Live Free. Don’t Join.

I was experimenting with a possible YCH or adopt but I am still undecided--so enjoy this cute lil Halloween witch 🎃

Soooo I watched Athena P’s “The Doodlebops Lore” video on YouTube a couple days backkkk… brought back some memories. This man had my whole heart at the tender age of like 6 n uhhhh I did look at the Moe Doodle thirst edits on tiktok that she referenced… turns out I was very susceptible 👉👈

Also like Moe’s actor Jonny Wexler has been going through a lot these past couple years with chronic pain due to a work injury and the multiple surgeries that followed suit. I just hope him the best and I really hope he’ll take his time to heal n be able to move around more comfortably n what not 💗

can you guys stop slamming back there i’m trying to parallel park this dragula and it’s tricky

ok. listen. it’s about your girlfriend. you know how we thought she was a crop-blighting witch and we were planning to stone her? so, here’s the thing. every stone we threw drew not blood but like, the black and fathomless rage of a race of titans that were once slain but could not die. and she like, rose from her hastily-shoveled roadside grave as their resubstantiated champion or something. yeah, we’re suffering the onslaught of her vengeance right now. yeah. I guess we inadvertently created that which we had so feared. yeahh. could you like, answer her texts and ask if she’ll stop sloughing our flesh with her baleful gaze every time she sees us. thx in advance

usb drives you find lying on the ground are modern day cursed amulets

Right now there’s a guy with a beard and glasses who loves chicken and waffles trying to get pussy from a girl who still calls herself adorkable in 2022 and never moved on from finding griffin mcelroy funny be grateful you have never had a relationship or had sex

Ozy:

I’m trying to imagine a life where “having a beard and glasses and loving an extremely common food in an extremely populous area of the US” and “finding a successful media personality amusing and liking a funny word” are just so horrifying and cringe that it’s a threat to be posted. 

It seems like an amazingly paltry and petty one, but then I remember the assistant manager I worked under very briefly who was extremely upset that I did not agree with her (in 2005 in Victoria BC for the love of bob) that dyeing your hair an unnatural colour was the kiss of death to ever getting a job. She was pushing sixty, wanted you to believe she was pushing fifty, wore Smart Power Suits and early 2000s Corporate Middle Class Woman makeup along with a Stylish Mid-Length Haircut, and she was judgemental as fuck. 

And I remember this one day when this lady came in. 

It was an Irish Import company that considered itself very above brow which is in retrospect a hilarious of a store actively capitalizing on the Irish-Canadian diaspora’s kitsch idea of Ireland at best, but anyway. One of the things that we had a bunch of that we were trying to get rid of were these triangular wool woven shawls. Beautiful pattern, beautiful fabric, frankly a massive PITA to sell because they were also, as garments, very Grandmother. 

So this woman comes in and she has a sensible mushroom cut, and round glasses (note that this is 2005: round glasses are not cool), un-chic jeans*, and a fanny pack (please understand that fanny packs were so uncool they were unable to see cool from the curvature of the earth), with a plain cotton t-shirt tucked in. She had no makeup on and while her face itself was totally within “mainstream normal-could-be-attractive” she was so utterly unadorned that people who just go with the TRAPPINGS would have said she was plain, or even ugly. 

Her husband came in with her! He was similarly un-coolly attired, and similarly not hot by anyone’s standards. But they were friendly and nice with each other, and eventually I ended up asking her what she was looking for. 

It turned out she was a classical harpist with a significant Celtic music repertoire and she had a concert coming up. In the way of most classical musicians, she was going to be wearing a black dress, and she was looking for Something to make it more interesting and eye-catching. 

And I realized my perfect opportunity, which was to sell her one of these shawls we couldn’t get rid of. I showed her the shawl and its quality and the beautiful pattern of knotwork; I pointed out that she could fasten it over her shoulders, but also she could tie it around her waist and to show her this we found a mirror and she handed the fanny pack to her husband and tried it. 

She seemed pretty happy about it, but then her husband spoke up. And what her husband said was, “Honey you look beautiful.” And he meant it. And she glowed. 

Was her outfit gonna be something I’d wear? No, not ever remotely - especially not at 20, but even at my age now, I would want something with more edge to it. Was she going to be happy with it and have a great concert, and was it 1000% appropriate for every OTHER element of her personal style I could see? Hell yeah. 

I rang her up, she paid, she thanked me, I wished her well on her concert, her husband bought a bunch of more kitschy stuff, they went on their way, I considered it a huge win: she got the piece she wanted for her concert, we got rid of stock we were desperate to get rid of without too much of a loss, everybody’s happy!

The assistant manager came bustling over and was like, “oh my god did she actually BUY that?” and proceeded to bitchily sneer and mock this woman and her husband while I just stared at her, not even on purpose, because I literally couldn’t believe someone could be that miserable of a bitch. 

But there she was. Being that way. 

I quit that job about a week and a half later, without notice, because jesus fuck life is too short to spend any time around that kind of bitter, mean, small-minded person if you don’t have to. Good grief. At twenty I was way too anxious and uncertain to have anything usefully cutting to say to the assistant manager, to my everlasting regret. 

But jesus frogs and little apples, imagine being so miserable as that - so snipey and small. 

So I mean I totally can imagine it because I REMEMBER that assistant manager, and she was a bitch, but I’d rather remember the couple with the lady I sold the shawl to. I hope they’re still happy together, and still give just as few fucks about other people being horribly judgemental assholes. And as long as he’s not an actual dickhead and she’s not actually a bitch, I hope chicken-and-waffles guy and mcelroy fan girl have fun too. 

[*there is a profound hilarity that much of what she was wearing is actually totally fine fashion wise for a woman of her age today, but Fashion Changes and at the time it absolutely indicated she was frumpy as shit]

Brutalism is when there’s concrete. The more conk they crete, the more brutalismer it is.

I do love when I get a whaler’s journal that has a lot of misspellings. It makes it slower to get through, but in my forever-fascination with New England accents prior to the latter half of the 19th century…when he spells things phonetically you get a better sense of his voice. I always try to preserve them.

In all the things I’ve cobbled together regarding early 19th c New England accents, ranging from the Biglow Papers to children’s speller books (targeting ‘mispronunciations in rural accents’), and whaler journals I can only describe it as like…

A Twangy Brogue. I love it. I’m so fond.

Examples off the top of my head to get a sense.

Catch - Kitch Certain - Sarten Oil and boil - Ile, bile Such - Setch Lantern - Lant-horn Coin - Quine Chair - Cheer After - Arter Birthday - bethday Water - Warter Exhausted - Exorsted Get - Git Sit - Set Girl - Gal, gel Chimney - Chimbly Dirt - Dut Learn - Larn Cards - Cairds Solider - Soger Nervous - Narvous Afraid - Afeared Turns of phrase like asking ‘be you happy’ instead of ‘are you happy’, swapping ‘on’ and ‘of’ such as ‘she died of a summer day, and fever was what she died on’ instead of ‘she died on a summer day and fever is what she died of’. ‘Wake snakes’ meaning stirring up trouble. etc. etc. etc. Love all of it.

This minecraft short comic called "A strange Coast" made by Ian Flynn I believe, I found in a book from my library I work has to be one of the most beautiful and respectful takes on the game.

It understands minecraft so perfectly and doesn't treat it as childishly as the other stories in it did.

And all that within 10 pages and no word spoken.

guillermo del toro’s little brother

every time i see this post i forget the punchline. and it’s always so fucking good

May you all find joy equal to or greater than the joy this woman is having with her new hobby

i want to put in the same room as the sponge painting lady

You are 100% on to something here

If we could bottle the joy that would be created in that room we'd have world peace at last

Uh so I made a character bingo if anyone wants to try it (:

Dark home

knight/lord ships are like. what if i would die for you. what if i wanted you to live for me. what if i wanted to touch you but could only be satisfied with being near you. what if i could touch you but only through the safety of our gloves. what if i couldn’t stop thinking about you right next to me. what if i bloodied my hands for you and never looked back at the wreckage. what then

what if i wasn’t allowed to love you. what if i loved you anyway. what if you knew and i knew but we wouldn’t dare to take that step. what if we made meaningful eye contact as i knelt at your feet and devoted my whole being to you. what if i whispered your name for only you to hear

“my lord” is actually something that can be so personal

what if i said “my lord” but i actually meant “my love”

Oh yes. Yes. My trope. My muse.  Doesn’t matter what orientation, this shit is the bomb.

Okay so a production of Hamlet that ends with “Goodnight, sweet prince,” etc. and then Horatio looks up and sees the audience for the first time and is both shocked and furious, because his world is falling apart and you sat there and watched.

This idea would go fantastically well with my director’s idea that Hamlet knows the whole time that he’s in a play. He had me (when I played Hamlet) interact with the audience, exchange looks with people in the front row, deliver my soliloquies to people in the first few rows casually like I was just talking to them, and I even had the idea to not freeze and just walk about the stage when other characters had their little ‘asides,’ which he allowed me to keep in.

Basically, if Hamlet continuously acknowledges the audience unnoticed by all the other characters (almost Fleabag-style) and then suddenly he’s gone, and obviously he knew he’d have to be gone at the end, and then poor Horatio is left all alone to finally realize there was someone else there the entire time, now that would make it all the more devastating.

There’s no difference between the Danish courtiers, who showed up because they wanted to see the Mad Prince get his butt kicked in a staged sword-fight, and us the audience (who… also showed up to watch Hamlet loose a sword fight.) 

I want to see a production where Horatio just stares at us, and screams “Now cracks a noble heart!” with the subtext “You fucking fuckers. He was better than all of you, you watched him die, and you just stood there.

Then, he just silently cries over the body. For like FIVE MINUTES. And the courtiers peel away into the wings, one by one, until Horatio is alone on stage with a lot of dead bodies. It starts getting uncomfortable. You’re thinking… is the play over? Am I supposed to go? (hamlet is just about the *only* play where the final scene is cut about 50% time, so use that uncertainty, use that ambiguity.) Maybe some people do get up to go. There’s definitely muttering. And then there’s smashing sounds coming from the direction of the box office, and Horatio looks up, with an expression like something’s gone wrong. 

But then he says, “Why do the drums come hither?” Fortinbras enters though the audience, and the play continues. 

(I *also* think it would be really cool to cut for intermission right after Claudius freaks out and breaks up the play-within-a-play. Just imagine it: king yells “Lights! Lights! Lights!” And the houselights come up.) 

All good. And also–

As Hamlet is dying in Horatio’s arms, he puts his hand on Horatio’s face and turns it toward us. And that’s when Horatio sees the theater.

can also be found here on AO3!

stars and satellites (will always bring me home)

---

Eddie tries not to think about his birthday. 

He and Wayne have an agreement to let it pass with little to no mention, save for his 16th birthday when he’s able to start driving and his 18th birthday when he hands Eddie a few singles and tells him to go grab himself his first legal pack of cigarettes— and to get one for him, too, since he’ll be at the store anyways. 

It works for Eddie and he goes as far as to hide his birthday from his friends for as long as he possibly can. Gareth, Jeff, and Frank still have no idea. The new found family he’s been adopted into since averting the (apparently third or fourth) Apocalypse don’t know, despite being asked by just about everyone at least once. It’s a fine-tuned skill, evading the question and changing the subject. 

“Hey Eddie, when’s your birthday? Did we miss it already this year?” Dustin asks at Will’s own birthday party. 

Eddie smirks. “Roll for insight, Young Henderson.” 

“Alright, got a die?” 

“Nope, darn!” Eddie pretends to pat the pockets of his jeans before shrugging and walking away. 

Nancy is the hardest to fend off but unless she finds his birth information through the microfiche at the library, he’s stalwart in his stance. She might, though, and that’s his only real concern. But by and large, his friends let it go, chalking it up to one of Eddie’s many quirks and occasionally joking about it when someone else’s birthday rolls around. The one person who won’t put it down though? 

Steve Harrington. 

Steve I Throw Parties For Everyone Harrington. Steve I’m Going To Annoy You About This At Least Once A Week Harrington. Steve Is It Today? Is It Tomorrow? You Seem Like A Winter Baby? Harrington.

And truthfully, Eddie can’t find it within himself to be genuinely mad at him about it, despite having snapped at everyone else who’s dared to ask more than once. Eddie grants Steve a pass for reasons he’s not quite ready to evaluate just yet, reasons he knows he’ll never tell, reasons that would require the same security clearance that knowing his birthday would because knowing his birthday would mean knowing this past. He’s not sure yet if he wants everyone— or anyone— to know about his dear old dad. 

In true The Universe Must Be Sentient And Actively Hate Me fashion, Steve happens to ask him again on his actual birthday. Steve’s backyard is glowing in the bluish tint of the full moon, stars twinkling in and out behind rogue clouds and smoke billowing from the joint they pass between them up towards the sky. It’s cold— early February in Hawkins is no joke— but Steve and Eddie have discovered an affinity for the cold breeze against their skin, finding it grounding and centering in its own way. 

“So, when’s your birthday? Is it getting close?” It’s a question Eddie’s heard no less than twenty times in the same cheeky intonation, Steve having learned not to expect anything besides an out of pocket response. What he doesn’t expect is silence. Steve never expects silence from Eddie. 

He turns to look at Eddie and sees him sitting in the same patio chair he’s been in all night, right next to him— too close, but not close enough at the same time. One leg is drawn up beneath one thigh and Eddie looks up at the sky, pointedly avoiding eye contact. If the moment didn’t feel as heavy as it does, Steve would find himself staring at the muscles of his neck and the way his throat bobs when he swallows. It is heavy though, and Steve can only focus on the weight of the space between them. 

“Hey, you good? You know I’m just fucking with you, right?” Steve asks, passing the joint back to him as an excuse to pull his attention back from the sky above them. Of all of the things Steve’s imagined having to fight for attention from, the moon was certainly not one of them but he supposes that tracks for Eddie. Nothing about Eddie is according to plan. 

Eddie takes the joint and carefully avoids Steve’s eyes, keeping his glance at his hands before returning to the stars and taking a deep inhale. Another few hits will make this all go away, he thinks to himself. The day had been difficult— memories he’d rather not have creeping up and wrapping themselves around his limbs like living vines.

Steve watches little bits of smoke curl out on his exhale and he shifts uncomfortably in his chair. 

“Ed, seriously, I’ll stop asking. I’m just teasing, I’ll quit it, just stop with the silence, dude. It’s… weird.” 

“Why?” Eddie asks, quietly. It’s just a single word but he’ll take it. 

“Why is it weird?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Because you’re not quiet. You don’t do silence unless something’s wrong.” 

“Maybe something is.” 

Steve sits for a second, his brain running in circles around itself. You fucked it up, c’mon, you kept asking, you knew better, why’d you have to keep prying, now you made him uncomfortable like you swore not to do—

“I can smell your brain overheating from here, Steve. Relax. It’s not you, I promise.” Eddie chuckles humorlessly under his breath and he makes a spontaneous decision, an impulsive decision he might regret but there's a little part of him that finds it hard to believe he'll ever regret sharing something with Steve.

“Then what is it? What’s wrong? Is it, y’know, End of the World- related or…?” Steve’s voice trails off. Part of the reason they’ve come to have these nights smoking in the cold, alone together, is that exactly: End of the World- related invisible scars. But Eddie just shakes his head no and sighs, placing the joint down on the glass patio table. 

“It’s today.” 

“Huh?”

Eddie turns to face him and raises both eyebrows. “It’s. Today. My birthday. It’s today.” 

“Wait— shit, really? And you’re telling me?” Steve’s heart pounds in his chest, not blind to the gravity of Eddie telling him his closest kept secret. 

Eddie shrugs and smiles without it touching his eyes. “Guess so. Take it to your grave, please?” 

“Well yeah, man, I don’t make a habit of going around and telling people’s secrets. But… thanks? For trusting me?” Steve reaches the few inches to Eddie’s shoulder and lets his hand rest there. It's contact but it's not enough. It’s never really enough, but it has to be. He has no reason to think Eddie feels the same way about him and he’ll be damned if he loses his best friend— second only to Robin, but that’s besides the point. The point is, he rests his hand on Eddie’s shoulder and lets his fingers move in slow repetitive circles into the fabric of Eddie’s jacket. 

“You’re welcome. It’s just— I have some… not so great memories attached to my birthday so I don’t celebrate it. Rather it just not exist, to be honest.” 

“Well, since it’s a big secret, you could just make it another day, y’know. We’ll all respect it and you can, like, create new memories and start over.”

Eddie glances down at Steve’s hand wandering, absentmindedly trailing his fingers along the base of his neck and to collarbone. Fuck his birthday, and fuck the horrible memories Clyde Munson had poured into it. The way his heart tumbles from his chest into his mouth negates all of it. 

“Really? Any suggestions?” He breathes, relieved that Steve doesn’t pry. He’s learned enough about Steve’s own childhood though to imagine why he doesn’t. For all of their outward differences, Steve gets it. Gets him. 

Steve watches Eddie’s eyes widen before they glance down at his hand and back up, filled with something that looks dangerously like hope. Steve, in turn, feels something dangerously like hope. 

“Maybe the day you woke up? In the hospital? I don’t know, I can see you liking the whole phoenix thing. Rebirth into something beautiful or whatever.” 

Eddie’s breath catches. Beautiful feels like an overinflated balloon floating precariously through the woods in Steve’s backyard— cheerful and buoyant, but always at the risk of catching on too sharp of a branch and tumbling back down to the hard ground. 

“Beautiful, huh?” 

“Yeah. It fits you.” Steve’s hand wanders again, this time intentionally, to brush a piece of Eddie’s hair behind his ear and cupping the side of his face. 

“Steve…” He whispers as they move slowly— achingly slowly— together, as though attached by an invisible thread. And maybe they are— the little red string of fate that’s been pulling them closer and closer since the day they met. Close enough now, finally, for Eddie to know how Steve’s lips feel against his, how his hands feel in his hair, how his heart beats in his chest when Eddie presses one hand there to tether himself to reality with nothing. No one but his stars watch him find his way back home, to Steve, where he should've been all along.

Eddie’s new birthday becomes April 2nd, the day he’d woken up from the induced coma. Eddie and Steve’s anniversary becomes February 9th, his old birthday. He can’t imagine a better way to create beauty out of ashes.