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#damn this really was my last hyperfixation <3 an entire fucking year ago <3
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meepmorpperaltiago · 3 years
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Slipping Through My Fingers All The Time
I started a marvel binge about a month ago and I’ve been hyperfixating on spideychelle for a while now – so I started this fic and then realised the last prompt of @mjweek fit perfectly! This is a crazy long fic by my standards but I hope you like it!
The first time May hears Michelle Jones’ name is after the Washington Incident. She doesn’t particularly register it, not with everything else happening in their lives at that point. She’s just another one of his classmates, only just edging into the category of “friend”, if something like that can even be categorised at all.
She doesn’t hear the girls’ nickname for a while either.
Until one day, when Peter casually asks: “Would you mind if MJ slept over along with Ned?”
“MJ?”, she questions, turning towards him with a puzzled look.
“Michelle Jones... you know, the new Academic Decathlon Captain? Her friends call her MJ and now I guess Ned and I allowed to call her that since we’re her friends”.
She seems to bond to their group increasingly after Homecoming and then after the Blip. She’s not rude by any means, but she doesn’t really say a lot in comparison to her friends, so May doesn’t ever particularly chat to her in any depth beyond polite greetings and queries about being picked up after late night study -sessions-turned-sleepovers.
But as a platonic trio, the three of them seem to be on good ground.
Looking back, she’s not sure she could pinpoint when exactly when the true shift happened.
Slowly but steadily, Peter mentions her more and more in a way he’s never talked about any other friend before, even more than he used to mention Liz. It reaches a point where she expects to hear about the latest “badass” thing that MJ did whenever she asks him how school was that day, right alongside tales of their gang’s usual exploits and the regular gossip of Midtown. It’s not to an unhealthy or obsessive extent, but it’s enough for her to realise that something must be going on between them, even if it’s just a spark.
Not wanting to put pressure on Peter to talk about it, she waits patiently for her suspicions to be confirmed, because she becomes more and more certain every day that there’s something there.
A few weeks before the big school trip to Europe and what they’re both hoping will be a much deserved break, she comes home to Peter furiously scribbling something onto a scrappy frayed bit of paper, his entire face scrunched into fierce concentration.
“Are you designing a new suit or something?”, she casually asks, that being the only thing she can think of in spite of her nephews’ lack of artistic talent.
“Oh no”, is his slightly shy response. “It’s just... a plan...”
That confuses her even more and she sits down beside him, finally looking at what he’s been writing down whilst asking him: “a plan for what? World domination? Have you decided to go all angsty hero turned supervillain on us?”
He laughs at that and then explains himself. “I really like MJ. I wanna tell her how I feel in Europe and I thought it would be better to just write it down rather than winging it. I tried to just be honest with her earlier today and after I said that I had something I wanted to tell her I kind of froze... and ran... very fast... and elephant like... a lot of people stared, it was very noisy and embarrassing.”
She sits with him for about an hour after that, helping him to develop his pretty loose plan into something more concrete. She also had the sad thought that if Tony was still around he would’ve been all over this situation, helping Peter. It’s yet another figure in his life who will never be there for the big moments, but all she can do is try her best for him, like she has done since he was 4 years old and they all realised his parents’ weren’t coming back from that damn plane crash.
In the end, the trip of course gets derailed by (what else?) more superhero stuff and even before what follows a few weeks later, she feels awful that he can’t take a pause from stress and danger for even two weeks, at the age of just 16. He’s still just a kid, but the weight of the world never seems to lift from his shoulders.
But the one positive is that it looks like he didn’t need the plan. When they’re driving home from the airport, the first thing he talks and talks and talks about is everything that happened with him and MJ. Apparently she loved the necklace even though it was broken, they kissed 3 times on Tower Bridge (and a few more times on the way home) and now they’re going on a date soon. She questions if swinging around New York might be a bit intense, but he shrugs her off, saying that it’ll be fine.
She finds out later that it wasn’t fine, but everything that follows after their date completely crashes into everything and makes that detail anecdotal.
Everything changes after Mysterio’s video – at first he runs for far too long and she’s so worried and it breaks her heart to read all the awful, untrue things that damn Daily Bugle keeps on pumping out. The physical copy would be better off used as toilet paper in her opinion (she can’t think of anything as witty for the more popular digital version, but she’s trying). They all meet with him undercover, sporadically, supporting him in whatever way they can.
After an adventure involving Dr Strange (she’s proud of the fact that learnt his name properly now) and weirdest of all several other Spider-Men, he finally comes home and even though everything is still completely uprooted and unstable, at least she has him back now.
For everything that still comes afterward, for every run in with photographers and crazed fans and every time the danger they’re all in now that the world knows becomes apparent, she’s there to pick him back up. And MJ and Ned are too.
She notices that he comes back from patrols even later and when she talks to him about it he admits with a shy blush that he’s been stopping by MJ’s room every night for weeks now. It all seems very Romeo and Juliet. She also chuckles when it’s brought up in conversation with MJ’s mother, because of course she knows he’s there when they think they’re being so sneaky and secretive. How he managed to keep his identity hidden for so long, she’ll never know.
Over time, she gets to know MJ pretty well too: she learns that she’s smart and fierce and sarcastic and cynical in a way that balances Peter’s eternal sunshine perfectly. They really do fit together like pieces of an extremely adorable puzzle.
Her usually mended heart breaks a little when she realises how well she would’ve gotten along with Ben. But eventually she puts that thought away in a precious mental box, carefully kept and full of now bittersweet memories. She simply allows herself to share in her nephews’ new found and long overdue joy.
She truly realises the depth of their feelings for each other in unfortunate to say the least circumstances. A hammering from the Green Goblin puts him in hospital unconscious for a week even with his advanced healing abilities and MJ won’t leave his side for a second, holding onto the broken black dahlia necklace like it’s the only thing anchoring her to reality even after Ned has finally been persuaded to go home to bed. They sleep in plasticky, slightly sticky and hard hospital chairs right next to each other and when Peter finally wakes up the next afternoon he looks so happy to see the 3 people he loves most in the world carefully watching him.
She’s never seen him more scared than the first time a bad guy kidnaps MJ. They were aware that something like this was likely, the girl even prepared herself with self defence classes and her boyfriend is a literal freakin’ superhero. But still, when he finds her, May can see through the security footage that her and Ned are nervously watching, that he holds her with such relief, like she’s the most precious thing in the world.
They of course go to senior prom together and take the classic photos before they go — it’s incredibly corny but their radiant smiles put a bright grin on her face too.
They go long distance for college and although they’re both worried about growing apart, they seem to just get closer, moving into a cramped apartment in their second year.
She comes over for dinner (Peter has always been a disaster in the kitchen, but MJ’s competent enough to keep them from completely living off take out) and the three of them chat and laugh together and they’re not even out of college yet but MJ already feels like family.
What she doesn’t expect is for him to call her at 2am, in floods of tears, barely able to explain to her what happened except “I’ve fucked everything up, oh my god, I’ve fucked everything up...”
Eventually May gets a bigger picture through his tears (“it’s so stupid”, he hiccups down the phone). Essentially it all boils down to a lack of communication and small things boiling over into a blow out fight. Now she’s walking out in sheer anger and he’s frozen in panic. May feels panicked too, feeling the pressure of giving Peter the right advice when she’s honestly not sure how she would handle the situation. He might be all grown up, at college with a long term living together relationship, but sometimes she’s reminded of how young he still is.
She ends up telling him to run after MJ and apparently he does just that, rushing out into the pouring rain and kissing her through tearful apologies from both of them in what sounds like something straight out of a rom com. After that, they get better at sharing how they’re feeling and their relationship seems all the better for it.
She gives him her old engagement ring just after their two year anniversary of living together, after he comes to her apartment with an excited grin, telling her that he wants to propose. An everlasting symbol of her old love, of the love her and Ben shared, that their child can now share with the love of his life.
“So what’s your big plan?” she asks him excitedly over coffee in the mug he bought her a few birthdays back.
“Well, she hates public proposals, so I can’t do that – I was thinking of doing something at home, something cosy...”
That’s exactly what he does.
May helps him with his plan, just as she did 5 years ago – except this time she’s a little bit more directly involved.
Luckily, May and MJ already have a regular rom com night every few weeks, so MJ isn’t too surprised or suspicious when she invites her ‘round for an afternoon of Bridget Jones. Just as the perpetually single heroine is giving birth to Colin Firth’s baby, she gets a thumbs up text from Peter, letting her know that he’s ready to go.
MJ took the bus here, so May suggests they go back to the apartment together, because she couldn’t bear the idea of not being around for what awaits MJ at home. MJ gives her a strange look but just rolls with it.
When MJ opens the apartment door after saying goodbye to May, the lights are dimmed, except for a glowing structure in the corner, which Peter comes out of grinning.
“I made you a fort!” he declares happily with his arms in the air. As MJ grins and laughs and kisses him as she jumps into his arms, she takes that as a cue to fully leave them alone.
She stands and waits and wonders what’s happening inside. She could see that he’d filled the inside of the fort with fairy lights and she knows that he was planning on ordering MJ’s favourite food (pepperoni pizza) and putting on a murder documentary she’d been talking about for weeks.
After what must’ve been the time for them to eat their pizza and watch the documentary, plus about 7 minutes give or take, they open the door. They both have tears in their eyes as MJ holds up her left hand to show May the newly placed ring on her finger.
They have placeholder seats in the ceremony, for everyone who’s not there, who would’ve been there. Who should’ve been there. Everyone lost isn’t forgotten and it’s as heartwarming as it is sad.
He goes back to May’s the night before the wedding out of superstition and tradition. She wakes him up pretty early and he complains until he realises what day it is. He shares a soft phone call with MJ as soon as he’s awake enough to hold a conversation, but May has no idea what’s being said, as she goes to the kitchen, wanting to give them both privacy.
She makes sure to tell Peter how proud she is of him when she’s helping him tie his tie like he’s back in high school and getting ready for Homecoming.
When he sees MJ walk down the aisle, they both look at each other like they’re being given the entire world.
Peter speaks first, nervously taking cue cards out of his pocket and saying: “MJ, I know that you hate clichés and corny lines, so I’m not going to use any. Instead, I’m just going to make a bunch of promises. I promise to support you and stand by your side, to have your back in the way that you always have mine. I promise to always be there to make you smile when you’re sad. I promise to watch scary horror movies with you, even if they really scare me. I promise not to spoil endings of things. I promise to love you forever.”
An already tearful MJ follows him with: “Peter, a long time ago, I told you that I don’t have much luck when it comes to getting close to people. But that’s not been true for a long time, thanks to you. Sorry to use clichés my vows after you cut them out of yours, but I feel so damn lucky to be marrying my best friend. I promise to stand by you and fight for you even when you’re being really stupid, I promise to support all of your nerdy stuff and most of all, I promise to always love you, dork”
May thinks back on everything her boy has suffered through, everything that has been put upon him for so long. Seeing him brimming with joy, gazing lovingly at his wife, surrounded by everyone who loves and supports them both, she bursts into tears herself.
It’s one of the happiest days of her life .It’s only matched by her both of her wedding days and the days that Benjamin Anthony Parker-Jones and Taylor-May Parker-Jones are born.
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xxmisty · 3 years
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My Big Humiliating Torchwood Confession - Part 1 :P
Warning: this will be a LONG post, and i’m sorry about that! 
Lucy is sat opposite me asking me repeatedly if I’ve started typing yet because she knows how desperately i’m putting off making this post!!1
This is awful, this is.... probably the most embarrassingly intimate confession i’ll have made since the day I opened up about my fetish way back at the start of 2013. And on the surface of it it probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but IT IS TO ME! And a big chunk of the trauma i’m about to express is tongue in cheek but it’s genuinely been - and continues to be - a huge bundle of DISTRESS AND HUMILIATION AND UTTER RESENTMENT!!! Because this year has been.... one hell of a personal journey and i don’t even mean anything to do with the pandemic.
It all started on New Year’s Day. I was feeling horrendously ill; the miraculous medication that had started to give me my life back had run out and thanks to the festive postal delays my new lot hadn’t arrived yet. I was in agony, I had a horrible headache, I felt sick and I could hardly move. We spent the day watching a bunch of muppet stuff, and that night we watched the first ep of season 12 of Doctor Who and, y’know, it was a pretty damn good episode (plus thirteen in the suit.... fuuckkk) 
So afterwards we started having a discussion about Chris Chibnall - we’ve long held criticisms about some of his writing (not all of it, but it’s a mixed bag) and Lucy told me I still hadn’t seen his worst writing because that was for Torchwood...
Which I had never seen. Which I had been desperately trying not to see, although I didn’t know why. I just always had this vibe like a big “NO ENTRY!” sign at the idea of ever watching it. It’s not as though I had a logical reason for it, it’s not like I’d read up about it and thought, ‘naahhhhhh, I don’t fancy watching that’. I just had a big WARNING sign in my head, telling me not to go there. 
Several years ago Lucy made me watch the first episode (after i’d been avoiding her threats of showing it to me for like 2 years) and like... it wasn’t horrible? It wasn’t... great either... but it didn’t kill me. Then a couple of years ago she showed me Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang because we were having a big Runaways phase so she wanted to show me an episode with James Marsters in. Again, it didn’t kill me. It wasn’t horrible. But I still had those big NO ENTRY!!! signs up in my head. I was still trying desperately to avoid actually being shown Torchwood as a show.
And the the new year happened and I was too WEAK AND DEFENCELESS to know what was happening when Lucy and I cuddled up in bed that night. I was too sick to really comprehend what she was doing or to fight back when she announced she was going to show me the very worst of Chris Chibnall’s writing... and put on Day One followed by Cyberwoman.
Oh. My. God.
All day I had been in a state of physical agony. Suddenly my mental and emotional state was far, FAR worse!!! The sex gas alien was bad enough, then by the time she put on Cyberwoman my brain was trying to shut down. I used to suffer blackouts and, god, I kept blacking out all the way through it, and instead of being her usual loving, wonderful self she KEPT FORCING ME TO COME ROUND TO WATCH IT!!!
By this point it was gone midnight and I was in a state of utter distress!! This was the worst double helping of tv I had ever sat through in my life and I sat up and let forth a tirade of absolute distress! This, I decided, had to be the reason I’d been avoiding Torchwood. Because it was more like.... Torurewood :P 
Yep, that had to be it. Couldn’t possibly be anything worse, could it? 
At least now lucy had shown me those two terrible Chibnall eps I would NEVER EVER HAVE TO WATCH THEM AGAIN. Or ANY Torchwood episodes. Yes, my ordeal was over. Had to be.
Nope. We went back to bed and she put on Out if Time. And i’ll admit, the story was much stronger but goddddd I had issues with the endings! And my level of despair started to rise even higher. I HATED Torchwood! This was the most distressing night’s viewing ever and I just wanted to go to sleep and be done with it all! Lucy put one more episode on afterwards: They Keep Killing Suzie. And that was much better but halfway through we finally fell asleep - so surely my trauma was over with.
Nope.
I had horrible nightmares of a very thirsty Gwen coming onto me all night, over and over again and it was HORRIBLE!!! Like, you have no idea how distressed I was! And when I woke up I blamed lucy whole-heartedly and she very sympathetically laughed at my plight!
But yeah. My trauma was over. No more Torchwood. I’d suffered the night from hell. Now it was time to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and move on! My medication arrived that day, I started work on some new pet portraits and life went back to normal.
Until that night, when I saw the telltale sign of Lucy putting a video on and turning her iPad around and then there they were - the opening titles of Torchwood - and I wanted to jump out the boat and into the canal and swim as far away as possible!!!
But the episode she put on was Fragments. She said she wanted to show me Chris Chibnall’s finest episode. And y’know what? It was really pretty fucking good. And god, I was fURIOUS about that!!! When we went to bed she pulled a real double whammy though by putting on Adam - which became instantly one of my favourite episodes of ANYTHING, EVER. And I looked at my wife, shook my head, sighed and told her, ‘nice save, Lucy... nice save...’
Over the next couple of weeks we also had a major Doctor Who rewatch and revisited most of the New Who era, and - to my mixed feelings - she dotted various other episodes of Torchwood in around them. I was conflicted - after the Adam and Fragments double bill I was no longer in brain-screamy hatred territory. I did however keep having flashbacks to that godawful night. Plus i’d had several further nightmares about a thirsty Gwen and I did NOT like it! But by a couple of weeks into January I’d seen a fair bit of Torchwood. Some of them twice. 
Around this same time I’d started back in testosterone after not being able to afford it for the last 3 years. And then I started to notice I was getting some..... urghhhhhh..... unusual... and very uncomfortable feelings... about certain.... things... and characters.
And I started falling headlong into a great big gay panic :P
And here’s where the whole story becomes a HELL of a lot more embarrassing so i’m going to put it under a read more :P
Did ya click on that read more? Wh-why? there’s nothing to see here... especially not a long tale of shame and distress :P ugggghhhhhhh ok, FINE;
Basically there were two things happening at the same time. One was that I started to feel something I hadn’t felt in two decades. When I was a kid/teen we didn’t have the phrase ‘hyperfixation’ so I just called them obsessions. I always had obsessions, at any given point there was always this ONE THING that was my entire life. i lived it, breathed it, became it. It was my whole world, my whole personality, my focus, my lifeline. 9 times out of 10 it would be a tv show. Between the ages of 12 and 15 I would generally change my obsession about once a month. There were several ‘usual suspects’ that would cycle around over and over - Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halfway Across the Galaxy, Parallel 9, Out of this World... 
late in 1995 I became obsessed with The X Files and - bizarrely - that obsession just ran and ran. I was so used to my obsession changing around once every month that it was bizarre to still be absolutely hyperfixated on it almost 9 months later. And then, in June 1996, my longest ever obsession took its place, a little known uk fantasy show called Bugs. 
That... was my longest running obsession. And oh my god, was I ever obsessed with it. I have no idea how that one obsession kept going for 3 years. i’m sorry this is particularly wordy but this is kind of personal and I want to explain this right.
If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll probably known that one of the most defining moments of my life happened in the summer of ‘98. My cousin’s husband sexually assaulted me and my life spiralled into total despair. While that night was bad enough, the slow breakdown I went through over the course of the year that followed was harder to recover from. And eventually I came out the other side to some degree but i’d lost my love of three things that made me the person I was: writing, drawing and being obsessed. All three were so closely entangled with that night and surviving afterwards that it changed something that had always been a fundamental part of me.
I was no longer able to feel obsession. To hyperfixate the way I previously had. It was like something was broken inside me. And that was like a loss unto itself. It was SUCH a big part of me. It had been the only way i’d survived years of depression when I was young. My obsessions were what kept me afloat. 
In the last decade there are a few things that I called ‘obsessions’ and I thought were as close as I would ever get to the way I used to feel. I thought maybe it was because i’d ‘grown up’ (pah). That’s not to say that i wasn't thoroughly into Ashes to Ashes, FNAF and Homestuck, for example, because of course I was! I even called them obsessions, but there was something that just... wasn’t the same, no matter what I did.
And over time, I got back the other things I’d lost. I started writing my A2A fics in 2010 and Lucy helped me to start drawing again in 2018 and god, both times it was like finally having a piece of myself returned after so long! As for my ‘obsessions’, I just thought I wasn't able to feel the way I used to because I wasn’t a kid any more.
But then, I thought that about Christmas Eve too, and then lucy came into my life <3
Still, the last thing I was expecting was... for *those* feelings to start sneaking back in my life. Feelings I hadn’t been able to experience since the summer of 1998-9. And to my further distress I discovered that they were relating to a certain show that I’d had a traumatising introduction to on new year’s day...
Suddenly it was all I could think about; TORCHWOOD! TORCHWOOD! Aargghhhhh and yet I still hated it! It was still awful! And yet... at the same time... it was so goooooooood.... arghhhhh, every time we watched an episode there was a  knife twisting in my guts, reminding me that I hadn’t even felt these feelings over things we’d been HUGELY into... the fandoms we’d met through, the fandoms we discovered together. Nope. It was Torchwood that brought back my ability to hyperfixate! And I have SO MANY ANGRY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS!!!! Grrrrrrrrr!!
And believe me, I kept thinking it was going to stop and go away BUT IT HASN’T! It’s only gotten worse! And as of yesterday Torchwood officially became my second  longest obsession ever!!!
I. AM. FURIOUS!!!
It’s... urrghhhh I hate this fact but it’s almost like I have a crush on the *show*??!!! I... can’t explain it better than that??? It’s like, if I could throw Torchwood on the bed and make sweet, sweet love to it I would :P and yeah, i’m saying all of this tongue in cheek but i’ve had a fucking sky high libido ever since I went back on T (ohhhhh and believe me I am LOVING it!!! 💙💙💙) But it’s like... there are elements of Torchwood itself that are so fucking hot that I get.... reactions that I am SO FUCKING EMBARRASSED ABOUT for so many reasons deidjdhdggjhaaahhhhhhhhh
Lucy literally only has to say ‘Torchwood’ at me and I end up in a gibbering heap half the time - I am not even kidding!!!
This, however, is NOT the worst thing that happened as a result of Lucy making me watch this god damned show.
But honestly this post has gone on WAY too long already so i’m going to save that for part 2.
Oh god... my shame.... my total and utter shame....
To be continued :P
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frenchibi · 3 years
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hey, so i thought maybe you could tell us a little what you're currently interested in? ♥ like, what have you been doing during quarantine, are there any new shows you watched that you enjoyed a lot, did you maybe take up a new hobby or something? :)
Hello!! I did not forget this lovely message, I was just in no state to answer (who’d have thought that recovery from surgery is, y’know, taxing) BUT I’M BACK NOW and ohhhh do you know what you’ve unlocked by asking me this question...?? I cannot give you a comprehensive list but I can tell you a couple of the things that I got into during quarantine, and the things I am currently super passionate about! My memory is, uh, not great but thankfully I do journal and write down things so I am confident I can answer this for you :D (plus I do always love recommending things so - aaa??? Thank you for this ask????)
Putting things under a cut because I physically cannot chill but if tl;dr I want you to take away one thing from this it’s that everyone should read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Thoughts below.
(Also. I would love to go off about my interests more on here but am not sure what... shape that should ideally take? Text posts? IDK pls give me suggestions, help me out?? dfhasjkldf)
Movies
I have not seen many, but I can and will scream about The Old Guard over and over because... it was everything I never knew I needed in an action movie?? I don’t reblog many things about it anymore but I love love LOVED it!!
Also, upon recommendation by one of my friends from India, I have been delving into the world of Bollywood movies and WOW Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was so fucking good??? idk if it’s on Netflix in every country but it is in mine and I highly recommend it. It’s thoughtful, honest, emotional and shot absolutely gorgeously, and it also has that cheesiness that is just... so good... sometimes you just need the cheese y’know???
(Side note, 2020 was the year I saw Pride and Prejudice (2005) for the first time and I am a changed woman. It is now my ultimate comfort movie. Please see it if you have not, I cannot believe it took me this long. I saw it for the first time on an airplane (in january... a lifetime ago) and have seen it many, many times since.)
TV Shows
So, to everyone’s shock but especially my own, I have not really been into TV lately? I watched The Boys because my brother recommended it (it’s good, but gorey and pulls no punches, the R rating is deserved), and recently started watching Jujutsu Kaisen because my sister recommended it (I haven’t watched a new anime in like a year which is kinda wild to me? But I am enjoying this one - the opening SLAPS and what I’ve seen so far has been fun! Plus I’m watching it with my sister and I like sending her reactions xD),,, and that’s pretty much it for this category?? I am aware there is a LOT of good shit out there I just.. .don’t seem to have the attention span for multiple episodes of a Thing these days. Meh. I’m sure it’ll come back to me eventually ^^
Musical Theater
One of the main reasons I think I haven’t been big into TV is because my Musical Passion is in FULL SWING (haha get it). Probably because the only thing that has remained for me during this quarantine is my singing lessons (and lemme tell you... over skype, that shit is ROUGH but still better than not singing at all) and I have been obsessing over learning new songs and finding shows through recommendations and compilation videos on youtube... So.
Shows I listen to a lot these days include Starry, Anastasia, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, Come From Away (I made a post recently specifically about musicals, you should be able to find it under #French speaks) - specific songs in my range that I am currently learning and obsessing over include “Bring on the men” from Jekyll and Hyde, “The Mad Hatter” from Wonderland, “Show Yourself” from Frozen 2 (I liked it ok I DID), and “Go Tonight” from The Mad Ones (this one makes me cry... I’m making my sister duet it with me bc I can’t stop thinking about it).
Also, if you’re interested in hearing me sing things, head over to my instagram where I post covers (and also art)!!
(Musical people, I am curious to hear opinions about Great Comet, and also The Count of Monte Cristo - two shows I’ve been meaning to check out!)
Video Games
Listen. Animal Crossing New Horizons is awesome and I’m glad I have it (...give me Brewster back, Nintendo, or I WILL RIOT), but I have been branching out into other games for the Switch (might as well make this purchase worth it amirite) - current faves include Celeste (which is SO HARD but also SO FUCKING FUN) and Spiritfarer which I specifically bought to play at the hospital bc I knew I was going to be there for a few days, and let me tell you - best decision of 2020. Please watch the trailer if you haven’t heard of it, it’s GORGEOUS and beautiful and emotional and I loved every second of it. Both of these can also be purchased for PC and I think they are definitely worth the investment!!
In other news I’m back on my Stardew Valley bullshit. It’s just so calming.I revisit it a lot lmao
Books
So... I have been reading. A LOT. I read over 70 books this year, which for me is... average tbh? I have had some less productive reading months but overall I have torn through stuff and BOY do I have recommendations if you want them?? For the sake of brevity I will only mention a few here:
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space”. That is all. This was my first five star fiction book of the year and I will never be done screaming about it. There is a dedicated but smallish fandom here on tumblr and it deserves SO MUCH MORE. Please, please please. Everyone should read this damn book. It’s confusing in the beginning but I promise it’s worth it IT’S SO GOOD!! And also the sequel is out and it’s also confusing and SO GOOD!!!
Educated by Tara Westover. This is an autobiography and it’s one of those books that like. Stick in your mind for months after you’ve read it. It’s about how this woman escaped an abusive household that was religiously oppressive and also like... survivalist (prepping for the apocalypse) and avidly believed in conspiracy theories - by educating herself, working her way up to going to Harvard. Nothing I say could do the emotional impact of this book justice - and also just, the perspective this book gave me?? Incredible. Education is the most powerful tool and this woman grabbed it by the hair and did not let go and I was FLOORED. Everyone should read this. I don’t even usually read biographies but DAMN.
The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden.(Book 1 is called The Bear and the Nightingale). This is a bit of a slow burn type deal - it’s a retelling of a Russian fairy tale (I think?? Or like a folk... story? Something like that) and it is just. So magical. It’s not fast paced but it works up to FANTASTIC moments, the focus is on family and magic and change and “making your own way” and all three of these books were wonderful. It reminded me of Naomi Novic’s Uprooted and Spinning Silver (both of which I also loved back in 2019 and would highly recommend) and they are PERFECT winter reads if you’re looking for something to get cozy with. I liked book 1 well enough but books 2 and 3 knocked it out of the park. Fantastic. Loved them.
I have many more recs but this will do for now hahah
Music
Gonna keep this brief too - my music taste is all over the place, but here are some songs I have been obsessed with recently!! Beware of genre whiplash though because these are Very Different from one another (and different from the musical theater stuff above)
Factories - Autoheart (that bridge gets me every time, idk why. This is one I could have on repeat for hours and not get tired of it either. Something about it just gets me!!)
History Read - The Altogether (The lyrics!! Tbh the entire Silo album is GREAT, but this one is my fave. Their music is so... mellow, in the best way??)
Weather Man - Valley of Wolves (ok this one is just a banger. I’m a sucker for a good sing-along-able hook (that’s not a word. you get me though right) and this fucking DELIVERS. I also just think “I make these dark skies blue, I make these mountains move, let the rain come down, I’m pushing through.... [pause] ... ‘cause I’m the weather man” is such good execution of a concept?? That PAUSE GETS ME it’s just SO FUN?!?! idk man I like a good upbeat banger and this is that.)
I believe (get over yourself) - Nico Vega (this one is just a callout at myself tbh?? “you’re a fool” I AM and I needed to hear it?? It’s also SO FUN to sing!!! We love a banger.)
Kiss me you animal - Burn the Ballroom (mentioning this mainly because it reminded me, lyrically, of Gideon the Ninth and I need someone to confirm this for me before I go insane?? “everybody knows that home is where your teeth sink, love” - I mean c’mon??? Also it’s a banger. I do like some rock from time to time... and this also has a killer driving bassline. This is super fun to drive to, too!!)
((If we have overlap and anyone wants to exchange playlists with me - I am SO here for it. Always looking for new music!!! I mean it!!))
Youtube
Last and certainly not least... meet my newest hyperfixation!!! I have always loved watching video essays, and booktube videos, and arttube videos - and my current niche of favorite creators is the Polygon video team!! They made videos about video games and board games and anything gaming-related and I just. I’m only peripherally a “gamer(TM)” but I love anything and everything they create. (Also you don’t have to know much about video games to enjoy all of their content!! A lot of it is still accessible to Non-Gamers(TM) or casual gamers!) BDG is my new favorite creator, the Unraveled series he does on the channel is a work of genius - but I have also started watching their streams and older series and I am enjoying myself SO MUCH! I love boardgames so their series on them, Overboard, is so fun and entertaining (and I already know a bunch of games I want to buy based on seeing the gameplay), and it also made me invested in the other creators - particularly Simone, I would die for Simone?? And Pat? And Jenna? They each have their niche and they work really well together too and their videos are my Main Serotonin Machine in these trying times(TM), thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Also. If you’re already following me here and you are familiar with Polygon things I BEG YOU TO COME AND TALK TO ME ABOUT THEM because I am like, bursting, but I also don’t want to flood my dash with stuff that 99% of my followers are unfamiliar with y’know??
...I think I’m going to leave it at this - it’s already a lot!
But thank you once again for asking and for letting me Go Off about things I am interested in!! I just... I very often wish I could do this more, but I’m not sure how to go about it? Should I just do text posts about things?? Would that be interesting to anyone?? Or is that like, annoying? Should I start a review blog or something? dhfajkldhf I just want to talk about things that excite me, but whenever I’m here I often just stick to reblogging other people’s stuff... help?? What do y’all want to see??
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