I don't think you're dumb for not liking tloas. but I also don't get the people who say it's objectively bad, or lyrically a step down, or [insert critique on the quality here]. it's a taylor swift album, which means it simultaneously sounds like her *and* like nothing she's ever done before, and the natural consequence of her always reinventing her sound is that every album is gonna hit differently for everyone. some albums don't really resonate for the current version of you, and some might not resonate for *any* version of you. personally I'd put tloas near the middle of my album rankings; while there's 3-4 songs on there that I have on repeat, I haven't listened through the whole thing since release night, even though I still do that fairly often with midnights. but that doesn't mean tloas is a worse album than midnights—it means I personally relate less to dreaming about a driveway with a basketball hoop than ruminating on the ghosts of my past while staring at the ceiling 😂
honestly this is so well put and makes so much sense
re: the dogs howling at the intro to New Romantics: do they howl roughly the same amount for the original as taylor’s version or is there a difference?
it’s actually only the og version, rly no discernible reason why
something good/positive: This is Toby! he started his life as a street dog and ended up in the county animal shelter when he was two weeks old, weighing less than a pound. now he flits back and forth between my lap and his self-heating electric bed whenever he pleases, has a favorite brand of peanut butter (and flatly refuses all others), sleeps at night in the crook of my partner's arm, and has learned that sticking his tongue out gets him whatever he wants, so he does it constantly.
In other words: Even if it looks bleak right now, hang in there. There are beautiful, fantastic things waiting for you in the future. Life can, and will, get better beyond your wildest dreams. 💖
HI TOBY, ANGEL!!!!!!!!! this is so lovely and Toby is SUCH a King. thank you for taking time to send this and sharing all of this with me, it really brightened my day/night. I'm sending you and Toby and your partner lots of love! Give Toby a snuggle from me! Whenever my cat wants something he just knocks things down until he gets it lol. LOVE YOU!
Okay!! My potatoes ❤️ Tater Tot is the brave orange boy and Chip is the gangly sweetheart. I adopted them as a bonded pair at 10 months, they're 2 years old now. The one of them on the piano is kitten-them.
For the ask game — may I humbly request Zukka + “You don’t have to stay” ? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻
For this prompt game!
“You don’t have to stay,” Sokka says, taking a deep breath and fighting back the stinging heat behind his eyes, his fancy new shoes squishing unpleasantly with gunky basement-floor water and his favorite pants probably getting ruined and tonight was supposed to be fun and perfect and sexy and instead it’s awful and—
“I know,” Zuko says, tossing down a roll of paper towels from the top of the basement stairs that Sokka reflexively catches before it smacks him in the face, his gold eyes going wide before he ducks quickly away, muttering something about towels.
“Fuck, this is just—” Terrible, horrible, the worst timing of his fucking life, of all times for the sub pump to back up it chooses now, when he’s about to— “Ridiculous,” he says, trying to force a laugh and casting around for something high enough off the ground to put the paper towels on because they…really aren’t going to be enough.
“You don’t have to stay,” he says when Zuko reappears with towels, wincing when he notices Zuko’s nice, lovely clothes traded out for a pair of Sokka’s ratty sweats.
“Okay,” Zuko says, lips pursed as he eyes the steadily widening pool of water. “Should we get stuff off the floor?”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Sokka groans, tossing the towels down as some flimsy stop gap of a barrier and squeezing his eyes shut as something twists in his chest when he goes to pick up the first cardboard box to find it already sopping and soaked through and fuck, he can’t even remember what’s in here but it’s probably ruined. “You don’t have to be here for this.”
“Hm,” Zuko grunts as he hefts up a box, casting around before shoving it on top of the washing machine and leaving a wet dirt-streak behind that makes Sokka’s stomach drop.
“Fuck, I’m so sorry—I can’t believe this is happening, it’s so—you don’t have to deal with this, it’s disgusting, and we were supposed to—” Well, Sokka had hoped for a lot of things, tonight. “You don’t have to—”
“Sokka,” Zuko cuts in, sharp enough to grab Sokka’s attention up off the dirty stain on his shirt. “I know,” Zuko says firmly, brow furrowed. “You don’t have to keep saying it.”
“Just,” Sokka flounders, “This isn’t what we planned, we were supposed to—”
“And life doesn’t always go as planned,” Zuko shrugs, like it’s that easy, like it doesn’t matter, like— “That doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere, right?”
Sokka opens his mouth and stalls out, throat suddenly tight and empty.
“Okay?” Zuko presses, somehow gentle and firm at the same time. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says as he eases the box out of Sokka’s hands, setting it down on a chair before grabbing at Sokka’s wrist, that determined-focused look on his face like he gets when he’s saying one thing but trying to make Sokka understand what he means because he doesn’t know how else to put it, and—and—
“Oh,” Sokka finally says, the word coming out small, his voice shaking in a way he doesn’t want to show but also…but also in a way he maybe doesn’t have to hold back?
“You don’t have to make it perfect for me, Sokka,” Zuko says, searching his face before giving him one of his quick, flashing little smiles. “It’s already perfect, just because it’s use,” he says, sweet and simple and devastating and almost shy as he leans in for a quick kiss that sets Sokka’s head buzzing, spinning, Sokka standing there feeling quietly stunned and warm as Zuko goes back to shifting boxes. Feel like he can just be for the first time…in he doesn’t know how long, doesn’t remember a time when he could just let go like that, but—
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Zuko says without looking up, amused, and Sokka huffs out a shaky laugh before sucking in a deep breath, then another, feeling more solid with each one and looking around the mess, his panicky thoughts finally tripping toward something useful—turn off the water, disconnect the pump, call Bato for his shop vac.
He can’t actually stop right now, he actually needs to take care of this, sooner rather than later. But…it doesn’t have to be perfect, maybe. To still be okay.
good luck with your date!!!!! a meteor shower date sounds so fun ✨
thank youuuu im so excited, i've put together a lil snack picnic (got a large thermos just for this help lol) fingers crossed the weather's gonna cooperate, it's been stormy the past few days 💔
Re: romancing the Grim Reaper in The Sims: It’s actually possible just using console cheats. You have to unassign this custom trait he has called “is_grim_reaper”. Once you do that, he loses the deep voice and the floating walk and just becomes a regular romanceable dude with a cloak he can never take off. You can reassign the trait later (or assign it to any other sim—which is fun, because then they get the voice and floating walkstyle!). I just wish they’d made it possible to romance him without cheats. I think you could in previous games
Oh damn, that's super cool! When I first picked up the sims 4, I tried to play it fully without cheats (yeah, nothing I could've ever done in the sims 2 I was sooo bad at it), but I've been starting to get into the cheat game, and this seems like such a fun cheat to give people the grim reaper ability👀 (I wouldn't know about the voice tho haha, I never play with sound XD)
You just saved me a lot of time tho because I had just started trying to romance the grim reaper in one of my recent games and it's good to know my efforts would be fruitless before I spend too much time trying😂
