#is this an issue u only sort of work on and deal with by forcing yourself to do it

[mymp3]

not responding to people will be my downfall as a human I think

[marcusrobertobaq]

DBH worldbuilding info u're supposed to know

The collection

US is having major issues with sea level rising quickly, making even the wealthy residents deciding not living right on the coast anymore. Polar ice has melted to an extent that rising sea levels have many states struggling to keep the water out of their coastal towns (Magazine)

CyberLife's intention with complex level humanization was to literally make people welcome 'em home like they're family instead of getting creeped about it (Magazine)

VR games are very common by 2038 (Magazine)

The President Cristina Warren is an ex-vlogger with no experience in government that relied on social media and celebrity status to be elected in 2036, originally a republican representative. There's a "rumor" CyberLife helped she getting elected by corrupt means and that's why they're "too close" (Magazine, Gallery, Cut concepts)

Warren got an approval of only 33% due to the sequence of bad decisions (Magazine)

The world's population is 10 billion by 2038 (Magazine)

Obesity is in a record high in Detroit by 2038 (Magazine)

NATO is divided about the Russia vs US conflict in the Arctic, they think everybody can benefit of the region without war but Warren is totally pushing for a conflict (Magazine)

Rare minerals used in synthetizing Thirium got Russia and US biting each other in the North Pole in recent yrs. Android manufacture dominates both the US and Russian economies (Magazine)

Kamski being the one creating Thirium 310 and biocomponents more than a decade ago suggests other areas with these minerals were already explored, the North Pole being the last one (Assumption)

Police is constantly using marketing data to identify criminals (Magazine)

Dating websites usually have less than 5% of women using it (Magazine)

0.4% of world population holds 94% of global wealth by 2038 (Magazine)

By 2038 there's constant propaganda selling Canada as the true land of freedom (Magazine)

No matter how u play as Markus u gonna eventually have event contexts distorted, including fake news. They're called criminal org and terrorists no matter what u do (Observation)

CyberLife developed a nano-android to help combating cancer and diseases that can extend the human life-span even reaching a semi-immortality status - and it's very promising as it was already succesful in doing its task (Magazine)

US life expectancy is 91 by 2038 (Magazine)

By 2038 US got a aging population but not enough young people to support the economy with the unemployment rate at 37.3%, and the "job" area is dominated by androids (Magazine, Observation)

When the rebellion starts the gov consider bringing retirees back to work as the country lack qualified manpower to deal with the withdraw of androids (Cut dialogue)

Only two countries have android industries that rival the United States: Russia and China, they're also in a space race of sorts (Magazine)

Team sports like baseball got at least 1 android per team (Magazine)

An advanced high speed train was completed in 2038, connecting New York and LA in less than 2,5 hrs and there's a high flux of east coast folks going to LA (Magazine)

Suburban prices there have rose 64% and California folks are worried they gonna get pushed out of the region (Magazine)

Detroit is currently in a Red Ice epidemic with it being the easiest route the poor go, either by selling or using it (Magazine)

There was a Red Ice Task Force from 2027 to 2031 that made major arrests and drug seizure during the first epidemic (Gallery, Articles)

Bees are extinct by 2038 and people expect a global famine. CyberLife is already making partnerships to create bee-robots while other groups try finding new alternatives (Magazine)

Environmentalists say the Earth’s environment is beyond repair (Magazine)

Global rainforests have been reduced by 79% since 2000 and coastal corals by 58% (Magazine)

During the events of the game an earthquake kills 10k people in China (Magazine)

CyberLife has partnership with the Department of Defense in the development and supply of military androids, something that started in the early 30s after it was approved to limit human casualties in the battlefield (Magazine, Observation)

In 2031 the US gov ordered 2 million androids for use in the infantry, mostly SQ800 units already being deployed in 2032 replacing human soldiers.

Michigan also announced the purchase of 5k auxiliary androids to assist law enforcement department but following the 2029 Android Act they can't use weapons (PlayStation Blog)

U.S. Army soldiers are equipped with advanced equipment to keep up with their android "subordinates" (Gallery)

Stock exchange falls 10% on fear of Arctic conflict by 2038 (Magazine)

68% of men prefer sex with an android to a human woman and with 52% of men saying they’ve tried the experience at least once (Magazine)

CyberLife currently got around 120 million androids across the globe and some people suspect they're using 'em to spy on people (Magazine)

There are at least 200k military android units already in service across the US military by 2038 and the gov is buying more for the Arctic conflict, an effort to double the infantry size (Magazine)

The US Army is 60~80% android, with humans mainly as commanders and strategists but they tend to use complex AIs to help with assistance (Magazine)

Sales of android intimate partners are very high as lotta men and women prefer living with an android than a human partner (Magazine)

Birthrate is at record low, population decline is said to be irreversible, marriage is in decline as traditional families become “thing of the past” and the divorce rate only increases (Magazine, News, Observation)

US is currently in an "antidepressant epidemic" due to the constant contact with technology, with people even lacking emotional development (Magazine)

The AX400 price is $899 by 2038 (Magazine)

5% of the music market is produced by human musicians. An android boyband Here4U is favorite to win Best Act, Best Video at global music awards - which are human record awards (Magazine, News)

Scientists found "alien" life on Titan: microorganisms living hundreds of kilometers below the surface, in an ocean of salt water protected by a thick layer of ice. The machine-i-forgot-the-name was sent in 2019 (Magazine)

Lute turtles, polar bears, mountain gorillas, african elephants and several species of tiger are extinct by 2038, with CyberLife now making some sorta android zoos (Magazine)

Canada is an android-free zone they don't sell or have any laws about it there as they don't permit androids inside 'em borders (Magazine)

CyberLife has recently released a tech demo of a quaterback android, something that got the Anti-Android Fan Group pissed (Magazine)

There's some sorta quantum magnet being studied that got the potential of cleaning carbon from the air (Magazine)

The Anti-Automation League and CrowneCars representants are in a discussion about ethical decision-making capability of autonomous cars (Magazine)

CyberLife has made a new quantum supercomputer, capable of one billion billion operations per second used to calculate the probability of mass extinction events (Magazine)

Hackers targeting systems like solar panels for ransom seems to be common thing (Magazine)

NASA announced the launch of a five android crew to explore Io (first time it's a full-machine crew). The journey will last three years (Magazine)

CyberLife is a trillionaire company by 2038, they were already billionaires a decade before (Magazine)

The first android ever officially released by CyberLife was the ST200 Chloe, costing 65k in 2024. By 2027 they already had 1mi androids sold (PlayStation Blog)

[continues on the next reblog]

[rachelsfav-queer]

How would mommy Enid and daddy Yoko handle Wednesday getting overstimulated and having a complete meltdown? Poor thing is totally inconsolable :'(

Whew. Okay, this one is obviously very important to me, as I’ve said in a previous post. But, I didn’t really explain why so, let me do that now. Btw, this whole thing is gonna be a long one, so either strap in or hop out.

So, first off, I’m reading this ask as if Wednesday is autistic, along with the typical headcanon of her being a little that’s been present lately for VampRavenWolf. So, I’ll be basing it on my experience with autistic meltdowns, which for the most part has been extremely traumatic. I won’t get into any specific details about my experience for privacy reasons and I also don’t want to trigger myself by forcing myself to remember it all.

As for my story, there was a point in my life where I was in an extremely toxic environment that almost constantly produced meltdowns for me. Now, meltdowns are already a very traumatic experience for autistic people, but it was made 10x worse for me by the fact that I was surrounded by people who were only aiming to make it worse for me, hoping that I would eventually self-destruct, in whatever way that meant. They genuinely didn’t care how it happened, just as long as they could get rid of me. That is my story, it’s a very shortened and simplified version of it, with a whole lot of missing context, but it’s my story nonetheless.

I want to say that I still appreciate this ask. Because it gives me an opportunity to share my experience in hopes that by doing so, I can help at least someone. Let them know that they’re not alone like I thought I was for most of my life. That is how I heal the trauma that was dealt to me.

So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the actual ask!

TRIGGER WARNING: Descriptions of sensory overload and meltdown as experienced by an autistic character, light descriptions of self-harm in the form of harmful stimming, and descriptions of panic attacks. All below the cut.

So, for this scenario, I’m gonna set it in VampRavenWolf’s home. It’s already gonna be hard for our poor little raven, I don’t want to subject her to dealing with it in public. Secondly, we’re gonna say that something happens with one of the smoke detectors, some sort of malfunction that causes it to go off for no reason. This will be what causes everything to go down. Alright, this is everyone’s last chance, if anything in the warning above is triggering to you, PLEASE leave now and do not read. Remember, you are not forced to read this if any of the trigger warnings make you uncomfortable. Please, take care of yourselves.

Alright, we all good? Great.

The day already wasn’t going great. Wednesday had just gotten home from school half an hour ago, and her classmates all day had apparently made it their mission to annoy her. Not even Bianca was able to ward off everyone all day, considering she only shared half of her classes with the raven. And of course, both her girlfriends were either out dealing with work or handling family issues, of which they’d only gotten home from a few minutes before Wednesday did, only to have to retreat to their respective offices to finish even more work.

Spending so much time away from her Mommy and Daddy was always the most exhausting thing in the world for Wednesday and although she understood that they couldn’t just spend every second of every day right by her side, the fact still upset her greatly.

At the moment, Wednesday is sitting in the living room, watching TV with Raven on her lap, though she’s not paying very close attention (Raven isn’t either). The absence of her Mommy and Daddy weighs heavy on her mind, only made worse by the day she’s had. Wednesday’s just about to get up to find her Mommy in hopes that she’ll give her the attention that she so desperately needs when suddenly, the smoke alarm in the kitchen goes off. The loud, piercing noise sends Wednesday falling off the couch as her hands fly up to cover her ears. It takes a few seconds for her mind to catch up with her body, but when it does, Wednesday begins crying violently, coughing wildly and her breathing quickly becomes unsteady, short and with no rhythm.

Meanwhile, Enid and Yoko are alerted immediately by the noise and rush out to check everything out. Seeing no signs of a fire, they determine the alarm is just malfunctioning and pull it off the wall, taking out the batteries and silencing the screaming noise. Once the alarm is off, though, the quiet exposes the sound of their baby sobbing in the living room and once again the women are rushing to the sound. Their hearts break at the sight of Wednesday curled up on the floor with her hands clutching her head tightly. Enid walks forward first, lowering herself as slowly as possible, and speaks gently, “Hey, little raven. It’s Mommy. Can I come closer?”

The muffled sound of her Mommy’s voice catches the raven’s attention and she gravitates towards it, opening her eyes slightly and choking out, “L- loud, Mommy! Too loud!” Still overwhelmed by the stimulation, Wednesday’s brain is in desperate need of regulation and so instinctually her fists begin slamming into the sides of her head over and over and over and over and-

Thinking quickly, Enid gently pulls the seer's arms by her wrists and wraps them around her torso, allowing the girl to pound her fists into the wolf’s back, “Okay, okay baby. That’s it, let it out on Mommy. She can take it, you’re okay.” Enid continues to mutter reassurances over and over again while Yoko leaves for a moment to grab Wednesday’s noise-canceling headphones, returning the moment she finds them and carefully sets them on the raven’s ears.

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s sobbing only gets worse, her breathing getting shallower and her body getting weaker. Yoko and Enid are starting to get seriously worried, they look at each other with fear in their eyes and Yoko asks weakly, “What do we do?”

Enid looks back down at the girl in her arms, desperately trying to think of anything to bring their girlfriend out of this meltdown safely. Suddenly, she gets an idea. “We need to help her regulate herself. Here,” Enid breathes, offering the girl to Yoko, “Hold her, she prefers cold. I’ll go turn down the A/C and grab her weighted blanket. I’ll be right back.” While Enid does that, Yoko gets an idea of her own. She first shuffles back to lean against the couch, then, staying careful not to jostle the raven, Yoko does her best to unbutton as much of her shirt as she can and lays Wednesday’s head onto her exposed chest. Almost immediately, Wednesday’s breathing begins to slow, as do her tears. Yoko continues to whisper gentle words of praise and reassurance until Enid gets back. The werewolf covers the two with the black blanket and gets yet another idea. Stepping away from her girlfriends, Enid transforms into her wolf form and then lays her head gently against the seer’s back.

And with the combined weight of the blanket and the werewolf plus the chill of the vampire and the A/C blowing down on them all, Wednesday slowly starts coming back to herself. Eventually, her breathing is even again, and a few sniffles here and there are the only signs that she’d been crying. Petting her hair, Yoko speaks, “Hey there, baby bird. You back with us?”

Wednesday nods slowly, “Yes Daddy. Feel better.”

At the sound of her baby’s voice, Enid lifts her head and gently nudges Wednesday’s cheek with her snout, chuffing softly which makes the goth smile tiredly. Which in turn pleases her Mommy and Daddy, knowing their girl really was back with them.

“Get some sleep, baby bird. We’ll be right here for you. We have you always.”

End <3

[v3nusxsky]

Helloo </3 🤗 can I just first say that that u are realy talented and i love reading ur fics...

Could I please request a platonic fic between Lady Lesso and Never reader where Rafal is after the student and she changes and becomes mean and starts acting out... At first Lady Lesso gets angry and tries to punish her but then she finds out Rafal is troubling the reader, just anything angsty and hurt and comfort... maybe u could make it that the reader came from an abusive family and that's why it was hard for her to tell someone about Rafal... U can change any details to ur liking...

Thank u </3 🤗

Manipulative Bastard

*Authors note~ really I mean who really likes Rafal? But I can appreciate how much of a important character he is to the plot*

Trigger warnings~ manipulation past abuse

Prompt ~ see ask^^^^^

The first time he appeared you were terrified. You didn't know who he was, he seemed to know exactly who you are tho. The only instruction was to not mention his appearance to anyone, he would tell you things from the past or what was current. Why would this stranger lie? You tried to argue at the start, looking for any reasonable explanation for his words but you came up empty. You felt compelled to do as he wished. Even though it felt wrong, you followed his every word.

Your behaviour was changing and that much was obvious to everyone. You couldn't take the pressure, the things he was telling you hurt yet all you could do was bottle it up until you lashed out. Your past coming back to haunt you, you were stuck in this horrid catch twenty two. On one hand you wanted to tell someone but you didn't want to risk angering the man, he seems scary and powerful. In your experience with men, you were nothing more than a toy. Something to use and abuse as they deem fit. If you did as they wanted then they would more than likely go easier on you. Truthfully, you couldn't deal with that pain again.

Lady Lesso, noted the dramatic change in your behaviour and couldn't work out while you changed. This wasn't like you, your shy plaint nature had been replaced by this defiant, angry student. Truthfully, she wanted to help you and get to the bottom of this issue. Your misbehaving had gone too far today, that's why she ordered you to be taken to the doom room, if you hadn't willingly come to her then it was apparent she would have to force it out of you. She knew your past so she wouldn't be unnecessarily cruel but this needed to stop.

She gave you a speech about how she was disappointed in this behaviour you were exhibiting and how confused she was by the change. You felt tears stinging your eyes, knowing that you'd disappointed her hurt, lady lesso had become a sort of mother figure for you and now knowing you'd upset her really bothered you. Suddenly it all became too much and you snapped, rambling about everything Rafal had said and how scared you were. He flaunted his blood magic and told you all the ways he could hurt you with it, told you how no one in the school truly cared for you. How you're own parents didn't even love you, the only one who could truly love you was him.

You broke down as you finished your explanation, finally feeling like a weight had been lifted off your chest and you could breathe again. Leonora was quick in her efforts to come and hold you, whispering words of comfort and praise, she knew first hand how scary it was to go against Rafal. "Hush dove, he's a manipulative bastard, I won't let him hurt you darling. You should've come to me love. You did the right thing telling me,I'll keep you safe now my dove" she murmured stroking through your hair. She held you until your tears dried noticing how your shaking didn't subside and your eyes seem to glaze over as you starred in the direction of the only window.

"Is he here my dove?" She murmured watching as you nodded before his voice rang out through the room, "Leonora such a long time it has been, you may have taken my pet but we both know it's unlovable just like you. I'll be back and I will win" he all but growled before leaving. He was gone. But the words he said were confusing and they hurt. Did people really see you as unlovable? It would explain why you've been treated so poorly most of your life and by the people who were meant to care for you from day dot.

Leonora held you until you both felt calm the words of comfort not only reassuring you but also herself. She wouldn't let him hurt anyone and she knew that she would do anything to protect anyone from his manipulation. She's only regretting not being able to save her little dove. She saw you as her very own adopted child, if your parents weren't going to protect you how they should be then she was going to make damn well sure she stepped up. You'd never be alone again, left susceptible to anyone else's warped ideas and methods of using you. Not with her around.

Word count~ 907

[valsverse]

im curious to know ur thoughts on if percy or jason would date someone who's also a big 3 kid? im debating this with my friend group irl rn and curious to know how you'd weigh in LOL, cuz i feel like ur characterization is top notch and you really understand the characters.

ps. merry christmas!! 🎄 💌

ok this is about to be a yapfest so hold on

i wanna preface by saying that the concept of lineage in PJO is sort of brushed over, since the gods don't have dna. so while some people might find the notion of big 3 kids dating other big 3 kids weird, i personally don't see a problem with it. (as long as it's not intra-cabin dating ofc!!)

with that being said, one thing i liked about rick's writing of godly relationships is how he shows the bond between the big 3 kids. (thalia, nico, and percy in TLO, or jason and nico in HoH) so bonds between these campers tend to be stronger since they share a unique connection that others just can't comprehend. that's point 1.

however, for percy, the poor guy is just done with all the godly tension between the zeus, poseidon, and hades, let's be fr. so getting involved with another camper of that same legion could be trouble for him.

out of the two, though, i can see percy working well with a child of hades.

not only is hades the chillest of the 3, but a child of his could balance out percy's sometimes impulsive nature with their more collected/aloof approach, as seen with most hades kids.

as for jason, i think his upbringing could go both ways in terms of a relationship with a child of the big 3. throughout HOO, it's clear that he hates being forced into a position of leadership, so a child of poseidon or hades could help with that, since they are often put in the same position.

plus, jason's abandonment issues run deep, so a child of poseidon/hades might be able to relate with that, as they are most often targeted in comparison to campers of other gods.

some of jason's defining characteristics, like his reluctance to show weakness or insecurity due to his childhood, sometimes make him come across as cold and aloof to others, as seen throughout the series. a child of hades could understand him on a deeper level, since children of hades often have to deal with the animosity surrounding them.

so hades kids ftw ig??

but those are just my thoughts!! merry christmas to u as well anon!! <3

[disabled-stuck]

HI ITS ME CHRONIC PAIN ANON BACK AGAIN... here's my thoughts on who of the human cast is Aware That They Have Chronic Pain Issues. srry ppl were discussing and im like, Wow, Time For Me In Hc Central

june's issues start to really develop and get bad post-game (in my headcanons), so for a long period of time she literally has no one to talk to about it bc she's self-isolating. she eventually tells nannasprite about it when nanna is guilt-tripping her into getting up (nanna voice: Whatever works, hoohoo!), and nanna is like. this is my only granddaughter. i will do whatever i can for her. (i love june & nanna's dynamic. could u tell.) jasprose also is like GIRL!!! You Are In Pain!!! nanna & jasprose team up of the century to get june egbert to Acknowledge Her Problems

dave NO clue NO idea WILL not talk about it. maybe EVENTUALLY tells karkat about it but i don't think she ever seeks out a diagnosis or tries to get one. hes got old ingrained trauma about seeing doctors, which is something he's trying to get over, but like, he already has 4 bajillion other things to unpack about his childhood and healthcare systems are not historically good about chronic pain, a dismissal of their symptoms might set them back in that regard. they're just homebrewing this shit for now.

rose: yeah, she knows. she doesn't talk about it in those terms, though. instead of saying "i have a horrible migraine and cannot get out of bed" she tells kanaya to text the gc that she's afflicted by the Broodfester Woes and cannot join them this evening. theyve sort of picked up by now what that means but she thinks it's funnier this way.

jade: HMMM. i think she put herself through her denial paces but actually i think going grimbark essentially caused her to not feel her chronic pain (a side effect of condy's semi-control over her body), and when she got shunted back into her body she had to face the reality where she DIDNT hurt all the time like wow thats how ppl normally feel? what the fuck????

jane: oh absolutely fucking not does not know. unlike jade, his pain got WORSE during crockertier. yet it still takes literally two decades for him to finally acknowledge that his stuff is NOT normal and the fact that her whole friend group has chronic pain doesn't help, which kind of sucks. jane voice: well sometimes i can get out of bed when i have a headache and rose can't, so clearly its not the same (as if jane doesn't force himself out of bed even when he really shouldnt!!!). roxy has to be the one to tell him.

roxy: yeah she knows it's chronic pain. she's been worried about getting cirrhosis for years, and so has been keeping up to date on her physical health as a result. she figured it out pretty quickly after a couple flareups. trickster mode made it worse for her.

dirk: hal has been telling him for YEARRRRRRRRS that his carpal tunnel is just that, carpal tunnel. and yet. AR: Dirk, if you do not take better care of yourself, you are never going to be capable of building me a body of my own. TT: 1. I'm fine. 2. I'm not building you a body anyways, so the point is moot. anyways he accepts it during the game bc he's like you know what. might as well admit it to myself. good thing, too, because it only gets worse after a couple decapitations.

jake: has pretty much always known, deep down, but like. she lives on an ISLAND. the hell is he going to do about it? no, better not to think about it. someday they'll be able to deal with it, but that day isn't today, and theres so much to do. so he represses it DEEPLY. normal action hero jake english doesn't have chronic pain, of course. she's a heroic manly lead, after all... (the deconstruction of that mindset sort of makes them acknowledge it, though.)

ANYWAYS I JUST RAMBLED AT YOU FOR A COUPLE HUNDRED WORDS HOPE U HAVE, A GOOD DAY/NIGHT/WHAT EVER

YYAYYY no you're so good nonnie thank u forever and ever

[coldercreation]

skdjaks im catching up on ur recent posts cuz ive been inactive on tumblr, and i came across the one where u and some ppl in the replies lament on loving the idea of relationships but never developing crushes rlly and finding it hard to date and whatnot, and damn i relate. i was gonna comment but i wanna stay anon for now, so i am in ur inbox instead huhu. but yh i deal w the same thing, ppl have had crushes on me before, but ive never once returned them? and like even if i find someone attractive as far as i know that doesn’t translate to wanting to bone… blech. i was talking to my friend abt this yesterday, and i was telling her that maybe ill try just going on dates and figure out how i tick?? general research has led me to id as demi after contemplating ace when i was like 13 so,,, who knows rlly. tldr i am similar and i get being confused abt it H

Ohh this is so interesting actually! Like, I genuinely wasn't expecting that so many of you would relate when I wrote that post??🤔 Obviously I knew that there's no way that I'm the only one on this whole planet, but still, seems a lot more common than what I had thought!

I'd like to think that it's very much okay to be confused by these kinds of things, no matter how frustrating it can also be. That's pretty much what I've been telling myself recently. Even if I'd like to find someone I really connect with and to have a relationship, there's no rush or need to force anything immediately just for the sake of it. Maybe it can even be fun to explore with time, and to figure out those things that will make us tick?

For me it's probably more about working on my social life in general than about anything else. Especially since the apps clearly don't do it for me and there's not really any other ways to meet new people. But I'm kinda feeling optimistic about it, mostly because I've been enjoying being social so much more lately!

Thank you for sharing love! This topic has been so interesting and I've enjoyed hearing everyone's experiences xx

///

Huge RAMBLE warning lmao:

I actually brought this topic up in therapy after we chatted about it here, kinda just theorised about it while trying to make sense of it all. My/our conclusion was that, for me, it could stem from ✨trauma✨ and needing a lot of time to truly open up/warm up to people (demi?/trust issues/hyper-independence). And since the societal norm is to often move a lot faster than that, I haven't even had the time to see the possible connection/spark/whatever in people, because they've already deducted, based on me having been very cautious and closed off, that I'm not interested, and so they moved on. Which in turn could've made me feel unwanted or uninteresting or unattractive or even abandoned, y'know? So I'd be left confused, feeling like there was something wrong and unattractive? about me, while also wondering why I'm never actually interested in anyone even though I've always longed for those deep connections with people.

Nowadays I've been feeling a lot lighter and... open? I guess, and I can genuinely see a change in the way people approach me? Or maybe they've always approached me the same way but I just wasn't able to be receptive to it🤔 Dunno! But there must've been some sort of micro-visible behavioural shift in me or something, because as soon as I have started to feel like I can and want to seek out people's company and I genuinely enjoy it, people are just... suddenly there? Whereas before there was this void?? Even when I tried to change that.

And despite me not having met anyone specific I'd be interested in dating, I have felt like I could actually do it now if the right person came along. (When I tried dating through apps years ago I felt like I was forcing it. It was very surface level and short lived, didn't feel... right?) And with that 'shift', or whatever it is that's changed in my behaviour??? I've literally been dodging date invites this past year like it's a sport???? Like tf?😭😂 This is mind boggling to someone who has for years thought that no one just gives a shit about me and there's something so unattractive about me that that's why no one shows any interest... But I think it really is a lot to do with some strange subtle messages that were given off? (and maybe also me leaving the house sometimes lmao....) I believe I wrote it in one of the more brainy stories as well, maybe CYE?, that if someone's whole body language, subconsciously or not, screams 'leave me the fuck alone', people are likely to leave them alone. And if we're not aware that that's the message we're giving off, it can very easily make us feel confused and like something's inherently wrong with us.

But then again, I don't think I would've been ready for anything like this a few years back, so perhaps the brains are smarter than we think and know that it takes time to heal. My therapist agreed that not having crushes could be due to so many things, but what I was saying did track to him. Slow to warm up/demi? + (social) anxiety + trauma are a hell of a combo when it comes to building new relationships. No matter why I'm not having crushes easily, he told me to take it easy on myself and to be understanding; after dealing with mental health crap and trauma for most of my life, it'd be very unreasonable to compare myself to the societal 'standards' or expect myself to do things in the same phase as other people are. Like, I had other shit to deal with growing up, so maybe I'm just now feeling like I'm ready to be myself, and it's okay to take things slow.

(And while writing that, speaking about people suddenly being there when before I felt like no matter what I tried, I was struggling to connect with people; I just got a thank you text from someone I helped at work when they were upset about something, and they said they'd love to see me (this one is in a friend way, not a date way) outside of work sometime as well :((((( is it weird if I cry lmaooo) xx

[dyed-red]

23 and 65!

23. how do you deal with writers block?

just starting right out the gate with the hardest question on the list, huh 😂 the honest answer is "a lot of ways" and "it depends on where i'm at in the story".

but some of those ways are:

finding a song that fits the vibe and listening to it on repeat for hours while trying to write

going back and reading what i've already written. this one works best if i start from like... the beginning, or very early in the story. i'll pick back up all the story beats and threads i was laying down and going back over them will help me untangle whatever mess i've made and figure out where i need to go next to make it build right.

writing down scene titles / story events on physical flash cards and rearranging them in different orders in front of me (sitting on the floor and shoo'ing away my cat) to find if i'm missing pieces or what order makes the most sense

stepping away from it for a while so it can percolate in the back of my brain

forcing myself to sit in front of it and get words out

the rubber duck debugging system (talk to someone about it, ideally someone not even in the fandom, and in the process figure out what the issue is or what i need to write next, typically before they even have a chance to chime in)

read something with a somewhat related trope that either inspires me or leaves me so pissed off that i just have to go and continue my story

one piece of advice i've never seen elsewhere: be clear / have solid lines between stories you have no intention to finish vs. ones that are still breathing, even if you're not making much progress on them or doing it quickly. give your mental energy, even if it's just percolation in the back of your mind (yes, percolate like a coffee maker), to the stories you are committed to completing

65. what is your favourite title for a fic you’ve written?

ooh okay so i'm both pretentious af and lazy af about titles. i sort of get stuck on the first one that comes to mind or gels with the story and then don't overthink it.

my runner up would be Architecture of Choice. it's only an honorable mention because, outside the fic itself, it makes me think of where it came from, which is choice architecture within behavioral decision theory, and that's way more technical and related to my day job than i want to be thinking about when writing fic.

so my actual favourite fic title i've written for spn is this pretentious monstrosity: Rusted H(u)e(w)

Like... who the fuck writes a title like that? I do, apparently. because the words came to me somewhat spontaneously like they always do for a title, but then when i went to write them i had "error 404 file not found" for if my brain was supplying "rusted hew" or "rusted hue". so i had to make it both. which fits the the story - not just each of the two readings but also the choppy, inelegant way in which they're spliced together. so i'm pleased with it anyway.

[zxombii]

💉🫀🦴 ︵ " Angry, Are You? "

( ♡,, › ｏ‹ ,, ) — ❝ silly little idea :3 wanted to write smth! very short rahhh this is for practice ig ^__^ ❞ mimi says.

︶︶ . ˚ proxies X gns!reader w/ anger issues ⑅

— gender non-specified reader. no warnings.

— contains jeff the killer, ticci toby, ben drowned, masky.

JEFF THE KILLER: lowkey kinda likes it. he makes u even more angry with always wanting to tease u, purposefully messing up ur schedule u stick to and stuff like that. he finds great joy in seeing u grit ur teeth at him, color going to ur cheeks in anger. he would laugh so badly to the point of literally falling over which resulted in him getting a good kick to the side before u would walk—or more-so stomp—away, his coughs in the background.

TICCI TOBY: literally avoids u when u have one of those bad tantrums– ur like a toddler but worse honestly. like, ur already really mean in general, but when u get angry-angry? almost everyone is hiding. especially including toby. yelling is such a normal thing to hear in the mansion.. but with U it was so much worse oml☠️ overall: he is avoiding u like the Plague until u get those anger issues sorted out or smth🗣🔥🔥

BEN DROWNED: that one meme with that guys hands on his head with a surprised face. the first one to cower when u yell (hides in a electronic in under a millisecond) cause he Knows its about to go down🙏 will occasionally giggle cause he thinks of u saying “my eyes turn red when mad”. kinda laughs to hard and goes dead silent when u glare at him and shrinks into a puddle of fear.

MASKY: goes outside so fast. he already deals with toby and the others to much so he is Not having it☠️ forces others to try and calm u down (never ends good) and refuses to go inside until someone comes outside and tells him everything is back to normal, though he may stay outside a little longer just incase cause he is Not taking any chances.

— i do not allow my work to be translated, stolen, or anything similar. everything i write is made by me and only me unless i say differently on that post. credits to zxombii on tumblr. i have no side blogs.

[captainninej]

Lmao I just found out that SJM's parents are a court judge and a lawyer and she grew up in NY's Upper West Side (aka richie rich type of neighborhood). No wonder she sucks at writing characters who deal with poverty and discrimination and institutional issues 🤷🏽‍♀️ she's also an only child which explains Feyrug and Alien behaving like the whole universe revolves around them 🤦🏽‍♀️

welp. that explains a lot

i don't want to say people from privileged backgrounds can't write characters from other backgrounds at all, but it definitely requires a level of care and attention to detail to make it realistic and to stop your own privilege leaking into your writing as much as you can. you need to research, you need to empathise, and you need to remember that you will likely never be able to capture the true essence of the experiences you are trying to write.

sjm does none of this. she tries so hard to be revolutionary but it falls so flat because she doesn't even try to develop any sort of understanding of institutional issues. she would rather use them as window dressing, case in point: using breonna taylor to promote ACOSF OF ALL THINGS. Y U C K. she gives very white-woman-trying-to-be-woke-to-prove-she's-not-a-racist energy. but her bigotry is so OBVIOUS in her writing it's fuckin painful to read.

again, she can't control her lack of siblings but BY GOD don't try to depict a complex sibling dynamic if!! you have no idea!! how it works!! NO SIBLING would tolerate how rhysand treated feyre's own sister, and no older sibling would let their youngest go out into the woods every day. you could grow up in the most divisive, broken family and there's still an unbreakable bond between siblings. you may disagree, you may hurt each other, you may not talk every day or get along. but you will never seek to destroy your sibling's life or put them in danger.

i'm a middle sibling in a house of three girls. my older sister and i talk a lot about how fucked up the relationship between the archeron sisters is (she's only read acotar and that was enough for her). reading these siblings is PAINFUL. my older sister and i would never send our youngest to hunt for us. i would never hope for my sisters to starve?? i would never let a MAN control my sister's life and destroy her apartment, or force her to hang out with my friends who HATE her. i wouldn't even tolerate anyone being rude to my sister.

my friend is an only child, and she's sometimes really confused at the dynamic between me and my sisters. how one day i'll be ranting about one and the next i'll tell her how we did something funny together. and that's okay!! it's not like she has any experience with siblings. but she's also not oblivious enough to go on to write an entire SERIES about siblings, about something she doesn't understand and likely never will.

honestly, from what i remember even aelin's relationship with aedion is more realistic than whatever the fuck is going on between the archeron sisters. at least their love for each other was never in question. they disagreed, but aelin and aedion would fight tooth and nail for each other. the archeron sisters? if rhysand asked, at this point feyre has already forced nesta into countless uncomfortable situations and pulled her life from underneath her. she's trapped her in a house with a man she's uncomfortable with, she DESTROYED HER APARTMENT, told her she's an embarrassment for having PTSD (which feyre herself has suffered) and then offered her up as a prize to eris, a known abuser. she may care about nesta, but she doesn't love her.

im so sorry i went off on a rant LMAO i have a lot of feelings about the sibling dynamic hahah

[mack3030]

Are you okay?

Seriously CWB, are you okay? Because you seem to have lost touch with reality and I am starting to get concerned. Let me break this down for you.

PEOPLE ARE PISSED BECAUSE YOU DOXXED PEOPLE. AND TRACK THEM. AND YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF ACTING HOMO/TRANSPHOBIC. AND YOU TREAT THE COMMUNITY/YOUR CUSTOMERS LIKE SHIT WHEN THEY QUESTION YOUR ACTIONS. THE MESH ACCUSATIONS....DON'T MATTER.

This community can forgive you for mesh shit. I mean look at how well Leosims is doing even though they're a blatent thief. Sonyasims got a slap on the wrist even though she was copying from SL and from other sims creators side by side in blender. That's not the issue chicka. Never was. The issue is, instead of dealing with it like the professional you claim to be, posting your mesh proof and letting it be, you then posted my personal information, lied and changed your story continually, posted doctored images, got a whole bunch of shady sock puppet accounts to help you, and misgendered a trans man. All while your history of trans/homophobic comments have been made public. Then you had the fucking audacity to make vauge legal threats towards the community as if a lawyer will remotely take a case like this where you openly posted information to harrass someone. And what's funny is, in your mind, you are so out of touch with the possibility that you could have FUCKED up that you have to concoct some sort of story that this is all my fault. That somehow I am behind all of the accounts coming after you. Because to admit that all of these people are different people who are pissed with you, would be admitting that you have wronged the community you claim to be a part of, and they are giving you the consequences of your actions. So what's your legal plan. Please tell me. You gonna sue anyone who reblogged my post? Anyone who remotely spoke out against you and told you to apologize? How about the moderators of the sims 4 facebook groups and reddits who've banned you recently? Are you going to go after them? What about all of the discords moderators and admins that have been warning people away from your content? Are they going to get summons? How are you going to find the information of these people? Because I promise you twitter, discord, tumblr and reddit are not going to give you their information over an internet fight over sims items. Because if they've not taken down posts for harrassment/slander/etc, they don't see that there's any legal reason for it to be considered that.

By the way, this is just my unofficial count here but I can count at least fifteen DIFFERENT individuals from various states/countries, etc who have all spoken out against you during this. Not just me. My quarentine is registered with my work and my county of residence. It's an official record in my state that I was sick with COVID and forced to stay home during certain dates (12/10-12/16 of 2021). You can ask multiple friends of mine here on simblr that I have on discord, they'll tell you I was not on simblr or twitter at all during that time and was in bed sleeping or playing minecraft. I do not have the time, nor inclination to try to hack your twitter or make sock puppet twitter accounts. And considering the fact that Twitter probably I.P banned the person that made that account to harrass you...if it were me, I'd not have access to twitter. Plus, twitter could check the I.P of the person who made that account and check it against my own I.P address. They'd not match. Ask twitter support if you're so damn sure it was me.

^ Proof I still have access to twitter.

You are literally here trying to say that I'm here messaging all your supporters....

Here's the people I've messaged here on tumblr most recently. Only one of them is someone who is a former supporter of yours, and they messaged me first, because they are sick of your B.S.

And here's my twitter messages. Proof I'm not sending shit to your followers.

And here's my lastpass vault, showing people that I literally only have one twitter account to my name that is public. Because I don't remember shit when it comes to passwords so I use a password keeper.

And here's proof that myself, lovechildllama, and u/mommy-fetish are not the same people, as we're here talking on discord about useless shit. Having bonded over being needlessly attacked by you. :) Oh, and let's also talk about what will happen if this goes to an actual courtroom. YOU WILL HAVE TO STATE, UNDER OATH, THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST YOU. INCLUDING THE DOXXING AND TRACKING OF PATRONS. BECAUSE THE MESHES SWEETUMS, ARE ONLY A PART OF IT. You will have to admit if you shared patreon information with other creators, and name those creators that you shared that info with. You will have to admit to harrassment and posting of information for the purpose of harrassing. You will have to admit to posting obviously doctored screenshots. You will not be able to legally lie and change your story. You will have to be honest. You will have to admit to breaking the TOS of Patreon, which could very easily end your career as a creator. Plus you'd have to prove damages, which is hard to do since you've only gained patrons. How do you think your creator friends who are outside of the line of fire...the ones you've been sharing your tracking info with...will feel when they hear you might have to name them if you pursue this? That by accepting information from you about patrons and then banning them, they are participating in something also against Patreon's TOS? Also, you'd have to prove that I was out here with malicious intent intending to come up with something completely false without any sort of evidence or data to back it up. But when other reasonable people see your stuff and compare it to secondlife meshes and assume you either made them or copied them....

It's really not like I pulled these accusations out of "thin air". It's similar enough that a reasonable person might doubt you. So here's my advice, my honest to goodness, well meaning, intending the best for you advice. If I were you, I'd do this: 1) I'd apologize, publicly for the trans/homophobic comments, and apologize to u/mommy-fetish for calling them by their dead name and repeatedly misgendering them. And I'd mean it. Really mean it, because the community's gonna be pissed if you fake it. 2) I'd use those "awesome" mesh skills of yours, and make sure that when you make shit, that it doesn't look remotely close enough to any secondlife item. You decide you wanna make a lamp that has a log base? You look up log base lamps on secondlife and make sure your mesh can't be mistaken for those and that you make it look original enough that people can't assume that shit. 3) I'd lay low. And by that I mean I'd stick to posting on your patreon and not post in sims groups or on twitter or discord. I'd leave the community alone and give it time to forgive you for your shit. Since this community seems to have the memory of a flea. Because right now, people are not happy with you, and if you post trying to shill your wares, you will get the wrath of those people on you. I'm sure you've seen that recently. 4) I'd reflect, and I mean REALLY reflect on your choices as a creator and the company you keep and if you want to surround yourself with the people you've got around you now. Because I can tell you, that the people you've chosen to align with right now are people who are out for themselves, and not out for you. They will give no fucks about you if it means they are in danger themselves. That goes for your creator friends, and for your patrons. Think about what choices you've made as a creator and if they actually allow your patrons to care about you for you and your creativity/personality, or because they are dependant on you to give them pretty things. Hint: Right now, it's the latter, and that's the only reason they're kissing your ass. 5) I'd give up on the idea of a lawyer entirely because the amount of people you'd have to prosecute and the amount of countries you'd have to figure out laws/jurisdictions for would be enough to make a lawyer want to scream. And that'd be assuming they'd take the case of someone who literally is using money made by violating a company's TOU/EULA to pay them, and that's assuming you could afford it with the amount of people you'd have to go after. Also the people you'd prosecute would also be able to possibly get Patreon, EA, and maybe even some of those social media companies on their side as part of the defense, since your actions on those sites have been less than stellar, resulting in you being banned from certain communities. (I mean you publicly posted someone's info for the purpose of harrassment to reddit, instagram, twitter, etc? Do you think those companies would be happy with that?) 6) I'd stop lying to yourself. Admit you fucked up, accept it. Grow from it. And move the fuck on. Stop trying to lie to yourself and spin tales making yourself the victim. Admit you were human. And move the fuck on. And last .... 7) Stop doxxing and fucking tracking your patrons and treating people like shit in the community. Because here's the deal. Pirates are gonna remove your fucking trackers as they find them anyway because they know you track, so there's no point. You're only losing people by making them worry about tracking, so stop it. The people who are using your items from your patreon without paying probably wouldn't have paid you anyway regardless, so stop having a stick up your ass and stop violating people's fucking privacy.

All this crap is, is the consequences of your actions and choices. So stop digging your hole, and do better. You are at the point where you can still repair your reputation with the community before it's damaged forever, but you're quickly circling the drain and it will get worse unless you put a halt to the shit show now. Eat your humble pie, admit you fucked up, apologize to the community, and do better. Because otherwise, people will never forget the shit you did, and you will be untrusted for a long time. Because you're already on the shit list of some of the major mod creators/communities

You have the power to stop the shit. Only you. Because while you're here claiming I'm tearing the community apart, I'm actually here bringing it together, and although they may not agree on maxis match versus alpha, or which sims game is best, they CAN agree that you've been acting like a jerk. Again. Do better.

[lesbianrobin]

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity. 

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax. 

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind. 

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective. 

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow? 

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally. 

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.” 

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway. 

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season. 

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still. 

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered. 

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

[teddy06writes]

1955 Chevy Delray

requested by outsiders anon: "Hola mi bueno amigo. Sorry for the lack of ideas recently, had a wifi issue, definitely didn't make the wifi box implode ofc not what u on about ofc ofc. The angst in the last one I'm 😩😭👍 chefs kiss. U know, I don't see a lot of Steve stuff, probably because I don't search for it 👀. But, how about Y/N being an absolute ACAB legend and stealing a car and bringing it to Steve like 🥺👉👈 for u. Or any other character ofc. xoxo, ur acquaintance bae - outsiders anon"

{Rip your wifi I guess Outsiders anon; also you've brought out the vintage car person I secretly am, this story is based off the 1955 Chevy 210 Delray for sale at Volo Auto}

{also also Volo Auto Museum my beloved (like actually I love that place) it's so cool there}

Steve Randle x Reader

Trigger warnings: swearing, a clear show of knowledge that I technically don't poses, fuck 12

Premise: You knew that Steve had been talking about trying to get one for a while, so when the opportunity arises you happen to take one for a test drive...

{so delrays aren't that rare or anything now, and they certainly weren't then, but it would be a nice ass car compared to what the greasers would be used to}

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You'd just been out for a walk, bumming around closer to the west side of town.

When you saw it, just sitting there by the curb, sunlight reflecting off the shinny yellow paint job, you couldn't help but grin, glad that you'd brought your tools.

Glancing around, you found that it had been mostly abandoned, the owner probably off in one of the shops that lined the street.

Slowly you moved around to the drives side, testing the handle.

Groaning, you found it locked, but it didn’t take too long to Jimmy the lock. The handle was scratched to shit by the end, but you knew someone that would be more than happy to fix it.

Pulling open the door you sat down in the front seat, not taking the time to admire the ivory and emerald interior as you glanced up and down the mostly empty street again before pulling out the flat head and hammer from your coat.

In a all too practiced manner you jammed the flat head into the ignition, glancing back to the shop as you heard the door open.

You paused, quickly reaching over to lock the doors before continuing, using the hammer to pound it in the rest of the way, muttering, "Sure as hell hope he can fix the cylinder."

As you sat up properly, you turned trying to hide your panic as a large group of people left the shop, dispersing along the street.

"Ohhhh Shit." You muttered.

Turning the flat head as though it was a key, you did your best to look natural.

"Come on, come on, come on," You muttered, trying again, "Just turn over!"

There was a knock on the window, "Excuse me, are you sure this is your car?"

"Uhhhh...." You hesitated, looking up at the woman.

"I'm going to assume not. Look kid, I'll give you a chance to go away, but if your not out in two minutes i'm calling the police."

"This is my mothers car," You lied, "She lost the keys and told me to try and get it working enough to get home-"

"mmhmmm." The lady was already beginning to walk toward the phone booth.

"Shit!" You exclaimed, now there would surely not be enough time to open the steering column.

"Oh, look, there she is now!" You half waved at a random woman walking down the other side of the street, who confusedly waved back, "Just getting it started now ma!"

She frowned but nodded, and you quickly rolled the window back up, trying again.

"Come on, come on, come on," You knew you were dangerously close to flooding the engine, and you would be in even deeper shit if the cops showed, and by the looks of the woman standing by the line for the phone booth, they might.

By some miracle, or maybe sheer force of will, the engine turned over and you breathed a sigh of relief, tossing the hammer into the passengers seat and quickly pulling away from the curb.

"Wait! That's not-"

The yell of the woman disappeared behind you as you took off, rounding the corner sharply, and wincing as the back end scraped a passing car.

"Holy shit." You muttered, turning into an ally and crossing through onto a different main road, headed the long way back to the east side.

If you were lucky, the lady hadn't taken the plate numbers, and if you were lucky Steve would be able to fix what ever damage you were inflicting by heading out of the city to loop around.

Sometime later, you managed to pull up outside of the DX, coming to a stop in front of the garage and leaning out the reopened window, "Stevie look what I scored!"

"Holy shit (y/n)!" He quickly abandoned the can of oil he'd been toting, running out to the car, "Holy shit!"

You grinned, "'s a 55, green interior, leather, bench seats the works. Plus it's got all the extra shit, Steve it's even got fender skirts!"

"I can see that," He breathed, "Turn it off a second, I wanna see under the hood."

You frowned, quickly pulling the flat head back out of the ignition, "Oh yeah, the only problem is that I definitely fucked the ignition cylinder getting it started, and partially flooded the engine."

"I'll fix it Doll, don't worry." He grinned, leaning against the side of the car.

"Good. I'll see what I can do about the plates, and then we'll have our own real car."

"We? W- Doll you stole this it's sort of yours, not mine." Steve protested.

You laughed, "You drive a piece of shit Steve, and if I go home with this I'll get my ass beat."

"(y/n)-"

"Shush, my minds made up. Just promise this is the only car you'll pick me up in for dates." You chuckled.

"Easy deal." He grinned, leaning down to kiss you through the open window.

[hansolmates]

g.p.s - god, parents suck | m

summary; seokjin just wants to enjoy the disney treatment and you are more than happy to deliver pairing; dilf!jin x hotelier!reader genre/warnings; crack, humor, gets a lil emotional, teenage daughter issues, one very minor allusion to a daddy kink LOL, a very vaguely implied sex scene, so CHEESY  w.c; est. 5.1k a/n; wee my first jin fic! this is for @btsghostiewritersnet​ #DynamiteDads event! I was supposed to go to disney this year but sadly miss rona had to cancel our plans so this is just pure self indulgence. as always thank u to @eerieedits​/ @chillingtae​ for the disney dream fic banner!

if you like it give it a bippity-boppity-boop on the like and share buttons! ✨✨✨

“Left, left!” Seokjin cries, holding onto the emergency break for dear life, “not my left, your left!” 

“We’re facing the same way! We have the same lefts!” 

“Clearly not if we’re going right, Sweetheart.” 

“But the GPS says to go right!” 

“In four-hundred feet, keep left at the fork,” Google Maps interrupts pleasantly.  

“That’s it. Kim Yeji, pull over!” 

“But Daaaaaaaaad,” yet his daughter complies, sadly pulling over at the edge of the road. She doesn’t even have to step on the gas, just turns the wheel slightly so she can land slowly, pathetically on the gravel. 

“Angel,” Seokjin says levelly, reaching over to unclick the seatbelt. “I will drive the rest of the way, I gave you time to practice for you have to drive to college but we can’t get on the highway like this.” 

“You never let me do anything.” 

“What, I do! Who let you go to prom in that sequined excuse for a dress?” 

“Uncle Namjoon!” 

“Fine, I’ll give him that! Who let you dye your hair to a crisp—” 

“Uncle Hoseok!” 

“Uncle–” Seokjin is affronted, jabbing the seatbelt in it’s locked position when he gets in the front seat. “Forget it, let’s just have a peaceful drive for the next few hours until we get to the hotel,” he removes Yeji’s phone from the holder, placing it in her lap. 

“Dad,” she waves her phone around, pointing to Google Maps, “you need the GPS to get there.” 

He scoffs, “No, I don’t. We’ve been to Disney plenty of times. I know where we’re going.” 

“Oh yeah? When’s the last time we went to Disney?” 

“When you were two? Three?” 

Yeji relaxes in her seat, not ready to argue with her dad once more. “Alright, lead the way,” she gestures vaguely to the empty parkway, devoid of life for miles. 

Seokjin is undeterred, reaching over the console to pat Yeji’s blonde hair. He turns on the radio, only to be met with the sound of crunchy static and terrible country music. Cutting the radio, he immediately switches to an old Disney CD, telling Yeji to let it go as he pulls into the open road. Reddish dust clouds around the car briefly, ripping against the tires as they drive off to their hotel. 

“Is this the Princess Hotel?” 

“Nope, this is the Prince S Hotel.” 

You can’t help but grin at the way your current customer’s face falls. He’s a handsome thing, all plush and pillowy in the cheeks and lips. Despite his daughter hanging off his arm like a limp noodle—after all it’s past 2AM and they’ve probably been driving for hours—he still manages to look somewhat put-together despite you telling him they’ve got the wrong place. 

“Told you, use the GPS,” her daughter chastises weakly, tucking her cheek in his shoulder. 

His kid’s a pretty girl, kind of reminds you of when you were a teenager. “The Princess Hotel is about an hour away on the other side of the Disney resorts,” you say slowly, noting from the way the girl is swaying on her feet that her father must be equally as tired, “although, I would suggest staying here for the night. Your daughter’s about to fall asleep on my counter.” 

At the pointed look you’re giving the teen, Seokjin puts a protective hand on her slim shoulders. “Yeji-bear, why don’t you lie down for a bit,” he leads her over to a spare couch. “We’ll call our booked hotel,” he says shortly, looking over his shoulder to give you a forced smile. 

Ah, you’ve seen this scene one or two times in your days working at Prince S. A father too prideful to admit he may have messed up just a little with the directions, and a child that probably argued or simmered so hard on the way they’re passed into a stupor on your lobby couch. Tonight, or your early morning is a little special though, you’ve never seen a father as handsome as the one in front of you, exasperatedly calling up their real hotel reservations. 

“What? My reservation has been revoked?” her daughter groans when he jostles around his lap, knocking her head, “how can you do that? Past the time? I thought this was Disney!” 

You drum your nails against the counter, using your other hand to pull up your guest list for the night on the computer. The father, now furrowed in the face, walks up to you and leaves his daughter on the plush couch. 

“One double bedroom for the weekend, please,” the father pulls his cards out, flicking it to your side of the counter. He places down his car keys in the available holder, “I parked out front, you do valet right?” 

With a nod, you get to work. “Take it they weren’t very accommodating?” 

“They gave our hotel room to some Make-A-Wish Foundation kid!” he cries exasperatedly, hands in the air as you patiently book the room. Your eyes linger longer than usual on his driver’s license and ID: Kim Seokjin. Even his driver’s license mugshot looks handsome. He rests his arms against your counter, despondent. “Is it terrible for me to hate on some kid with a terminal illness?” 

“A little,”  you shrug, slipping his keycard under his elbow, “but I mean according to your, Yeji-bear,” you can’t help but giggle at the nickname, “if you used the GPS you’d be at the correct hotel.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Seokjin glares, hauling his and Yeji’s luggage in one hand, “baby, let’s go upstairs c’mon.” 

You watch the small family trudge to the elevators,  sleepily walking forward like zombies. No one spares you a second glance, they never do, so it gives you ample courage to take a look at Kim Seokjin’s toned body. Broad shoulders, a Dorito-trimmed waistline, and long legs that you want to climb up on.

Oh, daddy. 

“Hey,” Yeji pops up on your counter, looking much perkier than she did hours before, “do you have my dad’s car keys?” 

Trying not to raise your brows at your young guest, you give her a smirk, leaning over the counter. A spunky thing, with sharp eyes with a pretty cat-tipped eyeliner shape that has her looking well put-together. You wish you had your shit together as a teenager, you barely have it together now. 

“I do,” you quip, “why?” 

“I wanna get Starbucks,” she says simply, “the pineapple matcha is to die for, and I want to drink as many summer specials as I can before it’s over.” 

“Valid,” you reply, going into your master key to retrieve all the guests’ keys. Taking Seokjin’s from its holder, you note the expensive make. Peering up from your desk, you look at Yeji’s innocent features. Before you place the key in her waiting palm, you snatch it away, “Why do I have the feeling you’re doing something that you’re not supposed to be doing?” 

Yeji tilts her head, “I don’t think it’s any of your business,” 

Sassy. You like it. “Get me a grande matcha frappe and your secret’s safe with me.” 

“Deal.” 

Watching Yeji drive off in the large Hyundai Palisade gives you a little twinge of worry, but you quickly tamp it down to motherly instinct. If you were Yeji’s mom—which you’re definitely not, you’d be worried. Naturally, you feel similarly. 

The hotel phone rings, the red light from 921 blinking on your switchboard. Flipping down the room number you pick up the receiver, “Prince S Hotel, how can I help you?” 

“You do booking, valet, and housekeeping?” Seokjin’s exasperated voice says in your ears, “who would I call if I want breakfast?” 

“That would also be me,” you reply wryly, twisting the curly wire between your fingers, “we advertise ourselves as a hotel for the quality, although we are much smaller with only thirty rooms. Sort of like a bed n’breakfast, getting the true royal treatment.” 

“Would the royal treatment consist of some extra towels and a continental breakfast?” 

“You got it.” 

A little cliché of you to do the whole “whistle while you work” segment—a lacy apron to make sure your uniform doesn’t get dirty, a spot of coffee to keep you peppy and setting everything up on a gold trimmed cart. You didn’t think you’d see Seokjin again, especially after how upset he was about his room. 

With a little rap on his door, Seokjin invites you inside to set up. Their room overlooks the valley as opposed to the busy roads, so it’s a perfect way to rise with the sun. He immediately reaches for the coffee as you drag your little cart in, completely ignoring the cream and sugar on the side. After a long sip, he moans in pleasure. 

“Ah,” he exhales, a sound that has you teeming. You grip the handlebars a little tighter than usual, “Maybe it was fate that we ended up here.” 

“Maybe,” you fight the urge to bite your lip, because Seokjin has no idea how cliché of a line that is. He isn’t even speaking directly at you, talking in front of the sun like it’s his morning routine. “Say, have you seen Yeji around?” 

“Ah,” you shug, pretending to be oblivious, “I think she went out for a walk.” 

He turns to you, giving you a quivering brow, “She hates walking. Probably calling her friends in Korea or something.” 

Of course she doesn’t like walking, you think, that’s why she took your car for some overpriced drinks. 

Instead, you place the fresh pancakes and sides on the guest table, making sure everything is organized and in order. You place the towels atop the haphazardly made bed, making sure to put two mints on top. It isn’t customary to include mints, but you think the mints your hotel has taste great and deserve to be shared around more often than not. 

“So, it looks like you’re ready for Disney,” you remark, taking note of his outfit. He has on blush mid-thigh shorts, stretchy and made from a canvas fabric that looks airy and comfortable. Around his neck is a little portable fan, and on his head is an old Mickey baseball cap. 

“Ah, just for today and tomorrow! Sunday is my ‘me’ day,” Seokjin says, dashing across the room at the sight of fresh food, “Yeji is meeting with some cousins and will be spending the rest of the weekend with them.” 

“Sounds like a fun weekend,” you remark, turning to leave. 

“Will you be working the rest of the weekend?” 

This is supposed to be small talk. You try to convince yourself that Seokjin is just being polite, wondering if his service is going to be impacted by you being around or not. There must be nothing sexual, or just mere attraction, going on between the two of you. Well, maybe on your side of things. The pink shorts and the baseball cap are doing things to your body that you barely understand. Unfortunately, the eager apples of his cheeks and the innocent upturn of his lips lets you know that any possibility of returned affections is virtually nonexistent. 

“It’s my weekend off,” you fight the twinge of excitement when you see Seokjin pout, “but Park Jimin relieves me, and he’s definitely a much better host than I am. He’ll make sure everything’s taken care of.” 

“Does he make better pancakes than you?” Seokjin asks, swirling a bite in a ribbon of maple syrup.  

“I’m afraid not,” you smile, “he makes a mean breakfast burrito though.” 

He shrugs listlessly, eating slower. He takes his time to make sure every pancake is cut in equal two-centimeter pieces, taking his time as if he’s savoring the last of your home-cooked meal. “Not sure if I’ll be completely satisfied then.” 

With a firm smile, you wheel your cart out as fast as you can. You can’t keep up the facade now, not with your trashy mind and your dampening panties ruining your sense of self. Quietly slamming the door behind you, you’re met with Seokjin’s spitting image. 

Yeji tilts her head at you, eating you alive with her dead-on stare. She places the keys and your matcha beverage on your cart. 

“Did my dad confuse you or something?” 

“Is it that obvious?” 

“He’s like that,” Yeji shrugs, taking a long sip of her drink, “don’t worry, I’ll put in a good word for you.” 

A good word? With an uneasy smile you wheel away, ignoring the burn in your cheeks.

“Can I have the keys?” Yeji asks the next morning, minutes before your shift ends.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. You’re sure Yeji is a wonderful kid and has a good heart, but she’s seriously putting your five-star Yelp review on the line. Cocking one eyebrow you say, “What, need your Starbucks fix?” 

“Do you know how to parallel park?” 

“Why, need a teacher?” 

“It’d be better to have someone nearby to make sure I don’t park into a guard rail.” 

“Does Seokjin approve?” 

“You obviously know the answer to that,” Yeji replies, “and you and my dad are on a first-name basis, huh?” 

Fighting the heat in your cheeks, you busy yourself by locking up the money box and key tin, but not before grabbing the keys to the Palisades. “I’m doing this for you because I have impeccable customer service skills,” you feign haughtiness, leaving your front desk and scanning your ID to clock out. 

“Not because you think my dad is hot?” she follows you out the door. 

“Do you always talk about your dad like that?” 

Yeji is silent as she takes the keys from your grip, and you follow her in the passenger seat. A scent that’s fruity yet musky fills your nostrils, and you hug your arms for comfort. This is painfully awkward, at least in your point of view, but Yeji pays no mind as she connects to her Spotify playlist and turns on the air conditioner. 

“I’m not one of those prissy daughters that try their damn hardest to make sure their dad doesn’t date,” Yeji murmurs, adjusting the mirrors, “anyone my dad dates will be better than Hyehwa. He deserves to be happy for all that he’s done for me.” 

“Hyehwa?” 

“The biological carrier for nine months,” Yeji replies dryly. 

Your heart pinches, squeezing against your ribcage as you put two and two together. Hyewha, who you’re assuming is, or was Yeji’s mother, is definitely out of the picture. Yet seeing how confident Yeji is with herself, and how much he loves her father and wants him to be happy, is clear in your eyes. 

“You are one cool kid,” is the only thing you can say, hoping you don’t have that silly heartened look in your gaze. 

It seems that you do, because all she does is roll her eyes and put the car in drive. 

It’s nearly one in the morning when you get the call. 

You’re off the clock, but it’s graveyard hours and you and Jimin are craving pizza. So while Jimin tends to the last minute guests, you pick up a cheesy pie and hide behind the desk while Jimin does his job. 

You’ve polished off half the pie when the main phone rings, and Jimin sighs heavily. Late night and early morning calls are the absolute worst. 

“Get the hospital on speed dial,” Jimin jokes, but not really because the last time someone called at one, you really did wish you had an ambulance on-site. 

“Prince S hotel,” Jimin spins the cord between his fingers, looking like a dreamy teen heartthrob as he leans against the counter. He immediately swings the phone over to your greasy fingers, “it’s a personal call.” 

Wiping your hands on the box, you raise a brow. “Hello?” you ask, wholly confused. 

“Mm, it’s Yeji,” the voice slurs on the other line, “I need help.” 

“A-are you drunk?” you say, incredulous.

“Yeah, me and my cousin snuck a bottle downtown,” Yeji sounds nervous, and you unconsciously grip the phone tighter, “can you pick us up? I can drop you my location if you give me your number, please. My dad trusted me with the Palisade this weekend, I can’t let him know what happened. I know I’m always trying to get under my dad’s skin and whatever but I don’t want him to lose my trust, what we did is a dumb mistake.” 

A part of you feels for Yeji, you’ve done dumb shit like this when you were young. All those fond memories are nothing but memories, and definitely not reflective of your current life now. 

The rational, intelligent part of you knows that you should probably call Seokjin right now and tell him what’s going on. You don’t really want to get involved in their family matters, especially when as of late you’ve been inserting yourself in Yeji’s antics. 

With a sigh, you pull up your Lyft app, already knowing whose side you’re on. 

It takes no more than fifteen minutes for you to arrive at the scene, Yeji and what you assume is her older cousin sitting on the curb of a dilapidated Krispy Kreme, sadly polishing off a whole box of glazed donuts, Well, her cousin is polishing off the box, Yeji is taking nibbles at her proffered donut. 

You sigh, pulling Yeji up. You see tear-streaks, her previously perfect cat-eye smudged off and running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, sounding not as inhiberated as she did before, “I bothered you.” 

“Not at all,” you soothe, running a hand down her braids. You try not to melt when Yeji nearly leans into your warmth, but backs up at the last second, “I’m happy that you called. Would rather know that you’re safe now than later, yeah? I’m not mad at you,” you assure, pulling a crumpled brown napkin from the pizzeria to dab at her ruddied cheeks. 

“Hi, I’m Jungkook,” you turn your head dangerously slowly towards the cute muscle pig who’s still sitting on the curb, “Ya deserve a five-star Yelp review for this service—” 

“But I’m mad at you,” you pointedly ignore his drunken charm. He looks old enough to drink, which only further annoys you because he should be the one taking care of Yeji, “get in the damn car, Youngkook.” 

“It’s Jungkook—”

“Get in.” 

He swallows his tongue, and you notice Yeji stifling a giggle at your attitude. She wordlessly hands you the keys, clamoring in the front seat while Jungkook takes the whole back row. Yeji tiredly informs you the address to her cousin’s hotel, and you drive off into the night. 

“Did I ruin my dad’s chances with you?” you think that Yeji has no clue what she’s saying, but there’s a little sliver of heart in her tone. Her face is pressed against the window, the cold glass on the verge of keeping her awake as she stumbles in and out of consciousness. 

“You could never do that,” you mumble, and you smile when her eyes willingly flutter shut. 

“Hey, babe,” you practically hear desperation in Jimin’s voice.

“Jimin, no,” you already know that his request is sitting prettily on the tip of his tongue, “it’s my weekend off. I’m not getting out.” 

“But someone requested your pancakes,” he whines, and you can practically feel his pout on the other line, “and he said and I quote ‘I’ll be able to tell that you made them.’ I feel threatened!” 

“Did they offer to pay in diamonds?” 

“N-no. But he said it’s his daughter’s special weekend and he’d be really thankful if you’d come by and make your breakfast for him.” 

Daughter? Yeji. You sigh, rubbing a hand over your face. You have your own room separate from the hotel, a deal that has you living rent free in exchange for your hard labor five days a week. “Heat up the stove for me and crisp the bacon,” you mutter, hanging up and throwing the phone under the covers. 

Tugging your hair back and throwing on a large hoodie, you put on your slippers and pad down the little sidewalk that leads to the hotel. The sun beats down on you immediately, willing you to go back to your air-conditioned room to fall back asleep. Swimming through the soup that is the Californian air, you shuffle inside Prince S and make a beeline for the kitchens. You brush through busy employees, flashing a quick smile and “good morning” as you get to your station.

Jimin is already there, sitting at your workspace. All your ingredients are sitting out: flour, eggs, butter, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, buttermilk, and fresh berries. However, Jimin makes  no moves to attempt cooking, instead looking at you with pursed lips and waiting for you to get a move on. 

“Get your butt off my counter,” you slap his thigh disapprovingly, pulling your sleeves up to start mixing the ingredients, “you’re dirty.” 

“I embrace being dirty,” Jimin replies majestically, kicking his legs back and forth. His Doc Marten creepers wave in your vision, “thank you for swinging by. He said that it was really really important that you come in and make them. Daughter’s request.” 

“They’re lucky they’re a cute family,” you mutter under your breath, although the words aren’t laced with malice. 

The batter is fluffy and puffy, rising with the scent of melted butter and caramelized sugar. You take careful fingers towards the berries, creating a smiley face in the uncooked pancakes. 

“Is your maternal side kicking in?” Jimin says in your ear, and you swing at him with your spatula. 

“Leave me alone, art is being made.” 

“Sure,” Jimin hops off the table, patting your shoulder, “I got a date with room 69,” you roll your eyes, there is no such thing as room 69. “So please continue to be awesome and finish off this favor by delivering it to Mr. Kim’s room.” 

“Jimin, no!” you don’t care that half the staff is staring at you amusedly, the other half uncaring because they’re so used to the two co-managers. “I’m not wearing—I’m not wearing pants.” 

You gesture to the obscene amount of bare legs out in the open. California’s hot as hell, you try to wear as little layers as possible. However, in the workplace you like to keep a modicum of decency. Even though Kim Seokjin is fine fine fine, you have decorum. 

But Jimin’s already off to visit the guest in room 69 and you’re stuck with a pile of fresh hotcakes and none of the workers want to get involved in your shenanigans. Typical. Begrudgingly, you force your Hallmark-esque smile and arrange the gold trimmed cart, taking care to put extra berries in the fruit dish. 

It’s a simple transaction. Get in, drop off the food, accept the tip if Seokjin feels generous, and get out. The door to room 921 looks larger than life, intimidating like the gates to heaven. You knock firmly, but gingerly. “Room service?” the voice that escapes your lips is your sugary professional voice, one that makes you wince immediately. 

A muffled “coming!” has you bristling at the door. You curse yourself, looking at your bunny-clad feet and your legs disappearing under your hoodie. 

As soon as Seokjin pops his head open you blurt, “I swear, I’m wearing shorts underneath this.” 

“Uh,” and that forces him to look at your legs. Dammit, it was a good intention but the wrong way to go. “Good to know,” he coughs, opening his door wider. 

The room is much messier on Seokjin’s side of the room, now filled with Eeyore and Baymax memorabilia. A large, white Baymax plush sits innocently at one side of his untouched bed. You crack a smile at that. 

“Where’s Yeji?” you ask lightly, putting both stacks of pancakes down on the available table. You absently wipe the crumbs off, leading the little pile of food-crust to the garbage can. 

“Yeji?” Seokjin asks, “why would Yeji be here?”

The way you put the cutlery down instantly slows, “You called Jimin this morning saying you needed pancakes specifically made by me to give to Yeji.” 

“Who?” 

“Jimin?” you raise a brow, losing your high-pitched commercial tone. “Tiny, annoying blond guy?” 

Seokjin stares.

You stare back.

“Yeji’s at her cousin’s townhouse,” Seokjin states plainly. 

“No, you called and said Yeji wanted pancakes—” No. 

Yeji, or Jimin, or both called you and set it up. 

“Oh, Jimin’s an idiot,” you tap your head lightly, wanting to bop out any potential embarrassing memory that has burned in your brain, “must’ve misheard. Or is hearing ghosts! Honestly he isn’t the right mind I’m so sorry I reallygottaneedto—” 

You can’t even breathe let alone exhale the rest of your sentence, so you instead do the only thing you can do—run away. You don’t bother to exude grace as you plop any trash on the cart from yesterday’s room service, whipping the cart around so fast that the side wheels fly off and pop a wheelie. 

“We don’t have to let the food go to waste,” Seokjin says pointedly, probably watching you like he’s watching a comic show as you try to bolt out of the room. 

The door is closed, and the little hallway is too small for you to put your body and the cart between the walls. You’ve trapped yourself. Maybe you could just leave the cart and dip? You’re sure there’s at least two extras downstairs. 

“It won’t,” you reply dumbly, “I can eat it in the breakroom or something, I haven’t made breakfast for myself yet. I mean, I was kinda craving an avo-toast this morning, but pancakes are always a classic.” 

Seokjin snorts at your incessant rambling, carding a hand through his chocolate locks, “I’m trying to ask you to stay for breakfast.” 

“You’re trying to—oh,” you mirror his expression, running a hand over your hair so it pulls out of its already messy style. You haven’t done much physical activity this morning, but you feel absolutely breathless as you’re glued to the cheap carpet, taking in Seokjin’s wide glassy eyes

“And if you stay for dessert, I’d like to thank you properly,” 

“I didn’t bake dessert,” you hide the shudder in your throat when he steps closer, pinning you against the cart. Your knuckles must be transparent by now due to how hard you’re gripping the cart. 

“You didn’t,” Seokjin agrees, “but you definitely brought it.” 

You yelp, actually, a whole little dolphin-squeal escapes your lips as Seokjin puts his hand against the wall. You’re actually living a Disney-esque scenario that you do not want to be in. Seokjin’s either trying to give you the Eugene-Signature-Smoulder, or the Prince Naveen charm that isn’t very charming. 

“You’re a cheeseball,” you try to snap back, but it only comes out as a small reply, fitting of your cramped situation. 

His buttery brown eyes are clear and warm, and his sweet scent envelopes your form. You feel impossibly small, sinking deeper and deeper into your hoodie until you feel the heat of his voice sinking deep into your skin. 

It’s then that he leans in and whispers in your ear, his voice a simple request, “Please tell me that you’re interested in me too.” 

Something clutches softly in your heart, tethering you to Seokjin’s gaze. You wonder how many times Seokjin goes through this scenario. You wonder if he’s happy being a bachelor. You figure that many partners must have doubts being tethered by a teenage daughter, or if Seokjin is used to fleeting hook-ups.

“Have been since check-in,” you reply smoothly, finding your breath and looking up from your eyelashes.

Seokjin’s lips find yours, and you swear you’re lip-locking with Cloud Nine. They’re soft and supple and taste a little like maple syrup as they mingle with yours, and you can’t help but weave your hands through his equally silky strands, tugging him closer as he hooks his arms under your bare thighs. 

He gives your bottom an experimental squeeze, leading you to the unmade bed.

Needless to say, breakfast has to wait. 

“So, I’m going to throw a cliché.” 

“Sure, we’re in Disney.” 

“Why me?” you slap his bare chest when Seokjin laughs, pouting, “I mean it! All I did was look cute and give you pancakes!” 

“So you admit you’re cute,” Seokjin smirks. 

“C’mon don’t change the subject, tell me!” 

Even though this hotel is partially yours, you’re still amazed at the softness of the Egyptian cotton as it engulfs both your bodies. Maybe it’s because you’re warm and bathing in the noon afterglow, maybe it’s your bed partner. Still, it feels divine as you lounge in bed, sipping champagne (left by the door, courtesy of Jimin.)

“Mm, caught you driving around with Yeji in my car.” 

You sit up straighter, clutching the sheets to your chest, “You saw us last night?” 

“You were also out last night?” Seokjin tilts his head, “I meant when you taught her how to parallel park.” 

“Oh fuck—I mean,” you slap your forehead, knowing you can’t get away with this one, “Let’s just say I helped her out of a sticky situation. Don’t blame Yeji, blame Yeji’s bunny-headed cousin.” 

“Noted,” Seokjin throws an arm around you, snuggling closer. You relax into his hold, melting between the sheets and his soft skin, “Knowing you’re pulling through for her. Let’s just say I’m a little soft for my daughter, no matter how old.” 

“She’s wonderful,” you say genuinely, taking slow sips of your bubbly drink. 

“Wanna go visit her for lunch? I’m supposed to be meeting her in an hour.” 

You don’t feel deterred or nervous to see Yeji, or even the possibility of meeting Seokjin’s extended family. So you agree, run back to your room quickly to throw on a reasonable summer outfit that doesn’t consist of hooded sweatshirts and booty shorts. 

Seokjin offers to drive your sedan, and since you feel a little princess-ish today you decide to let him take the wheel. After a few minutes attempting to drive in the direction of the townhouse however, you lower the volume on the radio. 

“Jin? I think you’re going the wrong way,” not only do you live here, but you went to the townhouse last night and you’re sure it’s in the opposite fork, “do you want me to plug it in the G.P.S?” 

“I know my way, hon,” Seokjin waves you off, confidently streaming through the oncoming traffic. You smile nervously, you have a feeling this situation has happened once or twice. 

“Oh, is that why you ended up in my hotel?” you tease, “because you’re so good at directions?” 

“Duh,” Seokjin reaches for your hand atop the console, “after all, my intuition led me to you.” 

[whoreadsnowadays]

TALK ABOUT HIM TO MEEEEE I WANNA HEAR EVERY THOUGHT FR 🗣🗣🗣

HHHHHHHHHHH OK OK OK OK-

This isn't solely gonna be abt Shatter, bc I genuinely cannot think of much to say that I haven't touched on at least a little in the actual story, and I have so much to say for 2012 Leo in general he's so hhhhh brain worms.

That being said- LEO BREAKING DOWN CRYING IN FRONT OF HIS BROTHERS. IN SHATTER OR NOT. LEO BREAKING DOWN CRYING IN FRONT OF HIS BROTHERS.

And along that line, the turtles in an extreme maybe apocalyptic situation, everyone turns to Leo like "What's the plan? What's going on what do we do?" and because Leo's in front, his back to his brothers, none of them can see the pure terror and horror on his face as he stares forward at the mess they've encountered. The others continue to prod at him, until he snaps, "Just give a second!" And the others can tell just from his voice how terrified he is- LITERALLY JUST- LEO BEING FORCED TO BE VULNERABLE AROUND HIS BROTHERS- that's my shit right there.

And, headcanons now, when he's anxious he hugs himself, rubs his arms, and paces. It gets so bad sometimes that his legs ache for days at a time, but he still has to get that pent up energy out somehow, so he ends up making the pain worse by pacing even more.

And after the leg injury/window thing he's constantly tapping his hands and his good foot, trying to get the same sensation that pacing gave him and always falling short. So every time he goes to pace he has to force himself to just pat any nearby surfaces, trying to resist the urge to get up and move around

Honestly during the farmhouse arc I feel like there isn't any part of that adventure in which he isn't on the verge of a panic attack.

SPEAKING OF PANIC ATTACKS- when he has an attack he has a tendency to hyperventilate to the point that he gets dizzy and almost faints. Usually when he gets the head rush it's like a wake up call, like "Oh you're about to pass out get your breathing under control" but sometimes when it's rly bad n he's panicking too much to fix his breathing, he'll fully collapse and faint. And while it's an incredibly unhealthy way to deal with it, he does always wake up feeling calmer. But that's just because he's too shaken up to really panic anymore.

The first time he works himself up to fainting his brothers all panic simultaneously, only for him to wake up and go "what? I fainted? Weird. Anyway."

ALSO. ADHD. THIS ASSHOLE HAS THE ADHD WITHOUT THE H. His brain is always going a thousand miles a minute, and he's gotten good at sorting through his thoughts quick enough to come up with a quick game plan, but when hes nervous or anxious or just plain scared, he has trouble sorting through everything because it's going too fast for even him

AND FREQUENT HEADACHES. This bitch gets headaches at least once every 2 weeks. Normally they aren't that bad and a nap can make them go away, but occasionally the pain will be bad enough that it has him holed up in his dark room for a whole day.

(Before u continue I must say I love Splinter he's a good character, but I am borderline Splinter bashing for the next three paragraphs)

Daddy Issues off the fucking charts. This bitch is craving validation and reassurance. He loves Splinter, and he knows Splinter loves him, he's shown that multiple times, but his sensei is just so emotionally distant that he doesn't feel entirely comfortable coming to him for reassurance or affection.

AND as an oldest child myself, I can say with confidence that this bitch has the weight of the whole household on his shoulders. Sure Splinter trains them and gives them wisdom and advice and all that, but Leo is the one to force Donnie to bed at 3am, he's the one to make Raph take breaks when training, he's the one that listens to Mikey's rants and hangs his art on the fridge.

Honestly Leo's relationship to Splinter is rly fucking interesting ok? At least the idea of it I have in my head. Leo looks up to and admires Splinter, he wants to be as good of a ninja and a leader as Splinter is. He wants to make his father proud. But also he's scared of Splinter. When anything goes wrong he knows that Splinter will look to him for an explanation, and he knows that if his explanation is less than ideal it'll be his head on the line, no matter who's fault it was. It's always "Leonardo, why were you not watching your brothers? You are their leader. You need to be leading them, keeping them out of trouble." And Leo can't help but feel annoyed as well, because really what's he going to do? Put them all on child leashes? He can't help what they do and it's unfair for Splinter to put the blame on him as well.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

…the ugly. SYAC: The Master Review 4

Last post I covered much of what I consider the good or passable strips of SYAC of the pre-Dobbear era. What I have admittedly not covered yet, were three certain characters of the strip that exist beside Dobson.

Persistent Pam

 Curmudgeonly Carl

And… this guy I am not even sure has a name.

No, seriously. He shows up in like the 61th strip of the series for the first time and yet I never see his name mentioned once

All I know is that he is an accountant, who pities Dobson (for good reason)

And despite Dobson not liking alcohol, they regularly meet up in a bar as if they are some late 80s comedy duo

Funnily enough, he shows up way before Pam, who would have her premiere in these strips

 And despite only showing up in a few strips after her premiere (mostly to make “fun” of overbearing and snarky commissioners I suppose…)

 She actually managed something no other character or series by Dobson managed to get: A fanclub

 Not that she would really be of any major importance afterwards.

As for Carl, he is supposed to be something like an antagonistic embodiment of Dobson’s “old” art teachers and people being stuck in old ways, who shows up for the following strips forming a sort of arc.

In addition, it is very obvious, that Carl is supposed to be a mockery of people flaming Dobson. Not helped by the fact that THIS character sheet of him made by Dobson assures us, that there were quite a few even less “endorsing” things he wanted to name the character.

Yet funnily enough, Carl turned into such a popular character with readers, Dobson was essentially “forced” to make him reappear in other strips. Not of the “classical” SYAC strips, but he showed up as the “antagonist” to Tenku in the storydriven multi pagers. Though even antagonist is a strong word, as he is essentially more of a jerkish art teacher and college advisor who is harsh on Tenku, but actually has his best interests in mind. To the point he even offers him to be his “harsher” art critic in the years till he enters college, because he wants to see him grow artistically.

 However, Carl was also more of an “accident”. Cause when it came otherwise to tackling criticism or things that irked Dobson (and were not anime related) he would end up more or less creating strips that painted him in a manner where he would supposedly always look like “the better” compared to his opposition or mock it. Which is where a lot of the irk Dobson would earn over the years eventually comes from.

Now to be fair, I do not want to call every comic in that regard “strawmanning”, nor do I want to say that Dobson doesn’t have the right to also mock to a certain extend the mentality of certain “snobs” and so on. For example…

On one hand, I know there are people out there who think they are “special” by having the best tools at their disposal. When in reality you can achieve good results also with less expensive stuff. So mocking that sort of attitude is fine to me to some extend

BUT, when you also make down the line a comic like this…

… essentially making yourself come off as a “better” artist or person than others because you have “chosen” the better mass produced crap (btw, that is coming from someone who types this review on a Mac that runs Windows) , then the hypocrisy ends up to be rather strong with you.

 Which is also essentially the biggest issue with the strips I am about to show. The hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson. And no, I do not mean the tumblr blog by that. I mean the simple fact, that the content of some of the soon to follow strips gets kinda muddled when you take into consideration some of the things real life Dobson had said and done either at the time or in the years to come. Well that and the way how he tries to mock issues people have with his work, not realizing how he is essentially just reassuring those “silly critics” in their opinions while making his flaws more obvious to people that may have been previously unaware of them.

But enough talk, let me just show you in quick succession examples to confirm said point.

Considering Dobson’s longterm disdain for DnD you have to wonder what the joke really is outside of him portraying DnD players as ugly nerds, supposedly too geeky even for him. Which is hilarious in hindsight as he would years later become a fan of TAZ among other things.

Less hypocritical but the set up is kinda flawed. Like, you are obviously at a convention trying to sell stuff. Why would some old dude not interested in “kids crap” be at the convention anyway? Is he just bringing someone there and just wants to go, but first needs time to belittle your life choices?

 Rather hilarious in hindsight to me. Cause for someone claiming he has ideas that last for a life time and who seems rather distraught on the idea of others giving their input, he turned out to be so in need of ideas. Alex ze Pirate e.g. became from 2015 onward only defined by Dobson talking about the sexualities of his characters (and not even in comic as by that point it was discontinued, but rather in tweets and so on). Formera, which ran heavily on cheap shonen anime tropes ended up cancelled after two volumes, Cabin Rest was a failure after 20 strips, 2019 he relied primarily on cheap comics about Miraculous Ladybug and his understanding of certain genres is so bad, he can’t even think up the most basic ideas for a magical girl story.

Weirdly enough, that pitch of a garbage truck driver who fights crime? I think that could make for an enjoyable short story about a vigilante a la the Punisher or Sin-City.

 The way Dobson perceives criticism, while also essentially giving a quick rundown how he appreciated criticism in his childhood way better than in adulthood. Yeah, because criticism by your parents as a kid was always VERY constructive. (looks back at certain drawings from own childhood) brrr. And sorry Dobson, but sometimes criticism by strangers is better than criticism from friends. Cause friends may mince their words. Plus people have over time given you quite some insightful criticism aside “U SUX” when it comes to comics. You were just never willing to listen

Hey Dobson, you hear that? That is the sound of your career, dying and no one caring.

Yeah, I think someone who made such “brilliant” comedy as in these comics, totally has the right not to listen to what seems to be solid theoretical advice.

BTW, that Talus comic… I swear to god the worst “joke” Dobson ever told.

 Wow. You essentially make a point why you suck at drawing. While still not trying to change.

And as someone else once said: Don’t play with fire if you can’t deal with the heat, BLOCK-son!

This is not how I perceived your shit over the years. See, on one hand it is true that Alex ze Pirate e.g. has its own webpage to read the comic for free. HOWEVER most of his comics Dobson would hide from the start behind a paywall. The idea being that he would e.g. put a small reading sample of 10-15 pages up somewhere and then expect people to buy his comic for full price to get the rest. And you know, if you are e.g. a professionally published writer, that is fine. But when your average art output looks like THIS

And you expect people to pay more than 10 dollars for something that is only around 70 pages long while most people can get 200+ pages for the same amount of money that look like this…

 You can frankly go and screw yourself.

On one hand I get that the joke is meant to be, that as an independent content creator you may find yourself in a weird spot where your “child friendly” work may be put in a palace between edgier stuff other creators sell at conventions. On the other hand, I find it rather insulting in hindsight, that self declared feminist Andrew Dobson portrays such competition as either psychopathic murderers or stereotypical cartoon bimbos. If modern day Dobson saw the same strip by any other person, he would be insulted on behalf of the female that she is portrayed as a bimbo, when she could also be a very smart and attractive woman who knows how to tell brave and sexy stories.

Also, I have read your “child friendly” stuff, Dobson. I would call Atea or Alex abusive bitches who like to bully orphans but child friendly? Not to forget that your work is so basic and shallow in depth, it’s like the someone tried to create a chimera out of some of the worst traits associated with Dora the Explorer, 80s toodler cartoons and the Fairly Oddparents.

I frankly hate this theory on comedy. It is true, a lot of comedy can be deprived from conflict, misunderstandings etc. Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and other cartoons as well as screwball comedies such as Rat Race can depend on it. Heck, one of my favorite comedians of all time is Christopher Titus, who based his entire career on the misery and absurdity of his life.

But comedy is not just defined by misery and conflict.

There are for example also the following theories when it comes to comedy…

And to get back e.g. to Titus, yes, he has build a lot of his comedy on the bad stuff that happened in his life. But he is also someone who in his comedy has build a lot of punchlines on the absurdity of certain situations he has been in life but which in a way have enriched his life positively.

 What I am trying to say is, comedy (and entertainment in that regard) does not just have to be defined by misery. And all things considered Dobson, you could have really tried to also just make comics wherein either you or your characters are just happy with their situation in life.

For example, this page from an Owl House fancomic?

I think it holds more entertainment value than your “joke” right here, despite not even telling a joke.

Simply because as a page overall, it tries to convey a positive emotion. Which is more than I can say about the strip.

Because of a lack of different level of thickness regarding your lines, which would trick people into perceiving depth, the fact that the fill bucket and shade layers can only do so much to cover for the rather monochromatic dull nature of your comic, the fact that your characters are not really all that complex and look rather simplicstic even compared to stuff from a comic like this…

And that is just coming from the top of my head as someone who never studied art. If any reader has something to add, I am willing to listen

And considering you could in later years never keep up to any release schedule, which among other things resulted in only three SYAC strips in total being released in 2016, I say go fuck yourself. Not to forget that even some of the worst newspaper comic strips out there tend to actually find a decent following and good jokes eventually, otherwise they would not manage to stay popular for years, if not even decades.

As someone who has worked internships a lot in life, I just want to say fuck you in all our names. Glad to see you having just as much respect for interns than any other scumbag on the planet. Probably even less respect, cause you know, in some places interns tend to get paid.

Also, there is supposedly an entire real world story going on about Dobson having worked at his former university at the time the comic came out and Chaz is based on a fellow intern.

Things are unfortunately rather vague in that regard and only hold up by demonstrative evidence such as the name of Chaz showing up in certain pages of the university and Dobson’s internship being mentioned somewhere.

Well, would you look at that: People have different opinions on your stuff.

There are ways to draw memes funny and then there are ways to fail at them

 You failed.

Funnily enough, that comic rings a lot truer to text than you expect. Considering how Dobson would often emulate certain aesthetics in his comics of shows that were rather passee by the time he published his stuff, plus how he will obsess over certain trends and games for years to come (like Skyrim or his Quiet Hate Boner) while also being unaware about current trends (how do you e.g. not have heard of My Hero Academia by 2018 at least once by accident?) Dobson has always been kinda late to the party. Missing the “zeitgeist” of nerd culture and as such never quite finding an audience.

Yeah, what Pam says. Not helped by the fact that yes, the floating eyebrows are real. Look at some earlier sketches or “professionally published” comics by his and you will see that each time characters get excited, their eyebrows will suddenly split into sets of three and float higher than Pennywise’s victims.

Ironically, that fits real life Dobson at the time and later on even more so than this comic version did. Sorry, but what am I supposed to call a person who has an hate boner on anime for years for superfluous reasons, made Danny and Spot a “gaming webcomic” deliberately to piss on non Nintendo fans and has admitted in some by now deleted youtube video, that he kept a list of usernames from an old forum just to remember even years later the people that were mean to him online?

 Fuck both of you. I do not expect the Sixtin Chapel in the background, but something to filll up the empty space behind you is at times needed.

The comic here is actually called politics. … ironic how things changed once a certain reality show host turned president.

Jesus Christ. I am not even that much of a Transformers fan (Prime fan for life however) but even I know that this is not supposed to be what you design the head of a Transformer like. Not even if they ever produce the Transformers equivalent of Teen Titans Go.

Too bad you still can’t stand the heat, otherwise you wouldn’t have completely disappeared last year.

When you know you are in a no win situation, and still manage to choose an even dumber option to escape. I really don’t get it. I just think the Portal reference makes the comic dated and Dobsn’s attempt at a smug face looks so stupid. Like his cheeks are falling in and his mouth is about ready to get raped by a garden hose or something.

Yeah, considering Dobson’s later constant need for safe spaces and to be in control of a situation and the narrative, which led to so many blocks over the years… if you know anything about Dobson, how this comic becomes harsher in hindsight is rather self explanatory. I just want to say one thing: There is a difference between genuine agoraphobia and just wanting to be by yourself. And I think Dobson just prefers the later on average. Which is okay, but humans still need to interact with other human beings in one form or another, even just for the sake of keeping their mental health stable. Why do you think are so many people getting depressed in times of covid lockdowns, despite many having all sorts of technical gimmicks at their disposal to at least keep boredom at bay?

And by putting himself into a bubble like that, I think Dobson has deprived himself of some of the most basic human interaction, which was likely a severe factor in his mental degeneration over the last years.

It is still a valid suggestion! Just draw some cartoon characters or a nice fantasy scenario on a mural and earn yourself some bucks. Just be sure they are not by Disney or the Mouse will tear down the school!

… Just google up the words Andrew Dobson and Samus Aran commission by ED and you will see how this comic just further shows how much Dobson seems to actually be proud of being an unproductive asshole.

 And by the way, I know that any form of artistic work takes time. Just writing these review posts takes a lot of time for me. But that doesn’t change the fact that people should post and create stuff in a timely fashion, especially when there are e.g. deadlines to hold up too. And by the way, Sloth’s don’t have fingers, they have claws!

And that is it.

Sorry if I missed anything folks, but I just saw how many pages in word this is already filling up, so I call quits for this part here right now. I think I made my point about how Dobson trying to badly deflect arguments people may make against his art and work ethics via jokes clear enough, while also showing some posts that are either harsher or hilarious in hindsight.

Next time we will however address one certain issue about our main character, that has been not directly addressed here. In the meantime, have a little fun video that shows hopefully how entertainment and a certain amount of comedy can be gained NOT via misery.