I am to see to it that I do not lose you

find me on Ao3 I'm a fan of being a fan of things ✨ middle aged millennial (in my 30s counts right), queer as fuck, open heart but hardening spine, lover of stories, learning to stop intellectualizing my emotions

[preacherboyd]

Captain Flint Black Sails | I.

[catgirl-kaiju]

But, even though Stanley had stopped playing the game, the narrator decided to follow him to his Tumblr dash, the least likely place Stanley, the narrator, or anyone else of good taste and sound mind would find themselves.

Stanley then found a poll. A powerful poll. A poll with two options that were so incredibly enticing that he struggled to make up his mind.

However, ultimately, he chose Option 1.

Option 1

Option 2

Voting ended onJan 9, 2025

[catgirl-kaiju]

"Oh no!" thought Stanley, "I've chosen Option 2 by mistake! It's a shame I can't change my vote on Tumblr polls."

But, as luck would have it, the next post was a second posting of the same poll! Second chances don't come along every day, Stanley was just that lucky. He moved his mouse over to the poll, confident in his choice. His path was clear. Redemption was only a click away.

Stanley chose Option 1

Option 1 (Awesome)

Option 2

Voting ended onJan 12, 2025

[catgirl-kaiju]

Stanley, I really don't understand what you're getting out of continuing to ruin my stories outside of the game. There's no alternate endings for you to unlock, no achievements for you to get. What compells you to-

Wait... oh! Yes! I think I see what the problem is here! You don't know for sure that it's really me, your friend, The Narrator! I'm sure if you knew that it was really me, and not this woman whose blog I'm posting from, you'd trust me enough to take my directions. A simple communication problem!

Just give me a moment, Stanley, and we'll get this all sorted out!

[thecoolnarrator]

There we go! See, Stanley! It's me! Your friend, The Narrator!

Now that we've got that sorted out, let's take things from the top!

This is a story about a man named Stanley. Stanley was scrolling on his Tumblr dashboard one day, searching for something worthy of wasting his precious time, when he found a poll. A powerful poll. A poll with two options that were so incredibly enticing that he struggled to make up his mind.

However, ultimately, he chose Option 1

Option 1

Option 2

Voting ended onJan 13, 2025

[thecoolnarrator]

...

Stanley, I thought we had something... I thought after all these years you'd learn to trust me. Are we even friends?

Stanley, if we're friends, choose Option 1

Option 2

Option 1

Voting ended onJan 14, 2025

[stanleystrustworthybestie]

I really think you should choose Option 1, Stanley!

[stanleysreassurancebucket]

I can assure you that Option 1 is the way to go, Stanley!

[thecoolnarrator]

I know they're your friends at least, Stanley. Why not listen to your friends? We only want what's best for you, Stanley.

[thecoolnarrator]

Well... at least I know where we stand, Stanley...

...

Who needs to be friends anyway...

I'm sure it's just as nice being familiar, but emotionally distant, coworkers who may seem like friends at the office, but don't even go out to the pub together after their shift. Come to think of it, I don't even know you that well.

It sometimes feels as though you are some kind of bland, blank slate who other people can easily project personality traits onto, despite having few to no discernable traits yourself. Almost as if there are potentially hundreds or thousands of different versions of "Stanley" that exist purely within the minds of others, despite there being nothing but a featureless husk that stands before us. Is "Stanley" nothing more than a mere shadow on a simulated rendering of a wall in a meticulously constructed game taking place within a fictional cave full of robots and talking rabbits?

That can't be true, can it? Surely you must have some interiority.

Yes, I'm sure of it! There must be something resembling a personality rattling around in there. Perhaps if I came to know you better, we could truly become friends!

Oh, how does one get to know other people better? Let me see...

...

Ah ha! Yes! Yes, I think this will do the trick!

Stanley, I'm going to ask you a series of questions designed to dig deep into the human psyche; to unlock the truths at the root of your being. I will be uncovering the very essence of "Stanley" locked tight within you. Perhaps you can even come to know yourself better as I glimpse the very shape of your soul. Are you ready? My first question is:

Stanley, what is your favourite colour?

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Purple

Black

Brown

White

Grey

Pink

Option 1

Voting ended onJan 22, 2025

I'll give you plenty of time to think about your answer. After all, you've got to dig deep within yourself, Stanley.

[thecoolnarrator]

Your favorite colour is... Option 1? That's not even a colour, Stanley, I-

Wait...

Are you trying to tell me... that we are friends after all? Am I interpreting that right?

Stanley, are we friends?

Yes, you're my friend.

No, you're my BEST friend. :)

I think we're more than friends, actually. ;)

No, I just didn't want to pick a colour because I enjoy being a little stinker.

Help, I'm experiencing a life-threatening emergency!

Voting ended onJan 31, 2025

[starkjoy]

listen. i knew heated rivalry would be a success. i too was bewitched by hudson and connor’s absolutely bonkers chemistry, the quick spreading word of mouth, and hbo max’s last minute us distribution. i too binged the book in one day in preparation. i knew there’d be a cult fandom, but holy shit. they really broke containment. they hit the fucking pentagon. unprecedented levels of stans and locals alike are fujoing tf out…the girls and the gays are losing their minds in equal measure…stan twt and gay porn twt stand in solidarity, leaving hundreds of thousands of likes on ilya’s ass, shane’s arch, and heartwrenching ethel cain fan edits. do hudcon know their performances and chemistry are so fucking insane they’ve united entire communities? we’ve prayed for times like these. yaoi world tour. woke is so back baby

[lustcannibalism]

I thought everyone was against ai in majority but these bitches are using ai to make their ship kiss and it’s getting thousands of likes and engagement

[lustcannibalism]

COMMISSION AN ARTIST IN YOUR PRICE RANGE

[lustcannibalism]

DIY that shit 👍🏻

[mikimeiko]

Black Sails | 2x09. XVII

[wizardarchetypes]

thinking about the time also with some former roommates where one of them half jokingly was like "man i love monday because the kitchen is always spotless because Story cleans it on sunday" and i was like "what are you talking about" and they were like "you deep clean the kitchen every sunday?" and i was like "? no i don't i have absolutely no idea what you mean."

we went back and forth for 30 seconds and it got awkward really fast because it turns out all my other roommates thought i just had a compulsive need or some sort of desire to deep clean the kitchen every sunday and they just left me to it.

when in reality i was meal prepping for the entire week every sunday and when i finished i cleaned up after myself obviously—wiped the counters down, scraped gunk off the stove, scrubbed the sink, and swept the floor.

took me 10 minutes but always left it looking great.

then i didn't use the kitchen the whole rest of the week because i'd just grab my prepped meals in the morning and go out for all-day fieldwork.

but apparently nobody else ever cleaned up after themselves at all when they cooked. like they'd just leave food on the stove and counters and drop shit on the floor etc. and not clean it up so they thought every monday morning the kitchen was "deep cleaned" simply bc there wasn't old food on every surface.

i was like, "...........i've noticed the kitchen is always messy when i use it on sundays but i've always figured someone just used it and didn't get around to cleaning it up yet and i didn't mind because i'm always about to make a mess anyway............y'all just use the kitchen like that all week?"

and one of the guys (very funny, i liked him) looked around and realized I was the only woman* (*closeted at the time) living there and he went "this is really bad, like, optics wise."

[wizardarchetypes]

"I love it when you deep clean"

[elodieunderglass]

No this isn’t good enough…… we need the best of The Boss/The Big Man on our dashes today.

Dip the little boss Clarence

GO FOR IT OLD MEN

[elodieunderglass]

Oh there’s one in the middle that isn’t a smooch. Well. I guess it still works

[elodieunderglass]

Fine! Okay!

He was elemental in my life and losing him was like losing the rain!

[vilecrocodile]

very funny to me when people act like animal farm and 1984 are revolutionary anti government texts that the Powers That Be dont want you to read when they have literally been a part of every standard middle/highschool english lit cirriculum in the usa and beyond for decades. precisely because theyre such convenient primers to propagandize that Commies = Bad. the government is quite literally making kids read them

[leviathan-supersystem]

also, animal farm is not just anti-communist, but anti-revolution in general. the whole point of the story is if you overthrow your oppressor the new order will just become the same as the one it replaced! the story offers no suggestion of how the animals could have overthrown the farmer without the pigs becoming exactly like them, it just seems to begin and end with "never overthrown your oppressor because you'll end up right back where you started anyways." bleak and ugly story.

[therosielord]

Not to be super English major about it, but Animal Farm was NOT an “anti-revolution” story. According to Orwell, it was inspired specifically by the Russian Revolution that led to the Stalinist regime. The story of animal farm is essentially what happened to the Russian people: they had a revolution against the tyrannical ruling class, only for the very people who had promised them freedom to turn into tyrants themselves.

The moral of the story is not “don’t have a revolution,” it’s that you should always be suspicious of those who promise you this utopian idea of freedom while still aiming to maintain power. The pigs never wanted to actually make everyone free, they just wanted to be the ones in charge. The novel details every small instance of the farm sliding further and further into fascism until it’s too late for anyone to do anything about it.

And 1984 doesn’t have much to do with communism at all. It’s about totalitarianism and fascism. There’s nothing pro-capitalist about the book. A totalitarian government like Big Brother’s could exist in either a capitalist or communist society. The point is the control they have over their people, and how important the flow of information is to that control.

George Orwell literally risked his life fighting fascists, so I think it’s pretty unfair to reduce his books to “anti-commie” propaganda. He was intensely critical of any state that maintained too much power over its people, and at the time, one of the worst examples of that was the recent communist revolution in Russia, which deposed a monarchy to install a dictator in its place.

[pleasestopthese]

orwell didn't pick up a gun to shoot fascists in spain alongside anarchist revolutionaries and write The book on it just so y'all can pretend the man favored inaction and the status quo.

[whetstonefires]

1984 notoriously got banned in the US for being anti-capitalist and in the USSR for being anti-communist

[microplaid]

[lichfucker]

[image description: bust portraits of Madi and Max from Black Sails. Madi has her head slightly tilted, looking confident, and Max is staring neutrally forward. end id]

[sudanese]

[alunaloverworld]

[bodyfeeling]

op turned off reblogs but i want this post on my blog

[zzoupz]

I know basically nothing about tarot cards but I absolutely need to make this a reality

[expertpedestrian]

[lilyblisslys]

insane comparison, thank you Guillermo

[cryptotheism]

hi yes hello what the fuck is metrosexual lmfao

It's hard to explain to zoomers just how insanely homophobic the early 2000s were. If you were male, and like, washed your hair regularly, people would call you a faggot.

So, dudes who washed their hair and wore button ups developed the term "metrosexual" which meant "I care about my appearance but I am attracted to women and don't have sex with men."

[cryptotheism]

And not just "oh people called you gay to be mean" like they literally thought you were homosexual and hiding it. Women would literally be like "damn, I was super attracted to him, but I heard he wore shorts more than twice in a week, so I guess he must like men."

[cottoncandylesbo]

you couldn't even wear a scarf. the scarf made you gay.

[respectissexy]

If you are a tumblr user in the year of our lord 2025 you could be forgiven for thinking "metrosexual" means a person who wants to fuck cities.

[prettiestcaptain]

Get to know me meme: [5] favourite tv shows ↳ “Fuck you, Jack.”

[meatdiaz]

genuinely i think everyone would be so much happier if we simply accepted that fanfiction isn’t supposed to be realistic at all, it’s just supposed to make you happy. ​these freaks are currently 20k words into pining for each other while living under the same roof and working the same job, fuck realism tbh