#there aren't enough posts in between

[useragarfield]

♡ ULTIMATE SHIPS MEME ♡: ‘We Could’ve Had It All’ Ships [3/4] ↳ Nicholas Scratch & Sabrina Spellman, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina ( 2018 - 2020 )

Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I don’t care about the world. I care about you.

[benevolenterrancy]

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So apparently people enjoyed the silly MDZS comics I drew this year while reading the books! + one sherlock holmes and one torchwood pic 😂 for variety i guess

[lavenoon]

The more things change, the more they stay the same - Sun won't let their little hunter mope, not when flustering them is much more fun <3

@naffeclipse One favorite coming up! They're each other's favorite <3

[lunapwrites]

An example of house-cleaning with ADHD.

My partner has been on my ass for at least the last 3 years to clear out the upstairs nook. As for why he is not assisting with this endeavor instead: it's 100% my stuff and 100% my space. I don't touch the basement. He doesn't touch the nook. Them's the rules.

But, well, you know, executive dysfunction and all that.

So fast forward to this year, with all the stuff happening and particularly Bean. And there's been a lot of "yes, I know I need to get it cleaned out" because we need the space and we also need to replace the windows and we can't get to them but me being me I have dragged my feet on it, because I didn't need to do it today.

Recently, though, I've been getting a little anxious about time - kinda hard to be as blind to it when you've got very visible proof that time is not only passing, but running out. So last week I finally dug through all my art supplies and figured out what I was and wasn't going to use, and gave away all the stuff I knew wasn't in my wheelhouse.

And just like that, there was an item checked off my list - one less barrier to entry.

Today, I woke up with a drive to clean, and if there's one thing you need to know about executive functioning disorders, it's that when the siren song of productivity finally calls us, we MUST drop everything immediately and dance to that demented little tune. So here I am, 12 hours later, exhausted and still only 80% done.

But god damn what an 80% that was. Bookshelves rearranged. Art supplies organized. Tables removed. Tea collection tamed.

Anyway, I still need to put all the books away that are going in storage but the important thing - the most important thing - is that the windows in both the computer room and the nook are now accessible, and able to be replaced so that the top floor of the house can be habitable in the summer months lol. Kind of important, considering Bean's room is up here. And also a lot of the stuff that was taking up space in Bean's room is being moved out, which means we can start properly setting it up. Nice little cascade effect.

I'm definitely gonna sleep like a rock tonight though, lol.

[r0semultiverse]

Rose Lalonde Sprites & Edits

Use these for whatever you want, just give credit if you use these for anything!

[not-poignant]

Under the stain is so good and so well written! Huge fan. I was wondering what’s the schedule for updates since you mention that the next chapter is already ready but I’ve had to wait for weeks for it to drop. Please drop it earlier if you can :((

Hi anon,

I already drop chapters of A Stain that Won't Dissolve earlier than I used to, because it used to be a chapter every 3 weeks, and now it's a chapter every 2. I can't go any faster, because I am literally working on eight different stories right now, and you know, I need money to eat food, and live, and pay my medical bills, and Stain doesn't do any of that, so my other writing has to come first.

I'm doing the best I can, anon.

You can always check out my writing schedule here. Generally A Stain that Won't Dissolve goes up every second Sunday. You are not the only one who is having to wait two weeks for it to arrive, everyone is, and I'm glad you're enjoying it, just...please know I'm also a real person who is working really hard all the time on my writing and Stain can't come first, unless you're willing to come here and pay me a living wage? Then we can work something out ;)

[wingodex]

okay so in season 2 of good omens they bring up this book called the expert at the card table and i've posted about this book before because i am extremely not normal about it for a bunch of reasons i cannot hope to articulate here (if you wanna read it. for whatever reason. houdini donated a copy to the library of congress and so it's just freely available online for everyone). but like the person who wrote it was almost certainly a professional card cheater so obviously they didn't publish using their actual name. so there's this big mystery around it and there's a bunch of theories about who the author actually was including the possibility that it's e.s. andrews, aka s.w. erdnase backwards. and in the show, aziraphale says that his copy is signed by erdnase using his real name, and it's one of those things where like. i did lose my mind a little bit when this whole scene happened because it was literally written as a fun little reference for me, or at least people who have the exact same specific crossection of interests that i do so that's fun. HOWEVER i was a little pissed about the whole thing also because the mystery of who erdnase is sooooo central to the experience of the book itself. like the author's concealed identity is not a hidden fact, the author literally tells you he's lying to you, and it's so everything to me. and it has me thinking about the Real Book which is this collection of jazz sheet music that was compiled by a couple of students when they were in school and then illegally distributed for years among jazz musicians that it became a fundamental tool of jazz musicians all over the US. like to the point where if you were studying jazz in college or whatever you were instructed to go find some guy selling photocopies of the Real Book because you would need it for lessons. and the two students who compiled it remain anonymous to this day and it's very intentional. a reporter managed to get in touch with one of them a few years ago through encrypted emails and shit like that and the guy literally said that he would never reveal his identity because that's part of the Real Book's allure. like the mystery itself is part of the fun. and the expert at the card table is very much like that for me. the mystery is so much a part of the book that the idea of that mystery ever actually being solved is so unappealing. you gotta understand that when this book was first published, it fucking blew up the gambling world. nobody had ever published something so bold as instructions for literal actual card cheating techniques before. it's so iconic in the exact same way that the Real Book is, in their audacity and innovation. and in their mystery!! that's part of the fun

[theoriginalsapphic]

Why i believe that byler is endgame (based only on what we have seen on the show). part 5

And by that, I mean: no color-coding analysis, no set props analysis, no actor interviews interpretation, no script analysis, no movies parallels analysis; nada. Only what we’ve seen on the show and nothing else.

This will use a lot of comparisons with m/leven because, despite the fact that some of you refuse to admit it, this is a love triangle.

Where do they end up at the end of season 4 and what does this mean for season 5?

So, a lot of things change during the season when it comes to these two relationships.

In the second episode of the season, Mike arrives to California. Although his encounter with El is sweet, his encounter with Will is awkward. However, during the season, we see Mike and El grow apart from each other, while Mike and Will tentatively try to fix their friendship and grow closer than they were at the beggining of the season, which is illustrated by the ending.

To talk further about it, it's necessary to discuss how these three characters feel in their relationships and the characters on their own.

how mike makes el feels

how mike makes will feel

how mike feels in his relationship with el

how mike feels in his relationship with will

El and Will and how their fathers shaped them

The show has drawn many parallels between El and Will, one of their biggest one being how they were both abused by a father from a young age, and how that has shaped their view of the world as well as their self-worth.

From what we’ve seen from El’s relationship with Brenner, he took her away from her mother, who loved her unconditionally since before meeting her, he has manipulated, made her a target against the other older children at the lab, he forced her into things she didn’t want to do (i.e: kill a cat, get her into a sensory deprivation tank to search in the upside down), he manipulated and used her over and over again.

On the other hand, we have Will’s relationship with his dad, which, even though we didn’t get to see much in the show (they haven’t even interacted!), we know he used to call him homophobic slurs from a young age and that he abandoned his family. There are also chilling pieces of dialogue (“he is good at hiding”, “he was never good at taking care of himself”) and character actions (Jonathan searching for Will in a car’s trunk) that it implies that it was very abusive situation.

However, abuse doesn’t present itself the same way, and it definitely doesn’t affect a person the same way, even when the abuser is the same person. I could write a whole mini-essay of how Jonathan and Will have the same abuser but the damage inflicted on them is very different.

To put it simply, Brenner and Lonnie messed them up in different ways.

In episode 3 of season 4, el is suffering greatly. She has lost Hopper, the first permanent parental-figure to treat like a child and not a means-to-an-end, and she has lost her powers, which has been the core of her identity her entire life, meaning she has lost her self. All the pain that she has been carrying for so long finally comes out in an explosive argument with Mike in which she reveals she feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere, that she is too different, that everyone thinks she is a monster. At her lowest point, she accepts to go to the NINA project to recover her powers, and learns more about herself and Brenner and their relationship that she had ever done before. It all culminates when El decides to leave Nevada to go to Hawkins to save her friends. When Brenner tries to stop her, she finally comes to terms with the abuse he has inflicted on her and all the other children at the laboratory, and concludes that he is the monster­­—not her.

El has built her worth around her powers and how much she can do with them to help others, so when she lost them, from her point of view, she was left with only the monstrous side of her. Brenner’s ambivalent love towards her based on how useful she could be to her, as well as her forced isolation of the world, made her to believe that she can never belong anywhere, that there is no place out there in the world for her outside of being a superhero. To have her say to her abuser’s face how he is the monster was probably one of my favorite moments from her, as well as an extremely cathartic one. By the end of season 4, El has finally realized her full complexity and that she is neither a monster nor a superhero. She is just a human being that was born with supernatural abilities, and is now choosing to use them for good, but ultimately, she wants to be defined beyond her powers, and she wants to be defined for who she is.

On the other hand, we have Will, who, similarly to El, has built his worth around being there for others. However, whereas as El’s is rooted on having powers and being a superhero, Will’s is based on his fear that he may be unlovable, and if he does or say the wrong thing, if he is not what people expect from him, they will leave him eventually. If his own father, one of the two people in the world that was meant to love him and want him unconditionally, could hate him, could abandon him… who’s to say that no one else will?

I don’t think is a coincidence that Will is the one that tries to keep the party together at any chance he gets (i.e: trying to keep the peace when Mike and Lucas begin fighting about who was supposed to be Vecna, how he calls out Mike for not knowing where Dustin is), and i don’t think is a coincidence either that he forgives so easily when others hurt him (because he is scared that if he loses the friends he currently has he will never have friends again), and it’s definitely not a coincidence that he tends to hide his problems even when it could put him in danger (because he doesn’t want to be seen as a burden).

A lot of people (myself included) criticized how Will indirectly confessing his feelings to Mike was used to develop a straight relationship. However, and in spite of the initial heartbreak of that scene, there was a silver lining: Jonathan listened. Jonathan, who became a pseudo-father to his own brother, probably even before their own dad left. Jonathan, who was shown throughout the series to talk to Will and try to make him feel better for being different, for liking things that other people dislike, for being a freak. Jonathan, that as soon as he had a moment to be alone with his brother, reassured him that he will always be there for him, and that he will always love him no matter what. And that, in my opinion, is what needs to happen with Will by the end of season 5: he needs to understand that he has a lot of people that will always love him and want him in his life no matter what.

Mike’s character

I honestly don’t like how some stranger things fans treat Mike as a character, or even some m/leven and byler shippers treat him, like he is seen as just something that can make El or Will happy without stopping to consider Mike as a character with his own needs and wants. (I’m not saying everyone does that because that’s generalizing and I don't like doing that, but I’ve seen quite a bit).

During the van scene, Mike opens up about his insecurities, about how he feels he is the random nerd to superhero El, how he is the lamer version of Louis Lane to El’s Superman. Usually, I wouldn’t mind a nice gender reversal of the hero/damsel in distress trope. However, in this case, it goes against what Mike wants to be: needed and special, the hero of the story.

Mike thrives on being needed, on protecting and taking care of others. In season 1, he searches for Will while he protects and hides El from the lab. In season 2, he protects and takes care of Will while he calls El in his walkie-talkie on the off-chance that she might still be out there.

It’s no coincidence that the majority of the general audience’s opinion on Mike starts to lose its positivity around season 3 and season 4, and that is because… he doesn’t feel needed anymore. At the beggining of season 3, El breaks up with Mike and spends her time establishing a relationship with Max, going shopping and trying new fashion style, reading new comics. A lot of viewers, as well as some characters in the show like Max and Nancy, call Mike controlling and tell him that El can make her own decisions, which I agree with. However, the point of this is not that Mike is some controlling boyfriend; the point is, he doesn’t know what to do when people don’t need him. In season 4, Will admits (indirectly) during his monologue that he was pushing Mike away. Although Will was trying to put some distance between them because of his feelings towards Mike, from Mike’s point of view, him and his best friend parted in somewhat good terms and then Will didn’t bother trying to keep in contact with him without giving a reason why.

The point is, Mike fears becoming unneeded to the people he loves, because in his head, being unneeded means being unwanted, means being unloved. That is the reason why, during the van scene, after sharing how insecure he feels about in his relationship, his whole face lights up when Will says that El [Will] will always need him.

He has spent too much time basing his self-worth on being what other people needed, which is why in season 5 he needs to relearn how to value himself. He can still be special, he can still be a hero (I personally believe in season 5 he will have a significant role in defeating Vecna), but first, he needs to understand that he can be loved and wanted without being needed.

end of season 4, volume 2

By the end of the season, Will confessed his feelings for Mike masking them as El's feelings and he has resigned himself to the fact that his love will never be reciprocated, and Mike gave El a love monologue.

And yet, this is how Mike/El and Mike/Will are by the end of the season.

In case it wasn't obvious enough

[izzy-b-hands]

Trying to make my brain do anything today has just been case after case of 'well, half-assed is better than nothing I guess.'

[faarkas]

this wonderful template is by @/arcandoria :)

ramon - verde's first real relationship and love, they met at her gym while she was training and after being iced out for weeks, she agreed to hang out with him and things blossomed from there. he was good to her, a welcome distraction from the grief of losing her mother, and they only broke up after their relationship soured when she started to get involved with Militech and he slid deeper into unsavory Valentino activities.

landon - a fairly brief relationship built on ambition and manipulation, landon saw how much she enjoyed his accent and sense of humor and exploited it for as long as he could. they clashed over many things but there was a chemistry they had a difficult time ignoring. it ended when verde finally realized he was only using her for her connections and didn't actually love her.

goro - a relationship that started the night he plucked her from the landfill, they realized after some initial clashing that they share a lot of the same ideals and quirks. they quickly became close, only pulled apart when it finally came time to take care of the biochip. they reunited a little over a year later and have rarely been seen without the other since.

[thethingything]

I forgot that being on our period fucks us up emotionally and gives me really bad dysphoria. that would maybe explain why we've been struggling so much with triggers that aren't normally a huge issue

[tacou]

damn not to depression blog on my long inactive tumblr but like... yall ever be reminded of the miniscule impact you've had on others bc it’s once again your birthday and the only fellas who have contacted you are like...fb posts on your timeline from extended family haha

[navree]

i’m repeating myself but i really like how this series has gone to pains to show the audience exactly how awful order 66 was and to make us feel it, because fictional genocide is an extraordinarily tough beast to write but they’re managing it

[grison-in-space]

in theory I should be prepping for SICB right now and working on my talk but in PRACTICE I am, in order:

-procrastinating by doing some big analyses in the hopes of pulling some kind of conclusion to the story I'm telling in my main current project out of my ass

-watching Matilda bop around the living room and oscillate between harassing Benton for love and/or chomping and looking for Crimes

-trying not to get too sucked into trolling Google Scholar for more information about terrestrial forest crabs

-rubbing Benton's belly as he huddles under my warm blankie and considers engaging the puppy menace

[bravewolfvesperia]

/ Since I mention in my pinned post that this blog has some changes from canon, I'm going to make a rundown post that I'll be linking in my muse info on my blog. My timeline post covers some of this too and has other things canon to my muse that aren't here because they're timeline based and not direct changes based. I'll update this as needed.

Repede had another owner before Yuri got him in the game. I'm combining this with FS. Thus, Repede would have been basically an infant when he and Lambert ended up with the knights. From there he took to Yuri as he did in the FS drama CD so Yuri was primarily in charge of Repede during his stay with the knights, but he and Flynn raised Repede together as is in line with the game. This means they continued raising him together even after Yuri left.

In the JP version of the game, Yuri says he was with the knights for a short time but doesn't specify how long that time was, so I'm completely yeeting the "three months" dub aspect from this blog. I can't reasonably assume he signed up, took the exams, went into training, went from errand boy to battle status, then went on normal missions and left in the span of three months. So as usual, we're following the JP timeline. Generally anything the dub makes up or actively changes from the original context/tone gets yeeted here.

In the FS drama CD, Flynn is extremely repetitive about Yuri quitting the knights and with his nagging. At least with @mistralxsoul and anyone else who prefers it the following way in threads with my muse, we're toning it down because it just feels absolutely batshit to us how bad it is in the drama CD (it's worse than even the movie itself).

Since the timeline for Yuri and Flynn's knighthood conflicts super horrendously between the novel, FS/FS drama CD and the game, I'm mixing all of it together (primarily because I consider the novel more canon than the FS drama CD). Basically (for my muse), they signed their names and didn't take the exams immediately, but when they eventually did it was at least a couple years later, due to Yuri still having his teen appearance when he signed his name to join in the novel. This is because otherwise, if I average my muse's teen age out to be fifteen/sixteen and his age to be about eighteen/nineteen in the knights, it would mean he'd been with the knights (including training, etc) anywhere from 2-4 years if his sign up was immediately after the novel's events. If they were to sign up and join immediately after the novel timeline, it also makes even less sense because Flynn's attitude in FS and his relationship with Yuri (and remember, the FS drama CD comes before the movie's timeline and Flynn was even worse about Yuri's attitude in the CD) would seem like it literally 180'd overnight.

So basically, to avoid all this insanity, a short summarized timeline for my muse would be: they signed up but didn't join right away, Flynn moved away and was gone for a couple years or so after the events of the novel, both of them changed in personality/behavior drastically in that time, they met up at the exams, they went into training, they got sent to Niren's squad, they were more errand boys than actual knights when they were still super fresh newbies and Yuri was extremely annoyed with that, they were actual knights for a while (I'm going to say Yuri was a knight for at least six months or more, especially if I consider the trajectory of Flynn's behavior toward him in the drama CD through the end of FS), the events of FS were not one straight timeline and things happened between the days etc etc, then Yuri left.

Following the game's drama CDs, Yuri hesitated a lot more when Flynn was injured at Zaude. If not for Flynn nudging him to go after Alexei even while wounded, Yuri wouldn't have left him there.

Following the same drama CDs, it's Raven and Repede who find and look after Yuri when he wakes up after Zaude. That is to say, Repede was already with Raven and lunged when he sniffed out Yuri in his room (super doggo powers). Raven followed Repede in a panic, who ran to Yuri's room upon realizing Yuri was there, and Raven finds Yuri awake but right in the middle of passing back out (the sound is basically Raven's voice being distant with some ringing, so it's from Yuri's point of view that Raven is trying to get him to steady himself but he passes back out). Raven takes care of him from there until he's recovered properly enough to go back. In this time, Rita did investigating and eventually, with the others minus Raven, went to Zopheir after deciding they couldn't dawdle and just wait in their grief. While they're there, Yuri and Raven have headed out after them and show up together and reunite with the rest of the group. Raven has already been updated on what Yuri knows from Duke at this point (Duke saved him as usual, but the drama CD changes come in after that), so the two of them update everyone else.

In the game, there's a skit with Yuri, Flynn and Karol where Yuri mentions "playing in a river", but in the novel, they were actually getting water at the river and the other kids were playing in the river when they got attacked by a monster, fell into the river (Yuri also mentions (I thiiiink in another unrelated skit) that just falling into "a river" was enough to panic him), and Flynn grabbed onto a merman. For my muse, I'm just going with Yuri simplifying the situation to Karol while keeping the novel's event as my muse's canon.