarding them and is running some sort of toy game preserve in his home. After all, he is, as far as we know, the only human aware that toys are alive.

And he’s the asshole, not the seeming adults who traumatise a kid for playing with toys. Sid, after all, doesn’t play nice.

Source.

[redundant2]

Tidying up the tea bags

This is pretty enjoyable. From SMM at Reddit. Allegedly.

"This is all ALLEGEDLY. I have a friend who cleans house for very well-known, established, female actress/producer/director in “Hollywood”. (Not exactly Hollywood, butI don’t want to name the exact area. My friend has worked for “Actress” for years, and they have developed a rapport, as “actress” is a generally nice person who happened to hit it big, and has not forgotten her roots. She’s one of the good ones.

ALLEGEDLY: “Actress” has met TOW, and said TOW fawned over her like a serious fan girl. She literally followed her around an event trying to get a photo with “Actress”. Finally, “Actress” had to pretend to receive a very important call, so she could get away. TOW is literally a joke in the real A-list set. “Actress” says she is constantly made fun of, and has her assistant of the week call local boutiques begging for samples! Some actually say yes. Also, this is why TOW sometimes looks like she’s wearing a paper bag, or pants that are 3” too long. She gets the sample, and will wear it regardless of how it fits. Oh, and get this! She’s trying to create her own “style” with the super long pants. “Actress” allegedly told my friend that TOW is trying to start a new FASH-SHON trend with the long, dragging, pant legs! “Actress” and friends know this is BS, and that she simply hasn’t had the pants hemmed!

Oh, and all those fake “body shaming” Hollywood types? They call her The Box. No shape, no waist, no curves. Just a box. Nobody wants to dress her, nobody wants to be associated, and she pays full price for her “designer” accessories… which, according to “Actress” could be knock offs or fetched by her assistant from resale shops.

Also, “Actress” has been told through the grapevine that TOW and her poodle may have a former employee ready to spill the beans on the fights, the kids, the horrible treatment of staff and the all-around horrible working conditions inside the Sussex Mental Asylum. Oh, and TOW and poodle don’t sleep in the same bed. They rarely reside at their Montecito house… if they do at all. It may have silently been sold. Not 100% sure on that part. TOW is poison, she’s ruined any chance of ever being anything but Z list, and her agency is fed up.

“Actress” knows a lot of people, and has no reason to lie to my friend. “Actress” and friends have their daily laugh at the fake Princess and her poodle. The only people who will agree to work with them are no-name brands, z-list actors and failed show-biz types. The joke is that soon people will start seeing them hawking used cars in late night local TV! Oprah is also a joke. She’s only invited to things because people want her money, NOT her. She’s repugnant, classist and rude. She has forgotten where she came from. Nobody likes Oprah. Nobody. They only like her money. ALLEGEDY. Again… this is just chatter from the grapevine."

[melinoelliones]

You had frequently seen Chishiya around the city, however he was always alone and acting suspicious, not to mention you had formed somewhat of a crush on the guy. You were also quite curious about him but could never seem to get close enough, until fate brought you two to the same game. Maybe you could finally get some answers.

2.1K Words

MINORS DNI/AGELESS BLOGS DNI/ANTI DC DNI/18+

Warnings: Slight choking, mouth covering, guns and shooting, unprotected sex, cursing, teasing, sex with small plot, hickies, one night stand?, filling up, dubcon???

Hi again, third piece of writing <3. Hopefully i’m gettin better at this LMAO. I kinda tried to put this in the storyline so it isn’t too off brand i guess, this is episode 2 season 1 spoilers for those who haven’t watched. Also it kinda flops in the end.... sorry from now ya’ll

“Where the hell did he go? I swear just had him” you mumbled, kissing your teeth, you had been following Chishiya around the complex for a while now but it was almost as if he had poofed into thin air. Every corner you turned led to another empty walkway, where was everyone anyway?

Shuntaro Chishiya was his name but who was he? You had seen him around the city before but he was always alone and looked like he was up to something, not to mention he looked scarily similar to someone you had known back in highschool, but that's besides the point, he was unusual and you needed to know more, what secrets was he hiding?

You had brought it upon yourself to find out as much as you could about him from a distance, but since this was the first game with him you couldn’t let the opportunity to spy on him up close slip through your fingertips.

Strolling up yet another empty flight of stairs you froze, your eyes locked on the man with the horse mask who was now facing you head on, you felt as if time itself had stopped. Your blood ran cold as your eyes flickered to the large gun in his hand, “p~please don’t shoot, please”, you pleaded, maybe this could work?

You watched on as he started to march towards you, “should’ve assumed this shit wouldn’t work on you”, you sighed frustratedly rolling your eyes, it was worth a shot though. You slid the disk you had hidden in your sleeve to your palm, eyes glued to the masked man who was starting to pick up speed.

As he carelessly attempted to aim his weapon you struck your palms together, the disk emitting a strongly condensed cloud of smoke which started to fill the stairwell. In the midst of his confusion you slid past him, throwing the disks remains behind you as a distraction, hoping he would think you had tried to run back the way you came.

Had you really forgotten what you were doing here? Your life was literally on the line yet you allowed yourself to let your objective slip your mind due to a random man you were attracted to spying on? Maybe this wasn’t your brightest idea.

Darting down endless walkways, all that filled your ears were gunshots and blood curdling screams from below, your plan to get him off your back had worked but at the cost of whose life, countless thoughts flooded your head whilst you fled, paying no attention to where you were headed.

Breathlessly you came to a halt, you had hit the top floor, end of the hall, the only way out was to cross the open stairs but even then you’d be out in the open. As if a wake up call, the gunshots continued, the shells ricocheting off the walls echoing through the stairwell, with no other option you veered towards the last door on your side.

“This is gonna get me in so much trouble for fuck sake”, mumbling to yourself you tried to grab the thin piece of metal from your sock placing it into the keyhole, you had no clue if this would work but at this point there were no alternative options. Your hands trembling as the sound of the man's footsteps grew louder pacing up the stairs, “cmon dammit work”.

You vigorously shook the metal rod, all critical thinking had gone out the window as the realisation that you may actually die right here started to hit you. As that thought popped up you felt the handle click, you were in, without another thought you swung the door open stumbling inside, letting the door close by itself to avoid any further noise.

You cautiously glanced around the room, it was almost as if it were a movie set, blank walls, chipped wood floors and no furniture. “I guess they weren’t expecting people to just walk on in he~”, you were cut off by a hand covering your mouth, your heart now pounding through your chest, was it the shooter?

Why didn’t you watch the door close? How did they get to the room so fast? Why couldn’t you hear their footsteps? A million questions swamped your mind.

You winced as your head started to rise slightly exposing your neck, the calloused hand against your mouth was pulling you back. Your body tightening in fear as your bodies met . A hand weaved its way over your stomach as a pair of lips ghosted just below your ear, their breath sending tingles down your spine, “uh uh uh, now what are we doing here my love?”.

You knew that voice from anywhere, it was Chishiyas. You allowed your body to melt into his as your heart rate began to soften. You could relax a bit now knowing who it was, what could he even want with you anyway, either way you knew you had a means of escape if needs be, Chishiya was not the strongest person by the looks of it.

A faint moan slipped through your lips against his hand whilst he trailed his fingers down your lower stomach with the other, you unknowingly pressing your lower half against his. “What are you doing my love?..... Oh? You like this huh?”, he murmured against your neck, laying a kiss or two upon it. “So… is this why you were always watching me from a distance? Or are you hiding something there?”, your breath hitching as he questioned you, how did he know, you always did your best to keep to yourself and stay hidden.

“Didn’t think I noticed you hmm?”, you could feel the cockiness in his voice against your neck as his kisses became a bit rougher, those were definitely going to leave marks but you didn’t care. “I wasn’t watching you?”, you had to lie, if he was to do anything with that information who knows what the higher ups would do?

His fingers paused at your core, you could almost feel their presence hovering above, “lie” he murmured against your collar bone, pulling your head up with his hand. The grip on your neck tightening as you flinched slightly, the new bruises were tender. As he slowly began to rub you through your already soaked underwear he chuckled, “I won’t bite, you can tell me the truth”.

“Now who’s the liar, the sore spots on my neck didn’t come from nowher~” you hissed as he increased the pressure on his fingers, the friction from them and the fabric of your underwear against your clit edging you closer and closer whilst you lightly rocked back and forth.

Chishiya definitely knew how to use his hands, you were ready to give in just from him playing with you through your underwear. “Cmon pretty girl, no need to be so secretive. If it makes you feel any better I was also watching you too. How could a random girl pop up out of nowhere and manage to survive all those challenges alone, who are you?” he joked, chuckling whilst coming to a halt.

You groaned as the early built up tension in your stomach started to slowly fizzle out, “did you do all this just to tease me?”. “Oh? If you want me so bad, how about I give you the real deal?”, his voice echoed in your ear as he placed a single kiss on your nape before pressing you up against the door.

You gently slid your front down the door, sticking your ass in the air showing your dripping underwear. As you shook your ass slightly you heard him chuckle to himself, he pressed himself up against your hot core, you could feel him almost poking through his tracksuit bottoms. “Well? Do you, or should we go finish that game outside”.

Chishiya ran his hand up your leg as you longed out your response, “please, I want this” you purred. “Hmm, very well then”, without another word you felt him lift up your skirts hem, pulling your underwear to the side with his fingers.

“We may have to make this quick” he muttered, aligning himself at your core, “What did you say~ oh my god” you choked out breathlessly, Chishiya had gave you no warning before crashing himself fully into you, your walls adjusting around him, you did not expect him to be so big.

“Try to stay quiet for me okay”, he teased as you pressed back into him for support, you let out a faint “y~yes” before allowing him to place his hands on your hips.

Chishiya slowly started to rock back and forth allowing every inch of himself to be taken in, his tip crashing against your sweet spot with no mercy. “Fuck, thzt feels so good”, you cried out in between his thrusts, as you looked down you could visibly see the impression of his cock sinking in and out of you.

“Quiet, they’ll hear you my love” Chishiya laughed out leaning forward, your moans getting louder which each hit to your sweet spot. You knew the sounds of your bodies colliding along with the moans would definitely ring through the apartment complex but in the moment you didn’t care.

As he leant forward you could hear his faint moans in your ear, cursing under his breath as he swung his hand around to your lower stomach. “I’m getting close, I don’t know how much longer I can hold ou~” you whimpered as Chishiya ran small circles on your clit, your own whimpers cutting you off. He wanted to watch you writhe under him, of course you weren’t adverse to this idea though.

As your moans grew louder and more incoherent, the sound of gunshots began to emerge from the other side of the door bringing the reality of the situation back into your mind. You were still in a death game, both your lives were still on the line once those doors open.

“You know, its almost like you want them to hear you. Does them potentially finding out what we're doing turn you on hmm?” Chishiya questioned cheakily through his own moans, increasing the pressure on his fingers whilst you attempted to swallow down your moans. The ever growing knot in your stomach was at its limit.

Chishiya could feel you tightening around him, “go on, cum for me pretty girl” he cooed. As if on cue you let the knot unravel, however he continued to keep a steady pace inside of you longing out your orgasm. You could feel your knees trembling as your body was getting tired but his light grunts in your ear were enough to help you muster enough energy to hold on.

“W~what are you doing down there? Cheeky one aren’t you” Chishiya hissed as you threw yourself back onto him, your wetness helping you slide with little effort, the sound turning him on slightly. You wanted to make the most of whatever time you had left with him as who knows when an occasion such as this would arise again.

“C’mon then Chishiya” you mewled softly, you could feel him twitching so you knew he was close. His thrusts became inconsistent as he cursed in your ear, pulling you into him.

“Oh fuck” you gasped, stuttering slightly as you felt him release inside you, his breathe staggered whilst slowing down his strokes. Your legs trembled as he began to pull out, both of your warm releases mixing inside you. “Well would you look at that”, you could almost hear the smirk emerge on his face as he stepped back leaving you completely, pushing your underwear back to stop you from dripping.

“How about you keep that wet underwear on for me, don’t want you to forget what we did do we” he teased, you didn't oppose as of course you wanted to remember this moment. Chishiya gave you a hand as he lent you against a free wall in the room.

Placing his hand on your chin he took in your heated face, “I still have an objective here and I also refuse to lose this game so my work here is done”, Chishiya stated plainly, showing zero emotion as he went to exit the room. Was that it?

You let out a faint sigh, steadying yourself against the wall as you also did have to finish the game at some point. “Hey!” he burted out in the doorway, “try to stay alive will you? Trust me, we have more to discuss, maybe you’ll be useful to me”, his eyes softed whilst closing the door behind him.

He wants to meet again? Perfect, attached or not you also had a mission. Chishiya showing emotion was not what you expected but it would definitely get you a pass when the higher ups ask how you got in this room in the first place. Your plan was going in the right direction. Playing the innocent card always worked on your average players but you expected more from him, maybe you could become his weak spot.

You grinned to yourself as you made your way to the door, “till next time Chishiya”.

[sgiandubh]

Hi there. I enjoyed your post about Sam’s brand and it got me thinking. I feel like he’s stuck between trying to do what other people tell him he should to “make it” and trying to do it himself. Other people: you’re hot, show it off, do action movies, date blonde floozies. Himself: I want to be a good person and a decent actor, but what if I’m not? Guess I should work a lot, build a non-acting brand just in case I get fired, but try not to pay too many people to market it, I can do that myself; the liquor has the added benefit of getting his name out there and hopefully giving him another income stream if acting goes to shit. Where this all becomes problematic is that he’s not the person others tell him to be, so he comes off as fake, inconsistent, disingenuous, contradictory. I worry though that he can’t break away from these “advisors” because of whatever hole he and caitriona have themselves in with Starz and their bosses. We may not all agree on what happened in 2016 or why, but it’s obvious something did. The difference between them both since then is stark. The light has dimmed. They’ve aged exponentially. They’re guarded. They’re not the effervescent dynamos they started out as. She looks pissed all the time, like she’ll trot Tony out if necessary, but she won’t look like she enjoys it. She’ll go to awards ceremonies, but she won’t look as gorgeous as she easily could. She won’t be their ingenue. I don’t know, I think they’re stuck and are limited in what they can actually do for themselves, as much as they might like to. I can only hope there is an end in sight for them and they can persevere until then!

PS, I watched She Said last night. Highly recommend for anyone who doesn’t think a network executive could or would force their tent pole stars to deny a relationship.

Dear She Said Anon,

I liked your submission so much, I have read it three times in a row (and damn the late hour!). I have very few things to add to your excellent assessment of what I think is a very complicated situation. The proverbial Scottish parsimony could explain the choice of a minimally budgeted, all hands on deck sales and advertising approach. But we are quickly passing this stage and he should seriously think of hiring true professionals, if he really wants to make a financial lifebelt out of SS.

Yes. There's a price to be paid for all the games they are being served to play (and yes, something terrible happened in January 2016, of which we will probably never have the full details). Both of them are now striving to show us they can (scantily, painfully) exist without the magical Other. She, with that colorless, wrist-grabbing, fist-clenching literally dumb person (strictly meaning that we never hear him). He, with that (forgive me, Father, for I am about to sin) questionable, loud and tacky Oriental consigliere (it is high time I should write that paper on the Persia I know and love, lest you or other Anon think I am racist, or something). You can't figure out more opposite add-ons to Those Two, both serving, I believe, the same purpose: to deflect, at all costs, any attention given to the real state of play.

I haven't watched She Said yet and I welcome and thank you for the suggestion. On a lighter note, I trade for it Call My Agent (I have already mentioned this very, very witty French series, dealing with the life in a Parisian talent agency) - it shouldn't be a problem to find it on Netflix.

Good night, Anon. This one below is me thanking you for your trouble and time writing this wonderful post. Just look at Mitsuko Uchida's genuine Joy while playing Beethoven - same energy as Two People We Know, back in 2014, right?

[katzkinder]

Okay so the dichotomy between your Sakuya Cherry Bomb idea and Yarra's Kuro vtuber is hilarious to me because like.

Sakuya: Fans only know him as Cherry Bomb and don't know anything about him outside of his music.

Vs

Kuro: Vtuber Lore is literally just his life but it should be fine because people dont know vampires are real.

I FUCKING FOUND IT. LINK TO THE CHERRY BOMB POST 🍒💣

Anyway one of the reasons for the difference is I headcanon Sakuya as being a 90s kid! as in, he died in the 90s--

This, naturally, makes him a lot more wary about the info he puts out there on the internet, but it also means his internet experience was molded by Ye Olden Days when creators were a lot less available to their fanbases and interacted with them very little, if at all.

He doesn't even have a fanart hub, and his icon is just a random street in tokyo he thought looked nice.

His classmates REALLY do not get why Sakuya is so paranoid, so Sakuya shows them how easy it would be for a super dedicated person to figure out exactly where Mahiru’s apartment is using his cooking tutorial videos (uploaded under the channel name "Sunny Mama" courtesy of Kuro) and basic realtor research

Things like Mahiru apologizing for any construction noise and using the time stamp to figure out which apartment complexes had construction in their vicinity during that time, floor plans, how even his living situation and the model of his appliances can all be used to narrow down the area he lives in.

“He lives with his uncle and the camera man, which means at least two rooms. We can see the stove top and the front of the oven, so I take a screenshot of that and… Ah, this is the brand. Now I research the model. Okay, I have two components. He mentions that he walks to school, so that’s a two bedroom apartment in Tokyo within walking distance of a high school with good quality appliances, which means I can rule out a lot of run down complexes. This grocery bag was in frame during this video, and a high school kid Mahiru’s age wouldn’t have a license, so now I add that name of the store to my list of things I know are around the complex because when you go grocery shopping, you don’t want to carry the bags a long distance home…”

The faces of his friends are full of horror.

"And that’s not even getting into the drinking with uncle segment that happens in their living room, with full view of the balcony because Mahiru hates the place getting musty so he leaves the curtains open a lot. Knowing what buildings are viewable from there can also tell someone where a place is, especially if you’re thorough enough to consider the angle you’re seeing everything at.” Sakuya glances up and closes his laptop. “So, yeah.”

Mahiru makes a Noise, fretting, "Wait, so what do I do now??"

Sakuya feels a little bad for scaring his friend, but it's for his own good! “Keep your curtains closed, make sure the screws in your door frame are the really long kind to prevent someone from just kicking the door off its hinges, don’t get electronic locks because it’s stupid easy to trick those into unlocking, and just… Be more careful? Wear a mask from now on and go back and edit footage to remove your face from the visible shot. Try and keep things focused on your hands instead, maybe…”

"Should I get rid of the drinking with uncle part? Since that always focuses on Uncle Tooru's reactions..."

"He’s a grown up and an old man. Nobody’s going to be interested in pulling him into a windowless white van unless it’s those creep show friends of his…”

"Wh--Why would anyone be interested in pulling me into a windowless white van?!"

"Sex trafficking."

"Eh?"

"Or stealing your organs."

"Eh?"

“Or even just some obsessive pervert who’s built up some kind of fantasy in their head that you’re fated for one another but you just don’t realize it yet.”

"What."

As you can tell. Yeah. Sakuya really internalized those 90s internet safety psas. He's also well acquainted with the idea of a very dedicated stalker for. Reasons.

Tsubaki voice: that boy just isn't right...

[shehangsthemoon]

To anyone out there that may be reading this… hi.

My name is Sam. I am 33 years old, married, and drifting through life like a plastic bag. Which might sound negative, but it’s not all bad. I create stained glass from my home, and I’ve been trying to build and run a brand new business with absolutely no prior experience or knowledge. I also also work a part time job at the zoo, and I do gig driving when needed.

Lately I’ve been avoiding glass to do literally ANYTHING else. Escaping into the worlds of Witcher III or TOTK, painting/watercolor, digital art (Procreate), photography, taking long baths, doom scrolling, ordering craft and “cosplay” supplies from Temu, creating blogs, etc.

I actually am glad the idea of a blog came to me today. I struggle with depression, general and social anxiety, PTSD, and lord knows what else. I’ve gone untreated for a majority of my life, and pretty recently started my journey to becoming better.

The reason I am bringing this up is because, this morning, while having a mild meltdown about finances, I realized I needed to make a change, for myself, and for my business.

Social media (Meta) has become a monster to me. It’s too polarized; I get interaction one day, the next, nothing. And it doesn’t lead to sales. I, like most people, don’t understand the algorithm, and I know it’s not designed to be understood. It’s also too competitive for my baby business, and if we’re being completely honest, I have been relying on those likes and follows WAY too much. When I don’t receive that instant gratification or feedback, I fall into negative or fearful behaviors/thinking, and none of that is conducive to my, or my business’ growth.

I’d like to use this platform to share my glass work and trials and tribulations of running a small business in a recession, but I would also like to utilize it as a kind-of-journal. I promise I will not be sharing extreme or in depth details from my life (unless asked), but my therapist told me to put my feelings down somewhere. He probably very explicitly meant somewhere private, but whatever. Oh god, is this the introvert’s answer to starting a podcast?

Anyway, some other things that you can probably expect to see or hear from me:

- Any creative projects I am working on, including my own photography and editing,

- fantasy,

- art, music, television, books I like,

- gaming,

- self realization and integration,

- self love and self care,

- burn out and compassion fatigue,

- tarot/astrology (I’m a beginner),

- pictures of my cats.

If you took the time to read this, THANK YOU. Please stay a while.

Sam

[hopelesswrites]

Midnight - Joseph Quinn pt. 4

You start healing your heart.

18+ MDNI

(FINAL PART aaah sorry it took so long, let me know what you think, i'm happy with it, feels good to give them an ending)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

It had been months since you last spoke to Joe, the only tabs you kept on him were unwillingly through the media. Fans had named you another ‘unknown fling’ which the more you thought about it the more you understood. ‘Leave him alone he’s a grown man he can date who he wants’ you’d read next to a picture of yourself latched onto the man of the year.

Your heart hurt less now, the denial and delusion long passed. You and Joe were over, he hadn’t contacted you in almost 3 months. He was off filming another movie, being papped with new girls, you were old news, figuratively and literally.

You were more open to moving on yourself, having been on a few dates.

All was going well, you were healing. About time, too. You had spent a good portion of the year getting hurt by a man who was never yours.

Your flatmate had been rambling on about her work crush while you curled your hair by your vanity. You, only half listening as you tried not to burn your neck.

“How about you?” Her question snapped you back to reality.

“Me?”

“Yeah, seeing anyone? What’s the love life like”.

You shrugged, “nothing exciting, I’m focussing on me right now I think”.

Your flatmate hummed in response, “Good idea”.

By the time you had finished your hair and makeup you had both downed a couple shots of tequila, claiming that tonight was going to be a loose one.

Now in the middle of a beer garden, under a heat lamp, clutching a vodka redbull you wished you had brought a warmer coat, and maybe had an extra shot before leaving the house. Your friend had long forgotten her work crush, opting for a tall gym rat type with an eyebrow piercing across the room. Your three social media feeds you had been flicking through had gotten old about 20 minutes ago and you were prepared to just call it a night when a presence beside you caught your attention.

“You look lonely” The man beside you had your heart skip a beat, he was like Joe, but off brand. Big kind eyes, soft curly hair, lived in stubble and an expensive looking button up tucked into equally expensive looking pants. On his face he wore round metal framed glasses, a small part of your brain wanted to make note of how good Joe would look in those glasses.

“I do don’t I” You replied, looking around to emphasise that you were in fact alone.

“I was just over there thinking how much of a shame it was that a lovely girl like yourself was all on her own” The man spoke smoothly, your cursed at how easy it was to swoon over him.

“Were you now?” You teased.

“That drink still cold?” He asked, motioning his head towards the glass in hand. You looked down to notice the condensation dripping down your fingers, ice completely melted.

“Might need a new one” You shrugged.

“What’s your poison?”

You answered with your drink, and he promised to be back with your order, leaving with a wink.

You wanted to take this guy home purely to kill your boredom, but you felt how risky it could be due to his resemblance to the guy you were trying to get over. In moments like these you’d think on what your flatmate would say. But this one left you divided. ‘Go for it babe get out there’ and ‘he looks a bit too much like Joe though’ were flicking back and forth through your mind.

“Its uncanny really” A new voice spoke from beside you. You spun around, that voice being all too familiar, that voice making your stomach do a flip, you hid your emotions well though.

“What are you talking about” You answered.

Beside you was the real Joe, dressed almost identical to the man you had just been talking to, the man that had just gone to get you a new drink.

“He looks exactly like me” There was a hint of entitlement you didn’t like, rubbed you the wrong way.

“Hadn’t noticed” You shrugged off, checking the time on your phone, pretending Joes presence hadn’t caused an earthquake in your chest.

“Are you going to sleep with him?” Joe asked forwardly, stepping closer, sucking you in.

“Yes” You answered equally as bluntly. There was no use playing this game of Joes, it would end in heartbreak, you knew that.

Joe laughed, a short low hum of a sound. “See, I don’t think you are”.

He was so close now, and you can’t lie, you almost caved, he obviously had you wrapped around his finger, the Joe clone long forgotten.

There was one game you wanted to play with Joe though, and so you played along with his, until it was your turn.

You leaned in, bridging the gap between you so your chests were almost touching. “What makes you think that” You whispered back.

Joe smirked, his nose just touching the tip of your own as he slowly leaned in, forcing you to make the move.

“I thought we were done?” He whispered, snaking an arm around your waist and holding you flush to his crotch, a tent forming in his pants already, he was too easy.

“For old times sake then, it’s midnight after all”

Before you could get another thought in, you had been whisked away towards a taxi rank. Once seated in the car you stopped Joe before he could tell the driver your address. This would only work if you were at his place. You rarely spent time together at Joes place before he moved, he was always so private towards his home, opted to meet you at your place instead. This new house you hadn’t been to, and you had a suspicion no other girl had been there either, you wanted to be the first, the one he thought about for the rest of his time in that house.

“Your place is closer isn’t it?”, you had heard from a friend of a friend Joe had moved loser to the city, a real expensive area. Joe looked at you confused, “I can’t wait Joe please” You put on your best puppy dog eyes, rubbing a hand up his arm.

Joe caved, he had the driver put in his new address, you didn’t pay attention to it, you wouldn’t need it after tonight.

The drive was short, but it was all desperate touched and wet kisses along your neck. The walk up to his door was much of the same. Joe had you pinned to his front door, leg between your thighs and teeth grazing your ear while he clumsily fiddled with his keys.

Your hands ran up his stiff sleeves, squeezing at his biceps and landing at his shoulders. “Hurry up” You sighed, feeling all hot and bothered, and incredibly impatient, you wanted to get just as much out of this as Joe was getting, maybe a little more.

The door opened from behind you but you were pulled into Joes chest as he guided you inside. He didn't give you a chance to even look around before he had his mouth on yours in a feverish kiss. he tasted of whiskey and cigarettes. You knew he only drank whiskey when he was having a hard time, something about the burn in his chest being a distraction.

"Bed" You managed to get out and Joe had you by the hips, directing you backwards down a short hall and into a dark room. With his mouth now attached to your neck you took the opportunity to look around over his shoulder. It was a very large and empty space, nothing resembling the charm of Joes home decor in his last place. It felt sad, and you felt sad for him.

"I'm not done decorating" Joe mumbled against your neck, noticing your pace slow down as he tried to push you towards his bed.

"How long have you been here?" You asked back, complying and laying down on the soft bed. It was new, taller than his old one, it felt wrong.

"I've been busy" Was all he returned before climbing on top, slotting his knee back between your legs and pushing up into your heat. Instantly your follow up questions had been forgotten, Joes touch sending electricity through your body. His hands continued to roam, as did his lips, down your neck, your chest. He had pushed your low cut dress down to expose your breasts further, latching onto the meat and sucking.

Marking you.

You weren't mad, he could have his fun if it was going to be his last time with you.

"I want to taste you" Joe groaned, hands sliding down your body and landing at the short hem of your dress, playing with the fabric, asking for permission.

"I'm not stopping you"

Joe chuckled before dropping a chaste kiss to your cheek, your arm, stomach, hip then thigh. His hands slid up, taking the flimsy material with him, exposing your lacy thong and then finishing the job by pulling it over your head with ease.

Joe looked up, eyebrow raised, "Expecting something tonight?"

"I went out with an agenda, yes"

That earned an amused huff as he slid the underwear down your legs, carelessly flinging them somewhere in the room. You fought the urge to get mad at him, those were expensive, and his aloof attitude would not do, but were quickly distracted yet again.

Scratchy face hair rubbed up against your sensitive thighs, sending a heat through your body with anticipation as Joe toyed with the idea of devouring you, licking and kissing so softly, dragging out the moment.

"I want you to beg for it" Joe demanded, which was out of character for him, usually you were the one that had the upper hand, whether it was obvious or not, there was always an undertone of submission for you.

"Please Joe" You groaned, wanting to get this over with, you had your own game to play here.

"Please what?" He questioned, eyebrow raised, smug smirk on his face.

You didn't want to play along, hated the idea, but you needed him so bad, every muscle in your body tensed in anticipation.

"Come on Darling, what do you want from me?" Joe asked sweetly, placing another kiss on your thigh, staying firm to his request.

"I want you to eat me out" You sighed, staring him down, waiting for a response.

"Please" You punctuated it with a plea, the throbbing in your core intensifying by the second. Joes eyes were so intense staring back at you, had your skin crawling.

Another kiss to your thigh trailed closer to your heat, soft and wet as he neared your sensitive mound. Another kiss, then a lick. He was still taking his time.

"What happened to that enthusiasm you had earlier?"

Joe chuckled. "Are you not enjoying this?"

"Not very much" You groaned, slamming your head back against the pillow with a huff. Joe tsked, continuing his slow torture before wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking hard, forcing a stunned moan from you.

"Ye- that, I like that" You struggled against the urge to scream from the pleasure.

Joes mouth continued in a rhythm that had you losing your breath, legs shaking as an orgasm quickly approached. You didn't want to finish like this though, didn't want to give him the satisfaction, so you pushed his head away, taking a moment to catch your breath.

"What's wrong" Joe was confused, not understanding you breathless words.

"Lay down" You said, motioning to the space beside you. Joe understood and laid on his back, as you followed and straddled his lap, his dick straining against his pants.

Now in a prime position you began to tease Joe yourself, running a light hand over his pants, relishing in the shiver you felt go through Joes body.

"Don't" Joe warned, knowing full well you intended to give him a piece of his own medicine.

Everything with Joe felt different now, this all confirmed it, was the closure you needed. There was no more love, just lust, you were familiar to each other and it made it easy, every movement second nature, but no true purpose behind each touch. Months ago you could have sworn Joe loved you, he had that look in his eyes, even if he wouldn't mutter the words. But it was long gone now, and as you unzipped his pants and enjoyed the feeling of making Joe feel good, you knew you no longer loved him either, knew you didn't live to give Joe everything like you once had.

Joe was practically throbbing when you removed him from his pants. A pleading mess below you. You leaned over him and let a line of saliva drop onto his tip, rubbing it down his shaft, looking up to watch the look of shock on his face.

"Nasty, nasty girl"

You positioned yourself over him and sunk down, feeling a sigh of relief wash over you both as you began to slowly ride him. Joes hands grasped your hips, firmly gripping onto the flesh, fighting the urge to fuck you onto him, but you were in charge, he had accepted that now.

"That's it" Joe groaned as you quickened your pace, hands on his chest for support as the friction had you both closing in on a climax. you slowed down, wanting to relish in this moment, watching Joe with that blissed out look on his face for the last time, curls sticking to his forehead as he soaked in every inch of you.

"You close?" You asked, feeling Joe twitch inside you, his pulse quickening.

Joe could only moan and pant, holding you at the hips and grinding you down onto him deeper. You continued the rhythm feeling your own orgasm approaching.

"Come on baby, let go for me" Joe whispered as his own movements became quick pulsing thrusts. You followed your high, letting the heat wash over you, overwhelming all your senses, legs shuddering at the pleasure.

"fuck-fuck- you're so fucking good to me, look at you, oh my god" Joe rambled nonsense as he pulled you off allowing himself to spill himself out onto you both.

the next few moments left you both in silence to regain your breath. You looked down to see Joe with his eyes closed, exhaustion on his face.

"Stay tonight" Joe barely whispered, you could have missed it. His eyes still closed you grabbed his hand that was still firmly holding your hip and squeezed.

"I'm going to clean up" You answered, leaving Joe on the bed while you made your way to his ensuite. The shower alone could have had you changing your mind and keeping Joes number for future hookups, steamy late night rendezvous.

Returning to Joe with a wet towel, who was now far more relaxed, admiring you saunter towards him.

"You will stay?" he asked again while you wiped his own stomach clean.

"Yeah" You responded allowing him to pull you back onto the bed and tuck you under his arm, head on his chest and legs tangled. Neither of you said a word, but when you felt the rise and fall of Joes chest fall into a pattern and the man finally enter a sleep state, you slipped out, leaving Joe alone in his big bed, big house, no note or text, just a memory of midnight.

[stevesaxetogrind]

Truly those calling it “bad writing” that Robin and Vickie share similarities doesn’t make sense. She’s not been given enough time to be more than just a love interest, but we do have some info about her:

1. Molly Ringwald inspo, giving us shorthand about being kind of a quirky gal. Hat! Visually, she’s similar to Robin, but that’s not a bad thing because literally similar interests draw people together. She is also skirts vs Robin’s trousers. Femme/Soft Butch! You’re telling me Vickie would wear a tie? Lies.

2. Likes goofy jokes, namely Steve’s joke about Muppet Tammy. Which, Robin doesn’t laugh at Steve’s jokes that much- she dismisses them, but it means Vickie has a bit of a jocular sense of humour.

3. Vickie also likes Steve’s brand of movies, not Robin’s- which is pretty fucking funny. Again, this is not making Vickie similar to Robin, but to things shared with Robin’s Platonic Soulmate. Like, bro movies? Stupid lil jokes? I predict Steve and Vickie having a dad joke competition next season & torturing Robin with how corny they are. People like to talk about the similarities to Robin, but not the similarities to Steve! That’s kind of clever drawing Vickie closer to one of Robin’s favourite people, at least superficially.

4. Talks a lot when one on one, but Vickie wasn’t nervous/flustered in the band scene, so we can infer in more crowded spaces she acts differently/subdued - as like she was in the War Zone. This is unlike Robin who does actually ramble in group scenes, like freaking out over the thing in El’s leg, the rabies bit, or generally a lot of Season 4 where she looses her “cool girl” archetype from Season 3 in favour of chaos. Vickie seems more like she would quietly panic, as opposed to Eddie, Argyle, and Steve who all loudly go WHAT THE FUCK. Which is going to be interesting to see as the whole town is now thrown into an open gate downtown Hawkins probably releasing demogorgons every other hour like it’s Pacific Rim up in this bitch.

5. Meaningful look with Robin in the War Zone- not “oh hi band friend!” A scared/caught/dismayed look that she was there. So there is a connection, and she broke up with her boyfriend after that connection. Anything more is speculation, but the way she wasn’t looking at Robin when she gave the “he doesn’t like Fast Times” reason lets the audience draw points and maybe she felt trapped? Like it was just an excuse to pursue a different interest? Obviously because music is playing indicating a romantic relationship. We don’t have much to compare Robin with on this one, but around Keith she still had more confidence and bullshittery trying to convince him to hire Steve when Keith assumed they were a thing.

6. Vickie also doesn’t seem jealous. Robin is jealous. She was livid at Steve for being the object of Tammy’s affections, but Vickie hasn’t seemed to even look twice at Steve- even as Robin looked over at him while she and Vickie had her last scene.

For such a short amount of time in the season, I think that we have a good foundation for similarities and differences to Robin. Also, once again, it’s not a crime to avoid “opposites attract” tropes. Having similarities is good! Like, the amount of couples I know that are essentially the same archetype of queer person is not even close to zero. Especially when it comes to older queer couples who got together in the 80s/90s, they kind of morph into being one granola bar of a human being. Kind of similar with straight people when they genuinely like one another.

I hope they flesh Vickie out, but like, we’ve gotten a similar amount of screen time for Mr Clarke but no one is mad he is “one dimensional” when he is just, some exposition science guy. He’s a stock and standard teacher, has a girlfriend, and kind of goes along with explaining shit without questioning why a lot. But folks love Mr Clarke. Is it because Mr Clarke isn’t getting in the way of your ship?

I never thought I would see the day there were some true blue f/f ship wars, but bruh, Robin’s love life isn’t an A Plot so give the writers some slack. They’re human, not the devil. None of you were gleeks and it shows so fucking much. None of you lived through “angry lesbians on the internet don’t want me dating you”.

Personally I’m looking forward to Robin and Vickie getting together and maybe hopefully kicking monster butt together- or at least, Robin getting a nice little badass moment defending her gal.

[compacflt]

pre-publishing notes for extras part one (coming tomorrow i pray 🙏🏽 if not tmr than next saturday 🥺) for those interested

i am incredibly busy this wk so the final final edit of my fics isn’t gonna come till later, like next Wednesday or the weds after that or something.

but do not worry i am not changing anything major, unlike in previous edits. It’s just fixing little stuff (hyphenation, some grammar, places where AO3 fucked my italics, changing “chief naval officer” to chief of naval operations [i literally have no clue how that error happened as i got it right in some places and wrong in a bunch of other places like wtaf], removing brand names that show idk what the fuck im talking about, etc.). The most substantial edit is I’m adding one sentence to the slider one-shot where ice tries to convince slider that he and maverick are only tying the knot for financial purposes, and “so the govt doesn’t fuck one of us when the other dies for real.” that sentence was in my original draft and idk why it got removed.

i will not be editing the hangman one shot (besides fixing the proposal date), the airplane one shot, or the wingmen one shot because i do not really care for them and they have been overwritten by other sections of my fics. the bradley one shot is also pretty much going untouched

ONTO THE EXTRAS. Unlike some of my other fics which are M-rated & therefore kind of implicit, these extras are a littol bit edgy & explicit. Not beating around the bush anymore. I am warning for possible triggers, mostly related to disordered eating and, like, a BUNCH of casual suicidal ideation/discussion of suicide. Also it’s E-rated.

however that isn’t to say it’s not mostly fluff lol. there’s SOME sex but u know me.. it is sex as symbol not sex as sex... (You know what they say, $20 is $20 and writing practice is writing practice) I wanted to expand the scope of my original fics—more politics, more complications, more backstory, so that’s mostly what it is. Not everything revolves around goose anymore. It’s also about the rest of the world

parts of it will also obviously just be me dicking around, a disclaimer

not every scene that I’ve posted in a wip wednesday made the cut. I got rid of a bunch of them that were boring/repetitive. (so, my apologies to the anon who told me they liked the sickfic excerpt, for instance—the one where mav sprains his wrist is basically the same thing, we don’t really need to rehash the “taking care of each other” motif twice)

prolly download these somewhere else because it really is just 70k of a wall of text with no chapter breaks and we all know how ao3 is

thanks for reading! as always! ❤️❤️almost at the finish line here! part 2 (post TGM mission) hopefully next Saturday :)))

[heystephen]

ashley/noitsashley/etc explained for the swifties who aren’t chronically on tiktok and don’t know what’s going on aka i rot my brain on tiktok so you guys don’t have to!

(long post ahead, i wanted to cover as much strange behavior as i could)

so let’s start with the very basic who? she is. noitisashley13, or ashley leechin, is a 29 year old tiktoker who’s gained notoriety for being a ‘taylor swift lookalike’. if you’ve seen anything about her, you’ve probably seen the video of the guy who thought he was meeting taylor in new york, and ashley and her friend going “nooo it’s ashley! it’s just ashley!” over and over again.

off of tiktok, iirc, she’s a target employee, or was, because she was fired from her nursing position for being anti vax and anti mask. she’s also married and has two young kids. so there’s like, your background on ashley. 

she has a reputation (ha) for being a liar about weird things big and small. for example, she claimed that she walked past taylor’s old place on cornelia street and the owner came outside and thought she was taylor and offered her a personal exclusive tour because of that (and then she filmed every square inch of this person’s home??).

it later came out that the person who lives there, alan, will literally just invite taylor swift fans in to look around if they ask.. which she did. when she first became popular on tiktok, she told people that she was not a swiftie and didn’t really know her songs, at another time she said she really didn’t like taylor swift, then she said she liked a few songs, now she claims that she’s been a fan since 2006, which like, again, not that deep, just painting an image for how much she lies. one of her more consequential lying moments was when she liked several comments in support of blue lives matter and calling her the republican taylor swift as well as confirming her (right) political leaning, and then stated that that never happened. it is a known fact that ashley voted for trump twice, she confirmed that herself and then backtracked once she got popular. she claims that she doesn’t like being compared to taylor and doesn’t believe she resembles her, but she deletes comments that say that she doesn’t look like taylor and blocks people who say that she doesn’t really resemble taylor; and she often doubles down on this ‘not an impersonator’ thing but she has a cameo where you can buy a video message from, you guessed it, a ‘taylor swift impersonator’.

SO, into the weird copying of taylor swift and how deep it goes. we’ve all seen the run of the mill taylor lookalike girls who can just style their blonde hair however she does it currently and maybe throw on some red lipstick and boom, everyone says they look just like her. that’s not what ashley does, by a long shot. while ashley did begin with that, she then began to intentionally take on many aspects of taylor’s life and mannerisms. dressing like her, mimicking her voice and how she talks, adopting the unique way that taylor holds pencils and makeup brushes. she has bought two scottish fold cats, a white one that she named oliver and a grey/white one that she named after a grey’s anatomy character (familiar pair?). at this point, a lot of people believe that she’s gotten veneers that resemble taylor’s teeth and filler in her face to better imitate taylor’s face but i’m not really an expert on either of those, but i’ll share some before and after pictures of how she looked prior to this.. journey of unself discovery she’s on vs how she looks now that she has decided that instead of being ashley, she would rather be taylor swift.

this week, ashley came under fire because she had said that she had partnered with the grammys as an influencer and was apparently meant to walk the red carpet.. for some reason. anyway, the brand that she was dealing with had her pay to fly herself to LA and everything and then let her know that they were disinviting her for very vague reasons which at this time are still pretty unknown. i believe the response from the brand, sweetyhigh, was that they hadn’t saved a ticket for her, which just sounds.. idk. BUT ANYWAY. much to everyone’s amusement, ashley was liking comments from people tagging taylor and asking her to fix it, and ashley reached out to the ceo of the grammys personally and inquired about it and was more or less ghosted. a lot of people believe that taylor and/or tree heard that ashley was coming and axed it for obvious reasons, others believe that she was meant to be on the fan panel but cut from it because they realized she was actually maybe kind of not the type of fan they were looking for, theories abound right now and i’m personally of the opinion that taylor’s camp didn’t want her there and told the brand she was with not to bring her. 

TL;DR noitisashley13 is a tiktoker who is trying to wear taylor’s skin like a suit, she’s a very chronic liar, also an anti mask and anti vax trump supporter 

[solkteaa]

Hiiii! How are you ?

I Hope you had a good day. I saw your post about taking requests and wanted to request something :)

So my idea was like being Marie’s s/o ( so a x reader story ) that behaves like an old person as in hobby’s and such. This is like kinda based on the comment Callie makes on Marie’s hair…

Preferably I would like a gn!reader but you do as your comfortable I don’t really care! + you don’t have to take this if you don’t want to

Being Marie's S/O, but she has old lady habits.

[Author's note; I literally forgot about this, sorry!1!!! I didn't know how to put this into a story, so instead enjoy the head cannons]

Grrr I love doing these they're so fun

MARIE, who has one of those small beaded coin pouches

She used to collect these pouches and shows them off to you, but now she learned how to make them and even made you one!

She has one for coins and one for those little candies most grandmother always had.

She mainly keeps those strawberry ones and butterscotch ones.

She munches on them before concerts.

MARIE, who has all this money and could get a fancy, brand new Bugatti if she wanted but instead has a 2011 Volkswagen that she refuses to get rid of.

When you first saw her car it caught you off guard. I mean, she's definitely pretty wealthy but it doese make since she's not pretty materialistic, given her personality. Though you'd think she'd at least get a newer model.

When you asked her about why she hasn't gotten a new car yet, she felt judged.

"If you have a problem with my 2011 Volkswagen named Beatrice, you can get out and walk."

Don't judge her car she will fight you over it.

MARIE, who sits on the patio with her little "Fish in the area wants me" mug in her hands every morning.

It's her own little ritual she does.

Every now and then she'll ask you to sit with her, which is a honor as usually she doesn't want anyone to bother her or near her when she does this.

MARIE, who bakes

this originally started because growing up she would make cakes for her parents for their birthdays. To perfect her recipes she would bake everyday until it was were she liked it.

Now it's became a habit.

Considering your her S/O, she'll randomly bake for you.

It's not too rare for you to come home and there will be a fresh batch of cupcakes or brownies waiting for you!

She'll also pull you out of whatever your doing just to taste test for her.

"Marie, I'm in the middle of a turf battl-"

"I don't care, I need you the try this icing."

Just make sure your home when she's experimenting.

MARIE, who gardens in her freetime.

she's always had a green thumb for plants, but I'd like to think the one thing she can't keep alive is orchids.

It's just simply to hard not to overwater them, or give them too much sunlight.

Worse part, they're her favorite flower.

Don't give her orchids, she'll cry.

MARIE, also has a garden in her backyard and plants out through her house.

Her worse fear is being on tour for a month or more and coming back and her plants are dead.

So she begs you to check up on them for her!

Just keep in mind, you kill her plants, she'll kill you.

You swear she gives more love too her goddamn flowers than you at times, but as long as she's happy!!

MARIE, who's bedtime is strictly 7pm.

if she stays up any longer she's a moody and slightly clingy mess.

MARIE, who crochets.

She has many quilts and sweaters she's made.

She would make some custom just for you, but that's too much effort so instead she let's you have some of the ones she already made.

She's also tried sowing.

She kept on poking her fingers over and over again and had enough.

It looked like a murder scene and she'd went through a whole pack of bandaids.

So much for those expensive ass fabrics she bought to make you something.

Never again.

[Unfortunately ran out of ideas but this was fun anyways. Thanks for requesting!!!]