#i’ve seen enough put them in a throuple

[leonsliga]

Me in 2018: *reads Joshua/Thomas/Manuel smut* 😋

Me now: ooh mama Manu with his husband (Thomas) and their kid (Joshua) ☺️😍🥰

Just wanted to put it out there 😶‍🌫️

Bestie, all I’m gonna say is you are not alone 😅 I’ve also gotten into both narratives at one point or another! I think the thing is that the chemistry between them all is ambiguous enough that you could interpret it in all sorts of ways, ya know? I’ve seen some fics where the three are a family, and also some where they’re a throuple of sorts; there’s something for every taste 🤷‍♀️❤️ sounds like both of us have fallen in love with the Mama Manu/Papa Thomas and their hyperactive son Jo dynamic these days though :) I’m extremely biased, but I happen to think that’s the best of the bunch!

[charcubed]

Ted Lasso, the Roy/Keeley/Jamie triangle, and – dare I say it? –television history

No matter your preferred term for the throuple, OT3, or poly relationship on Ted Lasso, it’s worth appreciating.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the creative team behind Ted Lasso is doing something with RoyKeeleyJamie that doesn’t exist in precisely the same way anywhere else. In my opinion — and with the disclaimer that my frame of reference is (of course) limited—what they’ve done here is incredibly unique and maybe even groundbreaking.

These declarations of mine aren’t premature or at all conditional on how explicitly “official” their relationship may or may not get to be in the season 3 finale. I say this from my current perspective after episode 3x11, because after that episode I feel that what they’ve been doing with this part of the story has been made abundantly clear.

When it comes to Roy Kent, Keeley Jones, and Jamie Tartt, it would’ve been very easy and even expected for the writers to fall into the trap of making them into a typical love triangle at any point. Yet they never did. People might ascribe the traditional “love triangle” label to the trio because it’s a familiar frame of reference, but as a term I feel like it’s not actually applicable to the story beats we’ve seen.

These characters have never been in any true rivalry motivated by jealousy, insecurity, or possessiveness in regards to one another’s relationships. By contrast, within their triangle and amongst all of their separate pairings, their common denominator has been mutual attempts at building respect, communication, and accountability. Roy and Jamie’s conflicts with each other predated and were never centered around their love for Keeley, and Keeley was never put in a position of having to choose between the boys. Keeley was allowed to care about both of them in different ways, maintaining different relationships with each of them on her own terms. None of them pretended they couldn’t all care about each other in some capacity while still acknowledging boundaries and variation in their relationships. And while this shouldn’t be a big deal or a surprise–especially because Ted Lasso is a show defined by second chances, found families, and endless variations of love–it’s still refreshing enough to warrant praise.

As part of that, because the writers didn’t rely on nor fear the typical contrived “love triangle” dynamic, all three of the characters’ stories were kept heavily intertwined. They live and work in the same spaces, and they care about each other in various ways, so of course they interact and share advice. Their individual arcs were then intentionally informed by the ways they learned to grow because of each other, intertwining them further.

While I don’t know for sure if the writers’ goal was to eventually approach them as an inseparable group, I suspect it wasn’t, based on a couple of quotes I’ve seen float around. That means that they may have seen the potential for the non-platonic “triangle,” chose to lean into it relatively quickly (the show is only 3 seasons!), and continued to build it so it feels organic and cohesive. That speaks volumes as to their talent and it’s also part of what makes this situation so unique.

Along those lines: Ted Lasso is a mainstream ensemble show with several storylines in play. It’s not solely or primarily about romance. It’s also not a “queer show,” meaning that queer storylines were not a central pillar of its premise, nor were they part of its original appeal to or promise to audiences.

Of course, there are now several queer storylines/characters in season 3 amongst the ensemble cast that have clearly been planned from the start, including Colin, Trent, Keeley, etc. That’s fantastic, and anytime a show doesn’t “start out” as blatantly queer but later makes a natural place for the development of queer characters within its wider story, it’s a huge win. It’s also great storytelling!

But rarely is that the case when it comes to polyamory. While there are several movies and shows that include it… most poly representation is within the context of an already radically queer story, or within the context of a story that’s solely about being polyamorous. Any non-monogamous relationships–or even the potential for them–are very rarely given casual, “normalized” inclusion amongst an ensemble, or treated like just another romance in the mix.

And yet… Roy, Keeley, and Jamie seemingly have been, with beautiful complexity. It's like seeing a real windmill for the first time.

This “triangle that symbolizes home” has been built as a three piece, slow burn, collective romance. Equal weight has been given to developing them as individuals while developing all of the ways they intersect and connect, with no combination falling by the wayside. Between Keeley/Jamie, Roy/Keeley, and Roy/Jamie, you can chart the trajectory of how they all grew to love each other and how they’re now coming together as a group towards the end. It all plays out with various levels of romantic motifs across the board, and–as if that isn’t already enough!–with added subtext through costuming/wardrobe, set details, framing, and music. It has been formed and shaped with great attention to detail, and of course with unbelievably beautiful acting choices that bring it to life. (Analyzing those details at length would require its own post.)

This sort of thing may exist in other media, but I’ve personally never seen anything like it before. I’ve certainly never heard of it happening in such a high-profile, widely-loved show like this.

Here, with one episode left, the equal setup of the three now feels complete and ready for a future. Roy and Keeley aren’t back together yet, so Jamie wouldn’t feel like an add-on if that is indeed where they take the story. Roy and Keeley haven’t even kissed on screen this season, in a way that feels deliberate (and anticipatory). And it’s now clear that the relationship struggles any 2 characters may have had as couples can be improved upon by adding the third person, so they’d all be fully supported in a throuple.

For example: Keeley helps them all to be more vulnerable and open while also being a problem solver. Roy’s steady, heartfelt, but no-nonsense encouragement builds them all up with confidence but not toxic pride. Jamie now wears his heart on his sleeve, bringing a level of fun and joy that’s incomparably him. If Keeley sometimes needs space, Roy and Jamie are clearly happy to be indefinitely tied together (sometimes literally). If Jamie or Keeley want to be the life of any party, they’ve got a partner for the scene so Roy doesn’t feel obligated to match that energy. Roy and Jamie relate through football as a specific kind of language, understanding that part of each other as only they can while Keeley cheers from the side. Each of them has taught the others new skills along the way.

If any of them now enter into new relationship territory, it sure seems like they’ll do it all together as a full set–and be stronger for it.

Feel free to call me a fool, but at this point I’m confident that at minimum they’re going to leave this story hinting at the three of them getting together off screen in the future. That’s the baseline I personally really wanted, and it’s more than I’d have previously dared to hope for.

In terms of what could happen on screen: Do I want them all to have a conversation about dating each other and/or kiss and/or be shown in bed together? Yes. Do I think at least one (if not all) of those things are going to happen in the season finale? After episode 3x11, I find myself nearly convinced we’re going to get SOMETHING of the sort. It feels like a thread that needs pulling (or a Chekhov’s gun that needs firing?) after Roy and Keeley’s conversation in Jamie’s room. It’s the next bit of natural and needed evolution for all of them.

Or, as Trent Crimm once said, “You’ve done this over three seasons. . . thousands of imperceptible moments, all leading to their inevitable conclusion.”

But am I counting on that inevitable louder conclusion? Will I be disappointed if it doesn’t happen? Do I think any of that explicit behavior has to happen for this poly relationship to be considered canon and have merit?

Not at all. 

That’s not how I choose to view media. Personally, I never play the unwinnable game of debating the ever-shifting goalposts of what constitutes “good representation.” Relatedly, I think the word “queerbaiting” is almost always misused and probably shouldn’t exist at all. And I’m tired of the lack of nuance in these discussions where people act like fictional queer relationships have to hit a certain level of “canon enough” in order to “count.” Many of those arbitrary goals seem to often be determined by whether or not ~all audiences~ can magically be convinced by the queer relationship’s seeming legitimacy. But queer stories aren’t made for the people who are oblivious to them at best or looking for reasons to disregard them at worst; at the end of the day, they’re made for queer people, as well as for anyone who has media literacy and an open mind.

If you ask me, RoyKeeleyJamie is already “canon.” Anything else we get now is just a bonus. And ultimately–after everything I outlined above–I am very aware of how unique this particular situation is, and how more explicitly going “all the way” with any queer dynamic (let alone polyamory) is still never a simple or easy task for creators to accomplish. Even in 2023.

However.

IF they do it?

If everyone involved in both creating this show and approving it (which is very key) had the sheer courage to go all the way with this storyline, in a way that most mainstream audiences won’t be able to ignore or deny without sounding stupid?

Well.

Then they’d better get a great deal of overdue praise and acknowledgement. And I will be loudly losing what’s left of my mind in the best possible way.

(I had to write this now just in case I’m incoherent after the finale.)

Either way: I am FLOORED by what we’ve gotten up to this point! I’m thrilled! I’m having a great fucking time!

And I’m very, very grateful to the team that’s put together such a beautiful triangular love story for our enjoyment.

It truly feels like it’s one of a kind.

---------

I posted this on Medium as well here :)

(so I can pull the lunatic move of tweeting it @ the writers with a more legitimate link)

[a-trick-or-two-with-lepers]

Ranking My Favorite Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) Songs

Twenty-two songs. Five hours. One helpless, JCS-obsessed tumblr user who has so many other things they could be doing with their time. Get ready!

Disclaimers: I'm going to try to base my ranking on the soundtrack alone, but for some numbers, I really can't separate the song from the visuals. I won't be including "The Crucifixion" or "John 19:41," since those don't really count imo. The former, I will say, has some of my favorite chaos jazz that's ever been produced, so I'll give it that. Also! I LOVE this musical, and I LOVE this movie. Even the lowest songs have made it onto my playlists once or twice. So if I bash your fav, don't be too offended <3

22. Peter’s Denial - This one is really only low on the list because of how short it is. All things considered, I really like that funky little intro. Also, I think Mary, Peter, and whoever that third guy in the scene is with them (John??) would make a good throuple YEAH I SAID IT.  

21. Hosanna - I don’t know why I’m putting this one so low, either. It’s very fun and pleasant to listen to, and it’s got some great ensemble work, which is always something I jive with. I guess it’s just not as captivating to me as some of the other songs in this film. I actually like some other versions of this song better than the 1973 one (!!) Nevertheless, this song is genuinely really good and it shows that, hey, Jesus can smile! 

20. Then we are Decided - This is the only production of the musical I’m aware of that contains this song. I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it’s a great song. I don’t know if ALW+Tim Rice are physically capable of collaboratively making a bad song. Also, I love Bob Bingham and Kurt Yaghjians’ voices, so anytime I get to hear them, I’m happy. On the other hand, I can see why this one was taken out of most productions. It wasn’t in the original concept album, and it kind of breaks up the story. It does provide extra context for Caiaphas’s motivation, but it doesn’t say much that isn’t reiterated in “This Jesus Must Die.” There just really isn’t a place for it in most productions, which is such a shame. At least we got this amazing screengrab out of it. Annas, you creepy little shit, I love you.

19. Pilate’s Dream - It took me far too long to recognize that this is the same song as the second part of “Poor Jerusalem,” which is funny given that they are right next to each other in the movie. I love the acoustic guitar in this one, and Barry Dennen is seriously one of the most subtly expressive actors I’ve seen. You could watch this scene 1,000 times and still be picking up new context on your 1,001st viewing. As far as the song goes, it’s a very nice introduction to Pilate’s character. Also, I think that discordant “Pilate” the chorus sings at the end doesn’t get enough praise.

18. King Herod’s Song - First of all, the way this scene just. 1) Inserts itself into the film 2) Refuses to elaborate 3) Leaves. I love it. I love how uncomfortable Herod’s whisper singing makes me, I love his campy friends, everything about this scene is amazing. It’s an absolute 180 in terms of tone, but I kind of love it for that.

17. I Don’t Know How to Love Him - I find it interesting that the most popular song from this soundtrack is also what many consider to be the most boring. Personally, I find the song very beautiful and fascinating, but I can see why it’s skippable for some. I’m just a massive fan of Yvonne Elliman. I think the only people that have come close to her version are Helen Reddy and Sara Bareilles. Also, I like to read this song as someone rediscovering their own self-worth through love after experiencing trauma from past relationships, which I think is a very relatable struggle.

16. Pilate and Christ - Pilate is just. So sassy. What’s most impressive about this performance is that Barry Dennen considered himself an actor first and a singer second. His acting is certainly spot-on, but his singing is pretty fantastic as well! The tension between Pilate and Jesus in this scene almost rivals that of Jesus and Judas… almost.

15. Overture - An overture is meant to provide the audience with a bit of musical context for what they’re about to hear. This piece does a very good job at that. The electric guitars immediately invoke intrigue- then the horns come in, then the strings and percussion get going, and at this point, any viewer of this film would be hard-pressed not to be at least a little excited. Then the “Heaven on Their Minds” riff starts, and I, for one, was instantly hooked. I especially like the violin bit near the end. The chorus wordlessly mimicking what will be Judas’ sung betrayal is chilling. The whole thing is a beautiful combination of rock music and traditional broadway styling, which is a good description of the rock opera in general. 

14. The Arrest - I really like the leitmotif that is used whenever Jesus is overwhelmed by a crowd. It was used with the temple-goers, the lepers, and now with his own people that have turned against him (and some who cautiously maintain their support for him). Also, like Matt Berry said, the “Now we have him, now we’ve got him” bit of the song is pretty bone-chilling. 

13. Could We Start Again Please? - I really like this song. I know it wasn’t in the original concept album, but its placement actually makes sense, and Ms. Elliman, naturally, sounds heavenly. The melody of this song is really nice, and it doesn’t sound at all out of place in the movie. 

12. What’s the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying - This is one of those songs that’s hard not to move around to. It’s just so much fun! It also is Jesus’s first physical and vocal appearance, and WOW. Neeley is a truly underrated 70s rock singer. His voice is impeccably strong and gorgeous. He’s somehow been criticized for this role (mostly by angry Catholics) for being too untouchable and emotionless. I just can’t agree with that. Did any of those reviewers even listen to the movie they were watching? Neeley’s far-off gaze is not something he can change, and I for one think it adds to the character. He provides what I think is the best portrayal of Jesus Christ in any production of JCS. Besides that, the ensemble is doing great here, too! I promised not to get too involved in the visuals for this ranking, but I have to mention the movements in this scene. The apostles and women are just so jumpy and full of energy. It really makes the scene fun to watch. And Mary! I’m a long-time fan of Yvonne Elliman, and she was the only person I knew of beforehand going into this film. Her voice is so mature and unique, which is perfect for the role of Mary. She was the initial performer of this role in the concept album, the broadway show, and the film, and it shows. This role belongs to her. Obviously, it’s a bit annoying that we got yet another portrayal of Mary as an ex-sex-worker, but if we got “Strange Thing Mystifying” out of it, I can’t be too mad. Judas really gives off jealous bitch vibes here, but he does make some good points.

11. Everything’s Alright - Oh Yvonne, who allowed you to steal my heart? Seriously, she sounds so, so lovely in this song. This song is so calming. It uses a 5/4 time signature, which gives it distinction. The contrast between the cool comfort of Mary’s voice and the angsty gravel of Judas’ voice is very striking. Both Judas and Jesus hit some insanely difficult belts here, and they do so flawlessly. This scene also expands on the relationship between Judas and Jesus, which is jam-packed with not-entirely-heterosexual intensity. As the chorus repeats the titular line at the end with increasing volume and intensity, we get the distinct impression that everything is, in fact, not alright.

10. The Last Supper - I could go either way on the apostle’s part. It’s good, and it has some good harmonies in the latter parts, and it also reminds me of John Denver somehow? Anyway, the mellow gold aesthetic is one of my favs, but that’s not why I love this song. The absolute release of tension that is the fight between Jesus and Judas is captivating. My head moves as if I’m watching a heated tennis match when these two get going. I’ve seen versions of their interaction that just don’t go well on stage because the parts require so much energy and intensity, and sometimes they have this, but it just doesn’t sound good. But since this is a film, we can be confident that we are seeing and hearing the best takes from the actors. In this version, I can feel the heat between J and J, but they also sound fucking amazing while arguing. Their final interaction tugs at my heart. And these two actors portray their relationship with such authenticity that it’s almost hard to watch any other version without holding this up as the standard. Also, fun fact: they separate at exactly 1 hour into the film.

9. This Jesus Must Die - I have a big crush on both Caiaphas and Annas. Their voices just mesh so well together; Annas has these Al Stewart-like whimsical vocals, and Caiaphas has this deep, sexy growl. (I have a raging hard-on for good bass voices if you couldn’t tell). They sometimes put baritone singers in this role, which just doesn’t really work. This part needs a man who sounds like he just came out of the black lagoon and desperately needs a drink. Along with how it sounds, the lyrics of this song are super clever. The “Jesus is Cool” line is an inside joke in the community- they removed it from many popular productions, which is disappointing as hell. It’s one of the best lines in the song! Anyway, as far as “villain” songs go, this one is top-tier for sure.

8. Damned for all Time/Blood Money - I love me some good Judas angst. But in all seriousness, this song is ridiculously hard to sing. It would be enough with the sheer number of words sung in quick succession, but it is also written in a pretty high register. I, as a female alto, struggle to comfortably reach some of the notes, but Carl Anderson, of course, does it flawlessly. Of course, I’m also obsessed with Caiaphas and Annas, so any song they’re in makes me kick my feet like a schoolgirl. This scene, being the turning point in the show, makes its mark and has impeccable pacing for such a chaotic number.

7. Judas’ Death - Carl Anderson is a performer. I felt everything Judas felt in this scene. His reprise of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” is impossible to look away from or tune out. When I first watched this scene, I didn’t know Judas was going to reprise the fucking love ballad. My jaw was on the floor the whole time. Other actors sometimes make this part sound ugly and raw, which is fine, but emotion can be portrayed while singing while still sounding good. That’s what really gets me about this version. You can feel the raw emotion, and yet you can’t deny how good the singing is. I also didn’t know Judas was going to straight up hang himself, and that kind of shocked me. To think this movie was rated G back in the day! 

6. Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem - Oh man. I’ve gotta be careful here if I want to keep my ranking based on sounds alone, cause this scene is just visually AMAZING. I might make a post about how much I adore this scene- the choreography, the craftsmanship, the absolutely iconic shots, the goofy ass freeze frames- I just love it all so much. The song is nothing to sneeze at, either. It feels like something you’d hear in one of those fun-loving, joyful churches that promote same-sex marriage. Larry Marshall has such a cool voice; you can tell he really put his all into it. Apparently, he initially tried to reign it in so as to respect the source material, but Norman Jewison just told him to go all out. So that’s what he did. It makes for a damn good number. As for “Poor Jerusalem,” I love hearing Ted Neeley’s softer voice. When he reaches into his falsetto, it sends shivers up my spine. 

5. The Temple - I love a good ⅞ song. Additionally, I love a good ensemble song. In addition to that addition, I love seeing Jesus go off and flip tables and shit. But that’s not why this one is so high on my list. This song skyrockets up my personal ranking due to what happens between the temple and the leper scenes, when Neeley scream-sings “MY TEMPLE SHOULD BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER, BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT A DEN OF THIEVES! GET OUT! GET OUT!” I get actual chills every time I listen to him do that. I also really like the way the leper scene ramps up musically. It starts off slow and creepy, and ends in a wholly claustrophobic panic-inducing chant. The harmonies are also very pleasing. 

4. Trial Before Pilate - This song is a masterclass in rock opera composition. Barry Dennen’s performance is absolutely, without a doubt, the most incredible embodiment of this role that I’ve seen. Pilate’s songs were essentially made for him, because like Ms. Elliman, he was the first to play his respective role. I genuinely don’t know how he was able to perform Pilate night after night on tour, because this role is supremely demanding vocally. You can tell he is a professional, though, because you can’t just scream at the top of your lungs every night without good technique. I could say a lot more about this one, but I’ll save that for another time.

3. Superstar - I really wish the little guitar intro was kept in future versions of this song. (How many times can I talk about guitar intros in this ranking??) This song is SO! MUCH! FUN! I have to take a second to talk about the cinematography in this scene… it’s really something else. It mayyyy have influenced the ranking, just a bit. Nonetheless, it’s Carl Anderson singing, so of course, this song sounds stupendous. He hits those high notes like it’s nothing. Also, I have to say: this number is very clearly directly influenced by motown-style music, and hearing a black man singing it just feels right. In fact, rock as a genre can be traced back to music created and sustained by black folks. It makes sense that my favorite versions of this musical involve diverse casts. Anyway, I really like this song because of how direct it is with its message. It’s not only Judas asking these things of Jesus, but us as the audience. Why would he put himself in such a bad position? How could he let it get this out of hand? Did he lose his message along the way? Contemplative shit like that set to a 70’s disco dance scene has me losing my mind, and I’m absolutely in love with it.

2. Gethsemane - I was considering putting this song lower, both to piss off my discord friends and because I genuinely enjoy listening to other songs from this soundtrack more, but I just had to give it a high-ranking spot. By this point you must be well aware of my love for Ted Neeley and his rock-god voice, but he really, truly steps it up here. It says a lot that he is still able to perform this song at almost 80 years old. He cares about what he’s doing. A lot. And while I’m not religious, some of my favorite music comes from religious people simply because they believe they are singing for something bigger than themselves. I strive to achieve that passion with my own voice and music, and I believe it can be done without a connection to a higher being. You just have to trust your own voice and focus on your message/role, and Mr. Neeley does not fail on this front. All of this, and he hits the g5 note perfectly. He seriously sounds so goddamn amazing and I’m tired of people saying he’s overrated. Give this man the respect he deserves.

1. Heaven on Their Minds - I could gush about Carl Anderson’s performance of this song for hours, and I mean HOURS. Not only does he completely embody the role of Judas, but he sounds damn good while doing it. He combines this gravelly rasp with clean, clear notes, and every belt is perfectly executed. The agonized fade-out at the end is not something that’s really possible on-stage, so I appreciate it all the more in the movie. This was the first song in the musical that I saw in full, and it’s really what started my obsession. Even though HOTM is a nearly perfect musical theater/rock song, it was Mr. Anderson’s performance of it that got to me.  To me, he IS Judas whenever he’s on screen. His voice is just… spectacular. Additionally, as an agnostic person, the lyrics in this song really resonate with me. “You’ve begun to matter more than the things you say” instantly became one of my favorite lines in musical theater upon first listen. Like I said, I could go on and on about this one, so I’ll just go ahead and stop myself here.

FINALLY! DONE! Whoo, that took much longer than expected (probably because I kept getting distracted) but I had a lot of fun making it. Lemme know your thoughts/opinions/insults/threats in the comments/reblogs/tags <3

[idiopath-fic-smile]

Leverage ot3 fic bit

another installment in the “donate at least $25 to a BLM-related cause and i’ll write at least 250 words of fic” series, which is still ongoing!

In retrospect, brunch was a mistake. Hardison was a grown-ass man; he could admit when he was wrong, on the (very) rare occasion it happened.

It had seemed like a good call, was the thing. Eliot was high-strung at the best of times. He could give a cup of coffee the jitters, as Nana would say. What better way to lower Eliot's guard a little than a gourmet outing where they could ply him with whatever esoteric food was trending on Instagram, Parker could eat something that wasn't repped by a grinning cartoon character with cold dead eyes and no pants, and the combined team of Parker and Hardison could down just enough mimosas to stumble onto the words for what Eliot meant to them, romantically speaking? (But not so many mimosas that should the touchy-feeliness get physical, anyone would feel gross about consent. Hardison had done his research.)

Grass + Spoon had good ratings online, their website was not a cringe-factory of early-aughts design choices, and a quick look at the blueprints showed that if Eliot did, in fact, reject them, Parker could easily hide from her feelings in the vents.

Simple. Straightforward. A slam dunk.

The fact that sports analogies had started to bleed into his vocabulary would’ve given Hardison-from-five-years-ago an aneurysm. But Hardison-from-five-years-ago’d had been blind to a lot. At least he had always appreciated Parker, had seen from the beginning that she was so much more than just a hot, dubiously sane cat burglar. He couldn’t say the same for Eliot, who had initially tripped off Hardison’s bully sensors, the middle school synapses in his brain that were on constant high alert for guys who could--and would--break Hardison in half for fun.

It had taken months to realize that Hardison was just comically wrong. Eliot, who taught kids self-defense as almost a reflex and cradled puppies gently in his big, scarred hands. Eliot, who handled a knife like an extension of his body but mostly used that blade to make ceviche. Eliot, who would snap a guy’s neck without a second thought if it meant keeping Parker--or Hardison, but more importantly Parker--safe.

Eliot, who was currently staring at the menu like it had slapped his mom.

“What?” said Hardison.

“There’s a hamburger on here,” said Eliot. “A hamburger.”

“It’s got an egg on it,” Parker observed. “That’s brunchy, right?”

“Brunch requires a careful balance of flavors and components,” Eliot said. “You can’t just crack an egg on dinner and call it brunch.”

Parker, who considered Frosted Flakes a pizza topping, nodded distractedly.

“We could always open the brewpub earlier on the weekends, if you wanna show them how it’s done,” Hardison offered.

Eliot narrowed his eyes.

Hardison widened his.

“You’re plotting something,” said Eliot. “I’ve seen that look before, and you ain’t as subtle as you think.”

Well. He wasn’t wrong. But blurting out any version of “Me and Parker wanna date you; how do you feel about throuples?” felt a little too on the nose. It was like trying to explain an inside joke to someone who hadn’t been in the room--you had to ease in, you had to give context, or Eliot would be out of there like a shot.

“These things must be done delicately” to quote--well, the Wicked Witch of the West. (Wizard of Oz was probably not geeky enough to neutralize the basketball metaphor earlier. Not that Hardison was keeping score, but.)

Parker’s gaze had slid beyond them, slightly to the side.

“What?” said Hardison.

“The waitress is crying,” she said.

More was definitely coming. Hardison and Eliot waited. “I think this place is mistreating their staff,” said Parker slowly. “Shorting their wages, stuff like that.”

Hardison and Eliot didn’t press her. Parker knew what she was doing; if she saw enough clues to paint a picture, that was good enough for them.

Eliot put down the menu and leaned in. “What’s our move?” he said quietly.

Hardison looked between the two of them, their faces intent, wheels already spinning. God, he loved them. Talking about feelings could wait.

Let’s go steal a brunch spot.

[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

[ingravinoveritas]

Thought the same, I also think it'd be fair to assume that the lockdown had everything to do with it. Must be a bit of a shock to suddenly get to be part of an event like this again. As ostentatious and stressful these things are, attending them is half of D&M's lives as actors, that's what they're used to and that's their understading of normal. And suddenly it's back. So that's quite emotional in the best way and he was clearly very happy and soaking up all of the energy around him. He missed this.

It's well known that D is somewhat of a workaholic, anyway.

I suppose he's the kind of person that needs to be kept busy to be able to then properly relax, or he'll have too much nervous energy, I think. Or gets frustrated/restless. So that's one thing. (Just speculating, though).

And also: After a year of nothing close to the magnitude of the NTAs, even though you might be used to this kind of insanity in general, it'll still feel overwhelming if you didn't experience it for so long. I used to live in the countryside for about a year and when I came back to the city, where I had spent all of my life, I had a huge moment of "wtf, help", although I loved being back. 😄 It just felt a bit like sensory overload, so maybe that's what it was like for him too and it was all just a bit sudden or a bit much. But not in a bad way. Again, he seemed incredibly happy. Buzzing, even.

(A bit unsteady, maybe, but that's not much of a problem when you have not only an aodring wife but also a proud boyfriend, who's adamant to not leave your side, so...)

(Grouping both of these together since they’re related.)

“As ostentatious and stressful these things are, attending them is half of D&M's lives as actors, that's what they're used to and that's their understanding of normal. And suddenly it's back.”

This, this, this! Absolutely 100% agreed with everything you’ve written here, Anon. I think David really was soaking in all the energy and atmosphere of the night and just didn’t even realize how much he’d missed it all until he was there and it was happening. (I also didn’t know about him being a workaholic until @faggghaggg told me, and I’ve heard more about it from @thetardisisblueandroseistoo. So that is good to know, too.)

And Anon #2 you are also correct, David has previously gotten emotional when receiving other awards (I’ve seen the clip of the special recognition award, and honestly it was so sweet to see how touched he was). So between that and what you also mentioned about the challenges of filming Des/what was happening with his family, plus the emotion of being back in an award ceremony environment, and then Michael being the one to give him the award on top of all that...well, it’s no wonder David must’ve been overwhelmed. Or, as you put it, Anon #1...“buzzing.”

And I couldn’t agree more with your last statement: “But that's not much of a problem when you have not only an adoring wife but also a proud boyfriend, who's adamant to not leave your side, so...” David more than had enough firm hands to keep him steady that night. It is interesting to me, though, that Georgia was adoring from more of a distance, whereas Michael got to be proud right up close and personal--the hug, the press room photos, and this moment at the after party. You can just feel the ‘throuple’ vibes coming off them here:

So much (well-deserved) attention for our darling David, so little time. What a night indeed...

[popculturebuffet]

Scottrospective: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together! or Days of Summer

Hello all you happy scottaholics! Welcome back to those of you who’ve read the rest of this retrospective and welcome to those of you just joining us. This is the Scottrospective, my look at all 6 volumes of Scott Pilgrim, the game and the movie. It’s all the video game refrenes, slice of life story telling and boob punches you can handle!

It’s been three months since I left off with “The Infinite Sadness” , and while I intended to cover this one for Valentine’s Day, my schedule got away from me and with March being full up, this ended taking till April

I”m not too put off by it though as the hiatus between these two reviews is fitting for this one both in story and out. In story there’s a couple month time skip between books, while out.. this book got delayed a few times.  

This is notable to me at least because this was the first volume of the series I bought when it came out. As i’ve brought up before I came into the series via the Free Comic Book Day Issue and the second and third volumes, picking one up later. I still have my original copies despite no longer really needing them thanks to having the color editions in general. Always will provided something dosne’t happen to them. So this was my first instalment that I got to read fresh and got to wait for and be hyped about and i’d saved enough money that I was able to pre-order it. So the experince of waiting and waiting for the book only to keep seeing it slide back is vivid in my mind as is the frustration I felt having the one thing I COULD NOT WAIT FOR, keep going further and further back. 

So with this long wait and the fact I bought this one when it came out, as I would for the next two which didn’t get delayed thank god, this volume naturally means a lot for me. When I wrote Scott Pilgrim fanfiction, this volume’s status quo is what I based it on. It was the coolest to me and the one I loved to reread the most. It has the most contained story, the most character growth at the time, and the best art due to Bryan’s style having finally hit it’s stride. Not that the art for volumes 1-3 is bad mind you, but it’s very clear his style was changing and shaping into what it is now with each one and while it’d change a bit more, this volume is where the style and quality everyone thinks of when they think of this series and the kind you see on various art done from it comes from. 

So as you can tell i’m excited for this one. Before we get started there WERE two shorter comics released between this one both for Free Comic Book day, the first of which, Free Scott Pilgrim, is the reason I got into the series and the second, the Wonderful World of Kim Pine .. was both delightful and sets up Kim moving in with Hollie for this volume. Originally I intended to cover these in this review.. but I realized they wouldn’t of helped the pacing and this review is going to be way longer than my standard as is.

So instead I came up with the compromise. I did review them.. but as bonus reviews on my patreon. For just one buck a month you can read them and help me reach my stretch goals which now include reviews of Lost at Sea, Seconds and SnotGirl, aka Bryan’s OTHER comics. You can find my patreon THROUGH THIS LINK HERE if your intrested in the exclusives or helping me reach my reviews. I also intend to do an exclusive of Monica Beetle, a short comic Bryan did starring Scott’s dad in the 70s at some point so keep your eyes peeled for that, as well as the three strips he did of Style, the comic that gave us the prototypes for Lisa and Kim. 

I will talk about their connections and setups for this volume briefly: FSP sets up the next ex as a ninja, with Roxy having a bunch of posters come to live and pummel our boy, while Wonderful World has Hollie tell Kim she can move in with her. It’s not much, hence why i made these exclusives but they are good stories, so check them out. And with that JOIN ME UNDER THE CUT, as we enter Scott’s world once more as he grapples with the past, employment, and saying the L-Word... which might be Lesbians. I don’t know. Find out bellow!

So we open Two Months after Volume 3 with a beach birthday party! Complete with Kim in a swim suit!

But it’s for Julie who lobs a volley ball at Scott’s head when he and Ramona try to make out. 

I also dont’ know if “Manfiesting out of all the world’s collectives sorrows” counts as a “birth” necessarily but whatever. I love a good beach story. It’s just a fun setitng for swimming, romance and battling a giant crab with the help of the bird what lives in your backpack.

So after the beach our heroes get dinner and Ramona sweetly calls Scott the nicest guy she’s ever dated. He responds with “That’s sad”. Blunt, but entirely accruate. Julie calls it pathetic and tries to counter Ramona RIGHTFULLY saying “who the hell asked you?” something that really should come after EVERYTHING Julie said with “Back off bitch i’ts my birthday”

So later that night Sex Bomb-Omb has a beach sing along, and I can’t help but notice Neil’s hairy legs. 

I mean yes it does make since for a 19 year old to have leg hair, but of all the characters besides Stephen, the ONLY other character we’ve seen it with to give it to, why the character you specifically single out as “Young” it’s just a weird choice I never noticed before. 

But anyways Julie has to whine about it because she’s Julie, she can’t stand other people being happy and complains the song...

One of my faviorite moments of the series. Knives puts a nicer spin on it, she’s here too and not over with Neil because, as we’ll find out later they broke up, but she just asks if Knives should be drinking. She shouldn’t but for fucks sake lady she was just trying to talk. I also do like that despite Julie trying to control Ramona’s love life, you know the thing the VILLIANS are doing, Ramona cannot stand her now.. and honestly probably never did. 

But Julie, SOMEHOW turns out to be right for once as Kim and Knives have disappeared later that night, and Scott elects to go look for them. Also Ramona says she wants to marry kim while drunk after Julie asks if she does. The throuple is strong with these three... serioulsy that’s my one true pairing for all three now. I mean it ballances out their collective flaws, it’s cute and Ramona is just as into her boyfriends ex as she is her actual boyfriend even when she’s not hamered. Why the fuck not?

Scott instead finds the two making out. I will confess I shipped these two when I was younger.. but I don’t. Not because their gay or anything or because I found another ship for them but because the age gap is still just as wide as it was for Scott. The game did not get this memo and made them a couple which is... ehhhhhhhhh. I mean I wouldn’t mind either being bi, but it just brings up the same problems even if their both hammered. I also question why this scene exists. No really outside of one face punchingly dickish comment from Scott later, this never comes up again and it doesn’t effect Kim’s or Knives character any. Why have this? it’s clearly not fanservice, it’s just a thing that happened. And while Scott Pilgrim as a series does have some of those, as does life and that’s fine.. this is a bit too major, i.e. Kim and Knives, two of the main cast, making out, drunkenly or not, to just.. gloss over you know? I feel Kim would feel majorly guilty for this, as she has the most active moral compass of the main group, and Knives would be massively confused but it’s just.. forgotten because I dunno. In a story that’s otherwise pretty stellar this stands out as an utter waste of potential. I’m not saying have them hook up, gay or not it’s still not better than what Scott did, but have them at least talk about it and have both grow or something from it. Sheesh. 

So we cut to.. another day. Maybe the next day I dunno but it’s August. Point is Scott and Wallace are grocery shopping and Wallace notes they can’t get fancy mayo as their barely in budget. I would’ve glossed over this scene... but @panur​ pointed out back around the Infinite Sadness review that this scene reveals something very intrestng: Scott.. is kind of a fincial burdern to Wallace. Before this while Scott mooched off him it wasn’t all that clear that Wallace was struggling. 

But here we notice that outside of some Havarti, it’s just the simplest stuff imaginable: turkey, bread, boxed mac and cheese ramen noodles... it’s nto BAD stuff, I have all of that in my house and it’s good stuff... but it’s not the kind of thing that you need to carefully budget for. Now granted part of this probably is Wallace as he likely spends a LOT on drinks, condoms and two 2 liters of diet soda a day.. but while he really needs to adress his alcohol issues, the rest is fair. He should be allowed to have as much sex and diet coke as he wants it’s his money. Same with the havarti. He earned it if he wants some really delcious cheese with herbs, seriously Havarati is the best, then that’s his bidness. But the rest of the time he’s barely managing to get  a basketfull of cheap food.. because he has to provide for Scott. It’s clearly something Scott dosen’t get and something I can relate to not getting. It took me a while to get how hard it is to budget for a full family, let alone two people on one income like Wallace has to. But Wallace is working on a nice job... but still a call center or something. He can’t pay for everything and the finccial stress is about to give as their landlord wants to meet with them. And as we’re about to learn things were even worse than we thought. 

Our heroes head home where we get a truly iconic conversation when, over margeritas (again proving my point that while Scott certainly isn’t HELPIGN wallace’s finacials, it’s not all on him)

This will be imporant later.. both the Lesbians part and Scott’s struggle saying it. he tried earlier on the beach but couldn’t get it out and Ramona clearly didn’t want to hear it as she kapt sshhhhing him.. playfully of course but still. 

So some time later it’s moving day! Kim is moving into Hollie and Josephs, and Scott, Stephen and Jason are helping. You might be wondeirng who the hell Jason is. He’s Kim’s boyfriend. I do not likes him. Not because he’s kim’s boyfriend, getting upset because a fictional character you fancy is dating is just patently stupid. I’ts like getting upset a celebrity crush is in a relationship: you had no chance anyway why. I wasn’t even bothered as a kid. I don’t really like him.. because he has no real personaliy and no real baring on the plot and I struggle to think why Bryan included him other than for a really annoying plot twist next time, which does not help my liking him knowing what’s coming. 

But while our heroes help our heroine move in, and Scott is suprised Hollie is there despite Kim having told him a minute ago she was moving in with her, something I can relate to sadly, we get something vitally plot important; Stephen passes Joseph’s room.. and notices he has a small recording setup in his room. Stephen quickly begs him to record the band’s album and Joseph agrees if only because he finds Stephen hot. Eh i’ve seen better relationships start on less, fair enough. And yes I said relationship more on that in a bit. 

So after a brief scene of Scott and Ramona having lunch where Scott fails to know her age and when Ramona says he could just ask.. hea sks and she dosen’t tell, not a bad scene character wise just not very plot important and probably should’ve bene swapped in order with the previous scene, we get to the next day. There’s a heat wave so Wallace orders Scott to go to the mall maybe find a job. He emphasises that. 

Instead Scott just sorta bums around thirst but nto having any money.. until an old face shows up. 

For those who forgot like Scott has, it’s Lisa Miller from the Volume 2 flashback, the girl who had a crush on Scott and was close friends with him and Kim. After a tackle hug  and some panic Scott eventually remembers.... if in a curiously unique and self serving way

At the time this was just hilarous. Now it’s very clear foreshadowing for the big twist in Volume 6. The two catch up while Scott is very clearly attracted to her but very clearly dosen’t want to be, with Lisa wondering where kim is, finding about Ramona, etc, before offering Scott lunch as the two catch up and Scott is very conflicted about how he feels. It’s nice visual stuff as he’s blushing, something more clear in the color version and trying to desperatley sort things out. As for why Lisa’s here she’s moving to the states soon, but is staying with her sister for now. 

So after an incdental scene with Wallace we catch up with Knives, who has broken up with Neil. And after some talk about Clash at the Demonhead, Tamra notes Knives apparently put a big x on her shrine of Scott... which baffles Knifves as she sure as hell didn’t do it and is still, sadly, obessed with Scott as ever. Granted Tamra isn’t at all helpful here claiming she did it even when she says she didn’t, is clearly confused and while yes we don’t know who else would care Tams, that just makes it all the more creepy. Stop gaslighting your bestie, she’s already got enoguh issues. She dosen’t need thinking she might have a split personality on top of the stalking, obession over a guy who has no intrest in loving her back, and attempted stabbings. Knives dosesn’t get a ton of focus in this one sadly. She kind of takes a back seat, and while sh’es not GONE from the volumle and someone close to her does impact it, she dosen’t really have any personal progression, negative or positive, like she does in every other volume, a shame since her personal jouney is one of the most intresting of the main cast. 

Anyways that night Scott hangs out with Lisa, having not gotten around to telling Ramona she exists yet and plays a game of find the Kim Pine. She goes to Neil’ and Stephen’s place for practice, but finds no one there and Neil being a dick... get used to that it’s going to get about 80 times worse soon enough. Though we do get this classic panel i’ve gotten some use out of 

He goes to Kim’s place, but she , Hollie and Satan’s Misterss have all left to Sneaky Dee’s, the local mexican place, for something to eat and Stephen is either high or doing.. something with Joseph. 

Yeah i’m not hiding that Stephen turns out to be gay in the final volume or cheating on Bitch and a Half with Joseph. And even if I hate Julie with the power of a frozen sun, I still dont’ think cheating on her is kosher. He could’ve just broken up with her and while part of it was likely confusion, and he could also be bi and not decided which one he wanted to be with, it’s still a dick move.. and later makes him a hypocrite but that’s a rant for next volume. 

So our heroes FINALLY find Kim, along with Hollie and Mouthface. And a nice thing I like is that Kim and Lisa are just.. increidbly close, happily catching up and making plans to hang before Lisa leaves, that despite Lisa having feelings for Scott the two ended up as close and She and Scott did and i’ts sweet to see. it’s also just.. rare to see Kim GENUINELY happy. I mean look at her

It’s not like she HASN’T smiled across the series but normally she’s just so miserable, likely because her best friends are a grumbly asshole who forces them to hang out with a raging typhoon of bitchiness, and an insenitive asshat who she never got closure with. This is the first decent human being whose not Ramona or Hollie, and that last one’s not going to last, in a while. It’s genuinely sweet to just see her.. enjoy the moment for once, honestly engaged with someone. Ramona shows up and finally meets Lisa, who apparently was on Degrassi.. I mean she says candaian show no one ever watched, and I watched that plenty but i’d like to think she was on there for a season or two. I liked Degrassi.. I honeslty miss it and think it could use some form of revivial and think porting it to netflix was a smart decision.. what wasn’t so smart was not having the other seasons leading into it on there. Need to watch more of it. 

So the next day Ramona stumbles into Scott’s dreams and both are annoyed, with Ramona suggesting he get a job. This finally gets him to try. He asks about Wallace’s work but understandably, he dosen’t really want scott there and asks if he even knows. So Scott sets out to ask his other friends for jobs, while Knives shows up saying she’s “totally not stalking him” but someone is following HER, a mysterious spiky haired dude in a black leather jacket, shades and with a sword on his back. Whu-oh. 

He tries Second Cup, with Julie annoyed that Stephen’s recording.. it’s hard to tell if she’s annoyed because she’s a bitch or because Stephen is both gneuinely annoying right now and clearly screwing around behind her back. My take?

But Scott realizes maybe getting a job at his Sister’s place of work who also works with his arch enemy might be stupid and backs out. He next tries Kim’s, but backs out of that too, admitting to kim it’d be stupid and Kim lists off all the reasons (His lack of resume, the fact them working together would be stresful and his ountain of late fees) why that’d be stupid, but in a jovial way. For once i’ts clear that while she’s still taking the piss out of them she isn’t mad at Scott.

In fact she genuinely helps him get a job, taking him to Stephen’s work since hers is dead right now anyway, a vegan place.  While Scott naturally compares things to a job system as he’d start as dishwasher while Stephen taught him prep, Scott agrees to genuinely take this seriously and Stephen’s boss decides “eh why not” when he asks her to employ him. Scott is gainfully employed baby! God I miss that. Seriously i’m not pimping my patreon for shits and giggles. 

But as he celebrates and Kim wishes she could punch his life in the face, they run into some trouble on the way home: Katana man who slices a motherfucking bus in half and chases them, with Scott reluctnat to fight because he has a sword and Scott does not, which is valid. He does escape though using subspace. He and Kim part awkardly and he returns home to Wallace throwing a party with two intresting charcters, a woman and a man of color, one of the few in the entire work, who are never seen again. 

The next night is practice.. or rather recording, and we start to see Neil get edged out, with him unable to come due to exams and clearly not happy about it, and Stephen just kind of ignoring anything he cares about like the dickhead he is. It dosen’t get any better as “recording” ends up just being Scott, Ramona, and Ratfaced Knacker watching bored with Joseph and Stephen work. Eventaully Scott and Ramona decide to get out of there as things are getting tensed between thing one and thing bitch, and leave.. and take Julie with them for some reason. 

So the three have dinner with Lisa, Kim, and Jason before The Mummies Curse thankfully leaves. Jason thought they were friends. 

We also get this exchange. 

I mean.. she is the better option. She his THE option. But before we can get the obvious answer of 

Stephen comes in with Knives. He smuggled her in. This leads to problems when Scott returns from the bathroom to find Queen Bitch throwing a bitch fit about him having brought her and screechs at her when she dares to talk to him “How do you even know my name?” Well Ted Cruz, you see when someone is an actually thoughtful and likes other people, they keep track of things about them and don’t constnatly tear them down or assume their partneer is automatically bonking a 17 year old instead of you know, actually forming something of a friendship and not shutting her out sensing she needs this friend group. Some people are not vacous piles of vitriol who care about nothing but themself and seem to go off at the slightest thing. 

Scott takes Ramona home but finds a drunken barely awake wallace so no sexy times. Not that he could anyway as the next day is the meeting with Peter their landlord. 

Peter reveals they’ll have to clear out by the 27th as their lease was for one year and their paid up.. as in only the first and last month. The two part melacholy knowing this sucks and isn’t a great situation. Then it’s time for Scott to work work, angelica, work work, eliza and peggy. After grueling day, can relate, he runs into  a wisp on teh wend and steels himself for a fight.. okay he bitches about it being too hot but it’s Scott. so it’s expected. He does get a hit in on his mysterious persuer.. and that’s when we meet Roxy.

Via boob punch, something Scott’s not proud of but in his defense, as Roxy keeps complaning about it, he was blindly struggling for a hit and din’t know the next Ex, or any of them, were female.. not that Ramona didn’t suggest it loudly enough by empahsising “exes” but scott’s a bit of a fuckwit. She mentions “everyone allways remmebers you”.. which is kind of ominus and tells me she tried to hook back up with ramona despite her having a boyfriend and she rejected her. Still on good terms though. But this confusing encounter ends with Roxy vowing she’ll get him next time gadget, next time. 

So we get some assorted slice of life scenes with the band, lisa and what have you as Scott tries to get in touch with Ramona but she keeps avoiding him. THat’s not worrysome at all. And Lisa brings up high school while drunk and clearly hits on Scott. He sidesteps it with her drunkness.. but this clearly isn’t over or going to stop being a problem. 

Speaking of problems Wallace makes Scott confront the truth: He either needs to find a new place to live or commit to staying, though Wallace is trying to nudge him toward asking Ramona to move into her place. Scott starts thinking it over, it being very hard especially since, as Stephen points out this was his very first place of his own.. but Stephen also points out these things are temoporary.. right before Scott ducks from katana guy. 

At work Scott wonders who it could be, though it turns out Stephen’s met him before, as he’s brought his family in here. So he’s PROBABLY not one of the exes.. but it leaves the question why he wants to cut Scott in half like Dewey Cox’s brother. But it turns out he’s nto the only enemy Scott’s casually running into as Roxy is there too.. with Ramona. 

The two talk, clearly about Scott and Lisa with Roxy trying to convince her he’s cheating and Ramona rightfully trusting Scott: while he IS attracted to her, he’s been fighting it every step of the way. Scott storms over to find out what’s going on and while Ramona is more distracted by his new job, she eventually realizes Roxy did attack him and he simply dscribed her poorly when he mentioned the incident over the phone. Scott is confused as he dosen’t get it. Is she with one of the exes what? After some hiinting from both parties, and Roxy rightfully mocking him for not getting the obvious... he finallyg ets it in the grandest way possible. 

So Roxy gets ready to fight and Scott can’t because sword, and gets fired in the background as he hides in Ramona’s bag and Ramona prepares to step in. Roxy screams at her for trusting him and defending him when Ramona.. just dosen’t her boyfriend to be bisected by her ex. A fight insues and a damn cool one at that. I honestly wish the movie had taken more from this, but simply didn’t have time leading it to instead be more like the envy fight with a bit of the Winfried Hailey fight from Free Scott Pilgrim. 

Roxy chases her and Ramona rightly points out Scott can’t run forever but takes him into Subspace.. where Roxy heads them off, having “taught you everything you know bitch” leading to a cool fight in the wintery version of subspace. Again why THIS wasn’t used instead I have no real idea. We also find out she’s a half ninja but she eventually leaves afer Ramona presses that button.. but Rammy is actually apologetic about it and Roxy’s “I hope you and your 24 children are happy together comment” is telling. 

Upon this readthrough of the volume.. I realized Roxy is the most layered and intresting of the exes next to Gideon himself. None of them are out and out terrible, but most of them have pretty simple motives: to kill Scott, ???, profit. Or in Todd’s case to kill scott, bang around and be a dick. But Roxy.. genuinely wants Ramona back. She’s the ONLY one who does: Gideon kinda does, but only in the sense that he wants her for his collection. But Roxy geninely still loves her, admitting so during this fight. And it’s not like she has no chance: out of the 7 exes she’s the ONLY one who parted with Ramona on anything resembling good terms. While intrestingly we don’t find out WHY they broke up, Ramona didn’t cheat on her like she did everyone else she was with. The two have coffee and hang out and Ramona geninely dosen’t even consider until Roxy tries to attack Scott that she’d really try killing him and tries her best to talk her out of it. But what holds Roxy back is her anger: She’s so bitter about the fact Ramona is bi or pan, so dedicated to viewing Ramona’s very orintation as a betryal (though Ramona calling it a phase dosen’t help and the movie RIGHTLY has Roxie comment on it and fly into a rage over it), and so driven to make sure the woman she loves dosen’t get hurt again that it blinds her to the fact Ramona dosen’t love her the same way anymore, and that while Scott is objectively a dick, and a cheater, and a greasy buttcrack pooflap, he is not a terrible person. A meh one sure, but he’s got good to him. She’s so biophobic she simply can’t see he’s a harmless moron.. well harmless to Ramona even with the cheating. He’s killed two people at this point and will kill again. Also she apparently has issues with only being a half ninja but this is never adressed. Point is Roxy’s really grown on me and is now probably my faviorite ex.  

Scott and Ramona talk it over on their way to Sneaky Dees and Scott finally asks to move in and gets a yes. His response is downright adorable. 

So at Sneaky Dee’s Young Neil is just a bit absolutely irate with Scott.. which isn’t fair as them not playing things is entirely on the blocky face asshole. Yell at him.. which he does, pointing out that they haven’t played shows in forever, and that the lady who owns Sneaky Dees not only runs shows, in the upstairs space, but has been asking them to play. Kim is rightly curious about this and to both Stephen just keeps saying “We’re recording right now.” And some of you may of wondered why I hate him. Well while he’s not exctly stellar in the first half in the second Stephen becomes goddman insufferable, slowly destroying the band for his affair and not giving one iota of a shit what anyone else wants. He’s a selfish, egomanical cheating prick. And yes I get it their recording an album.. but doing live shows would give them extra practice, MONEY, even if likely not a lot and exposure for said album. I get professoinal bands stop touring for a bit to do an album but you are not a professional band, and said bands still often iron out the album on the road. God you suck.

But while Scott sidesteps this argument he walks into another where Ramona confronts him about lisa about liking her.. and he rightly says if there was anything, which there was not it’s in the past. And while yes he is a cheater, she does not know this yet. This plot honestly would’ve worked better if she learned about the knives thing sooner, but instead she just comes off as paranoid for listening to Roxy about something that isn’t happening. Yes Scott’s been shown to be attracted to her.. but he’s been ashamed of it, fighting it and in denial about it, and is clealry all in with Ramona. Being attracted to someone else on a phsyical level does NOT mean your relationship is doomed. 

Things get worse as he goes home to ruminate.. and instead sees a man’s Penis. And Wallace..is at his second most unsymapthetic, not letting Scott get a shirt or a bus pass or something like a decent human being for no goddamn reason. Usually when Wallace is a dick to Scott, Scott’s earned it and badly needs a slap in the face. Here he’s just being a prick because.. the plot needs him to? I dunno it dosen’t work for me. It’s in character, I just don’t have to like it. 

So with no other options.. Scott ends up at Lisa’s. And so we get the last temptation of Scott. Lisa admits, embarassed that she’s been wearing sexy dresses and what not specifically to attract him, with Scott also mentioning how things are rough, Lisa tries to fight it herself pointing out he’s with ramona.. and when Scott points out they didn’t do anything in the past Lisa points out they should’ve.. and maybe they should now. 

We fade to black as Scott ends up in a dream and finds Roxy, who naturally has the same skill and tries to Freddy Kruger him before he wakes. He finds Lisa but they didn’t do anything: Scott pushed her away and babbled about how much he loved Ramona instead. As i’ve said.... his heart was never with LIsa... and even when he was so close to giving in he couldn’t. It’s a tangible sign of growth: He screwed around on Knives with Ramona, and given how bad things were getting with Ramona, it would be oh so easy to once again ditch a relationship the minute he found something else and oh so understandable. But... he dosen’t. He loves Ramona even if he hasn’t said it, he wants to make this work, and he’s changed. She’s changed him. He’s not quite a good man yet.. bu he’s getting to be good enough. Love turned him from a skeezy dumbass into a far more loveable dumbass. Ramona’s gotten him to stop dating a teenager (even if again he cheated), face his past with envy to finally move on and now get a job. He’s realized just hwo much she means to his life and world and so he goes to tell her. 

Riggghtttt after going to get his job back and works a shift, with steven wanting to punch his life in the balls. Stephen shut the fuck up. Just because Scott is lucky and your stuck dating satan’s scrotum does not mean you get to punch his life int he balls. Kim does, because he’s put her through more shit but not you. 

He goes to second cup to talk to Stacey.. only to end up at the wrong one where Knives also now has a job... and we finally get an answer to who the mystery katana guy is...

Yup turns out wielding giant weapons in vengance runs in the family. As for how he knows about Scott her aunt mentioned her boyfriend, everyone freaked out and obviously while her mom was mentioned as knowing in volume 1, they did not tell her dad whose brain turned into an engine of vengance and defaced the shrine. While part of it is apparnetly racisim for Scott being white the fact is he clearly saw Scott’s photograph. The guy is 5 years older. I get him being protective. Still dosen’t justify cutting off his head. His balls maybe but not his head. 

And then Scott ran, once agian finding a subspace entracne.. and this time we see inside ramona’s head and well...

Yeah.. that’s.. kind of fucked, and Ramona isn’t happy scott saw that, though she backs down once Scott explains..a nd then gets upset over him staying at Lisa’s but before SCott can tell her he loves her it turns out Roxy stayed over. So yeah, Ramona might of cheated, she tells him to alk it off and he runs around in a psycadelic haze of emtoinal confusion. And meets.. someone new...

Scott snaps out of his funk and ignores his doppleganger heading back for Ramona... whose fighting Mr. Chau. Scott left the door to Ramona’s head open and he followed him through Subspace. Scott lures him into the house and away from her only to run into Roxy. This leads to both of his attackers fighting and her wondering if Gideons ent him “Why does no one ever belivie in me?!” 

She soon realize no i’ts just unrelated and calls Scotto ut on hiding behind not having a sword and behind her being a woman, caling it a flimsy excuse. I mean she’s tring to kil lhim. It’s okay to hit an enemy combatant. Scott realizes he has to stop running... and get real with ramona leading to a truly epic, romantic and heartfelt speech and given how far he’s come and just how heartfelt it is it’s a real sign of how deep he feels. Sure we’ve seen genuine chemstiry between the two.. but htis moment is a shit.. from a simple relationship.. into true love. 

I may of only had a few but Relationships are not easy, They take work, they take time, they take patience and theyt ake love.. but if your willing to work with someone, look past some flaws and help them with the rest.. then it’s worth it. And Scott has finally realized it and for the first time in a while is running TOWARDS something difficult, actually working on this relationship and talking with his partner instead of running finding someone else or wallowing. He’s truly grown up. While he still has miles to go.. he’s taken about 50 steps forward with this. And as such given the kind of unvierse we’re in, as Ramona is genuinely touched by it he levels up a glowing sword with a heart shaped hilt coming out of his chest.. and realizing what’s happening he pulls it out....

So Scott faces off with roxy and in an awesomly short battle, their sords clash.. and he bisects her. 

Scott then honestly talks down Mr Chau who leaves after a nod, and Ramona tells Scott she loves him two. The two make out and all is well.

One make out fades into another, as we cut to Scott moving in with Kim and Blockhead’s help. Well kinda they only had one box but they owed him one. He and wallace comiserate over the end of their time as roomies. They’ll always be friend but it’s truly the end of an era. Also Wallace gets off another bit of dickery as he’’s very glad it all worked out for scott...

 Now there’s the Wallace I know and love. Dickish but just the right loveable kind of douchebag with that swagger. 

Back at Knives house she’s apparenlty into somebody though who I have no idea, Mr Chau give sher his blessing and she.. apparenlty doesen’t know chinese. I dunno. As I said her subplot this go round was her weakest overall. 

And so we end with the whole gang gathered to see Lisa off. It’s a REALLY nice shot, and one of the only times Wallace is seen with the Sex Bomb omb side of the group. Oh sure he goes to their shows and what not, but generally their never in the same vincinity so while there’s no interaction I still find this neat. Seriously the whole main cast is there, it’s a really lovely shot

Also Jason and Hollie.. who are getting awfully chummy. Whu Oh. And of course Craphole and Mouth Face are as likeable as ever. 

So we jsut get a genuinely nice sene. Except Stephen and Julie reconciling. Fuck that. Please move on. And as everyone fondly wishes Lisa adeu and wish she stuck arond the res tof the series we end on Scott and Ramona snuggling, Scott asking her her birthday and finding out she’s 24, and they both will be come september. Scott wishes this moment could last. 

They probperly snuggle as the volume ends on a high. 

Final Thoughts:

Yeah.. Gets it Together is, on rexamination, DEFINTELY my faviorite of the 6. Besides personal value i’ts hte best contained story, contaning lots of character development, great character moments, jokes, and EASILY the best art so far, with goregouness and creativty abounding. 

There is a problem here or there: Stephen and Julie’s subplot feels underbaked, and not just because I hates them, and there are several scenes that don’t further plot or character stuff. Ther’es also stuff that could’ve been expanded on.. but given this is still a pretty meaty graphic novel, it’s understandable why it wasn’t.. though it is why I’d love a streaming series since while the movie is excellent, a full series could expand on stuff from the books more Brian simply didn’t have time for. Knives also didn’t get a lot to do. 

But their drowned out by tons of great decisions: Lisa was a wonderful additoin to the cast and I genuinely wish she’d stuck around, adding in some energy, blending well with the Sex Bomb Omb crowd, and having great dynamics with everyone and her arc with Scott is heartbreaking,knowing she can’t have him but wanting him anyway having never gottne proper closure on the man she’s always wanted. She’s a heartbreaking character and its nice to see her end in a decent place and on good terms with Scott, having let him go for both thier sakes. 

And while Lisa is a highlight everyone is on their a game here for the most part apart from knives, girl hitler, and captain dumbass: Scott grows signfigantly but is funny as hell, Wallace has an intresting arc trying to nudge Scott out without being overt about it, scared to really confront him, Kim is in a happy and serene place for once and it shows. The villians are also intresting: While Mr Chau is a tad underbaked, he’s sitll a cool imposing presence. I do think he shoudl’ve had more to do with the plot.. but is still just so freaking cool it papers over that and him just.. disappearing after this like poor Lisa. 

Roxy is far more intresting, having clearly more going on than we see and while I wish we’d got her backstory, she’s easily the most engaging of the exes, being the only one to actively compete with Scott (All her and ramona end up doing is making out a little it turned out), and have bigger stakes than just “The glasses wearing douche asked me to beat up my exes boyfriend and I was like alright. 

All in all Gets it Together is really magical, the series high point, and just damn fun and it was a pleasure to go through

Next Month on Scott Pilgrim: It all falls down as we take a look into what once was my least faviorite Album, vs the unvierse. Two perfect assholes try and murder scott with Robutts, his relationship and band crumble and things get sad so very very sad. 

Next on this blog: More LIlo and Stitch! The Proud Family come to Kauai and get into a fight with our heroes. Also wizard kelly... who if nothing else is now far more tolerable now i’ve had to spend another volume with the wicked bitch of the west. Touche universe touche. See you at the next rainbow. 

[twilightofthe]

so what animes have you seen already?

Oh boy! Not many tbh, I only really started watching it last winter when my roommate asked if I wanted to give it a try! I haven’t watched anything from any studio that did Visions (yet), but I wanna soon!

Animes I HAVE seen, in order:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood — Aight so when roomie suggested we watch an anime, a friend who had seen a lot of them recommended this one to watch first as it was a good “starter anime”, and y’all idk if it’s just because it’s the first one I watched but I’ve still gotta call it my favorite one because y’all it’s SO FUCKING GOOD. Like that’s understatement of the century but I don’t have time to write an essay on why it’s so good lol just trust me it’s GOOD. 11/10s on EVERYTHING about it. Plot, characters, setting, everything. My one sadness is that I would not be good at writing fic for it lol.

Demon Slayer — YouTube AMVs and seeing it pop up on Netflix had us start this one next and y’all it’s probably the prettiest anime I’ve seen like ever, like the art style is chef’s kiss. Amazing story and AWESOME characters too, very good, 10/10 would recommend. I think I could write a decent fic for it if a plot ever came to me.

The Great Pretender — The only non-action/fight anime on the list, roomie and I tried it out because we figured we should see something different? It was on Netflix so we looked. It was good, clever writing, good characters got a little bit weird in the second season, particularly at the end, but overall it’s a decent watch. I could write fic for the shipping aspect but again, no plot ideas because the plot is fuckin weird.

Akame Ga Kill — Roommate had seen this before, recommended it to me. The characters were decent, setting was interesting! Pretty art style too, but I was like, verrrrry critical of the plot throughout the entire singular season lol, so take that as you will. Actually no yeah plot was kinda wack. My fave character deserved better tho.

Castlevania — Okay okay I know I know not an anime, but it’s a similar artstyle. (Also I think the game it’s based off of is a Japanese game?) Actually watched the first two seasons a while ago, but then watched the third and fourth with roommate. Y’all it’s REALLY good, literally everyone in the damn show is fucking hot and I’m jealous, I ship the throuple HARD hard. I think I could maybe write a decent fic for it if, again, I had any plot motivation lol

Trese — Again, cheating because not anime, but this one is still non-Western (Filipino) media and it’s glorious. I’ve never seen an episode of Supernatural but I feel that this show is like, what Supernatural wishes it could be. Another gorgeous artstyle and I’m so gay for the MC and the first season left me with so many questions so I really hope it gets another one! I gotta get around to reading the webcomic

D.Gray-Man — Okay this one is entirely the fault of @jasontoddiefor who got back into it and promptly dragged everyone he knew down with him, and I am so very glad he did because this is a fantastic— and I’d argue relatively underrated —series. Artstyle is gorgeous (certain characters be very hot), the character arcs are brilliant, I love all the characters, and the worldbuilding is so friggin creative, like I’d put it up there as another one of my faves. I actually did write a fic for this, but publishing a fic in an unfamiliar fandom is terrifying and bad for my anxiety and it’s gonna take me like five more years to work up the courage to do it again lol.

Sword Art Online — Currently watching right now with roommate. I heard some not very good things about it, but my roommate wanted to give it a try so I sat down and watched with them. Sure enough it’s been a case of half the time I’m flailing over the nice animation and how creative the worldbuilding is and the charm and potential all the characters have……………….. and then the other half of the time I’m banging my head against the wall repeatedly because it pulled some seriously stinky bullshit lol. So yeah watch it’s promising but also Suffer in not the good way.

Fire Force — Also currently watching! On my own this time, roommate already watched and recommended. This one is VERY good, like I am super into the plot and the setting and everything to do with the universe. Still getting into the characters and it’s taking a bit more time? So the watch is going slower than usual, but that’s alright! The entire premise makes up for it.

So that’s all the anime I’ve seen! I’ve also seen 2.5 Studio Ghibli movies and they are all JUST as good as people say they are (Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, and bits and pieces of Princess Mononoke) 1000/10 recommend.

You didn’t ask about the manga I’ve read but I’ll list them anyway! For the record I’m not a huge manga reader because my eyes find it hard to see the illustrations when everything is in different shades of black and white, it makes action scenes in particular really difficult to read, which is a problem when you usually like action plots

Demon Slayer — The anime isn’t complete yet and after the movie I wanted to know MORE so I hunted down the manga and binged it all. Y’ALL GOTTA READ IT IT’S STILL SO FUCKIN GOOD AND I’D DIE FOR SO MANY CHARACTERS I’M IN LOVE WITH SO MANY

D.Gray-Man — Same thing as Demon Slayer, the anime isn’t complete yet and neither is the manga BUT so I read the rest of what’s been written. Hoo hoo HOO I hope they animate more of it because the plots coming up are brilliant and I want it

My Hero Academia — Look, EVERYONE is yelling about this one and it trends like once a week and like five irl friends love it so I figured there was too much anime out but I had to know so I’d just skim the manga just to figure out what the fuck the hype was. It’s good, lol, I totally get the hype now, the strength is in the worldbuilding and a whole handful of extremely interesting yet surprisingly simple character types that work to drive the plot forward. There is so much potential here and I could definitely write fic for this but I am not touching that fandom with a ten foot pole and that’s coming from a Star Wars fan 😂

Yona of the Dawn — Currently reading this!!!! Ok so there’s a season of an anime out for this, I walked in to see my other roommate watching what was probably one of the horniest scenes in it. I was immediately like “👀👀👀👀 shit fuck that’s hot do these heteros have rights????” I was about to plop my ass down and start watching but roommate was like “oh there’s only one season and it’s unfinished and I know you don’t like unfinished stuff” so I promptly got my ass up and googled the manga so I could see more. Y’all it is GOOD, if you love the dramatic romances from Star Wars this is RIGHT up your alley and dare I say better, the plot is lovely, the characters are great, and I am SO MAD there’s only one anime season. I’d absolutely write fic for this if I was more confident, I have so many polyship ideas!!!!!!

[evanbuckleyed]

how did you feel about the new gg episode? i personally thought it was fun and messy and im sooo ready to see how the rest of the season is going to go. i wish they would have just released the whole season at once lol

i also really liked this ep overall. some Thoughts™ on the ep and the show in general below

the zoya/julien/obie drama. obie is boring and nothing he's done in the show so far makes him all that likeable. he's so judgemental and self-righteous which is ironic considering he had no problem breaking up with his long time girlfriend and 5 minutes later going after her sister. does he have more in common with zoya? sure. but that really damaged zoya and julien's relationship and if he was such a good guy he would care more about that than he does. i feel like he and zoya aren't going to last very long which makes me wonder how he's going to fit into the show considering it seems like he's only actually friends with aki and he hung out with everyone else for julien. honestly all i want is for zoya and julien to make up and actually have a relationship after all the finessing they did to get themselves at the same school lmao.

monet and luna are being wasted as minions. they're both funny as fuck and im ready for them to have a story line outside of julien. it honestly feels like she's their client rather than their friend considering they were ready to jump ship the second it looked like julien wasn't interested in keeping up with her influencer status. if luna does leak what zoya told her to gg i think it's going to seriously fuck up their relationship with julien (and hopefully give them a story line outside of her).

aki/audrey/max. listen... i could go on and on and on about them. i'm still rooting for a throuple because i think their personalities would balance each other out so well, but aki and audrey just don't seem into each other anymore and i don't know if adding max into the mix would really change that. not to mention as of this episode max doesn't seem interested in pursuing anything with them considering they haven't exactly been treating him that well and i don't blame him. realistically instead of a throuple i think aki and audrey are probably going to break up and max and audrey are going to continue hooking up while aki explores his sexuality. i think max and aki would have a better dynamic than max and audrey but i also think max would eat aki alive lmao.

speaking of max, i absolutely loved his story line with his dads this episode. i've seen a lot of people talk about how sweet his relationship with gideon is which is 100% true, but there was a moment between max and roy that really got me: when max asks roy how he could do that to them while being visibly in tears and roy reaches out and puts his hand on max's chest. max just outed his cheating in an extremely convoluted, public manner but his kid is about to cry in front of him so instead of blowing up on him he reaches out to comfort him. he might not be winning husband of the year, but he clearly loves max and is a good father which is refreshing for gossip girl.

im super suspicious of how this whole max/rafa thing is gonna go down. i was initially so impressed when rafa immediately shut down max's attempts at hooking up with him, but then he basically told max he would fuck him after graduation which completely undermines the boundaries he set. they could have given max a decent, stable adult to look up to but now if they try to go the role model route instead of doing a student/teacher relationship it's still going to be creepy as hell because clearly the only reason rafa won’t sleep with max is because he could get into trouble.

speaking of creepy as hell. i know that people have a lot of complaints about the teachers being gossip girl because it's insanely inappropriate and disturbing but like... that's the point? they're obviously setting them up to be the villains? they supposedly started gossip girl to benefit society by turning the students into better people blah blah but in episode one they immediately have them cross a line they can't come back from (aka stalking and taking photos of two half naked underage teenagers and posting them online). not to mention the first thing they do is target the scholarship kid who's never once done anything wrong just because it'll hurt julien. if it wasn't clear enough from the first episode that they're villains, they made it pretty obvious this episode when they had them turn on one of their fellow teachers the second their asses were on the line.

anyway this show is definitely messy and kind of ridiculous but im enjoying the hell out of it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[artificialqueens]

Taste of a Poison Paradise, Chapter 6 (Multi) - Joley

Chapter Summary: Lemon continues to cope poorly, Brooke Lynn, Kameron, and Vanessa realize that love triangles are out and triads are in, Nicky surprises Jan with a travel proposal, Jackie gets invested in Jaida’s OnlyFans, and Gigi is dealing with some unwanted attention (TW for mentions of stalking and sexual harassment).

ao3 link

Jan watched as Lemon packed her suitcases. “Maybe we should let the lease expire,” she remarked, hoping that distracting her friend with mundane conversation would keep her from getting upset again. “If you’re gonna stay with Rosé, and I stay at Nicky’s most of the time, it doesn’t make sense to keep paying for this place. And like, you’re always welcome to stay with us too, if you want.”

“No offense, but I don’t really wanna be around your beautiful, blossoming romance any more than I have to be. Also, don’t you think you guys are moving a little fast? I mean, it’s been like… a month. Vanjie’s a nut but even she waited a solid three months before rolling out the u-haul,” Lemon replied, throwing her body onto the suitcase to get it to close.

“You’re not wrong,” she conceded. “But her place is gorgeous, you can’t blame me for wanting to just stay there and get fucked for hours on end.”

She rolled her eyes but nodded. She couldn’t complain because she was the one that brought it up, but hearing how perfect things were for Jan and Nicky made her seethe with envy. “Guess we’ll just have to see if you guys can still stand each other once the honeymoon phase is over.”

Jan frowned. “Okay, I’m not gonna take that personally because I know you’re going through a hard time right now,” she murmured. “Is that everything?”

“Yep,” Lemon mumbled as she got up and dragged her suitcases to the front door. She then stopped and rifled through her purse, pulling out a flask and taking a swig, then offered it out to Jan.

“No thanks, not really up for day drinking today,” she said, then leaned over and sniffed the opening of the flask. “Is that straight vodka?”

She shook her head. “There’s sprite in there too,” she assured.

Again, Jan chose not to argue with her. She knew her friend was hurting and she hoped the worst of it would pass once she got settled in with Rosé. “Let’s get going,” she sighed.

Once Rosé had officially taken Lemon in, Jan’s nerves eased up, but her concern hadn’t. “I think this is the best place for her to be right now. Make sure she doesn’t fall off with her coursework, okay? This is her last semester and I’d hate for this to derail her entirely and–”

“Jan,” Rosé put her hand on her shoulders to try to focus her attention. “Breathe, baby. I love your love for her, but you don’t have to be her mom. I got it from here.”

Jan nodded, taking a deep breath in an attempt to quell the remaining concerns. “Okay, I’m good,” she told her. “How are you, by the way? Things going well with Denali?”

“Yeah, there’s not much to report,” she shrugged. “We’re just sleeping together, and neither of us has a boyfriend so there’s no downside.”

“You say that now.”

——-

Brooke Lynn sat in an uncomfortable silence of her own creation, her gaze fixed down on her plate. It was so much easier talking to Kameron when Vanessa was sandwiched between them – being alone with her made her feel exposed.

“I’m not trying to take Vanessa from you,” Kameron bluntly broke the silence. “I like her, I like spending time with her – with both of you – but I’m not interested in creating drama.”

She blinked, taking in what she’d said. Had she come off as threatened? Jealous? She supposed it wasn’t the most outlandish thought. “No, no it’s not like that. I trust Vanjie and I trust you. I’m just still kind of new to the world of relationships, let alone serious ones, you know?”

Much to her relief, Kameron nodded in understanding. “Listen, I get it. If you don’t have a lot of dating experience, someone like Vanjie can be… a lot. But I know you guys love each other, though I’m not gonna sit here and claim that I don’t have any feelings for either of you… I can get a little clingy after sex, what can I say?”

Brooke bit her lip and looked down. “I can’t say I expected this, but I’m not complaining,” she told her. “And I know you haven’t told Vanj yet, or I’d have already heard about it.

“I kind of figured you’d be a tougher nut to crack,” she admitted, rubbing the back of her neck. “I mean, I’m not oblivious, I know you weren’t thrilled with the whole open relationship thing at first.”

“You’re right,” she conceded. “But I’ve honestly warmed up to it… I’ve warmed up to you, anyway.” She pressed her lips together as she thought. “I think the three of us should talk. Because I don’t think she ever wanted an open relationship, she just wanted you. And I don’t blame her.”

Kameron arched her brow, a slight smirk tugging at her lips. “So, what, you’re thinking of trying a throuple situation?”

Brooke smiled and shrugged. “I think it’s an option worth considering.”

But to consider it properly, they did need Vanessa. So, once they were all together in their apartment, they opened the floor. “I think it’s a damn good idea,” Vanessa started. “Can’t believe it took us this long to think of it.”

The other two girls laughed. “I think we were expecting that answer,” Brooke told her. “I don’t think any of us are opposed to it, it’s more about working out the details. For example… Do we move Kameron in with us? I feel like it’s a bit awkward to have two-thirds of a throuple living together with the third somewhere else.”

“I’m not about to say no to not having to pay rent,” Kameron laughed lightly. “I rent month to month, so I just have to be out by the end of it,” she explained. “And besides, if I get sick of you guys, I could just crash in the guest room. Which, by the way, is like half of my entire apartment.”

“This feels like a business transaction,” Vanessa remarked, a bit of an annoyed whine in her voice.

“You know what they say, baby,” Brooke hummed, “business before pleasure.”

——

“Would you like to come with me to Paris?” Nicky asked as she laid in bed with Jan. “I’m going over there for a long weekend and I think you could use a little holiday.”

Jan beamed brightly and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like fun. What’s the occasion?”

There was a hesitation before her reply that wasn’t lost on Jan. “I try to go and check in on my mother now and then. But I don’t want to trouble you with that, there’s plenty of things to do and–”

“Do you not want me to meet your mom?”

Nicky quickly shook her head. “It isn’t that. It’s just… I have never brought a girl to meet her before. She means well, usually, but she can be… judgmental. I don’t think she ever fully came to terms with having a gay daughter. It is like… she loves me, but not who I am.”

“And her gay daughter bringing home a stripper would give her an aneurism?”

“This isn’t about what you do, Jan,” she insisted, “she’d react all the same if you were a doctor or a lawyer or the fucking president. But I mean, come on, what do your parents think you do for a living?”

Jan frowned and crossed her arms. “They know I’m still trying to find acting work during the day, and they know I work at the club at night… They just think I’m a waitress.”

“You guys do not have waitresses.”

“But they don’t know that!” she pointed out, then quietly followed up with, “I get it, whatever, forget I said anything.”

Nicky sighed and sat up, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you want to meet my mother that badly?”

This time, it was Jan who hesitated as she thought for a moment. “I mean, I don’t wanna make things more difficult or stressful for you…”

She reached out and took her hand, squeezing gently. “Come with me, we will burn the bridge after we cross it. But I need you to understand that I am not ashamed of you, okay? Not at all.”

Jan smiled softly, picking her head up and resting it on Nicky’s shoulder. Ever since she had started working at the club, she had made a promise to herself to never date anyone that made her question her self-worth. Truth be told, if her parents ever found out about her career, their response wouldn’t be one of anger, it would be pity. They would take her in, give her money, treat her like a poor, lost soul that needed to be put on the right path. And to her, that was so much worse. “I have always wanted to go to Paris.”

——

Having consciously been in the closet since she was sixteen, Jackie was well adept at keeping secrets. But this time, keeping a secret felt so much more difficult, because it involved more than just herself. And as inconsequential as the secret may be in theory, it weighed heavily on her conscience.

She had waited a couple of days before creating an account to subscribe to Jaida’s OnlyFans, lest it look suspicious. But once she was in, she was checking her page almost obsessively. Sure, she had seen Jaida in every state of undress, but this was different, more intimate. It came with the territory, but seeing Jaida’s body in ways she had only fantasized about drove her wild.

Then she decided to get bold.

Maybe it was the extra glass of wine, maybe it was an overwhelming bout of horniness. But something compelled her to send Jaida a private message, happy to pay the five-dollar fee.

NYCdude1985: Hi, do you take requests for personalized videos? How much does it cost?

Jaida: As in you want me to moan your name while I touch myself? Yeah, I do thirty-second clips for $20.

NYCdude1985: Done. My name is Jack. But I go by Jackie, so use that.

NYCdude1985: Please, sorry.

Jaida chuckled softly as she read the messages. Even through the brief exchange, she could sense Jackie’s anxiety, the trepidation she had. She found it endearing and she was proud of her for being brave enough to take that step, even if it was under a rather uncreative screen name.

How had she known it was Jackie? It was a simple oversight on Jackie’s end - she had left her laptop open in her office, where the girls would frequently enter if they needed to refill the snack shelves or replenish the bathrooms. Jaida had merely gone to see if she had any extra zebra cakes when she noticed the tab in the upper-left corner of her browser. Suddenly, snacks were the last thing on her mind.

And she had considered bringing it up to her but realized it would do more harm than good. Instead, she would give Jackie exactly what she wanted. She filmed herself rubbing her clit while she moaned Jackie’s name. She didn’t bother timing it, she decided she was going to give her the whole thing, start to finish. Her gaze fixed on the camera, wanting Jackie to feel like she was looking right at her.

When Jackie watched it, she felt the intensity. Her heart pounded in her chest, she couldn’t even touch herself the first time she watched it, so utterly fixated on how Jaida’s body moved, how her name sounded spilling from her lips, how desperately she wanted it to be for real. She had to consciously get herself to get off during her second watch-through, though she was actively imagining being there with Jaida, with her head between her thighs, eliciting those moans herself.

“I have to tell her,” Jackie said to Nicky the next day. The two of them had formed a friendship since Nicky first arrived, Nicky, finding comfort in a fellow French speaker and Jackie appreciating having a confidant. “It’s gonna eat me alive until I do.”

“You should tell her,” Nicky replied as she took a hit off her vape. “You said it yourself, it is the only way you are going to feel any better. Besides, what is the worst thing that could happen?”

Jackie looked at her as if she’d sprouted another head. “I lose a close friend and incredible employee, not to mention the potential ethical ramifications of buying porn from an employee.”

Nicky tilted her head, thinking, before asking, “est ce que tu l'aimes?”

Her eyes went wide and her face went red at the question, at the mere suggestion. “Je ne pense pas pouvoir dire que… l'amour est un mot si fort.”

“Maybe so,” she conceded, “but consider that you could not say ‘no’.”

“I’d rather not,” Jackie chuckled dryly. “Listen, I gotta send some business emails out before the girls start coming in. You should go pack for your little getaway tomorrow.”

Nicky nodded and kissed the top of her head. “I will bring you back a souvenir.”

Jackie wasn’t left alone with her thoughts for long, not a minute after she finished her emails, she looked up to see Gigi walking in and sitting down on one of the chairs. But what caught her attention was their body language – they were looking down, fiddling with their hair, and swinging their legs. “What’s wrong, Geege?”

Gigi sighed and looked up. “Okay, like, this is stupid and whatever, but Crystal thinks I should tell you that I think a client I had a couple of weeks ago is stalking me. I made a composite sketch,” they explained, opening their messenger bag and pulling out a piece of paper. “Do you think if I give this to Kameron, she could make sure he stays out?”

“Gigi,” she said firmly, “that isn’t stupid at all. This is serious. Did he hurt you? What happened?”

They groaned, knowing this would happen despite any attempt to avoid triggering Jackie’s maternal instinct. “He kept asking about the VIP room and I decided I could use the extra cash. So, we were in there and I told him I’d give him a handy and he was like, okay cool. But after he paid for that he kept trying for more and was being really creepy about it, so, I left. He just… really didn’t like that I blew him off instead of blowing him. He found me on Instagram and started harassing me there, kept making fake accounts after I blocked them and he figured out where I go to school.”

Jackie’s eyes widened in horror. “Geege, this isn’t a matter for Kameron, it’s for the police.”

“But I hate the police,” they crossed their arms and whined.

“We all hate the police, but this is a serious safety risk. Kameron can’t follow you everywhere to keep him away. I need to know that he won’t get the opportunity to hurt you.”

Gigi sighed, chewing on their lip. “I don’t wanna give him that power over me, I don’t even wanna waste the time or energy,” they explained. “But fine, just for you though, okay?”

Jackie smiled graciously. “Thanks, kiddo.”

After Jackie had taken Gigi to file the report, she had offered them the night off, but Gigi defiantly insisted on performing, though after one set, they found themself tired, laying on the common room couch.

Jan sat cross-legged on the floor beside them. “You know, gorge, it’s okay to not be okay. That asshole put you through a lot. I had to take off a week after… you know, the incident. We’re in an industry that can attract real creeps, we gotta put our mental health first.”

Gigi shook their head. “Your incident was different, it got physical. The only time this guy touched me was to try to push down on the back of my head.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Denali chimed in, sitting on the arm of the couch. “It’s about boundaries. You made yours clear and he kept crossing them. And you don’t know what this dude is capable of, any of us would be scared in that position. I’ve dealt with a stalker too – he never touched me, but I sure as fuck didn’t feel safe.”

“I just don’t see the point in dwelling on it. Feeling shitty about it isn’t gonna make it go away,” they replied.

Jan frowned, putting her hand on top of Gigi’s and squeezing gently. “It’s not healthy to ignore your feelings either way. It’s better to work through it than let it manifest into some nasty shit.”

“Who gives a fuck about feelings?” The three of them looked over to see Lemon stumbling into the common room, setting a freshly-emptied glass on the counter. “And who gives a fuck about men? All they do is get in the way and think the world revolves around their ugly dicks,” she ranted, a bit of slurring in her voice.

“Speaking of what happens when you ignore your feelings,” Jan muttered under her breath, then turned to face Lemon. “You’re not getting back on the pole tonight, are you?”

Lemon furrowed her brows. “Why wouldn’t I? I still have one more set,” she scoffed. But when she started to walk towards the other dancers, she stumbled, nearly losing her balance on her already precarious six-inch heels.

Denali and Jan exchanged concerned expressions. “I’ll call Rosie to come and get her,” she said before Jan could suggest it, turning on her heel and going to get her phone from her locker.

Gigi, meanwhile, nearly got whiplash from how fast their head moved back and forth from Jan and Denali to Lemon. “You know,” they said to Jan, “maybe I should start working through my feelings. Even therapy seems like a better alternative to…” they gestured to Lemon, “that.”

“As her friend, I feel like I need to intervene, but I think anything short of breaking up Pri and her fiancé is going to be a waste of time,” Jan mused as she watched her sit on the floor and struggle to take her heels off, cursing and whining quietly. “Something tells me things are gonna get worse before they get better.”

“Maybe,” they shrugged. “Lemon’s stubborn and possibly a little unstable… she might need to hit rock

[bowtied-pasta]

Not sure what to call this, but

This is based off of that ‘True is a slender being decendant and doesnt know it’ thing I mentioned before. This might have multiple parts, considering I have a bit more I’d like to add to this later. So here you go, hope you enjoy.

The muted humming of the air conditioner and the upbeat music she had picked for the night was all the noise in the shop, aside from her light humming as she went about cleaning everything while she had a chance. Her last customer had left about fifteen minutes ago, leaving her to her usual routine of near nothing until around five o’clock, when her morning shifters showed up for the rush.

A night shift at a coffee place might seem like a bad idea on paper, but she knew better. It was like a bar for people who couldn’t drink. An all night and all day place to hang out with friends, but even better because most creeps didn’t hit up coffee places to pick up girls. Wrong atmosphere, not to mention she didn’t put up with that kind of behavior. Small as she may be, people that decided she was an easy target learned the hard way that size doesn’t matter.

She headed into the back, looking around for the paperwork that would typically wait until after her shift was almost over, but was stopped when she heard the bell ring from the door. She turned back around with a huff, softly complaining to herself about how customers always seemed to know when you were going to do something, picking up a smile before she entered the main room once more.

“Welcome, what can I get started for you guys?” She walked over the the register, taking in the small group of three that stood before her. The girl moved forward first, red headed and stern looking, she was either angry or tired. Relatable mood either way, but True had a pretty good idea she was about to order a tea. Calming and would help with sleep.

“I would like a large lavender mint tea, and uh... Damien?” The girl turned to the darker haired boy, watching as he signed his order for her to place. “Gross, Damien. How do you drink that stuff? He would like a large black coffee, and Gage?”

The girl turned to the blonde of the group, True got distinct coffee vibes from the guy, but she had a feeling he didn’t need any coffee either. “Yes, I would like a large-“

“No coffee, Gage.”

“Hey! Why not?”

“Don’t do this in public, idiot. Besides, you know you don’t need coffee.”

“Fine.” He turns back to True, looking her up and down for a second. Quirking an eyebrow before his behavior shifted almost immediately, now looking near timid as he continued. “Uh... hot cocoa. Large, please.”

The change in behavior didn’t go unnoticed by any of them. Damien nudging him in the side with a quirked eyebrow before Gage dragged him off to the side where all the seating was placed, having a whispered and signed conversation out of hearing range. The girl looked them both up and down for a moment before turning back to True. “Sorry about them, they’re a bit odd sometimes. Anyway, whats the total?”

True chuckled a bit to herself, this wasn’t the weirdest group she had served on the night shift and she doubt it would be her last. “Don’t worry about it, it’s on the house.”

The girl looked shocked for a second. “Are... you sure?”

“Yeah, been a long time since I’ve seen such a cute throuple anyway. Pardon me for assuming, you all just have that kind of vibe.” True watched as the girl froze, guess she had hit the nail on the head. Then again, her intuition was hardly ever incorrect.

“How did you-“

“And done, there you go.” True smiled knowingly as she set the drinks on the counter.

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you all with.” Keeping up her smile until she walked into the back. Finally relaxing out of her customer service persona and finally getting to retrieve the paperwork she had been wanting to work on.

Picking up her own tea she had made for herself a bit ago as she walked back out to the front area, setting her paperwork on the counter and sipping as she worked. It had gone cold but was still good enough to not waste it.

The group was quieter than she thought they would be. Whispering amongst themselves and glancing at her occasionally. It didn’t take a genius to know they were talking about her, though she didn’t think it was rude. She’d gotten that kind of look all her life. She was a pretty odd person.

Always seeming to know what people wanted or were going to say before they even said it, she even tended to know what they didn’t want to say out loud. Her intuition was something that had made her stick out like a sore thumb all her life. Constantly seen as the lucky one. Knowing when to stay out of situations and away from certain people. It had been something she’d relied on her whole life.

That is to say, she didn’t think highly of herself. She wasn’t some special individual. She didn’t think she had powers or abilities from the beyond or whatever you like to attribute it to. She was a normal human being with a very good sense of what other people were about. That was all.

She hummed to herself as she flipped through the shipping invoices given to her by the day staff, making sure everything came in as ordered and that they weren’t being over charged for anything. Finishing off her drink as she finalized everything, feeling proud that she had managed to do it all in just under an hour, but regretting it slightly when she realized there was still far too much time left on her shift.

Chairs moving around caused her to look toward the group, all of them getting up and pushing in their seats. Gage and the girl who hadn’t been named the whole time both sent her awkward smiles as they walked towards the door, leaving Damien to walk up to the counter. She knew he was mute, so she didn’t expect any conversation, especially because she didn’t know any sign language except the basics like ‘hello’ and ‘thank you.’

She watched as he pulled out a ten, dropping it in the tip jar while keeping intense eye contact with her. Like he was looking for something and was determined to figure it out before he left, but she stood her ground. Smiling knowingly once more. “Thanks for the tip. You guys are all very cute together, I hope you all have a good night.”

The staring contest between the two lasted a bit longer than comfortable for either party. True getting no sense of hostility from the man, so she didn’t fear him. He was the first to break eye contact though. Looking down as he nodded, his hands tucking into his pockets and turning to make his way toward the door, already opened for him by the other two that had already exited the building.

True picked up all her paperwork, tucking it back in its binder before making her way into the backroom to find stuff to do.

[daughterofelros]

I’m seeing a fair bit of anger on my dash today directed at the idea of a poly relationship between Alex, Michael, and Maria.

Now, I multi-ship and will entertain most things, so I’ll definitely be appreciative of a lot of the meta and creative content that comes about here.

I’m also Poly myself. So I will brook no Puritanical Hatred of any forms of Ethical Non-Monogamy (any time where a person dates or is intimate with more than one person, and their partner(s) are aware of it.) I’m a firm defender of the idea that love isn’t a finite resource, and that Poly is valid as an option for how we configure relationships.

But there are ALOT of misconceptions out there that have me wide-eyed and pulling out my hair, because I hate miscommunication.

So I want to address a few of them— because given the state of ship drama in RNM fandom, when we use the same term without understanding it’s multiple meanings, miscommunication is a given, and it leads to needless harm.

Throuple: First, let’s get this out of the way. Biggest red flag that the person talking about three people dating doesn’t move in Poly communities? If they use this word. “Throuple” is not a thing. It exists solely in the mind of Hollywood Screen Writers and Web Article Authors. The only time I’ve ever heard a Poly person use this term is to roll our eyes and mock it. There are serious reasons for that, but we usually try to keep to eye rolling and move on.

Why Throuple Isn’t A Thing: So, Poly is a form of Ethical Non-Monogamy.

That means the relationship dynamics that require one person to date two others equally at the same time in the same way? Unrealistic expectation and best, deeply unethical at worst— dictating who someone can, can’t, or should love isn’t ethical, and that’s what an expectation of three people all dating each other the same way is. Triads where everyone dates each other are really, really rare. And ones where two or more of the people identify as male? Extra extra rare. That triangle where everyone dates everyone else? Deeply unusual.

And in the case where it does exist? There are four relationships, not just one— each relationship between each point of the triangle, AND the overall group relationship too. Each of those have to be invested in, and each of those have to be their own autonomous relationship that grows and changes at its own pace.

Also, it should never be assumed that two people will date because they both like the same person. And people shouldn’t be expected to date if their attractions are incompatible. People also shouldn’t be expected to date if they’re Bi/Pan but not automatically into each other. In the rare event a triad forms and everyone dates everyone else...each dynamic should be unique and grow at its own pace. It’s not just monogamy with an extra body.

Okay, so...Triad?: Yup! Triad is a much better word! One that Poly people actually use to describe themselves, or aspects of their dating life. Though again, really rare to have 3 people all date each other.

Wait, what do Poly Reationships look like if everyone isn’t dating?: Most often, they look like “V” or “hinge” relationships, where Person A and Person C each date Person B, but not necessarily each other.

(Fun reminder: dating and sex aren’t necessarily the same thing, so these dynamics are about expressing a relationship, not all about sex.) Also, just because they’re not dating, the dynamic between A and C might still be REALLY important. Sometimes, there’s not much connection, but usually, that metamour dynamic is super important.

Metamour?: Yup! Vocab lesson— metamour is how you say “partner’s partner”. It’s two people dating the same person, but not each other. This looks different for different people, but for a lot of poly folks, the support structure between metamours is one of the grand benefits of Poly. Metamours may go out for coffee, hang out together, be friends, play video games together, go to the gym together, hang out and cook together, and spend time with their mutual partner both together and alone. Everyone’s mileage may vary, because some folks prefer a polite distance and don’t really ever hang out. Me? I play D&D with most of my metamours, and I’ve spent the weekend on a fishing trawler with one of my metamours because she needed a buffer from her bigoted family during their annual fishing trip. Another metamour has kids in the school where I work, so sometimes I pick the kids up! We all have big dinner parties or movie nights that involve different parts of the polycule. Our dynamic is very “kitchen table” with everyone being a big ol’ family.

Multiple Metamours? Polycule?: Yeah! Most poly people are open to dating more than 2 people over time. As we map these relationships, that tends to look like a constellation or a diagram of a molecule. Hence, “polycule”. Poly rarely looks like a closed triangle. It also doesn’t usually involve just a single V. More often, it involves a bunch of different configurations, and a bunch of ways of setting up households (including deliberately not living together. Lots of folks practice solo poly where they don’t cohabitate with anyone else. Some folks are all raising kids together in the same house. Lots of dynamics exist in-between those points!)

Here’s a great polycule map from Kimchee Cuddles! It shows how dynamics shift over time, overlap, and weave together. Diagrams like this are frequently drawn by Poly folks, oftentimes on napkins over dinner.

But...Isn’t Jealousy An Issue?: Sure! Jealousy can be a thing- it’s a really human emotion! Most people who find themselves living a Poly life find themselves have to deal with jealousy at some point. One key thing though is that for most Poly folks, jealousy isn’t seen as the expected response to a situation (like seeing someone you love kiss someone else). Instead, it’s treated as a sign that there’s some kind of unmet need to reflect on and unpack, and you get to work it out and communicate about it. A lot of us think about it as check engine light. But there’s also this beautiful counterpoint to jealousy, and it’s called Compersion!

Compersion?: Compersion is the BEST! It’s really just...being happy because someone else is happy! In Poly, that might be the fact that you find yourself smiling when you see a cute moment between your partner and metamour, or see them getting excited for a date. It’s joyful and bubbly and sweet. It’s feeling your heart soar because you see your partner happy and in love. It can exist alongside jealousy— being happy that your partner and their date went to an awesome concert, even though you couldn’t afford a ticket yourself— or it can be so bright and lovely that it completely fills the space that society says should be taken up by jealousy. It makes me giddy to see my partners smooch their other partners, or make breakfast together. I grin when I see them holding hands. Sometimes a group of us are together doing something very normal like hiking...but we’re all grinning like idiots because the Compersion in hearing the mix of conversations and hand holding and flirtation is so infectious that we’re all filled with joy from it.

The thing is, we’re actually used to feeling Compersion in some societally accepted ways— when someone gets a new job, or is excited they’re having a baby, or gets engaged. One of the easiest things in the world is feeling happy for someone you love because they’re happy. And it’s kind of mind-blowing to have the realization that that’s true in romantic contexts as well.

Look- polyamory requires a lot of communication. It takes willingness to work out issues through communication. But a lot of the reasons we think ‘that could never work’ are reflexive judgements based on social constructs. Anyone who desires the benefits enough to put in the work of communicating can do Poly well, if they find it suits their needs. And when we look at fiction, characters who experience love for more than one character at a time can always be imagined in scenarios where that commitment is possible and can be achieved. There are so many valid ways those relationships can work.

And since I would always rather see my beloved characters end up happy than broken hearted, I’m always going to be intrigued by characters who figure out that Poly is an option, in fanworks or in canon. Maybe it’s not my endgame hope, maybe it is. Maybe both can be things I enjoy.

That doesn’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea.

But we should recognize that there are a lot of ways to arrange relationship in monogamous ways, as well as in polyamorous ones... and that Poly dynamics are often very different than monogamous one. So if someone says they’re sailing a poly ship for some characters... it’s probably not the S.S. Monogamy With Three People.

That ship is out there, but it’s only one of the many ships in the fleet.

And you have the option to tour a poly ship, or book passage on it, or stay aboard your own ship. Just...kindly don’t open your gun ports and fire off a volley because you don’t think the ship should be on the ocean if it’s flying a poly flag.

[mathieuberinut]

Discord thread || Mat & Roman

Discord thread featuring: Mat & @romanbeckett

When: 21st December

Where: The Grind

Mentions: @skyking91 @samuelburton

Description: Mat and Roman talk (hint: they don’t get along)

Trigger Warnings: None

Mathieu

If anyone asked him, he did feel a little bad for using Roman to get to Sky. He didn’t particularly care about Sam, never having gotten along with the guy but Roman never really did anything to him. He was just collateral damage in his plan to finally get to Sky. So when they bumped into each other after the mess that was the holiday party, Mat wasn’t sure what to say. Did Roman even know he was the reason why Sky even found out about it all? He was hoping to avoid any interaction with the barista but he should have known that would never work. Especially if he kept getting his coffee from The Grind. “Oh, hey. Um...a chai latte please?”

Roman.

Roman was already exhausted from being up all night, insomnia was a bitch, and he was even more of an anxious mess when it came to calling into work. He lived right above it, so his excuses were kind of out the window unless he was deathly ill. Unfortunately lack of sleep wasn’t a great excuse to use a sick day. Needless to say, the barista was in a sour mood anyway when he looked up to see Mat standing in front of him, making Roman clench his jaw, and write down the man’s order before he turned around to start making it. “Any good gossip lately?” He then asked dryly, a lot more sassy than he normally was to people he didn’t care for. It seemed like a good enough dig anyway, since Mat apparently liked to talk.

Mathieu

Mat’s hopes that the incident wouldn’t be brought up went out the window after Roman’s question and he found himself narrowing his eyes at the other. He should just ignore him and move on with his life after getting his coffee but his inability to let things go was one of his weaknesses. There was no way he could let Roman get the last word. “It depends, have you hooked up with any of your friends’ exes recently?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge. After all, it was true that Mat was the one who talked about it but he didn’t lie.

Roman.

Roman wasn’t a vindictive person. He didn’t hold grudges, and he certainly didn’t talk about them in the middle of public like this. He especially didn’t like showing how things could really effect him, but Mat was being an asshole, and he couldn’t help the way it was making him react. “Excuse me??” He asked in challenge, his face twisted in shock that the man would even say something like that to him here. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, I hope you know that. What I do, or who I hook up with, is none of your bloody business.” He really shouldn’t be doing this at work, but he could feel his blood boiling.

Mathieu

“I really couldn’t care less about who you hook up with.” And he really didn’t. The only reason he even paid attention when he saw the other with Sam was because he knew of the relationship they had with Sky. His ‘girlfriend’ was getting on his nerves so much that he was willing to make use of anything to get her off his back. If he’d seen Roman with anyone else he wouldn’t have even looked twice. “Just a little advice though, if you really don’t want who you hook up with to be anyone else’s business then maybe you shouldn’t do it in the middle of Throuple where everyone can see.” He did feel for Roman in a way. If Sky threw a glass at him for telling her what he saw, Mat couldn’t even begin to imagine what she did to Roman for actually being part of it.

Roman.

Roman wasn’t a violent person at all, but he really did find himself in the mood to punch Mat in the face. He was stepping on all of the actor’s nerves. “You’re an asshole. You know that?” He asked while finishing up the man’s latte, which of course he still made flawlessly, and sat it in front of Mat. “Five eighty nine please.” What an awkward time to ask for money.

Mathieu

Mat had been called an asshole so many times at this point by Sky that having it said by someone different didn’t make much of a difference to him. It did make him see Roman in a new light. Gone was the reluctant attraction to him and instead what Mat was seeing was someone who thought with his dick first than cried over the consequences. “I’ve been told that multiple times by my girlfriend but I feel like she might consider you an ever bigger asshole than me. Which is quite a feat, congratulations”, he snorted. He didn’t even think that the other might find it weird for Sky to think that, considering they were supposed to be in love. Getting out a twenty dollar note, he handed it over and picked up his drink. “Keep the change”, he winked, hoping to irritate the barista further.

Roman.

Roman knew that Sky wasn’t happy with Mat. It didn’t take a genius to see that it was mostly for clout. But still, to hear the way Mathieu was talking, they pretty much hated each other. Why even bother? Clearly sky was in love with someone else. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be so kissed about Roman sleeping with her ex. “Things not okay in paradise?” The barista decided to then prod, taking the twenty without protest, because he really could use the tip.

Mathieu

This wasn’t someone he could trust with his ‘secret’, especially since Roman was clearly upset about him telling Sky. “I’d love for you to show me a couple who doesn’t argue occasionally”, he shrugged, going for the cover up story his management had pretty much forced him to learn by heart. “We’re still very much in love though, don’t worry about it.” Until January at least.

Roman.

“Right. I’m sure your only issues are arguments.” Roman replied pointedly, looking at the other male like he was able to read between the lines. Of course, the barista was a lot smarter than he looked anyway. He was able to break down human behavior easily, a gift that helped him develop his own characters while acting. There was so much more to this situation than was being shared, however, it was technically none of his business, though...Mat seemed to be an expert on jumping into situations that weren’t any of his business as well. So. Do with that what you will. “Very much in love, yet vindictive? You had to have a reason for telling the love of your life about what you saw, I would assume, and her reaction doesn’t concern you? Interesting.” Ro muttered allowed, and then looked over towards the front door as it opened. “Anythin�� else I can get for you?”

Mathieu

Mat knew what the barista was hinting at but pretended not to. He was a good actor but not a miracle worker. While he could more or less pretend that he and Sky were together, even he couldn’t make it believable that they were very much in love. At least not after that holiday party. Better to fake obliviousness than to make things worse. “Trust me, her reaction concerns me very much.” Her throwing the glass at him got them both a good talking to the next day so he could have done without. “Let’s put it this way...Sky considered you one of her good friends and yet I saw said good friend getting it on with her ex. I was just helping the girl I have feelings for know her true friends. I would never hook up with a friend’s ex but I guess you don’t feel the same way.” Mat looked behind him, grateful for the distraction. “That’s all, thanks for the drink.”

Roman.

Roman could feel himself getting more, and more upset with every word out of Mat’s mouth. He already felt guilty enough, but having someone who genuinely didn’t know him well enough to be judging him, trying to tell him how bad of a friend he was, it was just a lot. Of course the actor was going to save face, and act like it didn’t phase him, so he simply nodded, and stared the smaller male down until he ultimately left. Transparently though, he was going to cry about this again later. Maybe Mat was right. He was just a shitty friend, and there was nothing he could do to fix it at this point.

[radramblog]

a perfectly normal tierlist

Well I’m at that point where it’s late, I’m tired, and im out of ideas. That’s right motherfuckers its time for a tierlist. I dunno which to do though, so let’s just hit the random button aaaand

…wait, there is no random button. Ok, sure, I’ll just close the old eyes and pick the first one I see that I can actually have an opinion on. No takesies backsies, unless it’s like american sports or something. aaand here we go.

…aww fuck.

Mistakes are being made.

Shit tier

ABO: Aside from the fact that it’s based on a flawed study that has been solidly discredited no matter how many right-wing grifters try to sell alpha chad pills, this shit is 100% horny on main all the time and not in a way I find particularly appealing. I can’t say I’ve intentionally read anything tagged with this shit, because seeing it on a taglist actively reviles me.

Soulmate AU: Most of the AU stuff is lumped together elsewhere, but this one has a special place in the colder, more shrivelled bits of my heart. I’ve yet to see this used anywhere other than to justify someone’s OTP in universe and skipping all the, yknow, interesting stuff. Like there’s enough of it out there that I’m sure someone has made an actually good fic out of this. But not for me.

Bang or Die: Save it for the hentai, you horny fucks.

Sex Pollen: I don’t know what this is, but I don’t like the sound of that.

Miscommunication: Do you want to read a 100000 word fanfic based around the absolute worst trope in romantic “comedy”? I sure as fuck don’t!

 Bad tier

Amnesia fic: Jace Beleren is the only character who gets away with this shit, and even then I’m getting pretty sick of it. If I’m interested in reading about a character, I’d rather read about them, not the post-death-of-personality husk that inevitably leads to bad angst.

Arranged Marriage: Another shitty romance trope to force your leads together. Yawn.

Baby fic: When I was younger I ended up seeing Just Go With It in cinemas for stupid reasons and it’s just this and it wasn’t good

Sharing a bed: I’m not sure what this refers to, unless it’s like, being forced to share a bed because shenanigans, hilarity ensues, which doesn’t sound like the best time.

Pregnancy fic: This is not my kink.

Love Triangle: I’ve seen this play out in real life and it’s ugly, and those examples were relatively low-key. Maybe once I read one that turns into a polyamorous throuple I’ll change my mind.

Mutual Pining/Unrequieted Love: Part of the problem with a lot of the media that gets romantic fanfiction is that they never actually bite the bullet with the romance, just tease that shit for years and years. I’m not sure why you’d want more of that for your wish-fulfillment.

Meh tier

Fix-it-Fic: Undoubtedly whoever is writing these have a different definition of “fixed” than I do. My main issue with these, however, is that a lot of them are for things with perfectly fine endings that just didn’t have the ship they wanted or were not a happily ever after. With that in mind, some of them are pretty golden (TLCstuck comes to mind).

Angst/Hurt and Comfort: I graduated from angsty teenager to depressed adult a long time ago.

Bodyswap: Your Name is overrated. (editor’s note, Raderph has never seen Your Name.)

Crackfic: The most hit or miss thing on this entire list. Good crackfics can be absurdist brilliance, bad ones are late 00’s randumb but somehow worse. With that in mind, crack ships can be a lot of fun.

All these generic-ass AUs: Man I gotta probe someone’s mind who’s into this stuff, because it’s never appealed to me. If I’m looking at an AU, I’d much rather it be characters in an actually interesting scenario or world rather than just Starbucks or Hogwarts with the serial numbers filed off. Throw ‘em in Mad Max or something, not Jane Austen. You get the idea.

Huddle for Warmth: As a Perth bloke who’s never experienced snow this is completely unrelatable to me.

Enemies/Friends to Lovers: Look I’m a refined homestuck fan we perfected this shit 10 years ago.

Dark Fic: Another hit or miss one, but unfortunately the majority of them are pizza cutters. All edge, no point.

First Kiss: Romantic awkwardness can be cute, but my cringe threshold is often too low for the high school shenanigans this tends to entail. With that said, I’m writing about fanfiction tropes on my tumblr blog, so maybe the cringe was inside me all along.

Time Loop: This is in meh because I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever stumbled across it in fanfiction but also I can’t imagine it’s done well that often.

 Ok tier

Gen fic: …doesn’t this just mean a fanfic that isn’t a crossover or a shipping fic? That this is separate here implies that it’s notable when a fic isn’t one of those things, which…. is depressingly fair.

Crossover: Lotta bad ones out there. Lotta good ones. If it’s a crossover with two things I really like I’m probably gonna enjoy it, and some- particularly those where it’s basically just an AU with characters from one universe slotted into another- work nicely imo.

Humor: why is this a tag yes I like it when things are funny a lot of people aren’t going to be funny though

Major Character Death: Fuck me up. I wanna cry motherfucker.

Slow Burn: I can’t even justify liking this to be honest. I think it’s a lot like how slice of life anime go, where its just characters you like doing things and slowly developing characterwise and relationshipwise. Which if you like it you like it.

Fluff: Fuck me up. I wanna cry motherfucker. (but of joy)

In vino veritas: This is a pretty dumb trope but I can’t help but enjoy it. Sloppy drunken makeouts into morning after oh god what have I done is extremely unfun in real life but pretty funny when it happens to someone else.

Missing scenes: But what if I want to see what happens when Barry gets his pokemon’s teeth kicked in by Jupiter, huh? This is just wish fulfillment for trivia/minutiae nerds, which unfortunately I am one of.

Fake relationship: Another dumb trope that I cannot defend. It’s a cute dynamic that often really works. don’t judge meeeeee

 Good tier:

Established Relationship: If I want to read about my ship, I want to read about them being in a relationship, which means that if it was already established and we could skip all the BS that’d be great……… is this so hard

Unhappy ending: Fuck me u-okay not doing that a third time. Sometimes you’re sad and you want somewhere to put that sad. With that in mind, the meta-unhappy ending, AKA a great fic that hasn’t been updated in years (I could name a few…dozen) is the worst fanfiction trope and I want it to go away.

Canon Divergence: I find “What if” a lot more interesting that fix-it stuff because the former has variety. It’s really interesting to see events from a story divert and follow different beats, so long as those beats make sense to the overall context.

 God tier:

Porn without plot: Presented without comment.

[mystxxxmomo]

What are all the relationships you headcanon between characters? Obviously there’s Servant and Izuru, Hajime and Nagito, but what other couples/maybe even throuples(?) Are there?

“Obviously” That you I just snorted. Thats fair, I’m not subtle about my taste. 

THAT said, I think my taste is pretty base, all things considered. I don’t have a lot of like.. rare or generally unpopular pairings? 

I’ll put the disclaimer that just because I mention something as a ship doesn’t mean I always necessarily think it’s the healthiest relationship in the world. It just means here are these two characters, I think the dynamic between them might be interesting to explore. I figured I should clarify that in a “I’m genuinely not trying to be a smart ass, but everyone has a different meaning to this word so here’s mine.” Kind of way. 

I should ALSO mention that I’m deffo not the type of person that is heels in the ground about certain pairings being canon. I go in more about this at the bottom of the post, but also I think there are relationships that could be fun to explore that I wouldn’t see actually happening in canon. 

Bolded is things I’ll go out of my way to make content for//indulge in, Italic is things I’ve considered but don’t make content for, and if there’s nothing on it, “I saw some cool stuff with it but most aren’t things I’d explore.”

Dangan 1 

 Kirigiri/Naegi/Togami. Unlike SOME CHARACTERS He has two hands and he can and will use them. Despite having this bolded, I don’t actually have too much to add to it they’re just pretty quality together. I actually think they’d have a pretty lowkey, comfortable relationship.

Sakura/Aoi - This one is basically canon, in my opinion. You know, till she died. As be the way the way of Dangan.

Chiro/Mondo/Ishimaru - I’ve seen some neat things done with these three in a few fics that were recommended to me!! But most people don’t explore it like how I’d want to explore it, so.

I don’t have a lot of Dangan 1 Ships it’s unfortunately not my fixation.

Dangan 2

Hinata/Komaeda - Well this goes without saying but it still got said. It’s one of those pairings where like, depending on where you place it on the timeline it changes how I think they can be interpreted, and as a result there’s a lot to explore between them. Especially if you add in the added mix of how much I like Kamukura/Komaeda. They’d have a lot of history, a LOT to work through, and they bounce off eachother really well. It’s also one of those pairings where like... they’d have their sweet moments, but I think 90% of the time they’re trying to get under eachothers skin even when they’re together. They’re an old married couple and It’s so fucking funny. 

Kuzuryu/Pekoyama - Childhood friends AND She’s taller then him. 

Tanaka/Sonia - They’d be kinky as hell too, so you know.

Ibuki/Mikan - [I just think it’s neat] meme. I haven’t actually explored much of it yet but I’ve seen it around and anytime I think about it I just get a lil smile on my face. It would be cute.

Saionji/Koizumi - I think it’s highly likely, and honestly I even put these two together in “people I’d lump together in despair years.” kinda category. But until I get a better grasp of characterizing them they’re in limbo of “yeah thats gay we stan”

Junko/Mikan - Do I think it was healthy? No, I think Mikan’s emotional vulnerability was taken advantage of by a mixture of love bombing, gas lighting, and emotional manipulation until she became Junko’s favorite “Yes Man.” Do I think they fucked? Yeah absolutely, highly likely.

DR;AE

Kamukura/Servant - I think I’ve made enough content for these two for ya’ll to know my thoughts on this. I don’t think I need to add much else to it, but also fuck Danganronpa for saying Kamukura didn’t hang around the other remnants I think these two would have had a very complex dynamic where their relationship at the start is COMPLETELY different then their relationship at the end of despair. It’s not something I’ve gotten too much into on tumblr, because I’ve been bad about not posting any writing to it. But I think the evolution of that would be really neat.

Komaru/Touko-Syo - [Chefs kiss] Yes, please, this is the gay pairing with exactly the type of intensity I want in my WLW relationships. Normie with the former serial killer, thats such a GOD TEIR dynamic. I swear to god, I was reading a fic before I played this game that just HAPPENED to have these two in it, wasn’t even a pairing in it, and I messaged one of my friends like “So are these two this gay in canon or is the author hamming it up?”

No they’re just like that

Danganronpa Another Episode did ONE good thing and that was the lesbians.

Others - This category exists specifically because of Matsuda “Deserves better then Junko” Yatsuke

Kamukura/Matsuda - I think they’d be really funny together. 

I also think about the fact that most people that are invested in Matsuda just generally agree he worked on the Kamukura project, and I just think thats neat. I think its also one of those pairings where the potential dynamic changes a lot depending on the point in the timeline you’re at, but also if what kinda universe you’re working in. A universe where he worked on the Kamukura project would create a much different interpretation then just like, a no despair au where Kamukura is just a dude.

Also I think they’d be really fucking funny together. There’s no way Kamukura didn’t mess with this guy.

Komaeda/Matsuda -  I don’t actually have a lot to add for these two yet I haven’t worked on anything between them yet. But you know. I read fanfiction and engage with it, so I’ll still count it.

Dangan V3

(I’m still figuring out which ones I’d prefer for v3, considering I only finished it a few days ago. But again on that basic ass shit, I’m into Saihara/Ouma. There’s a lot of really cool content for it.

That said, I easily see this game becoming the most varied in pairings, just because of how distinct the characters relationships are in game. I’d just.. need a bit to actually explore this.)

Though also, I guess as a completely related side note.

Generally speaking I am willing to consider most ships for a hot second. I have like, the ships I’ll go out of my way to make content for//indulge in (Even if I haven’t gotten around to some of them yet) and then anything else is like, if you throw something at me I’ll probably humor you. If you throw fic suggestions at me I’ll for sure read it, even if it’s not a pairing I’m generally interested in. Good writing has no limitations, IMO.

There are a few exceptions to this, but I was a homestuck so like.. //shrug?? Multishipping was just kinda installed into me. I also just like imagining different character dynamics and interactions could work out, even if my interpretations might not follow par to the course all the time. Because you see, SOMETIMES mr dangan fucks up a perfectly good character idea. Sometimes I have to fix the characters myself, and by damn I’ll do that. I am a master of “The medallion says thats stupid so we’re not going to do that.”

(I don’t have a lot of characters I can say with certainty I hate because of this. If I didn’t like their execution in canon I’ll play with different ideas until I come up with something that feels like it still what they were going for, but enough that it pleases me.)

Then again. Some of them follow par to the course to an exact, so it balances out.

This doesn’t just go for ships, either. I like considering how different character friendships would check. But that would need like, it’s own post, and a LOT more then a few paragraphs of rambling.

So yeah. My main ships, the ones I’m willing to fuck with, and then my “I’m literally the easiest bitch around, throw ships at me and I’ll humor you” disclaimer. 

[earthfluuke]

also known as 5 times neo and mew got hurt and shin had to take care of them + 1 time shin got hurt and neo and mew had to take care of him

and after only the first episode, i’m back on my bull shit of writing these three. but i mean, if gmm isn’t going to give us the throuple we asked for (and it really looks like that’s the case), then i guess it’s up to me!

(also i’m not a doctor or nurse or medical professional so i have absolutely no idea if any of what they do is medically correct. so don’t take my word on any of this.)

one

“Of all the stupid, irresponsible, reckless things you could do,” Shin mumbles, wrapping the gauze a bit too tightly around Neo’s bicep, “and you decide to go to a supermarket where you know people are looking for you. And then you get shot. I honestly question whether you have a brain in your head sometimes.”

“What else was I supposed to do? We were out of food – ow! Okay, okay!” Neo tugs his arm away from him, holding a protective hand over the bandage. “We were out of food, and we needed more!”

Rolling his eyes, Shin puts the roll of gauze back into the first aid kit and situates himself in front of his boyfriend. He looks at him from underneath the top rim of his glasses to give him a pointed glare.

“What I need is for you to stay alive. You’re no good to me or Mew if you’re dead.”

Neo chuckles and draws Shin closer. “Careful; it almost sounds like you care about me.”

Shin closes the small distance between them and connects their lips. “More than you and your brainless head could ever know.”

two

Shin makes sure the bandage is properly adhered to Mew’s thigh before he leans down to place a kiss over it. She’s lucky that she managed to get away from the trio of men that ambushed her on her way home from work with only a couple of scrapes. The worst is a deep cut from a knife, but it’s far from life threatening.

“As long as we keep it clean, you should be fine,” Shin says as he raises back up. “Just be careful of the bandage whenever you shower.”

She drags him back on the bed they’re on, and the two of them end up lying chest to chest.

“What would we do without you?” she asks, nuzzling her nose into the space between his ear and jaw.

“Probably bleed out in an alleyway somewhere.”

She laughs as if she knows it’s true.

three

Shin doesn’t think any of them have ever gotten hurt this badly. It definitely doesn’t help that they’re in a moving car.

He isn’t sure how it happens. One minute, they’re running; the next, Neo is on the ground unable to move. Luckily enough, they’re close to the car, and he and Mew manage to drag him into the back seat and step on the gas before either one of them can get hit.

But the luck ends there. Neo is moaning into the upholstery while Mew is constantly flickering her eyes into the rearview mirror to check on them, all while weaving her way out of town.

Shin can barely think, but if he gets lost in his thoughts now, he knows that’s more than enough time for Neo to lose consciousness. So he reaches forward into the glove compartment and pulls out the first aid kit they stow in there just in case. Now seems a lot like one of those cases.

He then starts to assess the damage. The bullet he managed to dig out of him was lodged into Neo’s side, not close enough to any vital organs to concern themselves over but still deep enough for him to bleed out.

He’s only stitched up wounds a handful of times, and it was never in such a high stress situation. And it’s never been on his boyfriend either. He does his best to will his hands to stop shaking.

He rips a bit of gauze off the roll and balls it up before forcing it in between Neo’s teeth. “Bite down on that,” he instructs as he threads the stitching into a needle. He takes one last look at Neo’s pain stricken face before getting to work. “You’re gonna need it.”

four

Holding dual ice packs to each of his lovers’ heads isn’t something he’s done before, but he supposes there’s a first time for everything.

“What were you two thinking?” he asks before sighing and shaking his head. “Oh, that’s right; you weren’t.”

 “That guy grabbed your ass,” Neo tries to reason. “What were we supposed to do? Just let it go?”

“Yes.” He takes a breath before continuing. “He grabbed my ass. So what? I’ve seen plenty of people grab you two, and I’ve never gotten violent. Because I know that at the end of the day, you’re coming back to me. The same goes for me with you.”

“We know that,” Mew says, words muffled by the ice pack over her lips. He can only see her eyes, two wide brown things that he falls for every time. And when he does, his irritation lessens. He supposes he can’t stay too mad at them. He’d be a hypocrite if he said he’d never once gotten jealous over the two of them.

He pulls back the ice. Her lip stopped bleeding, but the cut will take some time to heal.

“I guess you’ve dealt your own punishment,” he says, brushing some hair behind her ear. “No making out for a while.”

He then turns to Neo and checks his eye. It’s already black and blue, and it definitely doesn’t look pleasant.

“Maybe I don’t have to worry about anyone flirting with you for a while,” he teases. “Not with how you both look right now.”

He’s pinned back to the bed with some taunt along the lines of ‘remember, I’m still stronger than you, even with a black eye’ from Neo. The ice packs get kicked to the floor into a melted heap, but Shin can hardly focus on that when he’s got two of his favorite people pressing kisses into his neck.

five

“Ow,” Mew hisses, and Shin immediately apologizes.

While they’d been running, she’d tripped and twisted her ankle. They’d found a back alley where they couldn’t be seen to hide out in for the time being. Now, with Neo holding her foot in place, Shin is doing his best to wrap it.

“I know, I know,” he soothes. “But it has to be tight if you want it to heal.”

She grits her teeth and leans her head back against the wall. “Doesn’t make it hurt any less, babe.”

He’s quick about his work, attaching the end into the folds already wrapped around her ankle. The pressure should help her, but walking isn’t going to be easy.

Luckily, they have a Neo. And he’s already hoisting her up into his arms as though she weighs nothing. “You can lay in the back with Shin. We’ve gotta get to the next town before they find us again.”

Shin lets her rest her head in his lap while he strokes her hair. It’s always scary when one – or in some cases, both – of them get hurt, especially in the middle of a chase. But after, when they’re all safe, he’s happy to just enjoy being close to them.

+1

He hears Mew sniffling into his neck and feels Neo thumbing over the bandage on his abdomen. None of them talk, and there’s an eeriness about the dark room.

There’s a reason he doesn’t go outside without the two of them. He doesn’t like guns, doesn’t wield weapons. He’s a healer, a thinker, a planner. He’s their brain while they’re his brawns, and that works.

Except when it doesn’t. By all intents and purposes, he should have been fine. They’d waited until the dead hours of the morning to slip into the car to move out of the town they’d stayed in for far too long. He had almost closed the door when he felt it.

He’s been grazed by bullets, but there’d never been one that struck him so perfectly. He’s lucky that it doesn’t pass through, that it stays inside his torso. He’s even luckier that Neo is competent enough to drive away before the situation escalates.

They find a motel close by, Mew throwing money at the front desk while Neo hauls him into whatever room they’re given. There’s so much blood pooling into his shirt by the time they’ve got him on the bed.

He has to walk them through the process. He’s gone through it countless times, too many times, to know just what to do. He stays calm, knowing that they’re freaking out.

They press on the wound hard enough to stop most of the bleeding. Mew’s better with a needle and thread after having watched Shin patch up Neo before. She’s slower than he’d be, but she gets the job done. They’re hesitant to wrap the gauze too tightly around his torso, but he near begs them to. If the stitches rip, it’s his only protectant.

That’s when things had gotten quiet. When they’d tucked Shin under the blankets and crawled in next to him, they hadn’t said anything. And it’s beginning to worry him.

“Talk to me,” he says, voice slightly horse. The arms around him stiffen.

It’s Neo who speaks first. “This is why we don’t like it when you go out without us. You could get hurt. And we were with you, and you still…” He trails off to bury his face into Shin’s hair.

“Stop blaming yourself,” he says. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

“We should have protected you,” Mew interjects. She sounds angry and broken, and Shin turns his head to look at how closely she’s curled into his side. “We should have fired back. We should have done something.”

“Enough should-ofs. It happened. I got shot. But now I’m fine. Because you took care of me. Just like you always do.”

He’s not sure if it’s enough to calm their rapidly beating hearts, but it’s as truthful as he can be. He understands their fear, understands the panic of possibly losing one of the people you love most. He thinks he knows that better than anyone at this point.

So if they don’t let him go for the entire night well into the morning, he doesn’t say anything. He just allows himself to be held and to be loved. Supposedly, that’s the best medicine.