❛ here, let me give you a hand. ❜
🙶 this thing’s broken beyond repair. 🙷 shoulders rise and fall, she wasn’t talking about the device in her hands. this barbie didn’t have any expectations and somehow still winded up disappointed. the path for fame seemingly built with sea sand – and she’s wearing high heels. slowly & steadily falling down, not grounding into reality but deep inside her own fears and terrors. 🙶 oh. oh! you meant this. 🙷 a bright smile flashed his way, automatic & industrialized. slender digits click on all buttons once more, hoping for the best, but to no avail. 🙶 i stand by what i said. i think i just bought a defective one. 🙷 a stupid walkman was slid towards him, whether eddie fixed it or not, it didn’t matter.
when curiosity doesn't kill you, other external factors will work on that. this barbie was supposed to end up in california, to fix the problem, but little did she knew before she embarked on this suicide mission that nothing will go according to plan. weird barbie explicitly told her : drive the car, row the boat, fly the rocket, ride the bike, drive the van, ride a snowmobile and finally rollerskate into the real world. pretty simple, actually. in theory, that is. alas, at some point when she was driving the van, earth quacked beneath her, though she mistaken it for a van problem – that was seismology barbie's field of expertise, not hers. she was just actress barbie. in just a few seconds, she landed on the pavement, knees scratched at impact. as soon as she batted her lashes to see the real world, anguish takes over barbie's frame as she watches in horror at what the real world looks like.
there's thick smoke surrounding the area and somewhere not too far in the distance something seemed to burn. everything seemed to stay still : time, nature, even the doll. she doesn't know how to react at first, therefore she takes a few to take in all that she sees and feels and experiences. the real world is an odd place, she thinks to herself, maybe that's why i had to come here. that thought alone leaves shivers down her spine, knowing all too well she wasn't some superhero ; she was just actress barbie. her only role in the world was to inspire little girls that they can become actresses too. she can't save the world. not if it's set ablaze anyway. the picture perfect smile upon her countenance begins to fade as a sentiment started to dig at her chest – must've been the scorching fire nearby reacting with the plastic. another thing to worry about. but barbie can't just give up, she hasn't even tried to do anything yet. she was stuck there, in the middle of nowhere, with no other living being in sight, scared at what she was seeing. if that was a movie set, it surely was realistic.
taking a deep breath – and quickly coughing it back out –, barbie finally moves from where she initially landed. one step after another, glancing all around her. she was looking for someone (anyone) that could help clear things out for her. she's not yet aware that she hasn't completed all the easy steps weird barbie has told her ; hopefully, she'll get there, at some point. and she walks, dragging her plastic frame forward, away from the source of warmth. she's glancing around the houses, but all lights are cut out – the residents must be sleeping, she can't disrupt them. and she walks. it's been for maybe half an hour, though it felt like forever and more to barbie, until she finally landed her eyes upon someone in the distance. she jogs towards the silhouette, hope twinkling inside.
" hi there, can you tell me what happened? " ask and the answer shall come – or wait, because ken will always show up to the rescue. though this wasn't barbieland. and ken didn't join her. she shakes her head, trying to brush off that dreadful thought – that she's alone and she might never find her way back home – with a slight smile upon her visage to @shadowedvales. " because this world seems like it's falling apart. and if that's the case, tell me what can i do to save it. " she's confident in her illusions, but she has to start somewhere. losing all hope would be like admitting defeat before even trying.
as 90% of desktop users have probably found out, today @staff released an update that for some insane reason COMPLETELY remodels the dashboard to replicate twitter's. this is of course in the wake of numerous other thoroughly hated changes and a continued refusal to fix any of the site's actual problems, half of which stem directly from site management.
HOWEVER, thanks to the power of jQuery, i was able to throw together a userscript that remodels the dashboard back to its original look almost perfectly.
here is my dashboard right now, with the script active:
and here is the old dashboard in separate tab container that hasn't received the update:
it's hardly perfect; i had trouble making it force reload to the fixed layout when switching between other pages and the dashboard, and it currently only fixes just the dashboard. it's also completely untested on browsers other than firefox, and chances are it looks a bit screwy on ultrawide monitors. but for now at least, it's a good fix.
the unfucker is a tampermonkey userscript. all you have to do to use it is install the tampermonkey extension, hit "create new script", and replace the default code on the page with the script (link here) and save it.
I love you "boring" female characters. I love you ingenues. I love you female characters who aren't "modern" enough. I love you female characters who aren't "badass" enough. iI love you female characters who aren't "empowering" enough. I love you quiet female characters. I love you unappreciated female characters. I love you polite female characters. I love you female characters who "can't appeal to modern audiences." I love you frightened female characters. I love you female characters labeled as not complex just for being nice. I love you female characters who get criticism just for not being their tomboy or femme fatale counterpart. I love you silk hiding steel trope.
MIDGE HADLEY [ PLAYED BY @shesmidge ] : i won't ever ask you for help ever again.
barbie always tries her best, however there are times when it’s not good enough. unfortunately when one strives for perfectionism, one does not grasp the reality. and so it was for barbie, when she had promised midge she’d be there to help her. what she didn’t take into account was that acting until past midnight would have consequences. she hadn’t heard the first alarm that went off. neither the second nor the third. and when she rolled out of bed, time was against her. she didn’t know how she managed to get out of the hotel she was staying at, nor the speed she was driving her car. when she finally reached midge’s house, she was already five hours late. legend has it, she’s still cussing out the traffic inside her head. ❝ hi, i’m sorry i’m late… ❞ she barely uttered as soon as her car door was slammed shut. she approaches midge with her chest seemingly closing in, an anxiety symptom she couldn’t quite grasp, but still she felt. and oh, how hard it clenched on her soul. but it was midge’s words that caused the most pain. lips parted open as she stuttered, not able to verbalize a response. there were plenty of thoughts inside her head going at the speed of light, but none that could emerge in a coherent manner. cerulean hues couldn’t even look at her friend anymore, instead they slowly drifted downward. she was ashamed of looking midge directly in the eye. why did she promise something unachievable? why didn’t she hear the first alarms? why did the universe put her in the middle of traffic? the only one at blame was barbie herself. she put an expectation for her best friend only to let her down. big time. with quivering lips, she managed to further utter, ❝ i know it’s all my fault. i’m sorry. i didn’t mean to keep you waiting this long. i know i promised you something. ❞ the weight on her chest traveled to her throat as she found herself unable to voice anything else. she didn’t want to disappoint anyone, but especially her best friend. midge was everything barbie ever needed back in the days ; and there she was, disappointing midge.