#i'm excited about it

[bugsbenefit]

hellfire in s5, and how it's Really not looking good for the members

the hellfire club is, in my opinion, one of the most obvious set ups for s5 and i never see enough people acknowledge how blatant the show actually is with it. because it's a directly addressed ongoing issue that slowly worsens over time and directly threatens three main characters (Dustin, Lucas, and Mike), at Least

there's a clear structured progression of the threat getting worse, with a major part of the s4 Hawkins plot being only Jason and his team chasing Eddie down, and by the last episodes of the show the rest of the town sides with them and joins the objective. however, we never get any consequence of the town agreeing with Jason, aside form the kids parents getting reaction shots looking insanely worried. the only thing even resembling partisan participation is a dogwalker (the same man that agreed with Jason first and then caused every other member in the town hall to also agree) informing Jason and co about there being someone in the Creel house. a single character ratting someone out is not pay off for a scene that rallies the entire town with anger and fear. especially because he was the First one to agree with Jason, arguably the next reaction, in parallel to the town house scene, will have everyone else also involve themselves

and everything Jason actually said in the town hall looks INFINITELY worse by the end of the season because he not only died the same day (how odd that must look), the town was also hit by a severe earthquake. (and hell-gates open in town but we don't know how people will react to that yet, or if it will even be immediately obvious to them)

like. it's a Terrible look. and with Eddie being dead now, the main target that represented the hellfire club in s4 and got the primary share of blame is now officially un-prosecutable

s4 also goes out of it's way to associate Lucas, Dustin and Mike explicitly with the hunt on Hellfire, ages before the whole town gets involved

Lucas is put on edge by the basketball's team hostility towards his friends constantly and has to actively lie his way out of the line of fire multiple times. the basketball team is also looking for Dustin to question him about Eddie's whereabouts, even going to his house where a confrontation only doesn't happen because he's not home. and they even manage to go out of their way to drag Mike into it despite him being out of town, when Jason starts a conversation with Nancy specifically to threaten her and then asks about Mike right after

which leads to the other thing; not only are all the kids already on Jason's radar, he's also getting more and more direct with the fact that he doesn't just want to have a nice chat with them (culminating in actually physically attacking Lucas by the last episode)

and if them setting all of the kid members of hellfire up for a bad time wasn't obvious enough, it's also fascinating to see the posters of hellfire we get over the season also show a clear shift in focus

when we see the hellfire club year book photo for the first time the focus is on Eddie. he's who Jason sees as the main culprit and when we get a close up of the burning poster we see Eddie

but when we see the hellfire club photo again 4 episodes later the focus isn't on Eddie anymore. not in dialogue and not visually

the shot is from the Wheeler's pov (Karen's specifically), and the only part of the picture that's in focus is the far right corner, with Mike and Lucas. (makes sense that's her son that's currently being implicated in satanic murders). Eddie never gets unblurred, he's not who the audience is supposed to look at in this shot. verbally Jason is also explicitly blaming the whole club now. it's not just Eddie who's "crazy" and killed Chrissy, it's the whole club who's responsible (it's also very notable that he's handing out yearbook photos of the whole club, not just Eddie. a really distinct prop choice. everyone in town now not only thinks hellfire is directly responsible for multiple ritualistic murders, they also know Exactly who's in the club)

and looking back at the season in hindsight, there's actually more than enough instances that would make the members of Hellfire look kind of guilty, or shady at best, even if someone were to do some research. there's multiple instances of hellfire members lying to the basketball team about hellfire member's whereabouts which definitely doesn't make them look more innocent in the team's eyes. not only do Eddie's band members try to brush them off, Nancy pretends to not even know about Hellfire when Jason asks about Mike, and Lucas goes out of his way to keep Dustin and Eddie's locations from them by deliberately lying and sending them to wrong locations

and that's on top of the entire montage of Dustin and Mike trying to find a substitute player for a single game on the same day a student with no previous affiliation to Eddie Munson dies at his trailer? that looks Horrible in hindsight. especially with them asking pretty much every other student, from almost every club, while both prominently wearing hellfire shirts. if anyone actually remembers them and thinks about the events post Chrissy's death they could definitely make some assumptions

it's just bad looks all around. and that's not even mentioning how they have the potential to look even worse in s5. if it got out Lucas was with Max when she somehow died and broke all her bones? would look horrible. or Dustin now associating with Eddie's dad? and we don't even know how he'll fulfill Eddie's wish to "look after the little sheep"

and even Mike, who didn't even have the chance to attract suspicion post e1 due to being out of town has a whole thing going on with his image paralleling Eddie, with being the other DM and having his s4 style be directly in reference to Eddie's looks

while there's building hostility towards the hellfire members, and the focus (both visually and vocally) switches more to the members Other than Eddie, by the end of the season there just hasn't been a chance for the townsfolk to respond to Jason's speech yet. they all agreed with him, but everything immediately went to shit the same night. however, even the last few minutes of the show, that always have the most direct foreshadowing for the next season, include a shot focusing on the rise of religion and the fearmongering that started with Jason's speech

which serves as a great reminder that the entire town hall just agreed with Hellfire being a satanist cult they need to stop

s4 ends with the hellfire set up being one of the most explicitly obvious plot threads that are about to be a problem for multiple main characters in s5. like the few other obvious established about-to-be struggles: the gates opening, Vecna still being alive, Max being "gone"; we've gotten a full set up there but no payoff yet

and then there's obviously the question of what the people would even DO in s5? they all agreed that Hellfire needed to be stopped, so... what now?

on one hand there's the interesting concept of the town refusing to help the protagonists but they could also be acting as a hostile force against them

say anyone tried to warn the town about the upside down or it's creatures, the chances of people listening to them talk about actual "demons" and reacting in any positive way is probably near 0. even if you saw a Demogorgon nibble on your neighbour an hour ealier, would you really listen to someone you think intentionally opened the Hellgate that let the creatures through in the first place?

but then there's of course the active antagonistic angle they could also take. Jason was calling for Hellfire to be actively opposed and stopped, not passively. and the show Does go out of it's way to show the overcrowded weapons store in multiple shots post Jason-speech

we're supposed to know these people are armed going forward. whether they're buying them to go hunting, or wanting to go shoot Eddie Munson, the weapons are there now... also ignore the 7 separate hellfire wanted posters in the opening shot of the store alone 💀(it's actually 9, i didn't circle the two that are cut off in the bottom corner. that whole board is just plastered with that one photo)

(the implication of what the guns are for couldn't be more obvious if they tried. again, also the scene where Jason tries to intimidate Nancy and directly asks about where Mike is. also the scene where Erica and co try to hide from the basketball team members in the store. the scene features, guns, hellfire posters everywhere, and characters specifically asking about the whereabouts of a member while other people are actively hiding)

and the weapons could play out in a positive way in s5 too, say the lady from next door gets hands on involved and takes shots at the Demobats in her front yard

but the reactionary, scared, and angry town that blames a specific small group of people for everything that's happening could also lead to MCs having to actively worry about getting shot by someone they've seen at the supermarket for 10+ years on top of the supernatural threat

TLDR: re Hellfire, none of these members will have a good time in s5

Edit (because i forgot to include these images and am silly)

Hellfire even makes it on the local news by the end of the season

and in line with the focus shifting from Eddie to the other hellfire members, the news anchor then goes to say that Eddie Munson is presumed dead after the earthquake but that that isn't enough for the town. the news even mentions the conspiracy theory that the hellfire murders CAUSED the earthquake. so anyone who hasn't heard Jason's speech, now they're getting it from a "reputable" source too. call that high quality journalism, let's throw the local highschoolers under the bus

we're supposed to remember the fear of the "satanic cult killing children" that Jason spread to the town. it's still there. and it's not just in the local town hall anymore, its being broadcast on live television. so just in case you didn't catch wind of who caused a "gate to hell" to open in your suburban neighbourhood the first time, the news anchor thankfully tells you who everybody Says is responsible, it's the 14-18 year old satanist serial killers duh

#the hellfire set up for s5 being so obvious gets me okay #i'm excited about it #watching s4 you can really just see how it progressively looks worse for the members #i'm just curious which route they'll actually go with it #mike wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #st s5 #st s5 speculation #stranger things

[upsidedownwithsteve]

#i feel ALIVE #new wip #i'm excited about it #i think #i hope it stays that way i've missed writing so much guys

[simplyavatrice]

how do you solve a problem like ava silva? - chapter one

As she’s done billions of times (maybe an exaggeration but she’s done it a whole lot) Ava runs her hand from her head to her chest and then taps both shoulders before sliding down to her knees in the confession booth.

There aren’t a whole lot of benefits to being short, like when Sister Lilith puts her favorite cookies on top of the fridge with a sticky note on the freezer that just says Corinthians 6:19-20 that makes Ava roll her eyes so hard they nearly fall out of her head.

A benefit of being short is that she’s never grown so big that these confession booths feel crowded. Not like that flagpole she calls her friend Lilith, who always comes out of them with a tweak in her neck and a frown on her face.

Ava settles in and takes a breath, hands clasped together. “Bless me father for I have sinned, it has been sixteen days since my last confession.”

She waits, fighting with herself to keep her eyes closed.

“Go on, my child.”

“Oh,” Ava drops her hands and turns to try and look through the lattice separating them. “Father Maddox?”

He looks at her and sighs. “Good morning, Ava.”

“Hi! Sorry, I was…I thought this was Father Vincent’s booth.”

Through the lattice, she can see him trying not to smile - she’ll get him one of these days. “He is three booths down on your left.”

“Oh okay cool!” Ava starts to climb out but then stops herself. “Say, how are your plants? Are the succulents doing well?”

He nods with just a hint of excitement. “They are, they’ve enjoyed the warmer weather.”

Ava groans. “Gosh me too! I’m starting to think photosynthesis is just as good for people as it is for plants, you know? My moods have been better and…well my hands and face are getting pretty tan.” She leans in a little closer. “Also don’t tell Mother Superion but I pulled up my sleeves to my elbows yesterday and gave my forearms some sun.”

“Do not worry, my child - your secret is safe with me.”

“Ah, of course! This is a confession booth after all, duh.” She opens the door to the booth and starts to climb out. “I’ll come by and see your little guys when I get back from my new assignment okay? Don’t fall asleep in there.”

CONT ON AO3

#avatrice #avatrice fanfiction #nun!ava #doctor!bea #warrior nun #so this is just a fun little side story #a what if ava was a nun and bea wasn't but their personalities were still intact #i'm excited about it #a good way to balance out all the heaviness of the other ones <3

[sunshinediaz]

amanda I need to know about dick measuring. I need it like breathing

HAN i'm so glad you asked about that bad boy, teehee

it's a few paragraphs atm, but the idea of it is eddie's losing his mind over the way the harness cups buck's crotch to the point he says something along the lines of, "you've got a big cock, huh?" to buck when they're drunk at a bar with the team. buck flounders and says it's a normal size, and eddie whips his dick out and they measure!

there's nasty porn in a bar bathroom + frotting and maybe some just the tip action? i touch it when i'm In The Mood for filth, lmao

#i'm excited about it #britt's co-author too she just doesn't know #talk #exhuastedpigeon

[miniscule-meow]

Borrowed Time (1)

Synopsis: A size shifter (that doesn't know he's a size shifter) meets a borrower, (she also doesn't know he's a size shifter)

I wonder what could happen next.

Word Count: ~2.3k

Masterpost

Next Part (soon)

-*-

Dante has no idea what happened.

He was in the living room, and everything was normal. Then suddenly his head started pounding. He felt really hot and sweaty, and his muscles started aching ferociously. The pressure he felt all around him was immense. It felt like the universe itself was trying to squeeze him out of existence. He fell to the carpeted floor on his hands and knees gasping for air. When the pain subsided and he finally opened his eyes again, everything was very much not normal.

Dante looks up, and up, and up like he was trying to see the top of a skyscraper from the sidewalk in front of it. Except he's looking at the couch he was just sitting on. The now monolithic piece of furniture towers over him. The huge sneakers next to him are his own. His mind reels at the fact that moments ago, he was wearing them, he had kicked off, and now they dwarf him.

What is going on.  

He stares at his surroundings, eyes wide. This can’t be real, right now. It’s not physically possible! He crosses the massive living room, traveling under neath their gigantic coffee table and taking in the expanse of the gigantic room.

Suddenly, floor starts shaking. Slow rhythmic pulses pound across the floor, getting stronger each time. Then he sees him. His roommate, Tyler. His gigantic roommate, Tyler. His massive, unfathomably gigantic and heading his direction roommate, Tyler. The sight of him makes Dante’s knees feel weak, like they might give up on trying to support him any second now. This isn't physically possible. He thinks again.

His brain and his body are at odds with one another. His mind is spinning trying to rationalize what's going on in any way that makes sense. His body however fires on self-preservation instincts and next thing he knows he's running in the opposite direction. Logically, he has no reason to be afraid of his roommate, aside from the fact that his roommate looks like he's over a hundred feet tall. But he isn't acting on logic right now, his brain is still stuck on how big the couch is.

The thick carpet of the living room is not an ideal running surface. Also, he realizes that he really should vacuum more often, but that isn’t important right now. What’s important is his giant roommate is heading into the living room, each step shaking the ground more violently than the last.  Should he try to get his attention? Where is he going right now? Does he see me? Is it worse if he doesn’t see me? A million thoughts flood Dante's mind all at once. He stumbles, falling over and twisting to look up as Tyler, taller than a damn sky scraper continues to head straight for him. He doesn’t see him. Dante doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. If he see’s him they’d have to deal with the situation at hand and admit that this is really happening. But if he doesn’t then he might get stepped on, which ok- not being seen is worse. As soon as his body and his mind stop fighting he'll try to wave, or call out or something.

Then something stops him. Rather, someone stops him.

“Watch out, dummy!” a voice hisses suddenly, yanking him up from the floor where he was stuck gawking up at his strikingly large roommate. He stumbles after the stranger as she pulls him into the wall. She opens up a little door hidden in the floorboard that he had never noticed before, and they are now standing inside the wall of his apartment. He blinks, adjusting to the shift from light to dark. He’s met with an angry scowl fixed right on him. The scowl belongs to someone his size, his new size that is. Her dark hair is pulled back away though some wispy curls have fallen out and frame her face.

“What are- how are- who-” He stammers, still stunned and dizzy.  

“What the hell was that out there?!" Her voice is a harsh whisper. "Are you crazy or suicidal or something? You were practically asking that bean to see you.”

“B-bean…? What's—” he begins, but she isn’t having it. She places a heavy hand on his shoulder, pressing his back against the wall. I’m going to die here, inside the walls of my own apartment, aren’t I?

“Look bud, this is my turf, alright? I don’t know what community you came from before, but this isn’t like that. I work alone,” She practically growls.

“Wha-what? I’m sorry. What?? You’re- I- I’m—"

“The only reason I saved your ass back there is because if you get discovered then they’ll all be looking around for more of us, and It’ll blow my whole operation. I’ve got a good thing here, and I’m not about to let you ruin it for me,” she says, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Do you understand me?”

“I.. ye-" his first instinct is to just nod and go along with what she's saying, since he's being threatened and all. Or at least, even though she hasn't really drawn a weapon on him or anything, she seems pretty threatening. But, he really doesn't understand her at all. "No! No, I don’t know what’s going on!” His voice raises in pitch with his panic. “I’m sorry, but… what! We are so tiny! We're tiny?? You are- I- I am! How- who are- what are… how is any of this real?” He feels like everything he has ever known about reality is slipping through his fingers.

“Um… Are you good, dude?” She raises her eyebrows, looking at him like he’s the weird one. “What? Have you never seen another borrower before?” She looks him up and down, he feels incredibly judged in this moment.

“No? uh… What’s a borrower?” He asks, her words, in this context are complete nonsense to him.

“Sheesh, did you fall and hit your head or something?” She looks at him incredulously. “You. Me. Borrowers,” she says gesturing between them, speaking slowly. “Them. Out there,” she points towards the world outside of the wall, “Beans. Big, mean, scary. Any of this ringing any bells for you?”

“Borrowers… beans… ye-yeah I got it.” Ignoring her patronizing tone, he really has no clue what she’s talking about, but he’s trying to follow.

“Alright,” she says after staring at him for a long moment. “You must have like a serious concussion or something,” She releases her hold on him to run a hand across her face. "Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me," she says, heaving a sigh.

“I-I…. I..  No. Look, I don’t belong here. Something… something is horribly wrong. I-” he begins, his brow furrowing, trying to figure out what really happened here.

“Yeah, you’re telling me. I was serious about the whole, this is my turf thing. BUT I will let you stay with me for a little while. I’m serious, just for a little while. Just until you figure out,” she waves a hand towards him, looking him up and down once more, “all of that. And don’t think that you’re going to stay here for free, alright? You have to pull your weight, I’m not just going to let you eat all my supplies, you hear me?” She starts walking off, turning over her shoulder to see he’s still unmoving and staring at her, looking like a fish out of water. “Come on! I’m doing you a favor, don’t make me rethink it.”

“O-okay,” is all he can say as he follows her through the walls of his apartment. He can’t get over the fact that they are literally inside the walls. There is a tiny person living in the walls. How long has she been here? Why? How? His head hasn’t stopped spinning. He leads her up a staircase. Is this safe? He wonders, but she strides up the steps confidently. Did she build these? He questions as he makes his way up behind her. Out of all the questions he has his brain just keeps repeating: What is happening? and How is this real? Each piece of new information he receives just turns out to be more confusing than the last.

“Alright. This is my place,” she says, pushing open a makeshift door and flipping a switch, illuminating a string of battery-operated fairy lights.

“Oh wow.” He mumbles under his breath, staring slack-jawed at the space. It looks like a one-bedroom studio, but all of the furniture is made out of different gigantic objects.

In one corner, there’s a kitchen set up. A legit kitchen, with counters and everything. Except, instead of being made of some kind of stone, the countertop is an old wooden ruler. He sees bottle caps and guitar picks that she must use as bowls and plates, a thimble as a large cup. Metal bars lattice over a section of her counter, there’s a tealight underneath and some matches nearby. That must be her stove. There is a basin of clean water in the corner, and a box that must be something akin to a pantry. There’s a table with two chairs in the center of the room.

“This is incredible,” he says awestruck. “Did you build all this furniture?” he asks looking across her room. Her bed is along the far wall. The bedframe used to be a box of playing cards. There are four posts made from empty pens, and a canopy of fabric draped over her bed. He doesn’t know what the mattress is made of as it’s covered by thick blankets and pillows. The wall behind the bed is covered in drawings, and pretty stamps stuck to the wall.

“Where else would I have gotten it from?” She asks, shaking her head, “You are so weird.”

“Sorry. I’ve just never seen anything like this. How long did this take you?”

“A long time, I don’t know. I’ve been working on it for as long as I lived here and I’ve been here for uh, three years maybe?” She guesses, shrugging. That’s before we moved in. He realizes.“Anyway, down to business. What supplies are you working with?”

“Supplies,” he parrots, lost again. He’s still waiting for things to suddenly start making sense.

“Will you stop doing that?” She asks, frustrated.

“Doing what?” He asks.

“That! You just keep repeating what I say, but as a question. Come on. Keep up. Your borrowing supplies. What do you have?”

“I don’t… I don’t have anything,” he says lamely.

“How are you still alive, dude.” She raises her brows, looking him over. Her nose crinkles as she openly takes him in for the first time in the light. "You've got some fancy clothes," she says in such a way that he's not sure if 'fancy' is a positive or negative assessment. He’s wearing a black hoodie with a tuxedo printed on the front dark jeans, and pair of socks. He had kicked his shoes off before his body decided to randomly condense, so those didn’t get to come with him. He’s just thankful that the rest of his clothes changed size with him. He has no clue how any of this happened, in his mind none of this should be possible. So, he is just going to be thankful that he wasn’t left without clothes, and he’s not going to think too hard about it.  

“What are they, doll clothes?” She asks. He doesn’t know how to answer that, so he makes a vague sort or nod, sort of shrug gesture. She takes it though, nodding to herself, “You have to be careful with that kind of stuff. Sometimes they keep track of it and would notice if it went missing.”

“Right,” he says nodding slowly, looking down at his outfit, then looking to see what she’s wearing. Her outfit is… strange. It’s probably just as strange to him, as his outfit is to her. She’s wearing a dark knitted cloak over a pair of overalls and a simple t-shirt. The overalls were obviously patched together from several different fabrics. The stitches are made of thick thread. They're just as much a part of the design as they are functionally holding the garment together. The reality of the scale of things around here inescapable.

 “Alright. No supplies,” she sighs and goes over to her shelves of mis-matched stuff lining a whole wall. Paperclips, coins, pen nubs, pencil lead, rubber bands. There are threads hanging from small pegs, piles of fabric, weird tools that she must have custom made, because he doesn’t recognize them. There’s a roll of washi tape next to a small pincushion that looks more like an ottoman, it’s holding needles and thumbtacks. An entire x-acto knife leans against the wall like a spear, the blade wrapped in a fabric sheath. It's stood up next to a small bundle of hot glue gun sticks. It’s mind-boggling how much stuff she has collected. “Have a seat,” she says, waving an arm over to her table absently.

He follows her directions, taking a seat at the table in the center of the room. Upon closer inspection he sees that it used to be a cork coaster that she’s affixed legs to. The chairs are empty spools of thread with cushions and backs added to them. He sits down slowly, testing that it can actually handle his weight, but it seems sturdy enough.

“My name is Dante, by the way.” He says, watching her pick over the things on her shelves. She collects objects into her arms confidently, like she knows exactly what they are meant to be used for.

“I’m Vivienne,” she says dropping her armful of random objects on the table in front of him. “Let’s make you some equipment, shall we?

#g/t #giant/tiny #g/t writing #g/t community #size shifting #borrowers #my writing #giant #tiny #giant tiny #we all see where this one's going yeah? #yeah #i'm excited about it

[cyazurai]

I have to spread the word of a game I found: it's called Lakeburg Legacies, and it's a cross between colony management and dating sim. Basically, you're starting with one person and have to build up your city through marrying in more people, having babies, and inviting people to live there. It's a lot more in depth than that too, you have to pay attention to what the people are good at/want to do when you put them in jobs, pay attention to personalities and hobbies when matchmaking, pay attention to needs and wants, pay attention to children's aspirations when you sign them up for apprenticeships, etc etc.

There's only a demo up on Steam right now but it's a good chunk of gaming before it cuts you off. (I'm just wanting to share this with y'all because I feel other simmers would be interested in a game like this.)

#nonsims #lakeburg legacies #I'm excited about it #my first person ended up with so many divorces i felt bad haha #but i had one couple so in love they had 3 kids and only ended up apart when the first one died

[chrisrin]

For your gemstuck au what if dirk cracked his gem and one of the splinters became hal?

i have some REALLY fun ideas for Hal and Dirk that i DO want to show/illustrate eventually so i'll just keep you waiting on that :3

#chris talks #same vibe as what you're thinking but the details are a bit more.... mmmmm... complex. #i'm excited about it

[aphrogeneias]

tomorrow is my last day of work before summer break and hopefully with it my will to write comes back along with my will to live and i'll be able to finish this coffee shop au one-shot with our favorite cozy boy steve :')

#it's not really an au it's more like post canon #i'm excited about it #luiza.txt

[apricote]

anyway i really LOVE the voice acting of the male dream visitor, i could listen to that voice all day long it's so soothing

#i made sirius' guardian a woman but she hasn't appeared yet #i'm excited about it #💬

[scooplery]

just submitted a job application................

#evil eye emoji #i'm excited about it

[mallowstep]

queues a little post. why is my inbox so scary to me lately.

#mine #don't ask me!! #i don't know! #i'm like #okay is it time to answer asks? #and my brain screams NO #in good news #i've got a mothstar piece that's almost done #needs a few more scenes and some editing but #it's in good shape #i'm excited about it

[imklare]

So I'm working as a clean-up artist for a show that'll come out on Netflix sometime probably next year,sooo if y'all wanna give it a looksie when it's done 👀 I will surely let you know

Although it's in italian u can still watch it with subtitles

#I'm excited about it #can you tell?

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

#good omens #gomens #good omens s2 #aziraphale #crowley #ineffable husbands #my art #made with stolen time over the course of two extremely busy months but I'm so glad its done #Aziraphale's reading a first folio obviously #cones of dunshire voice: it's about the DETAILS #extremely excited to introduce everyone to this song about DEEPLY YEARNING for someone who annoys the hell out of you #its a banger

[s0ngsandstars]

I might've perhaps fixed a number of my computer issues so I might be able to do more digital art so maybe I might post more?

#Clove Posts #I'm excited about it #My computer hasn't randomly stopped working on me in a few days now #Hoping that continues! #my AMD Graphics thing refused to look for updates for anything related to it #so I got an installer and it updated like 5-6 whole things #and woo

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

#obligatory disclaimer that this really really obviously is not universal #I do live in a major progressive city #there's definitely a level of a liberal bubble effect here #but it's still really powerful to see it #because even in a major liberal enclave there were so many limits on the gender roles and homophobia etc. etc. fronts #and also the limits of the oppressive weight of obligatory teen apathy lol #seriously go gen z. so glad you guys decided cringe is dead. I love you for that so much #and I love it for you #not news #life #hope #homophobia #sexism #teens #teenagers #progress #gen z #btw if it wasn't clear I'm a #millennial #plush toy #plushie #squishmallows #build a bear #stuffed animal #like the idea of almost any teenager much less teenage boys #saying IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS #that they are excited about their STUFFED ANIMALS #when I was a teenager #????? #cannot imagine that ever happening.

[themundanemudperson]

Neil Gaiman just answered an ask I sent him (!!!!!!!)

I sent it not thinking he'd answer, but I wanted to ask a question and figured I'd give it a shot

#neil gaiman #!!!! #i'm excited about it