#hoping to reset life this week and get back to routine

[pynkhues]

About to do my first yoga class in almost three weeks, pls keep me in your thoughts

[buckys-forgotten-plum]

A Lesson in Love

(This is very much a working title)

College!AU

Smarty Pants!Bucky Barnes x Cheerleader!Reader

Synopsis: Being a newly metamorphosed social butterfly certainly has its perks: an amazing friend group, a position on the cheer squad you’ve dreamed about for years, and the ability to make connections everywhere you go. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you any better at Linear Algebra, enter Bucky Barnes.

Warnings: Cursing, awkward reader, flirty Steve Rogers, that’s it i think :)

A/N: Boy howdy has it been a long time since I’ve posted on this hell-site. I only hope that it’s not shit (it’s probably shit)

—---------------

“Let’s run through the routine one more time guys!” Your voice travels throughout the gym as you direct your teammates to their original starting position. 

“Umed, you’re doing great but I just wanna see a little more stability when you’re holding Yelena up! Yelena, I saw you falter a little at the end there, try and stay strong please!” Your co-captain, Raj, enthusiastically instructs from beside you. 

As the team resets into their original postions, you hear a bumble of agreements and acknowledgments, making you smile. Becoming the co-captain of your university’s cheer team while only being a sophomore was no small feat and you were absolutely ecstatic to get the call 4 weeks ago congratulating your achievement. 

You remember sitting with Yelena in the quad, under a large willow tree, when you picked up the phone, it took everything in you not to squeal with excitement. Though you and your best friend definitely had a mini celebration after you hung up and spared no shame when you both began to scream and shout your elation. 

“Oh, holy shit Rabbit you did it!” The blonde woman had tightly gathered you into her arms and spun you around, a wild grin adorning her face. 

You hug her back just as tightly, “I can’t believe it! I for sure thought Hasan was gonna get it! I mean, his form was impeccable, and did you see that round-off back handspring that he did? Jesus I almost swooned!” 

Yelena laughs heartily before agreeing, “It takes more than just pretty tricks to be a captain though Rabbit, you didn’t get a full ride for nothin’. C’mon, I’m buying us lunch to celebrate,”

After a couple of weeks of barely believing you were able to make the cut as co-captain, you honed your excitement into determination. You began to focus on perfecting the routine you and Raj had planned for the first football game of the year. At this point, it was only a week away and your confidence in the team soared. They all worked so incredibly hard, and by watching how well they were performing today, you had all the faith in the world in them. After the team had run through it a couple more times, Raj had decided to call it for today seeing as you and a few others had an evening lecture to get to. 

Once you had taken one of the fastest showers in your life and changed into a fresh set of clothes, the process of haphazardly shoving your things into your bag and calculating how fast you’d have to run to make it to your class on time began. The gym you practiced in was damn near close to being on the other side of campus from the building your 5 pm Computational Physics lecture was held in and you’d be in deep shit for showing up late. You were already having a rough time in that class and you knew missing even a few minutes of the lecture intro would put you even further behind. 

“You better hop to it little rabbit or you’ll be laaate~,” Yelena sings as she walks past you, already on her way out.

“I know, I know, I know!” You hastily shove the rest of your belongings into your bag before giving yourself a quick pat down to ensure nothing was missed

Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you give a quick goodbye to the rest of the women in the locker room before bolting out. The sun was still shining brightly and there was a late afternoon breeze that cooling as you ran across campus. If you asked any of your friends, they’d laugh and admit that this has become a normal Tuesday and Thursday night for you. None of them would bat an eye whenever they would see your blurred figure and hear a breathless greeting as you sprinted past them. They fully supported your wild determination to overachieve in school while also continuing your advancements in the sport that allowed you to attend such a prestigious institution. 

Your lungs burn as you run up to the large brick building that held the lecture hall, giving a kind hello to a couple of people you knew from your previous class that day. The inconsistent squeak of your sneakers on the linoleum floor can be heard echoing throughout the arched hallway as you try and manage a professional-looking speedwalk. A large sigh of relief is released when you see the double doors to the lecture hall are still open, meaning the class hasn’t started yet. Your pace and breath both slow as you enter the quiet space. As soon as you cross the threshold to the large room, there's a quiet call of your name that catches your attention. You grin and turn to your right to see a group of fellow students all giving you hushed greetings and a few congratulations on getting here in time. 

“You made it in time, Honey Bee! M’ proud of you,” Steve, the blond-haired, blue-eyed captain of the football team, greets you from his aisle seat and holds his hand out as he gives you a wide smile. 

“Hi Stevie,” You smile and take his hand, allowing him to tug you closer, “I sprinted all the way here, you’d think I’d be used to the cardio by now but it still kills me,” 

Steve lets out a light chuckle, “if you want I can start trainin’ with you in the mornings. Or tutor you in time management,” 

You jokingly roll your eyes at his comment and give his hand a light squeeze, “My time management skills are primo, Champ. That’s why I’m here on time, thank you very much,”  

He snorts loudly before nodding his head, “yeah okay Honey Bee, if you say so. Unfortunately, even though you’re ‘on time,’ the whole hall is filled except for a seat up front,”

“That’s okay! You know I like making new friends,” You go to pull your hand from his and find your seat but are stopped by another quick tug.

“Hey, you still wanna go to the cafe with all of us after class? I’ll get ya some lemon pound cake for your troubles,”

You pretend to think about the proposition before giving your answer, “I guess if there's gonna be lemon pound cake involved, I could make an appearance,” 

Steve gives you a dazzling smile, his bright blue eyes developing crows feet as he looks up at you from his seat, “Awesome, I’ll see you after class then, honey,” 

Before you pull away, Steve brings your hand up and turns it, giving the inside of your wrist a soft kiss, “Egh Steve, you’re so sappy sometimes,” You mumble and pull your hand away and silently will the heat rising in your neck and cheeks to go away. 

“Only for you Honey Bee!” You hear the smugness in his voice as you turn to walk down the stairs that separate each side of the large auditorium. 

Steve was right when he said there was only one seat left and you feel a small pang of nerves in your chest as you realize you’d be sitting next to someone you hadn’t had the chance to talk to yet. You pride yourself on your social skills, seeing as though in high school and all the years before, you had been a shy, nervous wreck in front of anyone you didn’t know. None of your recent friends knew how closed off you had been since they had only seen you in your ‘flourishing social butterfly’ phase. 

As you approach the last available seat in the lecture hall you take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the stress of class as well as the prospect of any awkward conversations. When you arrive at your destination, a small furrow knits your brows together as you stare down at the chair. 

“Um, excuse me, is it alright if I sit here? There aren’t any other seats left,” Your voice is hushed as you try and get the attention of the person who has their bag sitting in the theater seat. 

He doesn’t seem to hear you, too caught up with the conversation he was having with his friend in the next seat over. The only reaction you get is a disinterested glance from the woman your target was talking to. Your nose scrunches up in displeasure as you first glare at the person who had clearly ignored you, then at the brunette who’s completely unaware of your presence.

You clear your throat a bit and try again, “Excuse me? Sir?” 

The brunette jumps a bit in his seat and you’re quickly met with startlingly blue eyes that are filled with confusion, “Uh, yeah?”

Your lips pull into a soft smile and you glance back down at the chair before focusing back up on the man, “Is it okay if I sit here? There don’t seem to be any free seats left in the hall,” 

The man’s eyes widen and he does a quick glance between you and his bag before yanking it out of the seat and plopping it in between his legs, “I am so sorry, of course you can! I-I didn’t realize anyone else would be coming,”

A light laugh of surprise bursts from your lips at his apologetic reaction, “It’s okay, it’s my fault for getting here so late anyways,” you give him a kind smile before sitting down and taking your laptop out and setting it on the small fold out table.

You lean back down to search your bag for your charger and a few other things. As you're searching through your bag, you hear a quiet chuckle beside you and you can’t help but turn your head back up to look at your neighbor. He notices your confused look and motions towards your laptop that was covered in various stickers. 

“I really like that one,” there’s a wide smile on his face as he points to a sticker depicting a frog inside of a heart that said ‘commit crimes’ in cute bubble letters. 

A grin makes it’s way onto your face and you nod your head in agreement, “it’s one of my favorites too! I really like this one as well,” you point to another sticker that shows a little mushroom person riding atop a black cat. 

Before the brunette can respond, your professor finally begins to start class, startling the both of you into silence as you ready yourself for any note-taking that needs to be done. As the professor started going over this week's subject matter, which happened to be matric eigenvalue problems, your palms already began to sweat in nervousness. You took your hands from atop the keyboard of your laptop and placed them down onto your thighs, lightly balling them in and out of fists to ease your stress. You had been introduced to matrices in your last semester, but to add a new formula to the mix made you nervous enough to forget any prior knowledge you had stored away. 

Throughout the lecture you had to continuously remind yourself that lots of people are probably having issues with the current topic. However, that voice of reassurance had gotten quieter and quieter as you noticed everyone around you quickly typing or scribbling down notes without hesitation. No one had asked a question and with a quick glance at your laptops clock, you find there to be only 10 minutes left of class. You nervously shift around in your seat and focus on typing down the finishing notes when you feel a pair of eyes set on you. 

You nervously glance up and to the side to catch a fleeting glimpse of your neighbor quickly averting his eyes. The heat that flares up in your neck and cheeks is almost unbearable as you realize he knows that you’re struggling, can physically feel how lost and confused you are with the subject. You immediately become tense and your hands once again leave their place on your keyboard before falling back down into your lap, wiping the sweat from your palms onto your thighs before tightly clenching them into fists. The stress of the class mixed with the embarrassment of how obvious your lack of understanding has made your brain shut down, and only after noticing everyone around you packing up their things did you realize you had completely checked out for the last few minutes of class. 

“Aw shoot,” you mumble quietly while softly closing your laptop. The faint beginnings of a conversation come from beside you, but you’re too busy trying not to break down to make sense of any of it. Little crescent moons were being left in the palms of your hands from how hard your nails were digging into them, your mouth was beginning to taste like iron from how hard you were biting the inside of your cheek, and the sting of tears were present in your waterline. 

As you leaned down to shove your laptop and notebook into your bag, you made sure to take a deep breath because you would be damned if you ended up crying like a baby in front of fellow classmates. Especially ones you just met. It didn’t help too much, but after blinking rapidly for a moment you were certain no tears would fall until you were successfully inside your dorm room. Steve would understand and would make up an excuse for your absence at the cafe.

“Hey,” A voice speaks from above and you jump in surprise before sitting back up straight to find your seat neighbour with a soft smile on his face.

“Hello,” you mumble quietly before glancing down at your lap then back up to him, “I’m so sorry-I’m probably in your way aren’t I?” 

His eyes widen and he quickly puts his hand up to halt you in your movements of gathering your things, “No actually I um-I wanted to actually ask you if maybe we could compare notes for this lecture? I feel like I might have missed some stuff and it seemed like you got everything down. I’ve been kinda struggling with this unit so it’d help a lot,” 

You stared at him for a moment, blinking blankly at him almost in disbelief… Was he really asking you of all people for notes?

You fumble with your words for a moment before answering, “Well I’m not-um I actually might not be the best person to ask for notes,” the sheepish admittance does well to bring a new wave of heat crawling up to the tips of your ears and you try not to cringe in embarrassment, “I’m only averaging a 74% in this class right now,” 

The man tilts his head and gives another soft smile in your direction, “Well I’m averaging a 68 so ya still got me beat,” 

The quiet chuckle he lets out makes your lips tug up into your own smile and let out a quick laugh yourself. You quickly turn your head to the back of the lecture hall and see Steve and a few of your friends gathered around the entrance, discussing something unknown while patiently waiting for you.

“Alright that’s a fair point,” you giggle and take your phone out, “If you wanna, I can give you my phone number and email so we can exchange everything we have? I can’t really promise anything groundbreaking but maybe it’ll help?” 

He grins widely and pulls his own phone out of its hiding place, unlocking it and tapping to his contact list, “Yeah that’d be really nice…I’m James by the way,” 

You mentally scold yourself for not asking the man’s name earlier before revealing your own to him. 

“Nice to meet you,” James' voice is gentle and endearing as he holds his phone out to you in a silent request for your contact info. 

You quickly input your number and send yourself an emoji to ensure it was correct, “I um-I have plans to go to a coffee shop with my friends right now, but I promise I’ll send you all the notes I have as soon as I get the chance if you just wanna text me your email address? Maybe we could share a google document and work off of each other? Really whatever works best for you is fine with me!” 

You bite the inside of your lip to stop yourself from word-vomiting anymore and wonder how, after so many years, you are this awkward with someone. It’s been ages since you’ve been this socially inept with a stranger and you wrack your brain for a reason. 

James bends down and grabs his backpack before standing up to his full and very intimidating height. You haphazardly gather your own items and fumble out into the aisle to let James out. 

“No rush! I’m just appreciative of any help I can get really,” he admits, raising his right hand and running it through the dark brunette tresses of his hair. 

“No yeah I totally get that! And I’m actually gonna ask my friend for some help tonight so I’ll even have some extra tips ready!” Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you do another glance back to see Steve giving you the look and you figure you shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer, “okay, sorry I have to go now, but it was really nice to meet you James! And thanks for liking my stickers,” 

Why you brought up the stickers, you’ll never know, but you can fight with yourself about that later. 

James lets out a boisterous laugh before answering, “It was my pleasure, Sugar. I’ll be sure to message you later,” 

You were thankful that James had turned around to talk to his friend as it made it easier for you to hide the shock on your face from the sweet pet name he threw out. Putting your hands up to quell the heat that had risen to your cheeks, you make your way to Steve. 

“You make a new friend?” He asks with a knowing smile. 

“Yeah! He said he needed help with this class so I told him we would exchange notes when I got home. Oh also can you go through the entire lecture with me?” 

Steve stared down at your shorter frame, letting out an amused snort and shaking his head in disbelief, “You’re going to exchange notes with a dude when you don’t even know what went on in the lecture today?” 

“umm…yes, yes I’m going to be doing exactly that unless you be a sweet little lamb and go over the notes with me so i can fix any mistakes!” You respond sweetly and grab onto Steve's hand to pull him closer to the doors, “pretty, pretty, pretty please?” 

He rolled his eyes and pulled his hand from your grasp before wrapping his arm around your shoulder, effectively pulling you into his side, “yeah yeah, ya know I might have to start charging you Honey Bee,” He leads you out of the building and you both begin making your way to the coffee shop on campus. 

[reds-writings]

the first of many and the start of something new

(pairing: rust cohle x fem!reader)

a/n: heyyy! another fic in the jealousy, jealousy universe! this is based on the mention of when the reader's left without a car after an accident and rust offers her a lift for the time being. just some more background building between the two and giddy feelings! hope you enjoy!

word count: around 2.8k

warnings: a smidgen of workplace sexism and mentions of reader having longer hair. that and cursing.

Today had been one shit day. Shittiest of shit days you’ve had the displeasure of encountering in a while actually. The power had gone out sometime in the night from some short burst of a storm so your alarm clock had gotten reset, resulting in you waking up nearly an hour later than your usual start time. It also meant that the dryer hadn’t finished drying all your work clothes for the week ahead leaving you to throw on whatever attire you had on the day before from your hamper that was decently wrinkled come this morning. The best you could do for your messy tresses was throw it up haphazardly into a banana clip you rummaged for in one of your bathroom drawers. You barely managed to slap on some blush to look a bit more lively and wipe any remnants of caked mascara from beneath your eyes you hadn’t bothered taking off last night. 

God, you were gonna be so late. 

You managed to keep a clean attendance record at work, rarely allowing yourself the opportunity to slip-up knowing you’d get chewed out more than anyone else by Quesada just cause. Yanking on your work boots and grabbing some of your gear you nearly managed to eat shit on the way out, not bothering to grab a bite to eat or even scrounge up some coffee. You prayed today was one of those days where Rust carried out his ‘secret’ routine of setting out your coffee before you’d show up to work. Your weathered bronco was low on gas but you’d have just enough to make it to work and hopefully back to whatever gas station nearby on the way home. Peeling out of the driveway like a bat out of hell and settling yourself on the main road your eyes kept flying nervously to the dashboard’s clock. Each ticking minute caused the buzzing anxiety in your gut to sink deeper and deeper. 

You checked your frazzled appearance in the rear-view mirror, failing to notice the intersection coming up ahead. Your heart just about leaped into the next state over when you barely managed the time to notice the rapidly closing gap between you and the car stopped in front of you. Slamming on your brakes, your car tires squealed to a stop and your front bumper found itself barely a hairsbreadth away from ramming into the vehicle ahead. Your relief was short-lived when the car behind you, unfortunately, didn’t have enough leeway to break at your sudden halt and collided with your car, causing you then to bump the car in front of you. The force of it had you near-whipping forward like a ragdoll, making you bump your head on the steering wheel. The separate trilling of respective car horns only added to your steady-growing headache. 

You could just about cry. 

By the time you actually made it the department after the mess that was trading insurances and getting your car towed to whatever repair shop that was in close proximity to the area of the accident you looked like you’d been dragged to hell and back. On top of taking one of the worst bus rides of your life, someone managed to spill their coffee across your lap at a harsh stop. The defeat weighing on your poor bones was apparent to everyone on the floor that took in the sorry state of your figure. You mustered up a mumbled greeting to the receptionist, feet dragging their way towards your desk. The small bruise on your brow throbbed increasingly, especially when that prick Geraci decided he’d make a snide pass at you as you trudged in.

“You’re gonna give folks around here a mean fright walkin’ around lookin’ like that, girl.” 

“Do me a favor and go dine on some dick, Geraci.” You snapped without even looking at the now angrily flushing man. Rust and Marty sat in their respective spots, one eyeing you with slight shock and the other with something unreadable as per usual.

“Now just what happened to you, missy?” Marty started in on you as you tossed your stuff down. 

Eyeing the anticipated presence of the daisy mug on your desk, you reached for it to take a sip of your awaiting coffee only to grimace at the realization that it was well cold and stale by now. Price of being late. Before you could grumble out a response your other consequence in the form of Quesada barked out your name to order you into his office. 

You just couldn’t catch a damn break. 

Closing your eyes and exhaling slowly to steady your spiking nerves, you set the mug down harshly before turning on your heel and stalking over to the Major’s office. The door promptly slammed shut behind you both, leaving everyone on the floor frozen for only but a moment before they resumed their individual tasks.

Marty let out a low whistle, shaking his head before turning back to some files, “Guess we should head on out now. She ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.” 

Rust didn’t say a word as he sat fixated on you getting reprimanded to no end by your fuming superior. 

The dusky hues of oranges and violets had long since burned in the sky by the time you finished with the deskwork Quesada had relegated to you for being late as well as your snappish attitude aimed at him while he had lectured you. The most grating forty minutes of your life that you’d never have the luxury of getting back. Your spine ached from being hunched over for hours on end and your retinas stung from overused strain. The slow steps of Rust's shoes sounded on the linoleum floors of the department, causing you to glance up and notice that Marty wasn’t by his side. Your gaze flew to the clock to see that it was nearing 7:40, shit, it was time to get going.

You’d have to walk back if there weren’t any other buses in service. Fuck. 

“You done for the day?” Rust rasped out as he fiddled with a cigarette. 

“Just about. Have half the sense to wanna throw these all over Quesada’s office for him to have to organize his damn self but that won’t do me no good after today.” You leaned back to release a few cracks in your vertebrae. 

“Probably not, no.” He eyed your tired form.

“You guys find anything useful today?” You came back forward and got up to collect all your things. Mind busy with hoping and praying there’d still be a bus around this time. 

“Just a whole bout of nothin’. At least for right now that’s what it’s seeming like.” 

“Bummer. Sorry I got held up and couldn’t come with ya.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A pause. Then,

“Your car ain’t out front.” His acute observation caused your shoulders to slump.

“Yeah. Part of the day's neverendin’ woes. Got into one hell of a fender bender.” 

“Reckon that was the causation of that nasty bruise. How’re you gettin’ home?” It came out more as a slight demand than a curious question, making your head snap towards him. Your face was starting to feel hot in embarrassment.

“I was just gonna see if there was a bus or somethin’. Seems Marty rushed on home otherwise I would've wrangled his ass for a ride. I might just have to walk I guess…I dunno.” You shrugged, feeling yourself shrink under his calculating gaze. 

“You ain’t walkin.” 

Rust grabbed his keys and waited for you to finish fixing up your desk. It took you a second too long to realize he was implying you’d be getting a ride from him. The thought of being with him in his truck alone had you feeling all sorts of funny. You’d never really spent time together one-on-one and you were terrified of acting like some bumbling fool in his presence without Marty there to break the ice. 

You wordlessly gathered up the rest of your things and made the move to follow him out of the building. The balmy air did nothing to ease the growing tension you felt in your body. You smiled at him shakily in gratitude as he opened the passenger door for you. Once you’d wobbled your way up into the truck he shut the door then rounded the vehicle to get in on his side. The rumble of the Ford’s engine was the only saving grace of the awkward silence that had settled between you both as he drove the somewhat lengthy distance to your house. 

“Thank you. For drivin’ me. You didn’t really have to.” Your unconfident tone broke the quiet. You cringed slightly at how you sounded. Most people didn’t have you as nervous as he did. Whether that be because of the sheer power he carried with him at all times or the sharpness of his personality you didn’t know.

“It wouldn’t necessarily be wise to have you out walkin’ in the dark for some odd amount of miles. I wouldn’t trust anyone around this wasteland to leave you be.” 

It did feel silly now thinking you’d be able to make it however many miles out by your lonesome. At night no less. You would’ve been a walking target and then some.

“What happened today? You don’t strike me as the…unorganized type.” Rust continued, gaze flitting over you in slight caution. If you had half the mind you’d be plenty self-conscious to be caught looking this unkempt around him. Your raging exhaustion just so happened to save you from the ridiculous notion as you rubbed your bleary eyes. 

“That storm last night had my power go out so my alarm clock was fucked this mornin’. Same is to be said for my dryer that didn’t finish its job with what was supposed to be all my work clothes for the week. Then the accident. Banged up my car pretty good so it’s gotta sit in the shop for God knows how long, they couldn’t give me an estimate. I took the bus then got shit spilled on me. The rest of the sad third act you saw yourself.” 

“Can’t say it wasn’t amusin’ seeing Geraci’s punk ass go bright as a tomato.” His chest vibrated with a dry chuckle and it had you feeling even warmer. 

“I ain’t ever liked him. Ass kissin’ piece of shit. Likes shittin’ on me every chance he gets just like most around there. I could’ve thrown somethin’ at Quesada’s thick ass skull with the way he spoke to me earlier.” You huffed,  

Rust shook his head slightly, “If it’s any consolation he don’t like me much either.” 

“For different reasons. You’re more…prickly- forgive me for sayin’. I bust my ass and I ain’t ever gonna be respected like I should.”

“In a place like this, can’t say that’s much of a promised future.” He didn’t seem to take offense to the ‘prickly’ comment. 

There was another pocket of silence before you sounded again.

“I’m gonna be honest, if it weren’t for your truck parked outside everday I wouldn’t think you were able to drive.” 

His responding look was that of slight incredulity but let you go on anyway, “I’m only sayin’ because anytime you, Marty, and I have to drive out somewhere you never really get behind the wheel. I was convinced you couldn’t operate a vehicle the first month or so in.” You snickered at the ridiculousness of the previous thoughts you'd conjured up involving the man next to you. It was far-fetched that one as serious and experienced as him just couldn’t drive. 

“Glad to see how little faith you had in my capabilities.”

“Nawww, it wasn’t like that, don't worry.” You grinned at him.

“It’s my synesthesia mostly. Why I don’t drive. Sometimes it’s too overwhelmin’ to where I don’t always trust myself behind the wheel.” He gave his explanation and you felt that familiar twinge in your chest you’d had been feeling in his presence over the passing weeks. You weren’t too familiar with his condition but from what he’d mentioned here and there it didn’t sound all that pleasant. 

“Makes sense. Seems scary to have from what you’ve said.” 

“You find yourself getting used to it after a while. I’ve built up the sense of knowing what’s really occurrin’ versus what ain’t.”  He sniffed, sounding nonchalant at the confession. It fascinated you just how we went about handling the cards he’d been dealt so far in life. If it were you in his shoes you were sure you would’ve gone AWOL by now. As you pulled up to your address, you felt the sting of disappointment that this had all swiftly found its end. It surprised you at how quickly time flew by during the car ride, realizing this was the most semi-lighthearted and continuous conversation that had ever flowed between you two. It wasn’t much of a chore to listen to him speak as Marty made it out to be. The difference could also be found in the fact you just regarded Rust in a different light than others happened to. 

The engine cut and the only sounds offered were that of the cicadas and frogs somewhere out in the lush foliage surrounding your house. 

You brushed some hair from out of your face and met his eyes again, “Thanks... again. I appreciate it a lot.”

He just nodded, “What time d’ya usually head out of here in the morning.”

You froze. Was he really offering up himself again? Completely and willingly? For you?

“You don’t have to! I’ll bug Marty about it or see if my sister can help me out-”

“What time?” The finality of it had you even more stunned. It was a disorienting sensation to think that Rust Cohle just might tolerate you more than he did most.

He more than just tolerated you but you didn’t need to know that just yet. 

“6:30ish. I can pay you for gas o-or-”

“Just be up and ready to go.” Was all he said and that was it on the matter. After a moment or two, you brought yourself out of your awe and collected your stuff. You opened the door to head out of the truck but not before turning to him and placing a hand on his forearm lightly, the first time you’ve ever acted on any affectionate inclinations in regards to him. He stiffened almost imperceptibly but didn’t jerk away. 

“I’m serious. Thank you.”

“Like I said, don’t worry about it.” Steel blue stayed focused on the windshield ahead. 

“That ain’t like me. Coffee or breakfast’s on me tomorrow. Whatever my savior wants he’ll get. It’s the least I could do. My poor legs and I can live to see another day thanks to the benevolent nature of Rustin Cohle-” You were cut off by the scoff of your partner, inciting a small fit of laughter from yourself. 

“Sorry, can't keep things too serious. You could use that every once in a while, y’know.” You patted his shoulder before hopping out.

His sights were then set on you as you shut the door and you let yourself bathe in the feeling of it for just a hair longer than you should’ve. Yeah, you were beyond flustered from the day’s events. Hair in a severe state of frizz, bruise having bloomed a bit further along your browbone, and clothes in a state of mess he’d never seen on you before. But it just made you all the more endearing. Especially with that ever-blooming smile of yours. It was becoming more evident that there was little you could do that would have Rust judging or turning you away. He didn’t know what to make of it but he's sure now that he’s offered up himself as your chauffeur for the time being he had to settle with the fate that things wouldn’t be getting any easier for his withered soul. 

“I’ll be seeing you tomorrow mornin’.” 

“That you will.”

“Goodnight, Y/n.”

“G’night, Rust.” 

The turn of the engine had the spell you’d been enraptured in dissipating and you stepped away from the truck. He lifted a palm signalling his departure before making his way back down the road and out of sight. A heavy exhale escaped the tightening prison of your chest as your mind swam at the whole interaction. Every little detail about him had you becoming increasingly attached much to your distaste. A cold shower and ridding the smell of his addictive cologne from your memory sounded like more than a good idea right about now. Anything to run these thoughts of your very emotionally unavailable coworker out of the recesses of your brain. 

This was going to be a lot of work. 

[lucy90712]

Young parents- Marc Guiu

Finding out you are pregnant at 17 and then giving birth at 18 is not exactly the normal life course and it's definitely not how I expected my life to go but that's exactly what happened. My boyfriend Marc and I were always careful and used protection but we were unlucky and somehow I still got pregnant. We had to have a hard discussion on whether we wanted to keep the baby or not as we are still young but in the end we decided to keep the baby as Marc could still play football and I could do school online. Navigating my pregnancy was difficult as we didn't want to tell too many people as I didn't want the judgement from any more people than necessary. Pretty much everything that could be kept secret we kept hidden, we didn't tell people the gender and we didn't tell anyone my due date so that we had a bit more privacy which is what I wanted the most. 

Our beautiful baby boy Benji was born only 3 weeks ago but already Marc went back to training in fact he only got a few days with me before he had to go back leaving me alone with Benji from very early on. To say it's been difficult is an understatement of course newborns need constant attention so I never get chance to sleep as he keeps me up all night and during the day I have work to get on with. For the first few days I was ok and I found a bit of a routine but the last week has been testing, Benji hasn't been sleeping as well and he's been feeding almost constantly which has been really hard. 

I know it's the hormones but since Marc left us this morning at 7am I've been bawling my eyes out. Benji barely slept all night and now I just can't get him to settle even after feeding him, changing him rocking him he's still crying. I'm going insane listening to the sound I hate hearing him cry I feel like I'm failing as a mother because I can't calm him down. After trying pretty much everything I decided that I just need to get out the house even if it's only for about 20 minutes I need some fresh air to reset and hopefully clear my mind and maybe if I'm lucky it will make Benji stop crying. 

Getting him in the stroller was difficult as he didn't stop crying and wriggling but we eventually got out the door and started our slow walk around town. By some miracle Benji stopped crying and started falling asleep in the stroller which made me feel so much better until I noticed that pretty much everyone on the street was staring at me. There was so many eyes on me that I felt the need to put the cover down over Benji so he didn't have so many eyes in him because a 3 week old baby doesn't need that. When the stares didn't stop it was quite clear that people were looking at me and judging me which I already experienced when pregnant but it feels a lot worse right now. 

All I can imagine is that all these people think I'm way too young to be a mum because I am young but I know I look a few years younger than I am. They probably think I'm incapable of taking care of Benji and honestly part of me is inclined to agree I mean all morning he's been crying and I've been crying as I don't know what I'm doing. The longer I kept walking the more I felt judged I even saw people whispering to each other after looking at me and I've never felt so self conscious than I did in that moment. It got to a point that I was feeling worse outside of the house than I was inside so I decided to make my way back home so I can cry in the comfort of my own space. At a crossing I felt this older woman burning holes into the back of my head until she came and stood next to me and I could feel the judgement before she even managed to express her opinion. 

"Aren't you too young to be a parent kids these days are so irresponsible all having babies before they are ready and they can't even look after them properly there is just no hope for the future if kids like you keep having babies" she ranted at me 

"I imagine your so called boyfriend left you to take care of the baby too god you are all the same" she continued 

That was the last straw for me I wasn't about to fight back because I don't have the energy and I'm simply not that type of person instead I just walked away to find a new way home. I've never walked so fast in my life as I just wanted to get home because as soon as I did the tears were back and I just sat on the floor. Looking at the stroller I couldn't help but think that maybe I'm setting my son up for failure I'm not prepared enough to be the best parent for him and Marc can't be around all the time so maybe he would be better off with someone else looking after him. 

While sitting on the floor the front door opened and Marc came in, with everything that's happened today I lost track of time so I didn't realise Marc would be home so soon. I scrambled to wipe the tears from my face and get Benji out of his stroller so Marc didn't think I was neglecting our child. Before I could do that Marc grabbed Benji and held him in one arm before brining me to his chest with the other. He somehow managed to soothe both of us he helped calm me down and got Benji back to sleep. If I didn't feel like a bad mother before I definitely did after that it's been 3 weeks and my son already hates me. 

Marc put the baby in his little crib that we have for him in the living room before coming to sit on the sofa where he instructed me to sit so he could go back to cuddling me. His hand ran through my hair getting all of the knots out before putting it up with the hairband I keep on my wrist at all times. For a little while I felt we were back to how we were before the baby but then I heard Benji make some of the little sniffling noises he makes when asleep and I was brought back to reality. 

"Whats wrong love what's happened to make you so upset?" Marc asked 

"I've just had a bad day Benji didn't sleep last night as you know and he was crying all morning and I just couldn't get him to settle so I decided to get out for a walk to see if some fresh air would help us both but everyone stared at me and someone berated me at a crossing for being too young and not being able to raise him properly" I rambled 

"Oh cariño you should've text me I could've come home earlier to help out you don't have to do this alone I'm here to help you and for the record that person was wrong we might be young but you are the best mum if you weren't you wouldn't be so upset right now" Marc said 

"I just can't deal with the judgement I want to go outside and not have to deal with everyone looking at me assuming things I already feel like a bad mum I don't need strangers telling me that too" I chocked out 

"It's horrible I know but you need to ignore them which I realise is hard but those people don't know you like I do and they don't see how hard you are trying to be the best mum possible because if they did they wouldn't judge you" he comforted 

"How about you come to my training sessions with me it means you get out the house I can help you out a bit more and no one there will judge you what do you think?" He asked 

"I actually like that idea it will be nice to leave the house and see all the guys" I said 

~~~~~~~~~~

Marc woke me up gently this morning so that I could get up and join him at training he even got Benji out of his crib and got him ready for the day so I could shower alone which is a luxury these days. Having a few minutes to myself was so nice but it really was just a few minutes because once I was dressed and had brushed my hair I went downstairs and had to feed Benji because Marc can't do that. While I sat with Benji Marc made breakfast us both and he made sure I had a balanced breakfast which I definitely haven't had since Benji arrived as I usually just grab whatever I can if I even have breakfast. I even got to take my vitamins which have been neglected recently but if I can actually take them I might feel a little less dead each day. 

So far this new routine is so much better I'm not as stressed and there hasn't been any tears from me or the baby which is a significant improvement. Marc even put the baby in the car and still managed to open the passenger door for me like the gentleman he always is. He drove the back way to the training ground so that we could avoid the streets where fans would be stood wanting signatures or pictures. We decided that we didn't want to show Benji on social media more than just his little hand to announce his birth so avoiding fans who could take pictures of him is what we want. Luckily we completely avoided all that and arrived at the training centre with no issues and even a bit earlier than Marc would usually arrive as he didn't have to stop for ages.

We slowly made our way into the training centre because I'm still recovering so can't walk as quickly as I did before. Walking slower also meant we had more time to talk about what it will be like when the whole team meet Benji, Marc told me that he's talked about Benji non stop and the boys are excited to meet him but they know they have to be careful as he's still small which made me feel a lot better. On our way to the locker room we saw lots of staff who all congratulated us and others asked how we were doing. That's something I love about this club everyone gets along and cares about each other every time I came to training with Marc while pregnant someone checked on me and asked if I needed anything plus all the boys were so lovely. 

Marc left me with the baby as he went into the locker room to make sure everyone was decent before opening the door to allow me inside. It was so quiet when I walked in which is very unusual but it was because they were all so excited to meet Benji but didn't want to wake him up. I put the car seat down and gently took Benji out and gave him to Marc who went straight to Hector because he's the person who Marc has confided in the most throughout everything. Watching how Hector and all the others interacted with Benji nearly made me cry, no one else has met Benji until now and I was worried about how it would go but clearly everyone loves him.  With my permission Marc let the guys hold him and when he did he came back to my side and wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed a kiss on my temple. 

"Isn't this so much better" he said 

"It really is everyone here is so nice and supportive and I get to see something other than the four walls of our house" I said 

"I'm glad you are happier you can come with me everyday if you want or just a few times a week it's up to you but everyone here will be happy to see you and they won't judge at all" he said 

[salttygirl]

🥥 salttygirl’s summer reset tips 🌊

🐚🐚

{ appearance }

start consistent skincare, hair care, and body care routines and follow them daily

experiment with new makeup looks and hairstyles and find the most flattering ones for u

throw out any expired products or ones u don’t use anymore

donate old clothes and buy cute new ones that match ur dream aesthetic

get ur nails done

tan but don’t forget to wear sunscreen!!

shower every day

workout 5 times a week

eat a clean & healthy balanced diet!

🐚🐚

{ daily life }

create a nighttime and morning routine and set aside time to read and journal

clean and reorganize/redecorate your room

make a schedule every day either the night before or the morning of

use a todo app like apple reminders to keep track of all ur tasks

spread out any studying or other work u have to do over the summer to cut down on stress

make plans to do fun stuff with ur friends like go to the beach/mall/movies, etc! its summer, live it up!

get a screen time app like opal or one sec and try to cut down on ur phone usage

get a productive hobby like reading, creative writing, drawing, crafting, cooking, painting, playing an instrument, learning a new language, or anythn else and dedicate time to it every day

say yes to (almost) everything! you’ll have way more fun

go through all of your physical stuff (books, random trinkets, papers, things in your bedroom, things in your kitchen, whatever) and donate things or reorganize them

🐚🐚

{ phone }

try the phone reset challenge (delete all the social media, games, entertainment apps, or other distracting apps from your phone and don’t add them back for 30 days and see which ones you actually need/miss)

get rid of photos u don’t need or that make u remember anything other than good times

remove toxic people’s contacts or unadd them

make new playlists and delete old ones

get a new wallpaper, new widgets, new phone case

go to settings and turn off notifications for everything except the apps u need them from

delete social media accounts u never post on

take more pictures of moments u want to remember and less pictures of stuff u don’t really care abt

try using ur screen time app and a “sleep focus” to block certain apps/websites and turn off notifications at 10pm or whenever u want to get ready for bed

🐚🐚

{ mental health }

practice mindfulness when u wake up and when ur going to sleep

journal about anything and everything you’re thinking about (write down everything u want to remember to clear up some mental space)

surround yourself with people that make you happy, and cut off the ones who don’t

remind yourself that everything on the internet is fake and you’re only seeing what they want you to see, not the full picture

make a list of goals and hopes for the summer and for the rest of the year and try to work towards them

don’t forget to take time to rest and recharge!

remember that you don’t owe anyone anything and you’re doing all this for yourself!

but also know that you’re not alone! feel free to dm me with anything that’s on ur mind 🤍 and never be scared to talk about whatever ur going thru with the people u trust!

🐚🐚

luv always, saltty

[youpavedtheroadtohell]

Not good enough.

That sentence has been burning into my fucking mind for weeks now. Over and over again. Like a mantra no one asked for. When I think it, it sounds like my own voice. But when others say it whether directly or hidden behind their “well-meaning” advice, it hits different. It cuts deeper.

BOOM. Who the hell do you think you are?

I can feel how much I’ve destroyed myself. How much I’ve pushed myself to the side. My body is screaming. My mind is screaming. Every part of me is begging: Please, stop this.

I need to start taking care of myself. My body. My mental health. My boundaries. I need to draw the damn line and stick to it. I need to learn how to be selfish. Healthy selfish.

And yeah, everything inside me resists that. Because I was never taught to put myself first. I always thought I had to function for others.

But I know I need to heal. Not for my family. Not for friends. Not for him. For me.

And maybe my therapist is right whether I like it or not. Maybe there are a few positive traits in my father I could look at. But he’s not my role model. Not even close. I’m going my own way. Without his shadow. Without his voice echoing in my head.

Back then, I would’ve proved everyone right. I would’ve shown them I was exactly what they said I was:

Not good enough. Not healthy. Not stable.

But not anymore. Who the fuck are you to judge me? Who decided you get to define my worth? Who told you my “enough” was up for debate except me? I’m doing this for me.

I want to heal. I want to grow. I want a life that doesn’t drain me every goddamn day. I want a life that gives me energy.

I want to learn to love myself. To be emotionally independent. To be strong. Steady. Confident.

And no—my therapist doesn’t tell me I’m already enough. He tells me I need to change. That I need to face myself. For me. That I have to stop living to meet expectations, to avoid pain, to survive. That I need to start living because I deserve to. Not because it’s easy. But because it can be better. Because I can make it better. And I believe him. I want to do the work. For me. I deserve a lighter life. I deserve a life where I’m not constantly fighting. I want peace. I want a quiet life; a life that is mine.

Yes, I’ll have to change a lot. But: I want that. I can do that. Not to prove anything to anyone. But because I’m worth it.

After every therapy session, there’s this shift: Sadness. Then rage. But not the destructive kind. This fire. This burning kind of rage that pushes me forward. That says: Now more than ever. That kind of rage that wakes me up, gives me hope, moves me. I’m still here. I’m alive. I’m fighting.

I want to lose weight not to be anyone’s version of beautiful but because I want to feel good in my body. I want more discipline not because it’s expected but because I need structure. I want balance. I want to cut people out of my life who don’t respect me. I want clear boundaries. I want to know what I want, not what others want from me.

I need a new job. One that doesn’t break me. I want routines I can stick to. And I need to learn: not everyone loves like I do. Not everyone gives everything. And that’s okay. But I get to choose how much I give and to whom. I want out of this old version of myself. I want the full reset. I want me back. And I will take myself back. And honestly? If it were easy to kill myself, I would’ve done it a long time ago. But it’s not easy. And maybe that’s a good thing. Because somewhere deep in me, something still wants to live.

Not just survive. Live. And for today, that’s enough.

[toomanynightsatbashes]

[Introduction To: TMNAB]

-[Uhh...] -[Hi! You can call me Alex! I will be your uhh...guide!] -[You might be asking yourself: What the hey is going on?!] -[Welcome to Bashes! You remember Bashes right? Bashes Deluxe Party Center? You used to go there all the time as a kid! You even work there I think before it shutdown recently...uhm...yeah! You do. I don't know why I welcomed you to a place you actively know and visit all the time. Sorry.] -[...] -[Let me explain. Do you remember that incident at Bashes when you were like...five maybe? You know the one where you found that summoning circle in the backroom? Yeahhh...I bet you forgot about that huh? Weird...multi-dimensional stuff...was it even demonic? Hey if I know...] -[Why do you think the mascots were lifelike? Those things were...I can't even explain it I don't know!!!! Granted I don't even know how Fredrick got ahold of that stuff or why he thought it was a good idea but uhhh...yeah.Hes...really good at getting away with this stuff too....wow. I feel bad for helping him with it though.] -[You were the only one who knew about the rituals besides me and I...well I got silenced if you catch my drift. So I decided- the best thing to do was to reach out! And unfortunately...besides Fredrick...your the only person who can 'pick up the phone'.] -[Well you and I- we are both TRAPPED here? You aren't dead by the way just thought I should let you know uhm you are sleeping right now...The last thing you should remember is working one of your routine shifts right? being the nightguard or whatever while they try to clean up the place and y'know- properly close it? Yeah so incase you somehow missed it which you probably did, Fredrick got you too. Soooo- now you're in here with me!] -[The good news is, you aren't actually dead like I said before which means there's still hope! I need you to...well...find a way to shut this whole operation Fredricks got going on down completely okay?] -[So uhm...here's the thing...if you look around...Bashes should look a little...different. Don't panic! It's nothing big it's just...I would try to explain it to you but I'm gonna be real with you...it's like some black magic stuff...It kinda looks like how it was before it shutdown right?] -[Every day from twelve am to six am, this place becomes...it becomes chaotic!] -[Also before you ask, no....you cannot avoid falling asleep. I'm sorry you are going to be forced in here no matter what. Make your office comfy when youre awake because I swear you literally will just pass out on the spot at like- right when twelve hits. I'm sorry. I know it sucks.] -[Anyways as I was uhhh...saying. The mascots will uhhh...They will Uhhh...become active during these hours. Well- They are always active but around that timeframe they will become HEYA active, you got that? What will they do? Well they will come after you. I don't know if they are under Fredricks control but they will seek you out and try and mess up our plan.] -[Soooo just survive this dream sequence until the clock hits six and when you wake up- Try and find out as much as you can with what's left in that building. They took out the mascots from the actual building right? You shouldn't have to worry about being attacked in real life...Oh unless a guy breaks in uhm...okay don't think about that.] -[When you come back, report to me okay? I will be on the phone line all night y'know!] -[You might mostly be confined to your office but there will be things that require you to step out.] -[Sooo...You got all that? Great. Oh! one more thing, the mascots they...get more active as each week progresses. On Sundays they are basically just...not...doing anything but the further you go the more active they get! And then it kinda...resets? If they get you then you have to start the day your on over which...ouch that will give you a migraine when you finally do wake up.] -[Sooo...lets use this day to look around okay? Don't worry, I've got your back!]

Welcome to Bashes! This is a Tumblr blog dedicated to a FNAF fangame that- cannot be made due to the creator not having...any resources to do so? Yeah. This blog will document characters, mechanics and all of that cool stuff. If you really REALLY wanna...you can even roleplay, I love to let people have fun. Creator uses He/They/It/Spiral and you can just call me Hector if you wanna address me :P Our tag? TMNAB

[clown-ged]

a Morning Routine with Bad Reception

every morning the same thing

i wake up to a layer of plexiglass between me and the world

i struggle to move my body enough

to get enough momentum

to sit up

then stand

then step

then step

then step

then step

all the way to the toilet to relieve the pressure

one I've been feeling for nearly an hour now as I've been struggling

desperately

to connect my mind to my body

just enough

to twitch a finger

to cause that cascade of movement

until I have come to rest again

and risk facing that struggle once more, once the need arises

to pilot my body to another location

the connection between my controller and my console seems to be faulty.

it resets without warning.

minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades, millenia pass.

like radio static, filling my skull.

like the buzzing of thousands upon thousands of bees.

the vibrations become heat that liquefies the grey matter.

there is no sound but the universe is So Loud

there is only sound, inescapable

the pounding heart in my chest sounding so far away

but sounding nonetheless

distant drums from across a dark abyss

is this droning in my ears that is drowning out the world

the call of the Nothing that I feel that it is?

or is this sound simply Everything

All At Once

every thought I've ever had, am having, will ever have

all playing on top of each other

like standing in the center of a crowd of voices

all saying different things

but all of them directed at Me.

and then

I

am

aware again.

how much time has passed?

when did I lose track of it?

I open my phone to check if I sent any messages during the time I spent in the static of the Noverything.

I look for any evidence I have left from before and compare the time stamps to the present clock.

when i find out that the centuries I spent in the static were only

a handful

of minutes

the plexiglass thickens.

I muster up the strength to relocate.

I stand

I step

I go to wash the cats' bowls

to feed them their breakfast

a meal they are pestering me for

with meows and purrs and rubbing their fur against my ankles

making me have to focus more of my attention

on each step

by step

by step

to the sink

and as the water makes contact with my hands

I realize, abruptly

that while I was lost in the echoing garbled gibberish from earlier

I neglected to piss.

and I must return to step one

of my morning

and hope

my perception and reception on reality remain

just stable enough

to make it to another hour

another moment

another chance

for the plexiglass to thin

perhaps even lift

even if for a moment

and even though the memory of those moments

however recent they may be

may feel as though it was experienced lifetimes ago

once on the other side

the moments can still replay, however distantly

reminding me that even though reality may seem to

skip

and repeat

and jump

like a faulty CD

the continuity of my life can be traced

to a single being

a human one

a human being now increasingly aware of the burden of the task of self-maintenance

until it abruptly isn't aware anymore

the fog

the static

the abyss of nothingeverything

the body going limp

catatonic

only aware of itself enough to know it has done so

but with no power to change anything about it

nothing left but the whirling wheels of thoughtless thinking to taunt me

the knowledge of my state of being driving me further into it

until I can grasp at just enough of a thought

to follow its trail

back up to reality

somehow finding myself only minutes ahead of where I was before

once again

and now must continue the burst of whatever task needs doing.

tasks always need doing.

what task was I doing?

the plexiglass thickens again.

I think I have to pee.

[kdaisies]

On November 1st, I was feeling very bad, but now I'm calmer to share what happened. Recently, I went through another heavy bout of depression. Suicidal thoughts and even attempts, along with a lot of sadness, despair, and so on.

One thing that doesn't make sense is that everything in my life was fine. My only trigger had been a comment from my own son that left me extremely dysphoric. So, I continued my therapy at Casulo (the transgender outpatient clinic in my city) as usual, being honest and open with the professionals there during this delicate time, which coincided with the rib injury I suffered from wearing a binder. Even though I was depressed, I stayed strong in therapy, attending regularly, following the psychiatrist's recommendations to bring my partner for dialogue, and I even started a campaign to raise funds for my surgery. This gave me a boost, and I managed to climb out of the pit, even though my psychiatrist increased my medication dosage.

With the donated money, I was even able to have my first private consultation with the mastologist. As I mentioned before, I had given up on the public health system (SUS) after they lost my medical records from UREDIPE (the former outpatient clinic), and I spent ANOTHER YEAR at Casulo with the count of time RESET.

However, my hopes of getting surgery through SUS were revived last week when, during a consultation with the endocrinologist at the Casulo project, he started the referral process for me to go to Jean Bittar.

I filled out an anamnesis and did the same with the psychologist. When I asked the endocrinologist if he thought I could still have my surgery this year, he said it was VERY LIKELY. He added that on the 1st of the month, I should go to an appointment with the psychiatrist to obtain the last necessary assessment, and then it would be with the social services (to be referred to Jean Bittar). Obviously, I was SUPER HAPPY, thinking that I was going to get my surgery through SUS!!!

I don't know if you can understand how delicate it is to give someone with a dream hope. Especially a dream that directly relates to my mental health, given that the need for this surgery causes me to have very low lows, to become extremely depressed, and to desire to give up on my life!!! These were the hopes that were given to me.

I was so confident that I would have the surgery through SUS that, perhaps those who follow me have noticed, I reduced the promotion of my campaign.

On the 1st, however, when I went to the Casulo project (I had a routine appointment with a psychologist, and theoretically, I was ONLY going to do an anamnesis with the psychiatrist to get my assessment), everything went wrong.

Basically, the argument I heard was that the psychology and psychiatry team understood that I "had just come out of a crisis" and therefore I "needed to get better a little more" before being referred to Jean Bittar (the hospital that performs mastectomies).

You see, as I said, the reason for my crisis was a trigger that made me feel dysphoric. It was dysphoria that made me feel bad, it was the lack of respect and responsibility with MY DOCUMENTS when I was at UREDIPE, it was MY NEED TO HAVE SURGERY that seemed extremely distant.

How could I get better from what hurts before being able to get better from what hurts?? It doesn't make sense. I feel dysphoria about my chest, and this operation is an urgent need that is being neglected and affecting my mental health, but they consider that I FIRST have to get better mentally to have the surgery (????) Obviously, I gave myself the right not to stay in the Casulo office under the extremely stressful conditions that have made me go through this ONCE AGAIN.

The SESPA (the State Department of Health of Pará) should investigate my situation because at this moment, it felt easier to end my life completely; it was my support network that got me back on track!

Even if this "get better a little more" innocently refers to a few weeks, it still shattered someone's expectations in a CRUEL way. I sincerely felt driven to madness, and I left there desolate without even getting to talk to the psychiatrist.

To be honest, I don't even feel like GOING BACK TO CASULO!! Everything is an illusion. A lie. It seems that no one from SESPA or the Government of Pará really cares about the transgender population. We have to accept everything silently and pretend that everything is fine!

How can one stabilize after going through all the necessary consultations at UREDIPE, having my data lost, restarting the count at Casulo, having yet another year of regular follow-up, and finally, after all this time, being referred, only to be told that I "need to stabilize" first????

It's unfeasible. I don't deny the need for psychiatric and psychological care. I don't deny that this goes beyond my gender identity; I talk openly about it every day, I know I'm neurodivergent.

The question is, don't neurodivergent individuals have the right to have surgery as well??? After all, it's dysphoria that's inflaming a mental health condition I already have!!?

I won't allow myself to be silenced or buried by cisgender norms. I will fight for my surgery, by any means it may come.

I KNOW I'm neurodivergent, but I don't have a diagnosis because the psychiatry team doesn't give us diagnoses easily, but it's always easy to incapacitate us and say that we need to "recover from the crisis" before addressing the root cause of the damn crisis.

If I'm not neurodivergent and my crises are exacerbated by dysphoria caused by the need for mastectomy, I DEMAND, at a minimum: the mastectomy.

Now, if I'm neurodivergent and I have a mental condition BEYOND gender identity, I DEMAND my diagnosis and an ACCURATE assessment so that I have a basis for what exactly I'm recovering from, what my condition is, and what rights I have!

Furthermore, I still demand my mastectomy ANYWAY, because it's my right as a transgender person! After all, dysphoria inflames the inherent condition of whatever is affecting my mental health!

You can help me by sharing my case or donating to my mastectomy campaign through PayPal (US donations) (email: kaleomendesm@gmail.com), donations in BRL through the link https://campanhadobem.com.br/campanhas/mastectomia-e-consultas-do-kaleo

[sweepymaidsca]

Outsourcing Your Chores: The Smartest Move for Modern Families

Let’s be honest—keeping a clean, organized home while juggling work, parenting, relationships, school runs, and maybe a bit of downtime… it’s not just hard. It’s nearly impossible.

You’re not lazy. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just living in a world that demands a lot, and there are only so many hours in the day. That’s why more and more families are ditching the guilt and outsourcing their chores—and honestly? It’s one of the smartest moves you can make.

From professional cleaning services in Surrey to trusted maid services in Abbotsford and reliable house cleaning in Brampton, families across Canada are finally letting go of the idea that they have to do it all alone. And it's about time.

The Mental Load Is Real

You know what’s worse than a messy house? The constant mental chatter that reminds you it’s messy. It’s that background stress that hums while you’re at work or trying to relax. “Did I vacuum this week? When was the last time I cleaned behind the fridge? The bathroom sink is growing a ring... again.”

It never ends.

But when you bring in a cleaning pro—even just once or twice a month—you get to take that mental weight off your shoulders. You start to live in a home that feels lighter, calmer, and way more manageable.

And that feeling? That’s priceless.

It’s Not Lazy, It’s Smart

Some people still think hiring a cleaner means you're pampered or can’t handle your own mess. Let’s shut that down right now.

Choosing to outsource your cleaning doesn’t mean you’re lazy. It means you’re prioritizing your time and energy. It means you’re choosing to spend your evenings and weekends on what matters—your family, your rest, your sanity.

Would you feel guilty hiring a mechanic to fix your car? A plumber to fix a leak? Probably not. So why is hiring a cleaner any different?

Why Modern Families Are Choosing Cleaning Services

Whether you live in a cozy condo in Surrey, a busy townhouse in Brampton, or a spacious home in Abbotsford, your time is probably stretched thin. That’s why professional help just makes sense. Here’s what families love about outsourcing their chores:

1. It Saves Time—And Stress

The biggest win? Time. When you hand off cleaning duties to pros like those offering professional cleaning services in Surrey, you're buying back hours every week. And not just hours, but energy and patience you can spend on your kids, your partner, or simply on yourself.

2. Your Home Gets Really, Actually Clean

Let’s be real: the “clean” most of us do is survival mode. A quick wipe-down, a fast vacuum, and hope no one opens the closet. But the pros? They go deep. Behind the stove. Under the couch. Fingerprints on the fridge? Gone. The result is a space that doesn’t just look clean—it feels fresh and healthy.

3. Routine Becomes Manageable

With scheduled cleanings, you stop playing catch-up. Whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, having a plan in place means cleaning isn’t a looming mystery anymore. It becomes part of the rhythm of your life—and one that happens without your sweat and sore knees.

A Closer Look: Families in Brampton, Abbotsford, and Surrey

Different cities, same needs. But local services bring local solutions.

🏠 House Cleaning in Brampton

Brampton families are some of the busiest around—balancing long commutes, active households, and big dreams. The solution? House cleaning services in Brampton that understand how chaotic life gets and deliver reliable, thorough cleanings without hassle. It’s all about peace of mind.

🧹 Maid Services in Abbotsford

Abbotsford has its own rhythm—slower in some ways, but still full of working parents, young families, and seniors who need an extra hand. Local maid services in Abbotsford are designed for flexibility: deep cleans, quick resets, move-in or move-out help—you name it.

✨ Professional Cleaning Services in Surrey

Surrey’s mix of young professionals, growing families, and multi-generational homes means cleaning needs vary. Luckily, maid service abbotsford offer everything from spotless apartment cleaning to full-home overhauls. They know what it means to keep a home running smoothly.

It’s Not Just for “Special Occasions” Anymore

In the past, people would call in cleaners only before guests or holidays. But now? The trend has shifted. Families are making professional cleaning part of their regular routine. Why?

Because it works. Because it helps. Because life is just easier when you’re not constantly buried under chores.

Whether you’re prepping for a birthday, recovering from a crazy week, or just want to walk into a fresh-smelling home, outsourcing your cleaning is no longer a “treat.” It’s a life hack.

The Guilt Stops Here

Here’s the truth most people won’t say out loud: You’re not supposed to do it all. You were never meant to work full-time, raise kids, cook meals, stay fit, socialize, and keep your house magazine-ready every day.

So stop trying.

Give yourself the permission to get help. Hire the cleaning team. Take something off your plate. You deserve a clean home—without sacrificing the little bit of rest you might get after 9 p.m.

Final Thoughts: Let the Pros Handle It

Outsourcing your chores might feel like a small step, but it creates a ripple effect. You feel more calm. More in control. More present with the people you love. And all it takes is one decision to let the pros take over what doesn’t need to be your responsibility.

If you're Canada, there's no shortage of trusted house cleaning brampton teams ready to help you reclaim your time—and your peace of mind.

Because a clean home isn’t just nice to have. For a modern family? It’s essential.

[ochalife]

I should’ve done this before going into April but well it’s a bit too late for that. But I’m gonna do it anyway bcos I need to let this shit out!

So for starters I have this thing called the March curse. It started back in 2020 and basically it’s when every day of March is super bad and shitty and literally drives me to the brink of insanity every single year. Every year I think that “oh I hope my March curse won’t happen this year and I’ll actually enjoy this godforsaken month” and every year I am proven wrong as I have a much worse March than the previous year. You might think that I’m manifesting it but let me tell you I cannot be wishing this shit on someone else.

The first day of March this year really sold it for me bcos it was already shitty from the beginning. I took a lab exit exam and after that exam a friend stopped talking to me (and a few other friends from our circle) without knowing the reason why. This particular ex-friend started making posts on Instagram saying that the people around her were fakes and gaslighters. I’ve moved on from the whole shebang (kinda) compared to when this mess first started and I was all bothered bcos this was a person I was with for the whole four years of my college life and I get dropped like that and I don’t have a single idea why. I almost ripped my hair out thinking every single mistake I could’ve done everyday just so I could make sense of all of this. It’s been a whole month and she still hasn’t talked to the friend group that she dropped (us) and I was afraid that it would be a lot messier bcos we’re doing the same post during internship duty but fortunately things are professional and okay at the lab. Sometimes I wish this didn’t happen bcos she started involving a lot of other ppl that don’t even relate to this whole mess but in the end I just decided that losing my mind over overthinking this shit wouldn’t fix our friendship anyway and personally I wouldn’t want to rekindle it too bcos she’s not the best person in the world to befriend either. It just sucks bcos we went thru so much shit during college together as a group just for the cold shoulder and ghosting to happen just right when we’re about to graduate.

Other than that I was also on edge for the entire month of March like I was irritated and on the verge of having breakdowns everyday. There was this one time I had a meltdown over choosing the wrong scrubs size thinking I wasted my money and I fucked up the only thing that was going to make internship a little better and comfortable before realizing (thanks to my mom) that I could just return it to the store and exchange it for a smaller size. I was also so tired and exhausted that no amount of sleep or rest could fix it and I didn’t know how to stop feeling like shit.

I did graveyard duty around second week of March if I remember correctly and that fucked up everything. My sleep schedule, routines and my health (both physically and mentally) in general. It was so hard to recover that I was stressing out about how to get my body together and function properly before my next duty week bcos then I had to do morning shift which would force my body clock and sleep schedule to hard reset. I couldn’t sleep until it was 5am and I was waking up at around 2-3pm. How the fuck was I going to pull morning shift off if I had to wake up at 5am instead of going to sleep right then.

The answer: I did Monday of morning duty on no sleep bcos I couldn’t force myself to. I was awake for 24+ hours that day and I knocked the fuck out the moment my body hit the bed. But before that my car got hit and badly scratched by a jeep on the way home so that was fun! I couldn’t be bothered to pull up and talk to the driver bcos the jeep that hit me sped up and I just wanted to get home so badly. I can’t even blame this on my lack of sleep or not being in my right mind bcos I was awfully aware of how close that jeep was to my car that I stopped moving altogether to prevent anything that might happen but the driver literally swerved his jeep to the direction of my car knowing there was no space anymore so lol. There’s the start of my amazing week!

The next day there was this pain in my mouth that went down until my throat that I couldn’t eat properly. On top of that I got my period that day and my white scrubs got stained bcos my flow is always really heavy the first few days. I was anticipating my period already of course but I wasn’t entirely prepared to get it that day. The beautiful cherry on top: my back felt like it was splitting in half like it was so painful and the pain was so dull the entire time and would not go away. I had to do under time from my duty that day bcos I literally couldn’t take any of this shit anymore and the lab was scorching hot too.

I took the day off the next day to visit my dentist about the pain in my mouth and found out it was my bitch of a wisdom tooth again! It acted up for the first time this same time last year but this one was undeniably worse bcos I genuinely thought I had an infection in mouth with how painful one side of it was. But then my dentist explained that it really does happen with erupting wisdom tooth and that the pain might be more pronounced in the succeeding days or months or years. So she advised me to take it out even though it’s not impacted if it just keeps hurting (all of this considering I have very high pain tolerance).

The rest of the week was considerably better bcos I got to hang out with my friends during duty since I had to stay behind after my assigned duty hours makeup for the time I was absent and under time. Fortunately I wasn’t all that unlucky anymore as the month was ending but when my mom and I met up at one mall I asked her to buy me an evil eye bracelet just in case.

To be fair March wasn’t all that bad for like a week bcos I got to go out with my friends to places I’ve never been to!!! I also learned how to travel by commuting with train to places on my own and I rode all the railway lines in my country in a single day so that’s been the highlight of my month at least :) and a core memory too!!! It was so tiring and draining with all the walking I had to do that day but it was definitely worth the experience and the bonding that I had with my friends.

So that’s how my March went. My March this year has impressively outdone all the March I had in my life and is amazingly the worst one yet that it even surpassed the first one which was the pandemic March. Here’s to hoping that next year my March curse would be no longer!!!

Now looking forward to April bcos while March has always been shit, April has always been better. Kinda like the fruit of March’s pain and suffering lol. APRILLL please be kind I beg ;u;

[lyndonriggall]

The Mid-Thirty

On the train to Mt. Fuji. Photo by Georgie Todman.

And so, here we are again: Happy Birthday to me! Who would have thought that 35 would come around so quickly? If I’m honest, this circling of the sun has felt a bit like a test, and I am grateful to have apparently passed it, and for the hard reset of a new year: the sense of something over, with a fresh start to go with it. There were wonderful parts to it, but, for me at least, it was a hard year. And I made it.

It began with one of the biggest challenges I have faced in a decade or more: performing the role of Katurian in the Launceston Players’ production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, directed by my dear friend Mitchell Langley. This is a work that I have loved since I first studied and performed a monologue from it in Year 12: a wild, terrifying story that is as tragic as it is funny, exploring the deep darkness of humanity, questions of censorship, art, and the role of the artist. It was an enormous undertaking and extraordinarily ambitious for my first foray back into theatre after more than a decade (as my nightmares throughout the season occasionally attested), but I am nevertheless so grateful for the experience I had working with the incredible team on the project, all of whom supported and guided me every step of the way. As far as leaps outside my comfort zone go, it was a big one, but I learnt so much and I loved every moment of it. Last week, I was delighted to hear that my performance was nominated for a Tasmanian Theatre Award for Best Male Leading Performance Community Theatre, which will be announced at the end of February, so as out of my depth as I often felt, I'm hoping that's a sign that I might have done something right! If taking on The Pillowman should have been the big challenge of 2024, it was sadly outstripped by a surprise contender. Sometime during the beginning of the school year, I contracted covid for the first time (a miraculous near-four-year effort, considering that I have been working in a school of 1300 students for all of that time). For two weeks, I crawled out of bed in order to fire off some lesson plans to my substitute teachers in the morning, then crawled back, exhausted, unable to concentrate on even the television, let alone a videogame or a book. Eventually, after returning to school, I would finish a day’s teaching and lock the door of the classroom as the students exited, then fall to the floor exhausted and drenched in sweat. Any exercise at all sent me into decline again. I was very lucky that my school helped me develop a plan to get back on track, and I knew that my only option was to surrender. I made a new phone background based on a famous line from Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe: the repeated phrase, “It gets good.” And it did. Finally, in October, eight months after my initial infection, I had my first week without a “bad day.” By November, I still hadn’t had any, and I'm still going strong. People ask if I’m 100% now, and I have to admit that I’m not, but I also don’t think that 90% is too bad. I’m grateful, at the moment, to feel like myself again.

This year also saw co-president Georgie Todman and I spearhead our first joint iteration of the Tamar Valley Writers Festival. We were very excited by the time October rolled around, and our wonderful team was working round the clock to bring everything together, but while it was exhausting (and I am so grateful that my health was in a good place by this point), the honest truth is that, as a crew of committee, employees and volunteers, we had a ball. Our guests were exceptional, and we regularly had to pinch ourselves. Did I really interview Markus Zusak in a room of hundreds of people? What is this life?

Through all of this, of course, was teaching—which remained my anchor to normality, routine, and the life-giving energy of working with my students, but which also left me wondering about what the future might look like. This will come as a shock to many, but at the end of the year I made a big decision: after a remarkable seven years at Launceston College, I packed up my office, cleared out the filing cabinet, and I am heading to Cressy District High School starting next week. I’m nervous about making the adjustment to a new school for the first time in my teaching career to become a Grade 7 teacher, but it’s an excited kind of nervous, and on a visit there late last year to meet the staff, chickens, sheep, highland cows and resident lizard—book-ended by the first of many daily drives under the Western Tiers—I felt an enormous sense of potential: for what I hope will be the contribution that I can take to Cressy from my time at Launceston College, and for what I hope I will learn from Cressy to take with me to whatever and wherever comes next. Looking back on the last seven years, I could not be more proud of the work that I have done, and the way that I have thrown myself into this profession, and I already miss the connections with students, families and staff that I got to share at LC. That school changed my life: once, as a learner myself, who fell into the deepest romance with the written word inside its halls, and then again, when I found my greatest joy sharing that enthusiasm with the next generation. I often say that I hope one day to have enough success in my writing to balance the scales of my time slightly: to be a writer and a teacher in something more like equal measure. Until then, I can’t help but acknowledge that if I were to be visited in the dark of the night and told that it was one or the other? I’d be a teacher. I love being connected to people, and, whatever else might be going on in my life, I wake up every day with something important to do. Following the recent death of John Marsden, who I admired so much as both an educator and writer (as well as the life he created by the balance of the two), I have been revisiting his work and history and was amazed to see him asked in an episode of 60 Minutes whether he felt that being a best-selling author or educator was more significant. Surprisingly, he didn’t hesitate to declare that his work in education was the most meaningful work that he had ever done. In that moment, I felt a sudden sense of calm about the path I continue to walk.

There are so many other small and large moments that could rate not only a mention here, but a whole post of their own: travelling (and my continuing obsession with Japan), adventures in nature, theatre performances of loved ones, mentorship, birthdays, weddings and a public reading by Mudlark Theatre Company of the first draft of my own play: The Second Death of Alice Crane. It’s been a hard twelve months, but also one that I will look back on with pride and a real sense of achievement. Its toughness has made me tougher, and also—I hope—gentler. This year, I have relied on the people around me who care to keep my spirits up, and to remind me of what is important; to help, to wait, and to have my back. Some years cast long shadows, but, if I’m honest, I struggle to think of even the worst of them as “bad,” because I get to share all of them with the people that I love. I miss those I have lost, of course, but I have never really felt nostalgic for the past… why would I want to be anywhere but here, with these wonderful people, making these memories?

On my birthday, this is my wish: I hope that—whatever 2024 might have brought you—2025 brings you wonder. There is so much pain in the world, but there is also so much joy, and we owe it to ourselves, whenever possible, to walk a careful line: to fight against injustice, to know that small acts create ripples, and to hold each simple pleasure as a sacred thing. If you need a reset, remember that each year is a marker and a waypoint of possibility, but so is the month, so is the day, and so is the hour. I know now, from the supposed-middle of my thirties, that all of it is arbitrary. Every minute we can start again.

Here I am, at thirty-five, grateful. Thank you for being my friends. I hope for you a year of wonderful beginnings.

[thecreationofevelyn]

21/12/2023

"The difference is, you are the sunshine I chase, that I worship."

I haven't written anything for quite some time, life has been coming at me hard and fast, and I wasn't expecting this year to go the way it did at all. It has been filled with wonderful highs and devastating lows but I'm lucky enough to be in the company of my soulmate throughout, someone who has held me through it all...

Back in April I sat down to play one of my favorite games The Elder Scrolls Online, to relax for the evening, I was actually planning on staying up to reset my sleeping schedule as I had been unwell and it had knocked me out of routine. I'm pretty silly so I accidentally ended up on the American servers, so luckily even though it was late for me, the game was still active. I requested help from one of my guilds and a few people replied to say they would help, but only one person actually showed up. We got talking and long story short, within the past eight months he has moved countries to live with me, we're engaged to be married and we're expecting a child. It's a funny little story to tell our grandkids, is what we say.

After his visit to the UK to see me back in May, I visited the US in July, it was my first time being on a plane and I was kinda scared but once I was on there I found I love flying, turbulence is actually kinda fun (in small doses). I met his family, saw his hometown, met his friends and melted in the summer heat that was accompanied by a heatwave. My airline also completely messed up my return flight, which resulted in me being "stuck" in the US for another week (something my partner was actually wishing for on the way to dropping me off to the airport!), and like my knight in shining armor, he swung his car right round and said "I'm coming to get you, baby. Don't worry!".

In August, after selling all his possessions, he caught a flight to the UK and moved in with me. It felt wonderful to think there wasn't a limit on our time anymore, that from now on we'd wake up together every day. We had our time to adjust to living together and the ultimate outcome is that we are at home with each other. I now understand why people call their partners their "other half". I introduced him to my Grandmother who was unfortunately in the hospital at the time due to a fall, they chatted, she told him about the war and her life, he held her hand and told her how much he loves me, our plans for the future, that I'm the person he plans on marrying and having his children with. As I gave her a hug and a kiss goodbye, she squeezed my hand and said "He is wonderful." I replied, "I know". My grandma would always tell me "I hope you find someone who loves you properly, I'd love for you to be happy and have someone who will take care of you.", after living through years of abuse and hardship, I had grown into a horrible sense in hyper-independence and would tell her I was happy and I didn't need taking care of, but deep down, I always wished for the same too, I had just given up hope.

Sadly, that visit was the last time I got to speak to my Grandma, that night she had a stroke and I could speak to her but she wasn't really there...she held on for as long as she could, until she also caught Covid. She passed away in her sleep, thankfully in a comfortable bed surrounded by caring nurses, on the 2nd of October 2023. She lived to see her 94th birthday, on which I made a fuss of relighting her birthday candles because in the rush of filming her, we forgot to catch a photo of her. I'm glad I made a fuss, it was the last photo I would get of her, and it is a beautiful one.

On the 14th of October, I realized I could smell things a lot stronger; I took a pregnancy test...or twelve...and all came back positive. Our baby will be a Leo, the same star sign as my Grandma. Sometimes I think she held on until she was convinced I had found proper love.

We have made the decision to move to America in February to be around family, we will be working and saving and growing towards the plans we have made for our lives. I know my Grandma would be telling me to go and do it, I know she would be happy that for the first time in my life, I'm actually happy and doing what I want to do with my life.

I'm now two months pregnant and I've been having nausea but nothing to bad, it is manageable. The exhaustion is starting to slow down too, so I'm getting ready to begin being creative again with my YouTube channel. We have a lot of selling, packing, and preparing to do in the next two months, but in the meantime...it is almost Christmas, our first together, and it's also my birthday on the same day. My partner told me a story of how when he was Eleven years old his aunt asked him what he wanted for Christmas, and he replied "I don't want anything. Just a picture of my future wife.". He tells me now "And then you're born on Christmas Day...you're my Christmas present!".

Peace, Evee xo

[nanowrimo]

Journaling Practices to Help With Writing Funks

Feeling stuck in your writing? Journaling might be your answer to getting unstuck! NaNo Participant Ashley has some tips on using journaling as a guide to get you writing again. We all know writing is no easy feat, and it can be especially difficult when we find ourselves in a funk. Sometimes it’s best to take a break, reset, and turn our energy elsewhere and inward to help us get re-focused on the goal ahead. So, whether you’re struggling to start a new work or find yourself stumped on writing that next chapter, try these tips to help you get over the hump.

1. Brain dump

A brain dump is exactly what it sounds like. Grab a journal and write down everything on your mind. It can be specific to what you’re currently working on, or just anything that’s taking up space in your head. Set a timer for 5 minutes and let the thoughts flow. If you find this difficult to do, maybe start with one of these prompts:

What are five things I accomplished today?

How can I prioritize myself and my everyday tasks better?

Are there any goals I’d like to accomplish this week/month/year?

Pro tip: Using the voice note app on your phone works just as well! Go for a walk or hop in your car for a drive and talk all your thoughts out until there’s nothing left to say.

2. Use a guided journal

I’m a big fan of guided journals when I can’t seem to find the inspiration to write. Something about a journal prompt and the space to write freely about a variety of topics really helps me to get out of my head. There are a ton of guided journals out there, but these are a few of my favorites:

Cleo Wade’s Heart Talk

Rupi Kaur’s Healing Through Words

Michelle Obama’s Becoming

3. Keep a gratitude log

One of the best ways to get grounded and re-centered is by simply paying attention and being present to the world around us. Start your day or end your night making a list of 5-10 things you're grateful for. You can even take it a step further by choosing 1 or 2 things from your list and going into more detail about why you’re grateful for it. Give yourself a few minutes every day for this practice, and by the end of the week you’ll have a long list to look back on and come back to when you’re feeling stuck.

4. Get into nature

A change of scenery is another great way to switch up your writing routine. Find a new or familiar park, take a walk, and observe the nature around you. Take notes in your phone or in your journal of everything that comes to mind using your five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). Get creative with what you jot down and write a poem from your observations, or perhaps a short story.

Ashley is a content marketer by day and aspiring nonfiction writer by night. She’s built a career of brand storytelling and now hopes to share stories from her own life on healing and self-care as she begins working on her first book. Follow her journey on Substack or Medium. Photo by Charlotte May from Pexels

[hermitologist]

My Favorite Records of 2022

Hi. I made another list.

First thing’s first. I apologize for the lack of music recommendations and runs on my Instagram this year. Thrice had a pretty busy touring schedule, and with the kids back in school the local virus carousel was BRUTAL. Seemed like we got to sample a new strain of the crud literally every other week. It’d rip its way through the house, we’d send the kids back to school, they’d bring a new batch of snot home a few days later, and it’d start up all over again. Rinse and repeat. It was hard to get out there and run with all that going on. Also: Blame where blame is due ... I got a little lazy when I wasn’t picking up goopy Kleenex or horking up some crud of my own. I”ll be back next year. (Hopefully.)

An-y-waaaaay ... 

I did manage to listen to a lot of new music despite "the circumstances”, and I have compiled all of my favorites for you here. There's a pretty clear cut Top 5 this year based on play counts, but the rest of the list didn’t really make sense to rank because this shit’s really all subjective anyway. I broke the list into categories that made sense to me, at the time, for organization’s sake. Each record has link to the band/label’s Bandcamp or website, so please please PLEASE support the artists you love beyond just streaming their music.

Playlists with a song from each record are below. I know it’s a lot of music. I know it’s all over the place. I know you don’t have time to listen to five-and-a-half hours of music. At the very least, I’d suggest at needle-dropping through the entire thing and earmarking some stuff to check out. That’s how I find a good chunk of this stuff. 

And please let me know what you dug this year and think I should check out!

Hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season. See you next year!

PLAYLISTS

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Spotify)

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Apple Music)

My Favorites of 2022 Playlist (Tidal)

THE TOP 5

Elder - Innate Passage

No contest here. This is a clear cut #1 for me. Fifty-four minutes of absolutely glorious, wholly transcendental, life-affirming, dreamy/heavy metal-adjacent prog. As a musician, I can tell you firsthand how hard it is to write a long song that doesn’t *feel* long. These fellas routinely crank out high-quality 10-minute-plus jams that you’ll hope never end. Queue this up and take it for a run, a long walk, or a long drive and you’ll see what I mean. It’s magical. And yes, it came out late in the year, but I haven’t been able to stop listening to it or thinking about it since, and I don’t see that changing for a long while.

Meshuggah - Immutable

It’s damn near impossible to find the right words for this band, let alone this record, but this is absolute wizardry, yet again, from the best metal band that has ever existed. Pure face-melting heaviness. They routinely reset the bar for what heavy music can and should be, and Immutable is no exception. It might even be my favorite Meshuggah record ever.

Museum of Light - Horizon

Ultra-heavy, sludgy, dynamic, meditative, push vs. pull, melody vs. dissonance post-rock in the vein of Kowloon Walled City, Shiner, Traindodge, and Torche. The songwriting is so clean and efficient, and the record as a whole is just a gorgeous, perfectly crafted arc. It’s perfect.

Holy Fawn - Dimensional Bleed

The heaviest, prettiest, most infectious batch of post-rock/metal I’ve heard in a long while. Dynamic shifts that are pure catharsis. A band that has the ability to give you euphoric chills one minute, and bring you to tears the next, headbanging all the while. Their first LP blew me away, and I wasn’t sure they could top it, but they totally have.

The Beths - Expert In A Dying Field

This record was an instant pick-me-up this year. A much-needed salve amidst all the stress and anxiety and depression the world can throw your way these days. Twelve preposterously hooky jams, that will put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step (even when the lyrical content dips into darker themes). It totally rules.

15 OTHER RECORDS THAT STAYED IN HEAVY ROTATION (in no order)

PLOSIVS - S/T

Drug Church - HYGIENE

Tvivler - Kilogram

Birds In Row - Gris Klein

gospel - The Loser

Cult of Luna - The Long Road North

Russian Circles - Gnosis

Conjurer - Pathos

Anxious - Green House

SPICE - Viv

PUP - The Unraveling of PUP The Band

The Smile - A Light For Attracting Attention

Pianos Become The Teeth - Drift 

Cloakroom - Dissolution Wave

Stray From The Path - Euthanasia

OTHER RECORDS I ENJOYED (also in no order)

Architects - the classic symptoms of a broken spirit Pedro the Lion - Havasu And So I Watch You From Afar - Jettison Mass Worship - Portal Tombs Rival Consoles - Now Is  Fleshwater - We’re Not Here To Be Loved Abraham - Debris de Mondes Perdus Norna - Star is way way is Eye Dan Mayo - Greenhouse Silvan Strauss - FACING Vein - This World is Going to Ruin You Author & Punisher - Krüller Black Thought/Dangermouse - Cheat Codes Cave In - Heavy Pendulum Square Peg Round Hole - Reservoir  Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers Pete Rock - Petestrumentals 4 Pet Fox - A Face In Your Life Swami John Reis - Ride the Wild Night Heriot - Profound Morality  Bastions - Majestic Desolation Wake - Thought Form Descent Inclination - Unaltered Perspective Momma - Household Name Hot Water Music - Feel The Void KEN Mode - NULL Animals As Leaders - Parrhesia Mark Giuliana - the sound of listening Meat Wave - Malign Hex Haunted Shores - Void Blessed - Circuitous Celeste - Assassine(s) Louis Cole - Quality Over Opinion Grivo - Omit Wonder Years - The Hum Goes on Forever A Hope For Home - Years Of Silicon Mountaineer - Giving Up The Ghost Norma Jean - Deathrattle Sing for Me Lamb Of God - Omens Psychonaut - Violate Consensus Reality Callous Daoboys - Celebrity Therapist Easy Prey - Unrest 84 Tigers - Time in the Lighthouse  Codespeaker - S/T Colonial Wound - Easy Laugh Thousandaire - Ideal Conditions

THE NEW BOTCH SONG I LISTENED TO LIKE 247 TIMES IN 3 DAYS

Botch - One Twenty Two

10 FAVORITE EPs

Downward - The Brass Tax  Cult Leader/End - Gather & Mourn  Irist - Gloria  Gleemer - Here at All  GoGo Penguin - Between Two Waves Lockstep - Lockstep 2  Portico Quartet - Next Stop  Be Well - Hello Sun  Chamber - Carved In Stone  Waldo’s Gift - Improvisations Vol. 2 

1 RECORD FROM 2019 THAT DIDN’T “CLICK” UNTIL 2022

Car Bomb - Mordial

2 RECORDS THAT DIDN’T COME OUT IN 2022 BUT GOT A LOTTA SPINS

Low - Double Negative Pile - Green and Gray

3 PODCASTS THAT I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Office Hours - humor, music, pure joy The Distraction - sports and social commentary/humor Effectively Wild - baseball analysis/humor

[that-blue-vault-dweller]

We've had so much happy sappy things lately. How about some angst? Companions react to sole getting super pissed at them and just leaving forever?

Oh, no..... I knew this was going to come soon enough... All good things must come to an end, after all 😔💙💛

All jokes aside, this literally broke my heart to write, but I very much enjoyed your suggestion for the new perspective it gave and the opportunity to write some good, old-fashioned angst 🥰 I didn't provide an explanation for what they said or what they did to make F!Sole mad, which I hope is okay! (I couldn't picture my F!Sole leaving any of them for any reason but I'm sure everyone's Sole varies in that respect)

Warnings: Light mentions of suicide, heavy mentions of drug and alcohol use.

Cait - Falls back into chems and will likely drug and drink herself to the grave. She can't believe that she went and screwed everything up again. She let down and upset the one person she vowed to never do that to, and now she's alone. Again. She's managed to run off the one person in her whole lifetime that actually cared about her and all she knows is that life is not even really worth living sober if she has to endure pain like this.

Piper - Cries herself to sleep for many nights after and sometimes finds herself crying during the day while she's typing an article or doing small mundane things, her guilt and sadness consuming her. (If F!Sole let her interview her back when she first came to Diamond City) Piper keeps a copy of the View from the Vault articles beside her bed and numbly reads them sometimes before going to sleep just to remind her of the only best friend she had ever had in her life. The only person that had stuck by her and tried to look out for her since her dad. Eventually she stops crying, but it takes a long time for her to rebound and her smile to come back. It never is as bright as it used to be when F!Sole was there, though.

Curie - Breaks her heart and completely destroys her. She cries for days, weeks, forever. All she knows is that there is a huge hole in her heart and she thinks of F!Sole every day. Her humanity is a constant reminder of the great person that she had lost and she will forever blame and kick herself for being so horrible that F!Sole would leave her. Curie will always care about F!Sole even if F!Sole doesn't care about her and Curie will forever miss her.

MacCready - Ends up heading back to go be with Duncan permanently. F!Sole was the only thing keeping him in the Commonwealth but now that he screwed that up, there is no reason left to stay. He was originally going to have his son brought to him as soon as possible, but he decides that they're better off away from where all of the sad memories are lingering. When he returns to his son, he is very happy, but he soon falls into a basic routine, trying to get through his grief of losing a true friend because of his own stupidity. He will eventually come out of the depression, but he will always carry the intense guilt of driving her away for good.

Deacon - Despite the fact that he just continues on with that constant mask of looking like he's just as calm and happy as anyone else, he is hurting deeply on the inside. It is easy to tell because of how he seems even more distant than usual and he very rarely ever comes back to the Railroad HQ. Guilt turns him into someone even more detached than he used to be before she left. However, he sometimes goes undercover just to watch her at a safe enough distance to keep her from recognizing him. After all, he has not changed his face since she left, preferring to keep some souvenir from his time with her. Unfortunately, his face is all he has left of those days.

Codsworth - Is broken-hearted and is at the epitome of guilt because he cannot believe he has made her so mad that she will have nothing more to do with him. He has absolutely no one left to serve and there is no one left who cares about him at all. He ends up falling into a state of denial, somehow glitching and convincing himself that she, sir, and young Shaun are simply away and will come back eventually. He sadly remains in this deluded state for the remainder of his days.

Hancock - Somehow does even more chems than before, knowing it cannot kill him but needing the rush to distract him from the complete and utter pain after sending away one of the few people that actually stood by him through thick and thin. He goes back to being the full-time mayor of Goodneighbor, but when he falls so deeply into the chems, the citizens begin thinking that it would be best to overthrow him. When he figures this out, he knows he has to stop doing the chems quite so much. He cuts back just enough to be coherent and make speeches to inspire people, but anyone can see that he is by no means doing as well as he used to before F!Sole left. At some point he is completely numb and he takes the chems to just feel something besides this deadness inside.

Danse - Is devastated. She is all he had left after being kicked out of the Brotherhood. He can't believe that he drove away the person that convinced him to see his own worth despite his true identity. He finds himself in deep, inescapable depression, and he eventually loses sight of why he should even keep going on at all. After all, he is just an instrument of evil that breaks friendship, families, and all good things. Why would the world need something like that?

Preston - Despite the fact that he does not believe he can do it, he forces himself to take up the mantel of General. He tries to lead and maintain a brave face even though he feels like he is falling apart. He knows the Minutemen are depending on him, and he feels so helpless. Eventually, he hands leadership over to Ronnie Shaw, returning to a second-in-command position as he throws himself into duties and work to try not to think about the loss of one of the few people that actually saw his vision and tried to help him achieve his dream. However, he can't quite forget the fact that it's all his fault that it ended up like this.

Valentine - Honestly cannot believe it and is in pure shock and devastation for several days before the grief and depression finally sets in. He throws himself into his work and becomes even more self-endangering, caring very little about himself and what happens to him. He knows he still has Ellie and the agency, but it just kind of seems to fade in importance as he thinks of F!Sole and how he drove her away. If he doesn't manage to get himself killed during this period, Ellie has a stern talk with him, and he actually does start being a little more careful. Not quite the level of careful he was when he had both F!Sole and Ellie on his back about it, but he tries for Ellie's sake if not his own.

X6-88 - Is quite angry at himself for angering and isolating such a vital and valuable asset of the Institute, but there is something else inside of him that pricks and pokes at his mind and gut. It is something he cannot identify and something he has never experienced before. It frequently brings her face to the forefront of his mind, homing in on just how angry that she looked and how she looked like she would rather be looking upon a pile of Brahmin dung than to be staring into his face. It bothers him for some reason, and when he returns to the Institute and expresses his thoughts, it is the last thing on his mind before they wipe his memory of her and reset him entirely.

Dogmeat - Tries to follow her even though she does not want him to. When she screams and throws things at him, he lowers his ears and tucks his tail, confused at what in the world he did wrong. He just wants her to love him again like she used to. He could be a better boy. He could stop pooping in Cait's shoes and stop chewing holes in things. Eventually, after weeks of following her and being rejected, he finally leaves her alone, heading back to Red Rocket Truck Stop where he decides to wait for her in hopes she will one day come back and give him all the pets or at least one pet. He ends up living his days waiting for her and pacing the place, waking up every morning with hopes that the sunrise will bring her back to him until he doesn't see the sunrise again.

Strong - Stays mad at her forever. However, he sometimes does wish that he had tiny human to help him with some things like fighting or cooking, but he quickly remembers that he's mad at her and tells himself that super mutants don't need puny humans. But there is something strange in his stomach when he thinks of her, but he usually smashes something to try to make himself feel better. The feeling never goes away quickly, though.