the casual ironic homoeroticism of cis dude gamers is awkward and i’m still unsure why they do it
In ancient Sparta they used to promote homoromantic relationships within the barracks because it was believed you would fight better if you were fighting for your boyfriend next to you
is this why dudes at the grandmaster rank on overwatch talk about blowing each other
Ladies, I am holding out my hand. Do you trust me?
I need you to open Google Maps. Locate your nearest mall. Get in your car. Drive to Yankee Candle.
Past the seasonal pumpkin display, near the back of the store, you will find a trash pile Man Candle section. You will see candles called MMM, Bacon!. Riding Mower. Man Town. (I’m not kidding. Man Town.) Stay strong. Not in this section, but likely very near this section, you will find a candle called Mountain Lodge.
Hold this jar in your hands like a talisman. Close your eyes and picture a man.
I want to be clear: I’m not talking about a Hugh Dancy. Or an Andrew Garfield, a Ben Whishaw, even a Tom Hiddleston. This exercise requires someone in the Chris Evans weight class. The Richard Armitage department. Someone with smile lines around his eyes who could chop the cedar for your bower with his own hands, strangle an alpha wolf, carry you home when you sprain your ankle in the woods, bench press your entire body. Picture this man in your mountain home with a full beard, a slightly grimy white henley, a fond half smile he reserves only for you. Now open the lid and smell Mountain Lodge.
Steady yourself on the man candle display. Give yourself a second. No, you’re not wrong. Yes, the Yankee Candle Company has just eliminated the need for men. This medium tumbler Mountain Lodge candle jar is now your boyfriend. The Yankee Candle Company has effectively replaced the need for contact with the male half of our species with a compact and clean-burning candle in a jar.
“Do you like this one?” the cashier asked, ringing me up. “Every man should be required by law to smell like what this candle smells like,” I replied intensely. “That’ll be $12.01,” she said.
MOUNTAIN LODGE
it literally smells like waking up on a cold night to find a bearded richard armitage adding another quilt to the bed before he gets back in and pulls you snugly against his chest
I’m not fucking around I feel like I should be watching chris hemsworth in flannel and suspenders whittling a delicate masterpiece in front of a fireplace rn
All right, Tumblr, I saw this post a few months ago and immediately realized I had to smell this candle. I have never in my life experienced such a burning need (pun intended) to smell what the Yankee Candle website described as a warm aroma of cedarwood and sage, but what Tumblr described as my new boyfriend.
The trouble is that nearest Yankee Candle Company store was a bit of a trek, and my schedule tended to prohibit this olfactory adventure.
So for the last few weeks, as I’d scroll my Tumblr dash and look at images of attractive manly men, I’d sigh and wistfully think, if only I could engage another sense with this image. If only I could I could truly fathom the ideal fragrance of this man.
And then this happened.
And I knew.
I knew whatever was happening, I needed to get to a Yankee Candle Company. The scent of Mountain Lodge would transport me instantly to this scene. The aroma of this infamous candle could make me live out a self-insertion Avengers fanfic.
So I got in my car, made the drive, and located the Yankee Candle Company. The store was crowded with holiday shoppers. My nose was immediately assaulted by hundreds of warring scents.
I battled through the sea of humanity and the Angel Wings-Merry Marshmallow-Magical Frosted Forest assault, buoyed on by my need to understand what Steve Rogers ripping a log in half with his bare hands smelled like.
I waded toward the back of the store, only to discover the man candle section seems to have been discontinued. What was I going to steady myself on, once I found my scented gateway to hanging out with the Avengers on Hawkeye’s farm? I felt lost, adrift, unable to find my bearings amid Soft Blanket-Fluffy Towels-Home Sweet Home.
And then… rising from the “Fresh” display, there it was.
Mountain Lodge.
It was the moment of truth. What would it be like to smell this infamous candle?
I opened the lid. I took a deep breath.
And I giggled.
Ah yes. This was it. This gentle, pleasantly masculine fragrance, in fact, reduced me to what I’d probably do in the actual presence of Chris Evans: giggle like an idiot.
The smell makes me smile, makes me laugh, makes me gently swoon: all reactions that, indeed, can be elicited by an ideal man. I can barely handle the true power of Mountain Lodge.
Several months have passed since this discovery. I have regaled friends with the saga, and after hearing of it, they, too, felt the burning need to smell the candle. One by one, we have all become Mountain Lodge converts.
In times of need, this candle is our refuge. Our group has developed escapist superpowers, infused by the Yankee Candle Company.
THE CANDLE, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND.
MOUNTAIN LODGE.
This is how you do advertisement
we love everything about all of this. We will always be there for you, just light your Mountain Lodge candle and know that our love burns bright for you.
The official Yankee Candle™ tumblr account has recognized the Mountain Lodge mythos. My work on the material plane is finally complete. A being of pure light, I slowly ascend to the aether.
So I went into the Yankee Candle in my local mall today, 30 minutes after they opened so it’s just me and the employee there. Both images make the candle look on the redder side so I’m looking with the reds since they’re color-coded and not really finding it and I must look confused because the clerk asks if she can help me find anything. “Yes, Um. I’m looking for Mountain… mountain Cabin?” “Mountain Lodge?” she politely clarified and I nodded “Yeah, I think so.” She led me over to a different area and picked up a candle that was not red but brown like the color of the wood your lumberjack bae of choice will no doubt chop for the fireplace to keep you warm. “That’s funny, the candle gets popular in waves. Sometimes nobody remembers we have it, and then for like a week people will come in asking for ‘Mountain Something’.” she handed me the candle, let me smell it.
“Oh, that’s. Um. That’s probably because of the tumblr post going around?” she knew Yankee Candle did social media but wasn’t familiar with the specific post. So I gave her a brief summary of it, slowly getting a bit more embarrassed. If she judged me she didn’t show it, laughing in a friendly manner and saying she’d have to look it up. “Yes,” I said. “It’s very convincing.”
God fucking dammit I’m gonna have to buy man candles now
Granted my bedsheets currently smell like cedar so
I was genuinely skeptical, for tumblr has the tendency to get a little too hyped up over something not that great.
Never have I been so glad to be proven wrong.
After finding this post for the second time in less than a month, and with my birthday being yesterday (and therefore I had the extra money to spare), I figured it was fate for me to actually drive the short 7 miles to my nearest Yankee Candle and see what all the fuss was about.
When I reached the store, I entered with a mission. I was going to find this candle. I was going to see for myself if it truly lived up to its tumblr reputation.
The sweet blonde lady at the register didn’t even get the chance to ask me if I was looking for anything in particular when I found it. Under the “Home” section of the quaint little store was the beautiful warm brown of this candle. I smiled at the lady and told her that I found what I was looking for.
I braced myself. I pictured Chris Evans. I pictured Chris Hemsworth, even Chris Pine. I opened the lid.
I giggled. I smiled like a dork. I blushed and I swooned and this candle is the greatest creation on God’s great earth. You don’t even need to picture the buff and burly man. As soon as I smelled the candle, my thoughts immediately jumped to Brendon Urie and Patrick Stump, for I know that’s what those two glorious men smell like as well.
Friends, believe me when I say this: the Yankee Candle Company has done it. This glorious company has successfully managed to capture the essence of Your Next Boyfriend™ and put
it
in the form of a candle.
after dying god informs you that hell is a myth, and “everyone sins, its ok”. instead the dead are sorted into six “houses of heaven” based on the sins they chose.
We arrived first at the House of Lust. “House” is a misleading term. It was more of a camp, spread over acres and acres of lush forest. There was a white sandy beach (nude, of course) full of copulating couples. There were little cabins sprinkled all along the path, from which orgasmic moans regularly came belting out. Men with six pack abs and women with perky breasts strolled by without even noticing me and God. They only had eyes for each other, tickling and pinching each other with flirtatious giggles.
“What do you think?” God asked as we passed a nineteen-way taking place in a pool of champagne. Little cherubs flitted overhead armed with mops and cleaning supplies, thankfully. “Lust is our most popular sin.” I eyed the supermodel-like figures of a couple passing nearby, and could easily see why. “You can look however you want. Hell, you can be whatever gender you want. No fetish is too taboo, and no desire can be denied here.”
It was quite tempting, but I wasn’t ready to make a permanent decision here. “Let’s see the others,” I told God.
We carried on to Greed. We passed rows and rows of mansions, each more opulent than the next. Some of them were so large that they would have had enough bed rooms to fit my entire hometown. And so many different styles: one second, we were in a beautiful French vineyard in front of a gorgeous chateau with the Alps in the background. The next second, a warm tropical beach with a modern mansion atop breathtaking cliffs. After that, a ski chalet in Colorado with a roaring fire in a hearth large enough to fit an ox. Each one had various Italian sports cars and Rolls Royces parked in front, with the occasional smattering of boats, helicopters, etc.
“Any material desire you ever wanted,” God explained. “Your own world, where you can have everything. You want the Hope Diamond? You can fly to Washington DC in your own solid gold helicopter and buy it from the Smithsonian. Hell, you can just buy the Smithsonian.”
Also tempting, but I decided to keep looking.
Gluttony was next up. Tables and tables of the very finest foods: beautiful steaks cooked medium rare; butter-poached lobster tail; fresh oysters on a half shell; exotic wines in dusty bottles that had been hiding in the cellars of the world’s finest restaurants. Everyone had a glass of champagne in hand and simply lounged on couches and chairs near the tables, eating endlessly. As soon as the inhabitants took a bite, the food just instantly came back. My mouth watered even watching them.
“In every other House, the food is practically sawdust compared to Gluttony,” God explained. “You haven’t truly experienced heaven until you’ve been to Gluttony.”
I shook my head, and we kept moving.
Sloth was as you’d expect. An endless sea of the softest mattresses, stacked with cushions and pillows that made the story of the princess and the pea seem minimalist. Little angels visited each resident, giving them massages that made them all melt into their blankets.
Wrath was… well, a lot like what I’d expect Hell to be like. Fire, brimstone, whips, torture.. you know, the works. Except here, you weren’t the one being tortured. Every enemy you’d ever made in your real life was now under your thumb. “Lots of people choose their fathers,” God explained. “Lots of grudges against parents in general, you know. But you’re not limited to that. Someone beat you out for a big promotion back on Earth? Take your pound of flesh here.”
Then we arrived at Envy. It looked… well, a lot like home.
“Go on in,” God said, gesturing toward the door. I turned the knob and walked in… and found Emily waiting inside. She ran forward, wrapped her arms around my neck, and planted a kiss right on my lips. “Welcome home, honey.”
I looked back toward God. “Oh, don’t be coy,” he said. “You have no secrets from me. We all know that you were in love with your best friend’s wife.” She didn’t seem to hear him at all; she went back into the hall. “We all know that you just settled for your own wife while secretly pining after her. Well, this is your chance to live happily ever after.”
I peered into the kitchen. Emily was baking something, wearing nothing but an apron. Her curly black hair fell softly over her shoulder as she whisked ingredients. She turned back, noticed I was observing her, and an enthusiastic smile spread across her face.
“It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” God whispered in my ear.
I wanted to take it. God damn did I want to take it. But I shook my head.
God seemed puzzled. “You need to make a decision,” he told me.
“I haven’t seen Pride yet.”
He scoffed. “No one ever wants Pride, trust me.”
“Well, I want to see it.”
_________________________
Pride was boring. Just a row of workbenches in a bare white room.
“I don’t get it,” I told God.
“Yeah, no one does,” he answered. “That’s why no one ever chooses it. Doesn’t cavorting in Lust sound better than sitting here building little trinkets for the rest of eternity? Wouldn’t you rather gorge yourself in Gluttony? Or spend time with Emily in Envy?”
I considered the options again. “I pick Pride,” I finally told him.
He narrowed his eyes. “What? Look at it!” He gestured around the room again. There wasn’t much to look at. “Why would you choose this for the rest of time?”
“Because you don’t want me to pick it,” I told him. If he was really God, he’d know what a contrarian I can be. And I knew he was hiding something, trying to pretend like Pride didn’t exist. There was something special about it.
God scowled back. “Fine.” He led me over to one of the workbenches. In the center, there was a black space. A blank, empty void that went on forever. “Here’s your universe,” he said. “You’ve got seven days to get started.” He took his seat at the bench next to me and went back to tinkering in his own world. After a long pause, he finally spoke again: “You know, it might be nice for me to actually have some company for once.”
FUCKING I MEAN.
IT’S LIKE 7AM AND I LOVE GONNA REBLOG SO I CAN READ THIS SHIT AGAIN
