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bengiyo · 5 months

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BL 2023 Review

I wasn’t sure how I wanted to write about BL for this year. I was originally going to do a The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly framework for it, but that feels meaner than I actually am about it. Instead, I think I’ll just write out some sections and unpack some things I felt along the way.

I Watched Too Much Again

Last year I engaged with about 92 productions around the world. This year it was 99 (I tracked stuff I completed here). Sure I dropped 18 of them this year, but goddamn. The problem with watching as much as I did this year is that I worked full time this year and also maintained a separate hobby. I also continued my twice-weekly watch sessions with my friend Emily, so there are an additional 100-ish watch sessions in here of rewatching, plus a few other rewatches (Theory of Love and My Ride most notably).

One of my struggles at this point is I’m far too familiar with the genre, and find myself feeling impatient and irritable with shows that aren’t to my taste the way I used to. Throughout the late summer and fall I found myself increasingly grumpier about the genre, and it didn’t get better until I had a holiday and basically slept a day to get some energy back. I also found myself growing apart from fans I’ve known and followed a long time. It’s been a difficult year for me as a long-time fan because my tastes, habits, and friendships in the genre have changed even if the amount I watch hasn’t really.

I Wrote a Lot This Year

I recently converted my watch tag away from my gaming internet persona to just my shortname, so all near-1000 of my Stray Thoughts posts can be found under #ben watches now. I’ve also been going back and adding #ben writes to some of the standalone pieces that I really liked. In reviewing them, the pieces I’m happiest about are my ode to Framboise from Kabe Koji Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to Be Recognized, my post begging everyone to watch La Pluie, my post about what it means to actually like queer men, my SBS ep 10 post that ended up being wrong, my post about the Lavender Scare and Be My Favorite, my Tokyo in April is… post about the breaking of the BL line,

However, the two posts I am most proud of is my half-joking response about why I think tagging each other back and forth across Tumblr in our writing is so important. and The Knowing: Being Queer in BL because I had so much great conversations with folks as a result of both of these posts.

Looking back at my own blog, this is probably the most active I’ve been in my entire time on this website, so thank you to everyone who interacted with me this year, because it really is people talking to me that gets me most inspired to write things down. Big shout out to @lurkingshan who will bug me repeatedly until I blog something that I said in passing.

We Started a Podcast!

After hanging out with @shortpplfedup since Bad Buddy, she got inspired and really wanted to bring something different to the BL podcasting sphere. I had time, and liked talking with her enough, so we started @the-conversation-pod. Now we’re a full year into it and planning out future stuff. It’s been so much fun being able to get things off my soul and break poor NiNi in our recording sessions.

From this year, I think my favorite episodes we did were The Moonlight Chicken Episode, the Eighth Sense episode, the ITSAY Anniversary Episodes, The Wedding Plan episode, , and The Holiday Clip Show. Huge shout out to @ginnymoonbeam for anchoring the transcription process, and @lurkingshan for editing.

The VIIB Awards will begin airing soontm so look forward to that.

Favorite New Term: Business Gay Performance

Let’s be clear, Bump Up Business is not good. It is an obvious BL cash grab from OnlyOneOf that seeks to comment on the fake nature of BL while doing everything it can to trick the audience into believing that the BL pair is real.

Before we got deeper into this year, I was a big fan of a certain pairing, and then their fans took it too far and it affected the way I engaged with their performances and their work. I like that we have a new term for “fanservice” that communicates that you understand that this is for work. (thanks to NiNi for this comparison) I can look at the latest behind the scenes video from Last Twilight and say that I think Sea really understands the work they’re doing, and he and Jimmy have a very relaxed and mature version of BGP without feeling like I’m feeding into shipping.

Do I think they’re dating? No. Do I like the way they fake it? Absolutely!

I can look at one of @respectthepetty posts about Yin and War having personalized, color-coded mics, and we can talk about the next level BGP between the two and both communicate that we know that this is a performance.

It actually makes the extra PR work fun for me again, because now I can just shout “BGP! BGP! BGP!” and it not feel like I’m giving myself brainrot.

Thai BL Needs to Finish Stronger Next Year

Let’s get into some of the show stuff. This year was defined for me by Thai BL starting strong with good premises and then squandering them by not focusing on the details that mattered or leaning into baseless melodrama. Time for some reads. Some of these shows were generally good, but they failed at these things:

609 Bedtime Story: The world building crumpled in the back half and both endings are flat.

A Boss and a Babe: Cher is a pro gamer who worked for a gaming company and there was no plot point about this at all, or collaboration between the two groups.

Bake Me Please: Why was a show about cake so lacking in flavor?

Be Mine SuperStar: You had a real opportunity to explore a fan and idol romance and had Punn show so little growth. I hope the footage of First’s range is helpful now that Ja is out of BL.

Be My Favorite: You redid that whole amusement park date and muddled so much of what the hell happened on that day.

Between Us: You had years to make this interesting. Why are there five pairs and why is the end of this a JC Penny catalog photoshoot?

Dangerous Romance: What the fuck happened to the Sailom we had in episode 1 and 2 before that gun incident?

Hidden Agenda: Tee, what the hell was this? Twelve weeks of this?

I Feel You Linger in the Air: You may be the most beautiful show, with some of the most impressive performances of the year, but you absolutely botched this ending. Finish the goddamn season next time.

Love in Translation: I love you, but that whole kidnapping plot was so stupid at the end.

Low Frequency: I like your OST. That's about it.

My Dear Gangster Oppa: No examination about how gaming friendships become close quickly because of the combination of anonymity and teamwork (shout out to @twig-tea for this excellent summation).

My School President: Saving your gay commentary for the final episode felt like a conservative choice. I want more from you next time.

Naughty Babe: You retconned your own characters to tell a worse story. Unforgiveable.

Never Let Me Go: You didn’t know if you wanted to be a high school BL or a mafia story. It was difficult to watch.

Only Friends: I cannot believe you did Boston like that at the end. Either give Force’s character a clear personality next time, or keep him enigmatic; half measures make him and Book look worse. Sand was absolutely embarrassing. Boeing was a waste. Ending on all of them paired like that felt so unearned.

Step By Step: You forgot to ground Jeng’s external dreams at the end, so the final two episodes are just frustrating.

I’m glad I got that off my chest. We can go into the next year now.

Korea Put in the Work This Year

I really like the efforts from the various Korean studios this year. I really hope we get a Strongberry joint next year, but I want to acknowledge that we had 18 Korean BL dramas I watched this year, and at least three of them I think are must watches: Our Dating Sim, Sing My Crush, and The Eighth Sense. Beyond that, I think Love Tractor, Unintentional Love Story, and A Breeze of Love are easy recommendations.

It’s really impressive how the complaint for me this year with Korean BL is not about them using their time poorly. It’s more about normal drama concerns, where I think characterization is a little weak, or a theme doesn’t land squarely. This rapid iteration from the Korean studios is really impressive to watch, and I’m excited to see what some of the recognized players do next year.

Taiwan and The Philippines Have Been Quiet for Me

I wasn’t really able to connect with much from the Philippines this year except for The Day I Loved You. I never wrote about The Day I Loved You, but this beautiful and heart wrenching show is one of my favorites from this year. I wasn’t too keen on the Oxin Films offerings of this year, and I’m still chasing down the ones from The IdeaFirst Company.

As for Taiwan, this new BL project from the end of the year just isn’t hitting. Kiseki: Dear to Me also ended up really hurting me with the way they used Wayne Song and Huang Chun Chih. I love that angry little man with the white hair, but I’m still salty about Wayne and the general mess of that show.

Japan was Busy This Year

I watched 16 new shows, a few older ones, and a few movies this year from Japan. We haven’t gotten this much from them ever. I continue to love the Drama Shower project from MBS, and my beloved What Did You Eat Yesterday? returned this year. We had pretty stellar outings with Our Dining Table, If It’s With You, and I Cannot Reach You.

I think a third of the Japanese BL I’ve tracked on MDL actually released this year. That’s huge.

Still, I am going to side eye Minato’s Laundromat 2. You were the show that let me down the most this entire year. More than Only Friends, more than Step By Step, and even more than Kiseki. You absolutely blew it. You were telling a great story about a man with an acute case of internalized homophobia coming out of his shell and learning to love his younger partner and you blew it for stupid amnesia nonsense. I will never forgive you for this.

Where Were All the Uncles This Year?

Really, without Jim from Moonlight Chicken, and without the men from What Did You Eat Yesterday? we had an alarming dearth of older gay characters passing on knowledge and wisdom to the youngsters this year. What the hell happened?

Rare Dynamics Won: Second Chance Romance and Friends to Lovers!

We had so much second chance romance this year. It’s really my favorite version of gay romance because gays don’t always have ideal settings when they’re young. We had Our Dating Sim, Individual Circumstances, Jun & Jun, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, Be My Favorite, Love Class Season 2, and A Breeze of Love. I am satisfied.

Friends to Lovers is actually so rare in romance and we have so many to choose from this year! The best examples are I Cannot Reach You and Sing My Crush, but we also have one of the pairs in Love Class Season 2.

Gay Thoughts

I had a couple of ongoing thoughts this year about queerness in BL.

First, I want to return to my post about Sing My Crush and La Pluie, and how I assert that Men Need to Be Angry Sometimes. More than giving men grace to be righteously angry or upset about things, along with letting them express it in ugly ways, I really want to get into how we engage with these shows. I will stop engaging with moralistic reads on characters in 2024. I will no longer engage with asks, reblogs, or meta gripping the fandom where we're judging the moral fiber of the character.

The question that really only matters for me at this point is: Is this act from the character justified from their characterization, the narrative, or genre conventions; and is it interesting? Whether or not the character is good or bad reeks of the lame arguments about good and bad representation, and I am not watching BL like I’m being graded in Sunday school.

The second thing I really want to acknowledge at the end of the year is that the gay sex is finally getting better again. I watched The Novelist this year, and we have taken so long to get back to the space that show took us on the portrayal of male-male intimacy. We are in the genre about people with dicks. It should feel like it. There should be a masculine component there that feels specific to queer intimacy.

I will acknowledge 2 Cutie 2 Pie, A Boss and a Babe, Be Mine SuperStar, Bed Friend, Candy Color Paradox, For Him, I Cannot Reach You, Kiseki: Dear to Me, La Pluie, Love Class 2, Love in Translation, Love Mate, Middleman’s Love, Naughty Babe, Only Friends, The End of the World With You, Tokyo in April is…, and Wedding Plan for your contributions.

Final Thoughts

I like how broad the genre felt this year, and I enjoyed how much speculative fiction is entering into the conversation. I don’t know how I feel about there being five vampire stories in the works next year, but overall I’m glad that we’re getting more experimental concepts. I’m burnt out on the college engineering BL, and would like to see more shows about working adults.

Despite how grumpy I was for at least three months, I think this has genuinely been one of the best years we’ve ever had in the genre. I made a lot of new friends in BL this year, and I’m excited to see what comes next. Thank you all for spending some of your time with me this year and I’ll see you in the next one.

#Ben writes #best of bl 2023 #bl series #thai bl #japanese bl #taiwanese bl #filipino bl #korean bl #ben watches

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alwaysonthemend · 1 year

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A Night of Revelry | JTK

Author's Note: Here it is! My second GVF fic! This one got away from me a little bit and ended up a lot longer than I meant it to be. But oh well, Jake just has that effect on me. Again, this is unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

Summary: The boys are finally back home on a hiatus from tour and are enjoying some much needed rest and recovery. A dinner party at the Kiszka's house leads to you and Jake admitting some long kept secrets to each other. A night of revelry, indeed.

Content Warnings: mentions of being drunk, fingering (f. receiving), hand jobs (f. receiving), p. in v. sex, unprotected sex (ya'll know better!) swearing, dom Jakey (yes, that's a warning) 18+ MINORS DNI

Word Count: 4544

Preview:

“Since you want to cum so bad,” Jake says with a dangerous smile gracing his lips, “you’re going to come over here and ride my thigh. And I’m going to sit here and watch as you make yourself come apart. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

But as you started to spend more time with him, you discovered that he wasn’t always that quiet. When he’s around his brothers, or Danny, or other close friends and family, Jake has a wicked sense of humor that can have the whole room clutching their sides with laughter. His dry sarcasm and witty rebuttals are unmatched – even by Josh. Not only is Jake hilarious, you soon discovered, but he loves to talk if it’s about the right subjects. He’ll talk for ages about films he likes or dislikes, or he’ll go on rants about things he reads, or podcasts he listens to. And of course he’ll talk for ages about his music. His eyes light up when he’s excited about a topic, and in those moments, you can see the same animatedness and excitement that his twin has.

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From the very first moment that you met Jake, the man had been an enigma. He was quiet – content to allow others to fill the silence for him. At first, you’d mistaken his reservedness for shyness. But as you got to know him, you found that he is by no means a shy man. He’s quiet, sure. But he’s confident in himself. Confident to dress as he wishes and to like the things he does without a care in the world. From there, you had assumed that his quietness must be a result of growing up in a household with Josh. Josh loves to talk and you had figured that Jake was simply allowing him to do so. And for a time, that was that. Jake was the moon to Josh’s sun and was simply content to let others fill the silence for him.

The first time you saw Jake play on stage, you saw yet another side of him that you had never seen before. Seeing him up on that stage changed something in you. He commanded attention. From the way he threw his head back as he played to the way he muttered under his breath to his guitar, everything about the man oozed confidence and sex appeal. You’d gone into the show with a growing crush on him, but you left completely head over heels for the man. Time passes, and you only find yourself more and more in love with him as the days go on. And as much as you want more than just friendship, you figure that it’s best to keep your burgeoning feelings to yourself. Jake is a sweetheart – always showing you kindness whenever the two of you hang out. But he’s so out of your league it’s almost funny. He’s a goddamn rockstar, for goodness sake! He could get just about any woman in the world if he really wanted to and you’re fairly confident that out of all of them, you wouldn't be the top choice.

There are times when you think that maybe, just maybe, he might have feelings for you too. He’s always so attentive to you when you spend time with him – remembering little things that you tell him and always seeming to know when you’re having a bad day. And every now and again he brushes his fingertips over yours when he hands you something or his hand will ghost over your waist when he passes. But you try not to linger on those moments too much. He’s a gentleman who always makes the people around him feel at ease and you realize that it’s just the way Jake is. He’s too kind for his own good (and your own good) so you do your best to push the feelings down.

It’s nights like this night, though, that make crushing those feelings down so difficult. Tours are on a temporary hiatus and the band members are back home for some much needed R & R. And tonight, Karen had invited all of the Kiszka siblings, Danny, and several other family members and friends over for an intimate night of stories and spending time with one another. Dinner had been loud and exciting – as all meals with the Kiszkas are, and now the guests are all intermingling amongst themselves as the sun sets into night. Some are inside, polishing off the dessert and staying out of the summer heat. Others are gathered outside around the fire, sharing stories as Jake and Sam gently strum on their guitars. Naturally, you find yourself gravitating towards where Jake is. You’d just spent a good 30 minutes talking inside with Danny about whether Kurt Cobain actually wanted to kill himself or if he was just trying to get away from Courtney Love (you favor the latter), but now you’re feeling that familiar tug in your chest that always stirs whenever you’re away from Jake for too long. There’s a part of you that’s embarrassed for how attached to Jake you’ve become. You’re independent and consider yourself to be a fairly rational individual, but there’s something about Jake that makes all that fly out the window. You want – no, you need to be close to him. He’s gone so much during the year and you miss him like a limb that’s been chopped off. His absence aches with phantom pains and you figure that you deserve the reprieve of spending time with him while he’s here.

You take a seat in one of the empty lawn chairs next to him and he gives you a small, private smile, before turning back to Ronnie as she tells a story. His cheeks are flushed with alcohol and his dark, wide brimmed hat lies discarded at his feet. You tune everyone out, and instead allow yourself to watch Jake’s fingers as he plays the guitar. No matter how many times you see and hear him play, his talent never fails to make you feel all warm inside. He loves his music, and his playing reflects that love. It’s like he’s sharing a piece of himself with you all – and you’re thankful that you get to hear it like this. He’s beautiful. That’s the only word you can think of to describe the way he looks right now.

“You alright?” He asks, noticing the absent look in your eyes.

“Hm?” Your eyes snap up from his hands to his eyes. “Oh. Ya, I’m good. Just tired, is all.” You can feel your cheeks grow hot as there’s no way he didn’t see you staring at him.

“Too much alcohol, darling?” He laughingly says in his fake British accent that he’s so fond of.

“Yeah,” you laugh in relief, thankful for the easy excuse. “Drank a little too much wine, I think.”

He smiles and immediately you feel at ease again.

“Happens to the best of us.” He says wistfully, back in his normal accent. “I myself have also partaken a little too much tonight.”

“You?” You gasp dramatically, “Jacob Kiszka drinking too much? I’m shocked.”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“I know. It’s not like me at all.”

You both turn your attention back to the rest of the group as Josh stands up and dramatically tells a story about something or other, though you still are entirely too aware of Jake’s presence next to you. He puts his guitar down and helps himself to another generous glass of bourbon as the night goes on. The night bleeds from too late into too early and you feel the tendrils of sleep beginning to cloud your thoughts. You stopped drinking a while ago and your buzz from earlier in the night has all but disappeared. You stare into the fire, the warmth from the flame coupled with the voices of your friends lulling you into a relaxed trance.

“Care to join me for a smoke?” Jake asks, startling you from your reverie.

“You know I don’t smoke.” You scold him lightly.

“I know.” He says, rising from his seat and extending his hand towards you. “Join me anyways?”

You nod and take his hand, allowing him to lead you around the front of the house to a more secluded area. From here, you can just barely make out the voices of the others as you round the corner out of eyesight. Jake leans back against the house and turns his face up to the sky. He looks painfully beautiful like that. You swallow and look away.

“Thought we were coming over here so you could smoke.” You say, following his line of sight up to the sky.

“Changed my mind.” He shrugged, turning to look at you. “Come next to me.”

You pin him with a confused stare but comply. You walk over and lean your own shoulder against the house, careful to leave space between the two of you.

“I’m glad you could be here tonight. I missed you while we were gone.” He’s looking back at the sky now and you take a moment to watch him. His cheeks are still flushed and his hair is pulled back in a loose bun. You don’t respond for a moment, carefully choosing your next words.

“I’m sure you missed being home with all the craziness of being on the road.” You finally say. “I’m glad you all are back. It gets boring here without you guys to cause chaos.” You laugh, looking back up to the sky.

Jake turns to you suddenly and grabs your arm.

“No, seriously,” He says, staring at you in the moonlight. “I missed you.”

You turn to look at him and he’s pinning you with that stare that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you – seeing every single thought that runs through your mind.

“I missed you too, Jake. More than you know.”

He lets go of your arm, seemingly content that the urgentness of his words were heard.

“I hate having to leave you here when we go,” he says, “I miss you so damn much.”

You turn to look at him and he does the same, his dark eyes locking with yours, You don’t really know how to respond. Hearing him say that to you makes your heart flutter in your chest. But you’re wary, too – wary of reading into his words wrong. That little spark of hope rears its head and it’s all you can do not to lean over and kiss him right then and there.

“I hate it too, Jake.” You whisper, afraid to speak into whatever it is that's just taken place between the two of you. But before you have time to process what’s happening, Jake presses his soft lips to yours. You’re so stunned that you don’t kiss him back and he pulls back wide eyed.

“I’m sorry.. I- I don’t know why I did that without asking first. I-” His eyes are filled with embarrassment and you can’t help but feel bad for him.

“It’s okay, Jake.” You interrupt him.” I just don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret in the morning.” You take a breath to try and steady your heart rate as Jake stares at you.

“So, you didn’t kiss me back because you think I’m too drunk?” He asks slowly, seemingly trying to process your words.

You sigh. It hurt before, but hearing him say it out loud made the sting all the more painful.

“Yes, Jake. You’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose our friendship over a drunken mistake.” There’s a small, hopeless little part of you that wants to say ‘fuck it’ and kiss him again anyway – even if he’ll regret it in the morning. Because deep down you know that this is the last chance you’ll ever get. You shove the little voice down.

“We can just act like this never happened.” You assure him.

“And what if I hadn’t been drinking before this?” He asks. “Would you have done the same?”

You purse your lips and look away. The pain of this whole situation is settling into your bones, heavy as lead.

“It doesn’t really matter, Jake.” You say honestly. “Whatever you’re feeling right now, it isn’t real.”

Jake looks at you and his eyes carry a hurt in them that you’d never seen before. You want to look away – run away even, if it meant that you wouldn’t have to see that look in his eyes again.

“I know it’s real, y/n. I may have been drinking, but it hasn’t given me feelings that weren’t already there.” He lets out a shaky breath. “The bourbon just gave me a little more courage to do something about these feelings.”

Your mind is awash with thousands upon thousands of thoughts and feelings. Hope, excitement, disbelief, fear; they all swirl through your mind so quickly you can barely catch hold of any of them. The thought that he might have feelings for you feels absurd. He’s Jake fucking Kiszka. It’s too good to be true.

“You promise me?” You beg, practically shaking with all the emotions running through your mind. “Please, Jake. I can’t take it if this is just you getting caught up in the moment.” And it’s the truth. If this isn’t real, you doubt you’ll be able to survive it.

“Answer my question first…” He says, stepping closer to you. “If I hadn’t been drinking and I kissed you, what would you do?” Jake’s eyes are shiny in the moonlight – his expression open and hopeful.

Oh, fuck it.

“I would kiss you back.”

“Oh thank fuck.” He says, before crushing his lips to yours again. This time, you don’t hesitate to reciprocate, opening your mouth and allowing him to explore your mouth with his tongue. You feel dizzy with excitement and disbelief. You’re making out with the guy you thought you could never have and holy shit, it’s better than you ever dreamed it would be.

“I promise you,” he says in between kisses, “that this is real. Realer than anything I’ve ever known.”

Jake brings his palms up to cup your cheeks and you place your hands on his shoulders to draw him closer to you. The smell of bourbon and vanilla floods your nose as he presses his chest to yours. He pulls away and you let out an embarrassing whine. He stares at you – his brown eyes swirling with passion.

“Y/n,” he says quietly, “what do you want?”

You take a moment to drink in his appearance. He looks incredible with his hair pulled back. His trademark silver necklaces rest against his collarbone and his cream colored dress shirt is unbuttoned all the way down to his stomach. There’s a glisten to his skin from the summer heat and you’re struck with the sudden desire to taste its saltiness.

“I want you to touch me, Jake.” You plead.

He gives you a smirk and his eyes dance with mischief and excitement.

“Come inside. My room.” He laces his fingers with yours and the two of you slip inside, completely unnoticed by the merry crowd outside. You skirt around the kitchen where everyone else still resides and you both bound up the stairs to Jake’s old room.

Stepping into Jake’s old room feels personal. You’ve been in here before, but it still feels like you’re seeing something you’re not supposed to. The walls are covered in music posters, with artists from Cream to John Lee Hooker. The room smells like Jake – if a little faint, and several old guitars sit leaned against the wall. You stand in the middle of the room, suddenly overwhelmed.

“Y/n?” Jake asks, coming to stand beside you as he places a warm hand on your shoulder.

You look at him, taking in his beautiful features in the darkness of the room. The only light source coming from the moonlight spilling through the window.

“Are you okay?” He asks, concern replacing the desire that had filled his eyes just moments before.

“Yes, of course! I just-” You trail off, unsure how to put your feelings into words.

“Y/n, I swear that I’m not that drunk. I’m a little tipsy, for sure. But I know what I want. I want you.”

“I want you too, Jake. I do. This all just,” you wave your hands in a vague motion between the two of you, “this all just doesn’t feel real. I’ve spent so long thinking this was never a possibility and now I’m just a little overwhelmed to be honest.” You look down at your feet. This is all just too much to process in such a short amount of time.

Jake walks over to his bed and takes a seat, gesturing for you to do the same. You follow, sinking down heavily beside him.

“Look at me.” He says, placing his index beneath your chin to turn your face towards him. “Why can’t you believe that I want this?” He asks, a small hint of a smile ghosting his lips.

“I just never thought that someone like you would be interested in someone… like me.” You say honestly.

Jake furrows his brows at you.

“Someone like me?” He grins and you can see the spit on his lips glisten in the dark. “Is it because I’m a rockstar? Super famous? Thousands of screaming fans all across the globe?”

You scoff and nudge your shoulder into his playfully.

“Not helpful at all. But yes, I guess so.”

You both sit in silence for a moment. Your body is thrumming with nervous energy.

“I’m not sure what I can say to convince you that I want you, y/n.” He says into the dark, eyes trained on the wall opposite the two of you. “I’ve always been drawn to you. Your smile, the way your eyes light up when you talk about things that excite you…” He turns to look at you now, his expression soft. “But this last leg of the tour, y/n…It was worse than usual. I missed you so damn much. I couldn’t ignore this any longer.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” His eyes are full of truth. You see no lie in them. “Tell me if you want to stop, y/n.”

You nod and allow him to push your back into the bed. He grips your thighs and spreads your knees apart before settling between them. You reach behind him and pull the hair tie from his hair, allowing it to fall freely to his shoulders. He chuckles and kisses you again, much softer now than before.

“Let me show you how real this is.” He whispers.

“Please, Jake. Whatever you want.”

That seems to be all the permission he needs as he swiftly lifts your shirt above your head before sliding your skirt down your thighs. You reach out with shaky fingers and undo the few buttons that he had bothered to fasten, and you slide his shirt down and off his shoulders. Jake attaches his lips to your neck, leaving warm kisses down your throat. You moan and paw at the belt of his pants, desperate to feel more of him against you.

“Patience, love.” He laughs as he unhooks your bra and throws it to the floor. “I want to make you cum first. We’ll get to me later.”

He dips his hand into the waistband of your panties and slides them down. You kick them off as they pool around your ankles. Jake brings a calloused finger to your pussy, swiping through the wetness gathered there.

“So wet…” he purrs, “All this for me?”

“Only for you, Jake. Only for you.”

You whine as his talented fingers begin to circle your swollen clit, just the way you had always imagined him doing when you watch him play guitar. He keeps his pace slow, teasing you and drawing out your pleasure.

“Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of this, y/n?” Jake asks as he begins to pick up his pace. His fingertips are rough, but the friction is so good you can barely think straight.

“I dream about this pussy all the time – I dream about seeing you like this, all desperate and needy, and I wake up so hard it hurts.” He sinks his middle finger into you slowly, while his thumb continues in lazy circles on your clit. He crooks his finger inside you, brushing against your walls in a way that makes you arch your back in pleasure. He smiles, and slowly inserts his ring finger into you as well, pumping in and out of you slowly.

You whine and buck your hips up to meet his hand, desperate for more. The sound of his voice, gruff with lust, is sending shocks of arousal straight to your core.

“Jake, please,” you beg, as he curls his fingers inside you, “stop teasing.”

He laughs lowly but doesn’t give you anything more.

“Use your words, sweetheart. Tell me what you want.”

“You know what I want.” Your voice is shaky and comes out in practically a whine. “Stop teasing. You already know.”

“Wanna hear you say it. Wanna hear those filthy things coming out of that pretty mouth.”

He’s unrelenting in his teasing. You’re so close, but he won’t give you that last bit that you need to finally snap the coil building in your belly.

“Please, Jake.” You moan, “Need to cum so bad. Need you to make me cum.”

He grins and you think that he’s finally going to give you what you want. But he doesn’t. Instead he sits up, pulling his fingers from you, and leans back on the headboard, leaving you laying there confused.

“Jake?” You ask as you sit up, feeling the wetness of your pussy leak down between your thighs.

“Since you want to cum so bad,” he says with a dangerous smile gracing his lips, “you’re going to come over here and ride my thigh. And I’m going to sit here and watch as you make yourself come apart. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”

You nod, breathless. You crawl your way over to him and swing one leg obediently over his thigh. You can see his cock straining in his pants and your mouth waters at the sight. Next time, you know that you want to taste it. You slowly ease your aching pussy down onto his leg and roll your hips experimentally, dragging your clit against the fabric of his pants.

“There you go, sweet girl.” Jake praises. He grips your ass with both hands, digging his fingers hard into your flesh. He’s looking up at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. You roll your hips again and start up a steady pace, the friction exactly what you needed. Jake slides one hand up to your breasts, circling and pinching at your raised nipples. His other hand stays where it is, solidly gripping your ass and keeping you grounded as you ride his thigh into oblivion. You quicken your pace as he mutters encouragement under his breath and your orgasm crashes through you like a tidal wave, and you moan his name loudly as you ride your way through the pleasure. You slip off from him and collapse onto your back next to him.

“Jesus Christ, you look gorgeous like that.” He says as he rises from his seated position. “Such a needy, desperate little girl, aren’t you?” He says as he unbuckles his belt and slips out of his pants. He leans over you and brushes a strand of your hair away from your face and tucks it behind your ear – the softness of the gesture a stark contrast to his dominant words from before.

“Kiss me.” You say, not at all embarrassed by the neediness of your request.

“I’ll kiss you a thousand times if it’ll make you believe me when I say that you’re the only woman I could ever want. I want you, y/n. More than anything else in my entire life.”

“I want you too, Jake. Since I met you, I’ve wanted this. Just never thought I could have it.”

“Well, you have it.” He says, brushing his lips over yours. “You have me. And now I’m going to fuck you just to prove it even more.” He pulls his boxers down his hips, allowing his hard cock to spring free. You gulp. He’s big – bigger than anyone else you’d ever seen.

“On your hands and knees, sweet girl.” Jake says as he pumps his cock a few times. You comply and groan loudly as he sinks his length into you slowly. He bottoms out and pauses, allowing you time to adjust. The coldness of his necklaces on your back feel good against your heated skin.

“Move, Jakey. Need you to move. Now.” You say as you press your face into the pillow.

Jake grasps your hips firmly and begins a brutal pace, pistoning his hips into yours. You moan loudly as he groans into your ear.

“God, you’re so fucking tight, y/n.” His thrusts are fast and hard, rocking your entire body forward with each one. He feels so good you can hardly even think straight. All your thoughts are entirely consumed with Jake, Jake, Jake.

“Don’t stop, J. ‘m so close.” You can feel your orgasm rapidly approaching and you start to rock your hips back to meet Jake’s thrusts. He wraps one arm around your belly, pulling you tighter to him as he picks up his pace even more. Your face is buried in his pillow, desperately trying to muffle your cries from the other occupants of the house.

“Gonna cum for me, baby? Gonna cum on my cock?” Jake asks, as he drops his hand to circle your clit in time with his thrusts.

“Jacob!” You wail as you finally cum, legs shaking as it tears through you. Your eyes are watering and your vision whites out from the sheer pleasure. Jake’s thrusts are erratic, desperate.

“Say it again, y/n. Gonna cum in your tight, little pussy.”

“Jacob- please.” You moan at the overstimulation and that’s all he needs.

“Oh fuuuuck.” He groans as he spills inside you, breathing ragged in your ear.

He pulls out of you, and you collapse to your stomach, utterly spent.

“Stay there, sweetheart.” He mutters as he rises to get a wet washcloth. He returns quickly and you roll onto your back. He cleans you up softly, careful on your abused clit and pussy. He hangs the washcloth on his nightstand and crawls into the bed next to you. Placing a kiss to your forehead, he pulls the blankets up and over the both of you.

“That was… incredible.” You sigh, exhaustion hitting you like a brick wall. You lay your head on his shoulder, breathing in his scent.

“You’re incredible.” He says quietly, voice so soft compared to before. “I meant what I said, you know?”

You glance up to look at him. He’s got that look in his chocolate brown eyes again – the one that makes you feel like he’s looking right through you.

“There isn’t anyone else that I would rather be with than you, y/n. It’s not just about sex, as incredible as that was. I want you. As much of you as you’re willing to give me.”

You press your lips to his in a sweet kiss.

“I believe you. I want it all with you, Jake.”

He huffs out a small laugh and kisses you again.

“Thank fuck.”

“Mmm.” You hum in agreement, closing your eyes and nuzzling into him. “My rockstar.”

You miss the adoring smile Jake gives as you fall asleep.

#jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fanfiction #jake kiszka x you #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fanfiction #jake kiszka smut #jake kiszka #jake gvf #jake kiszka fanfic #dee's writing

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weirdly-specific-but-ok · 2 months

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welcome to night vale but i've never listened to it

I walk into the Maggots Lounge and am immediately informed that this post is an absolute necessity so here we are. I'm not sure what's happening.

I tried searching for the WTNV tag on tumblr. All I got was gratuitous nudity links. I gave up and went to my ol' buddy Pinterest.

Cecil is a guy and he likes it when Carlos takes charge.

Do Not Enter The Dog Park.

There are folks in hoods roaming the dog park with static. Probably bad signals on their radios idk.

They eat pizza.

Kevin may be important.

Do not look at the hooded figures.

Books are banned? What is this, Florida?

Sorry. Anyway, it's a podcast. I forgot to mention that.

No, really, do not look at the hooded figures. Do Not Perceive.

"It is the granddyke of fiction podcasts," as Jehan, a maggot, said.

Humans and dogs are not allowed in the dog park.

You can play in the Sheriff's Secret Police though. Idk.

It's queer. It is very very queer.

Cecil might be Jewish idk I have a bad cold someone is Jewish, anyway, and they are also very queer.

And in love with Carlos.

Wednesday has been cancelled due to scheduling errors.

It is purple. Idk all the things. They're purple. I may be delirious. The podcast may be delirious. Everyone is delirious.

Even if you are delirious, do not look at the fucking hooded figures.

There's weather.

Whatever the weather is, do not look AT THE GODDAMN HOODED FIGURES.

People find Cecil's voice sexy.

DO NOT LOOK AT THE HOODED FIGURES DO NOT LOOK AT THE HOODED FIGURES DO NOT ENTER THE DOG PARK DO NOT LO

Tagging. Um. I forgot all your tags. I'll just send this post in the maggots lounge. DONT LOOK AT TH--

#good omens mascot #weirdly specific but ok #asmi #maggots #wtnv #wtnv cecil #welcome to night vale #wtnv kevin #welcome to night vale summary #wheeeeee #it's me it's me summarising things i have no authority to

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elmhat · 5 months

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Dreblr Survey Results Pt.2 - Sharing the Joy!

Here are the results for the longer questions! These are some of the lore moments, AUs and headcanons that we love.

I haven't included every response, only the ones that seemed the most unique and non-repetitive. There were a lot to sift through. Everything here has been directly pasted from the form.

Lore moments we love...

Punz & Dream's reunion

The staged finale reveal were c!Punz meets c!Dream again

“Long time no see Buddy!”

'LONG TIME NO SEE BUDDY'

"long time no see buddy!" NEED I EXPLAIN ANSJSJDJENSNSKSKS

Moment staged duo got confirmed they were still working together I predicted that shit ages ago and I won't shut up about the fact i was RIGHT

I think there are two moments that are far too important for me. The first one being the moment that Punz and Dream met up after Dream got out of prison. It was so so magical, after A YEAR of waiting and clinging to the idea of stages finale, after it had been so long and people that just didnt believe saying no, it's not stages because it doesnt make sense or that it got retconned, They Were Wrong. And they couldnt take that win from me, even if they tried. It was even funnier when I saw people a day later finding the clip of Punz and Dream talking about Drem's "betrayal", long before he had been imprisoned, and they called it "a lost clip". But it wasnt lost, not to me. I had always known and I Had Been There when it had happened. Unbelievable, I really felt like I Won.

Technonblade & Dream being besties

c!dream admitting to c!techno he can't read a map

Anything with c!drunz or c!rivals but especially the moment on the mountain with c!rivals

DOOMSDAY RAHHGHHGH

Prison Podcast, it was so fucking funny

The Techno and Dream prison podcast will always be important to me

Prison break. Dream being surprised at returning for him

prison break, largely for the mass dreblr hysteria

...I'll have to say the jailbreak; I was hoping for one since before I saw any of the streams - back when all I really knew about the prison arc came from the title of a DSMP playlist that YouTube's algorithm recommended to me on my second day in the fandom (true story) - and seeing it play out honestly made my entire year.

The finale streams

i think about the discduo finale every day of my goddamn life

Tommy realizing the truth about Dream

The moment in the finale where c!Tommy asks c!Dream to take off his helmet and he does it. I shed real tears.

The moment where cdream metaphorically lost his mask and was just someone, all of a sudden

The disc finale, which can be read on so many levels with the infos you're given it's actually incredible.

The DSMP finale doesn't just hit hard, but I also enjoy the conclusion it gave to the conflict between Dream, Tommy, and the prison era, especially looking it at from a literary view.

The 2nd moment is more really the entire actual finale between Dream, Punz, Tommy and Tubbo - Staged duo got revealed to the wider world and my friends and I were celebrating for having been proven right again, it was just so amazing. And it really continued on and ended better than any of us could have hoped for and anyone arguing that it's bad that Dream got redeemed And Then The Nuke Happened, in my opinion, fundamentally didnt understand what Dream and Tommy's whole Feud was about - yes I said that Tommy is my least favorite character, but that's a good thing for a lot of instances, especially the finale, so when He Finally Understood His Enemy, I was downright in tears Sorry for the rant, I had to get all of that out qwq

when dream and tommy realize that it was too late

"Do you want to be friends?"

Sam & Dream being generally insane

the sam "when it was just me and him" moment <3

Sam and dteam’s conversation after techno escapes the prison

"Unless you're saying I'm not a person" lives rent-free in my head forever.

Can I put the entirely of Daedalus arc in here? Probably when Dream said Sam was going to be a shining example not to fuck with him!

c!Dream killing c!Sam once in prison (post escape, when c!Sam was locked up) after days of letting him live. It's special because for the crimes that had been committed against c!Dream in that cell, he was rather merciful. Particularly for his reputation as a heartless killer.

Sam talking about fucking dream up real horny like

Sadness

Just say you hate me<—- millions died

george looking at the prison every time hes is close to it WHY DID KE KEEP DOING THAT

The Karlnapity breakup hurts so good

When Sam was about to kill Ranboo and Techno cried out "you've got the wrong person! Dream doesn't care! I care-" then Ranboo died that fucked me up

So many moments. I had heard of and seen things and knew a bit about DSMP before. But I believe the first stream I watched live was the disc finale. So I'm gonna say "what am I without you? Yourself."

dream's 'sir' moment

Not really a specific moment but Dream going back to pandora afterwards everything. Him *dying* there? Ouchie ouchie ouchie

And more!

Initial disc war/conflicts, <3. The banter and jokes are so dear to me, and that was how I found the DSMP in the first place, so they have a very special place in my heart.

Destruction of Las Nevadas when c!Q was completely destroyed lmao. It feel like serenity to me. Justice, y'know.

vassal scene just everything about it when wilbur asked to be dream's vassal what it meant for their character arcs it was a turning point no going back and it meant so. much. for their characters.

The 'Daddy Dream!!' moment. The funny overshadow The turning point for c!Dream. He's chill with L'manberg at that point(whaaa??) Wilbur pushed him into a role with Threats (will be so Ambitious) it's just Very interesting in general

Ranboo giving Techno the new axe ☹️🤧

Idk if it counts as lore but Dream following Puffy around the server

ranboo trading foolish ownership of the shulker for a favor. and then forgetting he did this. an insight into enderwalking ranboo

Bro EVRRYTHING involving c!dream even in the background for 0,01 sec

C!George blowing up the whole dsmp and killing everyone and reaching godhood in his dreams, C!George standing in front of the prison longingly during a c!q lore stream, C!Dream's spirit speech 🥰🥰, the whole final minutes of the c!discduo finale with the nuke and the softness and vulnerability in dream's voice, every time dreamXD appeared 💖💖

Theyre not one of my favorites, but I did watch all of aimseys dsmp streams. Their thing was "Never waste a pretty sunset," and if I think about that on the way home from work, sometimes I'll take the longer scenic route to get a really good view of the sunset, just because of that phrase.

that bit when c!tom uno reverses put your armor in the hole

George destroying the dream smp, doomsday (techno pov) Dream prison escape confrontation with Tommy. Nicheal

“i don’t give a fuck about spirit!” it was such a distinct turning point from “bad guy” to villain. i love dream as a villain bc he was so goofy and awkward and then bam angst.

"It's just a stupid egg Skeppy!"

When wilbur lost the election. It was my first lore stream and after that it only improved in my eyes

The entirety of fundy's arc with wilbur, im still insane over that. Also when sapnap said he was born in fire that was swag

"I'm his friend, Tommy", "If my best friend is a necromancer-", literally any moments where someone is acknowledging themselves as Dreams friend or that they care about him.

I really like Dream and Sapnap’s confrontation after Dream escaped from prison, and also the staged finale reveal with Dream meeting up with Punz. They’re such good character and plot moments!! (Also there’s the entire prison arc but this thing would be 12 paragraphs long)

Quackity eating Schlatt’s heart on stage

I'm a BIG BIG BIG fan of c!q getting the message to go back to schlatt by being called sugar pumpkin. Something about it is so fawking sleazy

Tubbo pulling an axe on Quackity when he threatened to execute Ranboo

Schlatts death, everyone banning together and him thinking it was his birthday

i'm bizarrely fascinated by punz (attempting to?) convince purpled to join forces with him & dream. idk man it mesmerized me

dream beating Tommy the fuck to death DESERVED

AUs and headcanons we love...

Animals/forms

White enderman dream

cKarl and cDream being bunnies 🐰

Dragon!Dream where XD suppressed his hybrid traits so he’d possessive but doesn’t know why

Goat-hybrid c!Dream and obvs puffy as his mother

WORM BABY DREAM

wolf!Punz!!!! I don't see enough of it but it fits so well!!

Shapeshifter dream

Cdream is just a pair of empty clothes.

Dream being just a human is really cool

Ships/relationships

c!dnf being canon after all

c!DNF were secretly engaged before shit hit the fan. Nobody knew but them.

i love xdnf i think its just so funky, XD as a whole is such and underrated character and i loved his interactions with bad, george, and foolish a lot.

Soulmates but they're aware of it and time spent without the other one knowing slowly kills them (madduo ofc (": )

I know it ain't most peoples cup of tea but I love the family dynamic headcannon between puffy dream and foolish

Dream isn't Puffys bio son and she didn't adopt him when he was little, she just found this grown ass man following her around the server and decided that's her baby now

awesamity forced dream into a relationship during prison i think thats neat and fun to experiment with

Sad Dream

that after prison dream is more animalistic in his movement

Anything related to scars or injuries that c!Dream got from the prison

His hair turning white from revival and stress Or runes from revival on his skin

White haired streaks, scars staying after the dsmp finale, Dream suffering temporary or permanent hearing and vision loss, Dream being created by or otherwise connected to XD somehow, Karl or Wilbur coming back after the dsmp finale with all their memories intact to see everyone getting along happily and being like “what???”

Syndicate Dream

Syndicate Dream is the beloved AU. Let my man heal and have friends and healthy relationships and pets.

syndicate dream! also love the winged dream aus :3

I love post-prison Syndicate healing AUs and the $100,000 duel scar

Former gladiator c!Techno and post prison syndicate healing aus with c!Dream

any dream with the syndicate au tbh.. the soft healing is so perfect <3

cDream peacefully recovering at the Arctic Commune is something very soft and fluff and close to my heart.

I still love Syndicate!Dream AUs (or really any AU that sets him in a place where he can actually try and heal from everything that's happened to him)

The Syndicate AU is just so sweet. It's literally the only "good" ending, I'm sorry. I just love it very, very much.

Dreamon

I love the dreamon stuff

Anything involving Dreamons/Dreamon hunters, esp. that focuses on expanding the worldbuilding and not just “generic demon possession plot.”

We glossed over the "Why does god look like you?" and the whole Dreamon mini arc Far Too Quickly, Like YOU GUYS, WE COULD HAVE HAD MONSTER HUNTERS AND MORE WORLDBUILDING-

Birdhouse? I think?

kat and angela's coparent au

jmah nifty

idk what jmah/mayfair is but i keep on seeing posta about it that seem epic :D

is awesamdream in gay love even a headcanon anymore /j . scrapped lore canon. uhhh. prison drugs??? uhhh. schlatt initiated revive book deal. all ive got boss. lots of fav AUs but jmah + birdhouse + 7y are the ones that spin around in my head rent free that are my own. and coparent makes me SAD

Butterfly chat

dream's butterfly chat headcanon

The butterflies

physical manifestations of chats!! especially with dream's as butterflies or other bugs that typically symbolize things like peace and light

And more!

Dream, George, and/or Sapnap getting involved in Eggpire

My friend and i made a percy jackson au that was really good

Its more of a fanfic where everyone are small bloobs and the reader takes care of them

And Tubbo and Fundy like modded stuff, I bet they could have convinced Dream that they could like a new mini mc project, like idk, smth vaguely based on stranger things but also magic and paranormal and just ughhhhhh, I miss it so much

C!Dream Autistic

Dream is blind in one eye Don't know why but I love that

c!quackitys fucked up eye is magic now that trope just SLAPS. I like the c!Tommy "came back wrong" stuff too.

The Cornelius and C!Dream headcanon.

Syndicate Dream aus are always so comfy, I enjoy reading those a lot. Protégé Tommy aus can be fun to read (I love a good discduo dynamic). I also love reading superhero aus, as long as they don’t depict Dream as a cardboard cutout of evil. I like to read a lot of aus, but those ones stuck out to me especially.

Ranboo's enderwalk isn't actually taller he's just more confident and stands up straighter

Love manhunt AUs, they are the best. also love when Dteam focussed superheroAU. for canon compliet love cDNF or George just going of his rockers. George going insane after canon also great.

I had a headcanon that gods can't fit entirely in the world of the server: Callahan left his voice out, Drista and Kristin left their bodies and possessed players, and DreamXD left his real face so he made a new one from Dream's

Ranboo, Punz and Dream held a disney movie night marathon before staged finale in order to get inspiration

I adore the convict childcare au so much

Ran and Tubbo's son Michael is mute and they use sign with him sometimes

Techno helping dream in prison after quakty would come by letting him have techno’s cape

Everything is the same except everyone is a sock puppet

Pandora's Vault as a living entity

my self indulgent splatoon crossover

Does Eret's finale stream idea count

Modern AU is rotting my brain and sparing none of my braincells

The idea that the revive book as ‘threads’ of life that just take someone out of death by dragging them out of their limbo or weaving their bodies kinda like crocheting

Minecraft worlds are servers +admin + XD was the failsave for the server but got corrupted and gained sentience

I'm attached to the c!q being a trans dude trope . Like yeah little loud poly bi shortguy with something to prove is transgender BIG shocker

Dream comforts Punz after the Egg and frequently checks his eyes for him

Also Guard Dog AU by sunny and all its variations because I love that angst and everyone's take on it REALLY GOOD

Love black dog au so far. Favorite headcanon is that dream has a lot of inhuman traits and is very very expressive!

C!DNF roleswap au by me because it's very self indulgent and brought many demons and my friends have helped on it <3.

C!dream living in Kinoko, with what it implies for c!dteam, c!dream & XD, the c!fiances (because Q will still be around) and c!Techno's interractions with the kingdom

Dream is homeless from techno, its just really funny to me

c!dream eggs monday. does that count?

Okay so theres this AU that only got like two posts on tumblr I think its called Stoplight? Where Dream is an eldrich abomination that thought he was just playing with his friends and that none of the wars were real, hell he doesn't even know what war is! He thought all of DSMP was just one big game of Manhunt where he pretended to play and had a safe word system which Ranboo triggered on accident and revealed to everyone that Dream could stop all of this at any time.

My own canon-divergent AU featuring enemies-to-friend pre-finale Dream and Tommy, 👍. Tommy stalks Dream to a house he made, tries to kill him, fails and gets captured, Dream experiments revival on him and ends up making him immortal, Tommy decides to drag Dream down with him and also make him immortal, and they somehow kind of become “friends” along the way. They are very dear to me, <3. As for a headcanon, the first thing that comes to mind is the idea that Dream’s first limbo was the prison. Another one, tho, is the idea that the revival book is binary, and that when it gets burnt it worms its way into the code, bringing the specified player back to life.

Sorry to the people whose responses were cut. There were just so many. Finally, there will be another results post soon for all the crazy things that were said!

#long post #dreblr #random elm thoughts #elm polls

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cha1cedony · 1 month

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I think part of the reason Gothcleats has literally like consumed my mind since becoming canon is because I think about the Wilsons in the context of marriage/romantic relationships SO much?? Like. Being aro, I normally don’t like analyzing characters through the lens of romance and how they function with crushes or in relationships… It’s just not that interesting to me, and I don’t like basing a character’s personality or worth on their romantic (or sexual) dynamics with other characters. BUT THE WILSONS? OH BOY.

Ramble under the cut bc this got way too long

ALSO!!! Warning for discussions of sex! Not very in-depth. (It’s mostly just about Grant and Marco hooking up on the Titanic lol)

Anyway!

So so so much of the Wilsons’ identities in canon (and also to an even further extent in my fics/headcanons/mind hehe) are based on their marriages and immediate nuclear families. For Darryl, his entire life WAS his family. As far as we know, the same was the case for Frank, and even Robert Wilson was pretty much always talking about his gal Sal iirc. Like obviously bc this podcast is about family, BUT as your resident Wilsons expert (lmao), I want to put forth that the Wilsons in particular are about marriage!

I think the best example of this, actually, is in S2 when (on the night before Grant’s WEDDING), Darryl is talking to Grant about marriage and says that he and Grant both know that Carol and Marco respectively are too good for them. Which like. is also one of the most loaded and important statements to me in this whole goddamned podcast (and probably THE most important for the Wilsons) for many reasons. but I digress lolol

For Darryl and Grant both, there’s a perceived power imbalance in their marriages: not in an abusive way or anything, but rather as like… a measure of self-worth? For better or worse, their self-esteem and sense of self-worth are dependent on the people close to them, especially their romantic partners.

Darryl is constantly comparing himself to his father (as is Grant), but not just as a father—as a husband, too. Darryl tells Frank that he wishes he had the kind of relationship with Carol that Frank had with Darryl’s mom (which is. doubly ironic and sad bc Darryl’s mom was cheating on Frank, and he almost cheated on her, too. but I digress again oops)

But he compares himself to Carol, too, thinking she’s smarter and ‘better’ than him, and Grant especially compares himself a LOT to Marco, saying that Lincoln would be better off with Marco as a single dad and that Marco is ‘better’ than him in general. I find this extra interesting bc Frank does NOT do the same with Darryl’s mom; in fact, he (albeit light-heartedly) says she’s worse than him for having cheated—I don’t have transcripts in front of me, but something along the lines of “If you think that’s bad…”

And that’s why I think the best (and honestly only) way to really examine the Wilsons as characters/people is through the lens of their marriages.

So much of Darryl’s character especially is based solely on Carol. He’s been with her since she was 13-14 and he was 14-15, and so much of his personality and life is entirely formed around her. She’s his best friend. When he gets the idea that she might be cheating on him, or dead (as a mummy), he loses himself because, like. What else is he if not Carol’s best friend, her husband, the father of her son? Almost any time Darryl has any character development (that isn’t related to his dad or son), it’s about his romantic and sexual relationships and feelings: with Carol, with Sweet Matilda, with the fucking sex pit! Lmao

And he and Carol NOT divorcing after S1 is honestly the only thing that makes sense to me; what else would he do? Even if they never manage to fix it all, what else does he have? (The answer is all of his family and newfound friends, but he can’t see it that way; his self-worth centers around HER, remember; she’s BETTER than him.) So they stay together, and he dies believing she still loves him and will be happy to be unchangingly domestic him with him all over again in heaven, whether it’s true or not. Until then, he lives with a facade of her and their son (btw the fake personal heaven Grant is a kid, so Darryl is presumably reliving his life before the events of S1 without changing anything which… is sad for a whole other set of reasons) because Darryl can’t be alone; what is he alone? ALSO. Okay actually no. I won’t get on my aromantic Darryl soapbox right now, but….. expect it at a later date lol. This part got kinda rambly/headcanon-y oops.

A lot of Grant’s character is ABOUT his romantic feelings/relationships; he’s pretty much inextricable from them. His crush on Yeet was originally his whole character (aside from aloof gamer kid lol): Shy, easily embarrassed, extremely obvious about his crush, trying to impress this cute and cool guy. And then, by the time of the Supper Bowl arc, after the chimera and everything else, he becomes more complex, of course, but those feelings are still at the center of everything—because they’re his escape.

He tells Yeet the TWO things that make him feel alive are violence (whether done TO him or BY him) and his crush on Yeet. Grant’s romantic feelings become linked and equated with violence and rage (which. makes me feel crazy btw but anyway. Sorry I love Grant beyond words) and are the only temporary cures for his dissociation.

So when Grant is an adult, of course he relies on romance and sex like a crutch; it makes him feel safe and real, and it’s an intersection of love and violence that makes him feel at peace.

I know it’s a funny moment, but this always makes me think of him and Marco hooking up on the Titanic: Grant believes wholeheartedly that they are both going to die and that there’s nothing he can do about it (or maybe he just doesn’t even want to try to save them). When Marco finds out what’s happening and sort of scolds Grant for it, Grant is embarrassed and says it’s because he’s just “having so many feelings” (probably not exact words), which is also interesting because that’s pretty much the opposite of his original problem of dissociating.

But, between being overwhelmed and dissociative, at its core, the same root feeling is there: hopelessness and helplessness. Also, in his second conversation with Lincoln is S2, Grant says that violence and killing help with his self-worth, also (which ties back to what I said earlier about the connection between the Wilsons’ self-worth and their marriages). When Grant kills someone, all of his doubts disappear and “it all goes white.” If we’re looking at this through the lens that Grant equates violence and love/sex, it must give him that same feeling of… blissful ignorance? Emptiness.

This leads me to believe Grant copes with feelings of hopelessness and self-doubt not just through killing, but through romance and sex, too—like we see on the Titanic (lol)

There’s a lot more speculation I could do about both Darryl and Grant (and Frank, and even all their spouses), but I’m trying to leave it to at least canon-adjacent stuff. Anyway, let me finally circle this all back around to Lincoln lol…

It’s clear that Lincoln thinks romantic relationships are very important. He thinks marriage is beautiful (and, based on his dads’ marriage, that all marriages are good and happy lol—which is especially funny/interesting to me when you consider the several times it’s been said that something Lincoln did/does is the only thing holding their marriage together, and he’s the whole reason Grant didn’t call off the wedding in the first place). His dads have spent a lot of time educating him about love and sex and personal choice in both of those categories, which he references a few times, but, despite their emphasis on personal choice and not raising him Catholic but encouraging him to believe whatever he wants, Lincoln, at 16, is SURE that he will get married someday (and probably young, since he said to Normal that a few years is a long time to wait lol). The Wilsons’ generational insistence on marriage, romantic relationships, and nuclear families persists regardless of Catholicism, it seems :’)

Lincoln’s marriage to Chris in the simulation was also clearly really important to him—and to Chris, too, since they asked him never to remarry. I know the cast joked about this, but it does make me a little sad that Lincoln’s relationship with Chris seemed to be a lot like Darryl’s with Carol! Granted, we only know a like two things about Chris lol… also, I LIKE Chris and Carol! A lot! No hate to either of them <3 but also, that doesn’t mean those relationships aren’t strained, you know?

Anyway! A lot of Lincoln’s character can of course be attributed to his dads’ marriage, like I said before, but his marriage in the simulation was pretty big, too. Although he doesn’t talk about it a lot, it must have matured him, at least on the inside. He later references the job he had in the simulation, as well as being a dad. When he marries the other teens in space, he still thinks of Chris and what they would think. Once again, like Darryl and Grant, a lot of Lincoln’s decisions and beliefs are tied to his spouse—even if they’re not there or were never even real to begin with. Even once he’s married to the other teens, he takes it VERY seriously with pet names and domesticities.

All of this to say, it makes me wonder about his marriage to Scary in relation to his characterization as an adult! I’m not speculating that their relationship is bad or anything; I don’t want it to be and in fact VERY MUCH hope they’ve broken cycles. I just wonder how it affects him as a character (and Scary, too, of course)!

I was really excited when Gothcleats became canon not just because I shipped them, but mostly because I think the Wilsons are most interesting when looked at through their marriages. Lincoln has always put a really strong emphasis on marriage, and all of his pet names and PDA with Scary in the S2 epilogue confirmed to me that they take after the previous Wilson generations in GOOD ways, which makes me really happy.

I guess the main question I’m getting at is about how Lincoln perceives himself in this relationship. In the years soon after the end of S2, does he still feel that same emptiness and feeling of “not caring”? Does he try to cure it in the same way as his father, making “it all go white” with violence or sex or getting someone else to hold him together, or his grandfather, suppressing his depression and trying to will it away with love and close/‘happy’ romantic relationships? Does he find any of those things in Scary? Does he see himself as her equal, or does he feel inferior, like she’s smarter or more capable or ‘better’ than him? He did say multiple times in S2 that she’s the leader, she’s the one who knows what she’s doing, and he just wants to follow along because he doesn’t care anymore.

I hope not. I hope Lincoln and Scary are really happy together. I hope their self-worth is not determined by their partner. I guess that’s all this ramble is :’)

OKAY WHEW. I’m done. That was fun :D

Thanks for subjecting yourself to my ramblings omfg… please send me all of your Wilsons thoughts always. I’ve been wanting to write a long thing about this FOREVER… The aro Darryl fic(s) will come eventually. Also one about Grant coping (badly lol) with sex, which has been in the works forever bc I am bad at NSFW. But it’s fun. Uhhh I guess that’s all?

OH ALSO. If you want to read more of my post-canon Gothcleats thoughts, I published a 15k fic the other day about Jerry being their foster kid! Here you go :3

Hit the Ground Running - chalcedony

(It’s very fluffy and sweet—which is rare for me, but I promise I’m not lying! It’s silly and fun. And I do not speculate too much about Lincoln’s inner turmoil, I pinky promise)

If you read this all. Um…. Sorry? LMAO. Here is a gold star for you ⭐️

#should I maintag this monstrosity..#sure why not. there’s some decent Grant meta in there if you squint #LMAOO #dndads #dungeons and daddies #darryl wilson #grant wilson #lincoln li wilson #okay that’s good enough.. 😰#chalcy stuff #wilsons meta #<- I am gonna go back and tag all of my (more coherent) Wilsons ramblings with this hehe. organization wooo

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bread-tab · 1 year

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"stop making [media] your whole personality"

ah... okay. yes. so.

first off:

there's this neurodivergent thing, where you use an interest as a filter for processing the world.

for some people that is called a "special interest," for others with different needs it is more of a "hyperfixation;" there are far more variations than i (or the field of psychology) know how to describe now. if you want to understand the difference there are people who can explain those variations better than me. but i can tell you what it feels like.

you discover something.

it doesn't matter what it is; you find something that speaks to you, something you can connect to, and it becomes a bubble of safe habitat from which you can rest from and explore and connect to all the other parts of this strange chaotic world.

a source of joy. a source of illumination.

it's like you're a person who has lived all their life in dark caves and you find something that glows.

these interests can be anything.

(literally anything; i personally derive meanings that you could never imagine from ✨ drainage ditches. ✨)

but very often, they are stories. tv shows, books, movies, comics, songs, podcasts, minecraft improv streams, cartoons, web serials, whatever

these things are:

tangible. you can hold them in your hands, replay them, turn on the subtitles, take screenshots, read the sheet music

and yet

real. they form a genuine connection from your (isolated, untranslatable) internal world to other (formerly unknowable) people and the rest of the universe

they create meaningfulness

and they exist because humans find these incredibly effective soul-deep ways of communicating to one another.

now, appreciating stories, that's not a neurodivergent thing. that's a human thing.

the point of relevance here is that experiencing an extreme love for stories is a neurodivergent thing.

it's a very common neurodivergent trait which often gets mocked, portrayed as childish, and used as a pretext for infantilization and bullying.

(and it is also a trait of young people in general, to take stories very seriously in a way that looks silly to adults, and that is something that many people (regardless of age) try to bully out of each other.

what good is that doing anyone?)

"stop making [x] your whole personality"

listen, you. get down off that goddamn embankment and climb down into this ditch with me. dip your toes in this oily water. watch the stars and city lights ripple into constellations you've never seen

now look me in the eye

you need to understand that no matter what lowbrow, cringey, problematic or otherwise not-to-your-tastes drivel you might be complaining about today,

you are talking about the phenomenon of creativity

you are talking about a transcendent catalyst of human emotion

and yes that includes the overmilked disney franchises, it includes the formulaic shippy fanfictions, it includes whatever brightly-colored cartoon this website is obsessed with this year (and will be having incredibly dramatic meltdowns over next year), it includes the cheesy action movies and the fanservicey anime and the badly-designed video games and the milquetoast tiktok "literature", it includes the indistinguishable scribbles of some random five-year-old and/or famous fine artist and/or precocious elephant

i get it. you care about real life and touching grass and shit. you have taste. just take the stilts off your horse for a second, okay?

i know you're probably sick of "let people like things" discourse

i would just like for you to stop for a second and take a deep breath, and let the stench of whatever is in this mud puddle wash over you (yeah i know, ew, but you'll be fine) and consider

what is so bad about having a cringey personality, anyway?

and maybe you will think better of making "stop making [some silly moment in the universe] your personality" into your personality and maybe you will come off as a little bit less of a snob/ableist/ass and maybe you will have a slightly better outlook on life among humans.

that's all. yeah you can get out of the gutter now. thank you for coming to my ted talk—

ooh wait, look, a bottle cap

#''let people like things'' is not enough #let people find joy in the mundane stupid shit of life goddamn you #rant #*waves hands inarticulately* your sprouts!#protect your sprouts #idk if i'm making sense #i failed literature 101 three times for this #fuck it #maybe this is the semester i go back and pass that goddamn class #long post #actuallyautistic #adhd feels #neurodivergent breadtab #ableism #and that thing i don't know what to call it #where the intellectuals and the anti-intellectuals are fighting and it makes my head hurt because they're both missing part of the picture #and for me that part whatever it is it's foundational #sleep deprived #i have more to say about drainage btw #unfortunately it's more of a ''rotating in my mind'' kind of interest so it might not #make sense #per se #however i could probably get more poetic about this considering the thing I'm rotating in my mind is the sum and substance of how #humanity intersects with the water cycle of the entire earth #in summary: woder

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drylan · 2 months

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some more rylan headcanons

dylan has a bit of a tummy and softer pecs. he used to be self conscious about that, but has come to accept and like that part of himself, especially when ryan nuzzles tummy/chest pretty often.

ryan wears dresses/skirts pretty often. he never did at camp because duh he doesn't want to get his nicer clothes dirty. dylan nearly faints the first time he sees ryan in a black, lacy goth dress. wow.

ryan didn't have any family pets before, so he has never lived with a cat. that being said, he adores schrodinger and she definitely accepts him as dad #2. it took a bit of time, but neither of them will forget the first night where they were both chilling on the couch and she jumped onto ryan's lap instead of dylan's

they're both halfway decent at cooking and take turns, but neither will say no if one of them suggests just ordering a pizza

in high school dylan did gymnastics (which he keeps up a modified version of after losing his hand) and basketball (not by choice, his dad made him do it), in addition to band and physics club. ryan did track and field (he's always liked running), swim/rowing (duh), and was part of his school's small but loyal anime club. ryan also had a small stint in the mathletes, and wasn't actually too bad, but it just took up too much of his time and he didn't really like it, so he left

dylan grows his hair out a bit after the events of hackett's quarry. ryan likes to brush and braid it for him, sometimes, too.

likewise, dylan loves to massage ryan's scalp on wash day (honestly personal goals i would love someone to massage my scalp on my wash days lol)

ryan isn't big on social media except for sharing progress on his animation projects, buuut he definitely loves how often dylan posts pictures of them, and lets dylan pick what picture of them he should use for his profile pic

guess who is scared of needles and isn't dylan? ryan can't help it, okay! dylan holds his hand through the entire time for his first tattoo (it is a small tribute to his late dad)

meanwhile dylan has a scarily high tolerance for physical pain. sometimes it concerns ryan, but dylan will often reassure him that he will let him know if he is really hurt.

dylan is obvious when he's jealous, ryan simmers in silence. their jealousy never lasts long, though. their bond and loyalty to each other is just too strong.

miscommunication is somewhat of an issue early on in their relationship. dylan tries so hard to always be 'on' and 'blase dylan' to avoid facing some of the trauma and awkwardness that it frustrates and confuses ryan, especially since he can see through it. with a bit of progress in therapy for both of them and a few difficult conversations, they find a healthy balance that allows them to deepen their relationship.

they love sitting in each other's laps. again, not necessarily big on PDA, but goddamn ryan often uses dylan for a seat and dylan usually has at least one limb laid over ryan at minimum. they just like the physical contact

ryan helps dylan shave after he loses his hand. he's so gentle and tender. they'll never forget those moments, looking into each other's eyes as ryan gently moved the blade. dylan learns again how to shave his face properly with his slightly less dominant hand, but every so often he'll make big puppy dog eyes and ask ryan to do it. ryan says yes every time.

ryan finds them new podcasts and shows for them to binge. dylan finds them concerts and community events to go to.

they get married by a judge with little fanfare and have a pretty sick party with their families and fellow hackett's quarry survivors after. (yes they play truth or dare)

dylan is absolutely mesmerized by watching ryan swim for, y'know, obvious reasons.

ryan is instantly hot in his pants whenever dylan goes off on some nerdy rant.

they have a 'toy' chest, as well as an extra dresser in their closet full of leather and lace lingerie. oh, and dylan's sexy nurse costume.

"babe" is their often go-to pet names, but dylan does call ryan "big guy" more often than they'd like to admit. ryan also likes it more than he would like to admit.

#dylan lenivy #ryan erzahler #drylan #rylan #radioheads #the quarry #my stuff

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evilwickedme · 10 months

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Would you be willing to do a Good Omens fic rec list?

Oh yeah for sure!!! I haven't actually read that~~ much GO fic, but here are a couple of highlights

Crown of Thorns is the first fic I ever read for GO and it's. Um. A bit of a doozy at *checks again* 275k but it's also arguably the definitive ineffable husbands buy a cottage fic. It's book canon so it's subtly different than the show, but it's soooo good my guys

Another long 'un at nearly 100k, but Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach is just fucking fantastic. Crowley goes to therapy is the general conceit. I sobbed.

Adventures In Attempting To Purchase A Book From That Weird Old Soho Bookshop, A. Z. Fell & Co. and The Official Mr Fell Quarantine Thread are funky short social media aus about people just trying to figure out wtf is up with this weird ass bookshop and its owner and I just love them so much

it's a new craze is about ineffable husbands starting a podcast

And finally, Demon and Angel Professors is an extremely long series of soooo many goddamn shorter fics. No seriously there's 200 fics. The good news is that it's completed. The bad news is I've been reading it for two years. But it's a truly wonderful au which is dubiously/purposefully ambiguously supernatural where nearly everyone you know and love from s1 is either a professor or a student. A lot of it is about how long it takes people to figure out that Azira and Crowley are husbands. It's super funny. They keep adopting children, both literally and metaphorically. Some of my favorite characterization of Crowley in particular. Seriously it's so good

Bonus: I dug through my book blog and found the original fic rec post where I found CoT. I didn't end up reading most of these fics, but you could also check those out, esp if you like book canon!

Have fun 💜

#gail speaks #good omens #fic recs #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale

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naamahdarling · 1 year

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How do you cope with “don’t trust your brain”? I can’t trust it at any time of day, due to the dysthymia.

For me, realizing that it is time-related for me really helped. I learned to identify those feelings in specific because of when they routinely occurred, and am now able to lower their internal priority.

With dysthymia that isn't going to be helpful, though.

But still, some of this probably will be at least a bit useful because the helpful part for me was less the time - that was just the factor that made it easiest to catch. It was mostly that identifying them was the first step. Like that part isn't always easy, the thoughts are REALLY COMPELLING, we assign them high priority because of their strength, so it's hard to say "Wait. These intense feelings I am having are not accurate They are a distortion of the facts. They are based on valid fears. However, the way they are currently all ganging up on me, or feel unusually intense, is not in proportion."

And that's sort of where I am now. Here's some stuff I do.

I respond by gently reminding myself that I have a condition that predisposes me, I tell myself it's okay to have the feelings, and then I say "I am going to do what is best for me in this moment while these thoughts upset me." And that can me hard as hell and I can't always do it. But I am trying and learning.

When I get the three o'clocksies as I call them (my schedule is often twisted around enough that they happen at 3, my equivalent of 8 or 9) I take a short bit to remind myself it's a distorted perception (or sometimes utterly false, like when I get the "everyone hates me"s), I challenge it gently, then try not to give it a chance to respond. I try not to argue with it because that doesn't help. And I just find something else to do or think about.

Maybe I move to something I know I like even if I don't want to, and give it a bit to see if I can switch gears. Maybe I say "well I'm ruined for a while, might as well do something hateful like get some water or gather some trash, or brush my teeth, because if I have to suffer I can at least suffer to make my future self a bit happier." That didn't come easy either. Occupying my hands AND my mind is important. I often can't turn the bad feelings volume down if I don't occupy my mind. Movies don't work, but podcasts/audiobooks and hand crafts or engaging phone games do. I have like sixteen I can choose from. (Your library may have audiobooks to borrow digitally btw. It's very cool.)

I ask for help, I ask for asks here a lot, I have some friends to talk with about fun things, my boyfriend is great. Doing imaginative stuff like discussing silly questions (the gryphon question I just got was like a perfect example, thanks!), what-ifs for our OCs or fanfic, or silly stuff like we watch a ghost hunting show and stop it to ask what we/our imaginary people would do, or a spooky movie or podcast or reality show and we raise a hand at the point where we would nope out. We're watching a cake show and we pause it to say what we would do or what winner we would pick. Having another person is so helpful, but you CAN do this with yourself. Write the answers out longhand or journal them on your phone (Journey app!). I will now often do this WHILE I AM CRYING, guys. It helps. Even if I think it won't. I did it during a goddamn tornado warning where for once it WAS very fucking close. Boyfriend was safe across town, I am unbelievably scared of storms and was in about the scariest one I've been in since a kid, and I was snot-crying on the phone and once we said our I love yous we just talked about stupid OC shit. And by god it got me through.

Reading aloud to my cats has helped before.

Like. Whatever it is that's crawling up your spine. It's so much about saying "look, I feel this way, and it is INTENSE, but I don't have to just sit with it; I can do other stuff WHILE I feel this way, I can engage with things ALSO, I can have other thoughts too." You don't have to end the thoughts by force. You can just let them run and move on as much as possible, think about other things as best you can. And with practice it DOES get easier. It does.

Another thing I have recently discovered is that I need TIME to have emotional reactions. Someone I love said something unintentionally SUPER HURTFUL a while ago, and y'all I was SO ANGRY. SO FURIOUS. And I realized before I could address the situation and tell them they crossed a line, I needed to make room to have this huge emotional response before acting, and they DIDN'T need to be part of that. Even though the intense feelings demanded I act, I didn't. With practice, amazingly, I have learned to give MYSELF the space we all talk about giving others to feel first, solve after. It took practice but I'm there. Once I cooled off, I realized not just why I reacted the way I did (specific past trauma) but why they said what they did (their own past trauma, inappropriately dumping it on me) and was able to talk it over with them in an empathetic way and it all smoothed out, with better boundaries now.

The having the emotional reaction thing may not work in some cases such as repetitive thoughts of, say, trauma, but when there is a precipitating event that just happened or I get blindsided by a trigger, it is really helpful to realize it's a reaction, probably a really understandable one, and I won't feel like this forever.

Also psych meds and specifically mood stabilizers are really great for me. I'm on two, and at first I had some internalized ableist shame around taking them because I didn't like how it implied I was like my toxic mom with her uncontrolled rapid cycling (not why she was toxic, but it made me feel like I was failing at being Not Like Her), but WOW having them has helped. The right meds. It can be hard to get that in place, but I did want to say, it really did help me.

I have also with my therapist built a safe place in my mind. This doesn't have to be boring! I have a floating island with cloud oceans, lovely ruins, amazing wildlife, and a badass wizard lair. And in it is a box for the horrible thoughts I can't deal with right now like the PTSD stuff, so it's contained when I'm not working with it, and a koi pond where I drop these glowing rocks I imagine the scary feelings going into, and then the water cleans them and turns them into pretty stones. Like, this was just stupidly useful and I never thought to do it in a way that wasn't boring before. So I can go there, now, with practice, for a quick visit to drop some bad stuff off. I also visit as I fall asleep and explore, to help make it easier to go there quickly. Doesn't work for everyone, has been good for me. Come to Magic Floating Islands! We have perytons and flying coelacanths!

Anyway, I don't know if that's helpful. Other folks might have ideas. But that is kind of where I'm at. It isn't perfect, doesn't always work, but I'm getting better because it's partially just a skill. You know? You're already a bit ahead of where you were initially, since you know it's a distorted pattern. There was a time before you realized that and it probably sucked even more, and there will be a time after this when you have one or two things to try that will suck a little less. It won't be a hundred percent, but you do move forward a bit at a time.

Hope that helps a little. 💕

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ceaseless-rambler · 11 months

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ALRIGHT TIME TO TALK ABOUT JUNO STEEL (s5e1 spoilers below the cut) (finally figured out how to do that! I should press more buttons)

Okay I was PLANNING to grab screenshots of the transcript but I can't find the transcript in the folder so I'm going to have to relisten to those bits and type it (so that turned into an entire relisten and reaction. Oops)

First. "Because he's- he's- aarghh something incredibly unkind that I'll regret saying later" JUNO STEEL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FUCK YES I love visible proof of him working in himself, how it's not just "oh I'm better now" but actual effort into being kinder. I love him and his arc is everything to me

"I'm Juno Steel. I'm a private eye" the DRAMA in how he said that I love it

Cassandra my love <333

"Harrassing is a strong word" "what would you call it then?" "Oh, oh, uh, harrassing. I said it was a strong word, not the wrong word" he is everything to me I love him so much

"No sarcasm? No bad jokes? No insults?" "Reading's not all I learned how to do over the past few years" MORE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT HELL YES

"My thief" HIS THIEF HIS THIEF HIS THIEF

"Could Nureyev have written that card?" Even without later events, I don't think we'd be lucky enough to get Nureyev immediately. My expectation has been that Juno will Just Miss him for like, two storylines before we catch up, but I do hope I'll be proven wrong

Carrie Gold (derogatory) OH HER NAME SOUNDS LIKE "carry gold" THAT'S GOOD

"I'm no art critic, but I know enough to say this much: [noise of disgust]" SO TRUE

Warner is so blind actually this play sounds like it's an allegory for how he does things. Offering something the artist needs (freedom, money) for something counterintuitive to art (perfection, the use of various things the artist Does Not Want). Actually that's just how the entertainment industry is, both the "blind to allegories" and the actual allegory. Wait Warner like Warner Bros???

"Everyone can definitely tell how good an actor you are" the noise I made at this line

Nureyev fiddling by picking locks is everything to me

"The spooky abandoned theater vibes were really goddamn good! I can't say how cool it feels to brood mysteriously on an empty ghostlit stage. I mean c'mon, the aesthetic is part of the PI gig" I ADORE him. Literally me.

Carrie is making me suspicious and I don't think she has it in her to orchestrate anything like this ("it" being intelligence or motive) so I wonder if she has something Else going on. Then again I could also just really not like Carrie

"I'd been so caught up in protecting the chimes I forgot to protect myself too" CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT s1 juno would not have cared about that

I'll make another post with my theories on the actual case but I am. Aghk I love this podcast

#the penumbra podcast #tpp spoilers #tpp #juno steel #junoverse

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thevideogameshutterbug · 7 months

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Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) Thoughts - Beginning At The End

No photos this time (I might add a few later). But I've got a lot of thoughts (and photos) about this game now that I'm finishing it up, but I just got finished my last sidequest in the postgame and I wanted to gush about it.

Spoilers, by the by. Quite a few of them.

----

The Mysteriums were a lopsided a pain the ass but man am I glad I saved this quest for last.

I've been thinking a lot about how much this game seeks to embody why Peter's beliefs in having empathy for the people he fights and getting to know who these villains are as people matters, and this quest - as well as Quentin Beck's final words to cap off the story - are such a perfect capper to that.

Nothing is as it seems, especially when you look at heroes and villains. Anything can change for anybody faster than you could ever realize it. When you take the masks off, it's all people making decisions. A good person can go down a dark path, a bad person can decide they no longer want to be that person any more. Not everyone is going to, but it's important to know that such a thing is always possible.

Heck, this game has an almost ''unprecedented'' number of reformed villains for a superhero franchise: Sandman, Mysterio, Tombstone, Mr. Negative, Prowler technically Lizard, all people who understand they did wrong and whose only motivation now is trying to make their way in the world going forward.

Jonah has a podcast early in the game where he insists that people never really change (about either Sandman or Lizard, iirc), advocating for criminals to be just kept in prison in perpetuity (which, I like this version of Jonah, but goddamn is he hard to like sometimes). Wraith advocates just killing these guys because naturally they're never going to change and they might as well be removed from the equation. And naturally, Symbiote Peter eventually starts considering the idea that maybe the best way forward is just to kill everybody who could be a threat.

But this game doesn't just counterpoint that by having its ultimate evolution be monstrous like most superhero works: instead, this game makes a strong point of why that mentality doesn't work - this is a fantasy story, but it's also a good point for real life.

Coming from a law family where I had a lot of interaction with formerly incarcerated people, and living in an inner city relationship where - again - anything can happen to skew a person's life in ways nobody thought they would go, it's not just a more realistic point - it's an essential point: people always change, and any belief otherwise is just an excuse not to examine the world around oneself. They can change for the worse, they can change for the better, or just kind of laterally shift, but they always change. A failure to recognize it is a failure of the self, not the other.

There's a strong trend of former villains in this game being taken advantage of by other villains, with the new villains doing so with the expectation that nobody will come to the former villains' aid, trust them, or aid them in any way (Mysterio's partners try to frame him, Tombstone and Negative get abducted by people who were sure no one would come for them, Sandman gets driven mad and dumped onto the city to be tossed into prison). And it's absolutely amazing to be Spider-Man in this game and be the one who fights tirelessly for everybody, even the people who have spurned their chances before, because that's who Spider-Man is.

Even if their stories still don't always end positively. Because it's still the right thing to do it, and it's a worse crime to stop.

Man, I love Spider-Man.

As a final note, I especially like that none of the former villains really expect to be forgiven and several never are. This might be the philosopher in me talking, but it's not in forgiveness that one finds redemption, but in the capacity of change in and of itself.

#the video game shutterbug #spider man ps5 #marvels spider man 2 #playstation 5 #insomniac games #heroes and villains #mysterio #sandman #tombstone #prowler #the lizard #mister negative #people always change #rehabilitative justice #philosophical thoughts #heroism #no photos in a photo focused blog #lots of spoilers though

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th3worstinm3 · 9 months

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i saw that your requests are open and i was thinking about what if noah asked to be on an interview with the reader to promote the new bad omens album and like he kinda falls in love with her as the interview/podcast goes on 😭😭😭 sorry if this is confusing idk how to really explain it 🫶🏻🫶🏻

hihiii thank you for requesting!! i love this idea :D

sorry for taking so long I literally didnt know how to write this LMAO but here u go better late than never

gaze

noah x fem!reader

RPF -> Don't like it? Don't read

his gaze was fixated on her. on the way her hands moved when she spoke, as if to emphasize her speech. the way her short hair danced when she laughed or turned around to look at him. his eyes were on her; her legs, her face, her eyes, her nose. she was one of the prettiest women noah has ever seen, and he's almost always completely surrounded by them.

this was his fault, though. he offered her the idea of an interview. he has been watching her videos and she looks so charismatic, funny extroverted and excited to talk to people. like a social butterfly; a very beautiful butterfly.

since the very first moment he walked through the door of that goddamned studio, he knew he was in big trouble.

now he couldn't keep his gaze from wandering around her, dropping unconsciously to her lips, red and shiny thanks to the lipgloss she had put on moments before; or chest, which was decored perfectly with a tight white shirt that left everything under it to imagination; or her legs, the black short skirt she wore made her legs visible to the naked eye, and the tigh highs did little to hide the flesh that noah was aching to grasp at.

the way she smiled at him whenever she asked a question had him stuttering; picture a big man like him stuttering because of a woman. funny. and adorable. he couldn't help it though, she was amazingly beautiful. he couldn't help but chuckle at whatever she had to say. noah didn't believe in love at first sight, but whatever this was, was making him believe in fairytales.

this seemed like the longest interview noah has ever done. he had to shift in his seat a couple times throughout the recording, growing uncomfortable in each and every position he squirmed to.

when the words "last but not least" left her lips, noah was already starting to plan on how to ask for her number. he needed to talk to her again; maybe hang out, drink something; maybe fuck. definitely fuck. one hundred percent fuck.

he waved at the camera with a sideways smirk.

the camera panned down and the person behind it made their way outside with a smile at the pretty girl. she clearly wasn't named pretty girl, but that was all noah had about her.

he saw her stand up; he quickly did the same. "uh excuse me!" he called for her. she turned around slightly with a smile, and noah couldn't help his own from settling on his lips. "thank you for the interview, i had so much fun and i would definitely like to do this ag-"

"give me," the short haired girl said, hand raised and eyes staring at his. noah was cut off; he stuttered but complied, giving her his phone. she started typing. "you think i didnt catch the way you were looking at me like a hungry animal?" she asked almost in a murmur, not looking at him. noah felt his cheeks grow warm.

she gave him his phone back. "there you go." noah glanced at his phone. she had already made herself a contact and named it "pretty girl". he saw she had already sent herself a message. "thank you-", he stuttered as she started making her way through the door.

"i liked the way you were looking at me, by the way." she said over her shoulder with a wink and disappeared through the corridor. noah's heart was beating out of his chest, but he had a dumb smile on his lips.

he would definitely call her tonight.

#bad omens fanfiction #noah sebastian fanfiction #yippeee #request !!!

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arthurtaylorlester · 1 year

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whispers into your inbox "jmart was the worst thing that could have happened in tma; it wrecked Jon's character and is the most transparent 'how do we not have our mc become suicidal?' I have ever seen. TMA then falls into the hole of the only important or good enough relationships being romantic, discarding previous character development to throw everything into romance solves all ~ ♡ I hate it and I hate how much Jon is woobified and infantilized in the fandom to drool over Martin and I hate how everyone acts like their relationship is good, when I think either of them with 5 years of a normal life would realize how awful the relationship was for both of them." Anyway lol I expect no response or post of this I am just being spicey on anon

oh anon you thought i was gonna see a take like this and not post it?

i need you to out yourself to me because goddamn this is an interesting take!

look, i love jmart, but even with 5 seasons of development they still somehow managed to feel rushed?

i disagree in that their relationship being unhealthy is a bad thing for them, because like the appeal of podcasts for me is the fucked up relationships. fucked up characters = fucked up relationships, yknow? like john and arthur from malevolent, normally, they'd hate each other without much of a second thought, but that's not the point, they love each other despite that, and that kind of extends to jmart for me.

i also totally agree with the fandom criticism, woobifying jon is like the only tma content i see on twt and it is soooooo annoying.

my personal qualms with tma however is in part the lore decisions and how the fandom treats the lore (and also the whole podcast).

s1 is easily the best season, mostly because you have no fucking idea what's going on, but after s2 things really start feeling like they're being drawn out, at least to me? like i think season 3-4 couldve been one thing, and um. season 5 is fun if you like jmart and the eye ig. i know most of this is a gross oversimplification (not forgetting yall basira&daisy fans) but after the core cast of season 1-2 i could not really get the other characters being fundamental in the story (not georgie. i love georgie)

don't get me wrong, the not-sasha arc was amazing! but after tim died, and martin fucked off for most of a season being sad, i was a bit bored. the buried isnt interesting to me sorry.

and also they under-utilize basically every fear, including the eye, and the one that upsets me the most is the stranger. oh what is it? circus and clowns ig. LIKE OPEN UP YOUR EYES THE WORLD IS OPEN TO YOU THE UNCANNY VALLEY AS SO MANY NICHES PLEASE

and by the end of the show, it just feels like they keep rotating the same 3 fears, and the others just kind fade into the bg

and then there's the fandom. i'm sorry but some of you guys act like tma is the end-all-be-all of fiction horror podcasts. when it's just not. sorry, but the magnus archives, after s1, just isnt scary. you know what's going on, the fears! which are neatly tied into these categories of oddities!

and the show explicitly states that the 14 fears categorization is arbitrary and that they all bleed into one another, but the fandom just. ignores that? like i've heard so many people go to other podcasts and say ''oh x is so eye avatar-coded!!'' and then x just has some vague eye symbolism that isnt even the point (this is about arthur lester)

and like i don't understand how tma manages to be the most mainstream fiction podcast nowadays, when welcome to night vale is right there ! and yes, i am implying that wtnv is objectively better than tma, because wtnv despite running for 12 goddamn years has never bored me with an episode, and it has roughly the same amounts of episodes! they both have similar formats that could repetitive quick (radio show vs statements) and even though i'd say statements have more creative freedom, wtnv still manages to not be boring. this might also just be a fact of better and more varied authors but hey, this is just my opinion

i want it to be clear that i'm not trying to start discourse, i still like tma! the fanartists are some of the most talented artists i've seen, and the fics are just aughhhhhhhhhhhh /pos

#podcasts fandoms have next to no discourse but that also doesnt leave room for criticism #tma critical #<- just in case #2 magnus 2 arch-ives #!! red !!#anon #red replies #sorry to anon if you didnt want this to be public i needed to rant about the tma-glorification #i did listen to all of tma in 2 weeks but um that may have something to do with it #fandom critical #discourse #<- not really tho this is just my opinion

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odinsblog · 7 months

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This stinks to high heaven, or Jannah, or Valhalla, or whatever makes you happy

My big sister is gay. I was the first person she came out to when we were kids, not quite 20 yet. I care deeply about her. And as I matured + unlearned much of my ingrained adolescent homophobia, with my sister’s help, I have come to care deeply about the LGBTQ community. Even the white ones, and all the other non-Black ones too

I’m trying really hard to imagine hearing about something like the Pulse nightclub shooting and somehow not caring about some of the non-Black victims because they might not have shared my exact political beliefs. I can’t. I can’t imagine not caring. Not caring because of something so trivial by comparison of being murdered by a crazy person in cold blood.

Look, I guess at some point either you care about people or you don’t. And if you’re able to turn off who you feel sorrow for based on their race, religion or ideology, then I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to relate to you.

I’ve been trying not to post too TOO much about some specifics of what’s happening in Palestine and Israel, but I’m sorry: I feel bad for the innocent children and civilians who were murdered in cold blood in Israel. I know that the “any means” tankies crowd wants everyone to ignore their deaths (or worse celebrate their deaths), but I guess I’m not built that way.

Some of those people murdered at the concert, for example, were not only innocent civilians, but they were also pro-Palestinian activists who spent their time working for peace. I shed tears hearing their family members talking about them. Hamas murdered Holocaust survivors, ffs.

I absolutely can understand Jewish people feeling uneasy right now. They lost a ton of noncombatant civilians —not to mention children. And oh yeah, antisemitism has been at an all time high, unfortunately, just like Islamophobia is about to be. Again.

I might be wrong, but I honestly just do not think that Hamas did Palestinians any favors.

Yes, yes, I dO understand that violence is always a necessary part of freedom and decolonization.

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.” —Assata Shakur

So I’m a big podcast listener (helps occupy my mind whenever I’m working on long tedious projects), and I was listening to one where they interviewed a Jewish soldier who was recently activated, but he was out of Israel and had to fly back. He said something like, “If they had only attacked military targets, then I would get it. We got caught with our pants down, and all is fair in love and war, right? But the mass slaughter of civilian families, women and children is the reason I’m going back.”

I wanted to reach through my phone and ask him about Israel preparing to do exactly the same thing to Palestinians in retaliation, but alas I guess I just sounded like a crazy person yelling to himself in my office.

And yeah, before you read too much further, please understand that I dO support the fuck outta Palestine. Let me be unequivocal here: Israel is in the wrong. Israel has oppressed Palestinians for decades. For actual generations.

Remember when Israel literally bulldozed over a woman to build more houses in Gaza?

Yeah, seriously heinous shit, right?

And we don’t actually have a solid count for all the innocent murdered Palestinian civilians who were living in apartment buildings that Israel has been bombing to smithereens for the past few days. I understand that Israel and the West would have us believe that everyone in Gaza is a terrorist and nobody is an innocent civilian, but hopefully, if you’re reading this, YOU know better than that.

But that said ….. I cannot get with tankies—who, safe and sound in their homes, not being perpetually bombed—want to sound “hard” on social media, and make no distinctions with the people who were just minding their own fucking business at a goddamn concert. I think about all of the mass shootings in America (movie theaters, grocery stores, night clubs, concerts, schools, office buildings, etc) and I just cannot imagine justifying or excusing ANY of them because of the shooter’s “ideology.” I know it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it’s close enough.

“If they were on colonized land then they deserved to die” is one hell of a fucked up take. The slippery slope is that if any of our loved ones are gunned down by “freedom fighters,” then we should just be happy for “the cause” and not shed any tears, because ALL of us deserve to die in America and other Western countries, because we’re all living on colonized land.

I cannot even begin to explain how flawed and fucked up that so-called reasoning is.

You have to have some fucking lines and boundaries.

We don’t just do a shoulder shrug when children are murdered in cold blood—and no, I’m not talking about the 40 babies allegedly beheaded, I’m just talking about the little toddlers who were shot through walls and died, and the elderly and disabled who were shown being dragged away. Yeah, I feel sorry for them too. And I won’t apologize for that.

Rape is wrong. All the time. Under all circumstances. Even when it’s happening to people who you don’t like.

Murdering children is wrong. All the time. Under all circumstances. Even when it’s the children of people who you don’t like.

Do I really need to spell this shit out? JFC.

If you don’t care about any of this because you’re “down for the cause,” then you. are. lost. Like really and truly lost. You aren’t a radical. You’re a fanatic. And hopefully you won’t be in a position to ever receive the fanatical Karma that you’re asking for.

Anyway…

I am on the side of Palestine in all of this. They never deserved to be oppressed by Israel or anyone.

Innocent Palestinian women and children are dying as you’re reading this. I’m shedding tears for them too. They’ve been going through this for way too long. That fact alone is beyond being a tragedy.

Palestine has already suffered and will suffer 10 times more than all of the civilians and noncombatants who were tragically murdered in Kfar Aza.

As always, my usual reminders:

The Holocaust happened

Antisemitism is real

Hamas ≠ Palestine

Israel is an apartheid state

Collective punishment is a war crime

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal

You can support Palestine without being antisemitic

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

#politics #tankies #palestine #israel #gaza #hamas ≠ palestine

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