#so we'd been kind of. different people than when we were friends when we dated and just. we didn't really connect on anything? and she was

[enden-agolor]

you CANNOT just post that and not tell us the back story

Oh boy okay here we go

randy x andy lore 🙈

I'll just post the context of the comic with a bit of lore and backstory.

So I already stated that Andy and I have been friends since 6th grade. I think that's about 16 years of knowing each other now? Well, friendship was kind of a struggle for me because of uh.. my home situation. The thought of having people over was very frightening and embarrassing, but Andy never really judged me or let any of that stuff get in the way of us being friends, but regardless, I almost always spent the night at his place whenever we would hang out. I'd walk about three miles to his place almost every weekend because he was only a few neighborhoods away. Anyways, so we had a lot of sleepovers and most of the time I would sleep on the floor in his room which like. Cool. Not gay. Whatever.

Well. I recall a discussion we had when we were about 13 (I think this was in 2010 or 2011) on facebook where we were just talking about personal stuff and I confessed I'd never really experienced any positive physical affection before? Nothing of note came out of that conversation, but apparently Andy remembered that.

Next time I went to his place for a sleepover, it felt no different than any other time we'd hang out. Playing video games or watching youtube or just hanging out outside. Well come bed time I remember going with him to his room and.. In a random change of events, he told me to get in the bed. I remember being hella confused and hesitant but I did and ended up just laying there awkwardly, him kinda laughing and telling me to turn around and scoot over, again my dumbass was really awkward about it. He shut off the light and crawled into bed after me and without saying ANYTHING just wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. It's been well over a decade since this happened and I still remember the shock and confusion. I remember full body trembling and tensing and trying to control it because I just did not know how to react. And he'd asked if I was okay and I just responded with a stuttered "yeah." He ends up falling asleep like that and when I tell you I stayed up all night staring at the wall next to me and just. Experiencing that feeling of being held for the first time it was extraordinary.

It became a constant need after that but because I was afraid of being gay and uh. Also am just very shy in general. I would never ask for it and would instead just hope it would happen again which.. it did. And then my emotions kinda spiraled and it was very easy to fall for him.

But yeah Andy made me gay and I never dated anyone else before because I saved myself for him for many years after that happened. Just constantly cuddling as friends. I seriously can't ever imagine being with anyone else. He is kind of cool idk

[foxglovegames]

Trouble Comes Twice - the Postmortem

We celebrated Trouble Comes Twice's anniversary around a month ago! We'd hoped to post this postmortem back then as well, but it's taken us a moment to find the right words haha.

Anyway, we hope that this postmortem can give our players and other visual novel devs some insight into what the development process looked like for us. It's also a great way for us to look back at what went well and what went less well.

We'll be taking about the ideation phase, our (lack of) marketing for the Kickstarter, and also sharing (what we can) on our earnings from the game!

Coming up with Trouble Comes Twice

The original tone of Trouble Comes Twice was a lot more comedic and packed to the brim with anime tropes we enjoy. Most didn't make it into the final game, but some stayed and evolved e.g. all of the love interests are based on popular visual novel archetypes - the childhood friend, the tomboy, the shy girl, and the bad boy. 

Some, like Cameron and Zoe, changed a lot from their concept while Adrian and Stephanie stayed quite loyal to our original ideas of them. Cameron's character actually underwent the most changes after the initial reception to the demo, where a lot of people felt like he was too much of an ass haha. (Fortunately, he became a fan favorite when we dropped the new demo!)

The premise with the bet was something we invented to create some drama and establish a common plot thread throughout each route. Honestly, looking back, we would probably have approached the bet differently if we wrote it today and a lot of our pre-planning was... clumsy, at best. Still, it was a labor of love and I'll never forget the fun and excitement we had everyday balling ideas for the characters and coming up with their designs.

As Melli and I are just writers with limited coding experience, we worked with a past game jam friend to code the GUI and set up the base for the game (though the actual scripting was done by us and Melli put everything together in the end). Our biggest expenses pre- and post-demo was the character art and CGs, meanwhile we relied on free music and BG packs to save money.

Why a bisexual romcom?

So, this was sort of a no-brainer to us. We had decided right from the start that both twins could date both the male and female love interests, and (at the time) we feel that a lot of similar games had playersexual MCs rather than established bisexual/pansexual MCs. While playersexual charas are also awesome, we wanted to write a romcom where the main cast are always queer regardless of who you end up romancing. 

At the same time, bi/pan people don't all approach romantic relationships the same way e.g. Cameron is confident and has experience dating people of all genders, while Adrian's demi and Jace still struggles a bit with his attraction towards men. We know that some of our players felt like that made certain routes less romantic than others and we hear you on that feedback and have 100% taken it into consideration for our future romance games. But anyway, that was our thought process behind Trouble Comes Twice's romance dynamics!

Preparing for Kickstarter & the actual Campaign

Our Kickstarter launched at the start of August and let me tell you, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been. 😭 We hadn't set up a Steam page yet, we were trailer-less, and we only had a couple of hundred followers across our socials at best. I feel that there's a lot more successful Kickstarter projects to refer to and even a lot of marketing guides and advice now, but mostly it's on us for not researching more. 

The Kickstarter campaign did surprisingly well despite the lack of promotion and only having a rough alpha demo - we were even able to double our goal! - but we  wouldn't recommend what we did for other devs.

You should invest time into making a good demo, spend time building an interested audience before launching your campaign, and research so you've got some kind of marketing plan. We were lucky with word-of-mouth and that other visual novel devs with larger followings helped share our game, but we should have made more effort reaching out to bloggers, streamers, and game sites. Some crowdfunding successes may seem like they came out of nowhere and were just pure luck, but there's usually a lot of grinding behind-the-scenes that you don't notice.

The post-Kickstarter era, at least for us, was the harder bit. We now had 353 loyal backers who had expectations based on promises we had made and we had to make sure we met those expectations while also staying true to our wants as the devs. It was a learning process for sure, but we're fairly proud that we always did our best to keep our backers in the loop. It's frustrating to write an update explaining that the game has been delayed again, but backers are more open to being understanding than you think as long as you communicate!

A tip we'd give to new devs considering Kickstarter: Don't overestimate what you can do, but overestimate what you need. There's always hidden costs, unexpected taxes/fees, and other unknown obstacles that might eat up your budget. In our case, we made enough to make the game as planned, but had to change CG artists around halfway through development which meant our original budget didn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, we had earned a decent amount from our Patreon and pre-orders that we were able to use to complete the CGs, but that isn't always going to be an option for everyone and that also meant we were unable to use that money ourselves. (We didn't take any money from the original Kickstarter campaign, so whatever was earned through patreon and pre-sales was our only "salary" at the time.) 

Writing the game

Writing is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important parts of a visual novel. Melli wrote Jace's routes and I wrote Hazel's routes, which removed some pressure off our shoulders compared to trying to write over 300,000 words all on our own. 

It's fun working with another writer, but there are also some unique issues and considerations that come up when you're writing a game with two protagonists split between two writers. Especially because at the time, there weren't many visual novels with a similar set up to refer to.

The main things we learned, were:

Consistency. We wanted each couple to have their own dynamic, but the characterization needs to remain consistent between routes. You don't want Adrian in Jace's route to feel like a totally different character in Hazel's route. Additionally, we had to be careful that the tone and writing style of the protagonists' POVs still felt like you were playing the same game. Some routes can be more comedic than others, but we've got a problem if Hazel's routes are all (unintentionally) more serious/angsty in tone than Jace's or vice versa.

Watch out for your word count! Longer does not always equal better and writing eight routes, we had to put some restrictions in place. Even when writing on your own, it can be tough to guess how long your story should be, and it was important to us that the routes were roughly the same length so that none felt more "canon" than the other. However, with two writers who have different writing styles and ways of planning, it was tricky to compare our outlines and we struggled at times when it came to matching each other's word counts. Moving forward, we're probably going to be more lenient when it comes to word counts - some routes have to be longer than others, it doesn't mean that route is automatically more "important". We're also doing more regular meetings and frequent check-ins to make sure we're on the same page. In the future, we hope that should save us a lot of trouble when it comes to pacing! 🙈

Balancing your own wants with the wants of your players. In theory, these overlap most of the time. But making a commercial game (that people had already "bought" through the Kickstarter), there is some pressure when it comes to meeting certain expectations. We can't always just write what we want and assume everyone else is going to love it, but we also don't want to neglect what we personally like. We had a survey for the beta where we were able to get regular feedback and a lot of helpful advice. We definitely want to continue with surveys in the future - they are a great way to gather opinions from different players and figure out what works versus what doesn't! 

We took on too many tasks outside writing that distracted us. This bit is sort of inevitable for indie devs like us. 😅 Working with a limited budget and limited resources, you just end up having to wear a lot of hats! We think we did quite well sharing these duties though, and moving forward (thanks to you guys) we can afford more hands on deck to help us out. 

Marketing

The bane of every indie game dev's existence... although secretly, I kind of enjoy marketing but don't tell anyone that!

Having learned a thing or two from promoting the Kickstarter, we spent more time researching games marketing but in the end, trial and error was the best teacher.

As we got closer to the release date, we were posting almost daily on social media and grew our Twitter to over eight thousand followers. We didn't have any viral posts, but we saw a consistent growing interest in our game and it was such a motivation boost to see comments from potential players being excited for the game. We know a lot of devs have said that Twitter didn't help their game much but according to our stats, a decent number of our players found us through the platform. 

We saw less success here on Tumblr. Perhaps we haven't cracked the code here yet or maybe we're just comparing our numbers from Twitter unfairly! We're not hung up about it though, we love it here because it feels easier to connect with our followers and other devs there, and it's nice because we're able to write longer posts like this one! 💓

Aside from posting on social media, we reached out to several streamers and some bloggers prior to release to send them free game keys. 

We also commissioned some art from other artists to share, as we obviously couldn't reveal ALL our CGs before the release lol and visual posts tend to do a lot better in our experience. It was so much fun to see the characters in other art styles and we hope we can afford to commission guest art pieces a lot more frequently in the future!

In hindsight, we definitely regret not releasing a trailer sooner! We underestimated how much interest a good trailer could garner and delayed setting up our Steam page because of it. Steam was the platform where we sold the most copies and most of our buyers found the game through Steam itself.

Also, posting your trailer on youtube adds another site where you're promoting your game so there's really no reason not to get that trailer done as soon as you can. 

Final Notes

After the initial stress, we were pretty happy with our release! Although there were some things we would go back and change if we could,  that's just the nature of these kind of things. For the most part, we're proud of what we achieved and happy that we have learnt so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can take into consideration for future projects.

We can't share exact numbers, but we wanted to open up a bit about our earnings for the game to help other aspiring devs: As of writing this, Trouble Comes Twice has earned close to 85,000 euros. This counts our profits from 2020 to now (the Kickstarter, Patreon, pre-sales, and actual sales). Removing fees, taxes, the salaries of our talented artists and other freelancers, as well as the money invested into our next game, our personal pockets did not see anything close to those numbers. But we're super proud of how much our little game has made and so grateful that it's allowed us more creative freedom with our next title! 

So, what's next?

You might have heard but for the past year, we've slowly been working on the demo and upcoming announcement for our next visual novel:

A 17+ supernatural neon-noir romance game about monsters, love, and other horrors. 

Play as vampire detective Circe (female protagonist) or hellhound cop Dante (male protagonist) and delve into the mysteries of North Haven, where demons, vampires, and supernaturals hide in plain sight among humans.

The game features six routes, with three romance options available to each protagonist. Dante only has male romances and Circe has both male and female romances. 

The game tackles a darker, more angsty tone compared to Trouble Comes Twice. Still, we hope that those who decide to check it out will enjoy it! We plan to announce the game this coming Autumn. Follow our Twitter (we're still not calling it X sorry) or Tumblr to stay up to date.

[captainsophiestark]

Witches Get Stitches

Klaus Mikaelson x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for Fictober 2023!

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Day 11 Prompt: "You lost it. Well, we lost it."

Summary: Klaus and his girlfriend have been together since they were humans, surviving together for a thousand years. They don't intend to let anything tear them apart.

Word Count: 1,352

Category: Angst, Fluff

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, not descriptive

A/N: This doesn't even follow the Originals timeline/canon a little bit lol

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I groaned as I slowly came back to consciousness, my head throbbing. The last thing I remembered, I'd been talking to Genevieve, a resurrected New Orleans with who'd been dancing on the line between ally and enemy.

She took a great, giant leap into the enemy category when I forced my eyes open to find her smiling at me, looking immensely satisfied with herself. I tried to stand, maybe make a move to rip her head off, but my wrists were chained to the walls on either side of me. I was trapped.

"I'm going to kill you," I spat, not bothering with pleasantries or pretending. Genevieve smiled like she'd expected me to say that.

"I know you think we're the bad guys here," she said, giving me a sympathetic expression that made me want to rip her head off. Literally. "But we're not. You've been dating the bad guy, and you've been so blind you haven't been able to realize it."

I rolled my eyes so far back in my head that I could see the wall behind me. I'd heard this same nonsense a thousand times from a thousand different people, and it never got any less irritating or boring.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Y/N," Genevieve said, walking towards me with a very menacing swagger in her step. "I'm just going to make you see the truth."

Before I could hit back with a retort, she raised her hands to the side of my head, and I went spiraling back through my own memories.

For a witch who'd managed to catch me, one of the oldest vampires in creation, in the home of my boyfriend, one of the other oldest vampires in creation, I'd expected more, honestly. But her plan wasn't particularly creative.

She forced me to relive some of my worst moments in my thousand years with Nik. We'd been together as humans, and he'd turned me not long after Esther turned the rest of them, so there was plenty of material for her to work with. Nik and I had been through hell and back, mostly due to enemies, but sometimes due to each other.

Genevieve made me sit through a few particularly bad moments, then pulled me out of her little trance, staring into my eyes like she expected some kind of connection.

"For a thousand years, he's lied, cheated, and backstabbed," she said, her voice low and grave. "He's left a trail of blood, pain, and suffering in his wake. You haven't been spared from his list of victims, even if you've convinced yourself you have."

I closed my eyes, taking a long breath in through my nose. This was getting tedious.

"We've decided to put an end to his reign of terror. We'd like you to join us. So what do you say?"

I fixed her with my best 'really?' stare, which I'd perfected using on Nik.

"Genevieve, let me explain something to you." My voice was quiet, faux-patient, with an undertone of promised violence the way I'd perfected from hearing Nik do so many times. "For more than one thousand years, Niklaus Mikaelson and I have had each others' backs, through everything. We're partners, best friends, and the loves of each others lives. One thousand years of a relationship does not come without bumps, and problems, and things we have to spend a long time working through. Every single time, we have done so successfully.

"One thousand years as a Mikaelson has also come with hundreds of people just like you, Genevieve. They've tried to get to Nik through me, or they've tried to turn me against him, or a thousand other attempts at causing us problems by breaking us apart. And not one of them, in all that time, has succeeded. And do you know what else, Genevieve?"

She cocked an eyebrow at me and gave a little snort, but I could see the way her shoulders tensed and the flicker of fear in the back of her eyes.

"Every single one of those people who tried to come at me and Nik? They're dead. And we're still standing."

Genevieve snorted, louder this time, shaking her head as she straightened and backed away from me. I stared her down, letting a feral smile slowly drag its way onto my face.

"Fine. If you won't help us, then I have no more use for you. So-"

"Oh dear. I hope that sentence isn't going to end in a threat against my lovely partner over there."

Genevieve whipped around, and I smiled at the sight we both found over her shoulder. Nik had arrived, covered in blood and grinning in the way that made my heart race. Clearly, he'd worked his way through at least some of the witches outside to get here. I grinned back at him.

"Your hold over this place, this world, is coming to an end, Klaus," said Genevieve, standing her ground remarkably well. "The two of you have terrorized this place long enough."

"Now you're bringing my girlfriend into it?" asked Nik, raising one eyebrow, a teasing tone in his voice. "Well, I really can't let that stand, now can I?"

"You're not going to have a choice," Genevieve growled. With that, she flung her arms out, whipping up a witchy storm to throw at Nik just as two more witches came into the room. Nik held his own alright—he was the Original Hybrid after all—but he couldn't stand on his own against three powers like this forever.

He needed help. And I was going to give it to him.

I closed my eyes, getting into the headspace I'd had to reach more times than I'd ever wanted to, but that had gotten Nik and I out of more than a few hard spots. Pure rage and a desire to protect the man I loved washed over me, and I pulled against my restraints with all my strength. I dislocated my thumbs to get them out of the cuffs, stifling a scream, then got to my feet and rushed Genevieve before she could realize I was free.

The next minutes were a blur. They always were, whenever Nik and I were in a fight like this. After landing a few hits and killing both of Genevieve's little helpers, I saw Nik go down. He dropped like a sack of potatoes, and I saw red as I whirled on Genevieve.

A few moments later, Genevieve followed Nik to the ground, although she was a little more dead. I stayed standing, trying to recover from the adrenaline. After I'd had a few moments, I crouched down next to Nik.

"Hey. Nik, wake up," I said, gently shaking his shoulder to try to rouse him. After a moment, thankfully, his eyelids fluttered. A second later, he sat into a seating position, looking ready for a fight. I quickly reached out to calm him, to reassure him that we were fine.

"What happened?" he asked, eyes still a little wild, even as he saw the bodies around us and started calming down.

"You lost it. Well, we lost it. Genevieve kidnapped me to get to you, you lost it on her and her little followers over that. She seriously hurt you, so I lost it and helped you finish them off. Same thing we've been running for a thousand years. We're alright."

Nik nodded, letting out a sigh and sagging a little. Then, he looked at me with a grin.

"You'd think after a thousand years they'd learn, wouldn't you?"

I sighed. "No kidding. Maybe this'll be the one that sticks."

Nik and I shared a smile as I leaned into him, kissing him softly before standing and offering a hand to help him up. No matter where we went or how much time passed, people would probably always try to come after me and Nik. But together, we were completely unstoppable. We'd spent the last thousand years proving it, and we'd spend the next thousand doing the same.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury

TVD/TO Taglist: @elenavampire21

[wolfofcelestia]

I was gonna wait until after I read the new chapters to get a better sense of Sylus but he's already shaping up in my head so

Here is how my relationships with all four boys would be if I were MC, in like... a regular life AU where I’m not actively dying lmao

🐟🐟🐟

Me and Rafayel: The "Are they really friends?" kind of friends

Probably the one I'd ask to teach me how to swim and regret it instantly

R: What, you want me to teach you how to breathe next? Me: God, fuck you R: You wish, princess

Every conversation would probably have some kind of jab at each other and it would just turn into two kids yelling at each other by the end

Also we'd be the ones making inappropriate jokes about the plushies as we fight to play the crane game

⭐⭐⭐

Me and Xavier: The "Are they really not dating?" kind of friends

Gamer buddy. Probably the one I'd go to when one of my little light decorations die and I'm too lazy to go out to the store to get something to replace it. So I'd steal one of his little light decorations

He'd probably have a ton of little light features as decoys so that I won't steal the ones he wants to keep at his place

I feel like we'd be comfortable with each other because of how similar our interests are and how chill he is, and we'd probably be mistaken for a couple in public because of how comfortable we'd be just leaning on each other

If some things were different, we would've been a couple, but things just never clicked

🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛🐦‍⬛

Me and Sylus: The "Thank fuck they're not dating" kind of... friends?

Maybe not friends, more like rivals. He'd constantly push my buttons, even more than Raf, and he'd be extremely forward with his intentions with his flashy displays to try and win me over... or is it just to one-up me and get me to say he's better than me? Either way, every attempt would be met with a stoic face or a sarcastic clap

And then he'd probably try to steal my crows and I'd try to steal his swords (hi, long-time saniwa here :3) or something alsdfkj

Basically, it would just be an escalating rivalry that looks dangerous on the outside, with people asking "when will they...?", but on the inside, it would just be like

Me: Can you stop with your...everything? Sylus: Why? Can't handle it? *opens his robes even more* Me: I'm trying to eat here!!

Why would we even be friends? Maybe because we'd both find it fun to take jabs at each other but just like with Xav, there's something there between us... there's just not enough of it to make us a couple

There'd be close calls between us, sure, with his attempts to get me to say what he wants, and his ability to make handcuffs out of his evol, but nothing ever comes out of it because there's just a certain something missing

❄️❄️❄️

Me and Zayne: The "hidden smiles" kind of couple

There's no doubt that we'd look like a couple together because I'd always be holding on to his arm or something and he'd just straight up introduce me as his girlfriend to anyone who asks, but other than that, there wouldn't be any hints seen by the public

But it's only when no one's looking that the genuine smiles, the long gazes into each other's eyes, and the constant physical contact that hints at something deeper inside come out

It's hard to tell who's smitten more with the other. His coworkers would notice his lighter change in demeanor and him asking for time off when he never did before. And I'd always look forward to him coming home so I can spoil him rotten and fuck his brains out every night

It's a comforting and comfortable relationship, one where we know when the other needs space and when they just need their hand held without needing to tell each other directly

[truthfulpoint]

Friends take turns massaging each other

After finishing college, I moved into my grandparents' basement so I could save some money and sort out what I wanted to do with my life. I had grown up thinking I would be the next Stephen King, and I selected my college courses accordingly. Unfortunately I let myself run out of runway before I realized that particular dream wasn't going to make it off the ground. Now was the time to re-group before making my next move.

Most of my friends had vacated our hometown after high school, so I found myself spending my evenings on instant messenger striking up conversations with people I had known and lost touched with before school had even ended—usually after sneaking out into the backyard to smoke a bowl. I was a late bloomer where drugs and alcohol were concerned; I didn't have my first drink until my freshman year of college, and I didn't smoke weed until my fifth year.

I had always been reserved, especially when it came to girls, but I quickly found that the combination of weed and instant messaging worked for me like spinach did for Popeye. Online dating was just starting to become a thing, so I was also honing my skills on sites like Plenty of Fish and OKCupid, but to be completely honest—pickings were slim. I grew up in a small town in West Michigan. Great for raising kids; not so great if you were a dude in your mid-20s looking for a date on a Friday night.

That was how I ended up reconnecting with Larissa. She was in a similar living situation: She had married young and moved back into her parents' house after she caught her husband cheating. Larissa and I had dated in high school. We'd had sex twice when we were both too young for that to be anything but awkward, and our relationship had kind of fizzled out after that. Talking to her now, under such different circumstances, I thought presented an opportunity for both of us to have a little excitement with someone we were already semi-familiar with, and she seemed to be feeling the same way. In fact, it was Larissa who first turned one of our IM conversations toward intimacy and the things that we missed now that we were both single. Naturally, I invited her over to watch a movie—this was back when Netflix came in the mail. I gave her a massage, and we ended the night taking turns going down on each other.

But that's another story.

About a week later, Larissa mentioned to me over IM that her friend Alicia was home to visit her parents for a while. The girls were bored hanging out at Larissa's, and they wondered what I was up to. Of course I had nothing going on, so I invited them over.

I had known Alicia almost as long as I had known Larissa, but I probably could have counted the one-on-one conversations I'd had with her on one hand. She was one of those friend-of-a-friend girls that I was always aware of but never paid much attention to. They were of similar height (roughly 5'5" or so) and body type. Larissa had strawberry blonde hair, cut above her shoulders. Her boobs were bigger than they had been the last time I saw her, and her hips were a bit wider, but she obviously took care of her body. Alicia had been a bigger girl in high school, but she had lost some weight in the years since I had seen her last. She was still bigger in the waist than Larissa, but her chest was a bit smaller. Alicia had dark brown hair that hung down between her shoulder blades, and a round, pretty face.

Both girls knew that I had been pretty straightlaced in high school, so Larissa was almost gleeful when she told Alicia that I had started smoking weed.

"Now I'm a stereotype," I said. "A stoner living alone in his grandparents' basement."

The girls laughed. We were seated on the couch in front of a fake fireplace. It had lights that pulsed and flickered behind a brown, red, and yellow piece of plastic that was meant to look vaguely like fire, but no heat. I was seated on the right side of the couch, Alicia on the left, with Larissa in the middle.

"Have either of you smoked before?"

"A few times," Larissa said.

Alicia nodded. "Only like twice."

"Want to smoke now?"

The girls exchanged a glance, and Alicia shrugged her shoulders. "Sure," she said.

"Let's do it," Larissa said.

Feeling like teenagers, we crept up out of the basement and out the backdoor. I packed us a bowl, and we passed it around. It was pretty obvious that Larissa and Alicia were not regular smokers just from the way they held the lighter, not to mention the coughing, but they held their own.

Soon enough we were back down on the couch. We were seated in the same configuration, but Larissa was closer to me, leaning into me now, with her body facing outward toward Alicia on the other end of the couch and her head resting on my shoulder. Suddenly I was reminded of a night when we were in high school. The three of us were outside the school after what I believe was a talent show. Larissa and I had dated and broken up weeks earlier, and that night was the start of us getting back together. In that moment on the couch, I remembered Alicia saying something like, "Just kiss already."

Now Larissa was resting her head on my shoulder—not the first time she was showing me affection in front of Alicia, though the vibe was definitely different this time.

Sneaking out to smoke had Larissa and Alicia reminiscing about hiding alcohol in their bedrooms when they were in high school.

"Jimmie never did anything like that," Larissa said, as she elbowed me gently in the stomach. "He was a good boy."

"It's true," I said. "My parents thought I was a pothead at one point, but in reality I was just lazy."

The girls laughed.

"The only thing I hid in my bedroom was porn."

"And girls," Alicia chimed in.

"Yeah, I was one of them." Larissa turned her face toward me and winked.

"That is true," I said.

"Oh, I heard," Alicia said. "You two started young."

"Yeah, yeah," I said.

Larissa and I had been sixteen when we were dating, and we'd had brief, clumsy sex on two separate occasions.

"How old were you when you lost your virginity?" I asked.

"Eighteen," Alicia answered. "Summer before college."

I was already starting to feel pretty relaxed, and I could tell the girls were too. Weed always made me feel horny. Combine that with the warmth of Larissa's body leaning into me and the memory of what had happened the last time she visited, and I could already feel my dick getting hard. I would not have pushed the conversation into this territory under normal circumstances, but at this point my typical reservations and discretion had gone out the window.

"When was the last time you had sex?"

Alicia sighed and laughed. "It's been a while. Five months? Maybe six? I'd have to think about it."

"That's sad," Larissa said.

"Tell me about it." Alicia laughed again. "How long has it been for you?"

Larissa responded, "Well, there's sex and there's oral sex."

We all laughed at that point.

"I guess that's an answer," I said.

"Not really," Alicia said. "Both. Either. How long has it been?"

"Oral sex?" Larissa turned her face toward me. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bloodshot. "Last week."

"Ooh," Alicia said, raising an eyebrow. "That sounds like a story."

Larissa laughed. "Not really."

"I want to hear it anyway," Alicia said. "I told you, it's been a long time. Give me some excitement."

Larissa looked to me, and I shrugged. At this point, my dick was as hard as a rock. I was game for anything—but I wasn't exactly prepared for how blunt Larissa's response was.

"He gave me a massage, then he ate my pussy."

Alicia's jaw dropped. Apparently she was not prepared for that response either. "Jesus, Larissa!" She laughed.

"What?" Larissa feigned innocence. "You asked!"

Alicia looked to me. "Sounds like a fun time for you."

"No complaints from me." I winked at her. "I like giving massages anyway. Plus have you seen her naked? Her tits are amazing."

"No," Alicia said, smirking, "but I have seen her in a bikini."

"Just look at these things."

I sat up and took hold of the hem of Larissa's white t-shirt, expecting her to swat my hand away. To my surprise she leaned forward slightly, making it easier for me to lift her shirt. I exposed a few inches of belly and paused for a moment, waiting for one of them to stop me. No one said a word, so I pulled her shirt up over her bra. She raised her arms, and I took her shirt off completely. She was wearing a lavender bra that contained her soft, white mounds perfectly.

I tossed Larissa's shirt to the floor and started massaging her shoulders. Larissa moaned, and her head fell forward.

Alicia laughed. "How's that feel?"

"So good," Larissa said.

We sat in silence for a minute while I kept working on Larissa's shoulders. I had taken a few massage courses in college, and I genuinely enjoyed giving massages, so I felt like I knew what I was doing. I even had some organic oil, which I had used on Larissa the week before.

I was watching Alicia's face. Her cheeks were flushed too, and she was openly staring at Larissa's chest. Her lips parted slightly. I had never thought about Alicia in a sexual way, but the look on her face just now made my cock throb. Suddenly I was thinking about her lips, how plump and full they looked, and how good they would feel wrapped around my shaft.

"How long has it been for you?"

Alicia blinked. "What? Sorry ... "

"Oral sex," I said. "How long has it been?"

"Same," she said. "About six months."

She wasn't even looking at me. Her gaze was still locked on Larissa's tits.

"Do you prefer giving or receiving?"

"I like giving head."

Without lifting her head, Larissa chimed in. "She's never had someone go down on her."

"Really?"

Alicia nodded slowly .

"That's a shame," I said.

My response hung in the air a moment as we fell back into a silent reverie—Larissa sitting there in her bra, me rubbing her shoulders and neck, and Alicia watching us. The sexual tension felt like it was getting thicker by the minute. Part of me felt like I could have asked Alicia anything at that point, and she would answer. I thought about asking when was the last time she touched herself. The last time she had an orgasm. What kind of porn she liked.

At the same time, I was enjoying the feel of my hands on Larissa's skin, and based on the way her body was responding to my touch, I thought she might be up for a bit more.

I leaned forward, put my lips close to her ear and asked, "Do you want a real massage?"

Larissa nodded. "Yes, please."

"Let's go then."

Larissa stood up and started walking toward my bedroom, at the opposite end of the basement from the sitting area where we had been hanging out, and I followed suit.

After a few steps, Larissa turned back toward Alicia and said, "Come on, don't stay out here by yourself."

Alicia raised an eyebrow. "I thought you guys might want some privacy."

"It's just a massage," Larissa said, though her tone hinted strongly that was not the case.

"You can help me," I said. "I'll show you some techniques."

That was apparently all the encouragement Alicia needed. She stood up and followed us to the bedroom.

The bedroom I had been calling home was small, dark, and isolated in the back corner of the basement. The lack of egress window kept the room pretty dark even in the middle of the day; at night, it was pitch black. I turned on a reading lamp on the nightstand that had a warm, orange glow—enough to see by without killing the vibe. The bed and nightstand were the only piece of furniture in the room, so Alicia sat on the edge of the bed while Larissa stripped off her socks and jeans. My cock throbbed hard when I saw when she was wearing underneath—a purple thong, the same shade as her bra. She must have felt the need for some modesty at this point, because she got up on the bed and laid face-down before reaching back to unclasp her bra.

I kept the massage oil in a toiletries bag so as not to raise any questions. The toiletries bag was on a wall shelf, with a few other personal items (most of my belongings were in storage at this point). I took in the scene while I was retrieving the oil: Larissa was topless now, lying facedown on the bed; Alicia was sitting on the edge of the mattress, leaning back against the headboard. I couldn't wait to get my hands on her—which is precisely why I could never be a licensed massage therapist. I loved the bare skin, the gentle curves, the bulge of Larissa's breasts pressed against the bedsheet and peeking out on either side of her chest. Larissa had a great body, but from this angle her ass completely stole the show—especially in those thong panties. Her ass cheeks were big, firm, and the same milky white color as her tits. I wanted to smack both cheeks. No, what I really wanted to do was to get in between her legs, spread her cheeks and lick the thin strip of lavender fabric covering her pussy and asshole. Like Larissa had in hiding her bare chest from view, I kept things modest and quasi-professional for the time being.

I placed the bottle on the nightstand and pumped some oil into my palm. After rubbing my hands together to warm them up, I started spreading the oil over Larissa's bare back, moving from her neck down to the small of her back. I added more oil, making sure there was sufficient coverage, then I knelt on the bed beside her and started the massage.

"I start by going along her spine with my fingertips or my thumbs, depending on how I'm feeling."

"OK," Alicia said, shifting position a little so she could see better.

"From the neck, all the way down her back. My palms make more contact on the way back up, along the sides. Like this." With the fingertips of my hands on both sides of her spine, I traced the line down to the small of her back, getting very close to her panties, before spreading out my hands and moving back up to her shoulder blades. "If I feel any knots, I'll spend some focused time there, but this motion is what I come back to. I try to keep contact at all times, so it feels like a continuous motion."

Larissa moaned in approval as I rubbed down toward her ass again, this time going far enough to briefly touch her panties before coming back up.

I turned to Alicia. "If you want to keep this up, I'll work on her legs."

"Sure," Alicia said. Her eyes were on her friend's body—specifically, I think, her lower half.

"If you feel like you need more oil, go ahead."

I pumped some more oil into my hands and moved down to the foot of the bed. I started by spreading oil on her thighs and made my way down to her ankles. Alicia took my place massaging Larissa's back. I watched her movements as I started working on Larissa's ankles. At first her hand motions were hesitant, but with every pass down Larissa's back she seemed to gain confidence. I found myself staring at Alicia's feminine hands, her slender fingers, her manicured nails with their maroon polish, pushing into, over, and against her friend's bare skin. I knew they had never touched like this before, and I could tell that Alicia was getting more turned on as things progressed. She seemed hypnotized by Larissa's body in her hands—and I could hardly blame her.

I turned my attention back to Larissa's legs and began moving up toward her thighs. Keeping tabs on Alicia's movements in my periphery, I matched her tempo and movements, rubbing in an upward motion when she was rubbing down. In my experience in giving solo massages, I had found that by directing my movements toward the center of the woman's body—by, I assumed, pushing blood flow toward her genitals—I was able to generate a heightened sense of arousal. When I gave a massage, I wanted the girl to be silently begging me to fuck her by the time I finally allowed my fingers to make contact with her pussy. Like I said, I could never be an LMT.

If I was an artist, then I wanted this to be my masterpiece. I doubted Larissa and Alicia had ever been in such a sexually charged situation with another girl before. I wanted to build the tension to the point where they lost all inhibitions.

So I took my time, matching Alicia's movements, with both of us rubbing toward the plump mound of Larissa's ass, retreating, getting close to her cheeks and the lavender thong framing them, retreating again. Larissa moaned in ecstasy beneath us. My fingertips reached higher on her thighs with every stroke. Starting at her ankles, I pushed upward with my hands in C-formation, my thumbs running along the inside of her legs, over the rise and fall of her calves, into the valleys behind her knees, and up the back of her thighs toward her ass cheeks. Before making my way back down, I would trace a semi-circle with my thumbs on her inner thighs. This was where the teasing really intensified, as my thumbs crept closer and closer to that lavender strip of fabric covering her labia.

Our combined efforts were having the desired effect. Each time I reached the top of her thighs, Larissa raised her hips slightly from the mattress, providing a little more access to her most sensitive area. As time went on, as my fingertips drew closer to her masked pussy, she became less subtle about presenting herself to me, until eventually she was lifting her hips an inch or two off the bed. Even in the dim light, I could see that her labia had swollen so much it was visible on either of her thong.

On the next pass, I finally let my thumbs make contact with her pussy, just for a second. Larissa moaned and wiggled her butt when I moved my hands away. She knew what I was doing—but it was still working.

Larissa's thong was my boundary now. With each pass, I let my thumbs trace a little of the fabric border, meaning that I was making regular contact with the outer edges of her swollen labia. Alicia must have noticed that I was touching her thong from the bottom, because her strokes were reaching the waistband of Larissa's panties now, tracing the elastic band from the small of her back at the base of her spine outward to her hips before returning to her shoulder blades.

I moved up onto the bed, straddling Larissa's legs, and shifted my focus to her ass cheeks. I started massaging in circular motions so I was spreading Larissa's cheeks with every pass. I traced the underside of her thong's waistband now, matching Alicia's tempo and movements so we were touching the same places at the same time. As a final push, I let my fingertips slip under Larissa's panties. On the next pass, just as I'd hoped, Alicia did the same thing. We did this a couple more times, until Alicia's fingertips touched mine under the waistband of Larissa's thong.

Then I asked the question that I had been waiting to ask.

"Alicia, would you like a massage?"

Alicia froze for a moment, then nodded her head.

"I'm not gonna lie, that looked like it felt pretty damn good."

Larissa sighed dramatically. "Does that mean I have to get up now?"

I gave her ass a playful spank—not as hard as I wanted to, but I did get a delicious little jiggle for my effort.

"Yup, sorry about your luck. Your turn to help out."

"I suppose it's only fair," Larissa said. With exaggerated effort, she pushed herself up from the mattress and sat on the edge. She made no effort to cover her naked breasts; modesty had gone out the window at this point. She looked incredibly sexy in the dim light, with her breasts hanging heavy on her chest, her dark nipples fully erect.

I thought Alicia might be more reluctant to strip down, considering she and I had never been intimate before, but she proved me wrong by quickly and unceremoniously stripping off her pants, socks, and shirt. I had just a moment to take in her curvaceous form before she laid face down on the bed. She was wearing a gray padded bra and black bikini-cut panties. Her belly protruded a little, and her breasts were small for her frame, but from my perspective in the moment she was sexy as fuck. I was nearing the point of requiring physical restraints. My dick had been so hard for so long that it ached. If and when I finally did get some action tonight, I thought I would probably erupt at the first touch.

Like Larissa, Alicia waited to remove her bra until she was face down on the mattress. Just like that, I had two topless girls on my bed. Not how I thought the night would go when I invited them over, but I wasn't complaining.

Larissa moved to the head of the bed, where Alicia had been sitting, but I had other ideas.

"Actually, let me work on her back," I said. "You do her legs."

Larissa acquiesced silently, and we switched positions. I handed her the oil bottle. She pumped some out in her palm, returned the bottle to me so I could do the same, and we got started. Alicia responded to our touch immediately with a soft moan.

As I massaged her back in the same pattern I had demonstrated for her before, I watched Larissa at the foot of the bed. She leaned forward, running her hands up Alicia's legs, her nude breasts swinging gently. My hope in having Larissa massage Alicia's legs was that she would find as much pleasure in the task as I did, and the lust in her expression told me everything I needed to know. She was breathing heavy and biting her lip, and as I watched she never took her eyes off Alicia's ass. Larissa was the perfect student; she moved her hands up and down Alicia's legs using exactly the same motion I had used on her, moving higher on her thighs with every pass, making semi-circles at the apex with her thumbs, getting closer and closer to her panty line.

I tried to take my time and give Alicia a decent massage, but at this point I was in agony. Each pass with my hands down her back went lower and lower, until I was tracing the waistline of her panties. As Larissa followed my lead, I imagined her thumbs grazing Alicia's labia through the thin black fabric of her panties. Every time Larissa's hands reached up the back of her legs, Alicia released a soft moan.

I started letting my fingertips slip inside the waistband of her panties, and Larissa followed suit from below. Alicia lifted her body from the mattress to allow access when Larissa's hands reached the top of her thighs, but I couldn't tell how close Larissa was getting to her pussy.

It was obvious now that the girls were just as into this as I was, so I pushed things a step further. I pulled at the waistband of her panties.

"Why don't we take these off, so we can give a more complete massage."

Alicia responded with a muffled, dreamy, "OK."

Without a word, Larissa started pulling Alicia's panties down over her beautiful, round ass. She tossed them to the floor along with the rest of the girls' clothes, and we returned to our work. Larissa straddled Alicia's legs, just as I had done to her a few minutes earlier, and started working Alicia's ass cheeks. She was staring down between Alicia's legs, and I knew that with every stroke of her hands she was spreading Alicia's pussy lips. The smell of sex was intense, almost smothering. I focused on Alicia's lower back and the top hemispheres of her ass cheeks.

After a few minutes of this, Larissa looked up at me.

"You know, this isn't really fair," she said. "Jimmie has two girls basically naked in his bed, and he's still fully clothed."

Alicia murmured, "Mmhmm."

"Does that mean it's my turn?" I asked, smirking.

"What do you think?" Larissa spanked Alicia's ass playfully. "Do you think he deserves a massage?"

"I guess if we're talking about fairness," Alicia said.

"Mm, that is true." Larissa winked at me.

Like a dog finally let off its leash, I could hardly contain my excitement. I jumped up from the bed and stripped, adding my own socks, jeans and shirt to the pile. I hesitated for a split second in my boxer-briefs, thinking I should follow the girls' example and feign modesty, but one glance at the scene in front of me killed that thought in its tracks. Alicia had rolled over onto her side, her head propped up on her elbow. She did not bother to cover up her nudity or disguise the fact that she was staring at my body. Her nipples were larger and darker than Larissa's, and her bush was trimmed in a nice triangular shape. Larissa was kneeling on the bed in her lavender thong and nothing else, hands on her hips, still straddling her friend's legs.

My underwear landed on the pile as well, leaving me standing fully nude with my cock erect and throbbing.

Larissa laughed. "Jesus, look at that thing."

"I think he's a little turned on," Alicia said.

"Think you're right," Larissa said. She reached a hand down and stroked Alicia's leg. "Not sure why that would be."

I was unsure how serious they were about giving me a massage—frankly, I didn't care. I laid down next to Alicia and started kissing and licking her nipple. Alicia moaned and turned to lay on her back, as Larissa got up from the bed and dropped her thong, revealing her shaved pussy. I pinched Alicia's nipple and fondled her tits as I watched Larissa, waiting to see what her next move was going to be. She did not disappoint.

Larissa pushed Alicia's legs apart and knelt on the bed between them.

"I've never done this before," she said. "So I don't really know what I'm doing."

With her big eyes on Alicia, watching for her reaction, Larissa lowered her face to Alicia's pubic mound. Alicia's reaction when Larissa's tongue finally made contact was explosive. She had her eyes closed, and she was holding her hands up like she wanted to push Larissa away, but the pleasure was too intense. She let out an animalistic moan, completely lost in the feeling. Eventually she brought her right hand up to her right breast and began tugging at her nipple. I followed her lead on the left and pinched and pulled harder. Alicia responded by reaching out with her left hand and grabbing my erection like she thought she might fly off the bed and needed something to keep her grounded.

I couldn't see exactly what Larissa was doing, but apparently she was going it well. Alicia's moaning grew more intense. She had Larissa's head clamped between her thighs as her hips started bucking.

"I'm cumming," she cried. "Oh fuck, I'm cumming!"

Alicia froze up as her orgasm washed over her. Finally she released her grip on my cock and laid back, panting. Larissa kissed Alicia's pussy lips one last time and ran her fingers lovingly through her pubic hair.

She smirked. "Was that ok for your first time?"

Alicia laughed. "I mean, yeah, obviously. Fuck, that was good."

Then she rolled over onto her hands and knees and looked at me. "Ok, for real. Now it's your turn."

I had a brief second to wonder what exactly she meant before her mouth was on my cock. When we were out on the couch, she had said she liked giving head, now she was putting her money where her mouth was—and I believed it. She wrapped a hand around my shaft and made a corkscrew motion as she stroked, taking me deep into her mouth over and over again. Saliva ran over her fingers and down around my balls. With her free hand she started massaging my balls, then she started stroking the shaft with both hands, making the corkscrew motion in opposite directions. If her goal was to make me cum in record time, she was on the right track. I could already feel my orgasm building.

Then Alicia started moaning around my dick. I looked up and saw Larissa had buried her face between Alicia's ass cheeks and was—not that I could see, but I assumed—eating her friend's pussy from behind. Without missing a beat, Larissa smacked Alicia's ass cheek, prompting Alicia to squeal.

This was just too much for me to handle.

I groaned, "I'm gonna cum."

Alicia didn't slow down until I started shooting off into her mouth. She swallowed every drop, slowly milking my dick with her lips and hands. Then she lowered her face to the mattress, keeping her ass up in the air so Larissa could keep doing what she was doing. I leaned forward and grabbed Alicia's ass cheeks, pulling them apart to allow Larissa more access. Larissa was deep in it now, kissing, licking, and sucking at Alicia's hairy pussy lips while Alicia moaned with her face against the bed.

"Why don't you come up here and let Alicia return the favor?" I asked.

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

We Are the Series - final thoughts

There are so many reasons that I like watching series & movies from other countries. It's such a great way to broaden my perspective and to get outside of my bubble. To see the big differences in how people live around the world, as well as the little differences in day to day life. To better understand cultural norms, and storytelling norms, and how my own cultural bias intersects with both.

There's also all the beautiful cultural details, getting to see ceremonies and festivals and holidays. To see the beauty of the landscape. To listen to the language, and start picking up little expressions and to appreciate the nuances.

But along with all of the learning opportunities, I also absolutely love it when I watch something from a different culture, and have that "oooh" moment of recognition. That moment when you realize that regardless of culture, what is being depicted on screen is resonating deeply. Because someone halfway around the world has had an experience in common with you.

Let me tell you about my college friends.

It was pure dumb luck that we all met. An utterly random assortment of chance. But somehow this group of awkward nerds all blundered together within the first few weeks of college. Most of us were introverts. We were from all parts of the U.S. We came from all types of families. We were Agnostics, Christians, and Pagans. Over time we would intersect with other groups, we all had different majors, different casual friends & study buddies, people dated, people broke up, but our core group of friends was together all four years.

We didn't like going to parties much, it was too loud and crowded. We got drunk together, where we felt safe and happy. We'd go to the school dances as a group, and be silly. We'd sing songs (usually badly). We'd dance in the rain. We would sit on the roof of our dorms and read stories to each other. We would end up at the local playground at midnight when the slides & swings would belong only to us. As we got older and started being entrusted with keys to academic buildings, we'd go in late and play, having rolling chair races in the long hallways or playing sardines. We'd tease each other, and sometimes laugh so hard we could barely breathe.

We also were there for the breakups and the burnout. For the roommate conflict, and the family hurt. For the coming outs.

Of course things do change when you graduate, and we all dispersed back to separate parts of the U.S. (one of the disadvantages of living in such a huge-ass country). But we still keep up. We still can come together and have fun. Some of us play games together. Some of us travel together. Some of us still talk every single week, because we are family, and that's been the case for over 25 years.

I had a moment, when watching this show, where I realized that P'New must have had some amazing friends in his life. Because he just made a love letter to them.

And the friends in this show - they're my friends. Not in a one-on-one comparison kind of way, but in a "this is my little group of idiots too" kind of way. The playfulness, the freedom from judgement, the encouragement, the support, the love. The knowing that even if life pulls some of them further apart, that the way they are loving each other unconditionally now will always matter.

There are other things I liked about the show, I've talked about tropes before and how I enjoyed P'New playing with them in a "eff off with this old school BS" kind of way, the romances were fun and cute, but ultimately, this show was 100% about love for friendship to me. About what it means to find your people, to make your family, to choose love in all its forms without holding one kind higher than another. And to appreciate it when you have it, because it is so damn special.

How can I possibly come out of this feeling anything but good?

[monsterlikerr]

i have things to be doing but i'm thinking about my sexuality instead. i'm putting this under a readmore because i feel insane i just need to get it out somewhere

okay so i'm definitely some kind of aro/ace but i genuinely don't know what at this point. i was in a relationship for 3 years and i mean i enjoyed it! we broke up for unrelated reasons. i would say i was attracted to him romantically at least but my memory of my life is fuzzy because i have issues but like. i was romantically attracted to him. sexually is different because most of our relationship was when we were minors and i didn't really think about it because i felt weird + anytime i did it was mostly a "this is how i feel like i should feel" thing. i'm looking at stuff and aegosexual is probably what i connect to most but the thing is i don't... knoooow. and i know i don't have to figure all of that out right now or even ever but my brain will just not let it go. but it really does fit for the most part. i don't imagine myself having sex when i think about it, it's always someone(s) else.

i also genuinely don't know what people find hot or attractive on a person because it just doesn't... work in my mind? like i can look at someone and appreciate they look nice but i don't know if it's a "shame of feeling overbearing and admitting that someone is hot" or "i literally just don't know what makes someone hot because i don't feel it". could i imagine myself having sex? yeah in theory. i think i would give it a try. could i imagine a specific person/people or what we'd even be doing? no not really other than general "sex!". it's not a self-image thing either, because i've thought about it and if it weren't for obvious privacy concerns, i wouldn't care about posting nude/partially nude images of myself/sending them to friends (who'd be comfortable/want that)

like i joke sometimes that i don't really like boobs/ass/etc outside of general aesthetic appreciation. i just don't get the appeal from a sexual standpoint at least not in My Eyes/reality a lot of the art i reblog isn't even "i'm sexually attracted to this" it's a lot of "i like this character and this art is fun/pretty/nice" tbh. which isn't to say "i don't like having this blog" i do! very much i do. if i disliked it or was uncomfortable then i wouldn't be here. but i feel like sometimes it's weird because like... i don'tttt feeelll sexually attracted to a lot of these characters. or any of them. if i'm imagining sexual stuff about them it's not "i want to do X to them" it's "i want to imagine someone else doing X to them". sometimes i'm literally just reblogging art because i know one of my followers would like it and/or i think the art is good and op should know it.

there's probably also something in here about my brain blurring the lines of "where does it cross the line of having romantic feelings for someone VS platonic VS some secret third thing". like i don't knowwww. heart emojiiiiii. i'm probably not aegoromantic i'm just 'i have a job and school rn so i don't want to think about romance' mode (+ the fact that i really truly do NOT get dating apps/talking to someone with the express intent to date. i never have. i really never have). so when people ask me about dating i'm just likke ^_^ ummmmm. hmmm. idk! (<- the struggler). because i really don't know! i don't have a type. i don't have a specific subset of person i'm attracted to. in terms of fiction i tend to LIKE female characters more but it's not like.. an actual attraction thing as said earlier. like alice tmp i call her my Wife and say i Love Her but i'm not thinking about dating her. i just like her a lot and she makes me happy! alice just as an example but there are plenty of other characters. i think sometimes i talk about things in the way i Think i should but sometimes i'm just saying words i do not mean <3. ok this is word salad soup but i have emails to write and i've been here for like 10 minutes. thank you for reading muwah

[hollowboobtheory]

AITA for assuming my girlfriend wanted an open relationship?

I (24m) am poly, and am pretty open about that fact in my dating life. polyamory can mean a lot of different things for different people, so for context, to me, it means emotionally and sexually intimate relationships with multiple people at once, aka having multiple girlfriends. they don't have to be dating each other, as long as they're okay with each other's presence. I currently have one girlfriend and one (very recent) ex-girlfriend. i'd been seeing S (23f) for longer than C (26f). she was aware i was seeing C and excited to meet her.

i brought up the idea of an open relationship pretty much right away with C, because i hate the idea of leading someone on. she told me she was seeing seven men, including me, so i sort of took that to mean we were on the same page. i was kind of impressed she had the emotional bandwidth for that many simultaneous relationships, actually.

anyway, as my relationship with C progressed, i noticed her seeming sort of distant. i invited her over, introduced her to a couple of my friends, talked about my personal history, etc. and she did not reciprocate. in fact, she made me promise i wouldn't google her name because she had a messy past she didn't want me hearing about before she was ready to tell me herself. ooh, mysterious. but by our six month mark, she hadn't opened up at all. in fact, she seemed more distant than ever. she told me she had a friend who was going through a difficult time and needed her support, which i understood. but it got me thinking about how i'd never met this friend who was pregnant with her future godbaby and she didn't seem to want to meet my friends and i felt like i barely knew her.

this is when i started to suspect we'd had some wires crossed. i realized i might be a semi-regular booty call to her, not a real boyfriend. to be clear, that's fine! if that's all she wants, that's fine. but i, personally, want more out of a relationship.

so i had her over to tell her that i was beginning to suspect we were looking for different things in a relationship. this is when she started to get upset, saying i was dumping her for asserting her boundaries, but it got weird when i referenced us having an open relationship. she got really quiet then asked if i'd been cheating on her. this was extremely confusing to me, as i'd mentioned S countless times to her and been trying to get them to meet. it was not in any way a secret. then she told me she'd thought S was my sister and that she was actually making her seven boyfriends compete for her affections so she could eventually pick one to actually date.

now, this really just affirmed my decision to break up, because that is DEFINITELY not what i'm looking for in a relationship. I admittedly got a little mad here, because she wanted me to be monogamous to her when she wouldn't even let me meet her best friend whose child she's going to be the godmother of. i called her setup a fucked up harem of subs, which is fine if all your subs are aware of and consenting to the setup, but i was not aware.

that said, she really did seem genuinely hurt. i've been able to gather that she'd been cheated on in the past, so it must have been a painful subject for her. should i have made more of an effort to communicate my side of the situation?

oh yeah i also called myself by my nickname, which i don't usually do with her because she hates nicknames, but she called that childish and a red flag and said she was dodging a bullet. so. there's that too.

[ghosttrolls]

HI I Love your Posts about trollhunters and Danny Phantom.

they are things i gad trollhunters is different form Danny Phantom

Jim only date one girl and everyone agrees that she is the best Choice for him.

and the main creator isn't a Dick.

but my Question for is if Dash were to become Like Steve was Expose the Ghost world Just Like him how do you think would've involved and this Time his memory stays Like Jez did.

Hi, thank you! Before I say anything else I would like to clarify that while I spend a lot of time comparing themes between the two shows, I don't really feel like one could replace the other - they're both so unique in their execution! Honestly, all the characters in both shows have personalities that couldn't be copied over between the two without the status quo of each show drastically changing. I don't really think of Danny Phantom and Trollhunters in terms of "Danny and Jim are the same person," but more like "Danny and Jim experience things that are interesting parallels of each other and I like to explore those narrative parallels," which I can understand being a kind of complicated distinction.

There definitely is a thing with both of these shows where they pick sort of Traditional Character Roles to some extent, like The Bully, The Hero, The Best Friend, The Romantic Interest, etc. So thinking in terms like that, Dash and Steve do fill kind of similar roles in their shows. I am pretty sure that Dash knows ghosts exist by the end of the show, even if you're writing off Phantom Planet (the final episode that people like to ignore happened). There's an episode where all the adults in Amity Park are brainwashed to go on a "cruise" which ends up just being a way for some ghosts to use them as a power source - but because the adults are brainwashed, the kids are the ones that have to save them, and Danny uses his parents' ghost tech to work together with all the other kids to fight the ghosts. This includes Dash. They all fight ghosts on the deck of a pirate ship, and Dash and Danny stand back to back as Dash says, "When I wail on you tomorrow, I'll be wailing on a hero. But I will be wailing on you." At this point in the show, Dash and other people know about and are fans of Danny Phantom... I don't think his memory gets wiped of the incident, but Danny does get in trouble for using the tech without asking and that makes him "lame" again in the eyes of the other high schoolers. I think that's meant to be the show's explanation for why it doesn't get brought up again later.

I'd love to consider what would happen if Dash had actually been more active within the ghost fighting community - I'm pretty sure he's one of those people who thinks it's "weird," so he'd probably need some convincing. But it would be super interesting if he learned that Danny was Phantom and joined the team! I'm not the first person to say this, but still. It would be cool. I did really enjoy in Trollhunters when Steve and Eli had just formed Creepslayerz but they were trying to keep it on the down low, and acted comically to cover their tracks. I imagine Dash would have to do something similar to keep his jock friends in the dark about Danny's secret... In general, DP never really gave us that big of a look into what Dash's life is like outside of school, other than throwing a party when his parents aren't around. If he joined the team in some way we'd be able to see more of his backstory and he'd become a much more fleshed out character!

And I know you didn't ask for my opinion on this, but I do wish that Steve had more development after the end of Trollhunters and 3Below. Like, he stopped bullying Jim and Eli, he got a girlfriend - and now we learn he's really scared all the time! And they make him kind of like a knight in Wizards but he's still like, terrified of everything, and bad at very simple tasks to an almost annoying extent. It makes me wonder if the trio really explained very much to him, because we didn't see any explaining happen on screen... and then it felt like they were hinting that Steve would learn some cool stuff from Lancelot, but that never happened. And WHY didn't Aja WARN HIM that he could become pregnant like that! That was so out of the blue too. I really liked how they had Steve develop as a character over the course of Trollhunters, so when he kind of stopped changing for most of the other TOA content, I was a little sad.

I guess this is just an appreciation post for bully characters that decide to become nicer. They deserve more love, for sure.

[black-arcana]

HALESTORM's LZZY HALE: 'We're Finishing Up Writing A New Album'

In an interview with the "Everblack" podcast conducted at the Brisbane date of this month's Knotfest Australia, HALESTORM frontwoman Lzzy Hale spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2022's "Back From The Dead" album. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We're finishing up writing a new album. And we're gonna get back in April to finish it up. We'll be there in a few weeks, and, yeah, we'll see what happens. And then we'll be back here [in Australia] before you know it with some new music."

Asked what the new HALESTORM album will be called, Lzzy said: "Oh, we don't know that yet. As is tradition in HALESTORM, we always have the best ideas right when we start, and then we totally trash it, and it's, like, very last minute, 'What are we calling the record?' Last minute, that's what we do. So, yeah, we don't know. We're gonna let it tell us what it is. It's not up to us; it's the music."

Earlier in the month, HALESTORM guitarist Joe Hottinger told Monica Strut of Knotfest Australia about the songwriting process for the band's next LP: "Our goal as a band is may the best song win. So riffs are great and all, but at the day, it comes down to the song. Is it a good song or not? And not only is it, like, good, but it's gotta be great. We have, like, stupid standards. And so really anything goes. If it's a riff and it starts there, a riff and a melody, cool. Lzzy writes constantly, so she's always got songs that we're putting together.

"We haven't been in a studio since — I mean, recording for a record — since September," he revealed. "We've been busy. We've been traveling a bit. But we've been writing since then. And while we were at the last one, we just kind of rolled in and wrote a song in the morning and recorded it that night, and it was kind of everything fresh. We started out a few riffs, but, really, the idea was more about being in that moment. I was talking with Lzzy about it while we were in there, and it was, like 'Yeah, it's kind of like we came into the studio with nothing but 20 years of being a band together.' [Laughs] So, we know how to play — we're all players, we can play, we can write. So, like, 'It's a good idea. Cool. Yeah, let's do that. All right, let's record it. Here we go.' And I don't even remember what I played. I haven't listened to those songs in a while. And I vaguely remember any of them because it gets so intense. I think we did, like, 13 of them. Day after day after day after day after day, to the point where you're just, like, 'I don't know anything anymore.'"

Joe also talked about HALESTORM's writing and recording approach with producer Dave Cobb after making three records with Nick Raskulinecz.

"We had a few ideas going in, but we told [Dave] we didn't really… We'd been touring constantly and we didn't get together and put together anything solid," Hottinger said. "And he was, like, 'Great. Even better.' And that was exciting, 'cause we've never really done that before for a record, like just sit in a room and knock out a song a day — just go, go, go. And it was really intense. And I think it's great. And that was just round one, the first volley of songs. We'll see if any of 'em even make it. But we've got just a boatload more songs now. We haven't even gotten together and riffed them all out yet or wrapped our heads around them. We just have these demos. We're, like, 'All right.' Lzzy's writing right now. We love doing that. She'll go and write with friends or other people that she respects, which I think is great, 'cause she gets to bounce ideas off of somebody else, somebody that… Every song is like a puzzle, and she gets to put it together with somebody else who's better at different parts of the puzzle than maybe one of us. And then we grab a hold of it and make it a HALESTORM song."

In a separate interview with Niclas Müller-Hansen of RockSverige, Joe stated about HALESTORM's decision to work with Cobb this time around: "We've been a fan of Dave for a long time. He does like everything from country stuff like Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell to EUROPE and GRETA VAN FLEET, RIVAL SONS and AIRBOURNE. He's a rocker at heart and we needed to switch it up. It's our last record on Atlantic. Luckily, he wanted to work with us."

Lzzy added: "We were seeking him out for a while and the people at our label and everybody was, like, 'No. He's too busy. He's not gonna wanna work with you.' And we were, like, 'Well, just ask him. Just reach out to him. We can take the rejection because we've been doing it our entire life.' It's, like, why be all sensitive now? They went ahead, like, 'Hey, Cobb, there's this band HALESTORM…' and he went, 'Oh my God, I love HALESTORM! What are they doing?' and they told him, 'Well, they're thinking about doing a record…' and he said, 'I wanna do a record with HALESTORM.' He had a whole plan apparently."

Joe continued: "And it's not, like, 'Fuck Nick,' because he's one of our best friends. We talked to him and he went, 'Fuck, yeah. Switch it up.' We made a bunch of records. It's not like we'll never not record again."

Regarding HALESTORM's overall approach to writing and recording with Cobb, Joe said: "We dive in, but it's just like trial by fire and you see what works. 'Oh, somebody's getting a little pissed.' [Laughs] It's fun and spicy, but it's nothing bad. Everyone is good people and we all have the same goal to make some good music.

Lzzy added: "We definitely dive in, like, 'Okay, who's got a riff? Who's got a line? Let's go.'"

Joe continued: "And I love him because he doesn't make demos, so we just start recording. 'Let's put the drums down.' And we're flying by the seat of our pants."

Lzzy said: "He literally wanted us to come in without a plan, which we're not used to. Usually, with every single release, it's, like, 'So, what do you wanna do? What's the vision? What's the idea?' Usually you start out with a vision and then the music tells you what do to half way through.

Joe stated: I was, like, 'Well, let me just work out this guitar part before we get there.' And he was, like, 'Why worry about that? You'll get it.' And it was, like, 'Oh yeah, we've got a new thing now. Time to learn again.'"

This past December, Lzzy told Jorge Botas of Portugal's Metal Global that she and her HALESTORM bandmates "went in with nothing" for their session with Cobb. "We had no songs, no ideas. We had some riffs and choruses, but it wasn't like we came in with these demos. And, to be honest, Dave Cobb didn't want that at all. We walked in and we were almost apologetic, like, 'I'm sorry, but we've been really busy, and I just have bits and pieces of things I think are special.' He was, like, 'Good. I don't want any demos. No plan, no nothing.' So were, like, 'What do you mean, no plan?' And it was amazing."

She continued: "We woke up every single day, we [worked] from 11 a.m. to 11 p. m. on average, every single day. [We'd] wake up, and I'm, like, at my desk and I'm figuring out lyrics from yesterday's demo, and then, 'Okay, but you know what? Scratch that. We're gonna work on a new song right now, and we'll go back to that.' So we were working on, like, four different things at once. We finished, what, like 12 songs in three weeks. So that's the magic of it all, was that we rediscovered how we as a band individually, uniquely operate and we thrive in that chaos."

Lzzy added: "As soon as you start thinking, like, 'Okay, this is the concept, these are the songs, this is what we go in, this is what we do,' it just becomes like an office job and there's no room to create, whereas this is totally not like that. You go in and you're, like, 'Wow. Anything is possible and anything could happen.' And then, as you are writing it and finishing it, you are recording it for real."

Added Joe: "It was cool. We didn't go in with anything but the shirt on our back, except that the shirt is, like, 20 years of being a band."

Continued Lzzy: "Obviously, you go in there with experience. We could have never done that 20 years ago."

Asked by Botas if the songs that were written in that chaotic environment ended up being heavier somehow because of the way they were put together, Joe said: "Yeah, a lot of them got like really weirdly heavy in a cool way. I don't know. It's not necessarily the record. That's what we did in those few weeks. And they're not all keepers, but they're great and they're good fun, and it's a reflection of where we were musically at that time."

Added Lzzy: "Yeah, and I think that comes from, even if it got darker or more intimate, especially I guess, on my end, and lyric-wise… It's a weird balancing act between, 'Okay, I'm comfortable with all of you guys enough to spill my guts because you've seen me at my worst, you've seen me at my best,' so having that experience with people that you trust, it bleeds itself into the music 'cause you're not holding anything back. But at the same time, I didn't have time to overthink either. It's, like, 'Okay, hey, by the way, we're getting a surprise visit from you're a&R guy, and we still have six songs to sing.' And I'm, like, 'Oh my god.' So I finished six songs within a weekend. And so there's a beauty in taking the too much thinking out of it too. So therefore, the song has no choice but to just be what it is, whatever it is at the moment."

In October, HALESTORM bassist Josh Smith revealed to Metal Global that the band was working with Cobb.

"We went down to [Dave's] place and all lived together for three weeks, which is — we live together on tour all the time, yeah, but to be in a creative space, it was incredible," Josh said. "And the music that came out is undeniably HALESTORM. There's going to be a lot of fan favorites."

Describing HALESTORM's recording process with Cobb, Josh said: "What we're doing and how he wants to work, how he's capturing us is what we do on stage. For instance, we're not using a click track; there's no time keep. It's us doing it, and so there's a lot of movement to the music… It's so human."

He continued: "I think naturally when you're even talking, just from building tension to releasing it and how that happens, and sometimes from a verse maybe is building and the tempo feels like it's building, and then the chorus — well, at least on stage — naturally probably bumps up a few BPM [beats per minute] or slows down, depending. And even our transitions or Arejay's [Hale, HALESTORM drummer] fills will push or pull. It's very human."

When Botas noted that it's "always fun to work with new people and create new ideas when someone has a different view from the one you normally have," Smith said: "Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's what you hope for in working [with] a producer. It's this person you really have to vibe with that fits into this, in this case our little world. And that chemistry between a band is so unique to every group. And so for someone to fit in, that's a special trait to have. [It's] essentially [bringing in] a fifth member of the band that can extract the uniqueness of that band. It's big shoes to fill for a producer. And thankfully we've been lucky with it, with [previous HALESTORM producers] Nick and Jay [Joyce], and Howard [Benson] was great. But, yeah, starting with someone new and also someone who has had a very different approach from the previous one, it's really exciting. And he really is bringing out the best of us. So, yeah, it's really exciting to find someone who is so good at their craft… And he just wants to catch what everyone is excited about — lightning in a bottle. And we've been doing that. And we've caught a lot. I can't wait to go back. It's really fun. I can't wait to get back to writing new music."

Cobb has shared in nine Grammy wins, including four for "Best Americana Album" and three for "Best Country Album". He's also been named "Producer Of The Year" by the Country Music Awards, the Americana Music Association (twice) and the Music Row Awards, and has been a Grammy nominee in the category.

Also in October, Hale told TotalRock's "Hobo On The Radio" show about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2022's "Back From The Dead" album: "We're always working on new music, but we've actually kind of started to buckle down and really kind of write with a purpose as to whatever we wanna kind of put out in the world next. It's kind of an exciting time because I feel like even since the last record, even beyond 'Back From The Dead', I feel like we're kind of shedding our skin in a way that's kind of beautiful where we all kind of feel like different people than who we were when we were writing the last record. So it's time for whatever that next chapter is. So it's very exciting."

She continued: "I've been writing in a lot of subjects that I haven't necessarily touched on before and been kind of exploring those things. And I've become even more of a serial eavesdropper. I will be sitting at a pub or something and I will kind of zone out, and it's amazing the conversations you hear other people talking about. And so sometimes those leech their way into the songs."

Lzzy and her brother Arejay (drums) formed HALESTORM in 1998 while in middle school. Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by Smith in 2004.

Last May, HALESTORM teamed up with country singer Ashley McBryde for a reimagined version of the band's song "Terrible Things", which was originally featured on "Back From The Dead".

In December 2022, HALESTORM released a deluxe edition of "Back From The Dead". "Back From The Dead: Deluxe Edition" includes seven previously unreleased B-sides, including "Mine", a 1980s-inspired rocker. "Back From The Dead: Deluxe Edition" is available digitally, on CD, and cassette tape, marking the first time that the album has been offered in those physical formats.

[babiebom]

Hi, I'm too shy to comment on amazing stories I read on here, so I just keep them in my heart. I read your one shot about Spencer comforting reader who lost their friends and I kind of felt like writing this. Last year (this summer will be two) I lost my friends because I spoke up for myself, so you'll understand how personal it felt (even though I was the one who left the group chat). I'm glad I'm not friends with them anymore, they're horrible to each other, talking to their back. Spencer was kind of right (is that surprising?). But what you start to miss is the feeling of having friends, how you felt with them. Since my friends started to date (the girls they were dating were my other friends introduced them), they started to ignore me (the only single one in the group) even when we'd hang out together. I had a fight with one of the girls who made a rude comment to a friend (he doesn't talk to me anymore either) and after her boyfriend stepped in to defend her (she was literally insulting me when I wanted to have a pacific talk to solve it) I decided to leave. And reading that story kind of had me crying on the bed, because really? A year to get over the fact your friends whom I've grown up with (for 7 years, 11 years with another friend) have chosen someone they've known for 2 or 3 years? A year made me feel better, I'll give Spencer that. But a lifetime won't be enough to repair that little crack in my heart. I'm trying and struggling to make friends, and even though it hurt, I won't regret pushing away toxic and egoistic people. To whoever is reading this, don't let others treat you like shit and get away with that. They'll realise what they lost when they won't be able to take advantage of you anymore, when you won't be there being the best friend you could ever be. Your worth and your time shouldn't be wasted on people who can't even see it. To whoever got abandoned by their friends, it happens. And you're not alone. We're different people, in different countries and differently dealing with the same horrible feelings. But we'll heal, we'll get better and find people who are worth of being our friends. And we'll never think of those stupid assholes again. Thank you for reading this, I needed to let out some feelings <3

I’m sorry you had to go through that! I tried hard writing it because I feel like there’s multiple ways to lose friends and I thought this was the only one I could write without it being complete ass (like them dying or something)

Also it’s hard to learn especially when you want to feel like you fit in or that you’re loved and liked and all that and a lot of people are friends with people who don’t even consider them friends. I work with kids and I have to tell them all the time that it’s better to have no friends than to accept people being mean to you. Thankfully I’ve never been through this because I’ve had the same friends since I was a kid (I’ve known one since we were 5 another since I was like 9 or 10 and my newest friend I’ve been friends with since I was 18 or 19)

I wish you the best in life and friends that love and cherish you because honestly it would be hard to trust people again after something like that happens!!

Oneshot for anyone who wants to read

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I’ve read so far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

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180. Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I knew I wanted to read HOTLINE from the moment I saw the cover and read the synopsis months ago. It offered everything I love in literary fiction: Immigration, a character growing through their experiences, and an interesting point of view that differs from my own when it comes to the immigration experience.

Reading HOTLINE was like seeing a story from the perspective of my immigrant parents. Much like the son in Nasrallah's novel, I came to Canada at a young age. My parents fought tooth and nail to make ends meet and to make sure I had a better future than the life they left behind. Our country wasn't war-torn, but it was going through a special period where food was incredibly scarce and the police handed out jail sentences for too many things. Many people had "one foot at home and one foot in jail" because of all the side hustles they had to do in a country that frowned upon that.

So, seeing a mother striving to do what she could with what little resources she had was incredibly eye-opening. Making the incredibly hard decision of leaving a child alone so you can provide for them was another relatable instance. HOTLINE was such a captivating exploration of how parents sacrifice and compromise in the present for a hopefully better future. It is a complicated story of grief for both someone lost and a dream destroyed by the stereotypes and biases that live in a new country.

It was also jarring to see how life might have been like in the 80s in comparison to today's society, much like the differences between the 90s (when we immigrated) and today. The hustle was real, but (in this case) it paid off in the end--which was a welcome surprise, even if it wasn't entirely a roses and rainbows story. I liked the reality of how messy life can be and how even though a job we never thought we'd have is the only thing keeping you in a less-than-perfect home.

HOTLINE also had a unique level of community that I loved to see. It proves that a village-full of support makes a massive difference. While there were moments of the MC's self-doubt and fear, there were many moments where the reader is reminded that hope can exist even in the darkest moments.

I felt like I was catching a glimpse into a real home and I'm so grateful for the opportunity. Beautifully written! I highly recommend this, especially for those who are constantly seeking out immigration stories.

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181. Some Shall Break by Ellie Marney--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved the first book in this series (duology?), so I was so incredibly delighted to see that there was a sequel!

I think one of the huge benefits that the first book had was that I knew absolutely nothing about it. I wasn't expecting it to be a YA fictional version of MINDHUNTER, which was an incredibly intriguing nonfiction text about how Forensic Profiling came to be and the process behind it. Seeing a fictional story from a teen POV was interesting and darkly fun.

In this sequel, we don't get as much of that exploration that we did with book one, instead we're mainly focusing on catching the one big bad person and while there are cameos and many, many twists and turns, it wasn't as great of a read as the first one.

This isn't to say that I didn't still enjoy this book! I remember thinking, "Wow, I really do enjoy this author's writing." I was hooked and I really wanted to see where the story would take these characters. It was also kind of sad seeing where trauma can take a person and how far they are willing to go to run from said trauma.

There was a certain level of madness to this book and the evil mastermind behind some of the characters. My mind is doing a bunch of twists and turns just trying to write this review.

I highly recommend the first book in this series, especially with the Fall season upon us. Spook yourself with a YA crime thriller. I think knowing that this is YA makes it all that much more creepier.

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182. The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig--⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

I've been eyeing THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS ever since it came out. I wanted to read it, but I won't lie: the size of it intimidated the hell out of me. I finally bit the bullet when another book I was reading recommended it and I thought, "Why not? It's the perfect season for it."

I'm glad I finally read it, if not for the creepy atmosphere of it, but for the writing itself and how reminiscent it was of Stephen King. I love a good spooky King novel and this one delivered!

Some of the twists in this book were a bit wild, but they all worked together in the end. By the conclusion of the book, the length made sense because we needed to get a well-rounded story. However, during the reading of the story, I did start wondering when it would end. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, but I kept thinking, "Okay, what's next? Why do I still have five hours left in this audiobook?"

I DO think the concept of THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS was really intriguing, especially when we start to consider the potential meanings behind the book. Wendig's novel explores boyhood and the consequences of actions and generational trauma. The What-if's of THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS is probably, to me, the best part because we get to meet a cast of characters that give us a bigger picture of what could have been.

By the end, I did have some questions that were left unanswered, but for the most part, it was a pretty satisfying conclusion. I didn't like the mom and how her mentality worked at times--but it also shows how imperfect we can be as humans. I think that's one of the things I love the most about Horror. Too often we look for the shock and awe in the genre, but forget how complex the exploration of humanity can be in Horror.

Anyway, I'd recommend it if you're a fan of Stephen King. While Wendig isn't exactly as verbose as King, his ability to set a mood and a setting was very reminiscent of the Horror master. If you don't mind the length, then definitely add this one to your TBR list!

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183. The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really enjoyed Killjoy's novella and how it creeped me out while reading it in the middle of the night. Although short, it felt heavy enough that I couldn't read this in just one sitting. Which is both a good and eh thing.

The heaviness of the novella is a good thing because it means that I felt like the pages held a lot of meaning. THE LAMB WILL SLAUGHTER THE LION explored grief, the power of love (as cliche as that sounds), family, society and its downsides, and of course, the topic of Power. What does it mean to have power? What do the different kinds of power look like?

The heaviness of the novella can be a bad thing because it sometimes lost my interest. I felt like even though it was short, it lagged in some parts. I wanted answers, but the writing sometimes felt cluttered enough that the answers were always on the next page and, sigh, I was already worn out from reading what I had just read. This is most definitely a me problem, but having just come off two novellas that didn't give me this issue, I found it noticeable enough to note in this review.

I AM super excited for the sequel, though. The way things were left at the end of this book had me genuinely excited to see where Killjoy takes the story!

The characters were all interesting and occasionally morally grey (as can so often happen when magic is involved alongside the concerns we may have for modern-day society), and the topics explored were timely and interesting. If you're looking for an entertaining Queer horror novella with a beautiful cover, then this one is for you!

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184. The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw--⭐️⭐️

I'm either too dumb to understand this book, or I'm one of the few who fell through the cracks with this one and just didn't enjoy it. Some of my friends have read this and they've all enjoyed it thoroughly. Me? I read this and as I'm writing this review, I still have no idea what this book was about.

I know the...general gist of it. But for the most part, this was a blur and I'm lowkey disappointed because I really enjoyed Khaw's haunted previous book.

I'm glad others were able to enjoy this so thoroughly, but it was truly not for me.

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185. Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman--⭐️

THOSE ACROSS THE RIVER, at its core, had an interesting story premise. Did it have creepy moments? Yes, it certainly did. There were some scenes that were downright gruesome and I'm sure will serve as someone's nightmare fuel. The pacing was great and the twists were entertaining, if a bit predictable. So, why am I giving this a one star rating? Well...

As a historical fiction Horror novel, I expected some of the language in this book. Having read some of Stephen King's older books, I'm no stranger to derogatory language in the Horror genre--especially when they're historical fiction novel. This book, however, was published in 2011 and used racial slurs with such relish that I started to flinch at the words (not that I normally don't--I do, but it was so prominent in this book that it started to overshadow some of the Horror of the book.)

I've also never commented on the descriptions of women in older Horror books because well...given the time they were written in, it was expected. I don't condone it, but some of these books are truly a product of their time. But a book published in 2011 referring to a woman as a dog during sex and then just...treating her as both a sexual and plot device in this book was...a lot. And the irony is how strong she is as a character in her own right. This strength could have been further explored if she had been given a chance by Buehlman. Instead, she is first the property of one man at a young age and then the property of another man, who dehumanizes her during sex.

"Dayla, the book is set in the 1930's!" That's fine, but you can write a woman set in that time without dehumanizing her like you're writing her character in a 70's-80's era of Horror.

So, while the horror of the book is creepy and the twists were great, there were some jarring moments of discomfort in this book that were too much for even me, a King fan. (And that's saying a lot, because those who've read older King know how messed up his writing can be.)

ALSO: Super creepy how there is a scene where a FOURTEEN year old girl catches the male main character's attention. And he actively has to remind himself that SHE IS FOURTEEN. I had finished writing my review and had to come back to add this because I had blocked it out of my head. She is described as "simple", I believe, and while he catches himself "flirting" with her, his wife mentions that she's a little jealous. Like, wtf. LMAO.

Anyway, read this if you'd like, but be prepared. I don't know if I'll read more stuff by this author. We shall see!

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186. I Survived the Joplin Tornado by Lauren Tarshis--⭐️⭐️⭐️

I knew close to nothing about this tornado, but it was definitely fascinating to read about it, especially from the perspective of a child!

I think one of the things that makes these books a bit of a challenge for an adult to read (me, I am this adult) is the suspension of disbelief. I'm glad these characters always have hopeful endings full of miracles, especially because the readers these are targeted for are super impressionable. But...the more I read of these, the harder it is for me to believe all the happy endings. I'm definitely happy that characters like the mc in this one are able to walk away from this disaster, but it's just something I've been noticing.

Maybe I'm growing a little jaded from these books LOL.

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187. Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Oh this book was FUN. Yes, the context is dark and murderous, but this one definitely had a lot more going on in it (action-wise) than the first book. I didn't know what to expect with this one because while I enjoyed the first book, I definitely thought it was more of a slow burn horror. This one dived right into the horror!

If you've ever watched the SCREAM movies from the very first one, then you are familiar with Sidney's progression as a character. We see her go through so many stages of PTSD and during all of that, she becomes the ultimate Final Girl. We see the same thing with Jade, the MC of THE INDIAN LAKE trilogy. Her denial, PTSD, and disassociation with her past self was unexpected but also realistic. She's the one who cried wolf once, wasn't believed, and now is watched again to see if she will cry wolf again. She has the pressure of being a survivor and she tries over and over again to pass on that legacy to someone else who could potentially be another Final Girl.

Jones's novel takes place during the holidays, which means that we are in a blizzard of snow and blood. Imagine if all of the killing in the first book were spread out throughout a whole novel and you'll have a better understanding of just how wicked this book was. It felt like I was reading a cursed sequel of a horror classic that was actually...really, really good? It was campy, heartfelt, had many twists, and some pretty intriguing Indigenous touches that made this all the more unique.

I so highly recommend DON'T FEAR THE REAPER. It was such a great read for the Autumn season (any season really), and lived up to my expectations. Will definitely be picking up the final book in the trilogy when it comes out!

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Have you read any of these books? Let me know your thoughts!

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Happy reading!

[elipheleh]

Stonewall

Continuing my series of learning about things referenced in the book, I'm looking at things Alex references when he talks about engaging with queer history. These are all tagged #a series of learning about things that are referenced in the book, if you want to block the tag.

Stonewall is one of the more well known events, but that doesn't mean that everyone knows what happened, so it's still important - I think - to cover it.

‘Stonewall’ is used by Alex to refer to the Stonewall Riots, which began on the 28th of June, 1969. Patrons of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York City, fought back after a regular police raid, triggering subsequent nights of riots. The police were targeting gay bars, and had been for years. They would raid gay establishments and arrest anyone who wasn’t wearing three items of clothing that complied with their gender, in accordance with New York State law. Unfortunately, the catalyst for why the patrons fought back that night is heavily disputed, even from people present, and there is no clear answer why. Some say that a lesbian began the riot by fighting back against a policeman who was 'mauling' her, others say a trans person hit a policeman - some think that was Tammy Novak, who fought back when a cop tried to push her into a police van. What is known is that patrons refused to provide identification, and others refused to go with police. Those who weren't arrested didn't disperse as usual, but rather gathered outside the Inn watching their peers being arrested. At some point, as mentioned above, the riot began and violence broke out. The police, in trying to restrain some of the crowd, knocked people down - which only increased the anger of the crowd.

Michael Fader talks about the mood:

We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place and it was not an organized demonstration ... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us ... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course.

The riots continued into the early hours of the morning, thirteen people had been arrested and some of the crowd were hospitalised. Rioting continued the following nights, but so too did the desire to organise and take action to secure gay liberation. By 1974, five years later, there were more than 800 gay organisations - compared to the 50 that pre-dated the riots.

The above image is the only known photo taken during the first night of the riots. It shows the homeless gay youth who stayed nearby the Stonewall Inn fighting with police.

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There is an ongoing debate over the importance of Stonewall within queer history. It has become synonymous with the "origin" of the gay rights movement, something which many of those involved with early activism disagree with. In the years preceding Stonewall, activists were working towards gay liberation through various different methods.

The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950 in Los Angeles by Harry Hay (and other, unnamed, friends), but spread nationally, had been carrying out "Sip-in's" in New York in an attempt to legalise gay bars. The State Liquor Authority had been denying licenses to bars which served gay people in an attempt to rid the streets of queer people & others who were seen by politicians as "undesirables". They planned that members of The Mattachine Society would enter the bar, announce their homosexuality, and wait to see if they were served. If they were not, they then would file a complaint against the bar and - more importantly - the State Liquor Authority for violating their constitutional right to free assembly & equal accommodation. Bars had been using the State Liquor Authority's requirements of "orderly conduct" to refuse service. Queer encounters between two men were classed as "disorderly", enabling the bars to discriminate against gay people. In 1966, the highest court in New York ruled in their favour, saying that the SLA could not revoke a license on the basis of homosexual solicitation.

There were many other ways queer activism was being carried out, many successful, but it would make this post much too long if I were to list it all. It’s all reasonably easy to find online, the Library of Congress link below has some useful information.

The work carried out by gay activists, especially since the 1950s, had created a point where all that was needed to ignite the gay liberation movement was one event that empowered gay men and women to band together and fight for their rights. Scholars tend to argue that the Stonewall Riots were that catalyst, especially as the media coverage meant queer Americans saw clearly that there were others fighting for their rights, and there were others who were like them.

Sources: Stonewall Origins, Time SLA Sip In's - Stonewall. Carter 2005, page 50 The Gay ‘Sip-In’ that Drew from the Civil Rights Movement to Fight Discrimination - History Wider information - Stonewall. Carter. Fader Quote - Stonewall. Carter - from wikipedia Additional Reading: JSTOR - The Stonewall Riots didn't start the Gay Rights Movement Time - 'The Beginning of a Conversation': What It Was Like to Be an LGBTQ Activist Before Stonewall Library of Congress - LGBTQIA+ Studies: A Resource Guide

[askbensolo]

(Fight/freeze anon here)

Maybe Fannie could write her thoughts down? Sometimes that’s easier than talking out loud. Or maybe disengage for a little bit, and come back with cooler heads. Or some combination of both. Leave, write down what you are thinking, edit it, put it on a good sheet, come back, and talk about it calmly or exchange papers.

To answer your other question, I LOVE being married! It’s like having a permanent teammate! It’s like it’s you and them vs the world (not you vs them). My wife is my favorite thing about myself. She feels like home. She’s the only thing I don’t have to worry about in my crazy ass life.

Also she’s crazy attractive. And she’s wildly into me for some reason I will never understand. So I really lucked out with that (not all marriages have to involve sex—important to remember—and that’s something you have to figure out together with your partner).

I never thought I would get married but I wouldn’t change it for anything now. Honestly it only gets better with time. All of it. I actually want to, like, grow old now. With her.

Wild concept for me tbh but i kinda like it

Hey pal! Thanks for all the advice. Super appreciate it. She and I talked yesterday, and it went pretty well. I think we'd both had a lot of time to calm down and think about what we really wanted, whether we wanted to spend weeks and weeks being upset, and, well...I think we were both starting to miss each other.

I...told her that love her. Which is still kind of embarrassing, but...every time I say it, it gets a little less embarrassing. And I brought up what you were saying, about the different stress responses, and how she and I are different, and she shared from her perspective, and I did my best to listen. And I think we understand each other a little better now.

I also let her know some of the things I've been thinking about. About things that would make our relationship difficult.

On that topic…I'm kinda starting to feel differently about sex. I mean, don't get me wrong—it still freaks the hell outta me. But what I mean is...I'm starting to feel...kind of sad that it does. I still don't want to have sex, but...it's not because I'm happy, which is how I was my whole life until now. It's because I'm...scared. You know...?

And I'm kind of starting to get it now, that it's not always just people being nasty and gross and animal, it's kind of a very unique thing, where you get to be very very very close with someone for a moment, so close that one is literally inside the other (I am resisting the urge to find that unbelievably horrific), and...it makes me feel kind of sad...the thought that...maybe being very very very close to someone will never feel good to me, will always sound sickening to me, and just always remind me of...when I was very very very close to you-know-who.

But...hey. It's like you said. Sex isn't really the most important part of being with someone, is it? It's...everything else. And the “everything else” bit, the idea of choosing someone for life, the concept of ending up married one day like my parents...it took me a while to cook, but...yeah, I’m on board.

All that to say—I totally get what you're saying about having a teammate. Someone who feels like home. That's how I felt about her, before I even decided I was in love with her. That time I came home and she had made dinner for me...all the mornings I walked out into the kitchen knowing she was meditating at the table and we'd have our caf together...folding the laundry and talking about stuff... I mean, Treeso and I were best buds but...I don't know. Girls are just different, I guess. Or...more like one girl in particular—I don't feel this way toward anyone else.

Dang, I never thought I’d be saying all of this. Feels weird. But…also good?

We agreed to wait until she moves out, before officially starting anything. Which...kind of puts us in an awkward spot. We're not friends, not dating...but some secret third thing.

Well...no. We are friends still. We're just...also something else. But...not fully. But we decided to keep having caf together in the mornings, and making dinner on Fridays, and watching movies together, and going out on weekends, just...without calling any of those things dates. Which...doesn't seem to change anything to me, but I guess it makes a difference to her?

I don't know. It's messy. And it'll only get messier. Especially if we do long-distance (I mean, there's long distance, and then there's living in different galactic sectors). And if we sort through all our issues (there are many). And if we end up fighting again...

But...hey. I've kinda got a feeling that it's worth it.

Especially when she looks at me, in that way that she does. With pure affection and admiration and happiness radiating from her beautiful eyes, and her smile that looks like it's just barely holding back all the joy she's ever felt. I wish I could stop time and just...let her look at me like that, forever.

Man, she's something.

[joculine]

freshman year facebook rp groups and "dnd" friend circles.

its hard to dig back for that. i think it's gone, the original FB group. gone gone. i did a little digging and found a few image scraps, a big text dump.

there are a few others. i can track the freshman year dnd group i was in, from where it started, to all the scene kids showing off their dyed hair, trying to coordinate car pools to see like, the hobbit or whatever was out, dumb little FB post RP chats.

of course, the last post, the one at the top, is the post that killed the group. someone tried to start up a new campaign, i wanted to be a pirate, and then that shitty girl popped in and said "if its not awkward i would also like to be a part."

she kinda fucked up a lot of her friendships at the end of that year. looking back at how the dates line up, i imagine some very tough things were going on for her. she'd come out as trans in about a year or so and i know her parents were shit. its funny, i can dig into that old RP account i have and see she's actually still using hers as of this week. i think it's her primary facebook account.

i flip back through there and see all these messages about how she wants to kill me and beat me up and put me in cages and fuck me and hurt me. she talks unprompted about how she thinks im annoying or gross or dumb as shit and sends me whatever porn shes looking at. and then id go to school the next day and see her and we'd have a fun time. its sort of shocking to look at. but… shes a kid. maybe 14 or 14 years old. shes a huge asshole and really not a good person for me to be around, but shes still just a kid. and i know the same thing was happening to her, but unlike me it was coming from people she didnt know IRL and who were probably too old to be talking to her in the first place. i dont really know what to do with that in hindsight.. maybe i didnt at the time either...

anyway, on that post i see a lot of people commenting that we need to hash out our beef and reconcile. i didnt comment again though.

i look through all those messages and i see someone who is trying very hard to be liked. trying very hard to stay liked. kids are dumb. kids do dumb things to each other. it means a lot in the moment, but in the long run teenagers are just assholes. i think a lot of these people were especially shitty and occasionally both physically and verbally abusive. but they were the friends i had until i broke away. they were important to me.

i tried digging around a little more, to see if i could find my old messages with jack. (this is a different now tboy jack than the one i was posting about last week)

the messages go up to when we started texting. i dont really remember how long we dated and it was all online so was it really dating? ehh. no. i havent counted it since sophmore year. he was a good one though, better than most of the other people there. we both thought the other one hated each other, so we were both kind of mean in person in that way that tweens are. he moved before i ever got the chance to tell him how i felt in person.

its not easy. its not easy to all remember. it was all so long ago. i dont think i want to remember either. it was a time and a place where i felt so lonely.

im glad thats not where i am now. but i miss those people and that time. or i miss what could have happened, if it hadnt fallen apart or if i had made more of an effort or if things were just a little nicer.

its weird.. it was such a weird time to be a kid online. its still a weird time to be a kid online.

in a way, i almost miss it. i miss that thrill of being part of such a large group of people who all had different things going on and all had different relationships to each other. but when i really think about it...

i wish i had been who i had wanted to be. that i had known who i wanted to be. i wish i met these people on the level that they were beginning to come to themselves. i think everyone in that group had a 5 to 6 year headstart on figuring out their deals, as gay or, trans guys, butches, trans fems, etc. i was at bisexual, i know that much. but i retreated from that after i left that group, totally sealed off any thought that i was something other than straight and cis for... about six-ish years. i think it was too painful thinking about how i felt and how it feel apart to dwell on that part of myself that id had the fleeting chance to explore.

one guy there, the one who actually organized most of the RPs and the fanventure, was something else though. i think he knew who he was before anyone else. i think he knew who we all were before we did. he went across the spectrum of butch lesbian to GNC trans man and probably into other explorations of his identity since i knew him. i always found that really inspiring. it meant a lot that he saw me earlier this year when i came out publicly and shared in my joy. "im so happy for you." like he knew. like he always knew. maybe he did. maybe he didnt.

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

I could never work so close to someone I had feelings for / was in a relationship with after it doesn’t work out (so many actors and actresses leave a sitcom after a relationship fallout with a co star too) but that could just be me. I wonder how involved Jikook was for them to be able to still work closely together after. And was like crazy and face off a “break up / falling out” song then??

The thing is... they aren't working together. They haven't been working together for like two years already. Jungkook won't even do a freaking tiktok dance together with Jimin, or any member for that matter simply because he doesn't want to. They can choose when and if to hang out because they aren't contractually obligated to see each other for schedules anymore.

Besides, nobody really knows what kind of relationship they had, if they had one. I personally never ever believed they were sooo married and together the way most shippers believed. So to me it wasn't really a thing of "they were so together and now they're not", it was more of a realization that it was even less serious and committed than what I had thought it was. And at some point the way their interactions came across, it reached such a low level of seriousness and commitment that it just couldn't be a romantic relationship at all.

I'm friends with everyone I've dated. I've also kissed my friends -even straight girls- and our friendship wasn't ruined for that. So for me nothing is impossible. And I don't necessarily believe "being friends" means you have to hang out everyday or regularly even, just being on good terms with someone and still being somehow updated about their lives. There's one girl that hurt me a lot so I don't really keep in touch with her because I feel like I never got closure, but I also don't have anything bad to say about her and if I see her on the street, I say hi. I genuinely still think she's a good person and I even believe that if we were to link up again, I would probably fall for her again. After we broke up, she kept sending me happy birthday wishes for like 5 years.

I had a girlfriend with whom I broke up many years ago, and then a couple passed and we reconnected. I spent all of 2020 and 2021 with her, she was literally the only person I hung out with during quarantine; her boyfriend at the time lived really close to my house and she was staying at his house almost permanently, so every afternoon I would bike over there and pick her up and we'd go biking together for a couple of hours. It was quarantine, there weren't many cars on the street so it was just us on our bikes. Sometimes we'd stop for ice cream, sometimes we'd do errands together. There's never been any bad blood between us at all.

So maybe it's me and what probably many would consider a sort of liberal attitude towards relationships and all the different kinds of relationships I've had in my life, but almost anything is possible, really. Like 80% of the people I know date without labeling their relationships. There's a reason "situationship" is even a word currently. One thing I don't believe is that either Jimin or Jungkook are cheaters.

As for Jimin's songs, I've talked about them before and I've always been open to the possibility that like crazy was about a break up.